Happiness Is

“Happiness is the joy we feel when striving for our potential.” 

  This is how the ancient Greeks defined happiness.  

Pretty good definition, isn’t it? Where did I stumble upon this ancient wisdom?

Oprah’s Super Soul Sunday. Yep, I watch it.  All the enlightenment you could ever want shoved between commercials selling us mind-numbing drugs. Circle of life….you too can achieve happiness right after this next sponsored announcement.

It has always amazed me that we cannot master the teachings that are 5,000 years old. The answers to most, if not all, of life's problems have been given to us from our ancestors, repeatedly.  Yet we search for new answers to old problems in which the answers have already been given to us.

With deep thoughts I ponder this cosmic question “Why can we not get it right?” Blame God or the Devil or the lack of both; could it be that our only guidance is the two pound muscle that is placed in the dark empty cavern commonly known as our skull. Isn't it weird that the most powerful thing in the universe never even gets to feel the wind or see the sun? A life of blackness floating in goo projecting electrical impulses that creates thoughts that it will never get to see.

This is our guiding light? Two pounds drowning in cerebrospinal fluid trying to forget that it was given all the answers in the first place.  Do you ever think that God purposely forgot that s/he was God just so s/he could ride a roller coaster and experience it for the very first time?

Experience it for the very first time? There must be some wisdom in that sentence

The answer to everything is in experiencing this very moment and surrendering to it.

This sentence came to me after sitting on a meditation cushion for 25 minutes earlier that day. I wish I could say it arose from within my consciousness or that the universe split itself in two and handed me this divine wisdom but, alas, it came from a tribe elder that sat across the room from me drinking coffee and rubbing his bald head.  I asked a question and he gave me the answer from within his own personal experience.

The reason we cannot experience happiness is: because we are used to being told what happiness is instead of discovering our own potential for ourselves.

The tribe elder pontificates: This is the 5,000 year old mistake that we keep making. Somebody somewhere thinks that they have got it right and then they organize their beliefs, then proceed to spread it to the masses. Life is not about being told, it is about doing. Organizing anything and everything, no matter how well intended, will become bastardized over time (simple examples include religion, politics, academics...etc.) They all share cult thinking. Sometimes it maybe good to be in a cult but unfortunately you never get to experience an original thought.

Practice, surrender, sit down and shut up, then repeat…this is the one hand clapping as the other hand slaps your original face.  The face you had before your parents were born, the face you had before the stars were placed in the sky.

Happiness is this moment. Go discover it.

Go manifest a universe.

Photo of the Week

Zen Art of Everything ~ Short Film

Moment

Current Reading: Capital in the 21st Century by Thomas Piketty
Current Music: 4:13 Dream by The Cure
Mood: Stale
Smells: Coffee
Sounds: Nothing
Temperature: 50 degrees
Thoughts: Time Lapse & Meditation, morning project

Get Uncomfortable

I have the greatest portfolio of “almost & what ifs” in the world. Seriously it's the premier collection of missed opportunities. It is the top-ranking accumulation of me thinking “I should go do that.”  It is a testament to daydreaming laziness.

This body-of-non-work, unwritten, never-published creativity is filled up with music, photos, short stories, deep thoughts, impactful films that would have changed the world. Yes, ushering into world peace to the planet, curing of disease, feeding the hungry, and helping him to finally fall in love with you…blissful life for all...only if I created the work.

Deep apologies to all. I did not.

Instead I sat frozen, watching the compositions drift in and out of my opportunity to capture it.

Arts only purpose is to serve. We can do three thing in the image of God: love, forgive and create.  Why is it so damn hard to create something new and share it??

At this exact moment I am forcing myself to write this. Why bother? There is beer in the fridge, 600 channels of tv to watch and an extremely non-motivated human who would rather take a nap.

But I sit at the keyboard typing, backspacing and deleting my way to what your are reading now. As I type I am listening to music by an artist that I am endlessly impressed with the flow of work he puts out. The room that I sit in is filled with photos, guitars, paintings, camera gear, journals, and books. It is a sacred cathedral to the act of creativity and I am sitting on the altar.  This is a good place to insert a false prophet joke…it's been my life's secret ambition to be a self-proclaimed false prophet…just a little FYI about me.

I keep staring at this photo (above). Novice - Expert...and the arrows are pointing in the same direction. This is the lesson I must learn: there is not much that separates the two. You must move in the same direction to create. I ask myself “am I an expert or novice at the act of creating?” Sometimes I think the only difference between novice and expert is the amount of taxes that you pay in a year. Many so-called experts fall back into the world of being a novice; not having the passion to create daily. Many novices sit blissful in the creating process never needing the glory of the outside world's applause. These few are the enlightened ones (yep they get on my nerves to).

About a year ago I stopped referring to myself as a photographer. Composition junkie...that's a better description of what I do.  The label of photographer created conflict in me that I had to live up to. The label meant that my other artistic callings were of lesser importance. I am infinitely curious about creativity and the affect of the creative process on the world. See, I truly believe that I could have brought about world peace only if…..

Last week I created a short film that I am very proud of.  In truth I am proud of the experience of creating it. I faced the resistance of my thoughts. That was the outcome that I love about the film.  It was in the doing, the creating, in confronting the uncomfortable. I am in my car waiting at a red light on the corner and outside the driver's side window are two people singing and asking for money. They look…weathered, authentic...they have a story...I feel it. Immediately I tell myself that this could go in my collection of “almost & what ifs.”

For some mystical reason I drive home and grab my gear and go back to that same intersection, wondering the whole time on the drive back if they already left. I figure out questions in my head to ask them. I was thinking about framing, exposure and music. I pull back into the plaza and they are still there. I park my car and set up my gear. I proceed to walk up to them (big personal achievement for me) and I tell them that I am a photographer and short filmmaker and that I would like to record them for a few minutes. I hand them a twenty dollar bill and they agree to play a couple of songs and answer my questions.

Validated; I faced my fear and talked to strangers. This is big for me. At that moment I created something new that is going into the "real portfolio", which is to say, stuff that people can actually see, actually search in Google for, something that will be achieved on my blog for the foreseeable future.

Next week I will start two new projects. I am moving in a direction of changing myself to be uncomfortable. Why? I need to stretch and go where I have never gone before. Creating is discovery first, repetition second. I have realized that I am good at doing this but as of late I fear that I have been doing the same thing. I am discovering that I am getting too good at repetition. I need to play some bad notes, need to see out of focus, I need to play in traffic.

Get uncomfortable, 1000 failures…this is the conversation that I been having with a good friend of mine.

How do you get better at creating stuff?

Get uncomfortable.

Keepsake ~ Vecere & Craig

Second new tune this week. We go jazzy on this one. Its either cold beer music or early morning hot coffee music, you pick.

White Noise ~ Vecere & Craig

Here is the latest track from the ongoing lifetime pursuit of creating something new.

2 Friends, 4 Years, Vagabonding Across America ~ Short Film

I sit at a red light, on the side on the road are these two people sing the lyrics "work my whole life to save enough money just to by a coffin." I drive home grab my gear and come back and make this film. I have to say this is a much watch.

Therapy or not to Therapy?

There is nothing wrong with me.  I do not need therapy. 

Yes there is and yes you do. 

Everything that you feel is overwhelming and intense. You can't stop thinking about it. You feel disconnected. Your relationships are stressed. You have reoccurring  headaches and other random bodily function meltdowns. Loved ones have told you that they’re concerned about you.

People need therapy. Lots and lots of it. People need long drawn out conversations about what's going on in their minds. Your thoughts are damaging the universe right now. This awful "poor me", "it's not my fault", blame-that-person-over-there-thinking is destroying our world. I am telling Al Gore, Jesus Christ and your Mother on you, unless you are a mother causing those bad demons to seep into the world. Then I am going directly to Jesus. You better hope for reincarnation because your karma needs a second chance at salvation.

Why will you not go to therapy? Why? I know why.

The word "therapy" makes you want to kill yourself (don’t do that, direct path to Hell).

"Therapy" is a bad word word.  People do not like it.

Sorry to all you working therapists out there but it's true.  People don’t like "therapy".

Most people do not like you because you are a therapist (do-gooder, know-it-all). If people did like therapists you would have paid off your student loans by now. C’mon, therapy is nothing more than repeating the same theories and the same whatnots to fresh faces who are seekers of new excuses.

Therapy needs a new name.  Maybe Brain Scrub, Thought Detox, Chakra Cleanse or The-brain-is-body-part-too-dummy-give-it-some-damn-attention-a-hole.

I had a conversation today with a gentleman about a future film project. I asked him how he deals with breaking through the therapy aspect part of his work with clients to get to the real stuff, the future building. His response, “People are not broken, I do not do therapy. This is what I teach people about themselves.” I quickly retort back, “Did you read my article on “Excuse-er?”

I do not know if I agreed with him or not but I sure did like hearing it.

“You are not broken”. People need to hear that more often.  I find that most people will not go to therapy for the simple reason of not wanting to feel like they're broken.

The mind is a two pound muscle that needs to be treated like any other muscle in your body.

Take it our for a walk, let it breathe in some fresh air, do some light stretching, let out the lizard/monkey parts of your brain and have some fun, quit letting the neocortex layer take away the fun.  Give your brain an evolutionary spring cleaning every once in awhile.

We will go to the doctor for the slightest pain in our body.  Takes pills, go to rehab, have stuff injected into our skin, have stuff sucked out by the gob-fulls, but having a conversation about what's going on in our brain….no, nadda, not gonna happen. I am not telling that stranger about my problems.

Socrates ~ “The unexamined life is not worth living.” Maybe so but is that therapy? Get a brain coach, walk in the woods, write in your journal, have truthful conversations with anyone and everyone.

In the end facing ones own demons may be the answer. Taking the time to examine the hows, whats and whys of your life.  Discovering the rights and wrongs that you have done and that may have been done to you.

No matter what you may feel about therapy, I do not think you are broken either.

Moment

Current Reading: Integral Buddhism by Ken Wilber
Current Music: Radio by Esperanza Spalding 
Mood: Foggy, been fighting a head cold & losing.
Smells: Coffee
Sound: Running water
Temperature: 56 degrees 
Thoughts: Excuses are as thick as water and as damaging as a flood. 

Are You an Excuse-er?

Excuses are as thick as water and as damaging as a flood.  

Stop giving me excuses for the “whatever” in your life. Stop giving me excuses for something that you do not want to face. Stop giving me excuses.

Industries are built around excuses. You want to get rich? Sell excuses. People love excuses.  I watch daily as people purchase pre-packaged failure (a.k.a the excuses we re-name the cure).

Look around and see how much failure people purchase: books, pills, workout equipment, quick-fix anything, 30 days to a better anything...the list goes on to infinity.

When we purchase something we can place blame on the failed product and not on ourselves.

I actually know “so called self-improvement specialists” that love to see the failure in the students in the workshops they teach. For the record, these people teach world class workshops with beneficial information. But here's the catch: they know that your are not going to apply what they are offering up to you. If you did, they would quickly be out of business. A good future business model is in continually selling to the “excuse-ers”.   Ninety nine percent of the students will never apply the knowledge. Only 1% actually does apply the knowledge and they become the testimonials to help market to the future “excuse-ers”.

We can all see in other people how excuses are effecting their lives, but can you see the excesses in your own life? What excuses do you daily tell yourself? What is stopping you from getting on the correct path? What is blocking your trail?

Want to know what people hate?

Solutions.

At this point you are saying “no” to yourself. You are saying that “I love solutions, I am in search of solutions.”

People hate solutions, especially simple solutions. Simple solutions mean that you will need to do the work.  Put forth the effort. Make the change. Face your excuses.

Excuses give us room to insert doubt. They give us permission to rule out that the effort will create change. The oil, dairy, big pharma and cigarette industries are all in the business of selling us doubt. All too often when we are present with doubt, doubt will be the excuse we will pick, be it dirty, be it lazy, be it disease. Doubt is an excuse.

Doubt is not truth. Doubt does not create a better world. Doubt creates debt, disease and death.

People often present me with their excuses (problems). I give them my two cents worth of my opinion and tell them to do the work (solution building). They respond by telling me that they never thought of "it" that way before and that I should be the next Tony Robbins.

After some time passes I try to follow up with these people.  Shockingly they have not done the work (living with the excuse) to create their own solution. Maybe I would be a failure as the next Tony Robbins (that is my excuse, life experience)….maybe, just maybe if I was six feet tall with extremely white teeth and charged people thousands of dollars before listening to their excuses...just maybe then I could be the next Tony Robbins.  Or at least rich.

Dream big,
Do the work.

Photo of the Week

1st Pirates game. Yesterday was a great day.

Not Doing Wrong ~ Think You are Right?

I wrote this about two weeks ago. I have been insecure to publish it.

Since completing this, a 16 year old boy walked into a high school and  proceeded  to act out a mass stabbing. Since I wrote this, a 70 year old man walked into a Jewish community center and acted out a hate crime in which people loss their lives. Today, the day I publish this, is the one year anniversary of the Boston Marathon. A year ago there was a bombing at the finish line in which many people lost their lives and many more were forever changed.

I walked into the room hopeful within five minutes I would be broken.

What can I learn from this experience? I keep asking myself this question.

I had two experiences in my life that I can recall being of the utmost importance in shaping who I am today.  The first happened 25yrs ago, the second I will share 25 years from now.

Everything started with this story.

My cousin Steve M. murdered and raped two women. The year was 1989 I was about to turn 20years old. The killings were supposedly related to a satanic cult, so it was said.

I remember the morning before the killings.  Stevie, as I called him, stopped at my house. I was out in my front yard of my parent's house cutting grass.  He pulled up in his father's pickup truck to invite me out for the night with him. That would be the night he would kill two girls.

I did not go.

That conversation I had with him in my front yard forever defined how I would live out the rest of my life.

Me, standing in my yard sweaty from cutting grass. Him, innocent with the youth of early morning. He stopped to visit with me before going on to visit with his grandmother who lived up the street.  His grandmother was the sister of my grandmother, nothing of much importance but time would bring meaning to this moment for me.

I remember our conversation that day; it was about music he had sitting on the passenger seat in cassette tapes by The Doors, Eagles, and a few homemade mixed tapes. Nothing jumped out at me as abnormal or satanic it was the music of our past. Conversations about school, girlfriends, family, fun... completely normal stuff.

24 hours later I would awake to the news.

He killed those young girls. Be it the work of the Devil or the distorted mind of madman. He was guilty.  He is spending the rest of life in jail.  The jury stated that Stevie had no history of prior criminal convictions, that he was under mental or emotional disturbance, whatever that means. The jury stated that he should be allowed to live so the social scientists could study him. Like this needs to be learned to be understood?

In the days that followed the murder I became the cousin of the man that murdered those two girls. Some people looked at me as if just being related to him was an act of sin.  People would try to bate me into conversations about why someone would do that. People would argue with me that he should be put to death.  I had no argument for that. To this day I am against the death penalty and I do not want to persuade you, nor do I want you to persuade me.

On that morning of the murders Stevie was normal to me.  There were seeds of evil inside of him getting ready to grow.  But that morning he was just my cousin.

Seeds live inside of us, I know this to be true. Prior to the murders Stevie was not evil.  No killing cats, no hurting his friends...there was small drug and alcohol use, yet nothing extreme. At worst his future path was leading towards a boring life.  Lower middle class life in a dying steel town.  I could see him getting the last of the factory jobs, marrying a girl that he got pregnant. His life could have become a sad song that Bruce Springsteen would write about on the “The River” album.

As for me, time would pass and I would no longer be the cousin of a murderer.  I would be left to live with the ghost of that day. That ghost would teach me to live purposeful, to live with effort to become a seeker of experience.

That ghost would teach me that words like “truth” and “right” are nothing more than judgments on how I would react and view the world. I would know, no matter how righteous or compassionate or how much wisdom that I may gain, that seeds of evil live within us. As I grew into manhood I did nothing in my life that one would call evil, even my sins weren’t all that bad and when I would fall short I would do my best to learn and do better next time. I would be a normal person, be it a bit goofy and slightly eccentric at times.

Seeds are there in all of us. This feeling will never leave me.

Seldom do we recognize the monster within us.  Easy is it to see the victim's face reflecting back at us in the mirror.  The monster stays hidden, hidden even from our own conscious.  Much of life persists beyond good and evil. Evil is all too often mislabeled “right” in a person's mind.

The person who bombs an abortion clinic thinks that they are right. The person who holds up hate-filled protest signs at a gay wedding thinks that they are right.  The Priest who molested a child then passed out communion on Sunday morning thinks he is right. Hitler thought he was right.  The man who beats his wife thinks he is right. The person who believes in Noah's Ark, but thinks that global warming is made up thinks they are right.

This is the right decision, I am doing the right thing we tell ourselves. Right is a reaction, it's a judgment, it's not thought out.  Much evil is done out of one thinking they are right.

Not doing wrong.  That is a practice that forces you to slow down to gain and hold a perspective.

Know this: no matter how much you may think that you are doing the right thing, your efforts, no matter how well intended, are not complete and you will make errors. Leave room in your life for errors; great things come out of learning from our mistakes. This practice, this thought process leads to not doing wrong.

Not doing wrong forces you to slow down.  Not doing wrong makes you accountable for the action that you are about to do.  Not doing wrong forces you to think about how this will affect others. Not doing wrong teaches you that “right” may be a mystery but I will do my best to not create harm.

I understand that I may create harm. Having a practice of "not doing wrong" helps guide me in stopping the suffering that I may create in others.

That is a ghost I can live with.

Auspex ~ Vecere & Craig

Photo of the Week

Fusion Film

Moment

Current Reading: Scaling Up Excellence by Huggy Rao
Current Music: American II: Unchained by Johnny Cash (Vinyl)
Mood: Cold
Smells: Coffee
Sound: My crazy loud sneeze.
Temperature: Tired of being cold, its effecting my mood.
Thoughts: Figuring out shortcuts take to long.

Photo of the Week

My Future Acceptance Speech

If I ever win any award this will be my acceptance speech.

“I wish my ego could be here with me now to enjoy this moment, but unfortunately it's out in the universe doing random good deeds.

From my higher-self I would like to say thank you to Jesus for creating me, Buddha for enlightening me, my mother for birthing me and to my wife for putting up with me.

To my fellow nominees I say to you...that you, you and you all suck, I spit on you.”

I will then proceed to yell out a bunch of random swear words in Chinese for no apparent reason.

I turn to the French super model who has just handed me my award and french kiss the French super model, hoping that the model is not a dude (hey this is the future, men could be a super models?) But whatever...how often do you get the chance to french kiss a French super model? 

I walk off the stage, my right hand waving the peace sign and my left hand flashing an unexpected gang sign. The crowd erupts in applause.  Then three people burst into flames.  Not sure why but three people always burst into flames when I give a speech.

**********************

Not surprisingly, all of what was written came true.  In the year 2021 I was awarded “Best Creative” on the planet for my as of yet untitled, unrecorded, unpublished, yet-to-be-a-global-smash phenomena performance on the new, soon to be named TV network.

How do I know all this you ask? 

My ego came back from the being out in the universe and told me so…..egos never lie.

I am out of here 母狗…..

Youthful Terrain ~ Vecere & Craig

Latest tune. This is the song that I wrote about in yesterday post. Written and recored in one night of blissful fun. Trying to get Stewart Copeland to join the road show, no response as of yet from Copeland camp.

How To Get Better at Creating

I am out on a walk today and the thought occurred to me: how does stuff get created?

Creating stuff is how I earn my living.  Deconstructing my creative process; is that possible?

The last thing I created was a song with my music partner, Erik. As I walked I analyzed the process of creating new music with him.

I thought about how magical the moment of creating is. What control do I really have over this thing that I created?

Then I thought about all the pre-work, the woodshedding, the practice that brought me to sit across the room from him and play music.

That is step one...the doing: dream big but you must do the work. Get good at doing.

Magic and handwork go hand in hand when creating something new. This is an enigma that I will gladly hold true to my heart. Fingers, strings, and a piece of wood is an endless problem that I have no need to solve.  Yet, I know if I continue to put in the time and do the work, musical gifts will be rewarded.  That does not resolve my question, “how do things get created?”

We sit in this small room four feet a part.  Erik holding a Fender stratocaster, me holding a Fender Jazz bass.  We toss out musical ideas that we have been playing with... not songs, but small zygotes in the earliest developmental stage of music.

A groove presents itself. Something from nothing arises, something new.

We move into a state of repetition.  Simply playing the groove over and over to see what presents itself. We look up at each other and know that we have stumbled onto something good.

Repetition is step two.  Repetition is the next step after practicing. It's about going deeper into whatever may turn up. It's about exploring. Possibilities are discovered in repetition.  There is joy in repetition.

Great things arise out of shit.  It's an uncomfortable thought for sure, nonetheless repetition brought us to this new piece of music.

Music is now alive and with us, within our control. Repetition leads to release and the music becomes transformative. All academic approach to music is gone; fingers and string, revelations and reverberations...this is music.

Release is step three. At the point of release you no longer ask the question of why or how; conscious thought dissolves and you become a witness (or listener) to what has emerged. Release is a phenomena yet it is a phenomena with a purpose.

Erik and I are both “do-ers” of music.  We are good at picking up our instruments and running our hands up and down the neck.  Practicing our instrument is not a chore. Practicing our instrument is an escape.  Repetition leads to a release. That is the religious framework that sets us up to go deeper into the mystery.  Staying with the mystery is the mystical experience of where something new comes from.

Step four, stay with the mystery.

Creating things feels good. Writing this feels good. Playing guitar feels good. Whatever you create I am sure that it feels good. Being present at the moment of creating feels good.

Skeptics may criticize that my experiential ramblings are for not; that music is a scholarly skill that is rooted in scales and chart.  That creating is a scientific study not to be overly romanticized.

I will leave you with this thought:

There are three things that you can do in the image of God:
...love, forgive and create.

Simple Motivational Rambling

Execute today, then repeat.

Let your “why” evolve.

Stay with the mystery.
  
There is only doing and not doing. 

Work on the stuff that matters.

Photo of the Week

Insanely Useful Biz Tip

If you want to be transparent you better write it down in black and white.  

Re-posting of my business plan first published in April of 2007 can be read (HERE)

Why Say Digital Photography?

The phrase digital photography must die.

Digital is how you save something not how you do something.

You do not type on a keyboard and say that you are writing digitally.

You do not play music on a keyboard and say that I am playing digital music.

When talking on the phone you do not say that I am having a digital conversation.

You purposefully create a photograph and then the photograph is saved in a digital file.

Digital does not create.

You create...

Horizon's Gate

New tune featuring a photo from my "Emptiness & Form" collection.

The Proposal

What do you do on the coolest day of the year?

You ask a girl to marry you on a mountain top in western PA . Throw in a snowman, wine and a film crew and you got yourself on the fast track to her saying yes.

Random Thoughts on My Gallery Opening

                                                                                                 Photos by Elizabeth Vincent Photography

Being given the opportunity to have a photo exhibit is cool. I wish I could use a mature or more artistic word to describe the feeling, but it is simply a cool experience.  Additionally it is a surreal-out-of-body-experience; it is akin to being present at your own funeral.

At first you are in a room all by yourself.  Then slowly people arrive. Some friends, some family, some strangers, all arrive one by one. The rooms fill up and I think to myself “OK, this is turning out alright.”

There I stand, surrounded by my photography.  I watch as people walk around the room taking in my work. I stand waiting to be judged. It's comparable to a life review but instead of being judged for your sins people discuss your photography.

People walk around the room picking out their favorite photos.  After a while they make their way over to me. They place their hand on my shoulder and then in a polite and soft voice they tell me how talented that I am (seriously surreal).

They go on to ask me to describe how I created these photos.  My standard answer is “the other 10,000 photos sucked” and “light and tripod.”

Next they excuse themselves as the next person waiting in line starts the process all over again.  Truly it's like being awake at your own wake.  If you ever get the chance to attend my funeral, please come. It looks as if it's going to be a good time; lots of photos and lots of drinks.

As the night went on the wine flowed and strangers became friends.

My favorite philosophy about art is: “Arts only purpose is to serve.”  It was nice to be a witness to people enjoying each other.  Looking at the photography became secondary to the experience of enjoying the night out.  It was nice that my work brought this crowd together for an evening.

For me, one of my best-loved experiences of the evening was to listen to people talk about their memories of what the photographs mean to them. They would go on to tell me about nights of watching sports, celebrating holidays and walking through downtown with friends.

Photographing Pittsburgh has been an eight year project (so far). My goal is to document Pittsburgh for 50 years.  In the past eight years I have seen the skyline change.  I have seen the riverfront come alive with runners, bikers, families and new love.  I have seen the night skies filled with fireworks, fog and lights of the season.

Pittsburgh has become my mistress and my muse.

A special thank you goes out to my wife, first for always being the hottest girl in the room in my eyes, and second for letting me live my dreams.  Nothing is real until I share it with you.  Pittsburgh may be my mistress but you are my forever.

Moment

Current Reading: A Million Miles in a 1000 yrs by Donald Miller
                            The Compound Effect by Darren Hardy
Current Music: Glorious Unfolding by Steven Curtis Chapman
Mood: Fluish
Smells: Tea, earl grey
Sounds: My daughter and her friend singing
Temperature: 27 degrees 
Thoughts: The night of my gallery opening I say to my daughter, “Daddy has a cool job, don’t you think” she responds “It would be cooler if you were a lunch lady at my school.”

On Fatherhood ~ Essay

Fatherhood?

I think I am a good dad.

I do my best to keep that perfect balance of tickles and discipline. The evenness of "clean your room & go outside and get dirty". The symmetry of “eat your veggies & one more piece of candy." The counterbalance of "if you do this then you can go do that."

This blog that you are reading today is nothing more than a love letter to my daughter. This blog, all 1,814 posts, is me.  It's my thoughts, hopes, desires, my worldview...it's what I learned and it holds the questions about what I wish to know. It's an archive of all the stuff that I have created.  It's filled with lists of book that I read and music that I have listened to, and with all that said...it's only purpose is for my daughter to know who her Father was.  To know who I am becoming.  Maybe to understand a little more about herself.

My current project is a collaboration with Erik Vecere, which is a short film on Fatherhood. Erik works for National Fatherhood Initiative.  "Initiative." Interesting word.  A non-profit company dedicated to helping Fathers become better Fathers.  Who knew that an organization for helping dads existed??  Things they don’t tell you when a newborn baby is placed in your arms.  In case of emergency go here...do go there. Lots of interesting stuff. www.fatherhood.org

 At the end of our film Erik said the words "A unique, irreplaceable role, and that's Fatherhood."

That sentence struck a chord with me, resonated deeply. I haven't been able to shake the question "Am I good at being a Dad?"

The opening paragraph above is me rambling about the greatness of the father that I am. Beware, I also feel that I am extremely good looking and even more talented than my good looks. Read on to see how well an ego like mine can father a child.

To give you engaged reader some context: I am 44yrs old and as I write this in three days my daughter will turn eight. Eight years into the journey of parenting a child seems like a good time to be evaluated.

Evaluation. Let's start there.  Who gets to evaluate my Fathering skills? My wife, Grandparents, community, CYS, God, my daughter, myself. Answer is....my spouse first and coming in a close second place is a tie between God and myself.  I am not afraid to go one-on-one with God.  God doesn’t gives hugs, I do.

I do not do drugs, haven't been to jail, I go easy on the swears and I have never beaten her.  Give myself a big check for doing the minimum; keeping myself out of Hell and bragging about the obvious.

This is a good time to go back and re-read that sentence about my ego.  We have read books, climbed trees, walked in the woods, roughhoused to the point of having her Mother yell at us to stop making all that noise (countless times), mastered the monkey bars, learned how to swim, shared quiet meals together. We hold hands, snuggle, rub noses like Eskimos, held long interesting talks at bedtime about the meaning of life (honestly I think that she's just doing her best to stay up longer).

Is all of that also just the minimum? In a Homer Simpson world of fat dads in sitcoms what is a good Father?

Yes, I know that there is no simple answer and yes I know that the simple answer is: asking yourself the question in the first place must mean I am moving in the right direction. Yes, I know that Fatherhood is a journey, not a destination.  With all that said then why bother evaluating myself or writing on?

Zen proverbs "before enlightenment chop wood after enlightenment chop wood." That's my "why". Let's carry on.


I am present, I am occupied by life, hell I am even occupied by laziness and TV. I will share everything with her, I will give up my life for her but I am sure to eat the last piece of pizza. I will watch her sleep at night.  Her tiny little chest rises and falls with each breath she takes.  That experience alone is all the proof for God's existence that I will ever need.  No matter how crazy a kid can kill your last never (and even your will to live) watching your baby sleep magically evaporates all the anguishes away, giving you the much need life-juice to get up in the morning and do it all again.


I come from good Fatherhood-stock.  My Father and Grandfather are good men, husbands and dads. They are from a different time and a different culture of what it meant to be a Father. They were providers first, husbands second and fathers third.  In no way did either of these men fall short.  It was how culture dictated the importance of Fatherhood.  In today's world, us Dads are doing it all (or at least doing our best to catch up to our Wives who are really doing it all).

To be a good Father, does that mean I must put myself third?

For me, yes it does. Not in a self-sacrificing way; remember I will eat that last slice of pizza, every time. In my heart, my family's happiness comes first.  To watch my daughter and my wife live life to there fullest, that is my first place.  Before anybody wants to Saint me read on (Note: this is written specifically to my wife.  I have said the words "dream big and do the work" over and over but also remember that I am extremely cheap, seriously frugal, opening the wallet is hard for me, so to you I say “dream big but please goes easy on the dollars”.)

Multiple purpose parenting: Who knew it was possible?

I have come to discover that I can cut the grass, cook a meal and then put ponytails into my daughter's hair. Honestly I am not very good at ponytails, dinners or even picking out clothes that match, but, hey...she made it to eight. She can pick out her own clothes from now on.

As of late I find myself with other Fathers having conversations on this topic. Gone are the days of football and hot wings. Today we sip coffee and talk about the joys and insecurities of being a dad. I guess I would have to say this is a good starting point if you are asking yourself if you are a good Dad.

As I finish typing this, my daughter sits downstairs in front of the TV alone eating dinner. That happens at times. Remembering the words "A unique, irreplaceable role, and that's Fatherhood." I get up from my chair and go downstairs. Vecere’s word still resonate deep within me.

For me, I think I need to go chop more wood, enlightenment can wait.