the vet, the kid & the art of life


To quote Benjamin Franklin, "Wish not so much to live long as to live well" - it's how you live life that's most important. My best friend died in a motorcycle accident when we were both twenty-one; he touched endless people and fit more into life than anyone I've met since. Most of our friends have retired to couch surfdom, they've about as much life in 'em as a Norwegian Blue Parrot pining for the fjords, yet destiny plucked a kid with wisdom of The Buddha off this mortal coil just as he was spreading his wings. I didn't think it was fair then and I still don't, humans plan while fate laughs.

Some people can't wait to wake and meet the day, while others can barely tolerate being alive. This brings me to Chad - I'd met him after he'd been freshly discharged from the Marines, suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. His haunted eyes gave away the tortured soul that lived behind them, I waited for a few months of friendship to pass before I broached the subject of the horrors he lived through. He'd fought in the Second Battle of Fallujah, smack in the middle of the worst hand-to-hand combat in modern times. While in the midst of a firefight, out of a corner an insurgent appeared, running balls-out towards him. Struggling to train his weapon in a kill-or-be-killed moment, Chad managed to line him up in his gunsight. Prior to pulling the trigger, an explosion sent both of them flying in the air. As they quickly recovered from the bomb's concussion, they'd simultaneously noticed Chad's rifle lying between them. My friend got there first and pulled the trigger, the rifle barrel inches away from the face of his nemesis. Every night he relives that race to survival, wakening in a pool of cold sweat. After his girlfriend left, he headed for the woods of Kentucky, living off the grid and away from civilization. I wish him the best, but I'm not sure how long he'll be able to live in this state. It's a kind of death, certainly no way to go through life.

Last week, I had the local newscast on the tube while they were reporting about a killing in my old neighborhood. As my attention focused, they interviewed someone that said the victim was the sort of guy that wouldn't hurt a fly. I flashed on this kid I knew during my time there, one of the biggest innocents I've come across. He would walk up and down the boulevard with a portable beat box while dropping some freestyle rap, regaling passerby's with his fresh rhymes, totally upbeat, oblivious to those that felt him a nuisance. At twenty-one, Chris was the epitome of a free spirit, entertaining beachgoers with his music was his raison d'être, the smile never left his face. I was horrified after the newscaster identified the deceased as Chris Connor of Mission Beach, my young rapper buddy. Apparently, a bunch of party goers were drinking heavily that day, there was a drunken incident that Chris was sucked into - an errant punch knocked him over, causing his head to land awkwardly against the corner of a concrete block.

What do you want from life? What kind of life do you want to lead? I know one thing, if Chris was still alive, he'd say keep your dreams big and never let anything get in way of living life large. The biggest affirmation of life I've ever experienced was holding my tiny newborn nephew for the first time. As I looked down at this small body enveloped by my hands, I felt a shock go down my spine, a feeling I still struggle to properly describe. As another generation of Humphries' was unleashed upon the world, for the first time, I felt part of something greater than myself. Life is good - this Thanksgiving week, let's take the time to remember to enjoy rather than endure it. You don't get to choose how you're going to die, but you sure can decide how you're going to live.

"And in the end, it's not the years in your life that count. It's the life in your years." - Abraham Lincoln

"Happiness is not so much in having as sharing. We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give." - Norman MacEwan

"Deliver me from writers who say the way they live doesn't matter. I'm not sure a bad person can write a good book. If art doesn't make us better, then what on earth is it for." - Alice Walker

"A good life is a main argument." - Ben Jonson

"Dost thou love life? Then do not squander time, for that the stuff life is made of." - Benjamin Franklin

"Life is a sexually transmitted disease and there is a 100% mortality rate." - R.D. Laing

"There are two means of refuge from the miseries of life: music and cats." - Albert Schweitzer

"Unbeing dead isn't being alive." - e.e. cummings

"Life is just one damned thing after another." - Elbert Hubbard

"How far you go in life depends on you being tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving and tolerant of the weak and the strong. Because someday in life you will have been all of these." - George Washington Carver

"The great art of life is sensation, to feel that we exist, even in pain." - Lord Byron

"Many people die with their music still in them. Why is this so? Too often it is because they are always getting ready to live. Before they know it, time runs out." - Oliver Wendell Holmes

"Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans." - John Lennon

"I would rather be ashes than dust! I would rather that my spark should burn out in a brilliant blaze than it should be stifled by dry rot. I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom of me in magnificent glow, than a sleepy and permanent planet. The proper function of man is to live, not to exist. I shall not waste my days in trying to prolong them. I shall use my time." - Jack London

"If my doctor told me I had only six minutes to live, I wouldn't brood. I'd type a little faster." - Isaac Asimov

Frankenstein: It's Alive!

Talking Heads: Once In A Lifetime - 6MB

Iggy Pop: Lust For Life - 7MB

Sheila E.: The Glamorous Life - 13MB

The Animals: It's My Life - 3MB

Too Short: Life Is... Too $hort - 7MB

The Kinks: Life Goes On - 8MB

Grateful Dead: Attics Of My Life - 6MB

Blind Melon: No Rain - 6MB

The Band: Life Is A Carnival - 6MB

Erykah Badu: My Life - 5MB

Talk Talk: It's My Life - 6MB

The Tubes: What Do You Want From Life? - 9MB

Indeep: Last Night A DJ Saved My Life - 9MB

The Grass Roots: Let's Live For Today - 4MB

Bright Eyes: First Day Of My Life - 4MB

Prince: Pop Life (Fresh Dance Mix) - 11MB

The Beatles: In My Life - 3MB

Big Maceo Merriweather: Worried Life Blues - 3MB

The Verve: Bitter Sweet Symphony (Extended Version) - 14MB

The Rolling Stones: Sway - 5MB

Love: Everybody's Gotta Live - 6MB

Steve Winwood: Back In The High Life Again - 9MB

Sid Vicious: My Way - 9MB


In memory of Christopher Ross Connor