Category: Observations Page 20 of 88

Legacy

On June 28, 2016

Tonight, I am driving with my wife to The Blennerhassett Hotel in West Virginia. There, we slumber and wake early tomorrow to continue to Cincinnati, OH. I wish the trip was under better circumstances, but it’s to attend the funeral of my grandmother. She may be gone but the legacy she left will be remembered far past my life.

“It would break my heart if it was developed for any other purpose. This way, it is a comfort to know that whatever happens to me, this beautiful property will remain.” — Marie Holscher

Marie Holscher, on the farm. Courtesy of Xavier

It will remain untouched. It’s a beautiful property with towering trees and a lake where I fished growing up when we’d pile in the car for a visit. In addition to being beautiful, the farm is used as a farm.

In 2007, my father worked with her to get the property and house protected for the future. The Clermont Sun wrote about the easement. Monroe Township resident donates agricultural easement

Not just 42 acres of woodlands and farm fields (the farm produces profitable corn and soybean crops), the Holscher farm is also home to the Aaron Fagin House, built in 1832, that is listed with the National Register of Historic Places. The Fagin House has had only four owners in its 175-year history.

She wanted the house and land to remain after she passed. And it will. It will not turn into a strip mall or housing development.

“My husband (who died in 1957) and I bought the farm and moved here in 1950,” Holscher said. “It has been in our family ever since that time and is a much cherished home. It is important to me to preserve this house and its surrounding acres just as it is right now. Hopefully, the easement will accomplish that.”

I haven’t been to the farm in years. But I am looking forward to walking through the expansive lawn to the lake and towering pine trees. Even thought she has passed, her legacy will outlast my father and myself. It will remain a pristine part of the world. Nor a parking lot. Nor a mall. It will remain farmland and a legacy.

Playing with your idols

By Carl

On June 27, 2016

In Destiny, Observations

A lot of people laugh at the idea of eSports. Playing a video game professionally is a scoff-worthy idea but is it so different from other sports?

Someone spent thousands of hours practicing and playing a game and now they’re extremely good at it. My brother and I poured far too many hours to count into NBA Jam when we were growing up. We kept records of our point/steals/block totals in games.

We could try to blow out the computer-controlled team or hold them scoreless, if we could. We had a blast playing and that was with a Super Nintendo in our living room in the country.

Today, it’s possible to play games with people from all over the world and I’ve made friends in London and Australia. I have friends all over the United States and Canada. I never would have found these people if it weren’t for video games.

Video games are fun. I play to unwind. I play to blow off steam. I play to escape from the real world and emerge myself in someone’s else’s reality. The game maker’s reality.

There’s something about eSports that levels the playing field unlike other professional sports. The ability to play with or again your idols.

Reading my Destiny Twitter list, I saw this tweet:

Everyone check out this video. It’s the cutest most hilariously humbling thing I’ve ever seen. Ty for sharing ❤️ https://t.co/3438FXTPtb
— Ms 5ooo Watts (@Mrs5oooWatts) June 27, 2016

So I had to check out the video. (Embedded below.)

It’s so much fun to see kids freaking out and having so much fun playing a game against someone they admire. Ms 5000 Watts is a Destiny gamer who streams her videos and she posted a video of the match against the Pint Sized Guardians.

One of the many reasons I love Destiny is because of the inclusive, caring community. The big names are good-natured folks who love the game and love their fans.

Amid all the bad news and uncertainty floating around online and in the world, it’s good to know my refuge is still a place where things like this are happening.

Credit: https://unsplash.com/photos/O4O7TFe32N0

Barely a day

By Carl

On June 14, 2016

In Observations

Barely a day goes by without a mass shooting.

It’s terrifying. It’s exhausting. It’s a problem native to the United States. It’s a mentally unhealthy population that knows no way to express their feelings other than violence.

It’s a country where you can buy an AR-15 in 7 minutes. With that kind of speed, any impulse to murder can be acted on and carried out without any time to cool off and have your cooler head appeal to your better self.

Guns are accessible. That’s a fact that won’t quickly change. Most guns used in mass shootings are purchased legally. It’s so easy to buy them legally, why go through the extra trouble of illegal sales?

But why are so many people purchasing them and acting on their emotions in mass violence? What makes someone wake up and decide to shoot up a school, night club, movie theater or church?

I wish more of these shooters were captured alive so we could ask them.

Recipe for a shooting

By Carl

On June 14, 2016

In Observations

Men are unable to deal with their emotions. We’re taught from an early age to man up and be tough. No one is going to see you cry.

And it’s garbage. Men are emotional people too. We cry. We hurt. We have emotions but it’s not allowed for us to display them.

So we pick up guns.

We go online and scream at people to make ourselves feel better. We form hate groups. We harass women and minorities. We act out violently towards anything we don’t understand or disagree with.

We don’t know any better. We were never taught any better.

Chuck Wendig wrote what I wanted to say so go read his words.

It begins with men. Young men, usually.

(This is a recipe that simmers a long time on the stove.)

>You teach them that the world was made for them. That they own it and can do what they want and take what they desire. You also teach them that they are not allowed to express themselves. Doing that is to be like a woman, and men are told that they are very explicitly not women. Men own everything, remember. It is their right to own and to want and to take. Women are lesser, for they do not own the world. So to be like a woman — to cry and to manifest other feelings — is to be lesser. It’s not that they don’t have feelings. It is that they are taught to keep them inside. In boxes and bottles. In lead-lined trunks locked tight lest they ever escape.

Minnows swimming from BossFight.co (https://bossfight.co/13615-2/)

Just keep swimming

By Carl

On June 9, 2016

In Observations

As I may have mentioned before, books are hard. They’re hard because not only are they putting a part of yourself out into the world and saying it is worth something. But it takes a lot of work to make a book. I spent years on what would become this book. Much of it procrastinating. Self-doubting. Worrying. Second-guessing.

I could have done this years ago, but I didn’t. I wasn’t ready. I was not ready to make this book a reality. Now I am. So it’s a book now. It exists in the world. It’s out in the world and now I need people to find it and care about it enough to want it.

There’s no secret to this. I have some good friend who have tweeted about it. I sent copies to my parents, because it’s exciting to have made something with my name on the cover.

At the same time, my wife and one of her sisters launched a blog at SmartandPowerful.com. Much to my surprise, the domain name was available in 2016. But it’s shaping up to be a great project about their experiences and what they’re learned in running their own business, gardening and reinforcing women are not just pretty things. They’re Smart and Powerful!

The talk around my house this week has been about launching things into the world. I got my book done and out there. My wife got their blog up and running. Did I mention she is a self-employed art therapist, specializing in serving Seniors with dementia and an accomplished artist. Seriously, the woman puts me to shame.

As we’ve launched things, we talk about how to get people to notice them. How to get readers and customers and the only secret that keeps coming up is consistency.

Be out there. Be out there a lot and be something people can depend on. CJ Chilvers just ran a series of posts about this very topic that Seth Godin, who’s been blogging daily for years, has talked about.

That third one refutes the idea of not writing consistently. It’s the procrastination and self-doubt talking. Don’t listen to it.

The real secret isn’t so secret at all…

As James Gowans puts it:

Have you ever noticed that the secret to all the secrets is that it’s never the easy path?