Monthly Archives: June 2013

Bitter Sweet

This date is always one of mixed emotions for me.

It was on this date that my friend Rodney Lain took his own life. Besides being a dear friend and confidant, Rodney was also one of the most ambitious writers I knew. His take on the Apple scene, at a time when it needed champions, was daring and original. He had no problem writing the hard truths others feared to write. He would even go so far to work weekends at a computer retailer to "convert the sinners" by enticing those looking at PCs to buy Macs. He enjoyed being a truth teller and freedom fighter. But he also had personal battles that were too much for him to shoulder. So he took the only option he felt he had to fight for his own freedom. I miss him.

Today is also my wedding anniversary. I met Bethany through a mutual friend. Her Mac’s hard drive died, she was having a rough time, and he asked me to help her with it for free. I agreed and we met at his place. I had a horrible flu and was a bit too fuzzy from cold meds to notice how lovely she was. Thankfully, she insisted on thanking me by inviting me out for a play. We went out for coffee a few times after that, became friends, and soon enough realized there was something much more. She is funny and wickedly smart and clever and passionate. But most of all she is my best friend.

I’m thankful that I have had either of these remarkable people in my life at all. In too many ways to measure, they’ve made me a better me. What more can one ask for in a friend?

The Haystack Problem

If you were looking for a needle in a haystack, how would you make that job easier? Would you remove some of the hay or would you add to it? Of course, you would take some away. The more you take away the better the chance of finding the needle.

Now, what if your job was to find needles in haystacks? And, what if I told you the more hay you had the more needles you would find? Well, then, you might opt to add more hay. In fact, if you believed that finding those needles was a life-or-death matter, you might be inclined to add as much hay as you possibly could to increase the chance that more than one needle might be there.

Finally, what if I told you that, really, your job was not to necessarily find the needles? It was only to plant the seed of possibility that the needle might be there simply because it has been proven that a needle exists anywhere a big pile of hay does? All you have to do is collect as much hay as possible so that, should a needle be suspected, there is sufficient hay to back it up.

Now, if you watch the video on this page, at the 7:30 mark, this guy will tell you why the size of the haystack does not matter, what matters is that there is enough hay to prove a needle exists.

Poetry

As a teen, I published my first book. It was a book of the most painfully bad and emotional poetry that, thankfully, few have (or will ever have) seen. Yet, having re-discovered a copy recently, I realize how important it was to my path. That the seed of selling my writing — that one really could do such — was planted. That, even if not perfect (or even really that good), people who want to support you, your work, your further development, are out there. They are paying as much for the poetry now as the poetry they know could come.

I love good poetry. I, thankfully, live in a city where poetry is respected. Thanks to an active sidewalk poetry program, I encounter it unexpectedly and often walking the streets. I encounter it at bookstores and stenciled on walls. I sometimes see it on bus stop posters. I even spot the occasional and unintentional haiku in a sign or flyer.

Though I write poetry much less these days, and share it even less than that, I still find that it often stops me in my tracks. When very good or, especially, when unexpected it has the power to change me. To change my notions about the world or even those I know. To stop me in my tracks and shift my direction. Any good writing can do this, yes. But a good poem can get to places inside you no other words can.