Remembering to Forget

"Remember 9/11," they say. "Never forget September 11," they say. 

How can anyone who was alive and aware at that time forget? I will always remember my father calling me up at quarter of 9 in the morning and telling me that two planes had struck the World Trade Center. I will always remember that sense of shock and heaviness that lingered in the air, weeks, months afterwards. 

It was the worst attack on the United States since Pearl Harbor. But what made the wound much deeper was that the attack was carried out on civilians who were going about their lives. They weren't navy people for whom the possibility of death was omnipresent and ubiquitous; they were fathers, mothers, sisters, brothers, sons, daughters. That was the crux of the terrorists' plan. And this plan was so effective that we are still trying to heal eleven years after the fact. But it is time for us to take a break from remembering. For a little while. 

Yes, remembering is good. Remembering will help ensure that something like this will never happen again. But forgetting is equally—if not more—important at this stage of the game. 

Our country is still in the throes of mourning. It will take a long time to put this past us. But the only way we're going to do that is by not rehashing and reliving the events of that blackest Tuesday in American history. 

Commemorations are good. Memorials are necessary. But it has been 11 years. We as a country need to take a break from all this pomp and circumstance if we're ever going to transcend and rise above 9/11. An acknowledgement every five years is good, and then as the years go on, every 10 years. But rehashing this every single year is doing more harm than good. 

So, i hope you don't mind that I'm not going to post anything pertaining to September 11 next year, and I hope you'll join me in that until 2016. 

I Hope

I hope you'll never know a world not made for you. 

A world where "no," and, "can't," and, "never" are the norms.

"You can't get there from here." 

"You can't be with them." 

"You'll never be one of us."

"Access denied."

I hope you'll never strain your neck,

Looking up

Or looking down. 

I hope you'll only know 

Not ladders nor boxes,

But the wonderful primordial human stew,

Bubbling and hot and cozy,

And all the heartiness that awaits you there.

Drink it in, chew it up and savor it. 

Because You are You. 

You are not sold in stores;

You are not Buy One Get One Free;

You do not come with warning labels,

Or operating instructions, 

Or interchangeable parts. 

I hope you'll know Peace. 

I hope you'll know Confidence. 

I hope you'll know Acceptance. 

I hope you'll know You. 

Debauchery & Diapers

I, Stewart Caswell, am an addict. I guess like most addicts, I don't see anything wrong with my chosen vice. In fact, I can prove that this vice has had positive effects on my life. For those who know me, it is really no secret at all: I am addicted to Facebook. 

When any addict faces his demons, he has to ask himself,  "What is the nature of my addiction?" From watching A&E, I've gleaned that a lot of addicts fall into their spiral because it's a way to self-medicate. But is that true in my case? 

And why Facebook? I've tried to get addicted to all the trendy things to be addicted to: coffee, sudoku, magic markers, but no. Facebook has pushed all those things aside and permanently moved into my life. 

Facebook addiction is a special case. Facebook isn't a substance that will alter your brain chemistry, and therefore your moods. It's just pixels and lines of text and pictures of practically everyone you've ever met in the the history of your life, in various stages of compromising positions and their children and pets. And the steady stream of debauchery and diapers can get a little monotonous. I don't think any of that is comparable to a margarita or a Jaeger bomb. 

On my Facebook, I have a mission.  With every one of my posts I try to get people to think or interact in a way that breaks up the monotony of the normal posts of other people. Have I posted pictures of my soon-to-be-inhaled meals? Yes. There's something satisfying about sharing a particularly aesthetically pleasing plate of food. We do, in fact, eat with our eyes first.  Why not share that with your friends while at the same time effectively saying, "Nanny nanny poo-poo, look at the delicious food you're never going to eat." But I try to add an interesting twist, like connecting the Lone Ranger with sushi. 

I believe there are a number of factors that go into my addiction:

1) Because I have a disability, I am always thinking that the world perceives me in terms of what I can't do. So, by being a louder-than-normal presence on Facebook, in my eyes, I'm trying to exhibit all the things I do excel at, and that, I think, puts me on a level with everyone else. 

ii) I have people who I love and care about in every corner of the globe, and it's great to have a passing knowledge of where their lives are headed, and, yes, even what they're having for lunch. So Facebook is my only lifeline to them. And it's also great to have parts of your support system you can call up at 3 in the morning, but they don't care because it's 9 am for them. 

C) Like it or not, Facebook today is what community bulletin boards were pre-2004. It's even replacing email in a lot of instances. So as we get deeper into the 21st century, it's going to become more and more of a necessity. For my generation our rite of passage was when we got our driver's license; for our children's generation it'll be the day you let them get their own Facebook page, and they are finally able to exact their revenge on you for writing all those statuses about their bodily functions. I can already see it happening. 

So to recap, why am I addicted to Facebook? Validation, self-expression, connection, and necessity. To me, all those are positive things. Facebook is a tool that everyone can use to express whatever the hell is on their minds, and share their lives with their friends and that one dude they met at that golf tournament thingy in 2007. 

So, yes, I am a Facebook addict. But am all the more richer for it. 

Haiku Two

Training for July

Watch out! Here comes more pollen!

At home in Frisco

A Love Letter from My Inner Monologue

Hey. Yeah, it’s me again. Your inner monologue, your pesky left hemisphere that is constantly talking to you without shutting up. Except for that time when you got that really good weed. That calmed both of us down for quite awhile. Or that time when you got a concussion and I started speaking Finnish, and you don’t speak Finnish? Yeah… good times.

I know I can be downright nasty and make you think thoughts that are really kinda out there, and have no grounding in reality, but I do it because I love you. I love us. (We’re out of cereal.) And I want to keep us awake to all the possibilities that are out there. You have the tools to do incredible things, and I have the organization and optimization skills to keep us on track. (And the waffles you love are on sale this week.) I know the road looks long and arduous, and there are going to be trees down in the middle of the road, but I happen to know my way around chainsaws (and bad metaphors), so that they won’t be a problem. (Don’t forget that massage appointment you have tomorrow.)

I’ve been with you all your life, talking your ear off (mostly) the whole time, and nothing bad has happened, right? There have been times when we were embarrassed or said and done things we wish we could take back, but we got over them. When we stood nose to nose with fear and the unknown and didn’t back down, we were unstoppable. (You need to put your milk back in the fridge.) We worked awesome as a team, and I ain’t going nowhere. (Unlike your milk if you don’t put it back in the fridge.) 

All I beg of you is to meet your end of the bargain. I’m just a measly voice that resides in the deep recesses of your mind, but you, you’ve got a real voice (and laundry to be done!) and arms and legs and goals and dreams. I’m not anything without you. 

So please, trust that I know what we’re doing. And that even though you may fail at first and get rejected (Tax day is coming up soon, we need to get on that!), know that people who never fail never succeed—Ooh! You should write that down!—and you’re not a quitter. (You haven’t checked Facebook in 5 minutes… you could have missed something BIG!) You are destined to find happiness and success because you deserve it. (Facebook!) 

Now let’s polish off some of that Kahlúa that is staring you in the face, mix it with that room temperature milk over there, and have ourselves a mini party. Because I need more excitement. (And turn the heat down. It's roasting in here.)

Yours, (FACEBOOK!)

Your inner monologue.

‘Novel’ Idea #1: The Baby Who Knew Just Enough

In a land that Americans think is Southern Canada and Canadians think is good for shopping when the dollar is just right, there lives a girl who will change the world. She may not be potty trained or know her ABCs yet, but she sure knows her way around a CPU and a Bunsen burner. Her influence will be unprecedented, her name will be forever revered, and her diaper will always need changing. Armed with only a Leap Frog cellphone and a stuffed bear called Mr. Fluffington that chortles when you squeeze its paw, she will singlehandedly discover the ever-elusive key to unlocking free energy and then promptly suck her thumb in self-satisfaction. She is: One! Smart! Baby!

Life and Death and The Last Cheetoh

Death. Dead. Died. All those words—one syllable all—are like punches in the stomach for all of us. And the punches land harder the younger the decedent. Over the past week it has been hard not to reflect on mortality, not only with the passing of Whitney Houston at 48, but also the very sudden passing of a person from my hometown who was only 29 when he died, possibly doing what he loved best in the whole world. If you have to go early, I guess the best way to go is zooming down a black diamond trail with the wind in your face and nature majestically splayed out before you.

These two people lived two very different lives: Whitney’s was lived with unprecedented fame and all of the awesome responsibilities that come with that; my friend’s was lived as a typical active American, holding down a job and living his life to the fullest. But no matter what kind of life they lived, the best thing is that they lived, and that we got a chance to know them in our own way. And to think that they’ll never go to another party or laugh at another joke, or win another game of Monopoly, is almost too much to think about. But the suddenness and the unexpectedness of their deaths, at least for me, have knocked  me back into myself. These people aren’t here anymore, no one can really know for sure where they are, if anywhere at all, and that just makes me want to live life even more, so when Entropy calls my number and it is time for me to transition, I will be able to look back on my life and all the people who filled it and made it interesting, and say, “Wow… look at the life that I got to live! It wasn’t easy, it wasn’t totally hard either, but I am sure glad that it wasn’t boring and that I took every possibility that presented itself.” Because the better the life and the more meaningful life we live, the less we can fear the end.

Then I look at my niece who turned 1 on Wednesday, and I think about everything that is ahead of her, good and bad: her first bike ride, her first bus ride, her first crush, her first gold star, her first contusion, her first disappointment… And then I realize that she'll be 88 in the year 2100, and just thinking about all the world events that she’ll have lived through, and what the world will even look like then is just completely mind-boggling. I look into her dimpled smile while she’s blissfully shoving fistfuls of Cheerios into her face, and I think, “you have no idea what is in store for you, kid.”

So, I am going to close out this sappy post by spouting the usual clichés about what death teaches us to do (and they are clichés precisely because they are the truth): Make sure you tell people regularly how much you love them, how much they have meant to you and how much you have appreciate all that they contributed to your life. But the most important thing to remember is not to forget to live. Live. Sing at the top of your lungs in the shower. Go out with the friends you can act stupid around, and just go nuts. Have that extra shot of espresso in your macchiato, or that extra Cheetoh. Pursue your dreams whatever they may be and give the finger to anyone out there that puts up a roadblock and move beyond it, because you only have one life. Just one. So, live the shit out of it, so that when Entropy screams, “42!” and it’s your number, you can go out knowing that you had a kick-ass life.