The Banzai Chronicles

Do not take to heart all the things that people say, lest you hear your servant cursing you. Your heart knows that many times you yourself have cursed others.

—Ecclesiastes 7:21-22

Over the past few months, I've realized that a common thread in my relational struggles is trying to figure out how to take people seriously. Not that I don't; rather, I try, but regularly find that I'm hearing something different from what they may be saying or meaning (and to further the confusion, those two often aren't the same thing). Much of the time, I hear what it would mean for me to say what I'm hearing, and that's rarely the same. And though I don't want to be vain (or at least don't want anyone to believe I am), the truth is that, because of a heap of counseling training, I'm probably better equipped to listen than most. So when I hit a wall in the process, simple tips, tricks, and techniques rarely have much to offer.

What does it mean to really hear people, and how far am I really called to go in the effort? On the surface, it seems like one of those always-good, always-right, always-noble pursuits, but that assumption is worth examining rather than swallowing whole "just because." Right away, I have to acknowledge that I'm limited, which means A) I can't do everything, and 2) what I actually can do will also be imperfect and limited. That's a basic ground rule for life on Earth, one which clearly applies in listening. It doesn't preclude trying or being faithful—I'm called to trust in God's grace more than I trust in my own perfection.

With that understanding in mind, and in light of the Teacher's musing above, I have to admit that I can't figure out how to take people seriously much of the time, and that it's far from a universally good pursuit over which I should constantly exhaust myself. Being tired isn't the only cost, either—so often, I'm angry when I hear people say they value something, then live in an entirely different fashion. The more I try to take what I hear from people seriously, the more my nose is rubbed into that gap. And I hate it. Hate it.

None (or at best, few) of us are who we'd like to believe ourselves to be. I'm certainly not. Could it be that truth and grace sometimes (perhaps often) calls us to not take seriously what we hear from others? How do we do this in a way that's not dismissive, or is that simply the cost of our not speaking truthfully to one another (and indeed, to ourselves)?

Also, there's the question of scale: how many people should I try to hear at all? Of these, how many should I work to take seriously? The obvious starting point is "not everyone," but our culture still suggests I can do more than may be possible or good. At risk of being too "meta," online journals and blogs are great examples of this trend*: we can publish and read thoughts far outside the context of full relationship (or even personhood), then try to discern their meaning in the absence of relational cues (even with those we know), with as many "people" as we can jam into our browsers. When does that stop being scalable, and when does it stop being good? And how does intimacy factor in, knowing that our writings may reflect us at our most filtered and deluded, even when we might want to view them as authentic and raw?

No answers, just open questions, along with the slowly dawning realization that I may be regularly fighting the wrong battles on far too many fronts.


*I first met my wife through LiveJournal, so I'd be hard pressed to view this situation through a Luddite lens (can Luddites have lenses?). But I have to, have to consider the realities and their implications.

My to do list honestly scares the bejeezus out of me this week. Resolved not to freak out about it, going so far as to don my "Now Panic and Freak Out" shirt. All will be well, but holy schnikes, could I possibly have more stuff to do?

Spam is slipping through at a concerning rate in my personal Gmail account. Who in the world benefits from sending this stuff?

Came across this quote that's worth mulling over and taking to heart

If we are to love our neighbors, before doing anything else we must see our neighbors. With our imagination as well as our eyes, that is to say like artists, we must see not just their faces but the life behind and within their faces. Here it is love that is the frame we see them in.

— Frederick Buechner, Whistling in the Dark: An ABC Theologized

What does it look like to really see people? How wide is my capacity for this, and what drains it? Does faith call me beyond what I think I can do, in the power and love of the Spirit?

A bit under the weather the past couple of days—just a nudge, hopefully behind me now. Been constantly cranking away at things, and yet still behind on a ton. Much of that feeling is probably more a matter of being more focused on my own cramped personal dramas than abiding in Jesus and the larger story to which He's invited me.

We've had slow internet at home recently, and that plus a couple of other internet-related frustrations makes me realize how much that stuff gets under my skin without my conscious knowledge. Honestly, it's pretty inordinate. Those kinds of frustrations grow much larger unacknowledged. Exposed to the light of conscious thought, it's easy to see how ridiculous they are (even if they're tougher than that to shake). I'm a spoiled, selfish creature. Thank God there's hope for me.

Been nursing an attitude problem for the past few days (or more, and certainly more frequently than that). When I get busy, even with stuff I love, it's so easy for me to feel put upon and get grumbly (our pastor preached about grumbling last Sunday from Exodus and 1 Corinthians, and boy, do I ever see it in myself these days), even if only in my own head. In some respects, the internal monologue is even more damaging and dangerous, because it's not checked by reality and relationships in the ways it needs to be (I also think this is a limitation of the internet as a way of relating—those checks either don't happen or become internet pissing matches largely devoid of redemptive qualities). Regardless, it feels like God may be righting me a bit, so I'm thankful, and sorry for the messes I've made with my attitude in the meantime. Life is a lot sweeter when I get over myself.

Woke up early and couldn't settle back into sleep, so opted to just go ahead and get started with the day. Surprised to see snow falling and staying on the ground; very unusual for Seattle on the cusp of March. Beautiful, too.

In a previous entry, I mentioned that my habit of gorging on feeds of information and entertainment from the internet and other media might really be all about glory, and that's worth trying to explain a bit. In a recent sermon from Exodus 14 about God getting glory over Pharaoh at the Red Sea, our pastor spent some time defining glory. If ever a bit of religious language needed some definition, this one did (at least for me). He said that glory is something that has weight (C.S. Lewis spent some time with this) and gravity in our lives. It pulls on us and shapes how we live and act, even when we think we're not in its grip, as the Hebrews continued to be affected by their slavery to the Egyptians even as they ran from them.

Much of the self-inflicted overload I experience from constantly being plugged in to streams of data may well be the weight of the false, destructive glory I let that stuff have in my life. Something tugs on me regardless of my distance from it, and that sounds remarkably like the experience of the Hebrews. In effect, I'm worshipping staying informed, productive, stimulated, and entertained, without regard for what bearing any of that has on the true life God's given me to live.

In the past (when I've thought about it at all), it's seemed a bit petty somehow for God to say, "I will get glory over Pharaoh and all his host." What a small motivation for salvation! But God's glory is salvation—when God has the weight and gravity due Him in our lives, we are pulled into His orbit and away from everything that enslaves us. Indeed, there is no other way to be saved. And I need to be saved.

I'm perpetually trying to jam more content, and more of the wrong kinds of content, into my life than it will hold. With near-constant, low-cost access to an almost limitless amount of information and entertainment, I'm a glutton to the point of overload. It'd be easy to complain about being overloaded, but the truth is, I'm the one doing the overloading, almost all of the time. And mostly, I don't even know it.

DVRs and RSS feeds capture streams of anything in which I could possibly have a remote interest, so I can sift through them later for meaning or distraction. Hyperlinks take me even farther out, offering stimuli to amuse, spur my thinking, or even provoke my feelings (positive and negative). Here's the problem for me: much of that isn't connected to my real life and relationships. I say "for me" because I want to stop short of saying that's how it works for everyone. Whether the tools themselves are flawed is an open question; it's how I'm using them that's causing damage in my life. I don't think I'm alone—I'm just telling my own story.

Of course, I immediately want a system to fix it, but that impulse is suspect. For now I want to sit with the fact that I'm increasingly occupied with stuff that's not really in my life. Thankfully, my actual life and relationships have enough gravity to pull me out. But I don't want to spend life being stimulated or depleted by a bunch of people and stuff that couldn't care less about me. Ultimately, that shows contempt for the life God's given me. It's also self-abusive and potentially harmful to others. Why I do it raises a whole other set of questions, but they don't need to be answered right away (if at all). That's not the work that needs doing right now.

This, and a bunch of other stuff, may really be all about glory. More on that when I have time.

A recent failure with Remember The Milk's ability to create tasks from labels in Gmail has gummed up both my email inbox and my usual methods of staying on top of my tasks. Ultimately not a big deal; just frustrating to be so easily thrown for a mini-loop. Mostly, it's me throwing a low-level tantrum that things don't work the way I want them to. Now that it's been out a week or so, I'm finally breaking down and implementing a workaround. I'm a bit too huffy and precious for my own good sometimes.

Wish my childishness were limited to my inbox and task list, but of course it isn't. Anytime a system doesn't work (the way I want), it's easy for me to get my nose out of joint about it, often without giving a second thought to the root of my disappointment—myself. That's especially bad practice when others are summarily blamed for my frustration. The process is usually invisible and quick, so I don't examine my underlying assumptions and expectations before becoming (self-)righteously pissed off.

Is it worth the effort to try to screen that stuff out? I think the answer is yes, but not just for the standard "be good to others" reasons. Those are nice, of course, and they have the added value of wide acceptance, which means I get affirmation from others when I jump aboard the train (let's not kid—that's a big motivator for many of us). It's also worth some work on my end because, if I really love others, there are going to be times when telling the truth means needing to confront real issues and outright sin (those who love me will need to do the same). If I've already filled the relational channel with a bunch of my own garbage, there's an additional layer of noise that can get in the way of our hearing one another. Worse by far, it can also get in the way of our hearing God.

Made a note to myself back in November to write an entry about why I don't do any serious relational work with others online. Never got around to actually writing that entry, and when I found the note again this morning, I wished I'd written more about what I meant. Even so, it bears some fleshing out.

( Explanatory notes from the Department of Redundancy Department )

The bottom line is that relationships aren't intended to be nearly as much about me as they can seem to be here. Other people's stories are just that, and the more I bury them in my own stuff, the more I feed the beast of my own ego. Others don't need to entertain me. They don't need to agree with me. They don't need to play by my rules. And of course, of course I'm going to have responses to our differences, but most of the time I need to either work those out on my own (my journal is still mine, however) or with them (somewhere other than the internet).

Spent a couple of minutes looking at the "Citizen's Briefing Book Ideas" on change.gov. Otto von Bismarck's famous quote—"Laws are like sausages; it is better not to see them being made"—is exponentially more apt in the internet age. Yeesh. I do not want to go to there (again).

Whatever the reason, this week somehow felt more hectic than a couple of weeks ago, when I was running nearly nonstop to get things done for our church's 10th Anniversary party. All a matter of perception, I suppose, and my perception is that it's been a hard week for me to keep up. Mostly low key today, so the battery is recharging a bit.

Saw that a friend used his Facebook status to observe that he "is realizing how self obsessed facebook has made him." We aren't close enough for me to suggest the possibility that it's just the messenger, not the cause—social networks (or blogs, or anything else) can't make one self-obsessed, though they can certainly facilitate and expose this quality. If you're going to own it, own it.

Which is longer: my to-do list, or my list of crap I should just stop doing? Might be a toss up…

Instead of continuing to go on and on (or at least taking a momentary break from it), here are some election-related thoughts from others I find interesting today:

• A couple of commenters referenced Derek Webb in my last entry. Turns out he's giving away his Mockingbird album again for election week, attaching a bonus track reading his article "How Shall We Then Vote?". A voice worth listening to at a price everyone can afford. It's an interesting way to spread his thoughts; more power to him.
• John Piper has posted some of his thoughts on voting and politics (the first video is right along the same lines as I intended my post yesterday) and a prayer for the election (hopefully those of us in the Body who can't agree on the first thoughts can at least pray the second prayer together). He's another voice I find worth listening to, even when we disagree (and we do, even here). Justin Taylor has posted some thoughts in response to Piper's that further enrich the conversation. It's just nice to see people attempt such thoughtful, peaceable, gospel-centered commentary. There's no reason to believe everyone holding similar views engages the dialogue in a rash, inflammatory manner, but that stereotype is often referenced (not surprisingly, it's often used as part of an ongoing indictment of Christians and/or God that's already in progress and extends above and beyond the political realm).
• A couple of weeks ago, I posted this one on Facebook, and it generated some great discussion (which remained civil to boot!). It's an analysis by Princeton law professor Robert P. George of concerns related to Obama on the issue of abortion. Given that there's a wide range of opinion and perspective, George's analysis is pretty important to consider for those opposed to the legality of abortion, and even important for those in favor of abortion's legality but opposed to its practice. Anyone who wants to go toe-to-toe intellectually with George on this is, I'm sure, welcome to do so—that's way above my pay grade.
• OK, this last one's a doozy and inhabits the other end of the emotional spectrum. It also has graphic photographic imagery, so deciding whether to view the link is your responsibility, not mine (that was a warning, in case I wasn't clear): Barbara Nicolosi's open letter about being a "one-issue voter." Not necessarily the letter I'd write (in fact, almost certainly not, and I'm not just talking typos) as a fellow one-issue voter, with some conclusions I wouldn't draw. That said, I wish she hadn't felt she needed to write it at all, because I wish this barbaric practice weren't even up for debate as a possibility, much less a candidate's priority. Since it is, of course we can expect large measures of outrage, offense, and ridiculousness from all sides. And since that's where we are, is Nicolosi in the wrong for expressing her outrage? Regrettably, some forms of passion seem more acceptable than others. Even though she and I aren't 100% on the same page (heck, I'm not 100% on the same page with myself much of the time), I don't read this as mean-spirited, repackaged, Dobson-esque drivel. She's bringing her whole self to this surreal debate, and I can definitely respect that.

Related to my prior post, there are also a few specifically political applications to what I've been learning. More and more, I'm persuaded that all mediated political messages are false, whether delivered to me by "the media" (that's a weird noun, especially in current usage) or the internet. Face to face, we still have disagreements and arguments, but most of them don't begin to approach the level of train-wreck volatility they reach in mediated form.

The mediated version of reality, however, is (and arguably must be) the stock in trade of political campaigns, so they spend millions of dollars dousing flames in gasoline. It's all carefully crafted and quite effective—it just doesn't quite match my experience as a real person with other real people in a real world. The saddest thing is that I forget this (and that's why the campaigns work as they do, and why results never quite manifest in any satisfactory manner in reality).

As with relationships, I also have to unplug my political decisions from the mediated messages. Mudslinging and pep rallies are designed to get me to act in a desired fashion. The "news" is a business, so it wants importance and controversy to get viewers and readers (in addition to any other biases which may be present). Journalism isn't dead by any stretch, but there's a lot of goop through which to sift.

What's universal across candidates and media creators is an exaggeration of the election's importance—it's an event now, rather than a civic duty. Not hard to see why all of the players would have a stake in cranking things up to eleven, but a deep breath, a glance at the Constitution, and a look around anywhere without a screen are really all it takes for me to realize that I am simply casting a vote—in the case of the presidency, a vote for a specific, intentionally limited office. Getting caught up in the emotions of it all is totally OK until that distracts from and distorts the true nature of the task at hand.

Regrettably, it seems like the desire to motivate people toward that task (and toward executing it in a specific way) often does just that. Thankfully, I still get to cast my vote, and that's the part that's really my responsibility. Much of the rest is just hype.

This isn't so much about politics as it is about what a political backdrop seems to be revealing (to me) about people, mediated communication, and relationships. Nothing earth-shaking; just new applications to stuff I've been thinking about. I'll post the stuff that's more directly political in a separate entry.

Probably 80% or more of the political craziness I've been exposed to (and part of) this year has been on the internet. That's a nice, grounding realization—my face-to-face interactions with people are far less tense and more civil. The spectrum of opinion is no different; the behaviors are exceedingly better without exception. Also, all things political tend to shrink to more appropriate sizes in person, while online they often balloon to gargantuan proportions (with results from silly to monstrous).

There's a difference between broadcast and conversation (I originally wrote "dialogue," but that's so overused as a buzzword that it threatens to become meaningless—better to let it lie fallow for a while), and much of internet communication is the former. Even the more conversational elements are more like quick broadcast bursts in their nature and content. And of course, as many have observed, the lack of responding faces tends to remove such guardrails as compassion, accountability, and social norms, making our careening off of one relational cliff or another all the more likely.

There are no internet people. All of us have bodies and faces and lives. When I get frustrated online, perhaps the best medicine is to turn away from the screen and engage people face-to-face. Everything that bugs me online is much more a function of the medium than of the real people behind it. Sure, some of us may even have neuroses and pathologies in the mix, but that's only as much my problem as I let it be (even neuroses and pathologies are often easier to cope and deal with in person, and they don't get caricatured as they do online).

I owe it to real people to spend more of my energy in relationship with them than I do responding to broadcasts from them. The people initiating the broadcasts are real, but the broadcasts aren't the people, and most of us haven't really thought much about ourselves and our responsibilities as broadcasters at all.

A gem from the 10/22 installment of Seattle Weekly's pitch-perfect column, "Ask an Uptight Seattleite":

Dear Uptight Seattleite,

For a while now I've had a Flickr stream going under the tag "reflections." My pictures have been going in a different direction lately, though, and I'm thinking about adding another tag to capture this. What do you think of the tag "expressions," and would it be artistically dishonest to apply both these tags to the same photo?

MC dEAd EyE

Dear MC dEAd EyE,

I'm a big proponent of "downtime," "now time," "me time." And it's true that one should cultivate a compassionate attitude toward oneself. In your case, however, I'm getting the vibe that a little less "you time" might be just the ticket. Jigger the cocktail recipe of your schedule. Flip the proportions of the time you spend on yourself and the time you spend on others. Work on your active listening. Take a little vacation from those tags, dEAd EyE.

Looks like Scott Brown has been thinking about some of the same themes I have.

I am inordinately excited about Gmail's new canned response feature. Could be a significant enhancement to my workflow (which invites all sorts of questions about my workflow).

The wireless connection here at Fuel is all kinds of slow. Been puttering with wireless stuff at home and work this week, so probably even more critical than usual.

Online social networks can be pretty eye-opening. Similar to my experiences with LiveJournal, it's challenging to know how to contextualize, interpret, and integrate what's revealed (intentionally and not) about people by their online behavior. Simply ignoring the new data isn't an option, and it wouldn't make much sense anyway—we don't push ourselves to ignore new facets when they're revealed elsewhere, and making the internet some kind of bubble of immunity would only exacerbate what I already see as a pretty significant problem of unaccountability. Neither should those new facets be accepted as "truth" in and of themselves; they need that context, interpretation, and integration.

What's most interesting, and a bit troubling, to me is the skew of my reactions. Occasionally the new information intrigues me, makes me feel more connected, or increases my esteem for someone else. More often, however, I find myself more concerned, frustrated, or outright scared by who people are (or might be). Maybe we're not built for this high of a dosage of one another and all of our crap. Maybe I'm not. It could also be the numbers I'm working with (remember limits?), and I'm sure filter failure (as described in this great video of Clay Shirky from the Web 2.0 Expo in New York) plays a role. Whatever the case, it's worth some more thought, prayer, and discernment.

Feels like I keep circling around the same topics (as well as probably repeating myself). Oh well—the worst that could happen is that I'll have the same "epiphanies" over and over again, amazing myself and boring anyone else.

With my 20th high school class reunion coming up this month, I'm thinking more about the unexpected dynamics of being in touch. When I grew up, there was little reason to expect that we'd one day have access to an almost immediate, almost universal electronic address book. There wasn't much reason to think of what keeping relationships over distance or time would look like—it'd probably be the same as our parents, concentrated locally and currently with a few ties farther out and farther behind. Even in the category of "current and local" we'd be understandably limited, so much so that we didn't even think of it as a limit at all.

Now I can seemingly "be in touch" with exponentially more people, in more ways and at more times. There's almost nowhere from which I can't make a phone call. Writing an email theoretically takes a few minutes with immediate delivery. Social networks keep me "connected" with hundreds if not thousands. And yet, there's no actual increase in capacity. Not only do I have the same number of hours in the day as my parents, but I also have the same relational limits—just because I have data and means to be in relationship with such a deep and wide field of people doesn't mean I really can. But it may seem as if I can, to me and to others.

Ultimately, that means making choices. Hardly a revolutionary realization, and yet I wonder if many of us realize we need to do so (and are doing so, in some way). If I'm going to be here now and not feel constantly fragmented, behind, and/or guilty, I have to choose. And beyond my own need to choose and have peace with those choices, there's also the question of how we relationally deal with the choices we individually must make.

No matter how we dress it up, we're more and more likely to find ourselves in situations painfully reminiscent of picking teams on a playground—I choose you; I don't choose you. The luxury of just dropping off of someone's radar is quickly vanishing, exposing the fact that's always been true: we make choices. Can we accept that from one another gracefully in relationship? That can be a steep hill to climb—not only do we have the "normal" feelings of loss, but we've also got the sensitivities and wounds from our pasts with which to contend. Again, while that's always been the case, we're losing much of the plausible deniability (on all sides) that used to help smooth the rough edges of stark reality.

Merlin Mann hits a few nails squarely on their heads in his recent post "Email Insanity and the 0.001 Challenge":

( 'Email encourages people to act insane.' )
( 'Email combines intimacy and distance in a way that sociopaths seem to really enjoy.' )
( The shocking prospect of someone other than ourselves )

Here's the kicker (for which I'm finding application both within and beyond the confines of email):

Any system without scarcity or limitation will eventually suffer at the hands of people who aren’t overtly aware of boundaries — or who actively choose to break those boundaries because they can. Limitations in a communication medium not only make you think a little harder about what you have to say, they also encourage you to focus on what you and your recipient really need out of the exchange.

And for bonus points, a couple of comments to the post to which I found myself nodding vigorously: email insanity in church settings and the very depth of thoughtless unprofessionalism: too lazy to even use capital letters. It's good to know I'm not alone in thinking this is crazy and unnecessary.

In addition to being a very helpful, spot-on article (as I get my act more together, bad email habits stand out even more starkly as completely unnecessary and often unprofessional timesucks), this may be one of the best titles ever:

"The Email Habits That Make People Hate You" (from PickTheBrain)

Though I don't always agree with him (and sometimes am not sure just how many cards are in the deck he's playing with), I absolutely loved reading Tim Ferriss' Lifehacker post on how to stop checking email on evenings and weekends. While few suggestions fall squarely into the "boy, do I wish that would work" category, some are pure gold:

( No BIFing )

( 'What's my motivation?' )

( Answers are better than questions )