Tag Archives: Introspective

Mid-Life Myopia

Like a great many of my epiphanies, it came to me while watching Dr. Who. Something that the Doctor has done frequently, and especially is seasons 5 and 6, is to cause normal people whose paths he crosses to question if there is something bigger that they should be doing with their lives…something more consequential.

I guess this resonates with me because, even though I recognize it as a bit of a trap, I’m easily caught in thoughts of “shouldn’t I be doing something more than this?” That is, am I so caught up in the minutiae of the day-to-day as I try to get through my schedule and accomplish my to-do lists, that I miss a larger point…something else that should be grabbing my attention?

Now, don’t get me wrong. I have no illusion that I’m somehow destined to be some sort of profound, prophetic voice that cries out for a change that will prove life-altering for my culture. I’m not nearly that narcissistic. I don’t even hold any pretense that I’ll write a great American novel…perhaps not even a great one. I do think, though, that I have something to contribute. Perhaps I only think that because a professor in my undergrad gave me that encouragement, but I think that its true in any case. And, given that, I find it difficult to recognize that I’m contributing in any way that’s worth noticing. I feel like I’m missing the forest for the proverbial trees.

Of course, if its the grand scheme of my life that I’m concerning myself with, and I’m concerned that I’m spending too much time in the day-to-day, then I must also realize that the grand scheme is made up of the day-to-day. That is, I don’t want to miss the forest for the trees, but I have to understand that without the trees, there would be no forest. I can’t stop paying attention to daily life altogether.

It occurs to me that, even those who did alter the way in which we think and believe, didn’t achieve their status as cultural (re)formers while they were alive in most cases. Many a great author has been considered great only posthumously, and even more great artists. When you begin to think in realms such as politics, the odds of your contributions being fully recognized during your career or lifetime are even more remote.

Still, its just as dangerous to fall into the opposite trap…to be unable to see yourself as anything other than just a cog in the machine. The trouble with being completely absorbed in the daily logistics of life is that we can miss the fact that there is a reality beyond what we can empirically verify. To miss that is to miss the “why” for the “what.”

I’m not delving into destiny here. I’m not going to the “how,” because that’s an entirely different conversation. I will say, though, that those who contribute, at whatever level, to the greater scientific, artistic, political, or human good, do so through the context of their daily lives. The forest is better for their individual trees, and we are more than just the sum of our parts. I’m just working to not get so lost in the mundane that I forget to recognize that there might just be some of the spectacular here, as well.

Today is almost finished, friends. Here’s to what you have to contribute…by way of tomorrow.

Photo Attribution: fredcamino 

The Galvanized Grump

It’s so unjust, you know? A little pragmatism and you get the reputation for being a grump. There’s just some things that I tend to get passionate about, is all. And…well…I have difficulty shutting up when friends get on those topics. And then, well, I suppose I might get a little negative about them…perhaps even monopolize the conversation a bit. But a grump? Never.

As Lent arrived this year, I began pondering what it is about my life from which I might choose to abstain for several weeks. All of the immediate answers that I was hearing from friends and connections felt contrived if I tried to apply them to myself. I mean, abstaining from caffeine and the Internet and various other things are all perfectly valid spiritual exercises, don’t get me wrong. I just wasn’t feeling any passion about any of those things. I didn’t see how they would cause any forward momentum in me on a spiritual level.

So, with concrete actions failing me, I started moving into the realm of the abstract. I think what works to make me a worse person (at least lately) is that I get angry. I get angry at social injustice, and I really get irritable when I think about politics lately (it doesn’t help that I live in an area in which I’m surrounded by a very, very conservative political climate…a climate in which I am certainly an alien). It had began altering the way I see friends…causing me to apply stereotypical judgements to them. Knowing that anger and frustration and irritability is always cancerous to one’s soul, I  decided that I what I needed to abstain from for Lent was things that brought this out in me. I needed to detox. And, while that would certainly take the form of a great deal of political news, I wasn’t sure what else it would entail.

So, a few days ago, I indicated by way of my Facebook status that I was “giving up negativity for Lent.”

Amazing how a semi-humorous remark like that can spark a comment chain that takes on a life of it’s own. Hilarity ensued. Friends that I haven’t spoken to in a while (and who apparently perceived me as the aforementioned grump) moved from asking me if I could really do it (and alluding to pessimistic but hopeful wishes for my success) to wanting to reconnect with each other. The end result was the planning of a party. I suppose you can’t do much more to combat negativity than that.

There’s been other interesting effects, though. Sometimes detoxing from things that take up too much of our emotional energy leaves empty spaces, and those spaces can then fill with much more important things that require our consideration. It’s like a chamber filled with stale air has been vented to the outside world, and suddenly fresh air comes rushing in to fill the space. That space has to be filled with some sort of air….and positive thoughts are always better than negative.

The things that came rushing in to fill that void keep me up at night sometimes. I spend so much emotional energy being frustrated and anxious about things that I didn’t do when I was younger, things that I needed to do but that honestly just didn’t occur to me. Other things that I just wasn’t motivated enough to do. Things that I said I would do later. Now it’s not only later, but it’s beyond later. I’ve been spending so much time catching up and trying to re-make these passive choices from earlier in life that I’ve neglected things that I need to be taking care of now. Practical things. Important things.

I’ve often hypothesized that I reach emotional milestones late in life. That’s become more than a hypothesis now. I feel as if I’ve been living the last ten years of my life perpetually thinking that I was twenty years old. Recently I’ve awakened, and realized that I need to be dealing with things that I’ve sorely neglected in the present because I’ve been expending valuable (and finite) emotional energy regretting the past.

Replacing that negative vibe with a positive vibe has led me to a conclusion. I need to grieve over those decisions, and let them go. There is a present and future (involving a family) that require my attention. I’m not giving up on correcting some choices that I’ve made…I still think there’s room for maneuverability there. I just can’t let that consume my entire thought process.

Essentially, I can no longer approach it negatively, when there’s a positive way to approach the situation…one that doesn’t require forgoing the present. There’s so much more freedom when I look at it in that way…like a sculptor seeing the shape within the negative space.

Amazing what seemingly random and abstract Lenten practice can do for our emotional states. Here’s to hoping for more productive epiphanies.

Photo Attribution: cameraworx 

A Necessary 180

Last year, an article called “Our Buried Sentiments” appeared in Touchstone and discussed public outrage at desecration of the dead. The article is brief, beautifully written, and thought-provoking, and you really should click over and read it now.

(I’ll wait, really…go…) 
The idea that a culture defines itself by how it memorializes its ancestors is an interesting concept, because Western culture, and the U.S. specifically, has difficulty remembering histories that preceded it’s own “melting pot.” Yet, we still universally recognize (at least the author argues, and I’m inclined to agree), that our ancestors deserve respect, and that we also owe that respect to ourselves, as we stand on their shoulders to become whatever we are.
I’ve rambled a lot in the last year or so here about similar realizations within the microcosm of my own family. I was always one to eschew the past in favor of working toward the future, but I’ve come to realize (call it wisdom or maturity or just finally growing up) that my future springs from my present, and I would not have my present had I not had a family building a foundation in the past. 
Our country is very young…naively young, I think, and we tend to not want to dwell in the old when we can build the shiny and new. That’s not a problem confined to the youthful U.S., incidentally, but this is the only country in which I’ve lived, so I can’t speak for others. History is taught in a way to make ourselves look good, and thus often distorted, leaving generations (my own included) ignorant of the past…and thus doomed to repeat it should we not find the motivation to educate ourselves. One of the ways we learn the past is by taking advantage of listening to those who lived it tell their stories, while they’re still here to tell them. 
I know more about the Vietnam conflict from listening to my father’s stories of his tour there than I ever will from reading a textbook. The Vietnam Memorial carries significantly more weight for me because I have the opportunity to talk to my father about that era. There’s something different in hearing about the events from someone who lived them. Yet, as the author of the article you hopefully read a few moments ago points out, we shun not only death, but the elderly, pushing them away from us in the hopes of ridding ourselves of the visible signs of decay that accompanies our mortal existence. In doing so, we rob ourselves of our own history, leaving us stumbling blindly through the dark, self-assured and refusing to listen to anyone who might have been there before us, functioning as if we know the entire plot of the story even though we can only see the first-person perspective of a single character.

I have to pause, though, and consider those who simply aren’t fortunate enough to have a family that they ever had an opportunity to talk with about the past…a family vanished or fractured for whichever of the myriad of tragic reasons a family can be so. I wonder if our rush to anesthetize ourselves from old age corresponds with too readily accepting as normal the situations that can rob someone of their family moorings. The family unit progressively breaks down in our willingness to cheaply re-define it. 
I was so young and naive to avoid discussion of my past. So often today, Karen asks me questions about my parents or grandparents that I should know from childhood, but don’t, because I could never be bothered to listen when the stories were told. Now, I have to take snatches of time visiting with family to catch up, to learn things I should already have known. That’s a huge mistake from which to have to recover, one that could have been so easily avoided had I just embraced what had come before me instead of cringing at the thought of it in my youthful rush to exclusively embrace the new. 
Our society makes the same mistake. One of the values that religious practice brings to a culture is the discipline of confronting death as part of life. In doing so, the practitioners  stay connected with their past. There’s something we can learn from this. When we bury our past without knowing what we bury, I’m afraid we’re burying ourselves, as well.

Out With The Old…Sometimes…

I like toys.

I know, I know, that’s not really a huge surprise. I’m an early adopter of new technologies (sometimes to my chagrin), and I am in a perpetual difference of opinion with my wife over the most effective tools with which to make life more productive and fun. These differences of opinion happen when I recommend the latest app or device that I’ve found, or occasionally set her up with a free account for a great new service, only to discover that she still uses a paper-and-pen planner to schedule her week and to make her to-do lists. She integrates them into iCal as an afterthought, and essentially only so that I will have a copy of her schedule in electronic form.

Both she and my friend and fellow-blogger, Katherine, scoffed and shook their heads disdainfully at me over dinner one night when discussing my preference for ebooks to paperbacks. Yet, my wife still bought an e-reader for me for last year’s birthday.

As high-tech as I am, however, I discover myself preferring amazingly low-tech methods in certain aspects of life. Years ago, I eschewed electric razors in favor of a Gillette Mach 3 that I received as a Christmas gift. The reason for the choice was simple: I get a better shave with the latter. I still use the same razor that I received years ago, in fact. It’s become sort of sentimental.

More recently, I let go of the programmable coffee pot that had coffee hot and waiting for me each morning in favor of a French press. The reason was because I’m a complete snob about having perfect coffee, and this is the best taste I’ve been able to achieve. The choice required an alteration to my lifestyle: I have less time in the morning because I boil the water and grind the coffee fresh as soon as I wake up. It’s a low-tech sacrifice with great results.

Of course, the waking up occurs after the alert from an alarm clock that sets itself and remembers that the times I wake on weekends are different than weekdays, as well as understanding Daylight Savings Time changes. High-tech to low-tech.

Some family members prefer tea to coffee when they wake up. They have a nifty little device that boils the water for them in the mornings. I boil mine in a tea pot. I’m not sure why. Something about it just feels right. Yet, as right as it feels to work on something around the house with a traditional screwdriver, I’ll break out the battery-powered screw gun to sink a screw whenever and wherever I have the option. Working smarter, not harder, and all that. My wrist thanks me.

We have various high-tech appliances in the kitchen to assist in Karen’s creations of culinary masterpieces, as well as my fumbling through basic assemblies of meals when it’s my turn to cook. Yet we favor the low-tech in surprising ways (cast iron skillets flavor your breakfast sausage so much better that something with a non-stick coating!).

I even lament the decline of physical books on my shelves occasionally.

As much as I like my toys, there are times when the latest advancements in technology, while making life easier and more convenient for scheduling purposes, simply do not achieve the same level of quality as the low-tech, dare I say traditional, tools. I think that the thing to look for is functionality, not trends.  And, I think, the thresh-hold of what we’re willing to experiment with is different for each of us in different circumstances. Even beyond that, sometimes the low-tech options have more character.  Having choices is great…except when it’s not.

But I’ll take the battery-powered screw gun to a traditional screwdriver any day. Insert Tim Allen noise here.

Photo Attribution: Living in Monrovia

Shades of Red and Blue

Virginia is equipped state-wide with a warning light system at most major intersections. Essentially, when a fire or EMS vehicle is nearing the intersection, a flood light begins pulsing to warn traffic that the emergency vehicle is approaching, and the light turns red in the direction opposite of that of the approaching first responder. Karen and I were driving somewhere a few days ago…I can’t remember where…and I saw the pulsing floodlight. Quite handy, because it causes you to begin scanning forward and backward to see whether or not you need to move to the right and stop to permit the passage of the lights and sirens.

Over the weekend, it happened again…Karen didn’t hear the siren, and asked why I was stopping and moving to the side of the street. During a recent road trip, we had just pulled back onto the highway from getting a snack, and I had to move over and stop to permit a police cruiser to shoot past me. In fact, the afternoon that I write this, I was cut off in traffic by a suddenly illuminating police cruiser executing a traffic stop on an SUV.

It seems that, wherever Karen and I have lived since we’ve been married, it’s always close to a major source of lights and sirens. Major fire precincts have been within earshot of both of the apartments in which we’ve lived together, and most recently we’re just off of a major artery of traffic, as well. Thus, emergency vehicles of all sorts go blowing by on a regular basis, their lights briefly visible from our sun room window.

I’m not sure if I should read something into this fact, or not. It seems to me I would be over-spiritualizing to do so. A little over a year ago, the building across the street in our apartment complex was evacuated due to a kitchen fire. The parking lots were instantly filled with ladder trucks, rescue trucks, fire engines, ambulances, and a battalion chief. They descended in a matter of minutes. I was comforted by this, that they could respond that quickly should the need arise. It’s certainly not the only time I’ve seen fire vehicles in our parking lot; apparently the building next door has a tenant that experiences frequent medical crises, because an ambulance frequently arrives late at night, red and white strobes piercing through our bedroom window.

It causes me to wonder at times. Have Karen and I just coincidentally lived in apartments nearby emergency responders? Does this sort of stuff gravitate toward me? Does my guilty fascination with police reality television make me hyper-aware of a normal amount of activity? Or is there really that much trouble occurring around us, that many lives in trouble, that many conflicts? Do that many people have to cry for help so frequently?

The tiny apartment that I lived in during grad school…what would be my last “bachelor pad”…was situated in a quiet neighborhood which saw almost no trouble. One night, though, soon after I moved in, about five police cruisers sailed by at blinding speed, lights flaring and sirens wailing. A few months later, a police cruiser was quietly parked on the corner as I filled out a complaint because someone had vandalized my car. I’ve had to stop and call for help after witnessing numerous accidents while driving here or there in my life. Perhaps it really does follow me. Or perhaps I just notice it a great deal.

We all really cry out for help that much, don’t we? And we all feel more comfortable with the thought that there are those who are willing to come to our aid when we do. The allure of super-hero mythologies is that we all want a hero, and we all desire to be one at some point.

All of us. Every one.

Second Photo Attribution: khawkins04