Our Eternal Friend

It is almost impossible to describe the experience of a night with Leonard Cohen in mere words. But let me put a few out there for you, just to give you an idea......

Magical. Sublime. Epic. Enchanting. Transforming.


And these are just the 'tip-of-the-iceberg."

The show consisted of two sets, with a 20-minute intermission in between. Just prior to the intermission, he introduced each member of his band, but not mere introductions were they at all. With each of his colleagues, he brought them into our acquaintance via a poetic mini-story; a tribute in itself. This was the epitome of his grace.

Throughout the concert, he thanked us all - "his friends" - for making the night so special for him, and being a part of it all. He is a truly grateful man, and a spiritual friend to every person on Earth.


There were a succession of special moments throughout the night, but my very favorite one was at the end of the show, when he recited "A Thousand Kisses Deep" with almost no accompanying music (just a light, wavering keyboard tone was all there was). I put both my hands over my face and started to cry.

His live performance last night at Madison Square Garden touched the spirit of every man, woman and child, whether you were in the arena or not. Simple perfection is what Leonard Cohen is to me, and he was all of that last night and more.

Thank you, Leonard. You are an eternal treasure....

Painful Change

There's a notable concept in the area of self-help that a wonderful friend of mine recently reminded me of. I had posted a Facebook status about me being "in some pretty uncomfortable territory at the moment," to which she commented "uncomfortable = growth."

Ah, this is so true, isn't it? It's virtually impossible to travel to a place of personal betterment without passing through a valley of discomfort. I know this not only from my own personal experiences, but also from seeing friends and family traverse this same painful path.


Change is difficult, there is no doubt. We all seem so programmed to just be comfortable with what is, even when it brings us pain. In an old Pink Floyd song called "Wish You Were Here" the writer asks the main subject of the song whether he had exchanged "cold comfort for change." Cold comfort. Wow. Such profound words. Because that's exactly where we can be left when we resist necessary change. In a state of cold comfort.

I've been thru a few periods of cold comfort in my own lifetime. Sometimes, it's simply been what we would call a rut, and in those cases, it was fairly easy to redirect myself and get back on a moving track. But lately, I have realized that I've been in a sustained period of cold comfort, and knew that it was time to for something dramatic. Dramatic, but courageous. And so it is that I sit here tonight, having taken a purposeful action that will hopefully end the drama I have been experiencing of late. And the cold comfort.


More and more, as my own self-awareness strengthens, I observe that just about everybody is walking around in this state of somnambulance, and is wishing that they could create change for themselves.

But they don't.


Why? Because change takes courage, and we don't always have the courage to cross the bridge to the unfamiliar (read "uncomfortable") territory that lies on the other side. Change as depicted by crossing a bridge. Yes.....


There are famous bridges all over the country, and also the world. But there is one that has recently taken on special meaning for me. It is a bridge in New York City's Central Park called the Gapstow Bridge, but it is more familiarly called the "Love Bridge." Apparently there have been many marriage proposals made on this bridge, leading to its informal moniker. But as I look at this particular bridge, I see it in higher terms, and as a metaphor for so much more. The bridge represents a dividing line between what is and what can be, if one has the courage to put their foot on the bridge and take the first step.

I am a runner, as many of you know, and in running long races like marathons, there is a saying that goes something like "Courage is not what it takes to finish the race. Courage is what it takes to step up to the starting line."

I have just stepped up to that starting line, folks. Please wish me luck, and in return, I will send you back lots and lots of love and rewards. <3

The Only Living Boy In New York

There was a very specific day about three years ago when I remember walking around the city streets and being struck by the theme of an old Simon & Garfunkel song. I felt like the only living boy in NY.

Most days I just meld right into all that is going on around me, but on this day I felt ominously removed from it all. There was darkness in the time-space miasma, and the people I passed as I walked along the sidewalk all looked lifeless. No joy of life, no spirit, no nothing. I don't know if it was that they had no life in them, or if I was somehow removed from the situation in such a way as to sense lifelessness in what was around me. But I felt both alone and emancipated at one time. Suddenly I was in a moment where no physical laws applied. Where nothing made sense. 3 plus 3 did not equal 6 in this moment. I was in what felt like great despair, but I was totally free at the same time.

The city is an interesting place. It draws the masses to it like moths to a flame, but the only thing that it offers is financial prosperity. The rest is just a big tease, like a hooker on the corner of 27th and 9th, waving a scarf at passing cars. If I were a religious sort, I might equate this place to the devil, and call the Lincoln Tunnel and the Brooklyn Bridge the mighty Archangels Lucifer and Uriel. There is no purity of spirit here in these concrete canyons. It is complete selfishness and contempt. There is no place where one can find sanctuary, or a sufficient path to self-discovery or self-fulfillment. The island of thieves has captured the souls of so many unsuspecting.

Have any one of them been struck by the realization that this place today is mine, and mine alone? I wonder....

On this day, I was the only living boy in NY. I was scared as hell, but it felt so good.

The smile says it all

One of life's eternal questions, and one that is usually put to us rather than being one that we routinely ask of others, is "Are you happy?" Naturally we all are inclined to answer 'yes' when asked this question. Because it's what we want - to be happy. So even if we're not truly happy, even if the undercurrent in our soul is one of unhappiness, we almost always tell others that we are....

So how do we know if we're truly the happy person that we're so reflexively inclined to tell others that we are? Well, that's a hard one. There are many books dedicated to this form of self-evaluation, and many a professional analyst who makes a fairly comfortable living from working with people to help them find happiness. The reason that there is so much discussion about happiness is because, like so many other things in this world, it is not a black and white subject. What makes one person happy might do just the opposite for the next person. And happiness is gauged upon many interrelated behaviors and responses to external input. A complex animal, this happiness thing.

So with finding happiness not being a simple thing, it is even harder for one to determine whether they are happy or not. Or is it?

While walking down the street toward my office this morning, I smiled at a tall, 50-something woman with scragly hair who was passing by me going in the other direction. She made eye contact with me, but she didn't smile back. But it was no matter whether she did or she didnt - it was this interaction that brought something important to mind for me. It's so very simple. When we're happy, we smile. :) It's a natural physical reaction to an underlying emotional state, and perhaps the perfect barometer to what's going on inside us.

I've been told by many people that I smile a lot. I like that. It means that I am putting out a picture of happiness, and also that I don't have to constantly question myself about whether I'm truly happy or not. I'll know that if I stop smiling, and people tell me so, that I'll have some self-evaluation to do. But as long as I can look in the mirror and see myself smile, I'll know that my soul is in good care. At the moment, it is. :) I hope yours is too..... :) :)

Sunsets Are Sometimes Even Sweeter Than They Look

A beautiful sunset is almost always something to behold, with the most glorious aspect of a sunset being that no two are quite exactly alike. They may have similar features - the same variety of ripple in the clouds highlighted by the sun's final rays of the day, or the same shade of orange or pink that coats the underside of the cloud formation. But just like the snowflake and the human fingerprint, each presents itself as a picture of uniqueness. And each is perfectly complete in its natural, artistic beauty.

Last night's sunset, although not any more beautiful than scores of others that I've had the pleasure of witnessing over the years, was special. My day didn't start off on a very 'up' note, and in fact, it went further downward from there. My mood wavered throughout the day from glum to frustrated to sad to angry, to an ultimate feeling of emptiness. My Facebook Link and Status postings of the prior 24 hours mirrored the flutter of emotions taking place within me. Anyway, by the end of yesterday's workday, I was emotionally exhausted, and on the train ride home, I uncharacteristially fell asleep. Luckily, I was riding with some friends who were kind enough to prevent me from sleeping through my destination stop, an outcome that would have been a fit ending to an inglorious day.

Falling asleep on the train is usually a red flag for me, telling me that it's time I had better wake up, hit the reset button, and get a fresh start. I had this thought in mind as I deboarded the train, traipsed from the platform to my car, and began what I thought would be a neverending 6-mile drive home. But as I made my turn westward about 4 miles from my apartment, I was greeted with this simple, yet amazing sunset. And as I said, it was no more special than any sunset that I had ever seen before, except in one sense: It was perfectly placed at the tail end of an emotional day, and it immediately lifted my mood to one of great peace and tranquility. It was the unwitting remedy to what ailed me.

Sometimes, a beautiful sunset is more than just that, but only if we have the consciousness to see it for what it is...........

"Our" Running

“I'm going out for my run now.” If you live with a runner, you've no doubt heard this, or some similar sort of utterance, many times over.

My run.

As if it's a possession. Yes, there is a direct association that we, as runners, tend to make about this seemingly absurd pastime with which we are constantly exhausting ourselves.

I'm always taken by the way we think of our running, and that it seems to belong to us. “I have to do my run before we go to dinner. ” With my being the operative word. And we even take the possessiveness further with training and racing terms like “my per mile pace” or “my splits” or even “my PR.”

Indeed, we make these kinds of possessive relationships with all sorts of things in our lives. But for the most part, it is with people and things. “Hey, that's my car you're sitting on!” or “My little Jeffrey is such a good student.” “My living room needs painting." “My town has only one traffic light.” and “My phone can send email in six different languages!”

People.
Places.
Things.

But what about running? It isn't something tangible that you can touch, or carry around in your pocket, or visit, or even see for that matter. It's not like that at all. So what is it then?

I'll tell you what it is. This simple act of locomotion - of moving your arms and legs, of pumping air in and out of your lungs, of feeling the breeze move past your face in the glory of the great outdoors - is something that you can feel.

You may not be able to touch your running, but it touches you in so many ways.

It touches your senses, and sometimes in very profound and unique ways. It touches virtually all of the muscles and organs in your body, bringing experiences that draw the mind into oneness with your physical self.

It contributes to your senses of strength, discipline, and personal character. It touches all of these things, and many more….

And why does running do all this? Because running is real. And once you understand that, running does become yours. It belongs to you because you belong to it. It's a symbiotic relationship of the healthiest kind, and one that would most of the time be almost foolish to forsake.

No, your running will never send a rocket ship to Mars. It will also never cure Alzheimer's Disease, nor will it stop war between nations. And just like the body that makes it possible to run in the first place, your running will not live forever.

But the running is still yours. It's personal, it's very real, and for many of us, it may be our most treasured possession. Take care of your running. Treat it with the respect it deserves, and it will go on giving you its power for a lifetime.

Lifetime Blog Achievement Award Acceptance Speech

Below is another entry that I had submitted to a Blog Idol contest on Myspace back in early 2007. Our assignment in this round was to write an acceptance speech for a Lifetime Achievement Award that we would deliver at the Blog Academy Awards.

Enjoy!

__________________________________________________

Good evening fellow bloggers. Yes, that's right, fellow bloggers. I say that because at heart, we all are. We all have a story to tell, or an opinion that is just screaming to find its way out of our innards and into the land of bits and bytes affectionately known as the blogosphere.

On this very momentous occasion, it would be the blogger's temptation to try and entertain his or her audience. But in the interest of preserving the sanctity of this event, I'll refrain from doing so here. But if my speech should become a bore, and perhaps it will, a Myspace "Home" button has been conveniently provided for you on each of your seat backs. Simply click "home" and you'll find yourself in the kitchy company of Myspace Tom, and you will be free to move about the blog community once again.

So, I will start tonight by first thanking you all for being alive. From the bottom of my Czuch Republic-tenderized heart, I thank you for that. No, it's no joke, for you see, without your collective masses of eyes and ears, there is no blogger. Blogging is a symbiosis between reader and writer. It is a co-dependent relationship of the worst kind. And without the reader half, what is there really? I mean, if a blog falls on the internet, and nobody reads it, does that mean that Tom is your only Friend?

I would also like to thank you more specifically for your roving eyes, and for your keen sense of what's true and good in a blog. Readers, as I just mentioned, are the lifeblood of a good blogger. The relationships that are created between blogger and commenter help to sculpt and mold the blogger's subject matter and delivery. This perpetuates the career of the dedicated and prolific blogger, and can conversely demolish the career of the unseasoned or casual one. Comments and kudos are what we all crave. The instant gratification that life often fails to bring us can be acquired through the creation and delivery of a top-notch blog effort. We love our comments, and are often under a sense of obligation to comment on the comment, almost doubling the comment count in the process. And then there are the kudos….

Kudos kudos kudos. So many a tear has been shed over this subject. So much misery, despair and outright pain. Ouch! But what are kudos, really? Or is the right question 'What is kudos?' Can kudos be quantified?

If so, they should be swappable, like money or scrip. The guy at the pawn shop could use them every day. "I'll give you 200 kudos for that watch, mister." Kudos, whatever it is/they are, give a false sense of security to the blogger-at-large. They are handed out by commenters as if every blog is entitled to them. I'll be dedicating the final years of my blogging to many areas, one of which will be Kudos Reform. Unfortunately, the divided Blog Congress will make it difficult to pass such reform, but let us not let that stop the effort !!

Looking back on my early years, one could say that my less than fortunate upbringing made my rise to blog fame (or infamy, if you prefer) all the more unlikely. Many forces were working against me…

First there was the tragedy that befell me at the hospital on the day my mother gave birth to me. I was mistaken for a girl by the pediatrician (more on my genitalia problems later) and dressed in pink on my first day of life. This was the beginning of my life-long gender confusion, which continues to this day (should I wear the spike-heeled pumps or my spiffy wingtips today?)

Then there was the extreme destitution we suffered as a family. We were so poor that we couldn't afford books, so the 'bedtime stories' my mother read to us were typically off of toothpaste tubes, cereal boxes, junk mail, and even from banana peel labels (consequently, I mastered the word "Dole" at a very young age).

And there was also the tragic farm accident as a teen. A cyclonic ride in a hay baler ended with the partial loss of my left thumb. This now causes me to misstheSpacekeymanytimesandcreatesmuchdifficulty in myeverydayblog writing.

Despite these setbacks, I found my way to the internet in 2003; years behind my peers, but ready to learn the tricks of the trade, and to do whatever it took to make it to the big time. When I ultimately got to Bloggywood, what I found there was a great many impediments to success. It started to look like the only way to get to the top would be to "sleep" my way there ! And so began a sordid period of life when I blogged exclusively of the slut variety. Typical lurid language of that time included "if you give me kudos I will give you a good time ;)" and "comment me, bitches!"

But in the end, after some learning and maturing, I discovered that there was another way. I found that the application of high moral and intellectual standards in a daily blog would not only attract many readers, but readers of the highest caliber. Over time, a strong society of "TeeJayers" was built, and comments and kudos became the rule rather than the exception. Invitations to speak at blog conferences began streaming into my Inbox on a regular basis, and in time, my Display Name became branded. There is even talk now of a virtual theme park - TeeJay World. The thought of it makes my family beam with pride, and I have nobody but all of you to thank for this.

And so goes my story. But know that this is not the end – it is still, just the beginning…

So tonight, as I stand before you all, I consider myself [self] [self] [self], the luckiest man [man] [man] [man] on the face of the web [web] [web] [web]. If not for the aegis of the Blog Academy and the support of all of you, the readers, I might be just an ordinary Tom, living in an ordinary world of ordinary blogs.

And where would we all be without Myspace? The HORROR!

Thank you all…