It must be a terrible thing to have keep telling the world how great you are and to want so badly to achieve what is really impossible. We have much to fear from these people, but in a sense, I think, they are tragic.
The book was a pretty fascinating read on a quack doctor who is probably responsible for country music and whose influenced helped rock music spread (his border blaster radio station definitely nationalized the then regional country music, we have the Carter Family thanks to him, and was eventually replaced by the likes of Wolfman Jack and other border blaster rocks stations). He was definitely a crock but the creativity of his con jobs was quite impressive.
Yesterday I had the oil changed in Fred the minivan for the last time before she reaches 300,000 miles on her odometer (hopefully nowhere near the actual last time). I am super pumped about this because while Pam and I have had several vehicles that have made it over 200,000 miles we have never had a vehicle make it over 300,000. Dollar for dollar Fred the minivan is by far the best vehicle Pam and I have ever owned.
I don’t think I’ll be able to hit 400,000 miles with Fred because the Wisconsin road salt is beginning to eat away at her, but I am really pleased with all the money I have saved from her making it to 300,000.
I know the whole “alpha” concept in animal packs has recently been called into question, but this is a photo of the alpha pet in our house. Helen dominates both our other cat, Oreo (though she is never called by that name – usually Pam calls her “kitty girl” and I call her “stupid cat”), and Clive, the animal who should be our alpha pet because he is awesome.
She doesn’t do it through aggression. She does it through deafness. She bats Oreo around and continues to chase and play with Oreo even though Oreo growls and hisses as much as she possibly can. Oreo does everything she can to convey to Helen that if Helen continues such behavior then Oreo is going to get more aggressive, without actually getting aggressive. Of course, Helen can’t hear all Oreo’s attempts to convey to her how seriously annoying she is getting, so Helen just keeps on playing. Since, Oreo doesn’t actually want to get aggressive, because a fight will inevitably lead to both parties sustaining damage, Oreo eventually just ends up running away from Helen. The small kitten wins.
What’s That You Say?
Helen likes eating with Clive and sleeping in his bed. When Clive starts eating Helen jumps right in there with him and pushes him out of the way a little to get some food. Clive does what any dog would do when another creature starts to steal its food. He growls and barks and tries to convey to Helen “this is dangerous, you don’t want to do this”. Helen is busy eating and can ‘t hear anything so she just keep on eating. When Clive jumps into his bed at night, Helen likes to sleep with him. That’s usually fine with Clive until Helen decides she wants to bite his tail when it moves. Clive growls but it is again to no avail because a noisy threat is meaningless to a creature that is unable to hear it. Clive doesn’t actually want to fight and therefore, Clive just gets out of his bed and leaves it to Helen.
I’m sure some personal improvement coach could write a book of inspiration concerning how much you can accomplish if you just don’t hear the people telling you don’t do that. If you write this book it should be called “the Helen Principle”. All I know is that a 5 pound kitten is ruling our house simply because she can’t hear the threats that are being hurled her way.
Pam bought a small artificial tree a few years ago and declared it our “Snowmas” tree. She decorates it with snow-type ornaments and leaves it up as long as there is snow on the ground. This is Helen’s (AKA Hellion’s) first year with the “Snowmas” tree.
Hellion has been fine with the real tree in our living room, but apparently artificial trees are a different matter. Hellion hasn’t left the tree and even spraying her with water doesn’t deter her. Seriously Pam has sprayed pretty much a whole spray botte of water on Hellion and it hasn’t made a difference. Hellion is soaking wet and still wants to climb the tree.
We have not become a secular society so much as we have become a generically religious one. Undifferentiated spiritual objects, therapies, and programs are widely marketed. Popular religion in America tends to be an amalgam of whatever presents itself. Discerning observers have noted that these new forms of spirituality are typically American; highly individualistic, self-referential, and self-indulgent, they are only feebly related to the history or tradition of any of the great world faiths.
I know the word “ignorance” can be emotionally charged but I want to write about its value, or at least the value of recognizing when and where we are ignorant.
I’m not writing about willful racists or bigoted attitudes, that is not the type of ignorance I am going to discuss. Instead, I want to consider ignorance in the sense of a lack of knowledge on a subject. The etymology of Ignorance is from Old English, “in” (“not”) + gnarus (“aware, acquainted with”). So ignorance is “not to know”.
The smartest people I know talk the most about how little they know. One of the benefits of their knowledge in their field of expertise is that they have some idea of just how little they actually know and how little can currently be known about their field of expertise. They are often slow to speak and make strong statements because they realize how tenuous such statements are. If a subject is really important it is often very difficult to make definite statements concerning the subject. on the other hand, I find that the people who often know the least about a subject are the ones who often speak the most and more easily make the strongest statements concerning the subject.
It’s the novices that seem to talk about how much they know. I believe much of this talk comes from us as novices not having any idea of what we don’t know and what can’t be known, at least at this time, concerning our subjects. This is why we make the most definitive statements when we are novices and why experts often make the most cautious statements. Because one doesn’t know enough to know how little they actually know, and the other knows enough to make a few declarations as possible.
In my case there are various subjects I’m talking about concerning this. I used to “know” so much more about God, the Bible, and people, because I didn’t actually know enough to know how little I knew. I had enough knowledge to puff me up but no where near enough to produce humility concerning what I didn’t know. I was sure I had things figured out. Now I recognize much more mystery because I have a slightly better idea of how little i know.
This doesn’t mean I don’t know anything or change the authority of statements I can make. Actually, if anything it gives my statements greater reliability. When I say something definitively now, there is a greater likelihood that it actually is a definitive statement. Having some idea of my own ignorance is a great thing.
Reading “The Practice of the Presence of God” got me to thinking about other things to practice.
So why did I title this “The Practice of Ignorance”? Well, because I believe our natural tendency, or at least my natural tendency, is to assume we/I know more than we/I do. Some of this is probably because we/I want to look smart in front of other people. Part of this is probably that expressing ignorance on a subject involves vulnerability or can imply weakness and that is something that we/I usually want to avoid. Some of this is probably because we/I often think too highly of what we/I know and don’t realize how much we/I don’t know. I’m sure there are tons of other reasons.
If I am right that it is our natural tendency to assume we we/I know more than we/I do, then we only break the tendency by purposefully practicing breaking that habit. We/I need to practice assuming we know less than we/I think we/I do. That’s how we get better at it, and getting better at assuming we know less than we think we do will make us better learners and wiser people. So this month I am going to practice assuming I know less than I think I do.
I’m going to write about a podcast episode that I really enjoyed from a podcast that I have mixed feelings concerning. The podcast is The Art of Manliness Podcast. It isn’t a podcast that I listen to all the time. I do subscribe to it and if a topic catches my attention then I will listen to that episode. I find that the episodes are rather hit or miss. The misses, in my opinion, are usually because of generalizations between the sexes that are mistakenly taken to be universals. Be it nature or nurture there are some generalized differences between the sexes, but those differences are on large, extremely overlapping continuum. I also believe The Art of Manliness Podcast falls into the whole cult of masculinity thing every now and then, and I’m not a big fan of the cult of masculinity.
I specifically appreciated his discussion concerning face-to-face and side-by-side friendships. Greif’s describes these two friendships in the following manner:
Face-to-Face Friendship – talking & sharing lead to connection
Side-by-Side Friendship – common tasks lead to connection
Greif states that face-to-face is more common for female/female friendships and side-by-side is more common for male/male friendships. This is my experience and understanding of male and female friendship generalizations also. I would add that in my opinion neither paradigm is exclusive to either sex. The problem that he believes exists for the majority of male friendships is that as a society we have co-opted the face-to-face paradigm as the basic definition of friendship. Since for many men the only face-to-face friendship they have is with their spouse they often believe and, therefore, live as though they have no friends. Thus many men are very lonely.
Read this book!
I really enjoyed the podcast and Pam and I have been talking a good bit about face-to-face and side-by-side friendships since I listened to the episode. We mutually pointed out several examples of two paradigm as we were watching “Wonder“.
This is why as a pastor and chaplain I often try to do a task with a guy if I believe he might need to talk about something.
SIDE NOTE – you should read the book “Wonder” or go see the movie if you haven’t done so already.
The Terrell house now rings with the tones of my childhood because yesterday Pam brought home the clock that is jokingly (or scarily depending upon your predilections) known in my mom’s family as the “death clock”. There are now family members that would not enter the den of our home because they wouldn’t want to be in the same room with this clock. To paraphrase Michael Scott from “The Office“, my mom’s family isn’t superstitious, they’re just a little stitious.
My mom can tell the story much better than I of why it is referred to as the “death clock”. I always tend to forget. Basically the clock stopped working when one family member died, and then suddenly started working again when another family member died, and then stopped working again when another family member died. That was enough for most people in the family not to want the clock, so it came to my parents’ house and stayed there in a non-working condition until Pam and I picked it up a few months ago. We took it to a shop and had it fixed and it will sit on our mantle after the Christmas stockings are gone.
It is pretty cool to hear the chimes in the house every quarter hour and the ringing of the bells every hour.
Last night we didn’t have our weekly small group (which Pam and I love – if you don’t regularly meet with a group of friends to talk with concerning faith and life I would highly recommend that you do so. If you want to join us as we finish reading through Brother Lawrence’s book “The Practice of the Presence of God” you would be very welcome) so Pam and I ate chili dogs and watched some mindless TV.
Part of that mindless TV was finishing the last season of How i Met Your Mother. We started watching HIMYM as a family during its last year (2014) because Noah introduced us to the series. While I don’t agree with many of the morals displayed in the show I loved the camaraderie of the gang. As messed up as their relationships usually were (and they were seriously messed up), they loved each other as a group and we loved that. BUT THE SERIES FINALE SUCKED!
Actually it didn’t completely suck. I thought most of the finale was nice. It was the last five minutes that drove me crazy. Before those five minutes it was a wonderful show. I loved it. When Ted ends his story by finally saying “And that kids is how I met your mother” it is a beautiful moment of telling a spouse telling his kids the story of how he and their now deceased mother met and learned to love one another. It was great, but then they had to go and ruin it by turning the whole thing into an attempt to get his kids’ permission to date their “Aunt” Robin. ARGH! Why did you have to go and do that HIMYM?!?!?!?!?!
It has been three years and this is still one of the worst finales ever and I am still mad about it. Not as mad as I was about the Lost finale but still mad.
It must be a terrible thing to have keep telling the world how great you are and to want so badly to achieve what is really impossible. We have much to fear from these people, but in a sense, I think, they are tragic.
