Recently, while “helping” my youngest son with his first semester kindergarten homework, I came across a word problem asking how many bases three cylinders and a pyramid possess. Admittedly, math is not my forte (I might not have a forte), but I can answer that: four.     

            “That’s not right, dad; it’s seven. We learned that in my class.”

            “Seven?” I said. Oh, I get it—they’re (math users, an epidemic) counting each face as a possible base. I counted up the sides and got eleven this time (either it was a rectangular pyramid or I don’t count well, probably the latter). Despite my poor math skills, I know seven is not eleven.

            His teacher hasn’t graded our homework yet, but I’m fairly certain he’s right (I vaguely remember confirming his answer via the Internet.) I thought math was supposed to be logical. I thought bases are on the bottom. Even if I stood on my head, I wouldn’t consider that the bottom of me (some people have made statements to the contrary…) And if I do consider the math top to be the math bottom, shouldn’t I apply that process consistently to cylinders and pyramids? I hate math now more than ever.

            Regardless if my son is right or wrong, this is not a good sign. How am I going to help him with his third grade homework, the quadratic equations? Teach him how to hide the calculator? I can’t say, “What are you going to do? Carry a calculator everywhere you go?” He’ll probably carry a computer in his ear that makes my laptop look like one of those contraptions from the fifties that filled a whole room (but you still couldn’t play Gorf on it).

            I guess that’s what tutors are for. Hell, maybe he can teach me the math I can’t remember.

I’m from Reno, Nevada. Here in Reno, we have a respectable Latino community, which provides us the opportunity to learn and readily practice a second language: Spanish. I’m trying to learn Spanish, and though I’m terrible at it, I teach what I can to my boys because they are language sponges right now. I wish I were fluent and could instruct them in Spanish, now, while they are so receptive to learning. Zeus knows, it gets harder to learn new languages as one ages (for me, anyway, it was. Is. Read my blog and you’ll see I struggle with English, too.)

I often wonder why, then, people complain about things like Spanish screens on the ATM, or receiving a letter with English on one side and Spanish on the other. Why wouldn’t someone want to increase his or her knowledge, learn another language? I bring this up because it’s a point of contention, and not just at Klan rallies anymore. People really get angry about this kind of thing.

The most prevalent argument I’ve heard is that if someone goes to a country, they should learn the language. I have trouble understanding, though I know it happens, why a person would resist learning the official language of a country—but if he or she does—that’s no one else’s concern. Let them flounder like Americans in a foreign country. English is tough to learn, and writing signs and letters in the native language of what will soon be the majority of people seems like a good idea to me. I know seeing the Spanish beneath the English on a sign helps me better understand Spanish. Many countries have dual languages; I don’t see why a country that prides itself on being a “melting pot” of cultures shouldn’t.

If you are one who gets angry when foreign letters happen across your line of sight, clogging up your ATM screen, or you have to listen, God forbid, to someone to say a few words in another language, you’re probably having trouble reading this anyway. Maybe that’s it: English is so hard for you already, the extra information in Spanish shorts out those last two brain cells struggling to keep your lungs working and you regularly pass out while trying to read.

Don’t feel bad. That happens to me, too, when I do math in my head. 

I’ve had my share of anger problems and general jackassery, but I’m a fairly laid-back person most of the time. I try to be polite as much as possible. I open doors for people; I keep my black humor to myself for the most part when I’m not in the bar or at home. I scream and yell in a punk band so I don’t have to when I’m waiting in line at the store.

What I’ve never understood is why being polite, being compassionate, and smiling draws such aggression out of certain people. I saw this behavior a lot in construction: some people would simply hound a person until that person flashed and started yelling or threatening violence. And poof! Acceptance! I don’t think I will ever understand this. Are we no better than a pack of wolves that must continually establish dominance over one another? This ain’t the prison yard, fellas; drop the act. A little basic respect and a smile might keep us from shooting, knifing, strangling, beating, and crucifying each other, at least for a while.

Don’t get me wrong. There are times when compassion fails, and immediate, violent action becomes a necessity, but those times shouldn’t be when we pass one another on the sidewalk, or have to work together for a couple of months. I smile because I hate fighting. I hate fighting because I’ve been in fights. Do me a favor, please. Lighten up, and try to check that need you have—and you know who you are—to dominate everyone you don’t fear.

P.S. I didn’t take the above picture—I stole it right off the Internet. I hope I don’t offend the photographer, and I will gladly remove it if asked to do so.

I will tread the Way firmly—with an empty mind and a positive spirit.

I will remain sober, allowing the sun of consciousness to blaze unclouded within me.

If I speak, I will speak the truth, and speak it with compassion.

If I act, the Divine Will—to which I have surrendered this vessel I call “body”—shall propel me.

When I fall, when I falter, I will rise and reconnect to the Tao until I can rise no more, returning then to the Universal Source.

I ask for the strength to live these words so when the darkness of the world clamps its wicked jaws around my children, the light of my living example will spark within them kindred conflagrations, devouring the beasts of eternal night I wish them never to know.

Whoa Gee Motte Kuru No Iasho Ni

I haven’t been conducting myself in a proper manner lately. I’m trying to teach my kids to be upright, straight-talking, compassionate, and able men—and I try to teach them by modeling this behavior for them to the best of my ability. Part of this life curriculum is to never, ever give up. Change tactics perhaps, but never give up.

Not giving up begins with attitude. If I don’t instill in them the confidence to accomplish whatever task they set out to do, then they already lack the tools to succeed. Lately, however, my encouraging statements to them ring hollow in my ears because my own confidence is faltering. I’ve allowed the demons of doubt and acrimony to possess my mind and infect my speech. Suddenly, instead of facing the world in the manner I was taught—like a warrior—I’m niggling and gnawing away at my own spirit, convincing myself I can’t win and the fight’s probably not worth winning anyway.

Well, time to snap out of it. When I was sixteen, we practiced breaking chopsticks with a twice-folded square of paper. After countless tries, the chopstick remained intact. Then I was told to imagine it broken before I took another swipe. This time the paper cut clean through the chopstick. I learned then that thought—intention—carries weight in reality. A negative perception creates a negative reality, and a positive one creates what I want. If I remember to be positive now, despite what my emotions might call out for me to do, maybe I can teach my boys to avoid some of the pitfalls I’ve been stumbling into all my life. It will probably do me some good too.

(I stole the picture off the Internet, but I grew up looking at it in my jujitsu school, and it has been enormously helpful to me. My deep thanks to the original artist, whose name I do not know.)

I once did a foolish, terrible thing, rash beyond reason: I married. I never proposed; I acquiesced. The argument was that the baby on the way should have the same last name as mommy and daddy. Take heed young couples—this is not a reason to wed. But I went through with it. There on the shore of Pyramid Lake I committed my life to a woman who looked like she’d smuggled a basketball into the ceremony under her wedding dress in case a pick-up game broke out (I often have a nigh insatiable need to suck at something for an hour.)

We made a go of it; I don’t want to get into the grimy details of that calamity just now, but after four years (or was it four hundred?) it was over. Divorce, though difficult, brought with it many good things. For instance, ex-wife jokes almost always elicit a forced, pitying laugh. Also, I finally came to really understand “The Serenity Prayer” and the importance of acceptance since we had two kids together and there was no way to avoid this new phenomenon in my life, the rise of a nemesis. I figured that was a movie thing; I never thought I’d actually have one. A nemesis, I mean.

The fights went on for a while and then fizzled out (similar to sex between married couples.) I’m glad it happened sooner than later, when it would have had a greater effect on the kids. I don’t mean to deter anyone. Don’t be afraid to commit to the one you love for the moment. Please, get married; take the plunge; prove me a bitter fool. I’ll never grow weary of ex-wife jokes, and I think we need all we can get.