Episode 11: Wired for Relationships

I've been interviewed for the JustLife.Tv podcast. It's a project that's in the beginning stages, but I've been privy to the grand plan and I can't wait to see take off.

Here is the Episode Synopsis:

In this episode we talk about friendship and the impact it has in a marriage context. Maurice Broaddus brought a unique spin to the conversation. We talked about the tug and pull in friendship, what we want in a friendship, and how we develop a friendship over time.

Click to go to Episode 11: Wired for Relationships

And they may be having me back to rant about "Friendship and Technology." Be looking for that sometime in June.


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Battle of the Nitwits

As I read far too many author blogs, one of the things that continues to bug me is how many spend time arguing with nitwits. To be clear, I’m defining nitwit as a particular kind of Internet troll who spends their time endlessly sniping at a target or otherwise running their yap in a state of self-importance/attention whoring. True, true, this defines most message board interactions, but the nitwits tend to focus on a primary target and fixate.

I’ve had my share of nitwits (fairly insulting blogs, e-mails, letters, phone calls, and message board threads dedicated to me included in the prize package) and answering their charges is simply not worth my time. I don’t care (as long as they link to me). Seriously, the first thing I ask is “who are they?” because while I don’t mind constructive criticism, not every critic is equally worth hearing from.

It’s fairly common for the newbie writer to seek to establish themselves by going after a few easy targets, whoever the perceived bad boy is (in the horror community, Nick Mamatas and Brian Keene are popular targets). These would be iconoclasts may rationalize their behavior by declaring that they simply won’t put up with the behavior of an unprofessional martinet or what have you, but it’s so regular a practice that I’ve taken to calling this the Brian Keene effect. Since the theory is that you make a name for yourselves by going after someone bigger, not smaller, take heart in the fact that you’re a target.

They know you, they read you. That’s not a relationship you’re obligated to reciprocate. People have a right to free speech, buy you are under no obligation to be given a platform in your house. The Internet is a big place, so let them go start their own blog/message board and run things their way. You don’t need to expend energy validating their opinions or otherwise giving them a platform. If you feel that their comments rise to the level of slander or harassment or threat, that’s why God created police and lawyers. Not taking up your blog space.

Unfortunately, sometimes nitwits can take over a forum. It’s funny how it takes only 2-3 prominent voices to seemingly poison a whole community. That will happen if they are allowed to dominate discussion. They can change character of board by simply posting so often they become the face of the message board. So, sometimes folks have to be asked to leave for the health of a board. It can seem unfair or even arbitrary but “you talk too much and spew little of value” can be just as abusive to folks’ sensibilities.

(To prevent this, whoever has the “vision” for said board needs to be a main voice on the board either through themselves or via their mods. In a lot of ways, the vision/voice is the main draw to the message board, which means that their mods need to not only grasp that vision, but also have the necessary people and communication skills to facilitate the discussions. Not let the nitwits run amuck.)

In the end, arguing with a nitwit only reduces you. Oh, I know it’s hard to not swing back and crush them. Lord knows, I know. Think of it this way: you swinging back at them is a no lose situation for them. Suddenly you are bringing your audience to them and when it’s the strong (read) versus the weak (not read), you are the bully. You don’t want to let the nitwits drive you to being unprofessional. And there is no reason I need to know who the members of the legion of nitwits are because you keep giving them air time. Notice none of mine were mentioned by name. Or linked to. And the Internet is a better place for it.


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Friday Night Date Place – Cutting the Apron Strings

One of the hardest things to do in our transition from child to adult is to establish an adult relationship with our parents. Life with our parents is an evolution of power: we come into the world completely dependent on them (and our parents know EVERYTHING); we start to make noises of independence and doing things our way (and our parents know NOTHING); and then we start to brave the world by ourselves (and our parents know SOME things after all).

Now that I’m a parent, it’s easier for me to look at things from a parent’s perspective. Like most parents, I worry about what kind of men they are going to be and how best to train them to be the kind of men they ought to be. It will be hard to let go of them, to get to that stage where I stop worrying, to stop thinking of them as my kid and let them be the adults they are one day supposed to be.

I changed their diapers, I wiped their noses, I kissed their boo-boos. I have planned for them, I’ve answered their (endless) questions, I’ve guided them. I’ve sacrificed for them and provided for them. Do I expect anything in return? Heck yeah, I want a payoff of my investment. I want them to become fully functional adults, prepared to go into the world and find their own way.

In other words, at some point you have to move out.

(In fact, now that my kids can tell time, I’m going to stick a counter on my blog as a continual reminder.)

Now, I’m not exactly sinless to cast any stones in this area. If someone wants to keep running after me to give me free stuff, I’m going to let them. However, at some point, certain ties had to be cut (right around the time I had to establish my own family and myself as the head of it, coincidently enough). And it was a painful transition period for me and my parents (read: mom). But it had to be done in order 1) for me to establish the direction for my own family, 2) for me to be seen as an independent adult by myself, 3) for me to be seen as an independent adult by those around me, and 4) to be seen as an independent adult by my parents.

You can’t keep living in your mother’s basement. Or your friend’s mother’s basement. Or otherwise sponging off people in your life because you don’t want to stand on your own two feet. I don’t know what it is about our generation, but a lot of us are taking longer and longer to, well, grow up. Maybe it’s because we haven’t had to. Previous generations have had Depressions and wars to define them, forcing them to grow up sooner. We’ve had MTv. But I’m strictly speculating.

Did I mention that at some point you have to move out?

I haven’t even gotten to the most practical lesson of cutting the apron strings. Control. Nothing is ever truly free. You think you get to live in a basement rent free? You think you get to borrow your parents’ car whenever you want, no charge? You need a temporary influx of cash, gratis? Besides being generally thought of as a loser by your friends, you have also given up control in your life. You are under a certain amount of obligation to live by their rules (their house, their roof, their rules). Each loan is another string attached to you. Call them “guilt lines” or “advance pay day guilt loans” and they will be pulled or cashed in.

Cutting the apron strings is a rite of passage, one that can be relatively painless (despite the occasional bout of empty nest syndrome) or messy (when folks finally have to kick you out). It’s best to take the reins of your own life and carve out your own direction, no matter how many bowls of ramen noodles you have to eat in the process.


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Humanist Quandry

Every now and then, I’m prone to thought experiments. It’s an attempt to relate to other perspectives as a lens to examine my own thinking. Most times it eventuates in intellectual naval gazing, but I have time to kill. This one started as a way to be less judgmental of people.

I’m quick to glance at a person’s life and pronounce “how can you call yourself a Christian?” I’m quick to rationalize such a pronouncement under the heading “I’m as hard on them as I am on myself”, since even a cursory glance at my own life makes me shudder anytime someone describes me as a Christian. So I’ve been allowing the grace of “where would they be if they weren’t a Christian to temper my thoughts/judgments.

(Including with myself: a friend of mine, an agnostic, thanked “whoever I’m suppose to thank” that I was a Christian, otherwise, I’d be the fifth horseman. He went on to describe me, in love mind you, as a wolf in sheep’s clothing, which was an odd bit of spiritual truth when you take Christ as the Lamb in question).

So now I'm coming at this from the perspective of my belief of how I'd be without religion. So let’s say that I've removed religion from my worldview lens (note: I HAVEN'T. THIS IS A THOUGHT EXPERIMENT), what would be the ramifications of a humanist worldview for me? Basically, I’m trying to think of why I’d want to be a “good” person and the lofty idea of "for the betterment of mankind" isn't cutting it, so I'm going to need some of the ideas fleshed out a bit.

The quandary of my little thought experiment is that as problematic as faith in God can be, I have no faith in humanity (other than my faith in our ability to use any idea—race, religion, nation—as a weapon/destructive force).

For the humanists in the house, would you describe yourself as a humanist (with the idea of a belief in humanity and its ability to progress as a whole) or an individualist (meaning that you believe in yourself, the power of the individual, with enough individuals empowering themselves humanity progresses - which may take us into Ayn Rand territory)?

And then, two more questions, one on an individual level one on a social level:

-how would a humanist philosophy attempt to shape and form me as an individual? I understand do not steal, murder, lie, rape as universals in order to run a society; but for me as an individual, how would it address an idea like "greed" or what would be the motivation to be loving?

-on a social level, how would this shape social mores? Even an idea like monogamy or being married til death do us part, seems like things we've decided to buy into, but don't—humanistically—have a good reason to do.

[I’m in a real questioning mood. There’s an ongoing conversation on the message board about how would atheists react if God was incontrovertibly proved and on the flip side, for Christians, what if the resurrection was incontrovertibly proved to have never happened. All merely thought experiments, but the discussion’s been interesting.]


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Iron Man - A Review

“Making of a Hero”
“One Man’s Legacy”

“Peace. I love peace. I’d be out of a job with peace.” –Tony

From the previews alone, you had a sense that Iron Man was going to be a different sort of comic book adaptation. The cast alone told me that the creators were playing for keeps: Robert Downey, Jr. (Tony Stark/Iron Man), Terrence Howard (Jim Rhodes). Gwyneth Paltrow (Virginia “Pepper” Potts). Jeff Bridges (Obadiah Stane/Iron Monger). Samuel L. Jackson (Nick Fury--stay through the ending credits). Directed by Jon Favreau (Hogan). Even if you had no sense for who this super hero was, there was an inherent intrigue about this movie.

Tony Stark is a different sort of potential superhero. Visionary, genius, handsome, billionaire, winner of the lottery of life, he’s a modern day Renaissance man and playboy, the kind of man who has a deployable stripper pole in his private plane. Though there have been other millionaire super-heroes (Batman, Green Arrow, Blue Beetle – how else can they afford all of those cool toys), Tony Stark is truly a man who “has everything and nothing”: no core, no substance, and no one to share his life with. He battles his demons from budding alcoholism to living in the shadow of his father to the specter of corporate greed to his inability to develop meaningful relationships (he’s so narcissistic that whether he’s talking to a model or the technology around him, he’s really just talking to himself).

During a trip to Afghanistan to demonstrate his latest high tech weapons for sale, he’s captured by terrorists and mortally wounded in the process. His method of escape sets the stage for his alter ego.

Even in the comic book, the character of Tony Stark always struck me as a little one note and smarmy and the producers cast the right guy to play him. The story of Stark’s fall and redemption curiously echoes the tale of the actor portraying him, Robert Downey, Jr. He has wrestled with his own share of personal demons and finds himself on a comeback from the professional and personal brink. Despite being fast talking, glib, slick, and rehearsed, Downey, Jr makes these qualities charming, but also manages to humanizes the character.

“It’s an imperfect world, but it’s the only one we’ve got.” –Tony

The typical (super) hero origin story arc follows a simple trajectory: the first half of the movie is spent establishing the everyman (think Tobey Maguire in Spider-Man, Bruce Banner in the Hulk or Matt Murdock in Daredevil) with the second half of the movie spent in big budget effects proving that said man can climb walls, smash big things, or kung fu his way through armies of men (to the point where there’s no point in asking if so-and-so can play the hero, such as the endless Batman debates, but rather can they play the alter ego).

Like all great heroes, Tony Stark has an epiphany moment, that time when he re-evaluates his life. As the leading designer and dealer of weapons, the bulk of his father’s fortune, the empire he inherited and expanded, was built on war profiteering. Selling the sticks in a “he who has the biggest sticks keeps the peace” world, the movie quickly becomes a commentary on how easily “our” sticks fall into the hands we wouldn’t want. No supervillains per se, but rather facing off against corporate greed and terrorism, from all of the double dealing (passing around sticks).

“I shouldn’t be alive unless it’s for a reason.” –Tony

All heroes need a crossroads, or end of self, moment: when he looks in the mirror and realizes that he isn’t where he was meant to be, not doing what he was meant to do, not living how he was meant to live. Tony’s brush with death forces him to not only re-evaluate his life’s purpose and direction, but also to contemplate what his legacy will be.

“There is the next mission and nothing else.” –Tony

The movie, quite literally, is about the making of a hero. Like Batman Begins, it is more about the journey to establish the path of the new hero than a typical “spandex” string of fight scenes masquerading as a plot (see Spider-Man 3). First, the hero has to realize the system we are trapped in: the “empire,” with its values and its control and order, this social and governmental impotence easily steered by corruption and greed. Next the hero has to figure out their identity. What it means to be human, in his case, what it means to be Tony Stark. Then the hero has to define their mission, in his case, what it means to be Iron Man. At this point, the hero’s life becomes one of continual mission as they hones their gifts and work with their strengths and talents to fulfill that mission.

Tony: “Thank you for saving me.”
Yinsen (Shaun Toub): “Don’t waste your life.”

Funny and taut, Iron Man moves at a good clip, slickly re-telling his origin. It’s not the kind of super hero movie one might expect, especially if you’re thinking all there is to it is putting on the costume and getting to iron butt kicking. The move is both modern and relevant (and full of nerd moments: Jarvis, the X-Men’s Blackbird reference, S.H.I.E.L.D., the terrorist group calling itself the “ten rings” a la the Mandarin, not to mention the after the credits allusion).

I’m going to have to revisit my top ten favorite comic book adaptations list, though I’ll probably wait until the end of the summer considering that Wanted, The Dark Night, The Incredible Hulk, and Hellboy 2 are all coming out.


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Bingo Day - Racism Edition

Thanks to Nick Mamatas for pointing me to thewhich only reminded me of the Bingo from the BlackFolks LiveJournal community


And today's not even militant Monday. Carry on.


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Yes We Can

For once, the Indiana primaries--and by proxy, my vote--may mean something. Usually by this point in the election cycle, the candidates for the two major parties have already been decided and, frankly, whatever school board election going on usually isn’t enough to drive folks to the polls in May.

This year it’ll be a little different. Senators Obama and Rodham-Clinton continue to duke it out for the Democratic nomination. This translates into actual presidential nominee campaign stops in our fair state. Suddenly, we’re relevant.

One of the last times we were relevant was in 1968 when Senator Robert Kennedy was campaigning for the presidency in. During his visit to Indianapolis, he had to break the news that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. had been assassinated.

Living in Indiana, you kind of take a few things as de riguer. Our screwed up time zones, our love of basketball (despite the state of the Pacers), and our primaries not counting for much. It’s a shame that we get inured to the fact that most times we are kind of left out of the process.

As a nation, we love oppositional politics just as much as we love being cynical about politics. Cynical me believes that whenever the party of the Presidency and Congress are the same, we get a little nervous. However, let’s face it: the differences between the parties aren’t much. The parties are more about consolidating their own power and beating the “other” guys than any real agenda. On the flip side, we “survived” President Clinton, we “survived” President Bush. We “survived” a Democrat-ruled Congress. We “survived” a Republican-ruled Congress.

Not-so-cynical me believes that we can actually make a difference in the primaries this year for the first time in a long time. I’m still hoping for an election that will raise the level of debate in the country, one that will woo us with ideas, no matter how controversial. I don’t want to see a repeat of elections of yesteryear, where pragmatic politicians throw out some platitudes, count on electoral disinterest, and rally their most faithful. That’s the sure route to mediocre leadership. Then again, we get the leaders we deserve.

We’re ready for change.


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Author Interview: Weston Ochse

I've been friends with Weston Ochse for a few years now and it's always great (in a "I hate you" sort of way) to watch your friends blow up. Luckily, he still remembers who I am. His novel, Scarecrow Gods, won the Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in First Novel, and is about to be re-released as a trade paperback by Delirium Books. All of this made for a great excuse for me to pester him with a few questions.

Continued on the FearZone.


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Friday Night Date Place – Perfection: Give up the Dream

I’ve written before about how we should accept people as they are and quit dating folks with the idea of remaking them into the image of what we think we want. Today I’d like to write about an idea tangential (if not flipside) to that: the quest of perfection.

We all want to be accepted for who we are, find that person who accepts us, and allows us to be real. Authentic. The fact of the matter is that sometimes who you are is an idiot. Seriously. Just this side of brain damaged. So socially inept, it’s a wonder you can function in civilized society. I’m not throwing stones: I’ve embraced the reality that I’m not perfect (I’ve even gone so far as to embrace the fact that my imperfection can only further my wife’s holiness as she learns to love me anyway).

To recap, we have the need to accept people balanced against the need to face the reality that you aren’t perfect so there are some things you have to change or areas you need to grow in. The other tension in this equation, and the actual topic I wanted to write about, are those who endlessly chase perfect acceptance.

"The best thing you can do is find a person who loves you for exactly what you are. Good mood, bad mood, ugly, pretty, handsome, what have you, the right person will still think the sun shines out your ass. That's the kind of person that's worth sticking with." - Juno

Even discounting the blinders that come with falling for someone, I encounter all sort of folks for whom my natural reaction is “I can accept you as you are. I just wish you weren’t so … ‘you’ some of the time.” There are folks who want the former without the latter. Somehow they have it twisted in their head that a good relationship means in order for their relationship to work, they need to be accepted just as they are, with no expectations for change. Or growth.

They define acceptance as a full embrace of who you are and what you do when reality says that I may begrudgingly put up with you and wish parts of you would change. There is a big difference between accepted and being put up with, and sometime that difference is the measure of reality. I wonder if part of their misconception lies in the belief that if they aren’t perfectly accepted, they are merely being put up with. Tolerated.

Now, what I call putting up with, since I know the torments I regularly put my wife through, I see as part of the reality of the accommodation of relationships. Unless you manage to find Mr./Ms. Perfect you will continue to be frustrated unless you realize that perfect acceptance, perfection period, doesn’t exist. If you are like a child who only wants constant affirmation (“Everything you do is wonderful”) or else you think something is wrong in the relationship, or if you think the blinders that come when two people first start dating (“Everything you do is wonderful”) are meant to last the entire length of your relationship, then you have some issues you need to work out.

Probably starting with accepting yourself. You have quirks. Because the unreality of romance and faultlessness eventually wears off and people will recognize your act and who you are. The real and authentic you. “You have some aspects to you I flat out don’t like. I love you anyway.” That is the kind of acceptance we should want. A quest for anything else will leave you in constant quest, moving from relationship to ultimately dissatisfying relationship. You may have to face the fact that you have areas that you need to work on (and, in fact, you running from relationship to relationship is simply you avoiding dealing with your issues).


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My Donuts Bring Me to the Yard

My donut costs 65 cents.

Though you could probably care less about me and my love of donuts, allow me to put this more in context. For the last couple of months, I nurtured a simple morning ritual: I break for a mid-morning snack around six in the morning, take myself down to Marsh, and I treat myself to a donut. The cashiers smile at me, I drop two quarters in their hand, and I go about my day.

Then last month I dropped two quarters in my cashier’s hand and she looked up and said “they’re now 65 cents.”

That’s a 30 per cent increase. For my donut. Did no one think that we’d notice?

We’ve always had pretty low gas prices, especially consider prices some are paying in other parts of the globe. We’re just now passing the (inflation adjusted) gas prices highs of 1981. Let’s face it, oil is not a renewable resource, yet from 1975 until now, fuel efficiency has improved little more than about 10 miles per gallon. Thirty years of technological advancement has only eked out an extra 10 miles per gallon. We need to be developing alternatives, seriously pursuing other technology, but we’re short-term thinkers, so we don’t unless we absolutely have to.

I wanted to take a family vacation, a nice drive down to Atlanta to visit some friends. I remember canceling this same trip last year when gas prices jumped to $3.50 or so. This year, the trip might be possible, but only in light of serious cutbacks in other areas of our life.

And the cost of my donut went up 30%. I don’t think you feel me.

We, as a nation, have had to drive our minivans less, car pool more, and take mass transit more. We had to cut back spending in other areas. What happens when things I can’t live without, things I can’t cut back on, go up? Bread, milk, eggs … 30% adds up quickly as the transportation costs of getting our products to us get passed along. At what point does the economy finally grind to a halt.

I have to start cutting back somewhere. But I'm going to miss my donuts.


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