Hello Reader,

Sometimes, maybe not all the time, but definitely most of the time, I am fighting to remain relevant in the lives of my friends and loved ones.

I didn’t realize this until recently. The idea that I could ‘fade away’ is usually just a distant tickle in the back of my head. But it’s never not there.

Every once in a while it crops up, maybe to settle its cold body in the pit of my stomach or set an anchor in my heart. This usually happens when someone blows me off or sets me on a back burner while they focus on themselves.

I didn’t realize this until I started to look at my life objectively. I saw that I have an irrational fear that I could become irrelevant. Maybe one day I will fall asleep, or not accept a phone call, or forget to text back, and the person who was reaching out for me at that moment will forget me. Maybe they’ll replace me.

I try really hard, Reader. And sometimes, when I think that things are safe, and my relationships are strong, I weigh the potential of skipping a text, or ignoring that call, or silencing my phone when I go to bed. Is it a time when I can let go of that responsibility and remain relevant?

I’m mostly writing this today because people have been saying lately that I look tired. I’ve caught myself in the past few days stopping mid-sentence because I’d realized that I didn’t know where my words were coming from. I’m a little lost, and they’re not wrong, I do look tired.

Have a great night, Reader.

Hello, Reader.

This passage is a continuation of a blog that I never meant to have a second part. When I first wrote about The Void, the idea was contained and completed. I had dumped all of my thoughts on a page and tied a bow around them. I’d said all I need to say.

Or so I thought.

You see, I found myself drawn back to The Void once again, and, this time, without precaution. This time, I found that the moment came suddenly. When I wrote about The Void for the first time, I had been coming to the blackness for months before being able to translate my thoughts and emotions into written word.

Upon returning, it was like coming home. If someone stopped me on the street and told me to describe what it felt like to come home the words would come out easy, and I doubt I would need time to think before telling them exactly how it feels to come home. My description would be filled with words like warm, sacred, safe and welcoming. While I couldn’t use the same words to describe The Void, the words did come just as easily upon my most recent visit.

Let me bounce back to how I stumbled upon The Void again. I found myself in a noisy basement, within the bowels and intestines of a building suitable to hold well over 50,000 people at any given time. This building is the home of the window in which I first found The Void, which may come to be necessary detail later on. It may not, though, so please don’t get your hopes up nor raise any expectations.

I stumbled upon a second window, a much smaller window than the first. When I discovered this new window, I saw nothing but my own reflection and the reflection of the room behind me. Then, as I approached, I caught glimpses of The Void in the shadows within the reflection, or in dark patches of metal where the true blackness beyond the window could shine through. I didn’t realize immediately that I’d found The Void again, but I know now that the familiar feeling, the one that feels like a different-coming-home sort of feeling, had begun to edge its way from my stomach to my brain.

As I got closer, I stared into my own eyes. My pupils, mirrored on the window pane, showed black, and by pushing my nose against the glass, I could see through them. I could see through my own eyes into The Void.

And it came. The sense of familiar cold. I hadn’t realized just how hot I’d been in that basement until just that moment.  I could feel the cool sensation of night-air chilled glass against my forehead before I made contact. The weightlessness came next. By staring off into infinite black, I felt all the stress and worry and weight of my life lift off, not slowly, but in an instant.

I felt free, and there’s really no other word for it. The feeling was amplified only by the fact that I had not expected to encounter The Void again. It came, and at a moment when I needed it. It came when it was the furthest thought from my mind. I didn’t have purpose to look into The Void again, but I reaped the benefits regardless.

Thanks for exploring The Void with me, Reader. If you haven’t found it already, there is a hyperlink to the original post, The Void, in the first paragraph of this post. It’s been just over a year since I found the words to share this with you in that, and I can’t thank you enough for helping me keep this project going.

Until next time.

Good morning, Reader. It’s chilly here, but not so chilly that we have snow. I’m surrounded by family, loved ones, and warm wishes from far away. All of the gifts that I gave or received were welcomed with gratitude, appreciation and understanding.

The best thing about this year happened to be that there were no big gifts. Small cards, presents and greetings carried just the right amount of warmth and love. And our tree looks fantastic tucked into the corner near our cozy pet lizard.

Even still, I feel as though that chill, the one that forgot to bring snow, has settled inside me. I feel a cold weight that I can’t seem to shake. It doesn’t hurt, or even ache. It’s just there. Keeping me from breathing properly or enjoying this crisp, festive morning with my father.

I wish I could shed the feeling as easily as the wrapping paper had been torn from our presents. So sorry, reader. That was a bit cliché. But what is this season if not a time for a few unappreciated clichés?

I know that it’s important to participate despite the chill inside, just as we go out into the world on these cold days. And I know that this feeling is going to pass, maybe it’s just the time of year, but it’s still something to acknowledge.

So here I am acknowledging my seasonal blues and yours, too, reader.

Truly yours.

Hello Reader,

There are a few books in this world that I will always buy when I visit a book store. Three or four books that I actively hunt for among the shelves full of loved, sold, re-purchased, and re-loved books. And I usually don’t find them. In fact, I’ve probably only found these books a handful of times in my whole life, but this only makes it that much more satisfying when I do find them, hidden in a section I hadn’t thought to hunt in before, or in a shop I’d walked past a few dozen times. And when I find one of these books, it’s like greeting an old friend. Maybe even better.

There is one of these books sitting in my cubby at work, waiting to be picked up by its recipient. And another two taking up a little bit of counter space at my home until I find the right person to give them to. Two copies of the same book, same printing and everything, that I found for a price I couldn’t pass up on. They’re one of my favorites, too, and I can’t wait to find the right person for them.

Of course, while the books are with me, between the time I buy them and the time I give them away, I do wonder what it would be like to start my adventure over. I could slip into that well-appreciated world one more time, just on a whim and maybe only for a few pages. It’s awfully tempting, really, and sometimes I succumb.

There’s one that has become a “bus book”, as prescribed by its new owner. A mystery book about murder and a new job. It’s difficult to not ask how the book is getting on in its new home, and it gets only harder each time I see the person I gave it to. I have to make a conscious effort not to bother them about it, because I know that pestering someone about a book can completely taint the flavor of a book. I try very hard not to let my tongue slip too often. Again, I do sometimes succumb.

These are my gifts. I do not loan out books or sell them. Books are something that I value more if I can give them away and intend to never see them again. Sometimes, someone will insist they return a book once they’ve finished, and I tell them that if they are so intent upon giving it back, they should give it away to someone new when they’ve finished.

These books are just books that I appreciate, and find used and abandoned. Books that I give to people that I love, when it means the most or when I manage to find the exact right person for the exact right book. They’re just books, but when I see the look in their eyes when they receive a book I’ve chosen just for them, these books become so much more.

And with that, I wish you good night, reader. And welcome back.

If you Google Hemingway’s death, this comes up as one of the most often asked questions in relation to your current search.  First off, reader, I would like to address the elephant in the room. Hemingway is dead. He does not presently die anymore. He died. Which almost makes me love the question even more. This means that most of the people who Google Hemingway’s death, struggle with tense. Or, it means that Hemingway, like the hero in a story, is alive until you read his death.

I would love to explain this away by saying that these searches come from young teens doing research papers on Old Man and the Sea, but I can’t help but think I’d be kidding myself. And you, for that matter.  So let’s not let it irk us, instead let’s move on promptly.

I’ve read some Hemingway. In fact, Old Man and the Sea was one of those books that I’d managed to read at the exact right time in my life. On top of that, A Moveable Feast was the first book that I bought and read completely on the same day. I’d appropriately purchased the book in a used book store then went across the street to a cafe and read the thing from cover to cover. Meanwhile, For Whom the Bell Tolls remains to be at the top of a very short list of books I will never finish. So, to start this whole thing off, I’m sure you can tell I’m coming from a pool of mixed feelings on Hemingway.

I Googled Hemingway’s death because I was curious about the year. That was an easy curiosity to settle as the year is quite clearly stated as the first search result. The following curiosity wasn’t so easily handled. I stumbled on an article published by the New York Times that explains that Hemingway had died. In the article his wife, Mary, explains that she felt the fatal shot was an accident.

A notable tidbit here is that Hemingway’s father committed suicide in a similar fashion, and he did so with Hemingway’s grandfather’s pistol. 

It seems coincidental to say the least that Hemingway would kill himself in the same way his father did, especially because of the evidence in Hemingway’s writing that shows how his father’s suicide affected him. I personally don’t judge coincidences. I have taken enough psychology classes to know the arguments against causation v.s. correlation. If you’re interested in checking my source, you can find the link below this post.

I’m not sure why this opinion expressed by his wife challenged my views on Hemingway so. One moment I’m walking into work, the next my coworker is telling me stories of how Hemingway had been quoted saying something prolific. The problem with this last idea, I was quick to point out, is that Hemingway is often mis-attributed with so many terrific quotes. Honestly, most of these sayings are so hard to trace, that I believe anything within the realm of relative insight during the height of Hemingway’s popularity has been attributed to him. 

This time, however, I was wrong. Hemingway wrote a book called Across the River and Into the Trees. In the book he expresses some grand ideas about how no one ever really listens to anyone. I like the quote, and I’m glad that Hemingway can be attributed to it without any doubt.

Let’s get back to his death, though, because really, the debate with my coworker about the quote and my Googling the answer lead to my questioning all reality. 

Did Hemingway shoot himself by accident?

The truth? I don’t know the truth, and honestly, there is so much speculation and so many loose ideas tied to the idea that it’s genuinely hard to say. If you read up on the event, you might find that later his wife admitted that he did in fact commit suicide. You might also see that he had started to drink heavily and display signs of depression during the second half of his life. Along with that, some articles say that he wrote a letter to his mother-in-law saying that he would “probably go the same way…” (The Vintage News)

The same sources will also tell you that Hemingway was extremely accident prone. For instance, he survived several plane crashes, was injured in a few wars, and suffered from blood poisoning at one point while on safari. Is it really so hard to believe that his accident prone nature caught up to him before his depression did? And maybe he never wrote his mother-in-law about his dark fate. There’s potential that he’d been misattributed to a few other ideas that we want to attach him to. Some neighbors are quoted saying that Hemingway seemed normal just one day before his death, while others say he’d lost a significant amount of weight and seemed distant and quiet, out of sorts.  

I’ll let you make up your mind for yourself, reader.  I just feel like there’s more to the story than we’re actually seeing, and maybe more story than truth.

Until next time, reader. Here are a few sources:

The New York Times – http://movies2.nytimes.com/books/99/07/04/specials/hemingway-obit.html
The Vintage News – (https://www.thevintagenews.com/2017/07/25/after-his-father-committed-suicide-ernest-hemingway-wrote-ill-probably-go-the-same-way/)

Hello reader. To set the mood for this post, I’d like to pose a rhetorical question:

Have you ever taken an insult as a compliment?

You see, I’ve never been very good at taking an insult. Even when the insult was blatantly in jest, I would take at least a sliver of it to heart.  Often times, this would leave me in a pensive state. I would wonder how much of the insult was true. I guess this was my way of checking up on my own traits, to the point where I would try to make sure that I wasn’t seeing a side of myself that only other people were seeing. Maybe this openly insulting person was the only one with the sense, or lack of sense, to say something to me about a trait no one else could point out. Yes, my life has been filled with a lot of introspection based on throw-away insults.

The latest account of this took place this very evening. I had a conversation with a person I trust, and during the conversation, she told me that she had something funny to tell me. The funny thing she had been dying to tell me turned out to be that one of the students in my latest class thought I was arrogant, that I believe I am funnier than I really am.

I trust my sense of humor, and I know that a lot of people don’t really get where I’m coming from when I tell a joke. I’ve encountered this many, many times in my life, and I expect to encounter this sort of situation many more times before I finally wither away. That’s not what bothered me. What bothered me was how I felt at the moment of being called arrogant. First off, neither she nor I had any idea who the person who called me arrogant was. She’d forgotten sometime in-between hearing his opinion and relaying it to me. Right away we see that I have no opinion of the person who called me arrogant, because I have no idea who that person is, so why should it have any impact on me at all? Too many rhetorical questions now, I think.

The funny thing might be that I’d never been called arrogant before. Surprise. Maybe? And upon hearing this judgement for the first time, I couldn’t help but think that it wasn’t really that bad of a trait. In fact, I can’t count on my two hands how many of my idols or heroes have that quality in them in some quantity. For instance, Stan Lee. Amazing man, the Father of Marvel Comics, and it was his arrogance that helped him become a hero to billions of people. Without him being even slightly arrogant, he never would have approached his boss at Amazing Fantasy and proposed the brilliant idea of a teenager who becomes stronger after a spider bite. And, speaking of that teenager, Spider-Man is unbelievably arrogant in his early years. Exceptionally more so than his more recent adventures. But he became a hero because his arrogance helped him find his path. It helped to shape himself into what he wanted to represent, and allowed him to swing around in a bright red and blue suit, nonetheless.

I’ll admit, my mind did not go directly to Spider-Man or Stan Lee when I first heard someone had called me arrogant. No, instead I jumped straight to Holden Caulfield. Salinger. The arrogance of the Glass family has brought endless enjoyment and perspective to so many teens and adults alike. Sure it ended up with a little suicide and perhaps an abortion, but image Catcher in The Rye with a lack of arrogance. Would Holden waste all his dough on taxi rides around New York or dates to the theatre? Would he have dropped out of school?  More importantly, would we even know who is a phony in this world, if it weren’t for a little arrogance?

I did become introspective when I heard the judgement from another, just as I always do. But it became quickly overshadowed by the opinion of a loved one, who appreciates me for who I am, and perhaps understands, as I am trying to, that I should have pride in my faults.  I should hope that one day those faults might help me grow to be brave, strong, and maybe get me to take a few risks now and again.

Until next time, reader. Good night.

Strap in Reader, we’re going for a ride!

Due to Doc and Marty’s traveling back to 1955 and altering certain events, Marty found himself back in the future in an altered 1985. Let’s consider this altered future as a new dimension, or universe. This alternate dimension always existed and always will, even after Marty and Doc go back to 1955 to fix their mistake, but it feels new to us and it feels new to Marty because we didn’t know it existed before Marty found it. That universe is a constant. However, the fact that Marty found himself there is our variable.

He traveled to the alternate 1985 because of his actions in 1955, which plays as a junction and a branching point for many possible futures. If it helps, Doc Brown draws a diagram during the movie to explain this very phenomenon. He draws a straight line that represents Marty’s constant timeline as his life would be laid out sans DeLorean. He then draws a branching line shooting off from that original line that joins our original line at the tangent point that represents 1955. The part of his timeline that events were altered. Going forward from that junction, 1955, Marty could have taken any number of turns and ended up in a different possible future. In other words, by going to the past, he placed himself at a pivotal point where he gained the potential to travel into the future to various, possibly infinite, new and alternate futures.

This idea stems even further when we see at the end of the third part of the movie that Marty finds himself in yet another alternate universe. He stays in this universe because his parents are happy and he has a truck. Meanwhile, back in his original universe, Marty disappeared into the past and never came home.

This idea seems pretty far-fetched, very science fiction if you were to consider it alongside what we consider the real world. Or does it…

The Mandela Effect is the phenomenon that claims we start in one reality, collect a smattering of memories, then carry those memories with us when we accidentally slip into another reality. We only realize that we’ve slipped into an alternate reality when we find the memories we’ve carried over from our original reality don’t mesh with the history of events that have taken place in the new reality. Some people will call these old memories ‘False Memories”, but I like to think of them as ‘Other Memories’.

Let’s attempt ground these concepts now, reader, in an experience that I had recently.

I am a teacher, of sorts, and have distinct memories of teaching certain material. Today, I was asked by another instructor about a portion of this material. He and I both had distinct memories of teaching the same information, but we had trouble finding the evidence.

This resulted in a scurry through our past material, almost a year old at this point, to find the specific information. At one point, our most desperate perhaps, we came to the conclusion that there was no record at all of that material and instead we’d imagined the whole thing. It felt very much like I’d developed ‘False Memories’. I began to feel as though I’d drifted into an alternate reality where this information had never been taught.

Then I found a thread. My fellow instructor had his finger hovering above the send button to an e-mail that admitted we had been wrong when I uncovered a bit of information that helped me pull myself back to reality. My reality, where I taught things and remembered them.

I followed the small line in a document to another document. Then a Power Point presentation. Slowly, as I uncovered more and more information related to the original material, it began to seem silly that we’d missed these in the first place. Soon everywhere I looked I found more supporting evidence that validated my original idea.

By the end of it all, his e-mail contained nearly two pages of excerpts from documents and charts that provided reasoning as to why we were correct. This is the point in which I recognize that I had shifted back to my original reality, or one close to it.

Here’s my theory. I’d somehow found myself in an alternate reality, or an alternate future. By tugging on a small thread, the remnants of my original reality, I was able to pull myself back towards home by following a metaphysical trail of bread crumbs. I’m not sure if I’ve made it back to my true reality, or if I’ve taken a turn to one that better suits my interests. But, just as Marty stayed in his better reality at the end of the film, I’m sticking around in this one.

And you know what, reader? The air is much crisper in this reality.

Again, and always, thank you so much for reading! I hope you enjoyed some of my ideas here.

Until next time, reader.