Matthew Dicks's Blog, page 48

Reminders about Jesus

As I listen to politicians lean on their belief in Jesus to defend their horrendous policies and beliefs and advocate for Christian nationalism, I thought I’d mention a few facts about the man, at least according to their primary source document:

The Bible

I’m admittedly not religious, but I’ve read the Bible many times, cover to cover, so I know a little bit. You, too, can read about Jesus, and you don’t even need to read the whole Bible to do so. The books of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John cover the life of Jesus, and they make up a tiny percentage of the Bible, so reading them won’t take long. And unlike the books of Ezekiel and Revelations, they are fairly easy to read.

Important facts about Jesus:

Jesus was Jewish.

He was very much a socialist—absolutely an anti-capitalist.

Jesus was homeless—a refugee, in fact, not unlike asylum seekers at the US border.

He was anti-death penalty. Anti-school prayer. Anti-violence.

He strongly opposed the accumulation of wealth.

He never spoke a word about homosexuality or same-sex marriage.

Also, Jesus was also not white. He was a brown-skinned Middle Easterner who wore sandals to the dinner table and hung out with tax collectors and sex workers.

Also, unlike our former Vice President, he could dine alone with a woman who was not his wife.

New competitions

If you want to be the best at something but can’t seem to hit a baseball far enough, run fast enough, solve a Rubik’s Cube quickly enough, putt accurately enough, or consume enough hot dogs in ten minutes to be crowned world champion, how about trying (or even inventing) a newer, lesser-known competition like:

CarJitsu or Fast Draw.

Two sports that I didn’t know existed until a week ago that might offer more fertile ground for a newcomer.

The world is a strange and wondrous place.

 

Pride Month is full of pride

It’s Pride Month:

It is a month-long occasion for celebrating the LGBTQ+ culture and raising awareness of their rights and history.

Two days ago, as I stood onstage at my school, speaking to the student body, I could see a Pride flag waving on the front lawn just below the American flag.

A few hours later, as I drove Charlie to his Little League game, I saw Pride flags displayed at the fire department, the police department, Town Hall, and several homes.

Two people at the baseball game wore shirts with Pride flags emblazoned on them.

Between innings, I checked for New England Patriots news and saw an Instagram post of Gillette Stadium with a Pride flag on display on the big screen.

I have friends who are gay. Some are married. The parents of some of my students are gay. I’m certain that bigotry still exists in my community, but I don’t often see it and rarely hear it because, in my community, my state, and even the New England region, LGBYQ rights are perceived as human rights, and members of the LGBTQ community are simply members of the community.

The majority of people in my community support Pride Month and all that it represents, which forces the bigots into the shadows lest they out themselves for who they really are.

This isn’t the case in all parts of our country.

It’s befuddling and heartbreaking to think that in some places in America, the thought of an elementary school or a police station or a football team flying a Pride flag would be a cause for debate and even disgust.

But geography really matters. Certain regions of our country are still dominated by hatred, bigotry, and intolerance. It would be exceedingly difficult in places in America to fly a Pride flag, marry someone of the same sex, or express your gender in a way that feels right for you without facing bigotry on a regular basis.

Just this week, the wife of a Supreme Court justice was caught on tape openly fantasizing about flying an anti-pride flag with the Italian word for “Shame” surrounded by flames

“I want a Sacred Heart of Jesus flag because I have to look across the lagoon at the Pride flag for the next month.”

Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito is married to a hateful, vengeful bigot.

Is it too much to assume that he probably thinks similarly?

How often do open-minded, kind, and accepting people marry small-minded bigots?

It’s also astounding that Christians who have read the New Testament could believe that Jesus Christ would oppose LGBTQ rights. Whether you believe Jesus to be the son of God, a wise philosopher, or even a fictional character, his moral certainty and acceptance of all people could not be more evident in the text.

The first four books of the New Testament—the story of Jesus’s life—make this abundantly clear.

You really need to twist your thinking, compromise your logic, and collapse your reading comprehension to believe that Jesus would have opposed Pride Month or felt any hatred at all for members of the LGBTQ community.

Yet that is how bigots like Martha-Ann Alito justify their hatred and defend their bigotry.

It’s unconscionable.

So I count myself lucky today to have been born, raised, and continue to live in a community where Pride flags fly in abundance, my LGBTQ friends enjoy more rights than ever before, and the small, hateful monsters are relegated to the shadows much of the time because they are surrounded by a majority of better, wiser, kinder human beings.

We still have a long way to go to erase bigotry from this country and this world, but I’m so happy to be living in a place that is seemingly ahead of the curve.

Question everything

This particular “Truth Potato” quote—”Question every rule, tradition, belief, and stereotype there is”—sounds intelligent, wise, and perhaps not profound, yet it seems to fall on deaf ears.

A Pew Research Center study found that more than 85% of American children share their parents’ religious and political beliefs. Parents also told Pew researchers that it’s important for their kids to hold the same political beliefs as them, but it’s even more important that the kids share their parents’ religious beliefs.

So question beliefs?

That’s not really happening, either. Your belief in the spiritual construct of the universe is likely not based on meaningful introspection, careful study, and deep thought.

Instead, it was determined by simple indoctrination:

Your parents thought it was important that you believe the same thing they believed, so they spent lots of time convincing you that they were right and everyone who believed other things was wrong when you were young and especially impressionable.

And it’s likely you agreed and never looked back.

As a result, your beliefs and traditions almost certainly match your parents’, and therefore, even their stereotypes likely match your own.

“Question every rule, tradition, belief, and stereotype” sounds like an admirable pursuit, but it’s also a lonely one.

Sadly, very few people do so.

“Stories Sell: Storyworthy Strategies to Grow Your Business and Brand” born today!

My latest book, “Stories Sell: Storyworthy Strategies to Grow Your Business and Brand” publishes today!

My book’s birthday!

The book is a guide to using the power of storytelling to succeed in business of any type or size. It takes all of the wisdom that I have gleaned over the many years of performing on stages around the world and marries it to the decade of experience I have working with Fortune 100 companies Microsoft, Amazon, Johnson & Johnson, and Google, as well as smaller business, nonprofits, religious institutions, entrepreneurs, advertising agencies, colleges and universities, politicians, photographers, the FBI, and many more.

If you’re working in sales, marketing, branding, or advertising, this book is for you.

If you’re a business owner looking to grow your company, this book is for you.

If you’re a leader trying to better communicate and connect to customers, clients, employees, stakeholders, or potential investors, this book is for you.

I’ve worked with gold medal Olympians, Santa Clauses, magicians, Native American tribes, authors, comedians, and more, helping them to incorporate storytelling into the work they do, the messages they are trying to send, and the businesses they are trying to build.

The journey to writing this book is a remarkable and ridiculous one. Back in July 2011, I stood on a stage in New York City and told a story for The Moth, thinking it would be the one and only time I performed onstage. Instead, I have traveled the world, telling stories, performing standup, and delivering speeches of every kind to audiences large and small.

Two years later, in the spring of 2013, after performing at a charity event at a local synagogue, a man named Boris Levin, CEO of Mott Corporation, approached me and asked that I help him bring storytelling to the work he does. I told him that I didn’t think I could help him. I had no idea how storytelling might help someone in business.

But Boris convinced me to sit down with him and discuss the possibilities, and more than a decade later, I’m still working with Boris, helping him find and tell stories in his business.

That single conversation miraculously led to a career as a corporate and business consultant, working with clients around the globe on issues great and small. What began as a conversation over fruit punch has led to a career that has changed my life forever.

Just this past month, I’ve worked for five Fortune 500 companies, two nonprofits, a religious institution, and the FBI.

I often turn to Elysha and say, “This is crazy. Isn’t it?”

She wholeheartedly agrees.

All of this work has led to “Stories Sell” – a book that brings all of my experience and wisdom to the page (and the audiobook).

I hope you’ll give it a try.

Purchase it wherever you get books, but ideally, purchase it at your favorite indie bookseller. Booksellers and bookshop owners are the book angels of the world. They deserve your love most.

If you’d like to help my book become a success, you could do the following:

Buy it! Purchase a multitude of copies, in any format you prefer. If you like audiobooks, I narrate this one myself.Please rate and/or write a review for the book and post it wherever you’d like. Ratings and reviews help others see my book more easily.Post about the book on social media. Take a photo of yourself, your loved one, or your cat reading the book. Place the book in fun and amusing places. Let your friends, family, and coworkers know that it exists.If you work in a place where this book might be well received, let people know about it. I already know of one company that is purchasing the book for their employees. If IBM would just agree to do the same, I could sell about 300,000 copies in one fell swoop!If you can’t find the book at your local bookshop, ask a bookseller to order a copy for you. This will increase the chances of them stocking it in the future.Attend my book launch party on June 15. It’s going to be a lot of fun. Eat, drink, and be merry along with me, Elysha, my kids, and fellow book lovers. Details here.

Any one of these things would be enormously appreciated.

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The story is about me!

“Death is only the end if you assume the story is about you.”

– Jeffrey Cranor or Jay Michaelson

The internet isn’t sure who said it first.

Either way, I hate this idea. it’s nonsense. A dumb idea. Cold comfort for anyone who worries about (or relentlessly obsesses over) the prospect of death.

Who doesn’t view themselves as the protagonist of their own story?

Do people really wake up and think, “Fear not! I’m really just a supporting character in someone else’s story.”

Or “Nothing matters! I’m just an unpaid extra, filling out the background of someone else’s more important scene.”

Or “Perhaps I’m just window dressing. Or a prop. Maybe wallpaper.”

Or “The powerful play goes on, and I may contribute a verse, and then I’ll die, which is fine. I said my peace.”

I hope not.

The story isn’t about me? Are you kidding me? The damn story is about me! When I die, the story, as far as I’m concerned, ends. Other things will happen, but I won’t see them, hear them, know them, or be a part of them.

It’s a devastating thought. Soul crushing.

It’s my story, damn it, and I don’t ever want it to end.

Did Jeffrey Cranor or Jay Michaelson really think this would make me feel any better?

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There is no audience

A recent social media posting that received a lot of attention on the internet:

“Years ago, when I was in my 20s, a bold and artistically daring older friend who has since passed on gave me what I often think was the best advice I have ever gotten. I was worrying what people would think of a decision I had made, and she said, “Amanda, There is no audience.”

– Amanda Fortini

I love this. A whole lot. And I agree with Amanda Fortini:

It’s probably some of the best advice a person can receive, particularly if it’s believed and adopted.

It can be life-changing.

The Spotlight Effect – the false belief that people are paying more attention to you than they ever really are – can be crippling to those who assume there is an audience and worry about what that audience might be thinking. It prevents people from being themselves, taking risks, and speaking their minds. It causes people to worry about their physical appearance and appropriate adherence to norms and traditions.

Worst of all, it steals a person’s precious time and limited bandwidth.

But Fortini’s “bold and artistically daring older friend” was right:

There is no audience. No one is paying attention. No one is thinking anything. No one is even looking.

Once people accept and believe this, they are free to be themselves.

I don’t think it happens all too often in this world. I suspect that most human beings are trapped by the thought that an audience exists and that they must always perform for it.

What a disaster.

Last week, I asked my students to write a compliment to “someone in the classroom.” I intended for them to compliment their peers, but a few unexpectedly wrote compliments to me.

A few took advantage of the opportunity to offer me a clever backhanded compliment like:

“He has a lot of energy for an ancient man.”

“He tells great stories about how stupid he’s been throughout his life.”

“He only annoys me most of the time.”

I’ve taught them well.

But one of the compliments read:

“Mr. Dicks really and truly doesn’t care what people think about him or say about him.”

It was one of the best compliments I’ve ever received.

While not entirely true, it’s not far from the truth. I’d like people to think and speak well of me – especially those who I respect or admire – but my student is also correct:

If that doesn’t happen, but I know in my heart that I’m doing well, that’s all that really matters to me.

But I also know, like Amanda Fortini’s friend, that there is no audience. Most people aren’t thinking or speaking about me at all.

Therefore, I have nothing to worry about. No need to concern myself with the judgment of others. No need to perform.

There is no audience.

I hope you know and believe this, too, because it makes life so much easier and so much better.

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The ridiculousness of packing for camp

Packing lists for weeks-long camps are a little ridiculous. In response, parents already paying thousands of dollars for sleepaway camps are deciding that the cost to get their child’s camp trunk squared away by professionals is worth the expense.

A prepared bundle of toiletries from Camp Kits, for example, can cost $98 to $185.

Prep services can cost $125 per hour to pack the trunk, and a “camp appointment” at the children’s boutique Denny’s in New York can cost an average of $1,500 to $2,000 to prepare a fully loaded, thoroughly labeled camp wardrobe.

Upon returning home, laundry can also be outsourced. First Class Laundry Services in West Palm Beach offers a pick-up and drop-off service for $225 per trunk.

All of this seems kind of ridiculous to me. Another example of “not every thing needs to be a thing.”

Both of my children are going away to camp this summer. We are not paying anyone to pack our children’s things, though admittedly, it’s been quite the chore, primarily for Elysha, who has taken point on this project. The lists are incredibly specific and seemingly endless. Medication is a bureaucratic nightmare.

It’s become a second job. A side hustle in order to hustle your child away for a couple of weeks.

When I went to Boy Scout camp as a kid, a few things were different:

We built our own trunks from wood, nails, and paint. That trunk, now 40 years old, is sitting in my garage and still contains camping supplies. It’s heavy and cumbersome and unadorned.

It served me well.

I packed my own trunk based on a list provided by my Scoutmaster. It consisted of things like shirts, pants, tee shirts, socks, underwear, and a toothbrush. I brought a single bathing suit to camp because, throughout my entire childhood, I owned one bathing suit, which seemed right back then and still seems right today, despite my children’s multitude of bathing suits.

I tried to remember a towel and a raincoat. When I forgot one or both, I was wet for a while.

I survived.

I packed my trunk hours before departure.

I did not require any additional clothing or any other item that I didn’t already own.

When I spent more than a week at camp, which I often did, I washed and dried my laundry on Sundays at the camp’s laundry room.

When I attended my Boy Scout camp – Yawgoog Scout Reservation – in the 1980s, it cost about $100 per week. I paid for most of that myself from the work I did throughout the school year.

Today, a week at Yawgoog costs a relatively modest $500, though that cost still far outpaces inflation.

Still, it was a simpler, perhaps better time.

Actually, no. It was definitely a better time.

I can’t help but wonder if our kids would be better off packing their own supplies and managing their own materials. Maybe a small part of the learning I did while at camp—and I probably learned more at camp than anywhere else as a child—came from taking care of my preparations and planning for camp.

Experiencing the pain and frustration of forgetting something important.

Learning the value of the Scout motto: “Be prepared.”

Discovering the confidence that comes from independence and self-sufficiency.

When you’re outsourcing packing and laundry to third-party services, you’re not exactly preparing your child for the challenges of the world, and you’re certainly not affording them the opportunity to take care of themselves.

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A whole bunch of Americans are not living in reality

A recent Harris poll indicates:

55% of Americans believe the economy is shrinking, and 56% think the US is experiencing a recession, even though the broadest measure of the economy – gross domestic product (GDP) – has been steadily growing and outpacing most other developed nations.

49% of Americans believe the S&P 500 stock market index is down for the year, though the index went up about 24% in 2023 and is up more than 12% this year.

49% of Americans believe that unemployment is at a 50-year high, though the rate has been under 4% for more than two years —near a 50-year low.

The vast majority of respondents, 72%, indicated they think inflation is increasing. In reality, the rate of inflation has fallen sharply from its post-pandemic peak of 9.1% and has been fluctuating between 3% and 4% per year.

In comparison to other nations, the United States is doing exceptionally well in this post-pandemic world, recovering faster and broader than almost every other comparable country.

Despite all of these incontrovertible facts and undeniable data, about half of Americans believe the opposite is true.

Are they trapped in a media bubble that serves them constant lies?

Are they tragically incurious and willfully ignorant about the economic realities that govern our country?

Are they sad-sack pessimists who simply assume the world is falling apart?

Are they blindly assuming that their own financial struggles apply to everyone else?

Are they just plain stupid?

I don’t know. Probably some combination of the above, with other rationales I have yet to consider.

But the burning question I have is this:

If faced with this incontrovertible, undeniable economic data, would these ignorant Americans be willing to change their minds and revise their thinking about the economic state of our nation, or would they simply find a way to say, “Yeah, but…” and continue to believe in things abjectly false?

I fear the latter.

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Happy retirement, Irene

Irene Otte retired Wednesday after working for 51 years in the cafeteria of the school where I teach.

I’ve been teaching at the same school for the past 25 years, which I thought was quite a bit.

I guess not.

Irene began her career at the school in 1973 when I was just two years old.

It’s hard to believe.

We celebrated Irene yesterday as she left work for the last time by lining the school’s driveway and cheering her on as she drove away. It was a lovely tribute. It was also all she would accept to honor her service to our school and students.

Irene was exceptionally kind to me over the years. Elysha and I met at Wolcott School and were engaged and married when we were still teaching together. When Irene learned that Elysha and I were dating, she was so happy for me and urged me to “Hold onto that one if you can.”

I’m still taking Irene’s advice today.

When she learned we were engaged, she was thrilled for both of us. When Elysha was pregnant with Clara and left Wolcott School to spend a decade at home, Irene often asked about Elysha, Clara, and eventually Charlie, and she was always happy to hear that things were going so well.

But what I’ll remember most about Irene is this:

Early in my career, and at least for a decade, I would eat school lunch from time to time. Eventually, when my doctor discovered that my cholesterol was borderline, I switched to eating oatmeal almost every day, dropping my cholesterol by 40 points and bringing it back down to ideal levels. But before the switch, I went through the lunch line just like the kids would, often alongside the children.

Hot dogs – one of my favorite foods – were a particular favorite.

Once Irene learned how much I loved hot dogs, she would call my classroom in the morning to alert me whenever hot dogs were on the menu. “It’s hot dog day, Mr. Dicks,” she would say, not so the cafeteria could sell an extra hot dog (or two) but because she knew how to make me happy.

When you work in a place where your colleagues are looking out for you, simply trying to make your days a little better, you know you’ve found a special place to spend your days.

Irene helped to make that true for me for the last 25 years.