Tag Archives: Introspective

Perspective and Experience

I used to be that guy.

Somewhere during the first real, professional job I held after college, I remember going down the hall to a co-worker’s office to ask a question about a mutual case we were handling. I walked into her office, and another co-worker was showing off her her new baby, much to the “oohs” and “aahs” of everyone present. I was mostly oblivious. I asked the question, and left with the answer, hearing comments and laughs about I was a “typical guy” who essentially didn’t even recognize that there was a child present.

Its not that I didn’t recognize that there was a child present. I acknowledged the fact, its just that this was data that I didn’t really have anything to do with. I mean, its not like I was going to interact with the little bugger or anything. My history to that point, and for several years after, had involved intentionally not being in positions in which I would have to hold a baby. And, when I did, I froze, and the baby screamed and cried, and it was a mess. So, I just avoided it.

Even after we were married, I would recall conversations that Karen and I had recently had with friends, and would have completely edited from my memory that the friends’ children were even present in the room. This was just not a fact that I needed. I had dumped the un-necessary data, almost as a web browser periodically does with cookies.

Since knowing that were are expecting, however, I’ve undergone a strange alteration in perspective…like someone threw a switch in my head. That change was relatively instant, too…I mean, it began the day I knew my daughter was coming. I’m hyper-vigilant now to children around me, playing with their parents, doing things that cause me to tense up because I’m afraid that they’re going to be hurt, or just catching my attention and giving me a big, baby grin.

At first I was afraid that I might be required to turn in my man card.

After thinking about it, though, I think that this is just indicative of how experiences alter the lenses through which we see life; changes our schema, to use the educational term. I’ve always suspected that I’ve reached emotional milestones late in life. That is, I’ve always felt as though I’m younger than I am, which has caused some interesting reactions from friends at times (“you’re going to do a career change now?”). I’ve always joked that I didn’t know what I wanted to be when I grew up, but, much to my chagrin, I’ve grown up. This, I think, is just one of those experiential things that prove it. And, far from turning in my man card, I actually feel as though I am completely entitled to it for the first time in my life.

I have these people around me that are older and that I feel comfortable asking questions about anything. I feel comfortable with this because, whatever the issue at hand, they’ve been through it already, by virtue of the fact that they’ve been alive longer than me. They can give me input on how they handled the situation, and whether or not it worked. If nothing else, they tend to know what not to try. One of the areas in which I had to mature was to keep my mouth shut and not offer advice in areas that I know nothing of, or in which I am inexperienced. Asking questions is one thing, but I had an issue with thinking I knew everything when I was younger. Actually, I suppose we all did.

Now, though, I feel like I’m one step further down this experiential path. There’s something else that I could begin to offer some feedback on to someone younger than myself. I could say that this means I’m getting older, but I’m going to say I’m becoming more experienced, instead. That preserves my illusion of being perpetually 20 years old…an illusion that grows progressively more transparent with the smallest of challenges.

Here’s to changes in perspective.

Tragi-Comedy

A few days ago, Karen decided that she was in the mood for a romantic comedy. Thus, we bypassed the latest episode of House in the Hulu cue, and ultimately plugged in a DVD of Gilmore Girls. And, no, I don’t need to turn in my man-card…if you’ve never watched that program, I’d point out to you that it is one of the best-written television serials I’ve ever seen, from a perspective of dialogue if not plot arc. I made the comment that I would like to be able to write something that clever. At the end of the day, though, I just don’t typically have things that are that happy and funny make their way out of my keyboard.

While I personally found this recent post on Good Letters about the poor theology that underlies poor art to be spot on, Karen had a big issue with what it says…she feels that it throws the proverbial baby out with the bathwater. She spoke of how allowance has to be made for those members of an audience who struggle with certain things. She spoke of a scene in a recent television program that she watched that depicted a sexual assault. She says that, while the scene was well-filmed and not at all gratuitous, she was still very bothered by what she saw.

I take the stance that I can’t possibly be responsible for everyone who reads what I write, and whether or not they will have a deep spiritual struggle with what I have written.

This leads me back to the realization that I don’t really write comedy. I tend to not direct it well on stage, either…its just not my genre. Its not that I’m an overly somber or stoic guy…I’ve been told that my sense of humor, while a bit off-center, is quite funny. For some reason, though, my writing tends to be of a darker subject matter and tone. I don’t know why, it just is.

So, if every character that I create is somehow based on me, what does this say about me that my writing is always dark and shying away from the comedic?

Wouldn’t I be a better person if I could write profoundly funny things?

Or am I just being paranoid?

Photo Attribution: Cara Photography 

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.