TikvahBlog: The Long Road Ahead.

TikvahBlog: The Long Road Ahead.

It’s been a minute since our last update!  Over the past year, I’ve gone dark, and while I have been able to stay connected with close friends and family, it has personally been a wild one.  Thus the sabbatical was needed. While I did miss you, one thing became evident over time: As fast as the days, weeks, months, and year flew by, it’s that we cannot change the past…or can we?

I’m not referring to some plot armor in a story or my next science fiction fantasy comic, but a basic idea. Some of you may be asking the legitimate question: What difference would it make? Since whatever happened is past and what is today is with us in the now, the same is true for what is before us tomorrow.  You may also be saying that what’s important is that we worked through it today, and whatever day-to-day demands are sometimes handled minute-by-minute.  

These are all valid questions and are necessary to point out. However, I have learned a few things on this long journey.  My mission statement is still the same, to show my kids that you can overcome the ‘impossible.’

First, this idea of overcoming the ‘impossible’ requires one to consider the idea of regret that clings this discussion like a cloud. I have learned that regret comes in two flavors.  What could have been and what should have been? 

If, for example, I regret the time I should have bought into Apple stock when it was cheap in the early 2000s, this would fall under the category of could have been.  However, if I regret not taking the opportunity to help my fellow out, i.e. giving to charity, I am not just regretting what could have been, I am regretting what I should have done.

If I had bought the Apple Stock when cheap, I would have been rich today! Right? Maybe, but life has shown me that I cannot control all possibilities.  Maybe I would have invested that money in a property, but what if something happened to that property where I would lose it all in the end?  In other words, I have learned that there is no guarantee in the ‘could have beens.’ 

However, the “should have been” is a different story altogether.  For example, I should have been a better friend and listened more, a better son and taken that extra hour together, or a better father showing what trust is.   I’m sure you can think of a few that match your regrets.  This brings me back to “Can I change the past?”

While I’m afraid to say I can’t change the events of the past, I can change what my regrets will accomplish.  In other words, I use my regrets to move me to where I ought to be.  The key is to regret what I should have been; regret is a tool I can use to bring me closer to my goal, such as being more respectful of all the sacrifices my family has made to help me get to one of the most significant milestones in my life, finishing my MFA.

A chapter is closing, and a new one is opening.  I sit here writing this email thinking about many who have helped me on my path. Large and small, rich and poor, significant and insignificant.  Imagine in my short 40+, I rubbed elbows to help out the likes of James Tailor, high-fived Gene Simmons, helped hold the door and exchanged greetings and thanks with Steve Jobs, rolled my eye behind George Brett’s back after helping him, becoming pen pals over several personal letters to Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh, and hearing their heartfelt condolences at the loss of one of my best friends my father.

It has been a long road,  while I have witnessed much and gone through both good and hard times, seeing the passing of loved ones and the birth of others, the one thing I have learned is that time is impossible to stop.  The song by Passenger, The Long Road, best describes this idea.

But is that true?  Again I am passionate about the impossible in all its forms.  In short, Teutonic Monsters is all about confronting the impossible.  But time?  In Hebrew, the word teshuvah means returning to the innocent state we once knew. At the same time, I can’t turn back the clock in what happened in terms of the wrongs done to me or the wrongs I have done to others. I can turn back the time of my perception to push the boundaries of my impossibilities; in truth, what I have learned in my sabbatical from social media and making blog posts or writing you all, I have learned that my soul is beyond the limitations of time and that they are not a fragment of moments into past, present, or future. Still, the long road is simply a bridge from our earthly soul to our Godly soul, and that the impossible is genuinely possible.

To be continued…  

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