I think it's fair to say that at times, the Internet is where people go when they are down on their luck. This is where the teen with bad parents goes: where the husband in a bad marriage finds a hobby group: or where the unemployed person vents. And so I've thought lately that my general mood would be improved if I spent less time online. I find myself too easily affected by the sufferings of others. This is not necessarily because I'm a special empath boy. I'd say it is a bit of a character weakness, that with age I'm more susceptible to the vibe of the room instead of keeping my own mindset. (I love my empathetic qualities, but it is important to note that empathy is not a complete good, etc.).

But I had a nice moment today. One of my very first Xanga friends was speaking at her church, and the broadcast was live. We knew each other two decades ago, when I was suffering in grad school and she was suffering in college, ha. I don't want to unfairly share too much of her story, but she was very much down on her luck at the time. College can be a friendless, disappointing slog for some. (I think she is the first Xanga friend I met that I did not already know, in retrospect).

And now she is an author (a very well-written Christian book, that I would have been impressed by even if I didn't know the author) and speaker. She's also a wife and mom, and was fortunate to find a great guy almost immediately after college.

So why am I bringing this up? I think it's easy to get in a mindset that our suffering friends (or ourselves!) will forever be down on their luck. The trapped spouse will never be happy, the teen with bad parents will never get out. And sometimes this bleeds into other areas of our lives too. There are students who never seem to get it all four years, and I wonder what they will do after graduation. I bumped into one the other day. He was thriving, dressed in expensive clothes, and I didn't recognize him at first.

So this is what counts for Sunday optimism, ha. While often the Internet shows us the downward spiral for some, I'm pleasantly reminded that some people are finding their footing. They are healing, they are surviving, and yes, even thriving.

So one of the weirder hobbies I've taken up over the last decade has been stock trading. I've become a rabid reader of stock articles, to the point that I was reading them while driving (not my wisest move!). It's been helpful to understand business and the economy, and every so often I make money instead of losing money (yay).

One unfortunate thing I recognized was that if people have invested in a stock, they will overlook any offense a company creates. The company may have made its money by tricking senior citizens into bad investments or turning widows into butter, yes. But somehow, the owners of that stock will comment that we shouldn't judge the company by moral standards, and after all, those widows were annoying. Buttered toast, anyone?

This behavior has the fun nickname of "Talking one's book:" that is, one's book of stock certificates. It's the idea that one has a book of stock certificates and is talking it up whenever one can to raise the value of said stocks.

For some reason, seeing these commenters and writers promote their stock by any excuse necessary was educational for me. I used to get upset about bias in reporting and commentary. But now, I realize that most of the time, it's because that person is already invested in their lie. It's not a personality defect per se, many of those people aren't even aware of their bias. It's the investment they already made that is doing the talking, and thus they are in slavery to their book without even realizing it.

And in stock trading, you can always sell your stock and get out of that business. Ask me how much money I've lost from selling my investments in Palantir, or avoiding Amazon and Tesla stock. But in the real world, we struggle so much to sell bad stocks, don't we?

I must admit, I'm a bit concerned for my future steps.

I was thinking about it: over the years, I've tended to have a crossroads moment every five years. Sometimes those crossroads moments go relatively well. Thanks to a kind former classmate, a door opened for a last-minute teaching job in Wisconsin in 2007, and the success there set me up pretty well until 2013 or so.

Then we have 2018, where I managed to lose both the job and the lady (it's a little more complicated than that, yes) and so I ended up in a sort of wilderness state (almost literally) for a few years. I think ironically I was perhaps a little too calm going into 2018: I thought I might go 1 for 2, but instead ended up both single and soon to be unemployed. I'm mentioning it now because enough time has passed that I don't think I'm compromising anyone/anything by saying it.

So here I am in 2024, trying to balance my attempts to get promoted (or more literally, not fired) at this job with keeping myself employable and eligible elsewhere. The problem I'm running into is that I may be out of lateral moves. There's a sort of make it or break it flavor this time around. I'll put it this way: if one kept getting in car accidents, eventually one's insurance goes up, whether one is a bad driver or not.

So, now to find a way to live in this high cortisol state. I wasn't proud of 2018-2019 me, getting in odd fights with beloved friends and snapping under the tension. I'd like to think that 2024 me will be more noble this time around. We shall see...

I was reading some posts by someone who has had a hard time with their mental health for years. They apologized for what they termed "crazy posting" and I felt bad and left a nice comment. But I also quietly found myself asking God whether this person will get well: are they doomed to this ill health indefinitely?

Because I know Jesus said you will always have the poor among you. But I think that somewhere deep down we believe that all Christians will have a blessing some day. Certainly God may not heal everyone. But come on, can't he give Susan a few bucks? Can't he give Joe a few days of mental clarity, where he's not tormented by voices from his own head?

I think that instead, though, it may do our theology good to consider that some people are destined to always suffer in this life. That a theology of self-improvement and deliverance has value in theory, and that we hope for salvation, but that we also accept that some of us will have a permanent cross to bear, will be slaves in this life. And at minimum we understand it is not their fault, they are not cursed by God. But at maximum we agree to bond to them in the fellowship of suffering. We agree to not turn away, to hide our frustration, disgust, and sorrow in front of them as best we can. Are we not all the least of these in the cosmic spiritual sense? Are we not all waiting for death to become truly glorified, sanctified, and transformed?

2023 was a noisy year, a year with a fair amount of new projects and new efforts. I tried new things at work, I took a trip back to Greece, and I got into teaching a few new topics that I had yet to cover before. But the strange part is that I can't truly think of any deep changes due to the decisions of 2023. At least not yet.

Because, here's the interesting dilemma with Hindsight. (By the way, what animal do you think a Hind is? Quick, try to remember, I'll tell you at the end). You do have to be far enough away from the decisions and details to have 20-20 vision. Right now, the events of 2023 seem to be kind of a wash.

For example, I bought a slightly newer used car to replace my car that already had 175000 miles on it. Functionally, nothing big has changed: I'm still driving a car with over 125000 miles on it. The whole process seemed quite major and daunting: I went shopping to at least four car dealerships, paid quite a bit in car repairs, etc. But now, I'm just back to the same state of driving an older but still functional car.

So I'm at a funny spot in that, in some ways it looks like nothing has changed, but it feels like something has changed. I feel a certain restlessness returning which normally results in me making real changes to my life. I think something changed in 2023, but it could be anything from a decline in health to an improvement in creativity. So I can't quite determine what New Year's Resolution I want until I figure out what I need to change, but I don't know what HAS changed. Make sense?

*Hind is a female deer, specifically a red deer.

I was a child when I first read of the firebombing of Dresden. It was in a history book, and it was presented without context or color. After pages and pages of Allied struggle with the Axis, the Allies were finally winning. They ruled the skies over Germany: barely opposed over Dresden. And they were able to set the city on fire, killing hundreds of thousands*. And I read it and I thought it was good, actually. Isn't that what we wanted? The evil Axis driven into cities, and burned to hell? This was a good thing, wasn't it?

And then I got a little older, and I read about Dresden again. And I realized it was a war crime. The manufacturing and military targets in Dresden were less extensive than reported, and the bombing didn't even fully target those facilities. And at first British war hawks tried to rejoice over the destruction, claiming that the destruction was the point. That the many war refugees fleeing from the East into Dresden were Nazi sons and daughters, were they not?

But the Associated Press wrote a story referring to Dresden as a terror bombing. Americans expressed concern. British intellectuals made annoyed noises of concern. So Churchill rewrote his memo, and the British Army walked back their rhetoric a little bit.

And yes, there were other cities that were bombed with large civilian casualties: Hamburg and Tokyo. But I'd like to argue that after Dresden, there wasn't the same savage glee at firebombing civilians. And that enough concerned people made enough noise that Dresden was a sort of turning point, in Europe at least. (No comment on Hiroshima and Nagasaki...).

And yes, the Nazis used Dresden as a rallying point, claiming that the Allies massacred hundreds of thousands. Massive lies were told. But the Allies "gave" the Nazis this talking point. Nazis were always going to lie (as were Allies): what is important is that one does not fan the, err, flames of falsehood.

I'd like to think that the America of today will still squirm when Dresden happens again. Even when it is our allies who do it. Even when they fight an enemy that has some evil elements. I'm finding out the answers this month. We all are.

*Note: the actual figure is probably closer to 25k and is somewhat a matter of debate.

I do love how the human mind is so well-versed at finding new things to worry about. Today it's my lack of a male friend group locally. Because I have male friends, and groups of male friends at a distance, and friends who are a group, but just not the exact combination of a group of male friends locally. So I need to worry about this and what it says about my personality, desirability, friendliness, and charisma. Good night everyone :p

As I heard Sunday's Palm Sunday, I had a good mental glimpse of how uncomfortable I would have felt at Palm Sunday. First, let's think about the feel of a noisy, unorganized crowd loudly shouting slogans. Personally, I never feel comfortable giving myself any particular mental health label. To do so, I feel like an interloper who has made off with someone else's hard-earned acronyms. However, let's just say that I get along quite well with lots of people on the autism spectrum. And a loud social setting with no opportunity to talk or hear oneself think? An absolute nightmare. I would be looking for the donkey lot ASAP to make my way home.

And not only that, but consider all the expressed emotions! The shouting, the crying, the citizens who seem half-delirious in their responses. All that palm branch waving, I could cut myself on a stray frond stroke! No, no, not intellectual at all, all this parading and shouting. Why aren't the crowds hushing themselves? Where is the Jesus Lecture? How can these fools not be allowing Jesus to deliver more insightful commentary? Waste of time, really.

And finally, that donkey and cloak thing--Jesus, I don't know how to say this, but isn't this too showy? Too glamorous? Oh I know it's not a big white horse, but these processions have meanings. This seems too...regal. Yes, that's it. Shouldn't we be more modest?

You get it: Palm Sunday challenges me on so many preconceived notions. My mistrust of the mob and of emotional response: my love of order and intellectualism: my bias for subtle, modest displays of virtue and worth, all of them trodden under the hooves of a donkey bearing a God to his prophesied death. And I have to ask myself, am I ready to let King Jesus and his followers come into my city, with all the mess and confusion and challenge? Can he get here by Easter? It won't be the same without him.

I've been musing about the High-Value jargon lately, and what it would be like to produce content for Low-Value men.

I will remark that my own measurement for when I truly was Low-Value was rarely quite right. Grad school me? No style, but elite creativity and banter. On the other hand, 31-32 year old me was perhaps peak in money and societal value, but I didn't like living in that guy's body as much as society may have thought I should have. You get the idea.

However, HOWEVAH, I think it's important for men worried that they are experiencing Low-Valueness to be willing to walk back within themselves and stay there for a little while. Because too often, a man wants to perform Value-Checks in the outside world, and use those as a measure of one's value. Even if some of those Value-Checks get cashed, the man is sliding towards a Producer, Praise, or Playboy mindset as a way to generate value.

 I think that we men often mistake noise (as in Signal to Noise Ratio noise) as value. And that we mistake the quiet as a sense of lost value. But Value is not measured in DM's or comments or likes, nor in attention per se. Visibility is, but Value is not.

Look, the strong silent type is dead for a good reason. But somehow we men replaced him with the weak loud type, shooting off blanks wildly in all directions hoping for a hit. Spray and Pray, Announce and Pounce, etc. And mind you, I refuse to recuse myself from judgment at this sort of trial.

One of my few abilities is that I do eventually learn from my mistakes, and regroup and reform. But as I age, I think I'm less willing to sit at my own bonfire and watch my illusions burn in order to create better ones. So I think it's particularly important to practice these inward journeys, in a safe way that protects against sudden downward spirals, of course

One of the moments I get most excited about is when a student knows they are going to graduate. They will soon lose the diploma itself, or misplace it on their move. But the achievement itself cannot be reversed. No one can take away that accomplishment from them, and it will be written down in the college registrar's office. Or take a team that wins their conference title. It may be a down year for the conference, but someone had to finish first, and they did.

However, the fact is there are indeed achievements that can be taken back. One's best workout body is now just seen in old photos, and is gone. Your current body gives you no real credit for being able to dunk a basketball (ok, ok, I never could, shh let me dream here) a few years ago. Or take one's successful start to a job: one can still be laid off or fired after years of good performance and wise choices. And don't get me started on the way divorce makes the entire timeline of a marriage seem like a failure, when in reality things may have been relatively decent until the marriage's sudden end.

I think my problem of late has been that I am hyper-sensitive to the impermanence of certain achievements. I know that I can be let go from jobs where I excelled for some period of time, and I know that I may be blocked by those who were once close friends and mutual confidantes. So it colors the victory of the moment: if I were an 18th century Hawthorne character, I'd be muttering something about the burning of the grass of the field. But I realize that part of the joy of being a human is indeed the surprise factor, the fragility of our victory. We celebrate with the player who successfully dunks or scores partly because of the implausibility of it all. It's a small miracle when any two of us can create a strong bond, let alone a marriage and family, is it not? So I will try to make peace with the impermanent.