Looking at the World through its Parents

More and more I am realizing how much society is driven by parents.  I don’t just mean our society – but all societies ever.  I don’t think there is any stronger, deeper, or more natural urge out there than that of a parent looking after his/her children.  I am 4’10”, not aggressive, not particularly strong, but I am very confident that if a large human, animal, or object was imminently endangering my kid within my sight, it would be getting through a heck of a fight from me first.  That’s not because I’m an awesome parent; the instinct is so ingrained it’s almost primitive.

So what does this have to do with anything?

Lately, I’ve been looking at just about everything going on in the world, both present and past, through this lens.  As you may or may not know, humans are complex, multi-dimensional creatures.  One simple, shared objective such as “Protect my children” can result in billions of different outcomes.  Yet, if we let it, this shared objective can help us understand the actions of others, even across the barriers of language, culture, and time.

Still not making much sense?

Think of it this way.  Muslim disdain for the West?  We’re infecting their kids’ minds with completely counter-cultural values.  The Hippie movement?  Children raised by parents who wanted to protect their kids from anything close to fascism.  The rise of materialism?  Marketing geniuses coupled with parents wanting to protect their kids’ happiness.  Most wars ever fought?  Both sides have soldiers trying to keep their kids fed, and ideologues telling the citizens their kids won’t be safe and free without it.  Everything happens for a reason, and the strongest reasons start at home and in the heart.

Now, I want to make sure I point out that I’m talking about broad social and cultural stuff here… I fully realize that, on an individual basis, we can get stuck with parents who seem to lack these instincts, or as parents we can have trouble locating them.   Both of these things have such a variety of experiential and psychological explanations, I’m going to leave them alone.  I promise I’m not trying to make anyone feel bad.  I’m just trying to help us understand each other.  Moving on…

Take a moment and think about a people group you don’t like or understand.  Is it Republicans?  I think they want their cash going to their kids instead of the government.  Is it Democrats?  I think they want to know there’s a safety net bigger than themselves that will be available when their kids need it.  Is it Christians?  I think they want their kids to be kept safe for eternity.  Is it atheists?  I think they want to make sure their kids aren’t relying on false hopes.   Rich people? Want to provide for their kids.  Poor people?  Want to provide for their kids.  Everywhere and all throughout history, what I see are lots of different kinds of parents wanting their kids to grow up safe, healthy, wise, and happy.  Civilization itself was doubtlessly built on no less.

Obviously, people have more reasons for doing what they do than their kids, but there are few other reasons that will ever allow a person to feel more doubtlessly self-affirmed.  Doing something just for your own gain doesn’t give you the same righteous fighting fury as doing something to protect your kids.  It just doesn’t.  And of course, good intentions don’t automatically lead to good actions.  We’re all blinded and ignorant in one way or another.   But we can make ourselves just a little better, just a little less blind, if we take the time to understand, “They’re not thinking about what I’m thinking.  They’re thinking about their kids.”

Lessons Learned from FreeCell

I am probably dating myself by writing this (and sealing my fate as Totally Lame), but can you remember back to the time before Minecraft, Angry Birds, and Bejeweled?  When online games were hard to come by, and an “app” was something you mailed off to a college?  Well, back in those days we had a limited choice in entertainment for those in-between times, or those “just 5 more minutes” that could turn into hours of procrastinating whatever else we were supposed to be doing.  So what was one to do?  The answer: WinGames!

For those of you who don’t have cause to remember, these little games came by default with every version of Windows — Solitaire, Minesweeper, and FreeCell (can you guess which is my favorite?).  Granted, they still come with every version of Windows, along with several others, but that no longer matters, because I got hooked a long time ago.  Some might accuse me of wasting countless hours of my youth clicking at meaningless pictures, but I don’t agree.  That’s right — I think I’ve come up with the perfect excuse learned some important life lessons from those seemingly silly, simple little games.   Perhaps you’ve learned these lessons elsewhere… or maybe you haven’t learned them yet!

1. Just because something looks like an impossible mess, doesn’t make it impossible.

If you’ve ever dared try a game of FreeCell, you’ll know where I got this one from.  The first thing you’re met with is a jumbled mess of cards that you’re expected to put in order, with only a tiny bit of workspace.  OK, so life isn’t a bunch of cards, but do you know what it is?  A jumbled mess.  As if we didn’t come with enough of our own personal issues… we make regular contact with other people with their whole own set of personal issues.  And through it all, we’ve still got to get jobs, keep promises, pay bills, keep ourselves healthy, keep ourselves sane….  But, just like you have to do in a simple little card game, we’ve all got to take a deep breath and take it one step at a time.  Yeah, you can do this.

2. You win by setting smart goals.

All right, if you were hoping for some top-secret FreeCell advice, here it is!: You have to set smart, realistic, useful goals (i.e. gotta get to that Ace!), and find the best way to get there.  That doesn’t mean pick out what you want, then plow straight toward it regardless of who and what you’re sacrificing — that’d make you a jerk with nothing left for the next goal.  But running around everywhere, trying to fix everything all at once — that gets you frustrated and gets you nowhere.   Everything works out better if you find your Ace, that next little goal you know you need in your life, and figure out what needs to be gently altered to make a path to it.

3. Give yourself time in the day to think and reflect.

Maybe this one’s just me, but I have noticed that it is absolutely necessary for my general mental health to have some time to let my mind digest life a little bit – what happened today, what’s happening tomorrow, how I can do things better, why I’m doing things at all, where it’s all leading me… you get the idea.  Loosen the reins of constant-action and let your mind think about stuff.  For me, I like to play FreeCell while I’m thinking about stuff.  Other people might prefer bubble baths, or private chats with a friend, or walks/jogs outside, or whatever else.  The point is, reflect.  Take 10 minutes and think about your life, or you’ll find that people and things just “happen” to you all the time.

4. It’s OK to fail sometimes.

All right, I’ll admit it, I don’t like this lesson.  I’m good with the smart goal-setting, the plan of action, the self-determination to keep at it…. But sometimes, despite all of my planning and effort, things still don’t work out.  At these times, it can be better to just let it go and allow the black mark on my win/lose ratio, rather than get myself all wound up about something that doesn’t really matter.  OK, I know there are things in life where the prospect of failure at something really, really matters… but not as many as we make ourselves think there are.

5. Revel in your little victories.

Not that I’m bragging or anything…. but I’ve got like a 98% win statistic on FreeCell.   I know – you don’t care, do you?  See, that’s OK.  We all have our little victories that no one else cares about, or no one else is around to witness, but they mean something to us.  So by all means, be proud of your accomplishments, no matter how small, even if no one else “gets it”!  Just, you know, don’t hesitate to shut up about it around other people, before they stop liking you start thinking you’re totally lame.

Time for a Pick-Me-Up

When a tragedy strikes us unexpectedly like the one that took place in Boston yesterday, it makes us pause and consider our humanity – its frailty, its potential for evil deeds, and also its spirit of compassion.  I have seen all of these demonstrated in the last 24 hours.

I have seen such an outpouring of mourning and sympathy over the lives and innocence lost, it has at times been overwhelming.  I considered adding to it, but instead decided to celebrate life – one more thing that we all share as human beings, and that we all have the privilege to enjoy for some time or another.   I’ve compiled a shortlist of little things that I think make life worth celebrating… do you have any to add?:

1.       Hugs

Hug a friend, hug a partner, hug a child, hug an animal… either way, I think hugs make life that much sweeter.

 

 

 

2.       Sunshine sneaking through trees

Because sometimes we need to be reminded that even something as common as sunlight can be beautiful.

 

 

 

 

 

3.       That feeling of accomplishment

It doesn’t matter if you’ve just climbed Mount Everest, or finally got ALL the laundry done; that swelling sense of pride and relief is better than medicine.

 

 

4.       Giving

This word is too often used to mean money… But the best kind of giving – whether it is a heartfelt gift, a compliment, or an evening of your time – is the kind that travels direct from one person’s heart to another.  I’ve never met a frequent giver of this kind who doesn’t enjoy life.

 

 

5.       Humor

Let’s admit it – we can get mushy all we want, but humor makes life edible in our worst times, and absolutely scrumptious in our best.

 

 

 

 

 

6.       Game Night

It doesn’t matter if you’re running around a field or sitting around a table (the second one for me, thanks!) – “go play with your friends” is not only to be said to children.  Just don’t take it too seriously!

 

 

 

 

7.       Bacon

I’m just kidding.  I don’t like bacon.  But a lot of people seem to….

Guns don’t kill people?

I felt like a laugh today, so I figured I’d head to the news and see what U.S. congress was up to….

If you do the same, you’ll see the big breaking news — there’s a gun control debate going on!!  Yes, that’s right, Congress is trying to put off considering the possibility of making it possible for another part of Congress to pass one or more measures that would take us half an inch forward on the mile-long hike toward BANNING ALL GUNS FOREVER!!!   Geez, no wonder there are so many memes comparing Obama to one of world history’s unbeloved dictators!!

…OK, I get it.  Our current digital age makes it commonplace for a small thing to drum up such an overbearing reaction.  People’s self-limitations brought on by carefully selected media outlets and social circles make inklings grow into half-truths and half-truths into probable-truths and probable-truths into prophecy.  I get all of that.  I’m sure I fall into it too; we all do.  But seriously…. this?:

That’s not happening right now.  Nobody’s talking about banning guns.  Nobody’s talking about taking away guns currently owned.   And by the way, if we ever ended up with an actual dictator in power, with control of the whole US army, no amount of guns will save you.  They have big bombs.

Go ahead. Shoot it.

But anyway, while we’re at it, maybe this is a good opportunity to talk about how good of an idea some real measure of gun control would be.  I feel I’m qualified to talk about this, because at different stages in my life I’ve been on both sides of the fence about it.  Let’s break it down:

1.  The Younger ABTwixt — Too much gun control will leave criminals with the guns and law-abiding citizens defenseless!

For a while I felt that this was a really logical argument — to be honest, I think it’s still logical.  (As it turns out — and it took me a while to learn this — just because something is logically sound doesn’t make it true.)   I think it’s the best argument the gun-control opposition has going for them.  I completely bought into this argument for my whole life until I left the country.

What happened when I left the country?  I went to the UK, a country that has banned nearly all guns since the 1990′s, and had many other gun control measures before that.  And do you know what I felt there?  I felt safe.  Compared to my downtown-university life before that, I could detect a nearly tangible increase in my personal safety, knowing I wasn’t going to encounter any weapon that I couldn’t run from.

So what about the criminals?  A few people “in the know” told me that criminals in the UK still had a way of getting guns, but you know what?  Most wouldn’t dare use them in public.  The smart criminals know better; the dumb ones get caught.  A lot of people in the UK get beat up; a lot get stabbed; a few people even die from the above heinous acts; but there is nothing that compares with the terror that at any moment you can be killed by a single, long-range shot.   Sure, “guns don’t kill people; people kill people”, but people kill people with guns much more effectively.  I realized then that in the name of Self-Defense, the US was conducting an arms race against itself, at the cost of many thousands of lives.

2. The Older (but not “old”!) ABTwixt — Guns are ridiculously easy to get a hold of

OK, so I will readily admit that it would be very difficult, if not impossible, for the US to pull off an all-out weapons ban like the UK did.  This country is too big, too porous, and too insubordinate to expect that to actually work.  I’m not going to bother pushing for that here.  But when you consider that it can be easier to buy a gun than a drink, you’ve got to start wondering why.

Then this latest “big news” hit, about Congress’s half-baked effort to give guns a little slap on the wrist.   The outpouring of ignorance across the nation was extraordinary.  It became apparent that any — and I mean any — attempt to regulate guns in any way was considered equal-enough to banning them entirely.  In the words of Inigo Montoya… “I do not think it means what you think it means.”  It is actually possible — and, in my opinion, necessary — to regulate guns, gun purchases, and gun ownership without getting rid of them entirely.

And so, once again, I am left wondering if my country will ever gain a bit of common sense and consider the possibility of the existence of a grey area, one that falls ingeniously between “all” and “nothing”.

Confessions of a History Major

It may be of interest to a few people that Margaret Thatcher, the first female prime minister of Great Britain, died today.  My first thought?  “Oh, Margaret Thatcher!  She’s the one who…. umm… was she prime minister during the 1970’s or 80’s?”

For most people, this wouldn’t be weird.  But I have a Master’s degree in British History.  From the UK.   I studied history for 6 years, and got myself a few pieces of paper that tell the world that *I* am an expert.  So what gives?  Where is my fountain of knowledge about Margaret Thatcher?

That’s when I realized – my brain is missing two decades’ worth of history.  I was born in the 1980’s.  I’ve picked up the 1990’s and onward on my own by living them.  No school would get away with not teaching the 1960’s.  But the 1970’s and 1980’s weren’t really “history” when I was in school.  I know lots of wide-sweeping concepts, but my knowledge about actual people and events are patched together from movies and from tidbits that people at least my parents’ age have mentioned here and there.

So, I’ve done what any self-respecting historian would have done – I’ve skimmed the internet for a crash-course in Thatcherism.    In case you’re curious, or suffering the same knowledge deficiency as me, here’s a quick summary from your friendly “expert”:

1. Margaret Thatcher was prime minister from 1979-1990
2. She was ultra-conservative (in a fiscal-policy way, not a warmongering way… well, kind of.  One war in 10+ years is great by recent American standards)
3. She was the first woman to attain such a rank, but was hardly cosy with the women’s lib movement (see: ultra-conservative).
4. I spent 3 years in the UK and had a hard time finding anyone with a kind word to say about her… but then again, she got re-elected several times.
5. She could be credited both with destroying much of what Britain once was, and saving it from being much less than it is now.  There is no telling what the UK would be like now if it hadn’t been for her.

So there you have it – a historian restored!   R.I.P. Margaret Thatcher.

How to be “anti-gay” and “pro-gay marriage” (and offend everyone)

I’ve always been an inquisitive sort of person.  I’m sure I was the kind of kid who asked “why?” a lot.  I don’t like making decisions, because I never feel confident enough that I’ve explored all the possible options and consequences.   I try to emphasize on this blog that I don’t know all the answers, with the inference that, really, no one does.   Just ask anyone — they’ll tell you that you don’t have everything figured out.

This attitude has brought me to a lot of great people and great conversations.  I’ll hear anyone out — the way I see it, everyone has a good reason for believing and thinking and acting the way they do.   By consulting so many different voices, my own opinions often land me somewhere in the Middle Ground.   Usually, that kind of makes me on everybody’s “side”.  From time to time, however, it makes me on nobody’s “side”…. This is one of those times.  Let me introduce to you the barren wasteland of the Middle Ground on gay marriage.

The image above pretty well illustrates how I see most people approach the issue.  Let me say, first and foremost, that I’m a Christian.  Let me also say that I’m not amongst those on the right-hand side of that illustration.  Nor am I on the left.  Middle Ground, remember?  I’m on a lonely little box in between the two, trying to introduce the idea that there’s no need for this fight.   Christians, this means you!  They’re fighting you!

Because I am such a fan of lists, allow me to explain how I’ve come to the conclusion that this Christians should not be part of this fight:

1) What Would Jesus Do?

Take another look at the above illustration.  Put Roman-era clothes on the people.  Where would Jesus be?  Could you really picture him on the right side?  (Or the left?)  Where was Jesus when there were people arguing — with verses to back them up — that they should stone the adulterous woman?  Did Jesus have harsher words for the sinners, or the religious types?  Jesus wasn’t about doing a keyword-search on the Bible and seeing everything it says about homosexuality or any other issue…. he was about showing people the way to God, by reaching out to where they were.

 

2) How should the church deal with sin?

So, let’s all agree that the Bible has some not-so-favorable things to say about homosexuality.  If you look it up, it’s a sin.  How do we deal with sin?

Let’s say that someone in the church knows a married, non-Christian guy with a destructive porn addiction.  The Bible clearly indicates porn is a sin (lust with the eyes = adultery).  How does a good Christian handle this?  Does he:

A) Hold protests and write letters to his congressional representative crying out for the illegalization of pornography?
B) Post Bible verses on his Facebook talking about the evils of porn?
or C) Go talk to the guy, be a good friend, and show him the love of God, the only One who is qualified to handle sin?

Come on, this one should be obvious.

For some reason, Christians have convinced themselves that, when it comes to homosexuality, they’re being bad Christians if they go for anything but A, or, at the very least, B.  Call me a bad Christian, but I just don’t buy it.

3) Supporting the legalization of gay marriage is totally separate from supporting homosexuality. 

Oh, dear.  This is where my Middle Ground truly becomes a wasteland.  People on all sides shake their heads and shift away from me uncomfortably.  I support the legalization of gay marriage.  I also think homosexuality is a sin.  I think that churches need to deal with it like they’re dealing with the many other sins and struggles of this world — through God, or, in some cases, through the church.  Not through the State.  There are only a few fundamentalist Muslim groups who want their Scriptures made into law.  The West calls them terrorists.   I’m casting my vote to take this issue out of the hands of powerful, self-interested politicians and back into the hands of the [ideally] loving church.  If a priest/preacher refuses to marry gay people, that is fully within his right; but the State is not the church, nor should it be.

 
Right, so there we have it!  The LGBT side can have equality through gay marriage, and the Christian side can stick to every single one of their principles!  Everyone can hug each other and live happy lives.  After all, Christians, as a community of people, need to love gay people in an unconditional, open-arms, would-die-for-you kind of way, just like Jesus does.  I don’t mean like under the condition that you “fix your issues ASAP”, because that’s not how we deal with people coming into the church who are struggling with greed, dishonesty, or ungratefulness.  That’s the way Jesus was; that’s the way the church should be.  I promise there are Christians out there like this.  I strive to be one of those Christians.

Abtwixt is back!

It is with great irony that I rise back from the ashes on here only when I am back at work… it seems that “work” offers infinitely greater spare time to write than “staying at home”.  I ask that all readers make careful note of this when judging the diligence (i.e. how hard they work) of one vs the other.

Yes, that is right, after writing such an inspirational speech about it, I have moved back into my previous life as an administrative superstar.  Finances required it, and, sadly, we all must make whatever life changes are necessary to please the will of the almighty Dollar.  I will restrain from complaining about it though, as it actually took an exceeding amount of effort to make happen, and I have great sympathy for those who are seeking jobs but not finding them.

What is interesting is I am now entering a new arena that I have never before played in: that of a dual-income family.  Some people seem to be experts here; they both work yet find time to cook, play with the kids outside for a while, bring them in, have baths, and get them to bed at a decent hour, while still being able to wake up and do their hair and makeup in the morning.  Let me say I am no expert.  I’m still wondering how I’m ever going to do laundry during the week again.  My current hope is that it will be a bit like FreeCell or Spider Solitaire, where it looks like an impossible mess until you learn to make sense of it all.  Or maybe I’ll just be buying a lot of Red Bull.

I’m just kidding. I’m more of a tea person.

On the bright side, I’m back in an environment where I get to listen to music at work.  I generally default to “I’ll listen to whatever”, but having the freedom to choose what I really want to listen to has revealed to me that I have a surprisingly old-fashioned taste in music.  Suddenly I don’t feel like listening to anything newer than Frank Sinatra, unless it’s instrumental or melts your heart like butter.  This isn’t to say I don’t like anything else, but I suppose it furthers my proud lifelong career of being “different”.  And yes, I write this at the same time as I am eating salad with a spoon.

My salad wasn’t this fancy, but you get the idea.

Anyway, all this was really just to say, “Hey, I’m back!”  As a boring side note, you may have noticed that “abtwixt.com” is gone.  If I can actually get myself back into blogging properly, it will probably be back up again within a couple months, but for now please visit me at abtwixt.wordpress.com.  :-)

What is your End of the World personality type?

I had an interesting dream last night about the end of the world….  This was probably brought on by my many recent evenings watching Doctor Who, in which the end of the world is about to happen rather frequently, but that’s no matter.

Now, the world didn’t end in my dream.  I woke up too soon for that.  Instead, I entered a world where everyone knew that everything was about to end that night — some massive storm or something.

I’ve already noted on here before how many people seem to be itching for an apocalypse, whether it be displayed in the whole Mayan calendar scare, the Harold Camping nonsense, or something more scientifically oriented like a zombie apocalypse or global warming or nuclear holocaust.  Perhaps we will see a major disaster in our lifetimes… certainly many will face their own personal disasters.  Have you ever wondered how you’d react, if it was something completely unstoppable?  These are the behavioral reactions I observed in my dream, see if you can identify who you’d be, or if my dream missed your personality altogether:

1. The Quiet Ones. There were quite a few people who were just frozen in place, not knowing what to do, sometimes staring at the news and other times just sitting there watching the sky.  Some seemed like they might be deep in thought or prayer.  Some looked like families huddled together, others were alone.  I started my dream in some kind of community building and there were probably more of this type than any other.

2. The Partiers.  There were some who resigned themselves to the fact that there was nothing they could do, so they wanted to make the most of their last day.  I saw people gathered in the streets dressed in odd clothes, clumped together in groups dancing and hollering.

3. The Preachers.  Not surprisingly, there were others who took to travelling between the groups and individuals scattered around, encouraging them to consider their souls and make amends with their Maker.  Also not surprisingly, they found more listening ears than they normally would.

4. The Deniers.  At one point during the dream, I had to make a run to K-Mart (why K-Mart? Who knows) to get a few things, and I was surprised to find the place rather busy — not with panicked people, but people milling about with their shopping carts as if everything was normal, comparing prices on household items and looking at birthday cards.  In the dream I wondered if they actually thought nothing would happen, or if they just enjoyed pretending so.

5. The Overseers. One thing that wasn’t happening in the dream was mass hysteria or chaos.  The community building I started out in had clearly been pre-designated as a place of prolonged protection, and in the streets I saw no crime or panic.  Everyone was clearly being looked after and kept informed.  Thus, though I never met any in person, there were clearly overseers working behind the scenes, even up to the last day.

Personally, I must have been a Denier, because I didn’t feel much impending doom and still ended up doing some shopping at K-Mart.  How about you — what would your personality type be?  Or would you have been some type of person I didn’t encounter in my dream?

What happens when we live too far apart?

Oh dear, it has been a long time since I have posted on here!  “So I’m becoming a stay-at-home mom…” and I can see the cobwebs growing and tumbleweed rolling.  If you ever needed proof of how hard a stay-at-home parent works, you have it right here.  Those precious few hours we call “nap time” disappear quickly and mysteriously.

So much has happened in the past couple of months that bear worthiness of thought and reflection… Superstorm Sandy tattered our shores as well as others, a madman brought unthinkable horrors upon an elementary school in Connecticut, our Congress revealed just how fragile our economic prosperity is, and special holiday times have come and gone.  Many others have written very eloquently on these subjects, and I feel there is little I can add.

It was in a conversation recently when I pointed out something I thought was obvious: “I don’t think it’s good for us [Americans], living so far apart.”

OK, never mind your opinions on  the above statement — whether you think it’s good or bad or somewhere in between.  Like anything, it has its pros and cons.  What surprised me the most was how little people know about how oddly spread out we are in the US.   So, allow me to demonstrate:

A typical suburban/town setting in America (aerial view, courtesy of Google Maps)

This is about average for what an American town looks like.  Shops all clumped together, people spread out in various neighborhoods. More urban settings will be more packed in, more rural settings will be spaced farther apart.  So what?

 

A typical town setting in the UK.

This is how the same amount of space (notice the scale in the bottom-left) is used up in the UK.   Notice a difference?   It looks like it’s zoomed out, but it’s not.   You have people/shops all packed in together, then you’re suddenly not in the town anymore.  But how does this compare to other places?

 

A suburb/town in Japan.

Well look at that… The same amount of space in Japan looks even more zoomed out because it’s even more densely packed.  I’ll admit, I’ve never been to Japan, so this space was picked very randomly (I tried staying away from the big cities).  Scroll back up to the US image to compare.

 

A suburban/town setting in mid-Nigeria.

So, OK, we all know Japan’s pretty packed.  What about somewhere less populated?  I picked somewhere random (again, avoiding the big cities) in the middle of Nigeria.  Still much denser than the US.

 

A town in south-central Russia.

I had to really test the theory… what about the least densely populated country in the world?  How spread out are their people living?  Here is a randomly selected town in Russia, nowhere near any of the big cities.   Notice how it resembles the organization of the UK more than US.

 

So there you have it.  Hopefully I have clearly demonstrated that the US is the odd one out when it comes to how far apart so many of us live from one another.  I can assure you that if you look throughout history, particularly before cars, you’ll find it even more odd.  So the next question is…. so what?  Why does it matter how far apart we live from each other?

The answer is, I’m not really sure.  It just seems wrong.  If humanity has always tended to clump together in densely packed communities, wouldn’t it be for a reason?  Wouldn’t some part of our psyche kind of depend on it?  Would we even be able  to track what would happen when we stopped building our society like that?

Consider just the theoretical benefits of living in close proximity to each other:

- Safety (always a witness / strength in numbers)
- Community living (opposite of isolated living)
- Sanity (there is a reason hermits were usually the crazy ones)
- Accountability (hard to get away with dark deeds without the space to carry them out)
- Information (the more people you talk/listen to, the less ignorant you’ll be)
- Public services (running water, schools, sanitation, and the like)

This isn’t a complete list, but you get the idea.  So, considering the above, why would people want to give that up to live farther away from one another?  This list might seem a bit harsh, but just think about it for a minute and you’ll get it:

- Don’t really like other people (except in small doses)
- Don’t really trust other people
- Don’t want to be held back by other people
- Don’t want to have to answer to other people

Does that list look familiar at all?  It should, because it’s progressively becoming the ideals of our society.  Dressed up a bit better, of course, to make “ME” the important one, and everyone else the unimportant ones.

Is it progress?  Maybe just a neutral change?  You can decide.  But I bet it would never have happened if we were all still living shoulder-to-shoulder to one another.

Check Your Passions

So, at long last, Election 2012 is nearly over.  As mentioned here, I count this as much a cause for celebration as Thanksgiving.

While feeling quite content about this upcoming relief, I heard a really short little mention on the radio that stopped me in my tracks.  This campaign so far has absorbed 6 billion dollars.

Wait a minute and let that sink in.  Maybe you’re the sort that likes it spelled out with 0’s.  People have donated $6,000,000,000 to this campaign.

That would be 10 times the yearly budget for Atlanta Public Schools, or 100 times what Bill Gates’ foundation gave to turn the tide of HIV/AIDS in southern Africa, or 1400 times the yearly budget for Habitat for Humanity, or 260,000 times the annual income of a family of four living on the federal poverty line (statistics gleaned from the official websites/reports for the above).

All of that money…. forever absorbed into one grossly overfunded election.  The more I thought about it, the more angry and nauseous I got.  Correct me if I’m wrong, but aren’t we in a recession?  Since when does it make sense to give away $6 billion to a cause that doesn’t really benefit anyone, in order to get  someone elected to fix all of our money-lacking woes??  Could you imagine what problems, regardless of who was elected, could have been fixed with all of that money if people just screwed their heads on a little tighter??

Then a wise little saying popped into my head:

“Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” 

This line is from the Jesus in the Bible (Matthew 6:21), but both of these mean a lot of different things to a lot of different people, so you can sort out the wisdom of this remark for yourself.  A $6 billion dollar campaign isn’t just about personal economics… it’s about passion.  People spend their hard-earned money on things they’re passionate about – and as many chronic tv-muters and facebook-defrienders can attest, many people are truly passionate about this campaign.

Passion is a very meaningful word to me.  It’s like the fuel that keeps us moving and striving, the thing that gives us a reason to get out of bed every morning, and the quality we search for in all of our heroes.  History is replete with fiery, passionate people who have literally changed the world.

If our money follows our passions, then what does this campaign say about us?  Are our passions being rightly aimed, toward men we think will change the world on our behalf, or perhaps against men we think will change the world on others’ behalf in ways we don’t want?  What happens next?  An evil socialist dictator or a heartless capitalist croney brings you and your ideals to ruin?  I doubt it.  Lies are often easier to spread than the truth.

This is not to say we shouldn’t be involved in politics, or care about who is running our country.  I think we should.  I proudly voted on Friday.   But our passions?   What if instead of trying to outlaw one another, we tried to help one another?  What if instead of spending billions on finger-pointing, we spent them on actually fixing things?  Passion is one of the most potent forces of the human spirit, and misspent passion should be considered nothing short of an environmental disaster.

I don’t know if you donated to a campaign or not.  My intention is not to condemn those who have.  What I do encourage is some pause for consideration… where are your passions?  What would you like to have some part in accomplishing in your lifetime?   Because I can guarantee that, regardless of how much money you give – if any – if you actually strive for your passion, you will be able to make some incredible things happen.