Nice Guys Finish Last
Back in the early days of high school, I loved watching "The Mask", starring Jim Carrey. In it, he mentions a book or newspaper article (I can't remember which now, and frankly, it's not relevant anyway) he wrote entitled "Nice Guys Finish Last". How true that title rings in my ears and in my life!
Let me tell you a simple story: There once was a man who had a piece of coal. One day a good friend of his came by to visit. He told the man how he was in search of a precious diamond of great worth. The man told his friend, "I have here a piece of coal I have been holding for a while now. It has the capacity of becoming a diamond. I know not the means of turning it into a diamond. However, you are my friend. Therefore, I will give you this piece of coal." At first, the friend objected; yet, the man insisted. So the friend took the coal, thanked him and went on his way.
After many days the friend came back and showed the man the diamond. The man was happy for his friend, yet deep down inside he regreted the chance of having something of great worth, which could have been his.
Sunday, October 15, 2006
Friday, October 06, 2006
Eine Erinnerung an Deutschland
I've always loved the fall. The cool, heavy, damp air. The barren trees. The bland colors. The reds, oranges, and yellows of leaves on the streets and lawns, as they silently fall from branches above. The pumpkins on porches. The autumn breeze that twirls in gusts. The clothing and jackets. The gray, low-lying clouds. I love everything about fall! Now, ever since I've been back from Germany, fall seems to have much more meaning to me, at least here in Provo, Utah. The weather and feelings of fall remind me of fall in Germany.
I don't know what it is about Germany, but when I lived there, I always felt claustrophobic. It always seemed like the sky was falling on you and everything was trying to squeeze in on you. Coming from Texas, I'm used to the openness of everything. The sky seems far up there. The land is flat and broad. Houses and buildings are spread out. Everything is open. In Germany, it's the exact opposite. And I feel that way in the fall.
It's interesting how certain situations will give you those nostalgic feelings that bring back memories. For example, whenever I listen to Green Day's Nimrod CD, I think of my junior year in high school, in the basement of our house, working out on the bench; because everytime I worked out I listened to Green Day's CD, since it was about 45 minutes. During the summer, when days would turn especially hot and humid, I think of my summer a year ago, when I was outside, selling pest control; because it was always hot and humid. Those are just a couple of examples. The same holds true with the feelings of autumn. They conjure up a nostalgia that transports me back in Germany. On top of that, I'm taking a business German class this semester, where we are constantly speaking in the German tongue. Have you ever been somewhere or had an experience in the past that seemed "once in a life-time" and you loved it so much, that you wish you could relive it? That's how I've felt since I came back from Germany; however, with fall being here AND taking this German class, those feelings are stronger than ever. Memories flash in the front of mind of walking down the Fußgängerzone, passing small shops and clothing stores, crossing cobble-stone streets. I think of the Weihnachtsmarkt in Mannheim, drinking Kinderpunch. I picture myself in the Bahnhof, eating a Nutella-banana crepe, as I wait for the train to Kaiserslautern or Heidelberg. I miss the Döner Kebab! I often imagine being in an ICE again, traveling from Duisburg to Frankfurt. Frankfurt! I loved the crazies out in the Marktplatz at Hauptwache und Konstablerwache. I miss the clothing and the pointy "elf" shoes the German city women would wear in the winter time. I remember the people I met, served, befriended, and came to love. I miss the culture, the food, the houses. I miss how it all felt medieval and modern at the same time. I miss the way people would look at me funny on the street, when I would ask them how they were doing. I miss their brutal honesty. Overall, I miss the experience of Germany.
It's like a dream that became real, but then you wake up and find yourself back home. You try to go back to sleep and have that same dream again, starting where you left off, hoping that those feelings and that the reality of it will come back. But it doesn't. These images inside my head seem to be the imaginations of a distant fantasy world. Then, one plane flight obscures the intense feelings of how tangible that experience was and turns it all into surreal thoughts and mental pictures, transparent and off-focus. You get off the plane back home and it's like leaving the magical world of Narnia and finding yourself back in the wardrobe of an old man's house.
And so each falling leaf in autumn represents a memory of the Vaterland. Each passing gust of wind is an emotion that swells inside my soul - a yearning to go back and relive a dream of once was. And in each sigh and thought is the ever-growing determination to fulfill that dream to return to a people and culture I grew to love - a place, in which I lost my heart. Einigkeit und Recht und Freiheit für das deutsche Vaterland!
I've always loved the fall. The cool, heavy, damp air. The barren trees. The bland colors. The reds, oranges, and yellows of leaves on the streets and lawns, as they silently fall from branches above. The pumpkins on porches. The autumn breeze that twirls in gusts. The clothing and jackets. The gray, low-lying clouds. I love everything about fall! Now, ever since I've been back from Germany, fall seems to have much more meaning to me, at least here in Provo, Utah. The weather and feelings of fall remind me of fall in Germany.
I don't know what it is about Germany, but when I lived there, I always felt claustrophobic. It always seemed like the sky was falling on you and everything was trying to squeeze in on you. Coming from Texas, I'm used to the openness of everything. The sky seems far up there. The land is flat and broad. Houses and buildings are spread out. Everything is open. In Germany, it's the exact opposite. And I feel that way in the fall.
It's interesting how certain situations will give you those nostalgic feelings that bring back memories. For example, whenever I listen to Green Day's Nimrod CD, I think of my junior year in high school, in the basement of our house, working out on the bench; because everytime I worked out I listened to Green Day's CD, since it was about 45 minutes. During the summer, when days would turn especially hot and humid, I think of my summer a year ago, when I was outside, selling pest control; because it was always hot and humid. Those are just a couple of examples. The same holds true with the feelings of autumn. They conjure up a nostalgia that transports me back in Germany. On top of that, I'm taking a business German class this semester, where we are constantly speaking in the German tongue. Have you ever been somewhere or had an experience in the past that seemed "once in a life-time" and you loved it so much, that you wish you could relive it? That's how I've felt since I came back from Germany; however, with fall being here AND taking this German class, those feelings are stronger than ever. Memories flash in the front of mind of walking down the Fußgängerzone, passing small shops and clothing stores, crossing cobble-stone streets. I think of the Weihnachtsmarkt in Mannheim, drinking Kinderpunch. I picture myself in the Bahnhof, eating a Nutella-banana crepe, as I wait for the train to Kaiserslautern or Heidelberg. I miss the Döner Kebab! I often imagine being in an ICE again, traveling from Duisburg to Frankfurt. Frankfurt! I loved the crazies out in the Marktplatz at Hauptwache und Konstablerwache. I miss the clothing and the pointy "elf" shoes the German city women would wear in the winter time. I remember the people I met, served, befriended, and came to love. I miss the culture, the food, the houses. I miss how it all felt medieval and modern at the same time. I miss the way people would look at me funny on the street, when I would ask them how they were doing. I miss their brutal honesty. Overall, I miss the experience of Germany.
It's like a dream that became real, but then you wake up and find yourself back home. You try to go back to sleep and have that same dream again, starting where you left off, hoping that those feelings and that the reality of it will come back. But it doesn't. These images inside my head seem to be the imaginations of a distant fantasy world. Then, one plane flight obscures the intense feelings of how tangible that experience was and turns it all into surreal thoughts and mental pictures, transparent and off-focus. You get off the plane back home and it's like leaving the magical world of Narnia and finding yourself back in the wardrobe of an old man's house.
And so each falling leaf in autumn represents a memory of the Vaterland. Each passing gust of wind is an emotion that swells inside my soul - a yearning to go back and relive a dream of once was. And in each sigh and thought is the ever-growing determination to fulfill that dream to return to a people and culture I grew to love - a place, in which I lost my heart. Einigkeit und Recht und Freiheit für das deutsche Vaterland!
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