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?