when seeking progress
let speed be secondary
to a good compass

I’m not always the most focused person in the world, but I manage somehow. I think it’s ironic that my lack of focus is, for the most part, the reason I’ve learned to capsulize ideas in the briefest possible terms.

Making an unbridled thought resemble a haiku gives me the same satisfaction as solving a Sudoku, a cryptogram or any other challenging puzzle. When I think of it, these haiku exercises are really just another sort of word puzzle. And when I think of how hard it was for me to learn to use words at all, I feel incredibly blessed to be able to put these brief word strings together in a way that makes sense.

As someone diagnosed with ADD well after my formative years, it took me a long time to understand how to best function. It took me almost as long to realize the difficulties I’ve battled since childhood could be managed at all.

Getting help sooner would have spared me many detours, academically, professionally and personally, but I’ve found even the most circuitous routes have redeeming qualities. For me, most of this detour’s redemption has come in the form of great people I’ve met along the way. Too many to give proper credit here, and too many profoundly amazing people to believe I would have met half of them traveling a more concise route.

All of which may fly in the face of today’s haiku, except to admit that only with the help of those I’ve encountered along the way would I have had a chance to correct my course before it was too late. If you imagine you’re such a person, you most likely are. Even if you’re too modest to take credit for it, if you’re reading this, you probably still are.

Thank you.

born with a penchant
for feeling impervious
we’ll one day outgrow

celebrate those who,
having seen you at your worst,
love you anyway

Comments

• March 7, 2010, EllenS writes: This is quite wonderful
• March 8, 2010, howard writes: thank you, Ellen. sometimes it's easy to forget that the people deserving of your love are the ones most willing to show it unconditionally -- at least from my experience.

*

today I felt the need,
the need to move away;
this place is much too close
and reeks of yesterday.

you say I should prefer
to outlast, to endure
– not clamor to escape
the demons at the door;

but it’s not the same as running –
there’s a diff’rence between flight
and the things you have to do
to get back to the light.

Comments

• September 8, 2009, apreziosi writes: There's a difference between running from something and running to something.
• September 8, 2009, Al Denton writes: I like it. There's definitely a difference between running away and trying to get back to the light. Good work.
• September 8, 2009, howard writes: and after I posted this, it occurred to me that there isn't necessarily any dishonor in running from something either.
• September 9, 2009, howard writes: thanks -- while I wrote this geared to the idea of running to being better than running from, it has occurred to me that running away can sometimes be a worthy effort unto itself. which makes me think i should try writing something about that too

I originally wrote a version of the above haiku a long while ago. This one’s different only in that I’ve changed two words (actually, just the same word changed twice) — and I’ve put it in handwriting (because that’s what I do these days).

As you might suspect, this haiku was born of heartbreak — something I’ve experienced once or twice in my life. Unlike some of the more useless poetry I’ve spawned, this one harbors what I consider to be one of the most important lessons I’ve learned about love (or being “in” it).

For those unaware of my opinions on this matter, I think loving and being in love are opposites. Which isn’t to say you can’t feel like you’re in love with someone you actually love, but rather that the two come from different places. Love comes from a willingness to sacrifice. In love comes from a desire for pleasure or gratification. One is unselfish. The other is all about self, even if it coincidentally benefits another person.

For me, some of the most intense pain has come not from missing other people or the feelings they cultivated in me, but from realizing how I might have gotten in the way of their happiness by only focusing on mine. And my failures have reached far beyond the merely romantic.

It’s an easy lesson to forget when you’re gripped by the throes of being in love, but it’s vital to remember if you aspire to actual love.

In the end I’m just glad most of my victims seem to have recovered, and I hope to not have too many more victims along the way.

*
wanting you happy
was always more important
than just wanting you

(a slightly different version of this one resides in the book)

Comments

• February 14, 2010,  (non-breaking space) | a little credit writes: [...] I noticed one of the haiku I wrote a couple years ago (and scribbled for a handwritten post last year) was getting a noticeable amount of unattributed notoriety on various social networking [...]