To: Lady Liberty
Washington D.C.
USA
Congratulations on your decision to divide your country in smaller countries!
We know that this has been a difficult decision for you - after all, any relationship which has been enduring through the years always creates pain when the relationship ends. But fear not - we here at Chaos, Catastrophe, and Unintended Consequences LLC (CCUC) have a great deal of experience in the matters and are looking forward to serving you and making the process as easy and non-emotional as possible.
I see here on your basic dossier you have elected to divide your country via a vote. Overall an excellent choice - after all, where possible violence is should be avoided - but we do feel compelled to warn you that votes do not always go the way one hoped. Within every geographic area there will be groups that feel they do not want to leave the larger unit. Will you allow them to exercise their own voting rights, or do you intend to force them in - as they will point out, thus using the same argument your previous partners used on you? This leads to either rather bothersome population relocation (our staff is looking into the India Partition and the unfortunate incident of East Pakistan) or the outbreak of fighting which in fact does often lead to a civil war (our publishing department is working on various methodologies in the event of this unfortunate occurrence. We have found in the past that the words "insurrection", "rebellion", and "civil disturbance" are infinitely preferable to "revolution".).
We appreciate that you have completed the additional sections around manner of government, rights of citizens, and broad government policies. We note, however, that you have missed some common items that might have an impact on your separation process:
- Currency: We see that you have suggested the previous national currency as your currency of choice. We regret to inform you that in most cases, the predicate country will not allow their currency name to be used. As a subtext to this, we might also note that you will have to develop a backing for your currency in order for it to be accepted on the world market. You should give some thought now to how that will be accomplished. Please remember that, in general, promissory notes and a belief in "The New You" are not considered sufficient collateral.
- Land and Facilities: As with most dissolutions, the land and facilities between the smaller geographic entities and the larger geographic entries - often referred to in the legal documents as "Federal" and "State" - are often co-mingled and therefore difficult to separate. Some past dissolutions have opted for a blanket possession of all assets; while this is simple enough to implement it does create issues if you intend to do business with your former associates. It perhaps would be more prudent to consider an exchange of land for debt now and work that into your legal documents (see below).
- Debt: As with the reallocation of assets, so the reallocation of debts. Be aware that debtors will not accept a separation as a failure to pay borrowed money. It is up to you to make provision for the portion of the debt you will be inheriting upon dissolution of the relationship. If the assessment of Land and Facilities and assets of the previous relationship is not sufficient, we often recommend a "new state tax" to cover the difference, presenting it as the cost of becoming independent. We do note that such a tax is not universally welcomed and in some cases may create further "disturbances" and trust you have allocated a sufficient budget for your armed forces/law enforcement units to handle the issue..
- Business: The lifeblood of any state is its business, the primary way its citizens are employed, materials provided, and taxes paid. Understand that from the business' point of view, your separation is not necessarily an asset. Any attempt to make their working relationship in your new state reflect your vision of the new state - and thus make it unique - will make the business take a serious consideration of it is worth its resources to continue to operate there. We recommend maintaining, as closely as possible, similar policies to your neighbors or even to your previous relationship.
- Neighbors: With the advent of your new single status, you will find that you are now the focus of intense interest on the part of any number of other states. Like any other relationships, these have advantages and disadvantages. Some will seek to sweep you off your feet. Others will seek to undermine you for past hurts they may feel. And for an unfortunate few, your new single status will be viewed as the opportunity to force their way upon you. As with any change in relationship status, we recommend you manage your new relationships with the care and concern that any reasonable person would exercise in an unknown environment. We would especially warn you that the practice of "On-line State Dating" is inherently risky and should be avoided.
Again, congratulations on your step into a brave new world! We are sure that you find that the benefits of self-state-actualization and freedom will counterbalance any temporary issues arising from violence, an ungrateful population, bankruptcy, economic downturns, and neighbors that refuse to cooperate.
Sincerely,
I. M. Chaos
Principal Partner
Chaos, Catastrophe, and Unintended Consequences LLC
Tuesday, January 31, 2017
Monday, January 30, 2017
Fear Itself
A friend on Facebook posted the following question: "'The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.' - FDR. When did we become a nation that is so scared? So paranoid?"
It is a valid and good question, and I spent the better part of two hours thinking about it. But in line with my long standing policy of publishing not a thing political or political theory based on Facebook, I decided to give my thoughts on the matter here.
What would make "us" this way? After carefully pondering the issues, I came up with at least five things:
1) We have taught people what to think instead of how to think: Instead of teaching our young - and ourselves - how to think critically about facts and situations, we have taught them what to think them. What this means is that when they are presented with alternate information or information that does not comport with their world view and knowledge, they do not take the time to think through what this means and if it is true what these means. Instead, they simply react - and what they have taught to think about things that do not comport with what they have been taught is to fear it.
2) We have taught people to rely on others, not themselves: Instead of teaching our young - and ourselves - to learn to do things for ourselves - or at least try to learn to do them - we have taught them that only the collective can bring the answer. What this means is that when something happens and cannot instantly be resolved by someone else, be it a tow truck driver or law officer or government agency - we become afraid that the problem will go unsolved and we will be inconvenienced or suffer, instead of at least trying to do something on our own. In fact in some situations this drives us into even deeper fear, where we clamor for more people to do more things for us. We have carefully trained ourselves that we "cannot" as individuals. We only "can" as a group.
(A convenient side note of this is, in general, this is the sort of behavior that so many governments and bureaucracies and business thrive on. Self reliant people, in general, do not like to give power over any part of their lives to others.)
3) We have created a society of either/or, where things become a reaction to the other side rather than trying to come up with the truly best answer: There are two items here. The first is where policies are passed by fiat and imposed, regardless of how it impacts the individuals involved. When the matter is brought up, the typical response seems to be something along the lines of "Tough. Adapt. We are in charge." Not unsurprisingly, people come to fear this sort of social or economic governance. The other side of this is the counter-reaction, where the other side (who is now the ascendancy) pushes back. Now those who passed the first round are in fear.
What does this mean? The answers offered are always either/or: "We won" comes the response, "and we will do what we think best." "We think best" is most often not the same as "What is best." Asking "what is best" takes a strength of character in that we must accept views contrary to our own, and that these views may be right. It also takes the ability of people to critical think instead of just react (see item 1).
(Lest you think I am speaking only of government, business has the same sorts of modus operandi. For example, everyone loves electric cars; no-one really cares to want or know how batteries are made or how destructive they can be to the environment. Likewise with driverless cars: We are told it is the future - yet Yahoo cannot hold onto my e-mail securely. The chances that the cares are any less prone to hacking? Oddly enough, never discussed. Again, it is an either/or solution: either you are for safety and cleanliness or you are for the unsafe and environmental destruction. There is no third way.)
4) Fear sells: Fear sells in two ways. The first way is simply as an economic tool. People - governments, businesses, individuals - make money off fear. If I can get you to become afraid of an outcome, I can offer you a solution - and with you emotionally engaged, you are far more likely to act to "solve" your fear.
The second is that fear brings power. If I can make you afraid and offer a solution, then you will support me if you believe that my solution is superior to the fear. Again, this stretches across governments, businesses, and individuals. How many have found their start in fear - and stretched that fear out, lest the problem be solved and their power dissolved?
It is commercial exchange run amok: the buyer gets a sense of safety, the seller profits from the power. Unfortunately like any addiction the relationship will probably never end, as it is not in the seller's best interest and they will do their best to convince their buyer they are "better off" with the fear and their solution than addressing the problem head on.
5) We no longer value risk or failure: When I was a lad, I did some incredibly (by today's standards) risky things. I went down a rather steep hill on my back on a very narrow skateboard. I played with fire. I rode without a helmet, swam before 30 minutes, and tore around in the woods at night without a flashlight. In other words, for the time I lived in I was a normal boy. I risked. And sometimes I paid the consequences.
I have also failed. More than I wanted to of course and sometimes in painful ways emotional and economic. I learned from the those experience things I would not otherwise learned.
But as a society, we are different now. We don't encourage our children - or ourselves - to risk, except in specific socially acceptable ways. And we sure do everything in our power to avoid our children or ourselves failing, to the point that this is unhealthy.
What does this create? A people that, when presented with new or potential unknown situation, are neither willing to risk trying something or simply will not do something because they may fail. It is easier to live in fear that try at risk or try and fail - because risk and failure are perceived as the true thing to be feared.
How to solve this? As usual, I pose questions to which I do not know that I have the answers. But I suspect a good place to start would be to simply reverse the five items:
- Teach ourselves and our children how to think instead of what to think.
- Teach ourselves and our children to be self reliant.
- Teach ourselves and our children to look for the best solution, not the either/or solution.
- Teach ourselves and our children to not allow ourselves to buy into fear, or to sell ourselves to it.
- Teach ourselves and our children to risk and fail.
Easy to write, hard to do. But the only other option seems to be the increase of fear in our society, to the point that simply become able to do or say anything and live instead in a circle bounded solely by the fear we have of everything.
It is a valid and good question, and I spent the better part of two hours thinking about it. But in line with my long standing policy of publishing not a thing political or political theory based on Facebook, I decided to give my thoughts on the matter here.
What would make "us" this way? After carefully pondering the issues, I came up with at least five things:
1) We have taught people what to think instead of how to think: Instead of teaching our young - and ourselves - how to think critically about facts and situations, we have taught them what to think them. What this means is that when they are presented with alternate information or information that does not comport with their world view and knowledge, they do not take the time to think through what this means and if it is true what these means. Instead, they simply react - and what they have taught to think about things that do not comport with what they have been taught is to fear it.
2) We have taught people to rely on others, not themselves: Instead of teaching our young - and ourselves - to learn to do things for ourselves - or at least try to learn to do them - we have taught them that only the collective can bring the answer. What this means is that when something happens and cannot instantly be resolved by someone else, be it a tow truck driver or law officer or government agency - we become afraid that the problem will go unsolved and we will be inconvenienced or suffer, instead of at least trying to do something on our own. In fact in some situations this drives us into even deeper fear, where we clamor for more people to do more things for us. We have carefully trained ourselves that we "cannot" as individuals. We only "can" as a group.
(A convenient side note of this is, in general, this is the sort of behavior that so many governments and bureaucracies and business thrive on. Self reliant people, in general, do not like to give power over any part of their lives to others.)
3) We have created a society of either/or, where things become a reaction to the other side rather than trying to come up with the truly best answer: There are two items here. The first is where policies are passed by fiat and imposed, regardless of how it impacts the individuals involved. When the matter is brought up, the typical response seems to be something along the lines of "Tough. Adapt. We are in charge." Not unsurprisingly, people come to fear this sort of social or economic governance. The other side of this is the counter-reaction, where the other side (who is now the ascendancy) pushes back. Now those who passed the first round are in fear.
What does this mean? The answers offered are always either/or: "We won" comes the response, "and we will do what we think best." "We think best" is most often not the same as "What is best." Asking "what is best" takes a strength of character in that we must accept views contrary to our own, and that these views may be right. It also takes the ability of people to critical think instead of just react (see item 1).
(Lest you think I am speaking only of government, business has the same sorts of modus operandi. For example, everyone loves electric cars; no-one really cares to want or know how batteries are made or how destructive they can be to the environment. Likewise with driverless cars: We are told it is the future - yet Yahoo cannot hold onto my e-mail securely. The chances that the cares are any less prone to hacking? Oddly enough, never discussed. Again, it is an either/or solution: either you are for safety and cleanliness or you are for the unsafe and environmental destruction. There is no third way.)
4) Fear sells: Fear sells in two ways. The first way is simply as an economic tool. People - governments, businesses, individuals - make money off fear. If I can get you to become afraid of an outcome, I can offer you a solution - and with you emotionally engaged, you are far more likely to act to "solve" your fear.
The second is that fear brings power. If I can make you afraid and offer a solution, then you will support me if you believe that my solution is superior to the fear. Again, this stretches across governments, businesses, and individuals. How many have found their start in fear - and stretched that fear out, lest the problem be solved and their power dissolved?
It is commercial exchange run amok: the buyer gets a sense of safety, the seller profits from the power. Unfortunately like any addiction the relationship will probably never end, as it is not in the seller's best interest and they will do their best to convince their buyer they are "better off" with the fear and their solution than addressing the problem head on.
5) We no longer value risk or failure: When I was a lad, I did some incredibly (by today's standards) risky things. I went down a rather steep hill on my back on a very narrow skateboard. I played with fire. I rode without a helmet, swam before 30 minutes, and tore around in the woods at night without a flashlight. In other words, for the time I lived in I was a normal boy. I risked. And sometimes I paid the consequences.
I have also failed. More than I wanted to of course and sometimes in painful ways emotional and economic. I learned from the those experience things I would not otherwise learned.
But as a society, we are different now. We don't encourage our children - or ourselves - to risk, except in specific socially acceptable ways. And we sure do everything in our power to avoid our children or ourselves failing, to the point that this is unhealthy.
What does this create? A people that, when presented with new or potential unknown situation, are neither willing to risk trying something or simply will not do something because they may fail. It is easier to live in fear that try at risk or try and fail - because risk and failure are perceived as the true thing to be feared.
How to solve this? As usual, I pose questions to which I do not know that I have the answers. But I suspect a good place to start would be to simply reverse the five items:
- Teach ourselves and our children how to think instead of what to think.
- Teach ourselves and our children to be self reliant.
- Teach ourselves and our children to look for the best solution, not the either/or solution.
- Teach ourselves and our children to not allow ourselves to buy into fear, or to sell ourselves to it.
- Teach ourselves and our children to risk and fail.
Easy to write, hard to do. But the only other option seems to be the increase of fear in our society, to the point that simply become able to do or say anything and live instead in a circle bounded solely by the fear we have of everything.
Sunday, January 29, 2017
The Prophet Amos
Of all the minor prophets, I think I like Amos the best.
He is the only one that lets us know - before he gets God's commission - what he did for a living: "who was among the sheepherders of Tekoa" (Amos 1:1). When arguing with the Amaziah of Israel he states "I was no prophet, Nor was I the son of a prophet, but I was a sheepherder and tender of sycamore fruit." (Amos 7:14)
I enjoy this because of all the prophets, I can most identify with him. A man whose job was sheepherding and tending sycamore (fig) trees was a man who spent a great deal of time away from humans and with the natural world, sheep and trees. A great deal of quiet, a lot of dirty work and wind and rain, obviously a some level of thinking about and communing with God (else he would not have been selected by God or heard the call). A man who probably right to the point of his call was perfectly happy living with the wind and sun and sheep and trees.
And then God calls him away from all that, to go into the world of urban living and traveling outside of his own land to give his message.
I get the suggestion, at least once, that he was not altogether happy with changed: "Then the LORD took me as I followed the flock, and the Lord said to me, 'Go, prophecy to My people Israel. (Amos7:15). In his comment I hear the voice of a man who is not altogether happy with where is at the moment and would just as soon return to those flocks and trees instead of being where he was. I sympathize with him: being amidst an urban sprawl, surrounded by people, is not necessarily where i want to be either. But apparently for a time that is where he - and I - were called to be.
Give him a read - it is only 9 chapters and touches not only on judgment coming for Israel and Judah but for the surrounding nations as well (God plays no favorites: righteousness and unrighteousness have one standard, His own). Read it and hear not only a prophets cry for a people to turn from their wickedness but the heart-sense of a man who ultimately just wants to go back to herds and orchards, to hear the voice of God in the wind and sun and rain.
He is the only one that lets us know - before he gets God's commission - what he did for a living: "who was among the sheepherders of Tekoa" (Amos 1:1). When arguing with the Amaziah of Israel he states "I was no prophet, Nor was I the son of a prophet, but I was a sheepherder and tender of sycamore fruit." (Amos 7:14)
I enjoy this because of all the prophets, I can most identify with him. A man whose job was sheepherding and tending sycamore (fig) trees was a man who spent a great deal of time away from humans and with the natural world, sheep and trees. A great deal of quiet, a lot of dirty work and wind and rain, obviously a some level of thinking about and communing with God (else he would not have been selected by God or heard the call). A man who probably right to the point of his call was perfectly happy living with the wind and sun and sheep and trees.
And then God calls him away from all that, to go into the world of urban living and traveling outside of his own land to give his message.
I get the suggestion, at least once, that he was not altogether happy with changed: "Then the LORD took me as I followed the flock, and the Lord said to me, 'Go, prophecy to My people Israel. (Amos7:15). In his comment I hear the voice of a man who is not altogether happy with where is at the moment and would just as soon return to those flocks and trees instead of being where he was. I sympathize with him: being amidst an urban sprawl, surrounded by people, is not necessarily where i want to be either. But apparently for a time that is where he - and I - were called to be.
Give him a read - it is only 9 chapters and touches not only on judgment coming for Israel and Judah but for the surrounding nations as well (God plays no favorites: righteousness and unrighteousness have one standard, His own). Read it and hear not only a prophets cry for a people to turn from their wickedness but the heart-sense of a man who ultimately just wants to go back to herds and orchards, to hear the voice of God in the wind and sun and rain.
Saturday, January 28, 2017
Of Populism and Tribalism
In recent months I believe I have not heard the word "Populist" so much since I was junior in high school studying American history (The Populist Party in the late 19th Century American politics, for those of you for whom, like me, it has been a while). And it not just here in the U.S.: the same sorts of language is coming from Europe as well. It is generally (in its current usage) a sort of curse word: someone is accused of being a "populist" as one might have been accused of being "Catholic" 125 years ago.
A populist, in case you have forgotten, is "a member of a political part claiming to represent the common people" or "a believer in the rights, wisdom, or virtue of the common people." In the past such a party - The Populist Party"- was largely supported by farmers in the South and Midwest against the perceived entrenched interests of the industrial elite. In its present incarnation the term "populist" is put in opposition to "globalist", "a national policy of treating the whole world as the proper sphere of political influence". This has redefined populist as a sort of national minded party only - a party of the people of a particular place.
My contention is that in reality, even most who proclaim themselves globalists are practicing populists.
A populist now defined is a person interested in the rights of a smaller group than the international playing field - typically a state. Such are accused of benefiting themselves to the expense of the international order.
But oddly enough, we have made a practice and habit of practicing something else, tribalism.
The Interweb really accelerated the process. Once upon a time - a time I can barely remember myself - if one had interests that were often not shared by any of one's friends, one sort of suffered in silence or lived via magazine and mail order. Suddenly, as the world became more "connected", one found that one had companions in one's various interests: I was not the only one interested in role playing games or 13th Century Ireland or Japanese swords. I became part of a community - a community that was often not defined by my geographic area but rather my interests. A group that shared common interests and, over time, a somewhat common way of thinking, at least about sudden things.
I had found a tribe.
Now most people are parts of tribes, even if they do not realize it as such. They talk within the tribe, they share within the tribe, they defend the tribe from outsiders, they support the tribe. And this sort of behavior is supported, even blessed, by culture that has come to value this as the true sign of individual freedom. Even those those who are thoroughly internationalist and globalists are, if they at all belong to one or more subgroups and act in this way, tribal. We can none of us escape it in the modern world.
But now we have a problem: populists are also a sort of tribe by this definition. They talk within a group, they share within a group, they defend against outsiders, and they support the group. It is just that they have a larger group than most.
I do not necessarily have an answer for this (and thank you for sticking with me through this). It does strike me as odd though that we seek to decry and mock the very sort of thing that we claim to cherish and support. It is either the sign of a society that is schizophrenic or a sign that we have lost the ability to ask the deep hard questions about what we really believe and what we are truly about.
A populist, in case you have forgotten, is "a member of a political part claiming to represent the common people" or "a believer in the rights, wisdom, or virtue of the common people." In the past such a party - The Populist Party"- was largely supported by farmers in the South and Midwest against the perceived entrenched interests of the industrial elite. In its present incarnation the term "populist" is put in opposition to "globalist", "a national policy of treating the whole world as the proper sphere of political influence". This has redefined populist as a sort of national minded party only - a party of the people of a particular place.
My contention is that in reality, even most who proclaim themselves globalists are practicing populists.
A populist now defined is a person interested in the rights of a smaller group than the international playing field - typically a state. Such are accused of benefiting themselves to the expense of the international order.
But oddly enough, we have made a practice and habit of practicing something else, tribalism.
The Interweb really accelerated the process. Once upon a time - a time I can barely remember myself - if one had interests that were often not shared by any of one's friends, one sort of suffered in silence or lived via magazine and mail order. Suddenly, as the world became more "connected", one found that one had companions in one's various interests: I was not the only one interested in role playing games or 13th Century Ireland or Japanese swords. I became part of a community - a community that was often not defined by my geographic area but rather my interests. A group that shared common interests and, over time, a somewhat common way of thinking, at least about sudden things.
I had found a tribe.
Now most people are parts of tribes, even if they do not realize it as such. They talk within the tribe, they share within the tribe, they defend the tribe from outsiders, they support the tribe. And this sort of behavior is supported, even blessed, by culture that has come to value this as the true sign of individual freedom. Even those those who are thoroughly internationalist and globalists are, if they at all belong to one or more subgroups and act in this way, tribal. We can none of us escape it in the modern world.
But now we have a problem: populists are also a sort of tribe by this definition. They talk within a group, they share within a group, they defend against outsiders, and they support the group. It is just that they have a larger group than most.
I do not necessarily have an answer for this (and thank you for sticking with me through this). It does strike me as odd though that we seek to decry and mock the very sort of thing that we claim to cherish and support. It is either the sign of a society that is schizophrenic or a sign that we have lost the ability to ask the deep hard questions about what we really believe and what we are truly about.
Friday, January 27, 2017
The Destruction of Facebook Revisited
You may recall that back in November I did a short fast from Facebook in order to get through the actual election. The title - And That, Friends, Was Facebook - was reflective of my opinion that the vehicle of the election had effectively destroyed the concept of Facebook as a community, that the vitriol and bitter anger of both sides would collapse it as a social medium.
I am sad to report - but not altogether surprised to report - that this seems to be exactly what has occurred.
The level of ire and wrath has not decreased on either side -indeed, it has come to reach even greater levels than I could have anticipated. Having friends on both "sides", I get to see the best and worst (but mostly the worst) of both.
There are a narrow range of people that still do not seem to comment one way or the other and in some cases actually go out of their way to avoid talking anything about it (I would be one of those). But it is a small group, and seems to be getting smaller as the lines are hardening.
The thing that is most disconcerting is when someone posts something particularly scornful, sarcastic, or mocking. What I find that does to me is instantly begin to compromise anything else that they say. It becomes the filter through which I find myself reviewing everything else I know about them. If I am not careful, I find myself saying "If they believe that and say that, how can they hold to this position?"
I wonder, in the back of my head at times, if this is what the beginning of all civil disruptions begin like: the rhetoric becomes more and more hostile and people listen less and less. Before long, they find that they cannot stand the other side at all. They begin to attribute intentions to the other side that may not exist because of the rhetoric used. Words become feelings, feelings become actions.
So perhaps it is not that Facebook is slowly destroying itself that is the issue. It is the fact that Facebook has become a mirror of our society slowly destroying ourselves.
I am sad to report - but not altogether surprised to report - that this seems to be exactly what has occurred.
The level of ire and wrath has not decreased on either side -indeed, it has come to reach even greater levels than I could have anticipated. Having friends on both "sides", I get to see the best and worst (but mostly the worst) of both.
There are a narrow range of people that still do not seem to comment one way or the other and in some cases actually go out of their way to avoid talking anything about it (I would be one of those). But it is a small group, and seems to be getting smaller as the lines are hardening.
The thing that is most disconcerting is when someone posts something particularly scornful, sarcastic, or mocking. What I find that does to me is instantly begin to compromise anything else that they say. It becomes the filter through which I find myself reviewing everything else I know about them. If I am not careful, I find myself saying "If they believe that and say that, how can they hold to this position?"
I wonder, in the back of my head at times, if this is what the beginning of all civil disruptions begin like: the rhetoric becomes more and more hostile and people listen less and less. Before long, they find that they cannot stand the other side at all. They begin to attribute intentions to the other side that may not exist because of the rhetoric used. Words become feelings, feelings become actions.
So perhaps it is not that Facebook is slowly destroying itself that is the issue. It is the fact that Facebook has become a mirror of our society slowly destroying ourselves.
Thursday, January 26, 2017
On An Answered Prayer
Yesterday morning I had a selfish prayer request.
I try to not ask for anything for myself, because somehow it seems...small. Self focused. Not the place my attention is supposed to be. But the matter had been gnawing away at my mind and I did not see a resolution.
"Father", I asked, "can I please have the money to go to Japan to train next year?"
Self-centered, right? But strangely enough, important to me. I had to miss going a year ago and I would very much like to go next year as part of my development.
So I prayed. And went off, having forgotten about it.
Fast forward to the afternoon, when my boss presents me with a raise and a bonus. And not just a raise and a bonus, a raise and a bonus based on if I had worked there a full year, not five months. It was, shall we say very generous.
And then the prayer request came into my mind.
I am not (and have never been) a believer in the "pray and believe and it is yours" group (that whole "according to God's will" section always trips them up) nor am I of the "materialize your desires through positive thinking" crowd. I have no reason to suspect - nor do I believe - God will constantly do this for any us.
So why this? Why now?
If I had to theorize, I would thinking that God is playing to my own insecurities.
I am awash in feelings of discomfort and fear right now. There is so much instability in the world, so much anger, so much hatred. So much uncertainty. And into this comes God, not with the glaring answers to world problems but a mundane answer about money - as if to say "If I can answer this, surely I will deal with the rest in My own good time."
Perhaps the gift of money was really meant to answer a bigger need - the continuing belief and confidence in God's sovereignty.
I try to not ask for anything for myself, because somehow it seems...small. Self focused. Not the place my attention is supposed to be. But the matter had been gnawing away at my mind and I did not see a resolution.
"Father", I asked, "can I please have the money to go to Japan to train next year?"
Self-centered, right? But strangely enough, important to me. I had to miss going a year ago and I would very much like to go next year as part of my development.
So I prayed. And went off, having forgotten about it.
Fast forward to the afternoon, when my boss presents me with a raise and a bonus. And not just a raise and a bonus, a raise and a bonus based on if I had worked there a full year, not five months. It was, shall we say very generous.
And then the prayer request came into my mind.
I am not (and have never been) a believer in the "pray and believe and it is yours" group (that whole "according to God's will" section always trips them up) nor am I of the "materialize your desires through positive thinking" crowd. I have no reason to suspect - nor do I believe - God will constantly do this for any us.
So why this? Why now?
If I had to theorize, I would thinking that God is playing to my own insecurities.
I am awash in feelings of discomfort and fear right now. There is so much instability in the world, so much anger, so much hatred. So much uncertainty. And into this comes God, not with the glaring answers to world problems but a mundane answer about money - as if to say "If I can answer this, surely I will deal with the rest in My own good time."
Perhaps the gift of money was really meant to answer a bigger need - the continuing belief and confidence in God's sovereignty.
Wednesday, January 25, 2017
On Doing Good
Yesterday's post left me thinking throughout the day about doing good.
I stand by my point: protests, on the whole, may do other things, but they do not do good. They do not, for the most part, solve immediate problems or resolve the real needs of people.
But allow me to turn the question on myself: what am I doing to do good? And by doing good, I mean both the daily actions I take as well as the conscious course of my life.
On a daily basis, am I doing good? Am I making things better? Am I solving an issue that matters to someone? The challenge, of course, is that this should be simply wider than the work I do or the family and friends I have and am responsible for. Those are really simply the things that I should be doing anyway. No, this is the conscious seeking of doing the same for someone or something that is not remotely related to me or paying for me to do it. It is the mindset of actively seeking for opportunities to do good in the lives of others for no other reason than it should be done.
And in the conscious course of my life: is it directed towards doing good? Yes, it is good to be concerned with various things and be conscious of them - the poor, the environment, homeless rabbits (my personal one), those that cannot find work - but are we going just being conscious and maybe dropping a few dollars in the virtual cup or get the magazine, or are we going to be actively involved in doing something, which takes time and commitment (often more so than money)?
This caused me to do a great deal of soul searching yesterday as I went about my business, especially the second part. If I had passion for solving the multitudinous problems of this world, where would I start? What would they be?
I am not quite sure at this moment, but where I find myself coming down is 1) On work and those who have been passed by in the current incarnation of the economy and business; and 2) The continued existence of slavery anywhere in the world. (And the homeless rabbits, of course. Always them).
I am not sure that this are the things, nor do I quite know what I would do about any of them. I remain confident in the fact that starting to think about them and becoming educated about them will help to show the path for them - or, perhaps it will reveal another path entirely.
A rather trite and hackneyed phrase in the Christian Church is "Do not do church, be the Church". I might suggest we consider expanding that to cover us all: "Do not talk about the good, be the Good."
Or as Mahatma Gandhi said, "Be the change you wish to see in the world."
I stand by my point: protests, on the whole, may do other things, but they do not do good. They do not, for the most part, solve immediate problems or resolve the real needs of people.
But allow me to turn the question on myself: what am I doing to do good? And by doing good, I mean both the daily actions I take as well as the conscious course of my life.
On a daily basis, am I doing good? Am I making things better? Am I solving an issue that matters to someone? The challenge, of course, is that this should be simply wider than the work I do or the family and friends I have and am responsible for. Those are really simply the things that I should be doing anyway. No, this is the conscious seeking of doing the same for someone or something that is not remotely related to me or paying for me to do it. It is the mindset of actively seeking for opportunities to do good in the lives of others for no other reason than it should be done.
And in the conscious course of my life: is it directed towards doing good? Yes, it is good to be concerned with various things and be conscious of them - the poor, the environment, homeless rabbits (my personal one), those that cannot find work - but are we going just being conscious and maybe dropping a few dollars in the virtual cup or get the magazine, or are we going to be actively involved in doing something, which takes time and commitment (often more so than money)?
This caused me to do a great deal of soul searching yesterday as I went about my business, especially the second part. If I had passion for solving the multitudinous problems of this world, where would I start? What would they be?
I am not quite sure at this moment, but where I find myself coming down is 1) On work and those who have been passed by in the current incarnation of the economy and business; and 2) The continued existence of slavery anywhere in the world. (And the homeless rabbits, of course. Always them).
I am not sure that this are the things, nor do I quite know what I would do about any of them. I remain confident in the fact that starting to think about them and becoming educated about them will help to show the path for them - or, perhaps it will reveal another path entirely.
A rather trite and hackneyed phrase in the Christian Church is "Do not do church, be the Church". I might suggest we consider expanding that to cover us all: "Do not talk about the good, be the Good."
Or as Mahatma Gandhi said, "Be the change you wish to see in the world."
Tuesday, January 24, 2017
The Failure of Protests
Most protests are forms of failure.
There are occasional protests that actually succeed, like the moving protests in 1989 in Wenceslas Square in Czechoslovakia (Yes, my memory goes back that far) or the failed protests during the Green Revolution in 2009 in Iran.
But most, for the most part, are a failure.
Oh, they get attention. Maybe generate some news. In some cases the mighty come down from their ivory towers to participate with the rabble. Clever signs are put up, fists are shaken, speeches are delivered, people feel "empowered".
My complaint? No practical good comes from most of them.
Take, if you will, this weekend's protests, both the violent of Friday and the peaceful of Saturday. No-one hungry were fed. No sick were cared for. Animals went wanting for shelter and love. Slavery continued in parts of the Middle East and Africa. The laid off continued without jobs.
In other words, real needs went unmet.
I am done with the pointless gesture, the meaningless comment, the vapid display that is presented as being of import and significance but really demonstrates nothing more than the ego on display.
Imagine, if you will, protesting by doing good: thousands of people choosing a day to do the good, the sort I have posted here. Oh, it could be in the name of this or that, but the point would be that something was done. Good was accomplished.
It will not be done, of course. The reason why? Because then it becomes not about the individuals but about the actions. And such good as I have listed above would be scarcely noticed or be paid attention to in a way that would gratify most of those who would be doing the work.
Because in the end, most protests are only coincidentally about the item being protested. It is much more about gratifying the self, of being part of something bigger, of feeling as if one can spit in the Frost Giant's teeth and survive.
Any real needs that are met, any real good that is done, is purely coincidental.
There are occasional protests that actually succeed, like the moving protests in 1989 in Wenceslas Square in Czechoslovakia (Yes, my memory goes back that far) or the failed protests during the Green Revolution in 2009 in Iran.
But most, for the most part, are a failure.
Oh, they get attention. Maybe generate some news. In some cases the mighty come down from their ivory towers to participate with the rabble. Clever signs are put up, fists are shaken, speeches are delivered, people feel "empowered".
My complaint? No practical good comes from most of them.
Take, if you will, this weekend's protests, both the violent of Friday and the peaceful of Saturday. No-one hungry were fed. No sick were cared for. Animals went wanting for shelter and love. Slavery continued in parts of the Middle East and Africa. The laid off continued without jobs.
In other words, real needs went unmet.
I am done with the pointless gesture, the meaningless comment, the vapid display that is presented as being of import and significance but really demonstrates nothing more than the ego on display.
Imagine, if you will, protesting by doing good: thousands of people choosing a day to do the good, the sort I have posted here. Oh, it could be in the name of this or that, but the point would be that something was done. Good was accomplished.
It will not be done, of course. The reason why? Because then it becomes not about the individuals but about the actions. And such good as I have listed above would be scarcely noticed or be paid attention to in a way that would gratify most of those who would be doing the work.
Because in the end, most protests are only coincidentally about the item being protested. It is much more about gratifying the self, of being part of something bigger, of feeling as if one can spit in the Frost Giant's teeth and survive.
Any real needs that are met, any real good that is done, is purely coincidental.
Monday, January 23, 2017
8 Years Ago
This morning The Ravishing Mrs. TB texted me that Facebook had helpfully reminded here that 8 years ago today I was laid off.
Could not be, I thought. So I went back and looked at the archives. Yup, it was 8 years ago today.
I stand by my initial reaction: although it was unexpected and bad news, it was not the worst news I could have received: "There's also a sense, as I told some folks at work, that I could have gone to an office where a doctor could have told me "You have pancreatic cancer and three months to live". In the scheme of things, this is not the worst thing to happen."
Could not be, I thought. So I went back and looked at the archives. Yup, it was 8 years ago today.
I stand by my initial reaction: although it was unexpected and bad news, it was not the worst news I could have received: "There's also a sense, as I told some folks at work, that I could have gone to an office where a doctor could have told me "You have pancreatic cancer and three months to live". In the scheme of things, this is not the worst thing to happen."
Certainly we never expected to have to move away from all of our family and friends - in a very real sense, our universe up to that point. But we were pleasantly surprised by the results: Na Clann adapted far better than we could have hoped and made friends and found interests. We found a school that worked and then a church that did. I worked the same job for almost 7 years; The Ravishing Mrs. TB ended up finding a job at the church at that has become our church. We bought a house as well, something that was not at all expected so quickly after having to sell our last one under duress.
And myself? I was thinking about this as well, and suddenly thought "What if I told my former self as of that moment that 8 years from the date of being laid off and having to ultimately move I would have:
- Learned to Make Cheese;
- Raised Quail;
- Learned to actually use a Japanese Sword and practice Japanese swordsmanship, resulting in a teaching certificate;
- Get a certification in Japanese;
- Run multiple road races;
- Run two obstacle course races;
- Compete in Highland Athletics;
- Learn more about rabbits than I ever thought (and continue to keep them);
- Climb a 16 foot rope (still one of my personal favorites);
- Write and publish not one book, but eight (still not making any money - but done!);
- Train with weights and find out I can lift would I would have believed to be unbelievable amounts;
- Find out that my passion for doing things like growing and making and raising are shared by thousands of people across the planet;
- Add a whole new bevy of wonderful people whom I can actually call friends;
- Finally got the promotion I was shooting for.
I suspect my former self would have simply laughed and shook his head. After all, any one of those things seems pretty much of a stretch. Altogether they would seem impossible.
So yes, it has been eight years. And a very full and busy eight years at that.
Sunday, January 22, 2017
The Right Thing To Do
Lost in this weekend's shuffle of inauguration and protest is the question of, going forward, what is the right thing to do.
As a nation-state, we have come to interpret the "right things" as something which benefits some portion of us, not all of us. The closing of coal plants is celebrated as an environmental triumph; the workers put out of work and businesses that supported them are ignored or perhaps thought as acceptable casualties; health care for those that did not have it is a triumph while those whose bills climb extraordinarily are overlooked or thought not to exist. We want "free choice" in so many things, but cannot extend the concept to something as simple as raw milk. In other words, although lots of people would pretend otherwise, we have come to view policy as a zero-sum game with winners and losers - and the winners are also sub-groups, not Americans as a whole.
Is it a wonder we are so divided? I suspect that if you asked people as whole they would have little agreement or indeed little idea about what would be good for all Americans.
I have yet to see a sustained movement in politics that actually implements the philosophy that everyone like to espouse, that things are not a zero-sum game but rather a pie and we all succeed by making the pie bigger, not dividing the pie we have. It strikes me as odd that so many like to proclaim this as their belief in the future of the world but few actually try to make it a political reality.
What if we spent our efforts both on protecting the environment and finding technologically better ways to use what we currently have, thus securing employment for some and supporting the businesses they support? What if we found ways to actually cover people while not forcing others to pay or buy things they have no wish to purchase (whatever happened to the right of individual to decide to buy?)? What if we found better ways to promote food safety and natural food and allowed those that wish to do something such as drink raw milk to do so? What if we measured how America was doing by how Americans citizens were doing instead of how our favorite sub-group of American citizens were doing?
This has been a difficult article to write and I have had to go back and delete or rewrite portions at least three times, because of the tendency I have to want to politicize or personalize things myself instead of drawing attention to the root question. There is plenty of that circulating around at the moment and of itself will solve nothing but only make the issues less resolvable.
Is it possible that we can strip away our differences, humble ourselves, and start asking what is as good for "the other side" as it is for ourselves? Or are we too far gone in our thinking that while we proclaim "larger pie" we act as quickly as we can to empty out the pie-plate ourselves?
In the first version, we have a state and possibly a nation. In the second, we have neither a nation nor state, only the long dark road to inevitable national and state suicide.
As a nation-state, we have come to interpret the "right things" as something which benefits some portion of us, not all of us. The closing of coal plants is celebrated as an environmental triumph; the workers put out of work and businesses that supported them are ignored or perhaps thought as acceptable casualties; health care for those that did not have it is a triumph while those whose bills climb extraordinarily are overlooked or thought not to exist. We want "free choice" in so many things, but cannot extend the concept to something as simple as raw milk. In other words, although lots of people would pretend otherwise, we have come to view policy as a zero-sum game with winners and losers - and the winners are also sub-groups, not Americans as a whole.
Is it a wonder we are so divided? I suspect that if you asked people as whole they would have little agreement or indeed little idea about what would be good for all Americans.
I have yet to see a sustained movement in politics that actually implements the philosophy that everyone like to espouse, that things are not a zero-sum game but rather a pie and we all succeed by making the pie bigger, not dividing the pie we have. It strikes me as odd that so many like to proclaim this as their belief in the future of the world but few actually try to make it a political reality.
What if we spent our efforts both on protecting the environment and finding technologically better ways to use what we currently have, thus securing employment for some and supporting the businesses they support? What if we found ways to actually cover people while not forcing others to pay or buy things they have no wish to purchase (whatever happened to the right of individual to decide to buy?)? What if we found better ways to promote food safety and natural food and allowed those that wish to do something such as drink raw milk to do so? What if we measured how America was doing by how Americans citizens were doing instead of how our favorite sub-group of American citizens were doing?
This has been a difficult article to write and I have had to go back and delete or rewrite portions at least three times, because of the tendency I have to want to politicize or personalize things myself instead of drawing attention to the root question. There is plenty of that circulating around at the moment and of itself will solve nothing but only make the issues less resolvable.
Is it possible that we can strip away our differences, humble ourselves, and start asking what is as good for "the other side" as it is for ourselves? Or are we too far gone in our thinking that while we proclaim "larger pie" we act as quickly as we can to empty out the pie-plate ourselves?
In the first version, we have a state and possibly a nation. In the second, we have neither a nation nor state, only the long dark road to inevitable national and state suicide.
Saturday, January 21, 2017
Friday, January 20, 2017
Inauguration Day
Tomorrow - no matter who you voted for - a ceremony takes place which recalls events almost 2500 years ago.
It reaches all the way back to the Roman Republic and 508 B.C. when the Praetors of Rome (who became the Consuls) voluntarily surrendered their executive power based on a vote of the Senate and the Population of Rome (Senatus Populusque Romanus). It was a civil transfer of power: without violence, without revolution, without war.
If you think this is not a remarkable thing, think the world that this existed in: the next closest form of government, Athens and its democratic experiment, was just getting started. So far as we know, everywhere else in the world was dominated by kings and chieftains, hereditary leaders. And think of how rare it was: by 48 B.C. the Republic had become a dictatorship, never to return. Read the history of Rome after this and the constant internal strife and death and war (in some cases) that occurred upon the death of the ruler in charge. Or view our own recent history on the transition of power for many countries and many governments; you will find that human nature has not changed at all.
We take this all for granted now: one day in January, the Executive power on of the most powerful countries in the world changes hands. If you do not think it to be remarkable, remember this day.
Because some day such a thing will seem remarkable to you that it ever existed.
It reaches all the way back to the Roman Republic and 508 B.C. when the Praetors of Rome (who became the Consuls) voluntarily surrendered their executive power based on a vote of the Senate and the Population of Rome (Senatus Populusque Romanus). It was a civil transfer of power: without violence, without revolution, without war.
If you think this is not a remarkable thing, think the world that this existed in: the next closest form of government, Athens and its democratic experiment, was just getting started. So far as we know, everywhere else in the world was dominated by kings and chieftains, hereditary leaders. And think of how rare it was: by 48 B.C. the Republic had become a dictatorship, never to return. Read the history of Rome after this and the constant internal strife and death and war (in some cases) that occurred upon the death of the ruler in charge. Or view our own recent history on the transition of power for many countries and many governments; you will find that human nature has not changed at all.
We take this all for granted now: one day in January, the Executive power on of the most powerful countries in the world changes hands. If you do not think it to be remarkable, remember this day.
Because some day such a thing will seem remarkable to you that it ever existed.
Thursday, January 19, 2017
Linking Out
So this week I shut down my Linked In Profile.
Linked In, to those who may not know, is a social networking website primarily designed for the business world. People essentially list a version of their resume - with work history, education, certifications, publications, etc. - and then "link" with other individuals. It is really a sort of Facebook for the business world. For the most part people keep politics and most personal things off of it.
It was a benign membership. It never really brought me any grief. One could occasionally follow up on previous coworkers to see where they had ended up and and what they were doing.
So why, you are asking, would I have discontinued such a thing? A combination of reasons"
One, a call today from an organization whose certification I no longer use and let expire but who is wanting me to come back (with the fee, of course). Old business left unfinished always returns.
Two, a realization that it was not really contributing anything to my life at all. People create their profiles either to sell themselves or to sell something to someone else. In that sense, it has none of the merits of a social network such as Facebook. Even friends only discuss business on it, if at all. Is that really something that adds value to my life?
Third, I have never really benefited from it (to be sure, I have not "used" it to its full potential). No jobs ever came through it. Occasional recruiters trying to sell me (or drop you just as quickly) or sales people really trying to sell me. And articles which, if I were really interested, I could find somewhere else.
Fourth, it was just another beacon to someone, another easy way to gather a fair amount of information about me without making them work at all. Why leave myself that exposed in public?
It will be a trial run, of course - you have 20 days to "revive" your profile and I certainly did that with Twitter once or twice before finally cutting the plug. But, using Twitter as the example, I can already predict the results: after a week or so of false starts to get updates and not being able to log in, I will find that I am not missing it at all.
And just like that, a little piece of freedom pops back into my life. How often does that occur?
Linked In, to those who may not know, is a social networking website primarily designed for the business world. People essentially list a version of their resume - with work history, education, certifications, publications, etc. - and then "link" with other individuals. It is really a sort of Facebook for the business world. For the most part people keep politics and most personal things off of it.
It was a benign membership. It never really brought me any grief. One could occasionally follow up on previous coworkers to see where they had ended up and and what they were doing.
So why, you are asking, would I have discontinued such a thing? A combination of reasons"
One, a call today from an organization whose certification I no longer use and let expire but who is wanting me to come back (with the fee, of course). Old business left unfinished always returns.
Two, a realization that it was not really contributing anything to my life at all. People create their profiles either to sell themselves or to sell something to someone else. In that sense, it has none of the merits of a social network such as Facebook. Even friends only discuss business on it, if at all. Is that really something that adds value to my life?
Third, I have never really benefited from it (to be sure, I have not "used" it to its full potential). No jobs ever came through it. Occasional recruiters trying to sell me (or drop you just as quickly) or sales people really trying to sell me. And articles which, if I were really interested, I could find somewhere else.
Fourth, it was just another beacon to someone, another easy way to gather a fair amount of information about me without making them work at all. Why leave myself that exposed in public?
It will be a trial run, of course - you have 20 days to "revive" your profile and I certainly did that with Twitter once or twice before finally cutting the plug. But, using Twitter as the example, I can already predict the results: after a week or so of false starts to get updates and not being able to log in, I will find that I am not missing it at all.
And just like that, a little piece of freedom pops back into my life. How often does that occur?
Wednesday, January 18, 2017
On Failure
Sometimes the moment of failure is spectacular.
But the quiet failure will almost always be hidden and suffered alone. There will be no public fanfare, no laughter in the gallery. But neither will there exist the possibility of the lesson or of support. The quiet failure is the one whom, most often, bears their failure in the silence of their souls while functioning in daily.
Sometimes it is a massive flame out, an explosion of such unimaginable intensity that those watching are left both stunned and amazed by it. Such a failure cannot be hidden: it is exposed, on display, a sudden focal point of attention.
Sometimes the moment of failure is quiet.
It happens without warning, in the quiet hours of the morning or night or in the quiet places of the soul. Not one observer from the outside would suspect anything. Such a failure is almost always hidden: it is secret, unattended by anyone except the one who knows it, a silent blot in a black night.
A great many would contend that the public failure is the worser, that failing in the sight of God and everyone is by far the more painful act. I would tend to disagree. The public failure, with all of its accompanying attentions and perhaps even mockeries, at least bears within it the potential for public support and public teaching. Some may benefit from the lesson of failure, while others will reach out with friendly gestures and words.
But the quiet failure will almost always be hidden and suffered alone. There will be no public fanfare, no laughter in the gallery. But neither will there exist the possibility of the lesson or of support. The quiet failure is the one whom, most often, bears their failure in the silence of their souls while functioning in daily.
Most all can survive the public failure Very few can weather the private failure.
Tuesday, January 17, 2017
Of W-2s and Social Security
January (at least in the United States) is the season of the W-2.
For my non US readers, the W-2 is the form which employers provide to both you and the government detailing how much you earned and how much you paid in taxes. It is one of many documents (for many of us, the key document) which makes up our tax submissions later in the year.
Another document - not key to the process, but interesting - is the form that comes later in the year from the Social Security Office detailing how much money you are supposed to get from Social Security (yes, I know the concerns about Social Security. It is not the question here. Hang with me). The actual thing that I find rather interesting is that it also supplies you with a record of what you have earned every year that you have had a W-2. In my case that is now over 30 years worth of data. It turns out it is a unique record of how one has faired over the course of one's career life.
My very first entry was $958 (and, in a stunning example of inflation, that is worth at least $2100 in today's purchasing power). I can see my first year in the industry I am now in, the years that I joined the Firm (my first year income plummeted 40% and only came up because I took a job the next year), the year I got laid off and moved here, and the slow rise up after that (it took me 5 years to reach my pre-layoff number).
In doing my calculations this weekend for what my income will likely be and how things are going, I suddenly made the realization that the move to my new job in August will end up lowering my gross by approximately 13%.
My breath caught a bit at that number. 10% of anything is not a matter to be sneezed at. And the change is explainable - we had a generous bonus last year and I cashed out my remaining vacation. So my bottom number remains the same - so in that sense, it is not a terrible thing.
What is does cut into - and what makes the exercise of budgeting we have started on so important - is that excess of feeling as if there was money to spend and certain things which we used to simply "do" without worrying where the money came from. It certainly makes one more conscious of every dollar one is spending.
This is not entirely without benefit - I think I can safely say that my life is overall much better since I took my new job. I enjoy work a great deal more, I have more time, I am (I think) more pleasant to be around, and my commute has drastically shrunk (from 2.5-3 hours a day to 40 minutes a day).
But it is a useful lesson for myself and perhaps a good reminder for others (and especially those just entering the job market) that decisions have consequences, sometimes very meaningful ones. And to pretend that circumstances only continue on the upward path is to set one up for failure.
Monday, January 16, 2017
Winter Garden 2017 Update
One thing that this rather unusual winter has affected is my garden. It has not faired well.
My pepper plants, which went through the last winter almost surprisingly since it was a mild one, were wiped out in the first freezing storm we had. My leeks never really took, and my greens grew a few here in there - but they, too, were drastically affected by the recent down to 17 F we had last weekend.
The surprising failure are my grains. I cannot quite tell, but it sure looks like the wheat and the barley are done for. Not really sure what happened - too much heat or too much cold, too much sun or not enough - but they look dead and dying. Rather disappointing.
The garlic, of course, is still performing like a champ. The one (and only) thing I can seem to grow consistently. And my onions, although having been knocked down by the cold, seem to be perking back up a bit. I am hopeful.
The whole thing is a bit sad, of course - no-one likes to waste effort - but is an inconvenience at this stage. But at least I have an understanding of the fact that it is an inconvenience. For a great deal of people in this country, even knowing it is an inconvenience would be news to them. Food, of course, comes from a grocery store.
If we all knew how hard it actually is to grow food, we might take more care in how we use it and support more generously those who provide it.
Or, we can all hope we can make it on garlic...
My pepper plants, which went through the last winter almost surprisingly since it was a mild one, were wiped out in the first freezing storm we had. My leeks never really took, and my greens grew a few here in there - but they, too, were drastically affected by the recent down to 17 F we had last weekend.
The surprising failure are my grains. I cannot quite tell, but it sure looks like the wheat and the barley are done for. Not really sure what happened - too much heat or too much cold, too much sun or not enough - but they look dead and dying. Rather disappointing.
The garlic, of course, is still performing like a champ. The one (and only) thing I can seem to grow consistently. And my onions, although having been knocked down by the cold, seem to be perking back up a bit. I am hopeful.
The whole thing is a bit sad, of course - no-one likes to waste effort - but is an inconvenience at this stage. But at least I have an understanding of the fact that it is an inconvenience. For a great deal of people in this country, even knowing it is an inconvenience would be news to them. Food, of course, comes from a grocery store.
If we all knew how hard it actually is to grow food, we might take more care in how we use it and support more generously those who provide it.
Or, we can all hope we can make it on garlic...
Saturday, January 14, 2017
A Week of Climate
So our Saturday morning is rainy, a bit cold and blustery and drizzly, the sort of day that seems best viewed from inside a window.
This has been a week of climatic extremes, the like of which I cannot recall since we arrived here 7.5 years ago. Precisely within in the period of a week, we went from a nighttime low of 17 F and daytime high of 32 F to a nighttime low of 50 F and daytime high of 80 F. We have had incredibly blustery winds and frozen standing pots of water, showers of rain and moments where I had to engage the air conditioning because the interior of the car was hot.
It is like we have had the entire year in the space of a week.
Part of it, of course, is the wonderful fact that we now live where such things are possible - in Old Home, the climate in general was much different due to prevailing winds and currents: winter was winter, summer was summer. It was the classic "Mediterranean Climate" of Italy (and no, we did not used to live in Italy, although that would have been very cool indeed). Here we live much farther inland away from the moderating ocean winds and currents. It is also much more flat: there lies very little between us and Canada, for example, or us and the Gulf of Mexico. Therefore, any weather that is coming has nothing more to stop it than me raising my hand and crying out "Cease" - which, for the record, is fairly ineffective.
It makes for a different way of living, of course -and makes things like running a garden a nightmare (Really. I long for my Mediterranean, predicable climate). The bright side, of course, is the adventure of what the next week will bring.
As long as it is not ice...
Friday, January 13, 2017
Feel Good Video of the Day: Coldstream Guards
While I usually do not post "cute" pictures of dogs, cats, tadpoles, or llamas in distress, I am breaking with my long standing tradition to post this article courtesy of Common Sense Evaluation of little boy who dresses as a Queens' Guardsman - And what happens next.
Warms of the cockles of my otherwise blackened heart.
Update: Sorry, video did not seem to work. Re-updated.
Warms of the cockles of my otherwise blackened heart.
Update: Sorry, video did not seem to work. Re-updated.
Thursday, January 12, 2017
The Death of Trust
As I was working out at lunch, I happened to catch a brief glimpse of one of the hearings on going. The speaker made the comment that the position of the hearings required a person who would look out "for all of us" - and, by extension, the person in question was not that person.
"Looking out for all of us". The comment stuck with me as I meandered my way through the afternoon. That is the point of a government, is it not: to look out for all of us. But what happens if that sense of "having my back" is broken - not by government, but by fellow citizens?
What happens when citizens believe that their fellow citizens will no longer act to protect the other's interests as well as their own? What happens when the sensation is that my "group" (define it how you choose) will not be looked after by any other group, even by those who are labeled as my fellow-citizens under one law?
What happens is a simple and inevitable process. First I begin to not talk to my fellow citizens - after all, they do not understand my struggles and even if they did, I do not believe they would help me with them. I then move to passively working to support my group in the face of the other groups. When, as I undoubtedly surprised to find out, others do not see things my way and in fact are perceived as harming my group's interests, I move to actively creating opportunities to better my group at the expense of others.
When this happens, of course, the larger organization - be it a marriage, a business, a church, or a country - is poised for failure because we no longer trust that anyone else in the situation is going to back us up and "look out for us" and that we would better off on our own.
My fear, of course, is that we have already passed that point. And if the point has been passed, dissolution in some form or fashion cannot be far away.
"Looking out for all of us". The comment stuck with me as I meandered my way through the afternoon. That is the point of a government, is it not: to look out for all of us. But what happens if that sense of "having my back" is broken - not by government, but by fellow citizens?
What happens when citizens believe that their fellow citizens will no longer act to protect the other's interests as well as their own? What happens when the sensation is that my "group" (define it how you choose) will not be looked after by any other group, even by those who are labeled as my fellow-citizens under one law?
What happens is a simple and inevitable process. First I begin to not talk to my fellow citizens - after all, they do not understand my struggles and even if they did, I do not believe they would help me with them. I then move to passively working to support my group in the face of the other groups. When, as I undoubtedly surprised to find out, others do not see things my way and in fact are perceived as harming my group's interests, I move to actively creating opportunities to better my group at the expense of others.
When this happens, of course, the larger organization - be it a marriage, a business, a church, or a country - is poised for failure because we no longer trust that anyone else in the situation is going to back us up and "look out for us" and that we would better off on our own.
My fear, of course, is that we have already passed that point. And if the point has been passed, dissolution in some form or fashion cannot be far away.
Wednesday, January 11, 2017
After January 20th
After January 20th, there will be three groups of people in the country.
The first will be the group that voted for the incoming Administration. They will be scouring the Interweb for news about improvement in the country, about how things have turned around and are getting better. They will be zealous in the defense of the Administration.
The second will be the group that voted against the incoming Administration. They will be scouring the Interweb for news about failure in the country, about how things have turned around for the worst and are declining. They will be zealous in the offense towards the Administration.
And then there will be the third group, the group that simply tunes anything having remotely to do with politics and current events out. These are the people that have simply growing tired of the festering anger and hatred that seems to ooze from every media outlet in existence, who now find themselves in a world where everything - everything - seems to be judged not on the basis of what it is but on the basis of what it possibly could imply.
(A side note of interest: could it be that comedic offerings of the current era have become so bland and low brow in an attempt to find something that no-one can take offense at and everyone can laugh it?)
As I think I have indicated before, count me in the third group. I caught myself this morning, on the most innocuous of quotes from Poor Richard (Benjamin Franklin), looking at it and saying "If I post this, 50% of the people are going to make a comment one way and 50% the other way, missing the whole actual point of the quote" - which is a ridiculous sort of place to be as it means that (once again) we have completely lost the ability to communicate in any other way except something that supports my point of view or denigrates another.
Which is not the sort of that makes one feel good at the long term future, of course. Those that find they cannot communicate with words find they have little in common, and those that have little in common eventually wonder why they are together in the first place.
Tuesday, January 10, 2017
Monday, January 09, 2017
On Group Shaming
What I have noticed - to our detriment as a society - is a slow transition away from an individual sense of shame to a group culture of shame.
Shame has become something which the individual is feeling less and less. People are no longer ashamed (as individuals) of things that them have done. Instead, we try to shame the group.
It is terribly easy, of course to do this: one need not know the individual or their circumstances, one can merely say (on the basis of any number of features which make someone a subculture) that they are "X", and as "X" they should be ashamed.
While not a sociologist, I have to ponder where this comes from. It was not always so: while individuals were responsible as part of the group, shame was individual in nature: in Ancient Ireland shame by the bardic class was considered a disgrace and in fact used as a tool to goad individuals into action, and the culture of bushido raised individual shame to hyper-inflated levels. Even today in Japan, it is not unusual to see a high ranking government official or CEO resign as the result of failure which they take responsibility for. But somewhere - somewhere recently - something seems to have changed.
I wonder if it finds its root into the mode of thinking to which our society seems to have moved, where the individual is in no way responsible for their actions but the forces of the society around them are. Combine this with a child raising philosophy in which the child is never "wrong" or "bad" and in which there is little to no difference noted between those that make effort and those that do not and the result could be where the individual is never responsible for their own behavior and thus, never needs be ashamed of it. Shame is for the forces outside, never for themselves.
I would argue that this issue has been some twenty to thirty years in the making and has reached a fever pitch within the last five; I would also argue that we will see its power greatly diminished in the not so distant future.
Group shaming works for a time - we are, for the most part, a people who want others to think well of us. For most, to have something shame based thrown on them provokes the not-unsurprising response of saying "No, I am not" and then taking action to demonstrate it. To have those we know think otherwise - to somehow have them think less of us because we are seemingly associated with what has a publicly antisocial or retrograde sound to it - forces many to immediately and reactively seek to do what we can to turn aside this bad association or character.
"The pain in Philip's eyes was real. A year ago, (Hank) Rearden would have felt pity. Now, he knew that they had held him through nothing but his reluctance to hurt them, his fear of their pain. He was not afraid of it any longer....They had known what to fear; the had grasped and named, before he had, the only of deliverance left open to him; they had understood the hopelessness of his industrial position, the futility of his struggle, the impossible burden descending to crush him; they had known that in reason, in justice, in self-preservation, his only course was to drop it all and run - yet they wanted to hold him, to keep him in the sacrificial furnace, to make him let them devour the last of him in the name of mercy, forgiveness, and brother cannibal love....He stood there like a scientist studying a subject of no personal relevance whatsoever. There, he thought, was the final abortion of the creed of collective interdependence, the creed of non-identity, non-property, non-fact: The belief that the moral stature of one is a the mercy of the actions of another."
"But he was through with granting respect to any terms other than his own."
- Atlas Shrugged (Ayn Rand)
Shame has become something which the individual is feeling less and less. People are no longer ashamed (as individuals) of things that them have done. Instead, we try to shame the group.
It is terribly easy, of course to do this: one need not know the individual or their circumstances, one can merely say (on the basis of any number of features which make someone a subculture) that they are "X", and as "X" they should be ashamed.
While not a sociologist, I have to ponder where this comes from. It was not always so: while individuals were responsible as part of the group, shame was individual in nature: in Ancient Ireland shame by the bardic class was considered a disgrace and in fact used as a tool to goad individuals into action, and the culture of bushido raised individual shame to hyper-inflated levels. Even today in Japan, it is not unusual to see a high ranking government official or CEO resign as the result of failure which they take responsibility for. But somewhere - somewhere recently - something seems to have changed.
I wonder if it finds its root into the mode of thinking to which our society seems to have moved, where the individual is in no way responsible for their actions but the forces of the society around them are. Combine this with a child raising philosophy in which the child is never "wrong" or "bad" and in which there is little to no difference noted between those that make effort and those that do not and the result could be where the individual is never responsible for their own behavior and thus, never needs be ashamed of it. Shame is for the forces outside, never for themselves.
I would argue that this issue has been some twenty to thirty years in the making and has reached a fever pitch within the last five; I would also argue that we will see its power greatly diminished in the not so distant future.
Group shaming works for a time - we are, for the most part, a people who want others to think well of us. For most, to have something shame based thrown on them provokes the not-unsurprising response of saying "No, I am not" and then taking action to demonstrate it. To have those we know think otherwise - to somehow have them think less of us because we are seemingly associated with what has a publicly antisocial or retrograde sound to it - forces many to immediately and reactively seek to do what we can to turn aside this bad association or character.
But after a time, the group shaming loses power. The shaming tends to become not something truly designed to invoke a change but rather a phrase or a weapon. Suddenly those whom it is flung against begin to look at themselves and the nature of the accusation and say "No, I am really not that at all". At first they perhaps just silently let it slide by, but maintained long enough, they begin to push back on those that make the accusations. At this point, the attempt to shame loses its power.
The other factor that individual shame ultimately comes down to the fact that the individual knows they should be doing differently and are not. But in group shaming the attempt is to make the individual feel the shame based on the perception that they act a certain way based on their "group", whether or not that is true.
But what happens when the individual realizes they are not at the mercy of another and if not guilty themselves of the accused actions, have no sense of shame?
"The pain in Philip's eyes was real. A year ago, (Hank) Rearden would have felt pity. Now, he knew that they had held him through nothing but his reluctance to hurt them, his fear of their pain. He was not afraid of it any longer....They had known what to fear; the had grasped and named, before he had, the only of deliverance left open to him; they had understood the hopelessness of his industrial position, the futility of his struggle, the impossible burden descending to crush him; they had known that in reason, in justice, in self-preservation, his only course was to drop it all and run - yet they wanted to hold him, to keep him in the sacrificial furnace, to make him let them devour the last of him in the name of mercy, forgiveness, and brother cannibal love....He stood there like a scientist studying a subject of no personal relevance whatsoever. There, he thought, was the final abortion of the creed of collective interdependence, the creed of non-identity, non-property, non-fact: The belief that the moral stature of one is a the mercy of the actions of another."
"But he was through with granting respect to any terms other than his own."
- Atlas Shrugged (Ayn Rand)
Sunday, January 08, 2017
Adoration Of The Magi
(Adoration of the Magi - Bartolome Esteban Murillo c. 1655)
Today the Western Christian calendar celebrates the Epiphany, the coming of the Magi to Jesus.
We actually do not know a lot about the Magi. They are only mentioned in Matthew 2 (1-13). We do not know how many there are (the number is always traditionally three, but that may be as much about the number of gifts they brought, assuming one gift per Magi). We do not really know where they were from, other than "the East". We can guess, based on the use of the word Magi in the Latin, that they were possibly from Persia, astrologers that watched the sky (Zoroastrian priests were known for their astrology and we do know that the Magi were referred to as wise men interpreting dreams stars back to the Babylonian Empire 600 years previous).
We do know that they were scholars and observers of some kind, because they came based on what they had seen in the sky: "For we have seen his star in the East and have come to worship him" (verse 2b) - yet they were probably not Jews because they were not familiar with the Scripture quoted by the chief priests and scribes 'And to you, O Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah; for from you shall come a ruler who will govern my people Israel" (Matthew 2:6, based on Micah 5:2). We do know they were men of some kind of status because the gifts they brought - gold, frankincense, and myrrh - were expensive and most would not even have access to such things. And we know that that they believed in and were attentive to the supernatural: when later they received a dream to avoid Herod, they take another route back to where they came.
The church could not stand to leave them anonymous and so gave them names: Gaspar, Melchior, and Balthazar (for which we have really no known basis). Over time tales grew up about how they interacted with the early Church and how they spread knowledge of the Christ throughout the East. And one of the kings, Balthazar, figures prominently in the book Ben Hur by Lew Wallace.
They come, they worship, they offer their gifts, and then they vanish into the pages of history.
What can we take away from these men who make this one brief appearance and then disappear?
1) They acted in faith: They saw a star that proclaimed a king - and acted upon it instead of merely staying at home.
2) They worshiped: When they arrived, they offered up worship to Christ. They understood that something miraculous had happened.
3) They offered: They gave precious gifts that would honor any royalty but also were symbolic of the roles Christ would play: gold for royalty, frankincense for the priesthood, myrrh for the death of Christ.
4) They disappeared: We never hear about them again. They could have made public pronouncements (thus perhaps directing Herod's soldier's more quickly) or glorified themselves and their abilities. Instead they journey back in anonymity. For them is was about the King, not how far they had come or how they had found Him.
(The Magi Journeying - James Tissot, 1890)
Saturday, January 07, 2017
A Very Kind Word
I ordinarily try to avoid "Tooting my own Horn" (to use the colloquialism) partially from a sense of being raised that way and partially because it seems that the Internet is somewhat or even mostly build on exactly that sort of thinking. That said, my very kind friend Kymber over as Framboise Manor had some very kind things to say - and because she is a good writer (and always has the best food pictures ever) - I thought I should share.
5 days in and 2017 is looking good!
5 days in and 2017 is looking good!
Friday, January 06, 2017
Changing My Running
One of the changes that I have made in my physical life is my running.
Running, frankly, feel off a great deal after August. I am not sure why - there is always the recovery after running any kind of race, but this went further. Lack of interest I would guess. It got to the point where I was not running at all, which is not a particularly good development.
So I changed that up this year. I changed it by changing my goal this year.
This year I am not so concerned with doing obstacle races - if I do one or two that would be fine, but that has become an "I did it thing" - and really, more and longer would simply be an extension of that, not necessarily the accomplishment I am trying for. This year I am instead going for mileage - which is something that has all hallmarks of a good goal: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Time-Bound.
My goal this year is 750 miles. That sounds like a lot, sitting on this side of the year. But it really is not. 15 or so miles a week. Subdivide that into 5 to 7 running days and suddenly that becomes quite a manageable task.
I am not a speed runner. I have never really been a speed runner. And maybe that is not important. What does matter is that I run - and measuring things by distance is a way to push me forward towards that.
What has the week brought so far? 5.5 miles or so. Not a great deal, considering the total distance I have to run. But at least it is something.
And being less concerned about how fast I am running has made me more willing to do so.
Running, frankly, feel off a great deal after August. I am not sure why - there is always the recovery after running any kind of race, but this went further. Lack of interest I would guess. It got to the point where I was not running at all, which is not a particularly good development.
So I changed that up this year. I changed it by changing my goal this year.
This year I am not so concerned with doing obstacle races - if I do one or two that would be fine, but that has become an "I did it thing" - and really, more and longer would simply be an extension of that, not necessarily the accomplishment I am trying for. This year I am instead going for mileage - which is something that has all hallmarks of a good goal: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Time-Bound.
My goal this year is 750 miles. That sounds like a lot, sitting on this side of the year. But it really is not. 15 or so miles a week. Subdivide that into 5 to 7 running days and suddenly that becomes quite a manageable task.
I am not a speed runner. I have never really been a speed runner. And maybe that is not important. What does matter is that I run - and measuring things by distance is a way to push me forward towards that.
What has the week brought so far? 5.5 miles or so. Not a great deal, considering the total distance I have to run. But at least it is something.
And being less concerned about how fast I am running has made me more willing to do so.
Thursday, January 05, 2017
A Change In Diet
So I have been unconsciously improving my diet.
My diet, on the whole, is fairly unimaginative. Five days out of seven I will have the same thing for breakfast (oatmeal, non-fat Greek yogurt, protein powder [One scoop] and coffee) and most of the same things for lunch (spinach, Granny Smith apple, almonds, dried cranberries, small cheese). Differences in lunch will typically be the seasonal - mandarins when in season for lunch or grapefruits breakfast as examples - and the main lunch dish will almost always be leftovers. Dinner is the unknown and the one least predictable, but will minimally include some manner of protein and vegetable (broccoli if nothing else).
What I have noticed - and maybe it has been there for the last few years - is that my consumption of processed foods in general and processed carbohydrates in particular has been dropping, now almost precipitously. It is better for me of course - I scarcely benefit from them - but never before have I been so conscious of it as choice. Over New Year's I indulged in some crackers. My body was none too happy with that.
And I am branching out as well. More protein - I really cannot seem to get enough at this point (for example, this snazzy eggnog recipe from The Art of Manliness. Yes friends, real eggs!). And adding more fruits and vegetables. Really making an effort to cut down on the sweets (my personal downfall). And less coffee (by less, I mean limiting to three cups a day).
We have moved from the unconscious to the conscious. I will be interested on seeing what impact it has on the rest of my life.
My diet, on the whole, is fairly unimaginative. Five days out of seven I will have the same thing for breakfast (oatmeal, non-fat Greek yogurt, protein powder [One scoop] and coffee) and most of the same things for lunch (spinach, Granny Smith apple, almonds, dried cranberries, small cheese). Differences in lunch will typically be the seasonal - mandarins when in season for lunch or grapefruits breakfast as examples - and the main lunch dish will almost always be leftovers. Dinner is the unknown and the one least predictable, but will minimally include some manner of protein and vegetable (broccoli if nothing else).
What I have noticed - and maybe it has been there for the last few years - is that my consumption of processed foods in general and processed carbohydrates in particular has been dropping, now almost precipitously. It is better for me of course - I scarcely benefit from them - but never before have I been so conscious of it as choice. Over New Year's I indulged in some crackers. My body was none too happy with that.
And I am branching out as well. More protein - I really cannot seem to get enough at this point (for example, this snazzy eggnog recipe from The Art of Manliness. Yes friends, real eggs!). And adding more fruits and vegetables. Really making an effort to cut down on the sweets (my personal downfall). And less coffee (by less, I mean limiting to three cups a day).
We have moved from the unconscious to the conscious. I will be interested on seeing what impact it has on the rest of my life.
Wednesday, January 04, 2017
On Essentials
One of the first books of the New Year I purchased and read was Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less by Greg McKeown.
The recommendation came to me via my strength coach, who listed this as one of the books that I needed to read as part of my journey to better myself. I dithered for a while (almost a year) but found myself in the place where I needed a new injection of thinking.
The book itself was a wise purchase. McKeown's philosophy - that of finding what is essential to one's life and focusing on that while allowing the non-essentials to wither away - is the sort of thing that I find both exciting and impractical: exciting in the sense that it is a philosophy that I can understand and get behind, impractical in the sense that the application of it is often something that seems a great distance from the milieu in which many of us live and work (my primary example always being try telling your direct supervisor that you are not going to complete a task because it is not essential as you see it). But ultimately the book forces you to answer a simple question:
What is essential to your life?
It is not as easy a question to answer as one might think. As I sat and thought about it myself and then generated a list, what I found is that the list as I perceived it differed significantly from the list as I actually practiced it. Most people (I think) when pressed would state that their personal beliefs and family rate as essential items - yet how many (including myself, apparently) treat them as such in the allocation of time and resources?
McKeown pushes for a ruthless internal accounting of what is and is not essential to our lives and making decisions based on those realities. It is an accounting that most of us shy away from - I suspect because we know deep down that what we profess to be essential is quite different than what we actually treat as essential. But if we organized our lives along such thinking - what truly is essential - how different would would our lives be?
Which really brings things down to two questions:
1) What is really essential to my life?
2) Am I willing to change my life to reflect that reality?
The recommendation came to me via my strength coach, who listed this as one of the books that I needed to read as part of my journey to better myself. I dithered for a while (almost a year) but found myself in the place where I needed a new injection of thinking.
The book itself was a wise purchase. McKeown's philosophy - that of finding what is essential to one's life and focusing on that while allowing the non-essentials to wither away - is the sort of thing that I find both exciting and impractical: exciting in the sense that it is a philosophy that I can understand and get behind, impractical in the sense that the application of it is often something that seems a great distance from the milieu in which many of us live and work (my primary example always being try telling your direct supervisor that you are not going to complete a task because it is not essential as you see it). But ultimately the book forces you to answer a simple question:
What is essential to your life?
It is not as easy a question to answer as one might think. As I sat and thought about it myself and then generated a list, what I found is that the list as I perceived it differed significantly from the list as I actually practiced it. Most people (I think) when pressed would state that their personal beliefs and family rate as essential items - yet how many (including myself, apparently) treat them as such in the allocation of time and resources?
McKeown pushes for a ruthless internal accounting of what is and is not essential to our lives and making decisions based on those realities. It is an accounting that most of us shy away from - I suspect because we know deep down that what we profess to be essential is quite different than what we actually treat as essential. But if we organized our lives along such thinking - what truly is essential - how different would would our lives be?
Which really brings things down to two questions:
1) What is really essential to my life?
2) Am I willing to change my life to reflect that reality?
Tuesday, January 03, 2017
Thoughts On The New Year From Theodore Roosevelt
"I wish to preach, not the doctrine of ignoble ease, but the doctrine of the strenuous life, the life of toil and effort, of labor and strife; to preach that highest form of success which comes, not to the man who desires mere easy peace, but to the man who does not shrink from danger, from hardship, or from bitter toil, and who out of these wins the splendid ultimate triumph."
- Theodore Roosevelt, 1899
HT: The Art of Manliness
Monday, January 02, 2017
A Sincere Thank You
It only seems right, now that we have rolled into the New Year, that I take a moment to say thanks to all you who read here.
I do not really keep track of views except as kind of an exercise for my own vanity, but this year (even with the friendly Russian Hackers) I had a total viewing of 27,192 - 29.6% of my total views since Blogger helpfully started tracking such things in 2010. Even taking a huge discount in spam hits, that still makes me feel pretty good. It is a lot more people than I could come in contact with if I did it some other way.
Some of you readers I know. Some I have met via this blog and then reading blogs of your own (and being improved by them). Some I have no idea who you are because, like the thoughtful hikers and campers you are, you take only photographs and leave only footprints. To all you, thank you for taking a small part of your time to spend with me.
There is a sense in the blogosphere that the blog as an item is slowly fading away and being overtaken by different forms of Interweb communication. I have certainly found a number of bloggers that have gone silent over this year - which on the whole makes me sad, because they are all individuals from whom I gleaned wisdom. It worries me as part of the larger growth of our inability to communicate: we have patience for less and less reading and words and so reduce complex ideas and thoughts into 140 character sentences and memes that make evoke strong emotions but do not do justice to what is trying to be communicated.
I value blogs - not just because I appreciate that amount of effort that is required to maintain one and generate the written word on even a semi-regular basis but because behind every blog, even the ones I may not frequent and even disagree with, is someone with dedication to an idea and communicating it. And the Interweb has made it possible for someone such as myself to express these things without an intermediary or the "luck" of being included as an editorial or interview.
I had written earlier this year about scaling back on my writing endeavors; in the intervening time I have found myself strangely and somewhat unexpectedly more committed to them than ever. My skill in writing may be hit and miss, but my dedication to expressing myself in this fashion seems to transcend any physical benefit I seem to be deriving. So I have simply accepted that this is what it is: I am writer. I write to impact the lives of others. If I somehow manage to do this, my purpose will be served.
So again, thank you for spending some of your valuable life with me. I am grateful that you are here and along for the ride.
Let us see what 2017 holds together.
I do not really keep track of views except as kind of an exercise for my own vanity, but this year (even with the friendly Russian Hackers) I had a total viewing of 27,192 - 29.6% of my total views since Blogger helpfully started tracking such things in 2010. Even taking a huge discount in spam hits, that still makes me feel pretty good. It is a lot more people than I could come in contact with if I did it some other way.
Some of you readers I know. Some I have met via this blog and then reading blogs of your own (and being improved by them). Some I have no idea who you are because, like the thoughtful hikers and campers you are, you take only photographs and leave only footprints. To all you, thank you for taking a small part of your time to spend with me.
There is a sense in the blogosphere that the blog as an item is slowly fading away and being overtaken by different forms of Interweb communication. I have certainly found a number of bloggers that have gone silent over this year - which on the whole makes me sad, because they are all individuals from whom I gleaned wisdom. It worries me as part of the larger growth of our inability to communicate: we have patience for less and less reading and words and so reduce complex ideas and thoughts into 140 character sentences and memes that make evoke strong emotions but do not do justice to what is trying to be communicated.
I value blogs - not just because I appreciate that amount of effort that is required to maintain one and generate the written word on even a semi-regular basis but because behind every blog, even the ones I may not frequent and even disagree with, is someone with dedication to an idea and communicating it. And the Interweb has made it possible for someone such as myself to express these things without an intermediary or the "luck" of being included as an editorial or interview.
I had written earlier this year about scaling back on my writing endeavors; in the intervening time I have found myself strangely and somewhat unexpectedly more committed to them than ever. My skill in writing may be hit and miss, but my dedication to expressing myself in this fashion seems to transcend any physical benefit I seem to be deriving. So I have simply accepted that this is what it is: I am writer. I write to impact the lives of others. If I somehow manage to do this, my purpose will be served.
So again, thank you for spending some of your valuable life with me. I am grateful that you are here and along for the ride.
Let us see what 2017 holds together.