Category: reflections

Anatomy of a Scene – ‘How you been, ya know, besides work?’ (True Detective)

“However, they both are excellent detectives, dedicated to solving crimes, and are each other’s yin and yang by keeping the other one honest.”

True Detective, Season 1 on HBO aired over ten years ago but it’s still regarded as one of the best TV drama seasons of all time. Part of its lore lies in its storyline and direction, but a lot of credit also should go to the lead actors, Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson. The two actors who play Rustin ‘Rust’ Cohle and Martin ‘Marty Hart’ respectively do an excellent job of showing these actors at different periods in their lives and careers as detectives with the Louisiana State Police. Both men appear to be opposites at the start and the friction(s) that they have intensify over the year. However, they both are excellent detectives, dedicated to solving crimes, and are each other’s yin and yang by keeping the other one honest.

Few shows since that season of True Detective or the seasons of the popular anthology series since the 1st season with Rust and Marty have achieved the same level of on-screen chemistry and presence. It helps that off-screen both actors are close friends and have known each other for decades. They’ve been quoted as almost being like ‘brothers’ sharing the same sense of humor, profession, and having different hobbies in common. While True Detective with Marty and Rust happened over ten years ago, there are rumors swirling around that both characters could come back in the future for another story by showrunner Nic Pizzolatto.

One scene on the show that really sums up their rocky relationship and occurs later in their troubled careers. Not only do they have unfinished business with each other in terms of reconnecting and perhaps getting over their troubled past but also to attend to possibly solving a murder mystery central to the season’s plot. At this point in the season, they are older, not on the force anymore as detectives, and life has both affected them in different ways including estranging them from their former family and friends.

Marty Hart, for example, is balding, lives alone after separating from his now ex-wife, and doesn’t have sole custody of his daughters anymore. He doesn’t cook much (it’s implied), likes to fish for a hobby, has trouble finding purpose in his current job, and has resorted to online dating (unsuccessfully so far) even though he insists it’s ‘casual’, but likely wants to have a new relationship via Match.com. Rust Cohle, has grown his hair and beard out, looks a bit older due to his smoking and drinking habit, owns a bar in rural Louisiana, is isolated but does seem to enjoy the quiet of living by himself and spending time watching the sunset each night while drinking a beer.

You can tell by the montage of this scene in the show that as the years gone by, they’ve lost connection not only to their purpose and to each other, but also to what made truly worth living. They may have other jobs and maybe some other things keeping them going, but they miss the work they did, the past relationships they squandered, and even each other begrudgingly.

While the montage showing them settling into middle age monotony may be unsettling, the short scene does give them a chance to reconnect again, get to know each other on a personal level outside of detective work, and work together to find a purpose again. In this case, there’s a murder mystery to solve and they cannot do it by themselves. Since they both are single, one divorced and the other non-committal to it, seemingly estranged from their current work and lacking purpose, they need each other ten years later more than they could ever know.

Life can get lonely without friends or family but especially if there’s no one around to help you find your purpose. I think that’s why this scene is so key within the show is that it shows Marty and Rust may feel like they’re alone, but they do have each other despite their past differences. Sometimes, you must go through some solitary times in life to find out what you really want to do or who you really want to spend your time with. Rust knows he is alone as the scene makes clear, but he has made peace with the loneliness even if he might wish for a girlfriend or a friend to drop by the bar after it closes. Marty had a marriage and a good relationship with his children but unfortunately, he was not able to balance it with his work life and his infidelity.

The scene’s montage shows the years have been a bit hard on Marty as he tries to rekindle what he once had but being unsuccessful at doing so. The montage shows you just how precious our situation can be with work, with love, and with family, and that you can’t go back and change the past. As much as you might wish to catch lightning in the bottle twice as is the case with Marty in terms of finding love or companionship, sometimes, those second chances never come around. The fact that they each have each other in their lives again, even with their storied pasts, is a good thing and shows that they still have an innate purpose regarding their work as detectives and that they are better off working together than being apart. In time, they will get back their skillset, work to solve the case, and even become friends again, which can help put their loneliness at bay.

While this scene of them living isolated lives may be looked on as depressing, I think it is a realistic look at how life can get as you get older. You may have to deal with periods of loneliness or getting swept up in a routine that grows stale. However, it’s important to remember for all of us watching is that life throws us curveballs sometimes and you never know who will appear in your life again or what kind of purpose and worth you can find in the most unlikely of places. For Marty, it was seeing Rust’s trust again on the road after ten years as they drove on the same road, and there was more to their story together, and they think they were both happy to find each other again and work towards getting their sense of purpose back together.

Anatomy of a Scene – ‘Family, Jimmy, Family’ (The Wire)

“This scene that I’ve titled, ‘Family, Jimmy, Family’ feels like it’s not just about the character, Jimmy McNulty, one of the leading roles of the show and a deeply flawed one at that but also could reflect on our own lives and who we prioritize in them.”

Sometimes, it takes a great work of fictional television to cause the viewer to do some soul searching themselves. ‘The Wire’ is not only an excellent crime drama and takes a critical lens to different facets of American society, but there are also multiple scenes that stand out for how they deliver truths to each of their characters for what they themselves are ignorant of or choose to forget. One of those scenes is short but whose succinctness of its message and point-blank delivery is something that you could do a deep analysis of. This scene that I’ve titled, ‘Family, Jimmy, Family’ feels like it’s not just about the character, Jimmy McNulty, one of the leading roles of the show and a deeply flawed one at that but also could reflect on our own lives and who we prioritize in them.

For a little bit of background before diving into the scene itself, which takes place in ‘The Wire’ Season 5, Jimmy McNulty is an obsessive workaholic and a functional alcoholic. His thirst for booze rivals his own thirst for self-satisfaction in being able to solve murders as a detective in the Baltimore Police Department. While he does crave justice, he craves adulation, admiration, and boosting his ego too because of his natural talents with regards to being a lead detective. However, without getting into too many details, the stress of the job, the clashes with his bosses, and the long hours cause him to drink heavily, carouse with random women, and cause him to lose control of his relationship with both his ex-wife and his children.

Jimmy loves being a detective, the purpose that comes with the badge, and the colleagues who he handles cases with. It’s also about the camaraderie that he finds in the work, the all-consuming nature of the work, and by outsmarting criminals and thugs who think they have successfully outwitted him and the police. The thing with letting work consume you is that it takes over your life and suffocates the rest of your identity with it. Jimmy is a great detective but throughout the show, the job takes a toll on his personal life and about separating work from his time out of work. When you have nothing but the job and the people in it, is it really a good life?

The scene I refer to titled, ‘Family, Jimmy, Family’ is instrumental in telling Jimmy McNulty what he needs to hear and what other workaholics need to hear: “The job won’t save you.” It takes five seasons but Beadie Russell, a Baltimore Port Authority police officer, introduced in season two, but for which her and Jimmy start to become romantically involved does what no one else in the show has the courage to do, tell Jimmy that the job isn’t everything.

“In the end, they’re not going to be there either.” Beadie sums it up in less than a minute with this scene but reminds Jimmy that the drinking pals at the bar, the workmates who he shares a patrol car with and shares stories, or even the girls he’s met for quick flings, they won’t be there when he really needs it. Yes, you can have fun, enjoy their company, and make the most of the work hours, but those people won’t be there for you when it comes to your health, wellness, and your overall fulfillment as a person. Beadie indicates to Jimmy that his workaholic behavior and his propensity for alcohol won’t save him and won’t give him the internal satisfaction he is always looking for.

“Family, that’s it. Family, and if you’re lucky, one or two friends who are the same as family. That’s all the best of us get. Everything else just…” Beadie pauses at the end of this scene and lets it all sink in for Jimmy. She knows she has reached him and lets him know that at your funeral or in your last days, you won’t have the girls you dated, the workmates or bosses, or the casual bar buddies you swap stories with there. If you’re lucky, you may have close family to care for you and maybe one or two close friends and that’s the truth of this scene not just for Jimmy McNulty of ‘The Wire’ but for all of us.

Beadie makes it clear that everything else goes away at some point once the job is done, the glasses are empty, and everybody goes their separate ways. Nothing is permanent but maybe your family will be there for you through most of it, thick and thin of life, if you’re lucky and until your dying day if you are truly blessed in that regard. Jimmy knows by the end of the scene that he needs to shift his priorities based on his body language.

He does not say anything back to Beadie, but he knows what she is saying as his new girlfriend is 100% true. It’s been a while since anyone has laid it out to him that clearly, but she gets through to him by telling him the unvarnished truth that he has refused to face up until that point. Like Beadie, we all need someone to cut through the nonsense and tell us what we really need to hear and if you watch this scene from ‘The Wire’, it’s not just Jimmy who this scene can reflect upon but maybe for our own lives too.

We all want to have productive work lives, make friends, and enjoy the fruits of our labor, but we must remember that it all does go away, and that family can be the most important and reliable thing we have throughout our lives if we’re lucky. Workmates, casual buddies and flings, and even friends come and go, but family can sustain us if we nurture those relationships and don’t let them atrophy and go away too.

Beadie reminds Jimmy to not let the work and the environment around his work consume him entirely. She saves him from himself to some degree but telling him what he needs to hear before he spirals out of control as a functioning alcoholic and workaholic. I think we all need a Beadie Russell in our lives to tell us what we need to hear rather than what we want to hear so that we can get that needed support to help reassess our priorities in life and change ourselves for the better.

Treating Every Day as a Gift

“While it does no good to dwell endlessly on our own mortality and ponder how long we get to have our existence on this planet, we should take heed each day when we wake up in the morning and when we lie down at night just how special it is to be alive and breathing.”

Recent events in my life have reminded me just how fragile and precious life itself is to me. As you get older and the years start to speed up rather than slow down, you start to realize more and more just how fast time flies and how fleeting life can be. While it can be easy to get bogged down in the day-to-day routines and the busyness of what we have in our own schedules, there’s no denying that we only have so long to live, and we should remember that we are not going to be around forever. It does no good to dwell endlessly on our own mortality and ponder how long we get to have our existence on this planet. We should take heed each day when we wake up in the morning and when we lie down at night just how special it is to be alive and breathing.

Our mere existence at miraculous odds through multiple generations of ancestors who came before us is a clear reminder how miraculous it is to have the gift of life. It can be easy to lose perspective on how the state of being alive rather than the opposite is so special, unique, and wonderful that we can take it for granted. Even when life inevitably throws its challenges, obstacles, and setbacks at you, it is important to slow down, take a deep breath, and remember that this too shall pass, and that having life is always worth the struggles and suffering involved.

I believe that instead of getting caught up in going through the motions, checking all the boxes, and waiting for the next day to begin, try to take a minute or even a few minutes to reflect on the fact that you are in the here and now, reading this article, being able to breathe, eat, drink, and be part of humanity as so many who have come before you. Life is a miracle when you really think about it, and you only have one life to live. Make peace with the fact that life is not forever, our bodies are mortal, and what we should not let trivialities, gossip, and regrets swallow us up as we live and breathe.

Remember to make peace and share love with those closest to you because they such as yourself are mortal too and will not be around forever. Try not to hold grudges, feed off your resentments, dwell endlessly on what’s past in your life. You should try as much as you can to be present in the moment, appreciate what blessings life has given you, and enjoy the beauty and wonder of what living in this world means. We all know that life isn’t perfect and that many days in our lives are a struggle where we might be treading water unsure of where we’re headed, what the meaning of it all is, and how can live a life that others will remember.

Try not to dwell on those questions endlessly but rather strive to be the best person you can be. If you’re a brother, be a better brother. If you’re a mother or a father, be a better parent to your child or children. If you’ve done wrong, atone for what you did and seek forgiveness from others. You can never truly right past wrongs, but you can strive to be better in your life from there on out. Be willing to tell your family and your friends that you care and love them if they have been there for you as much as you have been there for them. Life is precious and fleeting not only for us as the narrative of our own journey through this world but also for those others we love and cherish who we share our precious life with.

Treating every day as a gift even when life is hard will make you more appreciative, grateful, and reflective on what truly matters during our existence. We do not know when our time will come to say goodbye to this world so you should always strive to live true to who you are and to leave this world better than you found it. I encourage you to take a moment or two before you get out of bed or fall asleep to reflect on what life you have led so far.

If you are content with your life and have made the most of it, you are on your way to building a fulfilling canvas that will be bright, colorful, and detailed. If you are not content with how life has gone, think about what joys you’ve had so far, how life could be more fulfilling, and what you can do to improve upon it as it is never too late to make our one life the best it can be. Do not get discouraged by mortality and that our existence may be finite.

Take comfort in knowing that your life, however small it may seem in the grand scheme of our universe, influenced those around you and that the world was changed by your place in it. You may not be remembered a thousand years from now after you’re gone, but you will always know deep down inside what kind of life you led while you were here, in its good and bad times, joys and sorrows, its pleasures and pains. Hopefully, you may be able to rest in eternal peace knowing that the life you had lived, regardless of its days, months, years, or even a century or more, it was worth the gift of life itself.  

Thoughts on ‘Roadrunner’

“If there’s any word in the English language that would sum up the life of Anthony Bourdain, a ‘Roadrunner’ would be quite fitting to remember the man by.”

If there’s any word in the English language that would sum up the life of Anthony Bourdain, a ‘Roadrunner’ would be quite fitting to remember the man by. He was also a husband, father, friend, chef, writer, television host, and a cultural ambassador who made the world his oyster after many years as a cook in hot, windowless, stressful New York City kitchens. For some people, travel is a birthright that they have from a young age but for Anthony Bourdain, it was an unexpected gift at middle age after writing the excellent ‘Kitchen Confidential’ book highlighting his years in the underbelly of those same kitchens, which became a New York Times bestseller, and helped lead him into fame, stardom, and notoriety.

Bourdain’s life would never be the same as he was offered other book deals, his first television contract for the show, ‘A Cook’s Tour’, and started to be recognized around the world from Tokyo to Los Angeles. While his life as a newly minted TV host traveling worldwide, tasting different cuisines, meeting different peoples, he opened the world to those of us who only knew what they had read, learned about in school, or heard from others. Those of us who watched his shows learned about the world through the medium of television, but it was Anthony’s narration, his willingness to listen and empathize with whom he shared a meal that made him stand out from others in the travel show business. Bourdain never sugarcoated things and didn’t mince words about what he saw in his travels especially as the focus became less on food and more on culture, politics, and the trajectory of humanity itself. All this time though, watching his shows and reading his books, we knew more about the man’s reflections on the world and then how the world reflected on him.

The shock of his loss still hurts those who were fans of his works over three years later, I included, among the millions of people who were touched by his words, his spirit, and his lust for life. It is hard even now to reconcile the fact that the man who appeared to have had it all still suffered and that there was no outreach, gesture, or love shown that could have prevented his tragic suicide. Feelings of anger, disbelief, regret, and sadness come to mind when you think of how anyone, especially Anthony Bourdain, could decide to let go of life itself especially when it had enveloped him in such a warm embrace especially after his 2nd life of fame, success, and travel had gone on for almost two decades.

What ‘Roadrunner’, the film documentary on Anthony Bourdain’s life tries to answer is not the ‘why?’ of his death but the ‘how?’ of his illustrious life and how it changed, evolved, shifted, swinged on its ups and downs, which the documentary is successful at achieving. Rather than the director, Morgan Neville, attempt to get all of the answers on an unknowable concept such as what makes a person decide to take their own life, which left his friends, family, and fans devastated and unable to make sense of it either, the ‘Roadrunner’ documentary looks at how his life was, which people changed Anthony for better or worse, how he changed as a person, and how did travel affect him over almost 18 years. As a fan of Anthony’s written and television work, you learn a lot about the world through him, but I never got a full sense of who the man was as a person and I’m sure others can relate to this feeling.

Although he gave his all in his craft and in his vision, he rarely liked to be the center of attention in any room and was a shy, slightly self-deprecating, yet also a kind and generous man that would give more to others than would receive himself in return, and who never seemed fully quite comfortable with the fame, success, and notoriety his works produced. Those who remember him in the documentary talk about how he would always reach out to them to see how they are doing and to be a real people-pleaser but not ask for much in return or would find it difficult to confide in others with problems that may have been affecting him, personal or otherwise. While the film does a great job of capturing what it was like for Bourdain as he went from a line cook to a chef to an author to a television host to a cultural icon, we don’t really get to see much about his personal life beyond bits and snippets of details.

The viewer knows Bourdain came from a stable childhood, summers spent in France, loving parents, and a younger brother who he got along with well. However, you can sense from the documentary that he never grasped what most people would want from a ‘normal life.’ Bourdain was a creative soul who was curious by nature, inquisitive, had a taste for linguistics, and had a big imagination given his literary and musical tastes. He was not a man as Mark Twain would rail against as “vegetating in one corner of the planet” for their whole lives. Once he had the opportunity to do so financially and professionally, he seized it and took full advantage of the gifts that he had been given from a young age.

What was missing from the documentary sadly is Bourdain’s own reflections beyond his travels and perhaps the family he built from scratch. We do not hear much about what his childhood was like, how he got introduced to drugs such as heroin, how did he succumb to his addiction to it, and what how his two marriages and past girlfriends affected his outlook on love and life. During the documentary, we are perhaps best informed about who Anthony was as a cook, as a traveler, as a friend, who he was as a father, but it is hard to know who we were behind closed doors when the cameras were not rolling.

There are some aspects of his personality that you can glean from the documentary such as his addictive habits whether it would be using heroin, drinking alcohol, smoking cigarettes, learning Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, or wanting to hold on to his relationships even perhaps their natural end date. For better or worse, as the film portrays, Bourdain loved experiencing novelty and new things which led him to his legendary status as a globetrotter, but it also could backfire in terms of giving too much of himself to people without getting as much in return. It seemed from ‘Roadrunner’ that Bourdain would seek to please others before pleasing himself and that could have led to some deeper dissatisfaction with life. It can be hard to feel as if you’re giving more than receiving and I do believe that does play a role in depression.

You can also infer from ‘Roadrunner’ that Anthony’s romantic views on life, on love and on travel did not always meet reality. He could be very demanding in his professional career and rude or dismissive of his long-time camera crew and production team. It’s shown that he could make rash decisions about hiring and firing of personnel as well as set very high expectations for his television show, which could not always be met by those who worked with him. It’s also true that in his last romantic relationship with Ms. Argento, he would let his personal desires to please her or work with a famous director like Mr. Feng that led to him putting his crew’s creative input on the back burner. When he expressed his desire to quit traveling a few years before his death, his production team encouraged him to do it if he felt it was time to do so and they wouldn’t stop him, but it was as if Bourdain needed someone to validate his decisions to go through with them.

‘Roadrunner’ succeeds in telling the story of one of our young century’s great explorers and cultural ambassadors. In 2021, there are still some gaps in our knowledge of who Anthony Bourdain was and how he felt about his life. Sadly, we will never know the full story because of his tragic death by suicide and we can only infer on how such a bright life could be extinguished too soon when he had so much more to give to the world, to his family, and to his friends. Unfortunately, not all men make it to a ripe old age to be surrounded by those who matter most to them.

Names like Hemingway, London, and now Bourdain died at middle-aged by in their lives accomplished or saw or did as much as five men combined who lived longer than them. It is not the years in your life that matter but the life in your years and Anthony Bourdain made the most of his life as few could or will do again. Even more than three years after his death, he is sorely missed, and the world is not as well off without him and his impact. From the Congo to Iran to Antarctica to Libya, he was not afraid or reticent of sharing a meal with those who were different than him even when he had nothing personally in common with them.

I hope that the ‘Roadrunner’ documentary becomes part of Anthony Bourdain’s legacy and inspires both young and old people to see the world as it is and to hopefully mold it little by little through travels and meals to change the world bit by bit into the world that we would like it to be. That would be a fine way to honor his legacy and to make the world a little less unknown.

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If you or someone you know is having suicidal thoughts, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255 or contact the Crisis Text Line by texting HOME to 741741.

The Art of an Apology

“One thing I have noticed recently is that some people have a hard time giving a simple apology when they mess up, are rude to others, or don’t have the emotional intelligence to realize when they were in the wrong about something. Now, this is not a good habit to develop as an adult and one that makes you appear to be childish more so than any other negative trait that you could display.”

One thing I have noticed recently is that some people have a hard time giving a simple apology when they mess up, are rude to others, or don’t have the emotional intelligence to realize when they were in the wrong about something. Now, this is not a good habit to develop as an adult and one that makes you appear to be childish more so than any other negative trait that you could display. Learning how to apologize is done when we are children and our parents tell us to always ‘say sorry’ and to learn to be nice to others.

‘Sorry’ is one of the golden words we learn are key to our day-to-day lives. It doesn’t take much to do and will cost you nothing. The fact that many adults don’t know how to do this today in our society is a worrisome sign of how personal relations have decayed compared to previous times. Some people choose to dance around the offense and not acknowledge it while others refuse to take responsibility for their actions which leads to the person who was offended feeling aggrieved and holding a grudge against that person for longer than they should need to.

The old adage of ‘you forgive but you don’t forget’ is not a pretty one but if there is no apology from that person who committed the offense, the other person may learn to forgive them but they will not forget that there was no apology rendered from the other person. I do not endorse holding a long-lasting grudge against other people but being rude, saying bad things about others, and overall not being a respectful person will cause you to lose many different relationships with others. Most adults do not know want to associate with somebody who refuses to apologize or does not take responsibility for their actions.

I believe that with social media and how often we do not see the other person’s face and their body language that we feel comfortable getting away with rude behavior and it has led to that kind of behavior spilling over into real life interactions. A lack of an apology can be due to a person’s own narcissistic nature and to think that the rules like the ‘golden rule’ don’t apply to them and that they can ever do no wrong including causing harm or offense to other people.

The sign of a true mature adult is one who apologize and does so in a sincere manner. It is a heartfelt apology and is usually more than just a simple ‘sorry’ and then move on. If someone cannot even say ‘sorry’ or realize the hurt that they have caused, then they still have a lot of growing up to do and act more like a child or a teenager in an adult’s body than an adult themselves. The sad thing to see in society is when a 45 year old acts like a 15 year old or when a 75 year old acts like a 5 year old, which is often as the result of them not registering other people’s emotions or feelings, and thinking reflectively about their behavior, their tone of voice, and how their language was inappropriate.

The art of an apology is not as simple as it can be made out to be with just a quick ‘sorry’. Often in life, a simple ‘sorry’ does not cut it. I think it’s better to follow these steps to having a legitimate and heartfelt apology that will make the other person feel better and try to restart the relationship or improve it rather than letting it fester and causing the other person to dwell on your insult.

1. Acknowledge You Were Wrong

The first step for any good apology is to acknowledge to someone face-to-face if you can or over phone or email if you can’t see that person that you were wrong. Whether it was something you said or something you did or that you hurt their feelings, acknowledge the thing that caused the original offense, state how it wasn’t right for you to do that, and apologize in that way beyond a quick ‘sorry’. It’s as direct as “I was wrong to…”, “It was not right for me to…”, “You deserve an apology for…”

2. Remember the Incident and What You Took from It

When you acknowledge what you did and that it was wrong, it makes the other person feel like you remembered that it was not the right thing for them to do and that pain was caused. It also means remembering that certain feelings were hurt and that the other person realizes they could have done things different / not said anything at all / or watched what they have said better. Saying ‘sorry’ or apologizing without saying what the ‘sorry’ is for is not a good way to do an apology because you have to be specific regarding what the apology is for and what you did wrong if you caused offense.

3. Be Sincere and Don’t Rush It

How you say an apology is often more important than what you say in the apology. If you are rushing through it, only saying a one-word apology, and not even looking at the person or acknowledging their presence while saying it, then that is not a real apology. A real apology must be congruent with your body language and your eye contact and your tone of voice all on the same page together. You should give that person your full attention and not be checking your phone, reading your email, or have your attention generally elsewhere while doing the apology.

Also, not rushing it means it’s going to take more than a five second ‘sorry’ and move on, if you follow the previous two steps, a good apology will take as long as it needs to which could be anywhere from a minute to ten minutes depending upon what the other person has to say. Depending on the severity of the negative action, you want to give that person a chance to respond, to accept your apology, and to decide how your relationship with them is going to move forward. You cannot force an apology to move forward without the other person agreeing to it so make sure you are patient, forthcoming, and open to listening to what they have to say to you.

4. Be Open to a Change in the Relationship

Even with an apology, sometimes, that person is going to want to take a break from seeing you, hanging out with you, or being around. It can be hard to bring that relationship back to what it was when harsh words are exchanged or when negative actions happened between two people to cause the strife. You have to understand and accept what the other person does because they may not want to trust you again as much or recognize that you aren’t the person who they thought you were.

This may be a hard pill to swallow but you are likely going to have to spend some time away from that person, let them forgive you on their own timetable, and they will set the terms on if they see you again or not. It is possible they may never fully get over what you did and not want to be around you again at all. This is a harsh truth to face for most people but the least you can do is apologize and try to move on.

If that person chooses to accept your apology but not go out of their way to see you again then that is their right to do so and it is up to them how they want to conduct their interactions with you moving forward. As adults, people want to spend time with those people who treat them well, respect them, and are emotionally mature. If you can’t do that, it’s going to be tough to have friends or to be around other family members.

I write this article because too often today I have seen other adults refuse to apologize for being in the wrong and this can cascade throughout the rest of our society. There is a fundamental lack of accountability and also responsibility that starts with a failure to apologize sincerely. It takes real wisdom and maturity to apologize to someone, but it is necessary since we are all flawed and make mistakes.

A true adult owns up to these mistakes they made, apologizes for them to seek forgiveness, and accepts what the other person does in response without any future expectations on how the relationship can move forward. It begins with saying ‘you’re sorry’ but it does not end there and a good apology is more than saying ‘sorry.’ It means acknowledging what you did was wrong, being sincere about it, listening to the other person, and being open to a change in the relationship based on how they want to move forward with you in the future. That is the true art of an apology and one that I hope you will follow in your own life.

‘Everything In Its Right Place’ (A Video Retrospective)

It’s hard to really love most music videos today which tend to be shallow and lacking in any original thought. During past decades leading up to the 2000’s, it seems like actual effort and work was put into music videos of songs in order to get on MTV but also to highlight the themes of the song as well as the entire album. There are a number of my favorite artists who produce great music videos including Radiohead, The Smashing Pumpkins, U2, Oasis, Dave Matthews Band, etc.

However, MTV and official music videos are not what they used to be. In an age of instant gratification and live concerts being streamed of the songs you love, it’s hard to appreciate music videos as being part of an increasingly crowded creative marketplace. While official music videos may be dying, creative videos and covers of songs from our favorite artists seem to be on the rise. Considering that music videos are usually for hit singles of certain songs and not for entire albums, there has started to be a movement towards producing independent music videos for songs that never received the official ‘music video’ song treatment.

The rise of YouTube and other video platforms has allowed creative people who are fans of good music to produce their own music videos. While they started out as being kind of cliché or very amateur, they are now becoming very professional and also very related to the lyrics of the song in question. I saw a particular music video of a favorite song of mine featured on YouTube a couple of weeks ago. The song is ‘Everything in Its Right Place’ by Radiohead and it is an excellent song by my favorite band but the one thing that this song never had was its own brilliant music video to go with it.

Because of YouTube, the creative skills of a fan named ‘Capitao Ahab’, which is a pretty fun name in its own right, although I believe the original video creator’s name is Joschka Laukeninks who created it and titled it ‘BACKSTORY.’ It is a now an unofficial music video on the popular video platform that is really well done and professionally shot that has received almost two million views. A video like this would not have existed ten years ago but luckily it does. Part of the reason why this music video is so impactful is that it works so well with the content of this particular Radiohead song.

‘Everything in Its Right Place’ like many of Radiohead’s songs are open to interpretation but it is soothing with its use of synthesizers, digitally manipulated voices, and haunting electronic sounds that sound comforting when you have your headphones on at full blast. The lyric itself of ‘Everything in Its Right Place’ focuses on how to maintain your composure and your levelheadedness as you go through life. The fan music video’s storyline of a baby becoming a boy, a man, and then an elderly man highlights the ups and downs of life and how there are ‘two colors in my head.’

The ‘two colors’ could be interpreted as the good and the bad that you will go through as you go through life’s uncertain and mysterious waters. In particular, the song begins with the oft-repeated lyric of ‘Kid A’, the title of Radiohead’s 2000 album and expresses the experiences of a ‘boy’ as he is born, grows up, matures, and eventually dies. “Yesterday, I woke up sucking on a lemon.” Is also a lyric up to the fan’s interpretation but it implies that life can be sour as well as sweet and that you will have to taste and swallow the bitterness of life if you want to enjoy the sweet part of the fruit.

The music video begins on a hopeful note as a baby boy gains his first steps as he walks through his parents’ house. The sweetness of his childhood is referenced with meeting animals for the first time, having his 6th birthday, going to the beach, and experiencing pure joy at that age. Childhood innocence does not last forever so the boy ends up experiencing his first pains in life including the accidental burning down of his house, fights between his mother and his father, the divorce and exit of his mother from his life, pressures from his father to succeed as he ages into being a teenager.

Learning in school, riding his bicycle, summer days at the swimming pool are some of the joys of teenage life including his first experiences with girls as well with drugs and late nights with friends. Still though, the joys of discovery and youth are balanced out by his struggles with partying too much, getting into rights, being angry at the world and dealing with bad breakups. In one part of the video, the teenager emerges from the pool as a young man ready to take on the world in his 20’s. He thinks his partying days and life as a Bachelor will last forever until he stares at the woman of his dreams on New Year’s Eve and she stares back signaling a new relationship that will change his life.

They date, travel, live together, and the young man eventually proposes to the woman of his dreams. As the video speeds up, so does the aging and life of the man as he gets married, celebrates the birth of his child, and gets ready for middle-aged challenges and prospects. Moving into a house as newlyweds, getting a better job, moving up the corporate ladder, using his new car, traveling for work, going to important meetings, and shuffling along while growing a beard signifies how fast life speeds up the older you become. Sometimes, you’re running so fast that you can’t keep track of who or what you are. In the video, the man still remembers the little blissful moments of carrying his child with his beloved wife, family dinners, and trying to balance work and family until tragedy suddenly strikes.

The hardest part of life is unforeseen tragedies and we hope and pray to never experience any to happen, but this man has the tragic occurrence of seeing his wife and child running towards him across the street only to be hit by a bus and to be taken off life support. The song’s crescendo builds up as the man struggles through grief, longing, and how to move on when he knows he can’t but has to anyway. After the tragedy, what once was promising is now dull and at once he was fast to move through the world, he staggers slowly through it wondering what it is all worth and why keep going? How can one fill the void in their own heart when it was taken out of them and cannot be put back?

We see the man continue with his work, entertaining clients, meeting a new woman and getting married again but there is the lingering sense that it is not what he envisioned his life to be. He can have a child with her, but it won’t be the same as his first true love or bring back his first child. Trying to fill the void with an extramarital affair, fighting with his new wife, jogging and running to keep moving forward to futilely escape from one’s own pre-destined aging are all ways of coping both unhealthily and healthily as you go through middle age to becoming elderly in your later life.

Maybe if he stops running or walking or jogging, he will have to face his own eventual demise and departure from this world or face his memories of losing loved ones or losing his mother. The aged man with gray hairs continues to work, to exercise, to keep up his health by going to the doctor and trying to save his marriage. Some of these battles he will win, and some he will lose although we will never know from such a short video. Eventually, the man is elderly and looking back on his life from his bed and looks to be alone in the world.

However, he does not remember the tragedies that befell him as we all must endure in life sometimes. Instead, he remembers the first time he went to dance at a club, the way he looked at his firstborn child, hugging his beloved first wife, and how she stared at him lovingly on New Year’s Eve and how she stared at him at their wedding and when she gave birth to their child. He remembers the tragedy too but remembers those special moments that made his life truly worth living. You are left wondering after watching this four-minute video of a complicated, yet powerful life filled with tragedy and joy whether it was all worth it for the man. Would he do it again if he knew what was to happen in the future?

If we all knew what was to happen in the future until the end of our days, would we all do it again from the beginning? Would it be worth it even if there is pain, tragedy, and death? Would it be worth the love, joy, and pleasure that we experience as human beings as well? It really is out of our control, but this music video does an excellent job of pondering life’s deepest questions in only four minutes and only with the wistful yet dreamy lyrics of Thom Yorke from Radiohead creating a powerful combination of a great song and a great video. It may not be an original music video from Radiohead but whoever created it did a great job of getting a powerful message across to this 2-million strong audience on life, love, and loss.

If you would like to watch the music video on ‘Everything In Its Right Place’, you can find it here on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GnfPaaMR6Qc

‘BACKSTORY’ Full Video on Vimeo: https://vimeo.com/245687147

The Passage of Time

One of the consistencies of life that never changes is how much time there is in a day. You have 24 hours in a day to do everything that you need to do. You can also keep in mind the fact that there are seven days in a week, 52 weeks in a year. Any human being on the planet doesn’t know how much time they will be given because none of us are guaranteed tomorrow. You may be thinking that you’ll live to be 100 years old and get to accomplish everything you set out to do but life tends to get in the way of our preconceived plans.

All you really have when it comes to time is the here and now of living in the present. While it’s the law of science that we have 24 hours in a day here on planet Earth, as humans we’re really down to 16 hours a day or even less if you’re a deep sleeper. Then, you have to take into account that time you’ll need to put away for eating, drinking, commuting and working to make money, which are more necessities of life than things that we enjoy doing every day.

Based on how finite time really is in our lives, it becomes more impactful the older you get. A common theme that you hear from people especially in the 30’s and beyond is how fast time seems to fly by. I’m starting to think about that more and more as I head into my later 20’s about how the days, weeks, months and years are starting to go by quicker than I would like. It could be argued that after you enter your 20’s or after you leave college, time starts to pick up and you become more sensitive to its quickening pace. When I was in childhood, time felt like a limitless ocean and that my life would last forever. However, when you become a fully- grown adult, you realize just how naïve that childhood belief is. It also plays into the fact that we have much less responsibilities when we’re younger and have a lot more time to play, learn, and socially develop ourselves.

With adulthood, your conception of time does a complete 180 as you now have a lot of responsibilities based around earning a living, taking care of yourself, and maintaining your personal interests. You have much less time for play and a lot more time devoted to work. Because of the limited amount of time that we have in a day, you start to think more about what you should spend on it. Everybody is going to have different priorities with their time but the older you get, the more you realize that you want to spend it well because time is precious and fleeting.

A direct consequence of time passing is that you start to value certain things more and other things less. You have to be able to choose about who is worth your time and who is not worth your time. That’s a harsh truth but you cannot make time for everyone so you have to figure out who you are compatible with or what kind of activity or vocation is worth your effort. For example, I used to love playing video games when I was younger but as I got older, I realized there were other activities and hobbies that I was more interested in and would be worth more of my time. That’s why I’m writing this article for my audience instead of playing Grand Theft Auto V all night long (even though that’s a great game). Similar to one’s interests and hobbies, the way you use your time in your life is inevitably going to change.

Prioritizing who or what matters to you is a crucial part of being an adult and is also necessary for good time management. You may not see your parents as often as when you were a child so you’ll make the trip to visit them every Thanksgiving and/or Christmas even though you hate dealing with airport security and bad traffic. That’s why you’ll plan activities with friends a few weeks in advance because you don’t see them as often as you’d like because you’ve been busy working on a new business idea.

Because our time becomes more limited as we get older, you have to plan in advance and think deeply about what is worth your time. While time is limited, it’s always a good idea to try new things and be consistent about it. If you’re going to the gym in your spare time, make it a habit and even go a couple of times a week. When you’re not working, do those things that make you happy or that challenge you in some way. Spend time with those people who matter to you most and who treat you well.

You don’t have to plan your time down to the minute and it’s good to be spontaneous every now and then such as taking an impromptu vacation. However, you don’t want to spend time doing things you dislike or pass the time with people who you don’t like. In order to live a happier and healthier life, you’ll need to cut out the bad and keep the good. Doing work that is meaningful, enjoying activities with good friends, learning new things are all productive ways to spend your time. Also, you should try your best to balance your life out so that work isn’t taking up too much of your time where you don’t have enough time to pursue other interests.

Whatever you decide to do with your time, remember that it does not discriminate among people. It’s the same for everybody in the world. From when you wake up to when you go to sleep, that time is yours and yours alone. You alone have to make the choice of what to do with the time that is given to you. While there are obligations and commitments that we all have to fulfill, you have the power to use your time as you see fit.

You can’t get the time back so use it to the fullest and remember that it’s finite. While you shouldn’t overwhelm yourself with too many things taking up your time, remember that you shouldn’t put off possible interests, hobbies, or opportunities forever. You don’t want to wake up one day and realize you wasted too much time and didn’t get to do all of the things you wanted to do. Time is fleeting and you never know when it’s going to run out. As the Roman poet Horace once wrote in the year 23 BC, “Carpe diem”, which translates in English to mean “Seize the day.” I couldn’t agree more.

A Sense of Wonder

If you were to define the word ‘wonder’, you would characterize it as meaning a feeling of amazement or admiration caused by seeing or witnessing something beautiful, unexpected, captivating, and inexplicable. When you are a child, it’s easy to have that sense of wonder about the world. Your sense of curiosity and disbelief is quite high and your imagination can run wild believing in the possibilities of the unknown.

Even as we grow older and become adults, we still have a sense of wonder that never fully leaves us and is part of our essence as human beings. While you may not have the same sense or amount of wonder as you did when you were a child, it’s important to never fully extinguish that feeling and to let it stay within you even if you are an adult or in your elderly years.

Having a sense of wonder connects you to your childhood years and reignites the kid within you because that part of your being never truly goes away unless you let it. By maintaining that curiosity and desire to know about the world, this helps us keep our sense of wonder about life and its’ beauty. It can be easy nowadays to be jaded about the state of the world and to think that everything is going to hell in a handbasket.

While there are certainly serious problems to be fixed in our ever-changing and complicated world, being doom and gloom about it 24 / 7 won’t make you feel any better. You have to maintain the ability to never be too down or be too up about your surroundings. While there can be a lot of ugliness to be found, there is also a staggering amount of beauty to be in awe about.

I believe that it can be much easier to see things through a negative lens and seek out the ugliness in life. It’s harder yet much more rewarding to seek out the beauty and wonder that you can find if you know where to look. You also have to take the time to enjoy the beauty of things and open yourself up to the beauty of the world. While it may be cliché to state this, you have to have an open heart and an open mind. If you close yourself off to the wonders of life, you’ll never really be able to appreciate them fully.

A sense of wonder has to be cultivated over a long period of time and doesn’t happen overnight. When you are a child, you’re amazed by anything and almost everything new and unique. As you get older and you experience more of life, it can be more and more difficult to feel amazement or be captivated by life. Each person has a different sense of wonder, and different things amaze different people. When I think about wonder though, there are a few things that cause me to feel that unexpected thrill or captivation.

I think most people would agree that a sunrise or a sunset could really create awe and wonder in a person. The colors and the vibrancy of the environment when the sun lights up your world at dawn’s break or when it fades into darkness to make way for the stars and night sky; those moments can truly captivate a person’s imagination. You could also make the case that when you witness the sunrise from a mountain top or see the sun set from the backdrop of a vast ocean, witnessing those natural occurrences are too beautiful to be put into words.

Sunrises and sunsets never get old for me because they are never the same and they are always different depending upon which environment you’re witnessing them in. It only takes a few minutes to stop what you’re doing in your hectic day-to-day life to really enjoy the spectacle of the sun’s rising and setting. It’s also a reminder about how our time here on Earth is limited and that there are cosmic occurrences that happen beyond our control and our understanding.

I think this is mainly why solar eclipses are so powerful to witness in person because you’re seeing an event that is beyond human control and that only comes around once or twice in a lifetime. Those men, women, and children who traveled hundreds or thousands of miles to see the recent solar eclipse occur across the continental United States are in touch with their sense of wonder, and they believe in its’ ability to make you feel astonished, wowed, and even humbled.

Witnessing the sun’s and the moon’s movements aren’t the only ways to cause yourself to feel wonder though. There are hundreds, if not thousands of possibilities out there that will make your jaw drop in disbelief. I have always thought of photography as a good way to capture the wonders of the world, and I have taken many photos throughout my previous travels in order to really remember those special moments of life when I was on the road. Beyond just taking photos, it’s really wonderful to interact with your environment by jumping in a freezing lake, hiking up a mountain, smelling different flowers in a garden, rafting down a streaming river, etc. Those moments really make you feel alive and help to maintain a sense of wonder about the world.

You don’t have to travel, take photos, or be an adventure junkie to have a sense of wonder though. If you’re willing to challenge yourself by learning new things and bettering yourself, that will help you maintain a healthy curiosity about life and a thirst for knowledge. Whether its’ learning a new trade, developing a website, or speaking a new language, the pursuit of knowledge in different areas is a great idea and the things you will learn about yourself and the world around you will captivate and excite you. If you’re curious, confident, and willing to have an open mind, the world will teach you many things if you open yourself up to the possibilities.

Never let the flame inside you go out. As a child, you definitely did not have worry about wonder because you always had it and every day, you most likely had energy and a curiosity not easily extinguished. However, when you get older and more accustomed to the ways of the world, it can be very tempting to think of everything as mundane, childish, and routine, but that’s simply not how it should be.

However, The differences that occur when you’re a teenager or a fully-grown adult is that you have to pursue the wonder for yourself. You have to take the time and put yourself out there to figure out what really captivates you. Everybody has a unique way of seeing the world but make sure it’s not always from a serious and pessimistic point of view. Let yourself be wowed by the unknown or by the newly discovered. Pursue the passions and the beauty in life based on what fills your heart or your mind up.

For some, it may be playing Jazz music and for others, it may be hiking through the mountains. The best thing about experiencing wonder is that it is ever-present in our lives but you have to be aware of what reaches out to you and touches your soul. Most people live out their lives not fully embracing the wonders around them.

You have to be always on the lookout for what fills your heart up with joy and happiness whether it’s a watching beautiful sunset over the water, viewing an original painting by Claude Monet, or playing Beethoven in a symphony orchestra as your friends and family sit in the audience. Always be looking out for the wonders in life, otherwise, you’ll never find them at all.

The Wonder of Machu Picchu

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“The hardest yet most rewarding part of my visit: Hiking to the top of Huayna Picchu mountain.” 

There are few places in the world, which you can truly regard as being special and awe-inspiring. We describe these places as being a ‘wonder’ of humanity and one that represents our brief yet influential time on this planet. Before I came to Machu Picchu, I believed that the only other place that would classify as a ‘wonder’ to me would be the archaeological site of Petra in southern Jordan. A ‘wonder’ both of history and of architecture that goes back thousands of years is what sets apart places like Machu Picchu in Peru and Petra in Jordan. These places that touch on the cultural and historical legacy of man are what drive us to be resolute in protecting these artifacts of mankind and making sure that they are around for future generations.

I consider myself to be incredibly lucky to have visited Machu Picchu just recently a couple of days ago. For those who don’t know, Machu Picchu is quite isolated from any major modern city or town but is possible to get to by train and bus due to the wonders of modern technology. Situated between towering mountains and located alongside the flowing Urubamba river, Machu Picchu is not only a wonder of Incan architecture and construction but is also a natural marvel due to the backdrop it has with the surrounding green mountains, wispy clouds, and the numerous kinds of plants that inhabit this part of Peru.

Among the things that stand out about Machu Picchu is that you feel isolated from the rest of the world. It may be the towering mountains that surround this archaeological site or it could be the fact that wispy clouds envelop your presence but you feel very that you’re secluded from other kinds of environment. The higher you climb in elevation, the world gets much quieter and you’re able to reflect more on not only the site of Machu Picchu that lays before you but also about life or whatever is on your mind in general.

I’m far from being an expert on ancient civilizations, especially the Incan civilization of which I know relatively little about but you have to give the people of this group considerable admiration and awe by the fact that they were able to build such a city in the most remote of places. The fact that it was possible for them to create an infrastructure out of rocks, stone, and wood in order to sustain themselves under ever-changing weather conditions is quite remarkable.

To be able to plant and harvest food, create a running water supply, and be able to construct encampments to house hundreds of Incans is very impressive to consider. Not only was there a high risk of death or injury to climb these mountains with heavy rocks or stones attached to your backs, it is likely that you would be on your own if you sustained serious injuries given that there were no modern medicines or hospitals or rely upon.

It is difficult for me to list a favorite thing about my trip to Machu Picchu. I really enjoyed climbing to the top of Huayna Picchu at 2,700 meters in total altitude despite my exasperated breath and tired knees. The views from this perching point above Machu Picchu are extraordinary and are something that I will never forget. Besides being able to take a bunch of pictures, it was great to sit and reflect on the wonder that lay before me. At a couple of thousand meters in the air, all your problems dissipate for a moment and you can truly hear the sound of the wind and the movements of the clouds. You can close your eyes and hear nothing but the sound of your own thoughts if you are so lucky.

Thanks to the efforts of the Peruvian Ministry of Culture, Machu Picchu is amazingly well preserved and should be around for future generations to enjoy. A limited amount of tourists, a couple of hundred in total per day can visit Machu Picchu and is a good idea to make sure that none of these famous Incan ruins will be damaged, tampered with, or destroyed. To lose such a precious treasure such as Machu Picchu or any other wonder of the world would be a tragedy for humanity and its’ history on this planet. While it was not cheap to get to Machu Picchu, I can fully understand why we as tourists pay the costs of admissions to visit these beautiful sites.

We do it to make sure that other people have the chance to experience these places firsthand and are able to share it with their children and grandchildren. I am quite lucky to have been able to visit such a wondrous place and I will remember my day at Machu Picchu quite fondly. If you’re reading this blog post and desire now to visit Machu Picchu, I would recommend that you do it with the knowledge that you do some research about the place, respect it during your visit, and do your best to take the experience in not just through your camera lens or smartphone but through your own eyes and ears.

To me, Machu Picchu is more than a lost Incan city of hundreds of years ago; it is a beautiful and awe-inspiring place of natural scenery. With its’ many mountains, huge river, and hundreds of diverse plants, this place can help you reflect not only about the past but on the present and future of yourself, humanity, and the planet itself. With any tourist site that’s located in a unique location, precautions and steps must be undertaken to make sure you have an enjoyable visit. Please make sure you bring some sunscreen, an umbrella, appropriate clothing and a lot of water. The weather can be quite unpredictable at Machu Picchu and it would be good of you to prepare to experience all four seasons in just one day at the site. Best of luck to you reading this post if you decide to take the journey to Machu Picchu. I promise that you won’t regret it.

 

 

The Blog Turns One

This week officially marks a year of my blog’s existence and I have to say that it’s been a rewarding and fulfilling experience overall. It started over seventy-five posts ago with my first look into the increasing presence of smartphones in today’s society with “Smartphones: Man’s New Best Friend?” and has continued up through this September with pictures during my recent trip to Guatepe, Antioquia, Colombia.

Over the past year, I’ve learned a lot about the writing process especially when it comes to topics like travel and self-development. While my writing and photography skills are still a work in progress, I believe that I am a better writer and photographer than I was a year ago. I have put a lot of time and effort into this blog over the past year and I am thankful to all of the readers, friends, and family who have supported it by reading the articles, leaving comments, and giving me constructive feedback.

I’ve been through some big life changes with moving home and then back to Colombia recently. This blog has changed to become more travel and culture focused since that’s where I am right now in my life but I hope to continue writing about self-development and even ESL topics. I’m quite proud of the work that has gone into this blog and hope that you as the reader have learned a lot or gained something from my writings. So far, I have had a couple of thousand unique visitors from many different countries along with thousands of individual views and that’s very exciting to see.

As this blog enters year two, I am hoping to invest more time and money into the layout and formatting as well as creating more content for the reader. The first year has been very rewarding for me and I hope to continue developing this blog and expanding the readership. As a writer who enjoys hearing constructive comments, feedback, and criticism, I hope that you will leave a comment telling me your thoughts and suggestions about the blog. I am open to any advice as long as its’ respectful and within reason. I will continue to have eight to ten posts per month in 2017 and will highlight more of my experiences of living, working in Colombia as well as some upcoming travels to different parts of South America.

If you’re new to this blog and don’t know much about me or my writings, I have organized an archives section which has the location of all seventy-five of my posts which have occurred in the past year. I also have a ‘Best Of’ Articles page where I highlight the ten blog posts that I like the most when it comes to culture, lifestyle, traveling, music/movies/books, and personal development. You can find the individual links to these ten top posts here: https://benjweinberg.com/best-of-articles/.

I am now one year into my blogging hobby and I am happy with the results so far. I hope that this website will continue to grow in terms of audience and expand in terms of its’ content. I want to say thank you to all the readers and supports of benjweinberg.com and I look forward to keeping in touch with you throughout the rest of the year and into 2017. Please feel free to leave a comment on this particular post if you would like to share your thoughts or express your opinion about the blog so far and where you might like to see it go in the next year. Cheers to the future and here’s hoping to a great 2nd year of this blog!