Regret

 Matt Murdock: "I'd take that back if I could."

Sister Maggie: "If God allowed that, there'd be no future. Just people endlessly re-mending the past."

This bit of dialogue shook me. I, like most people, have chunks of my past I wish I might have done differently. I've mapped it out in my head at times, how I could change things, knowing what I know now.

This line of thinking can leave us feeling trapped however, that we are constantly looking back on what you didn't do right, or what evils were done to us. And we might have every reason to do so. There's no harm in mourning, it helps us move on.

But that second part is key. Moving on. Moving forward.

We take what we learn from our mistakes, from our past injuries, from the mistakes of those around us, and if we can find the focus and the wisdom, we will make different choices and be better tomorrow than we were yesterday.

But in that one line, Sister Maggie jarred these endless reflections and what ifs inside me with the idea of this endless loop of trying to fix things only to have other things go wrong that I did not foresee. Then going back to mend or change those. Then seeing other ways, new ways I could change what's already happened.

But I'd never be moving forward. Just like I am when I dwell in the past.

And like the traveler in Pilgrim's Progress, I felt this huge weight roll from on top of me. I suddenly felt free of all of those endless looks backwards, because that's not my life. That's not my future.

My destiny lies before me, using the lessons of the past to forge something greater to come. And it is that for all of you.

That burden of the mistakes and hurts of yesterday do not have to be this endless dwelling place where we become mired in the what ifs, the "If I'd only done this", and I say this being one of the worst offenders.

Hopefully this realization, and this thought that this loop of regret and change of the past, seeing it for the endless circle going no where that it is. Hopefully this takes some weight off your chest too.

How to get a Wrestler All the Way Over

Superstars like the Macho Man, Hulk Hogan, Stone Cold Steve Austin, Shawn Michaels, The Rock, and the Undertaker were all amazing showmen. They had larger than life personas that really drew us in. (Something that is also lacking currently, but that’s another story.) But it wasn’t just who they were, it’s who the beat.
When Hulk Hogan defeated Andre the Giant at Wrestlemania 3, that catapulted Hogan from star to legend. Shawn Michaels famous ladder match with Razor Ramon, coupled with his amazing feuds with Kevin Nash and Brett Hart. Stone Cold becoming the fan favorite during his feud with Brett Hart, where he was supposed to be the heel, and the company getting out of the way and letting it happen gave way to Stone Cold mania. That and the fact that in his heyday Steve Austin would fight literally EVERYBODY. And the Undertaker became the legend, the phenom because of his incredible prowess, his massive physique, his commanding presence and the TRAIL OF BODIES HE LEFT IN HIS WAKE.
Casket matches. Inferno matches. Hell in the Cell matches. But it wasn’t just because he was feuding with the fan favorite of the week. He was fighting other legends. Shawn Michaels, Hulk Hogan, Kane, Brett Hart, Kevin Nash, Ric Flair, the list goes on and on. But these victories had to mean something. Those legends got their status by the immense number of great matches they had, with opponents they defeated. And that brings us to the sad reality of creating legends and superstars in wrestling.
Someone has to lost. And to make a real superstar? Lots of people have to lose. Lots of matches need to be won to really create a star. Stars have to lose to other stars to create a superstar. And something momentous needs to happen to create a legend.
This means jobbers, midcarders, etc.
And with the current company model of “every WWE wrestler is a superstar” you’ve really just created an entire roster of midcarders.
Am I saying these wrestling aren’t great? No. Am I saying these wrestlers don’t deserve accolades? Not at all. But you can’t have a superstar when everyone is a superstar. That’s just not how it works.
Even by the mid-90s when their rival WCW was amassing an impressively large roster, WWF/WWE had trimmed down theirs to a very lean roster. (I remember several years when being Tag Team Champions means you beat the one or two other active tag teams still employed by the WWE.)
But even as Vince trimmed down the roster, you already had established superstars by then like Shawn Michaels, Brett Hart, Undertaker and others. Then Vince would use older stars (sometimes in awful ways) to boost his young and upcoming stars. (I think here of the incredibly terrible way Vince tore down the Legion of Doom to boost the New Age Outlaws.) And even then, you still had a lot of midcarders like Gangrel, Midion, Mabel, the members of the “gangs” of DOA, Los Boricuas, and everyone in the Nation of Domination that wasn’t Dwayne Johnson. So the superstars of that era would run around causing mayhem, beating up all the midcarders, so that when the superstars went toe to toe, it was a BIG DEAL. It meant something. Status was on the line, legacy. These are things a title match just can’t replace. A battle between John Cena and Dwayne Johnson was its own main event, no title involved.
Now, Vince still needs to hire an acting coach to really help his male wrestlers develop their personas. (I pick on the guys because the ladies are killing it right now. Charlotte Flair, Ronda Rousey, Becky Lynch, Asuka. They’re doing it right already.) So yes, the wrestlers need to come up with personas that speak to the crowd. But they also need to distinguish themselves from the crowd. The formula has already been laid out for us.
But it’s not a quick fix. Vince can’t just bring Shawn Michaels and Kane back in to lose a few quick matches to catapult a new ‘superstar’. This will need to be built up over the course of a year or more. There need to be a handful of wrestlers that have the charisma (I’m sorry Roman Reigns, I really like you, you’re just not “the guy.”), the presence, and the free reign to wreck the shop from week to week so they are standing on top of a pile of human rubble. So that the next superstar that does the same has something to lose when these two juggernauts collide. That’s how you create superstars. That’s how you create champions that have a legacy. That’s how a wrestler gets ‘all the way over’.

Reflections on Writing

 I sat there in the cold morning. A faint mist crept along my back yard. Its fingers tickling at the edge of my porch, but never venturing further as if there were some barrier between the mist and the treated wood. Treated wood, no longer simply the growth from the earth it once was. Maybe that made it unnatural now and thus forever apart from the elemental world from which it came.

 Yet as my fingers wrapped around the warmth of my coffee mug, I saw the longing there. The soft caress of a lover's fingers, mist gliding across wood like the lithe hand of a master pianist across the edges of my makeshift barrier between my home, my fortress and the wild earth beyond. Those tinkling digits toying with a lover it could never have. I took a sip and smiled at the overturning coal this image stoked in the back of my mind.

 “I know the feeling old friend,” I said to just me, the porch, the mist, and my cat. She stared at me in that curious, judgmental way that only felines, dear friends and significant others are truly capable of. Its that look that seems to be in awe of your simplicity and simultaneously wondering when you're going to learn from your errant ways.

 “Alright, alright, I'll get back to work,” I tease. But I know she cares not for what I do. Her interest in the squirrel currently offending her territory is of far greater interest to her than the simple clicking that comes from my office each day. I'm sure she finds what I do incredibly boring. That much time spent in one place is entirely wasted if it does not involve napping. I'm not entirely certain that she's wrong.

 So I leave my little sphinx to stalk the backyard and remind the local vermin whose domain this truly is while I retreat to mine. The domain of the office worker, the entrepreneur (when they aren't busy making online videos to mentor the masses on glories they have yet to achieve), and the writer. The writer, of course, being the lowest of the three. What we do is a hobby, unless we're one of those magical creatures like Neil Gaiman, Stephen King or J.K. Rowling who managed to weave straw into gold early on in their careers. The rest of us are odd creatures with a habit of skulking in a room alone for hours at a time, accomplishing nothing and studying a variety of topics online that likely has us on an F.B.I. watch list.

 I switch out my coffee mug for a fizzy energy soda. It was one of those nights. I listen to the tiny couples clink against inside of the can, creating some cadence that I might be able to discern were I more musically inclined. The atonal melody continues while I carve a hex into the wood of the desk and sacrifice a live chicken to conjure the spirits of creative writing. True creative writing, not the mind numbing “writing prompts” of college essays.

 Write about a time when you were really happy. 

 Or:

 A small boy's toy boat is washed down the river. 

 Or:

 She tried to forget me, but I knew she never would.

 I shudder and toss the third one back to the discard pile with the lyrics of washed up Emo singers and rapists to the trash bin where they both belong. The second one is only interesting if there's a man eating clown at the end of the stream, and I think somebody's already done that. And the first one, really? Happy? Could we be any more generic?

 I toss the book into the same waste paper basket as the Emo careers of countless douche bags from the early 2000's and lament that the chicken blood has gone cold and the muses aren't coming. I've got feathers all over my office for nothing and my wife is going to be less than thrilled when she finds this. One of those judging looks described earlier is the best I could hope for. That and I think the chicken's wings still have to be flapping while the incantation is made to summon the divine power of story conjuring. This chicken isn't flapping anywhere, unless I were to charge a few hundred volts through it. Or is it a few thousand? I'm not sure where the cut off point is between dancing undead chicken and poultry-geist flambee.

 I stare briefly at the wall socket, the image of the pop-n-lock undead chicken dance amusing me far more than it should, and I cast all the mystical implements aside, take a sip from the beat boxing soda can and resume my story. I lament that it doesn't involve undead chickens or the love child of morning fog and a sentient back porch that has suffered decades of suburban caucasity and now warns the world of the impending croc and polo shirt wearing Armageddon foretold by the grizzled, ancient charcoal grill. But perhaps the next one might.