New Year's Resolutions

Number one New Year's resolution in America right now?

Stop Smoking

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.