Things I overheard while listening to Alan Alda talk to himself

It is a nice day today during this vacation week so I went for my usual walk while listening to an audiobook on my MP3 player. Any book I listen to is downloaded from the state library. I grow tired of the usual YA vampires, zombies, werewolves and other supernatural stuff. Today I decided to listen to Alan Alda’s autobiography Things I overheard while talking to myself. I have grown a new appreciation for Alda, who has seemingly walked with me through life: as a kid watching M*A*S*H* to today catching The West Wing on DVD, also from the library. I’m sure I’ve encountered him in between those times, but much like that time period, it’s all a blur now.

Alda recounts a moment in a Times Square coffee shop when a young man of 22 (Alda himself 25) put down his coffee cup and in a very matter-of-fact manner said “I’ve been thinking that I might kill myself.” Alda attempted to convince him his whole life was ahead of him and he had a lot to live for to which the man replied “I may go for that, but I might kill myself. I haven’t decided.” Alda never knew what had become of this man. Later on when he was a TV star, he received letters from people who shared the same sense of distraught. Alda responded to all of them as best he could, and never knew what became of many of them, if they had ever found meaning in their lives. Later Alda found himself in one of those nighttime moments when a question came to him from a voice in his head.

So tell me, are you living a life of meaning?

To answer that, he tells a story I can relate to of faith and doubt and how a life of questioning opens things up for you, but provides little meaning. The meaning is not external; you must create it yourself. Make something of nothing, as the existentialists suggested. At his daughter’s graduation he spoke this:

Move with all of yourself. When you embark for strange places, don’t leave any of yourself safely on shore. Have the nerve to go into unexplored territory. Be brave enough to live life creatively. The creative is the place where no one else has ever been. It is not previously known. You have to leave the city of your comfort and go into the wilderness of your intuition. You can’t get there by bus, only by hard work and risk and by not quite knowing what you’re doing, but what you’ll discover will be wonderful. What you’ll discover will be yourself. (Alda, 2007, p. 21-22)

Knowing what you care about and then devoting yourself to it is just about the only way you’re going to be able to have a sense of purpose in your life. (Alda, p. 36)

I find comfort in the “not quite knowing what you’re doing” part. The second quote is the troubling one. Knowing what I care about, then devoting myself to it. I’ve been there and done that, realizing not only ministry but also faith itself was something in which I didn’t fit. But at one time I knew that was right, then discovered I knew nothing. So now to pick up the pieces. The library world fascinates me. I feel at home there. But what happens when you go home? How do you answer the question “What do you do for fun?” “What hobbies do you have?” Questions I cannot seem to confidently answer.

I struggle with these things perhaps more than some. I’ve been a spiritual “leader” who provided guidance for others, while at the same time not understanding myself. Now I can help people find a book on the shelf or convert a document, but what am I truly devoted to?

I struggle because this is vacation week. Now I have time to catch up on work for my Masters, do some reading, and other stuff. I went to a college on Monday to observe a library reference desk so I could write a paper. Done. I decide to treat myself to an old bookstore and find a good book for $6. I come home and decide it’s a good day to treat myself to the Chinese lunch special for $7. Now I realize with a week and a half to my full-time job payday, I have $95 in my checking account and an $85 bill. I deposit my part-time job check tomorrow for $60. This week I was to put together all the documents necessary for removing my ex’s name from the mortgage. My printer is out of ink, so that means waiting another week to buy a cartridge or take money out of savings, which I deter but am having to do more of. Of course to submit these documents, I need to send in nearly $300 to process it. So that’s now on the back burner anyway. The documents also tell me that I will not be eligible if the mortgage is over 33 percent of income or 38 percent of current debt. I am not positive but it’s going to be close. So in other words, I have been paying a mortgage on my own for 8 months now and will possibly be told I cannot afford it.

$30 for my cheap phone plan comes due in 3 days and I need that to hear if I have any interviews for jobs with more money closer to home. Then there are groceries, which maybe I can limit to $20 for next week. Then there is gas. Since I haven’t traveled to work this week, it will be less and if I use a sick day I may make out okay. But then there is the $10 co-pay to see my counselor, which is a must, and the tolls to get to and from there. Since I already pulled money from savings to cover car registration and inspection (and need to put off the oil change for another week), I don’t like to again. I have enough in savings, but try and stay off it as much as possible, and know a major car repair or water heater or plumbing problem is always right around the corner. And when I go to the counselor’s I like to get a chai and cookie, which comes to all of $4, but then I feel guilty for a treat like that, but isn’t life too short not to? So the game my life now is involves trying to see how little I need to pull from savings to meet regular expenses since it’s hard to get a roommate in a 690 square ft condo in which the mortgage is far higher than the value, take even quicker showers, stay in the dark as much as possible, and drive only when necessary.

No idea what this all has to do with Alda’s book. I am not bemoaning life. It can always be better. I don’t give up. I just like being honest in saying it is hard to find something you care about and devote yourself to it when the basics are a struggle. Patrons come to the library in even worse shape and we smile and wish them well. I’m supposed to be heroic and pull myself up by the boot straps, but how do you afford those? You can’t tell people these things because you are not looking for handouts. So you struggle alone and no matter how frugal you are, there is an unexpected expense lurking somewhere. Perhaps this is what life on the edge is. Is this living a life of meaning? I suppose I could give a great speech on this someday or write a great book. But what of those who will never have that chance?

I should be doing something librarianish and review Alda’s book, so I will do that now.

It’s a great read. Or listen.

 

 

If interviews were at 3AM, I’d be more ready than most folk.

Yes it seems the 3AM dilemma has come to pass once again. Going to bed by 10 does not guarantee more than 5 hours sleep. At least this blog is 24/7. Can’t even say that about Facebook- I guess friends sleep. And I’d rather not see who’s in Walgreens at this hour.

So an interview comes up this week for a very different school librarian position. I popped up there yesterday afternoon to take a look around: walk the lake, the downtown, see the building, figure out where to park, etc. It’s all kind of like a vacation. “Oh, I’d so much like to move here.” It’s like being a tourist. You try to get a sense of where you are, and someone you pass on the sidewalk says hello and you conclude “Such a nice little town.” Things always look  better from a tourist perspective. You find out different things once you move there, but this is the way we all start something new, like a courtship. We dress to impress, try to say the right things, get the other person to like us. Just don’t tell them about weird uncle Moe.

But we all need new starts at various times in our lives. Marriages don’t always last, and very few live in the same house or work the same job their entire lives. Friends pass on or move, so even if you are lucky (or perhaps unlucky) enough to stay put for a long while, everything around you changes. Some postmodern type thoughts enter my mind.

I’ve spent some time trying to anticipate the questions I will be asked and how I would answer them and whether those answers would match their expected answers. I have been on both sides of the interview table, and I come to realize that no matter what kind of preparation you have, the best kind of interview is something completely unplanned. We try and create an identity. No matter how much work we put into a resume or how accurate we try and make everything, it is still true we are creating an identity. Beyond the facts of what you want to do, where you have worked, what education you have, and samples of what others have said, is the attempt to present yourself in the best light. You want everything to be consistent, and you can agonize over the whole process. We are in essence creating an identity in making all of the pieces of life fit. I have wrestled with what an MDiv is useful for since I am not a minister any more, and have narrowed it down to a conclusion that no matter who I meet or where people are coming from, I can most likely relate to them. That’s a broad and optimistic conclusion. People are hard to figure out. But I’ve seen a lot in many different contexts, and have dealt with issues that would bewilder many. Well, it bewildered me, too, but I still had to react, bring calm to chaos, give an impromptu philosophical discussion, comfort someone who just lost their life partner, etc. It didn’t kill me, so maybe it did make me stronger.

Creating identity is what we have to do because none of us can truly accurately represent ourselves. So we bring letters from others along with phone numbers. What do others say? The same is true with a school. Can the committee truly represent the school? When you are on such a committee, the thought goes through your head. How much do I truly know about us? They do their best, but they too must create a reality to present to myself the interviewee. I must come up with the “right” questions to ask to explore this identity, but no matter how prepared I am, the best questions will come on the drive home. “I should have asked X…I should have answered j instead of t…” and on it goes. While we all seek honesty and authenticity, we worry about “screwing up,” yet I wonder if that more accurately portrays a typical day rather than your expertise in solving problem after problem and answering question after question? If they ask how I’ve screwed up, I’ve got plenty of cool stories.

We try to represent ourselves well and make the best life decisions as possible, yet never quite know who we are, where we fit, or how we will handle different things. Some feel preparation eliminates all of this ambiguity, but I find just the opposite. The more I prepare, the more I explore. The more I explore, the more I ponder. The more I ponder, the more ambiguity. The more ambiguity, the more excitement I feel because life itself is completely wide open. So many interesting things to think about and discuss, so many stories to tell. Should be fun.

So the blind date will happen this week. I will dress up and meet people I haven’t before, try to impress and they will do the same. If something “just seems to click” we will decide to spend more time together. Then we will learn about who we really are, work together in ways never planned, experience situations never imagined, and while struggling through things together, still be glad we are together. What a crazy analogy. When did I become a relationship expert?

Guess I better add that to the resume.

A 3AM existential pondering of loneliness

One problem with the blog title is that by the time I got to writing it was beyond 3AM. But the pondering started a little after three. Another problem is I haven’t blogged in so damn long that at least I could have chosen something more cheery. Who is cheery at 3AM?

I know some philosophers have discussed loneliness and such matters. I don’t remember who said what or when but I did come across an “Existential view of loneliness” over at the Philosophical Society and some ideas did come back. But not too many. But it did get me thinking over oatmeal and coffee. Thank goodness for both items in that they are easy to make or I don’t know how I would survive. And no, this isn’t instant oatmeal. I made it myself.

What grips me often enough to write about is the overwhelming sense of loneliness. I suppose the 3AM time slot lends itself to that when you can’t get back to sleep. I read Nietzsche talked about these kinds of things- a peering into the abyss. I must read him again…if I ever really read or understood him before. There is Thoreau walking in the woods and pondering it all. Not sure I’m into that.

Perhaps my sense of loneliness is confronting what life used to be, or maybe never really was, what it currently lacks, and what it may never be. It is confronting what the meaning of it all is and how there can be such emptiness in things. We use phrases such as “lonely in a crowd” because “getting out there and mingling” doesn’t cure anything. In fact, it confronts us even more with others who seem to have more, connect with more, who enjoy more. It is so easy to feel as if you are on the outside looking in on life itself. There is a hollow void that is not filled, a willing embrace with nothing to grasp.

Loneliness is described as something we all encounter and most of us do our best to avoid. It is not so much a negative thing- it can stir us to asking the right questions of existence. A heightened self-awareness, quoting the author of the site linked above. If such is the case, what am I being stirred to? Am I truly lonely or only am influenced by subjective feelings? Medicine helps the anxiety- perhaps it wore off earlier than usual?

Leading a meaningful life, the author reminds me, is up to me. So it is my fault for not finding meaning in things around me. Why then do I find so little meaning in things? We are the authors writing the books of our existence. Why then can’t I write a romance instead of a horror novel?

Oatmeal is cold. It doesn’t stay hot very long. Neither does it seem do the things we plug in to fill the hunger of loneliness. The hunger comes back but the oatmeal is gone. I must find other things to fill the void. Another good essay says we have a “desire to connect one’s separate existence to the existence of others.” It is a quest for being, of realizing who we are, and without this we live inauthentic lives. The fear, pain, and suffering through the experience apparently will bring us better in touch with our existential selves, to our very core, and can deepen the sensitivity to self and others so healing can happen. Instead of avoidance, I should be embracing this new understanding, engaging in a new self-understanding, observing its lessons, and stepping forward.

That’s pretty damn deep for this hour. Especially with cold oatmeal.

So I guess we connect where we can. Probably with others who are equally disconnected.

Peace.

Bob

 

Weeding the collection, or how I lost 45 pounds this year: a memoir

I am teetering towards that familiar 3AM blog time, although I got a head start today and it’s not quite 2:45. Same thing applies, however, as I find myself unable to sleep after a good 4 hrs of sleep. Was dozing off watching an old Bond film: the one with the guy who throws the hat and cuts off the head of a statue. That’s pretty cool, especially for 1964. But I’m not anxious for Santa to come. I just can’t get back to sleep. Fortunately, there is this blog and a pile of books anxious for me to get into.

I have now lost 45 pounds in total since about this time last year. Without a life crisis, I doubt this would have happened, yet people tell stories of how it was due to a life crisis that positive things have happened, so perhaps I’m in good company. At least I look at it that way. I can say I was “trying” to lose the weight for well over a decade, of course in the same vain as I’ve been trying to prepare for the Boston Marathon or win the Pulitzer prize in Physics. All three were seemingly insurmountable. But crises do change things, not only in day-to-day decisions but in overall outlook.

So this will not be a “how to,” to encourage you people to go through a crisis as well so they can take off some weight. In fact, others could tell a different story in that a crisis put more weight on. In any event, I will simply be brainstorming some thoughts in this personal memoir on food and eating it. What else is there to do on Christmas Day at 2:54 AM anyway?

Oh yeah, Merry Christmas to you.

My earliest memories of food seem to take me to food stamps and government-provided cheese.And then there was that god-awful powdered milk, which if not stirred thoroughly would give you the most disgusting taste you have ever had as you are finishing a glass and a wad of powder goes right down your throat. Food was not a given when you’re the child of a daycare teacher and cab driver, so food stamps were a necessity. On Sunday we would hear in church how wonderful it was to have such a “godly,” family values, president, that being Ronald Reagan.

The real world, however, was experienced differently. I remember a number of times that my parent’s paltry pay was too much to qualify for food stamps, sometimes by $20 or less. In church, this was described as God testing our faith, or teaching us to pray more, but now as an adult reading history I realize it was the “Reagan Revolution,” which glorified in cutting “entitlements” we poor folk were always taking advantage of. So I remember my mom with tears in her eyes, realizing we didn’t have enough food stamps, and picking out what to take off of the bill. We would then each take a bag of groceries with us, and go wait for the city bus. We would only do a couple of bags at a time, not just because we were waiting for what little my dad brought home everyday, but also because there was only so much we could carry home. I do remember, however, what a big deal that big block of government cheese was, and how a hunk of that would go a long way. Tasty, too.

In my early grade school years I developed a habit that I still have not been able to break. Eating too fast. I don’t remember this exactly, but my mom said in first grade I would come home talking about how fast we have to eat our lunches because the teacher would be yelling to hurry up because we had to go to recess. I don’t know if we had 20 minutes, half an hour, or what time exactly. But what I do know is I have always eaten fast and had to remind myself mentally or be told audibly by others to slow down. In college, this was nearly impossible to do, as I would often only have a few minutes to eat in between classes and working in the cafeteria.

Our biggest treat was getting an Amato’s italian sandwich on 1/2 price Wednesday. Never has a greater sandwich ever been constructed by humankind. Nice, soft bread, ham and cheese, real black olives, green pepper, onion (which took me years to like.  Mom would order my sandwich without), tomato, the greatest pickles in the world, all topped with salt, pepper, and oil. This was the treat of the week, and whenever I am near Amato’s, I still have to stop in and get an italian. It’s just the way it is.

My mom probably did the best she could to prepare healthy meals. I never liked salad as a kid, but grew into liking it over those years. She would make tuna casseroles that were great. She fixed separate meals for my father, who was convinced she was trying to poison him. I remember citric acid always being claimed as the ingredient she was using to do away with him. “You probably put citric acid in it,” or something to that effect. He didn’t like any spices, and those were probably a cover up for the citric acid. So, mom and I would have our meal, and she would fix his usual: hamburger, mashed potato, and lima beans. Maybe 1-2 changes over the years, but mainly that was the routine.

He would sit at the kitchen table, loaded with all of his papers, bills, receipts, and who knows what else. You really couldn’t see that there was a table there. The rare times we would have company (and fortunately very rare), mom would clear of the table of all his crap, then he would throw a tantrum that she’s been secretly throwing away stuff he couldn’t find. So mom and I would usually eat in the living room while watching TV. I remember the old Star Trek re-runs we would watch while gobbling up an italian.

Weight became an issue around 6th grade, probably a combination of eating too fast and having cheap food at home which would not have been nutritious. But then I thinned out in middle school, probably due to playing on the basketball team, and pretty much stayed that way through high school and college. There wasn’t a lot of time to eat in college, and those midnight pizza parties while discussing theology still didn’t do much to increase the waistline. Of course, the gym was across the street, and when it was open I would shoot hoop or lift weights.

My seminary days could truly be described as survival of the fittest. Rooming with two other bachelors, we scrounged for whatever we could find. Only one of us could really cook, and it wasn’t me. Our schedules conflicted with each other so much that I’m not sure what we ever ate or when. I worked at a church as a custodian and benefited from the potlucks that went on and folks would encourage “Oh, get a plate for yourself.” I do remember a conference at the church and Subway catered it. They had so many subs left over, they let me take whatever I wanted. I thought 20 subs would be a great deal for us. By the end of the week, we were desperate to find something else to put inside the bread because we were sick of ham and cheese. I remember the stash of graham crackers they had in the kitchen cabinets for the daycare center, which I helped myself to. I suppose I should feel guilty about all of that, but sometimes it was all I had for dinner.

Marriage brought with it extra pounds for both of us in a very short time. I guess I wasn’t used to 3 meals a day, and there was no longer a gym to workout at. I have in these past few months taken off the weight I put on all those years ago. We ate a lot and didn’t carefully watch calories or any such thing. Into the ministry years, while getting out for walks now and then, I had no definite exercise plan and sat at a desk studying much of the time. When I would go and visit shut-ins, one particular old Pennsylvania Dutch lady named Belle was a regular stop. Belle often had a snack ready for me, or a piece of pie. She made the most unbelievable grape pie. I’d never heard of such a thing. Say that 5 times fast. Grape pie.

For Friday night treats we would get some great Pennsylvania stromboli. While not coming close to an italian, the stromboli we got from OIP’s (they really said it like that, too. It stood for Original Italian Pizza), and the combination of the fresh baked bread and pizza inside…it was a great treat. And a ton of calories, I’m sure.

This must have been the way we relieved stress, and there was plenty of it. You feel down- you get yourself something that tastes good. That maybe the case with me- some type of reward. We then experimented with the new fad of the Adkins diet, lost some weight which quickly came right back. Over the years, that weight stayed on.

Divorce changed all of that. I haven’t felt like eating in months, and only recently has any type of appetite returned. I lost 10 very quickly, then 20…30…45. I have lost on average 2 pounds per week. I’m sure I will plateau eventually, but would like to lose another 25 pounds, which is now entirely possible. I’ve been working with a nutritionist for the past year, and her concern now is that I not lose too fast. I can see her point. It’s a bitch trying to find clothes to wear.

All of this has made me appreciate the psycho-social/genetic/cultural aspects of food. Anxiety and depression can make you not want to eat, or eat too much. There are people who really have no “shut off” button and don’t know when to stop. We have obesity problems and other eating disorders which are not treated simply by trying harder. I would eat too fast, then never feel full, and keep snacking. Stress? Anxiety? Depression? Perhaps all of those and more. Our weight, eating habits, and food choices are based on many things. We would all do better sticking to home-grown foods, local farms, and fresh produce, but expense is a major factor. These are complex issues I can’t even begin to address, particularly at 4:20 AM.

There are 2 free things I can recommend. One is the obvious exercise plan. I try to walk 3 miles every day. I don’t jog, run, lift weights, or play sports anymore. I can walk. The fresh air does a lot of good. Secondly, is a free website to track your calories:
www.myfitnesspal.com is a free tool to use to track calories and exercise. Its database is pretty good: just look up your food and record it, as well as your exercise. If it becomes routine, it can help you stay accountable. If you haven’t done it in a week, it will remind you. And if you cheat, it will never know.

There’s some food for thought on an early Christmas morning. Actually starting to yawn, so maybe I’ll catch up on some sleep.

Happy holidays.

 

A room without a view: making the library “home”

 

We store more than DVD’s in this section.

 

It all started innocently enough 5 years ago in our high school library. Students started leaving things behind the main desk. Often it was because they were heading to lunch and had personal items they needed to store. Other times it was a poster they were working on, and its size was too big to store anything else.

But then, how do you explain the Cheez-its? One student started storing her snacks here, which was a great benefit since she said I could help myself anytime. Who would complain about that?

Somewhere over the years, this grew into subsidized housing. Some students felt safer leaving their stuff in the library than in their locker. Others were just here so often they just naturally started leaving their stuff because they would soon be back. We have an old stool behind the library and some students started coming up to have their lunch while they sat and chatted with us. Slowly but surely, the empty shelves and periodical holders behind the desk started getting filled with notebooks, coats, hats, drawings, and who knows what else.

I’m sure old-timers would be aghast at imagining such a thing in the library. It looks messy and cluttered. I’m sure I’m breaking the laws of Dewey or Dewey’s Laws or some ALA standard or something. I should probably put my foot down and say enough is enough with this sort of thing, yet how can I evict these poor lads so close to Christmas?

I don’t pretend to have established some new model of library service. I doubt the Harvard Library’s of this world would read this and conclude that’s what they need to do. I really can’t say how or why this happened. It is more than unorthodox, in fact it’s probably quite unheard of.

I really ponder the sociology of it all. Seminary training taught me about the theology of space. We see it in cathedrals, synagogues, mosques, and sanctuaries, as well as small chapels or meditation rooms. We see it in the nature, your childhood home, a local store, coffee shop, a library, or any place really. It’s a place where you find yourself belonging. Cheers was billed as a place “where everybody knows your name.” We long for such places. A place to be ourselves…a place where we are welcomed for who we are. I take pride in that a number of the Gay-Straight Alliance club cite the library as a place they feel welcomed.

We can talk about libraries and communities and the part they play in the lives of its patrons. Beyond our circulation statistics are the people who consider the library “home.” Perhaps in this case, a better way to judge the libraries  importance  is not how much patrons take out, but how much they leave behind.

And the rent is the best in town.

Another pondering post at 3AM

My body seems to be deciding right now that I only need 4 hours of sleep and I once again am wide awake at the useless hour of 3AM. Perhaps a few moments of reflection will ease my mind and give me a few more hours of sleep. Since some who follow the blog may get this in their inbox while they drink their first cup of coffee, I guess I need to make this be a profound thought or two to start you on your day.

Nah. How profound can 3 AM be?

I suppose the topic of thankfulness is an appropriate one at this point. So maybe this is where I will engage my thoughts. But instead I think I will call this things we should be thankful for, but often are not, or at least not enough.

Our families. Most of the people in this category you had no choice in relating to (except of course offspring of which I have no experience or wisdom to share). You can find a lot of faults with this group of people, and they with you. We wonder why we can’t all just get along and yet when you step back and look at all of us, you can easily see why. We are all a pretty odd bunch. Trying to get us all to agree on anything is sometimes a complete impossibility. We have such different ideas on how to orient life, and there is no way we each can fit into another person’s mold.  But yet we seem to complain when they don’t. We have problems with things they have done or left undone, yet it is not fair because we have done the same things. The faults of others seem to carry greater weight than our own. But yet we are lost without our families. We may not connect like we used to, and time does funny things to people…like moves them in different directions and we realize how long it’s been since we last spoke. We often don’t realize their importance however, until something happens. A sickness makes us realize how fragile our existence is. Death seems to finally pull us back together as we act out our spiritual or cultural traditions of “saying goodbye.” Then we always say, “We need to keep in touch more.” Maybe we do, maybe we don’t, but we’ve at least thought about it. It’s a good idea to be thankful for family because we never know how much time we have left together. Or at least enjoy passing the cranberry sauce.

Our friends. We never realize how many friends we have and often we can’t separate friends from acquaintances, or at least I can’t. I once went to a funeral for a man who took his own life. The funeral home was packed with people. Why do you go to something like that? It is more than “paying respects,” it is acknowledgment of a connection that has been lost. If only the man could have seen how many came to his funeral…that there were many he could have reached out to who probably would have helped. But it seems harder and harder for many of us to find true friends to share our lives with. We have a hard time trusting people because others have betrayed it. How many people can we truly “invest” in, that is, pour out our lives to without reservation. Who will listen? Who will let you be you? We have more ways of connecting than ever before, yet many of us still find ourselves alone. I guess it is our own faults. It is hard to truly connect and share your life, but the right person is one who doesn’t mind 3AM phone calls (although I won’t test that theory this morning) or hearing a heartfelt cry or celebrating even small things. In that sense, friendship hasn’t changed all that much, for true friends were always hard to find. It is nice to know you have people who care about you, and you never realize what your life means to them. I wonder if our friends know that?

Our jobs. This is so easy to complain about, and I sense we are all guilty. How well or poorly someone does their job directly affects ours. Someone not doing their fair share probably means more we have to do. Yet, if we truly saw their lives outside of work, I’m sure we would get another story. We rarely get a glimpse into someone else’s story, and we don’t see the obstacles, pain, or failure they have experienced, because rarely do we want any colleagues seeing ours. We wear masks at work and try to be someone we aren’t because we need to impress someone who evaluates or employs. We fail to go the extra mile, to not only do the job well, but also understand each other and try to make the environment the best it can be. Yet the millions who cannot find work, whose families are in shambles because what they were able to provide is gone, is glaring. Many don’t have the education they need, the education others of us take for granted. But I think it is safe to say that most people, despite their many flaws, do the best they can with what they have, even when it doesn’t match up to what we think they should be. We should assume good intentions in that everyone probably means well and do not have the desire to make your life a living hell. I think of students who come and chat with me, a disabled lady who needed help scanning and emailing a document, and a couple who couldn’t make copies because of a paper jam. Because of my job, they were thankful, and I am thankful I have a job in which I could help them.

For blank. You’ll have to fill in that blank yourself. I seem to have run out of steam and there will be no more pondering at this point. Not an exhaustive list at all and I doubt very thought-provoking, either. But at…now 4 AM and beyond, it seems you need to go back to the basics.

Good morning, and thanks.

Addendum to last post…or re-pondering my ponder

After my last post I was reminded of something a friend said, or rather posted on her Facebook page:

Yesterday I was grateful for a community that has developed on social media, as I realize that I have come to care about people I may never meet in person.

Some of that flies in the face of what I had posted last time, yet I could make those same exact comments. I find real friends or connections are truly hard to come by, but not just in the social media world. Real friendships are hard to come by in the physical world as well, or at least in my experience. It is not an issue of knowing  people. I could count hundreds. But who can you truly share life with? Can you be who you are without reservation? How many friendships are just shallow versus the real stuff?

Social media, and mobile technology can inhibit such things, but at the same time can enhance them as well. We have the ability to “stay in touch” far more than we ever could. We can make friendships through online means, and these friendships would have never existed otherwise. Of course we can get “taken for a ride” with online relationships…and nothing like that would happen in real life, right? But this means seemingly meaningless status updates are important because someone is reading them and caring about your life. You can do this in person with friends at work, outside of work, with your family, or whoever, but now you can do it instantly with all of them. Saves a lot of talking.

I got a haircut yesterday at Lou’s barber shop. Here is what I think is one of the true pictures of yesteryear left. We can talk of the mom n’ pops going under, the big box stores buying out the little guys, yet the Lou’s barber shops of the world still survive. I wonder for how long, but maybe they will always be around. His job has changed little over the years, and a haircut is still relatively cheap ($8 although you give him $10). He does have a nice new little flatscreen TV on the counter, which is usually on a John Wayne movie. You can see John Wayne and a lot of other memorabilia from over the years.

On this particular day, Lou told me the building we were in was once an old IGA grocery store. Then he wheeled me around and said “You see that house right there?” pointing next door.
“Yep.”
“That’s where I started the barber shop and then was able to get this spot.”
“When was that?”
“1956.”
“You’ve been cutting hair here that long?”
“Yep.”
“I guess you’ve seen it all right from here.”
“Oh yeah, lots of changes. I’m 86 now.”

I find all of this pretty fascinating. In my mind, the thought of working somewhere, and living somewhere that long a time just doesn’t exist. I’ve already moved and changed jobs more before hitting 40 than he has in a lifetime. I am already a product of mobility. I doubt Lou knows anything about computers. His old cash register is cash only. Not like anyone cares. I doubt he has 500 friends on Facebook, and if I questioned him he probably wouldn’t know what it is. This shop is like stepping back in time. The reality is also that little mom n’ pop barber shops may still exist for old geezers (of whom I may as well add myself) but there probably won’t be another Lou to run a shop for 60 years.

When you leave Lou’s and tell him to take it easy, you re-enter the socially mobile world. It is a much different world than when Lou started that barber shop. But that is inevitable. We could have made that claim decades ago. No matter what, whether in Lou’s heyday or ours, we will always seek out connections, no matter the method or technology. Nothing will ever replace person-to-person contact, but now we can do that in many more ways through video chats, emails, or even online games. We re-define friendships and community, and anyway we can connect we are welcomed to.

One thing Lou wouldn’t know anything about is Foursquare, where you can personally rate the places you are or the businesses you use. Ironically, someone did such for Lou’s barbershop:

“Best haircut in town.”

I would agree.