Wit & Whim

One of my great regrets is that I had absolutely no inclination to learn music when I was young. My dear, beloved, sainted, mother tried to get me to take piano lessons, and I did have some, but it really was not productive, since I wouldn't practice and I was a terrible menace the whole way through the process. Even now I remember why I hated piano lessons; that painful plucking one note at a time, all of the mistakes I made, and the fact that all of my mistakes and virtuosic inadequacies were broadcast to the whole house by that treacherous instrument. One wrong note and everyone in the house knew you made a mistake! The horror. This peculiar neurosis of mine was not in any way fueled by my parents, who always told me that trial and error were part of learning, and that it was okay to make mistakes--don't know how many times I was told this--but little single digit year old me was not about to allow himself to be lured into mediocrity in the hopes of someday being good at...

Would you believe that I have one hundred and eleven draft blog-posts going back to 2010 that I never published? I'll tell you why later, but let's see what 20 year old Patrick had on his mind--I can't be made to answer for the quality. Many of these were brief, as they were written on breaks between classes. As brevity has never been a hallmark of my writing, I hope you find it refreshing. 1 of 111 Self-esteem, or a concept of one's own value, formed independent of one's value to others is worthless. No man is complete in and of himself. If one looks into oneself for worth and fulfillment, there will always be anxiety and insufficiency. Fullness comes from loving and being loved in turn. Love is active. Love cares for and works to ensure the happiness of its beloved, and in loving so, the lover finds new worth that did not exist before he loved. Love is not infatuation. Infatuation is self-serving self-love. Infatuation does not live to serve, but objecti...

According to an anonymous member of my generation, the essence of work/career is, and I'm paraphrasing, pissing away the best years of life to get money for things that we don't need. Now, on the surface there may be a fleeting instinct to say an amen and move on; we are no doubt guilty of consumerism. We have more luxuries than any preceding generation and we always want more. Why do we always need more, and what is it about us that can't be satisfied with plenty? I don't pretend to have the answer, as I'm as bad about this as anyone. But while the coda to the sentiment has a ring of truth in it, the first half is jejune. It has been said that if you love what you do you will never work a day in you life. This is ludicrous, of course. You can love your work, be passionate about it, derive fulfillment from it, and it will still be labour and toil. It brings with it stress and worry and long hour and short nights. Every workaholic knows--or should know--that ha...

This week my first and faithful car went to drive down the sunny road that loops past the cheerful farm where my Ben-Cat chases butterflies in the sun. There was nothing particularly glamorous about my 1996 bottle green Buick Regal, although it did have really great pick-up and was always fun and comfortable to drive. What the Peril lacked in flash, it more than made up for in reliability, character, and vroom. The Peril was a hardened veteran by the time it came to me. It started it's story as Grandpa Ron's Florida car; for those of you who know how he treated his cars, a babied and pampered existence in the tropic climes of Florida. In those days it was just "the Florida car." Much the same as any other Buick Regal. When my grandparents sold their condo in Florida, the 'Florida car" came north, made some questionable decisions, and fell in with some bad company. It was during this time that it moved to Fort Wayne, attached itself to Bethany "Shew...

It is closing in on a year now since Grandfatherdear died. I sat down to write, and I knew that I could not begin on anything else until I had completed this. A character like his is beyond my skills to eulogize. Too many things to too many people. To his family, Grandpa Ron was a good man. He was still imperfect, but he had somehow come into the possession of more than his fair share of humor, brains, and character. He was one of my strong male role-models; throughout his life he was firm in asserting that one should work hard, be honest, and care for his friends and family. Show generosity, be loving, and be generous. Be firm, and do what is right. The last time I talked to him, he reminded me one more time that the greatest duty of any man is, first, to love God, and second, to love and provide for the family God has given him. I learned more from my Grandpa Ron than can be contained in a silly blog post. Sometimes he was my "arch emeny," but he was my Grandfather...

One of the greatest anxieties of my final months at school revolved around a very simple question: What the devil comes next? I had toyed with half a dozen ideas, but was not particularly optimistic about any of them. The thought of going back to school immediately I had simply written off. I did not want to be forever a student, never moving on to the next thing. I was ready to be productive, and I was weighing my options. My favourite was sitting the Foreign Service exam and becoming a world renown diplomat. I have not ruled it out entirely in the long run, but in the mean time, I cannot take the exam until February, and even then, only one in every hundred is accepted, and almost no one on their first try. So although it was one of my favourite solutions, it was not a short term answer to what I would do after College. Should I just sit on my keester for ten months? I think not. I could have stayed on at Penney's. I would have had a good shot at promotion, and it would not...

June is a long time ago. Since June, a great many things have happened. Some of these things have been major landmarks, others have been silly little things of no significance to anyone but me. Nonetheless, their passage has left me feeling as if this June were as removed from me as the distant past. I always tell myself, upon writing a blog post, that it was fun, that I always enjoy it, and that certainly now I will do it more often. I make a liar of myself. Writing is work, and no matter how well I enjoy it while I am in progress, the inexorable pull of my own laziness always makes itself felt when I next think about writing. Indeed, if you wonder where I found the strength to overcome my laziness and procrastination to start writing today, you may thank--or else blame--Emma. She is making me confront my inane excuses and get to it; good women do stuff like that, you know. The first minor event since I last wrote was that Andrew, Jenna, Emma, and I went to an Arctic Monkeys (A ...