Monday, October 25, 2010

Right Here, Right Now

This past Saturday, I went to see Air Force play TCU. I wanted Air Force to win, because my brother just graduated from the Academy this past May. Air Force played well in the first half, holding the score at 10-7 for a long time before TCU scored another touchdown to end the half.
It's always great to go to Air Force games and see the flyovers, hear the Air Force band, and shout "First down!" with all the Air Force fans.
The game also had a particularly stirring rendition of the national anthem. It was very traditional, and very good. TCU (like OU) also gave a special welcome to Air Force.
"The nation's number one defense welcomes the world's number one defense."

Very patriotic. I got teary-eyed twice.

It was a great night with my parents. I love my mom and my dad, and I didn't want to be with anybody else, or be anywhere else. I gave my dad high-fives whenever Air Force made big plays (which predominantly came in the first half) and I held my mom's hand when there was a lull in the action.

Sometimes I would just look at my parents and take their faces in. I wanted to be there, with them, and nowhere else. School was not important, the future was not important, Sunday was not important: Saturday night football with my parents was all that mattered.

This world moves too fast to live. "Stop and smell the roses" never had so much significance. Entertainment and communication move too quickly. We're communicating with people we aren't with while we ignore the ones we ARE with. We're planning events and checking news from elsewhere and thinking about the future and wishing we were still in the past. No good.

You have to be WHERE you are, in body and spirit with the people PRESENT. Don't worry about tomorrow, don't try to be somewhere else.

Everything ends, so you should enjoy the present, and the present people, while you can.

When I went to a Muse concert a few weeks ago, a thousand camcorders and cell phones lit up the Ford Center throughout the concert. People were recording the moment.

But did they miss it?

I didn't bring a camera at all. I have no photographic or video evidence that I went. I cannot relive my Muse experience. But I don't want to, because I lived it while I was there.

People go to the Grand Canyon and they want to take pictures of it. They get frustrated because you can't possibly capture the majesty of the Grand Canyon on film. What you need to do is soak it in. Live it, love it, be astounded by it.

Live. You'll be dead eventually. Memory is only a one-way street.

Tell the people you're with that "I wouldn't rather be anywhere else, or with anybody else, than with you--right here, right now."

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