Revisiting a classic...

So, I was talking with a friend tonight, and the subject of Baz Luhrmann's Sunscreen song came up. So I reread it for the first time in a while, and enjoyed it just as much now as I did 10 years ago.

So, for those of you who have missed it, or forgot it, or never heard it in the first place, here you go. More of my writing to come this weekend.

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Ladies and Gentlemen of the class of ’99, If I could offer you only one tip for the future, sunscreen would be it. The long term benefits of sunscreen have been proved by scientists whereas the rest of my advice has no basis more reliable than my own meandering experience…I will dispense this advice now.

Enjoy the power and beauty of your youth; oh nevermind; you will not understand the power and beauty of your youth until they have faded. But trust me, in 20 years you’ll look back at photos of yourself and recall in a way you can’t grasp now how much possibility lay before you and how fabulous you really looked….You’re not as fat as you imagine.

Don’t worry about the future; or worry, but know that worrying is as effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing bubblegum. The real troubles in your life are apt to be things that never crossed your worried mind; the kind that blindside you at 4pm on some idle Tuesday.


Do one thing everyday that scares you.

Sing.

Don’t be reckless with other people’s hearts, don’t put up with people who are reckless with yours.

Floss.

Don’t waste your time on jealousy; sometimes you’re ahead, sometimes you’re behind…the race is long, and in the end, it’s only with yourself.

Remember the compliments you receive, forget the insults; if you succeed in doing this, tell me how.

Keep your old love letters, throw away your old bank statements.

Stretch.

Don’t feel guilty if you don’t know what you want to do with your life…the most interesting people I know didn’t know at 22 what they wanted to do with their lives, some of the most interesting 40 year olds I know still don’t.

Get plenty of calcium.

Be kind to your knees, you’ll miss them when they’re gone.

Maybe you’ll marry, maybe you won’t, maybe you’ll have children,maybe you won’t, maybe you’ll divorce at 40, maybe you’ll dance the funky chicken on your 75th wedding anniversary…what ever you do, don’t congratulate yourself too much or berate yourself either – your choices are half chance, so are everybody else’s.

Enjoy your body, use it every way you can…don’t be afraid of it, or what other people think of it, it’s the greatest instrument you’ll ever own.

Dance…even if you have nowhere to do it but in your own living room.

Read the directions, even if you don’t follow them. Do NOT read beauty magazines, they will only make you feel ugly.

Get to know your parents, you never know when they’ll be gone for good. Be nice to your siblings; they are the best link to your past and the people most likely to stick with you in the future.

Understand that friends come and go,but for the precious few you should hold on. Work hard to bridge the gaps in geography and lifestyle because the older you get, the more you need the people you knew when you were young.

Live in New York City once, but leave before it makes you hard; live in Northern California once, but leave before it makes you soft.

Travel.

Accept certain inalienable truths, prices will rise, politicians will philander, you too will get old, and when you do you’ll fantasize that when you were young prices were reasonable, politicians were noble and children respected their elders. Respect your elders.

Don’t expect anyone else to support you. Maybe you have a trust fund, maybe you have a wealthy spouse; but you never know when either one might run out.

Don’t mess too much with your hair, or by the time you're 40, it will look 85.

Be careful whose advice you buy, but, be patient with those who supply it. Advice is a form of nostalgia, dispensing it is a way of fishing the past from the disposal, wiping it off, painting over the ugly parts and recycling it for more than it’s worth.

But trust me on the sunscreen…

The Future is Now

I saw a great quote the other day from Howard Zinn, an historian probably best known to the general public as the guy who wrote the book that Matt Damon quotes in Good Will Hunting. It’s a shame, though, because the man really was an amazing writer. An amazing thinker, really. I won’t regurgitate the entire quote here, but the relevant part is this, “The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory.”

So many of us, myself included, spend vast portions of our lives looking towards something grand. The little things, good and bad, are quickly forgotten if not overlooked entirely. It’s much more fun to think about how things could be, not only for us, but for the world around us. Actually working towards those goals isn’t nearly as enjoyable. What we fail to perceive is that time is moving forward whether we’re living in the present or dreaming of the future.

I think that some of the frustration that people feel in their day to day lives is that it doesn’t always seem as though we can make a difference. The truth is, everything we do makes a difference, not only for ourselves, but for the people in our lives. We don’t have to wait for our lives to be perfect in order to act, we just need to act. We also don’t need the world to cooperate, because if we wait for that, we’ll be waiting for most of our lives.

I recently had a discussion on the nature of happiness with a friend of mine. (As you know, this would be a topic that I can write and talk about extensively) I argued that everyone has something that brings happiness into their lives, but the trick is to both be able to figure out what that thing is, and also to work towards practicing that action. We all have things that bring us temporary joy, or stave off unhappiness. For me, there would be plenty of those: poker, cooking, writing this blog or writing in general, reading, listening to music, playing with the cats, etc. But the one thing that brings me truly transcendent happiness is pleasing others. Bringing joy into someone else’s life, actually making a difference in how they perceive their day, that is the drug that fuels my happiness addiction.

I think I had lost track of a fundamental truth that the Zinn quote allowed me to see clearly again. It doesn’t take a grand gesture, and I don’t need to wait for everything to align in order to make my present better. In honor of this I decided to pursue a series of small gestures. I bought a stack of funny greeting cards, and hand wrote a letter on the inside of each one, and started sending them out to friends. The effect was immediate, and I was able to brighten the day of many of my friends. It wasn’t anything spectacular, just a small gesture to let them know that I cared, and that I appreciated the fact that they were in my life.

We cannot lose sight of the small things, because they are the bulk of our existence. The things that you will remember for the rest of your life, those experiences only happen once in a great while. Yes, they are the things that define the path of your life. But the person that you become in between those events will be defined by the ordinary events that happen on every random day for the five or ten years between earth shattering events. If you ignore them, or overlook them, or take them for granted, you are missing out on most of your life.

Today is the tomorrow you dreamed of yesterday. Live the dream every day.