3 posts from 2008

This blog might be a bit sentimental, as yesterday was my first Father’s Day. I made a video about some of my thoughts as Citizen Prime.  Take a look if you’d like.  I hope that video gives you something to think about.  This blog is really the next level down, or rather, some thoughts that didn’t translate well to video.

Like every person on the planet, I find fatherhood an interesting transition – you go from a “do-whatever-I-want” adult, to a “okay, now you really have responsibility” father.  Father’s Day is a good day to reflect on that transition for us new dads, even superhero dads.

As Citizen Prime, I end up talking to a number of great people and others often leave me comments about what I say and do.  It might be interesting to note that I really do consider each and every thought, good or bad.  Sometimes I respond, sometimes I think it best not to, but occasionally one of them stays with me for a bit.  This happened yesterday.  An RLSH ally called JabbaJaw responded to my video and said, “As for our reasons for fighting the good fight, I've always looked at my son as one of primary points of motivation when it comes to making this a safer world for him to grow up in.”  Very insightful and, I would hope, a fairly universal sentiment. Yet, people can’t really know what it means to be a father until they … know what it means to be a father.

Salt

See, it’s its own experience.  It’s like tasting Salt.  You really can’t describe it.  You have to experience it.  Or to put it better, an author named Kent Nerburn wrote, “Until you have a son of your own, you will never know the joy, the love beyond feeling that resonates in the heart of a father as he looks upon his son. You will never know the sense of honor that makes a man want to be more than he is and to pass something good and hopeful into the hands of his son. And you will never know the heartbreak of the fathers who are haunted by the personal demons that keep them from being the men they want their sons to be.”  Pretty heady stuff, and every word of it is uncannily true.

This brings me to being Citizen Prime and father, at the same time.  Prime consists of so many elements and as people take this RLSH thing in their own directions (some of which I’ve tried), I see a common thread as people mature and settle into it.  That thread is positive action.  Think about the journey of a community crusader like yin and yang.  For those who have never really considered the Eastern concept of  yin and yang (translated as earth and heaven), it describes two opposing and, cooperative halves of any one idea.  To that point, while I primarily focus on the good mankind can do and the heroic impulses that lie inside each of us, others don the cape and cowl and focus on avenging wrongs and taking a bite out of crime.  I think both aspects serve a greater purpose and we should all do a little of both.

Yin and Yang

I, myself, search for ways to address both elements.  While my current mission as Citizen Prime would be hampered by more vigilante type activities, my alter ego does seek the “Yang” in the equation.  For example, I’m making inroads with the local police to volunteer as a part time Citizen Officer.  It’s a ironic direction, but a logical one for me, as people ask me, “Why don’t you just become a cop!?”  To their point, police collar far more criminals that the RLSH community ever will.  But my mission is different.  The police are a cog in the wheel of justice.  A brave, honorable cog but they enforce laws and capture crooks ... they don’t usually change hearts and minds.  That’s my job, and I hope it’s yours.

Bones

This evening I was watching Bones while grabbing a quick bite.  They started talking about Love being the only true revolutionary idea.  It made me think that the concepts around Prime are like that.  I strive to be that Yin in a world of Yang; that force through which, I believe, the world will be a better place.  Violence usually begets violence, but Love, whether for a person, people or ideal, is a creative force, and I think it’s the Yin that will survive, long after our Yang exhausts itself in struggle.  In fact, Yin, or Love, is the fuel of the fire inside the heart of true heroes.  In fact, considering that Love created my son, I come to the inexorable conclusion that it was central in creating Citizen Prime.

So, when people give me “that look” and ask me why I’m doing this, I smile and think of my son.  I think of my desire to be more than I am, for him, and I hope to pass onto him a world better than I found it. I also consider this my daily sacrament for the sins of my past, so that I can be a better man – for him.  While all this culminates on Father’s Day, I guess, in my case, it should really be called Son’s Day because for me, it’s about preparing the way for him to lead a better life.  So, happy Son’s Day, my boy.  Happy Son’s Day.

Happy Son's Day!

Blackmonday

Is it just me, or are there a lot of RLSH in Utah right now?  Granted, there are a lot of people trying to crusade for causes through the country and world, but Utah seems to be a hotbed for some reason.  Something to watch I think. 

And with that observation in mind, its intersting to come back home.  Given my take on this whole RLSH thing and my personal mission to make the world a more exciting and fun place to be, I let a number of people on to who I am and what I'm doing.  Its integral to my goals, as a matter of fact.  To this end, I was telling a friend of mine an interesting experience.  I was telling him about the first time I went public as Citizen Prime.

When I go out as Prime, I always go out for a purpose.  At the time, Chris Guardian and I were starting Worldwide Heroes Organization and I created some literature to get people interested and involved.  Of course, being the inagural outting, I was scared out of my mind.  I've always believed courage in not the absence of fear, however, but doing what must be done dispite its presence.  Even so, that first night started with good omens though.  I pulled up in my trademark (how it got that way, I'll never know) XTerra and the parking guy waved me through free of charge with a smile and a thumbs up.  Preparing to head out, I was looking forward to engaging people, to prime the hero in others, but what would really happen, I had no idea. 

The "Prime" transport

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Then I hit the street and what actually occured was beyond my imagining.  Conversations with people, who were drunk and prepped for mischieve, turned them into friends watching my back and wishing me well. there were handshakes, pictures, and high fives.  There were kids running across the street to scream their support.  It was a good night.  And it was one of those moments I was using as example to my friend.  See, there is a bit of magic that happens and I can't even really explain it, Its larger than me but it works through me.  It what happens when someone encounters Citizen Prime. 

I think Prime takes people out of there mundane existence, if even for a moment.  he lifts them out of the world they know and lands them in a place where superheroes (albeit without superhuman powers) exist on some level.  It leaves them open to explore that part of themselves that they buried away a long time ago.  The part that believes in the fantastic.  And the conversations and encounters and moments that have happened since prove that to me.  Thats what I was telling my friend anyway.

So, for me (and I speak only for myself) the power in this lies in inspiring others.  In reminding people of what they already know.  That is, that people can choose how to live and choosing to live heroically is a choice that human beings were meant for. People need to be treated with respect and, when that happens, that heroic mindset can seed the world.

And its that opportunity that Utah is representing for me and its coming into focus more and more.  Finding ways to seed Salt Lake with Citizen Heroes - people who want to actively do good and who want to seek out opportunities to do it.  I'm not just talking about fighting crime or preventing crime, but doing something more - creating a heroic lifestyle and commiting to live it everyday.  I do it, best I can.  I'll always say the first person Ciitzen Prime primed was me.  

If you're looking for ways to exercise your heroic muscles, look no further than your neighborhood, your city, your world.  Cape or no cape, you can inspire people.  Live that heroic mindset and lift them out of their humdrum world to soemthing more exciting. 

More next time on some of the Citizen Heroes plans coming together.  We're taking steps and we've got a few things lined up already.  Maybe a few of you can be a part.

Stay safe and stay heroes!

Citizen Prime

All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter another.  ~Anatole France

Utah!

A “Change Expert” (yes, people actually have titles like these in the business world) told me once, “People only have so much change they can handle at one time.  Some people have more, some less.  Eventually, everyone kind of pauses and says, yea, that’s enough for now.”

I never really thought much about it as changes – big changes – seemed a part of my life.  In fact, if I was not going through some sort of deep, life changing event, I was waiting for the next to occur.

Well, the next has occurred.  Citizen Prime has moved to Utah.

See, I talk so much about living a life full of heroic essence and finding the joy in life, yet I found myself slowly pulled into a life of struggle and obsessive goals and objectives; ignoring, for a time, the best route to my message for myself and my family. And as I live each day for my wife and son, as well as myself, I find their happiness is critical.  And they’re happiness – and mine, I discover each day – resides best in Utah. 

Does this somehow affect the existence of Citizen Prime?  Yes and no.  I am always growing, I hope.  And, at the same time, I hold solid to the values that I feel make this country and this life great.  In fact, I’m rather proud of the fact that I am constantly searching for ways to make Citizen Prime relevant in our culture and send a message that people can become the hero in their own story.  

Yet, along the way, there have been so many ruts to fall into.  It’s almost as if (and maybe it is) I am being tested. Not that I am in the same ballpark as he, but a story comes to mind of Buddha as he was tempted by a series of worldly traps.  He passed by each one successfully only to become more enlightened.  In my own small way, I hope I am on a path that carries the same message.  To evolve is to grow.  I saw another quote that reminded me of this.

It is not necessary to change.  Survival is not mandatory. ~W. Edwards Deming

Mess with me, mess with him.

So why Utah?  Well, both my wife and I are from Utah.  We have a great deal of family and many friends in Utah. And whether I’m Citizen Prime or not, my family always comes first – although I need reminding of that sometimes.  As for Prime and The League of Citizen Heroes, there is much to do to establish a presence here in Utah.  It’s a great time to apply some of the lessons I’ve learned over the last three years.  I’m looking forward to the challenge of starting anew.

And we’re coming out swinging.  A few people might remember the BlogTalkRadio show I hosted called, Are You Primed?.  Well, we’re producing new episodes and they’ll be as informative and interesting as ever. I’ll be producing a weekly vlog, as well, sharing thoughts and lessons on how to live a heroic life.  I got this idea as people were contacting me wanting to do more with there lives.  People have always had challenges with perception and reality when it comes to what I do and what I stand for, so I thought I would discuss how I reconcile that desire to do good and keep my feet firmly planted in reality – a lofty goal indeed and I don’t always succeed! 

And finally, I’m continuing this blog.  My wonderful wife had an idea as we moved to Utah that, with the new reset of my mission here, to bring the hero out in everyone, she would start a blog chronicling our life going forward.  I was so inspired by her idea that I committed to keep a blog myself.  You can find her blog at http://wifeofasuperhero.blogspot.com.

www.CitizenHeroes.com

There is much to do!  And I dare say not just for myself. People contact me all the time asking how they can do Good in the world.  I have some ideas but usually my advice is just refining things they already know and helping them rediscover the hero that society has buried underneath years of criticism, fear and scorn. So, as you read this blog, I challenge you, break out! Be the hero you were meant to be.  Turn away from the things that you know are wrong and never look back. Yes, change is necessary.  Sometimes, hard change and life balance through it all.  

In my life, for example, in the last year, my wife and I had a baby, we got robbed, we moved states, I changed jobs, we lost three dear canine companions, I lost the Prime Armor in an airport (briefly), had an honorary patrol with both The Black Monday Society and Geist, and continued to build both The League of Citizen heroes, my “alter ego” career and, most importantly, keep my family safe, happy and whole.  And that’s nothing compared to what other people have had to endure; people who have contacted me and shared their stories of good and bad.  And you know what’s most amazing about those people.  They don’t give up or give in.  Those people still keep on looking to do Good and find Good in the world.  I know, from all this, that people can handle much change. 

As to that Change Expert’s advice.  She may be right, but I know our limits are so far beyond what we think they are. It’s about staying in the groove, and moving forward. 

Until next time, stay strong and stay heroes.