Dave | unobtrusive lucidity

Playful Recollections

When I was young, I played with action figures. I had both a Transformers and a G.I. Joe collection that were quite impressive. And they weren’t the only ones: my geekier friends will remember the likes of M.A.S.K., and the Super Powers collection.

There was this room in our home that experienced multiple reincarnations during the course of my childhood. It was a den, it was a guest bedroom, it was other things here and there. At one point, it became the secret mountain headquarters for the G.I. Joe team. I filled most of the room with just the good guys. There was difficulty finding somewhere else in the house to put the bad guys.

It was a modest collection.

As I grew, I made a close friend with one of the neighbors. He was older than I was a by a few grade levels, and he won me over to the world of role playing games and other things that older kids do. One day, I was playing with some of my old toys having some of my usual imaginative adventures play out. Later, my older friend was visiting and commented on the toys still laying about. He was trying not to judge, but this just wasn’t the sort of thing that older kids did.

Last week I enjoyed the final of this year’s Reith lectures, which was about finding self-fulfillment through art. And while you might guess that, as powerful as I know art to be and as much as I love talking about it, I rolled my eyes at that title, there was an important point in the lecture about how we forget to play as children play, because that is what creativity and art are at their simplest impulse: play.

Life has a way of pushing us out of the playful mindset. All of that adult responsibility sort of stuff…working hard, staying late, dressing up for work every day. I’ve experienced my lot of that, especially over the last year (although I at least don’t have to dress up any more). Even when you have the opportunity to work in a creative profession, daily life is fraught with a specific set of resulting concerns that carry an overwhelmingly burdening load at times. It’s no wonder that our creativity suffers a blow from the constraints with which we deal.

And that’s to say nothing of the other aspects of a stressful but full life…say, having a two-year-old, for example.

Looking back on that evening years ago when my friend saw those toys laying around, my feelings of embarrassment regarding being found out were seriously misplaced. I should have been proud to have toys about, in the same way that I’m proud to wear comic book t-shirts now. It has nothing to do with being part of a subculture or being a geek. It has everything to do with remembering to play.

Because that’s such a very, very important part of life.

Photo Attribution: Lunchbox Photography under Creative Commons

A Particular Rear-View Mirror

In the Rearview Mirror, used under Creative Commons

Music always takes me places.

Now that I’m…well…of an undisclosed age, I find myself nostalgically turning to songs that are older, songs from when I was…well, not of such an undisclosed age. Now, lest I make myself sound like I’m of an undisclosed age, I won’t talk about how that music had poetry and passion that “today’s music” just doesn’t have. I’ll just say that…man, that stuff really takes me back.

On the drive home one night this week, I was rocking out to Meatloaf. Fascinating music, his…I’d love to see academic papers on the theology of his music, because it’s dripping with metaphor and a general questioning of life. One of his songs, Objects In The Rear View Mirror, is a powerful retrospective on the emotional events of one’s life. I typically relate to the third verse, which talks about that first passionate romantic relationship that we all remember from some point in our past. The first verse, though, is about a childhood friend who died far too young, and the fact that the singer is still haunted by the memories of that missed friend.

And the song takes me back…

When I was in elementary school, somewhere around third grade if memory serves, I had a friend. Well, I had more than one friend, several of whom remained my group of friends all the way through until middle school, but this one I vaguely remember. I’m not even entirely certain about his name, but I’ll omit it here, in any case. I know that he hung out with us and that our play was very imaginative. I remember that he was new to the school that year, and that he had clicked with us early in the new semester.

I grew up in a rural area, where there were a lot of farms and other rural vocations. I came to school one day to hear in hushed tones that our friend had “passed away.” I don’t remember all the details of how we were told, but I remember finding out that a large farm tractor had rolled over, trapping our friend beneath it and killing him quickly.

I also remember having only a very brief conversation with my parents about it, and moving on. It had left my mind by the end of that year, by the end of that semester. I’m sure that there was some intentional effort to let it drift from memory on the part of the school administration in order to avoid re-traumatizing us, but, overall, after the initial surprise, I really didn’t think about it again. My friend had died, and I moved on.

My first career after college, and the career in which I remained for over a decade, was behavioral health. Part of that career was spent doing emergency services work, in which I did things such as hospital consultations and the like. I met people at their lowest points, and tried to help them resolve their situations. I worked out of a satellite office for our agency most of the time (it was literally a five-minute commute from my apartment…that would definitely beat my current commute). One of our administrative staff worked every Friday in that satellite office, helping our regular office administrator catch up on what was always a backlog of paperwork. One afternoon, the regular front office person ran back through hallway calling for help. One of my co-workers ran to the side of the here-every-Friday staff, who had collapsed in the front office. I grabbed a phone to call 9-1-1. They were there amazingly fast (I remember wondering how they had arrived so quickly), but my co-worker, whose pleasant demeanor had always cheered us, never awoke. I didn’t see her fall, but I witnessed the failed attempts to revive her, the rushing her out to the waiting ambulance. Then I worked the rest of the week as I always did. I moved on.

I trouble myself sometimes with the way in which I can distance myself from tragedy. It’s not as though I don’t feel the impact of loss, or mourn. Certainly I have and I do. I remember, though, when my grandmother passed, that it took weeks for the emotional response to finally catch up with me. When it did, it passed and I found myself moving on. I miss her, I do. I wish that she could have seen our daughter. But, I’ve moved on.

Ironically, I have issues moving on that easily in matters of life that are of arguably much less importance.

Back in those days, back when I did that work in that career that required me to be able to handle what shocked most others deeply, I considered it a positive attribute that I could handle those sorts of stressors easily. Now, I wonder if my handling them so easily is healthy at all. I move on quickly…I suppose that’s a good thing. I just wonder if I’ve truly dealt with what’s happened in the past. One of our family values when I grew up was to put conflict behind us quickly and move forward. I fear sometimes that I’ve generalized that too much, and that I move forward too quickly, before I’m ready to do so.

And I wonder, at times, how this bodes for my future. Or, if it really is a healthy thing that I move forward, and only have nostalgic recollections on occasion.

Objects in the rearview mirror may, after all, appear closer than they are.

Image attribution: A Gude under Creative Commons.

Determination Through Sleep-Fogged Eyes

Clock on East Montague (photo by South Charleston via Flickr, licensed under Creative Commons)

I’ve been referred to as stubborn, but I absolutely refuse to accept this despite evidence to the contrary.

Let me set the stage a bit.

I recently made a career change. I make websites (yes, I know, this one needs a face lift, and it’s on my to-do list, I promise). As I make my living doing a mix of contract and freelance work, I go to several professional networking events. I also do applied theatre work. I’m also still a writer…no, really, I even published something recently…and we have a beautiful two-year-old daughter. The end result is that I’m always, always stretched for time.

Now, I don’t pretend to be any more stretched for said time than anyone else out there. We’re all way too busy for our own good. Over the weekend, I stepped out onto our balcony into a brisk Autumn morning with a steaming cup of coffee in hand to breathe in a relaxing few breaths. I used to spend 20-30 minutes doing this, especially on weekends. This was the first time in weeks, and it lasted about three minutes before I was called back into action as Daddy. I tried to get up early to do some reading and praying…it lasted for a week or so. Mostly, I find that the only way that I accomplish what I need to accomplish with my day is to force myself to stay up late, even though I know that I have to rise early tomorrow morning to negotiate an always-interesting commute into Boston.

Thus, I am always, always tired.

Now, the most logical thing to do would be to go to bed and catch up on some sleep. Unfortunately, nothing gets done when this happens: I let client deadlines get dangerously close, I allow my writing to languish (as evidenced by the digital sagebrush that’s blown across this space for the last week or so). Of course, eventually I’ll become so tired (I’m yawning as I write this) that I won’t be able to do anything well, and my hand will be forced as I collapse into the beckoning covers of our most-inviting bed.

It’s not just about finishing what I have to do, though. It’s about doing what I want to do. I want to spend time with our daughter, so I’m intentional about that. I want to spend time reading books, and maybe watch an occasional movie. If all I do is work, come home and crawl into bed only to repeat the cycle the following day, then I don’t think that’s living. I guess I’m radical in the sense that I think employment is there to serve the person working rather than the person existing to serve the employment.

So, is that being stubborn? Or are my intentions, at least, if not my practical applications, in the right place?

Or am I just suddenly very horrible at time management?

Time will tell…

Image attribution: North Charleston under Creative Commons.

Crunched by the Numbers

I don’t understand business.

Really, I don’t. Besides the fact that I experience serious nausea brought about by ethics whenever I see business working from the inside, I also don’t get it when it’s me doing the business. How in the world does one calculate what one’s time is worth? Isn’t it more important to get the job done well than quickly and cheaply? Isn’t it more important to get the job done than to bill every hour?

Part of this is because I’ve spent most of my professional life working in or with the non-profit sector, so working with people whose goal is to sell things strictly for profit…well, I just don’t understand it. I don’t understand it any better when it’s my own professional services that are being invoiced. Even when they’re being invoiced by me. A colleague once said that he had lost out on a significant amount of money in his life because he wouldn’t confront clients when they didn’t pay what was agreed. I’m not sure I wouldn’t confront if someone contractually owed me for my time, but I think I understand where he’s coming from.

All that to say, I hear people talk a lot about this concept of “return on investment.” It’s self-explanatory enough, and I understand it when we’re discussing things like products. If I buy a pair of jeans, I expect a certain lifespan out of them in order to justify the price. I use Macs (partly) because they go forever, and I get my money’s worth out of the device. I believe in “you get what you pay for.”

Except…

I don’t for a second believe that you can apply that concept to education. Years ago, I was at work talking with some colleagues about future educational plans. I mentioned that I wanted to do an MFA in writing, which was my academic goal at the time. This was as I was finishing my graduate degree in religion. The response I received was, “You don’t like going to school for things that will make you money, do you?”

This immediately brought to mind my parents’ questions (raised on multiple occasions) about what exactly that degree that I just sacrificed years for as gotten for me.

You see, I think that the education and life experience are reward enough. I think that studying the humanities and the arts have a “pay off” for us that are at least equal to the “pay off” from a narrower, more scientific or technical field of study, just in a different way. I don’t think that studying the humanities should be an endeavor motivated by earning income. I don’t think that pursuing any academic pursuit should be approached with that in mind.

Which is why this study, “8 College Degrees with the Worst Return on Investment,” which I spotted as it made its way around LinkedIn last week, really leaves me unsettled. In fact, it just leaves me disgusted. I know that someone needed to generate some copy for the site on this particular day, but if this represents our mindset about education, then the so-called “free market” really has poisoned our perspective on everything.

Let me lay aside the fact that the number one worst degree on their list, communications, was what I graduated with from undergrad. Let’s consider their other bad degrees: Fine arts, theology (both of which have been other disciplines that I’ve studied…fair enough). How about education? Or nutrition? Do we really want fewer professionals becoming teachers because they don’t make enough after college? Perhaps people who would be wonderful educators to our children? Do we want fewer nutritionists in favor of more medications? Fewer sociologists to study the potential dangers of our actions? Really?

I know that there are a lot of complicated pieces to this puzzle. I understand that faculty must be paid well for instructing at these colleges, but tuition prices are still out of control. Salaries for the most important professions barely stay afloat while salaries for professions like finance soar with no end in sight. And, being the pragmatic, quantifying Americans that we are, we begin thinking about which fields of study will make us the most money.

I’m not opposed to studying a technical field in order to make a living (I just finished doing exactly that). I’m motivated by Karen’s story of a friend that she knew in college. She told me that when he had finished high school, he apprenticed and became a master carpenter. Then he attended a liberal arts school for his undergrad degree, paying his way with the income that he earned from carpentry. I really respect that.

Yet, if we limit our educational pursuits to the things that make us the most money, then some of the most important aspects of the human condition…the arts, spirituality, the psychology of the human mind (all listed in this article)…receive less focus. The less focus they receive, the less we understand ourselves. The less we understand ourselves, the more we are doing things just to do them, just to earn more money, just to have more things…all of which leave us ultimately empty.

That’s a not a life that I want for our cultural future. That’s not the educational mentality that I want our daughter to inherit. Articles like this do nothing helpful for students planning their college careers. They are only there to earn ad revenue for the sites that waste pixels by putting them up.

And, incidentally, most of my friends were humanities majors. We continue to make our livings just fine.

Speeding Up, Dumbing Down

The first time that I heard of the concept of “speed reading,” I think that I was in elementary school. Being firmly in the realm of the imaginary at the time, I liked to pretend that I could do it (I also boasted of various super-powers at different times…ah, childhood). I wanted to be the superstar that could blow through the novel that everyone else was sluggishly complaining their way through for class.

In the real world of today, I’m a relatively slow reader. I read a lot in volume, but I still progress through books slowly, at least compared to my friends and to Karen, who devours a 300-page novel in a night. One of the reasons that I progress so slowly through books is that I pause periodically to digest what I’ve read. I like to think about it, reflect on it. For that reason, I tend to only move through a few chapters at a time before putting a book down for the night. I would rather really know a few books than to be loosely acquainted with many. I guess I read like an introvert.

Increasing my quota by hastening my reading time was never really something that held any appeal for me. Whatever the pace with which one read, I reasoned, pausing to engage and think through what you’ve just read is important. That part of the process just simply can’t be rushed.

The idea of speed-reading is useless to me in my “old age.” I think that’s why I cringe when I hear of a popular app like ReadQuick, which is built for the purpose of teaching us to read faster. If history shows us anything, it’s that speed and quality are almost always mutually exclusive. When multi-tasking is a prized activity and there’s always more and more to accomplish on any given day, sacrificing our engagement with the written word is something that could carry very drastic and long-reaching consequences.

Perhaps I should take comfort in the fact that trends tend to be cyclical. Maybe slowing down will one day once again by all the rage.