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Playing Fair and The Great Change of 1995

Over the years, many of the values that I was taught when I was growing up have been challenged and shaken. I still believe in the basic strength of the values. I don't think that my educators or parents were wrong in most cases. I just think that the world has changed quite a lot and some of the adaptation had led in large measure to the erosion of the basic values.

Some of the changes are the direct result of the perilous times we have been through and are still experiencing. Other changes are due to creative interpretation of the basic tenets upon which our society was built. Still more have been do to the explosion of technological advancements which had made life easier but at the sacrifice of some of the quality of a simpler life.

The reason for me thinking along these lines is that I have been working on the revision of Book 1-2e. Between work and the revision I have been doing little else, really. My last blog posting was last Wednesday. I apologize for that though I have been told by some of you that you only check the blog once in a while anyway - which is fine.

From The Inside To The Closer has always contained some moments that I extracted my personal experience and reading them again, even now after working on this book nearly ad nauseum the impact of the words still remains. I have also discovered some comments that I believe have been the basis of some reviewer remarks concerning the 'human condition'. Yes, there is something in the book about the human condition. I admit it. Actually the book seems at times to be only about the human condition.

If art reflects life then the pain, suffering, confusion, frustration but also the pleasure, excitement, joy and exhilaration of my life have influenced what I wrote into Book 1. I have come to realize that the world has changed so greatly and in many times in what I believe to be the wrong direction that I am no longer certain that the concept of playing fair is even valid anymore.

Playing fair was one of the key values that I was taught. The pleasure of the participation in the sport was stressed over winning. It may have seemed silly to me then because as a kid I believed that it was bull shit that the coaches were teaching us to play fair and that the game mattered not who won. It was bull shit to me because even the coach stressed winning over everything else and the playing fair part was mentioned as an after thought. The problem is that I started to see the worth in playing fair and how it fit in with everything else that I was being taught about getting through my life. At some point I would have even told you that I had always lived by that credo and it had never failed me. That would have been about ten or so years ago. The whole world has changed several times over since then. It has changed not only for me but I dare say for you as well.

I should have heeded the warning signs. About ten years ago my Jina bought two books for me to read. I used to read quite a lot and even learned to enjoy reading after I had overcome or at least learned to live with my dyslexia. But while I was working for The Orange Giant I had next to no free time. Even when I had a day off I was often pressured to go in to work, sometimes even told that I had to go into work or risked losing my job. Usually the extra hours were voluntary. I wanted to do a good job. And I felt compensated in some measure as I was awarded lucrative stock options - so whatever I did to contribute to the organizational success was repaid in the escalation of the price of the stock.

Why my wife bought the books is a mystery to me even now. She had never done it before. Maybe it was just that she had no idea what sort of gift I wanted. Maybe it was a way to pry me away from my then new computer and get me back to bed with her - as I usually read in bed.

Since I was interested in computers, I understood why she bought a book that Bill Gates of Microsoft wrote. The other book was something Tim Allen, the comedian had released. It was much lighter, and whether he wrote it himself or it was ghost written it was fairly well done. At the time his TV sit com was very popular and if I ever was home when it was on I used to watch it. I think over the show's course I saw maybe ten shows. When you work in retail you get used to not watching a lot of TV anymore.

I extracted some wisdom from each of the books. Granted Bill's book was more about the direction of technology. I am amazed in retrospect how much he got right but then I should not be surprised as he was one of the shakers and makers and to a large degree the world has followed his vision. Considering how accurate he was on many things, I am equally amazed at how much he got absolutely wrong. Hey the world is like that and Bill is human even if he is the richest son-of-a-gun on the planet.

One of Bill's mottos is something that I find disturbing though. I agree it is a valid perception but it is valid only in that each of us permits it and we collectively tolerate it through accepting the incompetence of our institutions to address it. Bill believes that the world is not fair.

I believe the phrase was the world is not fair so get over it. His point was more of a call to action than a condemnation. Too much time is wasted whining about how something is not fair. I suppose this blog falls into that category. Accept it, change what you can or need to and move on.

I think Tim's book is related to Bill's in my mind only because I read them so closely together. Still there was a common theme that each seemed to shout to me. It may even be why I began writing with a bit more seriousness. Each of them was essentially saying to take control and not allow the world to beat you.

I remember when I was very sick, just about ten years ago to the day, in fact. I had just returned to Connecticut from Florida. I had taken some time off and sprung my son from school for a week and we went down to Palm Harbor to see my Dad and Mom. The visit was largely for me to see my mother. She had recently been diagnosed with Alzheimer's and faced institutionalization as my Dad could not long remain able to care for her. That was a very hard thing for me to see happening. Both of my parents had been strong and vital, hard working people. Age had not turned at least one of them feeble. I didn't then know it but my father would soon learn that he had Parkinson's.

When I had returned to Connecticut I took severely ill. Apparently I had a small cut somewhere on my foot and in the course of showering or swimming in the ocean or whatever; I had introduced both a Staph and a Strep infection into my blood stream. It was not fair; it happened. I had a heart murmur and the net result of the infection was that the bacteria destroyed my defective heart valve and it required surgery to replace it.

Before that I was strong, impervious, a go getter type of person that was earmarked for promotion. After the near death experienced that I had over the course of a weekend with a 103F to 104F fever with hallucinations and subsequently a month in the hospital, culminating in Open Heart Surgery and recovery I was a changed man.

I didn't know how much I had changed. Most changes in people happen gradually overtime. The changes may be more evident to others first than they are to ourselves. I began writing with a passion that I had never seemed to have before. It was as if I understood in a new way just how fragile life can be and how very short each of our allotted spans can be. I began spending more time with my kids although somewhat less with my wife. It was a juggling act finding time to accomplish everything that I felt compelled to do.

The changes of ten years ago still affect my everyday existence. I am a writer now because of what happened then. I am sure of that. It began a sequence of events that led directly to the production of the first book, the one I am revising for a second edition. The illness was the beginning of the end of my career with The Orange Giant. They refused to believe that I was healthy enough to have my own store, magnanimously not wanting to pressure me too greatly for fear that my heart might explode. Whether it was good intent or an excuse, there was no way that I would ever get my own store after the surgery. I was, as my manager at the time told me, 'A Cabbage'. In their eyes I had been transformed from a young man into an old man over the course of ten weeks of recovering from a serious illness. I certainly would have never been published, never would have met my best friend Ela'na or even likely returned to Florida had it not been for the events of 1995.

On balance what happened was fair, I guess. I might have wanted things to have happened in another way but maybe it is a good thing that we do not have the full autonomy to guide our courses through life. I would have certainly missed some of the more important experiences had I been totally in control.

Maybe life is far. It is part of the balance. It is just that most times fairness does not seem to have entered into the decision processes of those around. Maybe Bill had it right. Maybe I should accept it and move on. But for some reason I think I am meant to grouse about the decay of the quality of life just a bit more before I die.

E

posted by Unknown @ 7:46 AM