Appetite
I was just thinking that we like to eat things that taste good, even if they aren't good for us. Lots of creamy sauces on our entrees (or burritos or calzones in my recent case), rich chocolate desserts, salty foods. When making decisions, eating what tastes good is easier than if it is good for us. We can always go on a temporary diet if we need to, later, to compensate for eating these tasty things now. Marketers know what we're attracted to, and so make foods that appeal to those desires. This just makes it harder to choose a healthier diet.
Maybe we do this with our entertainment too. We eat what tastes good, until we're more than full, without thinking much about how or if it affects us in the long run. After all, nobody develops diabetes or heart disease after one day of eating rich foods, and again, our entertainment is just so...entertaining. And there's
so much entertainment out there for us to eat.
Maybe we do this with faith too. We like to eat the bits that taste good, pushing the stuff that might be healthier for us to the other side of the plate. Ignoring the peas and the spinach. Can you get fat and out-of-shape eating only the parts of faith that taste good? I wonder what that looks like.
And of course you can substitute "I" for "we" in all of that above. :) I always feel the press of culture as we push together in certain unintentional directions, and I am just another in that throng.
An interview with me!
Jessi sent me a list of 20 questions awhile back. (For those of you who don't read her blog regularly, this has been a running thing for her for the past week or so - interviewing friends.) I answered them, she posted them. Today, her blog entry counts as mine too. Huzzah! Efficiency! Huzzah!
You can read it here.Feedback is appreciated, assuming you still have your brain. (See yesterday's post if you are unclear about whether you still have your brain.)
Also, I have been very hesitant to post this, but I might have a lead on a new job. Select few of you may already know this. It's all still "secret" and very up in the air, which is part of why I haven't said much of anything to anyone. The new job would be a challenge for me, but that's part of why I'm interested: it would give me more of an opportunity to test and flex my leadership tendencies, and it would be interpersonally challenging as well. Difficult, but I would be doing good work, doing something that matters and working with/for people that want to make a difference. Also, I applied for the worship internship position at church with the same expectations, but well before I had a lead on this other job. There's now some stress related to having several difficult/competing jobs. More news coming soon. (Hopefully.)
Every now and then...
...it's good to be reminded that
there are good things in the world.
Today, I really needed this.
Just a Glimpse
http://www.miamiherald.com/467/story/110338.htmlI just found out about this today, after reading it on eve-online.com. This sort of thing makes me both sad and happy. I have experienced this, caring for people who are on the (literal) other side of the globe, but people I've never met face-to-face. It's so strange how the world is changing. For all the naughtiness the internet has brought, there is some real good. What are your thoughts?
Nerds unite.
The wheels are rolling...
...let's hope they're still attached to the car.
I'm feeling the urge to do things again. Specifically to make music that I enjoy again, and to develop Squid Games. And other things. All this comes with a sadness, and I'm not sure why. Maybe it's realism - I'm the only one that make these things change. There's a bit of isolation mixed in too, being a tad disappointed in these ventures. But the larger momentum comes from the passage of time. I'm not horribly content to just work a job my whole life, coming home grumpy and tired and wishing for something else.
This is my ideal work life: Squid Games takes off, and I sell a few songs here and there, or a few records of my own material. I work out of the Squid Games offices, or my home, keeping my own schedule so that I can take care of our kids and not send them to daycare. I collect a little money on the side from songs, but Squid Games is the bulk of my income, and it's enough to "subsidize" Sarah's dog training business in this low-income area so she doesn't have to work a bunch of part-time jobs. My creative energies are spent making games and developing the company, which is a small boon to our poverty-stricken county. I am able to support my family, repair my home as needed, and still be generous with my money.
What kind of "cool" are you?
For serious, almost anyone out there is trying to be some kind of cool. Yep, even you. Think about your clothes, your hairstyle, your attitudes. Or think about the kind of clothes you
wish you had. Think about the kind of people that grab your attention. These are likely not your official role models, but they're the people you find yourself gravitating towards, or the image you desire to represent.
I wish I was an indie rocker. Decidedly independent, captivatingly eccentric, the extroverted introvert. The kind of cool that embodies cool by rejecting it so fully and embracing it so fully. These guys don't worry about paying the bills, because art is more important and bills are meaningless.
Care to confess your cool?
and ALSO
When the hell did Monsterbeard (who has no beard to speak of) start posting like a fiend again?! Christoph, I miss you too, my good friend. Time to refresh your RIP link over there.
So, Irony and Cynicism walk into a bar...
My boss was slated to attend a program with me next week with several other staff people. It's an all day event, intended
exclusively to gobble unspent units in my grant before the end of the fiscal year, and it was her idea. (...and arguably her fault that it was necessary to gobble the units to begin with.) I learned today at staff meeting that she won't be able to attend the program.
[wait for it]
[not quite yet]
Because she'll be out of town receiving a Prevention Specialist Rookie of the Year Award from the new ODADAS director that day instead. Are you remembering how many people quit directly related to this woman? Well, we've been averaging one a week for the past month, two each month for the past three months.
We've lost 23 people in slightly over 2 years. Our staff, at max, was 20 people.
[Patrick sighs and chuckles quietly to himself]
Standing at the Gate to Middleageland
I'm sure this topic will come up again in the coming months. Consider this is a first installment. See, I'm going to turn 30 years of age in July, and of course there are plenty of thoughts and feelings that come with it. Today I'll be writing about one of the somewhat unexpected physical changes as a result of my aging: ye olde receding hairline.
Now, for any of you reading this who have a good bit of hair loss, I'm not here to complain or compare or even mourn the loss of the line. I recognize my loss at this point isn't even that bad. So please don't get sassy. For some people this is a sensitive subject, and I understand a measure of that. My point is really just: it's happening, and it's undeniable. In some ways, I like it. Not nearly as much as I would have liked to be prematurely gray or to have a "skunk spot", but I can hardly control that. If there's something that I complain about (and Sarah can vouch that I do complain about this) it's that it itches, which reminds me that it's receding, which makes me talk about it. (Verbal processing for the win!) And maybe I'm just not very observant, but it seems like most of this has happened within the last 6 months. Maybe an inch of loss at each corner? Granted, I've always had a rather tall forehead (as my kindergarten picture will affirm), it's just getting a smidge taller. And the longish hair makes it less obvious as well.
And all of this is just to say that I am undeniably entering into a new phase of life. The middle phase. Most of my friends my age have babies. My lack of career direction is a larger issue than it ever has been, largely because of this sense that time marches on...and maybe I'm flagging just a little. But I do like living life, being here, getting older, experiencing new things. Expecting. I'm looking forward to being an old man, and this is certainly a milestone on that long road.
I find my natural responses bumping shoulders sometimes. The one side that denies time and revels in youthfulness and impulsiveness. The other side that seeks the wisdom, maturity, and authority of adulthood. Consider this a chart of how a male might see himself over the years:
Baby -> Boy -> Kid -> Guy -> Man (-> Old Man?)
It's not good to linger longer than you should in one stage, much like it isn't healthy to skip a step. (And if you did skip a step, you should recognize it and allow yourself to be and do that step retroactively for awhile.) For me it is time to slowly move further from "Guy" to "Man." Which is odd for me to consider. And I still wish my hairline would stop itching.
