Success

Nobody really wants to suck at life. Whatever we choose, or wherever we find ourselves to be, we want to be good at it. For most guys the metric is pretty standard, you want to have a good job and take care of your family. The good news is that it's all relative, if you're doing as well or better than the people around you, you're doing well. Most people don't need the million dollar bonuses that Wall Street bankers make, unless your circle of friends includes those people of course. We're pretty happy if we can make a living and aren't at the bottom of the pile that makes up our lives. The bad news about this metric refers to stay at home dads, and me specifically. If you don't have a job, a career, a stick to measure yourself and for others to measure you with, then how do you solve the riddle of success? One might argue that it doesn't matter, that if you are comfortable then you can be happy where you are without judgment. That's all well and good, but that's not how we're built at people. We all strive, we all want just a little more, just a little better, it's human nature.

So how do you measure? How do I measure? In another 20 years I'll be able to look at my kids and see how they're doing and use that as a sort of a measurement. I don't really believe in that though. I think that most of parenting is just providing a good stable loving environment for children to develop in. I don't get to decide how my kids are going to turn out, I just get to provide an environment where turning out good is easier that turning out bad. They have to make the choices and do the work themselves. You can't force someone to be good. If you could then prison, or for that matter, youth homes, would be churning out perfect people day after day. They don't. So if I can't really make my kids good, if their success is their own and not mine, where does that leave me?
It leaves me trying to be a better person, a better man, and finding a metric to judge that by. It leaves me with small victories and the joy that I can find in them. I've been running and reading books when my youngest is in preschool lately. With the recent trend toward cold, the running has become easier and sitting on a bench reading has become harder. When it's below 45 degrees it's hard to sit on a bench and concentrate on fine literature. Yesterday I took that to the logical conclusion and decided to run 10 miles. This is my longest run in over 3 years. It felt good. Really good. Being able to go out and run 10 miles and feel good the next day is a fine metric of measurement. Success. After that I was practicing cartwheels to warm up for practicing hand stands. I decided to try a one armed cartwheel. No real reasoning behind this, but I was on a roll. Success. Sort of, it's wasn't a perfect cartwheel, but hey, I'm 36 and just did my first one armed cartwheel. Awesome. Then at nap time I couldn't get into Brave New World so I decided to print out the sheet music for Jingle Bells and see if I could learn it on the violin. After half an hour I could play it through by sight and almost by memory. Sweet! To top off the day I managed to fold two loads of laundry in the lulls of making dinner and getting the kids ready in time to go to the third grade music concert that my son was in. It was truly a superman day. Ran 10 miles, did a one handed cartwheel, learned Jingle Bells on the violin, and accomplished all of my daily domestic tasks. That's success. That's success I could feel.
I may not be driving an expensive car that I can show off or have the biggest fanciest house in the neighborhood, and if I was doing that, it would be the result of my wife's success, not mine. For today thought, I feel like I can judge myself against any man and come out feeling ok about my life. Small victories, big happiness.

Books I finished this week:
The Pencil: A history of design and circumstance, Henry Petroski
No Blade of Grass. John Christopher
The Pencil is an interesting book. On the surface it's about pencils, and it is, but the author takes you farther than that. He takes you into the process of engineering. The change through time from advancements being made by craftsman and scientists in their separate realms to the combining of them in the new career of engineering. The economics and practicality of making stuff. You can make the best pencil in the world, but what good is that if it's too expensive to buy? You can make a truly cheap pencil, but what good is that if it sucks so much that nobody wants it. This is true of pencils, but it's true of everything that is made as well. It's not always the easiest read and you probably have to be interested in esoteric things in general to really get into it, but it's worth a look.
No Blade of Grass is awesome. Post apocalyptic fiction written in 1956 England. There's a plant virus that kills grass. First just rice in the far east, but eventually all grass in the world, and along with it, all of the cereal grains that make up a majority of the world's food supply. It's clear that the human race will survive, but 70-95 percent of them will starve before it happens. It's a story of society rapidly breaking down, of men and women changing. In days people change from civilized to brutal as they try to secure a place to stay alive. Some end of the world fiction is entertaining, this is the kind of writing that makes you shop for guns when you're done. You know, just in case.
Highly recommended if you can get a copy. Sadly it's out of print. You can borrow my copy, but I need it back when you're done.