Category: Philosophy

April, 18 2022 – I Am Starting To Get a Picture

April 18, 2022 /

Maybe this will be ‘My Therapy Mondays’ . Just kidding, but I have been thinking a lot about how to identify my funk. Like I talked about last week, I know that it is largely about all the things I need to do but don’t want to and all the things I want to but shouldn’t because of the former.

What you are looking at is my path from the garage door opening into the interior of the garage. As I wrote about quite a bit in the fall, I expended a lot of energy getting rid of everything both in the garage and the basement. There are some obvious questions that come up. How did this happen? What are your waiting for to get started?

And, I suppose the answers are just as complicated. But, this is a delicate situation. For some reason, my wife has a constant need to buy new furniture and re-organize the living areas. It seems like a constant evolution of lamps, couches, rugs, chairs and other home furnishings. For instance, the bar stools in the picture were $800 a piece. It annoys me that they are replaced by some much less durable stools (one has already broken and it has been less than two months). I have accepted that the barstools will not come back but I feel like they are still well made and probably selling them could help offset the cost of the constant evolution. That means keeping them around and in my way.

I have made multiple trips to the recycling center in the last couple of months. Every one of the new furnishings show up with boxes and Styrofoam and packaging material. Not only is the process expensive but it is very wasteful. In our locality, the ability to recycle is pretty limited which means I have a large volume of things that cant fit into weekly trash can. For me, a minimum dump load is a full pick-up and trailer otherwise I am just wasting more money. So, I am holding onto that stuff until there is enough to make the trip.

I am not denying the carpet in the kids rooms were bad. They were bad when we moved in sixteen years ago. Along with the new carpet came new furniture, new beds, new linens etc. During the room clearings a lot of extra junk was identified as no longer necessary. There were clothes that will not be worn, garbage like old school work, toys that have been outgrown, etc. That all got piled up in the garage.

Also, in the back of picture you can see my son’s go-cart. He is actively working on it. My problem with this is that there are tools, cords and junk spread out everywhere. I feel like he does not respect the space or my stuff. I made him twice over the last weekend go and put stuff away. By my estimation, I think that he did about two thirds of it. And, when he is cutting and grinding, it is showering grit and stuff all over the furniture that is supposed to be donated.

There is also a contingent of items that came as a result of moving my mother-in-law into the small house in the back. By my read, they are also junk but then they are not my things to dispose of (yet).

End Your Programming Routine: I am starting to get the picture that maybe I have a marriage problem and probably a me problem. Of course I want my wife to be happy but I simply don’t want to be around all the things that I don’t agree with. I don’t want to have to climb over things and step on metal and move wheels out of the way to get to the freezer to get ready for dinner. I don’t know when or where this will end because this round of decorating is not done yet. This is the reason I haven’t started taking action yet. This will pass, in the meantime I am avoiding my garage and shop.

April 1, 2022 – Marking Another April Fool’s Day

April 1, 2022 /

Along with Festivus, this might be in the AltF4 collection of recognized holidays. In tradition, I am supposed to play a prank on you guys. However, I have never been into playing practical jokes. I suppose it is my one areas of empathy.

I like jokes but not so much pranks. I think the difference is the physicality. When I was in college, some of the guys thought it was funny to pretend to trip and dump an entire 32oz drink all over you. It only happened to me a time or two, so no big deal but it wasn’t so fun for the person getting drenched with soda. About ten years ago, one of my coworkers bought donuts and injected them with horseradish (or something). I was out of town that day so I missed that one.

A few years ago, my wife played several tricks on my sons. She froze the milk in the cereal bowl (and a couple of things I cant remember). That triggered one of my sons to go whole hog on April Fools. Two years ago, he setoff some kind of stink bomb in our room in the middle of the night and then tried to saran wrap the door. It didn’t fully work but the prank was definitely not appreciated.

I could probably go for some kind of hidden camera ‘What Would You Do?’ type prank. Not a prank, but some kind of skit, sketch or otherwise unusual public behavior would be funny by me. Alternatively the video below has very harmless pranks. We have tons of videos of pranks and examples. It was one of the premises of America’s Funniest Videos.

End Your Programming Routine: The thing for me is that both parties should be able to laugh. Waking up to a house of burning sulfur for hours is not my idea of a good prank. In the end, you know your friends and family and yourself. So, maybe they like getting a 32oz soda dumped on them but I doubt it. Have fun and let me know what you come up with.

March 29, 2022 – The Straw That Broke the Camel’s Back

March 29, 2022 /

I tried to do some research on the origin of the phrase and I couldn’t really suss out the meaning. I was trying to derive the significance of the Camel to the phrase. I did find out that this idiom has a long history which dates back to the 1700s and it has several variations from straw to feather and camel to donkey. It would appear that this is indicating a load bearing animal and it is one item too much.

Originally, I thought that I was going to title this the ‘fall that broke the camel’s wrist’ as a play on words for reasons that will become obvious later in this post. I was thinking that the camel was a stubborn animal and that it was more than just a plain, gruesome act. But it doesn’t seem so.

To say the least, this has been a difficult time since my father-in-law has died. I have written about this a little bit and for obvious reasons, not explicitly. To state it bluntly, my mother-in-law is dying, not capable of caring for herself and refusing to accept the situation. This has caused a strained relationship with her children and has driven wedges between my own marriage.

This is just a small flavor but she paid a down payment on a puppy. The children all agreed that this is a bad idea. My wife even spoke to the owner of the puppy not to sell the dog to a person that is living in a travel trailer and cannot walk more than a few yards un-assisted. I am sure we can all use our heads on what the possible problems are here. This lead to a huge blow-up where my wife blocked her mom and I had to become the middleman in constant conversation for two weeks. The words were nasty and hurtful.

That situation came to an end two weekends ago. They were all supposed to stay in a beach house for a week. My wife wanted nothing to do with her. My sister-in-law and her family didn’t want anything to do with her. I was supposed to drive my mother-in-law to the beach house but I couldn’t get ahold of her. A few hours later, I got a call that she had fallen and possibly broke her wrist. She was in the ER, already at the coast.

I told my wife and she unblocked her to communicate in the situation. They ended up spending the planned four days at the beach but that wasn’t easy either. I had multiple phone calls about how my mother-in-law was behaving and I don’t have words. I prayed.

I am not claiming to have a command of the best Christian behavior. Quite frankly, I would just as soon not have anything to do with her either. It would make my life a lot easier. But, that is not the way of Jesus. I certainly didn’t want to be the middleman or even try to get deeper into the situation. But, this is a time of need and our my beliefs would tell me to forgive the sinner.

I think that the broken wrist has made a thaw in the relationship. For one thing, we moved her into our apartment last weekend. The travel trailer is getting moved before the first and it will likely be her last night there. I haven’t had a direct conversation specifically, but I think it was a wakeup call that today is the best day that there will be.

Fifteen years ago, before podcasts I used to listen to Dave Ramsey a lot. One of his recommended books was Boudaries. I never got around to reading this book but I maybe it is not too late. I think we could all use some help in this situation.

End Your Programming Routine: From my observation, this is the reverse of raising a teen. They are trying to resolve the desire to become more grown-up and yet not quite ready. This situation is trying to get the person to realize that they cannot do the things they did even a year ago. It is hard and we have no legal standing to stop it in most cases. Keep all of us in your prayers.

March 23, 2022 – Total Domination

March 23, 2022 /

I remember this vividly. I was 17 and I was wrestling in high school. My brother (15) was also a wrestler and cousin(15) was a football starter. We challenged my dad and uncles to a 3 on 3 basketball game. I figured that they were all smokers and out of shape that this would be a cake walk.

I can still remember my grandfather cackling as they proceeded to beat our asses badly. I think that the final score was 40-2 or something like that. I don’t really remember the game itself other than they were way more physical that we were. Not in a fouling or nasty way but more like aggressiveness.

When getting the family settled into the beach house on Sunday, we play a couple of hours on the ping pong table. My sons recently started playing tennis. So, my younger son thought that he was going to school mom. No way Jose. Mom played several years when she worked at a youth residential treatment facility. It was closer than my loss in basketball, but my son was shocked. He proclaimed that he was going to beat her 10-0 in the next game.

I have noticed over the years that youth are not as strong as I think they should be. I don’t know if it is mind over matter or they are just not fully developed. I have had my nephew or kids help me move furniture around and they seem to not be able to move or lift things despite spending hours a week “working out”. Don’t get me wrong, I am out of shape and they can run circles around me. I am talking about practical fitness however.

I have spoken about wisdom in the past. Back to basketball, my guess is that we were in top physical shape, but they used wisdom to play to their strengths. Maybe if we were all basketball players instead of wrestlers the game would have ended more like the ping pong game. I just dont know but I have seen this enough times in various forms to know that it is more complicated that how much you can squat, bench press or deadlift.

Back when I was in high school, I used to play Dungeons and Dragons with my friends. Your character has both wisdom and intelligence. Intelligence is analogous to knowing pi is 3.14159 (plus a whole lot more) versus wisdom of using 3.14 when calculating the area of a circle. I can’t remember all the severely complicated math I learned to prove pi as a number but I certainly remember where to use it.

End Your Programming Routine: It very well may be that high schoolers competing against other high schoolers are at a roughly equal mental development. At that age, we don’t realize the influence that our mental ability has on the physical. We also don’t realize that we have not mentally peaked or that we don’t know what we don’t know. As I sat there watching that ping pong game, the great memory flashed back of my grandfather just howling as we got schooled.

March 18, 2022 – American Dream: Where Do We Stand?

March 18, 2022 /

This was kind of an interesting exercise for me. When I wrote off the cuff about the qualities, I really was reacting to what I thought that I knew. After really digging into the definition of the terms and their applications, I came away with a different perspective.

As a refresher, here were the five properties of the American Dream: Democracy, Rights, Liberty, Opportunity and Equality. In my opinion, the most important one is also the most subjective. Rights are recognized and incorporated into the government, have known boundaries and an expectation of exercising.

When we look at what our founder’s described as rights, properties that we were born with before the existence of the government are not necessarily recognized in other cultures, some examples the right to keep and bear arms or women’s suffrage. The fact that we have an entire category of law and lawyers means that rights are constantly evaluated and not considered static or even inherited before the government.

If we believe in this concept, then we have to be OK that our neighbor is doing something that we don’t like. We have to accept that my dream is not my neighbors just as his is not likely mine. We have to agree that the risk of not living in a Home Owner’s Association is worth the reward of freedom. We have to agree that we have the right to succeed beyond our wildest dreams but that comes with a risk of losing it all. We have to agree that consenting adults can gather together to worship the devil or have sex parties or snort cocaine as long as no one is being forced to do so and no one else is harmed in the process. We also need to understand that there is recourse for damages in a free society rather than attempting to force them to do something by creating laws.

You see, there is nothing wrong with the American Dream concept except we no longer believe in it. At the risk of sounding harsh, the term mental masturbation applies here. We like the thought of the American Dream, but we don’t actually want it. Just as a person could be very happy and thrive in a socialist, homogenous society, it could be miserable if you believe differently. Back to my comment on freedom I said a few weeks ago, totalitarianism is some of the most prosperous and happy conditions when you are on the right side of the ruling class.

I spend a lot of time railing against the fascist left (that’s right you are just as fascist despite what the media says), my religious right friends need to look in the mirror as well. Jesus never required us to legislate morality. In fact for salvation purposes, morality is strictly the responsibility of the individual. When the veil was torn so were the ways of Judaism and the ceremonial laws of sacrifice and circumcision. While I can understand the distaste for sin, judgement and condemnation are also some of those sins. Creating laws of minimum square footage restriction may impact my dream as readily as I am not allowed to own livestock or buying alcohol on Sunday.

In case you feel like I am a bit all over it is because I am trying to get across is that both sides are pinching at the American Dream for their own reasons. Let’s be honest, both sides hope to use the power of the state to force everyone to adhere to our version of the better society. What is the impact? We lose the ability to pursue our dream our way.

End Your Programming Routine: Seems like we are ending about where I started, probably not for the the same reasons though. I assumed the American Dream was dead because the characteristics weren’t being upheld. It is even the case that some of those properties really are only ideals and not actually true, particularly Opportunity and Equality. I now think that the American Dream is dead because the definition of the characteristics change.

March 11, 2022 – American Dream Series: Equality

March 11, 2022 /

Here we are on the last quality of the American Dream. I will save my overall analysis for next week and stay focused on this particular aspect. It is probably a good start to look at the definition of equality. The Webster definition is the quality or state of being equal. I suppose that makes sense, equality is an adverb (or describing) the word equal.

And so, the definition of equal means of the same measure, quantity, amount, or number as another. Of course, we need to look at absolute and relative application of equality in the same manner that we have been looking at throughout the series.

What is this quality really getting at? Is it possible to have opportunity without equality? Maybe… you were given a job because of your parents, or what school you went to or for that matter whether you have a degree in a particular field. I would have to say that there are lots of areas that hands people opportunity over others.

It is pretty likely that this is really referring to racial or gender or even whatever self identifying class that I want to use. The question remains, do we have equality? Let us see. Are all races equal – no. Let us take something like skin cancer. Below are some statistics.

The point I am making is that it is physically impossible for all races to be equal, remember I am taking the absolute stance here. Now, is it possible that men and women are equal? Lets just look at how the transgender swimmers are doing.

Really can we make that case that there is really an absolute equality? I think the answer will never be yes. For instance, what are the odds that I would get equal consideration to be president? Can I get on the ballot, probably in a few locations but could I get elected, I highly doubt it. I think for the most part we have the equality in attempting something. Where we don’t and never will is largely achieving something.

There was a local kid about eight or nine years ago that started playing football as a freshman, first time ever. He was starting on varsity in the first game. By the time he was a senior he was one of the top 50 overall high school recruits, let alone number one in his position. He got a scholarship to play for USC and now he is actually in the NFL.

I don’t know if that was really his dream or it just worked out that way. The fact is there have been countless Heismen Trophy (best college player of the year) winners that never made it past one season in the NFL. There has to be some degree of luck in attaining some limited dreams. Just because I want it and do all the right things still don’t guarantee that I can achieve things. I would even argue that the best player in college football is not equal to most of his peers that get drafted and supersede his longevity.

I freely admit that story was more of an edge case than the intended center of the argument for equality. I am going to use conjecture from here on out. What is with pay inequality for genders? I think when the most people see that women get paid 80% of men, they assume that they just get paid less. I really don’t think that is the case.

We are not really talking about a woman and a man getting paid the same for the same job, we are talking about what all men make versus what all women make. We are talking about genders making different career choices because values and opportunities pursued are different amongst the sexes. This is not the first time, but currently, my boss is a woman. She works around the clock and she is very good at it. I hope she gets paid more than me because I don’t really want to do that.

End Your Programming Routine: I didnt’t talk a lot about race today and I am going to leave things here. I guess to be blunt, I don’t see common equality as an issue. I am not saying there isn’t racism or discrimination but largely we do not have equality barriers. Further to this, everyone will never be equal. That is the beauty of humanity and I think we should always play to our strengths.

March 4, 2022 – American Dream Series: Opportunity

March 4, 2022 /

Like many of these concepts, opportunity can be subjective. I have written several times about absolute and subjective interpretation. I have also landed on the the idea of absolute definition when it comes to philosophy, like I am going to discuss today. However, it is complicated.

What is opportunity in the context of America? I think that the version of what we are talking about stems from our European origins. In my opinion, it technically means that we don’t have a ruling family or class and therefore there is not a glass ceiling for any individual. Meaning, it is possible for anyone of us to do anything that we set our minds to.

Obviously, there are sometimes physical limitations like someone in a wheelchair is likely not going to play in the NBA. I think most people get that exception to that. So we are really talking about the potential to do anything that we are capable of doing. I am not putting them down, it would be analogous to someone saying I want to live underwater like a merman. It is a limitation of the human body and the application of what we are trying to accomplish.

Do we really have the opportunity to do anything we want? Well, yes and no. We have the opportunity to do whatever we want as long as it is not interfering with someone else. And, I am not talking about criminal enterprise, I am talking about once we get to a certain level we start to interfere with powerful and rich people that don’t want someone to succeed at their expense.

Do you remember when we had George W. Bush’s ‘Too Big to Fail’ policy? Pure opportunity would have let those organizations fail and some bank with less debt or a better strategy would have assumed their position. We didn’t let those banks and investment firms fail because it would have literally crushed the economy (as it is currently created). Let’s be honest if the failure would have only hurt the common man, it would have likely happened but because it effected the Oligarchs as well then it was ‘too big to fail’.

There’s that word Oligarchs… I think we know some of them Gates, Walton, Bloomberg, Musk etc. There are others like Kennedy and Rockefeller that are familiar but we don’t get the connection and still others that we don’t know. This isn’t about conspiracy, this is about stating that there are forces beyond elected officials that are influencing policy much greater than voting.

The way to disrupt the system is to not play the same game. The rise of cryptocurrency is going to eventually ridicule traditional financial vehicles. And then, we may have a new batch of Oligarchs. There is hope, technologies suck as block chain will end the graft and influence that goes along with it. This is because there is no debate with public block chain, it is binary. You did it or you didn’t. You paid or you did not. It is all a matter of what is recorded, it is all visible and transparent.

I want to end this now because there are so many other aspects to opportunity than problems a few people will deal with. Probably what most people focus on is not whether you can become an oligarch but can you get out of the housing projects. I think the answer is yes but I will not deny that it will be difficult and most won’t.

If your mother was a drug addict or in an abusive relationship, what is a six year old going to do about that? To make matters worse, when that condition becomes normalized to a child they may not even recognize that there are other options. When you can be easily distinguished by the color or your skin as different, I will say that is a potential obstacle to overcome. But If there is a spark, if there is one person to be a role model, if there is desire then there is still opportunity.

I hate to say it, but some people are not going to have opportunity. This is not because it doesn’t exist but because it was taken from them. This is analogous to having someone steal your bike. You know how to ride, there are roads, there is nothing preventing it except you do not have a bike. Therefore, the opportunity to ride a bike is not there because it was taken. No matter how much you want to ride a bike or others want you to ride a bike or the government builds bike lanes, it doesn’t make it not stolen.

I suppose that is another aspect to this. Some people will not even notice their bike was stolen. Other’s will get a job or save money or put it on a credit card. The most important thing is that they have the drive to replace it. There is a third person that spends all of their time wallowing in the fact that the bike was stolen rather than moving on. Many would probably argue that there is a forth person that wants to be the second.

Because of their circumstances, it is difficult to get a job or save money or get credit. I am being simplistic, but to me that is a form of the third. It very well may be that they are barely making it on two jobs with five kids. If we are to assume that everything is on the up and up, we can credit them for taking responsibility for prior decisions. That is not to say that they couldn’t abandon their kids and sign-up for a new life, maybe in small increments at a time.

I am not suggesting that they do this. What is says to me is that is decisions have consequences. And consequences may limit opportunity out of morality. That is definitely the right thing to do but it is not lack of opportunity. Probably the best descriptor is opportunity wasted (sorry for being harsh).

Still other’s are going to argue this term systemic racism or women are not treated equal as men. Equality is a subject for next week but in reality, equality always relates to opportunity like rights to liberty. So, I will shelve that particular aspect and we will get into it next week.

End Your Programming Routine: I will never make it as a Supreme Court Justice because I am not a black woman – that is lack of opportunity for sure Joe Biden. But, it doesn’t mean I can’t try. I could go to law school, campaign to be a judge and work my tail off. Someday, another president will actually look at all the facts when making considerations for a nominee. Opportunity doesn’t guarantee that I will succeed but that whatever I want is possible.

February 28, 2022 – Running Out of Words

February 28, 2022 /

No, I don’t mean that I am quitting. You will have to read to get to the punchline today. First, we have a long and winding path to get there, so let’s get started.

Valentine’s Day is over, so what is next for merchandizing? Why Easter of course. What does this have to do with anything? I am getting there.

When I first met my wife, I was introduced to something that I don’t see often. It is tradition called cascarón. This is where you save your egg shells be used for Easter. Essentially, you try to preserve as much of an intact eggshell by cracking off one end of the egg. You want to build up a large inventory of egg shells for coloring and filling.

This is where it get’s fun. Some of the shells are filled with confetti, flour or oatmeal and some might be filled with money and occasionally, there might even be a raw egg! What you do is run around and crack them on peoples heads. We hide them with traditional Easter eggs and then inevitably wait to get cracked. If you want to participate in this tradition, now is the time to start building up your inventory of eggshells.

You should know by now, I am going to take this a lot deeper. One of my first Easters with my Wife’s family was in 1995. We were going to school over 200 miles away and of course it was a school weekend and we had little means to travel so they came to us for the day. They brought the cascarones.

My wife was living in a townhouse with several exchange students. One of them was Japanese and this holiday was foreign. So, we invited her to join us for the meal and the Easter egg hunt. She brought a friend to the dinner whose name was Ai (also a Japanese exchange student).

After the dinner, and when it came to cracking eggs (by surprise is the best) they quickly caught on to what was likely going to happen. Ai got so freaked out that she ran to her bicycle and peddled away not to come back again that day. This was our Sophomore year and consequently my wife became really good friends with her Japanese roommate.

We have kept in contact with her roommate over all these years. Her roommate and Ai came to our wedding. Five years later, we all met at her roommate’s wedding in California. Ai studied theater in college and dreamed of Hollywood, which she pursued. Yesterday, Ai died of cancer.

We had heard that it was terminal a few months ago. In December, Ai left California to go back to Japan for her final days. To be honest, we weren’t nearly as close to Ai as we are to my wife’s roommate and dealing and our own demons concerning cancer, it was out of sight and out of mind. But, it hits that this was someone who we know that left us too early.

My wife deals with strong survivor’s guilt. She had a coworker who was our age and kids are the same age that died of cancer a few years ago, that was hard. They had even done chemotherapy at the same time. Then she had another friend who was younger than us by probably ten years die a couple years ago, that was worse. It feels like we know too many people battling and losing to cancer way too young.

I know, this is being hypervigilant. I see it one place and my eyes are open to where else it could be. But, I also can’t help but wonder what God is telling me in this situation. Not just me either, for people with survivor’s guilt as strongly as my wife’s what can she get out of the situation? Is there a message here, am I trying to make a connection that doesn’t exist or is this a fact of life that now I am getting older the probability to bad endings happen in life?

I talked about the neighbor kid that is battling last week, my mother-in-law is in her second year of treatment, people that are in my inner circle are in the fight of their lives. I’ve gone through it with my wife too. Compassion and empathy are some of my weaker areas for sure. I think I have them, but it is really difficult to express them adequately. Maybe that is what God is trying to tell me?

Yesterday in church, the sermon was conceptually about making the most of a situation (not necessarily dying). What can you do with what you have. The question of the bucket list came up. I had never really given it much thought because I have never created one. At least for me, I came down to goals and achievements are for the living. I don’t really have a traditional bucket list because I think that when that time comes, I wont want to have a final bunch of experiences before I die. I think the point of making the most of the situation actually means living before dying.

End Your Programming Routine: Of course, we are all going to face the inevitable. There is no doubt that if we live long enough, we will see our fair share of tragedy – however we define it. I suppose that I can consider myself lucky not having to witness something like the holocaust or to be born into slavery. With all things, it is not how we handle the acute situation, but the aftermath that is going to make the difference.

February 25, 2022 – American Dream Series: Liberty

February 25, 2022 /

This week marks the half way point in the values that make up the American Dream. Hopefully, this week will be a little easier to quantify than rights last week.

I suppose the best place to start is the origin of the concept. According to Wikipedia, the idea came from ancient Greece. Essentially it meant to not be a slave. That is pretty plain, either you are a slave or you have liberty. The word itself is derived from the Latin word Libertas. Libertas was a Roman goddess representing liberty. The likeness has been used in France on money and was the inspiration for the Statue of Liberty.

Now that that is done, we can look a little deeper into what it means today. If we strictly take the Greek concept, we are not slaves. If you look a little harder, notice that doesn’t mean there are no laws, it means that we are free to operate within the laws that exist. And if we go back to last week, laws in theory should be based on our rights. In theory, laws should support or strengthen our rights and never restrict them.

I don’t want to get too far out of bounds with rights again this week, however you cant have liberty without recognized rights. It would seem that in reality, Rights are far more important than Liberty. Rights are going to define the boundaries that we can operate with said Liberty.

Do we have Liberty today? I actually think that we do for the most part. The notion that someone is doing something that we don’t want them to do, we enact a law preventing it. So, we are still free to operate within with the realm of legal, we just keep redefining what that means.

I think about all of the places that I have been, I would offer up China as an example. I am not an expert, but I am pretty sure Liberty is not among their cultural entitlements. Are the people slaves – no. Can they operate within the laws of municipality – yes. Are the laws applied universally – of course not and nowhere else (including the United States) for that matter. Do they have liberty – by that definition yes.

Just using that example above, it sort of downplays the importance of Liberty. The only situations I could think of where liberty would be a problem is when the boundaries are changing without the knowledge of the population or selective enforcement. In which case, people exist at the whim of the rulers or maybe we could call them slaves.

End Your Programming Routine: I really didn’t think that this was going to go this way. I suppose that I was because I had never really taken a deep dive into the definitions. I thought that I knew what I was talking about without truly understanding.

I have to admit that when I hear the word ‘Liberty’ one of two images come up immediately. They are either Libertas (sometimes the statue of Liberty) or the liberty eagle. Those are the signs of programming and invoke emotion rather than thought and understanding. I am not saying that I don’t want Liberty but now I know it’s place in the hierarchy.

February 23, 2022 – I am Interrupting This Series in Brewing…

February 23, 2022 /

Stuff happens. No one plans to get cancer, especially when the person is a child. Whether you are in middle school or middle age, health disruptions suddenly supersede any plans you have in life.

My son has a friend that was diagnosed with cancer last week. They are the same age and they live two blocks away. He has been over to my house many times sometimes for an hour or two and sometimes overnight. Even his siblings have spent time over here. This isn’t really an acquaintance, but someone that we know pretty well.

Speaking from experience, when you are in treatment your life is not your own. In 2010, my wife had a near death illness and in 2012 she was diagnosed with cancer. The severity of the tumor is graded on how treatable it is. In her case it was stage 4 (out of 5) meaning it was effecting multiple locations and was not possible to surgically remove.

I was pulling weeds in the garden one day, just kind of having some alone time. My wife was in the hospital and our pastor came by. He asked me how I was doing and what I thought about all of this. Since I had been through this once before, I knew the ropes with doctors, hospitals and all that. There was little fear about uncertainty of what the next few months of treatment would look like. The fear was really what the future would look like for me and two boys aged 4 and 6.

I told him, “After the last illness, I saw her faith and ability to appreciate life grow exponentially. I don’t think God’s lesson is for her this time. I think this is for the other people in her life, like me”. I won’t say that I turned the switch on exactly at that moment, but I will say that I started removing excuses in my life to change my ways in faith.

In my mind, I grew up attending church every week. As I moved out of the home, I knew my beliefs and I wasn’t opposed to church but nothing we tried really felt comfortable. I justified that I was well adjusted in faith because I spent every Sunday as a youth in church. As a result, I realized that believing is one thing but worship and congregation are part of the deal as well. That is super tough for me because I find it uncomfortable but you cannot reach your full potential as a closet Christian.

Consequently, there is no such thing as a perfect denomination. What is more important is getting plugged in and keep an open mind. I don’t 100% agree with everything my church does, but I can’t say that it is wrong on theology. It is more about the approach and my comfort level and what I would prefer. Quite frankly, I think being challenged and uncomfortable is actually healthy in faith.

I hate to admit this but sometimes I wish that I had been the one that got cancer and survived. I wish that I had the ability to appreciate things in the same lens as someone that see’s life as a gift. As much as I can empathize with the family on the support side of the treatment, as of now I cannot have the same level of appreciation as a survivor. Let me be clear, it is not that I want it, I just will not have the same level of understanding.

A few nights ago, we went to a short prayer service for this teen that is starting his journey. It was informal and we really don’t know the prognosis. I don’t want to be the one that blows smoke by sharing my story and potentially provide false hope or sound somewhat gloating as I won the lottery on survival. I am not saying that it would be received that way either. However, I have this forum to say whatever I want to say. Maybe my writing gives someone a kickstart into finding the right course in life too.

End Your Programming Routine: This isn’t the only cancer story that is currently active in my life. It does happen to be the one that I am more hopeful for and the one that fits my story today. I don’t think that we need crisis or tragedy to change our ways. One thing that those situations do very well is galvanize where you stand and can easily push a person to one side or the other. I hope for the best here, I will stay tuned to where my lesson is in the journey.