The Noise
It occurred to me today that the noise is getting so loud.
It’s everywhere and it’s getting louder all of the time and I am having a hard time maintaining my sanity in the midst of all of it.
It seems to be coming from everywhere. If I turn in one direction or the other, or in any direction, there is the noise.
The worst thing about the noise is what happens when I listen to it.
The noise gets me to hating people. It gets me to blaming people. It gets me to doing things that I wouldn’t normally do. It gets me angry at things that wouldn’t normally upset me. It makes me sad and scared and irate and frustrated and desperate.
It gets me looking for ways that I can hear more of it –> this is especially disturbing.
Until a friend says to me, “Turn it off.”
And so, I say to you, “Turn it off.”
The social media –> turn it off. And tell others to turn it off.
The mainstream news –> turn it off. And tell others to turn it off.
Whatever is making the noise in your life, to whatever extent you can, turn it off. Or at least, turn it down.
In the end, our society seems dedicated to the production of noise. I’d blame the internet or social media or the television, but blame is not productive and it doesn’t really matter where it’s coming from as long as you remember that you have the power to turn it off.
Seek the silence. Seek the stillness. Look for the peace and the calm and fight against those things that would fight to disturb you.
Follow-Through
It occurred to me today that I suck at follow-through.
There are many examples of this in my life, and those closest to me could probably lead you on a tour of those examples. My wife could show you the pile of books that I started to organize the other day that are still sitting in piles next to empty boxes where they were supposed to end up. My children could show you the electric scooter that I started to fix, disassembled in the garage. My closest friends could tell you about the story ideas that I’ve shared with them and the number of times that those friends have asked, “Hey, how’s that story coming along?” to which I’ve always replied, “Not finished.”.
I suck at follow-through.
In fact, as I’m sitting here and typing this, I am dreading the idea of getting up to go for my morning run. You see, as a New Year’s Resolution this year, I decided that I was going to run a mile for every day of the year. 366 (leap year) miles by the last day of December. Talk about a stupid idea for a guy that sucks at follow-through. As a matter of fact, I recognize that I am, no doubt, working hard on this particular blog post as I seek to avoid the morning jog.
It would appear that I have enough wherewithal to start all kinds of things, but hardly ever enough to see them through.
Of course there have been projects that I’ve completed. Of course I have examples of follow-through to point at. But, at least in my mind, there are more examples of falling short.
Why is this? Is it motivation, because I don’t seem to have problems completing the things that I really want to do? Is it endurance, because I don’t really struggle doing easy stuff?
Maybe it’s the illusion that I will have time enough at a later point to finish what is currently undone. If I died today, what an enormous pile of unfinished business I would leave behind.
Rules for Class
So, I’m a teacher. And one of my least favorite things about being a teacher is classroom rules. I have never thought much about creating them, and despite what my fellow teachers around me are usually doing during the first few days of class every year, I tend to avoid the entire process if at all possible. Instead, I give my students the “laws are for the lawless” speech.
In the “laws are for the lawless” speech, as my former students know, I talk about how pointless classroom rule making is, especially in a high school, and how I prefer to operate on a system where my students behave in such a way that I don’t have to control their behavior through such silly rules because… they will control themselves.
I can always tell, by the look in their eyes, which students in my classes, during those first few days of class each year, have never thought of things in that way before. I always have several students who have never realized that self-control is a better way.
In a letter thanking soldiers in service to their country in 1798, John Adams famously wrote, “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”. What is less often quoted from this letter is the few lines before this, where Adams says that there is no government that is capable of controlling unbridled human passions. To paraphrase him, there has to be something within us that is interested in self-control, as a nation, if our government has any hope of being successful.
I don’t know if you’ve looked around lately, but many different people have many different opinions as to which parts of our government –state, local, federal– are successful and to what extent they are so.
Additionally, I don’t know if you are seeing a lot of self-control going on in your neck of the woods, from the people around you.
In the end, it is as I have always told my students that it is –> laws are for the lawless. In my classes, I am happy to say, I have been able –more often than not– to foster an understanding with my students that their self-control keeps me from having to be in control. In fact, whenever a student steps out of line in my class (ask my students, they’ll tell you), I gently say to them, “Either you’re going to control you or I’m going to control you.”
Unfortunately, what you are more likely to see these days from the citizens in our once-great nation is not self-control. As unfortunate as this is, it’s even more unfortunate to see those out-of-control members of our citizenry getting irate when the government comes in to try to establish control. What hasn’t occurred to them, just like it hasn’t occurred to several of my students at the start of every class year, is that the government wouldn’t have to establish control of the people if the people would control themselves.
John Adams knew this, and he knew that the government, truth be told, isn’t even capable of controlling people who can’t or won’t control themselves. In the end, the only thing that can control any of us is ourselves.
Habitual Distraction
It occurred to me today that I think that most of us are easily distracted. To greater or lesser extents, we may think that we have a quality of focus, but I think that we are probably all more distracted than we realize.
For example, it’s been a while since I took a long drive in a car (because of the pandemic and the quarantine), but I still remember the experience. Specifically, when it comes to particular drives that you take over and over again, have you ever noticed that it is your particular pattern to look at the same things every time? On my way to work in the mornings, I would always look at this particular house on this side of the road at a certain point in the drive, and I would always look at that particular tree on that side of the road during that particular part of the drive.
How did I get into those patterns? Why do I choose to repeatedly look at the things that I look at? More importantly, what am I missing when I’m habitually facing this way at this point and that way at that point? What am I missing?
I suspect that this is a metaphor for our lives. The pandemic and the quarantine have taught me a lot of things, and this is one of them.
I wonder if anyone else is noticing things that they didn’t notice before because things have been shaken up so substantially that we are being freed from out habitual distractions.
What happens if that house I look at, on the east side of road 3.75 miles into my commute, gets destroyed in a fire? Will I then be able to notice the beautiful flower garden planted for years at that same place on the other side of the road?
Perhaps it shouldn’t take a house burning down (or a global pandemic) to get me to be more observant.
And, it’s unfortunately the case, I’m afraid that we are being lead around by powers all around us that are relying on us continuing to be distracted by what has always distracted us. Maybe I’m just being paranoid a little bit, but I am starting to wonder whether or not the distractions that have been in place, many of which have fallen away, were there to begin with to keep us distracted.
I guess, deep down, I am hoping that I’m not the only one who is looking around and thinking, “How can we get some really substantial, long-lasting, societal change out of all of this chaos?”
The War Between Absolutism and Relativism
It’s been a long, long time since I’ve posted to this blog, but I find myself with a growing disgust with what’s going on lately, so I’ll get a few things off of my chest.
As I sit here, trying to decide how to limit the scope of this rant so that it doesn’t take pages, I’ve decided not to talk about my faith in Jesus Christ. I’ve also decided not to talk about my own personal beliefs on a number of current hot-button issues, whether or not those beliefs would meet with wide acceptance.
Instead, I feel like talking about swimming pools.
Many of us have been in that position before, standing on the side of the pool, dipping our toes in to test the water. Depending on the temperature of the air and the water, this situation might cause in us a number of possible responses. If we are in very hot air, very cold water is a put-off, because of the significant difference in temperature. If we are in warm air, warmer water is more attractive than colder water because it’s closer to where we are. In those cases where we want to cool off very badly, we dive in, for better or for worse. The good news is that, after taking the dive, you acclimate very quickly to the cold water and –after a few minutes– the water doesn’t seem nearly as unbearable as it had.
I’ve heard it said that if you throw a frog into a pot of boiling water, it will jump right back out, but if you put the frog into room-temperature water and bring that pot to a boil, you get frog-legs!
The great news about the war between absolutism and relativism is that, for starters, people are rarely ever convinced to do things that fall very far beyond the boundaries of what they normally do. The bad news is that it’s a general process of small steps to move from where we are to where we don’t really want to be and each of those steps, RELATIVELY speaking, isn’t that big of a leap to take. For the frog who doesn’t want his legs eaten, what’s the difference between 75° and 200° is too much to take. But, the difference between 75° and 80° isn’t that bad, and neither is the difference between 80° and 85°.
A fictitious example: I would never cheat on my wife. Such a move would be significantly beyond what I normally do. But, I might stare at the woman at work who is dressed attractively. What harm does that do? Then, after days or weeks or months of staring at this woman at work, I might flirt with her a little bit? What harm does that do? Then, after days or weeks or months of flirting with this woman, maybe we’ll go out for a drink after work. What harm does that do? Then…frog-legs.
You get the picture.
So, in the war between absolutism and relativism, we take steps down a road that leads to a place that we don’t want to go –not because that’s where we want to be– because each of those steps doesn’t seem like such a big deal. And, as confrontational as it might be to say so, we ought to go back where we were when we find out that we are heading down the wrong road.
But, we usually don’t
We Are Distracted
I think we’re distracted. I think there are things that we are supposed to be focusing on that we’re not, and I think that our distraction is part of what is hurting us.
In the course of the past twenty-four hours, I’ve been presented with multiple instances that seemed to be linked to this problem of distraction. To say that we are distracted assumes at least two presuppositions: 1) there is something that we are supposed to be doing that we aren’t doing, and 2) certain things are worth paying attention to, while other things –those things that garner our attention so much of the time– are not what we should be paying attention to.
So, let me give you an example: I belong to an organization with an express purpose that we are not accomplishing, as an organization. The purpose of the organization is agreed upon, inasmuch as all of the members of the organization know that we are supposed to be doing this certain thing. But, very few of the members –including myself I must admit– are doing what we know we ought to be doing. Unfortunately, this doesn’t seem to bother very many of the members at all. Admittedly, while I know we are supposed to be doing this certain thing, I find it a hard thing to do and so I am not really working at accomplishing it, neither on a personal level nor as a member of the organization.
Recently, within this organization, an argument has arisen among members of the organization as to what certain members of the organization should or should not be doing. This argument has attracted a lot of attention and it has been very fiercely and emotionally debated by members on both sides of the issue. It seems that certain members of the organization are doing a certain thing that other members of the organization believe should not be done.
IT IS VERY CRITICAL TO NOTE THAT THE ISSUE OF DEBATE IN THIS ORGANIZATION HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH THE EXPRESS PURPOSE OF THE ORGANIZATION, WHICH VERY FEW OF THE MEMBERS SEEM TO CARE AT ALL ABOUT.
Can you see the distraction here? We know what we ought to be doing, but we aren’t doing it. Instead, we do other things, or worse, we look at others who aren’t doing what they should be doing and we point fingers at them.
Why don’t we do what we ought to be doing? Maybe those things are hard, so we don’t. Maybe I ought to be at the gym more often, but instead I am binge-watching Netflix. Maybe I ought to be more focused at work, but instead I troll Facebook at my desk. Maybe I ought be spending more time with my family, but instead I spend more time playing on my Xbox.
Maybe the problem is that “the oughts” are unattractive while “the shouldn’ts” seem so appealing. What would I get out of completing a season on Netflix? Nothing. Watching an entire season of a show on Netflix gets you nothing –at least it’s never gotten me anything. What would I get out of spending that time working on my physical fitness? A longer life? A greater quality of life? Could I climb a flight of stairs without getting winded? Perhaps.
We can’t have what is great, because we are content with what is only good.
Anyway, I think I’m starting to get distracted in the construction of this entry. I wonder if you are distracted at all?
The Danger of the Case Study
I was watching a commercial this morning for a local tire company that we will never do business with again because of an unfortunate experience that we had with them. The commercial convinces that the big, nation-wide tire companies won’t care for you in the same way that the local tire company will. When I saw the commercial, I thought to myself “I bet the nation-wide tire company won’t forget to tighten the lug nuts on one of my tires”.
It was at this point that I realized that the commercials that try to convince you that one company is better than another are ridiculous on their face because companies are comprised of individuals, and those individuals are the ones that you will interact with when you deal with a company. The mechanic who forgot to tighten the lug nuts on my tire may have been having a bad day, or he or she may have been a bad mechanic who doesn’t work for the local tire company anymore. Nevertheless, we won’t do business because of that single, powerful experience that we had.
But, this illustrates the danger of the case study in shaping your experience. The commercials that I see that try to convince me that I should do business with one company, as opposed to another, want me to believe that one company is better than another. But, the greatest company is currently employing humans who have the capability of being widely unpredictable. And, the same goes for the worst company. Similarly, I shouldn’t be denying my business to any company with whom I’ve had a single bad experience, because a single experience of whatever kind is not a definition of a business.
But this extrapolates out, to all of our experiences with other people. That guy on the highway who screams at you as you accidentally cut him off; he’s fighting his way through a difficult divorce and is normally a very pleasant person. The waitress at the restaurant who seems upset at your smallest request; she’s being sexually harassed by her boss and she can’t be happy at work. The guy in line in front of you at the grocery store who takes nine items into the six-items-or-less lane; his mother is dying of cancer and he can’t bring himself to focus on anything else.
These people are not bad people, but they are inconsistent. We are all inconsistent. As we deal with each other, as fellow humans interacting in society or as consumers interacting with companies that we chose to do business with, we need to keep in mind that single interactions with others are most likely not defining moments for those people. They shouldn’t be defining moments for us, either.
Wow! I Blame Russia!
So, I got an email this morning that had the name of this WordPress blog in the subject line, reminding me that I once had a WordPress blog. Most of the contents of the email were in Cyrillic, so I became suspicious of Russian hacking of my derelict blog. As my distress level rose from 0 to 0.15, I headed to the WordPress blog, reset the password that I had no record of, and began typing this blog entry.
I might start using this again, and if that happens, I blame the Russian hackers that attempted to take control of my treasure trove of a blog.
Taken Advantage Of
My wife is mad at me, because she feels that I (we) are being taken advantage of by some fellow members of our church. These two people consistently ask for a ride with us to church on Sunday morning. With the five of us going to church, to add the two of them makes 7, and we end up having to take two vehicles (I drive my sedan and my wife drives our minivan).
She has become upset because I continue to tell these two individuals that I will pick them up for church. My wife feels like they are taking advantage of us, being inconsiderate, etc. The couple (a husband and wife) have their fair share of problems, and I feel like it is the Christian thing to do to consider to offer assistance to them.
Nevertheless, it is hard to continue to be gracious when the sacrifice I am making is felt more by my wife than myself. She misses riding to church together, she worries about the mileage and the gasoline, etc. I know I am doing the right thing, but it is hard to continue to do it without support.
Moreover, how often are we deterred from doing the right thing because the sacrifice is too high? Surely, it is not too inconvenient to do the little things, but who’s doing the moderately inconvenient or extremely inconvenient things?
After all, Christ’s sacrifice would certainly fall into the ultimately inconvenient category.
It Occurred To Me Today 