06.06.09
Birthday Coming Up
Jeez…it’s the twins’ birthday tomorrow, which is June 7, 2009. They will have been on this earth for a whopping four long years. And I use the term “whopping” without irony. This designation would probably make more sense to someone who’s a parent, since when you’re a parent, your kids seem to grow up incredibly fast. Life in general seems to speed up as you get older, which only compounds the problem. And the problem is that we all get old and die. No sir, no happy endings. My sister recently told me that life is something of a “blur” for her nowadays. That’s a neat word that applies nicely to my life as well.
And yes, I would like to stop talking about the travails of being a mortal. But the fact of the matter is that I’m unable to escape such thoughts. Every day, my brain confronts me with the harsh knowledge that I am mortal. Obviously, the fact that we are mortal is something every mentally competent adult recognizes. It’s just that with the majority of the human race, this knowledge is generally relegated to the subconscious. However, the knowledge that we will die is a heavy burden to bear, which I think explains a lot of our behavior: drug abuse, alcohol abuse, overeating, workaholism, sexaholism and all other kinds of addictions and excesses. Basically, we need to distract ourselves.* It also explains intrahuman violence. Violence against other people, you see, is a form of “othering.” By crushing the other, those who we consider subhuman, we somehow feel we are affirming our own existence over theirs—we are the strong, who will survive, while they have perished. It’d be best if we could confine this impulse to enjoying violent movies, violent sports (hockey and boxing), and violent video games, but there’s always the threat of it spilling over into real life (think: genocide). We desperately need a specieswide, intelligent discussion of this impulse towards violence, and I think we are slowly heading in that direction. I don’t think we could get rid of this impulse. The best thing is to channel it, rather than act it out for real (better videogames that recreate war instead of the bona fide deal). All of this discussion brings me to a tangent. I keep thinking of these life extension advocates who think that modern human beings could theoretically live for ever (by using ever improving technologies). If you could somehow get a gold-plated guarantee that you couldn’t die, wouldn’t that have a profound effect on our nature, our makeup? What I mean is that if you take away the sense of urgency (you can’t die), I think life would have a lot less meaning. Life is special precisely because, to borrow from capitalism, it’s only being offered for a limited time.
On to lighter things. Just got off the phone with the old lady. She told me that the mp3 player we ordered from Amazon.com should be delivered tomorrow morning. Nice! I spend about 2-3 hours a day driving, and I really need my music. Basically, I can’t drive without it. The car’s CD player is on the blink. A really, really flaky piece of hardware. It’s got a whole bunch of bugs, which I won’t bother to detail here. Anyway, somehow it still manages to work OK most of the time, but then it will flake out on me and stop working properly until I park the car and leave it alone for a couple of hours. Like I said, flaky! I really, really need this technological upgrade. We’ve also picked up an FM transmitter which will allow me to listen to my mp3 player via the car’s FM radio. As they might say in Korea, nice-uh!
Lots of work, but that’s the way it has to be. Had I been rich, I could have hired someone to do the housework and then I could have spent more time with the kids. But I will refrain from complaining, because I know that things could always be worse (and often are). The universe is brutal in it’s randomness. Today you’re mobile and walking around, tomorrow you’re paralyzed below the waist. I try to stop thinking about how things might be and instead just try to enjoy each day as it is. Each day is a gift, my health is a gift, my wife and kids are a gift. So I try to be grateful. I don’t think there is any higher wisdom in life than that. All the money that you could make in the future, all the girls you could fuck, all the sports cars you could drive…none of that means squat. What matters is here and now, having a set of values (I will not fuck other girls even though I could), and adhering to those values. It has taken me 35 years and a lot of diverse experiences to reach this point of maturity. If it seems like I’m tooting my own horn, I’m not. I’m just explaining how I’ve reached this point. I’ve gotten here by taking many cold, hard looks at myself and at reality, and seeing things as how they are. I read in Time magazine recently about the phenomenon of Filipinos working abroad. There are a lot of them. There was a story about one mom who left her little boy to go work abroad. She sent back lots of money over the years and he got a good education. But he never got to know her. And now that she was back in the Philippines with him, he was really bitter about it. Case in freaking point! Being with your family is what matters most.
You know, I could have other girls, but I won’t. Because I’ve had enough experience to learn that, while such forays might bring fleeting pleasure, they won’t bring lasting joy. Because it’s dishonest, to my wife, with whom I made a social contract. And to my kids, because I should be spending my spare time with them and my wife. And to society, because I live in a monogamous one. Yes, things might have been different if I had been born as a Saudi, but even there I suspect that one man can’t have a truly fulfilling or caring marriage with each of his four different wives.
Milo has been really close to me lately. He always waits up for me at night. Well, both Mickey and Milo are awake when I get home. But Mickey needs to sleep next to Mommy and Milo needs to sleep next to me. So each of us puts one to bed. Milo won’t go to bed until I have lain down with him. It’s wonderful when he says at night, “Hold me.” Yeah, you see the thing for me about being a parent is, I need to be needed. I need my kids to need me. And I have no problem confessing my neediness. What else is human relations about? Why do people have cute little lap dogs? We all need confirmation that our existence in this world is not for naught. And that’s much of what I think being a parent is all about. Having some littl’uns that affirm the importance of your existence on this fragile chunk of rock that miraculously supports life. More like a mote of dust spinning on its axis in the universe—an infinite, chaotic, infinitely cold and callous nonentity, thus far seemingly devoid of other intelligent life, which could see fit at any time to bombard us with meteors or make our sun go supernova. That’s our existence.
Anyway, last week when I got up early to go teach at Honda, Milo woke up and called out, “Daddy!” I went to our bed and asked what was up. He answered, “Where is the scary horsey? Where is the scary [some other animal I don’t remember]?” I replied, “There’s no scary horsey, honey. You must have had a nightmare.” As it was really close to the time when I had to live, I did my best to quickly soothe him back to sleep. It worked, and I left. But I learned when I got home that night that Milo woke up again soon after, found I was missing, and wandered downstairs into the parking lot, barefoot, crying and looking for me. Poor guy! I love to love him. Today, too, he was upset at me having to go to work. Oh well, I guess the corollary would be that if I were around all the time, he would take me more for granted.
What else is new? Oh yeah, Shiho is about five months’ pregnant. I haven’t been able to give as much attention to her or our developing baby this time around, but I’m doing my best. We hope that the baby is healthy and so far the tests and ultrasound show that it is. Oh yeah, we also have to delay our return to Canada. Shiho doesn’t want to go back in March, as the baby would still be an infant. Oh well, that’s life. Life is a game of you constantly playing catch up with life, as opposed to the other way around. What else is new? Oh yeah, my hair is much longer. I’m growing it out again. And I’m starting to put on muscle again. A supplement I use called Novedex has helped. But man is that shit strong. See ya.
Oh, I wanted to say one more thing. I often tell a version of the following story to my kids before we go to bed. The kids love skulls a lot. Mickey likes what in his imagination is a cute, pink skull. Milo likes what he imagines is a scary green or black skull. (When they ask whether they can set a picture of a scary skull as the background for my computer’s desktop, I say no. “No scary pictures on the computer,” I tell them. After which Mickey responds, “When I’m a big boy, can I put a scary picture on my computer?” Upon which I say, “Of course. When you’re a big boy, you’ll be able to put whatever picture you want on the computer, and I won’t be able to have any say in it.) Here’s the story about skulls.
[Slowly and softly]
In a dark, dark world,
There is a dark, dark continent.
On the dark, dark continent,
There is a dark, dark region.
In the dark, dark region,
There is a dark, dark forest.
In the dark, dark forest,
There is a dark, dark wood.
In the dark, dark wood,
There is a dark, dark house.
In the dark, dark house,
There is a dark, dark room.
In the dark, dark room,
There is a dark, dark bed.
On the dark, dark bed,
There are dark, dark blankets.
[Now quickly and in a louder voice]
And under the blankets there is a dark, dark skull!
[Mickey wants me to say “dark, dark, cute pink skull” and Milo wants me to say “dark, dark, scary green skull].
Finally, I have to thank my friend Eric for admonishing me to only speak English to my kids, and, more importantly, to force them to answer me in English. They now speak English fairly well and understand amazingly well. Amazing, considering it’s only me, sometimes my wife, their once-weekly English class at school, and the music and videos they watch that consist of their experiences in English.
Oh yeah, and I had the opportunity to write today because the kids are taking a nap at mom-in-law’s. I had to work this morning so the wife took the kids over there, and they were still over there when I got back today.
* In that way, I find that a day’s hard work is an excellent salve or balm. Actually I’d rather be with the kids than working but working is much better than being alone and being stuck with your brain thinking thoughts you don’t want it to.
