Tasty Dreams

Last spring I attended a good friend’s college graduation in Iowa. Down there I met up with a mutual friend of ours, all three of us alumni of USD Lacrosse (and a few house parties too). Over the years I’d seen Rook (nicknamed so for his tendency to only move forward, back and side-to-side on the field) come in to his own, finding a passion in a field of study that was as fitting as it was unconventional. My other friend, VB (short for Vicious Bitch… maybe I should have just used his name…), had also come into his own. After a number of years of applying and being turned down he had finally gotten into medical school and was just finished with his first year.

It was a surreal sight, seeing those two. The guys I remembered in college were long gone, replaced with men of quiet focus. The exuberance and aimlessness of youth had been replaced with the temperance of responsibility. They were soft-spoken and clean-cut. They wore suits. While they were still the same friends I’d always had, they were so obviously different it was somewhat shocking to me.

The ceremony itself was about like one would expect. Professors blathered and the class valedictorian gave his qualifications for medical school (he definitely wasn’t going into public speaking). As the graduates crossed the dais for their diplomas, announcers read their plans for the future. After the ceremony I told VB that it was good that the graduates wanted to share their dreams with the world, “Because there’s nothing the world loves more than really tasty dreams.” He laughed, and so did I.

In the year since my visit to Iowa for my friend’s graduation, Rook has since taken up a full-time job at a bike shop (bicycle bikes, not motorcycle bikes). His plans for graduate school in counter-terrorism are on hiatus and I get the impression that he’s a little bit jaded on the whole dreams thing. I know the feeling. I mean, I finished college. I even use my degree.

It works great for leveling my desk. Just the right thickness, under the rear left leg.

If I strike you as somewhat disenchanted it’s probably because I am. Most times I look back on who I was early in my college years I see a stranger. I was young (like you are), optimistic (like you tend to be) and had such high goals for myself (like you do).But somewhere along the lines real life reared its ugly head. 

Pictured: Real Life.

Any dreams I might have had took a back seat to the stuff that was on the backburner that was well-behind the stuff on the front burner. Now it’s been so long I’m not sure what my dream might be if I had one.

And I have a suspicion that if any of you stopped and thought about it, you would probably feel the same way. We’ve most of us put our dreams on hold for “real life”. A necessary sacrifice, we reason to ourselves. People need us to be responsible, not out chasing our dreams of being a professional wrestler.

We all reason with ourselves about it, yes. But when you do admit that you’ve given up the dream, there’s a moment of sad finality to it. You feel cheated. Not like life has cheated you, but like you’ve cheated yourself. You may have made a good life for yourself, but you haven’t done anything. You’ve stopped trying to be the best, or even be better, and instead have settled for “good enough”.

Don’t jump yet, kids.

Because there’s another side to this half empty glass I’ve painted for you. It may not be what you want to hear, and it probably will only grant you a brief solace from the miasma I’ve led you into. But it’s better than nothing, so take it as you will.

Maybe, just maybe, we’re all doing what we’re meant to be doing. Maybe “The Dream” is really just this: to live your life to the best of your ability, to be the best person you can be, to do right by your friends and family and to leave a good name behind when you go. Sure it’s not working in counter-terrorism. But it’s a good life. That has to count for something.

Or… you know… you could get off your lazy ass and chase that dream...

Never give up the dream, Murphy!

Unplugged

I got rid of my Smartphone and cancelled my data plan.

When you read that line, did you have trouble processing the logic of it? How many of you would immediately reject that suggestion? Seriously, how many of my meager readership would reject outright the option of rolling with a basic no-frills cell phone instead of an iDroidPalmPad with (cue angels singing) Apps?

Yeah, I rejected it too.

I mean, come on. If you brush away the vajazzle of the time-killers, smart phones are still very very useful. I travel for my job, so being able to check the weather, grain markets and road conditions on the go is pretty cool. Email access, built-in GPS navigation, mobile web… these are all amazing tools for any adult in any profession. So based on that (and that alone… I swear) I originally turned away from the idea of ditching my Incredible.

But eventually I came around, because saving thirty bucks a month is a strong argument. I got a simple phone, I cancelled my data plan, and set out to sell my smartphone. It sucked. I missed emails because I was away from the internet all day. I couldn’t just whip out my phone and check movie times on a whim, or look up which county my inspection was in. I couldn’t listen to the news while I was driving. And you know what else? I was bored. Because for every time I checked WeatherBug on my Droid I checked the Chive twice, and after checking the grain markets I checked my Gmail and Slickdeals and What Would Tyler Durden Do. I played Chess and Armored Strike.

And...

My girlfriend called it my “dumb smartphone”, because just about every time I sat down anywhere or had a few free minutes I pulled the thing out to fuck with it. Useful? Yes. Distracting? Also yes. My mom and sister once bet on how long I could go without touching the thing (the over/under was 5 minutes). I scoffed then.

But you know what? We are all WAY too plugged in. Don’t tell me we aren’t. When you go out to eat with a group of friends, and more than half of you pull out a Droid or iPhone immediately after sitting down at the table, you are too plugged in. There you are, sitting at a restaurant with friends, and instead of talking everyone is checking their Facebook accounts. 

Those Windows phone commercials? 

 

Those Sprint commercials? 

Both are clever as hell, but also a glaring sign of the times that is more sad than humorous.

By becoming more connected we’ve fallen out of touch. We can look up the lyrics to a song with the swipe of a thumb, but we can’t call our old friends. But it’s okay, because you liked their status earlier in the day. I see people sitting on park benches, playing with their iPads while their kids go without parental interaction (or worse, unsupervised). I saw a TV show where a mother-to-be was updating her Twitter feed while in labor. We are all placing too much value on networking and not enough value on interaction, too much value on instantaneous knowledge and not enough value on learning.

I’m sure I will get a smart phone again some day. Their usefulness is too… well… useful… for me not to own one when I can afford to. But when I do, I think I’m going to leave it in my pocket more, leave it in my car more. And for the time being I guess it’s good to be unplugged. Off the grid. Out of touch. I miss Angry Birds. But I don’t miss the world going by. And that’s what really matters, isn’t it?

Retreaded

It was my first date with my girlfriend. We were talking about Lady Gaga when I let the word slip.

“That’s retarded,” I said.

Instantly and without hesitation she corrected me. “’Ridiculous’,” she said. There was no irritation or offense in her voice, but I could tell I touched on something. She works with people that have mental handicaps, and the word “retarded” is not a popular word in that field. I was grateful that she didn’t mark my ill language against me, corrected myself and we moved on with our evening. Turned out great, by the way.

 Language is a funny thing, isn’t it? A word that has one meaning can eventually take on another meaning, depending on society at the time. They become re-purposed for new uses, yet that word still has meaning in its original sense.

Take the word “gay”. I won’t go into definitions (because I’m lazy and don’t want to write it… but also because you are lazy and don’t want to read it), but the original meaning of the word “gay” related to happiness, bright colors and celebration. Eventually it began to be applied to homosexuals. Because they’re happy people. I can’t back that up. Moving on…  In the past few years, though, “gay” has become a popular term for something that is stupid or unpopular. I think using the word “gay” in that manner is stupid, but that might just be me.

Or, take (and yes, I’m going there) the word “nigga”. We all know the unpleasant and unwelcome origin of this word, and there’s a good reason it’s not used in popular vernacular: It’s offensive and unkind, a term from an age of bondage and disrespect to our fellow man. But in a lot of African circles, the word has become a term of brotherhood. Or, if you listen to Tupac it means they have bling. Oh, and if you want to take a look at the state of racial relations in our country, go to Urban Dictionary and look up the word “nigga”. Wow.

And “retarded”? The root of the word, “retard,” (and I am betting at least half of you pronounced it in your head just like Zak Galifinakis did in The Hangover) has to do with slowing or hindering something. So “retarded” is something that is slowed or hindered. It’s easy to see how that came to be applied to people with mental handicaps.  And in reality, using “retarded” to describe something that is stupid beyond belief (Lady Gaga) isn’t accurate at all.

There’s a connection between these three words, too. Misuse of any of them will invariably result in someone being offended. Words have a lot of value in our world, and people tend to take some very personally. But the people offended are often basing their ire on a definition to the word that isn’t the original definition either.  They’re usually angry about the misuse of a re-purposed word.

They’re making the same mistake, aren’t they? Shouldn’t the only definition of something that counts be the original definition? I have made no secret that I think people are too easily offended these days, so maybe everyone is just overreacting and the re-purposing our language to suit our culture is part of our culture, an event that is sometimes painful or ungainly but inevitable.

The line has to be drawn somewhere, though. We can’t just start applying random definitions to random words whenever we feel like it. Down that road lies bad mojo. But more importantly, what the hell do I say instead of “retarded”? I dislike “ridiculous” because when I hear that word I think of only two things: hobo clowns and Neil Diamond. Neither applies to Lady Gaga. Well, I guess both kind of apply. But not enough for Lady Gaga or any other person or thing that I used to use the word “retarded” for.

So in the spirit of this blog, I am seizing a word of one meaning and applying it to another. I’m sure the irony will not be lost on some of you, either.  Because when an old tire is made new and sold as-such, it is re-purposed. But only to marginal success (as we all can see on our highways).

Lady Gaga, you are retreaded.

I rest my case.