neurotypical

Having a teenage son on the autism spectrum has given me pause to re-evaluate a lot of interactions that I've had with other people throughout my life. One example is someone I worked with for a month who I blogged about years ago who didn't understand who would be interested in a certain type of movie.

I remember a specific person who frequently visited someone in my dorm in college who I now believe was on the spectrum was generally kind, but also made me uncomfortable because of some of the very black and white statements and positions he took. I prefer nuance, and this individual did not.

As a parent who is neurotypical I feel like I'm equipped to parent a neurodiverse child, but that all of my instincts are wrong for parenting a neurodiverse child, and soon young adult. His logic frequently runs counter to mine, and we're frequently blind to what's important to the other or what the other is trying to communicate.

While things are definitely better now, our problems communicating and managing new hormones had us in a bad spot a year ago. We had almost daily meltdowns--true meltdowns--and it took a lot of time and effort to get to where that doesn't happen so regularly. That experience has really driven home to me how much I don't understand about the neurodiverse brain.

So much of what I learn now about people who were considered eclectic makes more sense now, and what drove things like the popularity of electroshock therapy and lobotomies in the past.

We've been working with therapists for a while, and they have always been optimistic about the future. However, the most frustrating thing is that we don't know what a realistic future for us and for NJ holds, and so it's hard to put together a plan to meet specific goals.

There really isn't a way to wrap this post up because we're in a very open-ended state at the moment. I'm hoping for the best, though.

working from home

My company decided that my office will be closed for the foreseeable future and I am now a work-at-home employee.  The official line is that this is permanent and not going to change at the end of the COVID-19 pandemic, but I know that things can still change in a heartbeat.

I'm torn on this news.  Being a severe introvert, this has been a bit of a fantasy for me, and it has worked well for the month-and-a-half that I have been doing this.  It has been great having more opportunity to eat with and interact with the family while still being on top of my work.  I will miss my co-workers, though.  It also introduces some instability to my job.  Will my employer continue to consider me or the rest of the people in my office as important when no one physically sees me working, and will this make me more of a layoff target in the future?  It can't help.

I am among those who think this is a harbinger of things to come in business in general.  It often doesn't make sense to pay to lease and maintain business facilities when employees can be just as productive from home.  This pandemic is going to be an excuse for a lot of businesses to drop some facilities expenses from their books.

There are things that are important about an office, but I don't think they're always the things that management says are important about having an office.  The rationale that I normally hear is that an office makes it easier for workers to collaborate.  That may be somewhat true, but technology has come a long way in this regard.  The bigger issues I see are less opportunity to build rapport on a team and more difficulty in training new employees.  I don't have a good, non-buzzword solution for these things, but if someone does solve those issues a lot more business will be removed from traditional offices.

I do think this is going to lead to a fundamental change in much of society, and could be the beginning of a nightmare scenario for extroverts.  Will this drive extroverted people out of typical office jobs into fields where they can interact more with other people?  I know that finance, accounting, and technical fields already have a reputation for being a bit anti-social.  Will marketing, HR, legal, and PR follow suit as people in those fields work more from home?

age

Over the summer I turned forty.  I genuinely don't feel forty.  I think that's going to be a theme every time I turn a new age.  Where'd my twenties go?  I can't be out of my thirties already!  I'm sure that fifty is the new twenty-five!

I've had a lot of observations about getting older, but three have been on my mind lately.

First, I've been weirded out by the number of times I've seen someone my age or younger who my mind has registered as old.  Just in the past day I saw someone wearing a shirt declaring "Established in 1979," who I did not think looked my age, even though he was clearly born in the same year.  This is very much vanity from someone who likes to think he isn't vain.  "I can't possibly look that age, right?!"

Second, while I see more overall growth in my life, it feels slower.  I mean this in the sense that old dogs can learn new tricks, and can possibly learn them better, but it takes longer than when the dog was younger.  When I look at the things I've learned and improved on in the last five years it's a numerically shorter list than from the five year period from when I turned fifteen to when I turned twenty.  I feel like a have a better grasp on that shorter list and that it includes a lot more soft skills, though.

I don't know if this is something anyone else experiences, but I'm not intimidated to learn a lot of things that used to intimidate me.  However, there is a real limit that I see to how quickly I can progress on a given skill-set or cache of knowledge.

Third, I have also noticed that in some respects age is a minor super power in the same way that working the same job for years on end is.  Some people are naturally wise and see how certain bad choices will go badly.  Some people are just old enough to have seen this rodeo before and know from experience that certain bad choices will go badly.  It's odd to see someone do or say something that I might have thought was a good idea years ago, but to immediately know what a mistake it was.  Some of that is just that it's easy to see things as a super power when you used to be thoroughly clueless.  I'd like to think that age does bring a level of maturity as well, though.

Here's to another decade which will undoubtedly conclude with my flabbergasted exclamation of, "Where did my forties go!"

signing bibles

I'm noticing that, while I frequently contemplate the implications of news stories and comment on them, the news cycle is so fast nowadays that by the time I have real fleshed-out comments to make on them they're long out of the news.

One such story is the somewhat recent kerfuffle about President Trump signing Bibles in Alabama.  If you asked me immediately after the news story broke I would have responded that him doing this was deeply offensive.  Now I still think it's offensive, but I also think it's one of the bigger non-stories of the past month.

My initial reaction was that President Trump should have known better, and that doing this exemplifies the criticism that he has a god complex and/or narcissistic tendencies.  Christians should revere Scripture to the level that turning a Bible into autographed memorabilia should at least give serious pause.  In my view, putting a signature on the cover of the Bible makes it look like the person signing has the same or greater significance than the Bible itself.  I still believe this after giving the situation time and thought.  The general shrug that a lot of believers gave the story is still bothersome from the perspective that the Bible should be given due respect, and in this case it clearly wasn't.

However, my originally harsh view of the event has moderated significantly.  The biggest reason for this is that it's very easy to imagine someone getting random things shoved in front of them to sign and not stopping to think about whether it's a good idea to sign every single thing.  One can argue about how prone President Trump is to stop and think in general, but I expect that a lot of people in that situation who aren't President Trump would have signed a Bible in that situation without thinking about it.

Second, there is some debate as to what specifically about signing a Bible is offensive.  Other presidents have signed Bibles.  Few people consider signing the inside of the Bible wrong, especially when the Bible is a gift to another. People used to use the family Bible to detail their family tree.  I have had more than one Bible with my name inscribed on the cover.  If I can't draw clear lines on the whys for when it's offensive to put a name in or on a Bible and when it isn't, I do need to give some grace.

Finally, what's offensive about this is more what it represents than the act itself.  The real issue is that there are believers who are quick to judge the morals of politicians they disagree with, but will give President Trump or other similar politicians a pass (or twenty) because he nominates the judges they want.  In essence, this issue was always a proxy for that other issue.  Rather than litigating concerns about hypocrisy as a proxy, those should probably be addressed more directly.

So, this is sort of a defense of Trump in this one instance without really being one.  It's indicative of the times we live in.

self made

Twitter lit up a couple of days ago regarding Forbes declaring Kylie Jenner the youngest self-made billionaire, reaching that level at the age of 21.

I'll confess.  My gut reaction was the same as what a lot of other peoples' reaction was.  She started as a millionaire with every possible advantage available to her.  How "self-made" can we possibly call her?  In thinking through the logic of this assertion, I hit on what I believe are a few uncomfortable truths that a lot of people don't like to think about when comparing themselves to others.

Truth #1 - No one is self-made

While it is true that there is a sliding scale to how self-made a person is, the reality is no one is truly self-made, and I doubt many are even in the general neighborhood.  If you're even mildly successful in some area of life I can guarantee that many of the factors in that are gifts that were beyond your control.  I considered typing examples of this, but it's so specific to the person and the examples are usually embarrassingly obvious.

The response that most people would give to this is that, sure, I have some advantages in life, but not anywhere near the advantages Ms. Jenner has been given.  Perhaps this is true, but there are billions of people who don't have the advantages that I've been given in life.  In my moment of taking credit away from her I'm also thinking in the back of my mind that I've worked for and earned what I have.

Truth #2 - I am responsible for the opportunities I pass up

The reality is that I wouldn't have become a billionaire if I were Ms. Jenner.   I like to think that I would have made something of the opportunities would have had in her shoes.  I'm deluding myself to think that my grit and smarts would have outperformed hers.  Yes, she had every opportunity, but she also clearly used it.

I have to acknowledge that my life, like everyone else's, is marked by a series of choices I have made to do or not do certain things.  There are times when I have chosen a path that led to growth, and there are times when I have not.  There are times when I made actively destructive decisions.

Whether I have the maturity to make a wise choice is always on me.

Truth #3 - We value people too much for their wealth

While accruing a billion dollars in wealth is significant and noteworthy, this doesn't say anything about Ms. Jenner as a person.  The size of her bank account or assets alone doesn't validate or invalidate her as a person.

None of this is shocking, new, or particularly insightful.  However, I find that I constantly want to go back to the same broken patterns I see others stuck in.  So much of life is spent building a career with the intent to generate an income that it's easy for that to be my identity.  It's then easy to compare the life that my resources allow me to have to the lives others have, then to let that determine my value.

So, when someone is shown to have accrued wealth it is easy to think of that wealth as a gauge of their worth, and whatever I have accrued as a gauge of my worth.  I know it's wrong.  Most people factually understand this.  I also know I'm not the only person who naturally falls into this mindset, and has to combat it.

So, Ms. Jenner does deserve some congratulations on this milestone.  It's significant!  But, it doesn't make her a more or less significant person.  If she loses her wealth and everything else tomorrow she's no more or less valuable of a person than today as a billionaire.  That's a truth I find both the easiest and the hardest to believe.

february christmas lights

Over the last couple of weeks I noticed a handful of houses around my neighborhood and some of the areas I drive regularly finally take down their Christmas lights.  This wasn't a situation where the lights were up but not on.  The lights were turned on every evening like it was Christmas season.

I have also noticed that an office in my building has a Christmas tree up in a meeting room visible from a public hallway.  I haven't seen it lit in a few weeks, but it is still prominently displayed.

Part of me is irrationally irritated at this.  However, my irritation doesn't make sense.  If someone wants to leave lights up it isn't my business, and really Christmas displays are attractive.  It's just that seeing Christmas displays feels incongruous with the season.

I think this part of me is a little hypocritical as well.  I have believed and continue to believe that certain fashion rules are made to be broken.  This shouldn't be any different, right?  Is a lit Christmas display in February the equivalent of an all-white outfit in November?

cherokee princess

From when I was born until when I was elementary-aged my dad worked on a few different reservations.  We are as white as white can be, and no one in our family ever pretended any different.  It never crossed my mind to think any differently about the situation, either. However, one of the first questions I'd get from people who did not live near the reservation was whether I had any Native American ancestry.  This was almost always a prelude to someone telling me about their grandparent who was half-blooded [fill in Native American tribe].

Even as a kid, this pattern jumped out to me because it happened so often.  Why did people who had probably never been on a reservation care so much to identify with a specific tribe?  In my experience (from the 80s and early 90s) reservation life was different from life off the reservation in a lot of respects, so it felt a little like trying to gain the benefits of an identity without paying in experience.

I don't remember this firsthand, but there's apparently a joke that gets told among Native people about how every white person's grandmother was a Cherokee princess.  That does fit my experience.  Everyone and their brother seemed to want to tell me about their Native ancestor.  In fact, even if I mention now that I used to live on a reservation to a small group of people it is more or less guaranteed that someone in the group will notify me of their Native American heritage.

This is what has made the evolving story surrounding Elizabeth Warren fascinating to me.  I don't doubt that she fully believed that she could claim Native American ancestry.  I've heard enough people who were convinced of it themselves that it fits the pattern.  Why, just based on family stories, she decided she should assert that as an identity baffles me.  Even if she had a close Native ancestor, she clearly had to know that she was mostly Caucasian and lived a Caucasian life.  She should have especially known that as someone who originally hailed from Oklahoma.  Of all of the unforced errors a [future] politician could commit, this is among the dumbest.

However, as dumb as I think that scandal is, my experience says that Warren doesn't go much further than a lot of other Native American wannabes.  I am certain that a lot of the folks laughing about "Pocahontas" Warren's claims have also asserted their non-existent Native heritage whenever they got the chance.  The reason I'm so sure is that I've probably heard one of them talk about their Cherokee grandparent some time in the past.

lessons at the mechanic

When I was at the mechanic a few days ago waiting to have the brake pads battery replaced on my car I noticed that there wasn't really a way to avoid hearing chatter around me.  I especially heard the conversations that other people had with the representative from the dealership who were explaining what they found wrong with their cars.

One man was told that he needed to replace his tires with a set that cost $800, but he declined to do so due to the lack of funds.  An older lady was told she needed to replace her battery, and was confused that it wasn't covered by her warranty.  Another man was informed that he had nails in two different tires, but that the fix was cheap and quick.

As a parent, it occurred to me that these are the sort of situations that I need to be training my kids to handle one day.

In the example of the first man, if you have a car or anything else that is expensive it will cost money to maintain.  Failing to budget for those expenses leads to inevitable unpleasant surprises.  I never really appreciated that at a younger age, and I certainly didn't maintain my vehicles as well a decade and a half ago as I do now.  We have had some unpleasant surprises over the years related to the cars.

In the example of the older woman, my initial reaction was to think that of course the battery is not under the car's warranty.  However, that is not necessarily an intuitive fact to know.  Why is the alternator something that would be under warranty (which the representative explained to the lady) but the battery isn't?  I know it's because the battery is guaranteed to need to be replaced, but an older lady may not understand this.  The kids need to understand that the stuff that is covered by warranty is almost always the stuff that is least likely to need to be replaced.  Warranties are useful, but they are also frequently written so that you still have to pay to fix the thing under warranty.

In the example of the last man, sometimes what sounds like bad news may actually be good news.  Had he not discovered the nails he may have had to replace the tires, but he was able to get them plugged cheaply.  Don't always expect bad news, and appreciate the good news when you get it.

The sorts of things you need to understand to manage in life aren't always what you learn in school.  It's hard as a parent to remember that there are lessons to learn everywhere.

resolutions

It's a new year, and so a lot of people are making resolutions.  I have mentioned at least twice already (time 1, time 2) that I don't like New Year's resolutions.  I've been a little embarrassed this year by how irritated I am by people making resolutions in the new year specifically.  It shouldn't matter to me whether others make or brake resolutions.  It's none of my business.  However, when I hear someone making a resolution it just bugs me.  I've finally figured out why.

I actually have a great deal of respect for people who make resolutions and stick to them.  I know that making fundamental changes to one's lifestyle for the long term is something that requires planning, determination, and sacrifice.  Therefore, rather than me disliking resolutions because I don't like people resolving to do things, the real reason I dislike New Year's resolutions is that deep down I think that there are some people who make resolutions without counting the cost ahead of time, and doing so besmirches something which is sacred.

Everyone has things that they need to improve about themselves.  They could improve their health, or they could improve their relationships with others, or they could improve their educational or career prospects, et al.  I know that I have a plethora of flaws I could focus attention to.  Furthermore, we all embark on self-improvement projects that we later learn are more involved than we originally realized, even when we planned and actually did put in the effort.  Everyone who consistently tries at least occasionally sees failure.  I'm not judging these sorts of failures.

What bothers me is that there is a human tendency to get excited about starting things, often without a true intention of seeing them through.  If someone loudly announces that they're doing x, y, or z in the new year and by the middle of February it's but a distant memory, it makes me think that this person likes taking credit for things without working for them.  It makes me not trust them.

I am realizing as I get older that the two qualities I most admire in others is trustworthiness and an objective view of the world, because if those qualities exist in another person I know I can trust to get a fair shake from that person even if we butt heads.

In this situation, I don't trust people who give their word that they're going to change something, then give up early in the process.  If they gave up early on something that they claimed mattered to them, then what else have they given their word on that they're going to go back on when the going is tough?  I will view all commitments made by that person as matters of convenience rather than true commitments to follow through.

Also, seeing someone make a resolution without counting the true cost makes me wonder if I can trust that person's judgment on other things.  If a person says, "I'm not going to each sugar in the new year," without thinking through all of the times they're going to have to turn down a cookie, a slice of cake, or a piece of chocolate, it makes me think that I can't trust their understanding of reality.  It makes me think that they live in their own world with its own subjective rules.

If I'm being fair, I should judge myself on this last standard.  I made an unrealistic resolution years back about being less neurotic.  I have gradually done so, but not due to a resolution, or even a concrete plan that I put together.  So, I did not objectively assess that resolution before announcing it on this blog.

Finally, I do want to clarify that I am not demanding that people bend to my will on this.  This is about soul-searching that I have done about my revulsion of most New Year's resolutions.  Ultimately, my opinion doesn't matter for how anyone else decides to improve themselves.  I'm just working through why I react in the way that I do to these things.

Update (Jan 4, 2019):

I contemplated this further last night and have tweaked my view a bit.  I think the issue is less with individual people making resolutions than with the societal pressure some people feel to make a resolution in a way that leads to failure.  So, rather than taking such a judgmental tone, I should be taking a more sympathetic tone.

I apologize regarding the tone.  Again, I'm working through why I think like I do here.

There are better ways to achieve goals than to announce a resolution to friends with minimal planning.  The following has worked for me.  I'm sure there are other ways as well, but I can only speak to what works for me.

1. Set two goals: One modest and easily achievable, and one aggressive.  Target the modest one, but keep the aggressive one in your back pocket in case the modest one turns out to be too modest.
2. Research how other people have been successful achieving similar goals. Use this to develop a strategy for how to achieve your modest goal.
3. Break down the steps necessary to achieve the modest goal in the long term.  Baby steps are best.
4. Determine what you're willing and capable of committing to the effort.
5. Enact your plan, taking all of this into account.
6. Be flexible and adjust the plan based on the lessons learned through the process.

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.

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.

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.

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.