Where does confidence come from?

It seems to me that confidence is a tool that offers a huge return for anyone possessing it. If you've got it, you can leverage it in every way possible. A few examples:

1. The confident person seizes big opportunities (or rather creates them) and sees them through to fruition. This could be a business venture, a political opportunity, or something as simple as writing music and playing it live for others to hear. No one wants to take big risks except confident people.
   
   
2. The confident person responds to criticism by converting it to energy and using that energy to further his goals.
   
   
3. The confident person responds to outright failure with an intense review of why he failed. Then he takes this newly acquired knowledge and leverages it to the hilt in his future plans. His failure becomes his asset.
   

But all of this begs the question: where does confidence come from? Genes? Parents? Past success? Good teachers?

Does confidence engender success, or does success engender confidence?

Whirlwind of Questions

Sometimes questions drive me insane. Especially when I can't arrive at any conclusions because the string of questions only continues.

At the same time, I think that it's questions that keep things interesting, even though they make people uncomfortable. It makes me uncomfortable to ask where Ellen and I will be in two years, but it brings joy to think about all of the possible outcomes as well. New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Nashville? It drives me insane to consider all of the different career opportunities that come with a law degree and question which one is right for me, but it's exciting at the same time.

Sometimes I wish I could turn my brain off so I wouldn't have to hear all the questions that fly through there every day, but that wouldn't be any fun would it?

Making Things Work

"Clinton and Magaziner did not know Congress, and so they did not build legislation that worked in Congress. They saw the policy problem more clearly than the political problem. Arguably, they solved the former. But in failing to solve the political problem, their policy was stillborn."

-from an article written by Ezra Klien in the American Prospect

This got me thinking about how Obama will use Tom Daschle to push through whatever healthcare reforms they come up with. You can't just be an expert on policy. You can't just be a hard nosed senator. No, to implement great legislation that really makes things better for everyone, you've got to be great at both.

This probably produces a big bottleneck effect. Lots of people in think tanks with great ideas but no ability to push the ideas through congress. Lots of senators and representatives (or ex-politicans) with the political agility to do great things but utterly lacking great ideas. Then, a few people who are really great at both.

Seems like a bad deal for the rest of us who have to live with congress' decisions. Let's hope Obama picked the right man in Daschle.

Hitler and Nietzche

Hilarious.

Democracy

"Democracy consists of choosing your dictators, after they've told you what you think it is you want to hear." -Alan Corenk

Good Days

Today has been a great day. The only thing I've done all day is sit around with people I love watching college football. Bama played at 11:30 this morning, and Ellen and I met Cara and Blake at Blake's apartment at 10:45. We made pancakes, bacon, eggs, sausage balls, and biscuits. All was ready just in time to enjoy it as the game began. Bama won. We cheered. We laughed. We enjoyed each other.

Those are my kind of days.

Society

In a recent column, David Brooks said the following: "..individualist description of human nature seems to be wrong. Over the past 30 years, there has been a tide of research in many fields, all underlining one old truth — that we are intensely social creatures, deeply interconnected with one another and the idea of the lone individual rationally and willfully steering his own life course is often an illusion."

We need each other. And yet, sometimes it's so easy to feel like it's just you against the world, yearning and struggling alone in order to navigate the often cloudy landscape of social networks.

I suck at it.

Marriage Advice

I got married recently, and so far its been amazing. A PERFECT wedding day, complete with my friend bobby tripping as he entered the sanctuary (which i thanked him for because he quelled the rush of emotion that was about to bubble over as I stood awaiting my bride). A PERFECT reception where i got to party with friends and family. A PERFECT honeymoon where i just hung out on the beach and drank daiquiris with my beautiful lady all day.

Everything has been amazing, especially how well loved i have been by all of my friends, friends who traveled from california and ohio at their own expense to be with me on this special day, friends who have offered me their help and their time whenever i have needed it. My wedding was special because i was wedded with an amazing girl, my best friend. But it was also special because all of my best friends were there with me. My pastor and friend, who has taught me so much about who God is, was there to look me in the eye, pray with me, calm me, comfort me, and give me some of the best marital exhortations i have ever heard. The day was so very special.

Now that all of the chaos of getting ready for the big day has settled, I have had some time to settle down and listen to the marriage advice of those with quite a bit more experience than I. The refrain has been this: don't sweat the small stuff. EVERY SINGLE person I have talked with has said this one thing. I guess I should take it to heart.

My favorite advice? Well, it comes from the cable guy. Comcast sent John, a tall, broad shouldered, overweight, ex-military African-American to my new apartment in Tuscaloosa to set up our cable. Trying to make conversation as he worked, he said, "Now you must be waitin' around fo' school to start, right?"
"Well, yeah, just kinda hangin out until then," I said, "and just trying to enjoy my new marriage while I've got the time on my hands to do so."
"Oh, so you just got married?" he replied.
"Yeah, just a few weeks ago."
"Well, bless yo' little heart," he said with an overt chuckle, "I remembuh the firs' three yeeuhs uh' my marriage I was like.....why oh why did I do this? But I'm still doin it twenty six yeeuhs latuh."
Laughing, I asked, "Well how did you manage to make it?"
"Oh, well, uh......time. Jus' time. I had to learn not to sweat the small stuff....I had to learn to jus' let her do it her way and be wrong. Thas' whut you gotta learn young man. She gon' have to have it her way, an' you gone have to let her do it."
"That sounds like good advice," I said.
"It is. And here's the second thing. There was an ole' R&B song I used to listen to that pretty well tells ya my next piece of advice. It's called, 'It's cheaper to keep her.' An that's the truth. Once you reproduce, they get half. Plain and simple. Then they gone' make ya pay that child support, and so well really, they get mo' than half. So you sleep on the couch if you have to, cry with a blanket, call ya momma, and do whuteva you gotta do, but I'mma tell ya now, It's cheaper to keep her."
And I am having trouble breathing in between bouts of laughter. So ends cable guy's marriage advice.

I suppose that's one way of looking at it.

The Market - Artifice as Art

Jed Perl is the art critic for The New Republic, and he’s recently written an article that I’ve found to be immensely interesting. He is adamant about pulling his readers on board with him as he wraps the gavel in condemnation of the trends emerging in his world, the world of art.

The world of art is a place where I have little competency, but it’s also a place I love. During my semester abroad, I spent a fair amount of time thinking about art as I found myself ensconced on many a museum bench. I was fortunate enough to spend time with a passionate professor of art, one who could elucidate the philosophies, movements, and overarching history of art with such intellectual prowess and casual familiarity that I was left bedazzled. About midway through the semester I found myself hunched over my computer in a narrow hallway at the university where I studied with the friendly janitor for my only company. It was late, the rooms empty, lights out. But there I was, with the faint crisp smell of cleaning supplies lingering in the air as I pondered the question: What is art? I hadn’t thought much about it before. I knew it was something I enjoyed, but aside from that difficult (and expansive) question that I was supposed to answer in a paper to be turned in the following day in a language in which I was only moderately proficient (if that), I couldn’t even answer why it was that I actually enjoyed art.

But I know my answer now. I enjoy art because it takes me somewhere else, because it allows me to perceive some object (or possibly the absence of an object) and experience that object in it’s own world, even if there be no intentional frame of reference on the part of the artist. As John Dewey explains:

“A crowd of visitors steered through a picture-gallery by a guide, with attention called here and there to some high point, does not perceive; only by accident is there even interest in seeing a picture for the sake of subject matter vividly realized. For to perceive, a beholder must create his own experience. And his creation must include relations comparable to those which the original producer underwent. They are not the same in any literal sense…. Without an act of recreation the object perceived is not perceived as a work of art.”

For me, this offers a clear answer to my once puzzling question: why had I never been interested in art and yet now, I had found myself in love with it? To be sure, I don’t know very much about art other than possessing rough ideas of certain periods and the ability to pick out Cézanne and Monet. But despite my ignorance, I’ve found the world of art to be a welcoming bastion of new, exciting, and unique experiences to be had, each work able to function as an alternative vaulted macrocosm, complete with it’s own cosmos. If I’m lucky, I’ll be ripped from a world of sin and corruption and thrown into one of resplendent beauty. And I see the finger of God there, pushed through the utensil of man.

Jed Perl says this particular world of art is now threatened by a new, market oriented style of art. He references the current fashionable makers of modern art: Murakami, Koons, and Eliason. Perl’s idea of the way art should be: “A painting or a sculpture, whether abstract or representational, must always be a place--a unique locale, a little universe.” The work of these new artists (and the thousands like them): “they replace the there that constitutes a work of art with a nowhere.”

Art is no longer unique, he argues, but the capitalist world and the world of art have merged in order to produce art as a logo, art as a brand. Museums? They’re brands too, “places to dump expensive stuff.” The astute modern artist is really a marketer, well adept at creating things for which people will pay quite a bit of money to possess.

Why no more unique experience?

Perl:

“The people who run many of the contemporary art museums would probably be nervous about an experience that was so utterly unique. They are uncertain about their own taste. They want to give the public a dependable experience, which means an experience that has already been market-tested in other museums and galleries--and in the auction rooms.”

“I could explain why I think one of the two Serras at BCAM is better than the other, but the only thing that really matters is that Eli Broad, being a very important guy, has both of them.”

Art as social platform.

Markets have arguably done many things to force movement towards better living standards for a number of people, i.e. the rise of alternative energy sources as the price of oil increases, firms in Bangalore created to meet the low cost needs of tech companies in the U.S., etc. But when it comes to art, I want the finger of God, not the market savvy faux artist and his trickery. I want the enlightening experience of a new cosmos, not the mundane experience of “nowhere.”

Something valuable is lost when art is no longer enjoyed as it is experienced, but rather bought because it’s an important piece. For me it is frightening that something so petty as a rung along a social latter could be so convincingly disguised as something so important, art.

Artifice disguised as art.

Perl quotes R.B. Kitaj: “Paintings sit there, looking out at the world, which remains separate. I'm for an art into which the painter imports things from the world that he cares about"--imports them into the alternate world that is the work of art. "Painting," Kitaj explains, "is a great idea I carry from place to place. It is an idea full of ideas, like a refugee's suitcase, a portable Ark of the Covenant."

These alternate worlds are important to me. I care about them. I want their creators to care about them. In fact, I need them to. Real beauty is at stake.

Pet Cemetery

Next year I'm going to be part of a class at school called "Documenting Justice." The course is year long, and we will learn something of the art of documentary film making. The first semester will be studying the idea and genre of documentary, trying to understand the power a film maker has over someone with a camera in his hand, with the ability to include only what he desires in the final cut. During the second semester we will pair off, each pair making an 8-10 minute documentary on the social justice issue of their choice.

In preparation for this class, we have been instructed to view a number of different documentary films, one of which is entitled, "Gates of Heaven."

Gates of Heaven is about the six very strange individuals that surround the day to day operation of a pet cemetery. I haven't finished watching it, but so far, it is one of the strangest things I have ever seen. You can imagine the demeanor of a man whose sole dream in life is to create a place where people can give proper burials to their long lost loved ones, who might be dogs, cats, rodents, horses, snakes, birds, etc.

But this strange man makes an interesting point: He says that sometimes the loss of a pet can be just as severe as the loss of a child. Humans, he says, can only be known while you stand face to face with them. Once you turn your back, you can't really know them. You can't know a human won't turn on you, betray you. You can't know whether or not a human will be there when you need him. But a dog, on the other hand, you can always know. You can know that when you turn your back, they'll be there right behind you. They won't attack you or seek their own interests at your expense. They're loyal. This, he says, is why so many people are so attached to their pets. When they need someone to cry to, they bury their head in the fur of a dog.


A man and his dog. A man who lives in a world where dogs and cats can be trusted more than men. Could this mean that all of us, whether religious or not, are aware of the fact that we as humans are broken, in need of fixing?

I don't think dogs, cats, rodents, or snakes are going to fix the problem.

Mr. James

"As a rule we disbelieve all the facts and theories for which we have no use."
-William James

Think this over for a moment. Agree with it? Have you ever even entertained a theory or idea for which you had no use? Do you pay attention at lectures during which the speaker heralds a new way of seeing the world if yours seems to be working "fine" at the moment? Why consider someone else's idea? Yours is good enough.

You tread dangerous ground when you consider the validity of ideas that don't quite mesh with the world that you've constructed. And I think it's the exact remedy necessary to avoid bigotry, racism, and most importantly, a self centered vantage point.

Case-in-point: Hugo Black. Justice Black sat on the Supreme Court during a time when it was politically expedient for him to be racist. And he was racist, that is, until he began reading late at night, checking out more books from the Library of Congress than anyone before him. He educated himself out of racist thought. That ALL people, including african americans, were created equal was not a useful belief (for him), and he would have done well to continue a comfortable life, never questioning his view. Except that his view was just plain wrong. Justice Black adopted an un-useful idea, a true idea. His court opinions were then laced with this new idea, that all really are equal.

How many of my beliefs should I reconsider, beliefs I might hold because they help me bolster my position, but might not be true?

Requerimiento

I've been reading the book that I mentioned earlier called, "A Journey Long and Strange," by Tony Horowitz, and he mentions a Spanish document called the Requerimiento. This document was created by the Spanish and supported by the Pope. It's purpose? Well, it was a kind of rules of engagement with unmet people groups, especially los indios of the new world. It was to be formally read before any new people with whom the Spanish encountered.

The document gave two options. A. Accept the fact that we are Spain and God has ordained that we have full authority by the Pope to take control of your people and your land. Heed to this proclamation and you will be treated with certain privileges. B. Ignore it and we will conquer you and spare nothing. We will take your homes and decimate them, your women and children and make them into slaves, and your land to make our own homes. No respect will be paid to you or your traditions, your way of living, or your land.

My favorite part about this document? It was often read in the middle of the night, outside the walls of a newly discovered pueblo, with no audience.

Other favorite part? When it was read in front of an audience, the majority of the time there was no translator.

To point out the obvious, either of these scenarios equals zero understanding.

Danny Devito

I read a blog by this guy named Seth Godin. My friend Jeremiah pointed me there, and it never fails to be interesting. That's why i keep reading. He posted this the other day, and I thought I'd put it here.....cause its interesting:

George Clooney is a movie star. He looks like one. He makes tens of millions of dollars a year, hangs out at Cannes and has starlets falling at his feet.

Danny Devito is exactly five feet tall. He was perfectly cast as the Penguin.

Can you imagine the career advice Danny got? The well-meaning people who explained to him (as if he didn't know) that he didn't really look like George Clooney? That perhaps, maybe, he should consider a job as a personal trainer or short order cook...

The math, however, tells us something different.

(number of people resembling George Clooney)/(jobs for people resembling George Clooney) is a much bigger number than the ratio available to Danny. For the math challenged: Because everyone in Hollywood is trying to be George, there are a lot more opportunities for the few Dannys willing to show up.

Invest in Danny. The edges usually pay off.

Time

Ever since I started my job, it has been difficult to find time to post. I don't really understand how working people find time to breathe, much less time to spend blogging, reading the newspaper, or reading anything period. At school I could find time to complete my schoolwork, time to spend with my lovely friends, time to read interesting books, time to read the newspaper and keep up with the world. Now that I'm home, I find time for work, sleep, and ellen. Bout it. Suffice it to say, I need to do some readjusting of schedules.

Sidenote: I discovered something interesting yesterday. In Alabama there exists DeSoto Caverns and DeSoto State Park. I've always known that the name refers to Hernando DeSoto, one of the "discoverers" of many parts of Alabama. Yesterday, I discover that he was basically a mad man, a modern day Ahab looking for treasure, for caverns filled with gold, like had been found in Mexico and Peru. And God forbid you should be in his way, because he would whip out his sword and strike you down. He was responsible for the bloodiest battle that has ever taken place on American soil, more bloody than Antietam. He was a "Conquistador." So why is this man's name on a state park?

Where do you look?

What do you need for significance? Just ponder it for a moment. You want it. You want to be significant.

Maybe you just want the few people who surround you to find you interesting. Could it be that "all you need" is a family to pour yourself into? Might it be that "all you need" is to do something great that people will remember? Write something of great literary merit. Post more points than Kobe. Create foreign policies on the level with Henry Kissinger.

What are you really looking for in sex? Is it not that you will achieve some level of physical intimacy with the end in mind of achieving some emotional intimacy? Is it not that you want to be naked in front of someone who will look back into your eyes, know your deepest fears, and then tell you they love you...forever?

Why do you need that? What difference does it make? No one will remember your name in a few generations time. So why this pining for significance? Why the clamor for applause? Why the backflips for shock value? Why market yourself like some cheap product in the hopes that you'll grace the upper echelon of your given market?

The top of the old market is the bottom of a new one.

If we are just a pile of atoms, of what use is significance? What use are morals? If we are just atoms, then Nietzsche was right. Nihilism wins the day. The strong man conquers.

If what i see is a world of people doing jumping jacks for just a crumb of attention, I can't conclude that this is simply a product of randomly firing neural synapses. I don't think that anyone really believes that the rational and emotional entered via that route. The whole thing begs for a better explanation.

I believe we are to find that significance somewhere else. Somewhere other. We were made to participate in the laughter of the Trinity.

12 Reasons to say Holy Cow!

So my friend cara sent me this email with "12 reasons to say holy cow!" as the subject line. I opened it up, and this is what i found...

Let's talk about Hell

I've been reading Tim Keller's new book called, "The Reason for God," and so far, the most intriguing chapter that I've read has been his chapter entitled, "How can a loving God send people to Hell?" I think this is a very necessary question for those of us who espouse a loving God to answer. Within this question are many "sub-questions," questions that we would do well to think through and grapple with in order to better understand who God is.

I might blog about this issue off and on, because I have had many thoughts as I have sifted through Keller's chapter. This week is exam week, so the writing might be sparse. But I shall continue again next week.

First, I think I want to talk about the idea of what hell actually is. I would agree with Keller and others who propose that most people think of hell as a hissing cauldron of fiery lava, a place you go at the end of your life when God says, "Whelp, you didn't make the right choices...so...uh...see ya later stupid." I think this misses the point by a long shot. In thinking about hell, we would do well to think less about what is present in the place called hell and more about what is not present..... God. I think my college pastor Joel Brooks put it best when he said, "There is a word for the place where you get literally everything in the world that you could possibly want....minus God. That word is hell." Read Romans 1. The phrase, "And God gave them up.." is repeated over and over. Why? Because God gives you what you want. If you don't want Him, and you want other things, He doesn't get out his whip and taunt you with images of fiery furnaces. He says, "Fine. You can have what you desire." And I can attest to this personally, when I choose something over Jesus, something that I think is more fun than Jesus, more beautiful than Jesus, more interesting. I always turn out to be wrong, but it has taken many progressive trips to the land of misery for me to see how wrong my worldy wisdom always turns out to be. And I'll probably try again tomorrow. Jesus always turns out to be more beautiful.

So what is hell? I think C.S. Lewis describes is best, as Keller quotes him:

"Hell begins with a grumbling mood, always complaining, always blaming others...but you are still distinct from it. You may even criticize it in yourself and wish you could stop it. But there may come a day when you can no longer. Then there will be no you left to criticize the mood or even enjoy it, but just the grumble itself, going on forever like a machine. It is not a question of God "sending us" to hell. In each of us there is something growing, which will BE HELL unless it is nipped in the bud."

Keller adds:

"The people in hell are miserable, but Lewis shows us why. We see raging like unchecked flames their pride, their paranoia, their self-pity, their certainty that everyone else is wrong, that everyone else is an idiot! All their humility is gone, and thus so is their sanity. They are utterly, finally locked in a prison of their own self-centerdness, and their pride progressively expands into a bigger and bigger mushroom cloud. They continue to go to pieces forever, blaming everyone but themselves."

Lewis:

"There are only two kinds of people- those who say "Thy will be done" to God or those whom God in the end says, "Thy will be done." All that are in Hell choose it. Without that self- choice it wouldn't be Hell. No soul that seriously and constantly desires joy will ever miss it."

So in the end, there is no pit with tons of sad people wishing they could see Jesus saying, "Please let me out of here! It's awful!" There are only people who couldn't and wouldn't want anything but Hell. So what's hell? The place where Jesus isn't. There's just you. You finally got your way. And you're simply miserable. Forever.

I miss this place

This is Spain. And I miss it. I miss the land. I miss the smells, the food bathed in olive oil, the cavernous museums lined in famous art, the beauty of the language, having conversations in spanish with random old men at train stations, watching my friend John pee right in the middle of the town, and the idiosyncratic nature of the spanish people. I think what I miss most, though, is Spain's slowness, their ability to sit back and enjoy life a bit. Maybe Spaniards see life from a vantage point that is impossible for those of us who move at constant break-neck speeds. Maybe we should all slow down a bit, open our eyes, observe, and actually try and understand what's around us.

A Few Shots

Amy and Matt
This weekend, Camille and I traveled to Mississippi to shoot Amy and Matt's wedding. I've placed some of my shots below.

She looked absolutely gorgeous, and I probably heard 50 different people remark about how happy they looked together. I would have to agree.

Big Blue Elephant

Need to clean the urinal....well just back this giant blue robotic elephant up to it, and she'll do the trick. She'll have your urinal shined up to a glistening white in a jiffy.

Materialism

Today in a very interesting NYTimes article, David Brooks discusses an article called, "“C. S. Lewis and the Star of Bethlehem,” by Michael Ward. Brooks comments that he has often looked longingly at this article on his desk as he has incessantly written concerning the presidential campaigns. He has felt thus because for him, the article offered an escape from the tunnel-like atmosphere of incessant campaign coverage into the mystical world of medieval thought. He says, "There’s something about obsessing about a campaign — or probably a legal case or a business deal — that doesn’t exactly arouse the imaginative faculties." "We tend to see economics and politics as the source of human motives, and then explain spirituality as their byproduct — as Barack Obama tried artlessly to do in San Francisco the other week. But in the Middle Ages, faith came first. The symbols, processions and services were vividly alive."

Brooks goes on to point out that in a world of business, politics, blackberries, and high speed internet, it's nice to stop for a moment and imagine that the our modern empty, black, and unfeeling universe is actually filled with, "creatures, symbols, and tales."

Though he finishes a bit weak with a kind of plea for more imagination in our technological and scientific world, his journey to the conclusion is well worth a second look. I agree that with the expansion of science, both in the areas of physics and biology, and in the area of economics and politics, we have tried to explain everything in terms of science. This is the legacy of materialism and the industrial revolution, and I will say with Schopenhauer that, "materialism is the philosophy of the subject who forgets to take into account himself."

Brooks writes, "The modern view disenchants the universe, Lewis argued, and tends to make it “all fact and no meaning.”" Materialism attempts to do just that, make everything fact. Lewis made no attempt to discredit the developments in the world of science, but what he did try and do was point out that if materialism is true and everything is just fact, life has no meaning.

In that case I believe we will all find ourselves in the position of Mr. Ramsey from Virgina Woolf's To The Lighthouse:
"It was his fate, his peculiarity, whether he wished it or not, to come out thus on a spit of land which the sea is slowly eating away, and there to stand, like a desolate sea bird, alone....and so to stand on his little ledge facing the dark of human ignorance, how we know nothing and the sea eats away the ground we stand on."

We all search for significance, for meaning beyond mere facts. Might that be because we were all imbued from the beginning with a desire that nothing on this earth can satisfy?

The Circus

I've continued to think quite a bit about the issue of identity (see my earlier post) and the things to which we look for validation. As I said before, we are voracious scavengers of sources for validation, and any particular person will search for any available platform onto which he can climb and claim superiority (even if subtly). The thought reminds me of Donald Miller's collection of essays called, "Searching for God Knows What," in which he recounts a story about a circus sideshow. He described a group of deformed and rare individuals who comprised the "freak show," and what I discovered as I read his telling story was that in this group of people, what gave them validation was being the "biggest freak." I read about a world that was inverted relative to my own, a world in which i would have been lowest on the totem pole because of my "normalness." Were I a person with a third arm and only one leg, I might have been given some due status. But as I am, I would be a nobody were I part of this group.

Doesn't this say something about us? That we'll use anything, be it a good education, a higher income, better looks, or a third arm in order to climb the social latter in front of us?

Maybe we should give up climbing.

Heart of Stone

This song by Preston Lovingood pretty much sums up how i feel right now, so i'll just put it down here:

"Kid"

When the throne of grace seems so far away,
when all I see is yesterday,
when I've forgotten how to pray,
create in me a song of faith.

When my cold heart is turned to stone,
and fear and doubt are all I know,
when all my scars become un-sewn,
my body aches for you alone.

Here's my heart Lord; I don't want it.
Here's my heart Lord; can you use it?
By your blood there's healing now.
By your blood there's no guilt now.
There's no guilt now.

When I am haunted by the future,
And I have no place to go,
When all my friends have cursed my name,
Come be this orphan's home.

Here's my heart Lord I don't want it,
Here's my life Lord can you use it?
By your blood there's healing now.
By your blood there's no guilt now.
There's no guilt now.

I know you are my Father,
You've called me a kid.
Fought and laughed with you for hours,
you are my closest friend.

I want to see you as a lover,
feel your heart beat once again
lay down with you in flowers
come and burn me with a kiss.

Absolution

So a while back I read this F. Scott Fitzgerald short story called, "Absolution." And then I wrote this poem in response to it. I don't know if its any good, but here it is. I also don't know if it will make any sense for those of you who haven't read the story. But o well; here it is anyway.

THINGS GO GLIMMERING

"When a lot of people get together
in the best places, things go glimmering."
Those bright blue eyes won't fill that
room with laughter and shiny stars.

You'll have to find that in another place,
because the brightness doesn't live here anymore,
But it'll find you, I promise, I promise!
if you'd just abandon the obscured version we invented.

You think you know where it hides,
beyond the wall of those cold tears of yours.
But you'll only find part of it there,
where they have lights "as big as stars."

Get rid of "the garnished front" and "conventional flag."
Get rid of it.
lay yourself down,
your private reservations.

Gotta get me one 'a these!

Just in case you find yourself in need of some privacy,
put your computer in one of these!

Guns! Guns! Guns!

According to the New York Times, many states are debating legislation that would make it more difficult for criminals and the mentally ill to obtain guns. Backers of the legislation argue that at the moment, the nation's instant check system doesn't include enough information to protect against these possibilities. I pray these bills pass!

At the same time, these pieces of legislation come at a time during which the N.R.A. is pushing legislation that would allow for weapons on college campuses and weapons in parking decks.

I'll be honest here... I don't know what to think. Citizens have the right to bear arms according to the second amendment. But pushing for legislation to allow guns on college campuses??? Whatever for? How could this possibly be a good idea? Does the N.R.A. really think that this sort of legislation will help anyone? Will there be less Virginia Tech incidents? I think not.

To quote comedian Eddie Izzard: "People always say that guns don't kill people; people kill people. Well....I think the gun helps."

What do you guys think???? I'm in serious need of some dialog on this one!

The Question

To ask the hard question is simple:
Asking at meeting
with the simple glance of acquaintance
To what these go
And how these do;
To ask the hard question is simple,
The simple act of the confused will.

But the answer
is hard and hard to remember:
..
..
-W.H. Auden

I think here Auden asks us to consider the simple social question and, at the same time, its simplicity and ridiculousness. "How are you doing?" "Where are you headed?" These are simple questions, four words each, and direct. But are they easy to answer? Auden says no, the answer isn't so simple. We hardly ever give the questions any real sort of answer, for they ask too much of us, ask us to dig too deep. Far better to keep with the social norms and give a simple and evasive white lie in response.

"And ghosts must do again
What gives them pain."

Bill Vaughan

"We learn something every day, and lots of times it's that what we learned the day before was wrong."

I wanna hear from you!!!

I want to lay down three facts, and then I want for you to take from them what you will. Then respond and let me know what you think. It’s a completely open forum. Say what you will.

1. Senators Obama and Clinton have both organized similar plans for how they will help homeowners who are struggling to make payments in the current financial crisis.

2. Last month, Senator McCain had this to say about the issue: "I have always been committed to the principle that it is not the duty of government to bail out and reward those who act irresponsibly, whether they are big banks or small borrowers."

3. This month, after unveiling his new plan called HOME, which will allow borrowers struggling to make their payments get new more affordable mortgages, he had this to say, "Let me make it clear that in these challenging times, I am committed to using all the resources of this government and great nation to create opportunity and make sure that every deserving American has a good job and can achieve their American dream."

I would love to hear some ideas. What do you make of all this?

Higgs Boson (The God Particle)

Say you happened to be taking a walk through the French village of Crozet and you happened to have a rather large shovel with you. Say you then took your rather large shovel and decided to dig 300 feet down. What you'd find would be a giant tunnel 17 miles long, filled with the most advanced in scientific gadgetry, pipes, magnets, and sensors. If you walked around in this tunnel for a bit, you might look up and see this:That's a seven story tall detector called Atlas housed at CERN, the mysterious underground European laboratory (European Organization for Nuclear Research), and you'd be inside something called the Large Hadron Collider. Many towers like these (one weighing more than the Eiffel Tower), along with sensors like this,
will be used to examine the spray produced by collisions of hadron particles at almost the speed of light. Basically, they'll crash stuff together at high speeds and see what comes out.

Remember Einstein and his theory of relativity? Remember the new and baffling theory of the space time continuum (Back to the Future?), in which two events can never be said to be simultaneous? Remember that, "Matter bends space; space directs how matter moves. Light is both a particle and a wave. Energy and mass are inter- changeable?" Remember that matter is constructed by atoms, that atoms are made of protons neutrons and electrons, and that protons and neutrons are made of quarks and gluons? The interactions between these particles are what sensors like these will examine. They have spent upwards of 5-10 billion dollars in order to examine these relationships and discover the makeup of our physical world. And it won't be long until the largest particle accelerator in the world will be turned on.

If you think this stuff doesn't matter, realize that the computer you are using uses microprocessors that function because physicists discovered the relationships that govern the odd things we call quarks, that the internet, the very instrument you used to access this site was invented at CERN by Tim Berners-Lee, that these physical relationships govern your every move.

As magnets half the size of basketball courts guide particles around this 17 mile tunnel at almost the speed of light, one thing that scientists will be searching for is the so called Higgs boson particle (the God particle). What is this particle? Why look for it? Scientists want to answer the following questions:

"How does an infinitely dense universe become a vast and spacious one? And how is it filled with matter? In theory, as the early universe expanded, energy should have condensed into equal amounts of matter and antimatter, which would then have annihilated each other on contact, reverting to pure energy. On paper, the universe should be empty. But it's full of stars and planets and charming French villages and so on. The LHC experiments may help physicists understand our good fortune to be in a universe that grew with just enough more matter than antimatter." (National Geographic)

What is the Higgs boson?

"Most physicists believe that there must be a Higgs field that pervades all space; the Higgs particle would be the carrier of the field and would interact with other particles, sort of the way a Jedi knight in Star Wars is the carrier of the "force." The Higgs is a crucial part of the standard model of particle physics—but no one's ever found it. Different fundamental particles, he[particle physicist] says, are like a crowd of people running through mud. Some particles, like quarks, have big boots that get covered with lots of mud; others, like electrons, have little shoes that barely gather any mud at all. Photons don't wear shoes—they just glide over the top of the mud without picking any up. And the Higgs field is the mud." (National Geographic)

How fascinating are the relationships that take place within our very body, the physical properties that allow us to watch a good movie, enjoy a sweet kiss, or eat a good meal. Take a good look below the surface and the mundane becomes alive and beautiful. God created physical relationships that baffle us and should prompt us to worship. We have to build 10 billion dollar structures the size of the Eiffel Tower to delve into the smallest of physical components. Totally amazing and humbling.

What do you guys think about spending so much money and resources on endeavors like this?

Good Ole Mitch

"I like an escalator because an escalator can never break, it can only become stairs. There would never be an escalator temporarily out of order sign, only an escalator temporarily stairs. Sorry for the convenience." - Mitch Hedberg

Who Am I??

Sidenote: I'm dropping the whole "my thoughts today are these thing."  It's lame.  Plus, its already apparent that these are my thoughts. 

On with it:  I had dinner this evening with a few friends, some lovely people that I really appreciate.  One topic that was constantly mentioned was the question of image, that is, how we appear to others.  When we're not around, do people wish we were? How do they perceive us? What do they really think?

In part, I think this is what drives almost everything we do.  We are constructing an image, be it false or real.  We work arduously to produce something everyone will like: our humor, our dress, our speech, our occupation, etc.  We are creating an identity, and we tweak this identity as parts of it are accepted by our peers and others rejected.  

This sort of thinking is everywhere, even in my management book.  I was studying for a test that I have tomorrow, and what I learned was that managing teams is so difficult because people often feel insignificant, rejected, or snubbed.  Their egos become damaged, and they become unproductive.  Their ability to function in society is dependent upon the acceptance or rejection of their constructed image.

I think that existence is a question of identity.  In what do you find your identity? Who or what do you look to for validation? Family? Intellectual ability? Your fraternity? Your ability to make people laugh? The fact that you make a great deal of money? The fact that you are one of the "free ones" who doesn't need money? Everyone must ask this question.

I don't think many of us (including myself) really like to expend too much effort in thinking about the real makeup of our identities.  If we were to think too hard, we might actually discover what we'd hoped we wouldn't: an identity grounded in things that don't last.

As much as I fight against Him, as much as I push Him away and try and form my identity on my own, He remains faithful.  He tells me who I am.  When I try and prove I'm somebody on my own terms and the crowd laughs, He's there in the back saying, "I'll always wait here for you."  He's real like nothing else; He doesn't fade away.

Political Language

My thoughts today are these:

Paul Krugman has suggested in his NYTimes article today that cheap food, like cheap oil, may be a thing of the past. He points out that the world financial crisis is a big deal and has affected quite a few people, but he also suggests that the world food crisis that has emerged as a result of rising costs is an even larger problem affecting a greater share of people.

I enjoyed the first half of his article, as he adroitly pieced together the litany of factors that have resulted in higher food prices, a problem for African families that spend more than half of their income every year on food.

Krugman describes the contributing factors: farm-supplying countries limits on exports to protect domestic consumers; the need for more grain to feed cows in order to meet growing demand for meat in expanding countries like China, oil prices, bad weather(climate change), and lastly, the "rise of the demon ethanol" and the use of subsidies to support the venture.

The problem arises when he takes part of the problem and makes it the whole problem. He says, "People are starving in Africa so that American politicians can court votes in farm states." Is that really fair? Are children in Africa starving because Argentinian politicians have yielded to consumer pressure? The answer is, in part, yes. But is the problem that simple? No.

This sort of language strikes me as particularly reductionist, and I think its indicative of a fairly prevalent problem: the tendency to reduce large and complicated problems into inculpatory political statements. (Take Barack's and Hilary's use of NAFTA for example, or the blaming of the Bush administration for the financial meltdown)

Of course farm subsidies are part of the problem here, but he's made it clear that there are many other contributing factors.

So why make grandiose statements about how children are starving in Africa because of the ways of Washington? Don't get me wrong. I'm not defending the use of farm subsidies for votes' sake (or at all for that matter), but what I am defending is our need to understand tough problems without reducing them down to simple "politicisms." (if i may invent a word here)

The Purse

My thoughts today are these:  

I recently read an article on The New Republic, and what was pointed out to me was an obvious discrepancy between the government's treatment of main street and wall street.  Think about your political positions, especially with respect to government funds.  Then try and explain to yourself how the government can justify the manner in which it uses its funds.  Why will it open its rather large purse to save the rich and powerful (a troubled Bear Stearns) but piously ignores the same difficult plight with respect to your average Joe?

We all have our particular political positions, but I think that whatever positions we hold should be consistent.  We can't say on the one hand that we'll support a politics that bails out rich firms like Bear Stearns as they run into trouble and turn around and quickly zip up the purse when ordinary citizens come running.  It's simply inconsistent.