I’ve spent the last 19 months or so in a very strange place mentally.  Shortly after my fortieth birthday I started re-evaluating my life.  I spent an embarrassing amount of time sitting here in this chair playing one brainless game after another while my mind wandered over the last 20 years, analyzing, evaluating, and critiquing from uncountable angles every memory I could dredge up and comparing where I am now with what I expected of myself when I was 20 years old.  It wasn’t pretty.

“All those wonderful dreams,” my 20-year-old self said, “and what do you have to show for it?  Five years on a failed marriage, 10 years ‘going with the flow’ instead of pushing, pushing, pushing to achieve all that I had planned.  Where is the mansion on the private island?  Where is the private plane, the yacht, the international fame?  Where are the crowds of beautiful adoring women?”

My 20-year-old self is idealistic, unforgiving, blunt, foul-mouthed, and damned annoying.  I named him Arrogant Prick.  He pulled out every one of those memories and spat on it, showing me where I went wrong, how he would have done it better, and ground even the good memories into the dirt.  He was terribly disappointed in the shambles I’ve made of the promising life he had started for me.  He nearly had me convinced that I was a Total Failure.

I don’t know why I let the little bastard torture me for so long, and I’m not entirely sure how I managed to tie and gag him.  At some point he was just gone.  The blessed silence that followed was filled with a quieter and friendlier voice who started the process all over again.  But this time we laughed at the funny parts and cried when we were sad, enjoyed the successes, mourned the failures, reviewed the lessons and filed each memory fondly away after picking it up out of the dirt and brushing it off.  I untied the Arrogant Prick too, finally, and filed him away where he belongs as well.  It will do me good to remember him from time to time.

My life, of course, is no more a shambles than I am a total failure.  I’m blessed with a loving wife who is also my best friend and who has put up with my somewhat erratic behavior as I stubbornly fought my way alone through this.  I remain in good standing with my mother and my siblings, due more to their kindness and forgiving natures than to my meager efforts.  I have a small circle of close friends with whom I share many wonderful moments.  In terms of relationships with other people, I am a very wealthy man indeed.  At 20, I had no idea that wealth could be measured in this way.

Materially, I’m not nearly as well off as that 20-year-old dreamer wanted to be by now.  Even so, Debra and I live very comfortably with few worries.  I can’t afford to just quit working and spend my time jet-setting around the world, but that’s okay.  A life filled with mansions, yachts, lavish parties, and a parade of beautiful, vacant, anonymous women sounds like a whole lot more trouble than fun.  I’m happy, and I think smart enough to know that I’m not deluding myself.

Is this what they call a mid-life crisis?  Whatever it is (or was, I hope), I seem to have made it through the worst of it without having to buy a sports car and ruin my marriage by taking up with a woman half my age.  Although looking back I can see how going that route might seem attractive.

Why am I posting this, probably the most personal note I’m likely ever to post in public?  Because it seems like the thing to do in order to finally close the book on this most difficult part of my life so far.  On now to happier times.

I picked this one up on NPR‘s All Things Considered this evening.

Students at Wesleyan University in Connecticut are accusing administrators of trampling on their rights to free speech. The university recently banned the long standing practice of “chalking,” in which students used campus sidewalks to make political statements. But in recent years, administrators say, the messages had become offensive.

You can listen to the entire program (or just the one segment) here.

The problem is more than just that the messages are becoming increasingly offensive.  Some have been downright slanderous, accusing other students or members of the faculty of all manner of things.  Chalking proponents are quick to point out that the Constitution guarantees the right of free speech, but says nothing about a right not to be offended.  Fine.  But there’s no accountability in chalking, either.  Anybody can write whatever they like, anonymously, and there is no recourse for anybody who is harmed by indiscriminate scribbling.  Accusations of sexual misconduct or other crimes, groundless though they may be, can do irreparable harm to a person’s  reputation.

We’ve been through this before, with the “Free Speech Movement” (what Ayn Rand and other conservatives properly labeled the “Filthy Language Movement”) in the 1960’s and the current insistence on anonymity on the Internet.  Some people seem to think that, because they have a Constitutionally-guaranteed right of free speech (extended to “free expression” by the Courts), that they can express themselves however they choose with impunity.  What these free expression advocates seem to forget is that society places limits on what is considered acceptable, for example holding that a person who yells “Fire” in a movie theatre can be held liable for damages if there is in fact no fire.   Private institutions (of which Wesleyan University is one), have the right to dictate not only where messages are placed but also (if they wish) what messages are presented, just as individuals have the right to control what messages (if any) are painted on their private property.

It’s sad to see each generation of young people making the same mistake with regards to expressing themselves.  Insisting on the right to say whatever they want (or express themselves in any manner they choose) and expecting no repercussions is short-sighted, simple-minded, and shows an astounding lack of respect for the principles upon which the Constitution was founded.  With rights come responsibilities.  The students’ right of free speech is and should be subject to the guidelines set down by the University.

If the students want to regain their chalking privilege, they should develop a set of guidelines and ensure that every member of the student body reads and understands the guidelines.  If they follow that with a group of student volunteers (perhaps elected by the student body) who will examine and eliminate any messages that don’t meet the guidelines, perhaps the University will agree to reinstate the privilege.

My brother Jay was scheduled for surgery at noon yesterday.  Due to circumstances of which I know nothing, they didn’t get started until about 4:00 in the afternoon.  After a five hour surgery in which they performed five bypasses and inserted a mechanical valve to replace the damaged one, they wheeled him into post-op.  The surgery went  as expected and he’s recovering nicely.  This evening he was sitting up and drinking water, although he probably isn’t totally conscious.  My mother is there with him.

He’s not totally out of the woods, of course, but the worst of it is over.  I and my family would like to thank all of you for you prayers and support.