Learning is Change

I have stopped telling people that things can’t be done.

I used to say it all of the time, but I haven’t for quite some time.

I used to make up time limits and proclaim things impossible without fully investigating. I used to portray things as hard than they actually were so that I wouldn’t have to attempt them. I used to explain things in complex language so that others wouldn’t see just how easy it is for me to figure things out.

Tonight, when I was asked to find a live stream of Dexter a mere two hours after the premier, I didn’t act naive. I didn’t act as though it was unfeasible for me to find. I balked at the questionable legality, but without the ability to DVR or buy it via iTunes, the choices were less than stellar.

A man in Michigan was streaming his TV out into the wide world. I was just one of the 500 or so people that were sharing his couch.

It is time to stop lying about the things we can and are doing with our technology. It is time that we stop refusing to let content flow the ways in which it wants to. I am interested in paying people for their work, but this is what is possible. In fact, this is what is easy.

I don’t tell people that I can’t anymore. I often don’t stop to question if I should, either. There is enough reason to try. There is enough reason to believe that simply by pushing the right buttons or asking the right questions, we will find the ways in which everything becomes easy. And, none of us will have to say can’t again.

One unparalleled responsibility at a time.

I have lived at 7 different addresses that I can remember and in only two cities. The total lack of variety is somewhat startling. I didn’t so much choose these locations as they were a part of what was next for me. The starter home that my parents bought, the great move out to the suburbs, college dorms and then houses, my starter home and my suburban relocation. The journey is unremarkable. I could mark it in a map or plot it on a graph and the change over time would be slow and steady. The line traveled would be the distance from Cleveland to Denver, the separation from my parent’s family and the joining of my own.

This common journey was nonetheless enjoyable. Because it was so ordinary and felt by so many, it ties me to everyone who makes these kinds of maps or lives these kinds of timelines. We choose to live where we are most comfortable. And it is the little things that make us stay.

At first it was baseball cards. I couldn’t collect enough of them. I would go to specialty shops and shows and purchase packs guaranteed to have the players and types I could hold up as legendary. I would look at the books of cards for hours or fondle an individual card as I contemplated the statistics on the back. This is what made me stay as a child more than most thing. Home was where my baseball cards were.

My computer came next. My father and grandfather had built it from scratch. A pentium 120 MHz. It was the ugliest gray box you can imagine and it took up most of my desk. But, I learned how to write on that box. I learned how to upload and download. I learned how to game. How to manage files and ideas. How to hide things and clear out history records. I learned how to communicate. My computer was the thing that kept me sane in Cleveland until the rest of my life caught up to what my head had known for years: it was time to leave.

My guitar floated me for the few transitional years. It helped me to pluck out what was really important. As I started to write songs for my future wife, I knew that objects could no longer be the touchstones and tokens of where I chose to live. At the time I was comfortable any time I knew the guitar was in arm’s reach. So long as I could run my fingers over those strings I was safe, but my own family changed that.

Now, the totems I keep to know that my reality is right side up are my wife and two children. Anywhere they live, I will live too. They are not objects that I can take with me. They are beings that have to make the choice to follow. We may move cities someday. Certainly San Francisco could be more than accommodating, but I will never leave them. They will always be what makes a place livable. They are what makes my path assured.

The emergency broadcast system has always been something of a mystery to me. The odd, modem-like noises coming from the tv and radio, the ominous voice trying to assure us that this is only a test, or even the color bars and dead air time that seem so out of place at our current pace of life.

Yet, programs are still interrupted and the process remains preserved. We may laugh or change the channel, but for that still moment we listen to the interruption and wonder at it’s significance.

I wonder other things too.

I wonder if I can stop other things just like that. I wonder if I can make the kinds of guttural noises that I am feeling in order to get others to look up from what they are doing and pay attention. I wonder if I can broadcast loud enough the need to pause and reassess what we have just seen and been through and decide if we care to continue.

To the conversations I have been having about my future: This is a test, only a test.

To the friends who seem to just be hanging on to me out of obligation: This is a test, only a test.

To the pressure I feel to provide for my family: This is a test, only a test.

To the technology I often crave: This is a test, only a test.

To the short term debt I know is coming to preserve my current lifestyle: This is a test, only a test.

To never having enough time to write music, go to independent movie theaters, or exercise: This is a test, only a test.

Let there be a pause, if only for one day, of all of these things. Then let’s see what is still worthwhile tomorrow.

Piers were originally created for shipping cargo over the waterways. Enormous ships came in and were loaded with enormous containers. There was nothing elegant about this work, even if it was respectable and necessary. They were not for upscale restaurants or beer opener magnet stores.

Yet, now they are for selling trinkets and watching magic shows. They are for huge amounts of food consumption. They are for walking along and pretending that you aren’t a tourist.

How did this happen? How is it possible that people took a look at a dirty pier and saw a merry go round? And it isn’t just one person or one company that saw it. Hundreds of entrepreneurs and millions of people saw it too. They see it every day and they create an experience that we can’t help but want to be a part of.

It makes me wonder about other things that need to be radically repurposed. The buildings may be being used, but they aren’t being used by everyone. The experiences may be authentic but they aren’t attractions.

Here is where we should start looking for the next places that tourists should want to spend their hard earned dollars and the majority of their time:

1. Schools as living exhibits, children’s museums, and art galleries.
2. Business parks as outlet malls, single’s bars, and day long apprenticeship experiences.
3. Churches as movie theaters and enormous gathering spots for any club, event or group without limitation.

Those are the new purposes. Those are the ones that make sense to me now that I have seen these piers.