Reference Point

Expectations.

We can’t help but have them. They’re part of being human, and whether we like it or not, they’re always there, constantly shaping how we feel and how we view the world. They help define what we think is good, and what we think is bad. They determine if we’re satisfied or disappointed. They can make us laugh or cry or vomit, and despite our best efforts, we often have very little control over them.

As a University of Texas football fan, I’ve been conditioned over the years to have extremely high expectations. Considering the school’s motto is “We’re Texas,” why wouldn’t I? With world-class facilities, a fertile recruiting base, chart-topping merchandise sales, its own TV network (so what if no one can watch it?) and a campus full of beautiful girls in chaps, the program has been blessed with every advantage imaginable. So it’s only natural to want – to expect – those advantages to be parlayed into consistent success on the field.

Of course, one of my favorite seasons to follow was 2008, when the expectations weren’t so extreme. The Horns were a little under the radar, a little underappreciated, and nobody really thought there was anything special in store. But one good thing happened, and then another, and then another, and the next thing you knew they were the No. 1 team in the country. And even though they ended up falling one second and a BCS screw job short of playing for a national title, watching them game after game was a thrilling, in-the-zone ride, like gambling with found money and continually getting dealt blackjack.

(At least, that’s what it was like until Oklahoma ran up the score on their final four opponents, the voters fell for it, and the Sooners got to play for the championship, despite the fact that Texas had beaten them head-to-head. Then it was like getting kicked in the crotch. But whatever…I’m over it.)

Conversely, the 2009 campaign was like a weekly trip to the proctologist, which is a little strange considering they went 13-1, had a Heisman finalist and won their conference in exhilarating fashion. But as one of the preseason favorites to win it all, expectations were sky high, and every play was run under the weight of that pressure. So when the offense struggled or the margin of victory wasn’t big enough, you were dissatisfied. Wins were met not with excitement and celebration, but with relief. The team was being held to a different standard, and nothing short of perfection was acceptable. And when they fell short in the national title game, the season felt like a complete and total failure.

But we were spoiled, and we didn’t know it. And unfortunately, we were about to get a whole new perspective on what a “complete and total failure” really was.

Fresh off the 25-2 run of ’08-‘09 and ranked in the top five, the dawn of 2010 was business as usual in Austin. Sure, there’d been some key losses to graduation, but with a talent-laden roster, the seemingly next great Texas QB under center and the Head-Coach-In-Waiting as the Defensive Coordinator, it appeared that the train was set to keep on rolling.

And then the team started actually playing.

They were sluggish from the outset, and in hindsight, critics like to claim that they could see this perfect-storm collapse coming from a mile away. But initially, it just felt like an aberration, and you were sure they were going to snap out of it at any moment. That next play, that next series, that next half, it was going to turn around, and all would be right with the world again.

But as the losses steadily piled up – UCLA, Oklahoma, Iowa State, Baylor, Oklahoma State, Kansas State – there was no denying that things had spun completely out of control.

And as a fan, my experience of watching the games became much different, and not just because Texas was getting bent over week after week. It was that my expectations had changed, and I was now just waiting for the worst-case scenario to take shape. Every pass was going to get picked off. Every series was going to go three-and-out. Every defensive back was going to get beat deep. Even when there was a good play, I expected it to get wiped out by a penalty (and the officials were more than happy to oblige). In a matter of weeks, I’d been transformed from a cockeyed optimist like Billy Mumphrey to an outright cynic.

Fall behind 39-0 enough and that’s what happens.

When the season mercifully ended with a Thanksgiving night loss to Texas A&M, it marked the beginning of a long, cold winter for UT fans everywhere. While the likes of Toledo and Troy were competing in bowl games, I was left searching for a holiday 90210 marathon as I counted the days until the Longhorns could take the field again with their record reset to 0-0.

But as I sit here now, just hours from the start of the 2011 season, I can’t help feeling utterly confused and discombobulated. Last year turned everything on its head, and I don’t know what to expect anymore. Will they be any good? Can they be competitive again? Was 2010 just a painful detour that’s now in the rearview mirror, or was it the first step towards a looming disaster, like Thelma and Louise shifting into drive?

At this point, I have no clue. Nothing would surprise me. You could tell me that the big Samoan dude from Necessary Roughness will be starting at right tackle or that the first play from scrimmage will involve Bevo as some sort of Trojan Horse, and I wouldn’t be able to dismiss any of it with 100 percent certainty.

In the aftermath of 5-7, there were sweeping changes made to the program. There are now new coaches, new schemes and countless unknowns. The reasonable, more grounded side of me is convinced that we’ll have to suffer through a transitional phase. You can’t make that many changes and not expect there to be growing pains. You’ve got different offensive and defensive systems, question marks at key positions, and a depth chart that features 15 true freshmen, not to mention a schedule that includes dates with three top 10 teams.

On the other hand, these changes have seemed to cleanse the 40 Acres, giving everyone a sense of hope and renewal. There’s a feeling that we could be onto something special, like the beginning of a budding romantic relationship. Everything is so fresh and so exciting. And because nobody’s been caught picking their nose or wearing their granny panties, there’s not a blemish to be found anywhere. The possibilities seem limitless.

That newfound energy is contagious, and a part of me believes that it will lead to a quick turnaround, that the Horns will be right back in the championship chase this year. Comprised of the best and brightest the coaching profession has to offer, this new staff will not only wreak havoc on opponents with their innovation, but they’ll find ways to get the most out of a roster that’s stocked full of four and five-star talent, athletes who were pursued by all of the top programs in the country. And if that’s not enough, there’s half-man, half-amazing – Strength Coach Bennie Wylie – to will everybody forward with the sheer force of his left tricep.

I mean, would you not do whatever this guy to the right said?

With the scars not yet healed from last year, though, the smart move would probably be to temper my expectations as best I can. And when I think about it, it could actually be freeing, allowing me to just sit back, relax, and enjoy having football to watch again, no matter what the outcome may be.

But I have a feeling that strategy is most likely a waste of energy. My passion for UT is intuitive…it comes from some deep, dark corner of my subconscious – as well as from my grandfather, who’s just as irrational as I am – and trying to control it seems useless. Once that ball is kicked off, I’m sure I’ll go back to living and dying with every play, expecting the Horns to come out on top.

After all, we are still Texas.

A Moral Indifference

It’s been a tumultuous 12 months for collegiate athletics, as some of the top programs in the country have been caught with their pants down and their hands out, engulfed in controversies ranging from pay-for-play schemes to abortion payoffs. Each scandal has been worse than the one before, and while there’s hope that the embarrassment will stop with the University of Miami abomination, fans everywhere can only sit and pray that their school doesn’t end up on the wrong end of a Yahoo! Sports investigation.

Amid all of the coaching dismissals and returned Heismans, the sports world has turned introspective, as it tries to figure out how we got here, and what can be done to get things back on track. Flip on ESPN and you’ll see their panel of experts discussing the issues on their Blueprint for Change series. Talk radio airwaves are filled with host after host using terms like “Pell Grant” and “Olympic Model” in an effort to state their case. Everyone has a theory, a prescription for what’s needed to repair the apparently failing system.

The only problem is that they’re all trying to fix the wrong thing.

There are countless areas of concern the NCAA must sort out, from recruiting to compliance to enforcement, but at the root of them all is the debate of whether or not the student-athlete should be paid. This is the issue that precipitates the other issues…it’s the catalyst, and many believe that if the players were to start getting a cut of the action, everything else would fall into place. Boosters and agents would be wasting their time offering impermissible benefits, because athletes would have no reason to take them, and therefore coaches would have no indiscretions to lie about. Game…set…sweater vest.

Proponents of this change also point out that it would be the right thing to do. After all, there’s a huge pool of money, and everyone involved – the schools, the coaches, the TV networks, the guy who's getting lucky on the stadium hillside – are stacking their bank accounts off of the free labor of the players. These athletes are the main attraction, the argument goes; they’re what the people are paying to see, yet they’re not getting a dime for their efforts.

Of course, this logic completely ignores the fact that the players are getting paid already.

We can haggle all we want over the definitive value of a scholarship – some say it’s worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, some say it’s not enough to cover daily expenses – and I’m all for adjusting scholarship payments so they sufficiently provide the athletes with everything they need. But more than anything, these players are being paid with something that’s easy to dismiss yet impossible to put a price tag on:

Opportunity.

They’re attending a school most of them could never get into on their own, and they’re assigned a host of tutors and advisors whose sole purpose is to ensure that they succeed academically. They are trained by world-class coaches in world-class facilities, and when they finish their workouts, they’re tended to by world-class doctors. They get to travel around the country, staying in top-notch hotels, eating spreads worthy of a Man vs. Food challenge, collecting bagfuls of gifts from bowl committees, all the while competing in a sport they excel at and turning their name into a recognizable brand.

Granted, this all requires a tremendous amount of sacrifice – like not getting to go to class for three weeks during the NCAA basketball tournament – but if they work hard and take advantage of everything that’s offered, by the time they’re handed their diploma, they’re not only going to have a degree, but they’ll be in a much stronger position for success than the overwhelming majority of their classmates.

And the ones who are good enough to play professionally will already have a jumpstart on their post-career career.

This all has to count for something, regardless of how much a school’s TV deal is worth or how outrageous a coach’s paycheck may seem. Besides, since when is everyone owed an equal piece of the revenue pie? Maybe I’m completely missing something, but at Dunder Mifflin, the warehouse guys were always slaving away, moving boxes and loading trucks, while the white collared staff upstairs was messing around and holding the Office Olympics, but Michael Scott made more than Darryl Philbin. That’s how it works everywhere – the higher you are on the hierarchy, the bigger your slice is.

Now, I realize that some will say that this is not an apt comparison, that it’s the college athlete who makes the sport(s) special. Whereas a warehouse worker possesses a somewhat common skill set that is easily replaceable, the football or basketball player is distinctively talented, and people show up and tune in to see them do things that only they can do. Without them, there are no TV deals, no 100,000 in the Big House, no nothing.

But that’s not entirely true. One of the things that make college sports unique – and what separates them from the professional level – is that they are not star-driven, they’re institutionally driven. They’re based on a foundation of tradition, fight songs, and alma mater. Florida or LSU or any other big time university isn’t dependent on having their own Peyton Manning or Lebron James to be successful. They couldn’t be even if it were necessary, because players are only on campus for a limited period of time. It’s a brand new team each season. If anything, as the one constant, it’s the coach who is the true face of the program.

Look no further than college basketball, where almost all of the top players leave after one year in school (and until 2005, the best players generally bypassed school altogether and went directly to the NBA), yet its popularity has grown so much over the years that in April of 2010, CBS and Time Warner inked a multi-billion dollar contract with the NCAA to broadcast March Madness each spring.

So while fans may grow fond of particular athletes, honoring them with hideous YouTube videos or buying their jersey (this is one area where the naysayers do have a point…if people are making money off of your likeness, there should be a way for you to get compensated), they’re ultimately packing the stadiums and arenas to cheer on whoever it is in their favorite school’s colors. They’re supporting the institution of Duke basketball or Texas football, and even if the quality of play were to decrease a little, the revenue stream wouldn’t. The Longhorns are going to run out of the tunnel to a packed house year after year, regardless of whether it’s Colt McCoy or his little brother under center.

Nobody wants to acknowledge any of this, though. They’d rather cry foul and compare Reggie Bush to Kunta Kinte, or just throw money at the problem, assuming that as long as everyone is cashing a check, all will be right with the world.

But paying players won’t reduce scandal and heartache any more than legalizing alcohol did, because it fails to address what’s really at the core of all of these controversies:

Our society’s pliable relationship with right and wrong.

Take a look around, and in every direction you’ll see honesty and truth being compromised. We do what is most convenient, we do what is most self-serving, and we do it without concern.

It’s silly to think that those who have been caught stiff-arming the rules didn’t know that they were crossing the line. They weren’t George Costanza asking, “Was that wrong?” after sleeping with the cleaning lady. Lying to an NCAA committee, covering up athletes’ transgressions, accepting bounties for injuring opposing players…these were not things they were taught by their mother, but they did them anyway because they could, and then hid behind some sort of poor-me justification to try to convince everybody – and themselves – that it was all okay.

And that’s what really needs to get fixed.

Because beyond all of the rhetoric and rationalizations, it’s this moral indifference, this insatiable greed and "If you're not cheating, you're not trying" mentality that is our biggest obstacle for progress. Maybe it’s too pie-in-the-sky Pollyanna to expect a 19-year-old kid with nothing but lint in his pocket to turn down a $1,000 handshake, or a coach to not put winning above integrity, but until that changes, no amount of reform is going to make a bit of difference. There’s still going to be someone who wants more and is willing to do that much more to get it. Enough will never be enough.

So the powers-that-be can continue to talk a good game, and the experts can spout off their opinions about what needs to be done, but ultimately, the system is not what’s broken…

We are.

Roll Me Away

A man and his car.

It’s as personal and sacred a relationship as there is. From a young age, guys are taught that the car is their domain, that taking care of it is one of their primal responsibilities, like providing food and shelter. That’s why so many men spend their weekends in the driveway, tuning the engine or tightening the belts, making sure that everything is in tip-top condition.

Of course, I can barely tell the difference between a spark plug and a piece of squash, so the last place you’ll find me on a Saturday is underneath the hood, face speckled with oil, tweaking my restrictor plates and blasting White Snake.

But that doesn’t mean I’ve been any less attached to the cars I’ve had.

More than just a body type or a VIN number, each has represented a different era of my life, and they’ve all been special in their own particular way. My first car was, what can I say, my first car, and its hatchback window was the perfect place to write “Champ City” in shoe polish when the Houston Rockets won their first NBA title. My college-and-beyond car was a gift from my grandfather, and it kept me connected to him even though I was living far away. And the Buick I got from my great grandmother? Well, it had a pull-down gear shift and sat six…comfortably.

But the one thing they all had in common was that they were my source of freedom. Ever since I got that first set of keys, I’ve been able to go wherever I want, whenever I want, and for someone who cherishes that type of independence, I am eternally indebted to the vehicles that made that possible.

So every time I’ve had to part ways with one of them – even though I was fortunately moving onto something bigger and better – the experience was more bitter than sweet. Last week was no different when I finally had to get rid of my 2002 Toyota Highlander.

An absolute workhorse with over 175,000 miles on its odometer, my Highlander had been showing signs of fatigue for the last several months. When I’d take it in for an oil change, it was never just an oil change. There was always some sort of filter or injection system that wasn’t working properly. The tech would come out and explain what was going wrong, and I’d nod as if I had any clue what he was talking about, asking insightful questions such as, “Um, is that, like, not supposed to be happening?” Fearing I’d end up on the side of the road engulfed in a plume of smoke, I’d inevitably OK the repair while mentally crossing off that extra jar of peanut butter from my grocery list.

It had gotten to the point where it would’ve been more efficient for my paychecks to be directly deposited into the mechanic’s checking account, so I knew that it was time to mercifully put the Highlander out of its misery. But that didn’t make it any less painful.

Not wanting to barter with Kramer for Hollywood memorabilia, I’d decided to take it to CarMax, hoping they’d give me something with a dollar sign in front of it. On my way over, I was so consumed with thoughts of how long I’d have to wait and how much money I’d get that I didn’t really slow down and appreciate that I was driving it for the last time. I didn’t get a chance to reminisce or give it a proper goodbye, and before I knew it, I was signing over the title as an attendant removed its license plates. The whole process was all so rushed, so impersonal.

And just like that, it was gone.

As I walked to the Metro station, dragging the golf club travel bag I’d accidentally left in the trunk, I felt a pit in my stomach – that disheartening, sentimental sensation you get when something’s over, like when you’re leaving somewhere you know you won’t be going back. I rationally understood that it was just a car, that it was just a way to get from point A to point B, but it still felt like a loss, and I couldn’t help getting nostalgic over all the times we’d had together.

We had first connected back in the fall of 2005. I was living in Houston at the time, and in early September, there was a hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico that was projected to come right through downtown. Having witnessed the Katrina disaster just a few weeks earlier, a panic enveloped the city, and people wasted no time heading for the exits.

My parents and I were no different, and along with a close family friend, Mallory, we piled into the Highlander and set out for Austin. What we immediately discovered was that it is impossible to efficiently evacuate a population of four million people. In my life, I have never seen traffic like that…it made leaving a Yankees game or commuting on the Capital Beltway seem like a care-free Sunday drive. You’d sit at a put-it-in-Park standstill for inordinate stretches of time, and the mileage signs listing how much further you had to go gradually transitioned from being informative to taunting.

And the longer we were out there, the more desperate the surrounding scenes became. It looked like the end of the world. Most service stations were out of gas, and the ones that had any left were mobbed. With their tanks on empty, people started abandoning their cars, turning I-10 into an automotive graveyard. And while I’d filled up right before takeoff, I was continually eyeing the gauge, wondering how long it could fight off gravity.

But somehow, someway, the Highlander never flinched.

I swear, it was like a fuel camel, perfectly balancing the idling and the stop-and-going and the blasting AC, until it got us through the chaos unscathed. I don’t know how it did it, but over the 150 mile, 14 ½ hour odyssey, that bad boy used just over half a tank of gas. To this day, it’s one of the great unsolved mysteries I’ve ever been a part of.

But the display of toughness I’ll remember most came less than a year later, in May of 2006. I was struggling through a rough, transitional period of my life, trying to come to grips with the past and move towards the future, all at the same time. I was lost and confused and terrified, grasping for anything that made sense, and I became convinced that the answers were somewhere – anywhere – other than in my hometown of Houston.

So I loaded up everything I owned into the back of the Highlander and set out to find what I was looking for.

I’ll spare you the gory details – it’s another story for another time – but over an agonizing, gut-wrenching three week stretch, I covered approximately 4,300 miles, traveling through 22 states and stopping over in eight different cities before ending up right back where I started – on my parents’ doorstep in Texas. Along the way, I cried countless tears, hurt people I cared about, ate approximately 83 Wendy’s spicy chicken sandwiches and pretty much made a complete jackass of myself.

You’d describe that as a nervous breakdown, wouldn’t you?

It was one of the darkest times I’ve ever experienced, and I look back on it with nothing but shame and regret. But through it all, through all of the judgment and the uncertainty and the embarrassment, my one rock, my one constant, was my car. I knew that whenever I got overwhelmed or if the anxiety became so suffocating that I couldn’t breathe, it was there, waiting with open arms, with everything I needed – my clothes, my iPod, and most importantly, a map to somewhere else.

Sure, maybe I was running away from my problems, so I guess you could say the Highlander was an enabler of sorts. But it was also my lifeboat, and given the fact that I felt stifled and trapped by the world around me, that’s exactly what I needed. And even though those three weeks were excruciatingly difficult, when I was out on the open road, the windows down and the music up, with nothing but white lines in front of me, I had never been so free.

We’ve fortunately had some lighter, more uplifting adventures since, like surviving Snowmageddon 2010 in D.C. and picking up my girlfriend on what was our first Friday night date. But like many relationships, our bond was forged during those tough, trying hours, and it’s a connection I already miss.

It’s not going to be easy looking for a different car in the parking lot, but I know that my new ride is an upgrade in every sense of the word – fewer years, fewer miles, fewer (knock on wood) headaches. I just hope that it can uphold the gold standard that’s now been established. The Highlander was a good soldier, an uncompromising warrior, and I am proud to have called it my own.

So rest in peace, old friend…lord knows you’ve earned it.

Deja Vu All Over Again

I’ve always written about personal things. I realize it’s not the smartest move, that opening the doors to the deepest, darkest corners of my world might convince some people that I’m a deranged lunatic who shouldn’t be walking among the general population. But it’s an outlet for me, a form of therapy without a per-hour price tag that allows me to ramble and vent and gain clarity on what I truly think and feel.

It’s also what I know. I’ve never understood how writers and commentators can sit from afar, critiquing and judging others, spewing their opinions as gospel when they have no idea what it’s like to be the person they’re attacking. That takes some kind of arrogance, and I’m thankful I don’t have it. My life is the only thing on which I’m the planet’s premier authority, so I typically try to just swing at pitches in that strike zone.

Of course, the downside is that interesting topics can be hard to come by. I keep a notepad with me should anything worthwhile flash through my mind, but oftentimes, the only “good” ideas I have are things like turning down the air conditioning when I leave the house or opting for Double Stuffed Oreos over the standard version.

Last week, though, I was sure I had something. I’d just found out that my dad was buying a new car, and that I was going to get his. Considering my Toyota had over 175,000 miles on it, and its “Check Engine” light had become the world’s most costly popup, this was a much-appreciated development.

(As a side note, auto companies should change this warning light to just read “$1,000”, because that was inevitably the cost for every Johnson Rod that broke.)

But as I was preparing for the vehicle’s arrival – calling the insurance company, researching the titling and registration process, scoring Valium for my looming trip to the DMV – I couldn’t help feeling embarrassed. I was ashamed that my father was giving me a car, that at 33, I was still getting some sort of allowance.

The whole fiasco reinforced this sense I’ve had lately that my life seems to be lagging behind, that my progress doesn’t match up with my age, and I figured it could be something worth writing about. So I spent some time with it, brainstorming and outlining, certain I could make it work.

But the deeper I got into it, the more I felt that something was off. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it, so I kept pushing forward, hoping it was just the labor pains of the creative process. And then it hit me:

I’d already written this article.

On August 8, 2010, I posted Waiting for My Real Life to Begin. I’d been struggling with my writing at the time, and it had occurred to me that those difficulties were the perfect metaphor for my life in general. Things weren’t stacking up the way I had hoped, I wasn’t achieving what I wanted to achieve, and time was slipping away. As depressing as most of the article was, it did end on a positive note, leaving the reader – and me – to believe that I’d gotten a newfound perspective, and I was now ready to get out and get going.

Yet here I was, almost a year later, not having moved an inch.

The symmetry was sobering. What had I been doing for the last 12 months, running on a treadmill? How had I not made any progress? What was holding me back? And above all else, why was I continually struggling with the same issue?

And when I thought about it some more, I realized it wasn’t just this one issue that’s still giving me trouble. There are a lot of them, battles I’ve been fighting since I was little, since the age when it was fashionably acceptable to tuck my Underoos shirts into their matching grippers. Fears, anxieties, doubts…the list goes on and on. But for whatever reason, I haven’t been able to break free of them.

When I was in college, I was fortunate to be a part of a great group of friends, guys from all over the country who were smart enough to recognize that there was no better town in America in which to go to school than Austin, TX. And we took full advantage of it.

There were about a dozen of us, and we all lived within a five block radius of each other. When we weren’t in class (which was often), we’d pass the time watching TV or throwing the baseball around or discussing what disgusting lengths we’d go to for the chance to be with that month’s Playboy centerfold. Then we’d head downtown to 6th Street to whatever bar was serving $1 beers. The whole experience was surreal, and those four years were some of the best of my life.

But even through all of that, through all of the camaraderie and great times and drunken slices of pizza, I struggled with insecurity. I could never fully relax, always unsure if the real me would truly be accepted. Was I cool enough? Were my jokes funny enough? Did they even like me?

It was all absurd, and in the 11 years since, I’ve often kicked myself for feeling that way, for allowing that once-in-a-lifetime experience to have been jaded, even just a little. I think about all of the energy I wasted and the fun I missed out on, and I vowed that going forward, I would no longer give into that nonsense.

So a couple of months ago when one of our friends was getting married, I was ready for redemption, convinced that I’d shed the weight of my immature insecurities. The wedding weekend set up perfectly, with a great hotel on a beautiful beach overlooking the ocean, and my only responsibilities were to sit in the pool, drink frozen cocktails with umbrellas in them, and hang out with my best friends. I couldn’t wait to get there.

But the moment I walked off the plane, something shifted.

It was like I’d hit 88 MPH in Doc Brown’s Delorean, and I was suddenly back in the year 2000. Any self confidence I’d had was immediately overcome by a wave of doubt. It didn’t matter that I was now 33, or that there was over a decades’ worth of evidence proving that, yes, my friends did like me. I still felt like that 22-year-old, uncertain and unsure of himself, just hoping to fit in.

Now, I know it’s natural to revert back to an old version of yourself when you’re around particular people. The President of the United States may be the most powerful man in the world, but when he gets around his mother, there’s a chance he’ll feel like a little boy again. But I don’t know…for me, there’s something more there…a pattern. I go through an experience, I reflect on it and admit to my hang-ups, and I promise myself that, armed with some hard-earned wisdom and insight, I’ll jump right over those hurdles the next time.

But then the next time rolls around, and I end up facedown again, bruised and battered, picking asphalt out of my teeth.

I’ve been doing everything I can think of to try to snap this cycle, from weekly therapy sessions to self-growth seminars. I’ve dug deep into the past, down to the core, revisiting and reliving all of the defining moments in my life, the different occurrences and instances that had a lasting effect on me, to try to get a grasp on why I am the way I am.

And what I’ve found is that my problems weren’t caused by these defining moments themselves…they were actually born out of my interpretation of them. And from those interpretations, I drew conclusions – that I wasn’t good enough or smart enough or whatever – which became the foundation for how I interact with the world, and I have lived from those conclusions ever since. To me, they are the absolute truth, regardless of the fact that I can now see that they’re ridiculous, that they were derived out of the logic of a toddler or a teenager. So when I’m faced with a stressful situation, I’m processing it and reacting to it from that same point of view.

In other words, my life is still being controlled by the mind of a 3-year-old.

What’s frustrating is that, on paper, there’s absolutely no reason for me to be struggling. I was blessed with gifts that anybody would kill for, and I grew up in a loving home, with loving parents who showered me with nothing but praise and support. So the fact that I’m having these problems at all has been a double whammy – I struggle with my issues, and then I beat myself up even more for simply having the issues in the first place.

And thus, the pattern continues…

Outside of leaning on cheesy clichés to make a point, one of the main things I try to avoid in my writing is repetition – not just in the overarching subjects, but from paragraph to paragraph. I’d be completely lost without the “Synonym” function in Microsoft Word. In this article alone, I felt like I was using the word “car” too much, so I almost slipped in an “automotive transportation mechanism” to mix things up, but it just messed with the flow.

Yes, I know that I hit some of the same themes at times, and yes, I know I frequently reference particular events and periods of my life. But when I do, I always try to approach them from a new angle or use them to convey a new message. To steal a line from Will Hunting, what I don’t want to be is unoriginal.

(And yes, I recognize the hypocrisy of that last sentence.)

I guess I just have to figure out a way to translate that originality to the rest of my life, so that the same issues don’t keep showing up for me again and again. I’m not really sure how to do that, but as much as it pains me, the answer could probably be found in one of those cheesy clichés. After all, those sayings become clichés for a reason – there’s truth in their meaning. And now that I think about, there is one that fits this whole debacle perfectly:

Actions speak louder than words.

Total Recall

With its steady integration into living rooms everywhere, High Definition television is now being lauded as one of the greatest inventions of our generation. Everyone who has it raves about how it’s opened up a whole new world of viewing pleasure, with its startling clarity and lifelike images. The technology is even considered to be – at least in part – responsible for why people are staying home more and going out less, resulting in decreased attendance at places like movie theaters and sporting events. That’s the type of impact it’s had.

After all, if you can get virtually the same experience from your couch that you can get from the stands, why go somewhere that you have to use a trough as a urinal?

And while I’m in favor of avoiding public restrooms as much as possible, I personally don’t get what the big deal is about HD. Yes, the picture is clearer, and yes, I’m glad somebody came up with the improvement, but ultimately, it hasn’t changed my TV watching experience that much. It’s not giving me any specialized viewing angles or new perspectives or anything like that. When I watch a football game, for instance, I still can’t see how the safety is aligned…I can just make out his nose hairs when they show a close-up.

To be honest, I equate watching HD to going to a strip club – it’s cool for about 20 minutes, but once the (insanely awesome) novelty wears off, you’re not seeing anything of consequence that you haven’t seen before.

The Digital Video Recorder, on the other hand, has revolutionized the way I watch TV. With its rewinding and pausing and recording two shows at once, I have all sorts of freedom. I can answer the phone or play golf or do whatever and still see everything I want to see – all without commercial interruption. It simply doesn’t get any better than that.

A couple of weeks ago, though, there was a program my girlfriend and I wanted to watch that was going to be on while we were flying back from out of town, so we set the DVR in advance. But when we walked in from the airport, the red “Record” light wasn’t on, despite the fact that the show was airing as scheduled.

Sitting there, frustrated and fuming, my evening plans shot, I tried to make sense of it all. Had the DVR developed a mind of its own? Had it begun haphazardly deciding what it would record and what it wouldn’t? I mean, this machine was my rock, my anchor, and I trusted it to capture and hold onto what was important to me. How disorienting would my world become if I could no longer bank on being able to call up what I needed when I needed it?

Needless to say, the whole fiasco was somewhat unsettling. But what made it even worse was that it meant that there were now two storage devices in my life that couldn’t be counted on.

The other would be my memory. For some time now, it just hasn’t been as sharp as it used to be. Dates, phone numbers, Seinfeld lines, you name it…none of these things come to me like they once did, and what I’m sure I’ll remember one minute is gone the next. I don’t know if it’s age or the sleep apnea that plagues me or what, but my mind feels like a darkened closet, where I have to stumble around and stub my toe before I can find what I’m looking for – if I ever find it at all.

Just last week, the local sports talk was discussing a basketball player who had made headlines for one reason or another. His name sounded familiar, and I knew I should’ve recognized it, but I couldn’t quite place it. Where did he play? What was his position? How many illegitimate kids did he have? These were all facts I’d been accustomed to recalling instantly, but now, I saw nothing but blurriness.

After about 45 seconds, I finally connected all of the dots, but the incident became another example in a long line of examples of my ever-increasing amnesia.

Not surprisingly, I don’t really remember when these issues first started. I want to say they cropped up last football season, when my beloved Texas Longhorns were slogging towards a disastrous 5-7 record. My guess is that, out of self preservation, my subconscious tried to shut down the “UT Fan” wing of my memory bank, but the lines got crossed, and the entire network was knocked out of whack.

And while it’s been nice to not remember every fumble and dropped pass – and every missed tackle and interception and blown assignment – this lack of recall has negatively affected the other areas of my life. Whether it’s at work or in my average day-to-day, I’m always on edge, worried that there’s something that I’m not doing. It’s like I’m perpetually loading my suitcase into the car, convinced that I’ve forgotten to pack my boxers.

My biggest fear, though, is that I’m eventually going to reach the next level of forgetfulness: not realizing that I even forgot something, because I have no recollection of what it was I was supposed to do in the first place.

In other words, forgetting that I’m forgetting.

It used to be that I never had to think twice about remembering something, nor did I have to keep notes or write anything down. Everything that happened to me – from the smallest of moments to the deepest of conversations – got filed away, and I could replay and relive the experience whenever I needed to.

And as a writer, this really came in handy. All my time is spent examining and evaluating and picking apart the world around me, and I’m constantly stockpiling “What does it mean?” observations in hopes of finding a good story idea or an interesting angle to explore. So having access to these musings, no matter how long ago they had occurred, made my creative process that much more effective.

But now, I have to scribble out nearly every thought that pops into my head, knowing that if I don’t, there’s a good chance it’s going to disappear into the darkness.

Where are Dave Chappelle and his home stenographers when you need them?

The worst part of all of this, though, is that I don’t feel completely like myself anymore. I don’t feel as smart, and I don’t feel as self-assured. The inside jokes I share with my friends aren’t as fresh in my mind, and some of the seminal moments in my life, like my first kiss or when my hometown Houston Rockets won the city’s first title or the first time I got drunk (okay, so maybe that’s not the best example), are more fuzzy than in-focus.

And so are the emotions that went with them.

Our memories, in a sense, define who we are. Without them, we’re just a blank slate, a hollowed-out version of ourselves. They are the record, the evidence of our lives. They store all of the critical data – what’s happened to us, how we interpreted those events and what we can learn from them. They maintain our connection to the past, and they provide context and meaning to our present. They can transform a mundane task into a hard-fought accomplishment, and they can serve as a reminder of where we’ve been and where we want to go.

So losing touch with that, even if just a little, has been disheartening. I’ve tried to keep the deterioration at bay by doing things to stimulate my cerebrum – mixing up my route to work, solving Sudoku puzzles, flipping the bird with my less-dominant left hand – but nothing has done the trick yet. And my guess is that, as I get older, the battle will become that much tougher.

Which brings me back to my DVR…

It turns out that it hadn’t gone rogue at all. That show my girlfriend and I wanted to watch? It didn’t record because it was a rerun, and the DVR was set to only tape first-run episodes.

Not surprisingly, the designers of the DVR were smart – they knew that their invention would have a finite amount of storage, so they equipped it with options that would allow it to secure and save whatever its owner deemed most essential.

My hope is that my memory can figure out how to do the same. Ever since these lapses started, my world has been a hazy mess, like I’ve been squinting through the fog. But if I can somehow learn to parse out the nonsense so that I can hold onto the meaningful stuff, then maybe I can get back to seeing life the way it was apparently meant to be seen:

In high definition.