Author Archives: Dave

Author, blogger, thinker, developer, and all-around digital creative. Applied theatre professional. Mac enthusiast. Coffee fanatic.

Subdued

I seem to be getting these calls a lot lately.

Its been just over a year since I attended the funeral of my grandmother. I still mourn her periodically, still stumble across an old photo or something that reminds me of her. Karen and I brought home a box of old photos and various items, such as a tea set, that had belonged to my grandmother, as late as this Christmas. I love having those things by which to remember her, but it amazes me in way that we are still dealing with the aftermath of her passing this recently.

I remember the last Christmas that my grandmother was home before moving to the hospital where she would finish her physical life. I’m sort of the unofficial family videographer, and somehow just knowing that that would her last Christmas at home, I remember taking extra care with the Holiday video project that year. Because I just knew.

This Christmas, I was in the same hospital visiting my paternal aunt. And, again, I took video carefully, because I just knew.  I was right. I received the call this weekend that she had passed.

Once annually is entirely too often to receive these phone calls. Granted, neither my grandmother’s or my aunt’s passing was a surprise. Neither will be my paternal grandparents’, which I fear will happen all too soon. Realistically, I think it will be within a year from today that I receive another phone call telling me that one of them is no longer here. And again I will travel for a funeral, and again deal with the aftermath.

When I consider that I’m 35, its not unusual for their generation to be moving on. What is most difficult about this, however, is that it leaves me with this unmistakable aftertaste of mortality. Several years ago, I slipped away from work for a little while to sit down with my father at a local fast food restaurant. That was the first time I remember realizing how much like my grandfather he was beginning to look…the first time I remember his appearing vulnerable instead of superhuman. This was my dad! He was the one who fixed my childhood toys when they were broken, and brought in wood for the stove during the winter! He had been Superman my entire life, but now we sat in a restaurant and the fact that he walked with a cane impacted me with a realization I hadn’t previously experienced.

The passing of my older family members, while difficult, is ultimately made easier by my faith, and the knowledge that their parting from me is merely a parting from this physical plane, and will not be permanent. I’m learning how to grieve and mourn in a healthy way, and I will get better at coping with temporary loss each time it occurs. What is most discomforting, however, is the realization of reality that one day, perhaps a couple of decades or so from now as Karen and I will likely be seeing our future children off to college, it will be my parents whose passing I will mourn. I still cannot grasp life without them. Perhaps I will eventually learn by their example as they cope with that very event.

As if all of this wasn’t morbid enough, though, there are other calls that are worse. My wife received one of those this week, notifying her that the wife of one of her grad school classmates had been involved in a head-on collision in which she was a fatality. All too sudden, all too soon.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not questioning why. I don’t think I’m entitled to an answer. I’m just learning that this is a part of life with which I must contend. I’ve experienced it before, but lately it seems as though it is becoming alarmingly frequent. I wonder if there will always be periods where loss will occur with this frequency…a sort of ebb and flow of an experience of mortality that makes me stop to appreciate the life I’m experiencing today. So poignant is this realization that it causes me to want to stop complaining about things that bother me, to stop concerning myself over something as trite as mechanical problems with a car or the expense of our power bill.  Those things just aren’t important in life.

Life is important.

Let’s not throw it away.

The Italian Job

There was always that one person in your class that ruined it for everyone else. You know, the one who took advantage of a privilege that the class had been given, and abused it, and thus everyone lost said privilege. Of course, classrooms are monarchies, and that is the price for abusing the monarch’s trust.

Even worse is the occurrence of a similar phenomenon outside of a monarchical setting, when someone with poor taste or no common sense abuses the freedom due all men and women, and governments become involved with all of their bureaucracies and laws. And, as we know, once the bureaucracies become involved, common sense takes its leave.
That’s what I think has happened with an Italian court’s ruling that executives from Google are criminally responsible for permitting a video to be uploaded to a Google video service (a predecessor to YouTube) that involved the bullying of a disabled youth. Google claims to have removed the offending video within two hours of receiving an official complaint, but certain executives are nonetheless guilty of breaching what the Italian judge apparently felt is a legal duty to filter out such content before it is was permitted to be viewable on their video hosting engine (the actual conviction was for violating privacy laws).

As this op-ed piece from CNN aptly articulates, this is where Americans have become used to our freedom of speech. The expectation of this Italian judge is just as ludicrous as the offending video was (apparently…I didn’t view it) reprehensible. Google provides a medium for content to be posted and opinions to be expressed. They cannot be held responsible for the content posted to their medium, and cannot be expected to pre-approve every video or blog post that is uploaded to their services. Neither can any other video host or blog engine. Google acted responsibly to remove the video once notified, as they should have. However, they are no more responsible for the video that ignorant and uncultured bullies posted than they would be if I went on some complaining tirade against government policies in this blog (I think that’s still legal). I am responsible for what I write, not Blogger. The persons filming their depraved acts and posting them are responsible for their video, not Google or YouTube. America has a law known as Section 230. This leads to what Jeff Jarvis refers to as the “lowest common denominator” endangering the Internet for all  of us. The worst conceived ruling makes it too dangerous for any social network, blog host, or other platform to take the legal or financial risk of permitting users such as you and I to post anything to their services. Thus, freedom of speech is crippled if not dead, and with it freedom of inquiry, freedom of thought, and artistic expression. This leads to further social depravity, and does not move us forward.

The Internet has become so indispensable to the social development, global awareness, and business functions of the world that it is very nearly a right of every human being to have access (your local library likely provides access to the Internet free of charge alongside the world’s literature). Short-sighted rulings like this one from Italy seem to be a way to strike back blindly to find recompense for the wrong done to an individual, without stopping to consider the damage that can be done with such large brushstrokes.

Such is life in a world with attorneys. Permit me to say, if I might be so bold, that making something illegal doesn’t always fix the problem. And, sometimes, it leaves a bigger problem in its wake.

Forgetful

You know how sometimes things seem to work in a series? Like, when you start reading about a topic…or even start reading a genre…and suddenly you’re seeing it pop up everywhere?

I recently finished reading a fantastic fictional account of the life of Dietrich Bonhoeffer called Saints and Villains. For readers unfamiliar with Bonhoeffer’s life, he was a theologian in Nazi Germany that was killed by the Gestapo for being part of the assassination plot against Hitler. For a while, it seemed, I encountered discussion about this period in history everywhere, in magazines and websites and even professional journal articles, for weeks.

I started a new book tonight, a non-fiction history of the Antwerp diamond heist of 2003. I intentionally try to outweigh my nonfiction reading with fiction, but this looked interesting, and I’m trying to heed a friend’s advice to always be reading one of each at any given time. Even there, however, I’m much less likely to read historical material, fiction or nonfiction. But, this is a trend I’ve broken with two consecutive books now. Hmmm…

I’ve never considered myself any sort of student of history, no more conversant than anyone else who took the required World Cultures courses during their undergrad days. I listened in high school history classes, and I like to think I have a working knowledge, although I’m often surprised at what I’ve forgotten. I just don’t frequently read historical material…I’m much more apt to watch a documentary film on a subject, instead.

Perhaps I should be embarrassed to say this, though. There’s certainly enough of revisionist history being taught, and apparently there’s more than enough naive and impressionable people to believe it. Going along with recent readings, I think immediately of those who would deny that the Holocaust occurred. I think of those who distorted America’s recent “war effort” by use of media smoke and mirrors. I think of how infrequently the fact that the U.S. built our own “internment camps” for those of Japanese ancestry is taught in the public classroom.

I feel like it sounds trite to use the Santayanan quote that “those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” I have to say it, though, in order to point out the irony that we can’t forget what we’ve never learned. Education involves teaching all sides of everything…including the unpopular aspects. Otherwise we will cyclically repeat the darkest parts of our pasts, collectively and individually, and remain in the underbelly of our human condition, instead rising above our pasts. 


That’s why we must be on guard to defend the art of storytelling…and the discipline of storytelling…from succumbing to a diet of pop-culture consumption. Our stories hold our history, and our history holds us, because we are, at some level, made up of where we’ve been. 





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Take Some Avoidance, and Call Me in the Morning

Sometimes, I question what I do.

What I do for a living, that is. The questioning began well within my first year in the psychological field…something about it just didn’t feel quite right, something along the lines of, “This is a disorder? A diagnosable condition? Really?” While the evidence of legitimate psychoses and crippling disorders is  firm and proven, and there is no doubt that all of us need help to cope with life events at some point, there are also aspects of the psychological field that leave one questioning how much of this was just whipped up to make people feel better and less responsible for their actions…and perhaps to make others wealthy.

It seems I’m not alone in my questioning, as an article from this week’s New Yorker indicates. And, since this writer states the case with such elegance, I’ll let him to the convincing.

Things that I read and ponder, especially the really good ones, tend to serendipitously connect with other things I read…sometimes in the same day. Today was one of those days, because the connection between Menand’s article and this post…a move review, of all things…leapt out at me.

The beautiful thing about labeling our problems and deviance as “disorders” and “conditions” is that we can largely eschew responsibility for them, at least inasmuch as we only have to take a pilll to fix them. Assuming Menand is correct (and I  think that he is), then this is feeding a niche of our broken healthcare system that was artificially and arbitrarily constructed. As emotional and spiritual health tend to find themselves interwoven, then our popular treatments also lead to an avoidance of an admission of our own problems…a sort of sacrament of confession, if you will…that would ironically pave the way to the redemption for which we ache in the midst of our problems.

And let’s face it, folks…we’ve all got problems.

I hope we stop taking pills for all of them at some point.

Virtual Bookshelves

I had been waiting for so long.

Originally, this shiny, sleek new toy had been promised as a potential Christmas gift. I had dutily performed my research and selected this particular device instead of its competitor. I knew that I really wanted one. And, though Karen didn’t really understand why, she loves giving me things. Because she’s cool like that.

Finances being what they sometimes are, the Christmas gift was pushed to January as a birthday gift (yes, I have a January birthday…I clean up at the beginning of the year!). I waited. I hinted. I drooled. I whined. I hoarded gift cards from Christmas to assist in off-setting the expense. Finally, I was given permission, and I whisked away to purchase my long-awaited gift at once.

Two weeks later, I received great news! My gift was shipping almost two weeks ahead of schedule! I would have it by that Friday… a glimmer of brightness in an otherwise dreary week.

That Friday, however, as I frequently checked package tracking updates, I discovered, much to my frustration, that a snowstorm had forced UPS to delay delivery for the weekend, and I would receive my gift Monday. I voiced rather harshly my frustration that the South has no idea what to do with snow, and that it shouldn’t paralyze life. Then I got over it. My weekend went on.

My gift arrived last Monday (that poor UPS guy was working late!), and I’ve had a week to play with it. I won’t keep you in suspense any longer: my new toy is the nook from Barnes and Noble.

Now, I suppose I have to say that I purchased the nook for personal use, that I’m not giving a product endorsement, that I’ve received no special offers from and made no special offers to Barnes and Noble, and that I’m not being compensated by anyone for writing this post…I think that should be enough to make the government happy.  Besides, I’m not writing a product review here, so if you’re wondering why I chose the nook instead of the Kindle, or what I think of its technical performance, sorry…not the point of this post.

The reason Karen and other of my friends draw back at the idea of having all of your books electronically on a single device is because they love the feel of books. They love the smell of them. They want to hold books and to have a tactile experience as they turn pages. One friend insists that books should be treated with the same respect and regard as human beings.  I tend to agree with this, and I imagine that he would have a difficult time with the concept of an e-book.

I’m typically an early adopter. I immediately made the change from purchasing CD’s to purchasing my music by MP3 download with the purchase of my first iPod. I didn’t miss CD’s. The music is what is important, and the fact that I can obtain it instantly is so much more attractive. I really feel the same about books. The words are what are important. I want to be able to pull the book that I want to read out of the air, and have them all on one device that is easy to carry with me. Assuming I’m accepted into a PhD program, I’m in earnest hopes that textbooks migrate to e-book format soon, because that takes a lot of weight off of a student…literally.

As I’ve had a week to play with my new toy, though, spending about half of my reading time still with paper books in hand because e-book selections aren’t quite where they should be yet, I’ve come to some realizations. Perhaps, I’ve even come to appreciate Karen’s and other friends’ points of view. You see, I sat reading this weekend, and looked through our apartment, the back wall of which is lined with books. I sat upstairs, surrounded by more books. There are more books in our bedroom. Karen and I love books. And, while the physical presence of the book isn’t a necessity for me, the inescapable drive to be well-read and immersed in story is. I remember my bookshelf of science fiction novels in my bedroom as a teenager. Isaac Asimov and Robert Henlein proudly decorated my wall with the spines of their books. I like the look of a well-organized bookshelf, and having to go to a certain shelf in a certain room to find a certain book on a certain topic (because we’re slightly obsessive-compulsive in our organization). At the same time, I like being able to simply browse a menu and access any book from the device in my hand. That device, however, cannot substitute for the fact that one of my most prized possessions is a leather-bound collection of Sherlock Holmes adventures.

Reading a book is reading a book, regardless of whether we are reading it as typeset on a page or “e-ink” on a screen. I don’t know what I would do, though, without our rows and rows of books that line our walls. This is part of our identity, even remarked on by friends that visit. Does this make me a literary snob? Am I needlessly nostalgic for something to symbolize my self-perception as being well-read? Am I viewing full bookshelves as a status symbol? If so, then shame on me. If not, I’m wondering if, for all the good that having great literary works available easily and to more people brings, that perhaps we stand to lose something culturally if we lose our paper and leather books…something that was not lost as CD’s became extinct (and as DVD’s follow).

Am I concerned for nothing? Or do you see the potential for loss here, as well?

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