The Funk and Wagnalls Issue

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In This Issue

 

-1-           Editorial

-2-          Life – All You Can Eat

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-1-

What is up, yankees and confederates?  I’m posting on-location in Alpharetta, Georgia, about 20 minutes outside of Atlanta.  Isn’t that ludacris!  Ha, that sucks, but I had to do it.  It sucks, but you have to do it.  I’m finding that that statement is a lot more relevant to my life these days, than it’s ever been.  I’m still not completely comfortable with this whole being an adult and having responsibilities thing.  It’s like, you become older and steadily, things become less and less about you and more about other people.  And things like crying, whining, throwing tantrums and crapping your pants become ineffective forms of drawing attention back to where it belongs – yourself.  Trust me, I’ve ruined my fair share of britches testing that out.  As you get older, more and more people become dependent on you, most especially these little people who insist on calling you Daddy when you’re at the mall trying to talk to hot college chicks.  Kidding, I don’t have any kids that I’m aware of.  Still kidding, folks – loosen up a bit.  Many times we don’t realize what kind of impact our actions have on others, especially on children (even if they aren’t our own).  I’m certain we recognize that we have a relationship, an interdependency, an effect on the people we work with, our families, and friends but we should recognize that it often extends beyond that.  People all over the world are interconnected in ways that we sometimes can’t even fathom.  Take your Xangas for instance – who knows who reads your posts.  You may see comments from that same group of friends consistently, but who else has stumbled across your post and how have they been affected by it?  Or how much have your friends been affected by your words, beyond what they’ve commented. 

Consider this chain of events:  Customers of a company pull out dissatisfied, president of the company comes down on managers, managers come down on employees, employees go home and come down on wives, wives come down on kids, kids kick the dog, dog bites the cat, cat eats a mouse.

Now I know that’s a rather simplistic example, and hierarchical, and I’m rambling but what I wanted to illustrate is that our actions, including those we perceive as trivial, can have an extensive and enduring impact.  I remember points in my childhood where I know my life literally took a turn, for better or for worse, because of the things that people said or did.  I am very grateful for the people who have changed my life for the better and in many instances they may not have even realized that they did.

Ok, let’s see if I can wrangle all of this back in to a point.  I am almost completely overwhelmed by all the responsibilities and obligations I have presently.  I sometimes feel stressed because of my present role and place in life.  But I will strive to do the things that I have to do, and I will strive to do it right.  In the end, I hope that things I have done, although trivial in the eyes of some, will have been of some value, some help, some good to someone out there who needed it at that very instant.  The customer praised the company, the president applauded the managers, the managers rewarded the employees, the employees brought flowers and chocolates home to their wives and told them they loved them, the wives hugged and kissed the children, the children played in the yard with the dog, the dog playfully chased the cat, the cat looked at the mouse and turned back to it’s catfood, the mouse went home and took care of it’s mousy babies.

Be easy.

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-2-

I sometimes find myself in a state of boredom and I feel foolish for it.  How can anyone ever be bored, I wonder.  Life is a buffet.

Growing up I can remember wanting to be everything I ever watched a movie about.  A karate kid, a ninja, a cop, a soldier, a scientist, a lawyer, a Batman, a Superman, a King Kong… the list goes on and on.  I’ve had so many “2-week” hobbies that I should go into hobby rehab.  I can’t stick to one thing for very long without coming across something else that catches my interest and distracts me.

So many unread books, unfinished projects, unfinished songs, poems, Xanga posts, so many trips to be taken…  and the world is such a big, big place.  I’m sure there are even some cool things in my own town that I haven’t discovered yet.

I resolve to not be bored anymore.  Life is too full of wonders and interesting things to be bored.  Next time I find myself feeling bored, I think I’ll try to finish one of those hobbies I started.  Now where did I put those nunchakus?

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You can send your “Ask Jaems” questions to jaemsmail@yahoo.com

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