WUGO | Greg Macek

Life

Posts about life

  • Six Squared

    Six Squared

    Birthday Cake
    Cake for one. At Weber Grill.

    November has become a difficult month for me. Not only does it mean Thanksgiving and the entire holiday season that follows it, but it also means my birthday “season” has arrived and turning another year older. However, it doesn’t mean I need to look any older. In the last couple years, that usually also means a very quiet, introspective, and solitary season.

    Birthdays, much like everything else in America, has turned into an affair that calls to be celebrated for far longer than what the calendar shows – one day. People have “birthday weeks,” “birthday months,” or “birthday seasons” to keep the party going. I don’t get it. Why do people want so much attention for just being themselves? I don’t really want it, but I don’t want to be completely forgotten either. The last few years, the days leading up to and my actual birthday are internally dark. Who will remember? Will anyone (parents and best friend excluded)?

    I’ve had a few particularly emotional birthday-days that have brought intense feelings of loneliness and disconnect in my time because I felt people weren’t there in any real capacity. I’ve never been one to plan my own party. Nor do I want to be the center of attention. If friends want to coordinate a party, I’ll probably do it. As years go by, though, people have other life commitments like spouses, kids, jobs, etc. I get it. I assume they’re all too busy for me, so I make due on my own. In my head, I’ve figured this must be part of being single when most of your community isn’t.  My last two actual birthdays I’ve had dinner alone. While not altogether the worst, perhaps it wasn’t the best either.

    Why are my birthdays such internally difficult affairs? Why do I feel such loss at the thought of people forgetting about it and simultaneously cringe when I get a “Happy birthday!” greeting or Facebook wall post? A birthday greeting isn’t something that’s earned, but a simple acknowledgment of my existence and nothing else. Why not want any focus on me for me?

    Maybe that’s (a small) part of the problem.  Throughout the year, I constantly feel like I’m having to prove my worth wherever I go and with whatever I do.  Then when my birthday comes, it requires nothing of me, and it partially freaks me out. I’m just supposed to “be, ” and that’s enough for a day. Maybe that’s supposed to be enough every day.

    So goes another year and another birthday, partially unscathed. I hope with this new year brings more wisdom and being more OK with getting older and celebrating life.

    *This post is not intended to invoke any belated happy birthdays or anything similar. 

  • That Sounds Like a Mis-Spent Childhood

    This post starts out with a quote from a coworker who usually knows just the “right” thing to say in the “right” situations. He makes many of us at work smile and laugh – and maybe sometimes reach for that HR department we don’t have (thankfully.)

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  • The Teen Years – Career Edition

    About a year ago, I wrote a blog post about longevity and loyalty. It was sparked by making it to 12 years at my job and a friend who I’ve known for more than 2/3rds of my life getting married last June. This year, I celebrate making it to 13 years in my post-college career life. And unlike the first time I turned 13, I feel more confident in myself and that I’m only beginning to come into my own, male pubescent voice cracking not included.

    Compared to my first venture into the years ending with “-teen”, my self confidence is much more pronounced. I’m mostly less awkward about my interactions with people who are older than I am or have more experience in the industry I work in. I feel knowledgeable about the things I talk about. My tenure at the company brings with it a sense of being the “old guy” who’s been around the neighborhood and knows the history of everyone who’s come and gone.

    But unlike the original teen years, I recognize there’s a lot of areas I still need to grow in. I don’t have that teenager invincibility mentality. There are consequences to actions we take and decisions we make (hey, I rhymed!). I don’t know everything there is to know, though the expectation is there sometimes at work. For me, a lot of this revelation comes from being able to grow and change in a familiar environment. While some would argue we need to change it up more often, the consistency flies in the face of a culture that on the outside craves change and “new” for the sake of new more than having a constant to center ourselves on.

    So, here I am facing 13 again as an adult. Hopefully I’m wiser and funnier. And maybe I’ll finally beat pimples this time around too.

     

  • To Be or Not To Be All Things

    Are expectations on myself too extreme?

    To describe the predicament I feel I am in, let me start with a list of areas that based on my career, personal interests, stage of life, and relationships I expect myself to be versed in to some capacity (list in no particular order):

    Tech support/advice for everything with electricity especially for the tech industry , programming advice, trend watcher, account manager, good listener, giver of wise counsel, man of patience, semi-amateur photographer enthusiast, teacher, homeowner, welcoming host, humorous, culture/media “intaker” and critic, decent blog writer, great “director”, email writer, able to quickly absorb and interpret everything I read, son, friend, “uncle” to others’ kids, all around smart guy, consistently cool, calm, and collected, and above all — awesome.

    I have this perception that expectations on me are high all the time. Everything I’ve listed above and more could be “needed” from me at any given moment and I must be prepared and knowledgeable. I must be expert of all I survey and more. If I can’t keep up, disappointment begins to seep in; first from myself, sometimes from others.

    As a person who ultimately wants to serve and please others, internal pressure increases to stay sharp in ever increasing ways. From knowing how to diagnose computer problems you’ve never encountered to knowing how to properly phrase a thought in a teaching moment or fully grasping the story of a book’s theme or how to console a hurting friend in a time of need, I want to be the best at it for the sake of the recipient. My own goal to always have a well thought out and appropriate response to any situation challenges and haunts me. While I am not a perfectionist, I am a “want-to-be-great-at-everything-ist”. I want to be whatever the definition of the modern Renaissance man is.

    What I want at the end of the day is to be able to intelligently speak in just about any situation; to always have an eloquent word to put to paper, blog, or tweet; to analyze what I hear and read in a way that’s well rounded and isn’t simply a rehash of another person’s ideas; to take that perfect photo the first time I put that camera up to my eye. I want to be something that only exists in movies and TV shows. Culture seems to demand this of us as we gain access to more and more information. Why can’t we all read everything online and able to retain it to intelligently discuss it all? Why haven’t we kept up with every meme or funny story or big news story and have opinions on it?

    The problem is I can feel my own idealism that drives me to want to be all things to all people slowly wearing me thin and pulling me into more directions than is realistic for people. With my inherent limitations, I am forced to make decisions on where I want to go deep. What’s worth reading online and offline? What subjects must I leave in the past so I can focus on other ones instead? Which people do I need to spend more time with?

    Narrow and deep, not wide but shallow right?

  • Technology & Life: The More Things Change…

    Back in November 2012, I read a book by Neal Stephenson called “In the Beginning… was the Command Line.” He begins by chronicling parts of his own history with computing devices starting back in the 1970’s and his own journey through the life of being a geek/tech savvy user. What has always struck me about technology, and culture as a whole, is that everything we know and do is built upon the blocks of something that was there before us. Computing devices use analogies and ideas from telegraph technology, which was imitated by early mainframes and teletype devices to extending this concept to a “video” teletype, what we know as a monitor. Stephenson hits on this here and there throughout the book.

    The same is true for many industries, innovations, products, and ideas that would never exist were it not for the work of someone before us.

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  • Depth of Relationship

    How far are you willing to go?

    While I’ve been traveling, I have been very restricted with the amount of conversation I’m able to have with people I come into contact with. You come to find even the random banter you occasionally have with the barista at Starbucks or waiter at your local restaurant isn’t exactly possible because you’re pointing at signs and pictures to communicate. Thankfully, many people across Europe know enough English to deal with Americans like me who can’t grasp other languages very easily. Yet, this whole experience got me thinking to a topic I’ve been dealing with for a bit longer: depth of relationships.

    Now, I will concede that everyone has their own ways to measuring how deep their relationships are with the people they know so measure how you will. As an introvert, (INFP for those curious), I value my personal relationships profoundly and I find enjoyment in them when they can jump from one extreme (“I need to talk about this potentially life changing decision”) to the other (“weren’t the chase scenes in Fast Five ridiculously unbelievable, but fun to watch?”).

    One thing I’ve missed in the last 3 weeks, and perhaps much longer, is that I’m not consistently able to have the “life changing decision” conversations nearly as often as the ones about Fast Five. People aren’t as willing to go past the surface into areas that may be uncomfortable or expose any part of our true selves. It’s easy to put up a front. We all do it to varying degrees. But we also find it easy to discuss things of no consequence because it doesn’t personally challenge us in any way. There’s no intellectual or personal benefit, but that’s OK because it’s like we’re conversing, but nothing is actually being said.

    It’s good to go deeper once in a while. Ask your friends what excites them. Find out why a certain TV show appeals to them. (Maybe it will reveal something about them far more fascinating than the show itself.) Ask questions of people who you don’t always agree with and get more information instead of avoiding the topic. At least you’ll understand why you disagree instead of just avoiding that topic or worse, that person. Besides, these conversations make life a lot more interesting when you look back at it.

    How far are you willing to go down that path? Will you walk past that well lit park bench that you can see from where you’re standing? Or will you venture down the path together beyond the horizon, where unknown, but profound, adventures and depth await?

  • My (Missing) Childhood Stories

    What is it that makes my life stand out among those of my friends and everyone else I know? What about my life and history makes me different? Plenty of things, of course! My story is certainly not exactly like anyone else’s, as I’m sure your story is unique to you as well. Yet the word “story” is a large driver of why I’m writing.

    There is no doubt that I was raised well, was cared for, and all my core needs were met. As a kid, you don’t know what you’re missing out on because you simply are unaware of their existence. You are (mostly) content with what you have. For the most part, I believe this was the case with me. I had friends, played with toys, Matchbox cars, Legos, He-Man action figures, Lincoln Logs… you get the idea. I even watched some cartoons and other TV shows in my youth. I wasn’t totally sheltered from the world.

    However, as I got older and made friends in college and beyond, during times of reminiscing about our youth and sharing stories of what captured our imagination as children, I found that our shared experiences and knowledge, particularly with items of some cultural reference, did not overlap with great frequency. Many of my friends grew up as young children in the 80’s and recall a number of classic TV shows that I was apparently completely out of the loop on. A lot of kids movies, namely many classic Disney and those they released during my youth years and into the 90’s, were and many still are completely unknown to me. Perhaps the one pressing on my mind most is that I’m so void of childhood story book memories. As I see friends talk of sharing books with their kids from their own childhood, I look on with a lack of understanding of what that means. I have no memory of having my parents read to me and my brother. These stories never told weren’t there to capture my imagination and take me to places that didn’t really exist anywhere but in my head. This could explain my love of making up worlds with Legos and later on in video games like Sim City, though these worlds always had some grounding or basis from real life.

    I’ve thought to myself on numerous occasions, “Well, why not just rent all those movies you missed and read all those children’s books you never read and be caught up?” Sure, I could do that, but that’s not exactly the point for me. The experience of taking in those stories the first time as a child is something you cannot recreate as an adult. That is what is lost forever. That is what I lament now.

    Now I realize there is little I can do about this, save for renting all those movies and reading all those books and catch up. It won’t replace what I missed out on while I grew up, but I suppose that head knowledge should count for something for now. If I ever have my own kids someday, reading some of these stories to them for the first time will fulfill that void from my own childhood. For now, that space in my heart will need to remain as it is and I’ll need to work out what to do with all that extra room.

  • Truth in Youthful Words

    I posted recently about it being National Poetry Month, so I decided I should dig up some poems and writings from my past and share them here.In going through some of my journals and scribbling of words on paper from high school through now, I’ve noticed a some things:

    • I used to write a LOT more in high school, college, and even for a short while into post-college life.
    • My internal life was incredibly dramatic and full of tension. At least I thought it was.
    • I expressed that internal drama often through poems, or at least what I was calling poems, in ways that were more honest than I would be now.
    • It’s really interesting to see where I’ve come from; and more specifically, what’s different about me. (And if I’m being really honest with myself, what’s not different.)

    There’s something about how we speak and write when we’re younger than tends to be so raw and full of energy and emotion. It’s as though our entire lives depended on every word we said, wrote, heard. Our feelings knew little of the “in-between” and only existed at the edges. What happened to that? We get older, wiser, more subdued, more cautious. Ultimately, these things are good for us. I would fear living that way now. But there’s something about us being real with ourselves that should never go away. Write with reckless abandon. Get thoughts down on paper and work out what’s in your mind and heart. One of the worst things you can do is bottle stuff in. I did on and off for many years and when I was holding back, I was more unhealthy.

    What’s the point of this post? I’m not quite sure. Maybe just that we should be more free with our words and express those thoughts more frequently and openly, like when we were younger. Also look for a couple more poems to be posted here in the coming days!