David Michael Bruno

In Year 37

Thirty-seven years after I was born and raised in San Diego, on Wednesday, June 24, 2009 at 4 p.m., I surfed for the first time. Throughout my life people have wondered how a native San Diegan like myself could get through nearly four decades of life without ever surfing (truth be told, without ever having held a surfboard). I’ve never been able to say. It just happened.

Even now, I doubt my efforts to learn to surf this summer would have much force if it were not for a few life circumstances. I’m no longer a practicing entrepreneur, having sold my stake in a company I helped build. Thus my work hours are not of my own choosing, which means my loyal mutt Piper and I no longer run a few miles each morning. He’s sad, and I’m out of shape.

Instead of “working for myself” (entrepreneurs like to say they work for themselves, but that’s probably the falsest of all the claims they make), I now work for Point Loma Nazarene University, which happens to sit about three hundred feet above and a quarter mile east of the Pacific Ocean. And I work with a non-San-Diego-native surfer, who’s my de facto instructor.

The last reason that’s motivated me to take up surfing is harder to explain. It’s probably a mixture of middle-age restlessness, desire to overcome challenges and fears, a longing to fill my life with activities that are both physical and natural, the pleasure of doing something that impresses my young daughters, and accomplishing a goal that seems as unlikely as any I can imagine. “Waterman” is the least-likely moniker anyone who knows me would call me.  I do also have a sneaky suspicion that the next six months of attempting to surf might provide metaphors for my book about the 100 Thing Challenge and simplifying my life.

Though it did take two purchases to get into surfing: a wetsuit and a surfboard.

Four times. That’s how many times I’ve paddled out. It has taken only four attempts at surfing to conclude that I need only two things to learn to surf this summer. Humility and time. Likely a lot of both, though probably mostly humility. The third time out, I strained an oblique. The fourth time out I aggravated it, and added an egg-sized knot on my right foot from getting hit by my board. I managed to catch about three waves I’ve ridden on my belly, though I do plan to stand up eventually.

More to come...

Independence Day... July 1st

I remain a very enthusiastic supporter of Floresta, a non-profit committed to "healing the land and its people." Recently they've launched a new site, Plant with Purpose, that attractively presents their vision to help the rural poor through their three-fold purpose, Environmental Restoration, Economic Empowerment, and Spiritual Inspiration.

Today is a special day. July 1st is Independence Day... for Burundi, the small country in Africa, which is where Floresta's latest pilot project is underway. Burundi is a severely impoverished country with considerable need. The Floresta project has modest financial needs that will pay back manifold blessings. I encourage you to consider a donation. You'll need to contact them directly and offer your support.

If not directly to the Burundi program, consider browsing the Plant with Purpose site and looking at the specific villages where you can contribute help. Or consider giving to their Trees Fund that has helped them plant over 4 million trees!

100 Thing Challenge List Update

A very quick post to mention a few adjustments to my 100 Thing Challenge list.

I am going to take the Blue Snowball microphone off of my list. It is packed up and in a box in the closet. My wife has asked me not to sell it on Craigslist for $100 (make me an offer) and so I am respecting her wish and her hope that some day we will indeed produce the Schooled In Marriage podcast, which I'd like to do as well. But (make me an offer) I ain't counting the mic anymore.

I did acquire a surfboard. It is lightly used. A 7' 8" TDK. It seems like a nice board. I don't really know, since I don't surf, yet. But since my job change a year ago, my morning runs have been replaced with a morning commute (much to the chagrin of my dog). Fortunately I work about 30 seconds from Sunset Cliffs, a very nice surf spot here in San Diego. So I'm taking up surfing. To stay in shape and to enjoy the outdoors. After putting out the feelers for borrowing a board for a while, it became clear that the best thing to do is get one of my own. The shop threw in a leash, which one person tells me should not be counted as a separate thing, since you pretty much need a leash. But I'm going to count it separate anyway. Why not? It will force me to purge even more, which I hope to do this week.

The challenge of learning to surf late in life also seems like a process that might engender some interesting life lessons. I'll keep you posted.

Review - "Up" and down

A day after taking our children to see Pixar’s new movie Up, it occurred to me that they really could have called it Down. Well, except that “down” is not as positive a word as “up” and probably would not have created so much box office interest. Even so, the movie really is about being down. Consider some of the downers.

Oh, I should mention there are spoilers from here on down.

The movie opens with the little boy Carl walking with his “Spirit of Adventure” balloon, which of course is floating “up” in the air. What happens when the balloon gets stuck up on the ceiling and Carl ventures to retrieve it? He goes “down.” The balloon is lost, his arm is broken, and he marries the love of his life, Ellie.

Years later the ever-enthusiastic Ellie charges “up” a hill, Carl having a hard time keeping up. They lay on their backs and see pictures up in the clouds, including Ellie’s dream of having babies and raising a family. What happens when they go “down” the hill? Ellie is infertile. Her incredibly loving, mature, and courageous response to this sadness is one of the most profound moments later in the movie. Just in case you’re reading this before seeing it, I’m leaving out that spoiler. Suffice to say, Ellie comes down out of the clouds and lives a wonderful life.

In their old age, after never quite managing to live the adventurous life they had hoped for, Carl splurges and buys tickets for the two of them to visit “Paradise Falls” in South America. (Note: which way does a waterfall flow?) It’s called “the most beautiful place on earth.” This time Carl charges “up” the same hill where they dreamed of babies. He wants to give Ellie the tickets to the adventure on the hill where they loved to look up and dream. But this time Ellie cannot keep up. She falls and is hospitalized. The implication is that she has cancer. Ellie dies.

What of Carl’s house? For most of the movie it goes “up.” Only a few times does it even bounce on the ground. Yet there are two scenes when it reaches the ground and stays put. The first is when Carl finally gets his house where he wants it, but at the cost of sacrificing Kevin’s well-being. The house is finally down, and what does Carl get? His dream fulfilled? Nope. Instead he learns from his late wife Ellie a heart-wrenching lesson about where our dreams should be located: down to earth. The second scene where the house goes down is the final time Carl sees it. The house floats down and disappears in clouds. That is the moment when the drama of the movie has been resolved, and Carl begins his new adventure, which does not take place in the clouds.

Speaking of adventure, what about Muntz’s Zeppelin blimp, “The Spirit of Adventure”? For a lifetime Muntz took it “up” into the air on adventures. He chased dreams. But he did so selfishly, and ultimately alone. Kind of like Russell’s absentee dad, who leaves him and his mother for the dreamy adventure of an affair. I loved the final scene of the movie. “The Spirit of Adventure” has finally come down out of the clouds. It’s parked over a “boring” ice cream shop, where Russell and Carl (who is filling in for Russell’s missing dad) are just kicking it together, enjoying each other - making everyday life an adventure.

Did you catch all that? A children’s movie that addresses: infertility, aging, death, and infidelity. Wow! Pixar is back. The best storytellers around. The most courageous. The most moving stories for our times. They might just help us get our heads out of the clouds, where we dream and chase fantasies that do not become us. Now that’s down to earth.

Swap

Yesterday on Twitter and Facebook I asked, "If you could swap any one thing for something else, what would it be?" I was surprised that most people who answered took my question lightly. "One old sock for the Batmobile." But I was serious.

So I'm curious. Does anyone think of swapping stuff for stuff?

Like, I think I'd totally swap my 15" MacBook Pro for a nice (not perfect, but nice) center console fishing boat, which seems like an unlikely swap (from the boat owner's perspective) but not an unimaginable swap. I'd probably swap my Mazda 929 that is old but working very nice for a VW Eurovan in similar condition.

Would you swap something for something? Or is swapping just not on your radar?

Motorcycle Smarts - Matthew Crawford's Idea of Work

What is it about motorcycles? The likelihood of me ever revving up a bike to find out is slim to none. That's not keeping me from devouring Matthew Crawford's Shop Class As Soulcraft: An Inquiry into the Value of Work. I'm sure I'll have more to say down the road. Here, I cannot resist sharing a quote:

The simulacrum of independent thought and action that goes by the name of "creativity" trips easily off the tongues of spokespeople for the corporate counterculture, and if we're not paying attention such usage might influence our career plans. The term invokes our powerful tendency to narcissism, and in doing so greases the skids into work that is not what we had hoped.

Ooooh, this is good reading.

New Evening of Old (off-line) Activities

So tonight was the first night of the rest of the nights of our lives...or something like that.

Leanne and I decided that from now on, Monday through Friday we will turn off our computer lives from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. All the computers were literally turned off tonight. No Facebook. No email. No Twitter. No mindless browsing. A few observations after night one:

It just occurred to me that the children did not notice. I've not thought this through, actually. Sometimes our girls want to play American Girl games online or watch an episode of Wonder Pets or some such thing. Tonight, though, they just busied themselves with other activities. I bet we'll have to selectively allow our kids to use the computer at night, even though we'll stay away. But it was interesting that tonight, at least, they didn't care.

In humility I can now definitively admit (after only one night!) that I am habituated to needless online activity each night. I'm looking forward getting out of the rut.

The Boat Is Back, The Beard Is Trimmed

These days I mostly react to stress much the same way I always have: escapism. This time, though, I tried something new. I grew a beard.

It seemed like a perfectly legitimate middle-aged thing to do. It is much cheaper than buying a classic car. I do not know how to drive a motorcycle, so getting into suburban-dwelling-old-man Harley culture is out of the question, too. Yet something had to give. So I let my whiskers go.

Then I noticed the boat. Not a specific boat. Well sort of. I mean, there are a few specific boats that I have noticed. The point is that I began to notice that I, beard and all, began to notice boats.

Now quickly, in my defense, I have to say that I am one fine boat captain. Well, at least I can say that I am an impressive remote controlled amusement park tug boat captain. Get me on the rudder of one of those tugs, and I’ll navigate it through the tunnel and dock it in all the slips before the two-dollar-token fuel runs dry. The most trouble I have piloting a remote controlled tug at SeaWorld or Legoland is the inevitable snotty pre-teen boy who notices what I’m up to and takes it upon himself to ram his tug into mine. It creates more of a hassle than anything else, and sometimes I have to back my boat into a slip, bumping the little twerp’s tug away until I’m safe. I never make eye contact with those brats. Always, I let my tug do the talking.

So it’s not like I’m not cut out for open ocean travel. It is in my DNA. Sure I got seasick on a cruise ship, once. (Yes, I know Sweetheart, I remember it was on the night of the Baked Alaska.) And I puked on a deep sea fishing boat, once. That is only two times in dozens of voyages. Though, none of them have been recent. Which has got me wondering, What happened? How did it turn out that growing up fishing in the ocean on a pretty regular basis has turned into browsing used boats on Craigslist?

Is it just escapism? Maybe, despite the grandest efforts of my 100 Thing Challenge, I’ll always list mallward, blown and tossed by the dream of buying my way out of life’s discomforts. Or maybe...now I’m not trying to justify anything here, this is a genuine inquiry...maybe there has been a gaping dysfunction in my life over the past ten years that I’ve spent off the water. Landlubber or not, perhaps the 100 Thing Challenge has helped me uncover something that I’ve been missing; something that’s been blocked from my sight by all the stuff I’ve owned, and all the time I’ve spent buying it.

It is probably more complicated than that. Ever been on a deep sea fishing boat? Yeah, not exactly a zen-like crowd of life-happy humans. Even so, I’m not willing to write off this recurring boat theme so easily this time. Not as easily as I dismissed the beard, anyway. It’s trimmed into a five o’clock shadow that will, soon enough, get shaved.

Perhaps I should start all over.

Quick Sex Comment

What a way to start the day this morning on the drive to work! An incredible NPR report on hookup culture, "Sex Without Intimacy: No Dating, No Relationships." Very worth 9 minutes of your time.

Only a quick note right now. (Perhaps more another time.) The saddest moment in the report came when 25-year-old May Wilkerson said, "For many of us, the requisite vulnerability and exposure that comes from being really intimate with someone in a committed sense is kind of threatening." And she goes on to say that the idea of being in love "is the most terrifying thing."

Wilkerson's conclusion? "Sex is fun, and a lot of people would argue it is a physical need. It's a healthy activity." Hence the title of the report, "Sex Without Intimacy."

Fun? Healthy?

The Tense Life of Simplicity

In the June 7, 2009 online New York Times, Pico Iyer has a very nice reflection, “The Joy of Less,” on living a simple life.

Reflecting on his days climbing the corporate ladder he says, “I remember how, in the corporate world, I always knew there was some higher position I could attain, which meant that, like Zeno’s arrow, I was guaranteed never to arrive and always to remain dissatisfied.” Testimonies like Iyer’s ought to be integrated into our education system, with its ROI orientation. More and more people are understanding that their investment of money and time, and the stuff they buy to prove how much money they have and to show the time they’ve spent making it, returns only dissatisfaction.

Even though Iyer’s privileged lifestyle (how many of us simplifiers downsize to an apartment in Japan, but still fly back to the U.S. every few months?) is not a realistic model, his reflections are sound. In fact, perhaps his socio-economic position makes his testimony all the more fascinating. The dream life didn’t fulfill even someone like him.

Two lines from Iyer’s reflection caught my interest, then gave me pause, as if they were a sweet candy that, even after going down, kept my mouth feeling too sticky. He says, “Living in the future tense never did that [offer satisfaction] for me.” The rat race wasn’t worth the anticipation of the cheese, which he never arrived at while navigating the American Dream maze. Point well taken.

Then he ends his article with, “Now that I’m there [the simple life in Japan], I find that I almost never think of [the hectic life] of Rockerfeller Center or Park Avenue at all.” True enough. Those who simplify their lives often find how easy it is once the transition is done. They often do not miss their old, frantic life of keeping up with the Jones.

It’s subtle, but I’m not sure I like his use of tenses. For humans, living in the present is not adequate. (I believe that no matter what Caesar Millan says, animals don’t only live in the present either.) Without the past tense, we have not history and too easily lose our place in the hear and now. Without the future tense, we have no hope and often settle for an empty lifestyle.

Simple living done well, is an excellent story. One written using all the tenses, and all the plot tension that the tenses bring, into our lives.