To Judah on His Eighth Birthday

I remember when I was eight and my father, your grandfather, had a talk with me one night. We were outside of the house on Nichols Rd. in Blue Lake. The firepit was just a little way from the house and made out of cement. When the fire would heat up enough sometime parts of the cement would explode, because of the expanding air bubbles in the cement. We had larger bonfires further away from the house, halfway to the barn, but this night we had a smaller fire by the house.

Grandpa Roger explained to me that now that I was eight I was old enough to understand that I was responsible for my life. I knew I had choices, and I knew there would be consequences. A lot of people think eight is too young for that responsibility, but they are wrong. You make hundreds of choices per day about what you're going to work on and what you're going to ignore, how you're going to talk with people, what you're going to think about and plan, and more. So I give you this same advice, realize that you're responsible for those choices, and even though you don't know what results your choices are leading to, you have made the choices that will lead you to those results. The choices are yours, and that means the results are yours.

I've made many unusual choices in life. I've talked with a lot of people that are envious of my life because I've had a lot of wild adventures, I know the meaning of life, and I freely choose what I want to do. However, there are what appear to be my obvious failures of not having a wife and kids and not having a lot of money, along with the various health issues I've had. But knowing from a young age that it was me making the choices that has led me to these consequences allows me to own them as my own, rather than blame another person, or society, or God, or the universe. That type of resentment destroys the spirit of people from within. You don't want that. Even when you make choices that you regret, you want to know that you made the choice, you could have made a different choice, and moving forward you can make a different choice. This gives you freedom, power, and responsibility.

Taking the responsibility to say, "I made the choices that have led me to this moment, and I will make the choices now that will lead me to what's next.", allows for the inner freedom that people don't realize they envy as opposed to just external appearances. You have no choice in that you have to make choices. If those choices are good, good. If those choices are bad, learn and make different choices.

One of those choices is about what to do. We've talked about this a few times and you've had a variety of answers. You like building things and this summer you, me, and Eevee visited those three houses under construction at different stages next to each other. You also talked about maybe wanting to be a smokejumper. It's good to explore. That's really the only way to find out what you're interested in and what you're good at. You can of course get better at things with study and practice, and it's the practice that lets you know if you want to do more.

For instance, you like animals. On walks we've talked through animal facts. That's good. So you were thinking about doing something with animals. Then, just earlier this year, we did the zoo where we drive through feeding the animals out of the window. We had done it when you were younger too. When you were little you almost climbed out of the window onto a bison's back. This time though, about halfway through the drive, you got tired of getting slobbered on. And, if you don't like animal slobber, then many jobs dealing with animals wouldn't be for you, because living things are messy. That's the only way to figure that type of thing out, doing things. You can just do things.

At base, all of our driving force and motivation comes from emotions. Our thinking can guide our actions, and even try to change our feelings, but the reason we do things is feelings. Just remember it's not only how you feel now, but also how you're going to feel tomorrow, and next week, and next year. Try to get those things aligned so that what you're doing makes you feel good over the long term. To do that you have to think about what's important to you now and what will be important to you later.

Keep studying and practicing what's important to you and what you're curious about. Keep playing chess and Onitama and tic-tac-toe variations. Keep listening to 'The Way of the Warrior Kid'. Keep reading and writing and drawing. Keep studying your exercise charts and practicing the exercises. Remember to take the initiative, and that even painful and difficult things can be fun. Happy birthday.

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