EmptyHighway
I haven't figured it out either.

Considering my earlier post was on the death of my uncle, you would think that a discussion of the meaning of life would stem from that. Honestly, it came from another place all together.

Looking at life. The eternal questions of man, That which we have looked to the heavens for, and within ourselves. Introspective contemplation, through the ages of man. What is being? Why are we here? I have found the reason, or rather my reason.

When I asked the question "why are we here" I was flooded with answers and ideas from every section of my consciousness. Still they all led to one point. We are here, because we are here. That is all. Sure, it sounds like tautology, and in fact it is, but the truth cannot be denied. What I am getting at is to ask why we are here is to imply that there inherently must be a force that has intentions towards our existence.

Still, why must we think in these terms? We do not know of the existence of any higher power, so why do we assume that is must exist? Maybe it is because we fit here so well. We fit inside of our environment, as if it were built for us. Rather, why can it not be that we fit into this world so well because we are not dead yet.

The simple fact that our species is still alive shows that we fit here, but that does not mean that this outcome was without trial and error. If you gave me a board with a hole in it, and a box of wooden blocks that were never intended in their creation to ever encounter the board, there is still the off chance that I may find one that fits. Does that mean that their creators had this in mind? Of course not, so why must we think in these simplistic, and narrow terms? Because it is part of who we are. We are builders, we shape the world around us. Useful things exist because we made them. So, if complex systems in nature exist, people think that they must have been created.

And of course since we are builders, and creators, whatever built this place (since it is so complex) must be very much like us, but bigger and more powerful. Again, narrow-minded simplistic thinking.

But what does any of this have to do with the meaning of life? Everything, and nothing. The truth is we are asking the wrong question. It is like the creatures Douglas Adams wrote about. They built the most powerful computer ever to answer the ultimate question of life, the universe, and everything. It's answer was "forty-two." When asked what it meant, the computer said it did not know, and that another larger computer must be built to figure out exactly what the question was, that gave the answer as forty-two. The point of all this is that people cannot find the meaning of life, because they are asking the wrong question.

A more appropriate question is "Where do I find meaning in life?" That is the key. For millennia, people have wasted their entire lives in search of innate, justification for our existence, instead of living their lives to create justification. The meaning is in how a life was lived. The meaning is in life, not about it.

To lose a dear friend. For an icon in a life to leave this Earth. For a great man to bring to an end his final chapter. How do we express a lament for someone in our lives who is just as much myth as man? A legend in our mind. How do we honor a man who has bestowed an unimaginable gift upon the world by simply existing?

While I know that my Uncle Bill could be a formidable opponent in the courtroom, I have never encountered that man. I did not know William White the lawyer, I knew Uncle Bill, the spinner of yarns, and the man whose life I could never hold a candle to.

Over the years I have sat and listened to his stories. So many times I have heard the stories. From world war two, when as a sonar man in the Navy he accidentally dropped the sonar dome out the bottom of the ship to where it lay today at the bottom of the Pacific. Or how he and his war buddies dropped gasoline cans from a plane onto the Teas A&M bonfire, igniting it prematurely. Then how he met the woman he would marry six weeks later, and the marriage that would last over half a century.

How do I honor a life such as this? How do you find the words? Where s it written in the tomes of humanity as to paying respect to the greatest man that I have ever know. His gentle smile. Soothing laugh. Listening to the same old jokes over and over again, and laughing, because it was hard not to in his presence.

I could be sad. I could weep for a year. I could fall to my knees and rage at the Gods. Still, none of this will keep him with me. As he said himself, he has been living on borrowed time since 1946. When the final moment comes, he will know that he lived. He will not regret not having taken a chance when he had it. If there was a chance to take, he took it, and if there was risk involved, all the better.

So how to I thank this man above all others? How do I tell him what he has given me? How do I let this man, who was the only grandfather I ever knew, what he has done for me?

This is the only way I know how. Thank you Uncle Bill, I love you.

My eyes are burning. I have an appointment with the Optometrist tomorrow...eek!...which one?..eek! (I'll have to look that up on my work computer). And I just found this poem. Makes me want to read more poetry. Maybe even write some. And keeps my eyes burning because I can't stop surfing and reading other peoples thoughts and examining their ideas.

I am shocked, I am outraged, and well, confused. I honestly don't know how to feel this christmas season. As I succumb to the evils of corporate America sucking me dry and telling my children they can't live without a small piece of plastic they will lose interest in within twenty minutes, and it is all my old stuff. I feel like I am walking into my own garage sale as toy manufacturers sell off my childhood in a new package.

Walking down the toy sections at the store I pass over and over glimpses into the past. Yes kids, the toys of the eighties have returned to haunt us. I noticed it happening as early as high school, when the movie Robin Hood (staring a british accentless Kevin Costner, I mean come on, even Christian Slater tried to fake it) and a toy of what was supposed to be the Sherwood Forrest camp came out. I immediately recognized it as the Ewok treetop village playset I coveted as a kid. It has continued over the years, a more recent example of this repackaging came along with the second Harry Potter movie, when they came out with a toy of a trap that would dump slime on Harry Potter. This was nothing but a repackaged He-Man slime pit from the mid-eighties.

But now, they aren't even trying to be slightly creative by repackaging. I walk into the stores and they are filled with Care Bears, My Little Pony, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Transformers, GiJoes. Ok, I admit GiJoe was more my father's toy, then it was redesigned and sold to us (by the way, I miss the little plastic-eye-screw-rubberband- in-the-waist action figures much more than these retro pumped up Ken dolls.)

How dare they? That is MY CHILDHOOD they are selling! My kids need to make their own memories and stay out of mine (you know what I mean) Look, I hate to share my toys when I was a kid (ask my brother Wayne some time about a baseball glove he carried around for a full day once). I don't need to do it now. THOSE ARE MY TOYS AND KIDS NEED TO STAY OUT OF THEM! I didn't get to have an XBOX when I was a kid, they don't get to have Optimus Prime.

IT'S NOT FAIR, I'T NOT IT'S NOT IT'S NOT! And I am gonna hold my breath until they stop!

Don't get me wrong, I am the king of anti-road rage. I don't speed (honestly, I don't go over the speed limit.) I don't freak out and honk at people over silly foolish things. But those people in the parking lots... you know the ones I am talking about.

There I am, after work, just needing to pick up a gallon of milk so the kids can have cereal in the morning, and then it happens. An SUV in front of me in the parking lane stops for no apparent reason. So in turn I stop, along with the person that has just pulled up behind me. As I look ahead, I see a woman pushing a shopping cart, and put the car into park. The SUV in front of me is going to wait for the woman to unload her cart and open up the parking spot.

This would be fine, if the parking lot was full, but no, as I look around I see multiple spots open. I can't get to them though, because I am now boxed in. So there I sit. For twenty minutes. So this person can avoid walking an extra twelve feet. If the sheer sloth of this person were not annoying enough, there is a second factor.

If the sheer sloth of this person were not annoying enough, there is a second factor. Aside from shopping, what is it we do large amounts of in stores? Walk! This person is about to set off on a forty minute foot trek through a store, and they want to spare themselves from an extra six steps. So what does this say about our society? More than I am willing to write here tonight. I have to turn in early, tomorrow I have to go to the store.

While driving down yet another polluted, overcrowded freeway this weekend, I came across a site that never fails to bring a tear to my eye. Like so many times before I bore witness to the discarded of society. While it is inevitable that in a large populated society we should leave behind and discard that which we once held so dear, must we then ignore it's existence? Have we become so desensitized to it that we now pass by without giving it a second thought? While that seems to be the case for so many others, I refuse to fall into that particular rut (I have ruts of my own that I have yet to fully explore.)

As I was saying, I witnessed this atrocity of man, which I am sure you have seen too, the lone shoe on the side of the highway. Yes, this is so very common, and easy to ignore, I cannot bring myself to do so. The lone shoe. Where did it come from, who would have abandoned the poor sole, and where pray tell has it's sole mate gone?

Why is it always one shoe by itself? While one might say that it came from a moving car, and the other shoe was thrown out further down the road, I have rarely found it's equal. And what kind of person throws a shoe from a moving car anyway? Did they no longer have use for only one of their shoes? Did the shoe wrong them? And again I ask, where is it's match? I mention the other shoe because this is the most curious part of the road shoe phenomenon.

Shoes as we know come in pairs. It is a reflection of our biology, two feet, two shoes. In this way it is reflective of who we are in a biological, and physical sense. So to see a shoe, alone, absent of it's foot, and it's partner is rather unnerving. At first when I began to attempt to rationalize this occurrence, I thought, maybe it was purchased by a man with only one foot. After all, what use could he have for two shoes, while he has but one foot? Maybe he bought a pair of shoes, and threw out the one he had no use for while driving home with his purchase. This theory though, contains two major flaws. One, many people with only one natural foot have an artificial replacement that would require a shoe, and secondly, the road shoe is never new.

I later realized that it is futile for me to try and solve this puzzle. I never saw a person throw out a shoe on the highway, nor do I need to. The how is not important, what is important is what I can do to help. I have come to the realization that I have seen the lone shoe occurrence in only one other situation, yard sales. Often at yard sales I have seen lone shoes, and wondered why anyone would sell only one shoe. Now I know. They had two shoes, and some vandal had stolen one, realizing this was a very silly thing to do, then threw it out the car window while making his escape.

The shoes owner could not bear to part with his remaining shoe, in the hopes he would one day recover the other. As time passed, he would lose hope. Still, while loving his shoe, he could not just throw it away, but opted to find it a good home, and tried a last ditch attempt by giving it a good home with some patron of yard sales.

So now, I collect road shoes, and take them with me to yard sales in the hope of reuniting them with their partners. While there is little glory or reward in this act, I feel it is in some small way a public service. So I implore you all, don't just pass that shoe by on the side of the road, in an act of good faith, take it in, and reunite it with the only other out there that is made to be by it's side.

You never know when karma will strike.

This post was sent to me (Wayne) , from my brother a couple of days ago. He doesn't know it yet but he is now a feature writer on this site. I am posting this as him and under his new account. Please read, this brought a big fat smile to my face and I couldn't be happier for him

Well, I have to say that it is an odd experience. Just two days ago, I talked to
Wayne, and was terribly depressed about my situation. I felt like I was going nowhere,
like there was nothing in my future to look towards. Then it happened. Shannon
pointed out an ad in the paper.

I had always toyed with the idea of getting a job with a newspaper, to be honest I
had wanted that since I was twelve. It was my whole basis behind my choice in
college. I wanted to work for a newspaper, still, over the years, my dreams have
faded, and my outlook has skewed.

I moved on from dreams. I began looking toward responsibility. My dreams had lead me
down so many false paths, to so much failure. Then, a simple ad in a small town
newspaper shown it's glimmer on me. I laughed when Shannon showed it to me, but for
two days I couldn't stop thinking about it. All I could think of was this little ad,
and a tarnished dream.

Finally, just to prove I couldn't do it, I answered the ad. I walked into a small
newspaper office, and walked out with a job. Today I spent my first day behind my
new desk at a small town newspaper. Monday through Friday, from eight a.m. to five
p.m. I am the design and layout department for the Canyon Lake Times Guardian
newspaper.

Of course, it is a small paper, with only one issue a week, a 5,000-issue
circulation, and an in-house staff of ten tops, but to me, it might as well be the
Washington Post, or L.A. Times. To me it is a kingdom of gold. So excuse me if I
speak a bit romantically about a low paying job, with no fanfare, but when a man
sees his dream appear in broad daylight, it is hard to keep his feet on the ground.