Tag Archives: Introspective

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 

Auditory Gifts

Christmas was blissfully free of large amounts of gift-giving this year, providing us with time to focus on the important activities of re-connecting with family that we frequently only see once or twice a year, and of just spending some relaxing down-time in front of classic Christmas movies while drinking hot chocolate and having fluid discussions about this and that (passionately avoiding the subject of politics wherever possible).

And, for the opportunity to do all of these things, I am thankful.

Nearly four years into the marriage, I’m just becoming well acclimated to Karen’s side of the family. I’ve had some hit-and-miss relationships with some members of the family on her side, for various reasons, and this Christmas I had some wonderful and stimulating conversations with some of them. I was very happy to have connected with them and to have experienced substantive interaction.

I couldn’t really decide why that had happened, however, until my father-in-law summarized it the best. He said that, often, we are far too interested in communicating ourselves to spend the time getting to know those to whom we are communicating. In my words, these individuals and I had always spent time talking at each other instead of to each other until this year.

For the first time in our marriage, I felt as though I truly took the time to listen to some of our family, and the result was that we found a great deal more common ground than I had ever anticipated. Part of this is that we have all progressed in our spiritual and life journeys since last we spoke, but a great deal of the reason is that we took the time to listen as well as speak for the first time.

Sure, we agree to disagree on some things. I’m very politically opposite most of Karen’s family, for example (hence the avoidance of that topic), but there’s so much more in common than not in common that I’ve discovered after taking the time to listen first and speak later.

Learning the obvious lesson from this made a wonderful Christmas gift.

Here’s to the upcoming adventures of 2011…and to hoping our flight is somewhat on time today.

Photo Copyright by Austin-Lee Barron. Used by permission. 

I’d Love to Be Silent, But…

I set my status update a few minutes ago to say that I was clueless as to what to post about tonight. My friend recommended the “art of silence.”  I’ll avoid that one, because I think it’s way too heavy a statement for my current faculties.

I’ve had a lot on my mind lately. And, while all of it is exciting, it’s also a bit wearing. If you’ve read my musings here over the last year or so, you’re not surprised when I say that I need a career change. I’ve made my living in the social sciences, specifically in health care, for about ten years now. On my worst day, I no longer believe in my discipline. On my best days, I feel like I’m beating my head into a wall that isn’t moving. This is a field I stumbled into quite by accident, and its time in my life is drawing to a conclusion, for a number of reasons (namely, due to recent health care legislation, I basically am not marketable should I ever leave my current position).

Fortunately, I’ve been wanting to return to academia since I finished grad school. The problem is that I’ve simply got too many interests for my own good, and narrowing them down to even the two or three that could be incorporated into a good multi-disciplinary program has been excruciating at times. The positive outcome of the three years that have passed since I finished grad school has been that I’ve finally found everything cohesively tied into one research topic.

I think.

But, there’s the issue of making a living while returning to school…which is problematic considering I can’t pursue the type of study I want to here, which means leaving my current position…refer to paragraph one. So, making a career change that would allow me to return to something creative on a full time basis (instead of dabbling and freelancing as I do now) seems a logical choice. In fact, sometimes, it seems to be the more interesting choice.

At the crux of the problem is the old adage, “Those who can do, those who can’t teach.” I don’t believe that to be true, but I think it says something, in any case, and what it says is at the core of my dilemma. Do I want to study writing, or spend my energy writing? Do I want to study theatre, or work in theatre? Do I want to study, or do? Studying I’m confident in, doing sometimes brings up a host of insecurities. Ideally, I want to do, and have the doing make way for studying. Then I become concerned that that’s too much.

And, did I mention that I’m married, so its not just me that I’m trying to factor into this decision?

All that, not to whine, but because I have all of this spinning through my head and not a clue what else to write tonight. So, here I am.

I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Hello, My Name Is…

Sometimes there are joys to living in an apartment building that you just can’t experience if you live in your own home. For example, just two weeks ago, Karen and I were jarred out of a sound sleep by the piercing shriek of the building-wide fire alarm. A false alarm triggered by someone that had had too much to drink. We got back to bed at around 4:00 a.m. by the time the building was cleared.

See? That’s just fun you can’t find anywhere else.

While we were shivering outside, we had an opportunity to meet the neighbors, who were just as cold and just as irritated as we were. You tend to remember the people you meet under those circumstances. Bonding under pressure, and all that.

Well, you would think.

I walked into a local Starbucks late last week. The barista making my drink looked at me quizzically for a moment, and then asked, “Do you live at (enter name of apartment complex here)?”

“Yes.” I blinked. I should know this guy?

“Remember? The fire alarm?”

Ding ding ding! This was the neighbor I had met that night! I hadn’t remembered him. He explained that the girl he was with that I assumed was his girlfriend or wife was his sister, and talked about events around the building, and his life in general. We had a good, if brief, conversation about our lives that had its launching point in a shared experience. But, I hadn’t remembered him. I explained to him that I have a difficult time with names. In fact, though I remember his name now, I can’t remember his sister’s name as hard as I try.

I have a really hard time with the fact that I have a really hard time with that.

The reason is that I think there’s power to a name. Think about how many people you know that fit the etymology of their names. I find it to be very frequently true. The power goes beyond people, as well. Our culture is one of labels. Physicians diagnose illnesses, essentially giving them names. We have titles and labels for common issues and problems and phenomena. The reason we do this is that naming something gives you power over it. We go to a doctor because we are experiencing a problem that we can’t identify. The doctor names the problem. Then there is a staring point from which to begin treatment.

I think that naming a person is a powerful thing, as well. I believe parents are exercising an enormous act of power in naming their children; I honestly think it shapes a part of that child’s future. Names aren’t something to be applied flippantly or without careful consideration. That’s why I have such a huge problem with derogatory labels and defamatory statements that apply hurtful or stereotypical labels to people. As much as we want to insist that these are “just words,” and that words aren’t powerful, that just isn’t true. Words are signs of our deepest reality, and they point to a meaning deeper than just a verbal formation of syllables and consonants.

So, someone’s name is symbolic of the totality of who they are. A name is sort of an umbrella under which all of that person’s beliefs and personality characteristics and thoughts and essence fall. To call someone’s name is a powerful thing, orienting both of you to a recognition that they are a person just like you, and worthy of the same respect.

I endeavor to approach everyone with love and respect, and so the huge memory gap I have with names bothers me a great deal. I’m bothered by it because I feel as though I’m not truly engaged with the person at a substantive level if I don’t remember their name. Whether that person is my wife or the waitress who takes my order at a restaurant, I want to connect with them as a human being. That means calling them by name, because to do otherwise is to reduce them to something less than human in my mind. I don’t want to be so pre-occupied that I don’t recognize a person’s name. I can’t think of anything more de-humanizing than that.

Yet, I do it so frequently.

It’s a work in progress. If I’ve ever forgotten your name, please forgive me. I know it’s a mistake I’ll make again, but hopefully with less and less frequency.

Photo Attribution: quinn.anya