In a last ditch, primal effort to preserve life, I blindly plunged an outstretched hammer into anything that would save me from an untimely demise. With my eyes closed, preparing to embrace the impact of the ground, my hammer caught hold of the rooftop. Cheers and gasps cut through the howling winds as I kept my eyes shut tightly. I looked up at my outstretched hand that squeezed the rubberized body of my hammer and the twin shaved marks on the roof that the claw portion of my hammer dug into the plywood as I screeched to a halt. I choked and strained to keep all of my weight as centered as possible, failing to fully realize how close I was to certain pain and injury. Panic still flooded my mind and the adrenaline kept my hands trembling, but I was spared the brunt impact of the muddy ground below and was left dangling in the cold Midwestern air.
As my classmates rushed into the second story room to help me into the house, I was greeted with faces of amazement. They cheered my attempt at the nail and were astounded by my ability to react so quickly to utilize the tool at my disposal. Had I been ill positioned to make such a daring strike, I doubt I would be able to transcribe this story for you today. As I caught my breath, one classmate thrust the bent and rusty nail into my hand, the same one that had fallen to the muddy earth, which I gazed at for a long time. I guess I didn’t realize it then, but that little nail would resurface in my life at times of great fear. It served as a talisman of sorts with which I could remember the efforts of previous bouts of courage as a way of urging me forward through times of trial.
It is the reason I have less fear today, as I type this story at ten thousand feet in the air, from the relative discomfort of my first airline trip. Years ago I feared flying in planes for the same reasons I feared the tops of ladders, but today I find myself able to face the very thing that has restricted my migration to the far reaches of our planet. I no longer skirt from that which fills my mind with discomfort, but rather push forward through my mental trials, equipped with a heart set for adventure, confident in my own abilities regardless of the bleak situations within which I place myself from time to time. At all moments of my day, however, I find security in the little rusty nail that pokes my thigh from inside of my pocket as I face the challenges of each day without fear.
March, 2011
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
Pulling A Nail Part II
I had no desire to be where I was, but once on the roof I had no chance of turning back. With the eyes of my peers glued to my every move, I recognized the limits of my own free will and my inability to back down from the task at hand. Sure, I could have told my coach there was no way I was going up that ladder, but the pressures of high school masculinity dictated otherwise.
Fighting the temptation to scream for help and cling to the ladder until the fire department rescued me like a kitten, I pressed my toes against the slippery top rung and stretched my hammer as far as I could. With my hips thrust against the metal rung, I begged for a quick death in the event I fall, which was growing more and more likely as my self confidence shrunk to that of a paraplegic tandem entered in a potato sack race. As my classmates urged me on through the whistling winds, I finally secured a hold on the nail with the back portion of my hammer. I wiggled and strained for it to loosen, but to no avail. It could have been cemented in for all I knew because the cylindrical piece of metal refused to budge. I struggled to regain a tactical approach to remove the nail, but the cold weather forced a chill into my bones that shook the very ladder I stood on.
With my hammer briefly secured on the nail, I was well past the point of no return. I had one chance left to pull the nail before the group would retreat back to the warmth of the building and the spectacle would be lost, as would my fame. With all of my might, I half reached, half jumped, to improve the angle of the hammer so that I might generate enough leverage to pull the little bugger out. In one downward swipe, my feet reconnected with the slippery rung as my arm simultaneously torqued the nail from the roof. The hammer flew behind me over my head, still in my grasp, but the rusty nail fell to the ground. My body recoiled from the abrupt landing on such a narrow surface and I lost my footing. With all my weight moving backwards, I failed to regain my initial hold on the top of the ladder. Hammer in hand, I clawed and squeezed to regain a hold with my left, but my efforts were futile. As the silver rungs of the ladder flew past my face, images of my family crying at my funeral flooded my mind. I saw memories of my childhood flicker in and out of my eyes as gravity had its way with me.
To be continued...
Fighting the temptation to scream for help and cling to the ladder until the fire department rescued me like a kitten, I pressed my toes against the slippery top rung and stretched my hammer as far as I could. With my hips thrust against the metal rung, I begged for a quick death in the event I fall, which was growing more and more likely as my self confidence shrunk to that of a paraplegic tandem entered in a potato sack race. As my classmates urged me on through the whistling winds, I finally secured a hold on the nail with the back portion of my hammer. I wiggled and strained for it to loosen, but to no avail. It could have been cemented in for all I knew because the cylindrical piece of metal refused to budge. I struggled to regain a tactical approach to remove the nail, but the cold weather forced a chill into my bones that shook the very ladder I stood on.
With my hammer briefly secured on the nail, I was well past the point of no return. I had one chance left to pull the nail before the group would retreat back to the warmth of the building and the spectacle would be lost, as would my fame. With all of my might, I half reached, half jumped, to improve the angle of the hammer so that I might generate enough leverage to pull the little bugger out. In one downward swipe, my feet reconnected with the slippery rung as my arm simultaneously torqued the nail from the roof. The hammer flew behind me over my head, still in my grasp, but the rusty nail fell to the ground. My body recoiled from the abrupt landing on such a narrow surface and I lost my footing. With all my weight moving backwards, I failed to regain my initial hold on the top of the ladder. Hammer in hand, I clawed and squeezed to regain a hold with my left, but my efforts were futile. As the silver rungs of the ladder flew past my face, images of my family crying at my funeral flooded my mind. I saw memories of my childhood flicker in and out of my eyes as gravity had its way with me.
To be continued...
Pulling A Nail
For as long as I can remember I have had a terrible fear of heights. It seems a complimentary phobia given my short stature, but for whatever cosmic reason I have always avoided separating myself too far from the ground. On a bleak afternoon in February, I forced myself to the very top of a fifteen foot ladder and faced the one thing that I fear most. I knew at that moment that my life will be forever changed by the action I was about to undertake.
It was my senior year of high school in suburban Chicago. I was enjoying a year filled with athletic achievement and scholastic recognition, not to mention a cream-puff schedule. One of the classes I was enrolled in, Building Trades, was a unique, two-hour, experienced based program that drew students from two local high schools together to learn the entire process of building a home. The course, taught by my wrestling coach and close mentor, involved the complete construction of a single family home from the pouring of the foundation to the application of hard wood floors and trim. At this point in the course, our classes had completed framing the first two floors and the roof was almost finished. This brings me back to the driving sleet of a Chicago February and my unlikely placement at the top of a shaky ladder.
This particular day involved several menial tasks, such as building a set of stairs for the basement and pulling arbitrary nails from various places on the home’s exterior. As the daily tasks were assigned to each student, my coach skipped over my assignment and asked me to meet him in the garage. It was there that he told me, in an almost hushed tone, that it was up to me to finish off the final roofing task; I was to prepare the plywood roof for the professionals who were hired to apply the shingles and for some reason I was the only man capable of such a task. He instructed me to the top partition of the family room roof, where I would find a single, rusty nail that was foolishly driven into the wrong plank. It was imperative, he told me, that I exercise caution as I climb because the conditions outside were quite unforgiving.
Unaware of how much this task would test my will, I marched the metal ladder to the second floor and began my ascent without much thought to the process. I was too eager to please my mentor to reflect on my own reluctance to climb tall ladders. It was considered an honor to be chosen to complete the most difficult task of the day and I was preoccupied with the praise I would receive from my classmates if I were to complete the difficult task successfully. Once high above the ground, with the freezing rain pricking my face in a comical consistency, my great fear of heights clouded my ability to rationalize the task at hand. The nail was an arms-length from the top rung of the ladder and my outstretched hammer failed to meet the required distance for a successful removal.
I found myself higher in the air than I have ever wished to be, forced to navigate a slippery rooftop with a growing audience below. Word got around the building that I was at the top of the treacherous roof and before I could look down a second time, all fourteen members of the class had dropped what they were doing so they could watch the crazy boy on the ladder.
To be continued...
It was my senior year of high school in suburban Chicago. I was enjoying a year filled with athletic achievement and scholastic recognition, not to mention a cream-puff schedule. One of the classes I was enrolled in, Building Trades, was a unique, two-hour, experienced based program that drew students from two local high schools together to learn the entire process of building a home. The course, taught by my wrestling coach and close mentor, involved the complete construction of a single family home from the pouring of the foundation to the application of hard wood floors and trim. At this point in the course, our classes had completed framing the first two floors and the roof was almost finished. This brings me back to the driving sleet of a Chicago February and my unlikely placement at the top of a shaky ladder.
This particular day involved several menial tasks, such as building a set of stairs for the basement and pulling arbitrary nails from various places on the home’s exterior. As the daily tasks were assigned to each student, my coach skipped over my assignment and asked me to meet him in the garage. It was there that he told me, in an almost hushed tone, that it was up to me to finish off the final roofing task; I was to prepare the plywood roof for the professionals who were hired to apply the shingles and for some reason I was the only man capable of such a task. He instructed me to the top partition of the family room roof, where I would find a single, rusty nail that was foolishly driven into the wrong plank. It was imperative, he told me, that I exercise caution as I climb because the conditions outside were quite unforgiving.
Unaware of how much this task would test my will, I marched the metal ladder to the second floor and began my ascent without much thought to the process. I was too eager to please my mentor to reflect on my own reluctance to climb tall ladders. It was considered an honor to be chosen to complete the most difficult task of the day and I was preoccupied with the praise I would receive from my classmates if I were to complete the difficult task successfully. Once high above the ground, with the freezing rain pricking my face in a comical consistency, my great fear of heights clouded my ability to rationalize the task at hand. The nail was an arms-length from the top rung of the ladder and my outstretched hammer failed to meet the required distance for a successful removal.
I found myself higher in the air than I have ever wished to be, forced to navigate a slippery rooftop with a growing audience below. Word got around the building that I was at the top of the treacherous roof and before I could look down a second time, all fourteen members of the class had dropped what they were doing so they could watch the crazy boy on the ladder.
To be continued...
Monday, February 21, 2011
Letter to Mr G
Dear Mr G,
Upon reading your last post, it has become clear to me that you are an imbecile. Affirmative action hiring practices are the reason why so many minority citizens have jobs today. The laws were passed because businessmen, when left to their own devices, failed to hire people outside of the white elite for upper management positions and the sorts. The ones in power are the ones that want to keep it a club of like men and use their influence to maintain the status quo. It is only logical that a government that protects the freedoms and liberties of all to stand up to the injustices that are oppressing a population that is severely disadvantaged. While I disagree that your friend should receive compensation for his ancestry, I cannot help but feel for his Mexican mother who, as a first generation immigrant, surely struggled to raise her child in as competitive a nature as the suburban white educational system. Her trials in life were no doubt a challenge and the fact that the government recognizes her diligent effort through a reward program to offset the cost of technical school seems the most logical answer. Understanding that our economy is based on the belief of a free market, we as citizens need to recognize the folly of the elite to only look after their own interest. It is the national governments job to uphold the equal protection of the Constitution, even if that means using mild regulations to insure that all citizens get a fair shake in the free market. Also, it is imperative that elitists like yourself recognize that not everything is peachy keen for minority citizens and it is up to our representative democracy to speak and legislate for those who cannot for themselves. Until the upper crust of our nation realizes the importance of equality, it is our government's duty to uphold fairness in the workplace and other realms of society where the minority citizen continues to be shut out.
Sincerely,
Carlos
Upon reading your last post, it has become clear to me that you are an imbecile. Affirmative action hiring practices are the reason why so many minority citizens have jobs today. The laws were passed because businessmen, when left to their own devices, failed to hire people outside of the white elite for upper management positions and the sorts. The ones in power are the ones that want to keep it a club of like men and use their influence to maintain the status quo. It is only logical that a government that protects the freedoms and liberties of all to stand up to the injustices that are oppressing a population that is severely disadvantaged. While I disagree that your friend should receive compensation for his ancestry, I cannot help but feel for his Mexican mother who, as a first generation immigrant, surely struggled to raise her child in as competitive a nature as the suburban white educational system. Her trials in life were no doubt a challenge and the fact that the government recognizes her diligent effort through a reward program to offset the cost of technical school seems the most logical answer. Understanding that our economy is based on the belief of a free market, we as citizens need to recognize the folly of the elite to only look after their own interest. It is the national governments job to uphold the equal protection of the Constitution, even if that means using mild regulations to insure that all citizens get a fair shake in the free market. Also, it is imperative that elitists like yourself recognize that not everything is peachy keen for minority citizens and it is up to our representative democracy to speak and legislate for those who cannot for themselves. Until the upper crust of our nation realizes the importance of equality, it is our government's duty to uphold fairness in the workplace and other realms of society where the minority citizen continues to be shut out.
Sincerely,
Carlos
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
blindness
One thing, which is imperative we discuss immediately, is the idea of blindness. Our society today has evolved to possess perfect vision. We are able to visualize and make decisions based on the information our eyes process because everything is so clearly visible that it is difficult to convince yourself that what you are seeing is in fact less of a reality then it appears. This clarity must be addressed because the lack of blindness in our nation has lead to some very negative consequences. One area that our blindness would be better suited would be in the hiring practices of workplaces since the introduction of affirmative action. In modern America it is taught to our children that everyone should be treated equal regardless of ethnicity, cultural background, or religious beliefs. It can be argued that this is the very cornerstone with which our nation's foundation was laid. I wonder, then, how a business or publicly traded company can use a persons ethnicity as grounds for hiring them over another person. Quota based hiring practices are using visual and cultural stereotypes about an applicant to make judgments about their work ethic and merit. Applicants must check a box indicating their ethnicity, even though there is a fancy, law-jargon disclaimer explaining that the reason for such knowledge will not be used in the business's decision to offer a position to that person. Sure, and Elena Kagan is a strict constructionist. Society uses affirmative action hiring practices to boost the demographic breakdown of minority citizens in the workplace, which seems great, but does so in such a way that the ideals of merit based achievement are squashed by political correctness and a self-righteous sense of fairness. I spoke with a dear friend about his recent endeavors and learned of his application to a technical college near his home. He was eager to explain to me that the $900/semester he was saving on his tuition had nothing to do with his resume, interview, or test scores. He was paying less for college then similar applicants because his mother was born in Mexico, rendering him a person of Mexican decent, further decreasing his tuition by $900 beyond that of any white student at his technical college who had the same ACT score and GPA. His Mexican ancestry is being rewarded, not his competency. If the future generation has any chance of learning from the mistakes of their fathers, they will learn that affirmative action based hiring practices only perpetuate the segregation of individuals beyond their merit or scholastic achievement. By choosing not who is best for the job, but who is the best minority for the job, we will continue to separate our citizens into senseless groups that have no place in modern society. We as Americans need to start seeing each other as fellow Americans if anything is to change for the better. Blindness, though forgotten, is in desperate need of a revival.
Friday, February 4, 2011
Faster
Timing is everything. If you're not early, then you're late. The lives of us all are on fast forward as the world chugs along and leaves everybody in the dust. Much like the world, college is a whirlwind and it goes by much too fast, which is why the past three days have been so perfect. Nothing moves when there is thick layers of ice impeding one's movement. The frantic hustle up and down the hill, to and from the library, back and forth to the fitness center, it all came to a screeching halt for me when I woke to a barrage of text messages that announced classes were canceled. So what does the great Mr. G do with so much time on his hands? I read ahead in a couple of books, wrote in a reading journal about what I had just read, and finally spent some quality time cleaning up my room. Time, it seemed, was altered in such a way that the calendar day had changed but the tasks for the day remained the same. One still had to do what they were scheduled to do anyways. Similar thoughts were felt throughout the country as businesses and schools closed their doors in an effort to keep the community safe, understanding that people would carry on as planned if they didn't. Nine died in Chicago from inadequate preparation for the storm. Two are allegedly in the hospital from injuries sustained on the icy campus walkways. Nature chimed in to tell the populous that things were moving a bit too quickly for her liking. Nothing slows the transit of humans like an inch thick layer of frozen treachery. Humans today think they are invincible and will not hesitate to keep with the flow of life regardless of the natural impediments that arise from time to time. This ice storm was of epic proportions and many failed to respect the dangers of it, except the school, of course. I applaud the efforts of the school to keep the student and faculty community safe from unnecessary injury and to provide the people who seem to be moving the fastest a chance to slow the pace of the week. By breaking the cycle of the five day week, the school gave its students the best chance they had at staying healthy, a goal that cannot ever be overlooked because without a healthy student body, one cannot have a healthy school. Thank you, nature, for allowing the school to make such a wonderful decision that no doubt enriched the lives of so many.
Monday, January 24, 2011
Open
It's imperative that you read closely the things with which I am about to share. Things are moving too fast in today's world and we need to allow ourselves plenty of time to think through the problems that our society shares. If we move too quickly then we miss the opportunity to digest the world around us. Instead we masticate the information at record speeds and swallow it whole down into the gut where it sits and festers until it is nothing but crap. Useless, it seems to me, then, to be able to know so much but savor it so little. You probably do the same thing. We all have our moments where the speed of everything seems to supercede the soul of what it is we want to love and enjoy, like a flipbook's first hundred pages that seem to vanish before our eyes but we can't flip back to see it because time is elusive and you can never take it back. I am no time traveler and cannot manipulate something so cosmically out of my grasp, but rather I revel in the passing of time and can attest that people who use patience in their observation of the human speed will be more fully nourished with the nuance of the world. I know this from experience because it is I, The Great Mr. G, who will be briefing you on the things your life is too busy to gather. Today is moving faster than yesterday and I bet tomorrow will set a new speed for which things will be comprehended. Do not be fooled by the flashing urgent reports or the ticker on the bottom of the screen with text in all caps like they are warning the populous about the second coming. INSTEAD LOOK NO FURTHER THAN MR G'S IMPERATIVE INTERJECTIONS. I know how to take things a step at a time. I know how overwhelming it is to take on too much at once so let me be your guide as we navigate front page headlines and the issues that pop up on your news feed as you peruse your Blackberry at the coffee house because a lot of it deserves a second look and a little perspective from a guy that has been through it all before. I am without a doubt the man for the job because of my uncanny ability to recall the events of the past, the ones that swept too quickly past the dimwits of our society, and connect them to the problems that you have today. Think about any problem that you have had this morning up until you read this entry. There are probably a lot because this is a terrible world we inhabit, filled with the pressure to do way too much in so little time and if you do not do what is required of you than it is you that will suffer, really suffer the consequences. Let Mr G interject some perspective into your busy world and give what he says a chance to reverberate to the bones of humanity all of that which makes you scratch your head and wonder if you have heard it all before. Humanity is cyclical, my friends, and I have completed the circuit time and time again. No longer will I pass through once more and not warn my fellow humans about the danger that lies ahead. So bookmark this page and return frequently because the time is right for an information revolution and I will tell you everything you need to know about anything, in due time.
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