Over-thinking

I'll take a brief departure from my usual material to give you a glimpse inside my mind.  I'm the kind of guy that over-thinks small things.  If you're ever trying to have a conversation, and I seem distant, chances are I'm just thinking about something really stupid.  This week's blog is an example of the stupid stuff I think about.  Listen to this song:

You've probably heard this song.  I heard it again, as I have many times, while driving home at night from a friends' house.  I got stuck on the lyrics of the chorus:

It's only in my dreams

That I can Change the worldI would be the sunlight in your universeYou would think my love was really something goodBaby, if i could change the world

So the question for me became, why is it only in his dreams?  There's basically two options here:

• The artist's love is not good enough.  The artist has the rapt attention of his intended lover, but he's just not quite good enough of a man.  Perhaps he's inattentive, or he doesn't have the means to provide for her, or maybe he's got demons he needs to work out.  Regardless, he wishes his love were good enough to satisfy his lover, but it isn't.  This is supported by the second verse of the song;

If I could be king, even for a day
I'd take you as my queen
I'd have it no other way
And our love would rule
this kingdom we have made
Til' then i'll be a fool
Wishing for the day

The imagery of him being a king highlights the idea that he needs something else in order to get his way.  He needs an outside source of empowerment, and once that happens, he can finally satisfy the woman he would make queen.  Until then, he becomes a fool.  He doesn't become lonely, he just becomes a fool.

• The artist has the love he needs, but he doesn't have the girl yet.  He knows he could get the job done if he just had the chance, but the girl either doesn't know him, or more likely, doesn't think of him "that way."  I've grown up surrounded by emotional boyhood songs lamenting these dreaded fates.  This theory is supported by the first verse;

If I could reach the stars
Pull one down for you
Shine it on my heart
So you could see the truth
That this love I have inside
Is everything it seems
But for now I find
It's only in my dreams

In this alternate reality, we see the artist going to great lengths just to get the right attention drawn on him.  The star he reaches up and pulls down is a source bright enough to illuminate the love hidden in his heart, which apparently she hasn't yet been able to see.  It would be undeniable; she'd have to finally see how much better she could have it with him.

What does this song say about love, furthermore?  This artist has the potential to be anything, and he chooses to be sunlight.  Don't get me wrong, I like sunlight; it lets me see outside my window, it gives me Vitamin D, and it saves us all energy since we don't have to turn the lights on.  That said, it's something I take for granted.   I'm not really thankful for sunlight, but rather, I just assume it will always be there.  Is this what the artist thinks that love is?  One would have to presume so.  Since this is the case, we get a bleak picture of the artist.  He is so desperate for his lover that even being taken for granted would be a huge upgrade over his situation.

Is there a right answer?  Probably not; I think it's a mix of both.  The artist is probably a good friend of the subject, who burns passionately for her but is also unable to get the courage to actually put that passion into action.  Thus, we're left with actually a pretty sad image of a man who is literally wishing upon a star for love to fall into his lap.  All we can hope is that this song is actually sung to the woman in question, and not simply lamented into the nothingness of space.

I wonder if I'm the only one who spends way too much time thinking of nonsense like this.

Equal Entertainment

These days, I find myself pressed for time.  It's not necessarily because I have so many worthwhile things to do, but more because I have a lot of worthless things that I want to do, and limited time to do them.  Occasionally among this list of worthless things comes a show I want to watch.  I know that if I want to catch up on a show that I've heard good things about, it will take many hours of sitting around and watching the show.  This is time that I could spend doing more worthwhile things; working out, writing, reading, etc.  The difference between then and now is that TV is slowly becoming a worthwhile endeavor.

How often are you told that you should be watching a show?  I'm guilty of doing this occasionally.  Certain shows are extremely entertaining, like Community.  Others are historically relevant, like Band of  Brothers.  Others have very well written suspense and drama, like The Wire or Breaking Bad.  The fact of the matter is that, as TV evolves, more shows come along that hold real artistic value.  Time is drawing near when watching TV will be considered just as valuable as reading a book.

It's already here to some extent.  One of the more popular book series out there is the Twilight series.  Without getting too much into a "Twilight Sucks" rant, I think I can safely say that the novel series isn't one which is designed to teach the world grand lessons.  Rather, it's supposed to be good fun.  There's a reasonable argument to be had that watching a TV series like Planet Earth, or even Mad Men.  Mad Men is a much more culturally relevant, engaging, and smart series than Twilight is.  

So what does this all mean?  When do we actually accept TV as a legitimate way to invest your time, as opposed to a distraction which needs to be limited?  When will books and TV be considered the same, if ever?

The Final Soul Blazing

The women in my family have had a tenuous relationship with video games in the past.  My oldest sister has basically never played them, my Mom played Mario once to the rest of our delight, and my other sister Stephanie only played a scant few games.  She would play Mario and other easy to pick up/easy to put down games.  There was one long RPG that she would play; Soul Blazer.

Look at this game.  This is a game where you have to free the gosh darn Freilians, and make that jerk Deathtoll pay.  What else do you need to know?  For those of you with no sense of heroism, Soul Blazer was a Legend of Zelda knockoff where you romped through dungeons killing monsters and freeing the humans trapped inside.  Once you did all that, you'd kill a boss, and move to the next area and do the same.  It was pretty fun, if not that innovative.

Stephanie played this game...a lot.  She must have played it at least six or seven times all the way through, which is not a feat to be underestimated.  Each playthrough was at least fifteen hours of gameplay, depending on if you wanted to make sure you did everything along the way.  Each time she played the game, she named the main character (a boy) after whatever boy she currently had a crush on.  There were so many that I couldn't even remember the names of all them.  Furthermore, for as long as we were kids, she could never defeat any of the bosses.  They were kinda tough, and she'd rather the monotony of doing the regular levels rather than toil away at the bosses, so she'd ask me to do them for her.  This continued through High School, and even College.  She borrowed my Super Nintendo, and played, and at some point I'd beat a boss for her, and she'd go back to the game.  One day, though, everything changed.  I got a call from her about four years ago.

Stephanie: "Andy, I gotta tell you something."

Me: "What is it, sis?"

Stephanie: "I beat Soul Blazer...by myself!"

There are a few constants of the world I must cling to in order for my life to make sense.  God exists, he sent his son to die, and he loves me.  The earth spins a little more than 365 times for each lap around the sun it takes.  2 + 2 does not equal 5.  Stephanie can not beat Soul Blazer.  All this is known.  When Stephanie told me she beat Soul Blazer, I plum didn't believe it.  I had to see for myself.  The next trip I made to her place, I demanded to see the game.  Sure enough, she had beat the game, by herself.  Her fiance assured me that he had no part in it, but little did he know how much of a part he had.  In fact, not only did he beat all the bosses, he beat everything else, without knowing it.

The character was named after him.

I think there's something symbolic there.  After years of trying to beat the game with characters named after a hodge podge of current crushes and daydream fantasies, she finally won.  She saved the world, and it's all thanks to a hero named Bob.  If I were allowed a speech at her wedding, this would have been the tale I was told.  It would have been grand and magnificent.

Maybe it's better that I was kept silent during the reception.

And then I stopped

When I was in High School I ran a lot.  I've mentioned this in the past.  For a while it was my main source of pride and happiness.  I ran because I was good at it, and it made me feel like I was accomplishing something in my life.  By the time my Senior Year rolled around, I had realized that I wasn't happy running.  This also fueled the realization that God needed to be the source of my happiness rather than sport.  Anyways, when I entered college, it caused me to have to make a decision; do I keep running for the sake of being good at something, or stop?

When I had decided to go to College of San Mateo (the local Junior College), the coach had actually "recruited" me, if you will.  Obviously there would be no scholarships to a JC, but the coach wanted me to be a key piece on his Cross Country/Track teams for the next two years.  He assured me that if I ran to the best of my ability, it would help me nail down a scholarship to a school whenever I decided to transfer.  At this point, running wasn't just a source of pride; it could actually be a source of saved money.  There was a tangible benefit to running.

Why would I not run, then?  The reason is simple; I hated it.  I just didn't like the way I felt when I was done, and I didn't like the person I was becoming when I invested myself into running.  I knew that if I hated the person I had become when only investing pride, then I would become an absolutely despicable person when I was investing personal well-being.

What won out?  Did I put aside my fears of becoming a worse person in favor of trying to secure a better place in the world?  Or did I realize that the benefits were shaky at best, and that personal happiness was more important?  As you may have guessed, I opted for the latter.  If/When I entered a four year university, I wanted it to be because I had earned it academically.  I wanted to be a man whose academic accomplishments were worth something.

You ever had one of those times when you're procrastinating, and you justify it because "Well, I'm a strong person, and I'll get it done when the time comes?"  I did that often.  The problem was that I never actually "did it".  I just liked the idea that Andy was a superman who could always grit it out with determination and awesomeness.  Sadly, there was little awesomeness left in the well to draw from.  The time would come, and I'd just flake and blow it.

What does this have to do with running?  I knew that if I kept on running, then I would never become the man who gets it done when times were rough.  I wouldn't actually challenge myself to learn valid skills and focus in the classroom; I would be the same immature boy who relied on empty promises to myself rather than actual hard work to accomplish things.  If I was going to go anywhere, I had to learn how to work hard.  I didn't work hard when I ran; I just did what the coach told me and then ran the race.

I'm glad I made the decision I did.  I stopped running, and it forced me to learn how to study, how to meet deadlines, and how to actually do things when I said I would do them.  God used that period to reform me.  He took a man who had no idea what gave him happiness and showed him how to work for the Lord.  I learned how to show my joy in the Lord by working hard, and I became a man of my word.

Are sports and running things that are inherently bad?  Not at all.  Idolatry, though, takes many forms.  Whatever you put in front of your relationship with the lord, or whatever you draw happiness from aside from God, is an idol.  The Lord showed this to me, and helped me cut it off so that I could instead draw my pride and satisfaction from what Jesus has done.  If there's anything I've gained from running, it's that it can't really fill me up, and I'm thankful for knowing that for sure.

Learning the Lesson

So I went out to see Moneyball, right?  Fun time; good movie.  The movie talks a lot about taking walks in baseball.  The idea is that a walk is, most of the time, just as good as a hit, since either way you end up on base which is the most important part.  The idea of taking a walk is a strange one, though.  I remember when I was  a little kid I loved taking the walk.  When I was in 3rd grade, I played baseball.  I was a member of the AAA Twins, and I think we were pretty good.  I was the shortest kid on the team, and after just a few weeks I realized that I got on base a lot more often when I didn't swing the bat.  You see, AAA was the first level when the kids pitched for themselves, and it was hard to throw a ball inside the strike zone of a kid that's right around 4 feet tall.  I loved getting on base, because when you were on base you got to run around (and even steal bases!)  As I've mentioned in the past, running was kind of my thing, so I wanted to do whatever it took to let me run.  I didn't really learn much about baseball though.

Flash forward to a couple years ago.  I was umpiring a AAA game for San Ramon Little League.  When I umpire that age group, the strike zone I call is gigantic.  If that kid can hit it, and it isn't at his eyeballs or on the ground, it's probably a strike.  This is to encourage the kids to swing the bat.  The pitchers have fun when they put the ball past the batter, the fielders have fun when they get to field the ball, and kids get to run around.  Everyone wins.  Nonetheless, on my way out, I was barked at by a bitter parent who was questioning the educational value of calling a gigantic strike zone.  I, in turn, questioned the value of sticking the bat on the shoulder and taking a free pass.  I knew I had done it when I was a kid.  I didn't really learn much about baseball though.

I wonder if this shaped my view of baseball at all.  I'm a huge fan of sabermetrics these days, and I know the value of the walk.  To me, it doesn't matter if you try the hardest on the field or if you're the nicest guy; what matters is that you put runs up for your team and stop the other team from doing the same.  I came to this conclusion after reading books like Moneyball and Baseball Prospectus, and through normal rational thought.  The question is, why do I think kids should swing the bat and adults should take the walk?  Is it better that I help the kids have fun rather than get results, and I think the opposite for adults?  At which point do I flip the switch and start taking the walk?  I feel like I haven't really learned much about baseball.

Pickiness and Potatoes

Were you a picky eater when you were a kid?  I was.  Fortunately the pickiness always fleshed itself out in easy to manageable ways.  For instance, when I wanted a sandwich, I wanted bread with mayonnaise and the cheap sliced turkey.  That's it.  If I was really feeling adventurous I might want lettuce.  If you had mayo and turkey, I could live for days.  Sometimes, though, my pickiness had dire consequences.  Let me tell you about mashed potatoes.

Let me say this first off: I like mashed potatoes (now.)  After many years, I grew to like the buttery texture and absorbant flavor, and have realized that my Mom really does make great mashed potatoes.  This was not always the case.  Certainly my Mom always made great mashed potatoes, but I didn't know.  When I was young, all I knew was that mashed potatoes were gross as all heck.  The texture was creepy and the flavor was sickening.  I knew I wanted no part of them.  I was probably five or six years old one day when Mom made the fateful mistake of forcing me to eat them.

It was a family dinner like many others.  The six of us were huddled around the table, and in front of me was a full plate of food, including a heaping helping of potatoes.  I told Mom, quite abruptly, that no mashed potatoes would be eaten that night.  If anyone else wanted to have their fill of the abomination, by all means, I won't stop them.  I, though, refused to eat such filth.  Mom, being the ever wise one, told me I had to eat the potatoes.  I get it now; she just wanted me to get over my irrational fear of potatoes and eat them because they tasted good and were healthy.  Nope.  I refused to cave.  She insisted.

You ever try to go toe to toe in logic with a child?  You know that at any time the child could cave in and do something so unthinkable that it throws the argument out the window.  I had to do that; I resorted to threats.  "Mom, if you make me eat those potatoes, I will throw up."  I meant it, too.  Mom wasn't having any of it.  I reinstated my claim.  "Mom, if you make me eat those potatoes, I will throw up."  I was told, once again, to eat the potatoes.  I was told I'd like them, and I saw my whole family enjoying them.  I had to teach them a lesson.

You probably have two outcomes swirling in your head right now: one where I cave in and enjoy them, and one where I eat them and return them from whence they came.  This, unfortunately, is a story of the latter.  I did eat those potatoes, and I returned them back towards the center of the table in the fastest way possible.  It was a revolting sight.  Nonetheless, Mom insisted on this dance again.  We debated the merits of the potatoes, and I once again consumed/unconsumed them.  From that day on, Mom never forced me to eat anything.

It took me until mid way through High School to enjoy a potato that wasn't French Fried.  I stayed picky, and enjoyed mayonnaise and turkey sandwiches.  Heck, I'll probably eat one of those this afternoon.  The point here is that when you try to match logic with a child incapable of reason, you'll probably get burned.  Mom knew that she had to pick her battles with her kids, and I guess that day she realized that with a possible outcome like that, foods were no longer a worthy battle to fight.

Dad, Still

Most people identify themselves as Morning or Night people.  For whatever reason, people always feel like they get better work done at one extreme or the other.  Me, personally, I feel I'm a night person.  It's almost as if the world has gone to sleep, and I'm finally free to just dump thoughts onto paper.  I need to have a free and clear mind from other work in order to really let it flow.  My Dad, on the other hand, is a morning person.  He claims he wakes up instinctively at 4 AM, sometimes 3, due to habit.  I don't know why we're so different in that regard, but you can't say he didn't try to make me a morning person.

When I was young, I remember waking up early on either Saturday or Sunday morning to play video games with my Dad.  The rest of the family was asleep, so the only ones to wake up were my pseudo-nocturnal Pops and me, the youngest kid in the family.  We'd wake up, drive to Happy Donuts in Belmont (I believe it was called Wild Bill's back then) and grab breakfast before going to play games.  Typically in the beginning we'd go off to my Dad's work, where his tech-savvy co-worker Don had a bunch of computer games stored on his computer.  Old adventure stuff mostly; I remember King's Quest being one of them.  Typically I'd play a game, and Dad would watch.

As an aside, there's something awesome about having your parents just sit and watch you do things.  When I started helping out with Jr. High, I remember I was told that the kids will grow to like you just because at that age it's cool to have an adult care about what you're doing.  I don't know what it is about having people watch and care and encourage you, but when it's an adult you respect (especially a parent) it really means something else.

So anyways, Dad watching me play video games was special.  Eventually the owner of the business (my Grandpa) caught wind of the games, and banned them from the office.  What a curmudgeon.  Anyways, the locale switched to my home.  The weekend gaming took on a new tone at that point; it was gaming in quiet because I wasn't allowed to wake my family.  The quiet was what permeates my thoughts of those days.  My Dad and I didn't always talk a ton.  Well, I should say, I talked a ton, and my Dad listened.  Perhaps the video gaming was a way for my Dad to enjoy my company without having to listen to me yammer on incessantly about Calvin and Hobbes or whatever occupied my six-year-old mind at the time.

There just isn't enough quiet these days.  I still talk too much, I play video games, and I still eat donuts, but I don't have the quiet enough.  Dad always brought the quiet.  When things went wrong, I could count on Dad to come in, bring the quiet, and slow things down to the point that they could be sorted out.  I think of Psalm 46:10.

He says, “Be still, and know that I am God;
   I will be exalted among the nations,
   I will be exalted in the earth.”

 I admire a lot about my Dad, but his ability to be still, quiet, and listen to God is definitely up near the top of the list.  Even in trivial things like playing video games, Dad was always there to be still and just listen to what was going on around him.  I really need to start taking in more of his wisdom.