Bryce Moore's Blog, page 115
February 20, 2019
On Calling Home as a Missionary
I served a two year mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints from 1997 to 1999. I was in former Eastern Germany for those two years, and they remain some of the most impactful years of my life, continuing to influence who I am and how I think to this day. I was just exposed to so many different people, who each viewed the world differently, and because almost all of my conversations focused on religion, it was a chance to have some very deep discussions with all those different people.
As has been the custom for as long as I can remember, missionaries were only allowed to call home two times a year: on Christmas and Mothers Day. (Though my mission president allowed us to call home on Fathers Day as well, because fathers are also important.) Other than that, we were restricted to writing letters home once a week, and at the end of my mission, I was allowed to write emails, since I was in the office, and we had a computer and internet. The reasoning behind this was always that it allowed missionaries to focus on where they were, as opposed to where they had been. I never really questioned that reasoning. I know being away from my family and friends was difficult, but I also know it seemed to make sense at the time, and I got through it all without any traumatic experiences.
A few days ago, that communications ban was lifted. Missionaries are now allowed to call or teleconference with their families once a week. (Still just families, not friends.) I am 100% behind the change, for a variety of reasons:
I believe today’s youth are much more accustomed to being “plugged in” to their family and friends than they were in the past. The addition of the internet, social media, and smart phones has fundamentally changed how people think and behave. I’m not one who rails against those changes. I accept that they will happen, and that some of that change will be good and some of it will be bad. For missionaries going away for two years, I’ve wondered if yanking that support structure out from under them has been doing more harm than good. When you’re on a mission, you have a lot of contact with your companion, some contact with a few other missionaries in your district, limited contact with missionaries in your zone, and rare contact with your mission president. If your companion is a bonehead, it can be a rough time. Also, you’re sometimes told things that just aren’t true. Mission presidents can be boneheads as well, after all. Being able to turn to your parents for advice and support would be invaluable. (Though of course I can also see the potential for helicopter parenting stepping in, but that was true already. This just increases the immediacy of the contact.)It’s not a requirement. We had the sister missionaries over for dinner last night. They’re a trio at the moment, and we asked them what they thought of the change. One wasn’t sure, one was very much in favor of it (she’s been out for a week), and one had called her parents once but didn’t think she’d call again (she goes home in two months). And that’s fine. If the missionaries want the support, they can have it. Parents still aren’t supposed to be initiating the phone calls.It costs almost nothing. When I was on my mission, an international phone call home was very expensive. These days you can Skype whenever you want for free if you have a device and an internet connection. Missionaries are provided with tablet computers, and all churches have internet, so there you go. There may still be areas where it’s not possible, but that’s the exception, not the rule, and I see no reason to limit all communication just because it’s not universally available.It further involves the family in the missionary effort, inspiring people to grow stronger in the faith. That’s a big plus, in my book.
But what about the infamous “lack of focus” these phone calls are supposed to threaten? If a missionary could lose focus when I was on my mission, can’t they do the same now?
Sure they can. But people forget one simple fact: missionaries break rules. Not all of them, but plenty of them. And these days, it’s so cheap to call home that missionaries who really want to would find a way. Then they’d feel guilty about it . . . Better to avoid the whole rigamarole.
I believe missionaries are called to serve in specific places for specific reasons, typically because of who they are. Their strengths and weaknesses make them able to fill roles in places where other missionaries with different strengths and weaknesses might fail. And part of who a missionary is is their family. I’ve never liked the idea that missionaries need to forget who they were in order to succeed. I think they need to do the opposite: be the best “them” they can be.
Anyway. My two cents on the matter. I’m looking forward to being able to talk to all of my kids when they’re out serving missions. Really, the only downside to all of this I can think of (as a whole, not counting exceptions like when you have overbearing parents or something) is that phone calls will mean no more letters to hold onto to be able to document your mission. I guess that will make journaling even more important. (Not that I ever read those letters or those journals these days, but it’s nice that I know I *could* read them, if I wanted to . . .)
What do you think of the change?
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February 19, 2019
Sunday Talk: Believe, Love, Do
I spoke this Sunday in Belfast, though I had to give a really truncated version of this talk, since I was crunched on time during the meeting. Not too happy with how the live version ended up, so I’m at least somewhat relieved to be able to post the full text of my prepared remarks here. I tried to take a more practical approach this time, discussing how I personally apply Gospel principles to be happier in my life.
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Weltschmerz, literally translated “World pain,” is used in German to describe a feeling of world-weariness and melancholy. It was specifically coined in the 1800s to refer to the sadness of people who feel the world will never meet its potential due to the abundance of pain and evil in the world. It was a concept that was embraced at first by Romantic period authors like Byron, Blake, and Wilde, though it also came to be mocked as well, as people criticized the complaint, saying that people who bemoaned weltschmerz were just being overly sensitive.
In many ways, that’s a contrast that continues today in many different realms. We hear Weltschmerz expressed when people bear their testimonies and talk of how evil the world has become, is becoming, or has always been. It extends beyond the general complaint of the state of the world and transforms into smaller complaints. Kircheschmerz, or church-pain, would be the feeling of being overcome by the awful state of the church. Politikerschmerz, or political-pain, would be the feeling of being overcome by the awful state of politics. Patriotenschmerz, or patriots-pain, is the feeling the rest of the country has when they look at their future prospects for Super Bowl victories.
In the end, perhaps the worst element of any of these schmerzes is the temptation they bring with them to feel helpless. To feel like no matter what you do, this terrible state of being will continue. While that might be amusing enough to think of when people outside New England are grousing about the Patriots, it’s potentially much more toxic when it’s about things that matter from an eternal perspective. (Sorry, Patriots fans. Super Bowl victories just don’t quite rate up there.)
Satan would love nothing better than for us to throw in the towel and feel helpless about any number of things in the world. He knows that nothing has quite the same success rate as getting people to not bother to even try to solve a problem. Even if the odds of success are slim, they’re still better than doing nothing.
In his talk this past October, Elder Uchtdorf offers three actions we can take to combat the feelings of hopelessness that threaten to overwhelm us at times. “There is a solution to the emptiness, vanity, and Weltschmerz of life. There is a solution to even the deepest hopelessness and discouragement you might feel. This hope is found in the transformative power of the gospel of Jesus Christ and in the Savior’s redemptive power to heal us of our soul-sickness. “I am come,” Jesus declared, “that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.”
We achieve that abundant life not by focusing on our own needs or on our own achievements but by becoming true disciples of Jesus Christ—by following in His ways and engaging in His work. We find the abundant life by forgetting ourselves and engaging in the great cause of Christ. And what is the cause of Christ? It is to believe in Him, love as He loved, and do as He did.”
So what does that look like in practice? Sometimes I feel like general conference talks and talks in church as a whole dwell on abstract ideas and teachings, leaving the personal application to the individual. Today, I’d like to talk about the times Elder Uchtdorf’s concept of believing, loving, and doing have brought me greater happiness in life and helped me develop a better relationship with God.
First, there have been times in my life I have chosen to believe. We live in a world where skepticism abounds. People clamor for proof, while at the same time undercutting practically any method we have to prove anything. Photographic evidence is easily disbelieved because Photoshopping is an easy enough task. Videos can be doctored with an app. Experts are brought in to discuss how memories can be manipulated. The scientific method is called into question, even when massive amounts of data is there to back it up.
These days, if you want a reason to disbelieve something, you can pick any one you want. But the same applies to belief, it seems. Relativism abounds. I can believe what I want, and you can believe what you want, as long as my beliefs don’t harm you, and your beliefs don’t harm me. And one of the most difficult things about this argument is how benign it seems on the surface. Who wouldn’t agree with something as simple as that?
Except, of course, it’s not that simple. There’s a fair bit of groupthink at play in the world today as well. Groupthink, if you’re not familiar with the term, is the tendency of people who belong to a group to end up encouraging each other to believe a certain way while at the same time discouraging others from believing anything that contradicts that belief.
Pick any “hot button” topic that’s being debated today, and you’ll see these arguments raging on both sides of the debate. Accusations of group think. Claims of faulty science. Personal attacks. It gets to the point that you’d think there’s no real way of ever determining what’s true. We’ll call it Glaubenschmerz. Belief pain. And you might be tempted to think it’s a recent phenomenon.
But then you read in Joseph Smith History. “My mind at times was greatly excited, the cry and tumult were so great and incessant. The Presbyterians were most decided against the Baptists and Methodists, and used all the powers of both reason and sophistry to prove their errors, or, at least, to make the people think they were in error. On the other hand, the Baptists and Methodists in their turn were equally zealous in endeavoring to establish their own tenets and disprove all others.
10 In the midst of this war of words and tumult of opinions, I often said to myself: What is to be done? Who of all these parties are right; or, are they all wrong together? If any one of them be right, which is it, and how shall I know it?
11 While I was laboring under the extreme difficulties caused by the contests of these parties of religionists, I was one day reading the Epistle of James, first chapter and fifth verse, which reads: If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him.
12 Never did any passage of scripture come with more power to the heart of man than this did at this time to mine. It seemed to enter with great force into every feeling of my heart. I reflected on it again and again, knowing that if any person needed wisdom from God, I did; for how to act I did not know, and unless I could get more wisdom than I then had, I would never know; for the teachers of religion of the different sects understood the same passages of scripture so differently as to destroy all confidence in settling the question by an appeal to the Bible.”
These wars of words have happened before, and they will happen again. I try to keep in mind one simple principle. It doesn’t just matter that you believe. It matters what you believe in. Some would have you think the Gospel is just another instance of groupthink. That the promptings of the Spirit are nothing more than chemicals being released into your brain. You can talk to people who will spin your head in circles with their arguments, but in the end, they cannot escape one simple truth.
Either God exists, or He does not. Like Joseph Smith, I have prayed. I didn’t see a vision in response to that prayer, but it was answered nonetheless. One time that sticks out in my memory happened while I was in the Missionary Training Center. I’d decided to spend the next two years of my life focused only on sharing the Gospel, and I found myself questioning whether that was the sort of thing I was cut out for. I was particularly doubtful that someone like me–someone who liked to have fun and has a hard time sometimes keeping things serious–could ever do something so somber, all day, every day.
I felt overwhelmed and unfit for the task at hand. And one evening, I spent a long time praying, asking God what I’d need to do to change about myself to get through those two years. The answer I got surprised me. I felt an overpowering sensation of love and acceptance. That I hadn’t been called despite my personality, but rather because of it. I wasn’t to go to Germany to be the best cookie cutter missionary I could be, as similar to everyone else as possible, but to be the best missionary I could be. Unique and singular. At the same time, I felt a clear impression that God knew who I was better than I knew myself. That He knew me before I came to earth, and that the person I am now and the intelligence I was then were one and the same. That experience with prayer was a high point during my time at the MTC, and it’s stayed with me since then.
Sometimes in the church we try to use logic and facts to convince others of the truth of our faith. If the Book of Mormon is true, then Joseph Smith had to be a prophet. And we scour the book to find evidences of its truthfulness. Chiasmus. Word use. Translation quirks. It’s an understandable desire: we don’t just want to believe. We want to know. And there are plenty of times that knowledge feels tantalizingly close. If we could just reason things through a little differently, or if only our knowledge were a bit more complete in a few areas. But the sword of logic cuts both ways, and the more we grow to depend on those arguments, the more susceptible we are to the counterarguments those who are against the church may raise. There are plenty of them to be found.
As President Benson said, “Every man eventually is backed up to the wall of faith, and there he must make his stand.” For me, the wall of my faith rests on the answers to prayers like the one I received in the MTC. I choose to believe even when my faith is questioned, because I have had enough experience with prayer to be able to state without doubt, I know God lives, and I know He loves us. I know prayer works, just as I know I love my wife and children. It isn’t based on logic or reason. It’s more than that.
Second, there have been times in my life I have chosen to love. This isn’t something that comes as easily for me. I’m good at loving those I’m already close to, but to be blunt, I have problems being compassionate to strangers on an individual basis. My mind jumps too quickly to what choices they might have made in their lives that cause them problems today. To how I would have done things differently, or how everyone needs to learn from their mistakes.
Of course, when it comes time to explain my own problems and those of my friends, it’s easy to see nuances and complexities. How terribly tangled life can be, and how inevitable some of those mistakes proved. It’s much the same as with bad drivers on the road. Everyone swears their surrounded by people with the driving skill of a poorly trained chimpanzee, but no one’s willing to admit they make more than a few mistakes of their own when their behind the wheel.
Elder Uchtdorf states, “The scriptures reveal that the more we love God and His children, the happier we become. The love Jesus spoke about, however, isn’t a gift-card, throwaway, move-on-to-other-things love. It isn’t a love that is spoken of and then forgotten. It is not a “let me know if there is anything I can do” sort of love. The love God speaks of is the kind that enters our hearts when we awake in the morning, stays with us throughout the day, and swells in our hearts as we give voice to our prayers of gratitude at evening’s end.
This is the inexpressible love Heavenly Father has for us.
It is this endless compassion that allows us to more clearly see others for who they are. Through the lens of pure love, we see immortal beings of infinite potential and worth and beloved sons and daughters of Almighty God.
Once we see through that lens, we cannot discount, disregard, or discriminate against anyone.”
I’m trying to get more of that love. To be able to see individuals without discounting or disregarding their troubles. In the meantime, one area where I have chosen to love is when it comes to discrimination. Whether it’s for race, religion, political persuasion, gender, sexuality, or any other reason, I try to stand up for those who can’t stand up for themselves. I struggle on an individual level to see past a single person’s life choices, but I’d like to think I do better when it comes time to making decisions and expressing positions on laws and the treatment of people as a whole. I’d like to think many in my religion follow suit, though I am disappointed at times in that hope. That’s when I remind myself how many in this church do so much better than I do at loving on an individual level.
We all have strengths and weaknesses we need to overcome, and I hope and pray we all continue to strive to do so.
Third, there have been times in my life I have chosen to do. There have been plenty of times I’ve gotten discouraged over the years, for a variety of different reasons. Feeling like I have too much to do, or feeling like I have to little to really engage with. Troubles with my kids at school, problems with coworkers, news on a national level, disagreements over church activities. While the cause of the discouragement has changed in so many different ways, the result (in me at least) is often uniform: when I get discouraged, I start feeling like it might be better just to stop trying. It seems like nothing I could possibly do could make a difference, so why should I bother doing anything at all?
Of course, this is antithetical to the Gospel and to common sense. Doing nothing is the only way to guarantee nothing will be done. But it’s one thing to have a handy saying like that, but it’s another to find ways to actually put it into practice. With that in mind, here are a couple of real-world ways I motivate myself to get going when I’m tempted to stay still. Maybe they could help some of you in similar situations.
First, it’s helpful for me to set overarching goals of things I want to achieve. These days, it often feels like I have a goal for everything. How many times I want to floss each month. When I want to write in my journal. How long I want to read my scriptures each day. How many words I want to write of my current novel each day. But I don’t come to these goals randomly. I look at my life and decide what’s important. Where I want to be focusing my time. And then I make goals that help me meet this big priorities.
This wasn’t always the case. I managed to coast through nineteen years of life goal free, until one day I was challenged in the MTC to set some personal goals. At the time, I thought it was silly. I’d gotten by just fine without goals for so long, why should I change things up? They had a quote that helped put it in context for me. In 1970, Thomas S. Monson said, “When performance is measured, performance improves. When performance is measured and reported, the rate of improvement accelerates.”
For me, setting goals is a way of measuring the hard-to-measure. For example, I like to write. When I was starting out in college, I knew I wanted to write novels, but I had no idea how to actually finish one. In the end, I broke it down to a daily goal of 500 words. These days, I’ve upped that to 1,000, and I’ve managed to finish 17 books that way. Two are professionally published, and a third is under contract as well.
Second, so much of actually doing something comes down to starting. When you sit down to write a new story, there’s nothing quite like the feeling of an empty page with a blinking cursor. When I know I have a new project I need to start, whether it’s a home renovation, a new endeavor at work, or a family goal, I often find myself caught at the beginning, feeling like I’ll never be able finish something so monumental. But if I can just start doing something connected to the job–anything small, even–then that’s enough to get me over that initial speed bump, and I’m off and running.
With writing, that usually means I stop worrying about what to write and just start writing about anything, instead. I’ll start filling the page up with brainstorming, or with paragraphs all about how frustrating it is to not be able to think about what to write about. And as the page fills up with text, suddenly it’s no longer that intimidating. Somehow in the process of doing, it all becomes easier.
With bigger jobs, sometimes it takes more than the usual approach. Whenever I’m in panic mode, I’ll turn to lists. My kids can vouch for how often they’ll see me take out a scrap of paper and jot down the things I need to get done on a Saturday. I will write down literally everything I can think of to do, from chores around the house to simple things like eating breakfast, brushing my teeth, or taking a shower. I take all the anxiety around how overwhelmed I feel, and I put it down on paper where I can see it, number it, and visualize it easily. Once that’s done, I just start getting things off the list. Who knew eating breakfast can make you feel so successful? But just like with the empty page filling with words, something about seeing those items getting crossed off motivates me to move on to the harder tasks.
The last approach I use to get myself into gear is something I really only trot out when I’m finding myself struggling with a problem on a long term basis. I’ll have tried lists. Tried goals. Tried just trying to begin. But when none of that is proving effective, I’ll make my goals and my struggle public.
Throughout my life, I have struggled with my weight. Not as much as some, but certainly to the point that I was unhappy with how I looked, and how it was affecting my health. When I crossed the line into being officially obese, I went on a diet to get back to simply “overweight,” but I still stayed ensconced there for many years. At the same time, one of my favorite ways to reduce stress has always been eating and baking. I love making brownies almost as much as I love eating them. Other people have their coffee or their daily run. I had my evening ice cream. It didn’t take a genius to guess my weight problem and my eating habit might be connected somehow.
It seems obvious now, but at the time, I was also trying lots of different things to feel better. I started exercising regularly and taking a multivitamin. Sometimes we’re really attached to the low hanging fruit, and so we’ll try to pick all the harder to reach thing first, just so we can hold on to our favorites. But one morning a couple of years ago, the thought came to me as clear as revelation: I needed to give up sugar, and if I did, I would feel better.
This was not a piece of divine inspiration I wanted to pay any attention to. In fact, I really wanted it to be wrong. But at the same time, I’ve had enough practice with inspiration to recognize when something has real power behind it. I felt strongly that for me, sugar was holding me back. When I told my wife my new goal–to stop eating processed sugar for at least a month and a half–she thought I might be going crazy. Not because she thought it was a bad idea, but because it was so out of character for me, and it wasn’t something I’d ever discussed with anyone before.
I knew I was going to need more help than that, however. One of the reasons the whole idea stuck with me so much was the simple fact that the first thought I had after I came up with the goal was “I could never do that. That’s too hard.” The next thought was, how ridiculous is that? I’m stronger than sugar.”
So to make it more likely that I’d actually follow through with my new goal, I made it as public as possible. I wrote about it on Facebook. I blogged about it. I told all my friends. I made it so that everyone who knew me knew this was an important goal for me. At that point, suddenly everywhere I went, people were asking me about it. Encouraging me to keep at it. The first week or two were pretty rough, but I got through them with the help of my friends and family.
Elder Uchtdorf notes, “In the Savior’s work, it is often by small and simple means that “great things [are] brought to pass.”
We know that it requires repetitive practice to become good at anything. Whether it’s playing the clarinet, kicking a ball into a net, repairing a car, or even flying an airplane, it is through practicing that we may become better and better.
The organization our Savior created on earth—The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints—helps us to do just that. It offers a place to practice living the way He taught and blessing others the way He did.”
Satan would have us all be discouraged. Overwhelmed by Weltschmerz and the other pains of the world. When we’re focused only on our problems and not on potential solutions, it’s just as if we never tried any solutions at all. I try to remember that we didn’t come to this world to solve all the problems and figure it all out before we die. We came to struggle and to learn and to grow. When I’m faced with tough times and discouraging news or an overwhelming workload, I try to keep that in mind, even though sometimes that’s more difficult than others.
If we put Elder Uchtdorf’s advice to work, there’s a formula to deal with those difficulties. Believe. Love. Do. As Christ said in John 16:33, “These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.” I’ve tried to offer you some of the approaches I’ve used to put the Believe, Love, Do advice to work. Some of them might not work as well for you. Some of them might not work at all. But I know that as we turn to God and ask Him how best to handle our problems, we will receive an answer. It might not always make sense in the middle of the moment, but when I’ve followed those answers, they have never led me down the wrong path. I bear testimony of this in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.
February 14, 2019
Underestimating Our Age, or: Why Kids Today Don’t Need to Know Metallica
Every other month, I drive some kids in my area to church for early morning seminary. It’s typically a pretty silent car ride, since who wants to be up at 6am, right? To try and make it more entertaining, I’ve taken to playing a rotating “Music Appreciation” playlist, where each morning I choose a new artist or group and play a few of their best songs. I then ask my carpoolees to rate the group on a scale of 1-10. (Before that happens, I also check to see if any of them already recognize the group and, if so, the song in question.)
Typically, they don’t recognize the group or the song. Sometimes they really dislike a group that I thought everyone would like. It’s often surprising to me, sometimes disappointing, but a pretty entertaining way for me to pass the time, regardless. (Not sure what the students think of it, but I’m driving, so . . . my car, my songs.)
I share these experiences on Facebook, and I’ve been a bit surprised by the reactions. A fair number of people are disappointed at some of the groups that aren’t recognized. The Beatles, for example. And . . . Metallica? Metallica got a number of people upset when they went unrecognized. The words “parenting fail” were used a few times, in a (I hope) tongue-in-cheek way of saying it’s the responsibility of parents to expose kids to a wide range of music.
(Side note: one of the carpoolees is Tomas. I’m his parent. I’m exposing him to new music every morning as part of this activity. Is the fail that I didn’t do it early enough? Was I supposed to start playing Metallica for him when he was . . . five? I’m a bit baffled. Either way, I’ve played a variety of music for my kids over the years. True, I haven’t quizzed them on who sang what each time, but I’ve got this zany idea that people should listen to what they like and listen to enjoy, plain and simple.)
But what I really wanted to bring up was a bit of a rebuttal to people who think Metallica or the Beatles MUST BE KNOWN by the rising generation. I think a lot of this mindset might come from a misunderstanding of just how old we are. Allow me to disabuse you all of that right now
Metallica’s best known album (to me) is the self-titled Metallica, featuring its best known (to me) song, Enter Sandman. It was released in 1991, a year many of you might think wasn’t that long ago. I was 13. That’s 28 years ago. I listen to a wide variety of songs, but I can’t easily name another Metallica album other than that first one. If you played other Metallica songs for me that are from different albums, I’d have a shot recognizing the group, but not the song.
The Beatles first burst on the scene (more or less) in 1963 with their album Please Please Me, so the group predates me by 15 years, though their last album, Let It Be, was released in 1970 and still enormously popular, so that predates me by just 8 years.
Let’s put those two groups into context for a freshman in high school today. Born in 2004, Metallica’s popularity predates them by thirteen years, and (no matter what some metal heads might claim), Metallica was far less influential and popular than the Beatles. Try the following exercise:
Take your birthdate year and subtract 13Go to Google and enter “[that year] in music”Look over the hit songs that played then. How many of them could you recognize? How many of them would you know the group off the top of your head?
For me, there are some songs on there I’d have no problem with. Mr. Tamourine Man, Yesterday, My Girl, no problem. Eve of Destruction? I’ll Be Doggone? Get Off of My Cloud? (Yes, I know the Stones. Yes, I’ve heard that song. But I wouldn’t have been able to give the title of it, and I wouldn’t have been sure the Stones recorded it.)
Let’s try another exercise. You can go to Billboard and see the performance of pretty much any song. Enter Sandman peaked at #16 on the top 100 Billboard chart for 1991. You can enter any date and see the top 100 songs for that week. For 1963, the #16 song was Hey Girl, by Freddie Scott. I recognized it once I found it on YouTube, but I’d never be able to ID Freddie Scott. And looking at the songs even more popular than that one that week, there are a slew I don’t know.
Metallica didn’t have a single song to crack Billboard’s top 100 singles for 1991.
For the Beatles, the group is 41 years older than today’s freshmen. For me, that would be groups that started in 1937. We’re talking Big Band and Bing Crosby territory.
I think I’ve made my point, which is this: music we loved when we were kids is now OLD MUSIC, especially music that was already old when we loved it. A lot of what we think of as foundational for us is just alternative for most. And taste in music varies wildly.
I’m all for introducing people to new genres and groups and songs (hence my carpool challenge), but I don’t mind at all that the songs and groups I like are unknown to my carpoolees. Sure, it may be disappointing and surprising, but I just try to keep in mind:
I am getting older every day.
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Like what you’ve read? Please consider supporting me on Patreon. Thanks to all my Patrons who support me! It only takes a minute or two, and then it’s automatic from there on out. I’ve been posting my book ICHABOD in installments, as well as chapters from UTOPIA. Check it out.
If you’d rather not sign up for Patreon, you can also support the site by clicking the MEMORY THIEF Amazon link on the right of the page. That will take you to Amazon, where you can buy my books or anything else. During that visit, a portion of your purchase will go to me. It won’t cost you anything extra.
February 12, 2019
A Very Elven Birthday
I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone go from 0 to Superfan as quickly as DC did with Lord of the Rings. As I blogged about a while ago, I decided this Christmas would be a fun time to watch all six Hobbit and Lord of the Rings movies back to back, and I wanted to include Tomas and DC in the activity.
Now, less than two months later, DC just celebrated her eleventh birthday. For presents, she got a scarf with a map of Middle Earth on it, an Arwen necklace, elf ears, and Denisa and she will be working on making an elven tiara together. For dinner, DC requested “lembas waffles,” which turned out to be these vegan waffles Denisa had made before. DC liked them and thought they looked like lembas bread.
After we were done with the festivities, we went upstairs and watched the last bit of the special features of Return of the King, and then started in on the special features of An Unexpected Journey. That means we’ve watched all the special features of the original trilogy now, in addition to the extended editions of all the movies. That’s over 40 hours of film. The special features on the Hobbit extended editions are even longer. I’d say we have around 27 hours to go.
And through it all, DC is still front and center. She’s memorized how to say things in Quenya. She’s writing her name in Tengwar. She was excited to find out I have the original Lord of the Rings Trivial Pursuit game (though she was sad when I beat her. Mwa ha ha!) She’s teaching herself to play all the songs on cello. She’s started quoting the movies, and when she’s not watching the special features with me, she’s watching the movies by herself.
I’m not sure if I’ve ever reached that level of fandom personally. (Well, if you don’t count Groundhog Day, I suppose . . .) I read the Hobbit in second grade, and I read the Lord of the Rings soon after that. I thought they were great, and I read the multiple times, but that’s where things ended for me. Then again, I also didn’t have the spectacular adaptation of Peter Jackson to inspire me. (Watching those making of documentaries brings an even greater appreciation for just what they pulled off. It also makes me like the Hobbit trilogy even more. I know it’s stylish to say the Hobbit is bad, but I continue to love it, so there.)
Anyway, if you see DC around, ask her something about Lord of the Rings. She’d be more than happy to talk to you about it. Happy birthday, DC!
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Like what you’ve read? Please consider supporting me on Patreon. Thanks to all my Patrons who support me! It only takes a minute or two, and then it’s automatic from there on out. I’ve been posting my book ICHABOD in installments, as well as chapters from UTOPIA. Check it out.
If you’d rather not sign up for Patreon, you can also support the site by clicking the MEMORY THIEF Amazon link on the right of the page. That will take you to Amazon, where you can buy my books or anything else. During that visit, a portion of your purchase will go to me. It won’t cost you anything extra.
February 11, 2019
Choosing Television Shows to Watch
It’s always a big debate. You find a show you like, and it’s all fun and games while it lasts. But sooner or later the show comes to an end, and you’ve got to find something else to watch. And let’s face it; it’s not like tv shows are being made at a rate that keeps up with the rate we can binge them. Not good ones, at least. When you finish watching an excellent series, you don’t want to leave it and go to something that’s just sort of okay. You want something excellent.
So I’ve taken some time to try and get a list of shows I want to watch, so I can have one ready the next time I finish a series. (We’re currently working our way through The Americans, which I mostly really enjoy. It seems to be getting progressively better, which helps a lot as well.) To try and see what I’ve been missing, I went through all the shows that were nominated for an Emmy for Best Drama from 1990 to today. It was an interesting look into some TV history I hadn’t always paid much attention to.
You see certain patterns develop. Some shows lodge themselves into the nominations and just don’t let up. Game of Thrones. Mad Men. Downton Abbey. But beyond that, the type of show has changed and evolved over the years. At first I’d planned on going much further back than 1990, but the shows that were getting nominations in the 90s were already ones I’m not too interested in bingeing today.
Compare some of the popular shows (nomination-wise) of the last few years with the ones in the 90s. Today we have Westworld, Game of Thrones, Stranger Things, and more. In the 90s it was shows like Law & Order, NYPD Blue, and ER. I haven’t seen the latter two, but I’ve seen my fair share of Law & Order. It’s a show that worked well when you were just watching it once a week, but I’m not sure how much I want to try bingeing a show like that.
As I looked through the shows, I realized I don’t just want a drama. I want a drama with a long, sweeping arc. With real character development over time and intersecting stories as one of the prime features of the show. Then again, I loved West Wing, and it was a great show to binge, and it was much more a “flavor of the week” show, where each episode generally dealt with something specific.
I suppose the trick is I’m never quite sure what I’ll think of a show until I’m in the middle of it. The other trick is that you can’t really compare a show you’ve just finished multiple seasons of to a show you’re just starting on. Of course the characters aren’t as deep and ingrained with you yet. They haven’t had time to really develop. The same is often true of the first season of a show. It can take time for it to really get its feet under it, even though that might be frustrating for the first while of a show.
One other thing I noticed is how some excellent shows just don’t get recognized at all. (Note the complete lack of a single nomination for the Wire. That’s just criminal.)
Anyway. I thought I’d share my findings with you, in case it’s useful for others. After going through the exercise, a few shows I’m eyeing next are The Handmaid’s Tale and a return to Breaking Bad. We’ll see what I actually go to.
Show NameBest Drama NominationsBest Drama WinsWestworld20This Is Us20Stranger Things20Handmaid’s Tale21Crown20Americans20Game of Thrones73House of Cards50Better Call Saul30Mr. Robot10Homeland41Downton Abbey50Orange is the New Black10Mad Men84True Detective10Breaking Bad52Boardwalk Empire20Good Wife20Friday Night Lights10Dexter40True Blood10Lost41House40Damages20Big Love10Boston Legal20Heroes10Grey’s Anatomy20Sopranos72West Wing742451Six Feet Under30Deadwood10Joan of Arcadia10CSI30Law & Order111Practice42ER71NYPD Blue61X-Files40Chicago Hope30Star Trek TNG10Northern Exposure41Picket Fences22I’ll Fly Away20Homefront10Quantum Leap30LA Law32Thirtysomething20China Beach20Twin Peaks10
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Like what you’ve read? Please consider supporting me on Patreon. Thanks to all my Patrons who support me! It only takes a minute or two, and then it’s automatic from there on out. I’ve been posting my book ICHABOD in installments, as well as chapters from UTOPIA. Check it out.
If you’d rather not sign up for Patreon, you can also support the site by clicking the MEMORY THIEF Amazon link on the right of the page. That will take you to Amazon, where you can buy my books or anything else. During that visit, a portion of your purchase will go to me. It won’t cost you anything extra.
February 8, 2019
How to Use Reviews of Products
I’ve always been a firm believer in the power of product reviews. I don’t write too many myself, but I love looking at what other people say about something before I buy it. If there’s something I need to buy, I’ll scour the Amazon reviews before I pick the thing that looks Just Right.
At least, that’s what I’ve done in the past. Over the last few months, however, my faith in those Amazon reviews has really been shaken. Right now, I’m at the point where I no longer firmly believe a product with a ton of great reviews must, by default, be good. Why not?
First of all, it’s clear to me that companies are gaming the system somewhat. More and more after I buy a thing through Amazon, I get a follow up email from the company begging me to review their product. (In so many words.) It’s disguised to be “helpful.” They just want to make sure I know how to properly use the microfiber dust cloth I bought. (Really? If I need directions on how to use a dust cloth, maybe I’m not qualified to write a review. Have you considered that?) But then they also say how important reviews are to them, and how they’re a small company and blah blah blah.
Fact. If you send out emails to everyone asking for reviews, you will inevitably get more reviews than otherwise. If you include “helpful tips” and a good reason why you need a review, you’ll get even more. Not because your product is any better than another, but just because you asked. At that point, Amazon pushes your product more than others. People see all the reviews and assume it’s superior, and you’re off and running, with no real need to even pay for extra reviews. (Though I do think that happens as well.)
It used to be fairly easy to identify the shills in Amazon reviews. Poorly written smear pieces or praises. It was easy to discount them and just focus on the ones that seemed to have merit. These days, it feels to me more and more like companies have caught on to that. The shills write better, if that makes sense. I also feel like companies pay people to write poor reviews of other products. The “complaints” that show up are just bizarre and non-sensical, and (more importantly) hard to prove.
Case in point? I’ve been looking at bluetooth headphones. I went to Amazon, and some products received glowing reviews. Others, not so much. But when I went to actual paid sources like PC Magazine (that review those products) the ones they rated highest are middle-of-the road on Amazon when it comes to reviews. Complaints are “quality control” and “doesn’t hold a charge.” Things that might theoretically get by a professional reviewer. Maybe. But which *might* show up after people have used a product for months.
Except I really don’t believe professional reviewers wouldn’t catch a lot of those things. I’m much more inclined to trust a professional review than I am to trust a random Amazon review. (Especially now that my overall trust of Amazon reviews is becoming shaken.)
So what are your thoughts? How are you using reviews these days? Do you still trust Amazon? Where do you go to decide what you want to buy? I love using reviews, but I want to make sure I use the right ones. Ones I can trust and believe in.
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Like what you’ve read? Please consider supporting me on Patreon. Thanks to all my Patrons who support me! It only takes a minute or two, and then it’s automatic from there on out. I’ve been posting my book ICHABOD in installments, as well as chapters from UTOPIA. Check it out.
If you’d rather not sign up for Patreon, you can also support the site by clicking the MEMORY THIEF Amazon link on the right of the page. That will take you to Amazon, where you can buy my books or anything else. During that visit, a portion of your purchase will go to me. It won’t cost you anything extra.
February 7, 2019
Gifts that Keep on Giving
As I’ve been thinking over my latest decluttering efforts, I’ve also been reflecting back on the whole practice of gift-giving. Specifically, the tradition that birthdays and Christmas are celebrated with gifts, and that you have to give a “really cool gift” to ensure the birthday and Christmas is successful.
I’m not against giving gifts at all, but I’m thinking I’m becoming more and more against giving something just to have given something. Each year, people ask me what I want for my birthday and Christmas. Each year, I ask people what they want for their birthday and Christmas. And a fair bit of the time, I think we end up thinking a lot about what we want, even though we don’t really want anything (let alone *need* anything). But we still ask for things, just to make the gift giving easier.
Giving money is okay. Yes, it’s not something that takes a long time to come up with, but it’s definitely better than giving a thing that won’t be used.
Of course, in an ideal world, you find a gift that’s perfect. That ends up getting used over and over again. That’s what this blog post is about. I decided to think back over the gifts I’ve gotten and given to see the ones that have been the best of the best.
Blendtec Blender: My family uses this high-end blender at least three or four times a day. There’s a counter on it that tracks how many uses it’s had, and ours is up to around 2,000. It makes smoothies, hummus, milk shakes, and more. It doesn’t have sharp blades, so you don’t have to worry about cutting yourself, and the end results are smooth and wonderful. When this breaks, I’ll replace it in a heartbeat.
Boot/Glove Dryer: If your family is outdoors in the snow a lot, this is a must. For my family of skiers, this gets used constantly in the winter. It lets you properly dry out boots and gloves without having to remove linings or wait for hours. Denisa frequently talks about how handy it is. Score!
Nintendo Switch: It’s gone with us to Europe. It sees constant use in the house by my 14 year old, 10 year old, and 5 year old. It’s family-friendly and easy to use. Games that are favorites are Breath of the Wild, MarioKart, Smash, Rabbids, Mario Odyssey. The Pro controllers were also great gifts for it, as was the carrying case and screen protector.
Oculus Rift: Yes, you need a high-end computer to be able to use it, but this has been a continued highlight for Tomas and DC at times as well. It’s a hit at parties, and the computer itself has come in very handy as well. It was expensive, but I’ve never regretted the purchase.
Board games are big at my house, but not all board games end up being played. Ones that have been played many times by my family in the last few years include Splendor, Seven Wonders, Sushi Go, Hanabi, Azul, Kingdom Builder, Seven Wonders Duel, and Codenames.
Kindle Fires: I bought the cheaper ones for the kids when they were on sale. In hindsight, I wish I had paid a bit more money for the slightly higher end ones. They’re inexpensive (relatively), and it lets each kid have their own device. Way less arguing, and they get used constantly. (Except when they inevitably run out of batteries . . .)
Amazon Echo and Dot: I wasn’t sold on these when I first read about them, but we use them all the time in our house now. Even the five year old loves them. We’ve got them hooked up to work as an intercom system in our house as well, which is really useful. (Even if you can’t help wondering who might be listening to you from time to time . . .)
Stove Fan: It runs even when there’s no power, and it does a great job distributing the heat more evenly throughout the room and house. I got the higher end one, and I’m glad I did. I would recommend these to anyone who uses a wood stove.
Snow Blower: For that matter, I have no idea what I’d do without a snow blower. (Actually, I do. I remember the first year in Maine without one. It wasn’t pretty.) If you live in a place with a lot of snow, and you don’t want to pay or rely on someone to plow your driveway, a high quality snow blower is a must. My Honda has been dependable and a life saver, year after year. 11 years and counting now! (For that matter, don’t forget a roof rake, either.)
High-end Rechargeable Batteries: I love my Eneloops. I bought a few to see if I’d like them and they were reliable. I’ve bought a ton more. These are so much better than the old style that you never could rely on to actually be charged.
Home Theater Projector: It’s been a bit since I got mine, so I’m not sure what the latest and greatest is these days, but getting a projector (and an actual screen) has been so much easier than I thought it would be, and I love mine. When it comes to controlling the system, my favorite remote is definitely the Harmony. It’s basic, and it takes some setting up to work, but it controls just about anything, and you don’t even need to point the controller in the right direction.
Apple TV: Who needs cable when you’ve got Apple TV? I especially love how it feeds in my pictures for a screen saver, so we can see all our favorite pics from over the years whenever there’s a lull in using the TV.
Electronic Sketch Pad: One of the five year old’s favorite things. Great for quiet time.
And of course, my favorite mop. (Read my review here.)
That rounds it out. Having gone through all my Amazon purchases for the last few years, it’s a bit depressing how many things are on there that were just so-so. I can definitely do better in not buying as much stuff. (It’s saved money, and it’s tax free!) But when you find just the right present, that’s a wonderful thing. Any gifts that you’ve gotten over the years that have been great?
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Like what you’ve read? Please consider supporting me on Patreon. Thanks to all my Patrons who support me! It only takes a minute or two, and then it’s automatic from there on out. I’ve been posting my book ICHABOD in installments, as well as chapters from UTOPIA. Check it out.
If you’d rather not sign up for Patreon, you can also support the site by clicking the MEMORY THIEF Amazon link on the right of the page. That will take you to Amazon, where you can buy my books or anything else. During that visit, a portion of your purchase will go to me. It won’t cost you anything extra.
February 6, 2019
Why I Skipped Watching the State of the Union
Last year I debated watching the State of the Union, a speech I’ve usually watched for most of the last decade, regardless of who’s in the Oval Office. This year I didn’t even think twice. Instead of watching, I was in bed before 10pm, reading a book and going to sleep.
Last year I wasn’t quite sure what a Trump State of the Union would be like. This year, I didn’t need to perch on the edge of my seat to wonder. I’ve seen enough of the man to know what to expect, and so instead of watching it, I read the transcript this morning. (It goes so much faster when you don’t have to listen to the interminable applause that goes on during that event. I’ve never liked that.)
Back when I taught Freshman composition, I would go over speeches with students, looking for the different uses of pathos (appeal to emotion), ethos (appeal to credibility), and logos (appeal to logic). The State of the Union was always an easy target to use as an example, and Trump’s speech last night was no exception. He had WWII veterans kids with cancer present to tug on the heart strings. He had a slew of data that he used to appear logical. And of course he has his persona, which demands that he be listened to because he is Trump. Some of that is because he’s the President now. Some of that is because people watched him fire people on The Apprentice for years.
But when I was teaching students, I didn’t just show the how to spot the different arguments. I wanted them to see how those arguments are sometimes used to manipulate an audience.
In the middle of a speech where you’re being applauded left and right, it’s easy to accept the facts you give as true, even if they’re not, for example. Trump’s often had a trouble with the truth, and he’s built his entire platform around a longing for yesteryear. “Make America Great Again” is nothing if not an appeal to emotion.
He’s not alone in the way he’s done this. Other Presidents did the same thing. Politicians pretty much across the board. But what particularly rankles me about Trump is his insistence that he doesn’t do it. That he always tells the truth, even when he’s lying that instant. He’s had problems with truth from his inauguration on, and I see no need to sit and listen to an inveterate liar be applauded for an hour and a half.
I’d much rather sleep. And so I did.
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Like what you’ve read? Please consider supporting me on Patreon. Thanks to all my Patrons who support me! It only takes a minute or two, and then it’s automatic from there on out. I’ve been posting my book ICHABOD in installments, as well as chapters from UTOPIA. Check it out.
If you’d rather not sign up for Patreon, you can also support the site by clicking the MEMORY THIEF Amazon link on the right of the page. That will take you to Amazon, where you can buy my books or anything else. During that visit, a portion of your purchase will go to me. It won’t cost you anything extra.
February 5, 2019
Good Intentions Don’t Make a Bad Law Better
A few months ago, a Maine lawmaker’s 12th grade son was assigned to read a graphic novel in school: Kafka on the Shore. It’s not an obscure book. It won the World Fantasy Award in 2006, appeared on the New York Times’ 10 Best Books of 2005, and has received a fair bit of acclaim.
It also contains explicit depictions of sex and rape.
The lawmaker was shocked by the assigned reading, and so she decided to do something about it, proposing LD 94, a bill which would make it illegal to provide obscene material to children in school. (Which has since been amended to make it so educators must alert parents that materials have objectionable content, and parents have to opt in to let their children access it.) Educators who fail to do so can be charged with a Class C felony, which carries a sentence of up to 5 years in jail and a $5,000 fine.
A few comments. First, I have not read the book in question. Frankly, I don’t think the specific book in question should enter into the discussion, since this isn’t a proposed law to declare Kafka on the Shore an obscene work. Rather, we need to look at what this law would do and what its implications would be.
I get very uncomfortable the moment laws start bandying around words like “obscene.” Maine already has a law prohibiting the dissemination of obscene materials to minors. (It has an exception for materials that are provided for educational purposes, so it exempts libraries, public school, universities, etc. from that law. This amendment looks to take “public school” off the list of educational exemptions, which is ironic.) In the law, “obscene” is defined as material which:
(1) To the average individual, applying contemporary community standards, with respect to what is suitable material for minors, considered as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest;
(2) Depicts or describes, in a patently offensive manner, ultimate sexual acts, excretory functions, masturbation or lewd exhibition of the genitals; and
(3) Considered as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value.
(And never mind that Kafka on the Shore wouldn’t qualify as obscene under this guideline, because as I said, this isn’t about the book in question. It’s about the greater implications of the law.)
This definition is hard to meet, making it really only applicable in blatant cases of obscenity. That’s just fine by me, because I have seen far too many examples of times when someone else’s definition of “obscene” was far different than my own. (True story: when I worked at Orem Public Library, there were numerous times people came to the desk wondering why we didn’t put ratings on the books. “Just like with movies.” They wanted some restricted so that certain ages couldn’t check them out. Pro tip: asking a librarian to start censoring the collection or limiting it in anyway is a good way to get ignored. We’re kind of all about freedom of information.)
In the end, this bill is unnecessary and a huge overreach. It’s using a bazooka to solve a simple problem. There are already mechanisms in place for individual schools to have books challenged and decided on at a local level. There’s no need to blow up the entire system of how things work in public schools just because one parent didn’t like the way that system worked. The Maine Library Association spoke out strongly against this bill, and I’m 100% in agreement with them.
I have nothing against people deciding what sort of things they do and do not want their family to read, watch, or listen to. I was assigned a book my senior year of high school (Rabbit, Run, by John Updike). As I read it, I was uncomfortable with its depictions of sex. I went to my teacher and asked for an alternative assignment. She gave me Quentin Durward, instead. It was great. No big fuss needed. No big hullabaloo made. When it comes to my approach as a parent, I keep an eye on what my kids read and watch. I have conversations with them about things they’re consuming. I’m an active part in it. These days, my experience leads me to believe parents should be far more worried about what their kids can see online than what they’re getting in school. But if there is something that comes up that makes a family or student uncomfortable, there’s a system to challenge it.
Here’s hoping this bill comes to a quick and painless end.
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Like what you’ve read? Please consider supporting me on Patreon. Thanks to all my Patrons who support me! It only takes a minute or two, and then it’s automatic from there on out. I’ve been posting my book ICHABOD in installments, as well as chapters from UTOPIA. Check it out.
If you’d rather not sign up for Patreon, you can also support the site by clicking the MEMORY THIEF Amazon link on the right of the page. That will take you to Amazon, where you can buy my books or anything else. During that visit, a portion of your purchase will go to me. It won’t cost you anything extra.
February 4, 2019
Adventures in Cooking: Super Bowl Time
I watch very little professional football, but I do watch the Super Bowl each year. Why? Because I like all the stuff around it. The ads. The halftime show. Sometimes the game. Yesterday’s game left a fair bit to be desired, unless you love a great defensive showdown, which I don’t. I was rooting for the Patriots, because there are two teams almost everyone in this area loves. The Red Sox and the Patriots. And since there’s no way I could ever love the Red Sox, I choose to root for the Patriots. (Which makes me an extremely unusual combination: A Yankee/Patriots fan. Yes, somehow I’ve become a mixture of two of the most-hated fan bases in the country. FWIW, I like the Eagles more than the Patriots, so there’s that.)
But I digress.
One of the other things I love about the Super Bowl is the excuse for a good party. I’ve been going to Super Bowl parties for years and years. Even when there isn’t one to go to, I try to make the event special at home. This year we’d just done Groundhog Day, so the Super Bowl turned into a family affair. I had plans, however. Chili, corn bread, brownies, chips and dips. It was going to be great.
Except a key player in that plan was Denisa. I could do the brownies no problem. Dips? Sure. In a pinch, I could probably even do corn bread, though I’ve never done it before. But chili that doesn’t involve just opening a can and putting it in the microwave? Chili that involves . . . cutting onions AND celery AND carrots? And even mincing garlic?
That is decidedly in the Denisa Realm, a land of mystery and wonder, where magically delicious things originate, though we’re not quite sure how.
And Denisa, even though she doesn’t like football, was up for it. Until she got sick. It was at that point that I had to decide how much I wanted this to be a real party event. Just how committed was I to the cause?
I made my first chili-from-scratch yesterday. I also made brownies and corn bread. In the end, it all turned out well. Denisa wanted to make a vegetarian chili, which I stuck with. I burned the vegetables some, and I almost burned the chili to the bottom of the pot. I also discovered we were out of chili powder, but I called an audible and stuck some taco seasoning in, instead. I was fairly worried that instead of chili, we’d be eating taco flavored water, but in the end it all turned out fine.
Did I develop a love for cooking in the process? Reader, I did not. But I was proud in the end that it all turned out okay, even if I was kind of grumpy and pessimistic in the middle of the adventure.
Would I do it again if Denisa got sick and couldn’t cook? Sure. Maybe next time I won’t even burn the vegetables . . .
As for the game and party itself, it was all just kind of okay. The game was kind of boring, the ads were mostly meh, and I really didn’t like the halftime show. The food was good, though. So there’s that.
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Like what you’ve read? Please consider supporting me on Patreon. Thanks to all my Patrons who support me! It only takes a minute or two, and then it’s automatic from there on out. I’ve been posting my book ICHABOD in installments, as well as chapters from UTOPIA. Check it out.
If you’d rather not sign up for Patreon, you can also support the site by clicking the MEMORY THIEF Amazon link on the right of the page. That will take you to Amazon, where you can buy my books or anything else. During that visit, a portion of your purchase will go to me. It won’t cost you anything extra.
