“Tramps Like Us”

I once had an American Pit Bull Terrier, an excellent dog named “Henry”. He has, regrettably, moved on into the Afterlife, and I miss having him around dearly, but a part of him resides in my heart forever and so is is never forgotten.

I have this lasting image of Henry, a picture of what Heaven might look like for him. We once lived in the country in East Tennessee, a truly magical place. Henry escaped from my ex one glorious day and ran away. Thankfully he did not get very far. Henry got across the street onto my neighbor’s farm, and when I caught up with him, he was running joyously in a field covered in some sort of migratory birds at rest or feeding or whatever, and as he ran through, to and fro, the birds would take flight and land again once the dog passed through. Henry was never happier than he was in that moment, with range to run freely and a thousand bird friends to play with. I wish, to this day, that I could have simply left him to it forever, so I like to imagine this as his eternity.

I had always marveled at his genuine appreciation for Creation, what I consider to be a fundamental part of his character. If you had failed to recognize the passion Henry had for being alive and passing through this world, then you could not really make any sense of the rest of the dog. He had an authentic nobility about him, in spite of the goofiness he displayed in his playful joy.

As the years went by, I began to recognize much of myself in Henry, and much of Henry in myself. He was, for my lifetime, “my dog”, the son I never had, and that made him especially dear to me, set apart from the others. The one thing, however, that seemed to differentiate Henry from me was this passion for life that he had. Passion for this rotten world, what I see as a very positive attribute, was something I could not ascribe to myself, the very critical, sour, negative, and dour type I am. Eventually in time, though, the presence of Henry began to reveal to me that at the core of all of my disdain was precisely, and paradoxically, the very same passion that Henry displayed. I saw in Henry not so much the heart of a man whose passion had been challenged and beaten so ceaselessly by the harsh realities of the world we live in, but instead I saw the unabated bliss of a nine year-old boy in 1976 tearing into a every new summer day like every new day was his birthday, Christmas, and Independence Day combined.

Time would take from Henry as it has taken from me, and then would take Henry from me. His perception of things gradually altered and with it, his expressions of joy grew fewer and further between. He was, in the end, very pained. In Henry’s case, he went deaf, lost some vision, ached greatly, fell into depression, and eventually subdued to cancer. In watching Henry age, I saw myself growing old as well.

I do not remember Henry for how time brought him down, but instead I remember Henry for that unabated spirit that defined him. With that, I must pause and look at myself in the same manner. Perhaps I am not as truly “negative” as I understand myself to be, and maybe my attitude and opinions are of the same sort of love that spawns righteous indignation. Maybe.

None of any of these things in any way make me any kind of special or unique. We all were young at one time, and time has worked all of us over in one form or another. My focus here is meant to be the specific attribute of “passion for life”, which, in my case, has been twisted and made decrepit in appearance, yet still shines, deep down, very brightly, and drives all things.

It is the passion for life that causes me to engage in so many interests, that draws me over every next hill to find even something else. It is all of the assorted knowledge that I have accrued in this manner that craves to be joyfully expressed in some way. At my disposal, I have audio podcasts, video podcasts, blogs, texts, art, and music.

This blog is concerned with expressing whatever is driving me at a particular time in a quick and written manner as the means to move information and make room for that which is new. This blog is, to put it bluntly, an exhaust of the things running around in my mind. I do not know what will concern me one day to the next, and I do not wish to addle the creativity with any particular parameters. My intention is simply to start into something, get where it goes to, leave it to posterity, and move forward.

I am no one of any renown, just another “Ordinary Joe”. I believe, however, that in an era of pop culture that is driving people into the morass of sensationalism that is born of those with the ambitions of fame and influence, it is the voice of the ordinary that is the grounding factor that brings stability to a teetering humanity. There exists a “pop” reality on one hand, and a “community” reality on the other. The pop culture is heavily manufactured with specific intent, propaganda if you will, while the community cultures – our homes, our families, our neighborhoods, our roadways, our markets, and our workplaces – are organic in nature. To be clear, one is a mass deception and the other is our collective actualities.

I have found that the more I welcome popular culture into my being, the more my passion for life takes a beating. Pop Culture is all about the “popular”, which is to say, in Western Civilization, that which is rich, famous, and powerful. We peasants of the world are given to observe the popular ones on a quest for success, to learn the ways of the successful ones before us, and to abandon ourselves in the process, or to ignore pop culture and tend to our own gardens.

I am reminded about junior high school. At an age that is foundational to our development, I found myself suddenly confronted with the matter of popularity. To be clear, I was not popular and I was never really sure about what popularity meant or required. All I know is that whatever popularity is, I am not, and it is not me. At the time, however, I struggled to “fit in” somehow, and that struggle was indeed very real. I believed that in order for me to become popular, I would have to abandoned my unpopular self, which sadly I did – a massive failure on my part. I accomplished this failure by turning to drugs and leaving the things that were making me beautiful , smart, and strong behind. I gave up on my education and I gave up on sports. As a result, I became some sort of popular, but a sort of popular that was, in reality, simply “notorious”, famous (or infamous) for my rebellion. The notoriety, which was based off of disdain for an unpopular self and the subsequent self-abandonment would become the basis of my character challenges and development for the rest of my life. Junior high was a difficult time to navigate, and I lost myself in there somewhere.

Thankfully Ol’ Henry managed to throw a little light onto my soul.