Dan Pallotta

1.07.2005

Saturday, January 8, 2005

The light coming from your computer screen right now will be 372,000 miles away from you in exactly two seconds. That's about the distance to the moon. In about eight minutes, it will be 94 million miles away from you - about the distance to the sun. But to get an idea of how large the Milky Way is, it will take 100,000 years for it to get across that.

Miraculous, all of it, isn't it?

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Friday, January 7, 2004

Saw this picture in the paper three days ago. It is an inspiring image - that is, to see people of different political persuasions come together to address great crisis - to abandon difference in the acknowledgement that there is something greater at stake here. Yet is not the AIDS epidemic a great crisis too? World hunger? Inadequate health care for America's children? Half a million kids in America orphaned, being moved from foster care facility to foster care facility? Why don't people abandon differences to address these crises as well?

Our political system is so unenlightened. It is based on the idea that one person has all the answers and that people with opposing ideas ought to work apart. People with opposing ideas ought to work right next to one another. Each could help the other see the shortcomings of their method, and our solutions would become much more sophisticated, and more effective. Imagine what the three of these guys could achieve together if they set their minds to it. Each was able to achieve the impossible goal of becoming President. Imagine if they set their sights on the impossible goals of solving the world's greatest crises. Imagine if we all did.

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1.06.2005

Thursday, January 6, 2005

I remember for how many years the chair across from me - at the dinner table, at a restaurant, on the porch - was empty. How many years I flipped through person after person, like pages in a magazine, looking for the one who had no flaws, who made my life perfect. It is a terrible affliction to believe that someone can fulfill your every need. Worse still to believe there are people who are perfect, and that I have to be too. And to believe that one person can make life magical, with no effort on my part, whatsoever, is tragic. This belief is the crucible of obsession - if someone can make my dreary life happy, I must have them, at all cost, and I must never let them go.

In the days of the empty chair, my life rose and receeded, sometimes happy, sometimes sad, sometimes excited, sometimes bored, sometimes dreary, sometimes full of fun. My error was in believing that when the chair was full, it would always be on the rise - that the perfect person would save me from ever being bored, ever being dreary, or ever being sad.

The chair isn't empty anymore, thank God. It is quite full, actually. He's not the perfect person. He's just a beautiful person, which is so much more attractive than perfect. And, as Grace Jones said, "he may not be the perfect man, but he's the perfect man for me." On that note, a close friend of mine says that, "relationship is God's form of therapy" - that if you're in the right relationship for you, you will grow and learn - and that often you will learn the things you had been resisting learning all your life - painful, but ultimately beautiful things.

I have been learning that I don't need to be perfect. What a relief.

Sometimes life today is exciting and sometimes life is boring, just as it was when the chair was empty. But to have someone special to talk to about the boredom - what a joy. And to have someone special to talk to about the excitment, how exciting.

It has taken me forty years to learn that it's not about changing life, but about sharing life as it is, and sharing myself as well. That it is not about getting love exclusively, but about giving it too.

Most of you probably learned this all long ago. But for the few who suffer from the same destructive thinking that plagued me for so long, I thought I would offer some hope. The chair isn't empty because you haven't found the perfect person. It's probably empty because that's what you're looking for ...

And thanks J - not for filling the chair, but for filling my life.

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1.05.2005

Wednesday, January 5, 2005

What is the worst thing that can happen to you if you dream a magnificent dream and you stick your neck out to make it a reality and it doesn't happen? You know what it is like to make the attempt. You have seen your fear for the paper tiger that it is - all bark and no bite. You will still be alive - wiser for the experience. You will be hungry to get up and try again.

On the other hand, what is the worst thing that can happen if you take the safe route? Your fear will always have you by the throat, and your life will fall into permanent stasis.

Ironically, it seems to me, the more practical choice is to dream.

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1.04.2005

Tuesday, January 4, 2005

If you are coming up against obstacles in the pursuit of your dreams, you are on the right track. Do not make the mistake of believing that an obstacle is a sign that you are doing something wrong. Do not let them bring you to despair. Every great dream that ever sprouted up beyond the barriers of cynicism was hard-fought. Every great dreamer faced great obstacles and ridicule. Every wild-eyed enthusiast had to stand up and stand out, while those around them rested in the comfort of their resignation and the little box they call their world. Remember what Robert Kennedy said - that "the future is not a gift, it is an achievement."

If your whole life becomes a confrontation of obstacles you will be in good company. This was the life that Gandhi led, that the Wright Brothers led, that Anne Frank led, that Frank Lloyd Wright led, that Martin Luther King led, and the others whose lives are the bright spots in the darkness of history.

Beyond this, it is important to study your obstacles. Do not run from them. They are pointing the way to the solution. If Apollo 1 blows up on the launch pad, find out what you need to do to fix the problem. It is the only way you will get to the moon.

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1.03.2005

Monday, January 3, 2004

Originally uploaded by danpallotta.

This is a piece of calligraphy that a friend had made for me. It says, "All kare abandone ye who tarye here," which is some old way of saying "abandon all cares you who come here." I first saw it painted above the fireplace at a spiritual center in Los Angeles, where I attend twelve step meetings from time to time. It gave me great comfort the day I first saw it, and every day thereafter. In the great question between Ayn Rand's total reliance on the self, and Thomas Merton's total reliance on God, I am trying to find some balance that is true and real, yet that is not arrived at by any sacrifice of principle. The truth is, for me, I do experience God. I do experience a benevolent presence that is here to help me, and which beseeches me not to carry the weight of the entire world on my shoulders. At the same time, I do see that this benevolent presence has already invested me with many gifts that I can use now, here, without any additional assistance.

The notion of abandoning all care is not inconsistent with either truth. We can we rely on God at certain times, or on the gifts which God has already given us at others. But it is an insult to God, and to our own gifts, and a vicious punishment to ourselves to spend our time in worry. We can do nothing to change the past, and the future is not real, so there is no way we can possible cope with it. We should stop trying.

If we abandoned all care, we would have greater access to the gifts we already have, and greater sight with which to see the things God is doing to help us right at this very moment. In any event, we all deserve a break. Let us abandon our worries, not our selves.

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1.02.2005

Sunday, January 2, 2005

Originally uploaded by danpallotta.

I made chocolate chip cookies for the first time ever in my life yesterday. These are them. Or were them, I should say. They're all gone now. The world would probably be a much safer place if everyone stayed home and made chocolate chip cookies, and then ate them, experienced a massive sugar crash, and went to bed. Of course, if that's all the world ever did, then there would be no one to make the ovens in which to bake the chocolate chip cookies, and no factories to make the chocolate chips, and no trucks to deliver them to the store, and, actually, no store either. And even if there were, no way to get to the store. So the chocolate chip cookie solution isn't really a good one. Damn. Guess we're just going to have to figure out how to have progress and peace at the same time. So long as we have chocolate chip cookies, and we believe in one another and in ourselves, I think we can meet such a challenge.

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January 1, 2005

Saturday, January 1, 2005

Originally uploaded by danpallotta.

I'm experimenting with a new photo loader for bringing pictures to the site on a regular basis. This is a shot I took at the beginning of a snowstorm on a recent trip to New England. You don't get soft, steady breezes in California the way you do back east, and California, or at least L.A., doesn't have lots of big forests of oak trees and maples trees. There is nothing more soothing than the sound of millions of oak and maple tree leaves whispering in the air in a summer breeze. They whisper dreams to you. I miss that sound, and I miss throwing snowballs at the trees in winter. I rarely hit them, which was why I knew I'd never be a good baseball pitcher. I hated baseball. I never understood the game and was always afraid that ground balls would hit a bump and hit me in the face, so I was always in the outfield, praying no one would hit one my way. I couldn't hit either, except for this one day, when instead of looking depressed when I went up to bat, my Little League coach told me my Dad was watching the game this one particular day, and he bet my Dad would be really proud if I got a hit, and he really encouraged me and told me I could do it if I tried. I got three hits that day. Amazing what happens when people believe in one another, and in themselves.

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