This month, adding another candle to the cake, I find no room for doubt: I am now conclusively lumbering upward through my thirties.

Older readers may chuckle knowingly. Yes, according to life-expectancy metrics in the developed world, I’m still snugly cooped with the spring chickens.

But the thing is, my body, which I don’t abuse, has started whispering alerts to my mind and soul. Already, the unforgiving realities of my few decades are with me. Irksome physical complaints, small but various, hint that somewhere in the last few years I crossed an unavoidable threshold, unnoticed though it was at the time.

On this side of the threshold I’m starting to learn a few things about the realities of age. Three examples:

1: I now know what “throwing one’s back out” really means. Most of my life I’d regarded the phrase as the arcane intellectual property of middle-aged, potbellied, aspirin-popping, Alka-Seltzer-guzzling men. But alas, creeping across the years is much like crossing borders. My body — or more particularly, my vertebra — must pay its duty-tax.

2: I’ve started to notice that many people in the world are younger than I am. Especially alarming are encounters with twenty-something doctors, policy analysts who resemble high-schoolers, and radio show hosts, film directors, or composers born in the mid-eighties. Seeing that they’re doing what they do at such an early stage slaps me awake to all I might have — but haven’t — done.

3: It actually matters what I eat. …

But there’s something else — something I’ll call Shrinking Selves Syndrome: the feeling of facing a seemingly inevitable narrowing of possibilities.

One of my favorite moments in contemporary cinema comes near the close of the movie The Weatherman, starring Nicolas Cage and Michael Caine. A powerful film by turns visceral and hilarious, The Weatherman unconventionally explores conventional coming-of-age themes, seating them in the context of Chicago TV-weatherman Dave Spritz’s dysfunctional, divorcee existence.

Spritz’s wife finds him repulsive, his teenage son might have a drug problem, his adolescent daughter lacks self-confidence and direction, and his father has lymphoma. To top it off, Dave’s high-paid TV job seems more like a fluke than the outcome of any actual talent he might possess. Being a weatherman supplies him with no sense of accomplishment, fulfillment, or self-worth (what he really wants to do is write novels like his Pulitzer-Prize winning dad).

Dave’s life seems to demand his overdue answer to the question: What do you want to do when you grow up?

Late in the movie, we see Dave Spritz walking down a crowded snowy street. He narrates reflectively:

I remember once, imagining what my life would be like, what I’d be like. I pictured having all these qualities — strong, positive qualities that people could pick up on from across a room. But as time passed, few ever became any qualities I actually had. And all the possibilities I faced, and the sorts of people I could be, all of them got reduced, every year, to fewer and fewer, until finally they got reduced to one: To who I am. And that’s who I am: The weatherman.

The sequence ends with a wide shot of Dave. He’s standing alone at an intersection of streets entirely empty of other people or cars.

It’s a bit of cinematic art that haunts me unshakably. For, young as I remain today and for some years to come, I feel an urgency to embrace the innumerable possibilities afforded me, to see clearly the myriad selves I might become, to recognize life as it happens.

Years ago, on the day I reached my quarter-century mark, I wrote a note to myself. Today I write it again:

Presence is important.

(This post has seeped up from the rich artesian waters of the Soul Shelter archives)

You might also enjoy:

“Art Awakens Us”

“The Rainbow Vanishes”

“Soul School”

“Let Us Begin“

In college I had a drama instructor named Sheila Weber, who was a remarkable teacher and an extraordinary person.

On the first day of her three-part, one-year drama course, she said she was going to reveal the essence of acting, and that we were not going to understand it.

She also told us that, if we stuck with the class, around the fourth month or so we would begin to understand what she was about to tell us. And if we stayed the entire year, we would fully grasp the essence of acting. Here’s what she said:

The essence of acting is playing the human element.

Sure enough, we were baffled.

And sure enough, three or four months later, we started to understand what Sheila had been talking about that first day of class.

We learned, for example, that to play an old person you don’t focus on perfecting a limp or shaky hands or jowl stuttering. Instead, you concentrate on understanding and experiencing love of family, memories, nostalgia, regret, hopes and fears for the future — things common to all people, not just old people.

We learned that when playing a king (as I did for a scene from “Ondine”) you don’t focus on “kingliness” or a “royal” demeanor (whatever that is). Instead, you concentrate on finding and expressing in the king a core human element common to everyone. In this particular scene, the king wanted to make friends with Ondine. The scene, in essence, was about a person trying to make a friend. Even kings get lonely, I discovered.

And we came to understand that the doctor didn’t perform the abortion because of prurient interest in his patient, he did it because he wanted to help her. And we saw that Biff lit the cigarette, not because he was tough or cool, but because he couldn’t handle acknowledging his father’s failing life.

So, slowly, we learned to discern the human element in a scene, which was the hardest thing of all, at least for me. Once you did that, and understood your character’s goal, you knew what to do, what to “play.”

Then it became a matter of “reliving the scene.” In short, an actor relives, or re-experiences, in real time, the sequence of events in a scene. The mark of a professional, Sheila said, is the ability to repeat this on command.

I don’t know if any of my classmates went on to do much in the dramatic arts. I sure didn’t.

But I was surely touched by a great teacher, who taught an unforgettable lesson in what it means to be human.

You may also enjoy:

“In Defense of Solitude (Part One)“

“The Rainbow Vanishes“

“Are You an Amateur? Why Not?“

She had to attend a meeting, so I fixed dinner while the kids finished up homework.

I made chili and it came out really good. We all sat down and started eating and the kids said the chili was yummy, better than Wendy’s, in fact the best they’d ever had, and I felt like their Mom must feel.

The pride welled and the nurturing feeling flushed through me, and I started to explain to the kids how we’d been out of chili powder, and when I went to Fred Meyer they didn’t have the usual bulk chili powder, but they did have some sort of deep red powdered chili pepper flakes, which looked hot and potent as the devil, so I bought a little bag of that stuff and used less than I normally would because I didn’t want to take the roofs off our mouths, ha ha. And the chili came out perfect, sweet and spicy but not too hot, and so forth and so on.

But the kids interrupted to talk games and movies, happily uninterested in how clever I’d been with the chili powder, in my minor improvised success. They were like me, quickly acknowledging good food but ignoring the rest of a homemaker’s small triumph, taking me and the chili and our home for granted, as children will.

And suddenly I realized, for the first time (again, in 20 years), why at dinner my wife always talks about the food and how she made it, and how to me — who wants to discuss Important Things — her food talk had seemed like, well, prattle. And for the first time ever I truly felt myself in my wife’s place, and knew the taken-for-granted feeling she must know so well. Yet amidst insufficient acknowledgment, amidst all-too-fleetingly expressed gratitude, I felt happy, too.

Now as I write this, I marvel at how many years — how so very long — it took me to understand this feeling.

So I recommend making chili. It can provide a glimpse of the Important Things.

You may also enjoy:

“Three Phrases Men Stumble Over — Yet Women Long to Hear“

“The Post That Never Was“

“The One Place You’ll Always Be Indispensable“

“Thanksgiving Song“

Me: So tell me again, what was it like?

Resident Baby: The place I came from?

– Yeah. Like, was it dark back there or full of light?

RB: You don’t remember? Didn’t you come from the same place?

– Well, yeah, everybody did.

RB: But you forgot what it was like?

– Everyone does, after a while.

RB: Really? You mean, I’ll forget too?

– I’m afraid so.

RB: Why?

– (shrug) It’s part of growing up.

RB: How long do I have?

– Hm?

RB: Till I forget.

– Uh, dunno. Nobody really knows when it happens. Personally, I suspect it happens with speech. A child learns language and forgets the other things. The earlier stuff. The mysteries. But that’s just a hunch. No one knows for sure.

RB: (thoughtful) Hmm.

– You look worried.

RB: What do you expect? You just told me I’m fated to forget where I came from!

– Maybe so, but you can describe it for me now, while you still remember. That way, even when you forget, I’ll remember.

RB: And you’ll remind me?

– Yeah.

RB: But wait a minute, how can you trust what I say? I mean, we’re not even really having this conversation. I can’t even talk yet, after all.

– So… what, you’re saying this is all in my head?

RB: Well…

– This discourse of ours, it isn’t even real?

RB: Well…

– Cause that hurts.

RB: Well, I’m just saying, I can’t even talk yet, so…

– You’re wiser than you know, kiddo. Can you just trust me on that? You’re a teacher.

RB: A teacher? I am?

– Yep, simply by being your bright-eyed, curious, squishable self. You can’t even help it. It’s just the way you are.

RB: (considering) Wow…

– So tell me, what was it like out there, before… You know, before the womb and all that?

RB: Well… (closing his eyes, thinking back) It wasn’t really dark, but not light either. …It was, like, all blues and pinks.

– In the womb, you mean?

RB: No, before that. It wasn’t really warm, but not cold either. There were, like, spots of light, maybe.

– Like stars?

RB: Sort of. Maybe.

– Could you hear anything? Were there sounds?

RB: It was silent. Wait, no, maybe there was, like, a hum.

– Did it all feel like water? Or more like air?

RB: Umm… It was a very settled feeling, I think. Peaceful.

– Wow.

RB: Pretty nice, huh?

– Yeah.

RB: But you know what?

– Hm?

RB: I’m glad to be here now.

– That’s a nice thing to say.

RB: No, but I mean it. Like, here we’ve got cookies, sippy cups, fuzzy blankets, storybooks, strollers, the park, the zoo…

– Mm. Simple pleasures.

RB: Yep. Those are what it’s all about. Those, and more complex pleasures when you’re older — symphonies, good novels, mango chutney. But it’s the same idea.

– So you came from where you came from in order to enjoy all those things?

RB: And to help you do so.

– I see. OK, that makes sense.

RB: Yep, but I also came to do this.

(Resident baby climbs up and gives me one of his irreplaceable Resident Baby hugs)

– Hey, thanks!

RB: I’m a baby. It’s what I’m all about.

– Well, I’m glad you’re here — and glad you’re glad to be here.

RB: Happy Father’s Day, Daddy.

– Yes it is. Happy and peaceful.

You may also enjoy:

“The Post That Never Was”

“The Rainbow Vanishes”

“Dr. Soul’s Inspirational Roundup, June ‘09”

“The One Place You’ll Always Be Indispensable“

– Soul Shelter’s on site Web-prescription representative, Dr. Soul, directs you to four irresistibly inspiring and thought-provoking readings –

1) Author Anthony Doerr on “looking for validation in a wired world.”

What I am loath to articulate, to even contemplate, is that checking e-mail or tinkering around on Facebook or reading snippets about Politician A on Blog B is not about making money at all but about asking the world a very urgent question.

That question is this: Am I still here?

…. What did I do today that will still retain its original meaning two hundred years from now? Might it be better, and more lasting, merely to walk home right now, and open the backyard gate, and lie down in the grass?

A second very fine essay by Doerr can be found in…

2) The Book of Dads: Essays on the Joys, Perils, and Humiliations of Fatherhood.

The Book of Dads is a brand new, thoroughly inspirational volume featuring twenty engrossing personal essays by some of today’s best writers. Looking for a terrific Father’s Day gift?

Writes editor Ben George in his introduction:

I wanted a collection of essays that reaches for what it means to be a father — from beginning to end. In what ways, for instance, was it different to be a father than a mother? What did it mean to be a good dad versus a bad dad? And why did there seem to be so much talk, and so many books, about motherhood, but not that much discussion, at least as far as I could tell, about fatherhood? (Witness, for just one example, the supposedly gender-neutral magazine Parenting, whose subtitle, unsubtly, was until very recently What Matters Most to Moms). It couldn’t be that fathers just weren’t interested in fatherhood — the practice, the difficulties and the gratifications, the way it redirects a man’s life — not according to the conversations I was having…

3) Have our finest universities “forgotten that the reason they exist is to make minds, not careers?”

William Deresiewicz, a former Yale professor, provocatively ponders the question in The American Scholar. 

How can I be a schoolteacher — wouldn’t that be a waste of my expensive education? Wouldn’t I be squandering the opportunities my parents worked so hard to provide? What will my friends think? How will I face my classmates at our 20th reunion, when they’re all rich lawyers or important people in New York? And the question that lies behind all these: Isn’t it beneath me? So a whole universe of possibility closes, and you miss your true calling.

4) Author Catherine Blyth thinks about silence.

Our noisy culture is unbalanced by the view that good communication is all talk. At a gap in conversation, few of us pause to consider silence’s virtues: we’re too busy panicking how to fill it.   The quiet person threatens, because he acts as a verbal laxative on us.

Accept Dr. Soul’s best wishes for a bright, healthy, soul-expanding summer.

You may also enjoy:

“Dr. Soul’s Inspirational Roundup, February ‘09”

“On Slowness”

“In Praise of Physical Spaces”

“Five Soul-Stirring Books”

“What We Really Need to Be Happy“

– In the future nobody eats anymore, and nobody has sex! –

My Grandma-in-law is an eighty-four year old who cannot bring herself to accept the Internet and the changes it has wrought in contemporary life. This lady is no sourpuss, mind you. She hails from my favorite generation: those weathered WWII folks, so many of whom possess a warmth and social grace unsurpassed by subsequent generations.

Every minor transaction is, in my Grandma-in-law’s way of seeing the world, an opportunity for human connection — the face-to-face kind. She charms strangers in grocery lines. When there’s a party, she’s the life of it. She’s been known to dance with a champagne glass balanced on her white curls. She does high kicks on New Years Eve.

She cannot understand all this fuss about the presumed pleasure of sitting at a computer keyboard interacting with (or through) a machine.

Knowing I’m a writer, this lady has long been at me to create a science fiction tale about the metamorphosis of the human species as a consequence of unrestrained Internet use. We’ve had many informal “cram sessions” in which she unloads her ideas.

People’s eyeballs get sucked out from staring at screens too long! Nobody eats anymore, nobody has sex! They can’t tear themselves away from the terminal long enough. It’s like the end of the human race, see?”

She’s worked for years as a travel agent, and recently recounted a scathing run-in with a friend, a Catholic priest she’s known for decades.

He said to me, ‘Why on earth would anybody use a travel agent these days. You can use the Internet!’

‘Is that so?’ I told him. ‘Well then, next time I need a priest I’ll use the Internet!‘

I’m no extrovert myself, but I know Grandma’s got a point. She lives larger than many people one-third her age — and bifocals or not, she sees far beyond our puny screens.

Maybe someday I’ll write a book as large as her life.

You may also enjoy:

“The Rainbow Vanishes”

“The Post That Never Was”

“Incredibly Shrinking Selves”

“Thanks, Bill, for Connecting Our Connections”

“Are You an Amateur? Why Not?“

Your neighbor talks too loudly. Your son grabs ridiculous mouthfuls when eating. Your husband never lifts the seat.

The world is full of inadequate, annoying, problem-ridden, frustrating, frustrated people — and that’s what makes it beautiful.

As a young man I struggled to hide my inadequacies, to show the world a better face. I didn’t understand a great truth articulated by Nicholas Dawidoff, author of The Crowd Sounds Happy:

When you are young there is the terrible inability to understand that it’s your deficits that will make others not only like you but feel close to you.

Yes, it’s precisely the exuberance behind that overly-loud voice, the impetuousness behind those inadequate table manners, that make us who we are.

While some imperfections certainly deserve to be addressed, here’s the truth: The perfect person is uninteresting. As Joseph Campbell said, “it is the imperfections of life that are lovable.”

As one who exemplifies imperfection, I’m with Dawidoff: Let’s cherish, rather than hide, our inadequacies.

I know, I know — last week I touted the breaking of habits in Three Ways to Become More Entrepreneurial Now. But there are some things about ourselves that we can change and some we can’t (see Can We Really Change? Yes and No).

So let us embrace our soulful imperfections (Lord knows we have many to embrace). In the meantime, here are some other flawed, inadequate essays you might enjoy:

“The One Place You’ll Always Be Indispensable”

“Are You an Amateur? Why Not?”

“The Post That Never Was“

-Resident Baby: Daddy?

-Hm?

-RB: Are you still here, Daddy?

-Mm-hm, I’m right here. Why?

-RB: You’re looking at that thing again.

-Hm?

-RB: That thing. You’re staring into it and going click-click-click, pressing all those buttons.

-Oh, my laptop? Sorry. I’ll be finished in a minute. Just wanted to type some ideas.

-RB: But I wanna go for a walk in the stroller.

-OK, in a minute.

-RB: It’s sunny outside.

-I know, I’ve just got this Soul Shelter post to write …

-RB: Soul Shelter?

-Yeah, it’s a blog.

-RB: I want to play choo-choo train. Or have story-time together. Or maybe you could build a living room tent for me?

-OK, mm-hm, when I’m finished here we’ll go for a walk or build a tent or whatever you want.

-RB: A tent. That’s what I want.

-A tent it is … as soon as I’ve typed this thought.

Resident Baby plays quietly with his plastic train. He flops over onto his belly and tries to eat my slipper. He yanks one of his socks off and stuffs it into his mouth.

…Click-click-click.

-RB: Vumz-im-rmph-bow.

-Did you say something?

-RB: Sorry. Had my sock in my mouth. I said, What’s it about?

-Hm?

-RB: Soul Tent.

-Oh, Soul Shelter, you mean?

-RB: Right. Freudian slip.

-It’s about striking a balance, I guess. Like how to locate fulfillment in one’s life and one’s work, both at once.

-RB: Mm, fulfillment…

-Do you know that word?

-RB: Mm-hm.

-Really? So how would you define it?

-RB: That’s easy: Mommy-time. Or … a comfy blanket. Or a cracker and a cup of juice. Or a turn in the bright blue bucket swing at the park. Or, say … a living room tent.

-Smooth, the way you worked that in at the end there.

-RB: (shrugs) I’m a baby. We know what we like.

-You do indeed. You should write this post.

-RB: I can’t write, Daddy. Or read. Come to think of it, I can’t even speak in words yet.

-That makes you no less of a teacher, my wise little one.

-RB: Mm. And that you imagine my voice makes my message no less true.

-Exactly.

-RB: So can we get cracking on that tent now?

-All righty (chuckling), do you want the entrance to be north- or south-facing?

The laptop clicks shut.

-RB: Now we’re talking!

You may also enjoy:

“Let Us Begin”

“The Risk of Happiness”

“A Moment of Fulfillment”

“The Rainbow Vanishes”

“The One Place You’ll Always Be Indispensable”

While working overseas for nearly ten years, mainly in Japan, I enjoyed the privilege of observing manly (and womanly) behavior in cultures very different from the United States. So when Art of Manliness asked me to provide an updated perspective on Japanese-style manhood, I was happy to oblige — and surprised at what my research uncovered.

AoM and Soul Shelter readers enjoyed a glimpse of traditional Japanese manhood in a previous essay on Bushido. While those ideals are popularly known as the Way of the Warrior, as the article showed, they might be better termed the Precepts of Chivalry.

In practice, though, chivalry in Japan is something men have extended primarily to, well … other men. A woman’s role was to have dinner, beer, and bath ready however late her husband returned home. Men, for their part, were expected to focus exclusively on work, which meant ignoring their wives and children. Unfortunately, over time the “absent husband/father” syndrome became widely accepted and drove a terrible wedge between the genders.

Today it is reflected in fewer, later marriages, and skyrocketing rates of divorce, especially those initiated by older women, who shudder at the prospect of becoming little more than a housekeeper for a retired, estranged husband who is clueless without his company — and helpless around the home.

Yet hope for true chivalry survives, in the unlikely form of Shuichi Amano.

Mr. Amano, a dedicated salaryman in his late 50s, foresaw his own marriage foundering and recognized that Japanese husbands had to mend their ways if they were to live like true men (and stay married). He formed an organization, Zenteikyo (loosely translated as the Chauvinistic Husbands Association of Japan), which serves as a support group and resource for men striving to become more sensitive to wives’ needs.

With Art of Manliness mission firmly in mind, last month I called Mr. Amano to chat, and found him warm and companionable. We bemoaned that opportunities to demonstrate chivalry these days seem limited to such mundane tasks as opening wine bottles, carrying packages, and walking on the traffic side of the sidewalk. To be sure, the days of hewing logs with ax and adze, building fires with flint and steel, and using fisticuffs (or swords) to defend one’s beloved, are, for almost all of us, long past.

Men today, we agreed, face challenges of a different sort. And increasingly, words, rather than actions, dominate metrics of manhood. I was struck by Mr. Amano’s assertion that there are three crucial phrases that many men find almost unutterable. That’s too bad, because they’re precisely the three things most women long to hear. I assured Mr. Amano that the problem of lack of chivalry, while acute in Japan, is universal.

So, are you ready to test your international manliness quotient? Then assess how frequently — and on what occasions — you voice the Three Magic Phrases.

The first is the simplest:

“Thank you.”

Women rarely hear this enough.

Words of thanks come easily in response to the big things. But real men express gratitude for the thankless, everyday chores that make a home, for the tasks too often left to women. Real men may no longer hew logs, but they must hone gratitude.

Readers, can we have a show of hands? How many of you offer daily thanks for the small stuff? (if you’re like me and Mr. Amano, you’re shifting uncomfortably in your seat.)

Well, onward nevertheless. Most men find Phrase Two even more challenging:

“I’m sorry.”

Even boys will voice contrition for their big failures. But it’s your ability to recognize — and say you’re sorry for — smaller failings that ranks you as a man. Forget about pumping iron; pump up the apologies.

Finally, there’s Phrase Three. It’s the least voicable of all, especially in Japan. Around the world, though, it occasionally pops out at, well, mission-critical moments:

“I love you.”

But real men say “I love you,” not only in the heat of passion, but in the cool calm of daylight: while driving the car, while washing the dishes, while eating breakfast. Men, forget about lifting logs; focus on lofting those lovewords.

So, there you have ‘em: Three magic phrases men everywhere stumble over, yet women everywhere long to hear. Now, the question is: Are we manly — and soulful — enough to give them voice?

(This essay first appeared in a slightly different form at Art of Manliness.)

You may also enjoy:

“The One Place You’ll Always Be Indispensable”

“The Risk of Happiness”

“A Moment of Fulfillment“

Career guidance wasn’t exactly my parents’ strong suit.

“Study math and science,” Dad would say.

Good advice, but little help to someone inclined towards languages and music.

“Make yourself indispensable at work,” Mom advised.

That makes sense, but overlooks a harsh reality: if your sole ambition is to be completely indispensable in your job, you will never move onward or upward.

More to the point, who among us is truly indispensable within our organizations?

The truth is, no one — especially in today’s rocky economy. Millions of workers worldwide are now discovering just how disposable they really are.

But regardless of what happens at work, there’s one place where you will absolutely, positively, always be essential.

It’s your most important role in the world. It’s a job that, when improperly done, triggers serious social problems faced by every society on earth.

It’s the one “career” that holds the key to success in life and love. It’s the place where you’ll do the most important work of your life.

Where’s the place? What’s the role?

At home — in your role as a wife, mother, husband, father, daughter, or son.

No one can ever replace you at home. No one.

This truth hit me during a recent conversation with my friend, Brian the Wise.

Regardless of what happens at work, however the world seems to be unraveling, said Brian, no matter what friends and neighbors say or do, “you are absolutely, positively essential at home — and always will be.”

Years ago, Dennis, my old boss at the Dilbert-sized corporation, told me something unforgettable.

“You can always go out and get a new job,” he said, “but you can’t get a new family.”

That was one of the best thoughts a boss could have shared with an often-bumbling, often unsure employee.

Times are tough and bound to get tougher. So, in what may seem like an unraveling world, let’s remember one place where we’re truly irreplaceable — and always will be: home.

You may also enjoy:

“A Moment of Fulfillment”

“The Risk of Happiness”

“The Rainbow Vanishes“