eclectika

The Light By Nabih Saliba I light the path for all to see They shall not trip because of me How great I am that darkness flee I do all this without a fee And so it went each night for lamp Who proudly thought itself a champ But then one evening came a tramp His clothes were worn, and torn, and damp He staggered left, he stumbled right He should not try to walk at night The drunkard fell into the light Thrown from the lamp with disdain bright Why should I help this man below? He’s far beneath me don’t you know His lesser breeding clearly show This beggar can’t deserve my glow And so the lamp let darkness fall On he who lay there in a ball As shadows grew both thin and tall The lamp stood off for one and all Then suddenly the night time fled As from each corner more light bled The lamp looked ‘round and scratched its head Who brings such light? It loudly said “Your humble servant,” in reply Don’t mind me up in the sky ...

The Easiest Thing of All By Nabih Saliba It’s easy to remember the first time I laid eyes on you Every day, your beauty still takes my breath away It’s easy to admire what you’re capable of Every day, you demonstrate your capacity for greatness It’s easy to be jealous of the time that isn’t mine Every day, I see the care you invest in others It’s easy to be proud of you Every day, you push a little further into the unknown It’s easy to think of you Every day, you occupy my thoughts, dreams and desires It’s easy to wait for you Every day, I look forward to discovering new things with you It’s easy to imagine the rest of my life with you Every day, you remind me of what a joy living can be It’s easy for me to thank you Every day, you brighten my life In every moment I remember you In every moment I admire you In every moment I feel jealous In every moment I think of you In every moment I wait for you In every moment I i...

Christmas is often described with many extremes—the happiest time of the year, one of the most emotionally difficult days for many who suffer depression, a controversial affront to the politically correct and even a giant commercial ploy to extract cash from all of the aforementioned. My Christmas day is finally coming to a close and I’m sitting here thinking to myself, “If today isn’t the reason for being…what is?” Perhaps I should elaborate the origins of that last statement before rambling forth with incoherent drivel about The Season, Holiday cheer and other such clichés… As evidenced by my lack of activity here [on this blog], my life has been filled with many competing demands for my time. During the past few months, I’ve become very involved with an Improv comedy club called Madcap Theater , helped my wife design and establish GreatIdeasForKids.com and enjoyed watching my children grow up into precocious little challenges. It has also been a time of soul-searching. I’ve bee...

Life, especially for me, is full of surprises. I’d like to say I was one of those amazing people who have it all figured out. I’d love to say that my life has turned out exactly the way I planned but I can’t. The honest truth is that the closest thing to a plan for my life was the vague and arrogant thought that I was meant for something more than whatever I was currently doing. Looking at it now, I suppose you could simply call it restlessness. While the reasons for my current situation span the gamut from “dumb luck” to “divine providence,” I can only testify to the results—two beautiful children, a wonderful wife and the luxury of being able to spend as much time with them as they’ll tolerate. Most of my life, I’ve managed to just ‘get by’ on the bare minimum of effort. As a result, I also mysteriously managed to reap the bare minimum of success. All my life I have been told by friends, teachers, pastors and parents that I wasn’t living up to my true potential. Somewhere in the ...

I saw this swami once. He told me that my life would shape the world. I hadn't thought too much about that flattering moment until today. I met a very interesting young woman this evening at dinner. My wife and I decided to try a new restaurant which recently opened and, much to my wife's delight, our server was someone she knew. It turns out that my wife and our waitress are both currently enrolled in the same Improv class. At this point, you're probably thinking that I was either entertained or annoyed by the spontaneous comedy brought forth by these two women. The truth of the matter is that I found the conversation engaging and refreshing. Rather than attempt dinner theater, our server offered intelligent conversation and witty banter. Each drink refill, course delivery or clean up brought more opportunities to explore the nature of idealism, social conventions and the never ending quest for purpose. While our waitress provided thoughtful points to ponder, it was in...

So I've spent quite a bit of time away from here. While there is a giant gap in content since my last post, I thought I'd offer up this post as a form of explaination. I've been going through a lot of changes lately. You might say I've been evolving. Yeah, I think evolve is a good word to use here. Now that my children are running the house, I have been forced to re-examine my purpose in life. It turns out, after all, that my function is to wait . To help better explain how rewarding I find the act of waiting, allow me to first define the term— wait: to assume a form of stasis whereby one remains open to additional instruction while maintaining an active queue of established tasks for prompt execution after stasis has been terminated but before anyone notices that nothing was accomplished during the time stasis was being observed. I find it interesting that as primitive beings we were physical creatures of action. Almost as if we were sharks—the ceasing of movemen...

Not being what one would call an ideal student, my report cards were usually less than impressive. So under-whelming were these progress reports that the bonus toy surprise in each package was a day’s worth of queasy feelings. Report card days were when I had to own up to all the schoolwork I had not been doing that semester. Often I already knew how bad the report would be long before receiving it. Sometimes, I’d even disappoint myself with lower-than-expected performance. Even though my low grades were disappointing to my father, our true conflict centered on honesty—my complete and total lack of it. Every morning and evening up to and including report card day, my father would ask me if I was keeping up with my schoolwork. My responses were varied but always full of assurances that things were on the up and up. The unease I felt riding my bike home with a report card was not dissimilar to what you might feel handing your executioner his axe. Remember the first time someone told ...

Victor was one of those children with an overdeveloped mean streak—if there was a fly to lose its wings or an ant to be burned, he was the chief executioner. Victor was also one of those kids always being sent to the principal’s office or running laps for the coach. Most parents had Victor’s parents on speed dial. When it was time to learn a new dirty word, we’d all go to Victor for our next lesson—the boy was the professor of profanity. Victor had the first collection of porn any of us had ever laid eyes on. He was also the one that showed us how to decipher breasts and other parts of the female body squiggling in and out on scrambled cable channels. Eventually our parents branded Victor a ‘problem child’ and his underground popularity grew like kudzu. As we got older, we saw less of Victor as his punishments began to involve authorities with a little more clout than the school principal. It was Victor who tried to shoplift some candy from the local drug store. When the school pla...

When I was roughly six years old, my father took me to track and field day at the college where he was teaching. There were events taking place all over the field: the high jump, the long jump, throwing activities and some assortment of gymnastic events. Surrounding all of these was a giant ring of dirt where runners were warming up for different track competitions. My father needed to do something for the day’s events so he found me a seat where I was to stay until he returned. From where I sat in the stands, I could see the runners getting prepared—their legs stretching, muscles rippling and faces grim with the determination to win. It wasn’t long before my dad was back with couple glasses of water for us to drink. It wasn’t the cold soda I was hoping for but it quenched our thirst just the same. As the day wore on, I became convinced that I could hold my own against these college runners. They seemed to be taking quite a bit of time to cover what seemed a relatively short distan...

Once upon a time there was a pear. This pear was quite plump and all the other pears aspired to be as juicy. On sunny days, the pear would make sure to find a leaf or two that could provide adequate shade. No one knew exactly how the pear had become so plump and juicy. Some of the other pears speculated that it had retained all the water intended for some of the less fortunate pears on the branch while others simply reckoned it was blessed to be that way. One thing everyone could agree upon was that the pear was destined for something great. The pear itself knew the other pears were jealous but it couldn’t be bothered with such petty affairs—it was, after all, destined for greatness. Summer was coming to a close and all the pears were busy making their final preparations for the harvest season. Some would be chosen and others, if they had not grown enough, would be left to the birds and the fall frosts. Most of the pears were busy drinking up as much water as they could and spent t...

Labor Day has always been a time of rest and relaxation for me. It was also a big holiday for my mother who might spend up to a month prior to this weekend pulling together an amazing event—a massive family gathering. Our family would rent a beach house for the long weekend and gather as many relatives under one roof as possible. The kitchen was constantly in use—sometimes hectic but always enjoyable, we were never short of food or people to eat it. Out on the beach, my cousins and I would divide our time between swimming in the ocean, building sand castles or just taking long walks and catching up. At night, we’d go into the little town nearby and have ice cream and re-stock the groceries. Some evenings we'd play board games or just sit around retelling stories of our younger days. Once the ‘older folk’ went to bed, the young and young-at-heart would watch late-night movies or take a moonlit walk on the beach swapping the stories not fit to share with parents. As we got older an...

When I was a much younger child than I am now, there was a song we used to sing called, "This little light of mine." I think the words were something along the lines of, "this little light of mine, I'm gonna let it shine...all around the neighborhood, I'm gonna let it shine...hide it under a bushel? NO! I'm gonna let it shine...let it shine, let it shine, let it shine..." The lyrics were about sharing one's beliefs with the world so that others could benefit from the blessings given you. While something gets lost without the music, the lyric's message to me have recently been found. I believe that each of us has a part to play in the shaping of our world. Some influence the course of events in grand, sweeping strokes open to the scrutiny and criticism of all. Others simply keep the wheels turning my maintaining status quo—both are equally valid forms of social participation. In the last several years, however, I've noticed a trend both ...

Something is wrong with me. I no longer seem able to reconcile every aspect of my tidy and organized life. Somewhere, somehow, someone or some thing has sabotaged the simple order of my world. I'm not sure exactly when I first noticed it but things aren't working the way they're supposed to anymore. The many pieces of my life no longer fit together as perfectly as they once did. Like an old clockwork, some of my favorite excuses are worn and missing teeth. New components I thought could replace old or missing ones don't fit quite as they should and the idea of adding new machinations to the delicate balance of my routine fill me with dread. For someone who's prided himself on a deep self understanding, these latest malfunctions are quite alarming—there has to be a clearly defined point of corruption. Perhaps it's my relationships? We all know that getting married can change things. Maybe I married prematurely? What if I married the wrong person? Is there su...