The Journey, Chapter 2

While my religious education began at a very young age, my true spiritual education did not begin until very recently.

In 1999 the movie American Beauty was released. For reasons that I still do not fully understand, seeing that movie had a tremendous impact on me—it struck a chord that was at the very center of my being. The sleeper had awakened. The themes of the movie was planted in me and started to grow: live; pay attention; look closer; this moment will never exist again; don't let fear rule your life. Lester Burnham was me, plus about 20 years.

This wakeup call from the universe began a gradual progession of deeper and deeper introspection and soul-searching: there had to be more to my life than the contracting job I had at Sprint; more to it than the commuter marriage that left me feeling almost as alone as I had in high school; more to it than just drifting along and passively letting life happen to me.

Fast forward through a 3-year ride on the roller-coaster of my life, all the while rather desparately seeking something, but still not knowing what it was that was missing, and we arrive late in the summer of 2002. J had moved to Kansas City to join me and we had decided to open our marriage and explore our sexuality together by swinging. We attended a few events and talked with a few other couples online, and eventually stumbled onto a bar that catered to the “alternative” crowd—gays, lesbians, transvestites, swingers, you name it—all were welcomed and excepted, and as long as it wasn't illegal (or as long as you didn't get caught), just about anything went.

It was here, over Labor Day weekend, that I encountered the second most impactful thing in my life in the form of a short, sassy red-head.

J hit it off right away with S's husband, R, who had a decidedly BDSM bent to him that she found quite alluring, as that was something that she had really taken an interest in, but that I was a little more hesitant about. S and I were just kind of along for the ride at that point, but the four of us spent much of the evening at the bar talking and getting to know each other.

Allow me a little side-bar here. For most of my young-adult and adult life, I have been aware of “alternative” religions, whether it has been from the mass media or the books I have read, but never really knew anything about them. My impressions were that the people who followed those paths did so with such devotion, passion and joy—the very things that I saw missing from my religious experiences. I longed for the sense of wholeness that I perceived as coming from rituals and practices that actually had meaning. I wanted to believe in something that way. Looking back, it was very much a romanticized view of things.

So imagine my intrigue when S and her husband said they were pagan and talked about things like energy work and healing and drumming circles. This drew me in like a moth to the flame—I wanted to know more. The night progressed and we all ended up back at their house. J and R had a great time; but between S and I, the chemistry just wasn't there, leaving us both rather disappointed.

I ended up sending S an email the following afternoon apologizing and asking if we could get together again sometime to talk and see where things went—J was very interested in seeing where things went with R.

According to S, that email completely blindsided her. From what she says, she had pretty much written me off and was moving on, but my email made her take a second look. We ended up talking more and getting to know each other more and getting together independently of our spouses, who were doing likewise. And my intrigue and fascination and respect and love grew with each passing moment that we spent together. That may sound trite to some, but it is the truth.

I asked S to help me with my quest for self-discovery. I asked her to guide me and teach me. And my initiation took place one night in early October, on a faux bearsking rug in front of her altar. Something changed there, as we made love—it was a very subtle but fundamental and tangible shift of energies, that even R and J commented on later that evening.

In the weeks that followed, my marriage evaporated. It was not an intentional thing, really, and completely unrelated to what was unfolding between the four of us—R, J, S and me. The previous few years spent apart had set us on divergent paths that even a year of being together could not mend. S held me as I cried, and helped me keep my head on straight as the bottom fell out.

And it wasn't too long after that when S's marriage fell apart. She called me as she left, and I invited her to my apartment to crash. She never left. Within three months, we were both divorced; within six we were engaged; and just over a year from the day we met, we were married.

Almost from the day we met, I was thrust into a new world: a world of psychics and Reiki; of witches and spells; of crystals and energy; of Priestesses and circles. It was all of those things that I had read about or heard about, but they were real. I had a personal guide to show me around and introduce me to this community that was based on something more than a morose and rote weelky ritual. This was a community based on spirituality and not religion.

I finally understood that religion was a label, a compartment, a classification—none of which applied to the people I met. There were as many different paths as there were people, and all were welcomed. I was free to explore and find the nuggets of gold and the pieces of the puzzle that were meant for me.

I have been walking this path consciously now for just over 3 years. I often still feel naïve and a total novice. My awareness has grown so much, but along with that has come the awareness of how little I do know.

The pieces of the puzzle keep falling into place, sometimes slowly, sometimes in leaps and bounds. I am apprenticed to the world: the world within me and the world around me. I am learning to face my fears and render them powereless. I am learning to accept that it is OK for me to not know all the time. I am learning that it is not always the destination that matters, but the journey. It is the person that I am and the people that I meet along the way that matter. It is what I can teach and what I can learn.

And no matter how far I have come, the path stretches before me, beckoning softly for me to move ever forward into the infinite.

The Journey, Chapter 1

Some of my first memories—memories that are actually mine and not just stories that have been told to me—are actually related to my spiritual journey. We lived in St. Paul, MN in a small apartment a few blocks from the Mississippi River and the Ford Motor Company plant; we were also a few blocks from the local Catholic Church.

Among my first memories are a brisk winter's morning walk to church, swinging above the icy sidewalks by my parents' arms—and crying when they wouldn't carry me and I kept falling down.

Jump ahead a few years and I'm riding a blue Air Force school bus to CCD classes on Travis Air Force Base outside of Fairfield, CA. The memories aren't too clear here, just images of hallways and classrooms and feeling like I was just one of the crowd and that there was nothing too special about it all. Church was a regular part of life—something we did every Sunday. I remember bringing toys and books to church—and even falling asleep in the pews.

And such is the pattern for most of my early spiritual development: moving from place to place, attending Catholic schools when possible and going to Mass each week with my parents—Dallas, TX; Shreveport, LA; Springfield, IL. I made my First Communion at Mary Immaculate in Dallas. I was even an angel in the Christmas pageant there. I was an altar boy once I got to the fourth grade at St. Joseph's in Shreveport, LA. I made my Confirmation at St. Agnes in Springfield, IL.

Honestly, I can't recall any of it having a huge impact on my life. It was just something I did because that is what I was expected to do. Church was an hour every Sunday (1/2 hour to 45 minutes if you went on Saturday night or were drug along to a weekday morning Mass)—stand, sing, stand, sit, stand, sing, stand, sit, stand, sit, sing, stand, shake, kneel, sing, stand, walk, chew, sip, swallow, kneel, sing, stand, sing, leave—an hour that could have been spent playing or reading or something other than being forced to dress up and be inside with nothing to do. It was something that delayed playing with Christmas presents or eating Easter dinner and candy.

Prayers were all automatic—memorized by repetition with little or no explanation into what they meant. Most of them—even though I know them—I cannot recite to this day unless there is at least one or two other people reciting along with me. Most of the music could be classified as either dirge-like or amateur folk & chorus—it depended on the parish, but the variation was only slight.

It's pretty depressing now that I look back on it. Don't get me wrong—my life was not depressing, just my forced religious development. I learned my moral sense mostly from my parents. They were a little more practical than the religious guides that were ever-present in the form of teachers, priests and nuns. However, the guilt- and fear-driven behavior economy based upon the opinions and judgments of others that is instilled by this upbringing lingers on—there are things today that I know logically (in my head) are perfectly acceptable to me, but that I still have a hard time applying. The guilt of doing or being something that someone disapproves of and/or the fear of being thought poorly of or though of as a fool still have a tremendous grasp on me, much to my chagrin.

While I was aware of other religions, there was never really any drive or desire to find out more about them. We attended several Seders at my mother's obstetrician's house—entertaining because of the different foods and stories and language, but not particularly meaningful. There were several Lutheran families that were part of my parents' Marriage Encounter circle—but they were no different than I was, they just went to a different church. I knew vaguely that other people in other parts of the world had different religions, but they were over there somewhere and had no impact on me.

My first real exposure to other religions was probably in what would have been my seventh grade year (had I been in the U.S. at the time). We were living in London, U.K. and I was attending a British school, but due to the discrepancies in educational systems, I was placed back a year in a grade level with kids who were, for the most part, a year younger than me. While we didn't get to choose our own classes, the arrangement of the curriculum was much more like high school or college: a wide variety of classes on a varied schedule throughout the week. So at the sixth grade level (at least by age), my classes included Math, Physics, Chemistry, Biology, History, Latin, French, English, Art/Shop/Home Econ., P.E., and a rotation that included Geography and Religion. It was this religion class that gave me my first real glimpse into other religious traditions, covering the most of the basics of mainstream Christianity, Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism, and giving acknowledgement to some of the most significant denominations of each.

While this class in and of itself wasn't anything substantial, in the context of that year spent abroad, it certainly added to the awareness and openness that hadn't existed up until that point in my life. If I had to pick a single event that has had the greatest impact on my life, it would be that year in London. I returned to the U.S. a completely different person—both physically (puberty will do that to you) and mentally.

However, spiritually, my life was still fairly stagnant. Catholic high school brought still more religion classes—more dogma on what it meant to be Catholic and what the rules were and why we were sinful and bad. A brief respite came in the form of an AP religion class that focused on myths, religions and archetypes—very interesting, but still with minimal impact.

Church was still church, and still something that just took up time on Sunday. At some point in high school I began to realize that Catholicism—which I honestly, though naively, equated with religion as a whole—didn't work for me. I started having problems reconciling certain dichotomies: an all-loving and all-forgiving god that guided his people through an earthly institute of fear, guilt and denial? A god that was only accessible through an elite class of decidedly human men? An organization that was telling people how to live their lives based on a world-view that was decades, if not centuries, old? I may not have been able to articulate them quite as well at the time, but these were some of the key issues that kept bubbling up in the back of my mind; and, as my mind became more and more scientific and rational through my education, the importance and significance of the irrational world of religion diminished further and further.

In addition to the ongoing philosophical debate I was having with myself, there was definitely some resentment to the feelings of guilt and fear that I had, especially surrounding my social life—or more accurately the lack thereof. Not all of that was religion-based, but it was only fed by the strict tenets of Catholicism. Even though my parents were pretty open about sexuality and nudity and relationships, there was still the stigma of it being “dirty” and “bad.” My mother constantly suggested that I shouldn’t have sex before I was married because I was a prime target for some girl to come along and trap me by getting pregnant. And even though I felt I was smart enough to be wary of such a situation and to know that my mother was just expressing her fears around her baby growing up, I’m sure it played into my “inability” to form non-platonic relationships in high school. Consciously I wanted those relationships—I longed for them—but there was some part of me that wouldn’t allow them to happen. I felt outcast and alone and “less.” And even though I could rationalize it and compartmentalize it and not let it bother me on the surface, the resentment still poked around in the back of mind.

I got involved in Teens Encounter Christ (TEC) as a junior, more because I wanted to be a part of the vibrant community that I saw amongst those who were involved than for any particular set of beliefs or fundamental spiritual principles. That community was strong and alive with people who were very much like me socially and shared similar values and interests—I even met my first real girlfriend in that community at a Christmas/New Year's lock-in. I could put up with the religious bent to things because of the social interaction it afforded me.

That attitude of "tolerance" and the desire to be part of such a connected community continued well into college (a Catholic college), where I was actively involved with Campus Ministry—singing, cantering and reading at Mass, participating in TREC (Teen Residents Encounter Christ—TEC for inmates at juvenile detention centers) and volunteering for other outreach programs. When I met J, who became my first wife, she was a self-described “Jesus Freak” who listened to Christian rock and went to bible studies. She stopped short of evangelizing, but her faith was extremely important to her. And despite my misgivings about Catholicism, I respected that quality of faith in her and saw someone who was almost a carbon copy of me—we shared the same core values, wanted the same types of things in life and had, with only a few significant differences, nearly the same childhood experiences.

But all of that wasn’t enough to keep me on that path. My apathy towards religion, and Catholicism in particular, continued to grow. As I learned more about Church history and even current issues and events, I began to see the Catholic Church as just another organization out to gain power, prestige and money, all in the guise of religion and in God’s name. Frankly, it pissed me off. Sometime around my sophomore year of college I pretty much dropped out of any “religious” activity other than attending church when I was at home with my parents—I didn’t want to disappoint them, of course. I pretty much bundled up my spiritual self and set it on an out-of-the-way shelf in my mind, where it stayed for the better part of ten years.

Regardless of how it may sound, I had a very happy childhood. I had my share of friends, and was able to entertain myself when friends weren’t around or hadn’t been made yet. I found happiness in myself—in my imagination and play, in reading and exploring the world around me. I feel I was a very well-adjusted and mature kid for my age, if perhaps a bit sheltered and naïve in some ways. I was smart and witty and capable.

It is only really now, in hindsight, that I see those parts of my childhood that caused me the most angst and that were the most neglected—and those parts are centered squarely on religion and spiritual development.

I have a very blessed life. I have never truly lacked anything that I needed. I went with things as they came up and found that more often than not I was in the right place at the right time. School and technical skills came easily to me. I have a very loving and understanding family and have always had friends when I needed them. If I stop and examine things closely, in the grand scheme of things I have never had to really and truly work hard at things, with a few exceptions.

I don’t believe that I ever truly lost faith in God. I always knew that there was something beyond myself—some being or power or consciousness or however you want to describe it. I had no way of expressing that, other than just living my life the best I could and experiencing the wonder and amazement of the world around me—which I now have come to know is more valid an expression than I ever thought.

No, it wasn’t that I lost faith in God; it was more a loss of faith in religion—and at the point in time when I decided to turn off that aspect of my life, I didn’t know or didn’t understand and appreciate or even care to explore the difference between the two.

The chasm that separates spirituality from religion is now very clear to me; and while I still sometimes have a bad taste in my mouth when it comes to organized religion, I do have a much better appreciation for it and its role(s) in the bigger picture. It is that chasm—or perhaps more accurately, my awareness of it—that I use to demark the two chapters of my spiritual story.

Victims 'Я' Us

I think my friend Molly hit the nail on the head for quite a few of society's issues in her blog Quintessential Sophism the other day: "...[M]any people don't necessarily take responsibility for their actions or feel a level of accountability when something goes amiss. This tends to lead us into the victim... paradigm."

The way I see things unfolding, far too many kids are raised these days in a climate of "entitlement"——that is, that they deserve certain things just because they exist and not because they have earned them; it is, in part, a confusion between rights and privileges. And while I do believe that there are most certainly things that every human being is indeed entitled to simply by the mere fact that they exist (see the U.S. Declaration of Independence & the U.N. Universal Declaration of Human Rights for starters), most of those basic needs and rights do not, and should not, extend very far into the materialistic world of our modern day.

This pervasive sense of entitlement is extremely destructive, both to the individual and to society as a whole. We are creating a population that is out of control; they are unwilling and/or unable to control their own lives. There is always someone else who is responsible for the things that are needed/wanted. There is always someone else who is responsible for whatever happens. "It's not my fault." The individual is, in a very real sense, giving up control of his* life to those people whom he feels is obligated to fulfill whatever it is he believes he is entitled to. She is giving control of her life to those people whom she feels should be responsible for her actions.

This abdication of responsibility in and of itself isn't necessarily wrong or evil—in fact there are groups who are and have been successful with this societal model——but everyone in the society has to agree upon the model. Everyone must agree that things will be allocated for the common good. Everyone must agree that decisions will be made for the common good. Everyone must agree that it is OK for all of their needs to be met and their obligations mitigated, but that they will not have a say in how those needs are met or how they are directed to live their lives. Everyone must agree that the abdication of control and responsibility must be total and complete—they must give up everything in order to get everything (or anything). I don't particularly agree with that model, but when done correctly, it can work.

Where the biggest conflict arises is when that abdication is not total and complete——when people expect to get everything and not give anything up. People want to have everything provided, and are willing to take the credit for their decisions and actions when things are going smoothly, but as soon as the ride starts getting bumpy, they look to someone else to responsibility. But in choosing to give away the responsibility, we are choosing to let someone else make decisions for us——and that is what we perceive as a loss of freedom.

Just take a look at all the frivolous lawsuits out there. Just take a look at all of those things that you remember from your childhood as commonplace, ordinary and "just the way things were" that are no longer around or are regulated to the nth degree.

I think one of the things that lies at the basis of this issue is a misunderstanding of the concepts of "control" and "responsibility."

Control is an illusion—well, more accurately, lack of control is. You are always in control of what happens to you. You are constantly making decisions that have an impact——even "giving up control" is a choice that rescind at any time. By looking at control in this manner, it is easy to see that the concept of "victim" is also an illusion and merely another choice to let someone else make certain decisions on your behalf.

Responsibility might be more understood if it were spelled differently: response-ability. Being responsible is simply being able to respond appropriately to a given situation, whether that response is action or words. "Appropriately" is the key word, here: if you are unable to respond appropriately, you are irresponsible—and, of course, what is appropriate is decidedly fluid, depending upon the context of the situation (culture, law, morals, ethics, etc.). But again, by choosing to live where we do, we are explicitly or implicitly agreeing to frame our lives within a specific context or set of contexts.

So what we seem to be teaching our children these days is that the appropriate response to anything that is perceived as "wrong" or "bad" is to point the finger at someone else. The appropriate response it to say, "Poor me! Look at what they have done to me! Look at what they have made me do!" The appropriate response is the response of the illusory victim.

It is a vicious circle——more a downward spiral than circle, really. Individuals refuse to accept the consequences of a given choice, instead foisting it off on someone else. Our courts and leaders have, in many cases, supported this transfer of blame by rewarding individuals and punishing those to whom the blame has been shifted. As the pattern develops, it becomes almost classic behaviorism: positively reinforced behavior is learned and passed on; unreinforced or negatively reinforced behavior is avoided.

How do we break the cycle? We must stop rewarding the "blame game." We must force people to accept the consequences of their decisions. We must educate people to the level that they can understand the cultural and social contracts and contexts that they are agreeing to by living where they do——educate them so they are able to respond appropriately to the choices they are faced with in life. We must remove the incentives to go along with the "blame game" that are inherent in our leadership structure today.

These are definitely not easy tasks: essentially rewiring an entire society/culture. And it most certainly won't happen overnight. It starts with each of us consciously taking "control" of our lives, educating ourselves to be response-able, understanding and accepting the consequences of each choice we make and, ultimately, teaching it to our peers and those that look to us for direction——not only through words, but also through actions: modeling the behavior we want to see spread.

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*I'm not a big fan of political correctness—indeed I have some serious issues with the concept that we aren't adult enough to interpret what someone says into whatever gender/race/creed is appropriate for ourselves or to understand and accept the variety of cultural differences that might influence someone's words. In fact, political correctness has, I feel, a major contributor to the "victim" paradigm we are so critical of by creating a hyper-sensitivity to the differences between people. That being said, I do try to be somewhat inclusive in my language, but I will not obsess over it. [Hmm... this might make for another blog topic...]

Rant, Rage and Scream

Un-fucking-believable!

I just spent the last 45 minutes—let me rephrase that——wasted the last 45 minutes trying to find out why Apria Healthcare was billing me $87.25 for "equipment" that I could purchase on my own for between $18.25 and $27.73, depending upon which vendor I chose to purchase from.

$87.25!!!!!

That is roughly 3-5 times the "actual retail price" of the goods. And their answer for why it was that much: "That is a contract price negotiated with Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Illinois." Who the fuck is the BCBSIL purchasing negotiator?

What makes it even more infuriating is that right on the statement, Apria lists the "New Charges" on my account for the quipment, then an "Adjustments" column, then the "Patient Balance." The total for the "New Charges:" $17.45; then everything gets an "adjustment" added to it that is 4 times the "New Charge" value (totaling $69.80), making the "Patient Balance" 5 times what the "New Charge" was: $87.25.

WTF?!?!?!?!

Talk about price-gouging! Talk about fraud! Talk about consumer rape!

But I am sure this is a pittance compared to what is really going on out there. To borrow a phrase coined by my boss: this is the "Normal Ream Rate."

I'm not sure why this enraged me so much—and enrage really is the right word. I am livid. And it's not so much about the dollar amount; I am blessed and fortunate and can afford to pay it. I think there are three parts to it:

1. the blatant inflation of cost (fraud, price gouging, misrepresentation, deceit);
2. deep in my gut I know that there is most likely nothing I can do about it (helplessness, lack of control, powerlessness);
3. knowing that there are many, many people out there who are in need of much more important equipment/services/drugs that might be able to afford it if it weren't so insidiously inflated (injustice, bureaucracy, missing the forest for the trees).

I don't know what I can do about it. I do feel very small and very powerless. Who can I talk to? Who will listen? Who can affect change on a system that is so far out of whack and has been, I'm sure, for a very long time?

If I go back to Apria and tell them to bill this to me as an uninsured consumer, will they give me the "New Charges" rate? Most likely it would be some other "adjusted" rate——possibly even higher than the BCBSIL contract rate, because god/dess knows those without insurance have such deep pockets. And I'm not too hopeful that they would be willing to rebill—especially since I have "seen behind the curtain."

*sigh*

What a way to start a beautiful weekend. I have to find a way to get into a better mood.

Negativism Sucks

Work is starting to get me down. It's not the work I'm doing—I love what I do—it's the people I'm working with right now and the attitude of the company.

I work for a fairly small, family-owned, regional distribution company. The president of the company is well-meaning, but somewhat whimsical in his approach to strategic vision for the company. And what I mean by whimsical is not funny and amusing, but rather the prevailing rumor around the company is that his "latest idea" for what we should be doing as a company tends to come from a conversation he had with someone in an elevator somewhere or the in-flight magazine he was reading on his last trip.

The CFO of the company is about as close with the purse-strings as they come. He doesn't want to spend a dime on anything without proper justification and an almost 100% guarantee of satisfaction and/or success. I do respect him; if I were to win the lottery tomorrow, before I quit my job I would ask his advice for how to invest it and pay attention to every word spoken. And indeed, the company has been reasonably successful. But it seems very difficult at times to make things happen without the backing of the guy holding the money bag.

However, one of the main issues I have with the upper management of the company is that they tend not to listen to the employees they have hired, even when there are several of us saying the same thing. Or rather, the will hear what is being said, but not trust its validity until it has been verified by an outside consultant who has studied the situation for a week at roughly $200-$300 per hour.

But that has been going on for many years—much longer than I have been there—and most likely will continue long after I am gone (barring some major shake-up). What has really been bothering me the most over the last few weeks has been the other people in my department.

For such a small company, we have a pretty advanced IT infrastructure—all run by 6 of us and a manager. As with any department, there are minor quibbles and differences between co-workers, but recently it has started to get out of hand.

One of the group is a former consultant who seems to have hung on to the consultant mentality of making the work stretch out as long as possible while looking busy. Unfortunately, when you aren't paid by the hour, all that manages to do is piss people off. However, despite the fact that many of us have a hard time pinpointing exactly what he does and how he contributes, he somehow manages to get a lot of credit for things that he may or may not really deserve the credit for and to get people to think that he's really doing something. Go figure.

Another falls into a similar spot: a former consultant who now works as little as he can while spending quite a bit of time managing his recently purchased side-business (in a completely unrelated industry), shopping for more establishments to purchase and trying to squeeze as much out of people as possible (in terms of goods, services and work) for the absolute least amount of money and effort on his part. In addition to sometimes being impatient and somewhat abrupt in manor, his accent can make it difficult to understand him at times.

While these two might be considered the ultimate source of the intradepartmental issues, it is how two of my other co-workers respond that is causing my problems. One is the senior network admin, former deparment manager and overall IT guru; the other is the other network admin and general IT geek.

Both are nice guys and I do like them. But their attitudes as of late are rude, obnoxious and plainly unprofessional. Don't get me wrong: I am all in favor of a casual and laid-back work environment. If I could, I would change the dress code for IT to "whatever you want as long as it's more than underwear and flip-flops." I have no problem with flex-time and comp-time and whatever else in the time-off department as long as the work gets done and there is support coverage during business hours and emergency critical systems support coverage. Of course, with my employer, that level of slack will never happen. What I do have problems with is plainly spoken and barely concealed contempt for co-workers.

Recently I have felt like I was back in high school where people still whined and complained on a nearly constant basis and called each other rude, inconsiderate and down-right crass names. The prevailing attitude is a near-complete lack of care, overwhelming pessimism and, of course, the barely concealed contempt.

Of course, here I am whining and complaining about it myself. But it makes for a pretty rotten environment in which to try and get anything done and at times makes me want to not even go into work at all. I have been trying to shield myself from it; I have been trying to ignore it; I have been trying to escape into my work and my headphones. I realize that all of this negative energy isn't my stuff—it isn't even directed my way. But it just seems to keep seeping in and it is very hard to not make it my stuff.

I think I will be saying something to my manager tomorrow. And possibly to one or both of my co-workers. I'm not sure what, if anything, my manager will do. He is certainly aware of it, but has done nothing but seemingly laugh it off and hope silently that they will tire of the childishness and drop it. One co-worker might actually listen to me. The other would probably just tell me to go pound sand.

But I have to say something to someone. I'm not sure I can continue to be in that environment and maintain a healthy mindset. And I don't really want to face the uncertainty of a job search right now. We'll have to see what tomorrow brings.

"Wobblies" wobble, but they don't fall down

I have taken to listening to NPR's Morning Edition again on my 10-minute commute to work because I cannot stand the nonsensical drivel that is broadcast on most other radio morning shows. And, as counter-intuitive as this may sound, it leaves me wishing I had a longer commute in the morning—though I suspect that wishing that the network admin wouldn't get totally pissed off at me for streaming the show on my computer might be a little more practical—but that's another topic.

Back on track. Every Monday, Morning Edition has been running a segment called "This I Believe," based on a 1950s radio show of the same name. From the NPR site: "...Americans from all walks of life share the personal philosophies that guide their daily lives" (NPR's page for the show).

This morning's segment was by journalist Ted Gup, and really caused a light bulb to go off in my head. "In Praise of the 'Wobblies'" described the way I have felt for most of my life—say from
high-school on—and have always felt somewhat "lesser" for. While most of those around me had very strong and specific opinions about things, I typically held back and listened, usually finding some points on all sides that I agreed with and some that I disagreed with.

You can read the piece here.

I felt "lesser" because I figured that those with strong opinions must know more about the issue than I did. And I (very naively, looking at it now) was sure that they had considered all the facts and arguments and come to their very definite conclusion—since that is what I do/would do (along with a good helping of "gut feeling") before making a commitment to any belief I subscribe to. I felt that if I were better read or cared more or knew more people that I would naturally be able to form a solid viewpoint.

For what it's worth, Gup's essay has given me some validation that I hope I can hold on to and remember the next time I start feeling "lesser" than someone else because I don't hold as strong an opinion on any particular topic as they do.