CelestialFamily

A great version of a great song.

(Warning: personal content)

In the spring of 1998 a friend of mine and I went down to Zion National Park and climbed a very pretty sandstoen route that was about 1000’ tall. I was recovering from leg surgery and didn’t do much if any of the leading, but I was rather proud of what we’d accomplished. This wasn’t a first ascent but it was a very nice line that took us over a day to finish. We took a fair amount of pictures because our employer, REI, wanted us to do a slide show for the customers. Several times when we could have just moved on and made better time we took extra effort to get the climb on film. The climb was particularly important to me because I would soon be moving away from Utah and back to Georgia. It was unlikely that I would get another chance like this to climb at this grade. Indeed, I haven’t climbed anything nearly that hard ever since.
When we got back to Georgia we put the slides together for the presentation. I wanted some friends and family members to see what we had done. So one day when they stopped by the store I pulled them aside and gave a small private screening. After only a few shots one friend, who has a serious issue with heights, asked to be excused. I showed the rest of the slides, but it was a little bittersweet. It was clear that in order to have a relationship with this friend they had to maintain a certain level of cognitive dissonance about my hobby. Which meant that I would not be able to share this aspect of myself with them.
I understand this friend’s apprehensions and I fully accept them. But at some level it saddened me. Here was something that was important to me, something that I enjoy and I had to hide it away in order to not upset them. Since this event I’ve learn about several other things that I do that upset certain people that I am close to. Don’t get too hung up on the first example. This is about much more that just the fact that I like to go climbing and caving. I have a long mental list of topics that I need to avoid cross-referenced to friends and family members. It seems that as I get older the lists just keep on growing too.
So what are my choices? I can have a relationship where I personally hide nothing and stay completely open about my opinions and activities even though that makes loved ones uncomfortable. Or I can hide a few details about things that are important to me in order to not upset people, but in turn I come across as emotionally distant. Or I can not have any relationship at all with people who don’t accept me as I am. Granted there are shades of grey between each of these. Ideally I’d like to be completely honest with everybody and still not upset people. But so far I haven’t had much luck with that one. Perhaps it’s something about my personality. I don’t know.
This post would not be complete without stating how grateful I am to the one person who I feel really understands and accepts me. Victoria and I disagree on many issues. And that’s great. She doesn’t need to be just an echo of my views, likes and dislikes in order for me love her and have a relationship with her. If I could only figure out how to be just as honest with the rest of the world as I am with her and not drive them away.

It’s been a few years since I’ve done a jigsaw puzzle. But last month my youngest asked me to sit down with her and work on a small one that she got for Christmas.

This puzzle was of a horse wearing a Native American blanket. We went through all of the standard techniques for building a puzzle. First I propped up the box lid so we could see the picture that it was supposed to look like when it was finished. Then we proceeded to flip all of the pieces so that the picture side is up and the raw cardboard side was down. Next I started sorting out all of the pieces that had a flat side, assuming that these would be the border pieces. Ideally, in the process we’d find the four corner pieces. Then the two of us started sorting the pieces by color, trying to group the pieces into smaller groups to work on separately; horse, sky, grass, blanket, etc.

Next came the process of assembly. Each of us would pick up a piece and try to see how it fit into other sections that we’d already assembled. I started by looking at the picture and trying to establish the border. I don’t always start with the border but it seemed to work for this puzzle. Sometimes it’s easier to start with a predominant color and try to get it together first and then work in the border later. I don’t really have a preference as to which method I choose. It just depends on the puzzle.

Eventually you’ll end up with a few sections assembled but not linked together. At this point you start looking for pieces that have a little bit of two different things on it, pieces that could conceivably go into more than one pile. The pieces with a little grass and a little bit of horse help tie those together and the pieces with the grass and sky help defiant he horizon. The “ah ha” moments of most puzzles come when you can link two large parts together with just a few small pieces or sometimes with just one. The best pieces are the ones that help tie three different chunks together. Once you’ve linked them you start looking for support pieces that also connect those chucks. Those help reinforce that your linking pieces are correct. Sometimes they disconfirm and force you to look for new ways to link the puzzle together.

At some point it seems you are always stuck with a bunch of pieces of relatively the same color and your only clue as to how they need to be assembled is to look at the shape of the pieces themselves and try to make them work.

Using these methods we were able to assemble this 200 piece puzzle in about 15 or 20 minutes. It struck me that in order to assemble it we had to make several assumptions about the puzzle.

1. The picture on the puzzle is the same as the picture on the box. I’ve put puzzles together without the box just to see how much longer it would take. If I had to guess it’d take at least twice as long. I’ve also participated in a team building exercise where the puzzle was put into the wrong box with a similar but just different enough image n the outside.

2. The pieces only have images on one side and raw cardboard on the other. I have actually done a puzzle that had images on both sides, but the stamping process made for edges that were easy to determine which side of the piece was for image one and which was for image two.

3. Flat edges are for the border. It’d be really sneaky to see a puzzle that had a jagged edge to the image and flat pieces that but up together inside the body of the puzzle.

4. The completed puzzle has no missing pieces in the body. We’ve all been in the situation where we’ve lost one piece and we just don’t feel like we’ve finished it.

5. All of the pieces have to be used. Want to really throw your head for a loop? Throw in a few pieces from another puzzle just to spice things up. I remember doing a puzzle and my grandmother’s house and having exactly that problem. She’d found a few pieces on the floor and just threw them into the first box she found.

I can think of several more assumptions that we make when we try to make sense of the scrambled pieces in front of us. But this will do to start out with.

Lately I've been working on a puzzle that seems to violate all of these assumptions.
No picture on the outside of the box. No raw side to the puzzle and no obvious way to tell one side from the other. Flat edges in the middle and bumpy edges on the edges. A few holes in the main body. A few extra pieces from other puzzles.
And the coup de gras of the whole puzzle is that I have a few large chunks of the puzzle that don’t even attach to each other.

Anyway, that’s my little analogy for today. I think I stopped talking about jigsaw puzzles a few paragraphs ago.

A few years ago a celebrity got a DUI and while he was being arrested he slipped into an anti-Semitic rant. In his apology he acknowledged that he had an alcohol problem and blamed the anti-Semitic comments on the alcohol. I don’t believe that is how it actually works. The alcohol may have turned off some of his filtering software but the ideas were still there, inside him, just waiting to come forth once the filters were weakened. I felt then that this celebrity needed to not only address his alcohol problem but he also needs to confront what caused him to harbor those ideas in the first place. I trust him when he says he’s making good on correcting both problems.
Now here’s where this post gets personal. For some reason I don’t quite understand I haven’t been getting hardly any sleep for the last week or so. I don’t feel overly worn out in the mornings. It’s just weird that I just seemed to lie around and wait for the alarm to go off. I’ve just been writing it off to having too much to worry about.
Anyway a couple of times lately I’ve been a little punchy and let some comments slip that I really wish I hadn’t said. But that’s not what bothers me. Like the celebrity’s anti-Semitic comments my comments had to come from somewhere. That’s what’s bugging me. I need to go back to the drawing board on these areas of my life and re-evaluate what I value and try to figure out why those ideas were even in my head in the first place. It’s simply unacceptable to blame this on my lack of sleep. It was easy for me to criticize the celebrity and I’d be a hypocrite to try to use the same logic he did to avoid facing the real problem.
I know I have quite a bit of work to do to become the person I’d like to be. This just kinda hit me out of left field and from and area that I thought I already had taken care of.

Yesterday I listened to a podcast that talked a little bit about the Peltzman Effect. In simplest terms the Peltzman Effect is a theory that claims that the safer people believe they are the more likely they are to engage in risky behavior. I need to do more reading on this but the topic seemed to confirm my own observations. From what little I’ve read this is primarily an economic theory. If you believe that your investments are insured to a certain amount you’ll take more risks than if they were not. I’ve also seen many manifestations of this in other areas. Do high-wire walkers take more chances if they have a net? Increase the safety of cars by adding anti-lock brakes and massive crumple zones and some people take this as permission to bump draft on the highway like it’s a Nascar race. In my own experience I can think of several examples from the years when I used to do much more rock climbing. I did much more dangerous things on top-rope that I ever would have done on lead. And I took much more risks on lead that I ever would consider without a rope.
It seems that the appearance of removing the risk, even if it’s only marginally safer makes people behave disproportionately to the added benefit of the safety net. The net effect seems to be that people feel even more detached from the consequences of their decisions. The safety nets, the ropes, and the ABS brakes may actually encourage more risk taking and be less safe.
I’ve given this issue a lot of thought lately for many reasons. I’ve been considering getting my VW bus on the road again and it has no ABS brakes and the crumple zone is pretty much the driver’s and passenger’s legs. I’ve been trying to get in shape to do more rock climbing than I have in years past. But the biggest reason I’ve chosen to blog about this today comes from just being a father.
It’s natural to want to pad the sharp edges that you bumped into as a kid so your kids won’t have to learn the hard way. I also try hard to provide a decent financial safety net for my children. But I fear that in a small way I may be experiencing a little bit of the Peltzman Effect. By making things a little nicer for my kids than I had it I seem to be encouraging them to take risks that I would not have taken. I made a lot of stupid mistakes as a child. I wasn’t shielded from the consequences and in most cases felt the full brunt of those mistakes. As a parent it’s much easier said than done.
There’s a British sci-fi comedy that I really love, Red Dwarf. I think sci-fi allows you to explore ideas and themes that you really couldn’t explore in other formats. In one episode one of the main characters met his alter ego from a parallel dimension. In one dimension this character, Rimmer, was a sniveling middle management suck up with no loyalty and was inept and virtually friendless. In another dimension the same person had become, Ace, the dashing space pilot that everybody wanted to be around and was the hero of everything that he attempted. The two tried to figure out at what point in their life their paths took such drastically different paths, one becoming Rimmer and the other becoming Ace. They concluded that many years ago one of them cheated on a test and got caught, the other did not. The ironic thing is that Ace was the one that got caught and Rimmer had gotten away with it. Having that wake up call early in his life had caused Ace to sit up and re-evaluate what his life would become while Rimmer never had such a wake up call.
My fear is that I’m doing too much to interfere with the natural consequences and not letting my kids get the wake up call they need. As a parent who wants only the best for them that’s much easier said than done.

A few weeks ago Victoria pulled me aside to watch and interview with Barbara Ehrenreich on The Daily Show. Bright-sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America. A few years ago Ehrenreich was diagnosed with breast cancer. She was overwhelmed with well meaning people telling her to avoid any negative emotions and to stay positive. She began to look deeper into this cult like attitude that so many people have that you can jinx your health, relationships, and your carrier if you don’t always keep a positive attitude.
Not many of us enjoy being around a cynic all the time. Don’t mistake Ehrenreich’s criticism of the giddy optimism promoted by so many as cynicism. It isn’t. She merely points out that being unrealistic about things can be far worse than just the occasion outward sign of frustration of negativity.
Last month while reading Emotional Awareness the Dalai Lama and Paul Ekman pointed out that optimism can be just as destructive as pessimism if it prevents us from seeing events as they really are. Ehrenreich builds on this theme and shows case after case where people have been deluded by their own optimism. She goes in dept to point out how destructive this mindset can be. Blinded by optimism we set reason and rational reactions aside.
This book pulled from and added to many of the books and issues that I’ve been studying for the last few years. She tackled many of the peddlers of irrational optimism like, Oprah, Rick Warren, Joel Olsten, Zig Ziglar and many others.
Unfortunately we live in a time when a book that is literally about nothing more than wishful thinking is a best seller and celebrities and actors are seen as authorities on just about any topic just because they can share a personal anecdote. I’m sorry a personal anecdote is where science starts, not where it ends. Just because Suzanne Summers feels better after a colonic doesn’t make it science and foregoing real treatments can kill you with or without a positive attitude.
I really enjoyed seeing a book that was so passionately pro-science and anti-magical thinking get such good press. I couldn’t put it down.

“A vigilant realism does not foreclose the pursuit of happiness. In fact, it makes it possible.” Barbara Ehrenreich

I have long been a fan of the Dalai Lama. Even though I don’t accept the deeper doctrines of Buddhism, like karma and reincarnation, I really admire the efforts that he has put in to teaching people to live more peaceably with each other. His optimism is infectious. I’ve also been a fan of the work of Dr. Paul Ekman. So it has been really enjoyable to have my commutes filled with their voices as I’ve been listening to Emotional Awareness: Overcoming the Obstacles to Psychological Balance and Compassion: A Conversation Between the Dalai Lama and Paul Ekman.
Ekman and the Dalai Lama both have the same goals but they are approaching them from different perspectives. Ekman is the scientist who is studying emotion scientifically with the goal of trying to make people’s lives better. The Dalai Lama is a spiritual leader who is also trying to make people’s lives better. Both have found a very common ground in the study of emotion and how to respond to our emotions.
I have so many things to take away from this book that I don’t really know where to start.
Much of the conversation focuses on just being aware of our own emotions and controlling what we feel and how we respond to that emotion. The Buddhist principles of compassion and mindfulness come into play quite a bit in this area.
Ekman refuses to classify emotions as positive or negative. It is only our response to that emotion that can receive such a value judgment. Fear that prompts us to get out of the way of an oncoming train can be good. But fear used to intimidate is bad. Similarly pride and anger can also have similar positive effects if channeled constructively. The only emotion that both the Dalai Lama and Ekman agree has no positive effects is contempt.
Moods are a different issue and both men agree. Moods poison the well and last longer than emotion. Most emotions only last for a relatively short time. Moods however skew you perception and are never constructive. A cranky mood will cause you to misinterpret the actions of others to fit your preconceptions. Even a good mood can be destructive if it causes you to gloss over and not give due attention to a stimulus. I found it very interesting that The Dalai Lama agreed that being overly optimistic can have similar negative effects to being overly pessimistic.
The biggest take away I have found from this book is simply an awareness. I’ve been trying to identify my feelings as emotions or as moods and then trying to consciously decide how to respond. I have a bad habit of taking tidbits that I’ve learned and educating my family. That I believe is good but I tend to sound like I’m lecturing them. I hope that as I learn better emotional awareness I will also become better at sharing with my family.

As a father I’ve been giving a lot of thought to the inherent paradox of compelled self-motivation. I want my kids to perform well in all of their pursuits. However I don’t want to have to hound them constantly in order for them to do that. The goal is that doing good and feeling good about their own accomplishments becomes the goal and not just keeping me off of their backs. If the latter is the goal what can they expect if I’m not there to encourage them? Yet if former is the goal they will just be good for goodness sake. The accomplishment remains the goal and not just fear of dad’s reprisals if they don’t accomplish the goal.
I have a problem with being more than a little too introspective. I personalize the problem and try to see where I might have set, or am setting a bad example for them. Not to deflect responsibility from my kids for their grades, however I feel that I may have been setting a bad example for them. Specifically in the area of completing a task and not giving excuses I think I’ve been setting the wrong example.
A few years ago we started a project to remodel the house. It needed an awful lot of work. The largest of the projects was to replace the siding and redo the kitchen cabinets. For the most part we got the tasks completed and they look nice. But we quickly ran out of money and time. The deck is still unfinished. The front of the house could use some shutters. The stairs are still carpeted in spite of the fact that the rest of the house has been replaced with hardwood floors. I still need to fix a new top on some bookcases installed a couple months ago and there are several little picky problems throughout the house, a power outlet that doesn’t work, a dripping faucet, a door handle that falls off, etc. etc.
I have good excuses for most of the problems. We ran out of money. I don’t have the right tool. The weather is too wet, to hot or too cold. I’m too busy this weekend. I don’t have enough room to work. Just to name a few. But these are all just excuses. I’m a hypocrite. I wouldn’t allow my kids to give me a line of excuses to justify their performance in school, scouts, or any of their activities. Yet I have my own litany of reasons and excuses to justify my shortcomings. And to top it off they live in a house that reminds them every day of the many things that I have failed to complete.
I don’t have a reasonable ETA for getting all of these tasks completed but I need to hold myself to the same expectations that I require of the kids. I’ll start with the ones that present a safety concern. Follow those with the ones that cost the least amount of money to remedy and work up to the ones that with take more time and effort. However I’ve put off correcting them for too long and now I fear that it is more than just my house that is suffering.

"Be not the slave of your own past. Plunge into the sublime seas, dive deep and swim far, so you shall come back with self-respect, with new power, with an advanced experience that shall explain and overlook the old."
Ralph Waldo Emerson

For a few months I’ve been doing my best to lose a little bit of weight. I’ve basically just been eating smaller potions and walking on my lunch hours. The biggest motivator that I have is that my new office has a small workout room with a scale. I’ve made it a habit of starting the day off by checking my weight and recording it. In order to make sure that my results are meaningful I always measure under the same conditions. It’s always dressed for work at 6:45am and having only had a small breakfast. I even make sure that I don’t have my phone or any change in my pockets to be sure that the results aren’t artificially skewed.

Tuesday I had something to do after work and I didn’t want to show up in my AT&T uniform so I wore a nicer shirt and some different shoes. As I walked to the scale I realized that the results may not be accurate. I didn’t know if my outfit was heavier or lighter than what I usually wear. Just before I stepped on the scale I recognized that I was about to fall victim to my own confirmation bias. If the scale had read a little lighter than the day before I was ready to accept that as evidence of my diet and exercise was working. However, I was also fully ready to accept that if I was a little heavier that it was not my fault, it’s the differences in my wardrobe. As soon as I realized this I refused to step on the scale.

I bring this up again because lately I’ve seen far too many examples of people accepting information that supports their opinions and then wholesale rejecting any evidence that goes against it. Comments on blogs that accuse the blogger of a political bias while ignoring posts on the same blog that are highly critical of the same party. Family members who accept that a quack treatment works based on one example while ignoring the multiple times the same treatment did not make them feel better. Church friends using archaeological evidence to support their belief in the Book of Mormon but refusing to even read counter evidence.

It’s natural to cling to what makes us comfortable. Unfortunately it may not be the best thing to do. You’re not going to get accurate results if you can’t accept all of the evidence. If that’s the attitude that you have when you approach an issue just do as I did. Don’t even step on the scale. Same holds true on any other issue. Be aware of your biases and do your best to make sure they don’t influence your decisions.