James “Rhio” O’Conner was an extraordinary man, we can agree, but why do we count him as one? What exactly makes him extraordinary and makes us recognize so? I think one thing above others; above all the statistics stands out. Determination. Hard, resolute courage to live and hold onto the one thing he most certainly realized he prized above all others; the gift of life. It is remarkable to beat the odds, no matter in a sport or in business. There is a place in all of us rooting for the underdog; we love victory, we love succeeding at a game the world tells us we have no business playing. With his own life in the balance, Rhio O’Conner took a shot at something he desperately wanted. He wanted to live. As said Marva Collins, the great American educator: " Determination and perseverance move the word; thinking that others will do it for you is a sure way to fail." Such was the thinking of Rhio O’Conner. Blind faith and hope has its place, but no man facing death is content to stand by, merely sit, waiting for the telephone to ring with a doctor’s report, to not grab an oar when the ship is sinking.

  Truthfully, I hope I would have the courage to do as Mr. O’Conner did. He played all-in, giving his mind to questioning, thinking and asking all he could think of. Collaborating with experts and medical professionals he sought answers; answers to questions on how to live. Researching to extremes on a topic that once foreign and likely disinterested in, became the breath and thoughts for him. What an immersion into a culture, and a switch in priorities and goals it must have been. When sickness comes, family and health are what one craves. Should I find myself stricken with a illness that threatens my life, I see myself with my family; holding my little sisters, talking with my brothers, spending time with my parents. I know that they and I would suddenly have one common goal: To restore my health, or attack the threat that comes against my life. It would be an urgency, and attack is not too strong a word, not when it comes against life and love.

    I would not accept an expiration date, if I was taken with cancer. Whatever the time I was estimated to live I believe I would choose to ignore. I believe the human spirit thrives upon things it loves to do, and I would love to beat a disease that threatened me. Combat would be a natural response. Laughter, the best medicine, would be in my arsenal. I would choose to laugh and enjoy my life, to make a point of finding humor in my world. Medically, laughter improves endorphin levels, which act as natural painkillers, and suppresses epinephrine, a stress hormone. It also increases the count and activity of T Cells and other natural killer cells, which have a simple mission: To kill viruses and cancer cells.*

    I would not be without faith and prayer in this time. I believe in a God who is greater than all things in this world, and I would rely spiritually on the hope that there is supernatural, that there is more than I can see and feel and that my God will never leave me or forsake me. Prayer and thanks for all the life I have lived, and requests for favor in my endeavors, for strength against a debilitating illness, and prayers for long life I would make a part of my every day.  According to the wise proverb, “Pray to God, and row to shore”, I would attempt to discover all I could. As Rhio worked with his doctors and specialists to find answers and cure himself, so would I choose to work with the best and make my treatment my own. Whether chemotherapy, surgery, natural forms of healing or other options, I would like to make personal decisions, based from many sources of information sorted into the best options, and consulting my team of specialists, my family, and my conscience, and especially I would rely on the advice of those who have had success. The survivors and the victorious. I'd like to know what they did - how they found courage and hope, and what plan of action they took medically. After deliberation and weighing my options, whatever direction I would choose to go in, I would go forward wholeheartedly. Second guessing would not help me in this process.

 In the end, it is possible that all my efforts may not help much; I know that. Rhio O’Conner may have had luck on his side, maybe the diagnosis was not completely accurate; who knows what happened and why it did. I would hope, believe and work for the same results that he did; to win a personal battle and have victory. In the end though, I know that Mr. O’Conner did succeed, and it was not just because he won. He fought, and he fought with every last bit of strength he had, and his victory was in living. Within that fight, he would bet he found life. He was awakened inside by something that required him, something that asked for more than mere existence, but a love and a dream. James Rhio O’Conner lived, he loved living and his dream to survive was where his victory was won.

“The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena; whose face is marred by sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotion, spends himself in a worthy cause; who at best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement; and who at worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who have never tasted victory or defeat.”

 Theodore Roosevelt, 26^th President, United States of America

*http://www.mda.org/Publications/Quest/q34laughter.html

By Jack Zackey, all rights reserved

Day something:

I am working diligently on something I "should" have done a while ago. Algebra, level 2&3. I love numbers; however I cannot stand when numbers are fractioned into some form of letters, or formed into squares or graphed on a chart. Graphing is proably the best of the bunch.

 Saturday, a beautiful day with a peek of sun. I was out in a mere long sleeved shirt and comfortable. Life is moving ahead very rapidly, and these winter days seem to take longer than the ones in short sleeves and long days of sweat and sunshine. Life does not stop, and waits for no man.

 It's a very strange mix, the business of life. What man does, what he should do, the addition of money, the complications of happenstance, the joys and burdens, the family and freinds. I love the style Socrates took to the canvas of life - he merely asked questions, and claimed (or feigned) ignorance.

 I don't have much to write about; my soul is rather dry, and it lacks the spark and life that I usually enjoy. I think it is this blasted learning. Who would not rather enjoy the fountain than dig the well? Mining is in business not because men love to dig in the dirt. It's just unimaginitive. I never realized how much I loved and appreciated creativity so much. In fact, I never considered myself a creative person. Maybe I am not, not by comparison. The soul must be a strange creature, if we could see it. If we could pull it out and see it bouncing around the room, what a sight that must be.

Sticking within tradition, reflection has caught me recently. Thoughts of gains, losses, and tallies. I thank God for the small treasures that never seemed so important.

 I will not blot my page with 2009 - I'm far too interested in the coming year. I would hope that the things without meaning on the skin would give way to the budding hope planted and stirring within. And those things that appear to have no direction would be made straight. Two things I have learned - Nay, three:

It really is good to know God.

 Simply having the faith to say a prayer and believe that at least, not even asking for supernatural intervention or hope for relief; that someone is there that knows you and loves you beyond measure, is a real bonus.

It's ok to not be the best.

It was never ok for me. I had to be at the top. We all treasure something, and I like being the best. Wrong? Within some parameters, could maybe. But I learned, when I wasn't at my best, that the earth doesn't end.

Most people are doing thier best.

I realized the difficulties of life. Some finanical, some emotional, some circumstantial and relational - to the vast majorities of us, we have issues, in one way or another. Those exceptions to the rules drive me crazy - it's always the one who wins the millions of dollars in the lottery that makes the millions lose thier dollars in the lottery - and yet they still play the game, and never get thier names in the paper. To those who make it, and win unexpectedly when they don't even try, well, to you I have no answers. But to the majority, to the strugglers through adversity, I understand that we are doing the best we can.

One more, if I may add, the value of a positive attitude. In fact, the necessity of a positive attitude. I believed it was a dishonesty to appear happy if the truth was you had internal sadness. However, I have come to believe that your attitude is your face towards the day, and the day you have today is one in a string of many that you will one day call a year, and enough years equal a lifetime. It is a segment of your life that you are allowing to become tainted by weakness of spirit.

Such values are what I count among the worthy of my recent past. Mere bits of knowledge that I could have copied off a paper or picked off a self-help book. But the value is in the learning.

A book that has struck me with great respect is "Shop Class as Soulcraft", by Mark B. Crawford. A Ph.D. Philospher turned back to his roots as a mechanic, inquiring into the value of work and making a living with your hands, and his choice of tools, a wrench. This book strikes a great chord in me, his words having the weight from having traveled between the white and blue collar worlds, pursuing knowledge through accreditation, and feeding his soul with a satisfaction that comes through building a thing, or fixing it, and concrete, material evidence to be inspected because of a hard days' labor. To me, having spent my lengthy summers on a lawnmower or pushing a wheelbarrow, and winters running wire, framing closets and plowing through sheets of Buffalos' winter wonderland, this is a must-read.

My time is short right now, and the mind is a bit fuzzy. Seems like a killer cold is decending upon me. A long nights rest should counteract that. I've had a excellent weekend.

Life, and perspective of life, is unescapably large. We think and do based upon conceptions, misconceptions, and interpretations. Heck we can even read u the same book and be bitterly angry towards another perception of the same book, and vice versa. I have laid down doctrine for the past week. It's a crazy world when the bible is open.

  "American Churchianity" was a word introduced to me Friday eve. A missionary Dr. gave his story, and focused in on some aspects of life in comparison. Radicalism and passivity are stark contrasts. Comfort and service seem to take home at separate ends of the world. Free will versus Gods' will, materialism and eternalism clash. The Gosple of Jesus Christ : What does it mean, today, for you, for me, for the person who never heard it, for the ones who live in poverty and those who bask in riches? For what we should do, how we should live in this present age? And, when you find your mind in a tight place, you ask yourself the secret questions like "is it even real?" or "Why? Why is this a part of my life?". Alot of us stand on the verge of one godly mentor slip away from throwing in the towel, obviously or internally, and letting the hypocritical bunch rot where they are. One thing about giving up your rights, your time and your money; you really don't get it back. It's gone. God takes it, years take it, people take it, others prosper and grow from it, and you will walk away one day, or die within it, with pennies left, with wrinkles, age and weakness, and it will be gone.

 The worth of a life. How do you determine? What should one do? I don't know what it comes to, I don't even know for myself. I have thoughts, commitments still in my heart and longings. I wonder what God will do.

 Like music, like a string of notes or vivid words of passion, I feel something inside. A jumbled speech, a wonderful monologe or a symphony. Only I have no tounge, and no hands to play. I know the words are there, but I am not. Or I am, bu the words aren't. I wonder what it means to know what you want and have what you should.

  Music and writing are so sweet to me. Of all I could think of that mean something, these are like two lost friends who always come back to me when I come back to them. I haven't played in so long. Nor have I written. I've been in college for just over a year, and my schooling has, to date, delayed my education. Thank you, Uncle Mark Twain.

 It feels like death and it feels like life all at the same times. It hurts and it heals. I see so many angles, see so many ways and perceptions and I wonder all at the same time which I own. I see the hurt. I hear the songs. I touch the money, If feel the longing. The strains of love and the pursuit of happiness all call, the hope and the lost, the pain and the cost and somewhere in the middle am I. If I could only put it all right, if the sound my heart made was plain not only to me, but to someone else. I want to know the truth behind what I think could be. I feel capable of being more than what I am, and still never attaining beyond what I was yesterday. How can that be? That potential always sits vacant? How long will my supposed ability remain unearthed, even by me? The life that I thought was before me; do these things happen, will they eventually take flight, or am I only on pace to uncover one day, older, wiser, but a bit sadder, that I truely was never more than this that I am today, and what I could have been is indeed only a former possibility. I think of what could have been different, what may still be different, for the good or better or perhaps worse. I am here, healthy and whole to the eye but something is broken in me. I call it the sting of delayed gratification. The promise of a second marshmallow... if I will but wait. I have waited and I have worked, and what has not come to me has fallen to the esteemed undeserving, (or perhaps only ignorant), and in the mess of the promise I find myself wanting; wanting in character, for every flaw of my own is seen in the mirror and the dark voice tells me of my own failing and unbearable consequenses. A promise of perfection, the truth of bitter shortcomings which I fall prey to, and wonder yet again if mercy will rise with the dawn.

  Days slide by with weary familiarity, a tune I have harmonized with, and it leaves me wanting. Sad songs that I onced played for the love they shared from one heart to another, now a folly, transparant in thier simplicity of ignorance. For what could have been was not what it was, and what it was should have been different. This world is uncaring to who it will be. Love truly is not a victory march, but some cold and broken hallalujah, like a refrain from a harmonica in a empty hall where there should be dancing and string to fill the air. I wonder what can fill the void I see to fill, and I, a gaping wound that I cover and keep at home. It finds me, it finds me when step into a room alone and when the lights go out. I don't know how to explain it, not a fear or a problem, just a fact that I own and it owns me.

To music I compare, for to music I have a friendship. The love of art of the strings and words. Latin and chords, things I don't understand. I am one thing when I am with them. I am the same thing with a few wonderful people. I am just another for the most part, to the rest, to me. And to no loss, for I am not sadly misunderstood or playing the martyr; but the facts are that some lose, some win, and the race is not to swift or the battle to the strong. Either way I feel disadvantaged, and whatever prospect of hope there is isn't very good. Some get some, some get it all, some get none, and some get it all, some or none at different times. The very yellow leaves on the very green grass, with the tall brown sticks and flames of orange and red strike me as beautiful, still it is hard to see the summer give up its last breath and a new season mercilessly roll on...growth has come and gone again, and I wonder where my piece was. Or have I tasted and taken all? Why does hate sometimes spring up, the conscience and the devil inside of me clash, war break out, want and rage flail and scream? Who am I if within me can sides can be taken? What can change the way I feel? Travel and adventure still call to me with a haunting wanderlust, and I itch to walk the earth, roll down the road with my only purpose something I am still looking for - so I wander, I look for that missing piece to change this something normal into something beautiful; within nature, within another person, within needs met and hope fulfilled; with things better.

I am still seaching. Within my wake, I believe I will find and partake in what I cannot see right now. I got a question, one that I cannot even find words for, one that is as deep as the meaning of life for man...and I love this search for what we are.

Jars. Silence.

Take
Take till there's nothing
Nothing to turn to
Nothing when you get through
Won't you break
Scattered pieces of all I've been
Bowing to all I've been
Running to
Where are you?
Where are you?


Did you leave me unbreakable?
You leave me frozen?
I've never felt so cold
I thought you were silent
And I thought you left me
For the wreckage and the waste
On an empty beach of faith
Was it true?


Cuz I...I got a question
I got a question
Where are you?


Scream
Deeper I wanna scream
I want you to hear me
I want you to find me
Cuz I...I want to believe
But all I pray is wrong
And all I claim is gone


And I...I got a question
I got a question
Where are you?
Yeah....yeah
And where...I...I got a question
I got a question
Where are you?
Where are you?
Where are you?
Where are you?

Time goes on quickly. August down the home stretch. Summer streaks by when in Buffalo.

 I always look for foward progress. Upwards movement, and alot of it. Not some puzzle pieces, but the entire bucketful. School has done well with me this summer; half of my progress to date has come from May, June July and August. No wonder I wonder where summer went...it's all stocked away in college credits. Thats a choce i made in May, and its gone the way it should. I have difficulty rejoicing in good things; I'm more of the attitude of 'what have you done for me today", which is exactly how I treat myself. It makes it hard to enjoy what has been with me. I want results, and trying and getting there is good, but not good enough.

God has been taking me down that road of understanding, of accepting myself as i am and realizing faults and reasons for less than total perfection. Alot less. Not that I was perfect before; I hadly was. I just learned how to funtion with a negative reward system that allowed less, afforded less, and kept me on rails. I've been studying alot of management and human behavior in my classes. I've learned all about personality and behavior, especiallyin the business world. I'm pretty much a type A, nPow, and externally motivated. My briggs myers test came out INTJ. In the perfect world that doesn't exist, I am a military general.

  Sometimes I feel like the pieces are all over the place. I don't know what or where, and I wish everyone around me would stop pretending. Stop being nice, stop being mean, stop loving or judging or whatever you are doing. I'm not easily trusting of people; I have a bunch of reasons why. Something i'm learning from God; get over faults and letdowns. Get over yourself. Just stop it.

I have enough excuses to last forever.So many reasons to be hurt. Most of them are pretty legit, damaging even, and the rest all have glimmers of truth when you hold them right. I've loaded them up and as I circle around these days, examine them, think about them, and toss them out the window one by one. I;m done with the baggage.

I bought a beater today. A true winter car...a 97 Nissan Wreckage. It's a tiny white pickup with brown creeping around every edge, a bent fender and a quarter of a million miles. It boasts no features -  just love me for what I can do for you, what hope you have in me getting you through the winter, and we'll be friends. I see this little truck, and think about how in a couple months, I'll be glad to park the bimmer in the garage, and make this junker my transport. All because it is whats best. Not that it is best, but that for a season, a time, this will work better than something else for me. It's ok to change, even when it's ugly. Even when you'd rather have a sunroof and a calculatable 0-60.

Even when you'd rather have peace, or know where your feet stand, it's ok to get tossed around and take in some bruises. Even when others have all the pieces put together, and it drives you crazy, it's ok to say that you're searching. I'm driving an emotional and spiritual beater. And I think alot of people laugh at me when I drive on by. Maybe, maybe its only my perception though. I have often looked at others as I hate to be looked at. It is hard to recognize in yourself what you have held others to. Standards and judgements that are a part of my makeup and currently not part of my life. I'm getting somewhere but it's by slow and painful processes.

Jack