Shiny Bits of Life

My nephew is very creative. He views the world in a unique way. He’s super smart and has the ability to focus on many things other people miss.

I love this artwork he created. He enjoys drawing very small and detailed things. Someday he may be an inventor.

He was diagnosed with a very mild form of autism a few years ago. Autism is a complicated thing. Though some people see it as a handicap, I think that people with autism can function in ways other people can’t. Autism gives a person an interesting set of filters to view life that “normal” people don’t have. If you haven’t seen the movie Temple Grandin, I would highly recommend that you do. It was one of my favorite movies of the last five years.

Everyone has some level of “abnormalities” that are used to categorize individuals. We may not have enough to be put into a distinct personality disorder box, but we all function strongly in some areas and weakly in others.

We’re all weird. And I’m glad about that.

Life often provides a plate of unclear choices. Heather and I are in one of those places. Our plates are full.

There are several ways I can react to this lack of clarity:

1. Frustration

2. Work my butt off trying to find the perfect answer

3. Ask tons of people for advice

4. Take one day at a time and do the best I can each day

5. Relax

6. Pray

Each day gives me a different mix of which solutions I gravitate toward. The only one that I would argue is wrong is number one. That leads to nothing but anxiety.

What’s your mix like today?

“You rode like the wind! Even on that dinosaur of a bike.”

That’s what a man told my son last weekend. My son just finished the Copper Triangle, a very challenging 80-mile race up and down three Rocky Mountain passes. The comment was made by a man who had a multiple-thousand dollar bicycle. Jay’s Mercier (less than a year old) cost all of about $350. Jay was able to complete the course with a significant margin over the fancy-bike man.

It’s all about the rider – and not the bike. This concept applies to just about anything. A true artist can make an amazing painting with house paint and dime store brushes. Many wanna-be artists spend thousands on supplies, only to produce paintings that are only seen in their own living rooms.

This is just a quick reminder that you need to give yourself a break. And even a small break is better than no break.

A few weekends ago, Heather and I took a one night break from normal life. It was so refreshing. Just being in a different place than our suburban home was enough to refresh our souls. We took the opportunity to talk about things that wouldn’t fit into normal days’ discussions.

So if you haven’t taken a break for a while, do whatever it takes and get away. You won’t regret it.

I snapped this photo in the “back yard” of the place we stayed. It was part of a huge sundial that someone built more than fifty years ago.

The shootings at a theater in Aurora were tragic. A man with untold problems decided to take the lives of many innocent people. My first reaction was that if gun control laws were more restrictive, the killer may not have been able to get the gun he needed to kill so many people.

A very good friend believes the opposite. He would argue that if a sane person in the theater with good marksmanship skills were carrying a concealed weapon, that person could have killed the shooter before all his killings were completed. We argued extensively about gun control a few years back and finally realized we could not convince the other to change his mind. We put the argument behind us and our friendship has grown deeper.

I am not going to argue here about gun control. I will say that with great freedom comes great responsibility. As the parent of two teenagers, I know the feeling of handing over the keys to a car for that first solo run. Anything could happen. As a society that has handed the controls of lethal weapons to nearly anybody, anything can happen.

My son went to a midnight showing – the same movie on the same night, at a different theater 15 miles from the tragic location. My family is not very different from some of the families whose sons and daughters were killed. My son could have been killed. Your daughter could have been killed.

I am thankful for our freedom – but I am sad for the frequent abuses of that freedom. I would be willing to give up a little freedom in exchange for a little more sanity.