A Celebration of Ben

This post is dedicated to my friend Ben Brown, who prestigiously encounters another birthday today, in order to properly celebrate his lust for life.

Ben moved to California a couple months ago, taking with him his wife Crystal (a Friday contributor to this blog), his dog (really more hers than his), his bike, his station wagon (but not the Lumina), his Nintendo Wii, and a host of personal virtues that I have been trying for what seems like forever to emulate.

Ben is like the leisurely weekend that you look forward to for months, the relaxing TV show at the end of a really long day. He can always be counted on to be there, and to keep things together no matter what is swirling around him. He is easy to spend time with and has so many points of common interest with so many people. You may do nothing with Ben but sit around the house for an hour, but when you leave, it always feels like time that was completely spent to its fullest.

Ben is one of those great personalities who can become as frustrated or annoyed as easily as anyone else, but VERY rarely will ever raise his voice. The most animated he will get when angry is usually much later, when he is re-telling you the story and recalling his inner turmoil. When he gets flustered, he doesn't throw the project down into the dirt with disgust, he fixes it, polishes it, and by the time you get another look at it you'd have a hard time believing there was ever anything wrong with it.

I was so excited this year when the Michigan DMV awarded me a new license plate that began with the letters "BEN". Even though I had paraded around the same tired, white-letters-on-navy-blue-background plate since I first drove a black Ford Escort in high school, I was pleased to have a new plate that shared a name with one of my closest friends. To my chagrin, the "BEN" plate was not unique, as I find myself constantly surrounded by an army of BEN drivers in Michigan, erratic malcontents who have no idea of the prestige behind the initials they bear on their rear bumper.

The greatest of Ben's attributes, though, in my view, is his never-ending thirst for knowledge. And not just any knowledge. Not just biblical, or technical, or practical, or conversational. Anything and everything. Ben can find and become fascinated by the minutia in any subject, and the greatest thing is that he won't simply nod his head and accept the scraps of knowledge available when he and that subject are introduced. He must know more, and he'll explore Wikipedia, IMDB, libraries, and whatever other sources are available until he feels he has a proper grasp on the topic. This makes Ben THE person to turn to at any event for any random information that you may desire, to the never-ending exasperation (but, I believe, the private adoration) of his wife.

Ben has taught me that there is always more to know, and that there is never much of a downside to knowing more. He taught me that such knowledge is the key to truly enjoying the in-betweens of life, instead of just quickly turning past them like the foreword of a novel, the part of the book you want to get by so that you can "get to the good stuff". Ben knows where the good stuff is and how to get the most out of it.

Thanks, Ben! Happy birthday!

To read more from the Mind of Ben, bookmark his blog: http://mindbenderblog.wordpress.com/