Lent Begins
Feb 22nd
“I don’t know about all of you, but I’m already sick and tired of Lent.”
- Dr. Regis Martin, 8AM Theology Class, Every Ash Wednesday
So even though I don’t write about it often these days, long-time readers will know that I’m Catholic. Lent has always been just about my least favorite time of the liturgical year. Not because enduring Lent in the modern-day Church is particularly difficult – read about the old school Roman Catholic or the current Orthodox Lenten fasting rules, and you realize you’re getting off easy with the current rules on fast and abstinence. Even so, I’ve never been a fan of any kind of voluntary suffering. I’ve always felt like life deals quite enough punishment to most of us without our needing to take on more pain for the fun of it.
This Lent is interesting to me for several reasons. I’ve talked about it ad nauseam, but because my family has gone primal, everything we eat is different than it used to be. Lots of people give up their favorite gustatory delights as a penitential privation for Lent. But we’ve already given up all bread, pasta, desserts, pastries, cereals, candy, juices, and most alcohol. I’ve had priests recommend small sacrifices like not putting sugar in my coffee. Already doing that now. And I gave up caffeine entirely about three months ago, so that’s not an addiction I need to quit. There just isn’t much food left to give up, so that’s off the table, no pun intended.
Perhaps coincidentally, I find it interesting that one of the recommendations of the Primal Blueprint is Intermittent Fasting – which has health benefits that go beyond simply losing weight. Fasting isn’t just a spiritual practice, it would seem, it’s a physical one too. It’s good for us to fast now and then in ways we probably never knew. And since human beings exist as both physical and spiritual creatures, I can’t help but think that this recommendation from our Creator takes both of these aspects into account.
I’m not entirely certain what practices or penances I’ll engage in for Lent this year. I’m fairly certain I’m going to abstain from Facebook during Lent, primarily because I find that it’s a big time waster and my time would be better spent writing here, or working on other projects. I have more ideas than I ever give myself time to execute on, so the fewer excuses for not getting to them, the better. With that in mind, I’m probably also going to scale way back on TV. I don’t watch an inordinate amount, but after reading and writing all day at work, it’s hard to come home and want to sit down with a book. I’m far more inclined to watch a show, or a movie, once I finally have the kids in bed. If I do make myself read books though, I might even force some spiritual reading into my intellectual diet, which I’m sure would be good for me.
Which brings me to what may really make this Lent pivotal for me: the fact that I actually care that it’s Lent at all. The past couple of years of my life have been filled with both hardships and blessings, and often enough, they’re one and the same thing. I’ve done a lot of soul searching during that time, and I’ve come up against some real internal struggles with my faith and the things I have not only long believed, but written about and even taught for many years. Some time ago, I arrived at the conclusion that my Catholic faith, though it has so long formed the deepest part of my personal identity, was not something I was entirely comfortable with or ever freely chose. When one grows up Catholic, it’s all but impossible to escape the notion that separating yourself from the Church – even for the purpose of attaining sufficient distance to achieve clarity of thought – is not an option. I can’t “take a break” from Catholicism without committing serious sin. I don’t get to go on a guilt-free 6 month moratorium from Mass, or from moral precepts, while I decide whether or not the Catholic Church presents me with the most compelling case that it, and no other alternative, is the absolute truth.
Put another way, the notion of Hell as a consequence of choosing things other than those prescribed by God (or more specifically, His Church) is, in effect, a psychological gun to the head. There is no escape from the mentality that you must keep doing the very things you are struggling with believing or face the consequences. And any relationship that is so compulsory feels, to me at least, an unlikely place to encounter the love that is supposed to be the hallmark of man’s relationship with Christ.
I have tested the limits of what distance my Catholic guilt will allow me in the last few years. I can’t say it’s a very long leash. I have discovered, despite some serious temptations to atheism, that I do not like the man I would become if there were nothing to believe in. Personally, I find Dostoyevsky’s apocryphal maxim to be true: “If God is not, then everything is permissible.” There is no sounding the depths of human selfishness if there is no reason not to explore them.
The fact remains that I prefer to believe, and I still suspect that God and His Church are where I will find the truth, even though I continue to struggle. I do not have, as my Protestant friends would say, “A personal relationship with Jesus.” I find God to be the most impersonal of all persons, the most intangible of all realities, the most inscrutable and unknowable of all truths. Love is, as I’m sure Aquinas argued somewhere along the way, based upon knowledge. And yet what I actually know about God, in any rational, understandable way, is very little, despite 20 years of near-constant study. I certainly do not know enough to love Him in a way that compels me to willingly embrace the radical virtue and sacrifice that true Christianity demands. So there is nothing left to it but to unwillingly embrace these things, I suppose.
Some would argue that the alternative is worse, but I’ve seen a great deal of happiness in the lives of many atheistic hedonists, and I have known no few devout and faithful people who live lives without joy. I have experienced this contrast in my own life. The notion that sin doesn’t make people happy is, I think, a convenient lie. I have known too many jolly sinners. That said, happiness in this life is not salvation, and as Blaise Pascal pointed out to skeptics like me, that is quite a trade-off. There is a reason why Augustine plead with God, “Give me chastity, but just not yet!” It wasn’t because he was bored with his sinfulness. The pleasures of this world may never fill the God-shaped hole, but for many who pursue them, they do a fantastic job of making them forget that the God-shaped hole needs to be filled.
I don’t want to fill that void with anything else anymore, but I’m still a little punchy. I’m not sure what the catalyst was for this little sojourn into darkness, but it’s going to take time for me to open up again. So I take baby steps. There have been many events in my life that the faithful man would see as miracles, and the cynic would see as happy coincidences. Either way, I feel gratitude for them, so I make it a habit of thanking God every day, even on the days when I’m not sure that makes sense. Gratitude is a key to happiness, and may in fact be a key to faithfulness. It’s hard to be bitter when you’re feeling thankful. And I’d rather thank God than fate.
I’ve also learned a solid-gold lesson during this time. I’ve learned that if I want to have a happy, successful life, I have to count on myself, on my family, on my friends, and not on miracles and providence. It doesn’t mean I don’t pray for things. I just don’t count on those prayers moving the mountains I need to move anymore. For a guy like me, there has always been a temptation to a sort of providential laziness, a God-tempting fatalism that takes the pressure off of me and puts it on the Big Guy. “Seek ye first the kingdom and righteousness”, and all of that. And in that mindset, when prayers don’t get answered/life doesn’t go your way, you can blame Him. I did a lot of blaming for a while. Then I put my big boy pants on and decided that nobody was responsible for my happiness but me. Maybe that, more than anything else, was why I had to go through this. I had to stop depending on God for everything long enough that I could learn to depend on myself too. Who knows?
To be honest, I didn’t sit down to write a post about all of this. For obvious reasons, I have been reticent about sharing these personal struggles. I certainly have no desire to lead others astray through my own doubt and confusion. But perhaps because I have been through the darkest, lowest places already, I sense that there is hope, which I will likely only find with the help of others.
So if you would be so kind, would you pray for me this Lent? Would you pray that my Faith, if I ever really had such a thing, will be restored? That I will come to truly know Him? That I can learn to love God, and not just to fear Him?
Thank you. And know that when I do pray, I will pray for you.
Website Issues
Feb 10th
Hey there. I see that my visitor stats dropped from about 5 per day down to about 1 per day over the last day or so, so I just wanted to say something to calm the masses. My site got taken down, MMA style, by my web hosting company, because some asshole hacked my steveskojec.com email account and was sending out SPAM about uncomfortable Mongolian sex positions, or something like that. It’s hard to remember, because I had A FREAKING THOUSAND bounced emails in my inbox. A real laugh a minute.
Anyway, I assuaged the hosting company by certifying that I do not have access to pharmaceutical grade genital enhancement chemicals or a kindly Nigerian uncle with AIDS and a bank account problem, so I’m back online.
Yay me! I bet I hit 10 site visits today because of my comeback moment.
The Problem With Writing on the Internet
Feb 9th
I’ve been writing my whole life. When I was little, before I could do much with words, I made stories by drawing out each scene, frame by frame, on a notepad. I’d sit in the back of my parents’ station wagon and I’d sketch out the adventure du jour. The ballpoint pen-and-ink helicopter chasing the motorcycle, bullets striking the asphalt, explosions happening everywhere. I’d make myself car sick back there thinking it through, but I wouldn’t stop. What I had in my head needed to be put down on paper.
I wrote stories in school. Somewhere, in a box, I still have one of my earliest, written and drawn out in crayon, the front and back dust jacket made from hideous wallpaper glued to the makeshift book. In the fifth grade, I placed second in my first writing contest. It was for a bumpersticker campaign about seatbelt use. I received a $50 savings bond. By the end of fifth grade, I won first place in an all-school story contest. I more or less blatantly ripped off The Indian in the Cupboard in my breakout hit, The Drawing that Came to Life, and I earned myself a trip to Bantam publishing, so I could have a sense of what the process was for real writers. My dad took me, and while I was excited, I lost interest quickly. The only tangible thing I brought home with me that day was a copy of Ursula K. LeGuinn’s A Wizard of Earthsea, which started a decade-long dalliance with the fantasy genre, that ultimately culminated in a life-long enjoyment of the more mature and interesting obsession I have with Science Fiction.
I let my writing slip somewhat as I cruised through high school, still earning high praise for my test essays and English and history papers but not doing much with it. I went to college for communication arts, but I focused on Radio and Television Production, not journalism or other disciplines of the scribe. But it was in college, ultimately, that I re-discovered my love for the written word. In a series of journals I sent home via an arcane email system while spending a semester abroad, I developed (unbeknownst to me) a fan base of individuals who had received my dispatches as forwards from my mother, and I returned to the U.S. with lots of suggestions that I continue the craft. My senior year of college, I landed a column in the student newspaper, and it wound up being fairly popular (if at times a bit too controversial for administrative tastes.) Several years after college, I got my first paid writing gig, when I landed a column with Inside Catholic, formerly (and, now, again) known as Crisis Magazine. Since then, my writing has appeared in multiple publications, corporate blogs, personal and business websites, and even under the signature of some rather more successful and well-to-do people than I am who simply didn’t write as well, or have the time to take up the keyboard for themselves.
All of this is to say (in a long-winded and self-promoting memoir-like fashion) that I’ve been writing for as long as I can remember, and I’ve produced a lot of material over the years that I’d like to be able to showcase for anyone interested in taking me on for a gig. For the writer, there is perhaps no more valued possession than his portfolio of work. And while I still have a box with clippings of my newspaper columns, childhood stories, and the like, for everything I’ve written since 2001, the portfolio is entirely online.
I should say, it was entirely online.
Over the years, websites I’ve written for have disappeared, changed their URL structure, archived or deleted old content, or in some other way invalidated my links. Just this week, Crisis relaunched with a new website look, and it appears my archived content on the site More three-quarters of the links on my portfolio page now either go nowhere, or to whatever PDF I could patch together from digging through The Wayback Machine.
This is, frankly, a pain. I don’t want to only offer links to locally hosted PDF files, which are bulky and slow to download. I don’t want to have to convert HTML to PDF either, since sometimes this comes out rather less nice looking than the original page.
The simplest solution, I suppose, would be for me to get more things published instead of relying on links to older content. This answer of course presumes that I possess plenty of time and spare creative energy to produce new content, which lately I haven’t, but which I certainly should have if I want to sell anyone on the fact that I can still write and do so worth a damn.
But there’s still the nagging question of legacy content, and how to best display it. I really like a good deal of the work I’ve put up for public consumption, and I’d prefer to be able to keep it available for as long as possible. Any ideas on how to best handle this challenge?
21 Days!
Feb 7th
Today marks the final day of the 21 day Primal Blueprint challenge for Jamie and me. I’m not sure that I mentioned the time frame before, but phase one of this plan is spread out over three weeks. Three weeks for your body to adapt to the new way of doing things, three weeks to convert your system from a carb burning, bloated, slow-ass hulk to a lean, mean, fat-burning machine.
I suppose that I started moving toward this the week before we started. I had an insatiable craving for vegetables and healthier foods, after indulging for a solid month or two on office cookies, junk food, homemade pizzas, jalapeño poppers, you name it. And the drinking. I enjoy alcohol, and I can seriously put it away. The Christmas season was full of Benchmark Bourbon and Kraken Rum, along with derivatives thereof like the unbelievably delicious Milk Punch. (I’m not going to link to the recipe because you don’t need a combination of Bourbon, Milk, Half-and-Half, and powdered sugar. Trust me. Oh wait, I kind of just gave it away…) I lost three pounds that first week, and after going Primal, I just kept losing. I’ve lost 14 pounds total since New Years’ Day, and I’m still losing.
More than the weight loss, though, I feel better, I look thinner, I stand taller, I have more energy, and my overall moods have improved. I’m eating far less now that I’ve adapted to this new way of eating. I’m way more satisfied after meals, and they taste good. I can have a breakfast of bacon and eggs at 6:45AM and go straight through until 1PM without being hungry. That never happened before. I was always snacking by 10AM.
I’m also moving every day. I walk for 30 minutes at lunch. I’m doing pushups and other exercises, and I take the stairs instead of the elevator now.
The changes I’ve experienced since switching to this diet (I hate the word “diet” – it’s a lifestyle change, but that sounds just as stupid) I can only describe as positive. Most times I’ve tried thing like this – The South Beach Diet comes to mind – I have lost weight, but I’ve given up on the program at my first opportunity. This isn’t something I even want to change. I get my cravings, don’t get me wrong. I actually had a bite of rice tonight, and a spoonful of honey in my tea – things I’m allowed in sparing moderation, but not until I hit my ideal weight. But I don’t want to jeopardize the success I’ve had. I have another 60 or 70 pounds to lose before I’m at a really healthy weight, and I want to get there. My kids deserve a dad who can get his fat ass off the couch and go play with them. A dad who will be around for more than the next 20 or 30 years. Frankly, I deserve better than allowing food and drink to be my only “acceptable” vices for coping with life, stress, and whatever curveballs come my way. This is a diet for foodies anyway – you can eat lots of great things, you can eat as much of them as you want, you just can’t eat every kind of food you want. That’s a fair trade.
And if the health benefits are as big of a deal as it seems – my wife isn’t in chronic pain from her arthritis and back problems anymore, and this woman claims that eating primally got her out of her wheelchair and helped her to live with MS – then it’ll be even more worth it in the long run.
The conclusion is that I have no intention of quitting this any time soon. I’m in it for the long haul. I half-jokingly told my wife I was going to lose 30 pounds this year back at the beginning of January. Now that I’ve gone primal, I’m already half way there. I didn’t honestly think I can do it. I’m a zero-motivation kind of guy.
If I can do it, you can too. If you’re looking to eat better, lose weight, have more energy, and just feel better than you have since you were a kid, you should seriously check this program out.
Sick Day
Feb 3rd
Sick days are funny. I don’t have very many of them. And when I do, I don’t know what to do with myself.
I watched a movie with the kids. Then I watched a documentary. Then I read some things on the Internet. I responded to a few emails. Now what? I got up off the couch, but I’m not sure it’s a good idea. My head is kind of swimming, and my body still aches. I actually got plenty of sleep last night, and I’m not ready for more. So I’m just kind of in limbo.
What now? What do you do?
I’m so bored.
The Perception of Children in a CG World
Feb 2nd
"I'm not a real robot, but I play one on TV."
Children have always been given to flights of imagination. They love a good story, a well-spun fairy tale, a dash off into the woods to fight with unseen, ethereal foes.
But now, perhaps more than ever, Children are unable to grow up with a solid grasp of reality. Movies create such a convincing fiction in the young and inexperienced mind, that’s it’s impossible to distinguish the latest product of Industrial Light and Magic from every other mystery they have yet to experience in the larger world.
I was talking to my 5-year-old son Ivan about robots. About how it would be fun to build one, even though I don’t know how. I saw a look coming into his eyes, and it occurred to me to offer a disclaimer.
“We couldn’t make a robot like in the robot boxing movie,” I said, referencing Real Steel, which we just recently watched. “Robots like that don’t exist.”
“Why not?” He asked.
“Because they’re too advanced. People don’t know how to make them.”
“Why not?”
“They just can’t. The robots you see in movies like that, or in Transformers, they’re made on a computer. Like a video game. It’s not real. They’re not really there with the people.”
As I struggled to explain this, I realized that it was so hard simply because the suspension of disbelief presented in films in the era of photo-realistic CG is total and complete when encountered by a developing mind. This is, I think, both a good thing – it fuels the imagination and presents limitless possibilities as realities – and a bad thing – it confuses the real with the imagined in ways that confound the apprehension of the real.
Those of us who grew up in an age before Photoshop and rendering farms remember the cheesy attempts at computer-altered reality just a decade or so ago, and how hard it was to really fake something. (I remember when this is what passed for really good robot CG.) But now, even the photographs in news stories are sometimes faked, and unless you are tuned in to that sort of thing, you’re not going to see it coming. The seamless integration of dinosaurs, aliens, or 30-foot-tall robots with real actors in films makes early attempts at blending live action and animation (like Who Framed Roger Rabbit?) seem silly by comparison. For adults who suffered through Gremlins, Star Trek, The Dark Crystal, and even the Lucas-man-child-unaltered version of the original Star Wars trilogy remember making the effort to believe that what we were watching was real until we made it real. Go back, though, and watch Arnold Toht melting after looking at the Lost Ark, or Doug Quaid exploding from a space suit air leak on the surface of Total Recall’s Mars, and I challenge you not to think of the California Raisins, or even Jason and the Argonauts. There was a time when claymation was solid-state FX work.
I wonder how this will effect our kids? Their imaginations, their grasp of the possible and impossible, their disappointment when they find out that there are far fewer fantastic creatures in this world than they were led to believe.
And how will it effect their consumption of media? Their ability to be critical viewers? Will it make them more cynical as they come to realize the feast of visual lies they’ve been fed, or will they be filled with wonder, and create things we’ve never seen before?
Why Facebook is Evil
Feb 1st
"I'll kidnap your wife and kill your puppies. Don't test me." - Facebook
Facebook’s IPO is big news today. They’re talking about a $5 billion dollar deal here. All this from a social networking site that’s only 7 years old, and has only been open to the public since late 2006.
To this day, if someone says the words “Web 2.0″ or “social media,” you’d be hard-pressed not to let that infamous blue and white logo pop into your mind. It’s the social media platform par excellence. Sure, other players are rising to the top. But Facebook is the 800 million-user gorilla in the room.
Why do I say Facebook is evil? Because I couldn’t possibly waste more time there. It’s like a disturbance in the space time continuum. I sit down to just take a peek, and two hours later, I’m still there, leaving comments, checking comments, doubling back, circling the wagons, using stupid metaphors.
I think I figured out their evil little secret. It’s simple, but deadly.
Who else's favorite color is red, hmm? Maybe SATAN!?!? ISN'T THAT SPECIAL?!?!
This little, innocuous-seeming icon is my undoing. It’s a Pavlovian masterwork, proving an endorphin rush right to the part of the brain that makes me want to feel more important than I really am.
“Oh lookie! Someone left me a comment!!! I AM LOVED!!!”
I have no doubt that an evil team of behavioral specialists and psychologists, and maybe even drug dealers, spent months working on this little soul-ensnaring gimmick.
Who came up with the instant notification icon? These guys.
Finally, after years of unquestioning submission, I voluntarily put myself on a Facebook moratorium this week. The plan was to go the whole week without logging in. I did fine on Monday. Tuesday…started out well. Then I wrote a blog post. I Tweeted it, but I only have half as many followers on Twitter as I have friends on Facebook. So of course, I got less traffic than I was really looking for. I resisted for most of the day. But it finally struck me that if I was going to drive any traffic to this stinking blog of mine, I was going to have to pander. So, with ice water in my veins, I logged in and I posted. It was supposed to be a surgical operation – in and out, no dawdling.
But look at that! Someone posted something about selling their PS3 just weeks after they got it! What is up with that? And someone else was talking about how their first day of going without sweets was like coming off of heroin. There must have been 30 comments, and I had to chime in with my own experiences, natch. And then there was that really funny Newt Gingrich picture that a friend sent to me. How could I not at least post that before I logged off again? No, really, just look at it:
"What can I say? I'm a bit of a swinger." - Newt Gingrich
And with everything I posted, every comment I left, another little red notification icon would pop up mid-stream. So I’d click it and find more accolades or rebuttals to bask in and respond to.
Ring me a bell, and I kid you not, I will salivate.
The fact is, I like Facebook. I enjoy it, and I enjoy the interaction I have with all 441 “friends” there. But I like it too much. It keeps me from doing more important things, like picking out which flavor pork rinds I want to buy, or playing tower defense. So I think that in the interest of being more productive, I’m going to have to continue to scale way, way back.
When I log in, though, and there’s a “47″ in my little red notification icon, I can’t be held responsible for my actions.
P.S. – Please click “like” at the bottom of this post. It’s about Facebook, so your Facebook friends will probably find it amusing. And meta. And what’s better than something that’s both amusing AND meta?
Are You Following Paths or Blazing Trails?
Jan 31st
I mentioned that in my house, we’ve “gone primal.” We’re 14 days through the 21-day challenge, and the results are impressive. I’m ten pounds lighter, my belt is a notch tighter, and I feel better. Part of the routine is, of course, exercise. This is something I’ve always been bad at, because I can’t make the time. But being primal doesn’t mean killing yourself on a treadmill 60 minutes a day. That’s actually counterproductive. The principle form of recommended exercise on the Primal Blueprint is to “move frequently at a slow pace.” That, I can handle.
I’ve carved out about 30 minutes every day at lunch time to go walking. I eat at my desk every day anyway, so it’s a welcome break to get out of the office for a bit and get moving. And I’ve discovered that despite my office not being in the most aesthetically pleasing part of Fairfax, there are some decent trails behind the building that allow me to do a couple of laps before heading back to the grind.
The trail behind my office.
Usually, I listen to audiobooks while I’m walking. Yesterday, though, I was audiobook free. I had not only just completed Neal Stephenson’s epic new book, Reamde, but I also forgot my headphones. So I was left with nothing to listen to but silence. And in the silence, I realized how much and how often I distract myself.
Why do I distract myself? Because life often feels out of my control, so I’d prefer escapism. I’d rather listen to that book, watch that show or movie, play that video game, read that article, waste that time on Facebook – you name it. The busier I am, the less bandwidth I have to think about the dissatisfaction that I often feel.
So there I was, walking along, my mind humming. Thinking about where I am in my career, what I need to do differently, what steps I need to take in order to grow. These were good, constructive thoughts, despite how long I seem to have been avoiding them. Change is hard, especially when it involves personal or professional development. Because that kind of growth is often painful. But I found that taking the time to just think things through, I was filled with a new energy. I had new ideas, and a new sense of direction. These were just the first steps, of course, but as the proverb says, the longest journey begins with just one step. So why not take it?
Nothing to see out there. Keep your eyes on the road ahead!
As I walked the trail, I found that the kind of metaphors I was looking for were unfolding in front of me, so I pulled out my phone and started snapping pictures. I knew that there was a story being told right in front of me, perhaps even being told to me, and it was a story I wanted to share.
I think that many times, we feel like we have no choice in life. We have to go to this school, take this job, live in this town, follow this certain, prescribed path. We feel as though circumstances have forced our hand. And once we’ve committed to something we felt we had to commit to, we feel like there’s no turning back.
But with very few exceptions, we have a great deal more freedom than we think. We believe we have this narrow road we are forced to go down, and there are no exits in sight. And there’s a reason why we believe that. Because we’re told.
Follow the rules of the road, or you will be penalized!
In rhetoric, we’re told that the argument from authority is the weakest argument. But in reality, we know how strong those arguments can be. We’re raised by parents who use their authority to instill a way of life into us. If we are religious, our faith in God dictates certain precepts that are non-negotiable, and others that are highly recommended if we want to be happy or reach the prize. And frankly, our willingness to submit to authority isn’t entirely a bad thing. Except when it is. We need rules to live productive, happy lives, but we also need to exercise critical thought and independent judgment to live productive, happy lives. But because our earliest impulses are shaped by authority figures – parents, priests, teachers, police, the IRS man – you name it – we are, I think, by nature more prone to doing what people tell us, as long as they can stamp their orders with an official seal. We are less likely to question what we’re told and find out if there might just be a better way.
And that can be a big problem if we really want to achieve our potential. I was listening to the radio yesterday morning, and the DJ was talking about some medical issue. He said, “They say the two people you should never lie to are your doctor and your lawyer…” and as I was listening, I was thinking, “Yeah, he’s probably right. You should…wait a minute. What if I don’t want to tell them everything? What if I don’t appreciate their probing questions? What if I don’t feel like telling them that I have three drinks a night (I no longer do, but I used to) or that I’ve switched to a somewhat controversial high fat, zero-grain diet because I don’t want them harassing me? What if I don’t want to tell them that yes, I may just have another kid even if they think I’ve had enough?”
But my first impulse, the impulse that’s just bred into me, was the desire to do what I was told. As far as I’m concerned, that type of instinct is a huge liability.
Rules are for people without pocketknives.
Sometimes, the rules keep you safe. Sometimes, they keep you trapped. You need to develop the wisdom to know which thing is true, and when. But you also need to develop the ability to break the rules that need breaking. To step off the path and blaze a trail. To do something different than the thing you feel like you are under an obligation to do.
I’m not advocating irresponsibility. I’m not giving my blessing to leaving your wife for your favorite intern at the office. I’m not saying you should stop feeding your kids, or going to church, or trying to live a virtuous life.
I’m simply saying that if you feel trapped by choices you’ve made, opportunities you’ve missed, and forks in the road you didn’t take, stop and figure out if you can do things differently. Pull your eyes of the narrow path and look for a shortcut through the woods. Carve your name on a tree. Golf where you’re not supposed to golf – if you’re into that sort of thing. You may be pleasantly surprised with what you can accomplish.
And if life tells you a story, pull out your phone and take some pictures. Write down that story, and share it with other people. It’s probably good advice, which is the kind of thing you should never just keep to yourself.
Going Primal
Jan 28th
The title of this post is about as cliché as it gets for people doing what I’m doing. Google “going primal” and I can only imagine how many blog hits you’ll get. But I can’t think of a better word for it.
After reading about it from Tom Woods (oh look, he uses the same post title!) I decided to look into the book. It didn’t take many reviews before I realized this may really be something worth checking out. I won’t spell out the whole thing (if you want to, check out some of the articles here) but the basic premise, as I understand it, is that our bodies aren’t designed for the diet we eat in modern American life. Known pejoratively as the “Standard American Diet” (or SAD, natch!), our bodies are being cram packed with complex carbohydrates derived from grains, processed or not, and even legumes, which cause insulin spikes, increase appetite, exacerbate inflammation, and even cause conditions like heart disease and diabetes.
Going primal means going back to a diet our ancestors would have recognized. And when I say ancestors, I mean way, way back. Meat, fish, fowl, veggies, seeds, nuts, berries – hunter/gatherer stuff. And since, as the theory goes, our bodies are designed to burn fat, not carbs, all this carb eating is making us get fatter because we can’t deal with all the rapid energy sources we’re putting into our faces. It’s too much pure fuel, and we don’t need it. It’s also bad for us.
Also novel is the idea that saturated fat and cholesterol are really not bad for you, provided they’re not eaten in conjunction with massive amounts of grains. So not only should you have that steak and eggs (with yolks) that you’ve been craving, but go ahead and cook them in butter or coconut oil. Go ahead, it’s good for you.
Considering that fats play a vital role in brain function and in appetite suppression, I can tell you from experience that you don’t need to eat nearly as much as often. And when you need a boost, veggies are what you should reach for. They have the carbs you need in a way you’re meant to process them.
I’m 14 days into the program as of tomorrow. I’ve lost about 9 lbs., though the first 3 came off the week before I started when I went all crazy almost vegetarian for a week just because I was craving natural, non-jalapeno popper foods. I’ve experienced days with huge energy boosts and massive mood enhancement, and I’ve had days when I’ve been headachy and irritable as all hell. I’m walking every day for 30 minutes to an hour, and I’m also throwing in minor amounts of strength exercises, which I rarely seem to find the time or energy for. I have not yet adopted the entire fitness regimen that is part and parcel to the program, but I’m working toward it. What I like about it is that it’s attainable for someone like me.
When I say “someone like me,” I mean it. I’m a big guy, and I’ve never been very active. I have a desk job, and a sedentary life. The government says that at 6’4″, I should weigh in at about 190lbs. I can tell you from experience that 190 is way too skinny on me. My ideal weight is about 220-230lbs. That’s where I was when I started college. When I left college, I was at 245. A year after college (my first year sitting behind a desk) I was up to 275. A year after that, I hit 295. 295 is where I still am today, 8 years later. I’ve gone up (as high as 312 lbs.) and down (as low as 260 lbs.) but I’ve never consistently been able to manage weight and fitness, and much of this owes to the fact that I’m non-athletic, don’t care much for sports, and have always had very low energy levels. I used to always joke that I don’t even have a metabolism.
It’s my hope that this will finally improve, because this isn’t a diet, it’s a life change. Though much of what this way of living recommends contradicts conventional wisdom, the more I read, the more convinced I become that much of what we take for dietary and health science is actually junk science – lots of correlative relationships spun into causal assertions. By and large, this country is full of people eating “healthier” and exercising more than they ever have, and obesity keeps going up. Something isn’t working with the way we’re being told to take care of ourselves.
Time will tell how big of an impact this will have on our lives. I’m not the only one doing this – Jamie and the kids are on board too. I’m seeing changes in everyone – Jamie has seen the most drastic uptick in mood and energy – and I think it’s worth giving this process more than the initial 21 days to assess the final impact.
For my part, I do miss some of the pasta, rice, bread, and sugars, but I’m slugging along. I’m also not drinking much alcohol at all, and seem to be doing fine without it. It’s tempting sometimes, but I’ve noticed the ways in which it sets me back, so I’ll forego it and drink plain ol’ tea.
Or like this morning, I’ll have a decaf coconut milk latte. Not bad. Not bad at all.
2012 Goals – Writing
Jan 18th
I haven’t made the time this year for goal setting. Not personal goal setting anyway – work requires it, so I’ve already turned those in. But there are certain goals floating around in my head, just waiting for the right precipitate so they can coalesce.
One of the things I’ve neglected in the long creative drought that ensued following Arizonageddon at the end of 2010 is my writing. I didn’t have a single thing published in 2011. I barely touched the blog. I failed at NaNoWriMo (though I was moving into a new house, so perhaps that’s a valid excuse.) It was a good year in some respects, but a bad year for getting personal agendas accomplished.
2012 is going to be better, because it simply has to be. If I’m a writer (which the preponderance of evidence suggests that I may very well be) then I have to, in fact, write.
I came across some interesting quotes from Hemingway today. On writing, he says,
First, there must be talent, much talent. Talent such as Kipling had. Then there must be discipline. The discipline of Flaubert. Then there must be the conception of what it can be and an absolute conscience as unchanging as the standard meter in Paris, to prevent faking. Then the writer must be intelligent and disinterested and above all he must survive. Try to get all these things in one person and have him come through all the influences that press on a writer. The hardest thing, because time is so short, is for him to survive and get his work done.
And that’s not enough. Hemingway identifies the silver bullet:
The most essential gift for a good writer is a built-in, shockproof shit detector. This is the writer’s radar and all great writers have had it.
Now, working backwards, I can state with confidence that I have a built-in, shockproof shit detector. Surviving, per se, is less of strong suit for me, but it’s within the realm of possibility. Intelligence isn’t really a problem (for all that it’s worth) but disinterest likely is. Who creates art because they’re disinterested? We’re all compensating for some insufficiency, perceived or actual. We want the validation of not only our loved ones, but total strangers. If possible, we want the validation of a paying audience. Surely, if someone is willing to put down hard-earned cash for the work of our pen, it must be worth something.
As for conscience? I have one, but it’s never served me particularly well as a writer. It tends, more often than not, to vomit up moralistic tripe as I’m attempting to work and therefore just gets in the way.
Discipline? I know the meaning of that word about as well as I could name the works of Flaubert himself (Which is to say not at all. Wasn’t he some sort of impressionist? I’m so poorly-cultured.)
Talent? Yes, I think I can say so without engaging in embellishment, though for what it’s worth, it’s a rather unrefined talent. And it’s all the worse for wear due to the lack of any sort of exercise in the last couple of years. The writing muscle is no different than a bicep or a quadricep. It get gets flabby and unsightly if it’s never used. Let’s face it – Twitter killed the blogio-star. Micro-blogging has been the death of a lot of longer-form writing from undiscovered or otherwise unappreciated talent. It’s easier, it’s lazier, and it gets the endorphins pumping just the same. (For heaven’s sake, I have a higher Klout score than the CEO of Klout, whatever that means.)
The point of all of this is that I need to hone in and get back to basics. To that end, a 2012 goal for me, as a writer, is to write something every day. I can’t overstate how simple this sounds and how difficult it is. I have five kids and a fairly demanding day job. I am burned out. But I also am suffering from the deep dissatisfaction that comes with not creating, not doing the things that are at your core. Writers write not necessarily because they want to, but because they have to. And I’ve managed to tune that out.
So watch this space. I won’t only be writing here – I have some stories and personal items to work on – but writing every day this year is only going to happen if I have an outlet. And even if it’s only a few sentences, a paragraph or two, something is better than nothing. Of course, I’ve been known to make pie crust promises on this topic before. I highly recommend that you don’t trust me on this.
I’m sure there’s an applicable Japanese sword proverb or something about constantly perfecting or slicing cleanly through bone or some such, but I don’t have time to Google one. My kids are calling, and I need to read them a bedtime story.
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