OyChicago blog

I rewrote the title of this post more than two dozen times. The one that you see, that’s actually the first one I wrote which is actually rather fitting. See, I had a revelation recently. Well, not so much a revelation as I had a bit more free time on my hands one weekend with nothing to do, hence I was a little bored, and therefore may have been thinking too much after having noticed my Super Nintendo on the ground and subsequently thought about the fact that some of the best aspects of my life have always been the exact same yet are always changing. That and I like long run-on sentences.

In regards to that first thought, it struck me how Super Nintendo and video games in general have always made me exquisitely happy. However, why I love video games currently has a much deeper and significant meaning. I used to like them because they were fun. Now, in addition to fun, I appreciate them for their stories, game play and often incredible voice acting. It’s slightly trivial but lends itself to a bigger idea that the wonderful constants in my life are consistently changing. It’s like the title! Oh, I get it now!

What I like about the constants in my life is that as I’ve become a little older and a little wiser, what’s important to me has developed superior reasons and validation. Simply put, I can explain what I like and why I like it much more eloquently. I mean, there are the obvious constants in my life that are easy to explain. I enjoy eating every day. I take delight in sleeping every night. I always look forward to my weekly shower. Haha. I’m just kidding—it’s monthly. But the fundamental reasoning behind what I love is ever-changing while the core stays the same. Let me give you the perfect example.

SpaghettiOs. Love ‘em. Always have, always will. But only with meatballs, gosh darn it! Back in the day, I loved them because they were a simple meal. Not too flashy in appearance, not too bold in flavor. It wasn’t claiming to be anything more than what it was. Os of spaghetti. Balls of meat. I should probably put meat in quotes. Eh, not gonna happen. The point is, SpaghettiOs, to me, were near perfection. As an adult, I realize how wrong I was. SpaghettiOs are perfection. But as an adult (actually, should probably put that in quotes), yes, I still eat SpaghettiOs and also yes, still with meatballs.

Now I eat them because, well, it’s a cheap, easy meal to make and to be perfectly honest, a can doesn’t have too many calories but does have a lot of injected nutrition. Like 20 percent of my suggested daily riboflavin, my favorite of all the flavins. So yes, that’s my fake “adult” reason why I still enjoy SpaghettiOs, because they are sort of healthy. I know the sodium is through the roof—shuddap! But SpaghettiOs have always been a staple for me. I’m fully aware I’m technically an “adult,” I do have to pay a utility bill after all, but sometimes I refuse to fully accept it. (The being an “adult,” not the bill.) However, that little change in thought about the most consistently delectable meal I know of is a way of letting my “adult” needs get along with my childlike wants. Also, for the record, the fact that I just over analyzed SpaghettiOs and how they showcase a fundamental part of who I am might negate the part where I said I’m an “adult.” I’m quite fine with that.

I’m also quite fine with my Jewishnessicity. You catch that smooth transition there? The way I view what it means to me to be Jewish and how I view religion as a whole is one of the most provocative and fascinating aspects of who I am. The constant here is that I will never be anything but Jewish. That’s a given. While that constant is here and will always be here, what it means to me being Jewish and staying Jewish is different day in and day out. I have created my own solid foundation on what I define as being Jewish. I’m not going to delve too far into it but I’ll simply say that some of my thoughts and actions are different, foreign and exactly in line with everything one would hopefully, in my opinion, come to expect from a Jew. I’m entirely different and entirely the same. I’m still working out exactly what that means despite always knowing exactly what it means.

The thing that inspired me to write this, to talk about this, to relay this minor yet major thought that means oh so much to me is something so simple and so complicated that I had to come up with a silly albeit honest title to describe it. Remember the title? A few months back, I wrote about how the thing that inspires me to write can be anything, everything and always the same thing. I didn’t know it at the time but I was referring to all I just wrote.

Throughout my life, I’ve grown as a person, both physically and mentally. I understand more now than I have ever before and graciously I have this same thought every single day. The world changes. I change with it. The world stays the same. I stay the same with it. Whether 5, 10, or even 20 years ago, what calmed me, what I enjoyed in this world, what I cared about, who and what inspired me, is somehow the exact same today. It may not come in the exact same package but the contents, when viewed closely, are so familiar I start to not even recognize them. What I hold most dear to my heart and my being, what keeps me going, what keeps me who I am fundamentally, at my core, is always the same and at the same time is ever changing, evolving, perfecting. A constant change in consistency.