Existential Teenage Problems and Crappy Kingdoms

Intentional or not, modern parenting prepares kids to reach lofty personal accomplishments in high school, ultimately propelling them towards success in college and beyond. Beyond, though, produces quite a bit of anxiety in most adolescents.  A definite end point with looming unanswerable questions exists for every overly-structured childhood.  Will I get into college?  What kind of college?  What’ll I do after college? Most teenagers go to school, do their homework and avoid thinking about these things because they’re unable to come up with plausible answers.

That’s not even addressing what happens when teenagers fall short of their imagined success.  Motivation, skill, physical health, mental health, intelligence and competition are all variables that get in the way of lofty goals.  Joe Mauer was a monster for his high school baseball team in Saint Paul, and I always wonder about the average high school athlete backing him up and sitting on the bench every season.  What does he do with himself when he realizes his star potential will never be achieved?  

Well, he might end up in one of DC Piersons two novels.  Both of his narrators are suburban males with quite a bit of anxious uncertainty in their lives.  Darren, the narrator in The Boy Who Couldn’t Sleep and Never Had To, avoids most of the hard questions I’ve brought up by creating a fictional narrative full of cyborgs, zombies and mechwarriors, which is a great hobby but doesn’t supply much status or extrinsic rewards in high school.  Tom, the narrator in Crap Kingdom, is having a little more success in his school’s theater department but is too distracted by his own thoughts to enjoy it.

Both characters fall short of their perceptions of success and Pierson’s strong characterization unfolds as their disappointment and existential avoidance mixes with awkward teenage development.  Like most teenagers, they can’t see past their present situations because of their inability to realistically imagine the future.  Somehow being on the run with a kid who doesn’t need sleep or traveling to a fantasy kingdom makes more sense than thinking about college.

I think this is why people have such a hard time relating to teenagers.  I can imagine myself fairly accurately in 5 years:  Awesome beard, living in my house, married to my wife and planning for a garden in the Spring.  I’m aware all of those things could change (except for the beard, of course) but I’m also aware they may not.  Ask a 17 year old to imagine himself at 22 and you’ll either get lots of generalities or else a blank stare while he wonders if a lightsaber or flight would help him more in a zombie apocalypse.  Pierson understands this teenage distinction and writes it really well.

I enjoyed the story more in The Boy Who Couldn’t Sleep and Never Had To, which is set in high school but written for adults.  It gets a bit fanciful and dark in the third act, but both give Darren’s overall narration a sense of authenticity I appreciated fully after finishing the novel.  Crap Kingdom is a YA novel set in high school that I enjoyed more in the beginning than the end, which probably speaks more to the YA nature of storytelling than anything Pierson could have done differently.

Both narrators do their best to ignore tough existential questions about the eventual death of their childhood but eventually realize the impossibility of infinite avoidance.  They accept the limits of their abilities with varying levels of success.  For Darren, it means he has to leave his fantasy world behind and live in the only one available to him.  For Tom, it means he also has to leave his fantasy world behind and be more open to unexpected deviations in the future (like other fantasy worlds).  Their acceptance of their existential situations gives them the freedom to go forward into adulthood.

Don't be a writer, be a man of God who writes

Playfully smiling in the shade is how we
should all think of contemplative prayer.

Finishing Thomas Merton’s Seven Storey Mountain feels like quite an accomplishment.  Dense writing combines with heavy theology combines with my own dislike for memoirs and autobiographies (I rarely care about childhood friends or their parents) might make you think this was a chore to finish.  

In a way, I suppose it had those moments.  The first 2/3rds of the book are spent on Merton’s childhood and as a young adult going to college in New York City.  It’s overly descriptive and focuses on factual happenings.  Merton’s lack of depth either speaks to his own unawareness at the time or his current disinterest in reflecting on past events. This time in his life feels hollow to him as a writer and comes off as shallow to the reader. Brief moments within the shallows, however, find Merton pondering if something greater is out in the world, reminding us of the spiritual depth he’ll soon discover in himself.  

The rapid movement from self-centered intellectual to trappist monk feels a little abrupt, but no more than it did for Merton.  I reread whole chapters in the last third of the book just to keep up with his quickly evolving spirituality and life.

Three things stuck out for me while reading this last section:

1.  Merton’s astonishing sense of self-sacrifice associated with his faith.  Faith through sacrifice isn’t something we hear very often in today’s world. For Merton, a lack of sacrifice meant a lack of meaning. He became Catholic and sought the priesthood not because he loved everything in his life but because he felt unfulfilled with his life. He originally contemplated joining the Franciscans because his personality naturally fit with with their order, but would putting a square peg in a square hole bring him the spiritual satisfaction he craved?

Somehow, sacrificing sex and money didn’t carve enough of him out to make room for God.  Without sacrifice, there could be no spiritual gain for Merton.  Joining the trappists and embracing worldly sacrifice gave Merton the focus he needed to embrace God entirely.

2.   Merton’s writing style changes in the book from factual to meaningful, which is a line I struggle to straddle most days.  I’m a linear thinker (A leads to B leads to C...) and I easily fall into a linear trap when approaching my days.  Seriously, sometimes Kelly comes home, asks me about my day and I relay the order of my day (I went to work, I answered the phone, I wrote some emails) instead of telling her about my day (I’m kind of tired, this conversation really made me think, I’ve been craving breakfast for dinner all day).  Factual vs. emotive  isn’t the right phrasing, but it’s pretty close.  

When Merton hits the last third of his book, his writing goes from relaying information to really wading into heavy topics.  He recognizes his vocation called him to the sudden depth he found himself.  When I’m rooted and healthy, my mind moves to places beyond the daily happenings around me.  I write more.  I exercise more.  I have conversations more often.  A lot of my early life centered on moving linearly from place to place, recognizing an unfulfillment in me but not knowing what to make of it.  I’m not about to join a trappist order (sacrificing sex sounds awful) but I love the path Merton laid out and his ability to express the depth he discovered within his sacrifice.   

3. Most of us, when we imagine trappist monks, we think of priests sitting silently in a room praying endlessly.  In reality, Merton became a farm hand on a functional farm cut off from most of the world.  He learned how to actively pray in order to accomplish his daily chores while remaining in constant contact with God through prayer.  Not at all what he was expecting.

Side Note:  All three of these things happened in the last third of the book.  Seriously, just skim the first 2/3rds.  You won’t miss much.

Kelly knew me for a year before we dated.  Was she waiting and hoping I’d notice her during that year?  Nope.  She actively hated me.  This is a woman who values kindness above all else, and yet managed to tell everyone she knew how much she disliked me. A little full of my own nebulous abilities and an overall belief that I had an internet fueled witty answer to everything kept her at arms reach.  I loved the celebrity that came with being a leader on a small college campus and she hated the ego that came with it.

Fast forward a lot, and now I’m a leader in a small school as a guidance counselor. I came to understand my own pitfalls associated with professional titles and pushed them aside to embrace contemplative simplicity and a career focused on helping others.  Lately, I’ve found myself in situations where a leader is needed and I see the path the leader needs to take.  I’m intimidated not by the challenges this represents but by the possibility of slipping into a linear thinking stratagem that accomplishes a lot but leaves me unfulfilled at the end of the day.

The key, and I think Merton would agree, is to take the path in front of you while embracing the sacrifices needed to maintain a contemplative prayer life.  Contemplative prayer may not make me a great leader, but it’ll help me be a great ‘me’ as I lead.

Overreaching Symbolism!

I’ll be honest:  I was a bad English major in college.  Victorian Poetry, one of my only successful classes, went well because the professor loved sexual symbolism.  That poem about strangulation?  Really a poem about sexual asphyxiation.  Lord of the Rings?  Really Tolkien's take on homosexual relationships as represented by the hobbits.  Sunsets in poems?  Really different forms of ejaculation.

Intro to Poetry was probably my least successful class.  My professor once gave me a 0% for an in class essay where the only written comment in bright red ink read: “No!” Thanks Dr. Finklestein.  

Since leaving Xavier University’s academic world, though, I occasionally like to flex my English major muscle, much to the amusement of my wife who actually was a successful English major.  (By “successful English major” I mean she eventually got a Masters degree in a science and now works in the medical field.)

Anyways, here’s some overreaching symbolism for you concerning the latest James Bond movie, Skyfall.  It seemed like a good way to ease back into blogging for the new year.

I know, I know.  This James Bond movie continued the theme of showing the personal toll a real person would actually experience as an international spy. You know what this movie was actually about though?  Babyboomers.

That’s right, you think it’s a coincidence that Bond and the Rolling Stones premiered the same time and both turned 50 this year?  Both represent different and seemingly contradictory personality qualities of their generation.  One loves blue jeans, rock & roll, rebeling, money and women.  The other loves suits, fancy cars, disobeying orders money and women.  Notice a pattern?  

But Babyboomers fell out of love with rebellion in the 80s when they started getting mortgages, leaving the Stones and Bond feeling a little toothless the last decade or so.  

Cut to Skyfall!   Quick Plot Synopsis:  It’s like most Bond movies in that there’s Bond, M (played by Judi Dench and called “Mum” throughout most of the movie), a Bond villain, a plot to kill M and a car.  What else do you need for a Bond movie?  

Bond’s villain, we’ll call him Villain, is an ex-MI6 spy with an axe to grind.  He creates an interesting family structure with Judi Dench as the mother and the Bond family groundsman (who literally walks out from behind a corner in the last act of the movie and says something like, “You’re fight is my fight.”) as the father.  Bond somehow comes off as the younger responsible brother and Villain appears to be the batshit crazy older brother who blames his mommy for everything.  


Bond, trying to bounce back from a failed mission, takes it on himself to protect “Mom.”   Dench spends most of the movie protecting Bond (her loyal son) while trying to defend her bad decisions concerning the older son (he had it coming).  Oh, and the Bond Family Groundsman tries to offer sage fatherly advice to Bond before realizing Bond’s evolved past any advice he has left to offer.  How’s all that for a babyboomer fantasy?  Mom loves and needs me and Dad doesn’t know what the hell he’s talking about. 

So at the climax, the crazy brother corners “Mom” and “Dad” in a church (In a church!  Oh, Babyboomers, you make it too easy for me.) and wants “Mom” to kill both of them in a murder suicide.  Oh, and the deranged brother, of course, is gay.  Bond kills the brother  but his “Mom” (Judi Dench) dies in his arms.  He’s left with a father figure he’s surpassed, a critical but ultimately nurturing dead mother figure, a warning of what he could become (damned crazy gays) and a sense of self awareness that only comes from separating yourself from your childhood/parents/home.  

Thoughtful Conservatism: The Role of Government

As I continue with this theme, I’m doing my best to avoid pointing fingers.  Sure, I could write endless posts about the silliness of political pundits, but I’ve hit a point in my life where I’m uninterested in wading into their waters just to remind myself of my own aversion.  I’ll let other more capable people skewer the ridiculousness on television.  I’d rather stake out my own place amongst the forest of complicated issues facing politicians.  

How the government simply approaches any single issue, let alone how they hope to solve it, seems to start a lot of arguments.  Does the government use its authority to create standards and guidelines that keep people safe from persecution and discrimination?  That sounds pretty good to me.  Or do they make sure a structure is in place to promote personal responsibility and regional preferences toward any particular issue?  Well, that sounds pretty good, too.  Or do they smother the problem with Federal regulations and money?  Well, that doesn’t sound as nice as the others.  

I think my position here comes from both of my parents working for the Federal government, not to mention the endless reports of government ineptitude and waste. Yes, the government is capable of good things done by good people, but those good people probably aren’t doing those good things very well due to endless bureaucracy and wastefulness.  True, throwing money at a problem usually solves it, but it shouldn’t be our best option.  Especially when it’s borrowed money being thrown.  

So that should lead me towards the Republicans, right?  A belief that a strong response from the federal government is wasteful, inefficient and never the best option should make me Republican, right?  

Nope.

The Republicans believe, incorrectly, that the Federal government does nothing well and should therefore have no role in any problem new or old.  Balderdash!  Highways, roads, police, firemen, paramedics, public schools, public universities, the military, FEMA and endless other things are supported by the federal government and seem to run just fine to me.  Just because they occasionally stumble doesn’t mean we should scrap the whole thing.

The Republican response to this idea seems to be, over and over, to refuse to do anything helpful or meaningful within the government to show everyone else how dysfunctional it can be.  “Oh, you don’t think the federal government is a mess,” most Republicans seem to ask.  “Well watch me fuck it up and then tell me it’s not a mess.”  Excuse me, but I don’t question my house cleaning techniques if a toddler shits on my floor and then complains about standing in filth.  

I need a political party that acknowledges an oversized Federal government is too cumbersome to achieve sustainability without massive taxes and/or debt.  I also need a political party to understand and acknowledge the government can do a lot of things really well besides deregulate everything.  

This seems perfectly applicable to Obamacare.  The Democrat response to our broken healthcare system involved overreaching with a program that no one really understands but we’re told we’ll probably appreciate in the end.  Let me make something perfectly clear:  At no time do I ever want a politician to pat me on the head, tell me not to worry and offer me a cookie.  

The Republican response?  To not even come to the table for discussions and completely stick their heads in the sand until only their asses could be seen.  Their refusal to acknowledge the problem puts them so far outside of reality that I have trouble taking them seriously.  

The Republican response should have been to acknowledge the injustices being done within a broken system that affects millions of people, sit at the discussion table and argue how to move forward.  Not to claim “the market” will magically fix everything in the long run.  1.  In the long run we’re all dead.  2.  Is there any way an average person could create their own small business version of health insurance to compete with giant corporations?  How could a competing startup ever hope to affect a billion dollar industry?

What if both parties agreed on a few basic points where laws needed adjustment.  Then the Republicans push other oversights and systems be left to individual states to decide.  Want to live in a state where the state government covers all healthcare needs and therefore has higher taxes?  How about a state that only covers basic healthcare needs as defined by the Federal government and has moderate taxes?  How about a state that deregulates healthcare completely and has really low taxes?  This kind of response would have acknowledged the problem, acknowledged that we are a nation made up of very different people  and acknowledged that giant federal responses are rarely the best idea.

Of course, the Republicans couldn’t have had this kind of response because they were too busy wondering why their asses were so cold but too scared to pull their heads out of the sand to check.

Show me a party that acknowledges a problem, creates a solution that doesn’t involve smothering it with federally borrowed money or a solution that doesn’t just make money for soulless corporations and I’ll get right in line.  Until then, I’m living in a political blindspot and wondering when the floor is going to drop out from underneath me.

*Side note:  Not all of my future posts will be about Thoughtful Conservatism, but it’s a topic I’ll return to often.  

Thoughtful Conservative Manifesto: Introduction

Don’t think my lack of writing implies a lack of worthwhile ideas or an abandonment for my tens of readers.  I’ve been avoiding an idea since election day, and that avoidance, not unexpectedly, repelled all other blogging intentions.  In fact, my commitment to my avoidance became so serious I thought of posting this just to post something.

Perhaps I needed to hit rock bottom, or at least think about hitting rock bottom, to understand that an idea that won’t let go isn’t something to fear.  It’s just a thing that needs to be done.

So lets just say what I’ve been thinking about for most of November:  I wasn’t excited to vote for President Obama in 2012, I was resigned to it.

See, I remember being excited to vote in 2008.  When Obama appeared offering intellectualism, change and hope for a better way of doing things I jumped right in line.  The previous eight years felt dysfunctional and the idea of ‘change’ rang true with me and a lot of other people.

So if I’m anything but excited to vote for Obama in 2012, does that mean I voted for Romney?  Hell, no.  The Republicans offered nothing new and seemed to think their sneering disdain for any idea not conceived in the 1980s would win me over.  You know what else wasn’t around in 1982?  High speed internet, global warming and me.  Their refusal to acknowledge the impact these things may have on potential solutions felt inauthentic and manipulative.  Stop telling me about Big Bird and tax cuts.  You should have been telling me about overhauling Social Security and giving specifics on how to fix the deficit that make sense.  

Still, though, I remain someone who values personal responsibility, a strong national defense and a belief that most large bureaucratic bodies are worthlessly inefficient.   The national debt scares the hell out of me and I think the Democrats unwillingness to challenge teacher’s unions is suffocating our public school system. So where's my political party? I'm not sure.

So this idea that’s been stalking my thoughts isn’t a declaration to a political party or an indepth breakdown of issues or even predictions for the future.  It’s the admission and expansion of a realization I’ve come to recently:  I’m a thoughtful conservative.

More to come...

Don't forget to look up

One of my favorite college courses had nothing to with my major, my minor or my attempted, and eventually jettisoned, music minor. That’s right, a horror movie film class remains my favorite class in college. Not the gross out torture-porn we’ve seen the last few years or endless spin-offs, but horror movies trying to say something within their genre.

Stephen King's horror novels have great messages within their grisly stories. The Shining tells a story about alcoholism destroying a modern family through a haunted hotel driving a man crazy. The Cell tells a story about the lemming culture of technology through cell phone created zombies. Misery tells the story of the contraints of obsessive fan demands through an actual obsessive fan. I love the boundaries genre-fiction provides and the creativity authors have within those boundaries to tell different messages.

My love of genre fiction, while also explaining my love affair with superhero comic books, brought me to The Dog Stars by Peter Heller. End-of-the-world fiction is pretty popular right now, and there’s a lot of themes running around as authors wonder what the heck would happen if 99.9% of the world suddenly died/turned into zombies/got nuked.

Moslty, as one would expect, things get really f-ed up. Suzanne Collins (The Hunger Games) imagines America would get pretty totalitarian and hyper-focused on violence as entertainment. Cormac McCarthy (The Road) sees a father’s bond overpowering the horrors of a lawless America. Robert Kirkman (The Walking Dead) looks at everyday people struggling to make sense of their world and coping with their own horrific actions needed for survival.

Taking a different approach, Heller looks for hope and vitality in his novel about a small aircraft pilot living in Colorado after 99.9% of the world dies of the flu. Sure, there are some tragic scenes (a flashback to the main character’s wife dying in an overcrowded hospital), but Heller doesn’t dwell on the awfulness. In fact, the novel opens after the plague and the ensuing lawless chaos has already died out. Heller’s characters have survived and are left searching for what comes next.

That search for meaning plays itself out many times in other novels and movies, but not so much in end-of-the-world sagas. The way Hig, the main character, realizes there's more to life than day-to-day survival and the emotions he goes through looking for that meaning kept me coming back to the book more than the standard lawless theatrics inhabiting most apocalypse genre fiction.

Don't let my comparisons to other books make you think this one doesn't stand on it's own. When Heller isn’t writing novels, he’s a regular contributor to a lot of outdoor magazines. His loving familiarity of nature offers wonderful backdrops for much of the novel. Fishing, hiking, gardening and sleeping outdoors all make appearances in the novel and always seem to herald some level of healing and normalcy for Heller’s characters.

I bought an Iphone and kind of hate myself for it...

Lets start this thought process out by admitting something:  I’ve used Apple computers exclusively since 2006.  When the Dell laptop my parents bought me for college died, I started looking around at my options.  I loved my new ipod and the software that came with it, and was intrigued by Apple’s “It just works” buzz amongst people.  So I bought my first Mac in January of 2006 and left Microsoft behind without any regrets.  

Now lets admit something else:  I love Google.  Love it.  I was an early adopter of gmail, and quickly jump ship to any new product they put out.  Google Maps?  So long Mapquest.  Google Music?  Love it.  Google+?  I tried it but teaching my Mom to use 1 social media website was tough enough.  

I loved Apple because they did what they did well and didn’t worry about being anyone’s fastest shiniest option.  Could I have bought a more powerful laptop for less money in 2006?  Absolutely.  Would it have lasted as long or worked as well as my little iMac?  Hell, no.  That was what was so great about Macs.  I left the rat race of faster processors, endless software options and virus protection for something that was easy to use, did everything I wanted and didn’t worry about being the fastest kid on the block.  “Do what you do, and do it really well,” seemed to be the motto and I’d be lying if I didn’t internalize it a little bit.  

Google, on the other hand, was about innovation and giving me things that I didn’t know I even wanted.  When Gmail came out with enormous storage capacities, I remember shrugging my shoulders as to why anyone would need extra gigabytes of storage or why I’d need to search for individual words within one email out of thousands.  Two things, now, that feel absolutely necessary.  Not to mention the specificity and simplicity of it’s search engine, which is something we now take for granted.  They redefined online functionality and raised the bar as to what a website could be and do for it’s users.  

Lately, though, everything’s been getting screwed up.

Apple and Google both seem to have disregarded my original love for them (reliability & functionality) for new directions that feel hollow to me.  Apple suddenly wants to be the shiniest fastest kid on the block.  To their credit, they’ve retained the reliability that originally drew me to them, but it suddenly feels less that I’m making an informed decision when I buy their products and more like I’m just doing it b/c that’s what people do.  That lemming mentality bothers me and, quite frankly, pushes me to look at rival products more closely just to make sure I’m not going with the flow of people too easily.  

Maybe this is why I bought the Samsung Fascinate in 2010.

My overall Android experience has been okay, but not great.  I find myself back in the software updating world where each update brings it’s own mixture of solutions and problems.  Also, the overall feel of the Android OS system feels a bit more techy than than my comfort level allows.  

So when my upgrade rolled around this fall, I spent a lot of time looking at the Galaxy S III and the Iphone 5, and barely recognized the qualities that drew me to these companies in the first place.  Sure, the Iphone is sharp, works and is endlessly aesthetically pleasing.  But you know what?  I distrust people the minute people tell me I should trust them.  Same thing with food.  When you have to advertise the health benefits of a food, it’s probably not that healthy at the start.  So the fact that Apple needs to tell us over and over and over again how special the Iphone 5 is going to be and how they really worked hard to make the ultimate phone makes me suddenly wonder why they’re trying so hard.

And Apple Maps?  Do you think I would have spent my hard earned post-undergrad money on an ibook G4 if there was a chance that one of the Apple made programs (iphoto, itunes, garage band, etc) was an abysmal failure?  

And Android?  The endless tweeks that have gadgety people going nuts about doesn’t do much for me.  Neither does having to read endless reviews about the 8 different Android phones, their similarities and what makes each so unique.  Day dreaming about my ideal Android phone (if only I could combine the HTC One X with blah blah blah) is not how I want to spend my time.  Ever.  Where’s the Google that made everything so easy to use?  The Google that told me I wanted unlimited email storage (or close to it) without me asking for it?  Or where I could upload 20,000 songs for free to listen through a browser?  I sure as hell didn’t start using Google as a search engine because of the endlessly techy things I could do to personalize it.  

So I put in an order for Iphone 5 and kind of hate myself for it.  The thing that finally pushed me in that direction is that last year when I finally dropped my iBook G4 one too many times I decided to buy an iMac.  I love it, it’s big, it’s pretty and, most importantly, it just works.  The ability to sync everything up was too appealing, especially now that my wife decided to enter the smartphone world with a $50 Iphone 4 from Best Buy (which, of course, became free several weeks later when the Iphone 5 came out, but that’s life).  Plus, the ever expanding screen size of Android phones makes it more and more likely that it won’t fit in my pocket, which is still a deal breaker for me when it comes to cell phones.  

Apple:  I love your products but hate what you’ve become.  Google:  I feel bad, but the ability to sync up with our home computer won out in the end.  Maybe we can reconnect one day, but for now I’m with Apple, but not exclusively.  We can still see each other on the side.