by Marty Coleman | Dec 26, 2013 | Illustrated Short Stories |
The Missionary – A Short Short True Story
Prologue
Our connecting flight was late.
Chapter One
She had been a missionary and now lived in California. She had interesting skin that I liked looking at. She did most of the talking.
Chapter Two
Her husband helped make medical machines. He had been a missionary too, in New York. He was slight of build and smiled nice.
Chapter Three
Her sister was going to be a missionary soon but didn’t know where she was going to go. She was still in college. She looked young.
Epilogue
I drew her after our conversation was over but before we got on the plane.
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Drawing and story by Marty Coleman, who has never been a missionary.
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The End
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by Marty Coleman | Dec 16, 2013 | Marty Coleman, The Napkin's Guide to Happy Living |
Take an educated guess as to what day it is? It’s Happy Living Day #4!
On Topic Education
I can explain things pretty well. Much of the time this ability is due to my education. I am relatively educated about art for example and I can explain certain things about it. Most of us can do that in some area. My father could talk forever on all facets of aviation. My sister can talk about genealogy in detail. My wife on the business of electrical and gas utilities, my oldest daughter on neuroscience, my youngest on fashion design.
Off Topic Education
But what about areas that have no connection to anything in your life, what is the value of being educated in those areas? In 2005 Steve Jobs gave a commencement speech at Stanford University. He said something very important about how education really happens.
“Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer, was beautifully hand calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn’t have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and san serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can’t capture, and I found it fascinating.
None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. And we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, it’s likely that no personal computer would have them. If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do. Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later.
Again, you can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.”
Replacing ‘Explain’
So, the idea stated by Mr. Jobs above is that ALL of your education matters. It doesn’t matter just for your job, it matters for your happy living. Yes, the more you educate yourself the more you can explain things, explain connections, explain ideas, to others. But it is more than that. Here is what I mean. In the quote above, replace ‘explain’ with ‘understand’. Now replace it with ‘please’. Now replace it with ‘forgive’.
A lifestyle of self-education is a major key to growth, to understanding, to wisdom about yourself. And those things can lead to some level of living happy.
Replacing ‘Yourself’
Now go even one step further. Replace ‘yourself’ with ‘others’ – explain others, understand others, please others, forgive others. Commit to self-education throughout your life and it leads not just deeper into yourself, but past yourself to others. And then you will really be living happy.
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Love – The Napkin’s Guide to Happy Living #1
Courage – The Napkin’s Guide to Happy Living #2
Smiling – The Napkin’s Guide to Happy Living #3
Education – The Napkin’s Guide to Happy Living #4
Transformation – The Napkin’s Guide to Happy Living #5
Judging – The Napkin’s Guide to Happy Living #6
Expression – The Napkin’s Guide to Happy Living #7
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Drawing and guide by Marty Coleman, who once took a course on building a stone wall without mortar.
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by Marty Coleman | Dec 14, 2013 | Marty Coleman, The Napkin's Guide to Happy Living |
Hey you, smile! It’s day 3 of the Happy Living Guide!
A Short Short Story
She was raised swimming and it made her smile when she was able to afford a pool when she grew up. She loved cats and it made her smile when her cat would come and play with her. It made her smile to drink her favorite coffee when she sat out in the late morning. She was happy living. The End
Holiday Time
The Holiday season is a great time to do create a world that makes you smile. My friend Danielle, the force behind Extraordinarymommy.com, posted this photo the other day. The caption that went with it read, “I have moved my office into the family room… I want to embrace every minute of this view…”
Danielle Smith’s Family Room at Christmas Time
Why was that? Because the view made her smile. Obviously she and her family live a comfortable and well-off life. But that is not the key to the happiness this room gives her. The key is the love that went into it, not the money.
Humble is no Excuse
Very early on in my first marriage, we lived in a 90 year old rental house in downtown San Jose, California. Most of our furniture was old, hand me down furniture. But we still were able to make the space warm, welcoming and pleasing. We had a really old trunk I bought for $3.00 at a garage sale in San Francisco as our coffee table. It had brass hardware on it. I took the hardware off and polished it to a high sheen. It made a big difference in the look of the trunk. It made me happy to put my feet up on it.
We weren’t able to do everything we wanted to the house or have all the furniture we wanted, but what we had we made as beautiful as we could.
Suburbs Are No Excuse
Years later, after we moved to Oklahoma and could afford a nice, big house, my first wife and I divorced. I retained ownership of the house and our daughter’s lived with me during the school year, since their mother had moved out of the school district. During the summer they lived mostly at her house. I took advantage of having them gone most of the summer to paint the inside of the house. I painted it red, gold, and cream. Sound crazy? I loved it. It made me happy.
Our home 1994-2006, Broken Arrow, Oklahoma
I added black spots to my white picket fence so it matched my dalmatian, Oreo. That made me smile and it made the neighborhood kids smile.
Oreo and the Barking Fence
I remodeled my kitchen, taking out a dropped ceiling. After I was almost done I still had some holes in the ceiling where electrical and other things had come through. I decided that instead of fixing the holes in the traditional way I would cover them by hot gluing the ceramics my daughters had created in elementary school onto the ceiling. My kitchen ceiling became a permanent art gallery. That made me smile and it made my daughters smile. No, none fell down.
My Daughters’ Ceramic Gallery
Crazy Artist Type
I know what you are thinking, ‘Marty, that’s fine for you, you are the crazy artist type and can get away with that stuff. But not me.’ You would be surprised what you can do if you decide it’s is worth doing. The idea, no matter what level of creativity you have, is to create a physical world that makes you smile. Do it a bit at a time, as you can afford it and as circumstances allow, and it will add to your happy living. Don’t settle for a world that doesn’t make you smile.
What have you designed or experienced that makes you smile?
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Love – The Napkin’s Guide to Happy Living #1
Courage – The Napkin’s Guide to Happy Living #2
Smiling – The Napkin’s Guide to Happy Living #3
Education – The Napkin’s Guide to Happy Living #4
Transformation – The Napkin’s Guide to Happy Living #5
Judging – The Napkin’s Guide to Happy Living #6
Expression – The Napkin’s Guide to Happy Living #7
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Drawing and Guide by Marty Coleman, who isn’t above framing postcards that make him smile.
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by Marty Coleman | Dec 12, 2013 | Marty Coleman, The Napkin's Guide to Happy Living |
Once again the key to happy living comes from speaking AND doing. It’s great to say you love something, but it’s in the doing that you understand what that really means.
Courage, Creative and Practical
There are at least two elements to this. The first is illustrated in the drawing, finding a creative outlet you love. The second is the day to day life you lead and the practical choices it entails.
Creativity
I’ve mentioned this before but it’s such a fundamental lesson it bears repeating; if you are going to be a consistent creative force in the world you have to love what you do and let the world know it. It might seem obvious but the roadblocks can be high. To give just one example, the woman in the drawing might have a spouse, family, employer or church who does not approve of her doing nude sculpture. But if the nude is what she loves, if it’s what she is creatively moved by, then she has to find a way to make it happen. She has to find the courage to stand up and say, this is what I love to do. She has to do this knowing she will face the anger, misunderstanding or rejection. That is the definition of courage. She does it because creating her art as she pleases makes her happy and that is worth it.
Practical
There are other examples that reside in our daily life. They involve individuality, style and interests. For example, the woman who likes blue eyeshadow but knows people laugh at it and thinks it’s tacky. The man who likes to bird watch even though all his buddies like to hunt and think he is a wuss. The couple who like to take separate vacations even though their families think it means they don’t really love each other. The female bodybuilder with 10 cats whose landlord makes fun of her.
What they all have in common is their pursuit of what makes them happy and their willingness to face disapproval because of it. What are some other examples?
Developing
I first wrote the guide above to say ‘Have the courage…’ but I changed it to ‘Develop the courage…’ because I realized as I wrote it that courage is a muscle. It’s no different than a physical muscle. It needs to be developed through practice and training. One needs to learn what it entails and how to implement it. How to withstand an onslaught. How to respond to an attack. How to make peace with disapproval. It isn’t easy. I like to think I’ve been a courageous artist for 40 years and it still is hard for me to face the disapproval of my wife or family or the art world or society. Trust me, I know. I live in Oklahoma, the land of judgment. I don’t have all the answers but I know one aspect that helps, and that’s to have a sense of humor about it.
Reward
In my years of going through it I discovered something. The happier and more confident I am about my choice and direction, from the beginning, the more those around me bow to it. I don’t mean bow in any sort of grandiose way, I mean that those who see a confident person stepping forward in a creative vision usually respond with respect after a while. Yes, they may push back at first, but if you are consistent and resolute, they see you are not going to be stopped and they let you go. That is where consistent application of your creative vision gains a reward for you. You become known as that person. Your identity is secure and others respect and admire that.
Be courageous, confident and consistent in the choices that make you happy and others will see it and respect it over time.
What examples do you have of courage and creativity?
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Love – The Napkin’s Guide to Happy Living #1
Courage – The Napkin’s Guide to Happy Living #2
Smiling – The Napkin’s Guide to Happy Living #3
Education – The Napkin’s Guide to Happy Living #4
Transformation – The Napkin’s Guide to Happy Living #5
Judging – The Napkin’s Guide to Happy Living #6
Expression – The Napkin’s Guide to Happy Living #7
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Drawing and guide by Marty Coleman, who has been known to draw naked people himself.
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by Marty Coleman | Dec 10, 2013 | Marty Coleman, The Napkin's Guide to Happy Living |
The First Responder
My daughter, Caitlin, was driving from Dallas to Tulsa, coming home for Thanksgiving, a few weeks back. There was a car accident immediately behind her and she stopped to help. She steeled herself to perhaps see something pretty traumatic but luckily the guy wasn’t really badly hurt. She went to her car, got paper towels and other stuff and helped him with his injuries. She didn’t think of her actions as being about love I don’t think. But they were. She could have driven on. She could have just watched from a distance. But she didn’t. She chose to get involved and help him.
Acting
When I first came up with this I had it as ‘Think in terms of love’. But I quickly remembered another important lesson, ‘It’s easier to act your way into another way of feeling than it is to feel your way into another way of acting.’ and realized that many times the action of love has to come before the feeling (or thinking) of love. The action actually leads one closer to the feeling, they compound each other.
Thinking
Even though acting is key, acting without thinking can lead to many missed opportunities. The reason is this; just as a frame around a painting changes the painting itself, how you frame what you experience changes the experience. For example, when you see an activity, let’s say a business trip, as an obligation or duty then there is a certain dread attached to it. But if you think of it as an opportunity to show love, then there is much more excitement and enthusiasm for it.
Love to Whom?
But a business trip? How can I show love on a business trip? It’s actually a great opportunity to evaluate and frame what it is you do, seeing if what you do can be categorized as love, or, if not, can adjust your attitude or actions to be more loving? Think of all the people you meet on a business trip? Flight attendants, fellow flyers, cab drivers, hotel staff, business colleagues, restaurant workers. What better group of people to help you see if how you act (and think) is in terms of love?
Happy Living
The end result of acting and thinking in terms of love is that you feel happy. Happy with yourself, yes. But just as likely you will feel happy about the circumstances you are in as well.
And since it’s impossible to live a happy life all at once, the best we can do is to have happy moments within a life. Have enough of those and at the end you will discover you’ve lived a happy life. And it all starts with love.
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Love – The Napkin’s Guide to Happy Living #1
Courage – The Napkin’s Guide to Happy Living #2
Smiling – The Napkin’s Guide to Happy Living #3
Education – The Napkin’s Guide to Happy Living #4
Transformation – The Napkin’s Guide to Happy Living #5
Judging – The Napkin’s Guide to Happy Living #6
Expression – The Napkin’s Guide to Happy Living #7
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Drawing, quote and commentary by Marty Coleman
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by Marty Coleman | Dec 7, 2013 | Illustrated Short Stories |
Prologue
She always remembers that day.
Chapter One
She hadn’t showered that morning even though she knew she should have. She had been out late and done something she wasn’t proud of.
Chapter Two
She got to church late and sat next to a woman wearing a lot of perfume. She could see the woman’s face reflecting all the bright lights on the stage. It looked like she had a lot of makeup on, bad acne scars and a top plunged down much farther than appropriate.
Chapter Three
Everyone stood up to greet one another. She turned to the lady shook her hand. It was warm and soft and made her feel wonderful. In the light she saw that she really was quite beautiful, her makeup wasn’t as heavy as she thought and she had pulled up her blouse so it didn’t show as much as it had before. The woman complimented her on her teal sweater and said she always was attracted to that color.
Chapter Five
After the service the woman asked if she knew of a lunch place nearby. She told her they had a cafe at the church and led her there through the crowd. The lady asked her if she would like to join her and she said yes.
Epilogue
She always remembers that day.
The End
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Drawing and story by Marty Coleman
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by Marty Coleman | Dec 6, 2013 | Travel |
I am down in Texas to run my first marathon in 3 years. This is what it looks like throughout Dallas today. More coming tomorrow and temps are staying below freezing until after the marathon is suppose to be over on Sunday.
It looks like they will cancel but as of now (Friday afternoon) they have not.
I also came down to help my daughter move to a new apartment, which we did 2 days early to avoid the weather.
So, for now we are watching the news and waiting for an announcement from the Dallas Marathon organizers.
Running is an adventure!
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by Marty Coleman | Nov 22, 2013 | All is Vanity - 2013, George Sand |
It’s reasonable to assume today is day #3 of the Napkin’s ‘All is Vanity’ series.
Quicksand of Living
Here’s the thing about vanity; It’s distracted living. It’s can be while driving, or working, or talking, or texting, or studying, or dating, or exercising or having sex or….the list goes on. Vanity means you are consumed with self and how you are seen by others. This is usually accompanied by disregard for reason and logic. You do things that are dangerous, things that are counterproductive, things that are restrictive. You aren’t able to see and take part in the life you might want to take part in because your vanity won’t let you.
Quicksand of Activity
You won’t go swimming in a pool because your makeup might get messed up. You won’t stop putting on your makeup as you drive because you might be seen without it, and that just won’t do. You won’t go hiking because you might get sweaty or, sin of all sins, smelly. You won’t put on a coat when it’s freezing out because it might cover up your cute outfit.
Quicksand of Love
And in the end your consuming preoccupation with self will keep you from caring about others. You won’t be able to give love and even if you are given love, you very likely won’t be able to see it clearly over the full-length mirror you are staring into.
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Drawing and commentary by Marty Coleman
Quote by George Sand (aka Amantine Lucile Aurore Dupin) 1804-1876, French novelist and memoirist
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Vanity is the quicksand of reason.
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by Marty Coleman | Nov 21, 2013 | All is Vanity - 2013, Nathaniel Hawthorne |
I am not deficient when I say today is ‘All is Vanity’ day #2
Pet Peeve
I think I have mentioned before that I have a pet peeve, a big one. I really do not like when people brag about their shortcomings. I especially don’t like it when I do it. When I found this quote and it added a new layer to my understanding why this happens.
Bad at Math
Let me give you an example. I did not excel at math in school. I didn’t flunk it, but I didn’t excel at it either. So, if a conversation comes up about math, and I am asked directly if I am any good at it, it’s a simple declarative statement to say, “No, not very.” If I am feeling hopeful and positive I might say, “No, not very…YET.” meaning I might become better at it in the future. That is how I like to think about things I am not very good at at the present moment.
Bad at Math Vanity
But what if instead, when I was asked, or even if I was not asked and I was just a general part of the conversation, I said, “I am REALLY BAD AT MATH! I can’t balance my checkbook, I can’t pay bills very well, I HATE math! I don’t understand my IRA or my 401k and I am terrible at keeping a budget!”
If I said that, would I be stating a simple declarative statement? No, I would be saying to the world, ‘I am proud to be bad at math. I think it makes me pretty cool. It shows me to be a hip artist, or maybe a cool musician. It puts me in the ‘above all that mundane crap’ world of bean counters and bureaucrats and pencil pushers.
Wrong Vanity
And I would be wrong. It doesn’t do that. It just shows me to be vain about a deficiency. I am seeing a shiny gold tooth in the mirror worth bragging about when actually I just have an ugly black tooth that really isn’t worthy of attention. It’s nothing to be proud of, nothing to brag about and certainly nothing to be vain about. What it really is, is something to be better at if you can, just like any other optional deficiency in your life.
Right Vanity
You suck at your marriage? Don’t boast of it, become less sucky at it. You don’t know how to write? Don’t brag about, learn how to write. You are a lazy bum? don’t be vain about it, get the hell off the couch and start contributing somewhere. Turn that deficiency into an available gift. Then if you want to be vain about it, go ahead.
Have you ever been vain about a deficiency? Let’s hear your insight about it.
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Drawing and commentary by Marty Coleman
Quote by Nathaniel Hawthorne, from his book – The House of the Seven Gables
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“It is very queer, but no less true, that people are quite as vain, or more so, of their deficiencies than of their available gifts”
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by Marty Coleman | Nov 20, 2013 | All is Vanity - 2013 |
I hope I don’t sound vain, but this is going to be the best series on Vanity I have ever done! Here’s day #1.
Plastic Stupidity
No, I am not against plastic surgery. I know many people who have had very successful changes made to their bodies and faces this way. They are very happy with the changes and I am happy for them. I think they look great and that it was more than likely a great choice.
What I am against is someone being coerced or bullied or otherwise manipulated into getting plastic surgery so someone ELSE can feel good about themselves, make more money, have more status, get more pleasure, etc. That is stupidity talking.
What might that manipulative stupidity look like?
- Maybe it takes the form of money making, like the strip club owner who might ‘persuade’ a dancer to get a boob job she really doesn’t want and can’t afford so the club owner will make more money.
- Maybe it’s a husband who bullies his wife into an eye lift so she will look more ‘western’ and he in turn feels more successful having a more ‘western’ looking wife.
- Maybe it’s a mother who pushes her daughter to have a nose job so she is more likely to get a husband which the mother wants so she can have grandkids.
- Maybe it’s a girlfriend who convinces her boyfriend he can have the chest he’s supposedly always wanted by getting pec implants so she can feel superior to her tribe of girls by virtue of having the BF with the hottest bod.
Plastic Vanity
But a person talking stupid or coercive or bullying doesn’t turn a bad idea into reality, vanity does that. Why does that happen? Somehow their vanity has convinced themselves that;
“if I get my ________ done, then…
…I will be more _________.”
…It will make me _____________.”
…My spouse will then ______________.”
…I will make more ________________.”
…I will feel _____________.”
How would you fill in the blanks for someone acting out of plastic vanity?
Positive Blank
Sounds negative, right? But here’s the rub. Can’t someone fill in those same blanks so they are positives? I mean, men and women have plastic surgery every day and they fill in those blanks with positive words all the time. What words would be positive? Any? Many?
What are your thoughts on this?
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Drawing and commentary by Marty Coleman
Quote by Victor Hugo, 1802-1885, French writer
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