Category: Musings

If I asked you to picture the average employee at your local gun store I’m sure we would imagine a similar person.

Living in the southern U.S. I can confirm those stereotypes exist for a reason.

I would like to say I can overlook physical biases every time I see a person. But I’d be lying to you. There is an employee at my local range that fits the stereotype better than his coworkers.

He is gruff, may be missing a few teeth, and reeks of cigarette smoke…

Recently I swung by to pick up my new concealed carry firearm. He was the one who’d be doing the paperwork and background check.

His name may have been Alan, or Tim, or even Jeff. It doesn’t matter, they all would fit.

The process was smooth, I’ll give him that. As I filled out the BATF form 4473, he found it necessary to read the questions to me aloud.

As you’d expect, around the question asking about my sex he got snarky.

“I assume you’re not one of those freaks, right” he quipped.

I froze.

Yeah, I realized I was in a gun store. I wasn’t expecting this man to lean left of center in any form.

But there was something so malicious, and so arrogant in his tone i couldn’t help but stop. I looked up at the wall, and filled out my sex as it was on my ID without a word.

Anything else is grounds for a denial.

I am not trans.

I have friends who are though. I taught myself to shoot, and be safe around guns because they started getting death threats.

That pause I took kept my composure. I wasn’t about to argue with this man. Not in a gun store.

I always tell myself I’ll do something different. I’ll stand up to them. I’ll tell to fuck right off.

I’ll say “I’m sorry you’re so scared of your fellow human you’d kill them for being different.”

But I didn’t. And i never have. Because I’m scared.

Right there in that southern gun store, I was gray. This employee saw me as someone who held his ideals. He felt safe sharing his ideals of hatred with me.

And I hate that. I hate that I’m a raging piles of ashes from my former self. I don’t like that I’m angry at my neighbor. I dislike talking with people knowing we know we’d find ourselves on opposite sides of a gun in a lawless land.

And most of all I hate feeling like I needed to learn to shoot because of fear.

I have never wanted to shoot someone, and the thought scares me to death.

Knowing that anytime I carry my gun, there’s a chance I’ll have to choose.

A choice between watching myself or a friend get killed. Or look someone else in the face and strike them down.

I can’t reconcile fixing violence with violence…

Looking someone in the eyes, and realize that they feel fear like I do. We’re humans, and we’re scared creatures by nature.

But sometimes you need to speak someone’s language to make them understand.

And I’ll tell you that the real definition of humanity isn’t intelligence. It’s not some biological factor…

It’s what you fear.

Thank you,

-TME

Many people view life in a “rear-view mirror” way.

I’m no exception to that rule.

The focus on what was and then what should have been, in our minds at least, is too pervasive to not engage in. People get degrees in studying such events, and often get paid to speculate, or write about them.

Everyone thinks about their prior life experiences at some point, and that isn’t a bad thing.

The quote “those who can not remember the past are condemned to repeat it” rings true on micro and macro levels.

Like anything, life is about balance. Spend too much time in rear-view mirror, and you’ll hit something ahead of you. Only look ahead, and you’ll miss the emergency vehicle approaching.

I don’t have an answer to whats the right ratio of nostalgia to living in the moment. And if I did, It would vary person to person. Hence, I don’t even bother.

With global tensions and domestic economic issues brewing, I’ve had my past thrust upon me.

Trust me when I say it isn’t bad. Or all bad, at least.

I was a child around the 2008 housing bubble and the related sub-prime mortgage crisis. In this instance, I define “child” as the inability to realize what was unfolding as I grew-up.

I remember hearing about my father losing his job. I remember my mother taking a second job at a craft store around Christmas. I missed my mother not being around as much, but had no clue why she needed to work a second job.

After all, her first job was in IT…and my little brain knew that was big money.

But that was the extent of my dis-comfort. I never went without meals, or heat, or even a roof over my head. Whatever sacrifices my parents made then to keep us kids comfortable, I’ll never know.

I understand that I was definitely lucky to have that experience. Many didn’t, and even today, don’t.

The combination of those two facts created quite a bit of guilt for me recently. Thoughts of “what if my parents didn’t have three kids to raise?” and “what could I have done to help others then” ran rampant.

Quite unrealistic thoughts to have, especially looking back on the age I was then. Those thoughts have no useful effect on what happened then, unless it spurs me to create a time machine.

In which case that’s a different story.

But for me, those thoughts of “what could i have done then” drive what I do now.

They drive every interaction I have with society. I use them to steer my values. To see that not everyone lives in the world I do.

It gives me empathy.

Its true that I as an individual, can not stop an economic crash regardless of my efforts.

But I can be kind and help where I can.

I have a long held belief in giving. If I have a five dollar bill on me, I would spare it with anyone who asked. Regardless of if it was a homeless person, or the richest man in the world.

My thoughts are if i fear they’ll spend it on something i would deem uncouth, and then don’t give it, I’ve failed as a person.

Who am I to be the judge on that.

If I can spare five dollars to bring comfort to an individual in need, then I’ll do it without hesitation.

Because if they lied to me, shame on them. But if I ignored another human in need? Shame on me.

Thank you,

-TME

I went to concert recently. It was a general admittance show, so there was no seating.

Per usual, two bands opened for the main act. The first one I had not heard of, but the second was another band I enjoyed.

The show itself was fantastic. The headliner was a band I had liked for a bit, but had not seen live yet. It was a ten-year anniversary tour for an album that shaped my late teenage years.

The last two shows that I had attended were not general admittance. I have another two shows coming up that are also not general admittance.

There was a valuable lesson for me in not having seats this time.

I joined the queue to enter the venue at around 6:30, and didn’t leave the venue until 11:00.

That’s four and a half hours of standing on hard floors. Two hundred and seventy minutes.

Now, this would have been fine half a decade ago. The year is no longer 2020. I’m grateful that is not the case, yet I find myself yearning for a certain part of those years.

My knees.

When I left and finally got in my car to drive home, my body left me an important message.

The friend seeing the show with me expressed concern over the noise I made. I would akin the sound that came out of my mouth to what a popped tire would sound like, if it could scream.

Physical pain was not the only anguish I felt then. The concert itself was a bitter reminder of who I was then and who I am now.

Biologists would agree that change is a part of what defines life. The ability to react to external stimuli is one difference between you from your kitchen sink…

I’d be a damn fool to sit here and tell you that change is not painful. That life itself is not painful.

In fact pain is only a universal constant, because change is as well. It seems like an endless cycle. Change causes pain, and that pain causes further change.

There is a massive oversight here though.

In your head, you visualize a circle. The circle infers a binary system.

Change isn’t a loop. Like living things, change is evolution. Growth not in a circular, or even linear direction, but directions we can not even fathom yet.

People get trapped between choice A, and choice B…

They have not considered, or even could consider choice H5 to the second power, divide by seven yet.

My point here is that change is human nature. Evolution is an advanced form of change, a long term growth.

But without pain? Change would not happen. There is no “I’m hungry, I’m going to go get food.” And when that is not present, there is no “My favorite restaurant is not open, so I’ll try this new place.”

A rudimentary example, sure.

But no large change has ever started without small change. And no small change has ever started without pain.

This long winded ramble leads to my own realization that night.

I’m not the person I was half a decade ago.

And I am beyond grateful for that.

Thank you,

-TME

It’s human nature to conflate talent and personal taste.

There are too many examples to make a definitive list. But for a start we’ll discuss music.

I would describe my listening habits as a notch past surface level. The sound needs to grab my attention before the artistry can hold me hostage.

If I’m not immediately grabbed by the sounds, I won’t stick around to appreciate what an artist has to say. There are exceptions to this rule of course, but as a general guide it tracks.

It is a case of judging a book (or song) by it cover. That doesn’t mean it’s a bad view though.

If we say music is a form of art then why would I force myself to enjoy a song because “the artist spent a lot of time on it.” I’m certain that I have discarded songs of great artistic value because I didn’t like the sound.

And sometimes I come around and enjoy them later in life.

An example everyone will, in theory at least, recognize is “Hotel California” by the Eagles.

I recall hating it as a kid. As an adult though i don’t remember why i hated it so much.

Upon becoming my own person, i made an active effort to turn off the song every time I heard it. It’s plausible to think that if i didn’t make a conscious decision to do that for a decade I wouldn’t have hated it.

It’s also likely I didn’t understand the lyrics, or the meaning. Twelve year old me would ask “why can’t he leave”

I now know it was a vague allegory for vice.

But it wasn’t discovering the allegory that made me enjoy the song. It wasn’t recognizing the deeper meaning that changed my feelings towards it.

One day I decided I liked the sound.

“Oh, this isn’t as bad as I remember.”

My tastes changed, but I couldn’t pin-point when it happened. Liking “Hotel California” was a side effect, not the catalyst.

The artistry hadn’t changed since 1976. Hell, I wasn’t a passing thought then.

If I had to guess though, I would say I connected with it more.

I was like any kid who got chewed up by the public school system and spat out like chewing tobacco. Unprepared for life’s harsh realities.

It was growing into a society where the drug addicts you see online are real people. Alcoholism has a name and a face. The realization you get looking into a stranger’s eye suffering from addiction.

“We’re not so different, you and I”

I never fell into substance habits. But i fought my share of demons. The human experience tends to be generic in nature. What separates us is how we choose to handle the punches we get thrown.

When I hear that dreamy guitar start on my stereo now, my brain doesn’t jump to universal suffering.

It thinks about child-like innocence.

I remember the time before I knew what the world had in store for folks like me.

Above all, I remember hope.

If you were to ask me what i thought my childhood felt like I’d have an immediate answer.

“Listening to Hotel California for the first time.”

Thank you,

-TME