January Must End!

Welcome to the End of January.  About time too, right?

We can now safely forget all of that 'resolution' nonsense and get down to what we really enjoy.

Goodbye Guilt built from End of Year angst.  Hello unadulterated New Year's Hope.

February is the Real beginning of the Year, and it helps the transition by being such a brief month, most of the time.  February is succinct.  Welcome to its beginning.

The Good Life, Defined

Everybody wants the 'Good Life', so just what does that mean?

Heath - Your health is an important aspect of the 'Good Life'.  You can't be living happily if you are on death's doorstep, or have become an inert sofa ornament through disability.

Here's a definition of good health to think about:  You are in Good Health if you have no condition that may end your life, causes severe disability, or which requires regular medical intervention (tests, surgeries, therapy, prescription medicines) to prevent either of those outcomes.  For my diabetic friends, or anyone out there with a chronic medical condition the treatment of which has become seamlessly integrated with their lives and causes no distress, I'll give you a pass on this one.

Relationships - Another big one.  If you feel totally alone in this world, or wish you were, it's a good sign you have relationship issues.  This can lead to clinical depression and the urge to watch Fox News incessantly, either of which can lead to declining health, both mental and physical.

Money - Oh, Boy, here we go.  This one has been a difficulty for many of us since the Great 2008 Don't-Call-It-A-Depression Recession.  Things that can make it worse include college age children, a passion for sports cars and/or motorcycles, and the obsessive need to own the latest electronic gadgetry.  Of course, health issues (see above) can add to money worries.  So can relationships: any significant other that comes with some or all of that baggage can be added to the list.

Signs that Money concerns have degraded your life include: foreclosure notices, repossession of  your car, your significant other has divorced you, or you've begun watching old Futurama episodes that you've seen 100 times.  (This can also be old 'Two and A Half Men' episodes.  If you are watching old Seinfeld episodes you truly are in extremis - seek medical assistance).

Purpose - This one's a little subtle.  Not everyone will tell you they need a purpose to be happy.  I think they're nuts.  Without purpose we drift through life, blowing wherever the winds of change take us, which is usually to the sofa to watch old Futurama episodes. Find a purpose, you find a Life.

Fear - Well, it goes without saying you can't have the Good Life if you have too much fear, right?  Try to minimize fear in whatever way seems most acceptable to you, except for: maintaining a home arsenal that would cause envy in most smaller countries, living in a bunker, or appearing as a regular on 'Doomsday Preppers'.  And by the way, if you are already doing any of those things you aren't living the Good Life, no matter what your agent tells you.

Here's wishing you continue the 'Good Life' through 2013 and beyond. And if not, and Life becomes unbearable, move to Belgium.  I hear they've got an easy exit if you want one.

Remembrance of Things (Long) Past

Permit me a personal remembrance.

1990 was a watershed year.  I was 35 and at the prime of my physical and mental abilities, except for the relative lack of life-knowledge you might expect someone to have acquired by that age. A discrete lack of responsibility for anyone other than myself up to that point could be given as a reason, and I'll happily live with that conclusion, should you make it.

The 80's had been a tough decade for me; a failed attempt at post-graduate academics; a failed relationship which left a long-lasting friendship in ruins; and, of course, a long slog with that Republican Saint, Ronald Reagan in charge of national matters. (He'd been an actor I'd admired growing up, but as a politician he wrecked havoc on the progressive gains of the 70's, in which I and many of my generation had invested much hope).

I had also lost my father to lung cancer, and my mother had been diagnosed with the same disease; she would lose her battle not long into the 90's.

1990 rang in with rumblings of War in the Middle East, the consequences of which we are still experiencing, but that had little impact on me at the time.  My attention was taken with a new love and a new career.

The new love was truly new; but my new career had actually been percolating for much of the second half of the 80's.  I had changed from science to computer programming, and it was a refreshing change to enter a field where the importance was on capability rather than credentials; on talent rather than seniority.  Those of you in the business today know that this has largely changed, but trust me, the field of computers  and IT was heaven for the independent-minded oddball back then.

The 90's turned out to be my big decade; the best of my life, despite ominous signs of national political turmoil to come.  My new love turned into a lasting relationship.  It brought happiness, stability, two wonderful children, and a healthy dose of responsibility.  My career has been stable enough too since then; no great achievements or successes, but steady employment and something meaningful to do.

The end of the last decade of the 20th century saw me in a situation the goodness of which I wouldn't have imagined at the end of the 1970's.  I hadn't achieved stardom or won the Nobel, and I certainly wasn't Jacques Cousteau or Kenny Roberts, my two 70's heroes, but I was in a good place.  A very good place.

The '00s come next, but from then to now is a story I'll keep to myself.  My purpose here was to reflect on what for many of my generation was the seminal decade of our lives.  It seems such a long time ago now, but if you think about our collective hopes and their ups and downs through the years leading to the 1990's, then think of how we felt at the end of those years, and finally reflect on where we are now, you might begin to understand the foundation for the general malaise many of us are now feeling. And this despite the Hope raised by the 2008 election and recent re-election of the nation's first African-American President, something we would have hoped for but hardly expected at the end of the 90's.  A bright light in an otherwise politically dim time.

Here's hoping you are experiencing your seminal decade now, and that if so you are mindful of the seeds that are sown for our future, good or ill, as well as the current benefits you are reaping.  Too many of us didn't when it was out turn, and look how that's turned out.

Beyond The Fringe

Fox's Sci-fi drama Fringe is coming to an end. This we've known for at least a year, since Fox representatives were never shy of trashing the show publicly.

At one point, the show was going to be 'hard canceled'; you know, ripped away from our screens without a warning - or a plot resolution.

But something caused the suits to relent, just enough to allow the series to wrap up in a way that would be satisfactory to its diehard fans. Or so it was hoped.

Just this week It was revealed the very next episode to be aired would be the series' last; a two-hour wind-up of all the mystery contained in those years of episodes gone by.  Apparently the whole season was too much to ask, or perhaps Fox has some other ailing show to place on the Friday night deathwatch, and can't wait for the space.

In any event, the scene has been set for a 'Lost'- like fiasco that will leave nobody happy except the bean counters. Expect the writers, confronted with such a task of compression, to resort to narrative, rapid scene shifting, flashbacks, and every other cliche they can use to 'get 'er done.  I suspect it will all have been a dream, or whatever passes for such in a universe of ever-shifting realities.

Walter, Peter, Astrid, the whole Fringe division (of both universes), and most of all Olivia, don't deserve such a fate.  

Do Dogs See The Stars?

Tonight in Los Angeles it was clear and cold, and more than the usual few stars shone above.

I was out with our big goofball of a dog, taking in the night air and trying to work off some of the Holiday largess.  It wasn't going so well since we seemed to stop every 20 yards for a long sniff or a pee. (The Dog, not Me).

It was during one of the longer of these stops that I happened to look up and see Jupiter and Mars.  Not stars of course, but all the brighter for it.  And then I found myself commenting on those planets' beauty to the Dog, as if he could see and comprehend the wonder.

He just burrowed his nose deeper into the unkempt winter growth and spared not a glance above.

Just then it dawned on me that perhaps alone of all Earth's creatures, Man both sees and appreciates the Stars.

Sure some birds navigate at night using stars, or so I've read (somewhere), but they don't think 'how beautiful' while navigating, do they? I'll bet Magellan's navigator did.

We humans not only see Stars and find them beautiful and memorable enough to cast as mythological Gods, we yearn to understand what makes them tick, and maybe one day visit them.  Jupiter and Mars have already been buzzed or landed on by robotic human craft.  If we don't blow ourselves up, or burn through all our resources too quickly, it's only a matter of time before humans visit in person.

So what of the Dog?  Since he can't smell the stars, he couldn't care less. But there's a better than even chance that, should humans establish a permanent presence on another planet, there'll be Dogs with them, sniffing and peeing every twenty yards or so, nose pressed into whatever passes for unkempt winter growth.

All Hail The New Year

We all need a Plan for the New Year,

So, try this:

When in doubt, choose Hope.

(With the New comes the Possible.)

Let cautious optimism trickle up.

(With the Old Year behind You, there is the chance you'll get it right.)

Let peaceful intent become peaceful Action.

Think Seven Steps Ahead,

But look where each Step Falls.

(Don't Crush The Flowers)

Try to let go of the Past,

(Except for that part where you screwed up and need to remember to not do it again.)

Think progressively.

Live earnestly but with sensitivity.

Have Fun, if You Can.

Be Content, If You Can't.

Work On Your Plan for 2014 ...