by Marty Coleman | Dec 12, 2014 | Paul Valery, The Future - 2014, Yogi Berra |
This ain’t nothin’ but another future.
Pet Peeve Rant
A pet peeve of mine are the Facebook posts that brag about how great the past used to be. How we didn’t have seat belts and we didn’t die, how we didn’t have the internet and we played in the mud and we didn’t die. How we had respect for our elders and we didn’t die. That grandma cooked things from the garden and from stuff given by a neighbor and we didn’t die.
The upshot of all that is ‘The past we had was great because we didn’t die.’
There is then of course a comparison to now. Now we have fat kids on the internet who don’t play in the mud and they are going to die. We have seat belt laws and that takes away our freedom to die. Other peoples’ kids are brats and they are going to cause themselves or others to die. Our country is going down the toilet because of all these terrible people who weren’t raised right and that is going to cause us to die.
The upshot of that second part is, ‘the past was much better, the present sucks and the future is going to suck even more and as a result we are all going to die.’
Style and Culture
And this really shows up in style and culture. The saggy pants? They show humanity has fallen. Forget that the same person who says the saggy pants suck also says the old style of the high waisted shorts from the 80s suck too. Low sucks, high sucks.
Music today sucks of course. Why? Because it’s not the old music, which was much better and proved we were geniuses back then. And people allegedly making music now? They suck and their music sucks because they aren’t as great as we were.
It All Sucks
Here is the truth; if you think the present and future suck it’s because you are becoming an old curmudgeon who has forgotten how your grandparents said the same thing about your generation. It’s because you gave up on discovering new music and movies and art and literature. It’s because you are afraid to see your world disappear but you are even more afraid to explore the world today. So you sit and complain about things you haven’t really explored or tried to understand. You judge because judging feels good and backs up your prejudices and inclinations.
It’s All Great
Here is another truth; the youngest generation doesn’t really care what you think. They are on to you. They listen to your rant and know you are speaking from ignorance. They know their music is awesome and their art, and their movies. They know their food and attitudes and work ethic and a million other things are just fine. They don’t need your approval.
Barbarian Truth
The truth is the worst of the older generation has ALWAYS condemned the world to destruction at the hands of the younger Barbarians at the gates. Ancient Greek curmudgeons complained about the younger generation 3,000 years ago and it hasn’t stopped yet.
How To Not Be A Curmudgeon
And the other truth is the best of the older generation stays open to what each new generation has to offer and does it’s best to understand it on the new generation’s terms, not their own. They keep an open mind about music and art and tattoos and clothing and style and words and sex and ways of understanding the world. They are the ones who stay young and engaged in the world today.
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Drawing and rant by Marty Coleman
Quote by Yogi Berra, 1925 – not dead yet, American Baseball player and Paul Valery, 1871-1945, French poet
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by Marty Coleman | Dec 10, 2014 | Jack Welch, The Future - 2014 |
In the future, this will be known as #4 in my Future series!
All to Some
Let’s get this out of the way right off the bat. We have very little control over anything. If you don’t know that, you probably will learn it soon enough. Having determined that we have very little control, let’s also acknowledge that means we do have some control.
Some to None
Within the admittedly small area where we could have control, many of us don’t take it. We are like a hot air balloon drifting in the wind. If it blows us towards the fire, we become a fire fighter. If it blows us towards the office building we become an office worker.
None to Done
Why don’t we take control of those things we are capable of controlling? Maybe it’s another person; a parent, spouse, boss, friend, who is trying to control you or circumstances. If you are afraid of conflict or worried about consequences of fighting for control, you are likely to let the other person’s vision for your future to dominate.
Here’s a great example of what I am talking about. A friend in college was a wonderful organist. He had a dream of being an organist in a big church as his career. But his father was adamant, he was going to go into banking. And so he was a teller in a bank and had every intention of going into banking even though he didn’t like banking. He was a very depressed guy.
Do you have an example of this in your life or the life of someone you know?
Done to Fun
If you don’t work towards the future you want chances are you will be dissatisfied with the future you find. And that means you won’t have the fun and joy in life that you could have if you pursued your vision.
Don’t be a hot air balloon, be an airplane.
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Drawing and commentary by Marty Coleman
Quote by Jack Welch, 1935 – not dead yet, American businessman. His original quote had ‘destiny’ instead of ‘future’.
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“Control your own future or someone else will.”
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by Marty Coleman | Dec 2, 2014 | Abraham Lincoln, The Future - 2014 |
It’s day #3 of The Future!
The Big Picture
As a coach of runner’s moving up in both distance and speed I regularly come across a lot of doubts and fears. Their goal is a race about 12 weeks away at the start of the season and they are often petrified about their ability to achieve their goal. They can run a 5k race (3.1 miles) but a 10k (6.2 miles) or 15k (9.3 miles) or 1/2 marathon (13.1 miles) race? THAT is something beyond their abilities and thus they fear they can’t do it.
And you know what my response to calm their fears and give them confidence is? I tell them this: You are right, you can’t do it…
Yet
I teach them that three letter word, ‘yet’, and it makes all the difference. It makes a difference because it helps them understand two critical things. First is, they don’t have to run a 1/2 marathon today. All they have to do is run the training run slated for today. That means they have to run 3 miles, maybe 4. Not 6 or 9 or 13, just 3, which they know, and I know, they can do. They can relax that way and just focus on the small picture, a much easier task.
Second is, training (and life) is a cumulative process. That brick wall you sometimes hit in training? While it stops you dead in your tracks, it also returns some value. And that value, otherwise known as ‘experience’. will come in very handy, perhaps at the next training run. Or maybe on your rest day. Or maybe 10 weeks down the road at the race. Who knows when you can spend what you earned from that workout. I don’t know. But I know you earned it and it’s in you and you will need it later on in the future.
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Drawing and commentary by Marty Coleman
Quote by Abraham Lincoln, 1809-1865, American President #16.
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by Marty Coleman | Nov 24, 2014 | George Will, The Future - 2014 |
This is yesterday’s future napkin.
The Unannounced Life
My late father, Skeets Coleman, home from World War II, did not return to Iowa where he was raised but instead stayed in the San Diego area and operated the Del Mar Airport in the late 40s. The secretary he hired? She, Dorothy Lee Powell, became his wife and my mother.
My late ex-father-in-law from California, Dwight Johnson, was in military training in Vermont back in the Korean War era. He needed an ironing board and being the do-it-yourself type, he went to the local hardware/lumber yard to get a flat 1×6 piece of wood to use for that purpose. The person who sold him the board? She, Vivian Lambert, became his wife.
In the 70s I transferred to UC Santa Barbara after having left a college on the East Coast. I got involved with a Student Christian group on campus. At a Halloween party I met a girl dressed up as Pippie Longstockings. She, Kathy Johnson, later became my wife.
In 2000 my oldest daughter, Rebekah Coleman, left Oklahoma and went to St. John’s College in Maryland. One of the first people she met, Patrick Evans, is now her husband.
After my divorce in 2000 I started dating via online dating services. Unbeknownst to me a woman, Linda Reynolds, divorced a few years before, also was dating online. We had a date and 3 years later we were married. I gained a step-daughter, Caitlin Reynolds.
In 2011 my 2nd youngest daughter, Chelsea Coleman, moved to Berkeley to escape the cold and dreary winter in Seattle while her then husband was deployed for 6 months. She started playing music with various people. One person she played with, Graham Patzner, became a friend, and after her marriage ended in divorce, they started to date.
How the Future Arrives
My point in reciting this family history is simple. To remind myself that the future arrives unannounced every day. Whether it’s for good or bad, all our planning and organizing of life will never overcome that one inescapable truth. When we understand and accept that, our lives become easier and happier.
The Result is Thanksgiving
One result of these unannounced futures is that I am now Papa Marty and Linda is MeeMee to Vivian Isabel Evans and Otis Martin Coleman-Patzner. Another result is we are headed to Dallas for the Thanksgiving weekend to visit Caitlin and go to the Dallas Cowboys football game.
And for all those futures past, I am filled with gratitude and thanksgiving.
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Drawing and commentary by Marty Coleman
Quote by George Will, 1941-not dead yet, American writer and political pundit
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by Marty Coleman | Nov 17, 2014 | Jean de La Fontaine, The Future - 2014 |
My Morning Destiny
I woke up at 4:30am this morning. That actually not that odd of a time for me, maybe about a 1/2 an hour earlier that my usual early start. I could have stayed in bed another 1/2 an hour but my mind had decided on ‘The Future’ as being my next series and I needed to go write it down and start researching. It’s now 11:30 and, in between checking posts from friends and families, I’ve been working on preparing the series and on this drawing for about 6 hours already.
When I found this quote today I realized I had just seen it within a day or so on Facebook. I thought it was something my friend Kimberley Blaine had posted but I couldn’t find it on her timeline so it probably was someone else.
Final Destination
Have you ever seen the movie ‘Final Destination’? It’s about a group of friends who do not get on an airplane because of a dream one of the group has while napping at the airport right before boarding that the airplane is going to explode and crash and they will all die. The airplane does in deed explode right in front of them and they are thus saved from death.
However, it now seems they have cheated death. They were suppose to die and didn’t, thus the grim reaper has to go find them and kill them. The movie is filled with crazy and convoluted ways people die. It’s gruesome and scary and funny and shocking all at the same time.
Your Destiny
Have you had this experience? It’s not uncommon in both fact and fiction. There have been many stories over the centuries of people doing everything they can to avoid their destiny when it comes knocking, only to find it where they land in their escape. It’s not just about escaping death, but many other things as well; success, failure, family, aging, disease, fame, disaster, you name it and we can be adamant about trying to avoid it and it still finds us.
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Drawing and commentary by Marty Coleman
Quote by Jean de La Fontaine, 1621-1695, French Poet
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“A person often meets their destiny on the road they took to avoid it”
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by Marty Coleman | Nov 11, 2014 | Love - 2014, Nikki Giovanni |
I have been trying to think this quote through to see if it is true. I am not sure yet. What do you think?
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Drawing by Marty Coleman
Quote by Nikki Giovanni, 1943 – not dead yet, American writer and activist
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by Marty Coleman | Nov 6, 2014 | Love - 2014, Quentin Crisp |
For Your Better
There’s part of me that disagrees with this. After all, don’t we want to be in a relationship where the other person is encouraging us to be better than we are, to change for the better? I know I am not perfect and could be better so why not have someone who wants that for me as well? Don’t I want to be in that sort of relationship?
For Their Better
But we know this is not what this quote is talking about, don’t we. This quote is warning against, not the person who wants the best for you, but the person who wants the best for them. They don’t want you to change for the better because it’s your desire. They want you to change to meet their desire. They want you to be prettier, or have bigger boobs, or make more money, or be more of a do-it-yourselfer, or more religious, or a million other things. But they want it to make their life what they want, not what you want for your own life.. They want the hot wife or husband, or the bigger house or the greater religious reputation. Maybe they want life to be easier for themselves and it would be if you didn’t annoy them so much with your hobbies or your style or your habits or, or, or….the list goes on.
Who to Avoid
If someone see and hears from you that you want to be this or that in the future, then of course we want that person to be supportive and encouraging about that change. But when we don’t initiate it, but it comes from their desire to control you and turn you into who they want? That is the person to avoid at all costs.
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Drawing and commentary by Marty Coleman
Quote by Quentin Crisp, 1908 – 1999, English raconteur. He lived a very interesting and unique life, well worth reading up on if you are worried about your individuality being too ‘individual’.
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by Marty Coleman | Nov 5, 2014 | Love - 2014, Stephen Stills |
Truth
This is one of my favorite lines from a song. The moment I heard it, I believed it was good and true. Years later I became familiar with Jesus’ teaching of “Love your neighbor as yourself”. When someone questions Jesus about exactly who is his neighbor, Jesus tells the story of the Good Samaritan. The point of that story is that everyone is your neighbor and should be treated as such.
In other words, you never have to question what it is you are to do. You are always to love the person in front of you.
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Drawing and commentary by Marty Coleman
Quote are lyrics from the song, ‘Love the one you’re with’ by Stephen Stills.
Most people think it is a ‘Crosby, Stills and Nash’ song, but it was actually written and performed by Stills on his debut solo album in 1970. It was later recorded live with C S & N and that is how it became thought of as a C S & N song. The line was not made up by Stills. He kept hearing a fellow musician, Billy Preston, say the line in daily life and asked him if he could use it in a song. He agreed.
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by Marty Coleman | Oct 31, 2014 | Conscience - 2014, Lillian Hellman |
Let’s cut to the chase, it’s day #4 of my Conscience series.
Moral Fashion
Is this about fashion? Maybe, if you are a young woman who isn’t comfortable wearing short shorts. But ‘fashion’ comes in many forms. There is moral fashion for example.
This quote actually came from a fight about communism here in the US back in the 1940s and 50s. The House of Representatives started to hold hearings trying to get citizens to tell on their neighbors, co-workers and friends as to whether they were communists or communist sympathizers. When they brought Lillian Hellman, a play and screen writer, to testify she refused, using this quote to rebuff their attempts to coerce her to tell.
Heart
The reason I used the image of a heart being cut out is that more than any other element (besides perhaps one’s romantic entanglements) our conscience really is the heart of who we are. Take away our morality and our conscience and you pretty much leave an empty shell behind.
Pride
I am always proud of my friends, family and even people I only know online, who find their moral boundaries and grow in them. Don’t get me wrong though, I am not only talking about the ‘traditional values’ idea. I am also talking about the radical, or the nudist, or the person who foregoes the traditional life of the middle class for a life serving others in Africa. I am talking about the child of doctors who expect their child to follow in their footsteps but instead they incur the wrath of the family by deciding to be a singer, or artist. This is true of the children of artists who want to be doctors too of course.
I am talking about those who have courage to say, ‘This is me.’
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Drawing and commentary by Marty Coleman
Quote by Lillian Hellman, 1905-1984, American playwright and screenwriter. Look her up to find out more about her courageous stand against the House Committee on Un-American Activities.
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by Marty Coleman | Oct 24, 2014 | Bertrand Russell, Conscience - 2014 |
I am delighted that today will inflict ‘Conscience #3’ on you.
The Invention of Hell
I know some of you believe Hell is a real place that has existed since time immemorial. I don’t. I believe Hell is a place invented by humans trying to make sense of an unfair and capricious world where seemingly bad people triumphed and good people met disaster too often. How does it all even out? There has to be a place that those bad people go after death to make it fair. That place is hell.
Hell on Earth
Since those same moralists don’t actually know for certain that there is a hell as evil as they want, they make sure that those they hope are going there suffer along the way. There are of course the usual, time honored punishments of burning at the stake, drawn and quartered, etc. But that is for one individual. Far worse is when the moralists devise a hell on earth for an entire population. There is the Holocaust, the Rwandan genocide, the Armenian genocide, the Cambodian Khmer Rouge regime, just to name a few from the past 100 years.
Why Do People Do This?
How does a person, government or a whole nation justify something like this? They justify it by saying these people deserve it because they are immoral and sinful, thus less human. In their moralistic hunger they have rationalized the most barbaric behavior imaginable.
It’s not just in history and it’s not just in some foreign land. Being a self-righteous moralist, especially an uneducated and zealous one, is a very dangerous thing everywhere. Look around you in your own life, watch for it. You will see it. And when you do I hope you stand up and fight it.
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Drawing and commentary by Marty Coleman
Quote by Bertrand Russell, 1872-1970, British Philosopher
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“The infliction of a cruelty with a good conscience is a delight to moralists. That is why they invented Hell.”
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