Tag Archives: Introspective

A Thought Experiment

Indulge me a hypothetical scenario.

Let’s say someone was born in an area that he grew up to only want out of. There was a lack of culture there, a vacuum, and a lack of understanding as to who he was…not from his family, but from the world around him. He went to college nearby, and the vacuum left its mark. This was sort of like a fundamental incompatibility. He just didn’t fit. One of the results of this was that he couldn’t decide what he wanted to be when he grew up.

Of course, he grew up. That happens whether one wants to or not, and so he cycled through three majors in college before achieving a degree. He didn’t have the connections in that area to do what he really wanted, so he ended up in a field that was largely unrelated to his degree. He liked it, though, so he threw himself into it, identified with it, became good at it. He learned about people in that profession. Until, one day, he realized that maybe there was something else out there.

You see, he had held God largely at the periphery for a lot of his adult life, and now was impressed with the realization of how unsustainable that was. Through a series of events that were based largely around his discontent with still living in that area, he got his arms around his faith for likely the first time in his life. He walked away from one particular experience feeling that he actually knew God for the first time, and that changed everything, as it must. And so he pursued that into ministry, into graduate studies, and into a new profession. That profession turned out to be short-lived, but the studies involved altered everything even further. The problem was that, as he learned so many new things, he didn’t realize that he didn’t know what he thought he knew, and so he left behind his experiences so far, because he felt they were incompatible. He was beginning a new life without a foundation, as a sort of misguided concept of repentance.

Except that a foundation, once laid, tends to stay put. As he grew and finished his graduate studies, he realized one day by hanging some theatre masks on his wall that he was who he was in large part because of his experiences, and that those experiences were not only not bad in and of themselves, but informed his newfound relationship with God. And so, he had to re-think some things.

Growing up has a way of continuing to happen, though. So, as he was trying to figure all of this out, he fell in love and got married, and, because bills continue to arrive whether one is trying to figure out life or not, he returned to that original vocation to pay them. Then their first child, and then and then and then…many dreams, and much difficulty in making them a reality, difficulty borne primarily of indecisiveness and discontent.

And then, one day, because of those bill that kept arriving, they decided another career change was in order, and so he returned to school to enter a very technical field. He had learned about people, he had become (he hoped) close with God, his creative spark was always working…but he entered a technical field. Pay the bills it did, certainly, earning back the cost of the new schooling in short order, but it took so much and gave back little else. And then a second child. And, somehow, 15 years vanished in a blur of frenetic activity that accomplished only unimportant things and left him missing what was overwhelmingly important.

And that, you see, brings us to now, and this person…this subject of our hypothetical thought experiment…is once again rejecting something through a fundamental incompatibility, feeling an exasperation with both this third career as well as the fact that the world trusts technology more than people, science more than art. And he dreams, and the dreams continue to not come true, because the data keeps interfering.

What is there to do? What should this person do? What would be the next step to make it right?

Asking for a friend.

“Is a dream a lie if it don’t come true? Or is it something worse?” – Bruce Springsteen

The Inspiration of Cupcakes

As I write this, we are nearing the end of the Holiday break. Schools resume in a few days, and as our kiddos return to school, so must we return to the lives of responsible adults. The vacation has been life-giving…space to breathe, if you will. I feel as though the time period between back-to-school through Christmas sees a steady increase in activity that eventually reaches an unworkably frenetic pace, which then drops precipitously after the holidays. I look forward to that drop. The first few days of vacation were spent recovering from exhaustion. Youth is wasted on the young.

Earlier this week, our youngest kiddo spontaneously decided to bake. Like her sister, she has this creative drive that just doesn’t end, and, as her capabilities increase, its fascinating to watch. The result was cupcakes with home-made icing that tasted amazing. This particular kiddo always has a project going on. In the couple of days prior, she had started a scrap-booking project, researched tigers extensively, and created a ferris wheel from aquabeads. She’s always wanting to try something new, and always coming out with an amazing finished product. I have a framed drawing from her in my office as one of the best Christmas gifts of the year.

I envy her that drive.

I’ve had time to write over the vacation, but have yet to do so, not even a post in this space, which I have greatly neglected. I think that it’s because I feel like I need to have a full and complete idea organized in my head before I start typing any words, when really, I need to just start typing. I have this unhealthy dose of artistic angst that haunts me, telling me that I can’t let the words flow as I once did due to too many other obligations, not because of the time involvement, but because of the brain drain of everything else. When I take a few minutes to remember, though, I wrote in a previous career after my 9-5. When I was in grad school, I remember writing a scene of a play while I was waiting in line at the car wash.

There’s something to be said for positivity, for the feeling of optimism that leads to an almost disinhibited drive to get things done. I feel like that’s the most difficult thing with which to wrestle as an adult, the most stubborn obstacle to overcome when it comes to writing. There’s a feeling that I won’t be able to write anything worthwhile even if I try, because I have too many other pressures and life things taking up space in my head.

And yet, when I get these things out of my head and onto paper or onto the screen, there’s a feeling of relief and clarity, because keeping the ideas and characters and thoughts in my head is just not healthy.

So, while I didn’t do badly on my new year’s resolutions for 2025, I’m paring back for 2026 to this single resolution: I’m going to adopt the disinhibition of optimism, and see where it leads.

Because I was inspired by cupcakes.

Happy Holidays!

Memories, Re-Mixed

I have a couple of drawers in my home office that are entirely given to the relics of my childhood and teenage years. I don’t go through them often, they’re a bit cluttered, and to be honest I couldn’t tell you the entirety of what’s in them. Occasionally, though, I’ll be in search of something specific and end up opening one of those drawers to rummage through them. Inevitably, this leads to my pulling something out and spending some time in the fond memories attached to that object.

Some time ago, I was doing just that, and found some old cassette tapes. I was sorting through these, mostly because I’m constructing a list of songs that I used to own on this medium and that I now want to have digitally, when I stumbled onto an old mix tape.

Now, if you’re of a certain generation, mix tapes were a hallmark of your childhood. I think that a constant for every generation is the importance of music. It filled my years all the way through high school and college, with songs coming to represent specific moments in time, certain events. When I was in high school, everyone had a mix tape or two alongside the rest of their music collection. I was an audiophile early on, and my pride and joy through my middle school and early high school years was the stereo system that I had assembled in my room. CDs didn’t become commonplace for a while, and everyone owned music on cassette. Even in college, cassettes were the way to purchase singles when you didn’t want to buy the entire album.

Mix tapes were different in many ways. When I stumbled onto this old one, it was a window into what I was thinking, what was important to me, my dreams and struggles at that time. Even though I can’t play them now …because who has the hardware to play cassette tapes anyway?…I think that the physical objects are important. Sure, we can reconstruct them with playlists now, but playlists are ephemeral, or at least they tend to be for a generation that seems content to rent and never own their music.

Now, I anticipate a (justified) philosophical argument here that music, like any other art form, isn’t intended to be owned, but permit to me offer a counterpoint. When I was young and I waited by the stereo, listening to my favorite FM station with my finger hovering over the record button of the tape deck, ready to press down as soon as I heard the opening notes of that favorite song, I was doing so because that song was important to me. The music had value, and was not expendable.

We’ve lived in a handful of apartments in our life, and some of them have been excellent places to live. They were always expendable, though. I knew we would never owned them, and thus never invested in them. I knew they would go away one day, and so never became overly attached. I’ve purchased albums, though, that I’ve nearly worn out on physical media. They were that important. I memorized the lyrics to those songs, often without even intending to, and can still remember many of them today.

A few months ago, my daughter and I were shopping at a bookstore. There was a section dedicated to vinyl, because it’s a niche now, and she was exploring. The conversation went something to the effect of:

“Dad, what are these?”

“That’s how we used to buy music when I was a kid.”

Often, when this same daughter wants to watch a favorite movie or program, one that we frequently own physically, she will just reach for the Apple TV remote to stream the program. Once I asked her why, and the response was that it’s easier. Certainly, I and everyone reading has done the same thing, but I think that the convenience has cheapened the experience somehow. While incredibly useful to be able to watch whatever whenever (especially when traveling), there’s a lost sense of discipline and community that occurs when you waited a week for a new episode and knew that all of your friends would be watching it at the same time that you were. Or, gathering with your friends at a theatre to watch a movie together. Having that within reach anytime I want insinuates that it is not as valuable, not a work of art but rather just data to be transferred over the wire.

Last year, my daughter received a record player as a Christmas gift. She’s become very interested in purchasing music on vinyl, and we’ve started shopping for music together. That’s a really great experience, and I suspect that, at some point, she’ll become aware of the value in the music she physically has rather than the music she can instantly access, because (hopefully, at least, in part) she’ll remember a event attached to that album when she picks it up to look at the cover…maybe even that she and I shopped for it together. And while I doubt that she’ll ever get to experience making a mix tape, I think that this may be the next best thing.

The Power of Photographs

Over the long weekend, Liz was going through some old photos from the before times that are still on her Facebook. The girls piled on and were ooh-ing and ahh-ing over these memories (“Dad looked like that??”). Of course, the time distortion field was in full effect, as these photos aren’t that old. And yet, to the girls, they feel like a lifetime ago because many of these photos pre-dated their births.

In all honesty, they feel like forever ago for me, as well. I’m not certain I’ve really experienced the full impact of seeing these photos of myself from around 15 years ago and thinking about how much younger I looked, how much more full of life and excited about possibility that I appeared. To be more precise, I’ve never experienced the cognitive dissonance of seeing those memories and then looking in the mirror today in quite such a profound way as I did this weekend. For what could be the first time, I observed myself and thought, “I look old.”

I also feel old in many ways, as all of the normal rush and pressures of just living seem to be taking more of a toll on me, of late. Of course, these pressures only increase as the girls grow into amazing young women, and their adventures through school continue. As most parents can relate, I’m exhausted.

The memories are taking a toll also, in their own way. I had to step away from the reminiscing we were having at one point because I missed those days so badly it almost physically hurt. So much was this, that I actually momentarily regretted deleting my Facebook account years ago, as it was the only connection I had to so many people from that time (what I truly regret is that it was the only connection I maintained to those people, but I digress). Part of this is the inevitable and distorted lens of nostalgia, pining for a world “that was so much better then” (although, given the rise of AI and our current political climate, I think we could objectively say that it was, in fact, better then). Another part, though, and perhaps this one is the larger part, is wanting to grasp back some of the sands that have flowed through that hourglass.

After our first daughter was born and I returned to work, I remember a colleague walking up to me one afternoon and asking me how the family and new baby were doing. I made the requisite joke about not sleeping much, as I recall. What I remember as if it were yesterday was his response:

“You cherish every day.” He said pointedly. “Because tomorrow she’s going to be in college, and you’ll have no idea where the time went.”

Looking back on that moment, I’m struck by how much more seriously I should have taken that advice. It’s not that I didn’t take it seriously, I just couldn’t frame the unknown in my mind. I had no idea how fast those years would go by. Because I had no idea, I wasted so much of them in ways I had promised myself before my career change that I never would…long hours of work, trying to achieve things, trying to be secure financially. I wasted them because I was bored and just wanted to move on. I wasted them because of my discontent.

And as we were looking at those photos together as a family, this struck me the hardest, because there were many things that the kids remembered so well…often when I was included in the photo…that I just don’t remember. I was there, but I wasn’t present.

So, I feel old. There are dreams that I wanted to accomplish with my life that I haven’t, and that I’m not sure I will now. There are things that we dreamed of doing when we were first married that seem just as out of reach now as ever. Those feelings are real. Much more, though, I feel regret because of the time I wasted that I’ll never have back. I’ll regret that until the day I die.

But I’ll also make every attempt that I can to not waste any more, whenever it is in my power to do so.

Those memories not only bring happiness when looking back on those times together, but they also motivate me to learn from my mistakes. In that lies a huge part of their value.

And in that lies my greatest challenge.

Here’s to tomorrow.

To Dream a Dystopian Dream

In the before times, and certainly when I was a grad student, I wrote in this space weekly, if not more often. Contrast that with the present, when I never cease to surprise myself with the gap of time between one post and the next whenever I return here. The intention is there…my traveler’s notebook is packed with things to write out…but the time seldom is, although that’s a work in progress. Part of the problem, though, is that when I think of writing…here or anywhere else…I struggle to be positive. I want to write about the cool things I’m reading and watching, the spiritual insights that being a parent gives me, the random thoughts that drift through my head. Certainly, all of those things are still there. They’re tempered, though, with this spectre of dread in our current age.

Don’t get me wrong, I have little about which to complain. I would never presume to say that we are not blessed as a family. I have never been in a position to wonder where my next meal is going to come from. I woke up this morning to a wonderful family, and will go to bed thinking about the job I return to tomorrow and considering retirement and vacation plans. I’m living the suburban dream, in all of its tragic grace.

Regardless, though, we seem to live in an age (whether by true degree, or just because I’ve started noticing more) in which the darkness comes knocking.

Early in our marriage, my wife lovingly pointed out how much time I spent reading the news. I’ve gotten better about this, and one of the ways that I have is that I do my best to avoid news on weekends. I take a sabbath. This morning in church, though, as I was chatting with a friend, he mentioned a major international event that could spiral into a war. I, of course, had to pull out the curse that is having the Internet in my pocket and check the details. I tried to avoid it, but it found me.

At some point in my adult life, my dreams of creative and academic pursuits dissolved in favor of doing my best to provide our children with the loving stability that I had as I grew up. That was more a decision of instinct than anything else, and at times I question it, especially as I’ve come to realize that we live in a system that is designed to be able to yank the table-cloth of stability from beneath you at any moment and for no reason…a system almost sentient in its malevolence at times, and growing more so as we dare to create the AI that science-fiction authors have spent decades warning us about. Also, a quest for stability brings with it, by necessity, a certain degree of striving for financial success. And yet, I am reminded that we are to cease striving, to know that He is God.

Tying these threads together, I have difficulty writing anything positive because I’m scared. Despite our blessed state and relative freedom from worry, I am scared of the world that we leave our children, that they have to grow up in this mess. The excitement and optimism that I experienced at their age is potentially not even possible now as a faceless, opaque algorithm makes critical decisions for us without accountability, when money and science are worshipped as the gods of our age, when corruption is obscured by an inability to think critically, and when objectification of human beings is normalized. At least, when I grew up, we had a sense that we would learn and gain wisdom from our experiences, and be able to pass that down to our children in predictable environs. For the last decade, though, I’ve watched that vanish, progressively crumbling as we do things simply because we can, without ever questioning whether or not we should. Work and good intentions stand for nothing. We’re just waiting for floor to fall out.

So, I suppose I don’t write as much because my head is always full of…that.

Perhaps I’ve gotten it out, now.

Perhaps there’s something positive to hope for.

Perhaps…