happy holidays or merry christmas?

Around the holidays the issue of people saying "Merry Christmas" versus "Happy holidays" seems to be s significant one for some folks.  It's been a cultural debate, or in some cases, and opportunity to mock those who believe that greater culture needs to align with Christian doctrine.  It seems like there would be two different perspectives that this can be viewed from.

In the one perspective, I can see how some Christians might expect other Christians to continue to say "Merry Christmas" if they believe that failing to do so is somehow denying the Incarnation of Christ.  I don't know how the act of saying, "Happy holidays," could do such a thing, but maybe there are very specific social situations where refusing to acknowledge Christmas is an act of denying Christ's humanity.  That is frankly the strongest argument I can make for getting worked up about someone not saying "Merry Christmas."

From a different perspective, does it make any sense for Christians to expect non-Christians to say, "Merry Christmas"?  Is acknowledging that there are other holidays around this season denying Christ, and even if it were would it matter if someone who doesn't put their faith in Christ for the forgiveness of their sins did so?

If this were part of some overarching cultural strategy to do away with Christians celebrating Christ's birth I could see this being a big deal.  However, that's a conspiracy I don't buy into.

I think this is a battle for people who want to devote their time and effort to cultural wars rather than devoting their lives to the Gospel as presented in Scripture.  When Paul wrote about the Devil's schemes, and that our struggle is not against flesh and blood (Eph 6:10-20), he was specifically arguing against earthly pursuits such as cultural warfare.  Satan's goal isn't to get people to be more politically correct.  It's to get them to spend their finite focus on the earthly things (like cultural warfare) rather than on teaching others about putting our full faith and trust in Christ's blood, and living a life that reflects that.

However, I do want to be open to arguments that I haven't articulated.  Is there something that I'm missing about what saying, "Happy holidays,"  really means?  Am I misunderstanding Paul, and cultural warfare is somehow Scripturally appropriate?

awkward endings

In my work I interact with a lot of people all over the country and the world through different means.  One constant that I've noticed is that, as someone who's a bit socially awkward, I struggle with closing out conversations a lot of the time.

I've noticed that I'm actually a lot more awkward in situations where I believe there is some social expectation on my side.  If I'm working with a customer who I don't have much of a connection with the expectation is to be businesslike, so no problems there.  However, when I have a more friendly relationship with individuals, or when I sense that someone believes we should have a more friendly relationship, I spend more than a reasonable amount of energy trying to determine how friendly is too friendly (or not friendly enough).  This is especially a problem when closing out a conversation.

My goal in the conversation is to have closed out the conversation without hurting feelings or sending an unwanted signal.  So, I struggle between the extremes of looking like I'm trying to shut down the communication and caring a little too much about what's going on with the person I'm chatting with.

Am I the only one?

toxic masculinity

I've heard the term "toxic masculinity" used a lot recently.  I don't think I had ever heard it before a year or two ago.  I've never been the most masculine of men, but I'm not by any stretch effeminate.  So, I think I can maintain some objectivity on this specific subject.  Rather than write specifically on this subject, though, what I would like to do is use it as an illustration as to why terms like this are particularly frustrating.  Specifically, labels like this are used by people on all sides of an issue to either label everything they don't like as evil or to portray themselves as being under attack.

A real, valid, and useful definition of "toxic masculinity" would probably be something to the effect of, "Socially reinforcing negative behaviors in boys and men by creating arbitrary standards that associate negative behaviors with masculinity and positive behaviors with femininity."  I've seen and fallen prey to that.  Boys need respect from their peers, and a lot of times doing the right thing is also doing the girly thing--or so I have felt.  I've been the boy/man left to feel less masculine for doing the right thing.  I've been the boy/man who did the wrong thing in order to feel or appear more masculine.  I've also negatively reinforced behavior among others.  As a society, in our smaller sub-cultures, and in our families, this is what we should be addressing.  There will be disagreement about how that's addressed, but I'd hope we could agree that this should be a priority.  This gets at the root of a lot of criminal activity and actions that leads to broken families.  It's a big deal.

All of this being said, there are those who would want to take advantage of the term to knock all things masculine.  These folks are not be in the majority by any stretch, but they can be vocal.  I've definitely heard plenty of opinions about how everything in the world would be better if it were run by women.

As a counterpoint, there are those who hear people taking advantage of the term and assume that "toxic masculinity" is part of a larger cultural attack on masculinity.  As a result, they do not take as seriously the crimes committed through "toxic masculinity" because they sense a danger in giving too much cultural sway to the anti-masculinists.  They also view any criticism on the things they deem masculine as an attack on manhood itself.

This situation leads to the pitched battles we see today in society where people dig in and fight each other rather than understanding each other.

Perhaps the real antidote to the current situation is for discussion to move beyond blaming toxic masculinity, and to focus on what real positive masculinity is.  It can't be just what women want it to be, or what men want it to be, or what "the man" wants it to be.  It needs to be naturally masculine, but having a positive effect on society.  A lot of the traits I consider to be masculine do that already, and so the challenge is not changing everything about men but rather identifying the places where they go astray and focusing on those.  I'm sure this could be done for women too, but I haven't heard the term "toxic femininity" referenced in the media yet so I haven't given that angle much thought.

I think these sorts of issues come up with a lot of terms we use today, and have potentially been issues in the past as well.  I've heard tens of definitions of "feminism."  By some definitions I'd be a feminist.  By most I would not.  But the ambiguity around the term allows people to throw the word around in an argument and seem like they have a well-formulated position when they don't understand the basics of what their "opponent" believes.  I'd bet that if people to get beyond the term and focus on the issues the term represents that a lot of our arguments would melt away into societal compromises and solutions that almost everyone could agree with.

Labels should be short-hand ways for us to shorten the description of something we already understand rather than tools we use to keep from learning about what we don't fully understand yet.

texting woes

It's amazing that in the last ten years smart phones have gone from something only early-adopters use to something that basically every adult uses and understands.  This has had almost as great a fundamental shift in my everyday life as gaining regular access to the Internet in the mid to late nineties.  I have run up against a couple of personal limitations in using mobile devices to text that I'd like to present.

First, I've been slow to adopt emojis.  This isn't because I think I'm above using emojis.  I like how you can distill a much larger thought into a simple image.  The problem is that I'm not always adept at identifying what emotion or idea a specific emoji is supposed to convey.  I brought this up with a friend a while ago, and took a look at the emojis I have used on my personal phone at that time.  As you can see from the image below, it's not a lot.  I just frequently figure it's safer not to guess on what a specific emoji is supposed to mean.

Second, the combination of auto-correct and my clumsy thumbs has conspired to make me look like an illiterate dunderhead to those I am texting or messaging.  I'm constantly seeing misspellings or entirely wrong words in the messages I send out after they're sent.  Some of this is that I need an editor for my communications on a good day.  At least some of it has to be that my phone enjoys making me look like an idiot, however.

I know a lot of people typo things on their phones.  I seem to be far worse than the average, however.  It's to the point where I'm sure I've lost a few notches of respect from a handful of people who have to think, "That's the wrong 'their' for the third time in a row!"

The trade-offs of emojis creating an ambiguous message and me making me sound like a toddler mashing keys on a keyboard are worth the benefits I get from my phone.  It's just not all cupcakes and unicorns.

it can't happen here

Sorry, heavy topic alert.

I've been thinking about the Holocaust a bit lately because I recently listened to the audio version of Anne Frank's Diary, and also because I recently did some reading about Kristallnacht in memory of its eightieth anniversary.  I used to be confused about how Nazism took hold, how Hitler was able to come into power, and how people could rationalize supporting a government that sent people to concentration camps.  I've thought many times that it couldn't happen here.  While it would be much harder for something like that to happen in the United States with the separated powers we enjoy in this country, in the last few years I've come to the conclusion that it can happen here.  People are people, and they're prone to demonizing others if doing so supports their preconceived worldview.

That Internet conversations and debates frequently devolve into one side comparing the other to Hitler or the Nazis is so well established that it has its own informal law. The real shame of this tendency is that comparing everyone to Hitler and the Nazis makes it so that few really take it seriously when someone actually does things like Hitler would.  If a real Hitler appears, anyone pointing it out would be seen as a crazy person triggering Godwin's Law.

My views on identifying nascent Nazism have changed some over the years.  I used to think of it as a workers movement because this is the vibe that the Nazi propaganda film Triumph of the Will gives, and I in turn thought that was what I needed to be wary of.  However, workers movements elsewhere haven't had that same destructive tinge.  Certainly, some have.  The destructive ones are noteworthy because they're the exceptions, though.  Most have not.  Therefore, it has to be something deeper.

It could be that the key is that Nazism, like Fascism, was Nationalist.  I know that belief is getting airtime nowadays more than in the past.  It could also be that a deeper dig could reveal that this is unfair to some Nationalist movements which are not so destructive, if such movements exist.  I simply don't know at this time.

I'm not calling anyone on the world stage a Hitler today.  Even if I did, who would take it seriously?  These are now the sort of accusations crazy people make, and so they are a red flag to most that the speaker wants to decry everyone who disagrees with his as a Nazi.  I do see tendencies of what I do know about Hitler and Nazism in general in some modern political figures and movements that give me pause, though.  Some of those figures are in other countries and some are in the United States.  Since I'm no true expert, it would be unfair for me to call out someone as a Hitler based on a partial observation.  I have to believe though, that it would also be right for me to be cautious about their statements and actions, and refuse to support or endorse those individuals and movements, wittingly or otherwise.

It is easy to see how an individual with similarities to Hitler could take power, and how horrible things could be justified in the name of whatever that man portrayed as the ideal.  In 1930s Germany the ideal was a form of Eugenics supported by a host of conspiracy theories about Zionists.  I'm certain that a lot of Germans figured the Jews were simply being sent to a camp where they couldn't harm anyone else, and whatever happened to them they had coming.  Modern societies aren't immune to that sort of thinking.  Someone today can mix a weird political philosophy with conspiracy theories about some other group of people and do the same thing.  As long as a vocal minority (or even majority) believes the conspiracy theory, what's to stop them from doing horrible things?  Those people probably won't even ever realize the negative things they enabled.

History can be scary when you stop thinking that it can't happen here.

no news is good news

One memory I have of my maternal grandfather came from an instance when we were watching the local news together.  They usually made time in their house to watch the evening and nightly news, though I don't recall him frequently commenting on the details of what was on the news.  At the beginning of that particular newscast he encouraged me to count the number of negative stories and compare it to the number of positive stories that were being reported.  As you would expect the ratio was somewhere in the 8:1 to 10:1 range.  He never let me know if there was a specific lesson that he wanted me to get from the exercise, but the experience did stick with me.  I've wrestled with myself over the years regarding what the exercise proved.

One thing I am certain it proved is that the media makes the world far more scary than it really should be.  To allow a newscast to define your understanding of the world is to imagine a world that is far more terrifying than the reality for the average person.  There aren't murderers lurking around every corner.  Most people want to do good, or at least be thought of as someone who does good.  Those good things don't get reported, though.  I am not saying that most people are good.  People are sinners--the whole lot of them, including myself--but people also have humanity and by and large want to do good.

Another thing I think it proved is that the things that are noteworthy sort of establish the opposite about what society is like.  Things that happen all of the time aren't considered newsworthy.  As an example, a news crew could conceivably go to a city rescue mission seven days out of the week and find positive things that people do for others in need, but if someone is stabbed at that rescue mission one day out of the year that bad thing is the newsworthy event largely because it is both abnormal and consequential.

Something that I've given a lot of thought to is what positive news would look like.  Usually when I see a positive story on the news it comes across as either a puff piece or mildly propagandistic.  I don't know how you'd report on positive stories in a better way, though.  Maybe I'm so cynical I can't properly process a good, positive news story.  Is the problem me?

I've also given some recent thought to the news that my grandfather had been exposed to in his lifetime.  I've been watching a documentary on the Vietnam War over the past few months, and I'm coming to understand that the sixties were as much a time of upheaval as the current day.  This is to say nothing of time of the Great Depression and World War II.  So, when he was discussing the news with me he had a perspective I did not have regarding how scary news could be.  Maybe he was preparing me for a time period like the current one when there's a lot in the news to discourage a person.  If so, I think it worked.

ten years

It's extremely hard to believe, but our daughter CD was born ten years ago this coming weekend.  I haven't spoken about her much on this site.  This is because most of my early parenting epiphanies were with NJ, and most of the things I could have said in the last few years would be stepping a bit on her privacy.

She is special to Golden and I in a way that she won't ever really understand.  I frequently think about the fact that our family needs her.  She is the most outgoing in our family (which is an admittedly low bar), but also has a wit about her that amazes me.  She is smart and funny, and there are few people I enjoy talking with quite as much, if I can direct her away from talking about toys or boys.

I think society in general is built in a way that convinces a lot of people, and especially elementary and middle school girls, that they are worth less than they really are.  CD is the most socially adept person in our family, but we do sometimes see her dealing with that. It's a bit discouraging because we can see how valuable and valued she is, but she doesn't always believe it when we try to relay that to her.  Some lessons are only learned with age and consistent love and encouragement.

Ten years ago I couldn't fathom having a ten-year-old daughter.  Now that I'm about to, I can't fathom that the next ten years will see her going from a child to a teenager to a young adult(!).  The years are far too short.

our worst selves

I just finished listening to the audio version of The Diary of Anne Frank.  I have a few thoughts on this, but I'll address the one that strikes me the most in this post.  That is that our perceptions of others is almost always inaccurate.  I'm not even taking this from the obvious direction of the fact that people thought wrongly of the Jews.  I was affected by a completely different manifestation of this in the book.

Ms. Frank apparently wrote her diary with the idea that it would one day be used as documentation of the life she and others lived during the German occupation.  This was brilliant of her, but it also establishes that this is not just any teen-aged girl's diary.  This is the diary of someone who is writing thoughts that she on some level expects to be broadcast to others.  Given this, her clashes with others in the annex where she hid are fascinating.  She probably expected those she wrote about to eventually discover what she was writing.  What she thought the end result of that discovery would be is beyond me, but that reality had to be known to her.

Once or twice she has a deep conflict with her mother, but the person she seemed to constantly be irritated with was the matriarch of another family in the annex.  In the book, this woman is named Mrs. van Daan, but her real name was apparently Auguste van Pels.  To me, the clashes sounded driven by personality and generational differences between Ms. Frank and Mrs. van Daan.

It's easy to take Anne's side when she complains about how intolerable Mrs. Van Daan is.  She is the one who gets to tell her side of the story, after all.  Having concluded the book and learned that only one person who hid in the annex survived Nazi captivity, though, has given me pause and empathy for all of its inhabitants, including Mrs. van Daan.  It has also caused me to wonder how I would be portrayed in such a work.

Can I imagine being trapped in a poorly ventilated annex with seven other people and minimal privacy for two years without coming a bit unhinged?  Can I imagine the constant stress of potentially being captured, and slowly going further and further into poverty (There is a poignant situation recorded in the diary where Mrs. van Daan has to sell her prized fur coat so that they can continue to make ends meet.)?  I am sure that there would be multiple instances of my having said or done things that would appear indefensible.  Then, to have those recorded for posterity as the most noteworthy description of my life and character would be difficult to bear.  I don't want to pretend that dying at the hands of the Nazis was in any way a good thing, but it is a minor mercy that Mrs. van Pels never learned of her future notoriety.

This sort of thing actually comes up a lot today.  Someone will be filmed saying or doing something that is objectively wrong, then they are punished in an out-of-proportion fashion through a viral video or social media post.  Sometimes it's even for things that aren't objectively wrong, but are just violations of social norms.  An example of this showed up in a news story a few weeks back about someone who was caught shaving on a train (below).


Objective wrongs should be corrected, but people's lives shouldn't be destroyed in the process; and they should certainly not be destroyed over minor social rule violations.

That I am saying this isn't to imply that I'm better than those who share such viral things.  I'm as likely to laugh and click share.  I'm as prone as anyone to seek righteous comeuppance through online mob justice.  My primary point is that I'm trying to do my best not to be part of the problem when I'm online, and I'd encourage anyone reading this to take conscious steps to do the same.

the last jedi

It's been a while since I watched The Last Jedi, but in the aftermath I was surprised by the starkly different takes people had on it.  I didn't hear too many people say they thought it was so-so.  I either heard people defend it as a great movie or point out that it was too far a departure from previous movies.

I recall hearing about online activity in reaction against the movie, but that's somewhat expected.  A lot of people treat the Star Wars universe as holy and untouchable, and so if a movie departs from what some fans would want to see some will react online.  Apparently, at least some of that online reaction was from Russian trolls, however.  So, this makes me wonder if the movie was actually more well-liked than I perceived before.

For my own part, I enjoyed almost everything about the movie that people complained about.

[Spoiler Alert!]

• Rey turns out not to have important parents?  Neither did Anakin, and that just reinforces that the hero can come from anywhere.  This is one I expect to be reversed in future movies, anyway.
• The diversion to the casino planet was a dead end?  We need some of those in our stories to increase the value of the strategies that aren't dead ends.
• Luke projecting himself across the universe feels like a bit too much?  There are probably twenty other force-related scenes in the other movies that one could make that argument against.
• Major characters are killed off too quickly?  Probably so, but it was gutsy to do that as well.
• Luke is a different type of character in this movie than how he ended Return of the Jedi?  I think his arc between the movies is fascinating because idealism to cynicism to realism to redemption is a compelling and realistic path.

I certainly expect that the director of this movie will not be doing another Star Wars movie because he painted future directors into too many corners with this one, but that's Disney's problem rather than mine.  I also think there were some scenes that were just weird (like Luke milking that animal), but overall that movie was potentially my favorite Star Wars movie thus far.

I fully respect that a lot of people aren't fond of this addition to the franchise.  It does make sense to feel this way because the movie goes in a different direction from previous Star Wars movies.  It could feel like the film is disloyal to the franchise in a way.  I just enjoyed the movie enough not to see it as doing some sort of damage to the universe of the prior films.

right vs left

My biggest complaint about political coverage in the media doesn't have much to do with a right or a left slant.  Instead, it's about nomenclature.  I believe that American political journalism has done its audience a great disservice in throwing around phrases like, "far-right", "far-left", "moderate", "conservative", "liberal", etc.  This bothers me, not because labels are somehow wrong, but rather because it implies a continuum that I believe to be entirely contrived.

If you ask the average Joe (or Jane) on the street about politics in the United States they would probably describe a continuum going from very conservative on one side to very liberal on the other.  In the last presidential election a lot of people saw the last four major party political candidates in the following way.

[Most Liberal]
Sanders
Clinton
Trump
Cruz
[Most Conservative]

If someone considered themselves conservative they'd probably consider Trump the moderate and Clinton and Sanders extremists.  If they considered themselves liberal (or progressive) they' probably consider Cruz and Trump extremists and Clinton as a moderate (or a sell-out if they were pro-Sanders).  Regardless, their view would be focused on where the politician fell on the spectrum, and subsequently who is the closest on the spectrum to them personally.* Thing is, none of this is really the best way to understand political viewpoints, and my personal observation is that it leads to bad things.

American politics, and politics in general, is really just a collection of buckets of special interests.  The phrase "special interests" is often used disparagingly, and sometimes with good reason, but there is nothing inherently evil with a special interest.  Ask that same general person on the street what their views are on various political issues and they're probably going to care deeply about a small number of them and more or less toe the party line on the rest.  If the party line changes on these periphery issues their position will change as well.  They may not even realize it.

So, I would assume that a typical person possibly has two or three issues that they care deeply about, and those issues place them in a special interest bucket (or possibly a small number of buckets).  Over time a feedback loop is formed where more people from one side of the supposed continuum end up in a specific bucket, or some high profile voice for the bucket happens to advocate for one side of the continuum over the other, and this causes people in the bucket to identify with that side of the completely contrived continuum.  It could be either end of the continuum or somewhere in the middle.  Someone who would otherwise have opinions for different issues all over the continuum decides that, since I'm a [Conservative/Progressive/Moderate/Etc] I should take this view on this issue because that's the view of my people.

I see some negative consequences to this.  They include the following.

1. Many people of all political persuasions don't look at any issues objectively, and even issues that they don't otherwise care much about.  They investigate an issue from the perspective of where they are on the continuum.  I've seen it and I've done it.
2. Many people believe they have to agree with people near them on the continuum on all issues.  That's just silly.  For one, there shouldn't be any shame in taking the position that I won't hold a position on an issue until I've had the opportunity to gather enough facts about it.  I've certainly held political opinions before I had enough facts to understand whether they were wise opinions.
3. Many people are skeptical of news sources that are from a different place on the continuum but are overly credulous of news sources in the same location on the continuum.  While it runs counter to human nature, the time we should be the most skeptical is when we agree with everything we're hearing.  I know very much the urge to tune into people who I know will tell me what I want to hear.
4. When many people identify people who are near them on the spectrum they overlook flaws in their logic and flaws in their character because they're on the same team.  I've made excuses for scoundrels on many occasions because I agreed with them, and that's a behavior I see across the board.  This year is like most, where there are multiple people from both parties who will win their elections even in the middle of ridiculous legal and ethical scandals.
5. Most importantly, when many people claim territory on the political spectrum they frequently declare themselves enemies of people who are elsewhere on the spectrum.  Everyone who isn't near me on the political spectrum must be intellectually or morally deficient.  I've been there for sure.

For my part, my motivation for this post is that over time I have realized that I don't belong anywhere on a political continuum.  I believed I did for a long time, and maybe I did in some contrived way.  I don't now, though.

Pick a politician and I almost certainly agree with them on at least one issue and disagree with them on at least one issue.  Maybe the issues I agree with them on are inconsequential enough that I'm not in their bucket, but I can still find an area of agreement.  The buckets you could place me in are all over the place.  Furthermore, like most politicians, my positions on some major issues have shifted over time as well in various directions, and some will continue to shift.  Most people would call this being a Moderate, but I don't hold a lot of the positions that I would expect a true Moderate to hold, so that leaves me believing the concept of a political continuum is woefully inadequate.

It may sound like I am saying that people should be like me, but that would be reading my intentions in reverse.  I believe that, deep down, the majority of people actually are like me.  They may claim a specific political identity, but that's just for maybe two or three issues that place them in a bucket rather than on a continuum.

I believe that if you forced people to explain their political beliefs on a variety of issues without resorting to platitudes and talking points, and forced them to acknowledge the issues they don't really hold a firm position on, you'd find a majority of people who don't fit comfortably on the continuum.  You'd find that everyone is all over the map on the various issues that they actually hold informed opinions on, and you'd also find that people don't care about a lot of issues they claim to that identifies them on one side or the other.  I believe that most Americans are more alike politically than they are different, but most just don't realize it.  We're not all that different, you, I, and most everyone else in this country.

* I'll add that if the person you were asking was a Libertarian they might describe a quadrant instead of a continuum, but the concept is still the same--just with an extra dimension. 

defensiveness and boundaries

One of my biggest weaknesses that I'm aware of is that I get defensive quickly and easily.  I think that most people have a threshold at which they get defensive, but mine is more sensitive than most others.  I've been working to correct this for years, but it has been slow going.

I think a big reason I get defensive is that I envision being held accountable for things beyond the bounds of what I should be held accountable for, and probably beyond the bounds of what I will be held accountable for.  Someone expresses displeasure in some way, and my gut reaction is to make that a problem I'm responsible for.  Sometimes it's not actually a problem that needs to be solved.  Sometimes it's a problem, but it's not my problem.  Sometimes the issue is less severe than my gut wants to make it.  In most cases, defensiveness is not called for, and I'm getting better at it--but slowly!

Part of what is hard about correcting defensiveness is knowing what the proper bounds of accountability are.  If the lines are blurry for what I'm responsible for, I'll assume that I'm responsible for everything in that grey area.  A lot of the time when I go above and beyond the call of duty or when I over-prepare for things it's because I'm not sure where that line is, and it's far safer, though more exhausting, to take more responsibility than not enough.

This is something that I don't think gets addressed enough.  People will frequently talk about the importance of setting boundaries, but many times those same people talk about how important it is to chip in and do your part.  Implicit in those statements is that the audience will understand where the boundaries are for what is my responsibility and what is not.  It's not a question of being unwilling to set boundaries, but rather a question of understanding where those boundaries should really be.

I hear a lot of people talk about the 80/20 rule (I've done it myself).  Maybe a better way of looking at the 80/20 rule is that the people in those two groups have different standards for where their boundaries should be, and perhaps both groups aren't entirely right.

confederate flags

Every once in a while I'll start to type a blog post and not really feel right about publishing it.  Ten or so years ago one of those posts related to a semi truck pulling a trailer I saw on the highway.  On the back it sported a Confederate flag and a verse from Psalms.  At the time, my irritation was in the fact that the love for these things could be conflated.  In my life, experience, and reading of Scripture, they are incompatible with each other.  That is still something that irritates me, but I never felt like my thoughts were developed well enough to post on it.

I've had another observation lately.  I don't live in the deep South, but I've still seen more Confederate flags around than I remember seeing before.  I don't know if this is just a situation of me noticing them more than before or there actually being more than before.  Maybe it's a bit of both.

I know there's been a debate for years around whether the flag is important for honoring past generations or if it's just racist, but I'll be honest that I don't understand how it isn't just racist.  If honoring the past requires pretending that the sins of the past weren't sins, or requires venerating the symbols of those sins, perhaps it is better not to honor that aspect of the past.

I do say a lot of political things here, but this is the one I'm the most concerned will cause problems for me.  Most people don't care about the Confederate flag, but those who do really do.  I'm not attempting to attack a region or cultural identity, but there's no way to discuss this without sounding like I am to a certain group of people.  Nikki Haley made it a bit easier to broadcast that view a few years back, but I could see this getting push-back in some quarters.

This brings me to a final observation that is difficult for me.  For a stretch of time when I was a kid "The Dukes of Hazard" was my favorite show.  As a six-year-old I couldn't go over a hill in the car without yelling "Yeeeee-haw!" like the hero Duke boys jumping over some obstacle in their Dodge Charger, the--uh--General Lee.  Which had a Confederate flag on the top.  And whose car horn played Dixie.  The 80s certainly was a far different time!

retirement

In thinking about life goals one of the obvious questions that comes to mind is when I want to retire.  I've been struggling with that thought as of late because, as far as I can tell, retirement isn't very scriptural.

The one passage that I have come back to time and again over the last few years is Luke 12:13-21.  In this passage a man asks Jesus to mediate an inheritance dispute he has with his brother.  Jesus' response is to question why he should be an arbitrator in this dispute, then to warn against greed and an abundance of possessions.  He follows it up with what seems like a damning parable.

In the parable a rich man has a bumper crop, and his response is to build grain storage.  He figures he can now live off this grain, kick back, and not worry about life any more.  The NIV records him as saying, "Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry.”  Jesus calls the man a fool and spells out the condemnation the man is to experience.

A typical westerner will read this passage with an almost automatic, "Of course Jesus isn't warning against savings!  He's simply preaching against greed, laziness, and lack of care for others in a general sense.  Sure, saving excessively is greed, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't save for retirement."  Without fail, if I bring this issue up to others in a church or Bible study setting with a question about retirement, someone jumps to retirement's defense without really addressing the fact that Jesus told a parable where the villain's villainy was simply that they saved when they should have given away.

I'm not actually trying to make a point here.  I honestly don't know what to do with this.  I have a retirement account.  I don't contribute at the level that Fidelity says you should, but it exists for the purpose of providing an income when Golden and I are older.  Is this wrong?

I think the question of what to do with this passage invites knee-jerk responses, but it really deserves heartfelt contemplation, even if a person decides that retirement accounts are good and acceptable.  As I noted, I have a retirement account and I still contribute to it.  Part of the why is that I'm not convinced yet that it's inherently wrong.

One potentially valid argument that I have heard is that the cultural rules for caring for one's elders has changed.  Retirement accounts weren't a thing because elders in the same family unit worked together in whatever the family trade was and all raised the children together.  Retirement accounts are a natural result of a structural shift in our culture where family units are smaller, and don't include grandparents.  Whether that is good or bad can be debated, but it is possible that this cultural element to this that changes the application of this passage.

One thing I am certain Jesus was decrying is a mindset that I do see within the church today, and that I am prone to.  Jesus very clearly indicated that the person who believed they had earned the right to leisure and pleasure was to be condemned.  So, perhaps the question isn't whether retirement from a specific career is wrong, but whether the attitude surrounding that retirement is wrong.  If I have the perspective that I've earned or I deserve to spend the rest of my life devoted to "me time" because I've banked enough money to do that, I'm inviting condemnation.

It's a lot to think about when reviewing my 401(k).

christopher robin

A few weeks ago we saw Christopher Robin with Golden's family.  I'm torn about it.  It was a well-made movie, but it pushed a button that drives me nuts.  I get the sense that I'm overly sensitive about it since I've never heard anyone else sound off about it, but it does bug me.  I've sounded off about it before for other movies as well.

Christopher Robin is presented as someone who as an adult apparently cares too much about his career at the expense of his wife and daughter.  He's presented with an ultimatum that he has to work through the weekend when he has a trip planned with his family or he's informed that a large number of people are going to lose their jobs.  When he reports the situation to his wife and daughter individually they are each disappointed.  While the emotions and motivations in the situation are well-handled for a children's movie, he is presented as going down the wrong path for choosing to work through the weekend, and the story really kicks off from there.

There is more to the story, but in the same situation where other peoples' livelihoods hung in the balance, I would be hard-pressed to justify taking time off, even to spend it with my family.  In order to make the main character's choice difficult, I believe the movie overplayed its hand and presented a situation where the workaholic father and husband was actually justified in putting work ahead of other responsibilities.

With that being said, our kids loved the movie, and that is definitely not nothing.  There are quite a few well-loved movies they don't connect with.  This one had just the right laughs for them.

completed bucket list

I recently wrote about goals, and of my lack of a bucket list.  The real reason I would create such a list is to have goals to look forward to, and to create memories of rich experiences.  It occurred to me that, while I haven't created such a list, I can look back at my life and see hundreds of experiences that would qualify as bucket list worthy.

As examples, I can imagine putting on my bucket list in my twenties that I'd like to swim in both the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.  I hadn't had that opportunity yet even ten years ago, as I hadn't been in any ocean water in my life at that time, but now I have.  I can imagine taking a tour through a cave being on my list, which I hadn't done yet seven years ago, but which I have done twice in that time.  I can imagine experiencing kids camp with my kids being on such a list, and that is something that happened just this summer.  I can imagine maintaining a target healthy weight on my bucket list as well, which is something I've only recently set about achieving.

Even if I don't ever create a bucket list with things that I want to do in the future, just consciously making choices to do things with family and to commit to self-improvement will guarantee bucket list-like experiences and achievements.  Perhaps one of the best ways to be thankful is to look at the experiences in life that I've already had that could have filled a bucket list I may have had ten or fifteen years ago.  I understand that not everyone has the same opportunities to have what appear on the outside to be rich experiences, but I suspect that most adults do have a large number of bucket list experiences and achievements of their own, even if their backgrounds or current situations are not as advantaged as others.

What are some of your bucket list experiences that you've already had or achievements you've already accomplished, even if you didn't put them on an actual list beforehand?

fight

I've done a lot of posting about, "When I was a kid," in the past few months.  This is one more, but with the twist of it being about what I didn't do when I was a kid.

A few weeks ago I heard another man around my age who I generally like and respect make a blanket statement about guys from our generation that doesn't describe me, and I'm not sure if that's because he's the odd one or I am.  The comment was went something to the effect of, "When I was a kid I'd fight on the playground with another boy, and afterward we'd be great friends.  I got a lot of my best friends today that way."  He stated this like it was a universal male experience and went on to make the point that this is one way in which men and women are naturally different.

I wrestled with friends a lot, and I got into arguments with one of my friends on a regular basis, but I never got into a true physical fight with anyone in either childhood or adulthood.  I'm sure that some of that comes down to parenting, and some comes down to the fact that I had a smaller than average build through most of childhood, but I never thought of fighting being the norm for boys.  I recall seeing boys on rare occasions "fight," if you could call it that, but I recall seeing many more boys stay to the sidelines in those "fights."

I do recall seeing several TV shows try to teach the lesson of physically standing up to bullies, but that always struck me (pun intended) as bad advice for the following reasons.

1. It's naive to assume that bullies are cowards who will back down to a smaller kid standing up to them.  Even if they are cowards, they'll be incentivized to make an example of anyone who stands up to them.
2. It's naive to think that when adults actually show up to deal with the situation that they'll understand that you were simply, "defending yourself."
3. It's naive to think that getting into a real fight won't lead to serious injuries that will be painful and take a while to address.
4. It's naive to think that a weapon won't get used in a real fight.

The advice always struck me as a roundabout means of victim blaming.  It allows for people to complain about the way these situations are handled today, because back in my day we understood that it was the victim's responsibility to stand up for themselves.  Fortunately, I didn't really have a lot of situations where this was applicable, but I always intended to back down from any fight as long as the fight wasn't about protecting someone.

Before our kids went into elementary school I had very genuine fears of them having to deal with bullying, and especially of NJ being in situations where someone wants to fight with him.  That sort of situation didn't appear in elementary school that I am aware of, and now he is going to an online school so it isn't likely to appear in the future.  Some of that is situational, and some of that is because society has changed.  I'm actually very happy that the cultural mindset has shifted on this topic.  Unless it's an absolute necessity, fighting is stupid.

life goals

Someone in our church has been teaching a marriage class Wednesday nights.  Golden is unable to attend because she teaches a pre-schooler class, but I've had the opportunity to regularly be there.

Much of the early portion of the class has been focused on avoiding contemptuous behavior and attitudes as well as becoming friends and allies.  I don't think I act with contempt a whole lot, though I'm sure I'm not perfect.  One thing that the class focused on regarding connecting with your spouse is learning more about each other's goals, desires, histories, etc.  Through this I've started to think about the fact that, while I have vague goals for life, I haven't really articulated them.

Golden and I talked about this aspect of the class and its associated book, and so we agreed to work on listing our goals for life and for our kids.  As I sat down to write about it I realized that, while I have an idealized idea of what I think a contented life looks like, I don't have a long bucket list of items I need to accomplish in life.  I don't know if this is good or bad.

What I would consider a contented life looks pretty selfish to me at the same time.  It largely boils down to wanting to have time to do such and such thing that is personally fulfilling but doesn't enhance anyone else's life.  I think that just comes from being a parent with less free time than I'd like.  At a different time in life the contented life list would look different.

Regarding the bucket list, I have precious few things on the list I really feel like I need to do, and the things that are on the list are completely negotiable.  As an example, I'd like to travel at some point, but where doesn't matter much to me.  Is having a more specific bucket list more fulfilling?

I think that part of why I have avoided creating a bucket list of measurable goals in the past is that it's not always realistic to check things off such a list.  Will I get a bad attitude about the things keeping me from accomplishing the list, or will it be a hit to my self-worth if I can't reasonably accomplish the things that I have put out there that I want to accomplish?  While I haven't explicitly thought this, it is just easier not to share all of what I might have as a goal, especially if I haven't fleshed out the specifics of it.

So, my question to you is, do you have specific or vague life goals?  Do you have a literal bucket list?  Are there things you assume you'll start doing later in life when there's time to do them?

goodbye, grandma

My grandmother on my dad's side passed this past Friday.  She was my last living grandparent, and so this is a bit like the ending of a generation.  I don't know if my thoughts at the moment count as a eulogy, but they're what's on my mind.

When my dad was a teenager my grandparents were called to leave rural Missouri and minister in Arizona.  There's far more to the story than that for those who want to hear the story, but I'm not going to tell that here right now.  Suffice to say, her life was defined by being a farm girl up to a certain age, then working on the Navajo reservation above that age, until their time of ministry was complete.

My mom has always stated that the way my dad does things and the way he thinks and talks comes from his mom.  I didn't notice that growing up, but on the rare occasions when I have seen him with her siblings I had to agree.  However, my take is that he doesn't take after my grandma so much as the entire clan of my grandmother's family.

Since my grandparents lived in the era and locations where they did, one huge thing they did that I noticed that was different than what I was used to was visiting.  When I would be there they would get random friends or family as visitors with no warning who would just drop in and chat for an hour or two in the middle of the day (any day).  I suspect this tradition came from the fact that they didn't grow up with ready phone access, but I did not notice that as much with my other grandparents.  I am sure part of it was that my grandmother had mentioned family specifically that we would be around and would appreciate the visit ahead of time.

If I have a regret it is that I haven't really learned how to connect to family on my dad's side.  Several of us are a bit awkward at managing those communications and connections, and so they get more ignored than they should be.  That's something to learn to be aware of when our kids have families of their own, I suppose.

While we don't ever know who we'll see when we make it to the other side, I really have no doubt that all of my grandparents will be waiting for me when I reach heaven.

careful what you wish for

I know this sounds weird to hear, but I remember when Tiffany Trump was born.  Clearly I wasn't there, but I remember it announced on the news.  It had minor significance to me at the time that I thought would be passing, but reflecting on that memory today has put in perspective for me how much viewpoints can change in one's life.

Ms. Trump was born at a time when my dad was moving between jobs, and so our family was living with my grandparents in a reasonably lengthy interim.  There wasn't a lot of money available in our family at the time, and while I did not grow up rich by any stretch, we were especially poor at that time.  The adults in the picture at the time (my parents, grandparents, and great aunt) all tried to make the best of it, and I was given more or less full reign in my grandparents' basement as my room, which was nice.  So, we weren't destitute on the street, but a big part of my personal identity at the time was feeling broke and trying very hard not to look poor.

At the time all I knew about Mr. Trump was that he lived in New York and was wealthy due to some businesses in the city.  I knew nothing of his personality, the nature of his businesses, who was in his family, or anything.  In a passing statement in the evening news the anchor mentioned that Mr. Trump and Marla Maples had a new daughter that they were naming "Tiffany" after the jewelry store.  The anchor implied that he owned the store, but my understanding now is that he just had business dealings with them.  I remember that all I could think in that moment was that this was a kid who was going to have a much easier time in life than I was having as I experienced a moment of envy.

Fast forward to my current adult life, and I understand today that the source of my envy could not be further from the truth.  I don't know anything about Tiffany Trump, but I do know that I would have hated my life being in now-President Trump's spotlight with all of the associated scandals.  I don't know her relationship with her father, but I do know that it's a running gag among comedians that her relationship isn't as good as with the president's other children.  That alone would be painful.  I don't know a ton about how Mr. Trump parented his kids, but the sources I have heard have indicated that he left a lot of that to the children's mothers.  From money or not, I can't imagine a more isolating situation to live in.

She clearly doesn't crave the limelight, because she'd be in it if she did, but her name is one that almost everyone in the country knows.  It would be hard to establish deep friendships because people already have an opinion of her before meeting her, and who's to say they aren't trying to use her to get to her dad.  How would you even do something as simple as go on a date?  It would be like getting all of the drawbacks of being a celebrity with the only positive being a bit of extra wealth.

I've heard warnings all of my life about being careful for what you wish for.  It's a very common trope in entertainment.  Still, you don't really appreciate the advice as much until you see it play itself out in action.  I really would not ever want to trade my life with that of anyone in the Trump family, and that's something my fourteen-year-old self would have been surprised to hear.

itinerary poopers

I work in an office building with five floors, and a few years ago someone in my office told me that they go to a different floor to poop.  I think the rationale was that when you stink up a bathroom, people won't recognize that it was their coworker who did it, but I'm adding a little to get to this explanation because it wasn't fully articulated.

We have several offices on our floor, and a few such as a bank and an office of lawyers and accountants have customers who visit throughout the day, so there are a lot of people who use the floor bathroom who I don't recognize. This being said, in the past few days I've witnessed two different men walking from a different floor into our bathroom to poop.  So, while I thought before that travelling to poop was a quirky activity that only one guy did, I'm noticing a small pattern.

I'm not bothered by the fact that some people might decide it's better to go to a different floor than the one they work on to poop.  Everyone has their thing.  I'm perplexed though, because I'd be more embarrassed for someone to notice I'm going from a different floor to poop in their bathroom than I would be for a coworker to notice I stunk up the bathroom.  Am I alone on this?

impostor 2

Years back, I posted here about feeling like an impostor, and I capped it off by misspelling the word "impostor" multiple times. I was heartened at the time that this is apparently a common feeling among men. I've had over a decade of experience since then, and I've come to the conclusion that this is a feeling that changes in nature, but it does not go away.

Something I that I don't know if I made clear or not is that this impostor syndrome has everything to to do with a man's belief that he can support a family. Deep down, I believe one day everyone will find out that it's something I'm not capable of doing.  That sounds like a deep confession, and something to be embarrassed about, but the more I talk with other men the more I agree that this is an almost universal feeling.  What's odd with this issue is that it is almost impossible to convince someone dealing with it (me, for example) that they're wrong, because all that means is that you are fooled by their charade rather than that there is no charade in the first place.

One observation I've had is that I have heard several retired men talk about dealing with this when they were responsible for a family, but looking back and feeling like this specific stress was silly in retrospect.  I would love to have that experience myself where I truly understand in retrospect that most of this is my own overactive neuroses.

My real greatest anxiety at this stage in my life is wondering how I spare my autistic son this stress when he is an adult, yet still teach him to be responsible. That is a real trusting God issue for me, because I don't have answers to how that's going to work. Without God, it probably won't.

kids camp

This past week I did something that I never envisioned myself doing. I was a counselor at a church kids' camp. This is something that I am not particularly well-suited for, and I initially had planned on turning down the request to consider it. Upon reflection, I had the distinct feeling that this was something that I was supposed to do, so I agreed to do it.

The week actually went great. We had fourteen kids in our cabin between third and sixth grade, and three counselors to manage them all. All of us were dads to at least one of the boys in the cabin, and while there were certainly a lot of minor ongoing issues to deal with throughout my time there, I was amazed at how smoothly everything went.

One thing that I feel I got out of the experience was a greater appreciation and understanding of the personalities and drives of the seven boys from my church in my cabin. It's easy as an adult to only have a surface-level relationship with the kids in the church, and understanding their uniquenesses allows me to have a deeper relationship with each of them.

The concern that I heard relayed to me multiple times was that I wouldn't get enough sleep to function while there. While I was mentally exhausted from all of the kid conversations and metaphorical fires that needed to be put out, I got great sleep and felt great physically throughout camp.

While I believe that this was a positive experience and that I really was supposed to be doing this, it is clear that childcare of this sort certainly isn't my calling. I was able to witness adults who were truly in their element in interacting with the kids, and for my entire time there I always felt like I was winging it. However, this didn't stress me out like it normally would have because I had the attitude that I had my limits, and as long as I gave it my all that is all that could be expected of me.

So I had an great experience overall, but I don't plan on repeating it again next year. Of course, I didn't plan on doing it at all this year, so what I'm planning on right now only matters so much.

doesn't age well

One of the things that most strongly shaped my childhood was that my parents were far more cautious than most other parents about the media that I consumed.  There's good and bad to that, and I'm finding that I'm a relatively strict parent in that regard as well, but it has given me a different perspective on some of the modern reflections on former media coming out of the #MeToo movement.

Today, watching TV and movies that came out during my childhood in the eighties or nineties is a non-stop experience in thinking, "They wouldn't get away with that today." What has become weird to me is that some of the very issues that would have violated my conservative parents' rules as a kid have become unacceptable in today's society.

One example is The Breakfast Club. I didn't watch it when it came out in the 80s. I was only five-and-a-half in February 1985, after all. I did watch it for the first time almost exactly twelve years ago, though, and remember feeling it was a bit off even then. I remember thinking that I didn't like any of the three male character's arcs because the jock and the troubled teen didn't really learn that they needed to change anything about themselves, and the nerd simply got a justification for doing everyone else's project. Based on the content in the movie, I would never have been permitted to have watched it in my parents' home. Apparently, Molly Ringwald rewatched the movie recently with her daughter and had a similar experience, though more for #MeToo reasons.

In one odd one I remember that Friends was off-limits because of sexual themes.  In more recent years I've seen analysis complaining about the jokes made at the expense of trans people.  So, the complaints about that show have come from both sides.

It's also very likely that jokes I've made or things I've done in years past haven't aged well either.  If so, it probably exposes wrongheadedness on my part more than anything else. So, if you've ever been offended by something I've said here because I've pushed that line, consider this my apology.  It was done in ignorance, but that doesn't excuse it.

More than ever, the times they are a changing. Rightheadedness or wrongheadedness stays the same, though.

fruits and vegetables

I know I have to be getting irritating to those around me all I talk about food nowadays, but the last year has represented a huge shift in how I think about food so it's frequently on my mind.  Believe it or not, this is keeping my thoughts on the matter short.

I have completely changed how I think about American healthcare system and the causes of disease and chronic health problems. When I talk about weight loss with other folks a lot of them comment about being hungry all of the time when they're on a diet. That was historically the primary thing that kept me from watching what I ate. I had that a little when I started watching what I eat, but once I started eating fruits and vegetables in significant quantities to where I was getting 30 to 40 grams of fiber a day that was rarely a problem. The only days that I get hungry are when I eat too much red meat, breads, or sweets and run out of calories by the end of the day.

Because of my experience, I'm realizing that one major factor that is driving health issues in the United States is simply access to fresh produce. When I visited a General Dollar near my in-laws a few months ago I was struck by two things. First, food there is very reasonably priced.  Second, there is very little produce. If that was my nearest shopping option and my transportation was limited I would have to go out of my way to get the amount of fiber that I now try to consume. I'd probably have to mostly eat beans. Without knowing any better, which I didn't until very recently, I am certain my health would be negatively affected, and I wouldn't really know why other that to blame myself for snacking too much or not exercising enough.

I don't know what the solution to this problem is. Some people say that national policy should be changed to encourage farmers to grow healthier crops, or focus less on red meat production, or whatever. There are a host of potential consequences from that, and there is debate as to how effective it would be anyway, so I don't know what to think at this time. I suspect that agriculture policy could be tweaked to improve people's health, though.

I have also noticed that some fast food places have made it easier than others to get a low calorie option from their menu than others.While healthy fast food is an oxymoron, I have noticed some fast food places providing reasonable alternatives to fries in their combo meals. However, if your primary local options are Burger King and KFC, it's going to be difficult to stay on a calorie budget with a combo meal.

I'll just conclude with the thought that I'm realizing how extremely fortunate I am. I have been able to adjust my diet in a reasonably affordable way because I have access to healthy foods. I also don't feel like I'm missing out on anything, and I've grown to really enjoy many of snack foods I now have available at home. There are a lot of people in food deserts who can't afford healthy, satisfying foods.

a parable about spring

After the creation and the fall of man God decided to illustrate the significance of His creation to the archangel Gabriel.

"Gabriel," God opened, "consider the seasons that I have bestowed on the earth I have given mankind.  The variation points to My unsurpassed creativity and care for the aesthetic.  The cycles of life points to my ultimate plan for mankind."

"I see your wisdom and forethought in it," acknowledged Gabriel.

"Think about spring in particular," continued the Lord.  "The skies are populated by birds.  The streams and rivers swell and are filled by fish and other aquatic life.  Grass, flowers, and tress bud and spring to life.  What appeared to be dead only weeks prior is vibrant with life.  Animals of from the least to the greatest all multiply in spring."

"Spring does remind one of new life," agreed Gabriel.

"And the colors!  Where winter offered overcast grays, spring brings the bold yellows, purples, and blues of newly blooming flowers.  It brings verdant greens to the grasses and the trees.  Even the thunderstorms offer deep royal blues to the landscape."

"Spring is indeed a beautiful season," Gabriel opined.

"Think also of the food," reminded God.  "Where winter offered little hope for sustenance, spring is a hint at what is to come.  Crops are planted.  Fruit trees bud.  Animals are fattened.  Mankind is reminded of My provision and omnipotence."

"Humanity would be hopeless without your provision," Gabriel observed.  "This does make me wonder about something, though."

"Ask your question," God allowed.

"Well," Gabriel started, "if you have provided mankind with images of life, beauty, and provision all within the span of one season, isn't it possible that mankind will prefer earth to heaven?  Aren't you concerned that they will not feel a need for heaven if earth is too perfect, even if only for one season?"

God looked at Gabriel with an omniscient smile and responded, "Let me tell you about another of my creations: ragweed."

soft drinks

It's weird to me that, as I am shifting away from drinking soft drinks, I am seeing that I am not the only one doing so.

Growing up, my family drank some soft drinks, but limited our intake far more than other families around us.  I have a distinct memory of going to a restaurant, our whole family ordering milk, and the waitress commenting how we must be a health-nut family.  I was so embarrassed because I felt that drinking soft drinks was what normal or even cool people did.  At a younger age I understood that soft drinks were unhealthy, but I did not see any correlation between the people who drank soft drinks and their health.  The athletic kids didn't avoid sugary drinks so there was a disconnect between what I "knew" and what I saw.

Through college and early adulthood I didn't binge on soft drinks, but I didn't hold back either.  They were included in the lunch plan in the school cafeteria, they were a cheap treat at home, and I could get them free at work.  In the years after college I gained quite a bit of weight, but I started very skinny and my vitals on my doctor visits in my twenties were always fine.  So, why not get refills on my Coke or Pepsi when out to dinner?

I've already gone through a phase where I limited my soft drinks but still drank more than I should.  I also went through a phase where I drank Diet Pepsi for a while.  I never thought that I would be in my current state, though, where I might have a can of some soft drink every two weeks to a month.  We don't even buy soft drinks in our house any more unless we're having company, which an earlier version of myself would have found insane.

In our office we get drinks stocked by what people want and actually drink.  We used to fly through Coke, Pepsi, and root beer, but people in the office don't drink it in any volume any more.  As of late this means that we get a lot of Le Croix and Diet Mt. Dew.  I don't drink a lot of the La Croix and I don't even like regular Mt. Dew (let alone the diet version), however I have zero complaints about what is stocked because I wouldn't drink the regular soft drinks even if they were available.

These trends are occurring nationwide as well.  Coke and Pepsi are relying more on their diet soft drinks and other alternatives to their traditional soft drinks to drive profit.  This is odd to me because I grew up thinking of drinking soft drinks as the normal and cool thing to do, and now it's more cool to order flavored seltzer.

All of this is probably a good thing.  Seltzer has to be more healthy than cola.  I'm just struck by how things change for me and for society at large, over something as pervasive as what we regularly drink.

unthinkable

I'm frequently guarded about the standards I use to determine whether a movie is appropriate to watch or not.  Most things that make a movie appropriate or inappropriate are inherently subjective.  So, if I refuse to watch something that doesn't mean that I condemn others who watch it.  Likewise, I don't want others to condemn me for deeming something acceptable that they personally find inappropriate to watch.

On-screen violence is one issue that a lot of people find inappropriate.  This is difficult because while I genuinely dislike seeing violence in movies--I never watch a movie excited to see realistic violence--it is often necessary to make the point of the movie.  One oft-cited example is The Passion of the Christ.  Another example that I want to consider here today because it touches on a topic currently in the news is a movie called Unthinkable.

The reason for my lead-in to this is that I'm hesitant to acknowledge that I've watched Unthinkable or to recommend it to others because it's violent in a genuinely disturbing way.  Much like The Passion of the Christ, it is not enjoyable to watch, but it is important in the issue and questions it presents.  I have no desire to re-watch either of these movies, though I consider both to be extremely important works that have affected me in a positive way.

The protagonist in the movie is an FBI agent played by Carrie-Anne Moss, and she is told to oversee the work of an interrogator played by Samuel L. Jackson.  He's attempting to extract information from a terrorist who claims to have planted bombs in major cities.  We're meant to work through the moral trade-offs involved with enhanced interrogation through the decisions that Moss' character is forced to make.  Throughout the movie, she constantly has to decide whether to allow the torture we're witnessing to continue and escalate further or potentially allow thousands to millions to die in a nuclear incident.  Some of the questions forced on the audience follow.

• Is there a way to weigh the moral values of torture against the life that would be lost without it?
• Is a little bit of torture okay if it saves lives?
• Is more extreme torture okay if it saves lives?
• Is there ever a point where the actions necessary to save lives are so unthinkable (hence the movie's name) that it's preferable not to take them?
• *Spoiler (highlight to reveal)* Is it acceptable to torture an innocent if that could save lives? *Spoiler*

Based on the above bullets, suffice to say this isn't a date movie.

The reason I "like" (not enjoy) this movie is that I didn't believe it forced the audience to believe one way or the other on torture.  Where 24* or Zero Dark Thirty* may extol the effectiveness of torture, or where Rendition* may present it as something that will be abused, my take on Unthinkable was that the movie intended for audiences to simply understand the trade-off for taking either a pro- or anti-torture position**.  I didn't finish the movie believing that being for or against torture was an easy choice.  I finished the movie believing that every option in such situations is a bad option, and the real question is determine which the least bad option is***.

So, I'm sort of recommending the movie without recommending it in the same way I would do so with The Passion of the Christ.  If you're not up to watching a violent and disturbing movie don't watch this.  If you could stomach Mel Gibson's movie, though, and want to see a movie that handles the subject of torture against terrorism in an unflinching and honest light, it is worth a consideration.

* I actually have only watched a little bit of 24, and none of Zero Dark Thirty or Rendition.  You can discredit my opinion related to those movies if you like, since I'm only going off second-hand information.

** Full disclosure, I have been anti-torture for a few years now after having believed for a while that it was an acceptable trade-off to stopping acts of terrorism.  This being said, I am genuinely torn on some of the moral conundrums certain scenarios present.

*** I do also think I should acknowledge that one criticism I've seen of the movie is  that it may actually be slanted pro-torture. There is real dispute as to whether torture is effective in getting accurate information from individuals, and while this is somewhat addressed in the movie, the audience may still walk away thinking that torture is more effective than it is.

soccer

I think my personal curse is that I love playing most sports, but I'm not particularly good at any of them.  At this stage of life I'm far less competitive than I used to be, however.  So, I can get a lot of enjoyment out of a losing effort.

In the past few months I have become re-acquainted with soccer.  I played when I was in early elementary, but have barely ever played since.  Some people from our church formed a team on a co-ed, novice soccer league, and I decided I'd join. As with many sports, I've always assumed there is more to the sport than I understood, and I've learned that this is one of the few times that my assumptions were correct.

Through a short season of games I am working on improving my poor form in everything from kicking to running, and I'm learning how pathetic my endurance is, even with my recent bout of exercising.  Enough others on our team are as new as I am that our team is objectively the worst-performing one in the league.  However, winning really isn't everything.  This is one of the most consistently fun things I've chosen to do in a long while.  I really look forward to our Friday night games for little reason other than the fact that I enjoy playing sports.

I used to think that my interest in playing sports was directly tied to my being a very competitive person.  Honestly, now that I am less competitive I enjoy playing them more.  There is less pressure to do well, and I can focus on small accomplishments during the game rather than whether our team won.  Every week I'm able to tally a few accomplishments I'm proud of to offset the embarrassing things I'm doing on the field.

Being on a losing team has also provided the opportunity for me to talk to our kids about being a good loser.  I understand kids getting mad when they lose, but I have been able to point out to my son especially how everyone on our team is very happy after the game, even when we get trounced.  It's one thing to say that keeping a good attitude when losing is important, but it's another thing to be able to illustrate the appropriate attitude and behavior.

Our team is still searching for that first win.  Maybe when we get that I'll get a new burst of competitiveness.  For now, I'm just enjoying the journey.

hero in my own story

I don't have many heroes.  It's possible I don't have any heroes.  It may be me avoiding being vulnerable, but I've found that placing people on a pedestal just guarantees that they're going to disappoint in some way later on because no one is perfect.

Even though I don't have heroes, and I don't explicitly think of myself as a hero, I think there's a strong tendency for men at least to think of themselves as the hero of their own life narrative.  I know I want to.  I suspect women are similar.  I know that I want to think that every difficulty I confront is a heroic challenge, and everyone who causes me trouble is a remorseless villain.  This just allows me to feel righteous when I take confrontational steps to do something for my own benefit.

Since I decided a few years ago that most people are living as the heroes of their own personal narratives, this has greatly reduced the animosity I feel for people who are rude, obnoxious, selfish, or otherwise unbearable.  I don't enjoy them, but they are easier to tolerate.  In their narrative they have convinced themselves that they are heroically confronting those who act in some unjust way toward them.

This is important in understanding how to deal with difficult people.  If I want to affect their behavior I have to remove their justifications by reacting in a way that is not unjust in their narrative.  If they're a sociopath or a psychopath I might not be able to do that.  If they're a more typical human, just being genuinely empathetic usually ruins the hero narrative in their mind, because it's hard to think of someone as a villain if they're being empathetic.

One of the things that I have long disliked in stories that I couldn't articulate for the longest time were villains whose primary purpose was being evil for the sake of it.  I am sure that even Hitler, Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot convinced themselves that their actions were right and just.  Even psychopaths seek to justify their actions, if only by defining the fulfillment of their desires as the primary justification for everything.  To have a character characterized as being evil with no internal justification feels off.

This is also one thing that bugs me about many (not all) conspiracy theories.  The theories are frequently more focused on casting a person or a group of people as a villain than they are at presenting a rational justification for what would really motivate the behavior in question.

cat's in the cradle

My son turned ten just the other day
He said, thanks for the ball, dad, come on let's play
Can you teach me to throw, I said, not today
I got a lot to do, he said, that's okay
And he walked away, but his smile never dimmed
Said, I'm gonna be like him, yeah
You know I'm gonna be like him

And the cat's in the cradle and the silver spoon
Little boy blue and the man in the moon
When you coming home, dad?
I don't know when
But we'll get together then
You know we'll have a good time then

- Jen Chapin ("Cat's in the Cradle")

The song "Cat's in the Cradle" has been on the rotation in my office building's Muzak, so I've heard the song a couple of times in the past weeks while in the bathroom.  I'll tell you, that's a hard song to listen to as a father.

I expect that everyone here has heard it before, but listening through the lyrics it's pretty heavy-handed.  I also understand that the song is from a different era, and I think that accounts for the image portrayed in the song.  There are certainly dads today who could be well-described by those lyrics, who really prioritize their job over their kids, but there are probably many more who feel like most decisions are trade-offs, and working a job is caring for the family.

Our two kids are now nine an eleven.  Our nine-year-old daughter loves to spend time with me, and I love spending time with her.  We read together, watch TV together, and sometimes get opportunities to talk.  I'm enjoying this now as much as I can because I know that I'm not guaranteed that the relationship won't change as she gets older.  When I know I have something that's going to keep me from home before her bedtime it saddens me because I know she enjoys our time together too.

Our son is eleven, and I spend what time I am able to with him.  However, like I did when I was younger, he values his alone time very much.  He has things he enjoys to do, but the natural father-son things like sports, board games, and Legos aren't on that list.  I try very hard to find things that will keep his attention that we can do together, and I try very hard to find good topics of conversation.  I feel that we've made recent progress, but it is a real challenge.  His natural tendency is to wander back to his room as he gets bored.

My schedule is also packed.  I tend to work late, I teach in church, I'm on the church board, I regularly meet with different folks in the church, and I do other random things that fill the calendar.  I have avoided work that involved travel, but I still frequently feel a tension between the importance of time with the family and time with my other responsibilities.

Probably the issue that I most have with the song that opened this post is that it's written from a mildly selfish point of view.  Spend time with your kids now, or it'll be your fault that they aren't around to meet your needs later when you want to spend time with them.  What most concerns me has less to do with those regrets and more to do with the fact that these are the kids' formative years.  Their perspectives of everything in the world are going to be based on a foundation of what they learn and experience now.  Their abilities or lack thereof later in life are being set based on what happens now.  How can a parent affect things when they can only be around so often?

brain health

This past year I have been devoted to improving my health, especially as it relates to my cholesterol level.  In a not-so-humble brag, I was able to bring my overall cholesterol down 68 points (and, less importantly, lose 42 pounds) in just over a year's time, so the effort has not been in vain.  Given this new focus and my increasing age, I am starting to think more about how my lifestyle now will affect my quality of life when I am older and how it will affect how long I live.

One concern that I've had for a while is that there's Alzheimer's in my family.  My grandfather on my mom's side had it, and his mother probably had it as well.  While my dad's side of the family is clear of the disease, I take after my maternal grandfather in a lot of respects, so it would make sense that I get this risk factor from him.  This makes the following video hit close to home.


I've gotten the cardio-vascular health issue under control for now, for the first time in my life, and I am actively attempting to learn new things at a far greater volume than I have in past years.  This is the good news for me.  There are other risk factors I haven't addressed, though.  Specifically, I've got downright horrible sleeping habits, and I allow stress to get to me more than I should.  Since my last step toward being healthy in my old age was addressing eating and exercising habits, sleeping and stress habits are the next logical step.

I have always had trouble going to sleep on a good schedule.  Part of that has to be genetic, but part of it stems from the observation I've made about how I handle stress.  I figure I'll need to address how I handle stress if I'm to crack the code of sleeping properly, so that's priority #1 for me now.

So, my question to everyone else out there is what do you do to manage stress, and do you find you get enough sleep during the week?  Do you have any helpful strategies you follow to manage that?

everlasting deodorant

A while back--around fifteen months to be exact--Golden bought me a two-pack of deodorant. This isn't ground-shaking news, but I've long believed that my deodorant lasts longer than usual, so I decided to keep track of precisely how long it actually takes me to use up a typical stick of deodorant. The last stick I used lasted from mid-October, 2016, to this past Sunday (January 14, 2018).  I thought it took a year-and-a-half for me to get through a stick, but fifteen months is still pretty close.

I started to think that maybe everyone's deodorant habits are like mine.  However, a quick online search returned people in forums stating their stick would last anywhere from one to six months.  That immediately makes me second-guess whether I'm a walking case of B.O., but I really don't think I am.

I think the reason I use less is the same reason I don't wear cologne.  I find the scent overpowering, so I am sparing in my deodorant use.  My sense of smell is a bit more sensitive than average, so I consciously try to avoid adding too much strong scent to my person.

I'd ask how long everyone else's deodorant lasts, but that might be too personal of a question.  So, I'll ask a related question instead.  Does fifteen months for a stick of deodorant seem excessive, or about right?