The King's Stilts

The late, great Theodore Geisel (nom de plume: Dr. Seuss) wrote many excellent stories. This is not news. Many of them are allegorical, or at the very least, metaphorical. One of his lesser-known books serves me as an example of how I like to run my work life, as well as my leisure life. That book is The King's Stilts.

In this book, the King has a great work ethic. He gets up early, starts working, and "When he worked, he worked very, very hard." And he works very, very hard, all day, every day -- until quitting time.

At quitting time, he stops working, and he plays. And "When he played, he played very, very hard." And what does he play with? The King's Stilts, of course.

I think I need to build a motivational speech out of the many lessons this book can teach. In our culture, there seems to be an unwritten rule that, to be truly successful, you must devote yourself to your job and forsake fun -- or even outside responsibilities.

I think that some people can be that single-minded. But most of us need balance. And part of that balance is finding our "stilts" and playing with them regularly.

Like any good story, The King's Stilts has conflict. It centers around what happens when the King is convinced to give up his stilts. I will not spoil it for those who have not read the story, but beleive me, a King without his Stilts is not as good at his job.

I have several diversions, each of which provides me with something I need to be well-rounded and productive. I have games, like Magic, which challenges my mind. I have running, which keeps me fit, and gives me time to appreciate the outdoors. I have my DVD habit, which allows me to escape into someone else's imagination, while sharing time and experience with my family. I have fantasy football, which allows me to participate in a game I've always liked, but in a more strategic way -- and it's a common experience for my father and brother and myself. There are more, but the point is the same -- each of the activities refreshes me and builds me up so that I can go back to my job and work very, very hard.

What are your "stilts"? Do you view them as guilty pleasures? Or are they an acknowledged, welcomed part of your life?

In my view, they are blessings. Count them. Appreciate them. Enjoy them, Very, very hard.

A Good Night's ...
Tossing and turning. And ideas.

See, last night was strange. I had just finished five days away from work. This meant five days of sleeping in longer than normal. So, of course, I wasn't going to feel tired at the "normal" time of 11:45 or so.

I lay awake thinking a few things, and I need to get the basics down. Hence, this blog entry. Or, to be more precise, the series of them. I will put each idea in its own entry -- if I can separate them -- you know how ideas in the middle of the night are -- sometimes they wrap around each other, like long pieces of string stored in a drawer for years.

My "Column"
For your information ---

I started a second "blog" with the intent to publish something worthwhile at least once a week. That would leave this blog as a "chatty" blog.

The "Column" blog is right here and could be something of mine, or a pointer to something I find worth reading.

Enjoy.

Long weekend

The Labor Day weekend is here. Our managers have given us two extra days -- adding Friday and Tuesday as days off -- to thank us for the work we did to make several product deliveries possible this week. This sort of generosity is rare -- I cannot recall another time when a manager at that level has given so many people so much time off. Consequently, I will take it gladly.

For me, the best thing a manager can give me as a recognition reward is time off. Oh, I appreciate money. And awards can be nice, for the extra acknowledgment you receive from colleagues. But in the end, I'm trading my time for money. And if the job gives me some of that time back, it's precious to me. Whether I spend it with family and friends, or just doing my own thing (reading a story, getting the oil changed, sleeping in (!), playing a little Magic), it's a little sweeter knowing that I would have been working.

Need a Good Cry? I Certainly Did.

This week, I listened to a song, and it brought tears to my eyes.  I was not surprised.  I am almost always brought to tears listening to "Hope for Resolution" ⁽¹⁾  from the album "Christmas at Luther". ⁽²⁾  What I did not expect was how much better the tears made me feel. 

I have had a stressful week.  This is the sort of stress which causes one to get grouchy, say things one later regrets and then agonizes over, causing stress to heap upon itself.  Once I started looking at why crying was making me feel better, I realized that I had not yet internalized the remorse I wanted to feel about the way I had treated others.  I had also not given myself permission to feel bad about how I had been mistreated, and about the unfairness of life in the corporate world.  And so, when I heard this piece of music, and the tears welled up, as they typically do, those little droplets did double or triple duty.  They expressed my feelings about the music, but they washed the stress of unrealized sorrow away, as well.

This experience was an epiphany of sorts.  I realized that a good cry, or at least a few well timed tears, could help me deal with stress.  And I need as many stress reduction tools as I can get.  We all do, don't we?

Now, I am not the typical old fashioned male who thinks "Men don't (or shouldn't) cry."  I have cried on occasion.  My life is pretty good, so I don't have many reasons to cry -- at least not with tears of sorrow.  And, truth be told, things do not affect me emotionally as much as they affect others.  So, I have not experienced the cathartic nature of tears as often as some people have.  As I thought about the "Hope for Resolution" experience, then, I said to myself  "Perhaps this 'discovery' was more personal than I first realized."

You see, what seemed strange was that the "Hope for Resolution" tears were not really tears of sorrow, yet they clearly helped me deal with sadness.  "Hope for Resolution" is the final piece which was done in the Yuletide program, an annual Christmas concert at Luther featuring all of its classical music ensembles, in 2002.  That year, my oldest son, Adam, was a member of one of the choirs.  Now, the piece of music itself is powerful and moving; perhaps on its own, it might bring some people to tears.  For me, the musical beauty mixed with pride, nostalgia and love to create a powerful memory.  I was so proud to see Adam standing up in the choir loft, clothed in his tux, smiling and singing.  I felt nostalgic for my days in Luther choirs, and for the days when Adam was just a boy, not a young man.  And, of course, the love I feel for Luther College is quite strong, but small compared to the love I feel for Adam, and for the three children I have yet to send there. 

I associated tears with grief, or remorse, but here I was crying with joy and love.  Yet the "good feeling" tears helped wash away the stress of the "bad feelings" which were weighing me down.  I resolved to make a conscious effort to discover, and treasure, experiences like this.

And so, today, I am thankful.  Thankful for the piece of music, for the men and women who performed it, for the people and God who inspired it, and especially for Adam and my children, who added so much to its meaning for my life.


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⁽¹⁾ The piece "Hope for Resolution" was composed by Sean Ivory and Paul Caldwell.  It has a moving history, which can be found many places on the web.  Here is one of those places.
⁽²⁾ This album can be purchased from DJ Records, which has a collection of Luther College Choir music.

The Time of My Life - Perspective #1
Mood:  sharp
Topic: Time
Time.

"Now" is the only time. But it's already gone.

I have often thought about time. And when I typed the title "The Time of My Life" I realized I would have to differentiate this set of thoughts from others. (I also realized I can't think of that phrase without thinking of "Dirty Dancing" but that's a topic for another time.)

We humans seem to have trouble with this particular aspect of time: we only have a limited supply of it, and once any part of it is gone, it is irretrievable. It is past, in two senses of the word.

So when we spend our time doing anything -- and I mean anything -- have we given any thought to what we will wish we had done with that time, once our time grows short?

Right at this moment, when I am writing this, I am deciding not to do other things. Will I wish, tomorrow or next week or next year or when I'm 64, wish I had done something else with the time it took to write this?

Let's quantify it monetarily. In the time it takes to write this blog, I could go out to a brokerage site and buy 100 shares of some stock. A year from now, that stock will have done something. Because I spent time writing this, I did not get the gain, or take the loss, from that stock.

I have 400 pages of stories to read in "The Year's Best Science Fiction: 2003." I could pick up "Frankenstein" instead and try to get through it. Or I could go back to read "The Stand" again, which has been tempting since I saw the mini-series again recently. But I can't do all three at the same time. And once I've done any of them, will I wish I had been outside enjoying the natural world, or pushing myself to get in shape, or talking to my children -- will I wish any of these things when I'm 64? (Yes, another song.)

Oh, sure, I could talk about "consequences" -- because "How" I spend my time certainly relates to the consequences of that "How." But the existential consequence is that I did not spend the time doing something else.

"Carpe Diem" is not just a motivational tool. It is an exhortation to realize that a mortal only has Now. Make a conscious choice to use your time, because you only get one chance. It isn't "gusto" you have to grab, necessarily. But there is something out there to be seized today. Take a moment. Think about what that "something" is, for you. Then Seize it!

The nature of blogging
I still don't "get" blogging.

The first "blog" I ever knew about was June Melby's (see the link on this blog page to her web page). She's basically a performance artist. OK, so she's a poet. And a singer. But really, listen to her stuff and she's a performance artist.

So, before I ever heard the word "blog" I knew of a blog. And so, for me, blogging was about performance art.

Then I saw that my son was doing it. Apparently, he and his friends use these near-daily updates to amuse themselves and each other, but they also use them to get to know each other -- I suppose in the same way we used to do the same through late-night conversations in the park, or at Happy Joe's, or at Mike's house. So, blogging was expanded, in my mind, to include bonding between friends.

So, either of these definitions were easily grokked. I still didn't quite know if a blog made sense for me. I'm not a performance artist, and I think my friends and I interact through other media to share ourselves with each other. Still, the blog seemed a perfect way to be honest and express personal ideas.

But now there are blogs for CEOs and politicians. Do you think any of these folks actually write their own blog entries? And do you think they are "honest" and "personal" -- or just more advertisements and spin and propoganda?

A recent news report (in a computer-industry publication) made mention of blog entries by a particular CEO. Clearly, he's using his blog to influence the industry. To be fair, for a CEO, his company is is life, so he really is sharing his "personal" thoughts -- but it's not the same thing.

Which brings me back to blogging for ME. Does it make sense?

Today's blog entry is being written because I had a meeting scheduled, and the person who was supposed to show up is standing me up -- again. I had a feeling it would happen, so I started the blog entry knowing I might get interrupted. Why? Because it's hard to find time to write something cogent every day.

I used to think -- "I wish I had a column in a newspaper. There are so many things I'd like to say." But really, are there? And if there are, does anyone care? And if they do, will they find it if I put it here?

Besides, I'm not such an open person that I will share my unfiltered feelings about all aspects of my life. And if I filter, if I compose, if I self-censor -- am I any better than that CEO?

I will keep thinking about this. Navel-gazing, I think.

160 Gigabytes
Toys. I love toys.

I just got my new 160 GB Seagate hard drive installed. It came with a slick set-up routine which let me easily partition it. I'll reserve 40 GB for my business, and then the rest can store all these cool digital pictures and movies from my cool new Kodak digital camera.

We always find things to eat up our time, don't we?

But, contrary to popular phraseology, it's not 'wasting' time unless you get no fulfillment from it.

Returning
Well, vacation has come and gone, and now it's time to return to a routine.

By now, anyone who was visiting this blog in hopes of seeing something new every day has left, never to return.

But now, I have so many things to talk about. But will I take the time to do it? Some things on my mind, of late:

• Politics: Sorry -- bored of it. I know I'm voting for Kerry. There is nothing "W" can do or say to change my mind. Still, he is likely to say enough divisive things between now and the election that I will have to comment. But not today.
• Gay Marriage: Actually, the topic I'd rather cover is the focus on homosexuality within the church. Lately I've been formulating a rather lengthy essay in my head. I need to organize it. We Bible-believers are being sold a bunch of skewed half-truths, and I would like to get some of them put on ethereal paper, for my own sense of well being.
• The problem is, it will get to be book length. Because, really, the topic of the set of essays is the modern Evangelical focus on division, rather than union. Gay Marriage is just the convenient leaping-off point. Though the Roman Catholic Church has added another example, in their recent decision to ask pro-choice Catholics to exclude themselves from Holy Communion.
• Choices: I can't figure out why some people don't get this: your satisfaction with life relates directly to the choices you make. Some people need a clear explanation of that. It might be pop psychology, but it's a message many people need to hear, in this age of misplaced accountability.
• Transitions: When your children become adults, there are so many transitions to consider.

Perhaps I can manage these in small chunks.

And yet, I still wonder -- is there a real purpose to it?

Entertainment - they got it right
Finally, I have seen Spiderman 2.

And, just in case there is someone reading this who does not want some of it spoiled, here is the link to my review with spoilers.

Anyway, a very enjoyable night at the movies. I attended with Sherry, and with Don. Don and I came to an arrangement that we needed to see it together since it had been out for almost a month and we had not seen it yet. We both needed a specific appointment to make ourselves get out of our house and into the movie. All of us are glad we did.

(So, there, a non-political, non-whining blog entry. I knew I could do it eventually!)