I spent some time hanging out with Eyal Golan today trying to pull out the full memory of a moment that took place a thousand years ago not knowing exactly why it was important.
But it bothered me enough to keep digging for it and so I think I got it sorted but if I shared the details I am not sure it would make sense. Very few of you want to go digging inside the melon on top of my shoulders, too intense and too intimate,
Facebook provided the news that a friend recently became a widower and as I wrote my condolences upon the page it occurred to me he is at least three years younger than I am.
I hoped he could feel the sincerity of my words through it and thought about one of my oldest friends told me he is going to retire this year.
Inside my head I keep hearing don’t waste time you can’t get back.
Tomorrow is July 1 and it won’t be long before Facebook memories start the roll out of my father’s last days and the words I wrote about it.
Somewhere in the midst of it all I remembered a bit from a fantasy novel I first read around 1982 or so. It is by Stephen Donaldson and is called Lord Foul’s Bane.
There are giants in the book and they talk about a ritual they use to purge grief called the Caamora. In the book and the series it is a part of the giants cannot be burned but they can feel pain.
So when they wish to grieve they jam their hands into a fire until they cannot take it any longer.
Some might say I jam my own hands into it too. and test my will.
All these thoughts and ideas brought up another memory from a post I recently read that Danny Gordis wrote. It is called “Inclusivity, not exclusivity, is the new pathway to genuine Israeliness.”
Here is an excerpt that jumps out at me relative to the post you are reading here.
What To Do With It All
Walked into the gym today and smile because they were playing Africa as opposed to some of the other junk I sometimes hear in there.
Still put my airpods in and threw on some Iron Maiden because I had to get the blood pumping a little harder and faster.
Felt pretty good and started throwing some iron around and laughed because I was the old guy grunting in there but I didn’t care because I’d rather be him than the guy who can’t get off of the couch.
Thought about one doc who told me that I could rely upon certain body parts as a decent indicator for how well my heart was working.
And then I started moving through the list of things that are going on and took a moment to prioritize things because there is more than a little crap going on.
Some of it is serious, some of it is narishkeit and some of it is narishkeit that could become serious.
Finally got enough sweat pouring down my head to shut everything out and just enjoyed the rush. Sometimes that is harder to come by than it used to be, but I got there.
It was good because sometimes it takes a minute to figure out what to do with it all.
More than a few of us have reached a point where our fathers are no longer vertical and the conversations often include comments about how it is strange have become the backstop.
It is not a knock against any of our mothers, more a comment about men recognizing the guys we called Dad knew a thing or two.
And we got to places where we could could share things differently because we understood some of what they had gone through.
It reminded me as well of a reel someone showed me where a daughter sang a song to her father asking him not to get any older.
Focus On The Right Things
I shared that quote a while back with someone and told him we need to focus on the right things. Too much time is wasted on metrics that are meaningless and qualities that are two steps above vapid.
The instant gratification society we live in misses the mark on so many things and overstates the importance of others.
Analytics without humanity are a waste of time. A qualitative assessment has as much if not more value than quantitative.
Here endeth the story. Might be picked up elsewhere, might be forgotten. It is all tied to not wasting time you can’t get back.
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