Zyzmog's Fourth Law of Motion

In May 2012, I listed Zyzmog's Three Laws of Motion, and two corollaries to the Second Law of Motion. I have recently discovered a fourth Law of Motion, which is as important - vital, even - as the previous three. The fourth law can be written two different ways. The words are the same, but the word order changes subtly:

Zyzmog's Fourth Law of Motion:

You can only drive your car.

or

Only you can drive your car.

This Law has serious implications that extend beyond the simple act of driving a car, and into the more complicated act of living a life.

Keys to having a good life

I had occasion this winter to write an answer to the question, "What is the key to having a good life?" Life is so complicated that it doesn't have a simple answer. What should be a short sentence is really a list of what I've learned in my first 54 years on earth. Excerpts from the litany on the last line can be found, like a benediction, at the end of every letter I write to my children.

Live within your means, stay out of debt, save for a rainy day.
Love your wife and children without reservations or conditions, and without judgment.
Always look for the fun and the humor in things.
Play with your children while they're young and while they grow up.
Treat your wife like a newlywed bride.
Keep God's commandments as strictly as you can.
Listen to your conscience.
Seek for eternal truth, and when you find it, hold onto it and treasure it.
Don't do anything that will cause you pain or regret down the road.
Care about somebody else more than yourself.
Get a hug from somebody every day.
Remember that you are a child of God, that He loves you and that He wants you to succeed.
And treat your children that same way.
Don't be afraid to love everyone.
Don't talk too much. Listen a lot more than you talk.
Eat candy, but don't get carried away with it.
Milk goes best with cookies.
Salt and pepper taste best when carefully applied to steak, medium rare.
Have fun, be safe, be good, buy low, sell high, work hard, play hard, pray hard, play guitar, kiss with your eyes closed, hug like it really matters, kiss like you really mean it.

Family matters most

Zyzmog Galactic Headquarters is an eclectic blog. There's a bit of everything in here. Here's something that hasn't shown up in this blog yet: an intensely personal note.

This is what matters most to me. (Click here for a bigger picture)

I treasure the knowledge I've acquired over the years. I like knowing stuff, not for its own sake, but to use it to do something. (My kids say I should use it to win at "Jeopardy.") Like the Scarecrow in The Wizard of Oz, I have two impressive diplomas, but most of the knowledge I've acquired comes from way beyond those diplomas. I'd like to think that somewhere in the middle of that knowledge, I also acquired some wisdom. I'd like to think that, but some days I'm not so sure.

More important to me than my knowledge, are all the experiences I've had over the years: where I've gone, what I've done, and what I've seen. I got to work for HP back when it was a good company. I've written video games. I've written a book. I've been on TV. I've written music, played music, and directed a choir. I've watched a ballet in La Scala, and an opera in the Bolshoi. I've stood on the top of St. Peter's Basilica in the Vatican City, and the Duomo in Milan. I've gone water skiing on the South China Sea. I've climbed the Green Mountains, the Applachian Mountains, the Rocky Mountains and the Alps. I've stood on a top of a mountain illuminated by nothing but starlight, and looked at the Milky Way against the night sky. I've seen the Northern Lights dance across the Canadian night skies, and I've been to St. Petersburg during White Nights.

More important than my experiences and accomplishments, are all the great people I've gotten to meet in my life, and the hundreds — no, thousands — of people I count as my friends. These friendships stretch along a continuum from the mutual respect and camaraderie that springs from a single meeting, to the kind that take up a good chunk of a lifetime, deepened and enriched by the quiet, unspoken love that true friends share. My life is especially rich because of the friends I have known.

I'm especially fortunate because those friendships include hundreds of former students and at least a dozen sort-of-adopted children.

Most important of all, even more important than friends, is family. When it comes to family, I am a very lucky man. Define family however you want, and I'm still a lucky man.  [Edit Edit Edit Give up] I have rewritten this paragraph three times, trying to put it into words, and the words don't work. But when I think of the love that we share, the things we have done for each other, and the things that we would do for each other, my heart fills up to overflowing. In my religious tradition, we believe that families last forever. I look at my family, and it makes me excited about forever.

At the center of it all stands my sweet wife. I have been in love with this girl for almost 40 years. She is the real reason for everything I do. All I have ever wanted to do is make her happy and successful, and to see her smile and laugh, and to feel her love and approval in return. So far, I think I'm doing okay: she hasn't kicked me out of the house yet.

The two of us, at 18 years old (Click here for a bigger picture)

The two of us, today (Click here for a bigger picture)

There's a lot in this world that you can chose from, to define yourself and to give meaning to your life. But when you strip away all of the nonessential stuff, the one thing that remains is family. Family lasts forever. And family matters most.

Why is it ...

Why is it that
When we are young, we look ahead to the future,
When we are in our prime, we live for the present,
And when we are old, we reach for the past?

"There's no Undo button on a shredder"

There's no Undo button on a shredder.
Words said, cannot be unsaid.
Deeds done, cannot be undone.
It takes time and effort to clean up spilled milk.  Or broken glass.
Time is the ultimate independent variable.  You can't speed it up, slow it down, or make it go backwards.
The rich man and the poor man, the saint and the sinner, all get 24 hours in a day.
Some of us get more days than others, some get less.
What matters the most is what you do with the days and hours allotted to you.
And that you can live those days without needing (or wishing for) an Undo button.

Afterthoughts:
1. Undo button on a shredder?  I'm certain the CIA and former KGB can do it, but let's not complicate the poetry, okay?
2. Repentance and forgiveness, applied together, allow us to undo deeds and unsay words to a certain degree, but how many of us are smart enough to truly make use of these divine gifts?