Naming Rights Revisited

In the Nashville Blogosphere where everybody is talking and no one knows you by your real name, we all know this particular guy that me thinks is going though some melancholy times. Yep, behind that smile and engaging personality, our friend is longing for something more out of life. Some experts like Pat Morley that understand how men are wired say there are seven seasons of a man's life:

The Season of Reflection, Building, Crisis, Renewal, Rebuilding, Suffering and Success. But that sounds depressing even to me.

There are plenty of books out there on how men live out their lives. For example, I have well meaning friends that try to get me to read "Finding Meaning in the Second Half of Life: How to Finally, Really Grow Up" by James Hollis.

Author Hollis writes: "The second half of life presents a rich possibility for spiritual enlargement, for we are never going to have greater powers of choice, never have more lessons of history from which to learn, and never possess more emotional resilience, more insight into what works for us and what does not, or a deeper, sometimes more desperate, conviction of the importance of getting our life back.

What does it really mean to be a grown up in today's world? We generally recognize only three developmental periods of life -- childhood, adolescence, and adulthood. We assume that once we "get it together" with the right job, marry the right person, have children, and buy a home, all is settled and well. But adulthood itself presents varying levels of growth, and is rarely the respite of stability we expected. Turbulent emotional shifts can take place anywhere between the age of thirty-five and seventy when we question the choices we've made, realize our limitations, and feel stuck -- commonly known as the "midlife crisis."

Ok. Moving on...

In 1984 AD, the great poet and philosopher D. Byrne posed the tough question -- how did I get here?

And you may find yourself living in a shotgun shack
And you may find yourself in another part of the world
And you may find yourself behind the wheel of a large automobile
And you may find yourself in a beautiful house, with a beautiful wife
And you may ask yourself - well... how did I get here?

I think it boils down to this: it is a search for significance after years of success. There has got to be more to life than being a successful businessman with a messy desk, shag carpet, having a beautiful soul mate, a big car... heck even riding a MTA bus to demonstrate salt-of-the-earth responsibility or passing a syphilis test; while meaningful, somehow is not lasting.

(Same as it ever was.. same as it ever was... same as it ever was... )

Our friend Smiley (you may know him as CeeElCee, The Amazing Adonis, Hay You, Art E. Choke, The Artful Idea Guy or the Paper Man depending on what day of the week you see him) writes:

"I think it's natural to wish for some sort of immortality to combat the transient nature of our time on earth. I've always wanted to have something named after me.

I donated some money to my old high school to get my name on a brick in the sidewalk, but you can't really find it or read it. When they built a new wing, I inquired as to how much one had to donate to get your name on something and figured out I could afford to get my monikor inscribed on the crank of a pencil sharpener. (Does anybody even use crank pencil sharpeners anymore? Or pencils, for that matter?)"

You can definitely see where this is going. Go there if you must.

The empathy for Smiley was overwhelming!

"That's so sad in a way."

"Oh now stop it."

There were numerous heartfelt offers from far and near ranging from:

"We can refer to all of our STD testing in the future as "Getting Ceeced"....how's that, honey?"

or

"If you come help me repoint the stone retaining wall in front of my house, I would name that after you!"

and an especially tempting offer that included:

"... undying gratitude, all the buttkissing you could handle for the rest of your life, and a very favorable coed to lunkhead ratio (75%/25%)..."

Well my friend, whatever your heart desires, you got it!

Thanks to some behind the scenes affirmation, investment out of Minneapolis and a devious yellow mind, all you have to do is drive across the Cumberland River and see for yourself.

Forget the MTA bus, let's go there now! Here's To You Mr. CeeElCee!