Introspective | unobtrusive lucidity

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…

Losing Letters

Maybe I’m missing something, but there seems to be a dearth of dads writing about being dads on the Internet, at least in thoughtful, long form ways. Perhaps this is because there is a dearth of anything long form on the Internet in its current sound-bite, social-media poisoned iteration, but I digress…

This is particularly noticeable to me because I think being a dad is hard. I know that I’m not alone, because every dad I know recognizes that being a dad is hard. Like any experience, there are things that only other dads would understand. There’s also a common ground that’s formed immediately, regardless of age or culture, in being a parent. Other dads just get it. We understand and sympathize.

I very much appreciate dads writing about being dads. In a society in which we’ve actively chosen to eschew the wisdom of our elders, I think that gaining whatever insight I can from others who have already been through whatever parenting challenge that I might be experiencing is of paramount importance. That’s why this post stood out to me in a very real, very poignant way, because it is insight into parenting from the son’s perspective instead of the parent’s. The son has recently lost his father, and speaks of the importance that the father’s letters have in his life now. The encouragement is for fathers to write more letters to their children. I encourage you to take a moment to read that post…it’s well worth your time.

We’ve taught both of our daughters to write letters. In some cases, this was seen as a curious novelty by their friends, and certainly the practice is often replaced by digital channels now in the case of our oldest. Still, letters and hand-written cards frequently enter and leave our mailbox, because we feel that this is an important social activity that should not become extinct. I also notice that both of our daughters, like us, keep journals of ideas and important thoughts. Like us, these aren’t digital journals, but hand-written pages. Like us, these journals are prized possessions, not because of the items themselves, but because of the ideas and memories contained within them. I’m actually quite proud of the way both of them hold onto this much more civilized and polite manner of communicating and keeping record of their musings.

And yet…

When I think of the written communication between my oldest and myself, it’s almost exclusively digital. I’ve thought often about this blog, and about how I hope that my kids will read it at some point when they’re older. I’ve even pondered if they will be able to gain insight into my thoughts and motivations after I’m gone by reading this space (I’ve been writing here long enough for it to be an actual record in many ways). That makes many assumptions, though, not the least of which is that someone will keep this around once I’ve passed for anyone to read it. Perhaps the Pulse will have happened by then and nothing of the digital realm will exist anyway. My point is that, I take the wisdom of the writer I linked to above. I need to write more letters, or at least notes, to my kids. Physical, hard copy letters. Things that they can keep with them and treasure if they so choose, because those are permanent, or at least more permanent than a URL. They also carry more meaning, because there’s something…spiritual…about taking the time to physically write out your thoughts for someone to read. The intentionality of that act is emotionally and mentally heavier than typing on a keyboard, if for no other reason than someone took the time. That, in a frenetic society starved of free time, is a valuable currency, and thus a valuable gift.

A year or so ago, I went hiking on the coast. This is a regular trip for me during the summer months, a day when I get away, be near the ocean, and center myself. As I sat down for lunch on that hike, overlooking the ocean on a beautiful summer day, and opened by backpack, I discovered a note written by our kids. It was simple…a heart drawn with the words “we love you”, and signed with both of their names.

Simple, but profoundly powerful, because they had taken the time to write this together, to slip it into my backpack when I wasn’t looking, to send their love with me for the day in such a real, tangible way. I saved that note. It is immensely valuable to me.

I need to learn from that. We need more notes and letters. We all do.

Go write them.

I’m Looking at You, 2025

Dare I write optimistically?

I’m not one to believe in things like luck, but there’s been an unfortunate pattern for a bit. I’ve written optimistic New Year’s posts for two years now, and have had some fundamental things about my world shaken for both of those years. The resolutions I’ve made? Sparsely successful. The biggest thing that I’ve accomplished? Survival, if I’m to be honest. Interesting, isn’t it, how you can look forward at your life at a given point, only to find yourself looking back on that point years or decades later and wondering how you could have been so positive. Yesterday’s optimism becomes today’s naiveté. And so it goes.

The thing that’s forefront in my meditation this New Year’s is an overwhelming feeling of time wasted, of a desire to redeem that time, somehow. I want life to work, to be stable, but not in the sense of logistics or the employment crises I’ve found myself in for the last two years. I mean that I want life to work in a larger, more wholistic sense…a more metaphysical way, if you will. I feel as though the experiences that I’ve had in the last two years have demonstrated that the road not taken in the Before Times may well have been the best one, and I’m trying to determine what to do with that.

So, my journal holds new year’s resolutions. I’m very hesitant to record them here. I’m hoping that, in a way I would struggle to articulate, things start to click this year. And that word is the beginning of the process: hope.

Such a small word to write, such huge implications.

I know this: yesterday morning, on New Year’s day, I woke up with my daughters and made pancakes for breakfast. Such a small thing, but something that they both love the three of us to do together, and something we hadn’t done in a long time.

Such a small thing to do, but such huge implications.

Here’s to 2025.