Can You Hear Me Now

It ain’t the heat. It’s the humility

Yogi Berra

I have been a fan of Dean Martin for as long as I can remember. I suspect it began with the films he did with Jerry Lewis. As a tween and young teenager, I couldn’t get enough of movies such as Scared Stiff and The Stooge. I expect I would find them less appealing these days, but that’s true for a lot of the popular culture of my youth.

After parting ways with Jerry, Dean’s career temporarily stalled, but he eventually found even bigger fame as both an actor and a singer. To this day, I find his work in Rio Bravo to be absolutely brilliant and he recorded dozens of songs I consider to be as good as those of his contemporaries. Think Frank Sinatra, Rosemary Clooney, and Tony Bennett.

Through all that, Dean remained a very humble man and was well-known for downplaying his talents. So much so that he once said, “I’m no singer. I can carry a tune and I have an easy style.”

Despite the fact that he sold millions of records and famously knocked the Beatles’ A Hard Day’s Night off the top of the Billboard Hot 100 during the height of Beatlemania, Dean always thought of himself as just a guy from Steubenville, Ohio who happened to get lucky. That’s not to say that he didn’t believe he had talent — check out his Grammy and Golden Globe awards. He simply chose to keep his ego in check with gratitude for his good fortune.

I want to be remembered as a damn good entertainer, nothing spectacular. Dean Martin

Adequacy

This takes me to what I want to ponder today — adequacy and how it can often be more than enough to lead a fulfilling life.

Let’s begin with the word adequate. To some, adequate might be interpreted as mediocre, uninspired, or barely sufficient. In our go-big-or-go-home world, doing something adequately could be seen as failure. “If you aren’t striving to be the best, you might as well not even try.”

The perfect is the enemy of the good. Attributed to Voltaire

While there have been times in my life when I strove to be the best that I could be at something, most of the joy in my life has come from being good enough. For instance:

• I have been playing Irish banjo for about four years and even though I know that I am far better now than when I began, I have no aspirations of ever being anything close to a virtuoso. I have the drive to keep learning new tunes and techniques, but I am fully aware of the limitations of my brain and fingers.
• I bike long distances far more often than nearly anyone I know (especially those close to my age). My average cruising speed is around 14 to 15 miles per hour and while that’s respectable, I know of bike groups that average closer to 20. If I come upon one, I might pick up the pace for a while, but it never lasts long. I know my comfort zone and I’m not embarrassed to slide back into it.
• I love to cook and have been known to prepare some very tasty meals, yet I consider my kitchen skills to be “just good enough.” I have never taken a cooking class and tend to wing it far more often than I probably should. For me, a recipe is more of a suggestion than a road map. That can lead me to all sorts of unexpected places.

None of this is to say that I would not welcome a sudden and unexpected gift of talent. Far from it. I would love to have stronger legs and more agile fingers. Rather, it’s the recognition that I take great pleasure in being as good as I am today. I never end a banjo practice session feeling inadequate. I feel flush with gratitude that I am able to make a joyful noise. That, and not the need to be great, is what keeps me coming back for more. The same holds true for biking, cooking, writing, and everything else that brings me joy despite my clear limitations. I do those things for what they are and not for what they could or should be. To chase perfection would be a race to an unattainable goal and I’m done playing that game.

All we have to do is be ourselves,
fully and authentically.
We don’t have to run after anything.
We already contain the whole cosmos.
We simply return to ourselves through mindfulness,
and touch the peace and joy that are
already present within and all around us.

I have arrived.
I am already home.
There is nothing to do.
Aimlessness, non attainment,
is a wonderful practice.

Thich Nhat Hanh

Like Dean (and Thich Nhat Hanh), I don’t need spectacular. Damn good is more than enough to keep me satisfied.

When Adequate is More Than Enough

I don’t want anyone to think that being satisfied with good enough is a lack of ambition. I work hard at the things I love, but I do so without the pressure to be someone I am not. Once upon a time, I put unrealistic expectations on myself and that led to giving up when I could not meet my inflated standards. These days, I look at the things I love as challenges, and not as promises to be anything in particular.

I set a goal, work towards it, modify the goal if it turns out to be misguided, and constantly remind myself why I set the goal in the first place. In all cases, the goal is based on affirming who I am (warts and all) and not any need to achieve greatness. Better yet, it’s affirmation and the pure joy of doing. It’s never lazy to reassess and move in a different direction if I don’t bind myself to the impossible.

Yet another positive aspect of embracing adequacy is giving yourself permission to try, and potentially keep doing things you know you will never be all that great at. The joy of being adequate removes the stigma of looking foolish at your just-good-enough endeavors.

Again, this isn’t about not caring. It’s about not getting hung up on the impossible pursuit of perfection while bringing joy into your life.

Fun fact. This article began in my head as an exploration of my latest endeavor to make a good pie crust. Somewhere along the line, Dean Martin jumped into my head and the pie story disappeared.

Who knows if I will pick the storyline back up in a future blog article, but until that happens, below is a photograph of the pumpkin pie I managed to come up with last week. As you will see, it looks far more rustic than a fancy store-bought pie. Still, it was mighty tasty and that’s all that really matters.

I suppose that in the end, the pie story didn’t disappear after all. It’s funny how that worked out.

Mischief Managed

With that, I believe I have accomplished enough for one blog post. I could go on a bit longer, but that would be nothing more than repetition and variations on a theme. There are times when adequate is the impetus to say, “I’m done with this” and that time is now.

As Dean sang so well all those years ago, “Everybody loves somebody sometime,” and today, I choose to love good enough me and my very adequate pumpkin pie.

Thank you for reading.

Sifted flour, butter, and fat
a little water and a smidgen of salt
mixing then cutting then mixing again
with fork, with spoon
with my own two hands
rolling, turning, shaping
placing, crimping, and cutting
I am overwhelmed by this simple act of creation
and humbled by my shortcomings with shortening

Ten miles short of an oven-baked artist
but toe to toe with the flour-faced
sticky fingered
child of the blueberry tongue