Another Time Another Place

U2 LYRICS

Well it took me to nearly the end of the album to hit a song that 1) I cannot relate to on any level and 2) I really have no idea what it is about.  The title is a common enough phrase but the lyrics defy the common meaning (bad timing).

I can say that I have had good timing several times in my life.  I few come to mind immediately.  I remember about 11 years ago when I first started working with my current employer.  I was originally a contractor with a 3 month contract but they offered me a job 2 months into my stint with them.  I negotiated my salary and (oddly) my hire date.  I asked to be hired the last working day before July 1 so I could qualify for extra vacation time (new employees hired mid year were given more time off).  A few months later there was a stock offering to all employees hired before July 1.  So my timing was good and I got more than I bargained for as I sold the stock at near its historic high price (during the dot.com boom).

The 2nd good timing for me was when we sold our house and moved to Texas.  Without thinking about it, I got out of the Kokomo housing market just in time.  Moving back was fortuitous as well since we were able to get a nice house for less money.  Like the stock options, I wish I could take credit for via my extensive research and forethought.

Even though I cannot relate, I still like this song though.  That will probably be true of many songs that I come across as I take the U2 song blog journey.

Jon

A Day Without Me

U2 LYRICS

Started a landslide in my ego…

I think I can honestly say that I have never contemplated suicide.  I mentioned in previous blogs that my life has been without struggle or strife for the most part.  I cannot say whether my wonderful life or some other thing has caused me to avoid thinking about ending my own life.

With this song, Bono talks about the subject and wonders if anyone would miss him (or whoever he is singing about) if he were gone (as in dead).  I can say that I have thought about my funeral or how I would like to be remembered (even thinking that a few choice blog entries be read during the service – or better yet, a hardbound published book of all my blogs for sale to help pay for my burial).  My ego says that others would find my random thoughts entertaining even after my death.  Don’t get me wrong, I want people to be sad that I have passed on, I am just thinking practically here (financially speaking).

I have heard it said that suicide is the ultimate form of selfishness.  While that may be true, I think that most decisions in our life are made in part with at least some thought to “what’s in it for me?”  I have discussed this theory with my wife a few times (she taking the opposite stance, that there can be truly selfless decisions).  I probably am thinking more like “The Selfish Gene”, a book by Richard Dawkins here but the high level concept is the same.  Of course suicide would not be seen as selfish on an evolutionary scale (the subject of Dawkins book – honestly, I have not read the book).  This is probably a subject for another blog at another time.  I do think that suicide is selfish though but I probably am not the best person to think about such things since suicide has not been something that I have considered or studied.

The lyric I started this blog with does reflect me at times, I do struggle with my ego.  I mean, who blogs except to do so narcissistically?  I hide nothing here and know that I do so to call attention to myself.  I guess I am fortunate to have a way to draw attention to myself without having to end my life.

Jon

The Ocean

U2 LYRICS

And I felt like a star - I felt the world could go far - If they listened to what I said.

I am trying to come up with a solution to a problem at work.  The situation is complicated in that there are too many chiefs and not enough Indians (or maybe it is the other way around) in the group that is tasked to solve this particular problem.  I have no skin in the game really as whatever the solution ultimately is, it will not effect my day to day work (other than maybe reflect poorly if the solution fails).  I am really more of a consultant.  Those with skin in the game all have their opinions (but not the advanced technical skills to make their solution work) and a few other consultant type folks have the skills but need direction (specifically one direction).

I was commiserating with another consultant for this project this past week that I either wanted off the train or I wanted to be the conductor.  Having a timeline and no clear direction was no fun and I wanted out.  I think though (if I was honest) I want to be driving the train.  Like Bono in this song, I think this committee would get far if they would listen to what the star (me) says.  The problem is, others feel this way too.  For the past (10) years or so, that is the way I ran things.  I was sort of a benevolent dictator when it came to problems like the one we are solving.  The problem is that we are expanding to the other regions (hence my trip to Romania 2 months ago) and so the scope has changed and we have to rethink everything.  Over the past (10) years I have had these same discussions over and over again (usually every time I got a new manager) so I know the script well.  The problem is that the ocean is bigger now and they are no longer looking at me like a rock start (which I have become accustomed to it seems).

I am still a rock star at home though so there is that.  Summer break started for the kids at 3:00 pm yesterday and at that same moment the wife quit her job (she had given a generous 7 week notice).  I have purchased a new office chair, a new home phone (the previous one interfered with the wireless router that I have) and a new headset.  I will be moving my normal work at home area back to my bedroom (I can at least close the door that way in case I need quiet for a meeting).  Being at home will afford me the attention as chief entertainer that I need (or that my ego needs).  The ocean is smaller but they at least listen to what I say.

Jon

Stories For Boys

U2 LYRICS

Sometimes when a hero takes me, Sometimes I don't let go

The son and I just finished watching The Matrix Trilogy.  It is one of those extremely rare occasions when I watched a rated R movie (and the only ones that my son has seen [to my knowledge]).  The rating comes mostly from the massive amount of fighting scenes (though without them the scattered amount of profanity would warrant it as well).  My point here is not to defend my parenting (ok, I hear you, a 12 year old probably should not have watched these movies, even if I skipped a few scenes here and there) but rather to say that the son was enamored with Neo (the hero in the story).  He often imitates his bullet dodging skills and his trademark “bring it on” move when fighting Agent Smith (I will admit also to using this move).

In the song “Stories For Boys”, Bono speaks of heroes on TV and in comic books and how inadequate he felt when he compared himself to them.  It is fun to pretend, but not healthy to compare.

Modern movies and TV shows do a better job of showing us the flaws of our heroes.  Almost every show that the wife and I watch after the kids are in bed shows the main characters in this way.  I think this is better as older shows just seem corny when missing this feature.  I am not sure if this song could be written today if Bono were 18 years old in 2011.

Jon

Out Of Control

U2 LYRICS

I had the feeling it was out of control…

I think we deceive ourselves most of the time thinking that we have more control in this life than we really do.  We can try to make plans for our lives based on what we think may or may not happen but in the end, something out of left field could always make us adjust.  We might have more control as adults than we did as children, but I think if I studied the data then I would find that delta negligible.

I cannot control what my kids will like or not like.  We just gave up (ok I gave up) on my son and his piano lessons.  The wife wants both our son and daughter to enjoy and excel at music.  The son, while he likes music, just does not have it in him to put in the time to be good at an instrument.  We tried guitar for a while and then piano for a year.  Continued threats could not make him practice the mandated 20 minutes per day.  We started to charge him $1 for every day he missed.  He owed us $7 for a 2 week period before we upped it to $2 per day (the weekly cost of the lessons divided by the number of days per week that we asked him to practice).  That was what it took but in the end his heart was not in it.  It was out of our control.

We sat up late last night (all of us) in our room waiting for some potentially bad storms to pass over.  All out of our control.  We could only listen to the radio and watch the big red blob come toward our city on the radar screen.  We are all a little tired this morning because of this.  Nothing we can do about it but adjust and move on.

I know my life is almost void of troubles especially when compared to others.  A close family member dies or someone loses their job in a family that we know but for the most part we do not have any struggles (other than the recent fights over piano practice mandates).  We are very fortunate and I think in my heart that I somehow take credit for it.  I know that is not true but still I know that is how I think.  That somehow the amount of control I have it within my control.  This is irony squared.  My share of suffering is coming eventually I am sure.

This song (I am told) was written on Bono’s 18th birthday about becoming an adult and realizing that you have no more control than yesterday (when you were 17).  Everyone was excited for him and he was pondering his helplessness, how powerless he was truly to cause or stop anything from happening in his life.

One day I’ll die, the choice will not be mine…

Awesome lyrics.

Jon

Into The Heart

U2 LYRICS

Into the heart of a child, I stay awhile…

I will grant that the members (or at least the songwriters) of U2 were young when this album was written and released but they sure are obsessing a lot about being young.  I suppose we all are, in a way, no matter our age.  The song Twilight spoke about this subject as well.
There are benefits to being an adult of course.  You can stay up late or get up early.  You can pretty much do whatever you want to do whenever you want to do it (that is until you get married and / or have children).  While I still have my health, I think I prefer adulthood.  You can still act childlike if you wish.  Even though Paul said…

When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things. (1 Corinthians 13:11)

I still think he might have taken out his childish things (from wherever it was that he had put them) and played with them every once in a while.
I was chatting with a co-worker in Bangalore, India, yesterday.  I shared some pictures of myself and he was amazed that I was 41 (well, almost 42 now).  I told him of my mirror and how it is a liar.  It does not tell the truth about the age I am in my heart (somewhere around 14 I think).  Sometimes I allow myself the pleasure of acting my “heart” age.  Sometimes I can go into the inner child, sometimes I cannot.  I think I like this song.  I can relate to it.  Perhaps, like U2 at this point in their lives, I still obsess about being young even though I don’t admit it.

Jon

An Cat Dubh

U2 LYRICS

I know the truth about you.

As much as I like to read and decipher song lyrics, I hate to admit that I have not really looked into this song (translated Black Cat).  The song speaks about darkness and the little bit of it that we all have inside of us.  These are pretty deep lyrics for such a young band.

We do have a black cat in our “neighborhood” (the surrounding farm houses) but he is harmless and often comes up to me while I am alone out in the yard.  He just flips on his back and wants his belly rubbed.  Donned Midnight by my daughter, he seems harmless enough and leaves the cats that live in our garage alone for the most part.  I imagine he catches his share of birds and rodents.  One of our own cats though, Tigre, has tore up everything from birds to a nest of baby bunnies.  He is the “black cat” of the neighborhood for sure.

We can all be cruel from time to time, especially as kids.  I see it in my kids as they interact with each other and cannot be too upset as I know how they feel and how I used to be that way (or still am).  There is just a mean streak in even the sweetest of all of us.  Deriving pleasure from another’s pain is something we all see in ourselves if we are honest and look deep enough.  It is our way of exacting (what we think of as) justice to those that we think deserve it.  I try to teach them that cruelty is ugly and they will have each other as brother and sister for the rest of their lives so poisoning that now is not wise.  They see the healthy relationship that my wife and her sister have and can compare it to the (lack of) relationship that my brother and I have (though 15 miles apart, we see each other only 2 or 3 times per year).  They are young though and do not know what they have or will throw away if they cannot be kind to each other.

In the song, the cat kills a bird and then takes a nap next to the body.  The song does not go into how the cat feels when it wakes up and discovers what it has done.  Perhaps that is the subject for another song (and blog).

Jon

Twilight

U2 LYRICS

In the shadow, boy meets man.

While this U2 song is about adolescence and the time of difficulty as a boy changes into a man, I think I feel this way a lot.  I am constantly looking in the mirror and wondering why this 40 year old face is staring back at me when I know in my heart of hearts that I am only 14.  I still decide to (or not to) do things based on how childish it would seem (and whether I want to emphasize the 14 vs. 40 year old in me).  Is 25 or so years too long to make the journey into manhood?  I think not.  Nor do I know how much longer it might take me (or if I will ever reach it).

I think I am constantly at a period twilight in my career as well.  This might be ordinary though as people are constantly moving up the ladder or striving to move forward in some sense.  In 9 days, an application that I wrote and have owned for 10+ years will be sunset.  The day is almost ended on that part of my career and the sun is rising on the next part (whether I like it or not).  I am excited for what comes next though.

Twilight (unfortunately) is also the name of a series of books by Stephanie Myers.  The wife has made me sit through all 3 movies in the series (with 2 more to come).  She has read through all the books of course and cannot wait for the last 2 movies.  I cannot wait for them to be over and still (despite her trying to explain it to me [multiple times]) do not understand how me watching it with her adds to her enjoyment of them.  I took a short nap during the 3rd movie (with the wife’s permission).

In case you have not caught on, my blog titles and subject matter are from the U2 album, “Boy”.  I hope to continue down side 1 and onto side 2.  I would like to head through all of U2’s albums but for now I think I will set a goal only for the “Boy” album.  I hope you enjoy this blog series.

Jon

I Will Follow

U2 LYRICS

There are times in my life when I play the part of the follower rather than a leader.  A short while ago I sang a song in church called “Lead Me”.  In the song, the man is talking of the pressure to be the leader of his family (wife and children) and then ultimately decides that he cannot be a leader unless he is a follower (of God).  So, in a sense, the father plays both parts, a leader and a follower.  I would say that this is true in my home life.

In my work life, I am more of a follower than a leader though mostly I feel that I work independently with an occasional check in with my manager to make sure I am doing my job.  I have more solo projects than team projects but I think that will change soon due to shifts in the workload of my team.  I have been a leader of a major migration project for the last (8) months but now that the project is over (or soon will be) it is back to working in a vacuum.

The U2 song, “I Will Follow”, is about Bono’s love for his mother who died while he was young.  Much has been written about U2 lyrics so I am not here to open a new discussion or add to an existing one.  I do remember first hearing this song around Christmas time when I was in my teens.  I received the album, “Boy”, (on LP) as a gift.  My step grandfather saw the album cover and asked me, “Who are the U2 Boys”?  I still chuckle as I think about that remark.  I wore the LP out (like I did for most of my U2 LPs) by massive amounts of listening to it and I still have that LP somewhere in my closet.

Speaking of following, my manager is following in my footsteps.  I was asked (on short notice) to travel to Malaysia and declined the offer.  This would have been the same type of business trip as when I recently travelled to Romania as we are rolling out a project in the Asia Pacific region now instead of EMEA.  Anyway, my manager offered to go in my stead.  We spent a little time together on the phone as I prepped him for the presentations that were expected of him and then he decided to do something totally against his nature, to start a blog about his trip.  So he is following in my footsteps.  I walked him through setting up his blog and give him a few pointers.  If you want to follow it (pun intended), you can do so here…

http://wallace-malaysia.blogspot.com

Jon