Camus, Pancakes, Mullets and Steve Mollick

Recently I attended a church service in Allora, Queensland. It was conducted featuring endearing Australian accents, and I was inspired to add my own "Hosannarh inna highest". Father John sported one of the finest mullets I have ever seen, complete with pony-tailed braid. Sporting fatigue print cargo shorts, a completely tattooed left arm and a Harley flanking the parsonage, it wasn't just watching such an anomology in action that was convicting. It was his face, a glimpse of untarnished reverence, as he prayed.

Last week during the hazy hours of pre-dawn, I witnessed an elderly man helping an elderly woman set up a stand at a morning market in Chiang Mai. I was in transit to the train station, and regretfully only got a split second of assimilation. He wore a pink shirt. They were arranging oranges, his one hand on a run-away fruit, his other on the small of her back as if to say "I've got it, I'm helping, I care, I love you, Isn't it nice to be in the cool of the morning, before the blazing neon heat of this day, just you and me?"

I sang in the Concordia Choir with a remarkable friend named Steve. Steve often played jokes until they were dead. Then repeated them again. We begrudgingly indulged this sort of humor, and eventually laughed, because the assinine nature of it all became funny after the millionth time. This is one of Steve's lesser qualities but it serves as an example of how he lives his life: Pushing the envelope. Going at a concept until it has been cemented. This is exactly what makes Steve a brilliant musician. It's an obsession with taking the things in life that are worth shouting about and playing them out; whether they be a love for a particular measure of Brahms or a silly joke stolen from "Curb your Enthusiasm".

My Aunt Maureen is the quintessential Go-Getter. On just about four hours of sleep each night, there isn't a task she hasn't put herself to wholeheartedly. I like that. Beyond the perfection of her world famous blueberry pancakes (renowned the east coast over), finding the most effective paper-mache recipe for her children's science projects, single-handedly editing the town newspaper, taking fabulous professional-grade photographs, volunteering for worthy causes, remodeling homes, remembering birthdays and, as a cousin once said, "bringing the fun", Auntie Mo tackles life issues with this beautiful element of grace. You can watch it each day, from a bite of blueberry breakfast to the bigger ways in which she has chosen to raise her kids, care for her family, change the world.

My grandfather is the strongest man I know. He is in the last stages of watching his wife die for nearly twenty years. He has never relented in her care, he has gone far beyond what Nicholas Sparks' teenage girl cult classic "The Notebook" prescribes as over-the-top love in cases of Alzheimers. He has loved her through an all-consuming disease, his desire to provide dignity to her existence has validated his,
and when you ask him, he'll say that it has been his honor.

A nobel prize winner in literature, Albert Camus must have thought himself numb every single day of his life. From an impoverished childhood, his goalkeeping football skills warranted a scholarship at the University of Algiers. Around 1930, during his football career, he was diagnosed with Tuberculosis, and forced to meditate more on school and less ruminating on the soccer field. He paid the bills parking cars and checking the clouds at the University's meterological institute.

He had to do SOMETHING before stunning the politicos and literati of the time (and each sucessive generation) into obsequious bafflement. The man wrote and talked so smart that no one could put a finger on exactly what he was saying, and yet, since a lot of it seems a solid estimation of truth, it is a worthwhile pursuit to trace the lineage of his brillance.

Camus hated being associated with Existentialism and couldn't even get with simpler classifications: Atheist nor Nihilist nor Agnostic nor Believer. Absurdism seems to be a common designation of Camus' philisophical home, but he scoffed at that as well. The man couldn't even hold down a political afilliation: As a student, Camus was an active member of the Algerian People's Party, a communist faction. Once they found out that he was keeping time with George Orwell and Jean-Paul Sartre, and heard his hybrid chatter of Socialism and Anti-Totalitarianism, combined with the worship AND desultory critcism of the party to which he asssociated served his prompt exile. His human rights efforts in the 1950s proved that none of us should even care to name whatever it was that motivated him: he was driven to see the world, fix the world, love the world in no other fashion but his own.

They are untouchable, inimitable, round pegs amongst square holes, the jacks of all trades: The Beethovens who write symphonies before being taught to read music. The John Nashes who blink numbers (give or take a peripheral imaginary friend). The Auntie Maureens, the Pink Shirted Husbands, the Tattooed Anglican Priests, the Steve Mollicks, the Papa Neds. Like Camus, each of them would probably groan at being grouped as such. (Except for maybe Steve. Rachel, Steve's wife, will probably have to deal with the repercussions of me potentially inflating his already generous ego, so sorry Rach.)

Everyday that I live, every place that I magically see (by use of my sparkly gold wand which looks more like a three-by-four piece of plastic), there are people that I meet or read about that change me. I am in awe of their passion; it is sensory, palpable, and completely unavoidable. I want it. I want to breathe it, sing it, need it more than food or sleep.

Camus demanded that we "live to the point of tears". Living to the very edge of insanity, making each day expand with creativity. It's inspiring to witness that. I'm learning that our world is ever-expansive, but not so big that you can't do or have exactly what you want. It is a matter of recognizing that you have stamina from a love bigger than yourself. Then, you go at it with all that you have. Most importantly, however, is the end result of courageously deciding to release your gift into the grasp of others. (Be it Machivellian political theory or a really great terracotta pot for your Mom's geraniums.)

I thought that this trip would plop a new career into my lap; would make me a fabulously thin, a worldly and wise version of myself. I thought I could come back with all sorts of insights and a newfound love for the Buddha, or maybe even a rekindled adoration for Jesus.

And although I'm not altogether done with Christianity and I can still run a decently timed 5k, none of my dream world delusions have thus evolved. And that's okay. These experiences can do nothing but inspire an existance full of passion.

I want to cultivate passion for one vocation, or maybe I'll throw myself at twenty-six careers! I want to execute at LEAST twenty-six home improvement and random art projects. I hold grand illusions (potentially naive) that I'll someday experience Camus-sized passion for one man, hopefully not twenty-six (too long of an interviewing process). I want to be able to say what I mean in less than twenty-six gazillion hours, and one day I hope to share more than twenty-six passionate ideas with a gaggle of offspring just as crazy as their mother.

At this very second, though: I have no IDEA what I'll do to pay my stockpile of bills, the result of all this passion-watching.

Maybe the University of Algiers needs someone to park cars?



"Always go too far, because that's where you'll find the truth." -Albert Camus




JMH