This is another “making of” posts, so if you don’t like such things, you probably won’t care much for this one. This one is considerably less melancholy than the last one I wrote sometime in April.
Some of you may have noticed that I’ve been a bit less active here on the blog for the last few weeks. The reasons are two-fold: I went on a ten day trip to Arkansas to visit my family and I’ve recently interviewed for a professional position at the University.
We were gone to Arkansas for so long because we had a few family reunions and because we wanted to see if living there was an option. It quickly became clear to us that we can’t return there - the upside is that it closed doors on possibilities that were once open, and at our phase of life, that’s a good thing.
The interview is another matter. For those of you who haven’t ever witnessed them, academic interviews are all-day events. The prep-work and energy required to make it through them are immense, and it takes a few days to recover. But yours truly went in as the underdog for a very prestigious, once in a lifetime position on his first job talk…and was offered the position. Continue reading →
Today is Memorial Day in the United States. The holiday commemorates those who have fallen in military service for their countries. Many of you already know all of this.
These types of holidays used to be another day off for me. While I appreciated, in general, what those who had fallen had done for me, I didn’t really appreciate in a real meaningful way. Until I became a veteran myself.
(Sidebar: It still feels weird calling myself a veteran.)
Now holidays like this are a time not so much of remembrance, but of a reminding of the present. I remember what others in earlier times have sacrificed and what that means for the present, but more than anything it reminds me of the people on the frontlines today, and those who have fallen in the present.
It reminds me…
Of the urban kid who got out of the ghetto, become proud of himself and led others…
Of the farm girl who had never left her town before joining…
Of the new, young father who never had a chance to see his baby girl…
Of the college kid who joined for benefits that will never get to use them…
Of the mother who left her eighteen-month old son before he was weaned…
Of the parents whose set of kids all joined the same unit at the same time who came back on separate planes…
Of the many nieces and nephews who now where yellow for aunts and uncles that they used to play with…
Of the bank teller who joined for the excitement but who’ll never count money again…
Of the teachers, cops, firefighters, and EMTs that served our hometowns and our Nation…
Of the boys and girls who became men and women moments before their lives ended…
Of the retirees who joined again once the Twin Towers fell but who never got to retire for a second time…
Of the communities that sent their best and never got them back…
Of the families who get folded flags rather than hugs from their loved ones…
They deserve being remembered, not as the nameless masses and numbers on TV, but as the individuals that they were. They deserve much more than we’ll ever give them or the people in line behind them.
Regardless of whether you agree with the State of the Union, please remember those individual men and women who stand watch in faraway lands or who train and prepare to do the duty that our Nation has called them to do.
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What’s the difference between offline friends and online “friends”?
(If you answered that online friends are ones you made online, you get 10 Smartass points. Proceed directly to the university nearest you and sign up as a philosophy major with said points.)
Sure, it’s a Web1.0 type of question, but I think in the digital world we live in, it’s become an even more pressing question. We now have so many ways to connect with people we’ve never physically met, and our connectedness gets tighter and tighter every day.
Yet many people think there’s still some qualitative difference between the types of friendships such that offline friends get the status of true friends and online ones are “friends,” with the quotation signifying something like people we’ve met online, talked to, and like - but not to be confused with friends sans quotations.
Here’s the deal, though: through blogging, I’ve met more people that I actually like than I generally do in the real world. It’s also much easier for me to get to know people online than off - you don’t have to worry with sometimes-inhibiting social factors like gender, status, and race.
But there’s also the weird feature with online “friends” that I know more about them and less about them at the same time. I can tell you how old their kids are, what their kids like, what their favorite type of music is, what they’re most scared of, and all sorts of very personal facts - yet I don’t know what they’re kids’ names are or whether the name they use is actually their real one.
It’s strange, really - we expose more of our inner selves through online relationships at the same time that we hide more of outer selves.
I find this interesting because it’s the exact opposite of what we do in offline relationships.
I was reading an offline friend’s Facebook page the other day and he mentioned some things that he liked and disliked. I’ve known this guy for thirteen years and I didn’t know some of the stuff - and it was pretty basic stuff that should’ve come up in the course of our friendship. That happens to me quite often, and I don’t spend much time crawling around on Facebook and Myspace.
Something else to consider for those with blogging “friends”: consider how much time per week we spend reading each other’s writing. Sure, a lot of the stuff can be very impersonal - my blog being no different - but in some ways those are conversations that we are a part of sometimes on a daily basis. I don’t talk to my offline friends on a daily, or sometimes weekly, basis - yet I leave comments and shoot emails to my online friends everyday.
I should note that one of the things that makes blogging “friends” so nice is that they are dealing with the same issues and you don’t have to introduce them to the blogosphere at the same time you’re talking about something you’re thinking about. They get it because they’re doing it - so you can get down to the meat of the conversation without trying to explain what RSS is so that they understand why RSS subscribers matter.
My point: many of us are spending more time and attention on our online “friends” than our offline friends. From one perspective, that would seem to make their friendship more important to us than offline friendships.
Yet, at the same time, most of us place more weight on the offline friendships, and they still remain friends sans quotations.
For many of us, this issue is not merely an academic point any more. The online world is a critical part of our reality - and part of that reality has a very social component. Our lives are enriched by people we have never, and likely will never, physically meet - yet they still get second-class status as far as the type of relationship we have with them goes.
Is it time to drop the quotations? Is it time to stop the favoring of physical friendships over the non-physical ones?
(The worry here, of course, is that the people reading this blog have a much higher likelihood of saying “Yes” because they are already on the blogosphere. But consider what the answer would be if you were answering someone who wasn’t already part of the choir.)
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This last week has been a bit strange on the writing front - I’ve mentally written a lot of posts, but I haven’t actually written them. Now we’ll just have to see whether they actually materialize into something worth reading.
The reason for the strangeness of the week has been due to me being on military orders for Annual Training. I had a huge list of things that I needed to have my company and myself do - so that took some time, but the real reason was mostly psychological. It’s always that switch for me when I start working to time and not to task.
Needless to say, I’m back.
Since this weekend was really busy, I didn’t get to put a Food For Thought post out. The pondering this week is a result of the conversation between me and Bill in the comments of 12 Ways to Practice Courage. What’s bothered me for a long time is what makes a particular act courageous. (It didn’t help that Kelly had a post some while ago about the most daring thing she’s ever done - that started me thinking about it all over again and I declined to comment.)
Before we start, this is not purely an academic point that I’m presenting. It’s prompted by situations I’ve been in.
I’ve been in mortal danger no less than five times throughout my life. I could talk about all of them, but it’d be a really long post that may or may not be interesting. The one that really pops into my mind, though, is from a convoy gone…weird…in Iraq. I’ll keep it as short as possible.
On said weird convoy, we ended up going through a largish town during Market Day. Going through towns during Market Day is very much akin to driving 30 tractor-trailers through the middle of a fair - people and animals are everywhere, meandering with their wares, and really, really pissed that this huge trucks are coming through the middle of it. It doesn’t help that those trucks have people with guns, and some of those people are quick to point them at you.
My convoy also had the fortune of escorting Third Country National drivers - so for every one military truck, we had two or three TCN trucks. These guys were usually scared shitless because they had no idea where they were going, couldn’t speak English, and they knew they were in danger.
What would inevitably happen in these types of situations is that a TCN truck would not follow the truck in front of it closely enough and people and goats would start running between that truck and the one in front of it. The natural thing to do is to stop, because running over people is not something people naturally do. Once that one vehicle stops, it becomes a crosswalk from one side of the market to the other. The end result is that you end up with your convoy cut in half - and that’s bad.
Once our guntruck had ended the crosswalk situation, the second half of the convoy rushed to catch up with the first. In the excitement, another of our TCN drivers hit a curb really hard and the generator he had poorly secured on his trailer fell off…in the middle of Market Day. He stopped - and he was the third to last truck of the convoy. Still left in the convoy was my mechanic’s truck, my truck, and the trailing guntruck.
The crowd, out of curiosity, immediately swarmed that truck and the generator. There was no moving of any of the vehicles. My mechanic radioed up, but I still couldn’t see what was going on, so I got out of my truck to go see.
The crowd parted around me with a buffer of about 3 feet and then would close up behind me. For about 75 meters this happened - and I was completely isolated from my truck and my driver.
(I doubt many of you are transporters, so I have to make clear two major points: being unable to move your truck is terrifying, and being isolated from your truck with a crowd of neutral to hostile people is bone-chilling terrifying.)
As I approached the mechanic’s truck, it began to dawn on me that we were in a bad situation - for he had that “deer-in-the-headlights, what-do-we-do, I’m-scared” look on his face. The only two things that went through my mind were 1) please, Specialist, don’t start shooting, and 2) we have to get the fuck out of here. If he started shooting, dozens of people would have died, because everybody would have started shooting. And if we didn’t get out of there, something bad was going to happen.
There was no way to recover the generator, and we had to get out there, so I went against standing orders, placed an incendiary grenade on the generator, and we left (the crowd parted enough due to the intimidation of our guntruck.)
(I’ve left out a lot of detail to make the story shorter.)
Only when we meet up with the rest of our convoy outside of town did I realize what how bad that situation was. It would have been really easy for someone to jump from the crowd with a knife, or shovel, or any of the other tools they were carrying and overwhelm me. There were people walking on the rooftops with AK-47s.
But at the time, I didn’t think about any of that. I didn’t worry about my personal safety and I didn’t think about the danger I was in. My overriding thoughts were: 1) please, Troops, don’t start shooting, and 2) we have to get the fuck out of here.
I didn’t sit in the truck to deliberate what was the courageous thing to do. I didn’t fight the urge to sit in the truck because it didn’t really dawn on me that I had the option of sitting in the truck.
None of this is meant to be bragging or boasting, but rather, I’m just making it clear that I wasn’t thinking about the actions I was taking. I was just acting.
But is “just acting” worthy of moral praise? For it seems to me that a lot of people “just act,” but they act badly. The married man who can’t control his sexual urges comes to mind here - for, presented with certain situations, he can reasonably say he was just acting. He didn’t mean to hurt his wife - he didn’t think about it. But the fact that he didn’t think about it doesn’t seem to make any difference to the nature of his actions - although if he did it knowing it would hurt his wife or so that he would hurt his wife, that seems worse.
Of course, if the analysis for courage works, then it should work for truthfulness, friendliness, and the other virtues. If it’s the act itself that counts, why do we stress intentions?
What do you think?
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We live in a world where tragedy befalls millions on a daily basis. The world may be better than it once was, but that doesn’t mean that it’s were it could be. It’s not hard to imagine how the world could be better.
But it’s hard to make the world we imagine a reality. What can we do about all of the problems when our hands are only so big? Imagine, then act!
I teach applied ethics, and the most common reason students give for not becoming active about social and political change is that they reason that their efforts will be fruitless since they, individually, can have very little effect on such large problems of international conflict, world poverty, genocide, AIDs, global warming, etc. Since they can’t have a marked impact on the problems, they conclude that they’re efforts won’t help.
What they fail to see, though, is that the small efforts of large groups of people make a huge impact on the problems. Or, conversely: we don’t remember the faceless hordes of Nazis that slew millions of people during the Holocaust - we remember Hitler. One man.
Why should we think that one man can be the cause of so much suffering and yet conclude that one person can’t be the cause of the same amount of progress?
I didn’t really explain any of this when I wrote about the Problem of Dirty Hands, so the tone of that post perhaps make me sound as if I take myself, and my efforts, way too seriously. Quite the contrary: I take myself, and my efforts, seriously enough.
By that, I mean that I know that my small efforts can have an impact and I feel responsible for those actions that I don’t do that would make the world better. We each have an obligation to help with the talents that we have - and that help is through action.
Here are some easy actions you can do to help:
Find one pet issue or area you’d like to help
We can’t solve everything at once, but we can make one thing better. This is the “Imagine” part.
Become educated about that issue
While wanting to help is admirable, it’s critical that you become educated about the issues. It’ll increase your confidence that what you’re doing helps, and it will better help you…
Persuade others to join you
An easy way to “own” an issue is to get T-shirts for the issue and actually wear them. It markets the issue, but it also places you in the position to be an advocate for the issue. Warning: this requires some courage.
Write your politicians
Draft a well-written, but personal, letter to your politicians letting them know that you care about the issue and that you expect them to do so, as well. If you have a small coalition forming, cite that coalition so that they know they’re not dealing with just one person but a block of voters.
Develop a small way to help with that issue that you do on a regular basis
Evangelizing is great. Donating money to organizations that champion your issue is even better. The best thing you can donate, though, is your time and elbow grease - for that’s what most groups don’t get.
The point here is to start small. Don’t become the regional president of Amnesty International without attending a few meetings. But attend a meeting. Volunteer (for one day) to hand out fliers or mail newsletters.
While I’m not necessarily encouraging you to become a full-time activist, I am encouraging you to become active.
I’ll refer to Martin Luther King, Jr. again: it’s not the small majority of evil people that make the world as bad as it is - it’s the silence of the majority that stands by while the evil occurs. Don’t be a part of the silent majority.
My pet human rights issue: World Poverty. Because the right to free speech, for example, is useless if one doesn’t have the energy to speak.
My favorite non-government organization for World Poverty: The Heifer Project International. Because they not only help people in ways that make sense for their culture, but they also promote the “Pay it Forward” ethos through their program.
(Pick up the album, Instant Karma: The Amnesty International Campaign to Save Darfur, that the entry song comes from on Amazon. Proceeds from the campaign will go directly to support Amnesty International’s urgent work on Darfur and other human rights crises worldwide.)
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Last Wednesday was, hands down, the best day I have ever had in Nebraska. It was my five year anniversary with my lovely wife, Angela, and boy, was it nice.
Especially considering how much of an idiot I was.
See, I’m horrible at Big Days, and I’m fortunate enough to have several of them to make it through a year. My wife and I started dating on September 24th nearly eleven years ago, so the 24th of September is a Big Day. Her birthday, annually, is a Big Day. Valentines’ Day is a Big Day. And the 7th of May, the day in which we forewent tradition and said “I do” at the Justice of the Peace, is a Big Day.
So, you’d think with four chances a year, I’d get at least one of the right. In which case, you’d be wrong. After every Big Day, we have one of “those talks.”
I’ve mentioned in my bio that my wife is a very supportive and patient women. She puts up with my shenanigans on a daily basis and does all those things that the wives of scatterbrained men have to do, like remind me to eat and change pants after a few days. It would be one thing if I were utterly brilliant at something or the other, but supporting a man that’s hovering within arms’ reach of mediocrity in everything that he does is an entirely different matter.
To my credit, I do a pretty good job on the daily things (after years of “those talks”). I’m supportive, spend lots of quality time with her, and am generally her biggest fan. But I’m horrible at Big Days.
What frustrates her even more is that I’m a trained logistician - I can develop a plan to get both large and small resources from one spot to the next within certain limits like a madman, but I can’t orchestrate the simple movement of two people to a date to save my life. Let alone figuring out the logistics of getting a thoughtful gift from the store to the house before the Big Day.
I had it all figured out this time around (I always do). I had set aside some time Monday night to do nothing but figure out how I was going to blow her mind on an awesome date. Until Monday rolled around, and I got behind and tired, and ended up talking to my parents - and I hadn’t reviewed my daily tasks to see that that time was reserved for Big Day planning. I had the sneaking suspicion all day Tuesday that I forgot to do something the day before, but couldn’t figure out what.
It’s important that I take a minute to explain why it takes a lot of planning. I’m in the unfortunate position of being married to a lady that defies normal gift giving. She doesn’t want flowers, shoes, jewelry, clothes, or candy, and I have had little to no luck at actually getting her something that’s thoughtful that she’ll actually like and use. The best hit, in nearly eleven years, was an UnderArmour warmup suit and assorted underwear (yes, it’s that awesome, ladies and gentlemen). We’ve since filled out her wardrobe with UnderArmour stuff, so that option was out. I lost the list I had made of gift ideas for her, and, anyway, all of the items on the list would’ve taken longer to ship than Monday night, so I would’ve been SOL eitherway.
She feels much the same about dating venues, as well. So, clearly, Mario Kart and Rock Band wouldn’t do, but what else counts? Knowing that it would take some serious mental juice to figure out what to get her and what we would do, I reserved some time to think about it. Oh, were it as easy as buying jewelry, flowers, and taking her to a romantic restaurant!
So, I went ahead and finished all of my other work for Tuesday and was spent. I managed to get everything taken care of so that we could spend the entire day not-working and spending quality time together. When I emerged from the office, Angela let me know that she had a wonderful day planned for us. Panic hit me, as I realized that I hadn’t planned anything - anything - for the next day. She reassured me that it was okay, and I believed her. (Idiot!)
We had a peaceful morning on the Big Day, and she let me know that we needed to be ready for couples’ massage that afternoon. I’d never had a massage before, so it was a nice experience - I probably won’t be doing it again, but it’s still cool to do new things together. But, before it was time to go to the Spa, it dawned on me that I hadn’t filled out the card I got for her. So I spent the last few minutes locked in the office, frantically trying to find the card and then writing in it. (Idiot!)
After I came out, Angela let me know that she had found my “stash” some weeks prior. I had hidden my stash in my office desk, and she had been through my desk looking for notecards that I told her were in there.
Now, folks, my stash is not what you’re thinking. It was a stockpile of cards that I had picked out a few months prior. After I bombed the Big Day in September, I made a note to stock up on cards so that I’d never be running behind on cards again. As a result, I’ve been a card rock star since then - if she were having a bad day, I’d pull out one of the cards, write something thoughtful in it, hide it somewhere sweet, and then she’d find it. Or if I just wanted to show I was thinking about her, I’d write one up and drop it on her unexpectedly.
What made it seem so sweet, apparently, was the fact she thought I was going and getting the cards in response to her bad days or because I was motivated to go get a card as a result of me thinking about her on that day. My romantic credibility, always in jeopardy anyway, dropped considerably when she found the stash.
And that I was running behind filling out a card that I had bought months before made it all the worse. So much for Getting Cards Done. (Idiot!)
The events of the day went along spectacularly (as she had planned) and we had recovered from my stupidity…until dinner. Throughout dinner, she began to pull successively larger surprises out of her purse. It started off with my favorite candy, moved to a iTunes gift card, and ended with tickets to Jack Johnson’s concert in August - all really wonderful, thoughtful gifts. From my side of the table, there came nothing. Nada. Zilch. We hadn’t discussed whether we were getting gifts, so I assumed that we weren’t. (Idiot!)
It was a quiet ride home from the restaurant, and the quietness was made all the more intense because we had driven to Omaha to go to our favorite date restaurant. Sadly, during one of “those talks” the next day, she let me know that the day was awesome and met her every expectation. She expected that I would be an idiot, and, predictably, I was.
The truly wise learn from the mistakes of others. That said, I’ll make a short list for all you men of what TO DO to have a better chance at getting Big Days right:
Take time to plan the day well in advance
The day before the Big Day does not count as “well in advance.” At one week out, you need to have all the gifts, reservations, and any other important activities planned out. That gives you enough time to get stuff shipped to your buddies’ houses so you can hide it from her.
Get her something, even if it’s not thoughtful
Effort counts here, fellas. Sure, she may never actually use what you get her, but that you took the time to try is what is important. Avoid items that make her more productive or efficient around the house, and I don’t care if the vacuum cleaner needs replacement - it doesn’t count as a Big Day gift. (Save those for unstated surprises: a new vacuum cleaner should mysteriously, without announcement, appear in the closet. You should not attempt to take credit for it, for that will backfire upon you in ways untold.) If you can get something thoughtful and really cool, great; if you can’t, try like hell but do not show up emptyhanded.
Listing off all of the things you thought about getting but didn’t does not help. Beware statements indicating that she doesn’t want anything or that you don’t have to get anything for her. Better to be a thoughtful idiot who doesn’t listen than an unthoughtful one who listens. (Sidebar: If Angela is reading this, she’s cringing at the fact that I’ve associated household chores with women. Why can’t the vacuum cleaner be a gift for a man? How dare I continually divide the labor up so that women get the domestic chores! Why is she married to such a patriarchal idiot?!)
A card is not optional!
That you don’t care much for cards is neither here nor there. Get one, and have it filled out before the Big Day. Filling it out on the Big Day is a NO GO at this station.
Under no circumstances are you to refer to any of this as something you have to do
Yes, the efforts that you are undertaking may not be fun, but do not, on pain of death, shoe-caused concussion, or food poisoning, refer to it as anything resembling work or something you don’t want to do. Statements such as “I have to plan what we’ll be doing on that day” that sound like “I have to prepare this report for work” should not issue forth from your lips, despite what you’re thinking.
You are enjoying thinking about the time you will spend with your beautiful lady. You are looking forward to spending quality time with your loving wife/partner/lover. You are excited about surprising her with your gifts of love on your Big Day. You are not taking your mother to her colonoscopy.
I love you very much, honey, and I’m sorry for being an idiot.
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Even though I was unable to post this or last Friday’s meditation, it’s still a goal of mine to write something that steps away from the standard topics on Productive Flourishing and instead just gives something to think about. For this week, it’s not a meditation, but instead an applied philosophical problem.
Before you run away thinking “Oh No! Charlie’s hitting us over the head with philosophy again!,” rest assured that we’ll not be talking about whether color exists in the universe or some such thing. The problem we’ll be talking about is the Problem of Dirty Hands and how it relates to personal development.
In short, the Problem of Dirty Hands is a recognition that sometimes, to do something good, you have to get your hands (morally) dirty. It’s often applied to the political spectrum, because the part of the art of politics is promoting positions you don’t agree with so that your other agendas can be pushed forward.
But we’re not talking about politics. What I’m talking about is our involvement in social organizations. What has prompted this for me personally is that the Boy Scouts of America have contacted me several times wanting me to take part in their national Eagle Scout registry.
I’ll not get into all of the details of Scouting, but needless to say, being an Eagle Scout is a great honor and is the highest rank that a Scout can achieve. I used to be proud of the fact that I’m an Eagle Scout - that is, until I found out that the Boy Scouts of America have an exclusive policy towards people of alternative sexual orientations, agnostics, and atheists. There are four categories of people that can be denied registration from the Boy Scouts of America, and the fourth type (the other three are previously listed) are felons. Felons, agnostics, atheists, and the GLBTQ community - what a motley crew!
(For more information, visit Scouting For All’s webpage. Also keep in mind that my main contention is not whether the BSA should have the right to exclude whoever they wish, but whether I should take part in such an organization.)
The problem is that I am the person that I am due in large part to the wonderful men and women of the Boy Scouts and the experiences that I’ve had through that community. I also think that I could and should give back and help mold the next generation of Scouts. If you’ve been reading this blog for a bit, you also know that groups can be very effective agents for personal development. Being involved in groups of people committed to excellence helps you excel.
But I’m very uncomfortable being part of an organization that I feel is bigoted and shameful. Sure, individual and regional organizations may have defied the National Council and produced their own inclusive policies, at risk of being banned and censured, but the root point for me is that, officially, the organization has a bigoted and shameful policy that I don’t want to be a part of.
I’ve hitherto decided that it’s not worth getting my hands dirty - my moral cleanliness is more important to me than the potential good I might do. But some of the stuff I’ve been working on for my dissertation is starting to make me feel less secure in that position. To make the point clearer, I’ll give some perspectives for thought:
“The Keep Your Hands Clean” Perspective:
What’s important is that you choose your conduct based off of what you think is right or wrong. It may be unfortunate that there could more good advanced in the world by you choosing an alternative action, but choosing a bad means for a good end is never justified.
“The Get Your Hands Dirty” Perspective:
What’s important is that you choose your conduct based off of what produces the most good. If you can make the world better, and don’t do it, you are at least minimally morally responsible for the world being less well off than it otherwise could have been. Whether you get your hands dirty to pursue a good end or not do something that would create a better situation, your hands are still dirty.
“The Get Your Hands Dirty But Clean Up the Work” Perspective
nother option is to stay within the organization whilst trying to change it. This perspective acknowledges the obligation to help while not accepting the undesirable features, but I still have to wonder whether, by promoting the organization (via participation in the organization’s projects, etc.), I am also promoting the organization’s policies.
Of course, there are other alternatives, such as finding other organizations that pursue similar ends without having the undesired exclusivity, but the question is whether those organizations are as effective as the Boy Scouts of America due to its cultural entrenchment.
That’s my specific problem, but it’s obviously just a species of a general problem. People from certain religious communities have a similar problem: is it worth remaining part of a church that begins to take on exclusivist and bigoted policies, even though those organizations at the same time promote otherwise noble social ends? Is it better to remain clean or to promote the social good, when they are mutually exclusive?
People in activist organizations are also in the same boat. I personally don’t agree with all of the policies of the NAACP, NOW, or the Sierra Club - but, then again, I think there’s a qualitative difference between not agreeing with the NAACP’s stance on affirmative action and disagreeing with the BSA’s policies that categorically devalue certain types of people on indefensible grounds.
Helping others and promoting social goods in the world is both intrinsically good and good for personal development since we become better people by actively doing things that make us better. And the best way, often times, to help other people and promote social goods is through collective activity, but sometimes being involved in those collectives make us dirty.
No answers here…just food for thought. What do you think?
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The situation: you find yourself in a funk. I’m not talking about the Pepe’ Le Pew kind of funk - that just requires the generous application of soap and water. The kind of funk I’m talking about is where you’re almost inexplicably sad, slightly depressed, or down about something.
This happens to almost everyone every once in awhile. The goal here is not to figure out how to prevent getting in a funk, but rather to short-circuit the funk when it happens. This is why getting enough sleep is not on the list, because that’s not helpful when you’ve already deprived yourself of sleep.
Note also that I’m not talking about chronic depression. Though the suggestions below will help, coping with and recovering from chronic depression takes far more work and may require some radical changes to your lifestyle.
I have a checklist that I start going down when I recognize that I’m in a funk. It starts with the recognition that the easiest way to short-circuit a funk is to work on the physiological level first and then work to the emotional, social, and mental levels later- yes, this is the same Aristotelian schema that I discussed here. It takes its cues from cognitive therapy, which trains patients to become aware of negative thoughts and immediately take action to subvert those thoughts. Continue reading →
The other day I mentioned that Clay Collins made it on Alltop’s Lifehack page. I didn’t do a great job of explaining what Alltop was then, but I wanted to take a second and do so now.
Alltop has provided such a great explanation of what they do that I’ll just give a sample from them:
You can think of an Alltop site as a “dashboard,” “table of contents,” or even a “digital magazine rack” of the Internet. To be clear, Alltop sites are starting points — they are not destinations per se. The bottom line is that we are trying to enhance your online reading by both displaying stories from the sites that you’re already visiting and helping you discover sites that you didn’t know existed. In this way, our goal is the “cessation of Internet stagnation.”
The way I’ve related to Alltop is that they’re much like the New York Times Bestseller List. They do the work to find good reads from different niches and help readers find those sites by displaying them on a single, aggregated page that lists the latest five stories on those sites. It’s a great way to check out your interests without managing a ton of blogs and sites.
What I like is that they really do help people discover new sites. Rather than just focusing on the old and known sites and blogs, they give new quality blogs a chance, since they have the expressed goals to “shake things up and urge people out of their comfort zones”, promote “sites that provide such high-quality information that we feel it’s our moral duty to tell the world about them,” and “help out underdogs and undiscovered gems.”
As a case in point, they’ve added Productive Flourishing to their Lifehacks page. They have really stuck out their collective neck for me, and I really, really appreciate it.
I just found out today that your friend and mine, Clay Collins, made it on Alltop’s Lifehack page.
I wanted to take a second to cheer him on and give him some gratz love. For those of you who haven’t been following this blogging phenom, his first blog post on TheGrowingLife was on January 24, 2008. That’s not a typo - 14 weeks (if I’m counting right) and the man is on Alltop.
I’ve been following him personally and professionally and can tell you that he’s been working his butt off and doing all of the right things to get visibility of his brand and his blog.
Am I envious (in the good way)? You bet. Am I proud? Absolutely.
I’d encourage you to cheer him on, but recognize that he may not be able to reply. He’s currently fighting through the hellstorm of the Digg Effect.
, that the entry song comes from on Amazon. Proceeds from the campaign will go directly to support Amnesty International’s urgent work on Darfur and other human rights crises worldwide.)
