Lucky Man

The summary of my life’s story at least as far as I’ve gotten in it, is that if I am nothing else, I’m a lucky man. I have been blessed at every turn. Even when the worst things occurred, it somehow has always been for the best in one way or other. My history of being fortunate and blessed is as old as the universe itself. I wasn’t around for the creation of the universe, but I’ve heard a lot of ideas about it. From my understanding, it was pretty lucky for us all that the universe did begin, or we wouldn’t be here at all. Whether things happened through the Big Bang, some kind of steady state, or even creation, it brought about the existence of the universe and more personally, our own Earth. Being a proponent of the Big Bang myself, I’ll use that theory, but however it happened, the point I’m driving at will be the same.

Let’s assume that the leading scientific theory of creation is the correct one and say that the Big Bang happened. I don’t know if the universe was a fluke or common place, but the fact that it happened the way it did amazes me. I’ll suggest that the universe is about 14 billion years old, give or take about a billion years, what happened back then? Basically this, the universe started and the matter left over from it, formed into great celestial objects including stars. Somehow, these stars grew big enough to at some point create supernovas. Supernovas are essential for existence in at least one main way I can think of (but I’m sure it’s far more complex than I know), they provide materials heavier than iron to us, such as gold and silver among many many others. The residue of these supernovas eventually helped in the formation of our own sun, and consequently our star system, otherwise known as the solar system. I’m not entirely sure of the complexities of everything, but somehow this star system started to form planets, eight of them. These eight planets are spread out pretty far, and thinking in astronomic distances, it’s really incomprehensible just how far everything is from each other. The third closest planet to this star, our sun had a few special properties that I’m very happy about today. The first is that it had a good size, it was the fifth largest of these worlds, which meant that it was heavy enough to retain decent gravity, but small enough to not just be filled with voluminous gas and remain too hot to do much on.

The second blessing this planet was bestowed was that it was a wonderful distance from the sun. It was close enough to be quite warm, unlike its neighbor the fourth planet away which was often frozen, but far enough not to be overheated and boiling like its neighbor the second planet away whose surface temperature is staggeringly hot. Something else that occurred near the formation of this planet is that a huge asteroid at some point probably hit it quite hard, hard enough to break off a good fraction of it (I think around 1/6th or so) and this fraction of the planet took off and started to orbit the planet and eventually became known (at least to English speakers) as the moon. Now the moon is an essential part of our existence in many ways (and again probably more complexly than I really know) the greatest significant way I can think of that the moon might help us, through the tides, and winds that it brings to the earth through its gravitational pull. These tides are essential, and may even have had something to do with the beginnings of life itself, although I’m really not sure about that.

One other blessing that this planet certainly had that I’m sure was essential for our current existence, was its high proportion of water, a good 77% or so. I find it little surprise that even as land animals we are made up of nearly the same proportion of water as the Earth’s surface itself. All of these blessings, and many other factors I know less about, but can only be grateful for culminated in the initiation of what we call life. From lifelessness, it somehow spawned this miraculous phenomenon. At some point, about 3 or 4 billion years ago, our earliest ancestors were born. From there, they somehow not only survived for the rest of their lives, but managed to reproduce their genetic material into offspring, and that offspring in turn did the same thing… WOW! Eventually, they reproduced so much that they were somehow able to grow more than one cell, and became multi-celled organisms and eventually they evolved into various living creatures. It became a very competitive world, some of these organisms would out survive by killing and eating others. Along the way, the world has suffered some horrendous mass extinctions, where millions of species would be wiped out at the same time, and any hope of continued survival would be extinguished with their lives. Among the few species that survived were the direct ancestors of homo sapiens sapiens, or humans. How do I know this? Simple, because we are now alive, so our ancestors must have lived long enough to reproduce successfully.

Eventually through all the trials and tribulations of existence, and through all the random and difficult events, the existence of humans did eventually come to be. And since humans have evolved they have also flourished and spread (much to my gratitude). Humans have taken the mere animal existence of nature and made it into civilization, one of the earliest (and only) species really to do so. Humans have invented new technologies and ways of thinking and although they can occasionally be bad, overall they are quite good for at least us. When you think about all the species in the world, human is quite singular in many many ways, and I feel extremely fortunate that this is the race I was blessedly born into. Being human, to me, means a few things, the primary thing that really sets our species apart from others and makes me happier than anything to exist as such, is our cognitive abilities, primarily through thought and memory. It also means that we can use our bodies and stature (being fairly big in the animal world) with our lovely opposable thumbs and nicely adjusted vocal cords to create and talk. We don’t often have to worry about predators, and if we do, it’s only a fluke sort of thing. And, we can communicate with each other in a less than isolating way that other species I’m sure must suffer. The last difference that I really like about being human is our ability to think philosophically and abstractly. This isn’t to say that no other species can think like that, but being limited by their linguistic abilities, I highly doubt many can.

My particular ancestors, I’m happy to say, were from the Indo-European tribes long ago, and I descended to be part of the Caucasian race. I don’t mean to sound racist or anything, but being Caucasian in today’s world certainly has its privileges as pretty much anyone could probably tell you. Descending from hard working and respectable German and English stock, I feel quite proud and fortunate. Being white is quite useful today, and I just feel fortunate to be part of this race because it has granted me certain luxuries and things that I don’t think I would have had quite the same if I were the member of another race. Also, one thing I am quite happy about is the fact that my ancestors were adventurous or bold enough to migrate to the North American continent a few hundred years ago. Being an American, I feel is a great blessing and honor. I have given this much thought lately, and I have come to the conclusion that it is an honor for many reasons.

To start with, America has its roots in British thought and culture. Say what you will about the British, but in my fairly extensive experience, the British have made the world an awesome place to live, at least if you can speak English. The British have spread their language, and liberal thoughts to over a hundred countries. The British, more than any other colonial power, were quite fair and spread the ideas of self-determination and individualism to its subjects, so ripe were these spirits that from it the United States of America, my natal land, was born. Additionally, the British set in motion an easier world in which to travel and live, both in terms of establishing parliamentary democracies throughout their former empire, and by spreading a universal language, making traveling easier. As an American, I get to reap the benefits, and also reap the benefits whose very foundation was idealism, and not so much being born there as a pure accident of birth. It astounds me to be born into a country founded on an idea, and a very noble and liberating idea like the United States. The idea of the American constitution simply awes me, guaranteeing a life full of freedom and oppression from the government. It is little surprise to me, that the nation with the most Nobel prize winners, and perhaps the most modern inventions is a country with these foundations. I won’t tell you that the United States doesn’t have many problems, but I doubt I could have been born into a much better place.

Being born as a white child into America, made me feel quite blessed as it was, but add to that, that I was born to a particularly brilliant and adventurous family. My father and mother built themselves into a very comfortable financial situation from very meager beginnings. My father (and his family before him) were farmers in Ohio, working extremely hard and laborious lives, and my father not only excelled in school due to his mathematical and academic brilliance but put himself through college and got to in his lifetime be both a nuclear technician and an aerospace test engineer. Then there was my mother, who worked and became a registered nurse and had a particular brilliance of her own, especially socially. I mention this because, I feel it is a very wonderful and practical pool to draw one’s genetics from, that being both a brilliant academic mind and a socially adept mind. I feel more fortunate when I consider the chance that my parents met at all, as the likelihood of this actually seems pretty small to think of. My parents met at an army dance which I believe neither of them wanted to go to, but they did, and as a result I am here today sitting in a café in Seoul, South Korea writing this. Not only does it amaze me that I am here through the sheer chance of them meeting by random, but that all of the massive combinations of my ancestors were able to meet and produce the offspring that eventually became my ancestors.

When you hear about the amount of sperm that is released by a man’s single ejaculation (something in the 100’s of millions) it is simply amazing that the right combination of this 1 in 300,000,000 or so combined with the 1 in 10’s of 1000’s of eggs that your mother happened to be ovulating with came to make a person, and that person is you! Wow! At any rate, my parents met, and eventually conceived me, and I was born into the world, a healthy white male child. I mention male, because like white, being male certainly I feel has its advantages. It means you don’t have to live in as much fear of being hurt randomly, or getting pregnant, or having periods, or giving birth. Don’t get me wrong I absolutely love women, I relate to them better, by and large and I feel they are often more in tune with being human, but I am extremely glad I’m not one myself. This is not to mention the other benefits of being male, in that you can travel easier (to places like the Middle East for example) or that you can generally rise easier in companies, or that you just get paid more for doing the same job (I agree it’s unfair, but I still feel lucky that is the case). Also, and one final benefit is that you don’t have to worry so much about being approached and solicited for simply looking attractive as a man. This may seem bad to some, but the more I consider it, having the option to approach those you choose to, and otherwise being left alone if you so desire is actually a lot more appealing. But, this is where the story of my great luck with life begins, literally.

Not only was I born into a privileged, upper middle class family to brilliant parents, but I was also the youngest child in a family of three boys (myself being the third). Having older brothers is a tremendous blessing for me, for I feel it shaped a lot of who I am and what I’m doing today. Let me tell you a little bit about my oldest brother Matt, he is truly an oldest child and has led the way in many respects for both Marc (my other brother) and I. He has made bold moves and made good decisions in life, probably the most important way that he has affected my life is by being quite social and able to meet and make people feel at ease anywhere he has gone. This was of great use to me as a child, and moreover a teenager in that I learned from it, and was able to use the charm and social abilities that he and my mother had taught me to be better and acquiring and maintaining great friendships and relationships throughout my life. My other brother Marc, taught me the great love I had for more academic things, and as a fearless and brilliant person, he set forth to do whatever was in his heart’s desire. He also taught me the great notion of self importance, which I feel is essential to truly exploit what life has to offer. Marc’s interest in many things transferred to me, and I have gained many of my current academic and other interests from him.

Together, my brothers were of immense inspiration to me, but they were also a huge blessing in another way, and I feel I simply wouldn’t be the same person without them. Both of my brothers have always persisted in supporting me whenever possible, be it financially, emotionally and so on, they have both not only been there, but have exceeded my every expectation of them. I can’t even describe how grateful or lucky I feel to have them. The final inspiration that they have immensely contributed to my existence is their wanderlust. This has transmitted to me in a huge way, and I feel I am a far better person because of it. I have been able to see things in the world no one else will ever think about visiting as a result of their psychological preparation and I can only say how fortunate I have been to have that. I feel that their wanderlust, beginning with Matt’s extensive travels around the world, has been a rarity in most people I’ve met in the United States, and I am grateful that I had such an open and exploratory family (including my parents too, of course). To the extent my parents travel, I feel quite lucky in that they moved to Colorado, I’d rather be born and raised in no other state that I’ve yet been to. My parents bold decision to move there from first New Mexico, and before that the Midwest (where they’re from originally), is I feel rather fortunate and essential into the development of who I am today, both through my independence and perspective.

Outside of the realm of family, I have been particularly blessed throughout my life with great friends whom I love dearly. This has been a lifelong trend, and as I progressed through life, but became extremely evident in high school. There I was lucky enough to be granted some of the greatest friends I have ever had, and the friendships progressed throughout my life. People like Kevin Jones, a truly loyal and great person to be friends with, or Andy Gabor a truly thoughtful and good person. These are but a few examples of the people I feel lucky to have in my life and I may just go through and list people like Aubrey Hall, Alyssa, Piccinni, Zach Morin, John Buchholz, Brandon Morin, Stephanie Block, Lara Young, Thomas Hutton, Amber Johnson, and so on and so on. I feel grateful each and everyone one of them, and feel that I was particularly lucky to have their presences in my life. I am very well aware of this now, when I have suffered their absences while being away for extended periods of time in places like South Korea and England. I know how great all of these people are, and that I simply wouldn’t be the same without their continued presence and support in my life. It is through long and painful study of the situation that I have learned that these people are truly who I am glad to be living with. I love to make new friends and I feel I have a deep and undying connection with so many of them, I can’t even describe the love and fondness for these people. I feel lucky too, because I believe so many people go through life with few real connections of this magnitude, and especially few connections so strong that last for so long.

I could talk about them all for such a long time too, but since I don’t have too much time and wrote about them before, I’ll simply continue on. One thing I may mention now, is that I also feel fortunate in love. What I mean is, that I have had a decidedly blessed love life, in that I have learned tremendous amounts from it, especially in my earliest relationships. Through my relationships and crushes on girls like Melissa Sims, and especially Abigail Reed, I have learned not only what love is, but how to deal with it, and I feel that though they hurt like hell sometimes, they were the best way I could have wanted them to be. To go into specifics here would take a long time, but suffice it to say that I have a knack, or am just lucky to only bring in whom I deem are the best people into my life. No less can be said for the major relationships and romances I have had the good fortune to encounter. This is particularly true of Abigail Reed, Alyssa Piccinni, and Paige Peterson. Abigail, I feel quite lucky was my first love and relationship. I feel lucky that it was so good and we loved each other extremely deeply, and for the vast majority of the time we were both happy, but luckily we also had it bad enough that we eventually broke up, and truly got to experience more of life. The sad passing of her recently at the tender age of twenty-two pains me deeply, but at the same time, I feel even lucky here that the memory of her to me will always be preserved in the prime of her life, when she was full of innocence and youthful vigor. I only hope that if she is still in existence somewhere that I get the chance to encounter her again.

As for Alyssa, she is simply one of the most amazing and good people I’ve met in my life. I feel lucky to have been so close to her for three years or so, and that we can remain great friends to this day. I don’t know what the future will hold with us, but I am extremely happy that she was there for me. Also, she has always supported me in many ways, and the first way that I feel fortune has smiled on me with her, is that she helped me during my greatest pains with Abigail. She was truly a blessing and inspiration to me and I have been more than lucky to have had that, and I’m not sure I would have survived without her. Paige was just lucky for me to meet, she came into my life at a time when I was quite shaky and weary after returning from my trips to Europe and Africa. She was gorgeous, brilliant and kind, I felt so lucky to see that I could meet someone like this, and she gave me a sense of purpose when I felt useless. When she left me, I felt bad, but lucky that I had had the chance to be with her. Also, in this line, there was Jeanine Janse van Vuren, a girl I dated in South Korea, from South Africa, who helped me through a hellacious, yet necessary time of my life, when I think I otherwise would have simply grown depressed. She was a sweet girl, who took my mind off of how much I really hated my city of Shiwa, and departed just as the hard times came to a conclusion.

In college, I felt extremely fortunate to have a small department and a large school, which was actually quite an exciting experience. I feel that the blessing of my academic life have provided me with some of the greatest fortune I had yet encountered. By taking a good amount of German in both high school and college, and also by taking Latin especially, my life had changed much for the better I feel. My teachers, such as Mr. Lash, Mr. Czerniki, and Mr. Whitelock were all tremendous to my person, and I feel very lucky to have had them, but no teacher has ever compared to the absolutely wonderful teacher Mr. Frazer I had in high school. He was my Latin teacher, and probably one of the best people in life I have ever met. He inspired me daily, and helped me to easily learn Latin, and a heap of other things additionally. He was perhaps one of the single largest inspirations of my life, and I feel that life smiled on me, widely, the day he walked into my life. Mr. Frazer’s influence caused me to continue with language in college, and study linguistics, a field I adore and a field that I think probably got me to graduate at all. Also, he helped me to think about life in a new way, altogether, in a more humane and loving way, he was a credit to the human race, if ever I met one. I know this praise must seem a bit much, but this is truly how I’ve always felt about him, and he made my last two years of high school seem like total bliss!

College was a little harder than high school, but I feel entirely blessed by it anyway, everyday I would come home inspired in thought and sometimes deeds by what I had learned in class, this is especially the case with classes I had like semantics, astronomy, cognitive science, and Victorian literature, not to mention my classes in London, (particularly advertising and London Art and Architecture). I felt college was a great time of growth and opportunity, to be surrounded by young minds on beautiful people was quite a happy and lucky thing for me. And of course the sense of independence and freedom it provided were especially important for my development. I feel lucky that I got to attend college at all, and that I went where I did, with the friends I met. Living in Boulder, Colorado is a great fortune I feel that I was bestowed, to live in the beauty and grace of nature. It was from this place that I was lucky enough to begin my tremendous travel opportunities, by going and living in England when I did, and traveling through Europe and then through Africa when I did, was a great blessing and fortune in my life as well. To be able to see the world and its people is very inspiring and a great joy. Not only this, but I was then able to move to South Korea and see the far East, hopefully with hopes of seeing more to come.

Something I feel quite glad about though, is that all of this was timed when it was. It all seemed to work out perfectly, for example. I got to see Africa after I finished studying in Europe, and I knew I’d have enough money and time to do it. Also, I went to Korea after the death of Abigail, feels very fortunate in that I did my grieving outside of my hometown and also, I was there to go to the funeral and so on. Also, the fact that I began my jobs when I did, especially in Korea where I worked the shitty beginning part of the year in a shitty town and then moved to DongBaek a city I am extremely lucky to live in, in a much better time of year. The way everything seems to work out, is always for the best in terms of timing, it feels quite lucky to me. There is of course the luck in the history of my jobs, where I did a great job when I was 18, and learned a lot from all of them. I feel like I was fortunate in that I worked at Ball, a factory, for four years during summers, which taught me much, and also allowed me to think of some of my greatest ideas, including the Secular Monastery, and Frazer Nido. I feel that I’ve been particularly lucky in work in that it also seems that I’ve always made a very high wage for my age, and that I’ve been financially simply blessed throughout life.

All in all, it is the little things, it feels like luck is ultimately with me on my side through every step I take, and that as I continue on, something is simply working right for me. Sometimes, things seem to suck, but it feels that the purpose of life, at least for me, is to use what I’ve been blessed with to be both happy to learn. This is truly why I feel lucky, that everything I do works out for the best. Now I’m sure there could be a few interpretations of this, one is that I am just interpreting events optimistically and that I am in fact not as lucky as I feel. I do assume this is true to an extent, but at the same time, I do feel that it has worked wonderfully for me. Also, this could all simply be coincidence, but be it that or some sort of a fatalistic plan, or a divine entity being particularly kind to me I am not sure, but I am thankful to chance or God, or even simple optimism working so well for me, and I only pray that it continues to in the future. I feel like I haven’t even said a great deal of what I wanted to, and I just want to observe how grateful I am for this chance. I’m a lucky man, with fire in my hands.