Shrinkage

A couple months ago, I got into an argument with a friend of mine about how much I care about the Red Wings success. She would say, "Why do you invest yourself in something so meaningless? These players get payed millions of dollars to play a sport while I am doing their dirty work for little money at all. I wonder what the world would be like without sports."

I turned this around to her and asked, "Well what about authors and actors and actresses? Why do they get to make millions of dollars when all their doing is creating a fictional (or non-fictional) version of what is already out there and/or might be out there?"

It's entertainment, and it's what drives society. Without movies, without sports, without books, without the crazy crap that's on the internet, these generations in society would collapse.

What's wrong with investing yourself in something that you can't control? I love knowing that whether I want the Red Wings to win or not has no impact on the outcome of the game whatsoever. We can all sit there and watch 22 players give everything they've got to the sport that they love. And guess what? When they lose, it's okay for us to be upset. We feel cheated, like there was more they could of done to give us what we wanted.

Tiger's fans have it the worst. Not only do they have to hope for good weather in order for them to even play, but they also have to sit through 162 games. That's three different seasons of the year, partially devoted to how roughly 12 players decide to play on that day. And I say the Tiger's have it worst, because it's Detroit. They'll go 13-2 in 15 games, and then turn right around and lose eight in a row. It infuriating, you just scored 14 runs last night and you didn't even get three hits tonight? But we will dedicate a gorgeous summer evening to them, paying for tickets, parking, hot dogs and beers; and while we're doing it, we will love every second of it.

We escape from the reality that is our life.

If we didn't invest ourselves in something bigger than us, then what would their be to live for? If we think we are the biggest thing that is out around, who cares what else may be there? People do this with God too. They devote their life to Him, knowing that it is all for an unknown. The difference here is that the "championship" at the end of the season for these people, is an eternity at the hand of God, not a 35 pound hunk of metal that has a hundred other peoples names on it.

We become a part of something that thousands of people are equally a part of. No one stands out (except maybe for the girls in short skirts and an Inge jersey, or the family that decorates their entire house in Lions gear), but for the most part, we are all the same, hoping for the same thing. Our rivals are the other team, and then when they leave, we rival the next team. It's healthy, and it's fun.

It somehow happens with music too. People dedicate hours and hours just listening to music and/or playing music. We spend hundreds of dollars to go see famous people making millions of dollars sing songs that we know the words to, when all we have to do is flip on the radio to hear that same song. It's phenomenal.

There is so much variety on what you can invest yourself in, but we all need to be invested in something that isn't ourselves. Escape yourself, and allow yourself to become a part of something that you can and will not be able to control. It's called living.



Take care of yourselves, and eachother.
Dub





"...I dare you to tell me to walk through fire..."

Chapter 3 - The Edge

I recently finished the book "The Shack" by William P. Young.

Also, warning, this one will be religious ish.

I couldn't put it down. Like, literally, I spent the entire afternoon today reading it (while I had down time at work of course). The story is about a man who loses his very young daughter, and I will try not to give away too much more, but eventually the man finds God.

God is a sticky subject for me to talk about. I know he's there, and I know he created this beautiful thing we call life, and I understand that it's not his fault everyone sucks, but I still wish he would call down to us and answer our questions sometimes. I've been talking to him a lot lately. I don't talk to him about me anymore though. I talk to him about you, reader. Whether you be my family, friend or neither, I pray for you. I ask him to watch over you and ensure your happiness. I don't pray for me because I don't think I am worthy to be selfish to Him. He knows my wants, he knows my desires and he knows my pains, but they are all here or not here for a reason. I'm going through what I'm going through right now, because He says I should be.

There are some things in life people will never understand. Some call them miracles, some call them epiphanies, and others call them how the Lions lose, but no matter what you call them, I personally think that God did it just to remind you, "Hey, I'm still here. I created this all for you, so even though you don't believe it, I'm here." At the same time, people often curse God because things are going wrong in their life. We are all guilty of this for various reasons. Sometimes, what's going wrong though isn't His fault. I would like to introduce you to something I can't quite explain. I don't know how this woman is related to God or what she is called in the Bible, but her name is Karma. You do something good, assume something bad will come your way. Vise versa. I have bad news for you though, the punishment or the reward are often very far from whatever it is you do. If you rob a bank or kill a man, maybe the Karma that comes your way will be you spill your coffee in your lap the next day. If the good thing you do is hold the door open for a man who doesn't have enough hands to do so, maybe the Karma that comes your way is you get the girl of your dreams. I don't know.

Karma is a tricky thing though. It can often take years to come back at you, and sneak up on you from hidden angles. For instance, say you make mistakes when you are in high school. These mistakes may not get "repaid" until you are thirty, and yeah, these mistakes may cost you something you truly care for. I truly, with all my heart, hope Karma doesn't cost us what is in God's plan for us, but how do we really know what God's plan is? Maybe what we feel today, what we want our future to be, God looks down at us and says.. "Man, you are waaaaaay wrong."

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I started reading this book Sunday, and every time I went to put it down I felt like I was neglecting God. I would say to myself, "Well shit, God is a character in this book, and I'm not reading through it. What kind of son am I to Him?". If any of you read this book, don't feel that way. God has a bazillion other things that are more important than our fears to be worrying about, so I'm going to go ahead and assume if we put a book down that he is in to go about our daily lives, he won't be bothered too much. Now, I did say though that I was unable to put it down as I got about halfway through the book. So be forewarned.

While your reading the book, I want you to think of what you ask of Him. When I read it, all I could think about was how selfish I was being to Him in my every day life. I've gotten better, much better since I lost my godfather last August, but I still feel like I am wasting God's ear sometimes. That Karma girl I mentioned earlier, she's the one I should be more upset with. But guess what? Karma is everything that YOU'VE done. So now whose to blame?

I hope you all enjoy the book. I was kind of hoping it would like, "bring me into the hands of the lord" or something, but what it did for me was good. It opened my eyes just a little bit more to the notion that we still control our lives. God, Jesus, Karma, the Holy Spirit.. It's all there, but we are still in control.

My advice to you, and I encourage you strongly to take it, is to remove things from your life that make YOU unhappy, regardless of what the cost might be. This is YOUR life, reader, and God will be there with you every step of the way. If you are wrong, trust in him that it will be corrected. If you are not FULLY happy, find a way to be.

Take care of yourself, and eachother; Cheers.
-Dub





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