Category Archives: Daily-Ink

The purge

Our garage was a mess before our big renovation, and since then it has been an absolute disaster. A couple days ago we threw out a lot of garbage. Yesterday I started cleaning out boxes I’ve had stored for years. The last time I did go through them, I just went down a nostalgic path and kept everything. This time I purged.

I was pretty ruthless. I took a few photos of things, but I also dumped a lot, including photos too. I realized that if these things have stayed in boxes for 15 or 20+ years already, why keep them in a box for another 20? It’s not going to get easier moving them around at 74 years old.

Besides, I just don’t feel attached to ‘stuff’ anymore. Here’s an example:

I wore #13 in high school, and when the school got rid of the reversible caps and got a set with ear protection, the coach gave me my number… that was 1985 and I still have it. The blue & white #9’s and red suit were from the Maccabiah games in Israel… that was 1993. Well now I have that photo above and the items are off to the dump. These, and many other items that would otherwise end up in a box for many more years, have now been tossed out.

Some of the more unique items I dumped: the rough start of a script for a water polo movie; A collection of tacky owls that my grandmother bought for me over many years because she knew I liked owls (these were sold by my wife on Facebook marketplace for a whopping $40); Wedding albums I used to promote my wedding photography business (I gave enlargements of any photos I kept to the couple, and they got all the negatives, so I wasn’t throwing away anything unique); Animal bones… So, this probably needs an explanation… No I wasn’t a kid who tortured animals and kept their bones, I travelled all through the southern US with my dad and kept some pretty neat skulls I found on our adventures.

Stuff.

Stuff I’ll never use. Stuff I don’t need. Stuff that doesn’t need to sit in my garage for another decade or two.

I’ll keep a few items. Books I find hard to part with, and other nostalgic articles, but what was 6 or 7 boxes will probably become just one. Still just stuff, but a lot less of it.

Deep space

A year and a half ago I wrote, ‘Limits of time, space, and intelligence‘ where I stated,

We are not alone in the universe. Our insignificant planet, in an insignificant solar system, in an insignificant galaxy, in an insignificant part of the universe, can’t be the only place intelligent life exists. So where are the aliens? Why haven’t we discovered them or why haven’t they discovered us?

Yesterday breathtakingly beautiful images were released from the James Webb Space Telescope.

The 6-pointed, flared stars are just that: stars. They develop those flares as a byproduct of glare and the design of the telescope. But every other glowing ball or disc is a galaxy. A galaxy with billions of stars inside of it. That’s so hard to fathom. Furthermore, the first of the 3 images above is a section of the sky that, if you held a single grain of rice at arm’s length away, the rice would cover the area of sky that image is looking at.

Some of the distant blurs are actually galaxies that formed near the start of the universe. The light we see is not just millions, but billions of years old… almost 10 billion years before our solar system was even formed. Many of these really distant sources of light might no longer exist, but it would take another billion plus years for us to even know, because the light from the catastrophic end of the galaxy won’t reach our planet until then.

I’m convinced that if so many galaxies exist in one tiny part of the sky, each with billions of stars, some of them must contain intelligent life. Our Milky Way galaxy alone has somewhere between 100 billion and 400 billion stars. Even if intelligent life is so rare that we are the only ones in our galaxy, the odds that we are the only ones in the universe would be greater than someone winning a lottery daily for 20 days. (I’m making this figure up, I didn’t do the actual math, but I think that’s a low estimate.)

I still don’t think we will learn of intelligent aliens in the next hundred years, but with new high definition images coming from the James Web telescope, we can peer further into our universe. We can marvel at the vastness of space, the variety of galaxies, and even find out more about possible life-sustaining planets. We might not be able to find intelligent life, even knowing it’s likely out there… but we will be able to look deeper into space, and farther into to past of our universe… and that is both beautiful and exciting!

Chores with headphones

Yesterday I cut the grass and cleaned out my hot tub. Two boring jobs that aren’t hard, but take a bit of time to do. I did them both with headphones on, listening to a spy novel series I’ve been enjoying the past couple weeks. I was able to listen to the last couple hours of book two and then start book three.

It’s amazing what a shift in attitude I have towards menial jobs when I’m listening to a book. Music doesn’t do this for me, but a good book or long format podcast does. Suddenly the job is a physical distraction that allows me to keep my focus on what I’m listening to. I find it hard to sit and do nothing for too long while listening to a book. I also can’t do something that involves a lot of thinking while listening to a book or my mind wonders and I need to rewind and listen again.

Simple chores (and driving) are the perfect things to do when listening to a good book or podcast. I enjoy doing the task more, and I enjoy the book I’m listening too as well. It’s my chores equivalent to pairing a good wine with dinner… it makes both things more enjoyable.

Easy distraction

I’m finding my phone to be a painfully easy distraction that’s sucking away too much of my time. I need it to write this post. I need it to meditate. I need it to listen to music while I work out. I need it to listen to my book. These are all legitimate reasons to ‘need’ my phone.

I don’t ‘need’ it beyond that, but it still ends up in my hands, it still takes my attention. It still sucks time out of my day.

I’m realizing that I need to put it down more, tuck it away more, leave it alone more.

Less phone, more life beyond the screen.

Weeding

I spent some time weeding my in-laws garden yesterday. I put on headphones and an audiobook, and just went to work for a few hours. It’s not a job I have to do often and so I enjoyed the process, but I wouldn’t enjoy gardening every day and weeding all the time.

It’s interesting to see how weeds can really blossom when they find a space to grow and spread. They can take over a section of a garden, spreading far faster and wider than the intended flowers, creating a root system that ensures their return unless the entire plant is removed.

I think addiction is like that in the mind. It takes over a part of the brain and takes root. You can try to remove the addiction, you can do some addiction weeding, but if there are roots of it left behind, you relapse and the addiction returns.

I’ve only ever met one person who had an addiction who I think got all the weeds out. He was not someone who had to fight the addiction daily, he didn’t have to do any more weeding. I asked him about this and he said he filled the space that the addiction held. He planted new seeds.

He found a way to fill the deep seeded needs the addiction gave him. For him it was love, of family and life, which brought him more joy than the addiction. He grew a new garden that prevented the weeds from taking root.

I have not dealt with addiction, I have not had to fight the battle that others fight daily… but I wonder if the idea that every day you must weed out the addiction is the best model? Are there ways to plant new gardens so the old weeds can’t take hold?

There are some therapies that seem to be able to do this, like the guided use of psychedelics, which seem to rip all the weeds out; Which rewire the brain so that weeds can’t grow where they used to take root.

I know programs like the 12-step program work and have saved many people from addictions, but they are designed to teach you that you must weed daily for the rest of your life… I wonder what other ways there are to weed, such that life can go forward with new healthy roots that reduce the need for daily work?

Any easy question to ponder when you aren’t the one that has to do the weeding every day.

Undershooting Your Potential

“If you’re always right, you’re not learning.

If you’re never failing, you’re not reaching.

The objective is to be right. The objective is to succeed.

But if you’re always winning, you’re undershooting your potential.” ~ James Clear

I’ve written about this as it relates to school a number of times… but I like this slant of ‘undershooting potential’. Our school system is filled with smart students who know exactly what to do to get ‘A’s. They jump the provided hoops, they strive for the 95%, rather than 88, or 90. They complain to the teacher about the 96% because they want 98. They know how to play the marks game, and yet they are nowhere near their potential.

No, I’m not saying that their potential is actually 100%… I’m saying the entire system allows them to underperform. They do a dance to earn an extra 2-3%, they read and re-read the criteria to make sure they hit all the targets, they spend an extra hour editing their work. But that work is nowhere near their potential. They are doing work that shows their answer is right. They are proving they can succeed at the task. They are winning at the good marks game, but they are undershooting their potential.

They are answering the same questions as their peers, they aren’t developing their own questions.

They are responding to questions that have a clear and definitive answer, they aren’t trying to solve complex problems with no clear answer.

They are following textbook experiments with pre-defined procedures which have been replicated thousands of times with the same results, they aren’t testing their own unknown variables.

They aren’t trying something epic and failing. Back in 2009, in a post called, Chasing the ‘A’, I quoted Bud Hunt,

“In no way am I suggesting getting good grades is a bad thing; that would be foolish. Getting good grades is not the problem. Allowing grades to dictate one’s life is.

Grades don’t guarantee success.

Passion + Determination + Positive Attitude = Success

I’ll give you an A if you transform the world.”

When you chase marks, good marks are the goal. Many students can play that game without really hitting their potential. The problem isn’t wanting good grades, these are still needed to pursue future dreams. The problem is a system where students always succeed without knowing what their potential is. I’ve said before that this is an injustice:

Every student will encounter failures later in life, ‘in the real world’, so if we don’t challenge them in school, we have not given them the tools to face adversity later on. The question we have to ask ourselves is, “Are we challenging students enough, so that they are maximizing their learning opportunities?” 

The pursuit of an extra couple percent on a cookie-cutter assignment with uniform cookie-shaped answers is a system designed to allow students to undershoot their potential.

Students need to design their own learning challenges, and learn to fail and to overcome those failures along the way.

More on faith and evil

A couple days ago I wrote: The paradox of religion, and this morning Miguel Guhlin responded with an insightful post: Skirting Paradox. I encourage you to not just read the post, but also to follow the links… grab a coffee and dig in, if you have any interest in faith and religion, this is a piece you’ll want to read and reflect on.

Here is my comment response, but it does not stand alone, it sits in reflection to Miguel’s thoughts and ideas and if you choose to read only one of the two, read Miguel’s thoughts above rather than mine below.

—

Miguel, thank you for sharing such an insightful post! It took a while to read because I paused to go to every link. I appreciate your links to scripture and your perspective on them. I wrote this back in March, From Faith or With Faith.

In honesty I did not remember writing this when I wrote the post above… the consequence of writing every day is that I often repeat concepts months later, not remembering what is unexpressed versus written thoughts in my mind. But the slant in the link is a little different, less harsh, less of an attack on religion (which I was concerned about, but you saw through in your response). This previous writing reminds me of a conversation I recently had with a religious colleague, whom pre-covid I often spent time with speaking of and about religion. In this conversation I said to him at one point: (paraphrasing) 

When I share my atheistic points, they are not intended to convert you. I do not perceive atheism as a religion to adopt, simply a lack of religion… there is no intent to change your mind on your faith… in fact I see how your faith grounds you and I see no benefit in you not believing what you do. 

But that is a conversation between two educators, two public school principals, both of whom do not share their religion/beliefs with students. This does not change the ideas above that you succinctly reduced to:

“What religion does to support good people is grossly outweighed by what [evil] it does.”

That is the thesis statement. That is the problem today, be it with evangelical beliefs on abortion versus the liberty of women over their bodies in the US; Or warring Shiites versus Sunnis in the Middle East; Or Chinese versus Tibetans in Asia; Or… Or… Or… the list is almost endless. Why would a benevolent, all-knowing, and un-interfering God want His/Her worshippers to impose their beliefs on others? When two people of differing faiths squabble, no finger of God comes waving down upon one of them. When that squabble leads to the use of swords or guns, no hand of God shields the supposed Righteous One. Instead, Man’s evil against Man is shed, and the God they love is no longer represented in their actions.
And there in lies the problem of religion, it does not remain in the ‘respective closets’ you mention. Instead, it manifests in hatred of the heathen non-believers. In fact, the wrath of God on non-believers in scripture is what turned me away from religion. I wondered as a teen, “What kind of cruel God would do this?”
~ Coffee after Class

“What religion does to support good people is grossly outweighed by what [evil] it does.”

Faith in God will not ever end, but maybe we can find a humanist… (I fear saying Humanist with a capital ‘H’, for this too can become dogma worth fighting to protect)… maybe we can find a humanist approach to faith that invites love of life and liberty, dialogue not conflict, and faith without evil.

Thanks again for your insightful reflection.

Summer mode

There are still a few things I need to do before I go full into summer mode. Most I’ll get done this week, but a few items will drag into next week. But I’m already feeling distracted and like I’m slowing down. I don’t feel very efficient right now.

Part of this is the routine woes that I already spoke about. I have tried to keep my routines, but it’s 6:30am and I’m usually done writing and meditating by now. I’ve already pushed my workout later in the day twice and missed a workout this week, and it’s only Thursday.

Part of me knows it has been a long year and I’m partially checked out, which is easy to do going to a building where there are no students or teachers, and even my secretaries have been relocated for summer. Part of me feels like I’m just being lazy. No matter how I look at it, I’m less productive than I should be. Yesterday I checked two things off of my ‘To Do’ list and I added two more. Today I hope to add nothing new and just check off a few more.

One item I’m excited to do will have to wait. It’s a series of lessons I’m developing based on James Clear’s book Atomic Habits. I want to create 10 two-to-three minute lessons to run over 2 weeks, with a goal of students starting a good habit that they decide on. My whiteboard in my office has had most of the concept and plan on it all year, but I really need some uninterrupted planning time to get it from idea to reality, and my ‘to do’ list is too big of a distraction right now. Still, I’m excited to get this ready for September, and I know I’ll be coming into my office to get it done over the break.

But for right now, I need to stay in work mode and get stuff done. Summer holidays won’t feel like holidays until I can put my ‘away from office’ notification on my email. Until then, I need to push summer mode to the side.

The paradox of religion

I know people of faith. Good people. Jews, Muslims, Christians. Good people all. Faith can be a good for people, it can anchor them, it can ground them. It can build community and a sense of belonging. But there’s a catch. It’s a big catch: Religion is only helpful to good people. That’s right, religion doesn’t make people good, it fosters the good in already good people.

Meanwhile, religion is used by bad people. Bad priests who prey on believers. Foolish people who take words from ancient texts literally. Weak people who feel hopeless and lost. And sometimes it even takes good people and clouds their judgement, turning their faith into misguided devotion.

When good and smart people who contextualize religious teachings with a morality that anchors them and their faith leave that faith, they do not suddenly become bad people. The religion isn’t a necessary part of being good. But religion is often used to to harm ‘others’; to ostracize and attack those that don’t fit. The crusades, military jihadists, ethnic cleansing, these are examples of how religious beliefs undermine morality as opposed to foster it. Man’s inhumanity against Man has often been driven by faith.

If religions were to suddenly disappear, would there be more or less violence in the world? How many good people would suddenly fall from grace? On the other hand, how many blindly devout and misguided people would suddenly have no need to harm non-believers?

Today, more hate is promoted by religion than love. This is the paradox of religion: Good people will be good without their faith, bad people will not be as bad without scriptures to misinterpret and blindly follow. What religion does to support good people is grossly outweighed by what it does to co-opt the weak, draw them in, and have them blindly follow the misguided religious teachings of men and women who misinterpret old and outdated texts.

Has religion helped some people? Yes. Absolutely. But at what price? How many have died in the name of their or other’s religions? How many continue to die? To hate? To fight? To abuse believers? To impose their beliefs on non-believers? All in the name of God.

Fully missing the point

I saw a post on LinkedIn yesterday that was more like a post you’d see on Facebook. It was essentially a ‘proud’ American saying, ‘This is my Pride flag’ with a picture of an American flag. And while I see no issue with an American being proud of their flag, I think that’s a purposefully insensitive way to express it. The comments were quite literally written from two fractured camps, and included comments that discussed women’s rights and abortion.

Then today there was this LinkedIn story, “TikTok has a new reigning champion. Khaby Lame, a 22-year-old Senegalese-born creator, became the most-followed person on TikTok last night, surpassing American TikTok star Charli D’Amelio”, and the headline was, “World’s most followed person on TikTok, Khaby Lame, is a Hafiz and practicing Muslim.” I’ve seen previous articles emphasizing that he was a factory worker. In both cases there were comments asking why his religion or his poor beginnings mattered?

What I find frustrating to see is how many people miss the point:

You can be proud of a country without intentionally belittling the pride flag. When Charli D’Amelio became the number one person followed on TikTok the storylines did not have the same emphasis as Khaby Lamé’s. I’m not sure if anyone can tell you her faith based on headlines written about her?

But it’s not just the headlines, it’s all the people that are in the comment section who also miss the point. That’s what concerns me. The headlines are a problem, but so too is the fact that so many people not only don’t see the problem with the headlines but actually support them.

Headlines matter, and when they miss the point, so do many that read the message.