Katniss Everdeen Didn't HAVE To Volunteer As Tribute

The introduction to an ongoing series about courage in fiction and in real life

In the Harry Potter books, Severus Snape spends an awful lot of time being called a coward. But as I'm sure all of you know (in case you don't, spoiler alert), he was actually a triple agent with nerves of steel who basically could have gotten himself killed at any moment if he wasn't careful. As Harry himself said in the end, "One of them was a Slytherin and he was probably the bravest man I ever knew."

I started thinking about bravery and courage a lot just prior to the release of Volume Three. In that book there's a scene where Joel risks his life to help his companions and someone says "that was very brave" followed by someone else saying "or foolish" (we'll compare the two in a future post).

Lots of fictional characters exhibit a high degree of courage. If they didn't, you probably wouldn't have a story, or at least not one quite as exciting. I mean, Katniss Everdeen didn't have to volunteer to take her sister's place as a tribute. Clara Oswald didn't have to keep traveling with the Doctor. Luke Skywalker didn't have to go with Obi-Wan to Alderaan, he could've just changed his name - finally - and moved to Mos Espa or something.

But are these actions realistic? Would actual people actually do things like that? Granted, you take a risk anytime you step outside your front door (or even when you don't), but for a lot of people, the idea of purposefully, willingly, knowingly placing yourself in harm's way is more than a little foreign. The instinct to avoid danger and survive is a pretty strong one.

After thinking about it some more, though, I quickly realized that the obvious answer is: yes. Most definitely yes. There really are people - actual, real-life people - who make the choice to put their lives on the line, sometimes on a regular, daily basis. I decided that I wanted to explore this phenomenon in more detail, so I began reaching out to some of these people and asking them about why they do what they do. This series will contain their stories.

While you wait for those stories, feel free to check out these:
Joel Suzuki, Volume One: Secret of the Songshell
Joel Suzuki, Volume Two: Mystery of the Moonfire
Joel Suzuki, Volume Three, Legend of the Loudstone

A Letter To My Son

Dear Torin,

Congratulations on graduating from high school! I am super proud (pronounced "prood," according to Richard Watterson) of you.

As a newly-minted high school graduate, I'm sure you'll be receiving life advice from a number of different sources, myself included. In fact, if what I've done so far is any indication, you've probably already been inundated with all sorts of guidance and recommendations from teachers and parents and peers and so on and so forth. Why, it was just the other day when I said something along the lines of  "if you follow your feelings, you won't have any regrets, because you'll know that whatever you did was based on what you felt was right at the time." (I might need to work on that one a little.)

Life advice can also come from songs, books, movies, and other popular media. Like, for example, "Do or do not. There is no try" or "Do not pity the dead, Harry. Pity the living" or "Oh well, whatever, never mind." And I'm not sure if you've noticed, but the Joel Suzuki books are no exception - they're practically bursting at the seams with little nuggets of wisdom that I implanted into the story, sometimes subtly, sometimes not. Here are a few of my favorites (imagine these being read over an ambient music track a la "Everybody's Free to Wear Sunscreen"):

"Happiness is a state of mind." - Art, Secret of the Songshell

"Oftentimes, the journey is just as important, if not more so, than the destination." - Fireflower, Mystery of the Moonfire

"Worrying is a waste of time." - Art, Secret of the Songshell

"Don't be afraid to say what's on your mind, or to say how you feel about stuff." - Felicity, Mystery of the Moonfire

"Even though events happen that are beyond our control, ultimately, we are still the ones who decide upon our own direction." - Keeper of the Light, Legend of the Loudstone

"Stay in the moment. Have faith." - Nineteen, Secret of the Songshell

And so on. The thing to remember, though - and this is me giving advice about taking advice - is to listen to all of these messages, digest them, and then decide in the end what is really right for you and your life. Because what works for one person doesn't necessarily work for another, and sometimes learning through experience is the best way to go.

Anyway, congratulations again!

- Love, Dad

P.S. I know you already have your own copies of these, but in case anyone else out there wants their own, here's where to get them:

Joel Suzuki, Volume One: Secret of the Songshell
Joel Suzuki, Volume Two: Mystery of the Moonfire
Joel Suzuki, Volume Three: Legend of the Loudstone

A Nerd's List of Reasons To Keep On Going

Hi, I'm Art. Some of you may know me as the owner of Art's Guitars, where my pal Joel Suzuki used to work. Some of you may know me as the drummer in Joel's band, or as the guy dating his mom (I know that might sound a little weird, but in case you weren't aware, Joel's mom and I are both 40-something-year-old divorcees). Here's a picture from the movie The Rocker, which sort of approximates Joel's band in that both feature a middle-aged drummer - they have Rainn Wilson, Joel has me - surrounded by incredibly talented teenagers.

Anyway, I'm apparently the guest blogger this week filling in for Mr. Brian Tashima, who said that he was busy working on something called "Volume Four" (no idea what that is). I was originally going to write a long post about philosophy, or about simulated realities, but then I realized that I'm not really a writer, so I'll just give you a list instead.

See, I believe that as a whole, life is good, despite the numerous hardships we all face from time to time, and that there's always something to look forward to, some reasons to keep on going, even if and when you don't feel like it. Now, the kids in the band and I are all heavily into what is called "nerd" or "geek" culture, so this list will contain some reasons specifically tailored for people just like us. And by the way, this list is by no means comprehensive - it's really just the tip of the iceberg. If you have anything you want to add to it, I'm sure Brian won't mind if you leave a comment or two. Enjoy.

A Nerd's List of Reasons to Keep On Going (as of June 15, 2017)

1. Loved ones

2. Spider-Man: Homecoming

3. The Legend of Zelda concert, coming to a town near you

4. Helping others

5. The next Comic-Con

6. Xbox One X

7. Delicious burritos

8. Cat videos

9. Finding out who the 13th Doctor will be

10. The third album by Second Player Score (Brian asked me to include that)

11. The day the Seattle Mariners (or whoever your favorite team is) finally get back to the playoffs (or win another championship, if you're lucky enough to be a fan of a good team)

12. Star Wars Episode VIII
13. Star Wars Episode IX
14: All the Star Wars movies that Disney will undoubtedly continue to produce after that
15. The fact that you are awesome
16. The weekend
17. The sun, if you like the sun, or snow, if you like snow
18. Your next vacation
19. Chocolate (not too much, just enough to keep away the Dementors)
20. Xenoblade Chronicles 2

That's it for now. Thanks for reading!

-- Art

(Editor's Note: like what Art has to say? You can hear more of his philosophies on life by reading the first three installments of the Joel Suzuki series, listed below.)

Joel Suzuki, Volume One: Secret of the Songshell

Joel Suzuki, Volume Two: Mystery of the Moonfire

Joel Suzuki, Volume Three: Legend of the Loudstone

Statii Update

What follows is a status update on a number of different things. So would that make this post a "statuses update?" or - as Starfire might say - an "update of the statuses?" or a "statii update"? Statii isn't a real word, but I like how it looks and sounds, so I'm going to go with that.

Starfire, not to be confused with Fireflower

Book Update:
On Tuesday Joel, Felicity and I continued our Epic School Tour '17 with a visit to the awesome and appropriately-named Woodland High School in Woodland, WA. That was the farthest out we've traveled so far for a school visit, if you don't count the ones that we've done via Skype (in which case Sweden is the farthest).

We were there all day and spoke to several different classes, all of whom were terrific. Big thanks go out to Aaron Blackwelder and all the students and staff for hosting us. Hope to be back next year!

Volume Four is progressing at a good clip. At the last update on May 11, I was at 22,000 words, and now I'm at 28,000. I think, if I can stick to my daily schedule, I stand an outside chance of finishing the first draft sometime before the holidays, which would be comfortably ahead of schedule. Wish me luck!

Band Update:
Continuing with the "tour" theme, Second Player Score played its first out-of-town show at the Axe & Fiddle in Cottage Grove, OR a couple of weeks ago, and it was super fun. Everyone there was really cool and welcoming, the crowd (and soundman!) was great, and the other band that we played with - Sojourner, from Eugene, OR - rocked the house. I love their music, you should check them out.

With that show concluded, we turned our attention to Boot Camp 2017 and started tracking demos for the first three songs of Glorified, our upcoming third album. The songs in question are entitled "Eye of the Needle," "Liberty's End," and "Desolation." We have studio time booked in July and can't wait to get these tunes recorded. We've also started some work on the Glorified graphic novel; a draft of the script for the first eight pages has been written. Is anyone out there a comic book/graphic novel artist that can do something along the lines of I Kill Giants? If so, contact us immediately, we want to give you money.

TV Update:
Doctor Who. Loving the new season so far (yes, even last week's fake-out regeneration). Peter Capaldi, why do you have to go? Actually, I'm pretty sure I know why, but it's still a bummer.

Really want to watch The Handmaid's Tale (I've read the book), but don't want to subscribe to Hulu just for that. Maybe I can hold out until the season is over and then just buy it on DVD or something. Maybe.

I don't want to subscribe to Hulu mainly because those budget dollars are already spoken for when I break down and finally subscribe to Netflix so that my daughter and I can watch the second season of Miraculous Ladybug. Which is starting...soon, I think?

Video Game Update (WARNING: SPOILERS FOR BREATH OF THE WILD ALONG WITH RAMBLING RUN-ON SENTENCES):
I defeated Ganon. Mostly by accident. I actually didn't mean to, honestly. The night it happened, I told my daughter "Okay, I'm tired of working so hard, tonight I'm just going to wander around Hyrule Castle and scope it out, you know, do some recon, see what's going on, and then tomorrow or whatever I'll go back and get serious." But then after wandering around for a bit, I somehow found myself in an area called the Sanctum and then Zelda started talking to me and a big swirly thing started to manifest in the middle of the space and I was like whoa am I actually at the final boss fight already how the heck did that happen?

So then I figured, okay, since I'm here I might as well just give it a shot, I'll fight Ganon without looking at the walkthrough and just sort of learn what I need to do the next time I'm back and am actually taking this seriously. I assumed I would just die a quick and frustrating death (or three) and then quit for the evening.

But then something weird happened. Despite not knowing what I was doing most of the time (turns out what I was doing was mostly wrong) I somehow managed to make it past the first stage. And then the second. And then I got thrust into the third stage and by that time I was like "Well all right since I'm here I might as well try and see this whole thing through." And you know what? Despite still continuing to do mostly all the wrong stuff I managed to fake my way through it well enough that I beat him and finished the game. I was not expecting that at all.

Anyway, as it turns out, once you beat Ganon the game gives you a star (woo!) and a completion percentage on the map screen telling you how much of the game you've actually finished. Seeing as how I had 116 of 120 shrines and a decent amount of side quests completed, I thought "Okay, my percentage will probably be somewhere around 60-70%." Right? Um, no. I was at a measly 24%. I guess all the billions of Korok seeds that I haven't yet found might have something to do with it (if there are so many of them, why are they so hard to find? Arrrgh). So the moral of this story is that I have a ways to go still, which thank goodness because I need a game to play until Xenoblade Chronicles 2 comes out "sometime in 2017" (oh Monolift Soft/Nintendo, why do you torture us so?) We finally have our Switch, so we're ready. Let's do this.

P.S. Please consider checking out the books in the Joel Suzuki series because they contain much less run-on sentences (trust me, my editor makes sure of that). Mahalo.

Joel Suzuki, Volume One: Secret of the Songshell
Joel Suzuki, Volume Two: Mystery of the Moonfire
Joel Suzuki, Volume Three: Legend of the Loudstone

How to Balance Your Life, Part Three

This three-part series entitled "How to Balance Your Life" talks about how I manage to get stuff done while juggling all the different aspects of my existence. If you haven't read parts one and two yet, either scroll down or go here for part one and here for part two.

So this week I'll be wrapping up this trilogy by going over the circle at the top left, which represents - for lack of a better word - "Work" (if you can come up with a better word after reading this post, please let me know by leaving a comment. Thanks!)

By "work" I mean not only a job but also your passions and interests, so this circle can include hobbies as well. In my case, my "work" circle is divided into three parts: book, band, and my day occupation as a cat herder UFO watcher financial analyst.

So really, this part is all pretty self-explanatory. My minimum daily "book" goals are (1) writing 500 words, (2) reading a chapter of someone else's book, and (3) doing at least one thing to spread the word about Joel Suzuki (which includes my support for Autism Empowerment). Once those are done, a section gets lit up.

Now, there are days in which unforeseen circumstances (e.g. "life") prevent me from reaching these goals. When that happens, I try to at least do something - write 100 words, read two pages, whatever. And then I make up for it the next day, or the day after that. As long as it all averages out over time.

The same goes for the other two sections. For the band, whatever we have going on at the time usually takes priority, so my daily goal could be changing my strings for an upcoming show, writing lyrics, working on a solo in preparation for recording, etc.

And finally, there's showing up for work (those UFOs aren't gonna watch themselves.)

So that's it! A successful day. I've taken care of self (physical/mental/spiritual), home (family/friends/household), and work (book/band/job), and I'll be ready to do it again tomorrow.

Another benefit of this system I want to mention is that it gives you an incentive to spend at least some time on all the aspects of your life over the course of any particular day. For example, if for whatever reason I skip my daily workout in the morning, then there'll be this glaring empty space in my bottom circle staring at me, and as I get other stuff done it'll still be there, looking lonely and unattended to. So then finally I'll be like, "oh, all right, I guess I've lit up these other sections so I might as well take care of you now."

Anyway, I hope you found this series of posts beneficial, or, at the very least, mildly entertaining and/or informative. I showed you how I apply this system to my own life, but of course it can be adapted to whatever your own individual circumstances are. If you have any questions about it or want to say something completely unrelated, feel free to leave a comment!

Oh, and please consider checking out the Joel Suzuki series if you haven't done so already. If you have, thank you! Now, if you could just leave a review on Amazon (a single sentence will suffice), that would be greatly appreciated as well. Why? Because it's the right thing to do.

(The fast-talking guy at the end of the commercial says: support for the Joel Suzuki series translates directly into support for Autism Empowerment as well as a general culture of acceptance for people of all abilities.)

Joel Suzuki, Volume One: Secret of the Songshell
Joel Suzuki, Volume Two: Mystery of the Moonfire
Joel Suzuki, Volume Three: Legend of the Loudstone