There aren't many people on my friends list who haven't seen this already, but here it is, just in case.

This is hard news for me to share, just as it has been hard news to hear. I have a really strong connection with this community, the work and the land, and I find it challenging to envision the community and the work in a different place. And yet there's a great sense of comfort for me in knowing that the work will continue, and the community will continue, beyond next year.

Next year promises to be an amazing one. The story of Persephone feels like exactly the right myth to be working with during this time of transition. If you've thought about joining Mystery School, or attending an open event, this would be a wonderful time to do so.


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( The official announcement )

Often the Notes from the Universe show up in my email and I say, "Meh." They're fun in a fortune cookie sort of way, and that's about it.

But every now and then, I get a gem like this one that arrived this week, and it makes me smile for most of the day:

It's got nothing to do with being a perfect, goody-goody, selfless, sacrificing, spiritual saint, Jason. Blah! That whole characterization was meant for a different audience at a different time, and they really had issues.

It's got everything to do with being yourself, trusting the magic, following your heart, dreaming big, and having fun.

When last we spoke, I was holding forth on the “everything else” bits from last weekend’s Rites of Passage weekend. Now, here’s the other part.

( Talky talky talky )

Truly, I have no idea how to distill the experience of last weekend's Rites of Passage event at Diana's Grove into anything resembling a coherent narrative. There are just too many images filling my mind and my heart. The culmination of the weekend was Saturday night's ritual, and the processing I'm doing from that is still ongoing to an extent that I really can't get my head around it just yet. So here are some of the other things - some impactful, some amusing - that will stay with me.

A bit of context: This event was, by and large, planned and executed by this year's Rites team, which included me, Robin and meghan. After a year of working together, this was an opportunity for us to show our stuff, so to speak. Happily, of course, we had all kinds of support from staff and other community members.
( Holy crap, I talk a lot )
Due up next, hopefully in a couple of days - the "other" part of the event (aka "When Jason was well and truly kicked in the ass.")

In a few days I'll head down to the Grove for Rites of Passage weekend. Lots to do between now and then, and even more to do during the event itself. I think I've finally reached the point of starting to get nervous about how things will go. It's going to be a large group - by far the largest that I've seen there - and that's excellent news. There are a number of folks coming to the Grove for the first time, and that's also excellent news.

...and that adds in another level of "Um...crap" for me. Since this year's Rites team is responsible for planning and executing a large part of the weekend, I'm feeling some weight of that responsibility for offering a good experience to those newcomers. I don't have any reason to think it won't go well, but that weight is still there, reminding me that there's something riding on the choices I make and how well I do things.

The danger for me, always, is to let that weight of responsibility convince me that I should do things smaller, safer. To focus on what I know I can do well and not take many risks. After a year of trying to learn how to do the opposite of that, I feel like I shouldn't be so tempted to retreat back to that place of competence and comfort.

*grumbling* Stupid challenges and growth and stuff.

Oh yeah, I said I'd be doing this weekly, right? Oops. This one is from December 18, 2001

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A friend of mine once asked me why I’m an atheist. An odd question, especially since I’m agnostic, not atheist. Based on the blank look I got from him in response to this statement, it occurred to me that maybe agnosticism isn’t as well understood by the rest of the world as I’d assumed. So based on no demand whatsoever, here’s the short version of the Jason school of belief.

1. Why I am not a theist. First things first: why don’t I believe in god? The simple answer is that it’s not consistent with my sprawling, rambling, incomplete philosophy. Call it Frey’s Law number…oh, 4: I will not believe anything without having good reason to believe it. The rule goes for anything—political agendas, whether the designated hitter in baseball ought to be outlawed, or what religion, if any, to follow.

That’s an important point: believing in god doesn’t necessarily correspond to following a particular religion, or any religion at all. Theists believe that there is a god, or gods, responsible for the creation of the world around us. At the root, that’s the only thing that theists have in common. It’s only when you start closing in on the individual systems of belief that the differences become apparent, or important. Christians and Jews and Hindus and ancient Greeks all have one critical thing in common—they’re all theists.

So a decision to reject theism is both more and less than deciding to walk away from a particular religion. It’s looking at the issue at a much more basic level. Not a question of “Do I believe that the world was created in 6 days?” or “Is my soul really passing through a potentially infinite number of incarnations until I achieve enlightenment?” Rather, the question of theism asks, “Do I believe that a deity created the reality I live in?” The answer to this question is based on a number of variables depending on the background of the person asking it, but for me it comes down to a simple issue: I don’t have good reason to believe. My belief requires something objective at the root of it, and I haven’t seen anything to give me a positive reason to believe in any god, whether that god is perfectly benevolent, or petty, or jealous, or indifferent.

Naturally, belief in god is a highly personal question. My criterion includes some objective evidence, but that certainly isn’t the only valid criteria there is. Ask one theist why he or she believes in god, and they might point to a very specific experience that made them believe. A second believer’s explanation may describe a gradual awakening of belief. Ask a third, and it could be something else entirely. There are many people who believe that objective proof of the existence of a deity exists—The Watchmaker analogy is a classic argument to that effect, for instance. I’ve discussed a number of these claims with different people and have yet to find one that I find even marginally compelling unless you have the predisposition to believe in the first place. For me to change my decision to not believe in god, I would have to either find a truly compelling argument or change my criteria for that decision. Until either of these things happens, I will not be a theist.

2. Why I am not an atheist. Simple enough, then. If I don’t believe in god, I must be an atheist, right? Not so fast. The problem with atheism is the same problem you find with theism. That is, it makes a definitive claim about something it can’t deliver on. Atheism says that not only is there no good reason to believe in god, but also that there is a good reason to believe that there ISN’T a god. Where’s the evidence to support that claim? What explanation for the world around us is offered in exchange? There are a number of possibilities, but not one of them can point to anything like objective evidence. Certainly, there’s more than enough evidence to support the theory of evolution (more than enough to convince me of its validity, at least), but that doesn’t explain the existence of life in the first place. Likewise, the Big Bang theory (with or without the eventual Big Crunch addition a few billion years from now) may explain how our galaxy, solar system and planet all got here, but where did the stuff come from?

I haven’t heard an explanation that answers these questions. There’s just as much evidence to support the theory that I’ve dreamed up this whole universe myself and that everyone else is a figment of my imagination, or that you’re the dreamer and I’m a figment of YOUR imagination for that matter.

Atheism is appealing in many ways because it attempts to explain the world using the same criteria I have. But in the end, the explanations all fall short. So what does atheism get me that theism doesn’t? It leaves me asking the same question: “Yeah, but how did it start?” And until I hear an explanation that makes sense, I can’t be an atheist

3. The old standby: “I dunno”. Great, so I don’t believe in god, and I don’t NOT believe in god. Where does that leave me? In doubt, that’s where it leaves me. And happily enough, that’s what agnosticism means. Contrary to somewhat popular belief, being agnostic doesn’t mean that you don’t care about the question of god. Or, rather, it doesn’t necessarily mean that. What it does mean is that you consider it an open question. It’s not always the most pleasant feeling, to have such doubt about an issue like that. In fact, some people feel so uncomfortable with that feeling of doubt that they jump into one of the camps, either theism or atheism, in an effort to relieve the discomfort. Occasionally that seems like a viable option, but it’s not one I choose to pursue. Remember Frey’s Law #3? Here’s the revised version: I will not believe anything without having good reason to believe it, even if it would be easier to do so. And despite the discomfort, I don’t really have a problem with doubt, especially if the alternative is believing something so I don’t have to trouble myself with thinking about it anymore. I’d much rather keep looking for an answer that works for me than throw my lot in with people I don’t truly agree with.

And that, not that anyone asked, is why I am an agnostic.


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Speaking 8 years later...

For the record, I'm as much of an agnostic now as I was then. I am not, however, quite as certain about building the structure of my life's beliefs on a foundation of objective evidence. A lot more of my worldview comes from intuition these days, I think.

Stealing this from rabid_chemist because it is way, way too fun.

( Cut because it makes noise, which in my defense I didn't know because I keep my computer at work muted )

Tonight I was planning on going to The Moth Story Slam with artemis112. This is the first one of these in Chicago, and I only discovered it last week while I was listening to their weekly podcast. To say that I'm excited about this is quite an understatement.

Unfortunately, R is deathly ill with the Flu That Ate Omaha, and therefore is unable to go. I would still be up for attending by myself (such is my excitement that I am willing to overcome my natural tendency to be rather antisocial when by myself - this is an impressive feat for me). When I went out to lunch, though, I hit a bit of a wet patch on the road and discovered to my chagrin that my tires are no longer inclined to grip the road too well. This *might* be due to the fact that the two front tires are so bald that the "measure the tread depth with a penny" trick is completely unnecessary. It just took looking at the things closely to realize that, yes, they probably should have been replaced at least 5,000 miles ago. Oops.

So on this evening's revised agenda after work - spend a shocking amount of money on two new tires, and then make plans to laugh in the face of icy roads this winter.

This seems to be the way of it when we're developing a new game. Lots of stuff sounds perfectly reasonable at the time, so it is added to the game. Then, upon looking at it a couple of weeks later, we shake our heads, say, "Um, no," and gently remove the inane idea before it can corrupt any of the good stuff. Then we get enamored of another tweak, and start the process over again.

Here's an example: diggory1 and I have resurrected a game idea from about 3 years ago called Take The Money and Run, wherein you play an unscrupulous sort who's out to collect (okay, steal) a million dollars and flee the country to live out your days on a small island someplace. Simple enough concept, right? Well, it started off that way, until we decided that we needed 6 different card types. And that keeping track of your money in separate piles - liquid funds and offshore accounts - would be fun. Oh, and then we added taxes to the game.

Yes, we made a game that included taxes. Okay, actually we made half a game, then abandoned it in favor of greener pastures (including a game that eventually turned into Supervillain University). When we dusted the old thing off 2 weeks ago, the first thing we did was draw a big X through the tax section.

And then, naturally, we began tweaking the thing all over again.

Back from a challenging (but positive) 4 days at the Grove, and I'm feeling very grateful to have had some downtime today to try and prepare for getting back to my routine tomorrow. I plan to make an early night of it and get to bed soon.

Of course, first I need to purge the top part of Saturday night's chant from my head. It was a quite lovely piece, being sung as if to one's dream, vocation, life's work, what have you:

I will be your voice
I will be your hands
I will be your heart
I will be yours

So this is quite good till about 2:45 into the song. And then it is freaking awesome.

Somewhere along the way, I turned 35.

What. The. Hell?

One more from August 12, 2001...

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Have you ever had a shirt you really loved—the kind of thing you were comfortable wearing out on a first date or just lounging around the house in on a random Sunday? Even if you’re old enough to know better, you feel almost invincible in that shirt, don’t you? And you’ll keep it around for a long time, because it always looks great and feels comfortable.

Of course, over time the shirt starts to get frayed, or maybe it shrinks in the wash (odd, my favorite shirt only seems to shrink around the middle…must be the detergent I’m using). It happens so slowly that it’s hard to notice, and in any event it’s impossible to see it shrinking or fading while you have it on, isn’t it? Eventually, if we don’t look at the shirt after it comes out of the dryer once in a while, we’ll find ourselves dressed shabbily indeed. Sometimes when others point out that the shirt looks a bit threadbare, we’ll get upset—after all, it’s probably jealousy rearing it’s ugly head, right? Besides, we’re entitled to wear whatever we want, thank you very much.

Well, yes, that’s true. But it might be a good idea to take a look at the thing from time to time, if you don’t want to find yourself half-naked at an inopportune moment.

The same is true of ideas and beliefs. We hold onto the ones that have served us well in the past, and that’s well and good, but only if we dust them off once in a while and make sure they still work. Our lives are constantly changing, and so are our relationships, and so are our needs, and so is the world. Why do we expect that the ideas that worked for us yesterday will be valuable tomorrow?

Before World War II, the French had an impregnable defensive structure called the Maginot Line. These exquisitely planned defenses were built to ensure France couldn’t be overrun by the Germans again, but the Maginot Line slowed the German Blitz not at all. Why? Because wartime doctrine had changed. Instead of the trench warfare that was the hallmark of World War I, the new war would be defined by movement, speed, and coordinated assaults. What the French did was prepare the perfect defense—for the last war.

How often do we do the same thing? We prepare ourselves with ideas and beliefs we’ve had for years, only to find to our surprise that they don’t work anymore.

What we must do is face those realities ourselves, actively seek out reasons why our ideas and beliefs might not work anymore. As your life changes, as the world changes, your beliefs and ideas must be revisited to reflect that new reality.

The ladder exercise in The Joys of the Bite Me Philosophy is a good starting point. If you’ve completed it, you have a good idea of which of your beliefs are most important to you. Now, ask yourself this: When did you last take a critical look at those cornerstone beliefs? Remember these are things you’re willing to lose a relationship over. Are they worth it? Do they still work?

What things do you take for granted? A political affiliation? A career path? A moral issue? A religion? These things go unquestioned by so many of us, and they’re exactly the sort of thing we should always be testing.

How can you examine these beliefs? Start by looking at them as though you were reading them, or perhaps hearing someone you have purely neutral feelings toward talk about them. What would your reaction be? Would you be drawn to the ideas in that setting? Continue beyond your initial reactions. Imagine your job is to critique these beliefs. How would you do it? Is your criticism more compelling than the idea itself? If so, it’s time to rethink things.

Like that favorite shirt, our ideas and beliefs occasionally need to be mended or even thrown out. Our challenge is to be the first person to notice that fact, not the last. Every time you find yourself thinking, “Well, it goes without saying…” you’ve just given yourself a clue that it’s time to give that shirt a good once-over and make sure it still fits.

12 August 2001

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A few notes

1. My favorite shirt back then was a t-shirt (big shock) in a kind of brown/orange color (not black - kind of a shock). I did, in fact, wear it on a weekly basis until it was totally threadbare and a bit of an embarrassment. Then I wore it every two weeks until even I had to admit it was time to retire it.

2. The whole Maginot Line reference isn't quite accurate. In fact, the Maginot Line did discourage a direct assault from Germany in World War 2. However, the Germans invaded Belgium instead and in so doing flanked the intricate fortifications and bypassed them altogether. Oops. But remember, in 2001 you actually had to know these things - it wasn't nearly so easy to do 30 seconds of fact-checking online. Historically accurate or not, thought, I think it's still a good analogy.

3. This is one piece that I could repost in its entirety in 2009, clean up some of the language with some I-referencing, and it would be just as true for me as it was 8 years ago - complete with the self-deprecating humor and all.

Skipping an entry to post the next two, for the rather expedient reason that this entry and the next one were posted on my birthday in 2001 and I think it's strangely cool to post them here on my birthday in 2009.

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Depending on who you talk to, I’m either a critical thinker, a skeptic, an objectivist, or a total smartass. Truth be told, I’m probably all four.

The thing is, I love ideas. My own, sure, but I really love to learn what others think too. It seems I’m always in the middle of a book by someone who has a whole system of ideas worked out. The first thing I do when I hear a new idea is marvel at the courage it takes for someone to share that thought with himself or herself, much less to share it with other people.

The second thing I do when I hear a new idea is try and figure out why it’s wrong. Maybe I really AM a skeptic (smartass?), I don’t know. It’s just my inclination to test the ideas I come across. And most of them, I’ve found, fail the test.

That’s not as self-important as it sounds, I promise. Most of MY ideas fail the tests, too. Doesn’t make them bad ideas, necessarily, it just means they aren’t true for me.

The real challenge isn’t to show how an idea is flawed, of course. No, the real test is to continue examining it and see if there are pieces of truth somewhere in there. My own philosophy isn’t a seamless tapestry just yet, and maybe it never will be. Instead, it’s a patchwork of ideas culled from my own mind and the pieces from others that seem to work for me.

I just finished rereading Richard Bach’s book Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah over the past couple of days. This book has probably influenced me more than any other I’ve read. Though there are many parts that don’t ring true for me, it’s inspired me to look at EVERYTHING in my life in a different way. Some of these new perspectives have, over the course of time, struck me as the right ones. In my view, that’s the definition of a good idea—one that compels you to try it out for yourself.

One scene in the book has stuck with me since the first time I read it nearly 15 years ago. In this exchange, the narrator, Richard, has just finished watching a movie with Don (the Messiah who’s recently given up the family business). Richard is trying to figure out why it was suddenly so important to Don that they see Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.

I thought about his odd behavior in the theater. “You do everything for a reason, Don?”

"Sometimes.”

“Why the movie? Why did you all of a sudden want to see Sundance?”

“You asked a question.”

“Yes. Do you have an answer?”

“That is my answer. We went to the movie because you asked a question. The movie was the answer to your question.”

He was laughing at me, I knew it. “What was my question?”

There was a long pained silence. “Your question, Richard, was that even in your brilliant times you have never been able to figure out why we are here.”

I remembered. “And the movie was my answer.”

“Yes.”

“Oh.”

“You don’t understand,” he said.

“No.”

“That was a good movie,” he said, “but the world’s best movie is still an illusion, is it not? The pictures aren’t even moving; they only appear to movie. Changing light that seems to move across a flat screen set up in the dark?”

“Well, yes.” I was beginning to understand.

“The other people, any people anywhere who go to any movie show, why are they there, when it’s only illusions?”

“Well, it’s entertainment,” I said.

“Fun. That’s right. One.”

“Could be educational.”

“Good. It is always that. Learning. Two.”

“Fantasy, escape.”

“That’s fun, too. One.”

“Technical reasons. To see how a film is made.”

“Learning. Two.”

“Escape from boredom…”

“Escape. You said that.”

“Social. To be with friends,” I said.

“Reason for going, but not for seeing the film. That’s fun, anyway. One.”

Whatever I came up with fit his two fingers; people see films for fun or for learning or for both together.

“And a movie is like a lifetime, Don, is that right?”

“Yes.”

In the rest of the scene, Don and Richard extend the analogy to include our lives, as well, positing that we choose the sum of our existence for either fun, or learning, or both. Buy into that aspect as much or as little as you like. Myself, I think there’s some truth to it. The whole world theory is hard to test, of course, but if you look hard enough you can find some evidence of it.

Think of the people in your life, the ones you have a real relationship with. What draws you to those people? A desire for companionship? (Fun. One.) Helping you figure out some aspect of your own life? (Learning. Two.) There are millions of ways to state why we seek people out, but in reality there are only two reasons. I’ve spent fourteen years trying to find a third, and I haven’t done it yet.

And what are we here for, if not to cultivate relationships? In the final analysis, I think it’s those people we’ve drawn to us that give truth to our lives.

What can be taken away from this musing? Maybe nothing—maybe it’s not true for you the way it is for me. I would suggest, though, that even if you don’t accept the two reasons as they’re stated, there are some reasons you’ve been drawn to the people in your life. Figuring out what these reasons are for you will help you define your relationships (Learning. Two.) and enjoy them (Fun. One.), too…

12 August 2001

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Speaking again...from the FUTURE

(Unnecessary disclaimer: No, I am not an Ayn Rand disciple despite mentioning objectivism early on in this post. I thought she was way more groovy almost a decade ago than I do these days.)

Like many people, I tend to get introspective on my birthday. Thinking back to my birthday 8 years ago, I was pretty broken up over my ex-wife and I splitting up a few months previously, and I'm not surprised the idea of relationships was on my mind.

Also, holy crap. Now it's been 22 years since I first read Illusions. Surely that's not possible, right?

A brief post about Douglas Adams, who died a few weeks before I posted this. This one went up on July 22, 2001.

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42

The best stories engage as they entertain, make us feel fortunate to have found the realities they contain. If the story is good enough, it can actually change the reader, leaving him or her somehow greater after reading the story than they were before. When the creator of such a story dies, those who visited that reality feel the loss even if they never had occasion to meet the author. This is how I felt, along with millions of others, at the passing of Douglas Adams.

I first read The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy in my freshman year of high school. It immediately struck me as hilarious, imaginative, and entertaining. As the story continued through what ended up being five volumes in the “trilogy”, something else became clear—Adams was insightful as well as entertaining. Cloaked in a completely enthralling story, he asked a number of questions that challenged our view of the universe and ourselves. And he did so without being transparent or unnecessarily heavy-handed.

But for me, it was always the story that drew me in. I admit, I carried a towel in my backpack for a while in college. I tossed out phrases from the books at random times, making a few friends as a result even as I alienated large groups of people in one fell swoop. Even now, I find myself thinking in Hitchhikers-isms from time to time, and one of the highest statements of praise in my mind is to think of someone as “a frood who really knows where his [or her] towel is.”

Before Adams’ death, it had been a number of years since I read any of the Hitchhiker’s series. I picked up the complete volume from the library about a week ago, though, and I find myself grateful once more to him for creating such an entertaining, interesting place to visit. Thanks, Douglas. I have no doubt your towel was ready when you began this newest journey.

22 July 2001

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Yes, the 42 in my screen name and email address are an homage to Douglas Adams. I am exactly that sort of geek.

A post in which I ramble about my car. This is two vehicles ago, mind you, so we're talking about my really classy 1994 Nissan Sentra which finally died about a year later, when I had an unfortunate incident involving another vehicle on the tollway during rush hour). This was posted on July 22, 2001.
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There’s something uniquely satisfying for me in making something work. I rediscovered that fact over this weekend with my car.

A couple of words about this vehicle. It’s served well for about 130,000 miles without too many major complaints. Until this year, any problems have been cosmetic or normal wear and tear. Recently, though, it’s required a new alternator, battery, starter, muffler, and a host of other minor annoyances. The worst has been a series of mysterious ailments in the electrical system. Over the past few months, one thing after another has just stopped working—the radio, dome light, alarm sounds, rear defroster, and the power seatbelts. I’d resigned myself to this trend continuing, especially after two different mechanics had thrown their hands up and declared that just finding the problem would take at least 10 hours of labor. For a vehicle I plan to replace relatively soon, that’s more than I’m willing to shell out.

Still, I do have the occasional moment of frustration. I hit this point yesterday when the air conditioner abruptly stopped working in the 93 degree Chicago weather. After swearing copiously, I took an inventory of what I knew about the problem, which wasn’t much. I briefly considered standing knowledgeably over the open hood, but dismissed the idea. Setting aside the fact that it wouldn’t do any good, it was still marginally cooler in the car than it was out of it.

I figured I had three choices—give up and sweat, call someone who knows something about cars, or see if there was anything I could do that wouldn’t do me bodily harm even if it didn’t help. Knowing as little as I do about my vehicle (I’ve changed the oil myself exactly once, and even that was under close supervision), the only thought I had was that it might, maybe, just be a blown fuse. Happily, the toolbox in my trunk has a few spares. So I bravely exposed myself to the sun, retrieved the fuses from the trunk, and at the same time realized that it was now warmer in the car than in the world at large.

I started dinking around with the fuse box, marveling for a moment at the ingenious design of the little plastic tool used to remove and insert the fuses. I imagine a brilliant engineer designed that item after either three months or twelve minutes of effort. I’m awed by people who can create a physical object like that, because my own mind is completely unsuited to the task.

Forcing myself back to “work”, I let out what I hoped was an appropriate sounding grunt and looked at the inside of the fuse box cover to see what went where. It took about ten seconds to see the fuse for the A/C was the 7th from the top on the left side, and another several minutes to count to 7 correctly (keep in mind, it was hot and I was still impressed with the fuse removal device). I pulled out the 15-amp fuse, looked it over although I have no idea what it would look like if it was blown, and turned to my supply of spares. Just as you’d expect, no 15 amp spares. 10s and 20s, but none of the kind I needed.

“Well, hell. Now what?” I muttered, knowing my bright ideas were pretty much at an end. On a whim, I looked at the diagram again, and saw that there was a 15-amp fuse installed for the remote-controlled mirrors. Now, my car’s only mirror doesn’t even have a mechanical control from the inside. If you want to adjust it, you have to roll the window down and move it by hand. So I yanked that fuse out, inserted it into the A/C slot, held my breath and started the car back up.

Eureka! Cold, chemically treated air poured out of the vents, comforting me even as it polluted the environment for future generations. Realizing how easy that had been, I decided to look at a few others as well. Ten minutes and two fuses later, I had a working dome light, annoying buzzers to tell me the door was ajar, and seatbelts that disengaged on command even without the engine running. No radio, but even so the creature comforts of the car had jumped by a factor of three.

Okay, so what’s the point here other than some vaguely deserved self-congratulation? The point for me is, sometimes what you need is a little critical thinking and an understanding of what you know and don’t know. Every now and again, you can solve a problem without knowing all you’d like to about the situation. For me, it was a matter of knowing that trying what little I could think of couldn’t make the situation any worse. The investment of a little time gave me at least some chance of fixing the problem. As it turned out, I solved much more than I’d even hoped to.

And isn’t that so often the case? Take a self-directed tutorial to learn how to use a new piece of software, and a chance mention about one of the shortcut keys saves you time with other programs, too. Pick up a book by an unfamiliar author, and you not only love that story, you discover it’s the first part of a series you’re suddenly eager to read. Approach a problem at work by trying to take care of it yourself, and suddenly you have a reputation as an independent employee. All of these things happen only if you rely on your own judgment to try something yourself before seeking assistance. Many times, doing a good thing now is more effective than someone else doing the perfect thing later.

Often, our efforts don’t solve the problem we set out to fix. If we take any kind of lesson from the effort, though, it hasn’t gone unrewarded. Practice this enough, and you just may find you have tools at your disposal you never imagined.

22 July 2001

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GThere were so many people involved and worthy of fantastic thanks and praise, I can scarcely think of all of them. Truly, each person involved in the ceremony and reception just blew me away. There was plenty of work to go around and while E and I certainly did our share throughout the process and on the day, the event simply would not have been as wonderful as it was (granted, I'm a *little* biased, but I think it was a pretty amazing event).

I'll get around to a larger "Dude, this was so cool/thanks to everyone involved" post at some point, I'm sure. For now, I'll just echo what I said a couple days ago - I feel incredibly blessed to have such wonderful friends. Thanks, y'all. You're amazing, generous and incredibly kind.

Woke up early today, of course, despite being utterly exhausted last night. There are a lot of moving parts that are still...er, moving, at the moment. Fortunately I am armed with excellent groomspersons who are going to make the trip down to the church for the last minute things in a few hours. For now, I have my big honkin' mocha from Caribou and am busily doing exciting things like making signs for the tables (okay, this involves putting a big "1" on a piece of paper).

The rehearsal went quite well, once we got everyone through traffic and actually there - turns out that Chicago doesn't necessarily cooperate with my desire to have no traffic delays for the wedding party. I was, and am, very aware of just how fortunate we are to have amazingly talented and generous friends participating. Between the music, the readings and of course the awesome officiatin', we're going to have quite an event.

Also, dude. I'm getting married in 8 1/2 hours.

Another in the rather long series of navel-gazing posts from my old website. This one was posted on July 8, 2001

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It seems like nearly every internal conflict I have is rooted, at the heart, in the question of being ruled by my head or my heart. I suspect this is true for most people, that everyone struggles with the idea of whether they make their decisions based on logic or emotion.

I’m something of a junkie when it comes to personality tests. One I’ve taken a few times consists of a series of either-or questions designed to measure your preference for being introverted versus extroverted, for considering issue or taking action, and so on. I remember a few of the questions from this test distinctly. The first one said something like:

I am more likely to be swayed by:

a) A heartfelt appeal
b) Sound reasoning

I selected B—I’ve always considered myself more of a thinker than a feeler. But one of the other items read:

It is better to be:

a) Just
b) Merciful

Again, I selected B. I didn’t think about it until later, but I realized when I considered it that there’s obviously an inconsistency there. Why is it that I’m swayed by sound reasoning but find mercy to be more important that justice? Clearly, mercy is motivated by emotion to the exclusion of logic. It is a passionate reaction, not a reasoned one.

This led me to the real question: How do I weigh reason and passion in my life? Which is really more important to me? Which SHOULD be more important to me? The quick answer to these questions is that it’s important to strike a balance between the two, that they cannot exist in a vacuum.

Not much of an answer, is it? The kind of thing you’d expect to see in Reader’s Digest or something, at best. Obviously, this isn’t a solution. We can do better.

Let’s start by figuring out what we mean by Reason and Passion in the first place. There are whole volumes dedicated to the subject, but we can condense them into two simple questions. When we address an issue using Reason, we’re really asking, “Does it work?” When we apply Passion, we’re asking, “Does it matter?” In order to meet our goals, we have to use reason. To decide what our goals are, we need passion.

As an example, consider a man getting ready to take a trip in a sailboat. There are a number of things he might be doing—checking the lines, consulting a chart, doing a happy jig because he’s going out on his boat for the first time all summer. Reason is what motivates him to check his gear and plot a course. Passion is what makes him get on the boat in the first place.

Without reason, we’ll get lost on our journey. We will end up off-course, hurt, and possibly destroyed. But without passion, we’ll never cast off the lines.

So the real question isn’t “Which is more important?” but rather, “Which one do I need to work on more?” Make no mistake; there is certainly one that comes easier to you. We all need to cultivate the area that’s our weakness.

And it can be cultivated. Many people argue that Reason can be taught, while Passion either exists or it doesn’t. These many people are wrong. Yes, Reason can be taught—to anyone, using any number of techniques. But Passion, too, can be taught, in a manner of speaking. What’s being taught here isn’t how to have Passion, because it is there in all of us. Rather, what some of us need to be taught is how to uncover that Passion in our hearts. Once we find that reason for leaving the docks, our skill for navigation can take over.

Once you figure out which area you are deficient in, what can be done to improve it? Let’s look at cultivating Reason first.

To pursue a path of Reason is to think critically, to analyze a situation and determine the most likely result. There are a number of possibilities for improving your skill in this area. Possible suggestions range from taking a formal Logic class if you’re in a situation where that’s a viable option, to picking up a few books from your local library. Consider something that focuses on the scientific method for a starting point. You won’t find a subject that outlines an ordered way of thinking than that.

Maybe you’re not the type to get a lot out of that kind of reading. If that’s the case, don’t be alarmed. Humans tend to remember only about 20% of what they read, anyway. One area you might explore is playing games. One thing that all games have in common is a sense for strategy. Chess may be the best example, but almost anything will do. Once you understand the rules of the game, it becomes based on cause and effect. IF I move the pawn here or throw down the Jack of spades or put an X in the middle square, THIS is likely to happen. Play with someone who’s willing to teach you, and most importantly, someone who’s better at the game than you are. Nothing makes you improve faster than being challenged.

What these games can do is put you in a frame of mind to consider things from a purely rational standpoint. You’ll find that you can start equating other situations to what happens in the game. If I take this new job, I’ll develop new skills, which may lead to additional opportunities in the future. If I wait until Sunday to do my grocery shopping, I’ll be rushed and less likely to shop for bargains. Eventually, you’ll find that you’re able to break down more and more complex situations into manageable pieces, and get where you want to go.

Now, what about the other side of the coin? What if it’s uncovering your passion that’s your weakness? Let me first say, I can relate. I’ve come to realize that this is the area of my self that needs the most work. I’ve spent a lot of time honing and practicing my reason, setting my course and checking my calculations, without spending equal time figuring out why I was going in that direction in the first place.

There’s one lesson I’ve learned, at least, and I urge you to learn it from my experience rather than your own. That lesson is this: You cannot count on someone else to provide your passion for you. Imagine a friend or your partner telling you, “I don’t need to know how to read myself. You can do that for me.” You’d be stunned, and angry, and rightly so. It is not your role in life to do someone’s thinking for them. Yet this is exactly what you’re doing when you expect someone else to allow you to make their passions your own. For some reason, doing exactly this seems to be a popular idea, one that crops up in movies and stories from time to time, when one person says to the other, “My dream is to make your dreams come true.” It sounds wonderfully selfless, and romantic, and beautiful. It also doesn’t work. What you’re really doing is taking that person’s ideals, their dreams, the things that truly make them uniquely who they are, and taking them for yourself. You’re saying, “I can’t be bothered to find my own loves, my own motivations. I’ll just steal yours.” Just as you can’t do all the thinking for someone else, you cannot expect him or her to do your feeling for you. It’s exhausting and impossible and it is, truly, a violation. Again, I strongly suggest you trust me on this one.

So what can you do? Here’s where any answers become much less complete. I can tell you what I’ve tried, what’s started to work for me. Its applicability to your own life is something you’ll have to judge for yourself.

I think discovering passion is in many ways a matter of forming new habits. Remember those questions about reason and passion? For me, the first step was to stop asking “Does it work?” and start asking, “Does it matter?” And to ask it often, about even the most trivial of things. I’d been in the habit of choosing what to do against a measuring stick that wasn’t my own. This habit cropped up in a lot of ways, from deciding where to go for dinner to whether to move to a new state or change jobs. Asking myself, “Does it matter?” was an awakening, because I discovered that to my surprise that many of the things I’d forced others to define did matter to me. I felt passionately about things I’d told myself didn’t matter.

It’s a matter of cultivating that passion, too. That means you have to try new things, and try them solely because they’re important to you. And when you’re trying those things, ask yourself again, “Does it matter?” If it doesn’t, stop doing it.

Julia Cameron’s book The Artist’s Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity has helped me in this. I picked it up when I realized I hadn’t written anything I found interesting in almost a year. Even if your passions don’t lie in the area of creativity, some of the exercises in the book may be helpful to you.

One of the hardest things for me has been to accept the idea that my passions have value outside what anyone else thinks about them. They may seem trivial to others, or they may seem noble and poetic. Either way, it doesn’t matter. The things that are important to you are valuable solely because of how they make you feel. I’ve challenged myself to get to the top rung of my Bite Me ladder where my passions are concerned (See the essay The Joys of the Bite Me Philosophy for an explanation of what the heck I’m talking about here). If they’re trivial even to the people I care about most, they’re valuable to me, and that’s the thing that matters.

One of the things I’ve discovered, or rediscovered, is how important it is for me to put my thoughts down on paper. Not because I expect they’ll resonate with everyone the way they do with me, but because the people in my life I’ve admired most are the ones who put their ideas out there for others to see. They’re unflinching in their conviction that their ideas have merit. I have always wanted to feel the same respect for myself as I do for those brave souls. So this poorly-designed website is something I’m passionate about, because the thoughts I post here are parts of myself that are valuable to me.

In the end, I think we’re all setting sail, looking for a place to go and a way to get there. It’s only by having our own instruments to navigate by and our own reasons for casting off that our journey can be a successful one. By uncovering both aspects of our inner sailor, we may find that each journey leads us to new discoveries, new adventures, and new paths to explore.


8 July 2001

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Obligatory reflections go here

Two interesting things stand out for me here. The first is the whole sailboat metaphor, which I think I stole from someone (but if I didn't, wasn't it clever of me?). I like that image of the "why" vs. "how" of setting sail.

The second thing I noticed upon rereading this 8 years later is how the tone shifted from the last couple of entries. Some actual I and we referencing in there rather than being quite so directive. Interesting. I haven't "read ahead," so to speak, so I don't know if that continues in the next set of posts, but I'm looking forward to finding out.

Maybe this is something that happens, during the year. But about halfway through May intensive, I started to think, "You know, maybe I'm not a millstone, weighing my team down during this whole Rites year thing." Last night, I allowed that maybe possibly there are some things I'm pretty decent at.

Goodness, what will tomorrow bring? Maybe the sweet, sweet feeling of adequacy?