{"id":801,"date":"2007-11-22T11:58:09","date_gmt":"2007-11-22T15:58:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.xorph.com\/uj\/2007\/11\/22\/thanks-for-nothing\/"},"modified":"2007-12-21T18:39:33","modified_gmt":"2007-12-21T22:39:33","slug":"thanks-for-nothing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.xorph.com\/uj\/archives\/801","title":{"rendered":"Thanks for nothing"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cA wiseacre on the Oakland to Los Angeles shuttle this week said the next technological leap would be implanting cell phones into people\u2019s heads. He was kidding\u2014we think.\u201d
\n\u2014Chuck Raasch, USA Today<\/em> <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Someone on the news said recently that 80% of Americans have a cell phone. I suppose I shouldn\u2019t have been shocked at that, but I was, and it made me feel distinctly in the societal minority, since I don\u2019t carry one. Not that it makes me uncomfortable. I’ve been mildly concerned from the beginning that their use might eventually cause adverse health effects, but if somebody gave me a free iPhone<\/a>, I would bear-hug them and then find a private spot to dance in my underpants.<\/p>\n

Last night, Dana created a wonderful meal with crab-stuffed shrimp for Marty\u2019s 16th birthday, and he showed us his new iPod nano<\/a>. We got to talking about Apple, with me speculating that the company might be planning to enter the game market. Marty said that idea sounded logical to him, and he predicted it might make its move when Sony inevitably faltered. I suggested that it would probably be a radical leap forward in graphic technology and user interface. He said Apple was sure to compete in that sector eventually, but wondered if they also might decide to make cars. That notion took me by surprise. \u201cThink about it, GrandyJohn,\u201d he added. \u201cBefore too long, a car will be basically a computer.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sixteen years old. Unbelievable. What kind of a nano-world<\/a> will exist when he\u2019s my age, and will I make it to age 96 to share it with him? Of course\u2014I need at least another 40 years to figure things out. Will I still be able to get on a bike? Maybe not, but perhaps I shall have created at least one enduring work of art that will have made my life\u2019s journey worthwhile. Hey, if I\u2019ve made it this far, there\u2019s no reason why I can\u2019t declare my personal mid-point and tackle the second half of my expedition.<\/p>\n

Joan sent me a delightful poem about becoming an old man who wouldn\u2019t have \u201ca computer or a clock or a phone in the house,\u201d and the desire to \u201clearn something just watching the birds and the weather.\u201d I\u2019d be that guy tomorrow if I had the nest egg, but I don\u2019t, and I won\u2019t anytime soon. Yeah, I know the reasons why. Most of Dana\u2019s contemporaries are beyond their careers, and even I have classmates that retired years ago. I intend to keep working as long as someone will hire me, and, if I\u2019m being honest with myself, I probably wouldn\u2019t have it any other way, because I know I have a lot to learn. A day doesn\u2019t pass without my seeing some creative thing to which I still aspire.<\/p>\n

There are times when I think I\u2019m the world\u2019s most miserable excuse for a \u201cmulti-tasker,\u201d even though I\u2019m supposed to be able to handle numerous creative goals simultaneously. I was reminded again of this over the past week when I tried to make progress on more than one thing, but the only checklist item I could focus on was my digital illustration for our client in Lexington\u2014which she loved. I was successful in getting past an initial creative block, and brought the process to a very satisfactory conclusion. Something in which to take pride, but all I could think about is what I hadn\u2019t gotten done. In addition to my other assignments, I was hoping to compose a holiday-related \u201cJoe Box,\u201d as part of the local Art Center\u2019s \u201cWhite Christmas\u201d exhibition, and I also expected to put in another productive session as an amateur stonemason before gathering with my Clan later today. Both of those deadlines slipped by. I\u2019m learning to let them go\u2014to release the sense of perpetual failure\u2014to maintain some modest momentum of accomplishment\u2014to forget about how far short I fall, compared to my expectations. When I grapple with these frustrations, I reckon that most high-performance multi-taskers have a personal assistant or an apparatus of managers, and then I flirt with regrets about not having built an organization around myself, but I have to stop and remind myself to avoid pointless rationalizations. I remind myself that I have an invaluable partner who supports me, and the freedom to achieve any level of personal discipline that I set my heart and mind to attain.<\/p>\n

Today is the day set aside to give thanks, and I\u2019m inclined to say, \u201cThanks for nothing.\u201d<\/p>\n

I give thanks for nothing new<\/em>, because I already have what I need. I have my health, my talent, my independence, and people who love me. When it comes right down to it, that old man in the poem<\/a> has nothing on me. I can discover delicious food on my plate every day. I can put H\u00e4agen-Dazs in my holiday-morning coffee (now, that\u2019s why I exercise!). I can still weep when I listen to beautiful music. I don\u2019t have to take medicine, and I can do virtually any physical thing I can think of wanting to do, and perhaps a few that I shouldn\u2019t, being old enough to know better. I can spend a morning in the woods with a lever-action carbine and bring home to my mate a harvest of young, whitetail buck. I can marvel at my new friend\u2019s ability to extrapolate that primal experience as an entire book of verse written in the voice of Kentucky\u2019s most revered pioneer. I can coax my hand to execute just about any visual style that I can harness my perceptions to absorb. I can express my ideas and longings to others who care about what goes on in my head. I can dream. And I can still tell my mom that I love her.<\/p>\n

Thank you, Father, for nothing different than all those blessings from Thee.<\/p>\n

\u201cArt is worthless unless it plants a measure of splendor in people\u2019s hearts.\u201d
\n\u2014Taha Muhammad Ali<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cA wiseacre on the Oakland to Los Angeles shuttle this week said the next technological leap would be implanting cell phones into people\u2019s heads. He was kidding\u2014we think.\u201d \u2014Chuck Raasch, USA Today Someone on the news said recently that 80% of Americans have a cell phone. I suppose I shouldn\u2019t have been shocked at that, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,3,26,12,58,21,18,9,29,8,69,11,70,57,28,37,23,40,25,6,34,14,13,27,39,32],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.xorph.com\/uj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/801"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.xorph.com\/uj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.xorph.com\/uj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.xorph.com\/uj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.xorph.com\/uj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=801"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.xorph.com\/uj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/801\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.xorph.com\/uj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=801"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.xorph.com\/uj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=801"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.xorph.com\/uj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=801"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}