Dave's random mumblings…

Saturday morning I played tennis for the first time in many, many months. It was fun, I stopped hard and pushed off my right leg a couple of times. It hurt, but not too bad.

Sunday my right knee locked solid, could not bend it with out a lot of pain. Yesterday was a little better, I could drive (appreciated owning an automatic like never before) and hobble around at work. At the walk-in doctor they gave me some good pain killers and told me to make an appointment with my doctor.

At work this got me an inside-the-gate parking pass for a few days, so something good came out of it.

Went out last night and things were a little better. No shooting pain, but I could not put too much weight on it, getting up from a seat was painful and again driving an auto was appreciated.

Today was appointment day, they did an MRI this afternoon and found a bone fragment that’s made a small tear in my cartilage. Awesome, not a surprise as there was clearly something wrong. I’m happy we know what’s wrong, now it’s time to get it fixed.

Who else has a bald kneecap?

Thirty minutes later my knee is propped up on a pile of towels and it’s been shaved in preparation for going in and getting the fragment before it does any more damage. It’s been a long time since I’ve had a hairless kneecap; it feels rather strange in the gentlest breeze.

A friend told me it needs a smiley face on my bald kneecap… Perhaps it will take my mind off the pain.

This week brings up the first anniversary of davekean.com blog in its current iteration. When I started this I did not really have an aim or goal for the sit, I was not even sure if I had enough to say, but that’s not been an issue. Somehow here we are a year and something over 80,000 words later, and as ever the constant churn that is life continues to make things interesting.

Lots have happened, both good and bad. Some of that has been documented here, and some will be in the future. It’s been a year with a lot of change and shifting focus, I’m not sure I’m coping that well with it at times, but I’m doing my best.

I’ve found writing to be therapeutic in some way, while it is unquestionably somewhat self-indulgent it has also been an interesting way to share. It is a very deliberate and personal form of communication, but as with the rest of the blogoshere it comes with some level of rather satisfying anonymity.

When I started this I did not understand how interactive and dynamic this medium was, that’s been a pleasant surprise that I try to understand and adapt to every day.

Perhaps my biggest surprise (and a very pleasant one) has been the number of hits my pages receive. Over the last couple of months I’ve been averaging something like 1500-1800 uniques a week and getting towards a couple of hundred RSS subscribers. Thanks for reading, for your feedback, emails and comments, they make a difference.

One thing I’ve discovered is there is plenty of inspiration out there, personal, professional, internal and external. From my interesting and mostly functional family and friends, to the debacle of the England football team (I admit “rotting corpse” may have been a little strong the describe the, but not by much) and what is turning out to be one of the best F1 seasons in a long time.

I really don’t think what I’ve had to say is that important or interesting. But thank you for reading and hopefully finding some turds worth the effort of polishing (it’s possible, they did it on Mythbusters) on here somewhere.

It’s been a packed year with lots going on. As I sit here today, it seems like then next year will be no different. It’s been interesting to take stock of what has happened, what’s is happening and appreciate the life I have and the possibilities that await me.

Thank you

Dave

dave @ davekean.com

I was reading Jeremy Paxman’s book “The English” a few weeks ago, a very entertaining and worthwhile read BTW. In it he attempts to define what “Englishness” is, he looks at stereotypes, how we view foreigners, the importance sport plays in our lives, the ability to drink tea by the gallon and most importantly for me right now, how our history and legend shaped us into the people we are today.

The English don’t have pride in our country in the way Americans do, it’s less obvious and very different. Smaller, a little more personal, certainly more ingrained and perhaps ultimately more powerful.

Our most important possessions were our steadfastness in the face of adversity, the classic British stiff-upper-lipness of stereotypes, and most important of all was our sense of humour.

I’d like to relay a story, someone had just had a somewhat significant racing accident, who and where is not important. I was one of the first on the scene, it was a big accident and his right leg was all but severed at the knee, clearly he was in trouble. Medical help arrived just as I was getting out of my car. The driver of the crumpled car was going into shock, but yelled that he’d lost his leg. One of the medics glanced in and knew that indeed the leg was too mangled to save, he looked at the driver and said something along the lines of “No, you’ve not lost it, most of it’s over here and the rest over there…” Not the greatest bedside manner, but perfect for the situation.

It’s understanding and being right for what was happening that was important. While my personal sense of humour is blacker and a little more twisted than most, the above was what the moment called for.

I have a strong identity that is rooted in where I come from and that’s formed a lot of who I am. Over the last couple of years I’ve lost or compromised a lot of what I believed, and for that I am truly sorry.

Last fall something happened, a line was crossed and I don’t think can ever go back. That moment drove a lot of anguish, a lot of compromise and a number of bad decisions.

The thing I’d been most fearful of happened, I’d been told it never would, but it did and it changed the way in which I dealt with some people in my life. There may be good reasons behind some of those changes, but ultimately they were not healthy.

Over the last couple of days I’ve spent a lot of time being less introspective and rather more reflective in my dealings with others. I’ve compromised myself far too much and in part that was driven by the events of the last year, have somewhat backed me into a corner and I made mistakes. I’m truly sorry.

One of the clearest things I got from Paxmans book was that throughout English history we, as both individuals and collectively have had our clearest idea about what we stand for when the going is the toughest.

Today the going was hard, emotional and from that I understand where I changed too much, and what I need to take back to become the person I know I can be.

I’ve talked of needing this change a couple of times and it’s my blog and I can repeat it again. This weekend has focused me on what the change looks like. It’s time to stop living with my crisis of self belief, accept where I went wrong, do something about it and live in the way I was brought up to. With humour, with character and with belief in who I am.

I understand the situation today, with far more clarity than I had perviously. It’s time for me to do the right thing for myself and those in my life to get to the place I want to be.

A friend said to me a few weeks ago “Life isn’t enjoyable if your goal is to always be perfect. The best times we have are in our flawed moments.”

You were right I was lost, thank you.

I spent a couple of hours thinking about me and true likes and dislikes and face up to a few facts.

Among those things was the realization I will never be a true hardcore mountain man, or spend days hanging out in art studios, or ever be admired for my cutting edge wardrobe. I do however love really good steak, adore toilet humour and don’t understand the attraction of Oprah.

I was talking with a friend today and he asked if placing these limits on myself is somehow preordaining my future. He’s clear there is a wide world out there with so much to offer. I know that, I’ve explored a decent amount of it over the years. I’m sure it’s not that I’m too small minded to take advantage of what the world has to offer.

This conversation was with a man who is leaving on a bicycle ride to Washington in couple of weeks. That’s Washington DC, and he lives in Seattle today. I can conceive of doing this, but actually making the commitment, quitting work and leaving my safety blankets behind is all but impossible to actually conceive.

In many ways, I wish it were different but accept this is part of who I am. I am Dave and working out what I don’t love, however much I wished I did, is every bit as important as knowing what I do have a passion for.

Dad once told me that something along the lines of “I can choose what I do, but I can’t choose what I like”. I’m getting that the differentiation between “what I do” and “like to do” is incredibly important.

I enjoy going out into the mountains, in the past I’ve walked portions of the Appalachian Trail, spent days backpacking across the Swiss Alps and English Lake District with friends. I enjoyed it, but the true passion was missing. I saw it in my friends as they stared off at the next ridge, but it was missing from me. Yeah that made me a little sad at the time.

On the flip side was Rallying; a friend who wanted company on a Saturday night out introduced me to motorsports on a small road rally. I loved every second of it, maps, competition and a wonderful welcoming group. 25 years later I still have the same passion for motorsports that I had that first night. That’s never waned in a quarter of a century.

My friend would like a career; he’d certainly like a more regular pay cheque, but has things he likes more. Getting back from a couple of weeks riding around New Mexico dodging thunderstorms on his bike was cleansing for him. In that time I spent time in Seattle, London, France and tending to my rather ill father. He felt riding up hills in New Mexico was a better deal than having dinner on the South Bank of the Thames looking at the palace of St James.

I have a few other things that deep down I wished had ignited a passion in me the way cycling does for Roger and rallying does for me. Dad was right, it doesn’t matter what I wish I were like. I am who I am.

I am Dave and I’m getting more and more comfortable with that idea.

Last year was a milestone birthday and a couple of weeks ago I turned over another year. Add loosing grandparents, parents, cancer and so on, getting old is rather in my face right now.

I think I am increasingly secure the idea that being older is a great deal more satisfying than being younger. Ten minutes on Google shows this is a rather well supported theory with opinion and scientific pieces by the dozen.

In what was admittedly a rather cursory read if articles after a couple of G&T’s in an airline lounge shows that evidence points to happiness tending to reach its lowest point in your mid to late thirties and then consistently improves into your 60’s. At which point the happiness quotient seems to be rather constant.

Personal experience seems to support this. My ambition is realistic, my current job is hard work, but ultimately I’ve proven in can do it in the past and its now about professional pride rather than career growth.

I think my expectation are realistic, happiness and fulfillment come from with in. It’s taken me a long time to stop listening as closely to the external influences that were there previously and have a real look at what I want and what makes me happy.

It’s been a time of learning experiences, some rather costly, but ultimately all lessons in what to do, or not do as the case may be.

This certainly chimes with my experience, since I had a total breakdown in my early thirties, partly as a result of my own ambition and unrealistic expectations about what life could be. Now, at the age of 41, I am more realistic – and that is one of the reasons why I am far happier.

Of course looking back at the Dave of 15 years ago I genuinely believed I had the world at my feet waiting for me. I know that’s not he case and it seems somewhat bewildering that I believed that. But here I am overweight, bad back, aching knees and considerably closer to death, yet I claim to be on my way to being happier than ever. I’m not there yet, but I think I’ve got an outline road map for how to get there.

We live in a society obsessed by appearances, aging means misery and this leads to occasionally pathetic attempts to hold onto youth, as you get older and mature.

My friend Carl said that at work the expectations for his work (getting on with it, not needing to be creative or innovate, just get it done) have finally come down to his level of competence and it’s his moment to shine.

Among my peers the same thing has happened. One of the bonuses of being and engineer in my 40’s is that my peers pretty much all look about as crappy as I do. Yes I work at Boeing and typically engineers are not exactly a role model for health and vitality, but in a rather vicarious was I feel better because of that.

For a start, I have a far better idea of who I am, experience has shown what’s made me happy or fulfilled in the past know who you are. I know that at 25 or 30 I was not a fully formed human being. By the time I was 40 I had realized I was not special, I am ordinary and happy with that.

A large part of my personal roadmap to self-belief and happiness is the realization that no one really cares how I see myself. The difference is, when you’re older you don’t mind and I like this.

While Googling I found a great quote from Eric Hoffer: “To grow old is to grow common. Old age equalises – we are aware that what is happening to us has happened to untold numbers from the beginning of time.”