We Need The Eggs

A Sentence

2012-02-11T11:09:00.000-08:00

Here is a thought from my 9 months ago self:

"Inmy more sober moments I worry that my cynicism and sarcasm can get in the wayof aliveness. I want those sober moments to increase, gain some momentum, andmaybe roll this soul over."

Ok so it was two sentences, but "A Sentence" has more poetic resonance for me--so your petty, neatnik logic has been overruled.

Christianity & Jesus Aren't Necessarily the Same

2012-02-06T22:10:00.000-08:00

Every once in awhile I read something and I say, "Yep, that's what I've been trying to say."

You'll see attempts to be as clear and profound as this blog post in my own writing, but I haven't achieved it. I wish everyone would read this and take a big long think for awhile.

http://davidswanson.wordpress.com/2012/01/25/leaving-christianity/

Suspect

2012-02-01T21:26:00.000-08:00

What does it say about me that, at some point or another in the midst of most of my relationships, I have taken time to consider whether or not this person I was dealing with was a sociopath?

If it helps I've also considered myself as a possible case.

But then I get weepy over a long distance calling commercial and know in my heart of hearts that I'm not such a bad guy.

Sorrow & Chagrin

2012-02-01T21:08:00.000-08:00

If I ever needed a reminder of my voluminous failures in this life (and generally I don't), I would just go to my blog stats and look at the number one search terms are that have led people to my blog.

Dwarfing all other internet searches, 374 to the next closest, 64, is this:

"chili cook off flyer"

Is that my mission in a phrase? Does that capture the essence of what I've set out to do with this blog?

The results speak for themselves, I suppose.

For kicks:

Search Keywords

chili cook off flyer

374

assorted intricacies

we need the eggs

drunk midgets

woman ripped in half

chili contest

yourwitsend.blogspot.com

chili cook off flyers

chili cook-off flyer

moneyball

God is Out, We Need a New Word

2012-01-08T19:50:00.001-08:00

The old ways of talking about things simply won't do. We need a cultural/linguistic enema.

When I say "God" what flashes into your mind are antiquated or most likely erroneous images fashioned by our cracked culture and they mostly swirl around the hub of morality.

This simply won't do. I'm inordinately obsessed with the things of God because, really, it's the only game in town.

Perhaps a better and more accurate phrase for "God" is Ultimate Reality.

It is a simple math problem. If you are able to push through the Matrix, as it were, to the real Truth Behind it All, then everything in your life will necessarily be different. All in your life will need to be reconsidered in the light of the real Truth that is the Ultimate Reality.

The problem is that "God", through century after century of use and abuse, has been dragged down from the sky to our reality. Now the way we think of God can be difficult to distinguish from the way we think of our fathers (sometimes a dismal business indeed).

If...then... Cause...and effect. God, Religion, whatever you like, seems to be yet another subject--like sociology, math, golf and economics. It's because He has been cheapened that this is possible. No one would laugh in the face of the Creator of the universe when He picked them up by their tail. But you can certainly laugh at Pat Robertson or Joel Osteen (which I very much encourage you to do). They, among many others, are cultural touchstones for God's representation down here on earth. Very unfortunate indeed.

When I say God, I don't want you to think of any humans or any force that you intellectually understand down here with your five senses. I want you to think of the Game Changer, the Reality Inverter, the Man Behind the Matrix. Something/Someone that is Holy Other (and by that I mean Wholly Other). He is, more than anything else that is true that you have ever understood--Ultimate Reality. You don't sit down and sip a Starbucks after meeting Ultimate Reality.

You are undone. Forever.

That is the level I suggest you approach Ultimate Reality on.

So this blog was kind of weird, but whatever. Look, I don't really get it either. But as Brooks said, "get busy livin', or get busy dyin'." Those are words to live by. I do believe that Ultimate Reality would approve of them as well.

Blogging In 2012

2012-01-01T14:14:00.001-08:00

Every fledgling blogger instinctively knows they must publish a blog on January first. "Gotta get the year started off right!" We say to ourselves.

Look, here is my first tip of 2012. It is not the frequency of your blogging that matters. People are not hungering for frequent posts for the sake of frequency. You don't have to "keep your readers happy" in that respect.

The only thing that matters is this: Do you have something to say? This must be restated for emphasis: Do You Have Something To Say?

When it comes to blogging, and writing in general, this is all that matters. The great majority of blogs fail because this most important question was not asked. If there is nothing to raise the eyebrows, nothing to merit pause, nothing to bring a smile or a laugh--then delete it.

If you blog in this way then you will gain a following, or you will not, but you will be participating in an activity that will actually make you want to sit down at the keyboard.

Dear God, am I a Liberal?--An Outline

2011-12-27T21:05:00.000-08:00

In this blog I will outline:

Robert Capon's effect on my thinking and therefore the importance of choosing your influences wisely.

My recent thoughts on Catholic Theology and why maybe it's all ok and God isn't bugged by theological error.

People who do this kind of talking get run out on a RAIL from their families and communities/churches, so if I can, if you don't mind, I'd like to avoid that. But seriously, keep in mind that writers write to figure out what they're thinking. I'm not wedded to these ideas, I wouldn't espouse them as absolute truth. I'm exploring ideas. If that's fun and interesting to you then please join me. If it hurts your soul and makes you question my allegiances and eternal destination, well--I understand. I used to be one of you. But I'm much more relaxed over here, so you, uptight one, clenched one, should try it.

This blog has been in the making for about a week. I caught more of a vision for it tonight, so I thought I would share this. With any luck, sometime in the next week, I will post the blog in its entirety. In that blog I will fully flesh out these ideas that I'm wrestling with. Should be a fun time.

Oh, and to answer the question posed in the title: The answer is no. I don't think that I'm a liberal at all. The reason I said it is because I think that just about every theologically conservative person I know would accuse me of being a liberal (which I am not) for saying what I want to say, hence the title.

The Passing of a Hero

2011-12-16T00:37:00.000-08:00

A hero passed today. Many in my community will only know him as the guy who wrote that awful anti-Christian/Jewish/Muslim book, "God Is Not Great", but he was so much more than that. The book actually represents his greatest strength: Not fearing to speak his mind.

Christopher Hitchins was just as likely to offend the Left as he was the Right. I first discovered him in the early years after 9/11 when he was harping on the dangers of Islamic Fascism. I'm all for being against Islamic Fascism, so I found a friend in Christopher. But I quickly found out that he was no Conservative. I was intrigued. So I read his book, "Letters to a Young Contrarian." In that book he revealed himself to be more complicated and nuanced than almost anyone else is willing to be. He's certainly a champion of the Left, but he was ready at the drop of a hat to condemn his Leftist compatriots if he felt they had gone off the rails.

Hitchins was passionately atheistic, and God bless him for being so open and insistent about it. He sincerely felt that belief in God was a detriment to the world. It's a common sentiment that goes unexpressed in a world where the overwhelming majority of its citizens believe in a higher power. Others are content to talk sports and the weather, rather than get to the heart of what we hold dear and makes us tick.

It's not easy making friends if you're willing to be as openly honest as Christopher Hitchins was. Of course I didn't always agree with him--but I knew he wasn't putting anyone on--he called them as he saw them.

For some reason most of us avoid that kind of behavior.

For Lack of a Better World

2011-11-29T22:22:00.001-08:00

Dammit Jason, there you go again, thinking up an incredible blog title with no place to put it...

Short Stories

2011-11-25T11:59:00.001-08:00

Here are five:

James knew he needed more porridge; he just didn't know who he should take it from. One-armed Slimmy was an obvious choice, but an unexpected sense of guilt swelled at the thought of making such an easy swipe. The chancellor had more than her fair share, but she had sealed herself off behind an invisible wall. He would appeal to the Council, but he knew he would be going hungry tonight.

The marble was being kicked mercilessly by the toy soldier. "We don't like your kind." The marble hoped the soldier's foot hurt. It's not easy to kick something so solid.

While all the others made their virginal flight from the nest, our lone bird painfully and meticulously inched down the tree, step by step, with clawing wing and beak knifing into bark. Five hours later our bird reached the bottom of the five foot tree. He sat down at a tiny bird table and had the stiffest drink any mammal has ever had.

Her tears were not genuine, but don't let that make you think they were difficult to produce. An inner leer graced her mouth that she could see in her mind's eye.

The milkshake willed itself to fall over. It feels better to spread out.

I Specialize In Anxiety

2011-11-12T16:01:00.001-08:00

The title is true, but I don't suffer from real, clinical anxiety. I'm more of a day tripper, a tourist, a harmless neurotic.

This week I'm frequently fretting about an article I read some months back. It said that information we read online sticks in our head much less than reading it from a book or newspaper. Does that mean that all the reading I do online has been largely a waste of time? Is my investment in building my Kindle library a dead end? It makes me sick to my stomach to even think about it.

Concern for cancer slowly and patiently devouring my insides has reemerged again. I think I'm almost out of the woods for MS. But nothing can save you from sudden heart attack, drunk drivers, and food poisoning.

Fear of a life lived in quiet desperation is never far from my mind, idle or otherwise. But I'm being challenged in my job right now, so it's less of a concern for the moment. Still, fear of never breaking free of anything more than shallow and surface relationships remains an ever present concern.

Also of concern lately is a mole going melanoma on me.

On Moneyball & Wasting A Life

2011-10-29T12:01:00.000-07:00

Like seven million other people in the world, I recently saw the movie Moneyball. Everyone is raving about it, and I hate to be the grand balloon popper, but I was slightly underwhelmed. I'd say it was a good movie, but I'd qualify the hell out of that statement, and continually mutter under my breath that it has problems and is not without its flaws.

(Tangent: I fear being the dissenting voice on a commonly enjoyed movie. It's like it bums people out, and I feel resentment seeping my way as I articulate my problems. But I'm learning to manage it, I was much less blatant with Moneyball, so I don't think I pissed anyone off.)

But yes, there was a lot to like about it. I was fascinated by the tension between "doing it the way we've always done it" and turning baseball into a science--demystifying, denuding and de-romanticizing the game. I thought they represented both sides of the argument well. Every time some old fart would tell Pitt he had no idea what he was doing and there were too many intangibles he wasn't accounting for, I was like "well, they're right. That makes sense." But I was frustrated because, though I am a casual baseball fan, I'm sorry to say that I've never read Moneyball, nor have I boned up on what goes into it, what the opposing arguments are, etc. And that bothered me. I was uncomfortable with not being able to take a side due to lack of knowledge.

So I started to think about doing what I've done for the last ten years when I get this feeling: Read! I wasn't sure if I would read Moneyball, as I do have about 100 books or so on my waiting list, but I was interested to go and find some blogs that offer critiques of the Moneyball approach.

And then Sanity stepped forward and said "stop it!" Yes, I could read up on Moneyball and anti-Moneyball and develop a formed and nuanced opinion on the whole thing--and it would be a complete waste of my time. It would be interesting, and I would enjoy myself, but I would be wasting a neat little slice of my limited time. Look, if I was going to be the next Ken Jennings then it would be easy to justify pursuing every rabbit trail of useless knowledge.

But Ken Jennings I ain't. It's taken me a long time to get here--I have fantasized about a long-standing Jeopardy run for several years now. But the bloom is off the rose. I'm not reading up on mid eval dynasties and obscure lakes and rivers. I haven't purchased a Complete Works of Bill Shakespeare.

It's a fine line I'm walking because in a lot of ways there is nothing wrong with pursuing "useless" knowledge. If you do you're more fun at parties and you'll be a better conversationalist. But I do something weird with it. It's as if I'm hiding behind the pursuit so I don't have to pursue what I'm supposed to be doing.

Poem #19

2011-10-23T08:54:00.000-07:00

What would I do now,
now that I've lived a little down this road?
The childish plays at depth and meaning have lessened.
The winding path of time has straightened.

What would I do now,
now that I know I can't earn it,
I can't force it, I can't, by dint of effort,
achieve whatever I want, as if I'm in a vacuum,
as if I am a self-sustaining force unto myself.

What would I do now,
now that the paint's chipping,
the sheen is gone;
the virginal assumptions decimated.

What I would do now,
now that I have to acknowledge the limits,
defer to the chaos, whither in the insuperable strength--
befriend the fear, bow my head,
and edge forward on my knees.

Culture Alert

2011-10-15T18:02:00.001-07:00

Apparently t-shirt makers have discovered they can put absolutely ANYTHING on a shirt and it will sell.

Good job, America.

The Last Word on the Suburbs

2011-10-06T00:41:00.000-07:00

Or, really, for any place that anyone chooses to live.

Like every other good American, Jess and I started the wonderful saga of The Wonder Years tonight, because Netflix began streaming it this week.

At the end of the pilot episode is the following quote, and it articulates the dim thought that always occurs to me whenever someone bags on the place I've spent my childhood and, well, my whole life. They nailed it. How could you not pick up this show after this episode?:

"...Whenever some blowhard starts talking about the anonymity of the suburbs or the mindlessness of the TV generation, because we know that inside each one of those identical boxes, with its Dodge parked out front and its white bread on the table and its TV set glowing blue in the falling dusk, there were people with stories, there were families bound together in the pain and the struggle of love, there where moments that made us cry with laughter, and there were moments, like that one, of sorrow and wonder."

It's Not Going To Stop

2011-10-03T11:31:00.000-07:00

It's not
What you thought
When you first began it
You got
What you want
Now you can hardly stand it though,
By now you know
It's not going to stop
It's not going to stop
It's not going to stop
'Til you wise up

You're sure
There's a cure
And you have finally found it
You think
One drink
Will shrink you 'til you're underground
And living down
But it's not going to stop
It's not going to stop
It's not going to stop
'Til you wise up

Prepare a list of what you need
Before you sign away the deed
'Cause it's not going to stop
It's not going to stop
It's not going to stop
'Til you wise up
No, it's not going to stop
'Til you wise up
No, it's not going to stop
So just...give up

~Aimee Mann

Grammer Make Crazy

2011-10-01T15:47:00.000-07:00

Today this wonderful Woody Allen quote was an answer on Jeopardy:

I genuinely love Trebek and would gladly babysit his children for no pay.

"It's not that I'm afraid to die, I just don't want to be there when it happens."

But I didn't happen to catch the punctuation they used, so I started wondering how exactly it was written.

Apparently the rest of the world is confused as well, here are three of the top four hits I got when I Googled "It's not that I'm afraid to die":

"It's not that I'm afraid to die, I just don't want to be there when it happens."

"It's not that I'm afraid to die; I just don't want to be there when it happens."

"It's not that I'm afraid to die. I just don't want to be there when it happens."

So Googling didn't help, but it did give me the source of the quote. It turns out I have the book that it's from, which is "Without Feathers." I used to own the book as a single volume, but I got rid of it when I received for Christmas one year "The Complete Prose of Woody Allen" wherein all of his three books (up until that point) were in one handy volume.

Google didn't have a picture of the cover that was on MY copy.

So I began looking for the story the quote was contained in...only to find...that the story (in this case, a play)...wasn't in the book. Now, the laws of physics, nature and ethics tell you that this shouldn't be the case. If a quote is in a book, then ipso facto it will be in YOUR copy of the book. I went through the table of contents several times secure in my faith that reality was not in fact falling apart at the seams.

For a comedy trilogy he sure does look tame, what's that all about?

After too long of a period of time I despaired and gave up on my quest. I don't remember exactly what I did next, but I think I started Googling something like, "my copy of Without Feathers is missing stories" or something like that. And the answer, infuriating and dumb, was soon made clear:

My book was the complete PROSE of Woody Allen. Therefore any of those unworthy PLAYS were stripped out.

Unbelievable.

So I reserved a REGULAR copy of the book from the library, had my sister pick it up and bring it to me (why not, she works there?! Sorry, it's just that my wife thinks I'm a bum for making her do that), and I finally got my hands on the quote.

My sister. Also, what is this, a glamour shot by Deb?

Now: I haven't told you this, but the reason why I was so curious is because I'm obsessed with dissecting language and grammar to figure out what makes things funny. And what makes funny things even funnier? My gut feeling is that going with a comma after the word "die" served to be the best punctuation to help deliver the highest funny. But obviously there are options there. You can break it into two sentences. But that's too much of a break, it doesn't flow enough and therefore subtracts some funny because of the lack of flow. You can go with the semicolon but I personally find that too academic and you end up lost in your head questioning whether or not that was a proper use of a semicolon (which is what you ALWAYS do every time you see a semicolon, at least if my experience holds true for the rest of humanity).

I want this shirt. Bad.

So that's my thought process, but would the master agree with me?

Yes he did. The line is as it should be,

"It's not that I'm afraid to die, I just don't want to be there when it happens." --Woody Allen

Mazel Tov!

2011-09-29T16:53:00.000-07:00

"You're what Grammy Hall would call a 'Real Jew.'" --Annie Hall.

Happy Rosh Hashanah to my Jewish friends! Though I hope none of you see this well wish today because what kind of a Jew are you to be screwing around with the internet on a high holyday?

Crooked Thoughts From an Unwell Mind

2011-09-29T12:00:00.000-07:00

So this is my 29th September 29th. I'm trying to make it one of the better September 29ths that I've had, but I can't really remember what I did on my previous ones, so it's hard to distinguish the forgotten from the murky.

Thinking about doing this trip around the sun over and over again reminds me of a startling philosophical insight I had when I was 8 or 10: Every day is a new year. Even more mind blowing, every second is a new year. Sure, we choose to celebrate the "new year" on January 1st, but you must understand that is completely arbitrary. A new year just happened right now. It was a year ago just now. I remember trying to explain this to my mother while we waited in the Seafirst Bank drive-thru line in Burien. It wasn't really resonating with her, which frustrated me because I was enamoured with the idea and wanted to share the love.

Other stray observations from the ages of roughly 7 to 11:

I was deathly afraid of someday having to go to war. I remember reflecting on this when I was roaming around our expansive backyard.
I often wondered if I were the only real person in the world and everyone else was robots or actors. It's weird, I've heard a lot of people say similar things, but I don't think anyone put the idea into my head. Why should this be a common sentiment or preoccupation? Did we all discover Solipsism by accident, or is it simply a mechanism inside human nature? Either way I'm left Not Rich even though I came up with the idea for The Truman Show quite on my own.
I swear to God for one moment, while walking down our street to a friend's house, I grasped how time travel could possibly work. I was thinking about Einstein's thought, about riding on a light beam and looking in a mirror and wondering what he would see--and then it hit me. But now I can't remember how it worked. Note: This thought may have occurred to me post the age of 11, but I think it still merits inclusion.
My mind used to boggle at the fact that I couldn't PROVE my toys didn't get up and dance or play whenever I left my room. I thought about putting a hidden camera in there but knew it would be no good because I wouldn't be able to prove that they simply knew of the camera and therefore maintained their ruse of inanimacy. Improbable? Of course. Impossible? Well you just can't say now, can you? This is how I stumbled upon, quite apart from any textbook, the Hawthorne Effect.

Did any of these things occur to me on a September 29th? I don't know, perhaps all of them did. I don't know.

Something Rotten in Israel

2011-09-24T13:54:00.000-07:00

There are things going on in the Holy Land.

I haven't read a full article on it yet, but I know shit is tense. Palestine is pushing for statehood, I'm pretty sure Israel is not cool with that because a large part of Palestine's government representation also happens to be an avowed terrorist organization.

And there is a headline on Drudge that reads "Netanyahu: 'Theater of the Absurd...'" Now that is an intriguing headline. And part of me kind of wanted to click on it. But then I got to thinking...

Man, I've got a lot of crap going on in my life right now. I don't mean big, serious stuff, but just all of the stuff that one has going on. I've got a newborn, an 18-month-old, a job to think about, a blog to run, another book to write, quality time with my wife to consider, a strained relationship to God to cultivate, tennis to play--

Do I really need to know what's going on in Israel?

I mean, I want to know. I'm interested in international politics. At least I am, you know, when they're interesting. I care about Israel, I'm a supporter of the state, and I also care about fairness and justice, so I want to read about it and make sure everything is on the up and up or see if I need to adjust my opinion or stance on the various issues surrounding the debacle.

But that's all I have, isn't it? I have an "opinion" about Israel. If that's all I have, then these are the things I don't have in relation to Israel: a say in what goes on, a personal stake in the outcome of whatever may transpire, influence with players and decision makers.

So how is a well groomed opinion on Israel helping anyone? What purpose is it serving? I treat news like others treat soap operas, sports, the lives of celebrities--it's entertainment. It's something to talk about with other people. Sure, they're weighty issues that matter in the real world, but in reality I have zilch to do with them. Israel/Palestine matter--my opinion on the matter doesn't even equate to a loud fart in a hurricane. So why waste my time?

I shouldn't. But for some jacked up reason we're willing to settle for lesser things that are easy, instead of greater things that are harder.

Judgemental Wednesday: I Know Who You Are

2011-09-21T15:47:00.000-07:00

So you're a big fan of "Two and a Half Men" huh? That's great.

You're going to have to leave now because I have to sterilize my house, don't touch anything on the way out, I'll get the door--I now know everything I need to know about you, have a nice life.

Are You Smarter Than Someone From Hong Kong?

2011-09-21T12:49:00.000-07:00

No, you're not.

Well, if we're going purely by statistics then you're not, but a case by case basis might yield different results.

For some reason I got the wild idea to plunk down $18 and take the Mensa Home Test to see if it's even worth continuing to try and think. The test got me thinking about IQ in general, so I checked out the Wikipedia on IQ scores which is how I found out that you're certainly dumber than a McDonalds employee in Hong Kong, and basically most of Asia, as well.

I know I know, you're dying to hear my score--well I'm not going to tell you. Let's just say I'm no Einstein. To give you a vague idea, I'm somewhere between Gump and Gary Oldman. I'm constantly needing to prove to myself that I'm not as dumb as I fear I am. The real victory would be to accept things as they are, not get a high score on some stupid test.

Not there yet, though.

Free Blogging Tip

2011-09-16T09:49:00.000-07:00

If you want to increase your hits do some posts about chili cook-off flyers.

You can view the search terms that lead people to your sight, and for over a month now the most common search that has lead people to my blog are for people looking for flyers for their chili cook-offs. I did a post on it last September because Jess entered a chili cook-off and SHOULD HAVE WON.

Anyway, this is the only tip I have for bloggers out there--this is the key to my success.

D is for Douche

2011-09-15T16:30:00.000-07:00

ADULT SUPERVISION FOR FRIES!

I used to REALLY like the Drudge Report, but I think Matt has gotten steadily more petty over the last few years.

Matt earns my official proclamation of Douche Bag over him for the above headline. It is simple elementary to say that conservatives don't like liberal and vice versa. And liberals don't give a fair shake to conservatives and vice versa.

But this goes WAY too far. In the above headline Drudge is somehow trying to make fun of the parent company of the Olive Garden because they are VOLUNTARILY making an effort to reduce the calories on their menu and provide healthier meals to kids.

So he is somehow trying to spin it as Big Brother peering over the shoulder of industry, forcing them to get healthier. How ridiculous. That is not a legitmate point of view, and it's even worse to suggest the untruth as your main headline.

Drudge fails today.

Unfortuneately he remains a great source of news, so I will still be frequenting his site.

Alaska In My Crosshairs

2011-09-14T17:52:00.000-07:00

For some unknown reason I launched into a tirade against the state of Alaska on Twitter today. I thought I would document it here just in case the authorities will want to investigate if, God forbid, something terrible should happen to Alaska in the next few days and I turn up as a suspect:

Holy crap, Alaska is more than twice the size of Texas. Wrap your mind around THAT.

All that Texas bluster about big this and big that, Alaska is like “I crush you now” and just rolls over.

I’d consider moving to Alaska if they’d do something about the FREEZING TO DEATH and BEAR MAULINGS.

I had a friend vacation in Alaska. He came back with no arms. He said the Grizzly was “nice about it, though.” Whatever that means.

Welcome to Alaska, here is your bazooka that fires bullets that bounce off grizzly head. Best chance 4 survival is 2 stay out of the outside

Alaska is not known as a cultural hub, but if u kidnapped a lot of celebs and artists and forced them to live there that would soon change.

Real estate is dirt cheap in Alaska, but you have to build your own runway to fly your plane to the supermarket & video store.

Alaska is the weird brother-in-law of states: they don’t talk much and you rarely know what they’re up to, but you know it’s not good.

I might move to Alaska someday, but it will be b/c I was bound & gagged at 3 a.m. and dragged there, so I’m not looking forward to it.

I don’t mean to hate, I know I would think it was beautiful, but then I’d look down & say “great, my ass is froze to the toilet seat again.”

It's Judgemental Wednesday Part II

2011-09-14T11:28:00.001-07:00

Marie Antoinette said "Let them eat cake."

The media juggernauts of America gazed upon the hungry minds of the land and said "Let them eat crap."

It's Judgemental Wednesday

2011-09-14T11:12:00.001-07:00

If someone demanded that I indict American culture for its sins, I would say the following:

The perfect metaphor for our culture is Jersey Shore:

We pay people exorbitant amounts of money to drink, fall down and hurt themselves.

Basic Etiquette for Human Beings

2011-09-13T13:51:00.000-07:00

Just talked to a foreign patient who said the lady at Medicare was nice because she “talked to me slowly so I could understand.” All customer service agents take note: YOU ARE OFFICIALLY IRREDEEMABLE A-HOLES IF YOU DO NOT DO THIS AS WELL!

More on 9/11 Prayer Debacle

2011-09-09T12:58:00.000-07:00

I like being on the same page with people who are much smarter than me--it oh so slightly eases my massive inferiority complex. I just read this piece on the 9/11 prayer issue that hits on some of the same themes as my own, it resonated with my soul, and so I present it to those who are interested.

Michael Horton's take on the 9/11 prayer issue.

Who Would Jesus Petition?

2011-09-07T19:26:00.000-07:00

Mega church pastor Mark Driscoll tweeted a Washington Times article explaining that religious folk are upset that none of their clergy will be involved in New York City's 9/11 tenth anniversary memorial ceremony. They are outraged that clergy and prayer won't be part of the planned events.

I used to be one of those people who would jump on the band wagon, get all huffy, get my panties in a twist and sign the petition to get Mayor Bloomberg to invite clergy to the memorial to pray.

Not anymore. And I want to invite my fellow Christians to consider another way. First of all, I understand the reasoning behind getting all huffy--I used to spout it seamlessly. I won't even go so far as to say that I'm sure it is the wrong course of action and that it isn't what Jesus would do. But I will say that I am personally convinced that it is wrong, and that it isn't what Jesus would do. I hate to get so basic and cliche, but as Christians, that is one thing we kind of signed on for, to try and--imperfectly to be sure--do things the way Jesus would do them.

Follow my line of reasoning and see if you don't disagree:

Jesus pointedly stayed away from politics and the official government stage. The people wanted to make him king, they wanted him to lead the charge against the Roman Empire, and he went out of his way to signify and specify that he wouldn't be doing that. Jesus didn't give us a lot of instruction on how to pray, but when he did, he said things like "keep it short" and "do it in private." Jesus had a big problem with people doing things for show. He didn't like it when people would go to great lengths in public to show others how holy they were. He got pissed about it.

So why would his followers demand the right to show up to a party they weren't invited to so they could do one of the things that Jesus specifically went out of his way to condemn?

And what's with Christians demanding things? New Testament Christianity is not big on this. Paul asks the question, why not allow yourself to be wronged rather than to seek recompense in court? Jesus said if someone takes your hat give them your coat too, turn the other cheek, and if someone forces you to walk a mile with them then you should go two. Christians will cry that all of this is out of context and there is nuance. I don't disagree with that, BUT--can you seriously read the New Testament and not agree that the overall thrust is in the direction of non-intervention, a non-demanding posture, and self-sacrifice being valued OVER insisting on your own way, whining about petty injustices and throwing your weight around?

1 Corinthians 13:5--Love does not insist on its own way. Does that apply to the reaction of clergy to a party they weren't invited to? You could make a case either way, but I will humbly submit that only one of those cases is right.

I think one reason why Jesus taught us these things is because he truly understood what real power is. The world's idea of power is incredibly flawed. Worldly power certainly gets things done, but the price is much too high. What people think of power in this world is really coercion. Whether by the power of the law, or indulging someones innate greed to get them to give you what you want, it is coercion. This breeds resentment. This breeds revenge. This breeds war.

The only real power in this world is the power that people willingly and gladly give you. Real power is when people want to listen to what you have to say because it sounds true. Because it resonates. Real power can only be gotten by having others voluntarily give it to you.

God is not glorified by deliberately public displays of ostentation, he said so himself. Why in God's name are we insisting we should be able to pray from a stage when one of the God-blessed beauties of prayer is that we can do it from anywhere? If you want prayer during this memorial service you can certainly have it; a petition is, to be kind, extraneous.

Who would Jesus petition? Would you start a petition against your neighbor if he didn't invite you to his party? More importantly, what if you didn't invite someone to your party and they started a petition demanding that they would be invited--how would that make you feel? Would you then want to invite them to your party?

Jesus is famous for that saying that everyone loves and no one applies to themselves: Treat others the way you want to be treated. What glory would redound to their God if us entitled, American Christians recovered this simple principle and ran with it?

If this country isn't Christian enough for you anymore the last thing you should do is whine about it and get a petition going around. Not only is it not what Jesus would do, and childish, and annoying--it's also completely ineffective. Well, I shouldn't say that. If the point is to rally the troops, be divisive, and have the faithful pour money into your coffers, then yes, it is effective. But if your goal is to "make disciples of all the nations" then I'm afraid this course of action has nothing at all to do with what Jesus taught you.

How to Forsake Middle-class Mediocrity

2011-09-05T10:20:00.000-07:00

I listened to this talk that Dan Allender gave several months ago and I was floored by it. Just floored. And so I transcribed the most impactful part of it, shared it with my wife, freaked out about it. And then it just sat there. I thought, "Well, it's kinda heavy, I don't wanna bum people out."

Now I say: Screw that. Go ahead and like it or hate it, let it change your life or ignore it with impunity; I don't make those decisions for you.

Now here is Dan to rock your world (as he goes he picks up steam, he was very animated throughout, so you have to read it with that in mind):

I know what it is to be abused, I know what it is to be marginalized, i know racism, I know agism, I know sexism, I know the reality of not just individual but coporate and cultural sin. I know what consumerism does to the human heart. I know what the negativity and the self-righteousness of the believing community does to the human heart. So the question, really, if I can put it very simply, is, where are you angry because you know evil has done you harm? And has done the people in your own life harm. And if the answer is "nothing makes you angry. Nothing is a "no" for you in this life. Then all I can ask of you is to ask the question, is your life worth living? Because if there is nothing you'll take a bullet for, then there is nothing worth living for. If there is nothing in your life that you are willing to give your life for, except your middle-class mediocrity—keeping your mortgage up, and maybe you need a little bit bigger home, you know the car's just not running quite as well, we need a new one. Again, I'm not against the enjoyment of all the riches and blessings God gives. And yet, we live in a world where $100 in Ghana can feed an orphanage full of children for a month. Do you know any orpans? You don't. You don't! Why not? They're on the websites. There are ministries. Do you not know any trafficked children? They're there for you to know. My question to you is, what's the "no" that the harm of evil has brought you to say "As long as I'm on this earth, you take me down sucker, you take me down. Because you see, if you kill me, do you understand what a blessing that is? Kill me, because I'm with the Father. But if you don't—you fool—you don't take my life today? You fool! Then I have one more day to talk to you about tough things that most Christians don't even want to get close to. And it's a good day." As the Apache saying says, "This is a good day to die." Is it for you?

That was Dan for you. My quick answer to his last question is, "not really." I like to think that I'd die for my family, that I'd die for my faith, but, as the man said, "talkin' about it and bein' it, that's two different things." I know I'm not giving it my all, I know I'm still clinging to my middle-class mediocrity.

Guess I gotta go watch Fight Club a few more times, or read this again—they're essentially saying the same thing.

The Day Jeopardy Legend Ken Jennings Told Me To Suck It

2011-09-02T23:50:00.000-07:00

That day was today, actually. But it was all in good fun, I am so tickled and honored by his suggestion.

That's right, I had a lot of fun on Twitter today, and so I'm going to give you a little Twitter Roundup. For some reason Facebook is much more popular than Twitter, and I really don't understand why. Twitter is a dynamic communication mecca of wonderfulness. Besides @KenJennings I also talked with (at) @PeteCarroll, @NormMacdonald and @AlbertBrooks today as well. True, none of those guys wrote me back, but they MIGHT have saw what I said to them, isn't that exciting? You're not going to get that opportunity on Facebook, friends.

Mr. Jennings wrote a blog today about Twitter as a comedy barometer. It was a great blog, and he mentioned how some of his Tweet-jokes go over like lead balloons, so I decided I would tweet to remind him of one that I found particularly lead-ish. That's all you need to know to enjoy our conversation.

@jdspotJason DesLongchamp

@KenJennings Also, my favorite lead balloon tweet of yours was the postmortem congratulations to Amy Winehouse on 4 weeks of sobriety. Ouch.

10 hours ago via webFavorite Reply Delete

9 hours ago

Gotta love a guy who can be that honest about himself.

And then I gave Pete Carroll a little reassurance of my Seahawk commitment:

@jdspotJason DesLongchamp

@PeteCarroll I'm gonna be screaming so loud tonight you're gonna hear me from TUKWILA! #12thman

As a bonus I will give you my tirade against Starbuck CEO Howard Schultz. Now, look--before today I didn't have anything against Schultz. I don't begrudge hardworking (or otherwise) Americans making boatloads of cash; by all means, have at it. And I don't know what his politics are, and more importantly I don't care what his politics are. But this morning he sent an email to every Starbucks customer he had an address for accusing the United States congress of the very original charge of "partisanship" leading to "gridlock" which apparently is keeping more jobs from being created (I refer you to this excellent This American Life episode in which they explore the incredibly dubious idea that the government can create private sector jobs). I guess the thing that really set me off is that because Howard Schultz is, well, Howard Schultz, people are going to listen to what he has to say. But what he has to offer are incredibly facile political observations that Everyone Else is Making. It's like the suck-up kid repeating the adults orders like they were his very own--we all hated that kid. Anyway, something snapped inside of me and so I let Schultz have it:

@jdspotJason DesLongchamp

Is that email to #Starbuckscustomers from Howard Schultz for real??? "Stop the partisan gridlock"? Thanks for the tip, Howie. #fb

Howie, seriously you're a nice guy & everything but my coffee is getting cold. Drop the Mr. Smith act & give me a warm up. #Starbucks

News flash: #Starbucks CEO shows he's leading the way by bitching & complaining--just like everyone else. Thank you, sir.

CEO of #Starbucks comes out w/ bold new plan to stop greasing the wheels of the machine that up until this point he has been paying to run.

Schultz of #Starbucks is like the guy who got in w/ the drunk driver and then started screaming at him when he wrecked the car.

Congress admits they were simply waiting for someone to tell them to "do better" & they publicly thanked #Starbucks CEO for doing so.

Uh, I think that's about all the scathing sarcasm I'm able to muster against #Starbucks' Howard Schultz today, thank you for your time.

Ugly? Mean-spirited? Yes, I think you could make a case for those arguments. I get it that it might be hard to understand why I was so annoyed by his seeming effort to be helpful and level-headed. I just didn't like that what he was saying is pretty much what everyone else is saying, like we needed a billionaire in shining armor to save us (with everything we've already got).

Oh, and lest I accuse him of all talking and no doing, also part of his, well, whatever he's doing, is organizing a national call-in conference next week so Americans "can be heard."

All hail the inventor of bipartisanship and talk radio.

Scattered Jess: On the joys of motherhood.

2011-09-02T00:07:00.000-07:00

I don't know why I took so long to share this with you, but you have to check out my wife's latest blog! She is an absolutely wonderful blogger and I know you'll enjoy it, almost surely more than you do mine ("Stop feeling sorry for yourself!" No, it's not that, I'm just sayin'...)

Scattered Jess.: On the joys of motherhood.:

The War That Never Was is Long Since Over

2011-08-30T12:08:00.001-07:00

Hi, my name is Jason.

When I said that I just told you everything I know about science. I took physics my senior year and spent most of the time shuffling a deck of cards and doing magic tricks, circulating ridiculous petitions and covertly staring at pretty girls (just in case you forgot what those look like I gave you a link to my new favorite pretty girl). Those are all of my science credentials.

Despite my dismal record you can put all of your faith in the following statement: There is no contradiction between faith and science.

Here's the thing, almost everyone in the entire world believes in a Higher Power (92% to be exact). Most of us do not supress that innate sense that He is out there. BUT, a good deal of us have been lead by the nose to believe that there are tensions if not outright contradictions between faith and science.

This is impossible. God created the world, he did it in a particular way. We as humans are able, to some extent, to observe the ways and methods He chose to employ. Whether it was six literal days, or we started as apes, or primordial goo, or He started 6,000 years ago or 6 billion--none of it matters. We'll probably never know for sure. What we agree on is that we're here, and that there is a God.

When there is something that looks like a contradiction between what we know of God and what we know of science it is due to one of these two facts: Either the science is wrong (which has happened many, many times in the life of science), or the theology is wrong (which has happened many, many times in the life of the Church).

For some reason these assertions make people uncomfortable. These used to make me uncomfortable. But embracing my assertion is one of the most freeing things you can do for yourself. Embracing my assertion means you get to relax, unclench, smile. There is one principle, and one alone, that will help you get where you need to go:

We live in a universe shrouded in mystery.

We make our home and do our work in untraversable mystery. We know so very little. The best scientist, the best theologian, their minds are but ants on the sun that is the incomprehensible mind of God. Trying to square up every fact and make it all fit--all your verses, all your science, all your feelings--it is only a recipe for insanity (and to be a bore at parties). It wasn't given for you to know it all.

Remember,

Unclench.

Smile.

You're sitting in the palm of God's hand.

No matter How he chose to bring you here,

You're here. Drink the mystery,

Swallow it and then laugh in awe at its beauty and unceasing wonder.

Please know that I understand everything that I'm glossing over. I know what my team thinks of Genesis, and I know what I need to say about Genesis if I want to stay in good standing with my team. The problem is, it's all crap. You can believe it's literal, metaphorical, poetical--and you can cite endless solid reasoning to support your position. I don't care anymore. I happen to believe God wrote us a love letter called the Bible, and we'll never fully understand and apply everything contained in the love stained pages. Never. We can get a lot of mileage out of it, but it didn't tell us everything about everything--and even everything it did tell us--well we're still working on getting that all figured out. It will always be so. If it were simple then we should suspect it wasn't ordained by an infinite God.

Anyway, all of this was inspired by this piece in USA Today roughly saying everything I just said. But I still get points because I didn't just rip off what I read, the piece reminded me of how passionate I feel about these facts for a few years now and it's high time that I share them with you fine people.

My Spiritual Blog-Child

2011-08-29T12:59:00.000-07:00

Six months ago I did a post which turned into a bit of a contest/giveaway. I know you probably have the whole thing memorized by heart, but on the off chance that you don't you may review it here.

Anyway, on offer was the blog title "Delighted but Confused." All you had to do was post a comment that you had grabbed it up. It was snatched immediately, but for these six months we've all lived many long nights and cafeine fueled days waiting for the blog to emerge.

Wait no longer. My friend Kathleen has truely emerged as the "reader perceptive enough to snatch it up"!

Please frequent and tarry at her blog as she regales you with her forays in the foreign and strange land of Norway. Ladies and Gentleman, I give you,

Delighted but Confused

Lost Baby

2011-08-29T10:35:00.000-07:00

I don't know, it just struck me as insanely funny to take this picture and pretend that it was just some random baby on a beach.

I think the key to the humor is in the hat.

And thank you to my son Nolan for being a good sport and allowing me to sort of abandon him on a beach for the sake of art.

Temporarily Avoiding Self-Destruction

2011-08-24T14:49:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I lit onto the page with a self-righteous tirade that tore apart one of the main sub-cultures I belong to. Every word of it was true.

Then I stopped for a moment and asked, why do I do this? I am constantly into self criticism, and even worse, criticism of the groups I belong to. I'm obsessed with justice (though of course I skew it, because I am, after all, a member of the human race), and it keeps me up at night to think that I or someone I know might be getting it wrong.

This is no way to make friends. This is no way to build a blog following. People want to be reassured, not torn down. And I'm not being pedantic or condescending when I say that. I totally get it. It takes more effort and mental work to engage with something that is critical of you, your beliefs, your culture. That kind of work isn't what a lot of people are looking for when they do some blog reading.

Why the impulse to alienate my reader and potential reader? Is there a demand for such treatment? As usual, not a lot of answers, but there are some questions that I find interesting.


Google Image's representation of self-destruction.

Here is one of mine.

American's Are Selfish

2011-08-18T15:51:00.001-07:00

I read a recent poll from the Peinman Newsire that just took my breath away.

42 million Americans were asked the following question: "Would you detonate a nuclear bomb if you thought it would help and not hinder your career advancement?"

67 percent of the respondents looked deviously from left to right for less than five seconds before saying, "probably."

Totally unbelievable. Apparently I am one of the few Americans with the moral courage to stand up and say no, I will not set off a nuclear bomb just to improve my station in life.

67 percent of America, you should be ashamed of yourselves.

Modern Barbarism

2011-08-15T20:04:00.001-07:00

Why do I get more annoyed and animated over people who like and celebrate horrifying reality programming (Jersey Shore, Things containing Bret Michaels etc.) than I do about sex trafficking, modern day slavery, genocide etc.?

I want to say that it's messed up, but I don't think I can say that truthfully because I clearly don't care enough, yet, to make a change.

I know it's heavy, I know it's not fun, and I know it sounds like one more thing to feel guilty about. It can be, if you want it to, but us feeling guilty isn't going to help anyone.

Truth and Tattoos

2011-08-10T21:28:00.000-07:00

One time a man I had never met told me he was an honest guy—and right there in that moment I totally believed him. I remember considering the proposition for a moment, and then believed with him that it was so.

I had just moved from my home town and was getting my first apartment set up. Wet behind the ears is certainly a given, but on top of that I’m not a very good judge of people on first impressions, either. He was the maintenance guy, and he was explaining that I could either have maintenance done by appointment, or I could sign his little paper which gave him the right to enter the premises when I wasn’t home so he could do the work. I think he noticed me doing the calculus, was this worth the risk, saw me sizing him up and so on. He looked at me and said, “It’s ok, I’m an honest-John.”

There was no reason for me to believe him. I didn’t know him, anyone can make that claim—it’s essentially meaningless. He had a huge tattoo—tattooed men scare me. Large, visible tattoos mean you’ve lived a semi-rough to rough life and you’re probably a maintenance guy because you’re an ex-con. But there was something about the earnestness in his face, and his choice to use the term “honest-John” (now that I think of it, he could have said “honest guy” which would actually make a lot more sense), and so quite easily I decided to trust him.

And everything was fine. He did plenty of work in our apartment and, despite his tattoos, nothing ever went missing.

What’s the point? My point is that you should never believe such a huge claim as someone telling you they’re an honest person when you first meet them. In fact, whenever someone insists on a point like that when they first meet you (I’m honest, I’m not crazy, I’m not a murderer) it’s usually pretty strong evidence that they are the opposite of what they claim.

But…perhaps sometimes, you just know.

Wonder & Mystery

2011-08-10T12:36:00.000-07:00

I've spent this lunch break trying to track down anything and everything the internet contains of Robert Farrar Capon, which is not much. But I came across the following quote, and as a bonus I link the page it's from because it's worth wasting several minutes reading the beautiful words.

We are so impressed by scientific clank that we feel we ought not to say that the sunflower turns because it knows where the sun is. It is almost second nature to us to prefer explanations . . . with a large vocabulary. We are much more comfortable when we are assured that the sunflower turns because it is heliotropic. The trouble with that kind of talk is that it tempts us to think that we know what the sunflower is up to. But we don't. The sunflower is a mystery, just as every single thing in the universe is. --Robert Farrar Capon

Taken from here.

America is Broken and Cannot be Fixed!

2011-08-08T16:54:00.000-07:00

There are two ways to garner attention: Be creative and talented and professional, or be sensational. With this post I have chosen the more immediately rewarding of the two paths.

Incidentally there is no truth in my claim.

More breaking of the news soon.

Sufjan Stevens Interview

2011-08-08T14:39:00.000-07:00

Things that stop you in your tracks should be shared. Here is a paragraph that I don't want to get over, taken from a long interview with Sufjan Stevens recently:

"It’s such a relief for me to acknowledge that because I feel far less possessive of my own music, and I feel lest earnest and less despairing about its worth, or its value, and more willing to just make it, create it, do my best work possible, and then give it away."

Yes, I can see how that would be a freedom giving perspective.

Adventures in Hypotheticals

2011-08-04T15:07:00.001-07:00

If an alien ever walks into your home and offers you a tell-all interview you should forget the fact you're not a journalist and do it anyway.

This is applicable to certain other scenarios as well. Definitely drop me a line for advice if you feel you're in just such a situation.

I Disagree With Ebert, I Feel Better Now

2011-08-03T22:16:00.000-07:00

A few months ago someone retweeted an Ebert post; it was interesting and so I started following him, and my life has never been the same. No, it isn't that dramatic, but I find him incredibly insightful, especially for someone I'm not predisposed to agree with (see the Unbridgeable, Inexhaustible Divide Between Liberals and Conservatives*). But he loves his books and he loves his movies, so it was fated from the foundation of time that I would love him. He posted a blog the other day and I'm going to share an excerpt that I completely disagree with which is the source of my current joy:

"My house is filled with books. I read every day. I willingly enter older, slower novels by Balzac, Dickens, Hugo. I love Henry James for the very reason many find him unreadable, the texture of his language. The style of a writer is important to me, and the language is more important than the story. It is how it is about it, not what it is about it [emphasis added by me]. I like Faulkner and McCarthy because their prose is al dente. And Cather and Simenon because they write as clearly as running water."

I read and enjoy books for exactly the opposite reason. I don't much care about the way a writer writes—I judge a book by the level of insight it has, the things it makes me think about, the strength and imagination of the story, if I find the philosophy compelling/interesting etc.

I have a lot of anxiety over my intellectual capabilities. I like Dostoevsky, but I like Stephen King, too. So when I don't dig Dickens all that much, I just automatically assume it's because I'm deficient in some way. Ironically, when intellectual titan Ebert states stridently that style is much more important to him than substance, I feel flooded with relief. This is the way I see it: If such a smart man can value style over substance, then I know it isn't sheerly a matter of intellect that determines what you will get out of a book. I don't understand why someone would care more about style than story, but what I know for sure is it isn't due to any kind of deficiency or shallowness. Naturally by extension the same would be true for my preferences (especially because I see my own as, subjectively of course, superior).

So there you go, I feel better, QED. Thank you, Ebert.

And that headline was just to be provocative, we don't really disagree, we just value different things in a text.

*Intended to be sarcastic—I believe in our ability to listen to and love one another.

And Now, to be Simplistic and Pointed

2011-08-01T12:12:00.000-07:00

What most men basically say to their wives in times of trouble or conflict: if only you were more like me, everything would be ok.

Myself included.

Birth Story

2011-07-30T00:58:00.000-07:00

Russell’s head was visible, he would be making his entry into our world within minutes. Soon Jess had him pushed out and he was laid upon her chest.

He just sort of looked around in awe. His look grew more quizzical. He motioned for me to lean down to him. He began to speak.

“Are you serious? You decided to bring me into the world when things are looking the way they do? The U.S. is about to default on their debt. Congress is spinning and sputtering and has no real answers while we, excuse my French, are skipping towards hell in a handcart. Tuition at the University of Washington just jumped 21 percent—21 percent!—in just one year. And you’re still 18 years away from having to put me through there, how in the world are you going to pull that off? Plus I’m probably going to follow in your regrettable footsteps, the apple doesn’t fall far and all that, and end up with a liberal arts degree, so you’ll probably be a hundred grand into me being a barista or whatever cultural signifier of the bottom of the barrel that will be in effect in two decades.

“As you well know health care costs are only going to rise; I refer you again to our dithering congress. But who am I to crap all over them, they’re just people, same as you and me. What I’m trying to say is that Rome is burning Dad, Rome is burning. What kind of future am I going to have in this remaining husk of a once great nation? Not to mention that I’m only talking about things on a national scale, let’s bring this thing a little closer to home.

“What about you? Don’t give me that ‘Who, me?’ look, you know what I’m talking about. Look, I want to be sensitive, but can I be frank? When you take me home you’re putting me up in a bassinet in your guys’ room. That’s all well and good, I get it, I’m not exactly self-sufficient. But after a few months you’re gonna make me bunk with my older brother. And why is that? Because you’re living in the mother-in-law basement apartment of your in-laws. What’s the plan? Do you think well-paying jobs grow on trees? I know it’s not my job to figure this out or even worry about it, but how are you going to provide for us, and not only let us survive and scrape by, but actually flourish?”

I gathered my thoughts for a moment. He had caught me off guard, and after all I am his father, so I wanted to respond with something sage-like.

“Faith,” I said.

“Faith?” he echoed in incredulity. “I’m talking practicalities and dollars and cents and that’s what you say?”

“Yeah, faith, that God will work it out.”

“Is that all you’ve got?”

I stood pat. Besides a checking account with an average balance of three digits and two vehicles produced before this century began, yes, that's about all I have to my name.

“You know, that’s the dumbest, most simple-minded thing I’ve ever heard.” Then he appeared to think better of his roughshod brashness, and he looked thoughtful for a moment. “Well, if it works for you...” And with a flip of the hands, hey, have it your way, live and be well, he left it at that.

Katy Perry and the Relative Power of Glam

2011-07-23T10:37:00.000-07:00

A few money quotes from the recent article on Katy Perry in Rolling Stone:

"But no one around her really seems to be able to figure out why she is the way she is. Probably it's just a question of inner drive. Just like her parents, she's proselytizing and preaching a message. It's not a message of fire and brimstone. It's her own message. It's a message of hope, based not only on some of her lyrics, but also on Glam, and the transformative power of Glam. Glam power. It's pretty cool. It gets you heard when nothing else will."

Yeah, but is getting heard good if you've got nothing to say? Well, I guess I shouldn't say that, because she does have plenty to say:

"I want to skin you and wear you like last year's Versace!"

"Anyway, not to get all politically divulging and introspective, but the fact that America doesn't have free health care drives me f****** absolutely crazy, and is so wrong."

"I'm a normal woman with big dreams who shows girls they can be a larger-than-life cartoon."

"I remember coming to L.A. for the first time and meeting Gwen Stefani and how gracious and wonderful she was, and then meeting another favorite artist of mine and what a c*** she was. It ruined my dreams of that person, the c***, and I will always be a fan of the person who was gracious."

Because that's the definition of grace, only meting it out to those who deserve it.

It's easy to be a bully and I don't ever want to just wail on somebody with my blog. I don't like being mean spirited and cutting, I don't like to read it elsewhere (though I can't help myself sometimes). I only post this blog to ask one pointed question:

Look at what we're elevating, is this what we really want?

Ahh. I know it's a lost cause. That's not the way we look at our pop culture. We glance at the veneer, if our head bobs, if we're entertained, then the answer is "Yes, we like that—so what are YOU on about?" Look, Katy Perry and the like are promoting a life of unreality, I don't think it's good to live there or even to aspire to it, so yeah, I'll promote that lost cause to an audience that doesn't want to hear it.

Really, I don't mind.

And yes, for the record, my head does bob to her music—but it's a mournful, self-loathing bob that leaves me feeling empty and feeling cheap.

The Paperback is Here!

2011-07-16T15:12:00.000-07:00

For all of you Luddites who have been holding out for the paperback, wait no longer!

Anatomy of a Misspent Decade

2011-07-11T15:07:00.000-07:00

Almost three months ago I told you that I started a short story and this is what I had:

"I awoke to him standing at the foot of our bed. It was God it was my father it was him who gives me my name."

To make an understatement, the creative process is a strange, slippery thing. I didn't know who the man actually was, and more importantly I didn't know why he was there or what he wanted to say. So I spent some time thinking about it. I asked him who he was, why he was there, and what, exactly, did he want? The answers were not at all forthcoming, but I was getting a...vibe. The more I thought about the cloaked figure the more I realized he wanted to address the central thing that has haunted me for the last ten years of my life: my inability to do what I want to do more than anything, which is to write.

I decided to tell the story of these last ten years to myself. The story involved a lot of denial, blame-shifting, multiple addictions, etc. all in a failed pursuit to reach out and grab a hold of my dreams. Rightly or wrongly I assume that a lot of people are like me, and that they would enjoy reading someone else dwelling on their failures and giant mistakes, and so it is now available for purchase on Amazon.com.

You can buy the Kindle version for 99 cents by going here. Don't forget you can still read a Kindle book even if you don't have a Kindle, here are instructions for downloading the Kindle software, for free, onto your computer.

The paperback copy is $6.99 and will be available any day now, and you can click this link to sign up to receive an email when it becomes available.

The first five people* who promise me to write an Amazon review (as long as they promise to be unflinchingly honest) will receive a free paperback copy of the book. It's all of 50 pages, you can manage.

Also sign up and follow me on Twitter as I will be doing a Twitter give away as well.

Cover design by Jessica DesLongchamp

*You are excluded from this giveaway if your last name either rhymes with or actually is "DesLongchamp" because how tacky would it be to have a raving Amazon review by someone with my last name? Very.

A Word to My Followers

2011-07-07T12:53:00.000-07:00

Can we chat for a sec? Awesome.

So I'm going to do a little "inside We Need the Eggs" talk with you; a State of the Blog address, if you will.

I'm nearing publication on my self-published book, Anatomy of a Misspent Decade, and I'm steeling myself to do some self-promotion and marketing.

I hate self-promotion and marketing. Here's what it is: it isn't that I'm modest and humble and don't want to talk about myself--I just think that no one—except my mom and my wife—wants to hear about it.

But the truth is this: I love to write, it's what I went to school to do, and how great would it be if I could start to do that more and more for a living? And that's where you come in.
I’m averaging 1,000 hits a month over the last 3 months. In the Internet world that is minuscule, but hell, I’m excited. The thing is that I don’t know who you people are. So I'm going to ask a few things of you guys.

You should click the "Follow Me" button for blogger, and you should start following me on Twitter. If you're not on Twitter you need to be, it's fun!
Feel free to comment more.
Buy my book! I haven't written this book to make a profit--I've written it to get my name out there. So I've priced it at 99 cents for the Kindle, $6.99 for the paperback (which is less than a dollar more than the minimum price at which I could sell it and make absolutely zero).
I recommend you buy the Kindle version because, c'mon, it's a buck!
This means you will need to buy a Kindle. Or download the Kindle app for your phone, or the most cost effective way possible—downloading the Kindle reader for your computer.

Yes, it's true that I am being embarrassingly specific, but please know that I'm not asking you do anything artificially or out of pity. I'm merely making suggestions for you, you know, just in case you hadn't thought of these things before.

A word about me asking you to buy my book: This is the only book I will ever ask you so blatantly to buy. This first book was just something I did to finally do something, and I think of it only as getting my name out there as much as possible and giving people the chance to find out if they like hearing what I have to say or not. So yes, I hope that you'll drop the dollar on the book. I hope that, if you like it, you'll recommend it to a friend. I hope that maybe you'll say a word or two in an Amazon review.

But the biggest thing I'll ask you to do is that I would LOVE for you to give me HONEST feedback. Tell me it sucks. I'm dead serious. I'm probably not a good enough writer to make it on my own yet, so tell me where I need to improve. Tell me the parts you liked, tell me the parts you didn't like so much. Tell me it was derivative, unrelatable pathetic prose. All of your comments, the good and the bad, will help to make me a better writer.

Leveling With You

I haven't done a good job of "branding" myself. I'm all over the freaking place. I'm being goofy and sarcastic, I'm talking religion, politics, movies. I write stuff for Christians, but I in no way want to be a specifically "Christian" blog if that can make any sense. I'm sometimes obscure, flighty and uneven, and that's only on a good day. What I'm trying to say is that I'm not asking for an artificial hooray following. I don't exactly know what "kind" of blog my blog is, but I'm just blindly reaching out for the thing that seems right to do as far as my style and approach go. I'll keep going until it starts to work or I think of something better.

David Mamet Reclamation Project

2011-07-01T11:22:00.000-07:00

I believe the only reason "Glengarry Glen Ross" languishes in obscurity is because of its name.

I've watched the movie at least 50 times and I only have a vague theory as to why David Mamet may have selected this enigmatic title. But if it were to be punched up, if the title had a real hook to it, why, then it would be a film you could recommend indiscriminately to all of your friends and family. Right now when I tell someone they need to see GGGR I universally receive the blankest stare I've ever seen in my life, and then they change the subject as fast as physics will allow.

But I need help, so far I've only been able to come up with the following dismal titles. Please post a title that is worthy to present to David Mamet as a significant improvement on the original.

My attempts:

"Salesmen in Action"
"Shelly Makes Good"
"Shelly Gets Well"

Bullcrap Customer Service Rep

2011-06-30T21:12:00.000-07:00

I sent the following email to Jessica after I had an experience with a customer service rep at an insurance company that made me want to tear my hair out. A little background, I work in medical billing and make sure we get paid by patients and insurance companies.

And now the email:

So I hate having customer service rework multiple patients for me b/c I feel like it's a pain in their ass and i don't want them to be mad at me. I know how crazy this is and I always think "Yeah, but they have to do it all day long anyway, what do they care if I give them 3 or 1?" Doesn't matter, I still hang up and call back 3 times.

That is until today. I had 3 patient's I needed reprocessing on and I thought, "Oh hell, I'll just stay on and have her do these." After she finished the first one I said, "Ok, I have two more patients."

First she sighed, then she said, "Oh brother..." then she said, "Why do you guys make so many mistakes, we don't make mistakes here?"

CAN YOU BELIEVE THAT!!!!?? Is that just God laughing at me? What are the odds?!!!!!!!!

You Can't Win if You Don't Play

2011-06-29T09:38:00.001-07:00

Been spending too much money on lottery tickets lately--don't I trust God?

Well, yeah I do, but what if he wants me to win the lottery?

See, now that's thinking.

Born This Way?

2011-06-27T00:39:00.000-07:00

Two weeks ago I received my first copy of my six-month subscription to Rolling Stone that I paid a dollar for on Amazon. Mother Monster herself, Lady Gaga to the lay folk, graced the cover.

This brings up a whole host of issues that I'm not interested in dealing with at this time. I very much dislike Lady Gaga, but it's hard for me to say why. In a nutshell I must say this: I'm not some typical Christian who hates most of what our culture manufactures. I like Ke$hsa, Eminem, Beyonce, Katy Perry to a small extent. But there is just something about L.G. that drives me to crazy town.

Very recently she released her latest album entitled "Born This Way." Now obviously at least some part of that is meant to deal with the Christian-right notion that being gay is a choice. I find the whole choice/genetics debate boring and missing the mark and I'm not interested in talking about it. I don't care if Lady Gaga believes that people are born gay or if they become gay. Repeat: I don't care. I haven't even made my own mind up about it, but I suspect it isn't as simple as a one or the other and that it is a misleading dichotomy—but for the purposes of this blog that's neither here nor there.

So leaving behind the gay debate we consider the phrase: Born This Way. Immediately I hated it and I wasn't sure why. My wife and I discussed it and she was basically cool with it. And I agree with her reasoning: a lot of who we are can be chalked up to the fact that this is simply who we are, who we were born as, and who we were meant to be by that impersonal force or god that created us. Yeah, I'm cool with that—AS FAR AS IT GOES. And to me, it doesn't go that far.

But I was trying to explain that to Jess, and it turned out to be deceptively hard to explain. I kept coming back to the reasoning that it is just too simple to say "Well, I was born this way." It seemed anti-intellectual, that it was too much of a catch-all. But I didn't have a good reason for why it was bad in the face of the fact that it does serve as a decent argument to explain why we are the way that we are.

So I stewed on it, not satisfied with the argument I was pushing—until tonite. Tonite I flipped on the last 15 minutes of Project Glee. I've never seen the show before, but Jess is a fan of Glee, so I thought it made sense to tune in. This girl was singing her heart out, and seemed to be doing a good job. She finished, and at first the judges were complementary. They said good things about her voice and her style, but then one judge told her that she got kind of got cutsie at the end when she really didn't need to, and he told her that she was over-compensating for something.

In that moment it occured to me that she could go with the Lady Gaga defense: "I wasn't compensating for anything, this is who I am—I was born this way."

I had finally put my thumb on the problem: Born this way—as if that's an answer to a question or a problem, is, in the end, an argument against change, against development, against evolution and improvement. Born this way is a ready made, applicable in any scenario excuse to not challenge yourself, to not deal with your strengths and weaknesses honestly, and to not progress and change because you have already been predetermined to be exactly where you are. Imagine the teacher trying to deal with the struggling high school student: "No, I can't do this school thing, I was born this way." Or the cruel, bastard husband to his wife, "What, this is who I am, I was born this way."

There is some truth to the phrase, but it is so woefully devoid of nuance and perspective and ultimately is an incomplete and extremely qualified thought that has no business masquerading as a mantra and complete philosophy.

I mean Mother Monster no ill will and I hope that she and I can still be friends, but dammit, you've got to call a spade a spade.

Get Yourself Some Wisdom

2011-06-22T23:44:00.000-07:00

Ok, I plugged him before, but are you reading James Altucher yet? What are you waiting for? The guy is brilliant. Yes it's true that he's quite the entrepenuer, but I'm not (at least not yet), and his advice is so great and applicable for all of us out there, not just business leaders.

Here's a recent blog that I really enjoyed, Plug All of Your Leaks or You Will Die (nope, he's not really one for mincing words). And here's a little exerpt:

"Everybody has problems. They weren’t loved enough as children. They aren’t loved enough now. They are scared of their own financial issues. It’s been a tough, tough decade for everyone. You either take that toughness and turn it into compassion, or you let that toughness take over you. You become the leak. The people around you every day, for the most part, have had the energy severely drained out of them. They are your worst leaks. You must keep contact at a minimum. You can be the source of strength, but only if you are on guard against the leeches that will sneak through your clothes and latch onto your body."

Why I Cuss

2011-06-21T12:58:00.000-07:00

WARNING: Explicit content lies below!

Spoiler Alert: In my forthcoming book you will find some words that you cannot hear on broadcast television per FCC guidelines. Call me crazy, but I am anticipating that this will not sit well with some people. In the American Christian subculture, of which I am a part, cussing is a hot button issue. John Piper, a very well known pastor from Minnesota, once remarked at a conference that, “God kicks our ass.” The powers that be cried out for blood, and he was made to apologize.

I agonized over whether or not to include the swear words that I did in my book. They flowed onto the page naturally enough during the writing process, but I had to discuss with Jessica whether or not they would make the final cut. I still don’t feel one hundred percent great about them, but I decided I would like myself even less if I took them out. I started out this life as a boy who stressed about becoming a movie star because I would one day be handed a script that contained swearing. I knew that at that time I would have to inform them that I didn’t do that sort of thing, that they would need to rewrite it if they wanted me in their movie. Though that sounds confident, I was actually very nervous for the confrontation. So how did I go from that level of purity to a person willing to immortalize four letter words in his own memoir? I’ll try to show you. If you have a strong opinion on the subject then I don’t expect to change your mind, but the words need saying, so you might as well listen.

I am someone who cusses. I grew up with a dad who did it entirely too much, and a mother who did it not at all. I hardly ever do it in public, at work or with anyone that I don’t know very well (which is also a good start for advice on sex). I think of this as me being respectful, and I think it is, to some extent, but it’s also very fear based. I have a major complex about swearing. Alarms go off in my brain anytime I hear someone I like or respect swear. Whether my mom meant to or not, ever since I can remember I was left with the impression that you could not be a good, respectable person and also swear, and you most certainly couldn’t be a Christian. I have consciously shucked this belief, but the residue of the axiom burns bright, and I don’t think it will ever go away.

Like I said, I am someone who swears. If I were to filter that out in my most personal description of my life, that I'm publishing for all eyes to see, I feel like I would be hiding something. I feel like I'd be allowing a veneer of acceptability to cover all the bits I'm worried someone would find distasteful. I don't like living my life that way. I still play the game, I always will, but I try to rebel against it as often as I can without being deported. That's it--that's why I'm leaving it in the book.

"But Jason, isn't swearing wrong?"

I have three answers to that question: Yes. No. Maybe.

Yes: Swearing is best used sparingly. The point of cussing is that it has power--the more you use it, the more you drain it of its effectiveness. For many people it becomes a stand in for articulation and actually expressing yourself. Overuse draws a straight line to meaninglessness. Very often swearing is the wrong thing to do.

No: Sometimes it is needed. Sometimes there is not a better word in the English language for a particular turn of phrase than a swear word. One of my favorite quotes is Hemingway's, "The first draft of anything is shit." I defy anyone to better express that sentiment without the cuss. Swear words are culturally appointed, not fixed things that will never change. They're man made, not handed down from Sinai.

Maybe: But the Christians will go straight to the Bible. Fine, we'll go there. There is no verse that says "no swearing." But there is a verse that says do not be coarse. I simply believe that you can swear without being coarse. Often times swearing is very coarse, of course. But here's the other thing I always point out: You can be extremely coarse without ever employing a swear. And that is why the Bible is actually weakened when we only file the very narrow category of "swearing" under the don't be coarse directive. I say this is a "maybe" because I know my argument is by no means watertight, but it's where I land on the issue.

Closing Thoughts:

The problem with a lot of Christian writing, if I can be so bold as to make a sweeping generalization, is that it’s tame and predictable. You know the answer will always be Jesus. An air of holiness wafts from the pages as you turn them. Now you have to be careful because sometimes this is genuine and I don’t begrudge anyone speaking in their actual voice. But often it isn't. People feel they need to say that Jesus has washed them white as snow, and the proof is a squeaky clean life.

That's bullshit.

Jesus has taken care of your sin problem in a spiritual sense with God, but we're all still very broken, needy and sinful down here on earth. I do believe God wants to save you from that as well, but it is a very slow, back and forth and never ending process.

Jesus didn’t come to make us nice. Jesus didn’t come so that we might be prim and proper and to make sure we have our shit in a row, our cheese on our cracker, and always observing a two drink limit. He came to redeem you, to make you new, not dust you off and do a makeover. It is because Jesus came that we can be honest about how messed up we are, how messed up this world is--indeed that's his only requirement, to admit the plain truth that you're jacked, and therefore you need him.

Whoa, got a little evangelical there, I apologize, but hopefully it helped to serve my point. I know this has been tough, but hopefully you and I are still friends. Feel free to comment, email or call if you're worried for me, if I'm completely off and need to be set straight. I'll buy you a coffee or a beer (which one depends on how much I like you), and we can talk about it.

Mysterium Tremendum

2011-06-17T13:21:00.000-07:00

No, it isn't something from Harry Potter--it's much better, because it's real.

Mysterium Tremendum is a term that was coined in the early part of the 20th century to describe when someone has experienced the presense of the Holy, of the Wholly Other, of Divinity. Doubt, laugh or roll your eyes, but Aldous Huxley, certainly no Christian, described it this way:

"The literature of religious experience abounds in references to the pains and terrors overwhelming those who have come, too suddenly, face to face with some manifestation of the mysterium tremendum. In theological language, this fear is due to the in-compatibility between man's egotism and the divine purity, between man's self-aggravated separateness and the infinity of God."

I'm captivated by the profundity and implications of his description. I sort of look at it and ponder in awe. I hope you receive a similar high from it as well.

I Deal In Hypotheticals

2011-06-15T14:55:00.001-07:00

If the devil ever threatened me or my family I would start my defense by searching the Yellow Pages for an angel lawyer. If you operate under the truth that “stranger things have happened” it makes sense to start there. If you don’t believe in that then I can see how you would think it’s crazy.

Disillusioned

2011-06-13T10:46:00.001-07:00

This was the look on his face when I told him he wasn't driving a real car.

What Is It, and How Much Did it Cost?

2011-06-08T13:26:00.000-07:00

The other day Jess wrote something wonderful, and I told her it needed to be shared. It was funny, insightful and sometimes personal, and it was this latter trait that she was hung up on. Why would anyone want to hear about her little hang-ups and random thoughts? What if someone was offended? I identify with these questions, but I also think I’ve managed a bit of transcendence beyond them and their talons. It is from that hard fought experience that I wish to share a few thoughts.

Thought #1: What is Art?

I don’t have a complete answer to this question, but I have notched a few of its characteristics into my mind. I hate and have always hated what I am about to say. You must understand that I don’t have the mind of an artist, of a creative type. I want all the boxes checked, all the buttons done up proper, and all the answer straight, concise, logical and as uncomplicated as possible. I don’t thrive in ambiguity—I try to commit homicide on ambiguity whenever I get the chance. But here is the thing I hate that I can no longer run from:

Art is different things to different people.

I am not ok with this. When I see “modern art” in a museum I will not shut up about how much I hate it, about how it isn’t truly art at all but someone who let their mind throw up on a canvas. Jess and I were at a museum a few months ago and I would not stop articulating how lowly so much of what I was seeing was, and she let me know that I better figure out how to stop it—quickly. But I cannot escape that there are some works of art (by this I mean music, movies, books etc.) that I cherish, and yet others would just as soon see fire set to them. The other thing is that James Joyce, Stephen King, Kurt Vonnegut, and Dostoevsky are all telling stories in incredibly different ways—and they’re all brilliant. Two of these authors I am in no way a fan of, but I understand that they are brilliant. If you only read Stephen King and then someone showed you Kurt Vonnegut you’d say, “This isn’t a book,” and you’d scratch your head in confusion—you’d have no frame of reference to judge by. It is ok that I don’t like Kurt Vonnegut, unfortunately it is not ok for me to tell you that you shouldn’t like him either. He is a brilliant mind and writer, yet I don’t think I’d pay $15 to own his entire collection. A lot of people like Jonathan Franzen’s “The Corrections.” I haven’t read it myself, but Stephen King said he wanted to throw it across the room, and then return, maybe, but only to piss on it. How is it possible that such a well regarded author could hate so deeply the work of another well regarded author? I didn’t write the rules, and I don’t understand why it should work this way. But it does.
What I’m talking about is freedom. The fact that brilliance can go so unappreciated should liberate you. Please, do your thing, I might even tell you it’s shit—if you like it, if it pleases you, then you need to ignore me.

Thought #2: Count the Cost

This is what I told Jess about her dilemma. People often respond well when they know that it cost you something to put those words on that page. Truth never fails to play a chord that resonates in the human soul. When you break through that façade that we all put on for each other, people take notice. If it hurts to see it on the page, you’re probably going in the right direction. Not all good writing requires pain, but it does require a cost. If it was easy, you may have a problem on your hands. But that isn’t always true, so be careful. I don’t want what Joyce is selling, but I do accept that he had to pay a lot to get it out there.

Death to Rodents

2011-06-03T13:31:00.001-07:00

To some I am the very breath of life, but to rodents I am the merciless angel of death.

Burning Plane Theory

2011-06-02T16:47:00.001-07:00

When I was young there was one argument that I never got tired of making. I used to argue that if you were in a plane that was going down, there was only one way to insure survival. You need to stand at the door of the plane. As it's going down you're readying yourself to jump. As soon as the plane gets 10 to 15 feet from the ground you jump straight up into the air with all of your might. Your positive force going up will break the downward trajectory of the plane, and you'll simply fall to the ground, as if you fell from the roof of a shed. At this time it's important to begin to roll away from the crash site. You should tuck your arms and roll about 100 to 150 yards away to avoid any major debrie or other bodies falling on you.

This argument used to unfuriate people. They would insist vehemenently that I was wrong, that there was no way that would work. I assured them that with the right amount of intestinal fortitude and gumption, it could be done.

And I was right. In the intervening years science has proved that I was right; the advent of modern physics and string theory have more than exonorated my theory. I think people were upset that they didn't think of this themselves. Here I was, a boy of 9, and my way of thinking was so far advanced beyond my peers and even their parents—I think I would hate me and my intellect too.

I only bring it up because I wanted to remind you why you're reading me: Because I'm smarter than all the other competition out there, and you need me if you're going to consider yourself informed in this world.

Why Our Basic Inclinations Are Wrong

2011-06-01T00:16:00.000-07:00

This is now required reading if you still want to be my friend.

It's posted on NYTimes.com and I think they make you pay to see things that are more than a week old, so I'll post the text below until they sue me for everything I'm worth and there isn't a drop of fight left in these old bones.

It’s Not About You

By DAVID BROOKS

Over the past few weeks, America’s colleges have sent another class of graduates off into the world. These graduates possess something of inestimable value. Nearly every sensible middle-aged person would give away all their money to be able to go back to age 22 and begin adulthood anew.

But, especially this year, one is conscious of the many ways in which this year’s graduating class has been ill served by their elders. They enter a bad job market, the hangover from decades of excessive borrowing. They inherit a ruinous federal debt.
More important, their lives have been perversely structured. This year’s graduates are members of the most supervised generation in American history. Through their childhoods and teenage years, they have been monitored, tutored, coached and honed to an unprecedented degree.

Yet upon graduation they will enter a world that is unprecedentedly wide open and unstructured. Most of them will not quickly get married, buy a home and have kids, as previous generations did. Instead, they will confront amazingly diverse job markets, social landscapes and lifestyle niches. Most will spend a decade wandering from job to job and clique to clique, searching for a role.

No one would design a system of extreme supervision to prepare people for a decade of extreme openness. But this is exactly what has emerged in modern America. College students are raised in an environment that demands one set of navigational skills, and they are then cast out into a different environment requiring a different set of skills, which they have to figure out on their own.

Worst of all, they are sent off into this world with the whole baby-boomer theology ringing in their ears. If you sample some of the commencement addresses being broadcast on C-Span these days, you see that many graduates are told to: Follow your passion, chart your own course, march to the beat of your own drummer, follow your dreams and find yourself. This is the litany of expressive individualism, which is still the dominant note in American culture.

But, of course, this mantra misleads on nearly every front.

College grads are often sent out into the world amid rapturous talk of limitless possibilities. But this talk is of no help to the central business of adulthood, finding serious things to tie yourself down to. The successful young adult is beginning to make sacred commitments — to a spouse, a community and calling — yet mostly hears about freedom and autonomy.

Today’s graduates are also told to find their passion and then pursue their dreams. The implication is that they should find themselves first and then go off and live their quest. But, of course, very few people at age 22 or 24 can take an inward journey and come out having discovered a developed self.

Most successful young people don’t look inside and then plan a life. They look outside and find a problem, which summons their life. A relative suffers from Alzheimer’s and a young woman feels called to help cure that disease. A young man works under a miserable boss and must develop management skills so his department can function. Another young woman finds herself confronted by an opportunity she never thought of in a job category she never imagined. This wasn’t in her plans, but this is where she can make her contribution.

Most people don’t form a self and then lead a life. They are called by a problem, and the self is constructed gradually by their calling.

The graduates are also told to pursue happiness and joy. But, of course, when you read a biography of someone you admire, it’s rarely the things that made them happy that compel your admiration. It’s the things they did to court unhappiness — the things they did that were arduous and miserable, which sometimes cost them friends and aroused hatred. It’s excellence, not happiness, that we admire most.

Finally, graduates are told to be independent-minded and to express their inner spirit. But, of course, doing your job well often means suppressing yourself. As Atul Gawande mentioned during his countercultural address last week at Harvard Medical School, being a good doctor often means being part of a team, following the rules of an institution, going down a regimented checklist.

Today’s grads enter a cultural climate that preaches the self as the center of a life. But, of course, as they age, they’ll discover that the tasks of a life are at the center. Fulfillment is a byproduct of how people engage their tasks, and can’t be pursued directly. Most of us are egotistical and most are self-concerned most of the time, but it’s nonetheless true that life comes to a point only in those moments when the self dissolves into some task. The purpose in life is not to find yourself. It’s to lose yourself.

Jason's contribution to the end of the article: "Lose yourself," just like Eminem said.

A Little Taste

2011-05-30T17:57:00.000-07:00

Here is an excerpt from my tiny little book I'm going to self-publish on Amazon. Be excited:

I first knew there was something wrong when in a community college writing class I realized that I hated to rewrite. The teacher and other students were going on about the indispensability of rewriting your pieces, and I couldn’t be more at odds with them. I had known since high school that I didn’t like to rewrite; I wrote my pieces in one shot, and that was it. This was the first time it was dawning on my that this might be a problem.

The process of rewriting felt like torture to me. I was devoid of the ability to go back over what I wrote and separate the sheep from the goats. I had to keep it all, because I thought all of it was good. My mentality was not unlike that of a hoarder. A hoarder keeps everything because they see value in all of it. The yellowed newspapers, the broken can opener, the bedpan for an albino Chihuahua, there is potential use for it all and to cut it out is simply anathema to a full and satisfied life. To cut a line from a story was to cut off a piece of myself. All of me has worth and value. We don’t decide which pieces of ourselves to cut off, it’s inhuman. Their logic, though, made too much sense to my mind. You can’t get it all right and perfect on the first shot, you have to go over and fine tune it.

In the face of the sense they were making I made the only choice I was capable of making at the time: I concluded that I was one of the lucky writers who only has to write one draft.

When I am King

2011-05-26T15:36:00.001-07:00

When I have secured my reign over this country I shall decree it a crime to have to spend your day at work if you have a pair like this at home.

News Flash!

2011-05-25T14:01:00.001-07:00

I like Pandora now.

People used to rave about it and I would want to hurt them.

I didn't want to sit around and wait for a song that maybe I would like. I didn't want to cede that amount of control.

Now I'm willing to give myself over to the process.

I'm starting to grow up to be a real boy, just like mom said I would.

Weighing In

2011-05-23T13:10:00.000-07:00

It's been four weeks since I told you I was entering into a weight loss contest for money. Some believe this is medieval, I call it a gift from God. Nothing else would have motivated me to start dieting (haven't really done the exercising yet). Is that a problem, that I would only start to take care of myself for money? Yeah, it probably is, but I'm working on my waistline right now, not my soul, so ~~BACK OFF~~ I hope that is sufficient for you.

I just want to share a little of my experience. It will probably piss some of you off, as I have pissed off a lot of women in this office (apparently losing weight is easier for men), unfortunately at press time there is not a lot I can do about that.

Knowing who I am, and how much I idolize food (cut to me in an intimate setting having my way with a bacon cheeseburger), I am stupefied by how relatively easy the process has been. The first few days were hard, but then, you know, I got used to it. I got used to the way I never feel full when I eat fruit and or vegetables. I got used to eating smaller portions. I got used to turning down beer (for some reason my father in law is always offering me a beer, I think it's because he used to raid my stash, when I bought that kind of stuff, as in four weeks ago).

This is nothing short of a small miracle. It should not have been this easy. I mean, I haven't been the picture of discipline, but I've cut back enough to shed 10 pounds in three weeks--in this fourth week I've held stagnant, with one more week to go. I used to think about not having whatever the hell I wanted, and if I thought about having to cut back even during one meal, immediately I knew that my life wouldn't be as good. If I couldn't have any food that I wanted, at any time, then life would be severely degraded, and my happiness would be in jeopardy. This is easy to recognize, now, as the perfect definition of addiction. Yes, my name is Jason, and I can now see that I am a food addict.

If that feeling that my life wouldn't be as good without Jack in a Box at 11:12 p.m. were a cacophony of voices screaming at me to eat, then I would say the volume was turned up to about nine for most of my life, up until a day or two after I started dieting. I would now say that knob is turned down to about a three. And because it has gotten so much quieter in the food part of my brain, other voices are allowed to speak their piece. Now I have thoughts like, "Ok, I don't actually need a slice of pizza smothered in Ranch."

Again, with the addiction now quietly buzzing in the background, instead of raging in the foreground, it's a little scary how unwilling I was to evaluate and adjust my behavior. There was this all or nothing approach. If I couldn't have it all, whatever I wanted, then even getting 98% of that would be a deep disappointment. I've had, and do have, many addictions in my life. They all have the same baseline theme--"If you don't have me, life will not be as good." Now I think about the good things in my life. My wife, my son, my family, my God, reading, thinking about crap. Even if they statement were true, that my life wouldn't be as good without one of those things, I don't think that way about it, nor do those things tell me I would be less-than without them. Perhaps whenever I get that feeling, that my life won't be as good if I don't have it, I need to recognize it as something I need to reorient my relationship to, because I got something wrong in the calculus of where that things properly fits into my life.

The other blessing (I hate using that word but I can't come up with a more accurate one at the moment) in this whole thing is the effect it's had on my health. I'm talking big time. For the last three or so years I have been on a prescription acid-blocker. If I wasn't on that I'd be suffering horribly with acid indigestion and would have to take tums ever day if I wasn't on the medication. I just accepted that this was my lot in life, these are my genetics, and that I would just have to live with it. I had people suggest to me that diet might have something to do with it, and I promptly concluded that they were wrong (and stupid--you don't threaten an idol and get away with it cleanly).

I stopped taking my medication when I started the diet, just to see. Good lord the stupid people were right. I now need the occasional Tum, but the difference is nothing short of night and day. I thought I was going to be on those pills for the rest of my life.

Like I said, the addiction is still there, I still want to wolf down an entire pepperoni pizza, but my soul just isn't clamoring for it as fervently as it was before. And who knows, not having to take those pills, and just feeling better generally, that might be enough for me to fight off the demons long term.

Editor's Note: After typing those last words Jason was filled with an abiding sense of despair and incompleteness, he then quickly crossed the street to Domino's, then next door to 7/11. He was spotted behind the 7/11 with two medium pizzas and a six pack of Redhook. It's been three hours and he hasn't emerged. Don't let this discourage you, we all have our ups and downs.

Serious Unreality

2011-05-22T12:05:00.001-07:00

For more controlled crazy, go to The Nose.

That's a Lotta Pop

2011-05-21T13:22:00.001-07:00

Testing...

2011-05-20T22:34:00.001-07:00

New phone! Just testing out the blogging app, don't mind me!

Not Ready To Go

2011-05-20T13:41:00.000-07:00

Ever since my mom told me as a child that sometime soon we would be Raptured away I've been worried about God's timing.

Now that I'm a few years older, I'm pretty sure I don't believe in the Rapture anymore. I believe that someday earth shall be like his kingdom in heaven, but I don't know how we get there or what that looks like, and I'm not really interested in guessing.

But I'm not very confident in my beliefs, and so part of me still worries that my mom is right and at any moment my clothes may only contain the vague outline of my body before they fall to the ground.

Here is the history of why I haven't been all that jazzed about the Rapture:

First I didn't want it to come before I had sex.

Then I didn't want it to come before I was married.

Then I didn't want it to come before I had a child.

Now I don't want it to come because I really want to see my children grow up.

I hope I'm not pissing God off or anything; I will accept his grand timing. I'm sure I'll be happy with whatever he decides (but I don't want it to be soon).

Rapture Me Not

2011-05-20T13:25:00.000-07:00

So I'm showing up pretty late to all this Rapture talk, you'll have to forgive me. I'm late to the game because I really couldn't care less about what this obscure preacher/radio host has to say. The only thing I find interesting about this whole situation is that there are so many people who are giving it a second thought.

What has this kook's prediction touched inside of you to make you be at least interested enough to make a joke about it?

Have you experienced the wrath of an authoritarian Christian or two (or several dozen), and laughing about the prediction is some sort of release of that stored anger/pain from the experience? Or is there something planted in each of us that responds to the idea of an End to All Things? We all get a sense of awe from staring at a sky full of stars or beholding an ocean, maybe someone telling you the world is going away is similar? No one I've talked to takes the man seriously, but everyone still seems vaguely interested by it. I think exploring where that interest (sarcastic though you portray it as) comes from might yield an insight into yourself. So if you have the time for an insight, take some time to consider my question.

Why are people paying attention? I think it has a lot to do with the fact that if the stakes are high enough, your ears will be perked. No matter how crazy someone is, if you hear them sincerely and coherently stating that they know for a fact the world is going to blow up on their birthday, I guess you just kind of can't fully dismiss it, even though you know you don't believe it. We're interested for at least that reason, but I think for some of us there's even more going on. But part of the reason I'm asking is that I really don't know, and I don't like to play psychologist or mind reader, so just tell me why you've responded to this so I don't have to make an ass of myself with my assumptions.