This story was on 60 minutes last Sunday.
Category: Life & Philosophy
I’m Saving It Up
One of my favorite movie moments is from the remake of Sabrina with Harrison Ford.
I Want to be an Alarmist When I Grow Up
Last night I was listening to a radio report on my way home from work which detailed with tiring accuracy (thanks PBS+NPR) the current reality and possible future eventualities of polar ice melting.
It was a briliant piece of scientific speculation, if I’ve ever heard one. When the words “likely” and “probable” are used more that “does” and “is”, then you know you’ve got a live one.
But it got me thinking; there is no better position to be in than that of an alarmist.
The Fonz and The Theory of Modern Coolness
I was driving to work today and, while stopped at a stoplight, peered in my rearview mirror to see none other than THE Arthur Fonzerelli driving a car directly behind me. Yes, the actor’s real name is Henry Winckler, but I’m not sure if it was actually Henry Winckler back there. All I know is I looked back and saw The Fonz!
Which brings me to today’s subject, coolness.
And then one day a truck falls on you
I’m not sure if this made national news, but yesterday in Dallas, a large 18 wheeler fell from an overpass onto a small passenger car below which instantly killed two people in the vehicle.
I’ll do it myself! Or not.
Recently I’ve been feeling a bit uninspired. I have a lot of things to do; a good solid list of personal tasks, work tasks, and business tasks, but I have been unable to get anything significant done lately. I have been paralyzed by inaction, laziness, and/or TV.
(Perhaps we can blame this on American Idol?)
Which made me realize, I hate it when I get this way because nothing gets done! Why is it that everything in my life I have to actually go and do?!? It seems like nothing is happening by itself these days. Some days I just get sick of going and making stuff happen. Some days, I just want things to happen for me. Is that selfish? Is that lazy?
When I told my mom, “It would be nice if something got done once in my life that I actually didn’t have to go do,” she said “that is called a wife.” Well… maybe.
We all do stuff while on autopilot. We do laundry when we don’t have clean clothes, we do the dishes when they get dirty or when we don’t’ have any clean ones left. We do a plethora of meaningless, everyday, push-the-rock-up-the-hill tasks almost automatically. Then there are the other kind of tasks, work projects, upcoming events, and goals that we have in our front, most of which have a time line or which we just have to do once and get done.
One of my nieces, a very independent spirit, often proclaims, “I’ll do it myself!” This was mostly when she was being dressed. At a very young age (pretty much ever since she began to talk), she had to have supreme control over her wardrobe, which often led to awkward vestments for church and other special events. (maybe Angie will share one or two with us…)
I’ve gone through several times in my life where I’ve been the same way… I’ll do it myself! My way or the highway! Now, though, I am having more days where it sure would be nice to have some things in my life just happen without my intervention…
Is that a wife? Maybe. Maybe this is all part of the plan of getting me to admit I can’t do everything, all the time, by myself.
Oops… Cut too deep. Stop the bleeding. End the post.
With the time we’re given
For the past three nights I have been watching each installment of “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy. It’s such a masterpiece of film for every reason: writing, design, directing, acting, and special effects. It’s an epic. My favorite part, though, is that it retains many of the literary themes which are the heart of what makes the books so beloved.
One such prevailing theme comes up when Frodo is lamenting the fact that he had received the ring. Gandalf explains, “All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us.”
Frodo and Sam were just little Hobbits. They weren’t great warriors, extremely skilled with the sword or cunning; but they were pure in heart and true to each other. Even when dealing with the greatest evil of their time, it was that essence of their soul that saved them. Their relationship was tried to the limit.
They weren’t necessarily extraordinary people, but they accomplished extraordinary things.
We are all responsible for the “time that is given to us.” It has been said that time is the great equalizer. Everyone gets exactly the same number of hours in each day, and all we can decide is what to do with that time.
Great men and women have come and gone from this world, leaving indelible legacies on the history books and in the hearts of mankind. Most were just ordinary people, doing extraordinary things.
Will my iLife take over my realLife?
I recently had several friends join Facebook who swore they never would. One described himself as a “convert.” I guess his mom or wife sold him of its virtues.But with the advent and growing ubiquity of Facebook, it appears that social networking is here to stay, not just a passing fad.The real question is… what does having such an extensive online life and presence do to your real life? Will there be a time when your iLife takes over your realLife?
There are two great myths about the internet. 1) That the internet is anonymous, and 2) that the memory of the internet is fleeting. (There’s actually a third that the internet is free… but I’ll leave that one for another day)
Since we specialize in debunking such myths here at WhiteEyebrows, let me just break this one down for you…
1) You are identifiable on the internet. Like it or not, your internet service provider knows who you are and where you’ve been. They can be (and have been) forced to give up that information to the RIAA, the MPAA, and also the federal government.
2) The internet has a LONG, LARGE memory. I will illustrate with a story:
I once wrote a post on a newsgroup when I was 16 years old. You know, when you’re 16, life is just so small and simple, and mixed up. What I thought was a little joke, a pun, or play on words, other people found quite offensive. This was before Google, before online forums, before yahoo even.
One day I was busy at the new national past time, Googling myself, when I ran across this newsgroup post almost 10 years later. I was so embarrassed to read what I had so insensitively written, and slightly entertained at the response I evoked then.
Yes, the internet has a LONG memory, and each new advance in search and social networking will certainly build on the past, make ever more accessible those huge server farms and databanks bursting at the seams with the intimate details and private snapshots of your life.
And that’s the real problem, isn’t it? The internet only offers snapshots, glimpses into who we really are as people. Technology offers no essence of the human. Social networking sites can offer an opportunity for someone to form a perception of another person, but it can never fully and accurately reproduce the essence of me.
This is why online dating is so difficult. It requires either a high level of perceptiveness or delusion. It’s not that people try to be dishonest, it’s that they simply can’t ever be complete, or offer an entire picture.
I suppose it’s poetic justice that I’m pontificating about this on a blog, yet another forum for my inner beliefs and feelings to be made manifest on the web. Will I reread these posts in a few years and feel embarrased? Ashamed? What happens when we start electing presidents, congressmen, and school board members who have grown up online? Will someone’s myspace profile be considered evidence in a court of law? Will my politically moderate rantings on this blog prevent me from ever changing my positions to be more liberal or conservative, or will they be forever held against me?
This is an issue that celebrities and politicians have been dealing with for much longer. Where does their private life begin and their public life end? In a way, we are all entering their world, making our private lives much more public and accessible.
I’m not an internet alarmist. I don’t think we should shut down the web or anything. If we did that I’d have to quickly go find a lot of hobbies to replace my eHobbies, a real job to replace my technology job, a new side job to replace my eSideBusiness, and also a real pet to replace my ePet…
Seriously though, we need to enter this era of the iLife with great caution, and maybe be willing to cut each other some slack while we watch each other grow up online.
The Obsession of Being First
Today is the day of the New Hampshire Primary, the first presidential primary in the nation… kind of. We saw last year the scrambling and craziness that ensued when several states tried to put their primaries ahead of New Hampshire and Iowa. Wyoming actually succeeded, paying the meager price of only having 1/2 of its delegates actually be able to attend the national convention. So it’s only “pseud0-first”… it’s not really first.
Not only is New Hampshire obsessed with being first, there are certain small towns in New Hampshire who hold their primary at 12:01am on the day of the primary, making them the FIRST of the FIRST. The most prominent of these towns are Hart’s Location and Dixville Notch. With 42 total residents of voting age, Hart’s Location is a great little voter microcosm for the world, and was fictionalized on a memorable episode of The West Wing entitled “Hartsfield’s Landing.”
But what is with this crazy obsession to be first?
When I was in grade school, it was a big deal to be first. You always wanted to be first in line after recess, first to turn in your work (no matter how sloppy), first to finish lunch, first to be ready to go home. Some times when your glee would reach peak levels, you would scream out “first!!!” as if to declare your order superiority.
Having a last name which started with “A” only made this problem worse for me. We often lined by in alphabetical order by last name. This put me right at the front of the line, and usually first. Except for those years when whats-his-name Adams was in my class… oooh how I hated him and the “D” in his last name!
Well, the good news is, we grow out of grammar school and we become pimple faced teenagers. Suddenly it’s no longer cool to be first… or eager… or even conscious. Just try teaching a group of teenagers in Sunday School. You ask them a stupid question, and they look at you like an idiot. You ask them a good, thought provoking question, and they look at you like an idiot. I’m not sure if it’s puberty or what… no one wants to be first, and no one wants to stick out.
Except me. I always stuck out, what with my white eyebrows.
But, you know, some little part of us never forgets how awesome it is to be first. We first-hogs just want to be first for the sake of being first, mostly. It makes us feel superior. It makes us feel smart and capable and better than everyone else, even when there’s no logical basis for that conclusion.
So New Hampshire… Iowa… everyone… chill out. You might be first, but you aren’t the big deal you think you are. California, New York, Florida, Pennsylvania and Texas are all waiting to show you who is last the best of all the game!