In a recent op-ed for the New York Times, Avram Alpert writes,
Ideals of greatness cut across the American political spectrum. Supporters of Lyndon Johnson’s “Great Society” and believers in Ronald Reagan and Donald Trump’s “Make America Great Again,” for instance, may find themselves at odds, but their differences lie in the vision of what constitutes greatness, not whether greatness itself is a worthy goal. In both cases — and in most any iteration of America’s idea of itself — it is.
The desire for greatness also unites the diverse philosophical camps of Western ethics. Aristotle called for practicing the highest virtue. Kant believed in an ethical rule so stringent not even he thought it was achievable by mortals. Bentham’s utilitarianism is about maximizing happiness. Marx sought the great world for all. Modern-day libertarians will stop at nothing to increase personal freedom and profit. These differences surely matter, but while the definition of greatness changes, greatness itself is sought by each in his own way.
Alpert contrasts the foregoing philosophies with a philosophy of “good-enough” — a worldview that embraces the banal and the everyday. Rather than striving after greatness, he argues, we should strive “not to make the perfect human society, but rather a good enough world in which each of us has sufficient (but never too many) resources to handle our encounters with the inevitable sufferings of a world full of chance and complexity.”
To my ears, embracing limitations and accepting “inevitable sufferings” pretty near echoes a theology of the cross — theology which seeks to know God as he’s revealed and present in Christ’s suffering, and, by extension, our own. Just as he suffered on a commonplace instrument of torture, so God embraces the “the inevitable sufferings of a world full of chance and complexity”. In contrast to our desire for greatness, St. Paul writes,
Consider your own call, brothers and sisters: not many of you were wise by human standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not, to reduce to nothing things that are, so that no one might boast in the presence of God. (1 Cor. 1:26-28)
He chose what wasn’t even good to shame what is great (or, what we might call “great’).
But the mere recognition that I ought to be content with a “good-enough” world doesn’t guarantee that I will be. Although the stated goal isn’t the “perfect” human society, “sufficient (but never too many) resources” sounds suspiciously near perfect to me. “Good enough” can mean different things to different people — and can become another law that will invariably reveal how we’re falling short.
That’s not to say that striving to improve our local or global neighbors’ circumstances is vanity. Arguably, working to alleviate suffering is one of the primary ways Christ’ manifests his workmanship in us (Eph. 2:10). But at a personal level, I’d argue even our attempts to embrace good-enough-ness can lead us to strive after our own greatness. While we may indeed find good-enough solutions to social and economic problems, to bring justice and peace in some way “on earth as it is heaven,” we can still find ourselves asking who will be greatest in the kingdom (Matt. 18:1). If we are Christ’s workmanship, and our good works are prepared for us beforehand, then any “good-enoughness” we might add to the world is in spite of our nothingness and not-so-greatness.
I assert great-or-good-enoughness and I am brought to nothing. I wax semi-knowledgeable about how to fix California’s homeless crisis, but I don’t even make eye contact with the regular vagrants near my office. I say people who worry about money should just learn to budget, but an underestimated electric bill triggers an anxiety attack. I start the workday determined to complete a litany of tasks and prove my technical prowess, and a bug in one overlooked line of code consumes my whole afternoon.
Thankfully, it is in my nothingness that I am given something — the grace of God, who “is the source of [my] life in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification and redemption” (1 Cor. 1:30). The Son of Man “came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Matt. 20:28), including not-so-great servants.
Despite my feigned greatness, God’s mercy is more than good enough.
For those who know me, it’s no secret that I’m averse to social media and its black-box network effects. I think that much of the web as we currently experience it falls far short of its potential for meaningful and thoughtful communication.
But I’m not here to belabor that point either. Despite platforms that manipulate attention, monetize surveillance, and design addictive interfaces, the web is also host to a lot of great thought and creativity.
Warren Ellis has been credited in various places as saying “The Republic of Newsletters and the Isles of Blogging, my friend. That’s what’s left. Messages in bottles from hermit caves by the sea.” (I remember reading the original instance of the quote in one of his newsletters, but it is now lost to the abyss of deleted emails).
Something else for my to-do list is to retune my internet. I’ve been taking five minutes here and there, but I need to give it a couple of hours soon. Here are the rules. Facebook is for misery, so don’t use it, at all. Twitter is for news, so just read it. Instagram is for joy, for as long as Instagram lasts, so filter it well. RSS is for information, good writing, music and the Isles of Blogging.
I like the spirit of “retuning your internet.” I could never handle Twitter for news (I limit it to begrudgingly syndicating links to my blog), and Instagram is for liking my wife’s photos when I look at it once a week. His description of RSS resonates with my use of it, and newsletters also.
So we have a British comics/screen /prose writer with futuristic interests, a Christian humanities professor who’s respected by both evangelicals and secular literati, a bay area author of magical realistic novels, and an writer /artist who meditates on creativity, all drawing inspiration from and riffing on each other’s thoughts (the one exception might be Ellis, whom I’ve only read referencing Sloan).
The early days of the web encouraged an optimism among many that it would catalyze mutual comprehension among people of differing ideologies, disciplines, and backgrounds, and foster greater empathy amongst its users. While that outcome seems more the exception than the rule, the messages in bottles passed between the Isles can carry messages from people whose interests and convictions might differ wildly from our own. Right now, the Isles and the Republic seem to be the closest thing to the lofty vision of the web’s early enthusiasts. To paraphrase Alan Jacobs in How To Think, the value in these communications isn’t that they come from people who are like-minded, but like-hearted — hearts that seek to understand and to share the good they have with the world.
I read a number of books this year, and as seems customary, I’ll share a few highlights. Since I’m traveling and don’t have my reading journal on hand, I’m sure I’m overlooking some. Nonetheless, here are a few that immediately spring to mind.
Alan Jacobs explores the works of Simone Weil, C. S. Lewis, T. S. Eliot, W. H. Auden, and Jacques Maritain and examines how they addressed the possibilities and pitfalls of developing post-war society. He (and his subjects) provide a perspective that could give our accelerationist, technocratic, post-everything culture some much needed guidance and wisdom.
Joseph J. Ellis examines a few events in the lives of the Founding Fathers during America’s formative post-revolution years. The fact that political polarization is nothing new is equal parts troubling and comforting.
The meditations in The Inner Voice of Love is a series of journal entries written by Henri Nouwen direct an intense period of depression and spiritual darkness. It’s a beautiful and moving account of seeking wisdom and hope in the midst of doubt and despair.
I’ve already written a brief post about this one, but I’ll reiterate its significant by including it on this list. Suffice it to say, this tome is more than worth your time if you’d like an expansive understanding the defining event of the Christian faith.
I read this book as an almost spiritual exercise. Hopefully I write a longer piece about it soon, but for now it will suffice to say that themes, motifs, and spirit of this classic proved their timelessness in my revisiting of it.
I definitely see some thematic threads in my reading this year — hope, wisdom, perspective — and I strongly suspect they’ll continue into next year.
Regardless of whether or not you celebrate or observe it, I pray the unconditional love and unreasonable hope that the Christmas story embody are known to you this season. Happy Christmas, friends.
The political dialogue within the highest echelon of the revolutionary generation was a decade-long shouting match.
And,
Politics, even at the highest level in the early republic, remained a face-to-face affair in which the contestants, even those who were locked in political battles to the death, were forced to negotiate the emotional affinities and shared intimacies produced by frequent personal interaction.
I suppose there’s an odd comfort in knowing that our polarized political climate is not a complete novelty. I know I’ve employed “shouting match” to describe current discourse on more than one occasion. The latter quote encapsulates one of the reasons Ellis thinks the fledgling nation was able to survive despite the circumstances of the former. Perhaps it could be said that their intense political interest was also matched by intense personal interest in this political experiment, and because of the shared nature of their endeavor, there was some personal interest in one another.
May our ideology always be subservient to our hospitality.
So I finished Fleming Rutledge’s TheCrucifixion today, and, yeah. I felt like I should write something about it, but I fear it’s hard to do it justice.
That said, I’ll take a stab at it. At the risk of hyperbole, Fleming Rutledge has written what might be the most important Christian text so far of the 21st century. It’s a substantial tome, clocking in at over 600 pages and dense with footnotes (surprisingly one of the best things about it). It’s the first book of its size that wasn’t a fantasy novel that I’ve read in a very long time. It also took a long time to read, but it was time well spent. And she brings her weighty subject to bear in a way that so effectively speaks to our moment by revealing its timelessness.
I think what struck me most is the way she applies it to “the common plight of all humankind, for it is the one thing that binds us together”(582). As she puts it, “Above all, we must account for victims and perpetrators alike. If we cannot do this, then it is not the evangel"(577).
The division, loneliness, suffering, injustice, and utter mercilessness that many people are experiencing right now does not need to be restated. But I think it warrants pointing out that those experiences transcend any dividing line we can conjure. Indeed, the very division that cuts right through all of us is what we have in common. And the action that heals, restores, forgives, and rectifies that division is common to us all too.
Fleming Rutledge mends the cracks between differing perspectives in a way that’s a shadow of the real mending that she points too. Read and be healed.
Following up on the last post’s thoughts, I am finding myself more and more fascinated by the discipline of simplicity. I think it was in the most recent episode of the Renovare podcast that I heard it suggested that the discipline of simplicity isn’t so much a discipline we do as one we inhabit.
Such a notion makes sense when I expand my understanding of simplicity to be both an active thing and passive thing. In one sense, I actively interrogate thoughts, patterns, and behaviors — deliberately asking if something distracts me from what truly matters. But in another sense, simplicity is ultimate passivity — it’s a disposition that is willing to sit and be patient, rather than try to fix everything. It’s admitting that I can’t control all circumstances.
Oddly enough, there is increased freedom for more focused activity in this. It frees me to be more present whether having a cold drink with a friend, reading a book, or talking with my wife. Simplicity gives me permission to be present to these things because, in that moment, it’s not my responsibility to handle the other things, because Christ cares for them. This isn’t to say it’s permission to be flippant, but it’s permission to trust.
As an anxious person, this is terrifying and freeing. The attitude of simplicity is something that does not come easily. Yet, the amazing thing about it is the truth that underlies it; The greatest simplicity of all is found in the knowledge that even my distracted and overloaded failures are taken care of.
Here are a few quotes/links from Alan Jacobs and Austin Kleon, who are frequently in dialogue with one another, that have set the tone for my thoughts this week about a few things — namely blogging, information, and thinking.
Curiously, though in a way logically, my escape from Twitter’s endless cycles of intermittent reinforcement and its semi-regular tsunamis has made me significantly calmer about my own future as a writer, in large part because it has re-set my mental clock. I have always told myself that I have time to think about what, if anything, I want to write next, but I haven’t really believed it, and I think that’s been due to my immersion in the time-frame of Twitter and other social media. Now that I’ve climbed out of that medium, I can give not merely notional but real assent to the truth that I have time, plenty of time, to think through what I might want to say.
Ideas in cars, honking — Austin Kleon curates some thoughts on ideas and creativity from Dave Chappelle, Jerry Seinfeld, and Brian Eno
The past couple of weeks have been somewhat turbulent, hence the silence on here. Arguably, I’ve made this excuse before, but I’m coming around to the acceptability of it. For some time I’ve guilted myself for not writing/blogging/creating with any real discipline. Outside of my 9-5 as a software engineer, I’m pretty terrible at Getting Things Done. I don’t have a content calendar, and most times I make a writing-related todo it ends up getting forwarded to the following day.
I’ve tried to account for this frustration. I’d love to work on my idea for a fantasy novella with that brings together the tonal setting of dark ages Europe, the cosmology of H.P. Lovecraft, and the prose of Cormac McCarthy, just as much as it would bring me joy to regularly type out thinkpieces on spirituality and culture, all while working on programming side-projects for which I can write technical articles. Also, I really should be brushing up on my math skills if I’m ever gonna pursue that Master’s degree in CS.
Simply put, I’ve felt burned out yet have hardly accomplished anything in regards to the above. And I think I’m okay with that.
Jenoa pointed out that the only person putting pressure on me to do all of the things has been me. But that still doesn’t answer why I’ve imposed such demands on myself. I think, as Jacobs pointed out, that some of this stems from a need to reset my own mental clock — not necessarily from Twitter, but from the felt need to produce large volumes of quality creative work, especially work that’s germane to what everyone else seems to be talking about.
Which connects to that episode of the Renovare podcast. I’m finding that even good things, like podcasts (ironically), RSS feeds, and newsletters, can still clutter the mind and distort my temporal perception. Even my “simplification” away from social media still necessitates greater simplicity. This isn’t to say that I’ve completely tuned out from people whose thoughts interest me (they obviously act as a springboard for much of this blog), but I’ve been more willing to click “unsubscribe” if I’m not finding something enjoyable. I simply don’t have the cognitive bandwidth to read something just because it’s deemed “important”. My brain needs space to think and grow.
Which brings me back to Jacobs’s notion of the garden. If I’m ever going to produce ideas that are worthwhile and that I’m going to actually care about, I need to step away and let the elements do their work on the soil of my mind. I’m content to sit and watch them grow for a while.
It’s been a hectic couple of weeks, and I’ve done/experienced/read/thought about a few things that warrant their own posts, but I’ll fill them in here.
A piece my best friend wrote was recently posted over at Mockingbird. (Trigger warning: this story recounts sexual abuse) No words of mine can do it justice. Here’s a brief glimpse:
Hope sought me out in that place. It clothed me and gave me water. It bade me to follow and find rest. Hope didn’t require me to be clean. It didn’t require me to be well-behaved. It wasn’t contingent on my political standing or sexual orientation. It was a rescue without requirements.
It’s painful and moving, exploring trauma, storytelling, and grace. I can’t recommend reading it enough. Proud of you, Collin.
In many respects, going back to the kinds of books I used to read has also meant going back to the kinds of reading habits I used to have. Just as there was a point in my life when I had to remind myself to grab that pencil, the time eventually came when I had to remind myself to leave it where it was and grasp the book (or the Kindle) in my two otherwise empty hands. The object now was not to prepare for class or develop a scholarly argument, but rather to become lost in a book, as I once was often; to be self-forgetful for a while.
Jacobs’s work first came to my attention when I was in college working on my senior project. His book How to Think, published last year, and his presence at this year’s Mockingbird NYC conference brought him back on to my radar. Although I’d been interested in the intersection of theology and literature while in college (I essentially wanted to do his current job for a living; things took a different turn), I never realized how much our interests overlapped. Take, for example, this other passage from the same essay:
I have similar thoughts about Danny Hillis’s wonderful little book The Pattern On The Stone: The Simple Ideas That Make Computers Work, which was the book that made me believe I could learn at least a little scripting, if not full-fledged programming. Like Dawkins’s account of how evolutionary biology builds up reliable historical evidence, Hillis’s account of computer design explains how the simplest elements — Boolean logic applied to the most elementary distinction of all, that between on and off, yes and no, 1 and 0 — ultimately yields the staggering power of modern computers and their networks. How cool to think about. How useful to internalize these procedures — or at least to attempt to — in order to structure and buttress one’s own thinking.
Coincidentally, Hillis’s book provided the impetus that actually drove me into full-fledged programming. It’s encouraging to see someone in the humanities extend their interests in technology to the point of trying to code themselves. Although only two years in to my software career, I find myself trying to do the same thing from the other side of the humanities/STEM divide; extending my interests beyond detached observation to actually engaging with them, even though I may not make a career of it.
But I digressed completely from why I started writing this in the first place. I’ve been rediscovering the joy of reading and writing again; not for personal development or career advancement, but “to be self-forgetful for a while.” Although there are times I wish I could get paid to read books or study a subject and write and teach about it, software development has been a blessing not just for the opportunities it’s provided me, but for the fact that it’s forced me to learn the joy of reading and writing for their own sake - to learn to love what I’m doing and forget myself for a bit.
I became an old fogey young; I looked backward habitually and gladly. So, I think, did a good many of my generation. The real question therefore is: where did this love of the past come from?
Well, I think it came from living just one age after the end of the modern era. I grew up reading ~Popular Science Monthly~ in the thirties. I will never forget its rapt narration of the coming wonders of the new age; but I don’t think we will ever see that dewy-eyed scientific Messianism ever again. Back there, in the dark of the depression, newness was still the great watchword, just as it had been in the twenties. At Hiroshima, the newness blew itself sky-high, and when we finally did crawl out of our holes, we all began to look around for something a little less violently new. ~The Waste Land~ was no longer an avant-garde way of talking about life; it was the way our world ~felt~.
An odd bit of reflection from a book ostensibly about marriage, but that’s one of the wonderful things about Capon’s writing — immediate concerns are almost indistinguishable from transcendent ones. Thus, Bed & Board is about marriage, but also more than marriage. Ultimately, I would say the book is about everyday grace.
Some readers (as well as Capon himself, later in life) have noted that some of the statements in the book are a bit dated, if not outright sexist, in their views of men and women. But despite these shortcomings, the book’s message of embracing the absurdities of marriage holds up well. As CJ Green writes in his foreword to the new edition, “…it is its unfailing levity regarding everyday life that resurrects Bed and Board day after day, keeping it fresh, relevant, and completely true no matter the decade.”
And I would say the quote I opened this post with demonstrates its relevance very well. I’m unsure whether or not Capon would be surprised, but the “dewy-eyed scientific Messianism” seems to have returned, at least among some — a quick perusal of Hacker News comments will reveal this. But as the newness of Facebook and Cambridge Analytica and Twitter flame-wars and hyper-partisan clickbait of all varieties have blown our civil discourse and sense of community/stability sky-high, I can’t help but wonder if people are seeking out ways of being, interacting, and consuming information that are “a little less violently new.” I certainly am.
That having been said, I suppose the fact that I travelled across the country and back twice in the same month more than accounts my silence here. Pittsburgh for RailsConf one week, NYC for Mockingbird the next. Two cities for two very different conferences.
Both trips were a blast. I walked away from both with much to think about, and (hopefully) much to write about, especially Mockingbird. The latter conference crystalized a number of things that I had been feeling but hadn’t given voice to. A few friends of ours were present at the conference this year, one of whom co-wrote a book(!). (Congratulations to both Charlotte and Stephanie, by the way. While I have yet to read it, Jenoa began it after the first night of the conference and let out a laugh about every thirty seconds.)
“Grace in divided times” was the conference’s theme. I could hardly have thought of a more appropriate or poignant emphasis. To paraphrase Alan Jacobs (whom we had the pleasure of hearing speak twice), anger/wrath is the great sin of our time. It’s a notion that makes everyone complicit in the division that seems so pervasive. The very thing that truly does unite us is our mutual guilt and need for grace. And, mercifully, the even deeper unifier is the truth that abundant grace is given to all.
The message of that is what drew me to Mockingbird, and that’s the same message I hope to communicate with much of what I write here.
”If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world.”
Those words are among the few spoken by Thorin Oakenshield as he lay on his deathbed. I recently finished re-reading The Hobbit and am currently working my way through The Lord of the Rings. It’s passages like that that make Tolkien’s more popular works resonate deeply with me.
I decided to revisit them this year as an antidote to cynicism. I get that his work might seem dated, even (gasp) irrelevant when compared with the gritty worldliness of series like George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire. Ugly human nature and realpolitik are on full display in GRRM’s work, and how appropriate those elements are for our “post-truth” culture.
And while we need the unflinching honesty of ASOIAF, I would also argue that we equally need the unflinching courage and hope that Tolkien’s legendarium exemplifies. My default dispositions are cynicism and despair. Such attitudes are not difficult to come by, but nor are they useful — they do not bring healing or change, but simply perpetuate the pain, loneliness, and animosity that characterizes much of public and private life.
Call it naive, escapist, or whatever you will, but I read these books — and write this blog — because I believe that there is good worth believing in.
So keep holding on to hope without assuranceHolding on to a memory of lightBut will the morning come?For all I know we’ll never see the sunBut together we’ll fight the long defeat
Oddly enough, inspiration for those lyrics came from Tolkien as well.
So this “blogging consistently” thing is really hard. Anyway, hope you’ve had a good March. Mine was great, albeit hectic. Family visiting, friends getting married, wife starting new job at W+R Studios (yes, we work together now). All wonderful things, that sometimes mean neglecting other activities, like writing here. I was hoping to do some holy week reflections, but even then, the ideas aren’t necessarily restricted to holy week. I have a list of blog ideas, that will be related to things I read or thought about days or even weeks ago. I’m terrible at the “hot take” or “real time” thing. Probably for the best.
Edited by author Robin Sloan, Penumbra’s New Fiction periodically publishes digital fiction, but with a twist — it can’t actually be read “digitally”. Rather, readers are required to print the stories themselves. The current story, “The Unbeatable Deck of Ronan Shin”, is more than worth your while. A story about a Magic the Gathering-like game, friendship, and bullying. It’s fascinating and uncomfortable. At 8 pages, it’s worth the few minutes it takes to read.
Penumbra’s New Fiction is also an interesting exercise in what publishing on the internet could look like. It’s a reminder that the web is still a place where beauty and creativity can surprise us.
Role models are fine. But not when they get in the way of embracing our reality. The reality of not enough time, not enough information, not enough resources. The reality of imperfection and vulnerability.
There are no movie stars. Merely people who portray them now and then.
I always appreciate Seth Godin’s candor. Someone as successful and respected as he is could pitch their advice as a fool-proof framework for excellence and success in one’s work—indeed, many do.
“Imposter syndrome” is a term that gets thrown around a lot amongst software developers. It’s the mindset that we are not good enough, not a “real” programmer. We could think this way for any number of reasons—lack of formal CS education, lack of experience, lack of knowledge around the cool new framework that everyone is talking about on Hacker News, lack of concern about what anyone even says on Hacker News, etc.
It’s easy to look at other, more experienced programmers and think that they have it all figured out. Yet some of the most profound things I’ve learned have come from hearing senior devs admit they don’t have an answer for the technical or architectural problem at hand.
My boss once told me that as I progress in my software development career, I’ll come across increasing problems for which there is no blog post, no tutorial, no Stack Overflow answer, and that that is where the most interesting growth happens.
Although we should work against the shame and deleterious effects it entails, “imposter syndrome” shouldn’t be confused for humility. Rather, by embracing our not-enough-ness and vulnerability, we can avoid hubris, learn, grow, and make something good.
Seven days in and March is proving to be a hectic month, full of good things, but full of things nonetheless. I haven’t allotted myself the time I normally do for ruminating. That said, I feel I ought to share/reflect on David Zahl’s reflection on Andrew Sullivan’s essay on America’s opioid epidemic. Admittedly, I haven’t read Sullivan’s piece in its entirety, but DZ’s thoughts on it are worth sharing nonetheless. There are lots of gems in there, but I thought this passage especially poignant. Writing about how in our culture (and churches), we prefer to avoid addressing the real problems ailing us, he states:
…we opt instead for false positivity or spiritual to-do lists. It’s acceptable to preach a topical sermon on marriage (on the right) or racism (on the left) but not… despair. Which is, ironically, the most relevant topic of all when it comes to the Christian religion.
If, as Zahl argues, the current epidemic can’t be reduced to its political and economic factors (relevant though they may be), but reflects a much deeper crisis of widespread despair, then the response of Christians ought to be one that addresses that despair with countervailing hope.
Readers who don’t share my beliefs may find such assertions ludicrous, if not offensive. The response is fair and warrants another conversation entirely, one I’d be glad to have. But at the same time, I would argue that the deepest need of our time is grace in a world bereft of it.
And I think that’s what I’m trying to communicate with this blog—exploring how to think and live and treat others with grace in a world where disagreement is thought of as violence and political leaders flex their nuclear muscles on social media and billionaires launch their cars into space. My hope, I guess, is to see how truly transient these things are—and how the apparent madness of our time needn’t have the final say. Indeed, it won’t. I’ll close with DZ’s close:
The gospel, if it is to find traction in the age of fentanyl, must speak to the Crystal Champs of the world. It cannot stop at sobriety or hang on willpower; it must resonate in the Wet House as well as the dry. This gospel, if it is to be actual good news, must address men and women whose hearts and bodies are infected with all manner of trouble, bereft of hope, who see God as an exacting cop (if at all), not a loving father who meets us where we are, in our shame and sin, with mercy, help and the spirit of adoption.
Thankfully–and miraculously–it does. The gospel in the age of fentanyl is the same gospel as ever, the message about the God who intervenes upon us with outlandish charity, at a cost to himself, offering life eternal to those who’ve been checkmated by the here and now. Not one who gives hope to the hopeless, but who is hope to the hopeless.
I attempt to make a habit of blogging at least once per week, if not twice. Given that the last post was published nearly two weeks ago, it’s clear I did not meet last week’s goal. Oops.
The last week was more hectic than normal, so I’m going to give myself some grace. I’ve brainstormed some what else I’d like to see on here. Given that I haven’t used Facebook in years, and that I recently left Twitter, I’m floating the idea of having a newsletter subscription that notifies you of a new post, or just sends the entire contents of the post straight to your inbox. I’m also working on adding a blogroll.
I really like Warren Ellis’s notion of the “Republic of Newsletters”, as a not-quite countervailing but potentially antidotal force to the utter mess that is now social media. I still think blogs can serve the same purpose, but I understand that without a reader or some means to click “subscribe” it requires some seeking out, making it more susceptible to falling off readers' attentional radars. In a recent newsletter, Ellis listed some suggested alternatives to the now-defunct Google Reader that people still use to subscribe to RSS feeds. It’s all a matter of finding new ways to connect to the things you want without the platforms getting in the way.
And that’s what it seems like Facebook, Twitter, etc. are in the business of doing. Getting in the way. I can’t speak for Twitter, but it seems widely understood now that Facebook’s primary business is not showing you what you asked for but what it wants you to see—what it thinks will keep you more engaged. I was talking to a fellow developer a while ago, who pined for Instagram before “Facebook ruined” it. Sure, it shamelessly appropriated Snapchat’s features and lets you do funny things to people’s faces, but I miss the chronological display of what I asked to see. I don’t want an algorithm’s suggestions, or things I missed.
In contrast to the social media bazaar, writing blogs and newsletters can feel like dispatching messages in bottles from a remote island. But the web is not Facebook, or Instagram, or Twitter, or even Google. Writers, creators, artists, programmers, and everyone who wants to share something has options. Sure, potential visibility is impaired when you don’t use one of the major platforms, but even then, it’s only potential visibility — none of those services care whether or not your work is seen. Obviously, I’m not trying to market my writing, so I do have the luxury of not having to figure how to leverage those platforms to build an audience. Nonetheless, I’m content to write to whatever audience finds me here, in this quiet corner of the web. And given how noisy the major players make the world seem, I’m more than glad to keep things quiet over here.
In Free of Charge, theologian Miroslav Volf writes, “Left unchecked, the slide away from generosity robs us of significant cultural achievements, on which our flourishing as individuals and communities depends” (15).
The book was published back in ’05, before so many were aggressively thinkpiece-ing about political polarization, the deleterious effects of social media, fears of automation, etc. It was oddly prescient back then, and, having been written before the aforementioned hot topics were much of a thing, suggests that our current cultural malaise, real as it may be, is an issue of the human heart before all else; a spiritual problem that precedes a technological problem. Nonetheless, I think a slide away from generosity is one possible description of what our culture currently experiences.
My senior thesis in college was on the influence of Jonathan Edwards in the fiction of Marilynne Robinson, which included the theme of generosity — not just material generosity, but spiritual. The kind of generosity that assumes the best of others and seeks to give grace in spite of difference and disagreement. Such a disposition toward another person is profoundly challenging, and, as I argued back then, and still do, profoundly necessary.
We’ve achieved some great things. But before we tackle the big problems, perhaps we’d be wise to tackle the problems of our own miserliness toward one another.
Andy Weir’s Artemis can best be described as an organized crime thriller on the moon. It’s quite a departure from his Mars-survival-blog, The Martian, but enjoyable nonetheless. Those who enjoyed his first book for its intricate technical aspects might find themselves wanting when reading Artemis. The details and descriptions are there, but the plot is what drives the narrative, not the engineering.
Nonetheless, I enjoyed living in the head of protagonist Jazz Bashara. She has all the wit, gumption, and intellect of Mark Watney, and is in some ways more developed as a character. I don’t think I enjoyed this novel more or less than The Martian, I just enjoyed it differently. I’m excited to see what story Andy Weir engineers next.
I’m starting to become less patient with nostalgia.
I get it. I enjoy playing Goldeneye and revisiting Nickelodeon cartoons. I remember when X-Men and Batman Begins were released, and they heralded exciting new possibilities that didn’t feel like they were being rehashed every summer.
But at the same time, many of the people I know who thrive on nostalgia, seem hell-bent on just rehashing the past.
A complaint I recently heard about Star Wars: The Last Jedi was that it was just Disney trying to make money on new characters that “no one cares about”. Yet there are people who care about the new characters, more particularly kids. Kids who are the same age that my friend who voiced the complaint likely was when they first watched A New Hope.
According to the Dictionary app on my Macbook (using the New Oxford American Dictionary), the word “nostalgia” seems to have entered English usage in the late 19th century, initially meaning “acute homesickness”. I certainly can empathize with nostalgia at a much deeper level when considered in that sense.
But perhaps part of maturation is to build a home for oneself and one’s own. To continue to create memories in the present.
Another good friend pointed out that the way he stopped being disappointed in movies was that he stopped expecting to undergo an experience by them. He instead learned to embrace them on their own terms.
And perhaps the cure for nostalgia is to embrace what is in front of us instead of pining and mourning for the experience of the past. It’s not like we cultivated such cherished memories by mourning the past then.
Aside from blogging here, I’ve been trying to build my writing habit by working on a short story. I wrote some short stories while in college, and thoroughly enjoyed it.
My best friend, Collin, writes quite a bit. He credits me with initially inspiring him to write, but he has since far surpassed me in quantity of output, and, I would argue, quality. Although he doesn’t code, he said he imagined storytelling and programming to be similar disciplines, or for there at least to be an overlap in skills and practice.
I think his hunch is true.
A bit of advice sometimes given to writers is to stop writing in the middle of a scene, or a point of tension in the narrative. That way you have something to work with when you return to it.
I’m finding a similar practice has been helping me with programming lately. I’m currently working on a tool for importing legacy configurations into a new schema in a new system, and trying to use test-driven development while doing it. The whole export/import system is fairly involved, taking me more than a day to build, and starting the day with a new function or component to write without knowing exactly what you want it to do, let alone how, can be fairly daunting.
In the spirit of true TDD, I write a failing test that expects a certain output, and then code the feature until the test passes. But, instead of spending tomorrow morning determining the “shape” of data I want and writing a new test, I ended today by writing a failing test, giving me an explicit objective to complete in the morning. I’ll admit it felt uncomfortable leaving this undone, but having something clear to accomplish in front of my when I start my day tends to be very motivating, and provides fuel when moving on to each successive task.
Never underestimate the power of interdisciplinary insights.
In “Damage”, from his collection What Are People For?, Wendell Berry writes—
The trouble was a familiar one: too much power, too little knowledge.
The context of the phrase, the “trouble”, was a section of woods floor sliding down a hillside into a pond the winter after he decided to level some of the forest for pasture.
Toward the end of the essay, he also writes—
Only when our acts are empowered with more than bodily strength do we need to think of limits.
As a technologist, it might be ironic that Berry’s pastoral and agrarian experience brings wisdom to bear on my profession. I wonder how many software projects go awry because we fail to understand the purpose and proper implementation of the wide array of tools at our disposal, or the business domain of the problem our programs try to solve.
Technology, by its very nature, empowers us to act beyond our bodily strength, and software is no exception. Berry might be inclined to look askance at my profession, but his point deserves consideration nonetheless. We can do impressive things with software, but the freedom and possibility that our tools give us should prompt us to think of limits — financial, societal, and ethical. We should not fear discussing and exploring controversial or innovative ideas, but we must consider our responsibility to those whom the ideas might affect, and how it might affect them. As programmers, we frequently discuss “soft skills” alongside technical skills, and how we ought to cultivate them. Perhaps we should add knowledge of “moral skill” to the category of soft skills. Both ourselves and our users would benefit. Berry warns in the essay that the damage done to the land is also damage to himself.
He also writes—
When the road of excess has reached the palace of wisdom it is a healed wound, a long scar.
May we learn from the excesses of others and take a different road altogether.
A recent episode of Virtue in the Wasteland mentioned the notion of a “newspaper renaissance” on the heels of a discussion about the anxiety induced by the perceived exigency of mobile news alerts.
There seems to be increasing awareness and discussion surrounding the mentally and socially corrosive nature of social media. I haven’t used Facebook for almost 5 years now, and removed myself from Twitter last year. I still maintain a private Instagram profile, but don’t even have the app installed.
I’m finding enjoyment in newspapers myself. The LA Times' e-newspaper is delivered to my inbox daily, and soon the print version of the Sunday edition will be delivered my front door. I don’t read the whole thing, and I don’t feel the need to. And, contrary to the designs devised by UX researchers for all of your favorite apps, it’s not engineered to make me feel that need. In many ways, it’s the antithesis of the algorithmically generated feed – static, focused, and rhythmic. It’s not perpetually updated or A/B tested. And in many (though not all) ways it feels like an antidote the to the malaise of a perpetual noise cycle.
Some might find it ironic that a software developer eschews new media in favor of something old and established. On the contrary, some of the best principles and practices of software development are rooted in tried and true practices (object-oriented programming, SOLID, KISS, etc.). Knowing that might help the unfamiliar reader better understand my disposition toward old and boring things.
Furthermore, restricting the form of my news intake has practical benefits for my work; the less noise, the greater the ease of concentration. And anyone who has programmed software will tell you the importance of focus in deep work. Cal Newport has written extensively on this.
Many of our distractions and anxieties are engineered for us. Do what you must to curb them, and let your work and life flourish on your terms.
Jenoa and I recently returned from a three-week trip back east to visit my extended family for the holidays. I love the tri-state area; the trees, the cold, the food. I now desire a Taylor Ham, egg, and cheese on a roll and resent its being beyond my reach.
And yet I’m glad to be here again. Despite my complaints about Southern California, it is home. Despite the dryness, the traffic, the sense of inescapable crowdedness, it is home. I look forward to new projects, old friends, and ongoing living. Sunday morning church services, Saturday night games and drinks. Weeknight meals with Jenoa.
Strange as it my sound, I look forward to work. It’s a blessing that I get to solve interesting problems daily alongside thoughtful and energizing people.
I thrive on quotidian rhythms. I hope to add blogging to them again, alongside a few other projects. And I value the place where I experience these rhythms, the place that nourishes the roots of who am I and what I do.