I mentioned last week that there are certain songs that put my heart right in the seat of Doc Brown’s DeLorean and take me right back to that time period from my past. The song paints a picture in my minds eye, and I’m able to step through the frame and dance along in time.

But this week, I had almost the exact opposite experience. I get to that experience at the end of this post. If you are short on time (or patience), just skip to the end and check that out.

What comes to mind when you hear those first few plucks of the guitar from Simon and Garfunkel? If you can’t bring it to the top of your mind right now, just click the video below to give the first few bars a listen.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Does it take you to a specific time/place? Do you immediately recall a particular movie where this song was predominately or subtly featured?

For several years, I would always remember the song as the background music in Roy Munson’s alternative rent payment aftermath from the movie Kingpin.

Roy spends the scene kneeling in prostration to the porcelain god, losing his lunch, over and over again. His landlady offers a few colorful plaudits of his sexual prowess, while finishing the obligatory post-coital cigarette and redressing herself. In an understatement of understatements, she is not an attractive woman.

Somewhat surprisingly, I don’t quite feel comfortable linking to the scene from here… But you have YouTube, right? You can find it if you so desire. I won’t tell anyone.

As Roy retches and gags (along with the audience), the opening lyric is clearly and hauntingly audible:

Hello darkness, my old friend. I’ve come to talk to you again…

We smile at the play on words, and shudder at the thought of being in such a position ourselves.

It wasn’t until 2008 that I learned that the scene was actually a parody of the 1967 film, The Graduate, with Dustin Hoffman. While I always remembered Hoffman as Hook and/or Rain Man, I had a vague understanding that he was kind of a big deal back in the day before these roles.

When you watch The Graduate, you quickly notice the tone that it sets with its soundtrack. The Sound of Silence plays in the opening credits, during a fantasy montage in the middle, and in the iconic and ironic final scene on the bus.

I won’t spoil the film for you, but seriously, it’s considered one of the top 100 films of all-time. Number 17, to be exact, according to the 2007 revision. Get on that, will ya?

But let’s get back to that song.

If we, as a society, had to decide on the most appropriate song for the contemplation of choices and consequences, The Sound of Silence would surely be in that conversation.

Exhibit A would be the raw, emotionally-rich, and moving performance by Paul Simon during the 10th Anniversary of the September 11th attacks in NYC. For me, personally, it captured my feelings of pain, regret, sadness, and sympathy in a way that no other act of remembrance did that day. My post from that day remains (as of this date) the highest visited article on my website. I would guess that it has more to do with that song than my prose.

Exhibit B comes from yet another film. In Zak Snyder’s adaptation of Watchmen in 2009, the song plays through The Comedian’s funeral. The camera pans across the faces of almost every important character in the film. No dialogue is spoken, and none is needed. The song does the heavy emotional lifting, so the actors don’t have carry it all by themselves.

As Art Garfunkel put it in the introduction to what might be the definitive version of the song (in my opinion):

There are times when I’m singing one of Paul’s songs, that I feel that the song is uh, very personal and probably shouldn’t be sung by anyone other than the writer. But, there are other songs that… go beyond one person.

Do you agree?

Click here to view the embedded video.

But instead of just letting this song be soaked with melancholy, contemplation, and regret, with little hope for redemption, let me leave you with the reason I felt compelled to write this article in the first place:

This 8 1/2 minute short film features a rework of the song by einsauszwei. Like the Watchmen sequence, there is no dialogue, at least not audibly. It will make sense right away. Seriously, give up 8 1/2 more minutes of your life and check this out. I will even put forth a money-back guarantee that you will be glad that you did.

Without further ado:

Click here to view the embedded video.

It’s a beautiful film, in so many senses of the word. And it’s helping to redefine my experience of The Sound of Silence.

If the silence is indeed deafening, perhaps that is still a good thing.

Adieu.

Have you ever had a Saturday schedule so empty and lame that you wondered if you could possibly squeeze two naps into it just to spice things up a little bit?

I found myself starring right down the barrel of one such Saturday just this past weekend. I get to have my children stay with me every other Saturday and Sunday. This was not my weekend. A quick scroll through Facebook revealed that my friends were all either out of town or otherwise engaged. Fun was being had, but not by me.

When I came across a status update from Foxy Shazam, I immediately remembered that that night was the CD release party for the band’s new album, The Church of Rock & Roll. This was the same band that I had previously set out to see live, only to be chagrined by the concert selling out before I could purchase my tickets.

A couple of quick Google searches let me know: A) that there were still tickets available, and B) that a trip to the band’s hometown of Cincinnati would take about four hours. With a couple of texts, I was able to procure a couch to sleep on after the show, and convince myself that it was an idea of real merit, if not brilliance.

Before I could even talk my myself out of it, I was cruising down the interstate on a pilgrimage to the Church of Rock & Roll.

The live experience was everything that I could have hoped for. While I expected to be (by far) the oldest and least hip person at the venue, I pleasantly discovered that I was neither. There was a huge mix of Foxy faithful in the crowd, and I quickly felt right at home among my fellow parishioners.

This was no church, at least not in the sense that a church has a steeple, pews, a pulpit, and stained glass. But it was a church in the sense that there was a throng of people expecting to be changed, a charismatic leader to be listened to, rapturous music, and folks collecting money to help with the good works being done.

By the time they played this song, I couldn’t be sure if I was really in a church or a concert hall:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Because of the lighting, none of my pictures really turned out. However, this spectacular failure did yield one fascinatingly appropriate image.

The guys put on a categorically amazing show. Sky (with his crazy long beard), stood on top of his keyboard, stomping the keys right along with the song. Daisy spent a good 30 seconds balancing his bass, upside-down, on his fingertips, in the middle of another song. The horn player, Alex, when he wasn’t swinging it around wildly, managed to toss his trumpet at least 20 feet up into the air… and catch it in time to blast a high C, right on the beat.

But it was Eric Nally, as I expected, who ruled the show.

There were the standard head bangs and stage dives, and even a bit of miming an archer with his arrows. While I can’t recall all of his antics that night, I am sure that he gave a few displays of his mic trick, and even told some crazy half-relevent stories to segue between songs. But the most memorable moment happened when he solicited the crowd for a cigarette, was subsequently showered with a few dozen of them, further requested a lighter, took five of the cigarettes, lit them, sucked in a couple of puffs, then proceeded to eat them. All of them. While still lit. Filters and all.

If you can’t believe that, perhaps this YouTube video from an earlier show might act as Exhibit A:

Click here to view the embedded video.

You even get a glimpse of Sky on the keyboards with that one.

By the end of the night, I no longer wondered if I had made the right choice in coming.

This was an experience that I hadn’t had since college.

It was a rebirth into a scene that I had once been fully fluent in.

While much of my former life is still smoldering in ash… I believe that a phoenix may rise just yet.

It was now official… I had been baptized into the Church of Rock & Roll. And oh, how sweet it is to be saved…

I realize that I am in something of a heightened emotional state right now, and my moods have been more dramatic in some usually innocuous situations. Whether I’m driving in my car, in a social setting with music pumping in, or working with a little Spotify in the background, a soundtrack has been developing in my heart and mind over the past month or so. I’m confident that these songs will become a part of my personal history, working in the future to hearken me back to right now.

Without further ado, I’d like to give you a peek into my soul, and share with you my music of this moment:

One of my top bands, Foxy Shazam, offered a recommendation for a zombie-filled music video on Halloween (Disclaimer- the video is a strong PG-13). As far as I can tell, Our Vinyl Vows is a California band that no one (other than Foxy) has never heard of before. They seem to be a typical post-punk, guitar-driven, three-chord band, bitching to whomever will listen, about whatever seems to be wrong with the world. But after listening to their only studio album (You, Me, and Einstein) for a couple of months, the common thread seems to be a prolonged dealing with breakups and heartbreaks.

To hear this guy sing, you would think that he’s never had a healthy relationship in his life. While it seemed a little odd to have song after song of danceable break-up music, I had to give the singer props for being honest about his (remarkably consistent) emotional state. Here’s a taste of his lyrical melancholy:

Home is where you make it
but I didn’t make it fast enough
You always talked about it
but I never thought you’d leave
Oh how dare you call it home
you made a mess of things
and now you’re on your way
like that’s the only solution
Pack up and go but
leave all your baggage behind

~ From: Just The Tip ~

For a band that nobody has ever heard of, they do have a nice little music video (geez, I sound SO condescending) for the appropriately titled ballad for the dumped: “Gone”.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Kind of fun for a break-up song, right? It’s appropriateness for my own life didn’t quite hit me until after being dumped myself, but I did have some fun dancing to song with my kids over the last few weeks.

Speaking of fun, that’s my other top band right now. Seriously, their name is Fun. Their website is www.ournameisfun.com. You may have actually heard of this group, what with their recent immortalization on Glee and all. But if you haven’t, please familiarize yourself and give them a listen.

Fun. is coming out with a new album in February, but they’ve already released a few tracks through YouTube. This track particularly rings true to me right now (other than the whole preoccupation with death thing).

Click here to view the embedded video.

I’ll put one foot, in front of the other one.
I don’t need a new love,
just a better place to die.

Yeah, it sounds dark and all, but not defeated. That’s the part that I really connect with. Keep walking, keep moving. It’s not time for something new, but something new will be found someday. I need to hear that. I need to believe that. And so I do.

Finally, a new sound in my playlist is from a band named Grouplove. This was a radio song that just happened to hit me in just the right place at just the right time. I’ve been wrestling with my self-esteem and manhood as of late, and the opening of this track traveled straight through my eardrums into my core-being.

I am a man, man, man, man
Up, up in the air
And I run around, round, round, round
this down town and act like I don’t care.
So when you see me flying by the planet’s moon,
You don’t need to explain if everything’s changed
Just know I’m just like you.

Just a few bars later, I get treated to this lovely bit of poetry:

And suddenly a light appears inside my brain
And I think of my ways,
I think of my days
and know that I have changed.

When I explain my divorce to people, they sympathize with me, but only to a certain extent. Really, to say that I have changed is an understatement of significant magnitude. The person that I am today is widely different from the one whom my wife fell in love with over a decade ago. Can I really blame my wife for anything? I’m the one who went from Christian minister to secular humanist. It’s on me. I get it. But it still hurts to let go…

The video for this song may be the most haunting that I’ve experienced in years.

Click here to view the embedded video.

His death sentence was seemingly stayed, only to be a delay of the inevitable. Wishful thinking leads him to a frolic in the fields and a late night in a tent (grouplove, indeed). But death came nonetheless.

Can I draw any conclusions from this?

Nope. It’s a music video. It’s somebody else’s story. It’s somebody else’s truth. It doesn’t have to me mine.

And so it isn’t.

Bonus:

Click here to view the embedded video.

I have no reason for liking this other than the fact that I always wanted to be a drummer and his skills are of the mad variety.

Long live music.

After a second go-round, my wife and I are getting another divorce. While this is not I wanted or expected, I can understand why it’s come to this. As my college roommate respectfully pointed out to me last week, I’ve become quite a different person in the past decade or so. Instead of the conservative, ministry-minded college student that I once was, I am something else entirely. Time changes people, and people change over time.

In what has already been an extremely difficult time, I recognize the value and cathartic effect of writing. But my thoughts have been so emotionally charged and scattered, I haven’t disciplined myself to actually do that. Also, I have a particular idea in my head of what an article should look like. It has a particular length, some good hyperlinks, maybe some pictures, and a snappy title if I’m lucky.

I’ve decided that such a box needs to be broken and discarded. I’m going to be writing more frequently, but with less of a clear format. Perhaps sometimes I’ll just post a Twitter-length thought or two. Later, I might go off and pound out a 1,000+ word treatise on the virtues of some pop culture nugget that has a stranglehold on my mind.

For the time being though, I don’t think that I’ll be discussing my relationship with my wife (ex-wife?) much. My emotions will color too much of my thoughts and will probably cause me to ruminate more than is healthy.

Time spent in a valley seems much more dire in that moment than when reflected on from a later mountaintop.

I think I’ll look forward to that mountaintop, when these cuts and bruises will just be scars and stories, and I’ll be more capable of a rational examination of this chapter.

Until then…

Sunrise from my airplane window. I watched it emerge from the indigo curtain.

You find yourself in a large, white room with walls so far away, you can’t even be sure that they are there. You glance up, and realize that you can’t really discern a ceiling either. This looks and feels a lot like the Construct (loading room) from The Matrix movie.

It’s just a big, open, empty room.

Or is it?

As you turn around to investigate, you realize that it’s not totally empty.

There you see a series of tables. They are spread out before you both deep and wide. You quickly estimate that there are hundreds of tables here. Maybe even thousands. It’s impressive.

On each table, there is a white tablecloth, and in the middle of each table, there sits an empty pitcher. As you approach the closest table to investigate further, you realize that your own hands are not empty. You are holding, of all things, a muffin tin.

You know, a muffin tin. It’s like a metal sheet with 12 spots to bake muffins (or cupcakes) in.

But there are no muffins in this tin.

Instead, you notice that some of the muffin spots are filled with varying levels of water. You immediately slow your gait and steady your hands, to keep the water from sloshing and spilling. It takes you a few minutes, but you eventually make it to the table.

As you peer into the top of the pitcher, you learn that it is not actually empty, either. There is a small mound of powder at the bottom of the pitcher. There is also a wooden spoon just behind the pitcher.

Immediately, you recognize the set-up before you.

This is a Kool-Aid station.

As if by instinct, you begin to pour the water from your tin, your eyes bulge and your mouth moistens at the splash of red that has just been created before you. As you pour out the last drop, you set down the tin, grab the spoon, and get stirring.

When the last of the granules is finally dissolved, you set down the spoon, put both hands on the pitcher, and raise it to your mouth. The smell takes you right back to your childhood, and you can hardly wait for the divine concoction to pass your lips.

And then it does.

But your anticipation has not been met with the satisfaction you were so sure of. Yes, the taste of cherries is noticeable, but the overall flavor is pretty bitter.

“Ahhhhh”, you remember… Kool-Aid needs sugar.

You wonder if any of the other pitchers contain sugar in them. As you gaze around the room, you notice that the pitchers are all slightly different in shape and size. Your own is a tall, opaque cylinder. But other containers are taller, wider, shorter, narrower, clearer, etc.

You grab your muffin tin, but before you can take a step towards another table, you realize that your tin is filling with water again. Slowly, and not quite evenly in each spot, water is magically appearing in the little muffin divots.

Startled, you set the tin back down on the table, and notice that the process has stopped.

Curious, you pick it up again, and marvel at the water levels rising again. YOU are the one filling this with water. It’s somehow a part of you. And now, clearly, it’s a part of your tin.

As the muffin tin begins to be full, you find yourself slowing down and steading your hands again as you walk. But with your desire to reach the next table, and your newfound powers of manufacturing water, you decide to pick up the pace, letting some water slosh and spill along the way.

By the time you’ve reached this new table, you only have about half of the liquid that you had before, and there is no longer any filling happening.

You also realize that the journey to the second table had taken more out of you than you would have expected. You find that you are actually quite parched. You pour the contents of your muffin tin into the pitcher anyway, gasping aloud when you notice a bright green solution develop before your eyes. You repeat the stirring process, and take a deep chug of the green stuff, only to immediately spit it out like you are in a bad comedy film.

While there is definitely some sugar in this container, the water to powder ratio was WAY off, creating a drinkable (allegedly) version of what reminds you visually of toxic sludge (or TMNT ooze).

As you begin to put the pieces together, you realize that it will take you a long time to find the “right” container for making Kool-Aid. You figure that somewhere in this sea of tables, pitchers, and wooden spoons, there is a perfectly sized pitcher, probably round and clear, with a smiley face drawn in condensation on the side.

There it is.

You also figure that you are going to have to bring the right amount of water to that pitcher in order to find the perfect balance.

But suddenly, you feel a sense of dread. You know that if you put all of your water in one container, and it turns out to be a bad batch, you’ll have to start the process all over again.

Maybe you should be more cautious. Maybe you should spread your water out among a number of different pitchers, so if a batch ever seems to go sour, you can just fall back on another pitcher that you have started pouring yourself, er uh, your water into. There is a world of potential right before you. You wouldn’t want to make a mistake here by making the wrong choice.

So you put your plan into action, pouring a bit of water over here, a bit more over there, and some more over there. Pretty soon, you are so thirsty that you can’t even wait for the Kool-Aid anymore. You look down at the plain water in your hands, and you start to drink directly from the tin.

You start to rethink your plan. You wonder if maybe you should just choose a single pitcher and close your eyes to the others all around it.

You start to hear voices in your head:

“What if you choose the “wrong” one?”

“What if you keep wandering and looking for a better pitcher?”‘

“What if choosing one is the only way to stay sane?”

“What if…”

“What if…”

“What if…”

What would you do?

I almost wished that it was harder. When I took a day off from Ramadan to play in my college’s alumni soccer game, I knew that I would have to make up that day before the end of the year. Even though the season of Ramadan is an entire month, the rhythm of the fasting and the solidarity of a billion others fasting makes the struggle a bit easier.

Now that the rest Ramadan fast is a few months behind me, I look back on some of those struggles with real fondness. I really learned a lot about Muslim culture during that month (and a lot about myself as well). I sometimes wonder if it will remain one of the most meaningful experiences of my life.

While my fast was to intended for me learn more about what this Muslim experience is like, and to show some solidarity with my Muslim friends, I did not end up converting to Islam. I’m sure that some of my Muslim and non-Muslim friends thought that this was possible based on my interest in the religion, but alas, it did not happen.

After a life lived in the realm of Christianity, I found myself wanting to get outside of the box. It’s too bad that there isn’t a new phrase that has replaced “outside of the box”. Remember when that term was en vogue? Remember when “en vogue” was… en vogue? You do? Alright! Now we’ve achieved synergy!

Sorry for that digression, but I actually do appreciate that metaphor of a box. The container of my Christian faith gave me a great deal of comfort. In my particular sect of Christianity, we believed that God’s only inspired words were contained within the leather casing of the Bible. Right there, from Genesis to Revelation, that was it.

It wasn’t exactly a small box, but it was a clearly delineated record of inspiration. I through myself headlong into studying and memorizing it. I even went to college to get a degree in the Bible. It was a 774,746 word (give or take) field to be mastered. Heck, I even started to learn how to translate from the ancient Greek.

But when my horizons were expanded to the billions of people who have never known the Bible and it’s Jesus, I found that I could not accept my Church’s teachings of their role in God’s grand narrative.

What was I to do about the Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, etc. of the world?

A God who would send the ignorant to hell didn’t appeal to me, and if He did allow some sort of grace to the ignorant, then evangelism seemed like a risky proposition, with the eternal destiny of souls on the line.

Perhaps you have heard of the metaphor of the blind men and the elephant?

These six blind men happen upon an elephant, but each can only perceive the creature through their hands. They take turns describing the different parts of the animal that they can feel, and argue over who is actually in touch with the its true nature. Of course, there is the artist, with eyes to behold the entire scene, and with this, the ultimate knowledge. Everyone thinks that they can perceive the whole of the God… er uh, elephant, right? How can one make such a claim and still be respectful to those which he calls blind?

As I wrestled with my own cognitive dissonances, I stumbled upon Samir Selmanovic and his book. Suddenly, I had an example of a Christian minister with a faith that actually honored the beliefs and traditions of other religions. Samir approaches those of a different faith with the curiosity and respect of a foreign exchange student, eager to learn from his surroundings.

I also found encouragement through the Interfaith Amigos, a trio of clergymen from the three Abrahamic faiths. Again, instead of seeking to convert each other, they seek conversations that allow them to learn from each other. How they make this all work, where others have found enmity, I sometimes wonder.

Most recently, I have discovered the discussions fostered by Chris Stedman. Chris is the Interfaith and Community Service Fellow for the Humanist Chaplaincy at Harvard University. Even as a humanist, he believes that there should be a place at the Interfaith table for those who do not believe in a god. He’s got some great ideas about how this can all work, and I’ll be writing more about him soon. But for now, just trust me that he is a really bright guy who doesn’t give you that icky, repulsive feeling that many atheists can do when they talk about religion.

That’s really where I’ve gotten stuck in my faith journey. I don’t really want to leave one box for another, but I often find myself suffocating in the vacuum of nothingness that I’m floating in right now.

Being in a box of religion may be limiting and claustrophobic at times, but at least there is some firm footing to rest on when weary.

I’ve almost forgot to mention the good people that often make up a faith community. I attended a bar mitzvah for the first time last week, and found myself encouraged and envious of the support offered to this boy and his family in his transition to manhood.

And finally let me return back to Ramadan. While I don’t want to embrace all of the beliefs, rituals, and dogma of Islam, I very much value and appreciate the structure of the Ramadan fast.

There is a beginning… and an end.

The sun comes up… and the sun goes down.

I focus my mind during the day… then I sit in thanksgiving for my food and water at night.

As far as boxes go, it’s been one that I have been happy to step into for the first time this year. Instead of continuing to float in a sea of not-knowing (agnosticism), will I be able to find peace of mind and community support in the Interfaith world.? Is this the box that contains the whole of the elephant? Or just another body part for me to grasp for in my own blindness?

Regardless, I’m proud to have celebrated Ramadan with my Muslim brothers and sisters this year. Will I be back for more next year in the blazing summer? I would say that it is pretty likely. Would anyone like to join me?

This is despite everything that I know about managing change and everything that I believe about the utility of failure.

As often happens, the various media content and ideas that I have been picking up on lately have been helping to give me a better idea of why I might have failed in this new approach to disciplining myself.

A friend of my from my undergraduate school is currently in college again to become a counselor. Being that we are both interested in psychology, he often shares interesting links and videos with me that he thinks I might get into.

He’s usually right.

One article he sent me was especially salient and thought provoking. I could hardly believe how well this author was able to translate some complex and difficult psychological research studies into coherent, clever, and captivating prose, filled with vivid metaphors and juicy pop-culture references. It was not exactly Malcolm Gladwell, but somehow still in that same vein. His schtick seems to be pointing out how we don’t really know ourselves as well as we think we do, and that we often prescribe intuitive solutions for ourselves that turn out to be counterproductive. (Ding, ding, ding! You now have my full attention.)

I clicked around on this guy’s site, more and more impressed with each article that I read. Then, I noticed a little image linking to the official trailer for his book. Yes, he created his own video trailer for the book that he is about to release. Although he has a unique way of pronouncing the word “want”, I found myself nodding along with his insights and theories on procrastination and motivation. Check it out:

Click here to view the embedded video.

So, I’ve got yet another book to add to my growing list, but I can’t see myself not reading this guy’s inaugural opus.

In addition to that site, I also happened upon an amazing slice of the internet known simply as PSYBLOG. Ok, it’s not exactly the greatest name ever, and it kind of sounds like you are saying “cyborg” if you try to pronounce it. However… IT IS FREAKING AWESOME!

Apparently, good ol’ TPOS found the sight recently as well. She seems have quite impeccable taste.

The first post that caught my eye was regarding the suggestion to keep one’s goals secret. The title? Why You Should Keep Your Goals Secret. Pretty straightforward, right?

While I didn’t really agree with the certainty that the author offered for the wisdom of not sharing one’s goals, I appreciated having to think about the risks of sharing goals with others. While this may have something to do with my failing to reach my “early to rise” goal, I feel like the opposite took place during Ramadan. Without telling everyone about it and blogging about it each day, I honestly don’t believe that I would have been able to complete it. I give a ton of credit to the others that I shared that experience with.

Maybe that’s the difference. Maybe I need to form an “Early Risers” religion.

Um….. well, maybe a club would have to suffice.

I also happened upon an article from Fast Company entitled: 5 Things To Do Every Day For Success. Guess what the no. 1 item on the list was?

Correct.

Be early to rise.

And guess what? A bunch of people argued with the author about it! It became an all-out war between night-owls and morning larks. The author even had to publish a follow-up article explaining what she really meant in the first article. All very interesting to me. I’m not sure where I fall in all of this.

Finally, I listened to an intriguing podcast while mowing the lawn a couple of weeks ago. I have two regular podcasts that I subscribe to: Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me, and Freakonomics. This particular Freakonomics podcast started out by saying:

You know the bromide: “a winner never quits, and a quitter never wins.”

To which Freakonomics Radio says … Are you sure? Sometimes quitting is strategic, and sometimes it can be your best possible plan.

I’m not much of an “always/never” kind of guy anyway, so my ears were finely attuned to the argument that followed. That and the fact that I had a lot of lawn left to mow.

I won’t rehash all of the points that were made, but I’ll admit that it left me with the feeling that we all quit a lot more than we realize, and it often leads to better opportunities in the future.

So while I didn’t think that I’d be giving up on my Father Abraham approach to discipline so soon, that’s exactly what I’m doing now.

I’ve got some ideas of what might work better, and I’ve already put some into practice. So far, it’s looking fairly promising. But maybe I should keep things like this to myself for a while.

Hmmmmm……

Just a random Abraham tombstone from the internet.

Click here to view the embedded video.

If you are a basketball fan, you may recognize that song from the pre-game introductions of your favorite team. I believe that it was begun by the Chicago Bulls, but I know that my Phoenix Suns used it back in the Charles Barkley days. My friend Matt still thinks of Alan Parsons every time that he reads or hears my full name. Good times.

When I first heard about TAPP, I was jazzed to think about this other “Parsons” that was out there. I wondered if/how we were related, and if I had some long-dormant musical ability that was given to all Parsons through genetics. After further review, I can conclude that that is not the case.

Still, this curiosity sent me on a search. I remember looking through my metro Phoenix phone book and flipping to the ‘P’s. I was stunned at the number of Parsons that were right there in my hometown. I wondered if I had unknowingly bumped into one of them at the AM/PM minimart, Golfland, Pizza Mart?Could it be that it was a Parsons that I had witnessed taking Sub-Zero all the way through to Shang Tsung at the nickel arcade?

My mind was swimming with all of the hypothetical things that Parsons could be doing out there.

Oddly, I took some comfort in the fact that there were no other “Zac Parsons”s listed in Phoenix. In fact, I concluded that I must be the only “Zac Parsons” in the world! Zac wasn’t a hugely popular name, and I definitely had never heard of anyone spelling it the same way that my parents had chosen to spell mine.

When I discovered that the bassist of the English band E.M.F. spelled his name “Zac”, I was actually pretty proud. Here was another musician with some part of my name. Again, if you can’t quite place E.M.F., let me offer this (with some help from THE Tom Jones:

Click here to view the embedded video.

I followed the band for a while, mostly because of the Unbelievable song, but also for Zac.

Sadly, Zac died unexpectedly in 2002 at the age of 31, which happens to be my age now. When I saw news of his death I was reminded again of the “unique” spelling of our name.

By this point, I was able to use this new technology known as “The Internet” to search for information about other Zacs. To my great surprise, there were a TON of us!

Today, we’ve got Zac Efron to remind the world that Zacs can be beautiful.

There’s also Zac Brown, who keeping the musical prowess (and beard-growing ability) of Zacs at an impressively high level.

Click here to view the embedded video.

There’s even a “Captain Zac“. It’s some guy who happens to be the first American to sail solo around the world.

You probably know where this is going now…

Despite my instance that I was definitely the only Zac Parsons in the world, I’ve learned that there are at least a half dozen “Zac Parsons”s in North America alone. In fact, one of them owned this domain before me.

So, as a service to anyone who pokes around here looking for another Zac Parsons, I’d like to start profiling different people with the name “Zac Parsons” who I run across. I’ll connect with them, and post as much as is appropriate here on the website.

If you happen to know a Zac Parsons, please have them email me at zac@zacparsons.com. I’m sure this won’t get confusing at all.

Let the Zac Parsons Project commence!

Well, I think that I managed that for about three or four days. Then I had an extended out of state trip for five days, and I haven’t gotten back into that discipline since. I could blame the trip for disturbing my circadian rhythms, but I can’t explain why I haven’t been able to pick the discipline up again since I’ve been back. It’s been quite disappointing to have my Father Abraham style fall apart so quickly.

However, I have a theory or two.

First, why would I expect that adding a new discipline would be as simple as just committing to do it? Changing one’s life is much more difficult than that. Actually, difficult is the wrong word. But certainly I should have had more respect for rising early than I began with. After all, many people (myself included) have made a commitment to exercise more, only to watch our default sedentary behavior settle back in after a short time.

Habits

Habits take some time to groove into life.

I’m imagining that my life is a rotating disc, sort of like a record player. Let’s say that I want to groove a new pattern into the sphere. I would have to apply enough pressure to the disc to make sure that the correct pattern was imprinted. This isn’t about just taking my hand all the way around the circle and calling it a day. In order to have a uniform groove, I actually need to hold my position and allow the rest of the circle to come to me.

This seems contrary to a self-efficacious, internal locus of control type of philosophy. However, life doesn’t just take place in the perfect present tense. In fact, something more like the continuous present tense is more appropriate for affecting real behavior change.

Before this gets into a full-on grammar or syntax lesson, let’s just settle on the importance of continuous, conscious focus. Even tying our shoes was crazy hard for a few weeks before we dropped that task into the subconscious somewhere. Most habits work this way as well. It’s rarely “one and done”.

Mood and motivation

Another monkey wrench in this process of adding a new discipline or habit is the widely varying moods that we find ourselves in throughout the day. There are days when I wake up with a clenched fist, ready to take on the day with the fire of a man possessed. These are usually quite productive mornings. Depending on my diet, the weather, the people that I meet with, the tasks on my plate, and a number of other factors, my mood  can often change dramatically by the afternoon. Suddenly, I don’t have quite the same amount of energy and motivation to face the world as what I woke up with.

Most of our decisions to change our lives come from moods of feeling highly self-efficacious. We are ready to fight hell with a bucket of water, and we would try it even without the bucket. Or water. And when the flames come (as they always do), we often decide that the moment is bigger than we are, and we bail.

On a rational level, this doesn’t make a lot of sense. Using the example of dieting, we know that cheeseburgers tend to end up on our hips, and don’t any favors for our arteries either. In the moment of beginning a diet, this all makes sense. The facts are clear. The moment of pleasure on our tongue is clearly outweighed by the long-term effects of fat and cholesterol, at least in terms of time that our body deals with them. So we make the commitment.. and scratch our heads when we fail.

The trick is getting past our conscious level mood, back to our original, rational motivation for the change.

The sad part about all of this is that I know all of this information, and yet still attempted it on willpower alone. It’s now time for a bit of a plan B.

I’m going to add the discipline of being early to rise again, but with a lot more of the emotion and value of doing it infused within. Instead of just telling myself to do it, I’ll be visualizing myself waking up early, and including the emotional details of why it is valuable for me to do so.

I want to begin my day with some momentum and energy. I want to be in the right mindset to wake up my kids, feed them breakfast, and see them off to school. I want to begin my work with a clear understanding of why it is important to complete it.

I want to write some more about this, but it’s time to start visualizing. I’ll check back with you later…