Book Two

Being a charter member of the human race, I have spent a great deal of my life in pursuit of the ever existing question of “why?”. Certainly seems direct enough, eh? Actually, it’s possibly one of the most complex questions that was ever put forth to another human being. It opens up every opportunity to be explained, lectured, and nagged to death … all without necessarily every answering that simple question: “why?”.

For me, it’s been a bit more personal. At one point in my life I made a living with a camera and did a fair job at it. Using a camera immediately tosses you into the field of being a professional voyeur, studying people around you for all the graces, afflictions, annoying habits, and curiosities that would probably otherwise go unnoticed. After a time you start seeing a number of similar problems that have evolved within our species. The inability of the males & females to find and maintain harmony as well as our own inability to seek and find true inner peace seem to be the two that rise to the top of the list most often.

As of today I have found the second volume that I believe should be mandatory reading and part of the packaging of every human being. The first, “Men are from Mars ….” Was an excellent sort of instruction book. Certainly not perfect, but to date it’s been the best guide for understanding the differences in abilities and needs between the male and female. It certainly won’t solve these problems but it gives the best opportunity for these two classes to have a working understanding of the other, which would solve about 65% of the incompatibility issues that arise in a relationship. The second volume is one that I just finished. It’s Randy Pausch’s book “The Last Lecture”. You have probably seen the ABC special on Dr. Pausch and seen my own as well as others comments but you don’t know the entire story until you read the book. Here, in just 206 rough cut, large enough to read pages you will find a few precious secrets … secrets that can turn around even the most dreadful & seemingly meaningless life. WARNING: The contents of this book won’t tug at your heart strings as much as they will jerk you to your feet and slap you back into a reality that we all should be reminded of every day.

We all visit these sites in hopes of finding our perfect Ying to our Yang, to recapture something we have lost and so desperately want to find or replace or whatever it takes to bring us back to that warm, comfortable spot we once called “our life”. The fact is that we are all searching for the same thing, but allow our own prejudices to throw us off track and frequently steer us in the wrong direction. We will claim we are “only looking for our true love” but then put up roadblocks like height, weight, color, hair, location and on and on.

Being self aware is certainly an important first step, but a very important second step has to be to have a good grasp on reality as well as what is important in life. I’m talking about what is really important, not all the clutter we surround ourselves with.

And that, my friends, is one of those “why’s” that will forever remain a goal, but hopefully not necessarily a mystery ….