Random Thoughts from a Restless Mind

Sunday musings…2/13/22

1. Spring. Spring forward. Today is the first day of Daylight savings time.

No deep meaning. Just a PSA in case you missed the memo

2. Host. For some inexplicable reason my personal blog, Random Thoughts from a Restless Mind, has been held hostage by a virus on the server where it lives. Since Super Bowl Sunday (all caps!) I have been unable to post anything.

My internal hard drive is so full it’s ready to burst.

So I’m just gonna set it all down here and flood those servers with my drivel once they open the door.

3. P.J. O’Rourke. “Jesus said to love your enemies. He didn’t say not to have any.” –P.J. O’rourke

At the moment I am advising a highly competent and accomplished colleague who has been the recipient of an unearned attack by someone who believes they are in power. My colleague is concerned that their response, if they choose to make one, will inevitably result in the creation of an enemy. Now, there are a plethora of other quotes about making enemies, most of which I only know without also knowing their provenance. “If you’re not making any enemies you’re not trying hard enough.” “Having the conviction of your beliefs means having enemies.” Stuff like that. Here’s mine (offered here and elsewhere previously):

It’s perfectly OK to make an enemy as long as you do it on purpose. Doing so allows you to assess the potential consequences beforehand and consciously decide if those outcomes are worth defending whatever your position, claim, or belief might be. The obverse is actually not quite as intuitive: to make an enemy by accident means that you are either intellectually careless, did not assess the ground adequately and missed considering a potential enemy, or indifferent to the very existence of the accidentally made enemy.

For whatever it’s worth I have advised my friend to respond to the attack upon them. They are being bullied by an individual who is laying claim to a space they have no right to claim. There may be blowback, but in the end my colleague will prevail, a newly created enemy left behind and defeated at the same time.

While I am considering the concept of enemyhood (should be a word), another quote comes to mind, also considered here and elsewhere in the past: Do not mistake my silence for agreement with you or your position, or my kindness as a sign of weakness. Everyone has a point beyond which they cannot be pushed. Upon reaching that point some will sadly be utterly defeated and capitulate. Others will fight. More than that, they will fight to win.

When Hell freezes over, they lace up their skates and fight on.

4. Bell. “Mickelson’s mistake was saying the ‘quiet part’ out loud.” (Commentary on the golfer Phil Mickelson and his open discussion of his decision to be paid by groups with less than exemplary reputations in their non-golf endeavors)

Oh boy. How good is this?! You read this and you instantly know what the author is saying. No matter what you do, or to whom you speak and what you speak about, there is often a subtext to the conversation that is mostly left unsaid. Perhaps in acknowledgement that it is distasteful, or a merciful and respectful nod to the fact that it is hurtful, but for some reason the “quiet part” is mostly seen in the knowing nod rather than heard by even the keenest of ears. Mickelson says that all money is the same, and goes on to equate his grievances with how the “masters” running professional golf treat the players, with the human rights abuses of his new potential partners. That’s the “quiet part” previously left unsaid by all of the other pros who’ve taken similar money from the same people.

Mickelson’s sin was saying it out loud.

In my professional world I have a podcast called “Eye Care Out Loud”, a nod to my penchant for saying what many of my professional colleagues are thinking but not saying. In truth most of what I am saying is “out loud” only in that it is published; most of us have open conversations about our issues, but have them out of earshot of anyone who one could call “media” of any sort. Controversy is an over-call. Here I must confess that I am conflicted when it comes to Mickelson’s particular admission. You see, he is a professional golfer who is getting paid to do something related to golf. Some would say that his brash honesty is actually something akin to bravery. Others, and I feel that I lean a bit more in this direction, are more of the mind that his admission is tone deaf at best, and approaching something that feels almost vulgar.

There are “quiet parts” everywhere. Some of them are spectacular, skeleton-in-the-closet kinds of things, but many are small, personal tragedies or hardships that are hard to talk about and maybe harder to hear about. Is it good that we have people who will say the “quiet part” out loud, or do they earn the condemnation so often directed their way? For me I think the answer to that lies in yet another question directed toward me by a trusted colleague for whom I have the greatest respect: “What if you are wrong?” You are on the wrong side of a moral issue, or you are simply wrong on the facts.

I’m afraid that this is going to be yet another “Sunday musings…” without a conclusion, without a clear message. Sometimes the “quiet parts” desperately need to be said out loud, but there is a reason that they are quiet to begin with, eh? Shining a light on injustice kept quiet is most likely a good thing, though being the one to turn on the light often brings with it consequences. Like making an enemy. I guess the lesson may be that it is important to know what the “quiet parts” are before you start talking. After all, whether quiet before or not, once said out loud they are no longer the “quiet parts”.

As Phil Mickelson discovered, you can’t un-ring a bell.

I’ll see you next week (if the servers allow)…

There was a video making its viral rounds on various social media places of a rather earnest-looking professor-like guy talking about the power of a tiny domino falling and hitting a bigger domino on its way to the ground. He starts the dominoes tumbling. The cascade of 15 ends with the fall of a domino weighing 100 lbs. and measuring >1 meter in height.

All from a domino so small he needs tweezers to place it.

The Professor ends the video with the observation that a 29 domino cascade would finish with the fall of a domino larger than the Empire State Building. Pretty vivid. As is so often the case on Sunday mornings I let the video rumble around between my ears for a bit. What I saw first was a vast space filled with thousands, nay millions of those tiny dominoes, falling down over and over again, never striking anything but the ground. Every now and again a tiny domino would fall against a massive domino, either bouncing or slowly sliding off, eventually finding its way to the ground either way.

It was discouraging to think about. It made me a little sad, to tell you the truth.

But as I thought about it a little more, spent a bit more time in my imaginary vastness filled with tiny dominoes perpetually falling, it occurred to me that in order to fall over and over again it was necessary for each of those tiny dominoes to somehow rise up to stand. More than that, each time one fell it moved a little bit. Sometimes further into the vacuum of the vastness, but sometimes closer to another tiny domino. Another domino falling.

Another domino that kept getting back up.

It’s probably trite–some would say I specialize in trite–but what stayed with me in the end was not the image of the massive domino falling at the end, but that of the tiny, delicate, fragile domino in the front of the line. The one that started the whole thing. What most of us ever see is the last couple of dominoes falling, the last tumblers settling into place. Who knows how many times that first, tiny domino fell and struck nothing but earth?

And got back up.

There is a certain power in normal in the face of an upheaval. Seeking normal, finding normal, doing whatever it takes to let normal happen in the face of crisis is sometimes all that it takes to prevent that crisis from snowballing into something much bigger, something like a brushfire that becomes a wildfire for want of just a little greenery.

Some normal is drudgery, even in the best of times. You know about that. There are some parts of your normal that require that you literally drag your carcass to or from something, figuratively haul your mind’s derriere to get in the game. In the face of some crisis, tragedy or hardship, these parts of normal probably are just as obnoxious as they are on the brightest, sunniest of days.

There are some things you do all the time that are so much a part of your life that you don’t even realize how much of an upper they are. How they make your life better. Sunday night phone calls with your folks or your kids. The old farts’ hoops game you never miss on Tuesday. 5:00 with your someone, somewhere on a Friday. These are the normals that have power. The power to persevere when it gets tough. The power to bring you just up enough that you don’t go all the way down. There’s an awful lot of good in your normal. Don’t forget it when it gets kinda dark.

There can be enough power in normal to light the way.

“Forgiveness does not change the past, but it does enlarge the future.” Paul Boese.

Forgiveness is an extension of kindness, both outwardly toward another, and inwardly toward yourself. I like the sense of hopefulness, that sense of optimism in the second part of the quote. The obvious part of “enlarging the future” is that forgiveness allows for the possibility that one who may have caused you harm in the past might still be a part of your future. By definition the larger your circle, the greater the number of contacts and connections of every sort, the greater is the possible in your future.

It’s what “enlarging the future” does for one within that is more interesting to me, however. Holding on to a slight, however terrible or tiny, creates a little “prison cell” for some part of what lies ahead of you. Forgiveness is a kind of freedom, a liberation of self from the binds that come with the effort to withhold the forgiveness, that withholding forever keeping you enchained to that person, that slight, that wrong. One need not forget; after all, the first part of the quote is that forgiveness “does not change the past.” Forgiving and forgetting are not really two sides of a coin.

One can forgive without forgetting, but one cannot forget without forgiving.

1 Obstreperous. Noisy and difficult to control.

Sure.

2 Emu. Google “horses asshole emu”.

Think obstreperous flightless bird.

3 Rainbow. My very good friend and his family escorted their black lab Gus across the rainbow bridge today. In the last 3 1/2 years the White family has lost 2 dogs and 2 horses. It never gets any easier. Saying goodbye to our pets guts me every time.

Grace and peace to my friend Rob and his family. Gus was a very good boy.

4 Somebody. “The grains of sand that pass through the funnel of life’s hourglass are only dry and colorless if they are observed from afar; up close each one is as colorful as any rainbow, as full of energy as any thunderstorm. Poetry is there for the asking.” DEW 1/16/2017.

While everyone isn’t necessarily “A” somebody, everyone is somebody who matters. My Dad was heroic in this regard. He remembered everyone. The lower on the economic food chain someone may have been, the more he remembered them. Janitors, waitresses/waiters, maintenance workers…he knew all of their names. He’d ask you about your story, ask you to describe the grains of sand in your hourglass, and if you told him he remembered. Dad would be dumbfounded by the denigration of these and other physical jobs so prevalent on mainstream media and other outlets.

Dad had a way with frontline workers. It was natural, a gift for sure, but he obviously worked at it, too. Did you have a problem getting THAT gift this year? Turns out, that’s not a new phenomenon caused by “COVID-related supply chain issues.” My Dad had a coronary artery bypass graft surgery (CABG) in 1985 at the peak of the Cabbage Patch Doll craze. Somehow he found a Cabbage Patch Doll for every nurse in the Coronary ICU to thank them for their care.

So what’s the point? It shouldn’t take a pandemic that interrupts every aspect of everyday life for us to notice the folks who aren’t anywhere near the top of the economic food chain. CEO’s saved the world in the early parts of the pandemic (Sunday NYT)? Bullshit. Company X allowed the economy to survive because it made “stay at home” work possible? Yeah, that’s bullshit, too. The person who answers the phone in my office or the person driving the garbage trucks had just as much impact as that self-satisfied CEO who’s biggest sacrifice was skipping Davos this year.

There’s no such thing as a small life. Each life is full, vibrant, colorful, and important. Each little grain of sand flowing through the hourglass is as meaningful as the next.

It’s been years since my Dad died and yet I return to his lessons on a daily basis. I see him talking to the guy who swept the floors in the factory. There his is, sitting down to lunch with a banker. If I close my eyes and just listen to the personal banter it’s hard to figure out which is which. The sands of time that flowed for each looked the same to my Dad. He heard the poetry, saw the beauty. My Dad made every life he touched bigger.

Everyone was a somebody.

5. Cost. Mark Cuban has launched a website/business called “Cost Plus Drugs” (costplusdrugs.com) to much fanfare, especially on Social Media of all sorts (Cuban is a plays SM like Yo Yo Ma plays cello). The concept is quite simple: buy generic drugs at wholesale cost, mark ’em up 15%, add a handling fee of $5 and ship ’em off to a waiting patient. The fanfare part comes in the marketing on the website. Each drug is compared with the retail price of the branded drug from which it was spawned. For example, $41 for a chemo drug compared with $9,600 for the brand. Brilliant, right?

Meh…not so much. First of all, if a super expensive drug is off-patent and there is now a generic equivalent on the market, essentially no one prescribes the branded drug anymore (caveat: equivalent in potency, side effects, etc.). Secondly, there are several options out there already doing a very nice job of this, thank you very much, without the hullabaloo surrounding Mr. Cuban’s offering. GoodRx and Costco come to mind. There’s somebody out there, can’t remember who, offering hundreds of generics for $4.00 a month. To the extent that Cost Plus Drugs continues to pressure the pharmaceutical industry and its high prices I suppose Cuban’s entry is a net positive.

Let’s step back and look at the real issue here, though: groundbreaking, new treatments are too expensive. I’m not talking about the outlandish prices of these branded, patent-protected drugs that people like Mark Cuban bandy about to make the price of their generic look so virtuous. No, I’m talking about the amount of money that comes out of the pockets of the people who need the newer medications for which a generic equivalent is not available (or who for whatever reason cannot take a particular generic). For all of Cuban’s bluster and bravado, the bruises that he is getting from patting himself on the back are all for naught. With very few exceptions people aren’t struggling to pay for generic chemo drugs, they are breaking the bank on the newer, more effective drugs.

In general, new drugs come in one of two varieties: minimally changed versions of existing drugs/”me too” drugs from a competing company in order to be in the market space, or truly innovative and new drugs that are a measurable upgrade in all ways from existing treatments. Yes, to be sure, there are some newcomers into a therapeutic space that have a similar mechanism of action as legacy drugs but really do work better in that treatment pathway, but they are a small minority; most are the same drug with a slightly different concentration or secondary delivery ingredients, patented and priced as if they were groundbreaking, new developments.

Where we need someone of Mark Cuban’s intellect, entrepreneurial zeal and all-around chutzpah is when the very best treatments, standard of care treatments, are not available as generics. Here the unholy triumvirate of manufacturer/pharmacy benefit manager (PBM) and insurance company put profit before patient (and healthcare worker) welfare. New, innovative treatments are priced so that the manufacturer can give a handsome rebate (kickback) to the PBM. A patient is then charged a co-pay which is a percentage of that artificially elevated price. This co-pay reduces the financial obligation of the insurance company to pay for the medication. If you’ve ever wondered why a medicine which was priced at $100 ten years ago is now $1,000, this is it.

If the Mark Cubans of the world want to have a real impact on the healthcare costs that matter, the costs to the patient themself, let them turn their attention here. It does us no good to have another do-gooding middleman saving patients a few dollars on widely available generic medications. This is the equivalent of hitting a single when you’re down 10 runs in the ninth. In eye care we don’t need someone to shave off a couple of bucks from the cost of Avastin as the first-line treatment for the devastating, sight-stealing disease macular degeneration; it’s like $50, so patients drop 10 bucks in the bucket on the way out. At big places like the Cleveland Clinic they pay more to park.

No, what we need is someone to step in and figure out how regular folks can afford Eylea or Lucentis, the branded medications that a majority of these patients end up needing when the Avastin stops working (as it almost always does). At $2000 a pop that 20% co-pay can run into thousands of dollars each year for folks who need injections every few weeks, sometimes forever. Cancer treatments that cost $40,000 per dose or truly revolutionary, life-saving drugs like the hepatitis C drugs that came out a few years ago that are now “only” $10-15,000. 20% of that is meaningful to most folks. Step up to the plate and take a swing at these, Mr. Cuban. Figure out how people who have terrible diseases that aren’t really all that rare can afford their medicine. You’re not a singles hitter. Figuring this out is the equivalent of hitting a walk-off grand slam in the 7th game of the World Series.

You were made for this, Mark.

I’ll see you next week…

“How old would you be if you didn’t know how old you were?” –Satchel Paige

Another trip around the sun. 62 years old. How odd, to have a “6” in front of whatever my age is. 60 really wasn’t cataclysmic, at least not in the existential way 50 was. Kinda matter-of-fact, 60. 62? About as nothingberger an age as they come. They seem to be coming fast and furious now, the birthdays. It’s a little hard getting worked up about them to be honest.

Still, New Year’s Day and birthdays lend themselves to a bit of introspection, or at least a little bit of taking account of the “state of you”. Happily, since my birthday is only 7 days into January, I can knock it all out in a single “musing”. It’s interesting, the older I get the less I find myself keeping track of. Sure, I still track sleep metrics, and I’m certainly aware of not only my regular, routine retinue of snaps and crackles but every single new pop that shows up to join the band.

But there’s nothing really new here. As I’ve gotten older my genetics have caught up with me. Thankfully I have two good friends who are my docs and they simply won’t let me pretend I can diet or exercise my way out of chromosomal destiny. I sleep better (and so does Beth) when I drink just a little bit less at dinner. Nothing else really registers. I would fit into my shirts and pants a little better if I either exercised to match my diet, or ate to match my activity. Again, not really revelational, either of those. I’ve long ago made peace with the fact that I am simply a happier human being, more fun to be around, if I relax a bit about buying pants with a bigger waste size for the first time in 10 years.

So what am I actually thinking about? The last couple of paragraphs could certainly give the impression that I’m pretty satisfied with where I am. That I’ve put it in cruise control. That’s not actually true, though. I think ol’ Satchel was talking mostly about how old he felt physically; everyone always wanted to know how the ageless wonder could be so good for so long on the baseball field. Who knows how old he actually was when he finally hung up his glove, but I’m betting it was 10 or 15 years before 62.

Honestly though, I really don’t know how old I feel in ways not physical. There’s so much out there to learn. Wouldn’t it be cool to learn new stuff as readily as a 5 or 10 year old? I’m sure that my neural pathways have become much less “plastic”, but still, I feel like I’m young enough to not only learn new stuff in my comfort zones so that I’m better at my regular stuff, but also start fresh with some stuff that’s totally different. I know it’s not microsurgery, but learning how to make a decent cappuccino with a “manual” espresso machine was kinda cool.

A couple of weightier things have coalesced around 62. Two gentlemen are on my mind as I look toward a horizon coming ever closer. I’ve written about the first before. We shared a ski lift a few days before my 40th birthday. I must have shared that the prospect of my 40’s was somewhat daunting. His response was inspirational, and in retrospect dead-on accurate. Your 40’s, he said, were the years when you are as close to every peak you have ever, or will ever experience. You will still be close enough to the athlete you were as a younger man to participate in almost any physical pursuit you wish. If your work is physical you’ve done your 10,000 reps and then some; you will move with efficiency and grace. And with 40 years under your belt you have accumulated wisdom and are beginning to take on the polish of maturity.

All of this will make you better for everyone who depends on you, everyone to whom you are responsible.

This brings me to another friendly acquaintance, this one from my early years in the CrossFit world. Andy Stumpf is a former Navy SEAL who was part of the management team of a younger CrossFit, Inc. and who is now a leadership consultant and a life coach of sorts. It’s likely that I haven’t actually talked with Andy for 6 or 7 years at least, but I stumbled upon his podcast while driving home from our South Carolina vacation. While I was learning how to work my new espresso machine I had him on in the background.

The first thing that Andy said that made me perk up (sorry) was the general admonition to “be the better version of yourself.” Not the best version; no one knows what that really is. The “better version”. I’m familiar with this concept, this game. My alter ego in the CrossFit world was a guy named “bingo”, an avatar created not from bits but from words that represented what I felt was the better parts of who I was at any given time. This isn’t a new thing for me in any way. I’ve tried to find and apply this better version since my wedding day.

What Andy said next, and I’ll be paraphrasing, is what really made me stop and listen. Your better self is not one that is directed straight ahead, along a path solely in front of you, but rather one that looks first to the left and to the right to see who you might be able to take along. Andy, the former SEAL, is using a military analogy of course, describing the best teammates and leaders as those who check on the teammates or subordinates alongside them, choosing the course that is also best for them. Or even the course that is better for them then even for you.

Returning to my friend on the ski lift for a moment, your 60’s are the years when your inevitable physical decline is balance by the continued accumulation of knowledge and experience. The sum of these two characteristics is wisdom. These are the years that bring the wisdom to share. As I join these two men and their counsel I find a tiny kernel of inspiration on this birthday/New Year’s reflection: if one is fortunate enough to be asked, now is the time in life where one shares whatever it is that is their “better self”.

I’m not sure if I ever saw the guy on the ski lift again after that weekend, and Heaven knows if I will ever have the privilege of talking with Andy again. But I am deeply grateful to them both for where I’m going with their gifts. Our “better self” is an attainable goal that is worth seeking. As we leave behind pieces parts that cannot be better, like the skier I was at 40, we put our efforts toward those that can. Like the continued attainment of wisdom. We look outside ourself, look to see who is standing to the left and to the right of us, with the wisdom gained to lead all three of us to something or somewhere we might call “better, still”.

So I guess that’s where I am at 62. Not a bad place to start my next trip around the sun.

I’ll see you next week…

1 Revolutions. Maybe it’s because of all the news and commentary about January 6th and the Capitol whatever you want to call it, but every time I say “New Year’s Resolutions” it comes out “revolutions”.

I’ll be 62 in 5 days. Highly unlikely I’ll be making any “revolutions” for New Year’s.

2 Risk. “I just thought I’d see more, you know, scorpions and quick sand. And anvils. I thought life’s dangers would include more flying anvils.” Lovely Daughter Megan.

Love that kid.

3 Address. Beth and I are wrapping up our holiday week in our new place near Megan. Our first week away from Casa Blanco in which we stayed in a home we own since we sold our beloved ski home in Utah (damn the Great Recession). Once we got the staging for photos out of the way it started to feel like “home” to me, as places always do once Beth has put her touch to things.

But what really made it special, more “home”, is that it is 20 minutes from Megan and our son-in-law Ryan. We are blessed beyond belief that our sons Dan and Randy and their families live within a few miles of Casa Blanco. Even though they are all kinds of busy we get to see them quite often. It’s an event when we get Megan and Ryan (and their dogs!) Traveling to the Low Country will now be easier since we (and OUR dogs) won’t have to impose on them by invading their space for days (and eventually weeks) at a time.

We find ourselves once again at the “where do you want to be” stage. The last big “visit” there was around our 25th Anniversary, a time when it looked like none of our kids would be in NE Ohio. Where do you live when there is no family in the immediate area? Mind you, we were 10 or so years younger at the time, a life stage we could reasonably assume we’d survive intact. Still, we spent a year or so in the deciding, in the end coming to the realization that “place” had become “home”, at least for the time. That our boys came home and settled was a wonderful stroke of luck.

Now? in our early 60’s (how weird to type that!) we look forward to what is now known as “aging in place” at our beloved Casa Blanco. Surrounded by friends we’ve know for almost 30 years in addition to 5 grandchildren (Happy Birthday today to Lakey!!). But man, those Cleveland winters are brutal, climate change notwithstanding. Another year’s worth of searching, both physically (dry runs on both coasts of Florida in addition to coastal South Carolina) and emotionally (friends our age and a horse who winters in Florida, none of our siblings have chosen a winter spot, our only not-in-CLE child) bring us to the logical next place. For at least a couple of weeks every year, Condo Blanco sits 5 minutes from the Atlantic in South Carolina.

25 minutes from family.

4. Resolution. Meh, I’m still nearly 62. You and I both know I need to make all of the standard issue resolutions. Eat better and eat less. Drift back to a more formal, more structured, more disciplined fitness regimen. (As an aside I drifted over to CrossFit.com for the first time in many months; thanks for the “bingo” shout-out JS Smith!). Find a hobby or two that bring me in contact with men my age (haven’t really done anything like that since discovering CrossFit).

Hardly revolutionary.

I find myself going over some of my earlier writing. You know, checking out what seemed important to me at the time. What seemed important in the world at the time. It’s interesting to note that the world around me has been “on fire” in “unprecedented ways” for 15 years now. Funny. I grew up in the 60’s and 70’s. Years of epic tumult and conflict, domestically and abroad. Double-digit inflation. Controversial military conflicts. College campuses convulsed in protest about, well, everything. Sounds kinda familiar, doesn’t it?

Is nothing different today, then? Well, yes and no, I guess. No, in that it is naive at best and willfully intellectually dishonest in the likeliest sense to hold that our political, moral and other conflicts are in some way unique simply because they are our conflicts of the day. I mean, come on, we had kids getting shot on college campuses by the National Guard in one instance and a crazed sniper firing from a clock tower in another back then. Streets on fire in cities around the country…back then. If anything might be different it is that in addition to traditional information sources we now have a “man in the street” viewpoint available on all manner of social media.

No, the world is no more or less in an uproar than when I was young. We just know more and know it faster.

So what’s the point? Where’s the resolution in all of this? It’s simple: behind every idea, every position taken on any or all issues, lies a person. A real, live human being who gets up each day, eats a square or three, goes to work, and tries to make it to the next day. Perhaps there’s some joy there, too. A bit of sorrow, for sure. We all have a bit of sorrow. But if we are talking about the majority of the developed world, we are talking about millions of people who aren’t hungry, who aren’t outdoors. People who strive for just a bit better, who want just a bit more of better for their children and grandchildren.

People are not internet addresses, @whatevers or avatars. Behind whatever drivel might come out of their fingertips and land on Facegram or TwitTok lies the same challenges we all face. Maybe most of them spend less time than I do parsing the “big ideas”, but other than that, the same. Countless studies large and small have shown that removing the screens that sit between us restores some of that humanity on both sides of pretty much any issue. Did you ever see that Heineken commercial there they sit people with opinions that are poles apart and just set them to talking? It’s extraordinary watching them find their own common ground.

And that, my friends, is where the resolution will come from. There is far, far more common ground we all share than whatever differences we may have. We live in a world of vast commonality. That which we share dwarfs any differences we may have. Regardless of how much time we spend in the echo chambers of our pet peeves or primary pursuits, what we find there is still only a fraction of what we bring there. We are each much, much more than a vessel for some hot button issue or cause. More than that, as I quoted from the movie “I, Tonya” years ago, we are each much more than our worst decision or our worst act.

Here, then, is my resolution, one that I hope you will share with me: in 2022 I will step out from behind whatever barriers I may have erected, or may have been erected around me., both on SM and IRL. I will remember that there is almost no “other”, only different. I will seek to understand that different, but only so that I may better seek that which I share with those in all of the people who orbit my life and whose lives I orbit. For those who have made bad decisions I will do my best not to judge them solely on my knowledge of those decisions. I will trust (and, yes, verify) that they are, indeed, more than just the sum of their mistakes.

I resolve to see people first.

Happy New Year my friends. I hope 2022 finds us together in some way, somewhere, sometime.

Once again on this day of days I offer this verse from “An Olde City Bar” by the Trans Siberian Orchestra:

“If you want to arrange it this world, you can change it.

If we could just make this whole Christmas thing last.

By helping a neighbor, or even a stranger.

To know who needs help

you need only just ask.”

Merry Christmas my friends. May the Eastern Star light your life today, and every day.

“Santa is the Spirit of Giving. He is always real.” –Beth White

Once again my darling wife Beth knocks it out of the park. We have a couple of little ones again in the White house, and because of that we will have a healthy dose of Santa in our lives. While I realize that Beth and I will not really have a say in whether or not the whole Santa Claus story plays out in our grandchildren’s houses, what he stands for is important. Important enough for us to have had him in all his splendor and glory when Dan, Megan, and Randy were growing up. Important for us to draw out the time before Randy came to the realization that Santa was not a real person for as long as possible, so deep was his love for the furry fat guy he called “Key Klaus”.

Rest assured, the parental units in Clan White did struggle with how to handle the inherent subterfuge that is necessary to have the Santa Claus story as part of our children’s upbringing. From the very beginning, though, the message was about the giving, about generosity and caring enough about someone else that you not only gave them a gift, but you gave them a gift that let them know how much you cared about them. You know, the “spirit” in the Spirit of Giving, if you will.

No matter how you massage it, that day of reckoning when your child finally realizes that the character Santa Claus is nothing more than the figurative representation of the giving concept can be fraught with all kinds of emotional trauma. For sure you might get a dose of “you lied to me”, but in my now decades of experience being around parents it’s actually rather rare for this one to pop up. What you generally face is sadness, with maybe a touch of disappointment and even mourning tossed in just to add a little sting to the moment. Like so much else about parenting, or even just about kindness, these are times when you get to talk about and teach really important lessons. Here the lesson is about giving of yourself, with or without a physical gift to actually give.

While thinking about this we stumbled upon a lovely little story about how one family handled both the “Santa isn’t real” revelation and the “Santa is real” in spirit thing. Heck, the story may even be true! A Dad sensed that his son was pretty much on the cusp of discovering that the guy in the red suit wasn’t really the real deal. His approach? He talked to his son about how he sensed that he, the son, looked like he was not too sure about the Santa Claus character. The Dad complimented his son on being a caring young man: “Everyone who cares, who is generous can be a Santa. I’m very impressed by how kind you are. I think you are ready to become a Santa, too.”

The Dad went on to ask his son to think about someone in his world who looked like they were sad. Maybe a bit lonely even. He tasked the boy with thinking very hard about what that person might really like as a present. Something they needed, and something that would express that whoever gave it to them realized this need, and cared enough to give them a present that helped to meet that need. There was a catch, though: the recipient was never to know who gave them the gift. For the son the satisfaction was in the caring and in the giving, not in the recognition and praise that might follow.

It doesn’t really matter who the child chose or what he gave; you can trust that the story–true or not–is just lovely right to the end. What matters is that this very young boy is escorted through what can be a very sad stage in a young life by a caring and thoughtful parent. On the other side of this journey emerges a young man who has learned the true meaning of Santa Claus in the secular Christmas story. He has learned that what matters about Santa Claus is real indeed, and always has been.

Santa Claus is the Spirit of Giving. He will always be real.

I’ll see you tomorrow…

1 Culture. “Culture eats strategy for lunch.” -Anonymous

On the White board at the surgery center where I do much of my work. Also, the guiding principle underlying why and how I built SkyVision.

2 Familiar. The description of the loss a husband suffered upon the death of his wife. “A quiet, familiar life with the woman he loved.”

I owe a note to a friend thus suffering.

3 E.D. Hirsch. You likely know Mr. Hirsch as the author of “Cultural Literacy” if you know of him at all. Published in 1987, “Cultural Literacy” posits that education must begin with the teaching of specifics. His tome is heavy on what was once known as Western Civ, and he is adamant that teaching in primary grades should emanate from the teacher teaching these specifics.

He is particularly dismissive of the notion that children who are exposed to more “experiences” are somehow at a kind of automatic advantage. “That’s what fiction is for.” To him it matters not where one acquires knowledge. “The residue of experience is knowledge. If you get your knowledge from the classroom, it’s just as good as if you got it from going to the opera.” (HT WSJ)

Food for thought with our children and grandchildren learning from home so much over the last year and a half, and we have a front row seat to the show.

4 Indulgence.’Tis the season, eh? Indulgence at this time of year, at least in the Judeo-Christian world, is rather obvious. I weigh and measure my food all year so that I can eat pie at Thanksgiving and cookies at Christmas. Neither of which I weigh or measure, by the way.

There’s an aspect of guilt when it comes to indulgence. It’s more than just the occasional treat. An inch of dark chocolate on your Paleo Diet doesn’t really cut it, and if you consider that an indulgence it’s probably time to loosen up a bit. I was thinking that the ultimate First World indulgence is the un-timed hot shower, but anything that occurs on a daily basis probably doesn’t count either.

Uh uh…indulgence involves a certain sense of not only excess but also a bit of “I really shouldn’t”. Jay McInerney: “I find the shadow of guilt always adds piquancy to any indulgence. It’s almost more pleasurable, feeling slightly guilty.” As a boy raised Catholic by a mother who openly admired the way her Jewish friends raised their kids (producing what I’ve come to call “double guilt”), I definitely get the “shadow of guilt” angle to indulgence, especially with ones that only occur on rare occasions.

Others, though, indulge in ways both frequent and grand. Indulgence writ large, if you will. Take, for example, Lilly Bollinger and her approach to Champagne: “I drink it when I’m happy and when I’m sad. Sometimes I drink it when I’m alone. When I have company, I consider it obligatory. I trifle with it if I’m not hungry and drink it when I am. Otherwise, I never touch it–unless I’m thirsty.” Man, THAT woman knows how to indulge. Not much guilt evident, either. I’m sure my Mom wouldn’t approve, and I’m equally sure that Lilly wouldn’t care.

In a perfect world we would all be more like Lilly Bollinger, indulging on a daily basis in something that brings us pleasure with or without a side of guilt. The world, as I’ve said, is messy, no matter where it is you might live. Indulgence is what you make of it, and it’s probably a good thing that we have this Holiday Season during which we give ourselves permission to indulge a bit.

Life is messy and life is hard. Go ahead and indulge. You’ve earned it.

I’ll see you next week…