In a Word: Customized

_{^{Photo courtesy of @colton_jyz on Instagram.}}

I purchased a Subaru Impreza last year. A friend of mine has had the same make (a year older) for a little bit of time. Now look at his ride (photographed to the right) and look at a photo of mine (below). Not exactly mine but that is the car I purchased.

_{^{As seen on Subaru’s website and my driveway.}}

Same car, no? I’m sure the argument can be easily made that they are. Yet, they aren’t. There’s a whole lot of customization on/in Colton’s care that are brazenly lacking in/on mine. I look at the customized version of my same care and wonder about…life.

You see a fly, customized car. Maybe it’s a high-end performance car. Maybe it’s an older sedan. Either way, there’s something stirring about a car that has been made personal. I have to imagine anyone making such alterations to their car, which was probably fine the way it was, is getting exactly what they want. Making precisely the version of the car upon which their heart has been set.

Some of us pick up the factory model right off the lot and that’s what we drive around. Purely for functional. That’s ok. It gets from one point to another and sometimes even the most basic iteration still looks pretty snappy.

Still, I can’t help but feel a longing when I see a customized vehicle and what it must feel like for the operator; the sense of pride and purpose driving around a car (truck, motorcycle) of one’s own imagining.

That’s the thing about those customized cars, someone went out and made some intentional choices. They didn’t just accept or go with what was sitting there. I admire the people who carve out, create a purposeful life.

^{Photo dug up on Pinterest that doesn’t link to any site. It’s a purdy color though.}

So much intention. Whether it’s a a simple as picking out an uncommon color, matching the interior, or tinting the windows, there’s plenty of ways to metaphorically customize your life.

I’ve started the process of shaping my own life into something more customized. I’ve caught on late, but I have caught on. The factory standards aren’t fulfilling anymore and I see the potential my base-model has for some sweet upgrades and adjustments. A writing career over a retail job. A more secure financial position over paycheck-to-paycheck. Working past the emotional eating for a healthier body. Some changes are simple others are more involved.

I’m fine rolling through my 40s in a customized life. Until I’m dead, there will always be room and time to improve and cruise.

No “There & Back Again”: A Relationship

I’ve absorbed a fair amount of imagery from The Lord of the Rings. Between reading the book a good ten times, and seeing the movies repeatedly, it’s no wonder a lot of the story coats my frame-of-reference.

My latest relationship, for example, when it was…terminated about a month ago, I couldn’t help but dress it up in analogies from Tolkien’s fantastical opus. It was towards the end that I began to see the life-cycle of my relationship with this…pretty nifty guy (I thought) in terms of Lord of the Rings characters .

I’m sitting there thinking about how he and I started. It started out like Arwen and Aragon; you know: romantic and what not.

Courtesy of New Line Cinema

Then there was the moment that I realized we had turned into Eowyn and Aragon. An air of unequal, un-reciprocated energy permeating the relationship. Or, me being in love with an idea instead of an actual person.

Courtesy of New Line Cinema

Then, as the end approached I saw our relationship as the sort that Sam and Frodo had: friends, wherein one is the support for another. There were plenty of legitimate reasons why I often said to him (in my own way) “I can’t carry it but I can carry you…”

Courtesy of New Line Cinema

We didn’t quite make it to the other side of the fall of the One Ring and get to enjoy adventures down that road that goes ever on and on, down from the door where it began, but this shadow is passing thing, though.

Lord of the Rings…a mammoth story with loads of life-lessons.

A Treatise (Sort of) on Clever

I’m having a conversation with a friend who happens to be an indie filmmaker. I had just viewed his latest project. You should go give his YouTube channel a view.

His work is layered with little details to which he commented about his need to balance story and those fine details that created a sort of second dimension. The word clever was thrown around a bit.

This made me recall the many times that I’ve told myself: I’m not clever enough to be considered a great/talented writer. Yeah, the self-depreciating dialog is strong in this one. *pointing at self*

I decided to review the catalog of writers I’ve enjoyed in a sort of subjective experiment. Were all of them suitably clever, as I see the word? Is every work they publish of the caliber of wit and observation, as I see it in my head.

Sometime it’s very unfair to put upon ourselves lavish standards. Aiming high and constant self-improvement is a noble endeavor but just maybe the measuring tape in our minds is a little too skewed?

So here’s the Tea: not every successful writer (or creative person) is clever. Sometimes maybe, just maybe, the writer (creator) in question is just highly imaginative.

Of Hellraiser fame.

Like dear Clive Barker here. He has quite the catalog of horror writing/film making. I’ve read a few of his books (and I highly encourage anyone reading this blog to read Books of Blood…after the blog post). I haven’t seen anything particularly clever about his work. Most of the time it’s just so damn far out there and that’s the appeal. I enjoy a lot of his work just the same. It’s…juicy, with plenty of twists and moments that make you wonder: such bizarre circumstances could actually happen. I like that. I enjoy being lost in his version of worlds. Creepy appeals too. Creepy, but not particularly clever.

I don’t need to say his name. You already know.

I may get flayed for this but this guy, the Stephen King, is not exactly clever in my eyes. He is vastly prolific. He’s highly imaginative. I respect the volume of work that he produces. I’m in awe of it, in fact. He doesn’t fall into my view of clever. Oh, he has opened up so many worlds that are deep, unsettling at times, and entertaining on so many levels. Still: not clever.

If you don’t know, you should. I started with The Poisonwood Bible

How about I share with you my version of clever?
This is terrible for a writer to say, but I’m not entirely sure how to encapsulate the vision I have of clever. So examples! Barbara Kingslover…she is clever. Her writing feels elevated. That isn’t to say that literature is of higher quality than commercial fiction. Not so. Her voice, her settings, her stories, just feel a certain kind of luscious. To me, that luxe is an aspect of clever. I guess what she brings, versus what Barker brings is a type of insight vs. his unleashed storytelling.

A man steeped in clever

The other shade of clever is going to the witty version, probably what most people think when they hear the word.
I don’t often find myself snapping lines that elicit amused chuckles. Johnathan L. Howard has written some witty (read: clever) stuff. I find myself charmed by the characters and dialog in his Johannes Cabal series. Some writers just have the knack to work with charm and amusement the way some artists work in clay and paints. That is clever!

So, I may not excavate the sort of insight that Kingslover does with her characters and settings. I may not craft charming, chuckle-inducing dialog like Howard, but I can find in myself the worlds imagined and unleash them like Barker and King.

Merely Functional

I sat behind the counter, where I often find myself because, well, the store is just too crowded to wander about. Watching the people fuss over sizes and styles, helping them not fuss as much, and then “have a nice day” them right out the door.

Rinse and repeat. Day in and day out.

But I don’t hate my job. The location is beautiful. The customers are generally pleasant. The work is…work, you know. It’s like enough. But is it?

My commute is better than yours (photo courtesy of Ken Lund of Flickr)

There doesn’t need to be outright hatred for there to be a lack of love, passion. Remember in the Bible how it said:

“So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spew thee out of my mouth.”

Yeah, Revelations; the trippy book.

Lukewarm, nothing especial. Ideally, describes someone who is living merely by Function. Function are the things you have to do; survival mode. “Function” is the approach that you do what is practical at the expense of all other pursuits.

What other pursuits, you may wonder? Certainly not the evasion of responsibility, but the incorporation of something more, something called “Purpose”. I go into my job, that I don’t particularly hate, and then go home and clean up, eat, consume a bit of entertainment. Function!

There is more to be had though. You feel it first before you see or understand it. You don’t HATE the arrangement of your life, but there is nothing hot nor cold about it. You’re in a room-temperature life.

Purpose vs Function, that is the theory I’ve been stuck on for the past couple of years. Maybe it is because my life feels more like a swamp than a river? I see friends and acquaintances rolling along, right on by. Suddenly Function doesn’t feel like much at all.

No, not THAT kind of purpose…

It’s not. We need to live Purpose, not just Function. Finding it is probably the easy part. Crafting a Purpose-centric life is going to be an uphill climb. It is easy, comfortable, to just fulfill a Function.

I found a purpose, and I love it. When I’m living my desired Purpose, the sense of accomplishment fills me up and off I go like a hot air balloon. It’s amazing how Purpose can lift you above Function and help you see living/life in a new way. There are days when putting a full effort into my purpose is a struggle. The desire to sit comfortably weighs heavy and I sink into the couch. Then there are the moments I put my all into my Purpose and I look it up and down and wonder why it just seems like I did a shit job? So I remind myself what life is like being merely Functional, and I’m up and at it again.

Hopefully the day will arrive when Purpose is all that I need to focus on; the Function will take care of itself. That is the dream.

Until then, another day arrives and I sit up, think of my Purpose even as I pull on my socks to get ready to muddle through the Function.

What is your Purpose? Or, what Purpose would you like to fulfill?

Book Club: Frankenstein’s Conclusion

I finished the book. The last segment, 40 or so pages. As I read, it all seemed to speak about relationships. The whole story felt like it was more of a character study in human society than a science fiction thriller.

Whether you finished it or not, I guess I’ll never know. By now, I don’t think I even care to know. Do you remember when we first discussed this little venture?
At Barnes and Nobles you suggested the idea. I agreed. You followed up with “are you sure?” several times. You called into question my commitment, yet there I waited at that Starbucks, our usual table…the one where you sit and you can see the other three faces that would, in theory, be looking back. But there was really only ever the two of us, about which I had no complaints.

You never showed though, to hear all the things I had noticed or questioned about the plot, characters, or the themes. You had overslept, even missed the gym you said. Well, I can’t be too mad.

I had just hoped for more. And I was betrayed by that hope.

Wherever you are, probably still in Salt Lake City since you appear on the dating apps, hopefully you finished the book.

And that very day I read Elizabeth’s letter to Victor:
“I, who have so disinterested an affection for you, may increase your miseries tenfold by being an obstacle to your wishes.” Had you read that letter? It leapt off the page and plastered itself all over my current situation.

But some situations are tulips: beautifully flowering into perfectly recognizable symmetry, even if just for a few days.

Image courtesy of Lisa Brewster on Flickr Creative Commons.

Others, though, abide and are more akin to giant redwoods: deeply rooted, standing up to the passage and challenge of time, to reach heights of greatness. Both are admirable.

Image courtesy of Ryan Milani of Flickr Creative Commons.

As Walton wrote to his sister: “I have gained him only to know his value, and lose him.”

Something like that.

Book Club: Frankenstein

Started seeing this fella and while on our first date he mentioned the idea of a book club. I offered to join him because I’ve never participated in one. To be 100% honest, the idea of a book club with this fella was, as you can guess, mostly a reason to see him on a regular basis, and a way of getting to know him outside a sexual or romantic context. Funny, during our last book club he said: “This is really not just about the book.” It can be a challenge because gay men do, generally, become very sexual very quickly.

Neither of us had read Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein. 

Not even high school did I crack open that book.

I think it was funny how this fella was skeptical at first. I showed him though. Here we are, three weeks later and I’m still there, every Monday afternoon.

We aren’t quite through the entire story yet so I don’t have an idea of what ends up happening. All I know is that movies did not prepare me for what I was reading.

We all know that there are times when the book edges out the movie. Most of the time “the book is better”. In reality the movie and book only have slight variations. After about 180 pages of Shelly’s Frankenstein, I see little resemblance in movies, thematically and in character portrayal. According to Wikipedia, there have been just over 50 film adaptations of this story.

We’ve all seen the green, towering creation of the mad Victor Frankenstein. I didn’t see those characters in the book. Sure Victor has that streak of obsession, but not as manic as the films suggest. Well, Shelly downplays how manic it is. She also only gives snippets of the Creature’s appearance and no detail as to HOW Frankenstein was even put together.  You know what the lack of details tell me? That this is a story more about ideas than events. Maybe that is a difference between classic literature and modern?

Image courtesy of Felipe Campos via Flick creative commons.

In our modern world, where attention is pried and pulled by so many options, stories, like other mediums, need to adapt to the audience….to an extent.

Every film version, I feel, has focused on themes like Man vs Nature, Marginalization even. To me, Frankenstein always was touted as this story about man being the worst monster (one of my least favorite tropes). As true as it may be, I always feel the enemy you don’t know (something paranormal, for example) is far more terrifying.

I’m looking forward to finding out how the story progresses and what new ideas I can uncover. This book club thing is fascinating because it isn’t just “what happened this week” but diving in-between the lines and finding out how to connect this story to our, “my” fella and my own, lives. If you haven’t already tried it, get yourself into a book club.

And fingers crossed me and this fella get into more than just books together. Ha!

Just a Cutie or a Hottie?

So, I once asked a friend of mine what his “type” was. In his response he mentioned the criterion “hotness”. That was it; there wasn’t any elucidation, what “hotness” meant. Naturally I had to ask what qualified as “hot”. What he told me was a bit of wisdom:

“Not sure. My brain knows and tells me.”

That was a pretty succinct. When he finished sharing, all I could do was nod. He had said it all.

After that conversation I began cogitating on the idea of “attractiveness.” In surveying the topography of another human being, there is a litany of adjectives to express pleasure in the view. Really, the list could go on and on.

To avoid being verbose, I tend to classify attraction in a few simple degrees:
There is cute
There is handsome
There is beautiful or pretty
There’s sexy
And then there’s hot!

These categories aren’t mutually exclusive or anything (someone can be cute and handsome, which means they are probably sexy too). But here’s what I mean by each:

See, look how cute he is! Totes adorbs!

First, there’s cute…cute would be entry level. It’s sort of the catch-all adjective, generic in a way, because it isn’t too intense. Cute is where whimsy and endearing meet…with dimples. You want to cuddle and hug cute. Sure, a person who is sexy or handsome is probably cute too, but it doesn’t always work the other way around. See also: adorable.

There is handsome…another catch-all generic term, handsome

Indiana Jones 4 sucked, but he was still so very handsome.

has breadth. A person may not read very high on the ol’ “attractive meter” but they can still be handsome. But handsome is double edged sword. It can be used to avoid being mean/rude but it can also be a genuine compliment. The power is in you to decide! The difference between being handsome and cute? Handsome is ageless. Very few men of a certain age are cute, but they can be handsome for far longer.

Seriously! He probably broke Photoshop.

There is beautiful or pretty…the terms for classifying attractiveness begin to narrow at this point. I don’t know anyone who would call Handsome Sean Conery “pretty” or “beautiful”, but that doesn’t detract from his level of attractiveness. Being pretty or beautiful is just a different form. It speaks to a person with some strikingly defined physical features, features that are far less common than those found on a handsome or cute person.

There’s Sexy…sexy is subjective to the point that it almost seems moot to try and put it into any sort of confinement, but in this context sexy is more than handsome or pretty…or cute and handsome. Sexy is not just a way to sum up someone’s physique (my blog, my definitions). The sexy level is about an attitude, a certain demeanor that triggers the mind to say “sexy!” It’s a sense of humor, a bad-boy image, or the right suit.

Stop being funny and smiling because you’re turning me on.

And then there’s hot!...not every hot guy could be considered cute or handsome (butter-face, anyone?), so this level is purely animalistic. Forget the sense of humor or smile because hot is about that single moment of seeing a person and then wanting to rip said person’s clothes off to consume him or her.

No words…

Random Thought – The Simpsons Edition

I came across this feature on BuzzFeed a little bit ago (according to the publication date on the content, I was incredibly late to the party). Being a fan of The Simpsons, it caught my eye. I don’t know if you saw this: 21 Times The Simpsons Bizarrely Predicted the Future”? I got a chuckle out of it. But it is missing a prediction. That’s because the validation of this prediction only came to fruition recently:

The prediction was made during Treehouse of Horror XIX, where Homer Simpson kills celebrities so that “typcial Ad Men” can use their likeness in ads.

It’s like Mad Men, but not. Actually, only the intro is.

Charelton Heston and “The Planet of the Buzz Cola”

Minus the killing, the Simpsons called it: deceased celebrities employed to advertise!

In conclusion, 22 times The Simpsons Bizarrely Predicted the Future!