Most folks I know who blog don't "do xanga" anymore. I wasn't aware that people "graduated" from blogs. I've been keeping up the noble efforts of trying to be one of the few xanga-ers left in my social circles, but blogging is public. These blogs are supposed to be shared and are supposed to be stimulating for others, no? At least that's true for me - I don't blog for myself, I keep a handwritten journal for me.
It ain't a good thing if it can't be shared. One of my "sayings".
Anyway, here's to keeping up with the masses and the Google monster.
I might return to xanga for kicks, but you can check out my new "blogspot" at:
There's this popular book series called "Weird (insert state name here)." It all started with Weird NJ. It is a point of pride for me. Yes, New Jersey is sweet but pretty weird.
So I've been wearing these goggles in place of my old glasses. In my hopes of getting a new pair of glasses I decided to get an eye exam yesterday to get an updated prescriptiona and then utilize 39dollarglasses.com. (I know, right?)
The exam was quick and painless, but the eye doctor was just really weird. My sister thought he was drunk, my dad thought he was "a gay", and I thought he was just really old and senile. He didn't make a whole lot of sense and reminded me of these senior citizens who volunteer at the library I work at. Really nice, cordial, and chatty... but a little... "off". Half the time I have no idea what they're talking about. I just smile and silently munch on the home-made cookies they bring in.
Anyways, I shelled out half my bank account (yes, I'm pretty broke) to pay for the eye exam. I mean, you know, I though it was worth it. The eye doctor handled all the money and gave me the wrong change. Hm.... suspicious. Upon looking at my prescripion I realized that it was very different from what I thought was my actual eyesight. Turns out that my sister's prescription (she was also examined by the same eye doctor) was off by a whole 1.00 or so... (if you wear glasses, this might make sense?). I don't like getting swindled... but apparently I'm passive-aggressive. So I didn't say anything and left unsatisfied.
I will probably go to another eye doctor later today to get another exam. Just in case...
On a separate note, eye exams in South Korea are FREE. And glasses are as cheap as $10... sigh... Korean also eat dogs.
So I would like to submit to the Weird NJ periodical, the Sears Optical optometrician at Quakerbridge Mall. He's weird. Worth a visit for kicks. But don't pay him any money. He'll give you $1 change instead of $11.
Something I've been learning a lot about in past years is leadership. I was brought up in the "old-school" teaching: Obey all orders and respect authority. Why? Because I said so!
I came to embrace it as I followed it and expected others to follow it. But man, that's just plain frustrating! It doesn't work for very long. I found this article written by a Coast Guard admiral. It's a good reminder to what my mentors have been trying to teach me over the years. You can read the whole thing here: Inspired versus Required.
Here are some excerpts:
"Inspired Versus Required"
A traveler saw two men cutting stone from a mountain and placing the blocks on carts. He asked them, "What are you doing?" One said, "Can't you see? We're cutting stones from this mountain." The other man gave the traveler an understanding look and said,
..."We're building a church."
"You don't just do a mission, you believe in it" - Story Musgrove
Inspired action is a totally different thing altogether. Inspiring is hard work. It takes time, and integrity, and effort. It's harder (way) than giving orders. For old "do it cause I say so" types it requires a sometimes painful change from believing your people work for you, to making them believe that you work for them. You do, you know... you do work for them. That was the subtle idea that I had missed. I thought it was my job to tell ym guys what to do. But the primary job of a leader is to make them believe they should be doing it.
If you can get your team to believe in the mission, (your cause), then you can change completely the way they see the world and their place in it. If you can do that, you can create inspired action. They will automatically, because they want to, do the things that need to be done to achieve the mission. They will do all that is required, with minimal guidance from you, without being reminded. If inspired, they will do the things that need doing, often before you (the one in charge) even think of them.
First, you must make sure that you are inspired. You have to know why you are here. You cannot inspire anyone else unless you first lock this one down.
The "Why am I here" issue:
1. You know why you're here and will never forget (some of us)... 2. You've been so wrapped up in doing it that you need two weeks on a beach in the Caribbean so you can clear your head enough to remember why you came here (most of us) ...or 3. You just needed a job and never knew why you came here in the first place. Or you didn't care, it was just something to do. (a rare animal...you I can't help too much.)
This is the Coast Guard. Why we are here is easy, although surprisingly, easy for some (or most) to forget. There is something about the day-to-day requirements of the over-reaching mission of the Coast Guard: Our primary "cause" requires such preparation and attention to the details of preparation that it becomes easy to forget about the thing that we are preparing for:
We are all here to save lives.
That's it. That's all. The primary reason that anyone in the Coast Guard has a job is to save lives. All jobs (ALL OF THEM) are in support of that mission.
So you think your people are fixing airplanes? Do you think the MK3 is repairing the engine on the 47 footer? Do you honestly think that all that Seaman Apprentice is doing is chipping paint? You're wrong. What they are doing is saving lives; fixing airplanes, and engines and painting are the ways that they do it. It's not only the asset that arrives on scene, but everything and everyone that got it there that saves lives. This is why so few of us ever leave this place (the Coast Guard): It is noble work. Every kid leaving Cape May KNOWS that's what they are here for and I think the difference between those who reenlist and those who don't is only about how well we support or tear down that belief.
Now do you know why you are here? Do you believe in your job, or do you still need a few weeks on a beach? If you do...go. Stop reading this and fill out a leave chit right now. Get yourself to a place where you can remember that feeling you had on the graduation field at Cape May, or New London, or Yorktown or wherever you first wore your uniform, and dig deep for the belief that brought you here. Don't like the beach? Then try visiting Cape May, New London, or Yorktown, but do something. Because I can promise you this, if you have lost that belief; that graduates belief; if you don't remember why you are here, then there is no way you are doing a good job anymore. You are just going through the motions. Your actions are no longer inspired, you are simply doing what is required, and that is no way to live. Not for you, and not for your people. -Admiral Thad Allen, USCG, Commandant
The last thought of 2008. Here's to an inspired new year.
"But we are supposed to win souls! It's what it's about!"
I talk a lot as if I know something, my preachy "observations" that are really just naive feeling-barfs. I'm learning more and more about the importance of the art, discipline, life skill - whatever you call it - of just listening and asking questions. I learn more by talking less.
I was reading the January 2009 edition of Esquire magazine. Here is a compilation of excerpts from 2008 celebrity interviews that spoke to me. Try looking beyond the actual words for the principles. I don't necessarily agree word-for-word, but there's some truth to everything that's said. On people, yourself, relationships, action, purpose... but mostly about relationships:
Woody Harrelson, actor Expectations are pretty tough on relationships.
Eminem, rapper People can try to reinvent themselves. I don't think you can really change who you are, though, because who you are is pretty much where you came from and what you've done up to now. You can change your image and all that - you can change your fucking clothes, your underwear, your hair color, all that shit - but it's not going to mean you're a brand-new person.
You want to say, "I don't give a fuck what anybody says." Yeah, you do.
Shit happens. Fucking happens to the best of us. Really does.
Steven Van Zandt, E Street band guitarist, played Silvio Dante on the Soprano's Every susccessful person needs to have at least one person in their life who's not afraid of them. That you gotta give Bruce [Springsteen] credit for, because it's easy to surround yourself with people who don't know your character flaws and you can pretend to be God.
Kimberly Roberts, New Orlean's Ninth Ward, provided footage for documentary for Trouble the Water People think I had a clear mind and thought my way through it [surviving Hurricane Katrina]. I didn't. I prayed. Man, we need a boat - a boat come floating up the street! We needed a truck, a truck come up the street. I needed somebody to put this movie out so the whole world could see the footage. Here come the filmmakers! How could I believe that God was not involved in that?
John Goodman, actor There are no coincidences.
If you want to make a marriage work, you gotta forget about the things that nine times outta ten are not that important.
Giving up yourself isn't really that hard when you realize that you get more than you give up.
Dianne M. Keller, mayor of Wasilla, AK (where Sarah Palin was mayor)
The plural of moose is moose.
Phil Bredesen, governor of Tennessee I don't let anybody schedule anything for me before noon. Give yourself blank periods of time every day. Sometimes they're wasted, but sometimes you do more in two hours than you did in the previous month.
Lon Solomon, pastor of McLean Bible Church I'm a good tipper, because I used to be a waiter.
Roy Stewart, new director of the Corr Center for Human Rights Policy A friendship must, in the end, be an end in itself, not a means to something.
Peter Fonda , actor
Forgiveness, it just keeps proving itself to me.
Steve Zahn, actor There's a lot of emphasis on kids to be strong. I want my kids to be compassionate.
Steven H. Listen twice as much as you talk, and when you talk, ask a question.
Evander Holyfield, boxer [to his son]: Attraction ain't nothing but 10% of marriage. I know you think sex is the biggest thing, but that is the least thing that you do. He [his son] said, "What's the thing you do most?" I said, "Talk."
Jesse Jackson, minister/activist People are screaming for the running back who scored the touchdown. but the linemen knows how he got there.
When you're behind, get up earlier.
Clint Eastwood, actor/director I remember going to a huge waterfall on a glacier in Iceland. People were there on a rock-platform overlook to see it. They had their kids. There was a place that wasn't sealed off, but it had a cable that stopped anybody from going past a certain point. I said to myself, You know, in the States they'd have that hurricane-fenced off, because they're afraid somebody's gonna fall and some lawyer's going to appear. There, the mantality was like it was in America in the old days: If you fall, you're stupid.
on action: Even in grammar-school they taught you to go with your first impression. It's like mutliple-choice questions. If you go back and start dwelling, you'll talk yourself out of it and make the wrong pick. That's just the theory. I've never seen any studies on it. But I believe it.
We live in more of a pussy generation now, where everybody's become used to saying, "Well, how do we handle it psychologically?" In those days, you just punched the bully back and duked it out. Even if the guy was older and could push you around, at least you were respected for fighting back, and you'd be left alone from then on.
thoughts on when he was elected mayor of Carmel 1986-88 It's making sure that the words "public servant" are not forgooten. That's why I did it. 'Cause I thought, I don't need this. The fact that I didn't need it made me think I could do more. It's the people who need it that I'm suspect of.
You should really get to know somebody, really be a friend. I mean, my wife is my closest friend. Sure I'm attaracted to her in every way possible, but that's not the answer. Because I've been attracted to other people, and I couldn't stand 'em after a while.
I'm past doing one chin-up more than I did the day before. I just kind of do what I feel like.
Children teach you that you can still be humbled by life, that you learn something new all the time. That's the secret to life, really - never stop learning. It's the secret to career. I'm still working beacuse I learn something new all the time. It's the secret to relationships: never think you've got it all.
I just read an article from Meredith Small, an anthropologist, from Cornell University on "The Perfect Mate: What We Really Want". You can read the full article here from YahooNews! (it's a quick, easy read)
Here's an excerpt that neatly packages Small's argument:
"But all these studies are deeply flawed for the simple reason that they ask people what they want in their mates, not what they actually get. And yet evolution only works on what we do, not on what we desire; from an evolutionary standpoint, it's not our ideal that counts, but who we actually make babies with."
I agree to the point that our "ideals" can be pretty flawed and messed up. Sometimes I think I know what I want in a woman, but fail to recognize what I actually need for a healthy relationship. Over time, what I look for in a "mate" changes with my own maturity and calling in life. And I wouldn't put off relationships as merely evolutionary needs or even chance. Two words: God's sovereignty.
So how does Small answer the question, "What do we really want in a perfect mate?"
"And I am not alone in not getting my ideal mate. Do most men end up with young, pretty women? No, people tend to marry mates close to their same age. That's why those rich old guy/young buxom babe marriages are always in the tabloids, because they are so unusual.
And do women always end up with hard-working older men? No. Women marry guys their own age and social status and end up working just as hard as men to support a family.
No matter what we might say to researchers, the truth is we all end up mating with people who are interested in us, people we run into, people who happen to look our way. And our "choices," more often than not, make no sense at all."
Do our choices sometimes make no sense? Yep. Are those choices sometimes very poor, bad choices that end up in breakups, divorce, strife? For sure.
I can agree that sometimes our choices don't make sense, at the time. There's always doubt that accompanies our decisions. I'll stick with commitment and faith. They go hand-in-hand. I don't ever fully know all the details or about the future or am fully "ready" to engage in the things and people I engage in/with. But that's what commitment is: taking a step of faith (in the things unseen!), and then following through with those "I do's". It ain't automatic or easy or "ideal" (as we know it). Love ain't a feeling; it's an abandon of oneself in order to devote to another.
In one sense, the "perfect mate" doesn't exist because none of us are "perfect" per se. Love is two imperfect people coming together to grow towards a more perfect union. How does that work? For me, that love must be centered on and find its source in God - God, in His perfect love, showed our imperfect selves how we ought to love others. Being perfect is simply showing others what God has shown us. Thatis a radical love.
