Ignore the random underlines. Again. Still.
Part 2!! You didn't know I was doing a To Be Continued...did you? I didn't either, so we're completely on the same page. It's sort of like the ending to Back to the Future...they didn't exactly know it would be a trilogy, but they left it open just in case. If you're wondering, unfortunately Crispin Glover isn't in my Part 2, either. Sad, I realize.
No, this blog isn't about Back to the Future.
I'm back to friendship and connections. On a recent morning having coffee with my mother, she broke out some insane wisdom and understanding. For a minute I thought, "has she become a Buddhist, or has she just started quoting those Buddhist passages I see sometimes on Facebook?"
We were talking about friendship, and the lengths that real friends should go to in order to help one another. She said something along the lines of "Inconvenience is temporary. If you let a little inconvenience stop you from helping a friend, you're saying that a temporary feeling of discomfort is too much for you to withstand, so you aren't going to help them. What kind of a friend does that?" I'm paraphrasing. I was tired and on my first coffee, so I didn't take the clearest mental notes. She was much more eloquent than this.
Commenting in this manner was timely, because I have been pondering ephemeral moments of importance. When I said I realized that essentially everything is impermanent, everything started to make sense for me. Taking on temporary inconveniences in order to help someone you love goes hand in hand with this idea. When you look at it like that, the word "inconvenience" diminishes. "Opportunity" becomes more pertinent.
I have the opportunity at times to help my friends, and I'm more grateful for that than almost anything. I wouldn't trade my moments of inconvenience for the world, and I realize that my friends having endured inconvenience for me is the greatest gift I have ever received. Some of the very best moments in my friendships have been when I was the one to receive the "help me" call in the middle of the night for a drunk pick up, for a run to the hospital, for a...hmmm hmmm...alibi. Not because I wanted see my friends in those positions, but because I was trusted enough to be the one to see them while vulnerable.
Now, where's the Skeptic? Great question. Your humble narrator is skeptical about many, many things, but on this particular topic, I have zero cynicism. So shoot me. Point being...I get by with a little help from my friends, but also...with a little help TO my friends.
Now for the full song, with the amazing, crazy Mr. Cocker. Man, I love this song.
Skeptically Yours.
Monday, May 7, 2012
Saturday, May 5, 2012
...Help From My Friends....
Blogger is still randomly inserting underlines. Ignore!
I feel very 1967 these days. I have enjoyed multiple nights of cross-legged-on-the-floor-listening-to-records, comfortable at home with my mother, my friends, and my pets. Very few moments in life yield an "in the moment" feeling, but recently, I've been able to tap into that sensation and see the connection between people without over analyzing ulterior motives. I marvel at the extraordinary efforts that some people will make to create and maintain friendships, to connect, and while I've never had many friends, the ones I DO have are the best of the best.
I once became the black sheep of a corporate meeting by commenting about a marketing strategy for "connected customers", saying something along the lines of, "the greatest tragedy of mankind is that we are infinitely connected, but oftentimes feel so isolated." The reaction I got was something like this: BLINK BLINK, BLINK BLINK, moving on.
The skeptic in me usually adds a tagline every time I feel connected, saying "yes, but it's fleeting." The truth in this, that moments and even deep connections may very well be temporary, used to make me sad. These days I look back on everything in my life that meant something and realize that the most worthwhile, and most transcendent were brief but bold, and while I may be nostalgic, it no longer causes despondency.
Maybe its a little dark, but it makes sense to me that as death is an integral part of life and renewal, the very notion of our own mortality makes everything brief, and somehow then...brighter, bigger. Each connection that occurs, dies, is reborn, is changed...these connections are no less real or immense simply because of their brevity.
It reminds me of the first scene I remember openly crying during...and you can probably guess, it had to do with the sentiment attached to a vehicle. It's a scene from The Wonder Years, when their trusty Dodge Station Wagon* finally gives up the ghost. The montage following broke my heart when I first watched, somewhere in 1988. I watch it now and realize it's because I saw that impermanence is unavoidable, and that somewhere years down the road, we will all play montages like this one. Maybe that's why I connect with the movie Stand By Me also, because it makes it clear that even though these particular relationships were momentary, it made them no less important. They were epic. (Pertinent scene starts at 3:20 in the clip below). And yes....the Joe Cocker version of "With a Little Help From my Friends" is on my Top Ten Best Covers List.
I'm not saying there isn't a permanence that can exist, I have lifelong relationships. Just that...the small moments existing in transitory interactions mean just as much as the grand gestures elsewhere. Maybe more.
So in this moment of nostalgia, I'd like to state a simple fact: the gestures of connection, of support, of honesty, of simple and silly entertainment, of laughter...these are immense, immeasurable moments for me. Fleeting or not, they have left indelible marks. These will replay in my ever growing montage. I am better for it, each day, with a little help from my friends.
Skeptically Yours.
*the Skeptic in me HAS to point out that the sign on the Dodge says '63, but the car itself is a '68, and that Kevin refers to it as "9 years old" which would have made it a '60. Continuity aside, it's a DAMNED good scene. Scriptwriters largely aren't car people. Or apparently..."fact" or "math" people.
I feel very 1967 these days. I have enjoyed multiple nights of cross-legged-on-the-floor-listening-to-records, comfortable at home with my mother, my friends, and my pets. Very few moments in life yield an "in the moment" feeling, but recently, I've been able to tap into that sensation and see the connection between people without over analyzing ulterior motives. I marvel at the extraordinary efforts that some people will make to create and maintain friendships, to connect, and while I've never had many friends, the ones I DO have are the best of the best.
I once became the black sheep of a corporate meeting by commenting about a marketing strategy for "connected customers", saying something along the lines of, "the greatest tragedy of mankind is that we are infinitely connected, but oftentimes feel so isolated." The reaction I got was something like this: BLINK BLINK, BLINK BLINK, moving on.
The skeptic in me usually adds a tagline every time I feel connected, saying "yes, but it's fleeting." The truth in this, that moments and even deep connections may very well be temporary, used to make me sad. These days I look back on everything in my life that meant something and realize that the most worthwhile, and most transcendent were brief but bold, and while I may be nostalgic, it no longer causes despondency.
Maybe its a little dark, but it makes sense to me that as death is an integral part of life and renewal, the very notion of our own mortality makes everything brief, and somehow then...brighter, bigger. Each connection that occurs, dies, is reborn, is changed...these connections are no less real or immense simply because of their brevity.
It reminds me of the first scene I remember openly crying during...and you can probably guess, it had to do with the sentiment attached to a vehicle. It's a scene from The Wonder Years, when their trusty Dodge Station Wagon* finally gives up the ghost. The montage following broke my heart when I first watched, somewhere in 1988. I watch it now and realize it's because I saw that impermanence is unavoidable, and that somewhere years down the road, we will all play montages like this one. Maybe that's why I connect with the movie Stand By Me also, because it makes it clear that even though these particular relationships were momentary, it made them no less important. They were epic. (Pertinent scene starts at 3:20 in the clip below). And yes....the Joe Cocker version of "With a Little Help From my Friends" is on my Top Ten Best Covers List.
I'm not saying there isn't a permanence that can exist, I have lifelong relationships. Just that...the small moments existing in transitory interactions mean just as much as the grand gestures elsewhere. Maybe more.
So in this moment of nostalgia, I'd like to state a simple fact: the gestures of connection, of support, of honesty, of simple and silly entertainment, of laughter...these are immense, immeasurable moments for me. Fleeting or not, they have left indelible marks. These will replay in my ever growing montage. I am better for it, each day, with a little help from my friends.
Skeptically Yours.
*the Skeptic in me HAS to point out that the sign on the Dodge says '63, but the car itself is a '68, and that Kevin refers to it as "9 years old" which would have made it a '60. Continuity aside, it's a DAMNED good scene. Scriptwriters largely aren't car people. Or apparently..."fact" or "math" people.
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