I'm a gadfly.

"You should have eyes that always seek an enemy, your enemy. And some of you hate at first sight.  Your enemy you shall seek, your war you shall wage--for your thoughts. And if your thought be vanquished, then your honesty should still find cause for triumph in that.  You should love peace as a means to new wars-- and the short peace more than the long." (page 159)

"In a friend one should have one's best enemy. You should be closest to him with your heart when you resist him." (page 168)

"He loves his enemies; this art he understands best of all whom I have ever seen. But he takes revenge for this on his friends."  (page 415)

Friedrich Nietzsche

Thus Spoke Zarathustra (The Portable Nietzsche)

Sometimes I wonder if I talk too much. I can remember, when I was younger, actually choosing to talk, not so much as to add to a conversation, but more to seem intelligent. I'm better at judging my motives now, but I don't pretend to be perfect. Now I try to weigh the actual benefit and necessity of my interjection of a new idea or perspective into a conversation before I open my mouth. There are times when, even if I disagree with what is being said, there is no net positive impact to be had from my questioning of or disagreement with others.

Lately I've been speaking up in various contexts a bit more than I have in the past. One situation that I was particularly worried about, actually turned out very well. I was in a group of people discussing church finances and participation in congregational life. When we began to discuss "Best Practices" in getting people to commit I was the final one to speak. I told them that for people of my generation (I was the only person under 40, and just barely at that) it was meaningless to speak of commitment to supporting the congregation outside the context of Mission (what does the congregation stand for and what is it doing in the community?). I was initially gently and gracefully deflected by the leader of the meeting, and then she had to step away for a few minutes. Others present then began to talk about Mission and when the leader returned she began to speak to it's importance as well. I was surprised. If I had done that in my previous religious context, conservative evangelicalism, it would probably have elicited a pretty lively disagreement.

There are those in my life that I do this with on a one-on-one basis, and I can be brutal in my deconstruction of sacred cows. One of my problems is that I enjoy the process. I like to analyze positions and see if I can find cracks in them. I then proceed to see just how big of a crack I can create. I also think turn-about is fair-play. I appreciate those that show me where my blind spots are, where what I have assumed was solid rock is nothing more than paper. A way I describe it to some is that sometimes compassion comes at you with a big knife. I will additionally purposely expose myself to views with which I know I will disagree. I'm not talking about watered down representations, but intelligent, educated, articulate proponents of positions that I disagree with. I figure that if my faith, or view on another topic, is really based on anything of substance it will stand up to the onslaught. I've seemed to survive thus far. I've had to jettison some minor pieces of my world-view that I no longer believed that I could in good conscience support, but I seem to be better for it so far.

When I provide this "service" to my friends I like to think I'm doing them a favor by showing them the weaknesses in their world-views. However, sometimes I wonder if I'm not just going into someone's house, the only place they have to live, and tearing down a few walls, some of them exterior, and then walking away. This is not to mention the fact that I might simply be better at rhetoric than some people, and totally lack the self awareness to know I'm dead wrong.

To speak, or not to speak...?  Am I contributing to people's lives, or am I causing destruction, either in self deluded compassion or for my own entertainment?  The tension can be taxing.  That being said, I think it would be more worrisome if I readily 'knew' the answer.

It's Spring and my sunflower seeds are sprouting.

Last year I planted a couple of packages of sunflower seeds. I made it a point to let the flowers go to seed, rather than cut them for in the house. I saved the seeds and planted them a couple of weeks ago. They're starting to sprout and I expect to have twice as big a bed of flowers as last year.

One of the most profound experiences of my life was the two year period during which I worked at an university arboretum. I actually got the job off the work-study board in the financial aid department and only tried it because other options didn't work out. I didn't get to any of the office jobs in time, and the job in the library was given to the fellow that walked in the door only a few minutes before me.

I did mundane tasks, like weeding, or cleaning the green houses. With my previous experience working in a hardware store, I got the added bonus of getting to fix problems with the irrigation system. I was taught how to change the shape of entire hillsides to prevent erosion, or to make a garden. I propagated plants from cuttings and harvested seeds for the next generation.

Two full years gave me an opportunity to actually experience the rhythm of the seasons. To watch flowers flourish, die, and go to seed. I got to train rose bushes I planted in trellises into walls of flowers by walking by every few days and taking a few minutes to push new growths back through the boards.

Some of the things I took away from that experience:

1. Sometimes a dream has to die, or at least appear to, in order to actually produce fruit.

2. If you have the patience, you don't have to get the stuff you want fully grown from somewhere else. You just snatch seeds, or cuttings, and grow your own. It may take longer, but it takes a whole lot less money. Not to mention that it's more satisfying.

3. If you pay a little attention to something on a regular basis, that adds up, and you may end up making something beautiful.

I imagine there would be more if I thought more about it.

I've got my new Morning Glory seeds soaking tonight and I will be planting them tomorrow. :)

Does not play well with others

Its been over two weeks since I slaved over a hot computer long enough to put anything on the ole blog. I really should be more faithful to this. I don't want to be one of those people that starts one of these and then just abandons it in a few months.

I've come to accept the fact that I'm not a people person. I'm not exactly paralyzed by crowds, but I don't like them. I can handle myself in front of a crowd in terms of public speaking. I just don't like being *in* a crowd and expected to interact socially with multiple people for any real period of time. After a short period of time the fragile circuitry in that part of my brain shorts out and I become a snarling dog. If I added alcohol to this, as some of my friends wanted me to, it would be a real mess.

I also can't get into to watching sports. I think it's my inability to enter into some typical group psychologies. I just don't identify strongly with other people playing a game, and am also puzzled by those that do buy in to the point of occasionally being upset by sporting events.

I am however a person person. I do enjoy spending time talking to a person, or a few people. Over dinner, or over a beer, or three. I enjoy intelligent conversation with people that I know will disagree with me and can hold their own. I do like mindless interactions at times, but mostly with people that I already know in significant way. It's not something I do to establish a relationship, its something I do when one already exists.

It kind of puts strain on some of my relationships in that what many people do to relax and get to know others only stresses me and causes me to withdraw. Oh well, I've always been kind of a loner. The trick is to be a loner that stays connected.

Sometimes I forget my place.

Well, I'm alive. I'm recovering from an embarrassingly ineffectual battle against the latest version of the common flu. I haven't been that sick since I was a kid living with my parents (two decades ago). I ran a fever for close to a week with a peak temperature of 103.4. Not high enough to bring on the hallucinations and delirium of my childhood fevers, but enough to inspire small spells of bizarre behavior like repeatedly touching things on the bathroom counter. It was curious to be crazy enough to do that, but to be sane enough to eventually realize it was crazy. I ended up going to the doctor and getting a shot of antibiotics, a course oral antibiotics, an inhaler for my shortness of breath, and some wonderful codeine laced cough syrup that probably had high abuse potential.

Occasionally I get a reminder of how small and fragile human life is. Normally it comes when I see the ocean, get away from the light pollution and see the Milky Way sprawled across the night sky, or look out across the Sacramento Valley through the clear cold air at the snow covered Coastal Range after a nasty winter storm. This time was less pleasant. I was laid low by something higher up on the food chain than I am. We prey on just about every other creature on the planet. Viruses, to my knowledge, have no natural enemies, and we are their food and breeding ground. Thank God for modern medicine.

Probably the most frustrating part of being sick was the social isolation. I'm actually pretty close to being a loner in that I don't crave or (up for debate) need validation from other people. That being said, I'm very invested in the concept of community, interconnectedness, and interdependence. My wife and I were treated very well by those we know during this time. Many people brought us food but out of our desire to keep the infection from spreading, we had them leave it on the porch and we would pick it up after they left. Not much in the way of significant social interaction.

I've missed the interplay, the small course changes in plans or thought caused by interacting with others. Nudges in either the right direction, or maybe in the wrong way to keep me on my toes. I think better around other people, people to question my actions and assumptions. I guess the best way to describe it is that I'm more alive when I'm interacting with other people than when I'm off by myself for too long.

I've converted.

I've seen the light and now have a personal relationship with Mac.

This was shamelessly stolen from my favorite webcomic (sorry Jonathan) Penny Arcade .



EDIT*** OK, the sizing is a bit off. I'm new to this Mac thing. :)