Learn From It

Promise me a Parade, Promise Me Today - B. Circone, R. Silk, G. Bartram, B. Mayo

I sit here at Golds Gym, my Big Gay Gym here in SOMA in San Francisco, waiting for Frank so that we can head down to the Mothership. Another day, another drive (well, another ride), another day of brilliant minds solving interesting problems, another day of a sometimes brilliant mind unable to solve his own problems.

Occasionally I consider that life would be simpler if I were strident and unyielding—what passes for “decisive” these days—barking orders instead of arriving at conclusions while disguising insecurity as dominant-pose. But there are so many of those people around already, leading lives of anything-but-quiet desperation, spilling dysfunction overboard in attempts to keep themselves afloat on ever-lowering surfaces.

They say that a rising tide raises all boats, but an ebbing tide grounds some boats before others. Those too close to the shore, too timid to venture into deeper waters go aground first. Those with too deep a hull scrape the bottom next, tipping much more quickly than others. Some survive, but everyone suffers when too much of the general good is wicked away from the sea of humanity.

So no, I won't be one of those people (if I can help it) who trusses up his insecurities in black attire and lashing hurtfulness in order to keep the bright light of vulnerability off myself. In my forty-one years of being alive, I've discovered only one way to not succumb to my own vulnerabilities: admit them.

The title, the tag-line and the first line of this entry are from a song called Promise Me a Parade by my good friends Brad, Rick, Greg and Brett, also known to most of the midwest years ago as The Toll. They appeared in our lives at the time when I needed them the most, although I don't think I ever told them that. I learned from Brad that being exposed isn't the same as being at a disadvantage, that friendship is more valuable than showmanship (no matter how spectacular) and that faith and grace are not solely the purview of religion.

Faith is small or large and you can never measure it truly. Grace is the only good answer to Greed. And it's only the small-souled that steal your energy and use it as a cheap substitute for either.