What I've Learned

Esquire regularly does a feature called "What I've Learned," and here we stand with another year gone by. In their January 2006 issue, they compiled lists from Bob Saget, Neil Young, Ariana Huffington, John Kerry and others. I don't hate sentimentality. I hate cheap sentimentality, and the "What I've Learned" feature veers from this. So here, to wind down 2005, I write my own list.

Things I Learned in 2005

To drink is to celebrate life. To be a drunk is to waste it. To walk the fine line is a state of ambiguity that is frightening, exhilirating and resoundingly stupid, but it's hard not to live there.

Everything is just a name and just a label.

Cynicism is the best and worst thing for the soul.

Politics is an endless game of bickering that divides anyone from real progress. The same goes for religion. It's not who you pray to, but how you pray, and not how you vote, but how you have really thought it out and come to believe or disbelieve in one side. To sling a name based on Christian, Muslim, Jew, Democrat, Republican or any other grouping is to effectively halt the progress of your own cause. It sounds cliche, but actions speak louder than words.

It's not that men don't have hearts. We just let them give up hope earlier, and we don't really know why.

Intelligent design doesn't deny evolution, only its advocates do. I may not like much about Catholicism, but this is something they (or we, based on heritage, I guess) realized quite correctly.

Pills without work just breed numbness, and it's easy to sleep there, but hard to live there.

People spend all of their lives trying to cheat death. But death is older, smarter and has learned a few tricks in his time.

Lonely people get pets for a reason: because it's hard to be sad when somebody runs in circles the second you come in the door or paws your face when you're going to bed.

The best form of birth control is babysitting.

Arkansas is humid every day, and this is not a comfortable feeling for someone who sweats a lot.