Prom
Keepin' It Real with Cam Marston
On this week's Keepin' It Real, Cam tells us that based on a series of recent events, he has two people he'd like offer up as potentially superb spies. ----- My twins are high school juniors, and prom was last Saturday night. The event went something like this: For my son: He brought his Joseph Banks suit downstairs about noon. It looked like it had been in a pile on the floor since he last wore it in March. There was a button-down shirt with it. My wife took the clothes and began steaming the wrinkles out. She asked “What flowers did you get your date.” A blank look. “Go to Publix and...
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To AI or Not AI. That Is The Question.
Keepin' It Real with Cam Marston
On today's Keepin' it Real, Cam reports on a writer's conference he attended last weekend where a good part of the conversation was about using AI. All the writers, Cam reports, choose to not use it, preferring to remain "pure." ----- I attended a writers' conference last Saturday. Writers are a curious breed, convinced their unique perspective on describing something as mundane as a sunset is groundbreaking and essential. I love them. But they’re weird. This year, though, a frequent topic was artificial intelligence – how do writers use it, if at all. Speaker after speaker claimed they...
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Get The Joke
Keepin' It Real with Cam Marston
Cam and his wife were at a wedding reception last week. It was beautiful. One conversation, though, has stuck with him. ----- My wife and I stood with a young man at a wedding Saturday night as he lamented the lack of turkeys to hunt at his camp. There were no gobblers, he said, and he was a bit down in the mouth about it. “Why,” my wife asked. “In the spring,” he said, “the hens move to a different place where they like the environment for nesting. The gobblers follow. And wherever those hens go, it’s not on our property. I wish there were something about our place that the hens...
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Judges Of The Truth
Keepin' It Real with Cam Marston
It's been a long week for Cam. He's going to get paid one hundred dollars for two days of work that he is required by law to perform. He didn't enjoy it but it wasn't because of the low pay. ------ In grade school I never wanted to be the one to pick teams. I was afraid of hurting someone’s feelings. It’s ridiculous, I know. I like to get along. I like to see people succeed. I’ve never wanted to be the arbiter of someone’s else’s happiness. That responsibility scares me. Monday morning, I was selected as a jury member for a federal trial. It was my first time doing this. I was one of...
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Meaningless Conversations
Keepin' It Real with Cam Marston
On this week's Keepin It Real, Cam Marston shares what exhausts him and how a good conversation is hard to find. ----- It was 1,000 one-minute conversations. A collection of people who all were within a degree, maybe a half a degree, of separation. Hardly a meaningful chat and as the event wore on, the meaningfulness of the chats dwindled further. For so little conversation, it was exhausting. I think maybe that conversations that skim along the veneer of content are more taxing than digging into content. I don’t know. But when I left, I was completely spent. I’m like so many other people...
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Happiness
Keepin' It Real with Cam Marston
On today's Keeping It Real, Cam recounts his birthday week which has some unexpected surges of happiness. ----- Happiness is fleeting. It never lasts and I’m not sure it’s supposed to. It’s different than joy and contentment and pleasantness. Happiness bubbles up from an unexpected place and last such a short time. And when it arrives, it sometimes brings tears. Living in constant happiness would render us nearly helpless. It immobilizes you. Living in joy and contentment is great with, hopefully, unexpected surges of happiness from time to time that render us speechless. For my...
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The Ft. Lauderdale Accord
Keepin' It Real with Cam Marston
On this week's Keepin' It Real, Cam explains the Ft Lauderdale accord and how it's telling him that it's time to move on. ----- My wife and I will be empty nesters in eighteen months. If all goes according to plan, in that time our youngest two will graduate and head to college and if looking back is anything like looking ahead, these next eighteen months will fly by. If you’re a regular listener, you know that my wife and I have four kids. We purchased this house with a family of six in mind. With only two kids left at home, it’s already a lot of space and in eighteen months it will be...
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Paraty
Keepin' It Real with Cam Marston
On today's Keepin It Real, Cam reports back about his most memorable event on his recent trip to Brazil. He traveled a long way to come back with this... ------ Cachaca is a Brazilian alcohol that was first made by the slaves the Portuguese brought to Brazil. It’s sugar cane based. Very sweet. And like gumbo, red beans and rice, jazz music, and the Mississippi delta blues among other things, it was what the poor people created due to a lack of resources and that the wealthy people eventually wanted. Crazy how that works so predictably. It’s like clockwork. Anyway, my wife and I were...
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Procrastinating Like a Champion
Keepin' It Real with Cam Marston
Today on Keepin' It Real, Cam looses focus and finds his mind wandering about an upcoming trip instead of focusing on what need to be done. ----- My day today will be spent studying Brazilian demographics. And I know what you’re thinking: How did I get so lucky? I mean, come on, most of us have to work but you get to spend your day studying Brazilian demographics. How is that fair? Friday, my wife and I leave for a week in Brazil. I’ve been invited to speak at a conference next week in Sao Paulo. These types of invitations are rare for me. While at a conference in November, a young...
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Unconditional Positive Regard
Keepin' It Real with Cam Marston
On this week's Keepin It Real, Cam reacts to a text from a friend about the hopelessness she feels today as a result of the new presidential administration. There are two sides to this, Cam says. And the healing must begin within. But it won't be easy. ----- There are those of you listening right now filled with anxiety and rage. You can’t believe our nation is full of people who care so little for truth, honesty, and compassion. You can’t believe that you know people, lots of people, who are willing to abandon truth, honesty, and compassion to win. This is not how you were taught to live...
info_outlineI don't believe in superstitions unless they work.
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When I told my wife the topic of today’s commentary, she warned that people are going to get tired of hearing me talk about this. However, I feel I’m kind of obligated to discuss it. Let me explain.
I think it was Dr. Gerald May - who’s an author, psychiatrist, and theologian - who wrote in one of his books that superstition is best defined as “trying to control the magic.” And I like that definition. And I like that a guy who is both a medical doctor and theologian acknowledges magic, almost admitting that magic exists. Seems very out of character for a person with these qualifications.
So, why is superstition important and what does it have to do with today’s commentary?
Well, they won again. My sons’ football team. They won again. Another upset. Two weeks in a row of outperforming all expectations after winning in a season in which they weren’t supposed to win hardly at all. For those who need catching up, my two sons are on their high school football team, and they’ve made it through the first two rounds of football playoffs and play again tonight against the state’s top ranked team in their division. My sons’ team, by the way, is playing up two divisions. Pundits have picked them to lose all season long and…they’re still playing. Against all the odds, they’re still playing. Well into the post season. They are the little engine that could with nothing to lose. And it’s teams like this with attitudes like this that strike fear in their opponents and they should and it appears they have.
Which brings me back to superstition. For the past two weeks I’ve mentioned my sons and their football team in this commentary the Friday morning and afternoon before their game that night and…they’ve won. Is me mentioning them and their team what’s making them win? Of course not, but maybe. Maybe. I would never discredit the team’s hard work, their long hot hours of summer practice, the hours the coaches spend planning practice, watching game footage, creating new defensive schemes and new plays for the next game. That’s certainly where the wins are coming from.
So maybe I’m just superstitious and I’m just trying to control the magic. That this mention somehow mystically, cosmically, superstitiously helps. And it is magic. The smiles on my sons’ faces last Friday night after their win was magic. The hugs that I got and gave my sons who were so dirty and smelly was magic. The parents were beaming, too. Can you believe it, we said. This is amazing. And it was amazing. And it felt like magic.
I don’t believe in superstitions unless they work. And so far, this one’s working. As I’ve said for the last two weeks, my oldest son is a senior and each game may be the final one of his football career, which my wife and I have loved. So I’m mentioning my sons and their football game and their football team here, now, one more time.
I’m Cam Marston and it may be too much to ask, but I’m just hoping for one more week – of magic.