In high school in the 90’s, it was difficult not to be bombarded with the safe sex talk of that era. The positive test of Magic Johnson with HIV gave a famous face to a disease that had not fully hit mainstream awareness. Many actions were taken to help protect young people from their hormones. Not least of all the education system’s attempt to prepare us with lessons about condoms. I remember very plainly Mr. Vellucci, my bio teacher, asking us if we understood how condoms worked. Or did we need him to demonstrate using a banana as he had been instructed to do. It was all very well intentioned and I’m sure that it worked to some degree. Unfortunately with the widespread use of the internet and mass media, our children need to be protected again from a disease that threatens to kill every last one of them: LIFE.
Luckily major efforts have been made around the country and the globe to protect young people from this abomination. Teachers, parents and coaches have been instructed to protect all children from failure, disappointment and reality at all costs. Falls, cuts, scrapes, risks, chances, expectations and a slew of LIFE’s other cohorts must be eradicated with extreme prejudice. Keeping our kids safe is JOB #1. Allowing them to live and learn fall near the bottom of the list behind getting into a good college, winning many trophies, being perfect and so many other things that are put on their schedules. What we need now are some Life Condoms! A protective covering that will keep out all negatives. Just need to find a new substance because someone is bound to be allergic to latex and sheepskin doesn’t protect anyone from anything. At this point, I feel the need to stop because I’m afraid that there is a mother someplace who is reading thinking “This sounds like a GREAT idea!”
Life is a messy business. We come into this world screaming, covered in blood, unable to speak, read, write or walk. Despite this introduction through chaos, there is an expectation that life is supposed to get cleaner, neater and follow specific guidelines. The truth is that the human animal was made for the rugged battles of the natural world. We seem to be more susceptible to the trappings of comfort and fortune rather than hard circumstances. Adopting a Spartan lifestyle is probably not necessary but a healthy dose of reality is probably in order. Letting a young person tie their own shoe laces, make their own dinner, fight their own battles is not particularly a bad thing.
The life condom doesn’t exist but based on the complaints I hear regularly, some wish it did. They want their parents, the government, the president, their teacher or any other official power figure to step up and fix their life for them. Eventually these desires are going to come up empty. No one is going to take care of you indefinitely.
So since it will be on you at some point, why not cut the complaining? Take over the parts of your life that should absolutely belong to you and run with them. Nothing is going to start out perfect and it never will be if you don’t do your part. Complaining problems away seems like a bad strategy and a poor way to live. Life was meant to be messy. Get over it! Dust yourself off, clean up your wounds and move on. Otherwise go looking for a life condom but that truly is like taking a shower with a raincoat on. Most of the joy in life is found in the things that we never expected to happen.
Don’t protect yourself out of the best parts of life.
Pete
One of the best movies from a pure story standpoint that I’ve seen is “The Usual Suspects”. The film takes you on a ride where you’re continuously led down paths for particular reasons. A main reason for the perplexing nature of the film is the doubt surrounding the myth of Keyser S
Personally I never heard that version of spook story when I was a kid but I can see its usefulness to some people. The fairy tales and legends that we are told as children vary greatly depending on the desired outcome from our upbringing. Aspirational and cautionary tales alike are used to push the child in particular directions. Keep on trying courtesy of “The Little Engine that Could”. Be prepared by “The Three Little Pigs”. Don’t be sexually promiscuous by “Little Red Riding Hood” (Didn’t know until I talked to a German teacher). These stories were all fashioned to get a result.
It was January 2nd 2003. A clever little trick of mine to always remember the day that I proposed to my wife 1/2/03. As I waited in her apartment with dinner ready and candles lit, I was extremely nervous. That feeling was only compounded when she arrived. Then I started to ask and I could feel my legs shaking. This was gut-wrenching but necessary. The fear and the nerves came from risk. The risk of putting myself out there and the possibility that the answer could be “no”. It ended up going in my favor but I think that risk is an important factor to the things that really matter. You need to care enough to be willing to lose.
For most of my life, I’ve had a portion of Teddy Roosevelt’s speech at the Sorbonne memorized. “It is not the critic who counts… The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena.” It’s moving. It moves me in the sense that I actually take action when I think of it, hear it in my head or in my heart. The issue is at the moment, the critics have such a large megaphone that it becomes hard to hear our heads and our hearts. The echo of other people’s point of view tends to linger, burn and even cut the ones who are actually in the arena. The credit may belong to the man in the arena but that credit is hard earned because people want you to lose and never let you forget it.
Each week in fourth grade, we had a folder that contained all of our work. On Friday, if you had everything done, the word ‘Complete’ was written on your folder and you got to do some craft or game. If you didn’t have everything done, you received a note of ‘Incomplete’ and you needed to finish your work before getting any free time. In the entire school year, I think that I was ‘Complete’ only twice. It took me most of the year to finish my macrame owl due to my limited free time. I’m quite certain that I only passed fourth grade by the skin of my teeth. Perhaps I should have (or continue) to feel badly about my incomplete track record or tendency. The fact of the matter is that I don’t.
The world is filled with things that cut. Like walking through a patch of thorn bushes with exposed skin, injury is an almost certainty. In the short term, bandaging the cuts is the right strategy. In time, the wounds will heal. If too many cuts pile up, the bandages become wrappings. You become a mummy. Movements constrained by the bandages on wounds that never healed. Avoiding cuts completely is an impossibility but choosing a new path and learning how to wield a machete are both options. Band aids are not a long term solution, they are a short term fix. This concept is obvious when thinking about real wounds but with metaphorical wounds, this is a common strategy.
Living in the world of higher order organisms, we are not as dependent on stretching ourselves in order to survive. In fact over the past century we’ve been rewarded for being small amoebas. Stretching or standing out was discouraged. Get good grades, get into a good college, do your job and follow the rules. Being a small amoeba is not as smart as it used to be. The systems that rewarded the small amoeba are breaking down all over the place and we’re being asked to stretch again.
Living with a teenage boy can be disgusting. Having grown up in a house with three brothers, any one of us had the ability to make everyone else leave the house based on a bodily function. We were delighted by our own disgusting-ness. Since the offensive odor belonged to us, we were almost immune to it. Eventually we all turned into civilized human beings but I’m sure there was some real doubt from my mother for a while. I’m sure that most mothers occasionally envision their sons growing up to be lifelong bachelors. Not by choice but by necessity. Her grownup boy would be alone in a one bedroom apartment playing video games, farting and giggling. He would be completely nose-blind to his effect on others. Luckily most boys figure out their effect on others and keep their crap to themselves.
The act of being human is not always an easy one. Despite all of our advantages, we still run into plenty of obstacles and potholes. There is an odd feeling that I have inside that I am more than one person. I’ve written before about my fascination with 
Huryk Unlimited 