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Dedicated to the men and women of our armed forces:

Our world is often a vacuum… and it is equally often not filled by good, fair or equal. This is why the circumstances that allow bad things and evil men to fill their roles also define the heroes who would stop them. Leadership, even in its truest form, can be a lofty place from which to point and cast the sword, yet nothing else can guide the blade. It can leave us with tears in our eyes or a lump in our throat because the odds are as real as the dangers in the hardest things we must do and do for others. That is why our convictions tell us and the world who we are and that our call, whether to duty or to hope, is the reason why we persevere and the reason why we fight; both for that which we have that which we wish to keep. This is why people go, why people rise –not simply because they are told to do so but because they must.

-Jonathan E. Keys (son of retired, Air Force General Ronald E. Keys)

“You know it’s always good to talk and keep in touch with people you care about but that value, hands down, doubles when you can reconnect and realize that they are having to dispense with the same, damn, daily bullshit you do. ”

-J. Keys

It is the creation of humor and the need for those to spread it that truly enlightens us all. I believe that when we can laugh at anything and everything we can not only come together unexpectedly but also dispel the very worst and darkest parts of our greatest ideas and desires to make the world what we think it should be. -JK

Related:  http://massivelatte.com/?p=50

“I am consistently amazed at how people that make it their business to do one certain thing… do that one thing so badly in every respect.”

-J. Keys

From where you are
By J. Keys

He caught her eyes peering at him above the gloss black rim of her computer screen as he was deep in his own world of thoughts and questions. It was a stare somewhere between recognition, surprise and want. If it were possible to escape that look it wouldn’t matter… who would want to?

He had seen her here many times before. They had spoken and even knew each others names. But for some reason this instance was oddly shaped, connected somehow and more powerful than before. She had this face that was… it was difficult to pin the particular word, but you couldn’t miss it –ever. In a sea of a thousand people you wouldn’t just be able to find her… you simply wouldn’t see anyone else but her. The thought alone was enough to make him smile.

Her situation always seemed like that feeling you get when you sigh in that way and moment when you become resigned to the cliché’ “it is what it is”. She wasn’t trapped but she wasn’t free, either. He guessed that circumstances can make for some high walls in this life, it would seem. Not that anything was impossible or given up… just more like the harsh wisdom of observing someone else’s fight, knowing that it is certainly and indeed, righteously, not yours. Nevertheless that didn’t take away the potential or the possibilities that almost oozed out of her every move, desire and word… and it never took away from those eyes or that stare.

Going forward, sometimes, about the best you can do is hit a challenge head on and hold on tight. There are no nice parts, it’s just hard.  Its important, though, not to give up; on your options, the total realm of possibilities and the things that matter more than the circumstances. Its easy to declare war… it may even be necessary to fight one… but I’ve never been a part of one that wasn’t a mess or that didn’t have casualties. The former you can usually cleanup, the latter you just lose.  -J. Keys

The hardship of our past, the fine wine of our lives…
By J. Keys

Today: The hardship of our past always seems so long ago when it was really just around the last bend; just as the challenges in our future and our hopes to make it another year, stronger, are indeed around the next. -JK

Originally Posted on March 15, 2008: “You know I really enjoy going back over so many of these words I’ve written; particularly my creative writing. Yeah, I know, it sounds like I’m tooting my own horn but I’m not. I read these things… these poems, stories and thoughts and they bring me back; not to the past but to who I really am and get so lost from (seemingly more and more). I think this kind of thing defines the fine wine of our lives. Those memories and reminders that always last and continue to call us, making and keeping us… for the better (As “Slide by the Goo Goo Dolls finishes in the background and “Dig” by Incubus begins) -JK

In the spirit of “how great things start” keep in mind that the picture you now own started as nothing. It was blurry, underexposed and noisy. By adding some passion, vision and creativity it became something to the world that it wouldn’t have otherwise. This is how all dreams begin and this how all dreams, one day, become reality.

Your Friend,
Jonathan

Her Gravity
By J. Keys

There she is, laying on the ground, tragically drowning in half an inch of water filled with false hopes, anger and despair as she forces her lips against the surface as hard as she can trying to consume every last drop. Pity… if she would just turn over she could breath and see the sky.

She reaches out and tries to hold on to so many things that don’t do the same back. She wants and tries and then falls down and doesn’t understand why; doesn’t understand that saying goodbye is as much a part of the deal as getting back up and trying harder or simply trying again. She wants to know why and claims that life is just unfair, quoting words and philosophy that are either incredibly cliché or incredibly wrong. The irony is that she gets it… she doesn’t want to pay the price to have it all.

Her potential was once grand and perhaps it still could be if she would realize that her freedom from gravity has nothing to do with the weight on her shoulders or a perceived need to escape it… but that is has everything to do with pushing back on those who stop her and pushing up on that which keeps her down, away from the sky, tragically drowning in only half an inch of water.

Re: The New President
Posted: Sunday, January 25, 2009 at 4:56pm

All,

Ok, it’s WAY past time for a grain a salt on the public Obama-stroking

I think everybody needs to curb their enthusiasm just a little bit. He won, he’s got his chance to make any number of things happen (or fail to happen). I grant him that opportunity. But I hear a lot of people talking about how much they like this man’s words or what they perceive as his character as if they are some kind of guarantee –they are not. And I would warn them that such things are dangerous without a clear demand and understanding of results and reproach applied to any leader, anywhere.

Greatly charismatic individuals have a tool at their disposal that can just easily become a weapon, granted that they are allowed to wield it in the face of such grandeur and adulation. I don’t believe I need to cite the obvious, historical examples… We, the people, are the keepers of the power and it’s our responsibility to cross-examine and question our leaders as much as it is to support them. I fear that within a certain level of desperation OR enthusiasm this can be easily forgotten. If that occurs we will lose our way and will subsequently allow someone else define it for us.

For anyone to say they are “proud to be American again” should be ashamed (though that phrase seems oddly void of context in its reference). It is America that provides the platform for all of us to live in a democratic republic in which we have the power to choose and vote our leaders into office vs. them taking it as the please. I haven’t liked many of our leaders but I haven’t once been afraid or felt disgraced to be an American.

This country, our freedoms and struggle to make them work, like no other nation in the world, does not belong to the President, the Office of the President or the governments we institutionalize as operating agents –it belongs to us. We must always know this, want this and believe this.

I wish Mr. Obama the best and I look forward to the possibilities that he and his administration bring to our, current, dire situation as well as our bright future. However he is no more perfect than anyone else and he will not always be right. Now that doesn’t propose him as a failure anymore than people’s relief that he’s not “W” or John McCain makes him the answer to every prayer they ever had… but it does give cause for a reality check. Don’t forget to give that a chance, either.

V/R
J. Keys

“Forgetting” With the best intentions we treat this word and its concept like an eraser. I wonder if we ever do, forget that is, but either way the underlying truth is that a mark made is like a thing known –the impression shapes not only us but our world as well. In this regard, all actions and their outcomes are unavoidably indelible.

Regret is a silly thing but it does mitigate both our ridiculous pursuit of perfection as much our altruistic pursuit of spiritual harmony. Curious, but mysteriously appropriate, how this blade in our canon of life-weapons seems to cut so much deeper than the others –as it serves our doubts and provides swath against them too.

Though I believe in second chances there are no do-overs; “next time” is referred to as such for a reason. Additionally, “next time” is never plays out the same as the first time. As for control? You have control over your choices about in as much as making them (though not much more). But as the Sunscreen song says they’re also “half-chance, so are everybody else’s.”

Re: Allowing technology end-users to remain ignorant…
Posted: Wednesday, March 18, 2009 at 12:37pm

I just think this kind of mentality is tantamount to endorsing personal irresponsibility.

I really don’t get it… I mean, we are expected to show up to work, do work, fill out forms, pay our bills, taxes, put oil and gas in our cars, buy food, do laundry, etc… but when it comes to computers, suddenly, the rules no longer apply. It blows my mind. I don’t expect anyone to be as smart or savvy as me in the technology field but I don’t think I ask any more due diligence from an end-user then they already employ in their own, daily lives.

It’s the year 2009 and people still walk around joking about how they’re “computer illiterate” –they might as well have the same attitude about being truly illiterate. These are modern-day survival skills but few people and, more importantly, leaders make any kind of discipline out of them (as they should). Yup, computer-stupid people do secure our jobs but it’s not as if they could survive, much less thrive, without us if they were even just a little bit more intelligent (or even just better trained).

And that is a critically missed point in the argument that smarter, more accountable users make for a much more efficient process and competitive edge –the more aware and involved a user is with any process, the more rapidly your specialized forces can move to make thing happen and make things better. The alternative is that all support mechanisms of the organization spend more time wiping behinds rather than innovating new methods to stay ahead and grow.

“If I were king…” -JK

It can often be difficult to know, in any tense, a passionate person. Their delight in challenge, both to themselves and others, can easily be misperceived as a threatening or argumentative gesture. But is in knowing others and knowing why that fuels their reasons and their ways. And it is within that passion that they draw out both the wicked and the willing… and are never unclear… about either. -J. Keys

A random philosophy on systematic culture and how it breaks…
By J.Keys

I can’t say I disagree with him on the “lead them to water” philosophy except to say that the prepared mind is always favored on the field of battle and that this very idea saves more time, money and churn when all of your troops share the same kind of concerns at a fundamental level (vs. corralling groups like cows or any one group claiming exemption for any reason; like claiming they are simply more important than another member for no, actual, founded reason).

A sense of urgency doesn’t require a dose of ignorance for the purity of necessary action to take place; nor does a lack of common sense absolve someone from the aforementioned need to know what the fundamentals of the objective are or that a sense of urgency is required both to keep from dying as much as it is to grow stronger. That is to say that what someone doesn’t know is not their worst enemy –it’s what they don’t know that they don’t know that will bring them down, first. Any measure of unwillingness to face that only makes matters intrinsically worse.

This is the essence behind the truth that being industriously knowledgeable absolutely makes you more efficient which means better decisions, less downtime, a sharper competitive edge which leads to more growth and more money. Keep or allow people to remain in the dark? Then you get just the opposite and an unbalanced weight on some part of your brigade that, eventually, won’t be able to keep up because, if for no other reason, it was decided that being systematic about all angles of approach was just too hard for everyone to grasp or maintain.”

Across the room
By J. Keys

How quickly does a moment pass? It’s amazing how something can appear, right in front of you, one way and then suddenly present itself in another. That’s what he realized about her today when she walked across the room.

She had a naturally grand way with entrances but mostly she just had a grand way –but either way she was unaware of both. Earlier in the day she stood, leaned up against a table talking to a friend. She wore a short, soft, black dress disguised and somewhat hampered by a rather common looking denim jacket. It wasn’t so much out of place but it didn’t fit… someone so very much uncommon. Just the same to look her up and down resulted much like the descent and rise of a roller coaster just before an inverted loop; filled with anticipation and fear but eventually dominated by the thrill gained and joy received.

Her pace, so often, was typically fast but it slowed in his eyes from every heel to toe as that soft, black dress passed over her skin and fell on her body. Every lock and step was as hard to watch was it was to look away. And it was that moment out of place that fit so perfectly, amazingly and presented in another as she walked across the room.