A Look at Criticism

Hi guys, this time I'll be writing about something I'd like to think I'm good at: critiquing things. Throughout my relatively short tenure on this earth, I've been called a complainer, whiner, nagger, elitist and belly acher. I like to re-frame all these pejorative terms into one concise label- I'm a critic.

I've heard many people spout phrases like "Those who don't act, criticize", "critics have no talent", and other fun syllogisms demeaning criticism. Yet I feel criticism is necessary in everything- art, film, politics, religion, science- all these fields require discerning eyes to point out faults, but also praise to praise merits. In this post, I'll only be focusing on one type of criticism- art. When I say art, I mean things like film, books, television, music, paintings, etc. I could just call these things "media", but that seems so cold and detached. I would discuss other sorts of criticism, but that would require me writing a 32 page paper, and let's face it, you're not going to read a 32 page paper some guy published on his blogspot website.

Most people think of art critics as needlessly snarky people that can't enjoy anything, and I would respond to them, "That's right, sometimes".  Critics often get a bad reputation, as they point out the flaws in a work and demean them. Articles that critics write completely bashing something often get a lot of attention. Who among us doesn't love to read someone's scathing, biting review of Garfield?(the movie, not the comic strip- though I'm sure there's a blog out there where some guy reviews every comic strip of Garfield.). It's fun for us to see a work ripped to shreds, chewed up, and spit out. We get a great sense of schadenfreude from observing this.

It's always been a secret aspiration of mine to become a movie critic, ever since I was a child. I still have fond memories of tuning into Siskel and Ebert as a kid and watching them argue and discuss the merits of particular films. It really instilled a sense of watching movies with your brain "turned on" at an early age. I've heard many people say "I go to see movies so I don't have to think", and this irritates me to no end. I feel that works need to be discussed and processed within your mind and with others. Even if a work's intent is pure entertainment, such as a martial art film, it's worth talking about.

Sadly, what I took away from criticism during my teenage years was a delight in watching a piece of work torn apart. It's easy to emphasize the negative. How many of us find it simpler to complain than to reflect on the good in their life? Humans tend to find negative stories more interesting- just read the news on any given day of the week. How many of us would rather hear a story from our coworker about how she broke up with her boyfriend than a story about how everything in their relationship is fine? We just naturally find bad stuff interesting. This mean-spiritedness is evident on my early posts on this blog, as I dedicated whole blog posts to tearing down summer movie offerings. While I enjoy ranting about how I hated a film, I realized in recent years that I need to work on writing about things I actually enjoyed.

I believe that a critic with true talent is able to sift through all of the trash and find the gems that others might miss, and point out a work's merits. Critics are often complained about by artists as not having any talent since they didn't create a said work to begin with, but a good critic is able to mine details and meaning out of a work that's not visible to everybody.

There have been times where I've watched a movie or television show and took it purely at face value, and didn't think much about it. Then, in a discussion with a friend or reading a review, I discover that someone else found a deeper meaning in the work that I didn't even think to observe. I then begin to see the work in a completely new light. This is the joy of criticism- you help others to discover things about something that wasn't apparent, and help them to gain a deeper appreciation for something.

I've been mentioning movies a lot in this post, so let's keep using them as examples. Thousands of movies come out per year, and many of them go overlooked due to the louder sound that "mainstream" movies make. It's the task of a critic to seek out these lesser known films, watch them, and praise their merits so the general public can watch them. Do we really need 100 critics dedicating their time to the third installment of "Alvin and the Chipmunks?". While these scathing reviews are fun to read, critics need to be watching a great foreign film, a unique piece of sci-fi, or a documentary that was released the same week and encouraging readers to see it.

Don't be lazy when consuming media, find people to discuss it with. Whenever I finish watching or reading something, the first thing I do is search for topics on the work on Reddit so I can discuss it with other people.   Share your voice, there may be others that could benefit from your insights, and you could introduce somebody to a piece of art that could really change the way they look at the world.

A final disclaimer: don't let critics dissuade you from watching or reading something that you really want to see. Sometimes,  It often becomes popular to gang up on a work and bash it in a vicious cycle of mutual hate, but you may end up enjoying the work. In the end, you like what you like, and you don't have to feel angry if other people don't like something that you like. Criticism is by it's nature incredibly subjective, and that's what makes it so fun.

Listening to Music Intentionally

Music: Let’s talk about it. You know what music is: that strange combination of sounds that comes out of your car on the way to work, that background noise you play while you write papers or enter data. It’s that stuff that seems to come out of the empty, eerily high ceilings at the supermarket. Or maybe it’s that barely audible pattern that plays while you’re on hold trying to fix a problem with your cell phone contract.

Let’s forgive that last paragraph of attempted pithiness for this post. This week, we’re going to be talking about listening to music, specifically, how to listen to music. You may be telling yourself that you should not have to be told how to listen to music, but I’m here to say that you need to. In today’s society, where we’re blasted with music at gas stations, through television commercials and before Youtube videos, it’s become difficult to really appreciate a song or piece. I’m going to tell you how you should be listening to music. Before we begin, I should say that I do not know how to play a musical instrument or read music. I can’t tell you what a time signature is, I vaguely know about chord progression, and I’ll admit that I’d have to Google what a stanza is. What I do have is close to 21 years of hearing music on a regular basis and learning to appreciate it, so those will have to be credentials enough for now.

If you’re like me, music often becomes the background of your daily activities. Everyone listens to music in their car, whether it is through the Great Satan that is the radio, or by plugging our Ipods, smart phones, what have you into our car’s stereo. If you’re also like me, you need music while you work. It’s been shown that my generation is uncomfortable without music or sound while working- we need constant stimulation as a result of our media-addled mind.  While we’re listening to this music, we sometimes forget that songs have little conventions called lyrics. You know, lyrics- those things that people are singing to the pretty sounds coming out of your stereo? How many of us ever stop and listen to them?

As a teenager, one of my favorite things to do was to buy a new CD, pop it in, and lay on the floor and read the lyrics in the little CD booklet as the songs played. For people older than me (or hipsters), you may have enjoyed or still enjoy putting on a record and reading the lyrics in those awesome liner notes. This is an immensely enriching experience that helps you fully understand the music you’re listening to, and when you listen to the songs in the future, you’ll remember what the songs are actually about. But doesn’t knowing the exact lyrics of a song cheapen the song’s magic?

A few months ago, as I was browsing Reddit, I came across a comment someone made saying that the mark of good songwriting is when the lyrics can be interpreted in different ways and listeners can get different things out of a song that may relate to circumstances and events in their life. Knowing the full lyrics of a song helps you tap into this magic- the lyrics of the Smashing Pumpkins “Bullet with Butterfly Wings” (don’t ask why I’m using this as an example, it was the first thing to come to mind) will mean something different to you at 15 than at 30. At 15, you may consider yourself a rat in a cage due to being forced to bow down to the demands of your parents and teachers. At 30, you may consider yourself a rat in a cage as you look upon the forces in the world that are larger than yourself, and, despite all your rage, you realize you are quite powerless to stop them.

There are albums with endlessly rich lyrics that I first neglected because I was playing the album as “background noise” that I’m only now revisiting. For example, I’ve been quite enthralled lately with The Decemberist’s 2009 album “The Hazards of Love”. I played the album once or twice in 2009 and wrote it off as bizarre, and it sat on various hard drives for 3 years without being listened to. I recently decided to give it a good, honest, intentional listen and I’m sure glad I did. It’s an indie rock opera set in an 1800s European fantasy setting about a pair of lovers trying to avoid the schemes of two evil villains. There are moments on that album of humor, passionate love that will make you misty eyed, and over the top anthems from the villains- it really must be heard to be believed. The thing was, I missed out on all this richness the first time because I played the album at low volume while surfing my Facebook.

Well what about “instrumental music”? I hold that you need to give this music your full, undivided attention as well. I know that it sounds pretentious, but I challenge you lay back sometime and put a full classical piece on and really absorb it. One of my personal favorites is Antonin Dvorak’s “New World Symphony”. If you listen to the entire thing, you’re treated to quiet movements reminiscent of early morning in a tiny village to truly epic moments that remind you of world leaders clashing on a battlefield of thousands. You don’t get a lot of this subtext if you just sit and play the music while you microwave your Lean Cuisine at work.

The other thing about sitting and intentionally listening to music is that the album “clicks” quicker. All of us have been through the disappointing experience of listening to the latest album from our favorite band for the first time and hating it. When you’re just listening to the album in the background, you may miss out on some clever lyric that just makes sense to you, or a change in the mood of the piece that may move you to tears. I’ve found that if I lay back and read the lyrics with a piece of music the first time I listen to it, the music really shines. Subsequent listens only build upon my love for the piece, and eventually I get into that indescribable joy of being addicted to an album or band and having a love affair with it for weeks. That album then becomes the soundtrack for a short period of your life, and when you look back in 20 years at major milestones in your past, that music is an essential part of who you were, who you are and what you’ve become. It’s really a beautiful and profound thing that science can explain, but can’t fully capture.

It’s so easy to throw on the latest pop songs while we do whatever and only mildly pay attention to them. Pop music is scientifically designed to stick in your brain as quick as possible so you keep revisiting it, and if it’s “poppy” enough, the music is able to overpower whatever else it is we’re doing and lodge in our minds. However, I think it’s sad that we take music for granted at times- it’s this thing beyond description that is amazing in the truest sense of the word. Myself, being a Christian, marvel that God created humans with the ability to come up with something so heavenly. The nonreligious among you may find it awe inspiring that humans were able to create these patterns of sound that evoke all ranges of emotion as well. Regardless of your religious preference, I think we can agree that good music demands our full attention.

Now I’m not going to be the ultimate snob and say that you should never listen to music in the background while you’re doing other things, I play music every day while working and would be a massive hypocrite if I told you to do so. Listening to music while running, for instance, has been shown by scientists to increase intelligence and motivate you to continue running longer. I personally enjoy playing intense, epic, high tempo music while running, and nothing compares to being dog tired toward the end of the run and sprinting at the final stretch because a hot blooded, over-the-top part of a song comes on.

I just encourage you to sit and listen to a piece of music once in a while and only listen to that music. You will gain a new appreciation of what you’re hearing, and it will affect you in a positive way that you’ll look back on as you move through the great checkpoints of life.

I Hate the Radio.

Good evening everybody. It's been too long and all that. I come to you tonight to write about something of grave importance to us all. It's a matter that is to be taken very seriously so I'll need your full undivided attention. You may even want to take a seat, because the news may be difficult.

I. Hate. The. Radio.

To be quite honest, I'd like to use a few expletives in the previous statement as descriptives to show much I hate the radio, but I'll forgo that in the interest of public taste. In the mean time, just imagine the previous statement laced with horrible words of your choosing.

You know the feeling you got as a kid when you were rough housing with your sibling and he accidentally hit you in the nose and you became filled with rage? That's the feeling I get whenever I hear a Top 40 station, except it's that feeling for 8 hours on end.

I suppose a narrative may be necessary to provide the kind reader with some background here. I currently work in an office with 6 other women (my wife included), myself being the only male. These women all insist on listening to the same radio stations without fail everyday: Power 96.5, which is a Top 40 station that is repetitive even by Top 40 standards, and Alice 95.5, which claims to play "90's, 2K, and Today!". What this really means is that the station plays all the same songs as Power 96.5, but will play "Kiss Me" by Sixpence None the Richer or "How to Save a Life" by the Fray once in a while.

 On a tangential note, "How to Save a Life" may be in my top 10 most hated songs of all time. I blame this mostly on a guy that lived in the dorm above me my freshman year that would play it on repeat in the morning, afternoon, night, and when I was trying to put my beaten soul to sleep. Seriously, if I'm ever detained at Guantanamo Bay, they will play this song on repeat to torture me, and I'm sad to say I'll break.

These stations each play the same 10 songs over, and over, and over, throughout the 8 hours I am there. My coworkers continue to work on happily as if they are not in the auditory prison that I am-how can they function as this madness is playing? How many times can I hear Adam Levine say "I'm at a payphone, trying to call home all of my change I spent on you!" in his horrible harpy voice? Or Taylor Swift tell me 1700 times about how we are never, ever, ever getting back together? Not to mention Taio Cruz telling me that sometimes he likes to throw his hands up in the air, and says aaaaio gotta let go. Don't even get me started on Adele- she's a fantastic artist, but if I ever hear "Rolling in the Deep" again I will have a mental breakdown. Bonus round: What the heck does Fun mean when they say "My seat's been taken by some sunglasses, talkin' bout a scar" in "We Are Young"? You see what I mean people? I've heard these songs so many times I'm starting to analyze individual lyrics. Meanwhile, beads of sweat are forming all over my body, a visible vain appears in my forehead, and my eyes widen as I am reduced to a state of primal fury after being antagonized by the same songs all day. It will only take me hearing "Girl, look at that body" for the beast within to break free and turn my office into a pile of shredded office furniture.

Sometimes, my coworkers allow me to change the radio station. "Fine" I think, "Anything is better than this drivel". Springfield doesn't have the best variety of radio stations, so I decide on one of the two classic rock stations in town. It's the case of out of the frying pan into fire- I am treated to AC/DC's "You Shook Me All Night Long", Led Zeppelin's "Rock and Roll" and Billy Idol's "Rebel Yell", and again, these are played on constant cycles throughout the day. I want to drive over to the radio station, launch my car through the wall in an over the top fashion and fly out of my vehicle, shouting "YOU HAVE 40 YEARS OF EXCELLENT MUSIC TO CHOOSE FROM! WHY DO YOU KEEP PLAYING THE SAME TEN SONGS?" I then want to wrench the DJ's out of their chairs and play David Bowie's "The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and The Spiders from Mars" in its entirety, some lesser known Queen Hits, or other songs from Pink Floyd instead of "Comfortably Numb", "Wish You Were Here" and "Another Brick in the Wall". Don't get me wrong people, these are wonderful songs, but familiarity breeds contempt, and that contempt has been born, gone through puberty and is now an adult. An adult that I hate.

If you can believe it, sometimes I switch to country radio, as my coworkers tend to like it. I dislike country music, but most of the country music stations in Springfield are locally owned and operated, and thus don't play the same songs over and over. It's also fun to hear the local element- there are reports on the price of cattle, advertisements for feed auctions, and farmers discussing drought conditions. I can respect this.

This brings me to my next point. As some of you may know, most of the radio stations in this country are operated by an evil corporation called Clear Channel. In the late 90's, Clear Channel came to power because Bill Clinton signed an act deregulating the airwaves from corporate takeovers.The result was that big business won and ate everything. Clear Channel's approach to radio is to do market research to find the most popular songs possible in every genre of radio station, and keep pumping in these songs incessantly. Most live DJs have been eliminated as they are deemed to expensive, and much of the playlist you hear is the result of a computer picking tracks based on algorithms of what's popular. The result is that radio stations all across the country are indistinguishable from one another, and many of the independently run radio stations have been bought out or closed down as they cannot compete. The few independent radio stations that are left use the same format as Clear Channel as this is what hooks listeners.

People today also listen to the radio differently than they did years ago. Most people just listen to the radio in the car. Radio stations know this, so they repeat songs so often because they have found that most people want to hear songs they know when they turn on their car radio as they drive over to pick up some diapers for their whining child.

Also, radio today is not targeted at people in my demographic anymore. I am a male in between the ages of 18-34, and research has shown that people in this demographic don't listen to the radio. They have found that males tend to be early adopters of technology, and are using things like Spotify, Pandora, Sirius, or plugging their Ipod into their car and listening to their own music. Thus, all of the terrible Matchbox 20 songs, Usher, and Black Eyed Peas tunes play constantly because women like this kind of music, and women are the people that are listening to the radio. NOT ME. So if you're a woman, thank you for bringing this blight upon mankind.

Part of the problem could be me. I am either blessed or cursed with a very good memory, so every lyric of every song I hear is instantly recorded into my brain. The lyrics are then stuck in my head, bouncing around like some sort of tiny demon. At times, I want to re-instate the practice of trepanning, the defunct Middle-Age science of drilling into the brains of mentally ill people. Maybe drilling a hole into my head will allow these abominable sounds to escape. In the best case, the songs will escape my head and I'll never hear them again. In the other best case, I'll die and never have to hear these songs again.

There is one ray of light in this sea of darkness for me: NPR. As soon as my fellow employees leave, I flip the dial over to that station and get to listen to their excellent news stories, interviews with scientists and policy makers, and on Friday nights, I get to discover new, eclectic music. This is how radio should be done, and I am earnestly considering supporting NPR as they provide a service I use regularly. NPR really improves my life- it introduces me to new ideas, and I feel like I learned something, even if I listen to it for five minutes. If you don't listen to NPR, I encourage you to check it out.

Throughout this whole thing, you may be asking, "Why don't you just listen to Pandora at work?". The answer is that my job blocks any online radio players, and there is no sound on our computers, so I am forced to listen to the radio.

Thus ends my rant! Let me know what you think of the current state of radio. I realize my criticisms are nothing new, but I've felt this way for a long time and had to get it out!

Thoughts on Breaking Bad

Breaking Bad is the greatest television show ever made. "This is the greatest x ever made" is a compliment that is abused these days, but I feel that Breaking Bad is the only contender that truly deserves the title.

For the past couple of years, I have been totally opposed to American T.V. drama. I blame this on a cocktail of watching Smallville, Lost, and Heroes from 2004-2006. I watched as these series dealt with endless monster of the week scenarios, introduced arbitrary mysteries to artifically advance the plot, suffered from unnaturaral character writing, and generally overstayed their welcome on television. Take Smallville for exmample: The show went on for ten seasons- that's ten years or more. If you've watched the show, you know that it's easy, mind-numbing television that doesn't have compelling dialogue. How it lasted ten years on television is beyond me, even as a fan of superheroes.

Television at it's finest.

The length of American television dramas is my major problem with them. Many of the times it seems that as long as there is a steady viewer base, more seasons keep getting made until all ideas are lost, the main characters have left the show for other pursuits and the few who remain are lifeless husks of their former selves. I've seen very few television programs aim to present, tight, pre-planned narratives.

I grew tired of spending hours and hours of my life to watch my favorite shows deteriorate. So in 2006, I declared I was done indefinitely with television dramas. I had been burned too many times, and there were plenty of movies, books and anime with satisfying conclusions to occupy my time with.

Breaking Bad turned my ideas on their heads.

Once again, for the rock dwellers out there, Breaking Bad is a television show on AMC that has aired since 2008. The basic premise of the show is that Walter White, a chemistry teacher, gets life threatening cancer and decides to create and sell meth with a former student of his, Jesse, in order to obtain enough money to support his family after he dies. Now that idea may seem silly- when I heard about the show when it first aired, I sure thought it was. Plus the main character is the same guy that plays the dad from Malcolm in the Middle. I don't know about you, but whenever I think of Malcolm in the Middle, I think of the episode where the dad was crushing things with a steam roller to release stress or something like that. How could Hal be trusted in a serious role?

So, a few weeks ago, on a cold January night, my wife and I found ourselves doing what many modern people do- lethargically browsing through our Netflix queue. We both weren't in the mood for a full length movie, but didn't want to watch anything vapid. I saw that Breaking Bad had been added. I have plenty of friends that were big fans of the show, and finally thought I'd give it a try. "Let's watch this, Loree" I said. "It's about making meth? That sounds ridiculous" she said, but she humored me anyway.

Well it wasn't ridiculous. We suddenly found ourselves violently thrown into the sad and chaotic world of Walter White, and before we'd known it, we had blasted through four episodes in a sitting.

Walter doesn't just make meth- he's slowly pulled into the world. The show doesn't glorify the drug trade, rather it shines a light it's horrors. The creator, director, and writer of the show, Vince Gilligan, stated that his goal with the show was to transform a kindhearted, mild mannered character into an absolute monster. His words were "I want to see Walter go from Mr. Chips to Scarface". The narrative and writing on the show is top-notch. Gilligan has set the show to run no more than five seasons, as he has a set story he wants to tell. I have never watched an episode that dragged or felt like filler. Every second on the show is filled with purpose.

Don't think that Gilligan does this in a contrived way. Breaking Bad is character study at it's finest-the main characters, Walter and Jesse, have changed so much by the end of the fourth season. Walter and Jesse's change doesn't happen rapidly, it's fluid, organic and totally believable.

Bare with me as I analyze a few of the show's  characters. I'm convinced that whole academic papers could be written on Walter and Jesse. Walter is a man trapped by society and obligation. Early on in the series, he gives a monologue that had me rapt in attention. Walter is forced to take part in an "intervention" from his family, where they confront him to get treatment for his cancer. Walter does not want to get the treatment because of his pride and because he does not want to take money from a wealthy couple that has offered to pay his way. After hearing his family give multiple, emotion laden reasons for him to get the treatment, Walter asks permission to speak. He says that his whole life, he has never had "a say" in anything he's ever done. He's a man that's been swept around the waves of life, hopelessly rowing against it. His job, his health, his family problems- all of these have been given to him against his will. He states that he's finally been given a choice, and he wants to choose not to get the treatment.

What makes this speech even better is the secret developments in Walter's life. He is becoming increasingly involved in the drug world, beginning shady and secretive dealings with a narcotics lord. Walter may have killed a man, too, and he's begun to waken a powerful, monstrous side of himself that he's both trying to restrain, but at the same time, he wants to unleash his new-found power. In Walter's secret life, he has power, purpose, and most importantly for him-choice.

Jesse Pinkman, his partner in crime, could also be dissected at length. Walter decides to work with Jesse after seeing him escape from a meth bust that he rides along on with his brother in law, Hank (another great character that I could write a whole entry about, but I won't). Jesse is a former student of Walter's, and it's shown that he's started selling meth with the self-styled title "Cap'n Cook". A bizzare kind of mentoring relationship begins to develop between the two. To me, Jesse's overall theme is entrapment, and being used by others.

Even though it's obvious that Walter cares for Jesse somewhat, he is ultimately a pawn to him. Walter frequently berates Jesse and orders him to do his "dirty work", like shaking down a customer who doesn't pay for their product. Jesse can easily choose not to obey "Mr. White" as he calls him, a by-product of Walter being his former teacher. However, we can see that Jesse is obviously desperate for approval-Mr. White is the father figure that he never had. Jesse grew up in a stable, middle class home, but never connected to his parents, and Walter, in his own way, fills that role. Jesse is often times at the wrong end of the beatings and attacks of multiple characters, and he knows this. He even tries to sell meth without Mr. White's help, but he ultimately fails. He knows that he is useless without others, and he is violently trying to rebel against being a pawn.

Walter's family life is explored with a sublety and grace that makes them feel like people you would know. Of particular note is Walter's son, Walter Jr. Walt Jr. is a teenage boy that has mild cerebral palsy, and is actually played by an actor with the disability. I'll admit, I have a soft spot for Walt Jr. as I've worked with people with disabilities before. He's not just the "token disabled character", he acts like a normal teenage boy, and that's what people with disabilities are-normal people with a few unfortunate setbacks in life. Walt is rude, grumpy, irritable, and sarcastic, like most 16 year old boys.

This picture was called "Heaven as imagined by Walt Jr." on Reddit.

That was a very brief description of some of the characters, as I don't want to spoil your enjoyment of them if you've never seen the show. I want to quickly explore one of the central themes of the show before I close this post.

There's a spiritual nature to the themes of Breaking Bad. Vince Gilligan is not a Christian or an Atheist, but he's said that that the show has been very spiritually taxing for him. He's inside the mind of a character who is gradually slipping into evil, giving up the good parts of himself and exchanging them for selfish, violent traits. Gilligan has said that one of the essential themes of the show is that every action that humans take must have consequences. Read this quote by him from an interview in the New York Times:

"If religion is a reaction of man, and nothing more, it seems to me that it represents a human desire for wrongdoers to be punished. I hate the idea of Idi Amin living in Saudi Arabia for the last 25 years of his life. That galls me to no end. I feel some sort of need for biblical atonement, or justice, or something. I like to believe there is some comeuppance, that karma kicks in at some point, even if it takes years or decades to happen. My girlfriend says this great thing that’s become my philosophy as well. 'I want to believe there's a heaven. But I can't not believe there's a hell."

Idi Amin

What a thought provoking statement, and a good one to keep in mind as the viewer watches. We know that Walter can't get away with his criminal behavior forever, he may be having great success, but at what cost? Walter knows that he is changing too, and his reactions vary. Sometimes he is empowered and proud of some of the more terrible things he has done, but when he thinks about them, he is filled with dread. There are frequently scenes in the show of Walter hanging his head in his hands, wondering what he is becoming and terrified of himself.

I also find the show compelling because of where I live in the country and the experiences I've had in my profession. I live in Missouri, which as of a few weeks ago is number 1 in the United States for meth lab seizures. I'm also in the human services profession, so I see many patients and families who's lives have been destroyed by meth. The culture of meth that Breaking Bad presents is frighteningly accurate to it's source material.

The show also does a subtle critique on the United States health system. Walter is forced to go and create meth to raise the thousands of dollars needed for his treatment and for his family's security. In other developed countries that have accessible and affordable health systems, the concept of a character experiencing the issues he does would be absurd.

Well, that's enough writing for today. I hope that you enjoyed this post, and please, if you haven't watched the show, please, please do. I tried to be as vague as possible in this entry so that you can enjoy the show as much as I have.

"Jesse, let's cook!"

Stay tuned

Don't think I've disappeared. I've been writing my next entry over the past couple of weeks, and I want to make sure it's perfect. I just wanted to make this entry to satisfy my neurotic need to update so I can feel like I got something done on here.

Retraction on my Tebow Rant

Hi,

I'd like to apologize for my rant on Tim Tebow a few weeks ago. In bashing the guy, I neglected to do something that irritates me more than anything when I see others doing it- I didn't do research from the pro Tebow side of the argument. I judged him based on his fans, rather than his character. After watching and reading some interviews, the guy is a very kind and humble human being. He doesn't brag about how great he is or bash his teammates or staff. I may find the end zone antics a little bit annoying, but you know what, I can get over it.

Yes, he talks about his faith, but he answers honestly. It's obvious that he takes his Christianity seriously and is proud to be a Christian-there's nothing wrong with that in my book. Tebow states what he believes when asked in a polite, sincere and intelligent manner. Just watch this interview. You'll have to forgive the sensational Youtube title and Sean Hannity as host:



Many of you know I'm not the most athletic guy in the world. I love watching sports, but I think I get turned off by sports fans-in my experience, they tend to be unfeeling, unthinking brutes who live just to watch the next game. This is especially true in football- It's deified in America, and I hate how I'm looked at like I'm crazy because I didn't watch the Browns vs. Falcons game (with my luck, this is a matchup that has probably never happened due to some NFC AFC BBC ABC conference line of scrimmage hail-mary regulations). Don't get me wrong, I love a good football game as much as the next guy- I just hate the idea of spending entire Sunday mornings, afternoons and nights watching football when there's so many more interesting things to do.

I think I saw Tebow personified as America's glorification of football, and got even more annoyed when I erroneously saw that he was equivocating football with Christianity. He's not doing this at all- in interview after interview, he says that his main goal is to be a good role model for kids, a good team-player, and to make a difference in the world. I think he's doing this- I may not love football, but many Americans do, and he's reaching them where they're at.

So if you'll excuse me, I have to finish up eating this piece of humble pie. It actually doesn't taste too bad.

Tim Tebow is Annoying

Today I'm going to write about a major irk of mine. I find Tim Tebow overwhelmingly annoying.

You may know that I'm a Christian, so me saying this may be tantamount to me standing up on a chair and  blaspheming during Sunday morning worship. You may think I'm being a contrarian or a "Christian Hipster" by finding the guy to be a mosquito in my ear, but I'm going to yell about him anyway.

The past couple weeks I've been seeing Facebook status after Facebook status from Christian people praising the guy like he's the Messiah come down. Christians can't get enough of him- I see exclamation ridden posts claiming what a great light for the Lord he is and proselytizing that he must truly have the blessings of God. One post I saw stated that their pastor had declared a Sunday "Bronco's Sunday" (For those who care nothing about American Football, that's the team that Tim Tebow plays on) where the congregation was to wear their Broncos jerseys and colors in support of the guy.

I suppose I should give a quick synopsis of Tim Tebow for the rock dwellers. His schtick is that he's an NFL player that is a strong Christian and lets you know it. He regularly points up at the sky or does this strange prayer pose when he scores a touch down thanking God for his achievements. Christians love him and Atheists laugh at him. In one of the more bizarre and seemingly divine occurences of his career, he ran 316 yards a few Sundays ago and adherents of Tebowism claimed that this was proof of God's providence over him, as it matched with John 3:16.

Now I'm sure that Tebow is a genuinely nice guy. He was raised in a Christian home and grew up as a missionary kid in the Phillipines. I know that he regularly gives money to Christian charities and is involved with notable Christian causes. If I met him, I'd probably think he was a delightful young gentleman. Where I take issue with him is his abundant lack of humbleness and sensitivity to suffering.

I feel that some of the most overlooked and ignored aspects of Christianity are the principles of humbleness and humility. When a preacher or missionary boasts at length about all the people they've helped and all the souls they've saved, I'm not impressed. You've immediately shown me that you're a proud, overconfident person that demands to have his achievements validated by flaunting at us about them. I think it's great that you took a ministry, turned it around and got 700 people saved, but don't tell me about it. Let me find out for myself-through a friend that knows you or through a story written by someone else. Don't boast about it yourself.

This is actually a Biblical principle. Matthew 6:2-6 is a beautiful passage that I think Christians as well as non-believers can learn infinite wisdom from. It reads:


2“So when you give to the poor, do not sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, so that they may be honored by men. Truly I say to you, they have their reward in full. 3“But when you give to the poor, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, 4so that your giving will be in secret; and your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you.
      5“When you pray, you are not to be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and on the street corners so that they may be seen by men. Truly I say to you, they have their reward in full. 6“But you, when you pray, go into your inner room, close your door and pray to your Father who is in secret, and your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you.

So when you do something that's awesome, SHUT UP ABOUT IT! The people I respect the most are those that do good for people but don't go around telling us. We can see that you do good things- we see you inviting everyone over to share a meal on you every week. We noticed when you bought lunch for that homeless guy outside the restaurant. We gained an even deeper respect when we found out that you volunteer to tutor special needs children on your lunch break. The thing is, you never told us about it, and that makes you an AMAZING person. Less ego stroking, more ego...toking? (because when you toke you slow down and are laid back about everything. Did you see what I did there?)

So where does Tim Tebow fit into this? Well to me, it looks like he's not only blowing trumpets about his accomplishments but bringing the whole London Symphony Orchestra to back him up! The man is viewed by millions of people every week. He demands us to see how great he is by making a spectacle in the end zone of his "legendary" prayer pose. We get it, you're showing us how humble you are by attributing your touchdown to Jesus, but you're doing the opposite by showboating the behavior into the living rooms of the nation.

This brings me to my point about his insensitivity and I'm going to dive into some personal thoughts. Why does he have the audacity to believe that Jesus cares about the outcome of an American football game? I suppose this may be ignorant and immature of me to say- I know that God cares about every need and prayer we make, no matter how small. I just feel empathy towards people that do pray and seem to never hear their prayer answered. When Tim Tebow claims that God answers his stupid touchdown prayers, I think of all the families that have prayed for months and years for a mother or grandfather to be cured of cancer only for the family member to pass away in the end. I think of the Christians in Iran and Pakistan who have been mutilated, burned alive and tortured for their faith as they cried out for God to save them. Why didn't God answer those prayers? I found this image on the atheism boards of Reddit to make this point wonderfully. While I'm not an atheist by any stretch, I feel that it brings some much needed perspective.

The truth is that I don't have the answers for why God didn't intervene in the examples I listed above and I'll probably never know. I can sure try to do extensive research, theological inquiry and thought provoking discussion on the problem of suffering with Christians and non-Christians alike, though. For Tebow to come along and claim that his achievement of running down a field and making a ball pass over a line to be the divine intervention of the Lord of the Universe is nothing short of appaling to me when so many are sufffering.

Again, maybe I'm being immature. Maybe many people are genuinely touched by what Tim Tebow does. There could be some that aren't Christians who are inspired to explore this faith because of all the hoopla.

Here's how I would ideally like the Tebow saga to play out. I'd love for him to continue to be an amazing football player and wow the nation. Somewhere along the line, I'd like it to come out from an interview that Tebow is an intelligent Christian, but doesn't go around bragging about it. I'd like to find out that Tim Tebow, despite his insane schedule, takes the time to volunteer and help his community every week. I wouldn't want Tim Tebow to tell us that he does all these things- I'd want it to just be a hush hush thing that gets leaked somehow. I would have tremendous and overwhelming respect for the man.

I had a theology teacher at the Christian College I attended that used to say "If people at work don't know you're a Christian, PLEASE DON'T TELL THEM!". His point was that Christians should be demonstrating their humble, beautiful lifestyle by acting it out in front of people. When you go around blabbing to everybody that you're a great Christian and then go and do something stupid like being negative all the time, talking behind coworker's backs, and just being an all around beotch, you only affirm the stereotype that all Christians are hypocrites. Tim Tebow may be this model Christian now, but if he messes up, do you know how bad that is going to be? He'll make us Christians a laughing stock for the millionth time.

So Tebow, my point is this. Shut up, play football and stop with the pious theatrics in the end zone. We'll figure out that you're a Christian on our own.

OH I WOULD JUST LOVE TO HEAR Y'ALLS THOUGHTS ON THIS ONE! COMMENT AWAY!

Fiction's Addiction to Hospitals.

In this episode of my blog, we'll talk about fiction's obsession with the medical profession.

As some of you know, I've been working at a hospital for close to two months now. I find it incredibly rewarding and I love the challenges that each workday brings. It's been one of the best jobs I've ever had.

Over the years, I've rolled my eyes whenever a new movie or television show comes out that focuses on hospitals, doctors, nurses and other medical personnnel. I considered the genre done to death and I was even more annoyed about how everyone laps these shows and movies up. How many variations on E.R., Grey's Anatomy and House do we need? I tired of the cheap melodrama that was found in the old jazz musician dying or the 8 year old cancer patient's last wish. I was sick of watching the perfect 10 M.D.s lustily eye each other in the break room and then watch two seasons worth of the whole cast swapping body fluids-and I don't just mean during surgical procedures! HIYOOOOOOOO!

I'll admit that I'm guilty of casually enjoying a few of these shows. I can't deny that Hugh Laurie as Dr. House is generally brilliant, even though every episode follows the formula of 1.Look at this wacky medical problem. 2. House snarkily explains how to solve said medical problem.3. Everyone else says House is crazy for thinking this. 4.Entire medical team is baffled by the medical problem and 15 things go wrong at once. 5. House comes in at the last second, tells everyone that they are morons and saves the patient with his MacGuyver plan. 6. "You're so great Dr. House"!

I prefer my Hugh Laurie with a side of Fry.

What little I've seen of Scrubs has been genuinely hilarious and endearing. The writing on that show is great and I love all the non sequiturs, fourth wall breaking and absurd enactments of the thoughts of the characters.
All around though, I can't stand most medical shows. That is until the last few weeks.

The people in a hospital, be it the patients or staff, experience a lifetime of emotions on a daily basis. Babies are born, bringing the joy of new life to their parents. A family watches in shock as their father or grandmother succumbs to a terrible illness. A man feels explosive rage at the thugs who beat him in the parking lot and split his forehead open.

The doctors, nurses and other staff are there the entire time, witnessing the real life drama of hundreds of people unfold. They must be the strong ones, the smart ones, the people who provide answers. They are blamed and hated when something goes wrong, yet elevated to savior-hood when a breakthrough happens.

And there's drama within the staff's lives, too. When you are forced to spend double shifts and odd hours with a team of people responsible for saving lives, you get close real quick. You also get irritated with each other. Nevertheless, you begin to invest in the complicated lives of your coworkers. Your team in the ER, ICU or Pediatrics becomes a kind of family.

The coworker family at my hospital isn't this ethnically diverse.

I'm just a lowly social services worker at the hospital, far away from the intense work of the doctors and nurses. Yet when I'm at my job, I'm awed by what these people do, especially the nurses. Almost every nurse I've talked to cares deeply about each patient that comes into the hospital-I've met plenty of nurses that are cynical and bitter when discussing a patient, but when I see them working, they are some of  the most loving, compassionate people you will ever see. It takes a certain  unconditional  personality to do the work that nurses do.

On television, doctors are the ones who are celebrated, but I say they get too much credit. From my observation, nurses are the people that do most of the dirty work and doctors swoop in at the last minute and make a diagnosis. Nurses have to be maids, waiters, and counselors, not to mention the hundreds of other roles they have to assume. I'd like to see more fiction that explores the varied and fascinating situations that nurses find themselves in.

There's plenty of comedy working at the hospital, too. When you're dealing with a high stress environment, you lighten up or go crazy. In the E.R. especially, there are some characters. There's the guy who comes to the ER everynight complaining of chronic pain so he can get a pain pill prescription even though there is no discernible ailment . There's the lady who screams "I HAVE TO PEE!" at the top of her lungs in the middle of a problem summary. There's the guy who insists on examining every piece of documentation he has to sign with a jeweler's eye, thoroughly irritating everyone in a five foot radius.

"I won't leave until you explain every last bullet point"

 I can see why fiction draws from the experiences to be found at hospitals. They're ripe for human emotion, and hundreds of unique stories occur everyday. What I'd really like to see is a medical movie or television show that attempts realism. By realism, I don't mean showing graphic surgery scenes-the shock value of this has become cliche and overdone. I'd like a film about a team of ER techs (techs are the people that do the menial tasks that nurses and doctors are too busy for, like moving equipment around or taking patients to the bathroom) or a sitcom, complete with laugh track, about a high strung male charge nurse in the ER (a charge nurse is the boss of the entire ER. It's an incredibly complicated and stressful job). What I don't want is another "sexy doctor show" or "autopsy in every last detail: the series". I want something that explores the feelings and experiences of "everyday" people.

Don't make the doctor a cocky 32 year old single guy, make him a 45 year old man from India that worked extremely hard to get a job as a doctor in America. Stop making nurses look like idiots, create a character that's an assertive, slightly overweight single mom who works from 8 P.M. to 3:30 in the morning to support her children. Cut the BS with the dying child who has a life message that makes everyone stop and reflect, portray a child as a screaming, terrified foster kid who has no one to see him at the hospital. Don't portray the chaplain as a bald Catholic priest who says "The Lord works in mysterious ways", have the character be an overworked yet boundlessly caring person who will do anything to make sure a family is taken care of. These are the types of people I work with on a daily basis and more people need to see the things that these people experience everyday.

If you're interested, help me create a show with some of these ideas. I'm partial to the sitcom. We don't have enough classic style sitcoms these days with laugh tracks, catch phrases and zany characters. We get these post-modern HD quality laugh-trackless awkward fests (I'm looking at you, The Office). How great would a classic sitcom set in the ER be? Comedy gold if you ask me. Thanks for reading, folks!

P.S. I would insist the sitcom would having an opening theme in the spirit of this:

Reading

Last week's post was just a little bit melancholy. This week I was going to write about my views on the decline of American society, but hey, it's Christmas time- let's talk about something somewhat positive! This week's topic will be broad- I'll be talking about my rediscovery of the joy of reading.

I've been in love with reading ever since I learned how to do it in first grade. With many things in my life, I have to practice and repeat them over and over and over again to get them down to where I can do tasks semi-competently, but that was not so with reading. I remember sitting at one of those plastic white tables in first grade and practicing reading with one of the 8th graders. My school had this deal where every week the 7th and 8th graders would come to the first grade and help the younger kids practice reading books. I remember one day, as I struggled to grasp words and sentence structure, something just clicked! I suddenly figured out how to read, and it resulted in me coming home and rapidly devouring every book in the house.

I should tell you that my mother is a voracious reader. Some people have sports, others have movies, others have complex and intricate board games where you paint little metal figures and yell "For the Emperor!", but my mother has reading. If she has a spare minute, she's reading something. I've asked her how many books she reads in a year, and it is always in the hundreds.

So you can see that my mother considers reading extremely important, and once I figured out how to do it, she poured fuel on the metaphorical fires of my knowledge any chance she got. Before I could read, she and my father were constantly reading stories to me, and I enjoyed going to the library and picking out books. When I unlocked the power of scanning the words and comprehending them, she and my father were beside themselves.

As a child, my family was vehemently opposed to video games and cable television. Sure, I played the odd video game here or there at a friend's house, and I watched enough Rugrats and Johnny Bravo at my grandparent's house to avoid having the cultural awareness of an Amish child, but when I had spare time at home, one of my only options was reading. You may say I'm deprived for not being able to play the first Legend of Zelda or having an encylopedic knowledge of Ren and Stimpy, but I regret nothing! My consumption of books as a child has given me knowledge that I use even today.

An accurate depiction of my life as a child.

The great thing about my parents is that they didn't really censor me from reading certain kinds of books. Now this doesn't mean I was able to pour over "Game of Thrones" at 7 years old- I would have no interest of doing so anyway- I just wasn't prohibited from reading about sensitive topics. I grew up in an Evangelical Christian home, and I'm still a Christian today, but my parents encouraged me to check out books from the library about world religions, anatomy and biology, and history. I was fascinated in learning about how different cultures and people live across the world, and about the things that they believed in. I was always particularly fascinated in Hinduism and ancient Greek Myths as a child and read tens of books on each subject's pantheon. Many of the stories scared me-I remember reading one of those great Eyewitness books on Greek Myths and seeing a terrifying picture of Medusa being beheaded, and I wasn't able to sleep without thinking about it for a whole week. Fortunately, I came out ok. I checked out books on the great wars of humanity, and considered the Holocaust and read about the Conquistadors. Such things are not easy reading for a kid, but I was always able to ask my parents questions, and this lead to discussion which helped me grow.

Come to think of it, there was some weird stuff in Greek mythology...

My reading tastes began to mature as I got older. I read through all the Lord of the Rings books in 7th grade, and I clearly recall staying up way too late on a school night in wide eyed suspense as the fellowship braved the Mines of Moria, and feeling a sense of joy come over me as Frodo finally dropped the ring into Mt. Doom (Wow, a spoiler alert would have been nice). The Harry Potter series particularly overtook me, as I could relate to the character in many ways. When I read the first book in 6th grade, Harry and I were the same age. I was awkward, nerdy and was bullied a little bit at school, and Harry wen through the exact same things! I faithfully read the books until the climactic battle in the Deathly Hollows, and Harry and I grew up together. Isn't it amazing how we can feel camaraderie and affection for characters and people that don't even exist?

Somewhere along the way, my reading consumption slowed down. I bought a Playstation 2 at the end of 8th grade with graduation money I received, and books became a lower priority. That same year, my parents finally caved and got cable for the house after I had been without it for 14 years. I was glued to the T.V for hours at a time. My sophomore year of high school, high speed internet was installed in the home, and books had taken a virtual backseat. I read a book here or there, but didn't have the fervor I once had for it as a kid. I was sucked in to the technological wonders of the early 21st century, and it was going to be difficult to bring me back.

Me browsing YTMND circa 2005.

In college, I rarely read for fun. I read all my textbooks, and reading for pleasure was the last thing I wanted to do. Still, here or there, I read a book now and then. On summer breaks I would try to read more, and would always think "I need to make a habit of this". One of my fondest memories of the past couple years was when I read "On the Road" by Jack Kerouac during a student trip to Morocco. I read it on the plane ride over, on trains through chapparal landscapes, and in hotels located in maze like cities. The book really inspired me to travel as much as possible in life, and it definitely played a major part in my decision to take a road trip to California from Missouri this past summer with my brother. I know that every hipster person you know says it's one of their favorite books and it's referred to endlessly by English majors, but it really is worth a read if you haven't read it already. It will change the way you think about things-at least it did for me.

This past year, I made a committment to make a regular habit out of reading. I had been playing videogames, surfing Reddit for hours at a time, and watching countless hours of anime. All of these things are enjoyable, but I felt like I was missing a certain richness in my life. I missed spending hours with a cracked book on my knee and creating worlds in my head as my brain tried to put images to words.

That's what really got me back into books- I thought about how much more interactive it is to read a book than to watch a movie or play a videogame. When you read a story, it become very personal. You're conceptualizing scenery, the way characters look and the inner workings of how things tick! The author can go to as much detail as he prefers in describing what a character or building may look like, but in the end you'll get a vastly different picture of what Aragorn looked like compared to someone else who read the book. Your mind is constantly in action-it's a completely interactive experience that just isn't found in any other type of medium.

I also began to think about how important books are. I'm currently watching Carl Sagan's Cosmos series, and on the second episode he spends a lengthy amount of time talking about the astrological knowledge that was housed in the Library of Alexandria in ancient times. For those unfamiliar with the tragedy of the Alexandrian library, it was burned to the ground during some war or another, and thousands of scrolls were destroyed. The library's goal was to become a source for all the known information in the world at that time. Scholars speculate that there were accounts of history and insights into the past that mankind will never know due to the library's terrible destruction.Sagan goes on to discuss that there were scrolls in the library that accurately described how the planets move, but even those were lost. It took scientists hundreds and hundreds of years to figure it out again.

This was powerful for me to see. Books are the written account of all of man's knowledge-they are necessary. Millions of ideas, facts and processes are written down on them. Just think if all of that knowledge were lost again. Because of this, I have made it a priority to read as much as I can on philosophy, religion and science so that I can exercise my right to learn about these ideas. We're not living in an age where tyrants regularly set fire to libraries (at least in the Western world), and with the digitizing of information , it is unlikely that we'll ever fully lose anything again. But still, I think it's important that we exercise our right to read about ideas that have rocked nations and changed history.

So I've begun voraciously reading again. I'm curently reading through the "A Song of Ice and Fire" saga, and have been enjoying great apologetics books from the likes of Paul Copan and William Lane Craig. I have a book about traditional Japanese monsters I'm reading in between books, and I received about 5 more books for Christmas that I eagerly look forward to tearing into.

I can't describe the feeling of reading a truly excellent book- when you read, you're bettering yourself. Every book you read, no matter how vapid, exposes you to new ideas, themes and perspective that you otherwise might never have considered. They mature you and challenge you, and they make you wish to embark on a lifelong quest for knowledge. It's a terrifying and wonderful thought to know that I'll never know every piece of knowledge the world has- but I can sure try!

Have a wonderful New Years everybody, and if I might ask, what are some books that have really challenged you over the years?

Aging and Death: A Late Night's Conversation!

ARTSY!

I'm going to dive into some material that goes out of the norm for this blog. I'm going to talk about the concepts of aging and death. How morbid, how cliche, how depressing- but I've been thinking about them a lot lately. That doesn't mean that I have been sad or re-living the cultural rennaisance that was the Emo scene of the early to mid 200's- I've just been thinking about them conceptually.

Many people older than me have told me that I should be happy I have all the energy I have now, because when I get older, it's just not there. Whenever people tell me this, I always think "Whatever, it will always be there!" I can't think of feeling any different than I do now. One thing that a great friend and mentor of the mine over the years said to me once that really stuck out was "I'm 56 years old. But the truth is, I don't really feel any different than I did when I was your age".

The concept of feeling different, of being essentially a different person as you mature has always been an idea that's fascinated me, even as a child. We change as we get older, even if we don't feel it. This was evidenced recently in my own life by cold, hard data.

The other night I decided on going through the dangerous and cringe inducing endeavor of downloading all my Facebook data and reading through every status I have ever posted. The guy I was in 2006 turned out to be a very different person than the guy I am today. I was a loud-mouthed, crude, attention starved idiot- exactly the type of person I actively avoid if I can help it.

An artist's rendition of my friends and I in 2006.

Now, I like to think that I'm more tactful, I'm more intelligent, and I'm a lot more mature. Those that know me will likely tell me that I'm the same old jerk that you've grown up with your whole life. But the thing is, I've changed.

Change in real life isn't like the movies- I don't just come to a huge epiphany one day and decide to do things differently. Rather, change in human lives seems to be the result of tiny events, experiences, thoughts and ideas that gradually collect on you like dust. Those that use the internet heavily are very familiar with a process called torrenting. In torrenting, you download a file, but rather than download the file in one chunk, you're downloading thousands and thousands of tiny pieces of the file from hundreds of people that have some or all of the file already downloaded. These pieces eventually assemble into a whole, complete file. This is what maturing and changing seems to be like in human life- except the "file" doesn't actually complete until your death.

Much of my reflection on aging and health is a result of my new job at the hospital. At the hospital, I help people that don't have health insurance apply for state assistance, or help them get help from the hospital's charity fund. Many of the patients I see have page-long problem lists- it's very common for me to see a patient with emphyzema, diabetes, arthritis, depression and hypertension. Some of these patient's health problems are due to life choices they've made, such as inactiveness and years of smoking, and some of it is because of aging.

Your body is on a very common journey of slowly breaking down. As you age, your body parts start to not produce as much bile, process lactose as well or break down chemicals as easily. If you have health insurance, this may require you to visit the doctor on a regular basis to do maintenance on these body parts. Eventually, the body parts just fail all together, and you die.

The idea of my own health eventually failing is very scary to me. I know many people that always get sick. They always have a cold, or a cough or some weird stomach problem that prohibits them from hanging out with me.  God and nature have blessed me with the disposition of rarely getting ill. I get sick about once every couple of years, and when I do, it's a week of bed-ridden disgustingness. I think my body goes for a while without installing essential updates, and has to get sick to figure out what all the new threats are in the world and build immunities to them. Is that how biology works?

"No, it's not."

 Right now, I have the energy to stay awake until 4 a.m., get up at 8, work a full day at work, cook dinner and work out. In a few short years, I may not "be up for it" anymore. I may get winded easier from tasks that were once simple, or have to split a 12 hour marathon drive to visit my in laws into two days because I "just can't handle the drive like I could in my twenties". I hope I never have to suffer this fate!

The simple fact is that your body just can't do the things it used to do as it marches through time. You're a battery slowly wearing down it's charge. I think it's better to process these ideas and think about them when you're young than to have them pop up on you when you get older.

I see this happen often to older people, specifically in my grandparent's generation that went through the Great Depression. I remember reading in one of my Human Diversity classes in college that adults from this generation place huge amounts of stock in hard work, perseverance and self-reliance due to the extremely difficult times they had to go through. They work hard, and live to work.

My father told me that his father and grandfather didn't really think of the concepts of work and leisure to be separate from one another. You live to work- all your socializing was done there, and you were your job. You worked to provide for your family, but you also worked because it's kinda just what there was to do. From my observations, my generation seems to view work as a curse- it's something you do to provide the means to enjoy your life and support the hobbies you enjoy. I agree 100% with the latter idea-I despise the idea of living just to work, but elderly people aren't in agreement with me.

How I picture every job in the 30's and 40's.

One of the saddest things for me to think about is old people that once lived hard working, intense lives get to the point where they simply can't do the activities that made up the rhythm of their days. Their thinking isn't as clear, their hands aren't as fast and the muscle memory and motor reflexes they had as young adults in their prime is delayed. I think where this generation also runs into problems is that they don't really talk about how they feel- there's a lot of cognitive dissonance going on, and they tell themselves that they can still do all the things they used to do- they're not old, dammit! Eventually, come it hard or soft, they make the realization that there are some things they physically and mentally are unable to do anymore. It's a tragedy- a very common, common tragedy that if we all survive long enough will have to deal with one day.

And then there's death. The thing about death is that there's no way of knowing what death feels like. We can try to gather facts and reports and biological data, but we'll never know what it feels like to die until it actually happens. For my fellow Christians, presumably we'll go up to heaven when our light flickers out. But who knows the process of how this works+? Where does our consciousness go? Does dying hurt, or is it painless?

When I think of myself dying, it goes a little something like this. I'm in a bed, and my kids and family members are around me. I'm wrinkled and wearing one of those tractor hats that old guys always have on, even though I'm in bed. My eyes close, and when I open them I'm in this vast spanse of muted white, and then I'm pulled into a vortex. I'm also wearing one of those old night gowns for the Lord knows what reason. Then, I find myself in a waiting room similar to a doctor's office. I sit in a chair in there for about two hours, and then the lady at the receptionist desk tells me that I can go into Heaven now. I walk past the stereotypical pearly gates in the clouds. Studies into the brain cells of dying individuals have shown that this is actually what happens when a person passes away.

Many people that die seem to die because their health fails- they get cancer or have a stroke or heart attack, or get in a car accident and don't pull through. Put what about those lucky enough not to deal with all this stuff? I always have found it strange to think about people who just die in their sleep. Their body is just done existing, and shuts off. I'm sure there's actually a medical term for this, and science has a lot of ways to explain when people die like this. But just let me get off on my pretentious existential kick here for a bit, will you?

Death and aging are the most common things in the world, but humanity hates thinking about them. Perhaps it's because the realm of death is still completely unknown, despite all the depictions of it in the arts, religion, and attempts to understand it through science. It's terrifying to think that you'll stop existing one day. From time to time though, I think it's good to stop and reflect on it. It's a sobering thought.

One of the most oft repeated and abused poems in heavy handed and ultimately irritating crap like I'm writing now is a little piece called "Ozymandias" by Percy Bysshe Shelley. Here it is:

"I met a traveler from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal these words appear:
“My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!”
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away."

A guy that got way too into the above poem. 

Think about all the great countries, people and empires that you've ever heard of. They're run by people, people who may think they're effectively immortal. But everyone, from the Caesar of Rome to the owner of the Houston Astros to that guy that's at White Castle every time you walk in there, will one day be gone, and there is literally nothing they can do to stop it.

The ideas in the "essay" i just wrote are ones that have been repeated ad infitum, but think of them as the opening of a conversation. Perhaps the start of a conversation with yourself, or a conversation with other people. Like I said, these thoughts have been swimming around in my head for weeks, and I wanted to get them all out for the world to see. Let me know your thoughts!

tl;dr: You get old and die eventually.

The Muppets and Growing Up.

Last week, I had the wonderful experience of seeing the new Muppets movie. I've loved Muppets my whole life, and I knew that I would inevitably be seeing the new addition to the franchise. I knew that I would enjoy it- c'mon, it's Muppets, but I didn't expect to outright love it as much as I did. It was pure joy- I smiled and laughed heartily throughout the whole film. I can't remember the last time a movie invoked those kinds of emotions in me. I walked out of the theater feeling less stressed, relaxed, and completely and overwhelmingly happy! How could I not be, after hearing a song like this?:



When I got out of the movie, I thought about some of the messages and themes the movie conveyed. Yes, I know that it may sound a little ridiculous of me to be analyzing a film that features a character that communicates by going "ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME!", but the Muppets have always had heart to them. If you actually go read about Jim Henson, you'll find that he really tried to create things that communicated deeper, universal messages for kids and adults. Now, the Muppets have always been first and foremost about making people laugh (it's the third greatest gift in the world, after all) but if you look, you can see a lot of depth to the little felt creatures. After all, these are the guys that gave us such songs as "Rainbow Connection":



If you actually took the time to watch the video, you can see that the intent of this song isn't to make you laugh. In fact, the song even won an Oscar when it first came out. It's a song that talks about love, hopes, dreams- the whole human experience-and it's communicated by a ridiculous looking frog.

So, hopefully we've established now that the Muppets obviously have some depth to them. The new movie really had some plot points and themes that really hit home for me. One of the central plot points of the movie is that all of The Muppets have split up and no longer perform together. The world has forgotten them-they've become relics of an older, simpler time, and they're no longer relevant to today's harder, cynical world (there's even a great line that pokes fun at this). As I watched the plot unfold, I obviously cracked up the whole way through, but I also thought about many of the things I loved as a child that I've "grown out of" or am supposed to have grown out of by now.

If you know me, you know I am an extremely nostalgic person and really love reminiscing about my childhood and the great things I occupied myself with back then. This unfortunately makes me a bit of a pack-rat at times-I hate the idea of throwing out old toys or stuffed animals and things that I use often. Stuff like The Velveteen Rabbit, Toy Story and The Brave Little Toaster really made me sad, and I've never grown out of feeling sorry for my inanimate objects I no longer have use for. I rarely play my old Playstation 2, but I can remember all the great times I had playing it by myself and with my friends, and because of this I will never throw it out. I don't want to picture it alone and broken in a landfill next to dirty diapers and old tires-it's heartbreaking!

The new Muppets movie brought back this sad, sorry feeling for my past again. I thought back to watching The Muppet Christmas Carol as a kid and loving it, watching Sesame Street for hours, Muppet Babies, and other wonderful Jim Henson/Frank Oz involved productions that made the late 80's and 90's so great. The Muppets have always been about breaking the fourth wall and making comments about the nature of the very film or television show they're inhabiting, and there are many parts in the film where they talk about people "forgetting" them and leaving them behind.

It had to be the intention of the filmmakers to convey the message that the Muppets had grown older with the audience. Yes, the film is supposed to be for children, but almost everyone in the theater was my age or a little older. It struck me that most children these days probably have no idea who the Muppets are, and that struck me as very sad. The Muppets were a household name when I was a kid, and everyone knew who they were. Living in a world without The Muppets seems very sad to me, and the movie's plot of reconciling the whole gang back together for one big show seemed to me an attempt to communicate to the audience that The Muppets are still relevant and can be just as great as they used to be.

Even though the film ends happily, I was a little sad. Sometimes the fact that my childhood is officially over is a terrifying thought to me. The adult world is a serious thing filled with schedules, money, car problems,work, and making plans to hang out with someone two weeks in advance. There are times when I wish I could get back to the spontaneity and carefree abandon of childhood. Luckily, my wife and I love being spontaneous and just doing whatever, so this offsets much of the harshness of getting older. But still, things are never the same as they are when you're a kid.

Another movie that came out recently that was technically for kids but seemed to be aimed at adults was Toy Story 3. It had similar messages of the toys growing older and being "forgotten", and again matured with the audience. If you're feeling particularly bored, you can go dig on this blog for my write-up of that movie when it came out.

These types of stories make me sad and happy at the same time. The process of "growing up" is one wrought with confusion, questions and weird feelings that you can't quite place. It's great to see work that acknowledges these thoughts and place them in the context of beloved franchises that we all grew up with as children, and The Muppets does a masterful job of this.