I Don't Preach Much Anymore

I used to offer sage advice to many. I had wisdomy words for any spiritual crisis. I gave what I (and others) thought was good advice. I helped people think through their problems and offered sound counsel to help them rest assured that all would turn out well in their personal crises, that no matter what, their attitude was fully in their control.

I don't offer advise much anymore. At least, I don't think I do. Not like before, at least.

Maybe I don't exude the same "come sit at my feet as I impart great knowledge" aura I once did, if ever I did.

Maybe my friendship circles have shifted towards people who are fed up with hearing everyone else give them answers that seem not to quite fit their circumstances and therefore don't generally ask for input from others, including myself.

Maybe I hit a moment in life where I determined never again to presume to know what was going on in someone else's heart and mind and took it to the extreme of not counseling at all.

Maybe experience convinced me that I wasn't as smart as I thought.

Maybe I don't care as much anymore and am too wrapped up in myself to take the time for others.

Maybe I'm often so unsure of what I want for myself or where I'm going that I don't feel at liberty to dare point anyone else in any particular direction either.

Maybe I wanted to escape from the preachy mold I felt I was stuck in and which would certainly enslave me if I didn't free myself.

Maybe I see life as a balance of sorrow and joy, so I don't see much point in trying to assure people everything is OK, because it's not and probably never will be "all OK", and that is, paradoxically, OK (from the perspective that no matter how much there is to be sad about, you can always find something to be happy about, and neither the happiness nor the sadness should be ignored), but I think every person has to discover that for him- or herself.

Maybe all of the above are a little true.

In any case, I kind of miss seeing the peace in people's eyes after a good talk. I miss being that person people felt they could come to. I don't miss weird relationships where I was a crutch they couldn't seem to remove. I miss feeling like I was actually making a difference in individuals' lives and knowing that whether or not they would think back on our fun times they might at least think back to how I had helped them. I don't miss wondering how lasting a difference I could possibly have made since we didn't have a real, intimate friendship (always the counselor, never the friend). I miss feeling like I offered solid, objective observation that made choices more clear. I don't miss feeling like a preachy outsider looking in on the experiences of life everyone is having except me.

And it's way past my bedtime, and I don't know how all of this nebulosity is going to come across or whether it will sound more extreme than it really is. Yup, that pillow's looking mighty inviting right now.

Live Life Deliberately

Live life deliberately.

A friend named her blog by this title, and every time I see it, it speaks truth to me. I don't know if she sees the phrase quite the way I do, and I know I don't fully live it the way I perceive it. But it encapsulates, in so few words, something I have always thought, something I think few people grasp, and something with a significance I just can't shake. Something about principle. Something about realizing that you are the one calling the shots in your life, even if only in your reactions to what is outside of your control. Something about magnifying that amazing part of the human soul or psyche that is making choices that can, at times, defy all opposition and exceed all expectation, the part that refuses to be completely bound by environmental or past limitations.

I may live too "deliberately" in some ways. In some cases, you must let go of the idea that you can or should control every step of your life. There are greater forces to yield to at times, greater perspective you have yet to obtain, greater opportunities and rewards in risking something. But even that choice to let go is deliberate on some level.

I believe everything we do is deliberate to some degree, even choosing not to adopt principles or to just "ride the wave" in life. Some things we do because we truly don't know better or because our upbringing has thoroughly programmed us. But I'm inclined to think most of what we do is quite deliberate, whether or not we care to own up to that fact and face the reality of our decisions.

While there is value in enjoying the moment and letting it fill your soul with intensity of emotion and in experiencing the richness life has to offer, my personal opinion is that most people's application of "live in the moment" is utterly hollow, selfish, hedonistic crap that destroys the beauty and significance of relationships and of life in general.

Hm. Sometimes, I do have firm opinions about things.

I Can See My House From Here

So, I'm at work, and suddenly an instant message on Google pops up from a friend telling me he can see my car on Google Street View. So I IM back, "Say what?"

Indeed, if you go to maps.google.com and type in my home address (which I will not post here, my blog being semi-public and all, but request it if you want), then click on Street View, then turn to the left and "walk" down the street, you can see my trusty ol' automobile around the corner to the right in the parking lot outside the condo. Seriously. Right there.

Can you see your car?

Cookies and TracBall and More Cookies

Because someone asked, and because I have nothing else particularly exciting to write about, I'm just going to write what I was up to this weekend, sort of a glimpse into a typical-ish weekend in the life of me.


Friday evening:
Off work at 5:00, ran home to eat, organize room, clean bathroom, do laundry, work on volunteer stuff.

A friend came over, and we made chocolate chip cookies (I'd been craving them) and watched Prime (one of my faves, as far as "romantic comedy" type movies go) while eating lots of cookies.


Saturday morning:
Loiter


Saturday lunchtime:
Ryan and I decided to do lunch before heading up Provo Canyon but wanted to save money, so we decided the best option from among my meager selection was to make grilled cheese and tomato soup for lunch. But I'm all eccentric and stuff, so lunch ended up being roasted red pepper tomato soup with garlic, and grilled albacore, jarlsburg/gran queso, and avocado with a side of pickled asparagus (only I ate that). I think Ryan was a little put off that the good ol' grilled cheese and tomato soup idea had been maimed beyond recognition.


Saturday afternoon:
We headed out, full of what had morphed into a rather large lunch, up Provo Canyon to check out South Fork Park past Vivian Park. There's a cool little stream there (which would be fun to wade in when it's not @#$% frigid) and fire pits and the usual picnic amenities. We just threw around an Aerobie and played with the old TracBall set (yes, the same one my family has owned since before I can remember). As usual, muscles in my arm that had long-since gone dormant were revived by the exertion of TracBall.


Saturday evening:
CostCo run with Javier and Steph, followed by dinner designed to satisfy Javier's craving for down home southern BBQ at Lon's Cookin' Shack in Provo, which was surprisingly good. Ever had fried cauliflower? Yeah, good stuff, actually. Then Steph had to go to work, so Javier and I went to see Ghost Town at the dollar theater. It was actually really funny, even heart-warming and thought-provoking (a little bit). I was pleasantly surprised. As usual, we smuggled in candy purchased at less than in-theater "bend over" prices. Smuggling candy into the theater is SO much easier in cold weather, when appropriate clothing lends itself to concealed goods. Afterward, it was too early to call it a night, so we watched an episode each of Ugly Betty and Pushing Daisies, both of which I've gotten semi-hooked on lately, so I watch them online while I'm doing other things at my computer.


Sunday:
Worked on some more volunteer stuff in the morning, went a BYU ward, then went to Javier's place to take some pics of him and the boy in the Triumph. Then we all met up at Rinny's house to join in a Swiss cookie-making extravaganza. Ever made brazeli cookies? They are thin, wafery, buttery, sugary goodness. I insisted I must purchase one of those irons. Then I heard how much they cost. Maybe when I'm rich.

Rinny's friend, Annette, taught us a way fun card game called something like hand and foot which we MUST play again (I won!), and I jetted away for dinner at the Jimenez clan headquarters, which was delicious as always.

So there you have it. Nothing exciting. No big trips. No grand adventures. Just good times with good peops. Couldn't really ask for more, when ya get right down to it.

Penelope, Judy Grimes, and A-Holes

I love Kristen Wiig. I don't watch Saturday Night Live, but I've been looking for clips of her SNL skits online. I saw her in Ghost Town as the surgeon, and I was glad to see she can do more down-to-earth acting outside of her caricatures on SNL. Incidentally, she does pretty great Bjork and Suze Orman impressions. She cracks me up.

Silver Lining

Well, I looked in the mirror tonight to see noticeably less brown color than a few years ago. Several people over the last few months have pointed out my grey hairs, and I've shrugged it off 'cause I'm OK with it. I believe in aging gracefully. But tonight, for the heck of it--curiosity's sake--I decided to strategically remove a few white hairs from their little gathering place, like a little geriatric shindig of rebel greys. And as I went to work, I smiled at the bright side of losing youth:

1) God was kind enough to make white hairs grow at least 33% faster than regular hairs, which makes them decidedly easier to pull. That was thoughtful of him.

2) As I leaned in towards the mirror under the vanity lights, I was surprised to find that these hairs were easy to find not because they were thick and clumsy like the wiry white hairs I've occasionally pulled before but because they flashed their satin, silvery shimmer from among the dark brown, and I thought, "I may have some dang sexy grey hair one day."

I left the rest of them in place and called it a night.

Alex and Me

I heard an interview on NPR's Fresh Air today that I loved. LOVED. It was an interview with Irene Pepperberg, whose research I've been interested in for several years but have never studied in-depth at all. I originally learned of her many years ago, when I saw a television program highlighting her star student, Alex, the talking African grey parrot.

I immediately fell in love with Alex, especially when he stopped answering questions to interject, "I want dinner." She told him it was not dinner time, and he said, "I'm sorry". Alex learned to identify a handful of materials, distinguish differences in number and color, and count objects according to criteria, among other things. Since seeing that program, every time I've seen an African Grey in a pet store, I've stopped to interact for a few minutes. The intelligence in their eyes captivates me, and the curiously expressive gestures fascinate me. If I thought my lifestyle would allow me to properly care for one (they essentially become children), and I didn't struggle a little with keeping such magnificent birds as pets in cages, I would probably own one right now.

In any case, Pepperberg's research into the cognitive processes of birds and the learning or training process she describes with Alex fascinate me. I love that stuff! And I get this little voice telling me I should be interested in it for its human applications and potential contribution to improving humans' quality of life, even if indirectly. Yes, that's interesting to me as well, but NOPE, I just like learning about animals for the sake of learning about animals, and her research is particularly interesting to me, so imagine my excitement when I learned she's just published a memoir of her research called Alex and Me. Too bad I'm so poor right now, or I'd buy it immediately (hint, hint, *cough* *Christmas* *cough*).

So there you have it, I'm an animal nerd. But then, y'all knew that. :-)

The Double Maverick

Ha! I enjoyed this. Say what you will about his age and stuffiness, I think he actually did this pretty well. Amused me, anyway.

Can't Go Back Now

There are some songs there's just something about which I may or may not be able to quite put my finger on. There's one I've listened to several times over the last few weeks, and every time I've listened to it, I've thought, "I wanna blog about this one." But I get lazy or distracted or whatever, and I don't.

Then a friend goes ahead and steals my thunder by posting the video, and now I'm posting as if to say, "Wait! Wait! I wanted to post on that one, you only barely beat me to the punch." I sent her a text message expressing my dismay at how inconsiderate she was to do so, but somehow I don't think she's penitent. I'll get over it.

I don't know their particular inspiration for the song (I've read speculation that it's inspired by the couple's recently attained parenthood), but listening to it, I find it calming and assuring. It carries themes of learning to navigate your course, and when it seems there are no more signs to direct you, you choose a direction and venture on. It speaks to me of realizing that no matter how fondly you may look back on a time or a place, or how comfortable it seems, you simply can't return to the past, so your ever-present choice is to move forward, knowing someone is always near, and to make a future to which you can one day look back fondly.


Can't Go Back Now, by The Weepies

Yesterday, when you were young,
Everything you needed done was done for you.
Now you do it on your own
But you find you're all alone,
What can you do?

You and me walk on
Cause you can't go back now.

You know there will be days when you're so tired that you can't take another step,
The night will have no stars and you'll think you've gone as far as you will ever get

But you and me walk on
Cause you can't go back now
And yeah, yeah, go where you want to go
Be what you want to be,
If you ever turn around, you'll see me.

I can't really say why everybody wishes they were somewhere else
But in the end, the only steps that matter are the ones you take all by yourself

And you and me walk on
Yeah you and me walk on
Cause you can't go back now
Walk on, walk on, walk on
You can't go back now

Election News That Made Me Cry

...from laughter, that is. It's sometimes crude, it's sometimes over-the-top offensive, it's often nerdy, but sometimes, it's just plain funny. The Onion news network has a few pointed "reports" as of late that I couldn't help but highlight. Especially the video about Obama supporters I've embedded at the end. Incidentally, I support President-elect Obama. But it's just plain funny.

This one makes me giggle a lot:
Bush: 'Can I Stop Being President Now?'

Perhaps offensive, but that's the Onion, and it's satire:
Black Man Given Nation's Worst Job

I knew there was something weird about Cindy McCain:

Cindy McCain Claims She's 'Just Like Any Other Female Human'

From election night:

Voting Machines Elect One Of Their Own As President

I saved my favorite for last - what happened to Obama supporters after his election:

Obama Win Causes Obsessive Supporters To Realize How Empty Their Lives Are

Slave To Moderation

A good friend of mine recently posted a "quote of the week" by Bill Cosby on his blog:

"I don't know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody."

- Bill Cosby

It's a good quote, and it's true that I will paralyze myself and my causes if I try to please everyone, because I can't fully satisfy both sides of a polar issue.

Still, in every issue, even the views I am opposed to are likely right in some nuance or aspect, and I'd do well to at least try to be open to that.

So I have a reservation with this line of thinking when not taken in moderation. It is often misused as a weak excuse to discard diplomacy, a copout to avoid putting on someone else's shoes for a day, or a lazy guise of noble, unyielding conviction to cover stubborn, narrow pigheadedness.

I started composing these comments on his blog, and then I thought, "Wait, this is a reasonable quote and a productive thought, and instead of just shrugging and going away with a good reminder, I find myself debating its validity, skeptical of how some readers will interpret it, feeling the need to voice that concern to moderate the behaviors I foresee sprouting from an imbalanced interpretation...I'm a freak."

OK, I reject that. I'm not a freak. But I am, I think, a fairly moderate thinker, and sometimes to a fault, becoming annoyingly so for many people. I am skeptical of information and rarely accept something as fact until I have verified it in some way. Actually, I'm probably flattering myself by making that assertion because I probably buy more easily into what I want to hear than what I don't. I'm a gullible, limited human being. And as my Jazz Choir conductor, Dan Bukvich, used to yell at us (while thinly masking a wry grin), "You're genetically flawed!" And I am. Go fig.

But with all the debating, enemy-making, and misinformation I've read and listened to over the past few weeks regarding the election, prop 8 in California, and other more personal or local issues, I've gone into turbo moderation mode. To little avail, I'm afraid. McCain- and Obama-supporters alike seem to think the nation would crumble under the leadership of the other guy. Prop 8 crusaders on both sides seem to be unable to really see the reasoning and rationale behind their opponents' positions. And I've reached the point where, though I may continue to make token efforts, I am re-realizing I just can't change people's minds or force them to step into someone else's shoes. That's something you just have to want to do on a personal level. You have to care more about truth than about causes. You have to care more about people than about strictures. You have to care more about reconciliation than about vilifying opponents. And exploring the grey, or the middle ground, or the ambiguous, just doesn't seem productive or comfortable to most people, it seems.

Under fermenting righteous indignation, open, loving dialog is transformed into harsh and destructive rhetoric. Under pretense of correctness, brothers and sisters who disagree become perceived as mindless drones of the tyrannical opposition. Under the din of "us or them" battle cries, the call to stand for something becomes entrenched refusal to sit down at dialog with perceived enemies.

Yes, I'm just an idealistic, naive boy who doesn't realize the harsh realities of the spiritual, political, and cultural wars in which we find ourselves. I'm foolish to imply that we must validate or dignify our subversive enemies' cries by hearing them out. I'm short-sighted to think that there is any time for forbearance while our opponents are mobilized in opposition. I'm lukewarm and useless to the cause if I stay back and withhold judgment or side-taking until I feel fully comfortable doing so. And yes, it's true that you cannot please everyone and should probably not even endeavor to do so.

You might say I am a slave to moderation, a believer that truth is often found in listening to those with whom I disagree, which requires shutting my trap long enough to hear it without incessantly calculating my counter-response. And accepting truth comes at the uncomfortable cost of some degree of self-assurance, the acknowledgment that I am limited in experience, mental capacity, and perspective, and even a fool knows something I don't. Recognizing truth wherever it is found also requires recognizing that, even if my conclusion is correct (assuming there is a "correct" or "incorrect" conclusion to be reached in a given debate), if I have done nothing more than defend faulty logic to the right conclusion, I may be worse off, morally, than I would be if I made a different conclusion but for more righteous, or correct, reasons.

Pansy politics? Appeasement? Moral relativism? Never mind how some might choose to slant it with their favorite negative labels. I see admirable traits in people who strive to understand both sides of each story, whether or not they agree: humility, truth-seeking, building on common ground, understanding of nuance. Those are virtues in my eyes, and traits I would like to emulate, along with other traits such as integrity, conviction, principle, and courage to stand up for what I believe, come what may.

Cascade Springs

Last Saturday, after weeks of putting it off, a buddy (Ryan) and I headed up Provo Canyon to Cascade Springs, a little natural spring with cascading falls and pools full of brown trout nestled into the Wasatch mountains near Heber. We passed by Aspen Grove, a sea of aspens glowing in the dimming daylight. However, they had no leaves. They were still pretty, though. Dang, I'll bet it's gorgeous when it's not all barren trees. I thought, "If we'd only come when we originally talked about it, I probably could've gotten some Fall foliage." I was tempted to take a pic or two, but when I thought about what they must look like full of leaves, it seemed silly to take pictures of them now and try to justify it by naming the photo something pseudo-deep, like "We Were Beautiful Once".

As we arrived at the upper parking lot adjacent to Cascade Springs, we looked over the desolate expanse. I had brought my camera to take pictures of this little oasis, but seeing the stark lack of contrast or color, I almost left it in the car. But I thought, "Nah, I brought it all the way, might as well take it for the walk. There might be something down there to photograph."



Being a natural spring, the water is supposedly warmer than it otherwise would be. But it's still fargin' cold.

Not having much in the way of photogenic scenery, I resorted to snapping a shot or two of the only available human subject. BORING. At least he smiled.



Sometimes, all you need is a good challenge to get the more creative juices flowing. I mean, how boring would it be if it were just a paradise of gorgeously photogenic scenes...OK, maybe not so boring. But I enjoy a challenge.




But I also grabbed a couple of shots that I hoped would maximize the beauty of the place with its monochromatic landscape and wintered vegetation.







On the drive out, some deer ran off the side off the road as we rounded a corner and peered back up from hillside below the road. We stopped to get a better look, and off ran a small family of mule deer, what looked like a doe and three good-sized fawns.



In this one, the mother is seemingly coaxing the little one as it timidly looks through the brush at the strange visitors.

Halloweenness

No, I didn't dress up (as usual), but I did enjoy Halloween nonetheless.

Wednesday night, I went to a Missy Higgins concert at Sound in Salt Lake. I am absolutely enamored with that girl. She had me captivated the whole time, despite my legs' weariness. She even told a story about her first Halloween experience in the U.S. (she's Australian), which was comical. She had said she wants to dress up as something typical, like kids to, like a pumpkin or a bumblebee or something. Then she closed her story saying she'll be a "sexy pumpkin". I'd like to see that.



Thursday night, I met a group of friends at a local production of Nosferatu on stage at UVU. It's a hybrid of the original silent film projected onto a screen, along with every scene possible acted out on the stage and filmed live, seamlessly spliced with the original scenes they couldn't reproduce on stage. It was really impressive how they orchestrated everything so smoothly. It was fun and worth seeing.

On Halloween, at work, we decorated our row of cubicles as a prison. The kids had to walk down the prison hall to the warden's office (our supervisor) to get their candy. It was REALLY funny to watch their discomforted expressions as we would all turn around and grab the "bars" of our "cells" to peer out at them and point down the hall to the candy bowl. Of course, the candy bowl also has a monstrous little hand sticking up that suddenly folds down as if to slap you and says "Happy Halloween!" in a creepy voice when it senses motion. More than one child ran back down the prison hallway back to mom and dad, making distressed noises but triumphantly carrying their well-earned spoils!



This is my cell...er...cubicle. I swear sometimes it feels like this.



I had carved my pumpkin in Logan, so I just took pictures as Javier and Steph carved theirs. Steph got a bit worked up and said mean things to hers as she stabbed it. Javier used his classic lip-biting technique to get just the right precision. But the results were good.




I was the designated photographer Halloween night when they and the little guy all went trick-or-treating as beatniks.



After the boy went to bed, the three of us went to Velour for Monkey Grinder, a local group that plays a wicked combination of metal, industrial, indie, jazzy, circus music interspersed with comedic Halloweeny mayhem. Sorry. That's the best I can do for a description. It was fun, though, and quirky and darkly funny and very Utahish, but in a pretty decent way. If you're ever bored on Halloween in Utah Valley, go check it out, if for no other reason than to see the costumes like the Flight of the Conchords robot who can't sit down, Sarah Palin, creepy murderous pink bunny, or the disturbingly hairy Little Mermaid.