I stumbled across a website the other day that says it strives for “forward-thinking journalism”, which of course means it far removed itself from true journalism very quickly. Journalism isn’t supposed to be forward-thinking or backward-thinking or any sort of -thinking other than projecting stories to the American people that they need to learn about. Opinions come from them, not from the “journalists” involved. But that’s neither here nor there.

The point is that they throw mud at those who they see as being backward-thinking, just as I’m sure plenty of backward-thinking people had thrown mud at them over the years. The common statement is “Can you BELIEVE those people?” more often than anything else. It would actually be quite appropriate to sum America up with a $100 bill where the US motto is replaced with, “Can you BELIEVE those people?”. But again, that’s neither here nor there. Continue reading “Neither Here Nor There (Or, Can You BELIEVE Those People?)”

I remember in school being really awesome at our tiny speech and debate class. Part of the reason I remember being awesome was because I genuinely didn’t have any issues with talking in front of people so I appeared to be quick-witted enough to be the best in the class. The other reason is because my school was so small that really as long as you felt like you could talk to people, you were going to do well in the class.

Of course, my school was a tiny private school that was basically a Bible school in a lot of aspects. One of the benefits of this was having a class that was entirely about worldview. This meant that not only did we look into the Christian worldview that the school itself held, giving us a pretty solid understanding of the basics of our background, but also looked into the worldview of other religions. Without this class, I likely never would have read the Koran or any Buddhist texts in my life. Neat stuff.

All that to say this: I may have done well in my debate class, but that doesn’t mean I’m any good at actually debating. That’s because my genuine curiosity into how other people’s brains work led me to other interests. Psychology, for example. And of course, my interest in worldview.

Because of this, I’m really good at explaining things, seeing the big picture, and trying to make sense out of the nonsense around us. Proving a point? Not so great. But what I am good at, I can (as you would expect), explain.

Here are the points I always like to consider when dealing with opinions and the way people view the world. Continue reading “Ain’t It Fun? (Or, The Problem With Our Opinions)”

The other day at work, I overheard a woman start to confront another woman about something. I walked by as she was getting started, that’s all. I quickly picked up on the tone of the conversation and sped my pace up a little bit more to get out of there and to my destination.

Later that day, I passed the woman who was on the receiving end of that talk. She was on the phone with somebody talking about the awkward confrontation from earlier in the day. Again, I sped by to get out of that situation and to where I needed to be.

No clue the context. No clue what the issue was. I only saw tiny bits. Enough to know what was happening without knowing any details. Just a bystander who caught a tiny glimpse into their lives. Continue reading “Just A Bystander (Or, The World Is A Stage And I’m A Part Of The Crew)”

I had a conversation with somebody the other day involving the use of a phrase that I like but isn’t necessarily common among others that share my pale skin tone. It was a civil, respectable conversation in which nothing negative was said about any ethnicity or anything, so there was no reason to assume any ill will from the person I was talking with. It was just a conversation about ethnic and racial differences. Probably the type of conversation a lot of us should be having.

Of course, it really got me thinking about what happens when differences aren’t handled well. When people look down upon other people as if they’re worth less or worthless. How there are divides built between people, not just racial divides, that are drawn as a “They started it” sort of thing. Political parties, religious denominations, etc. A constant whirlwind of people declaring that it is not, in fact, them that is to be blamed, but the other party involved. It’s not our fault.

We all want that classic scene from Good Will Hunting to be true for us. What’s odd is that we want to play both roles. We want to be Matt Damon, the one to be pitied and consoled. The one who is actually the victim and just needs to be shown that he’s just as fine as the rest of us. But we also want to be Robin Williams. We want to be the one who makes the declaration. We want to be the one who makes the wise realization of the source of all the issues and make it known to the world.

We want to be vindicated. We want to vindicate ourselves. Self-vindication is a flawed and hopeless system. Continue reading “Good Will Hunting”

I sat down for a moment at work the other day to soak in the fact that I had been running from one end of the building to the other pretty much since I had arrived earlier that morning. For a majority of the day, there hadn’t actually been much to do, but I still found myself going back and forth for a while in the quest for productivity.

I had to stop and sit down in order to take all of this into consideration. I mean, I had just gotten back from a week of vacation time, and to be quite honest, I was getting a little frustrated on Sunday that it wasn’t Monday and it wasn’t time for me to get back to the office. And in the earlier moments of the day, I was frustrated that I just hadn’t quite found anything productive to do with my time. When I actually was given a task, I turned to a co-worker who had noticed my restlessness and proudly proclaimed “I found something to do!”

Sitting on that bench for a moment shed a great deal of light on the motivation I was acting off of. Not just the motivation I was working with on that particular workday, but a greater motivation that seems to live on in all of us. Continue reading “Value Cycles (Or, Why Work Doesn’t Define Us But We Need To Work)”