Some Change.....

Some change comes down for the better
You feel it move
Then some come around like the weather
You take that in too

But like some change in your pocket
Sometimes it seems to be too little too late
I guess it's time to break out a few pesos
Cause I'm getting to where I like the view
And if you're feeling lucky and you ain't just passing through
You might change some too
- taken from Some Change by Boz Scaggs

Change--it's one of my favorite topics. It's been on my mind and of other peoples' minds a lot lately. We've recently entered into a new year, and with the new year comes resolutions and a renewed commitment to be a better person. The country has recently elected a new president, and most people are looking to this individual to bring about change to the country--namely in the form of economic improvement.

Two years ago I went to a lecture on improving one's communication skills and the benefits that are reaped from such improvements. About fifteen minutes into the material, the speaker said, People don't change." On a gut level I disagreed with the man's statement. I believe that all human beings are capable of change. In terms of a practical matter though, people rarely change unless they are in a great deal of pain, or there is an inordinate amount of incentive involved.

One of the things that I read on Gordon Byrn's blog was a statement to this effect: People rarely have enough influence to individually make a significant impact on any situation. How much impact will President Obama have on this country? Hard to say. He alone cannot solve the economic troubles of this country. The effects of two decades plus of "over leveraging" are being dealt with. The liquidity being injected into the economy by TARP is the equivalent of throwing ping pong ball at an elephant. Much like the person in the aforementioned song, the change that we have right now is too little, too late.

On the individual level, I think that all any individual person can do is clean up there personal balance sheet, have some blood money in the bank, and keep moving forward. As the economy deleverages there will be some bargains to be had.

In terms of my own life I am not in the middle of change of paradigm, but I am trying to take off some of the dead weight I put on over the holidays as well as improve my flexibility. I've committed myself to losing a pound a week for the next ten weeks, and practicing yoga twice a week indefinitely. As I get older flexibility will become more and more important. From what I have seen there aren't a lot of yogis and yoginis out there with walkers or wheel chairs.

On a practical note, as we all enter the Obama era and get ready to work through what looks to be a really, really bad recession, my instinct keeps telling me one thing: make your individual change small, but be consistent with working through that change. Human beings aren't wired to accept change easily, in fact we are wired to go with what has worked before as this is what has kept us alive. If you want to see change in your life you have to treat it just like it's spare change--some dimes here, and a quarter or two there, and you suddenly have a dollar. Yes, this analogy might be obvious, but it's the Truth.

Namaste

Into the Future...

I think a lot of problems we've been experiencing have come from the fact that no one embraces the miracle and amazement of the present. So many people--steampunks, fundamentalists, hippies, neocons, anti-immigration advocates--feel like there was a better time to live in. They think the present is degraded, faded and drab. That our world has lost some sort of "spark" or "basic value system" that, if you so much as skim history, you'll find was never there.
- Patton Oswalt as taken from the February 2009 issue of GQ

I've had some interesting comments outside of the blog forum regarding my post entitled "Being a Man Is Back in Style." A few people have made the comment that the 1950s and 1960s weren't without their flaws. I agree with this statement. My whole point for the post is this: an educated and conscious person will look back into previous generations, look at the mistakes that were made by those who came before along with the things that they deem to be beneficial and make appropriate decisions in the present and future based on their evaluation.

As part of my ongoing quest to bring the suit back into the workplace I paid a visit to my tailor yesterday to have a jacket altered. After taking the measurements for the alterations he asked me very directly, "How much did you pay for this?" He was not born in this country so their isn't any taboo over asking such questions about the cost of an item one purchased. After I told him he rolled his eyes, tilted his head, and said, "Before you purchase another suit, come see me first," and then pointed out a few flaws in the suit that he would do his best to adjust.

Over the past year I have finally gotten into a financial position where I can go and purchase a well made suit, pay the price, and not get stressed out over the cash outflow. As I began to do research as part of the purchasing process I found out that the suits made today are basically built to last three or four years. In the 1960s, men purchased suits with the intent to pass them down to their sons. These garments were made to last over a decade.

Much of the manufacturing and assembly of such items is done overseas right now as the cost is significantly lower. Yes, the price of things are lower now, but the care and the craft have probably decreased proportionally to the cost.

My thought for the future in my professional life is pretty simple: work with care and craft, get the details right, and build strong personal relationships. If anything, I would ultimately like to become the equivalent of a Master tailor in the accounting world and apply the same level of craft, attention to detail, and "feel" to my work each day. It's a high standard, but I do think I can achieve this level of competence with daily training and the support of my co-workers--who are pretty solid in their own right.

My thought for my personal life is slightly different and would be summarized in the following words: You are going to die, so enjoy this--whatever it is--while it lasts. I could lose my job tomorrow, and it would totally suck. Truth be told, I would probably freak out. With that said, the trick would be for me to find the goodness in each day in the midst of all the mental noise and economic uncertainty. After all the worst thing that can happen to any person is death, and that is going to happen anyway.

Namaste

Loss and Death...

"So it is…that we can seldom help anybody. Either we don’t know what part to give or maybe we don’t like to give any part of ourselves. Then, more often than not, the part that is needed is not wanted. And even more often, we do not have the part that is needed."
- taken from A River Runs Through It by Norman Maclean

"Every shadow no matter how deep is threatened by morning light."
- Grand Inquisitor Silecio in the movie The Fountain

Most of the time when I write these posts I sit down and the words materialize as if the ideas had a mind of their own. The past month this has not been the case. I've tried several times to sit down and write, but the words have come slowly and rarely with any importance attached to them. At best, the material that has formulated has been completely superficial--a post in the hopper about buying a vintage watch on eBay--or incomplete. I've been sitting infront of the computer for a good forty minutes now, wondering what's got my literary plumbing backed up. I've debated about whether or not I would write about this, but at the very worst I will just delete the post.

Since the end of December of 2008, I've been having a hard time dealing with the man who contributed the DNA which brought me into this world and his rampant alcoholism. Over the holidays a few people asked about him, how he was doing, and commented on what a great guy he was. I wish I could have said that I agreed with them. After dealing with the antics of his drinking for the past four years along with other spots of heavy drinking on his part during my formative years I don't even know who my father is anymore.

I don't think that it's an accident that I started to wear a suit to work in December of last year or develop a fascination about what men were like during the 1950s and 1960s over the past two years. As the image of my father as a person has been washed away more and more, I have become more and more interested in looking and feeling like a man and not a boy. The hair cuts have happened more and more frequently, my professional dress is more traditional, and I have started to carry myself in such a way that gives me more gravitas in the workplace. My father may be drifting out of my life, and I think I am compensating for it by making myself into the man that he never was--or at least the man that I can't remember him ever being.

Upon returning home from Christmas vacation at Aunt Shelly's, I watched the movie The Fountain. Before I saw the movie a friend of mine said that it was very existential. That may have been the case, but I thought that the movie was simply about a man who was dealing with the impending doom of losing his wife--a person he deeply loved--and along with dealing with the pain of losing her has to confront his own mortality. My father is still alive, and no longer a part of my life. And maybe this is why the whole thing sucks so bad: even though he is alive he is lost to me and may never come back. From my perspective this is the worst reality that a person can create for themself: to be dead to the world, yet still be alive.

Over the past few years I have come up with answers to solve my daily problems. The answers usually come down to aphorisms that I repeat in my mind like, "Work slow." This issue doesn't have any solution to it. If you don't feel the frustration and the pain, then the person in question really is dead. Maybe somethings in life don't have answers at all. Maybe something are just meant to be lived with.

Being a Man is Back in Style

"The essential American soul is hard, isolate, stoic, and a killer. It has never yet melted."

— D.H. Lawrence

"Man, I see in fight club the strongest and smartest men who've ever lived. I see all this potential, and I see squandering. God damn it, an entire generation pumping gas, waiting tables; slaves with white collars. Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don't need. We're the middle children of history, man. No purpose or place. We have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our Great War's a spiritual war... our Great Depression is our lives. We've all been raised on television to believe that one day we'd all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. But we won't. And we're slowly learning that fact. And we're very, very pissed off."

- Tyler Durden in the movie Fight Club

The current economic environment has a lot of people talking about the Great Depression. All this talk about the Great Depression has me thinking about then men that were part of the "Greatest Generation." In my estimation, this was when men were truly men. Most of them had served in the Armed Forces in either World War I or World War II--some served in both, they could throw a punch, take a punch, fix a car, make an Old Fashioned, they helped little old ladies cross the street, opened doors for their girlfriend or wife, went to church on Sunday, and for the most part, had a great work ethic. And these men all wore suits.

At the same time the overwhelming masculinity came at a cost. Many of these men were racist, anti semetic, misogynistic, prone to heavy drinking, and were not the most self aware individuals to have walked this earth. The generation that followed them could be seen as a reaction against these people's most prized qualities. They got rid of the preassigned gender roles, spoke out against racism and injustice, and reimagined what American life could be. One of the casualties of this war was the suit and tie as the prescribed office attire.

As the son of a Baby Boomer, I have two generations of male archetypes to look to observe. I would say that each generation had it's strengths and I have the benefit of picking and choosing the best from each generation. I'll pass on the racism and heavy drinking, but take the good manners and strong moral code. Once my freestyle is mended, I'd like to learn to box or study aikido. But first and foremost, I'm going to work on reclaiming the masculinity of the 1950s by doing my part to bring back the suit to the workplace.

Over the past few weeks I have worn a suit to work at least twice a week. Part of the appeal of wearing a suit is directly related to the fact that I don't have to wear a suit to work. If I had to wear a suit to work it would probably be a drag; instead, I choose to wear a suit to work, and I would say that I feel a noticeable difference. It could be just my imagination here, but I do think that the act of wearing a suit does make a difference in my performance in the workplace.

Being a good accountant is all about getting the details right--one of my mentors would say that your work is "crisp." The same is true of wearing a suit the right way--as opposed to the suit wearing you. The pants should be hemmed to allow for an inch of break, the jacket should allow for a quarter inch of cuff to show, the shirt pressed with collar stays in place, all topped off with a pocket square neatly in place. Getting all those details right before you are even at the office has a way of getting in the subconsious mind and rubbing off on the work--at least that is my theory at this moment.

As I have begun to bring back masculinity, I have started to ask myself this question: "What would Don Draper do?" I understand that this is a fictional character, but this is my benchmark question to determine if I am acting appropriately. Would Don Draper have a messy desk? No. Would Don Draper go to the meeting without appropriately preparing himself? No. Would Don Draper go to work without shaving? No. Would Don Draper knock off early and go get drunk at a local watering hole? Yes, but that goes back to my earlier point that there are some things that should remain in the not so distant past.

Namaste