This weekend I finally sat down to leaf through a time capsule of sorts. In eighth grade my friend Jason and I were bowling team buddies and spent many Saturdays uselessly. We made amateur movies on 8mm Kodak film ("The Terminator," "Sports World," etc.). We torched an orphanage worth of Star Wars wax figures.
And we wrote stories.
Born innocently of an offhand idea that gradually gained momentum, the two of us over the course of several months cranked out about 80 pages (double-spaced) of a science fiction novelette. Trash, really. Ego, somewhat. He and I were the action heroes. Our grade school pals and teachers were randomly inserted into the tales as they twisted and turned. We made up solar systems, alien races, evil overlords. Oh, and girlfriends. With names like Ollym that made little attempt to hide the identity of the real life person we adored by rearranging a few letters.
This was about 1986, mind you. We did this on early-generation Compaq and Commodore computers with dot matrix printers.
"Wurb looked at Geoph. Geoph shot Wurb."
The kind of elegant writing ingenuity that so clearly predicted writing as part of my future.
Did I mention the cartoons?
I was forever flashing a blank piece of paper - my canvas - carving it up into 12 panels by drawing a few dividing lines, and then inventing stories with incredible art work. They're wonderful insight to the adolescent thoughts of a selfish 14-year old. Poking fun at everyone around, bullying the locals of the cartoon world, probably as a way of escaping my own real-life flaws. In fairness, though, I would rank my drawing skills at least at the high end of most Pictionary players.
These are going into the vault for another 25 years. Jason had kept them for the first 25, and now it's my turn.
I'm a planner. For years I've been working on a succession plan for my unit in anticipation of key employee retirements. Recently I got the go-ahead on a move that I thought would put us in excellent shape. Then to my surprise I was resisted by a lower level of management, and told that I'd have to rethink it. It's at moments like these that I'm thankful for the numerous plans in my personal and professional life that have derailed. Because often times, either (1) a resister is simply missing information, and comes around once more is provided, (2) the resister is under unusual stress, which will pass, (3) there is actually a better track out there which is discovered once we start exploring.
Said another way, resistance is not failure. And failure is not permanent. There is always reason to smile. Smiling is the fuel of victory.
A long time ago I penciled December 10 on my calendar. It is a significant personal milestone in the marathon that my State Farm career has become. It's as if I've crested the mountaintop and am beaming down a long and gentle slope to the base. Meanwhile, the job has been running smoothly lately overall. It's nice to run a race with the kind of good fortune and energy that you're not constantly checking the mile markers. Dena and I celebrated over dinner.
This week's moments of Zen: 25 people in Accounting have requested that I do an encore presentation of our life insurance products for them. Giving the first round felt like homecoming. Also, my math students are clamoring for more time with me. Some of it no doubt has to do with finals being next week. But as one student put it: "The way you explain things... I just get it the first time. I can't explain why." She didn't need to. God's made it so, and that's good enough. I'm loving it.
Dena got a stellar performance review. She's busy re-designing a Knights of Columbus logo. She went out for a run today. Re-decorated the living room. And...
...we're both healthy. I got punched by a round of germs Friday night and recovered.
Only a few more weeks are left in 2011. This week is the last of shrinking daylight. Things are looking brighter!
No comments:
Post a Comment