My Old Blog

Last I checked I am still human. Although we all love to maintain that we do not need external reinforcement of our opinions and lives, it is still nice when you get it.

A Mr. Frank Furedi has written a book, reviewed here, that restates much of what I have been screaming on this web site for over a year, using nearly identical language even.

I thought it particularly relevant because my last post touched on similar themes…albeit from a different angle.

Some of you may think, “What difference does it make?” My answer is that to me it makes a very big difference.

As a whole, these are the ideas that make up my life and I would like to see a future that is better than the present, one where our most treasured human values are still treasured.

We had a family implosion tonight. (No I didn’t do anything)

For a moment I almost felt like I can only suppose people in normal families feel when there is a situation. You have a latent issue, an argument, fallout and then a resolution/compromise.

Of course we haven’t gotten to Fallout yet, and are no where near Resolution/Compromise. But you see my family (cough under breathe that means I’m talking about my father) is really remedial in that we never even get to the much vaunted and often occupied family state of Argument. We (cough=He) opts instead to replay Latent Issue over and over and over again.

I’ve been home a week? Not quite I guess.

I haven’t done anything at all other than play a lot of basketball. I learned to play a new song on the guitar today, but my strings broke so I didn’t get a chance to practice it. I might play golf with my dad tomorrow.

He is “retired” now. I’ll likely write about that later. I’m happy for him though. He deserves it. I just hope he doesn’t drive my mother nuts by being at home.

I’m about to leave SF.

I’ve enjoyed my month here. I met lots of nice, if a little strange, people. The city is full of stuff to indulge every hobby/fetish I’d ever like to take up. The weather has been phenomenal.

It has been a good month personally. I never realized how stable and un-neurotic I am compared to many people that can nonetheless lead functioning lives. Neurotic can be interesting, but also emotionally draining to be around.

There is a danger in being a functioning neurotic, more so than if you were non-functioning. If you are a sinking ship you’ll try to plug the leak, but if your life is more or less working (sometimes less than more) you will continue as you are, always attracting other functioning neurotics, stumbling through a string dysfunctional relationships that reinforce and soothe your issues, but do not help deal with them.

Not that I am always for dealing with your issues. Skeletons go in the closet because no one wants to sleep with skeletons in the bed.

I stated previously that Southerners are relatively boring and homogeneous compared to the people in SF. That is still true, but isn’t necessarily a negative. You could also say the South is less neurotic, more well-adjusted.

Actually, people from both places are reading this. I don’t wish to imply that SF folk are all neurotic, or that one must be neurotic to be interesting.

Neither do I wish to imply that Southerners are all well adjusted. They aren’t. However, the veneer of normalcy is very important in the South. We generally don’t like change, foreigners or people that want to be different.

Maybe people out here aren’t more neurotic….maybe they just express it more because it is allowed. Almost everything is allowed.

What will I miss most about San Francisco? The coffee.

I’ve been in San Francisco for over a week now. Its a great city, like 10 cities in one. You can visit most of the world by public transport all on one peninsula.

There is certainly a diversity of people too. One thing about living in the South, both to its benefit and detriment, is that most people are the same. There is strength and safety in the familiarity, but there is a want of interesting people too…at least as a percentage of the population.

However, there is a fine line between interesting and freaking weird and my line is being redrawn by the day. I mean, there are some fucking space cadets out here. Weird for the sake of weirdness. Homeless as a political statement. A casual acceptance of the mentally ill.

It depends on where you go, but I’m living in Berkeley now. There are more coffee shops than gas stations, more yoga studios than grocery stores.

I’m sure many people moved out here for the life and vibrancy of the city…its amazing. I’m also sure many people moved out here because they weren’t accepted where they were living before.

I like San Francisco. I’d move out here if I could. But it is a city for the young, a playground for the single, the misfit and the affluent. Right now I am one of those, maybe two, but certainly not the third.

I’m at the lake this weekend with the extended family. They all think I’m weird. I think they are weird too, just in a different way.

Today we went to breakfast at Staton’s Diner. My family’s lake place is in the middle of nowhere, and Staton’s is about 10 miles from that. It has a dirt parking lot with lots of old trucks in it.

The funny thing is that there are alot of new trucks too. This place is packed everytime we go. Everyone knows about it.

I got grits, 2 eggs, 2 sausages, biscuit and gravy and a bottomless cup of coffee for $2.49. The waitress was attentive and the food was good.

Personally, I don’t know how they can afford to stay open. You literally couldn’t go to the grocery store and cook it yourself for less.

But I do understand why its so popular. I pay more than $2.49 for a coffee at Starbucks.

Starting next session (this Sunday), I will be moving to the water ski staff. I am going to miss my fellow counselors in Mountain Camp, my connection with the kids and all the exercise I get, but I need some free time so I can begin my life outside camp again.

Utopia is short lived….probably by definition.

Not that water ski staff sucks. I get to ride around in a new MasterCraft ski boat all day listening to music and eating hamburgers off the grill. But it is much closer to the world than camp is. Camp is its own reality.

Today was my day off. I hiked down from the top of a mountain, saw my parents, listened to my headphones, ran from people that might ask me to bear some responsibility, fell asleep on a couch and went on a date with a girl almost 10 years younger than me.

Camp is a reality bubble. I love it. I don’t miss reality at all. There is no news, no newspapers, no media, no bills, no wallets…only a bubble of positivity.

It is odd that I came to camp to avoid being buried by the avalanche of non-events that make up a job search.

Not too smart really. I need a job to convince myself that reality is worth participating in, yet I get so discouraged just looking for the job (imagine actually having to do the work) that I need a three month trip to fantasy land just to continue.

Continue what? I’m only making it harder. The more I enjoy what I’m doing now, the more difficult it will be for me to work later.

I went camping last night. I played basketball and capture the flag today.

My kids and I have a great relationship…I learn as much from them as they learn from me. I just marvel that I get to play all day and make a difference in kid’s lives and I get paid for it.

And there is the relationships I have with the staff. They are terrific….a whole group of people dedicated to creating a supportive, caring, fun environment. We are so focused on being role models for our kids that it rubs off on our other relationships. It is sort of like an artificial utopia.

I run and play and laugh like a kid. I have a bit of a Peter Pan complex going anyway. I think some part of me has yet to be convinced that the next stage of life holds the same magic this one does.

I want to grow up and I know that there are great things to come in theory, but I am in no hurry. A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.

I am like silly with exhaustion. Today was epic.

I schmoozed parents and shovelled mulch. I played capture the flag, went swimming, and led a devotion. There are eight 15 year old boys in my cabin and I tried desperately to build a positive foundation for the next two weeks with them. I have been going constantly from 7 to now….with the emphasis on going. It is almost midnight and I have to get to sleep.

Many times a day we ask ourselves an extremely important question: Is what I am doing making a difference? Today I answered it many times and it was always yes a hundred times over. Camp isn’t just fun and tending kids. Their parents send them here to grow, to be part of a community that supports life at its best, and to become men. I have read the letters parents send the camp directors speaking about their son’s experience here. It is literally unbelievable.

It is rare that we do work that is so obviously significant and meaningful. It is rare that we are so overwhelmed by the connection we have to a community.

My cabin devotion was about leadership and unity tonight. I wanted to give the kids something simple and powerful to set the tone for the week. I won’t share entire thing, but I want to share the Bible verse I read:

Ecclesiastes 4:9-10. Two are better than one; because they have a good reward for their labour. For if they fall, the one will lift up his fellow: but woe to him that is alone when he falls; for he hath not another to help him up.

I must’ve read it like ten times. Woe to him that is alone when he falls; for he has not another to help him up.

Most people know that I’m not overly religious, but that is pretty good stuff. I’m not a sunday school buff either, but there was once a time when I read a lot of books and I actually read most of the Bible….so at least I have an idea of how to relate a message to scripture…otherwise devotions would be pretty difficult.

I am excited about the summer and hope I don’t run out of energy. Kids can eat you up. I learned that in Taiwan.