Philosophizing

Over dinner last night, a couple of close friends and I discussed the consequences of getting to know people — getting to know more people, specifically. We were “philosophizing,” as my wife puts it, which usually entails profound aphorisms like, “There are those who want to make things better, and there are those who want to make things better for themselves. Sometimes, it’s hard to tell the difference.” (I’ll sheepishly raise my hand to take credit/blame for that one.)

But our propensity to solve the world’s problems over a bottle of wine was a comfort to my friend. “See, this is why I don’t have any reason to keep making more friends,” my buddy said. “I’m not going to have better conversations with other people.”

I wondered about the sentiment behind the words: The notion that, at some stage in our lives, we would do better to focus on the depth of a few relationships, rather than seek out new friendships that may or may not pan out. Quality over quantity, let’s say.

The idea is grounded in Dunbar’s number, which essentially states that our brains limit us to social groups no larger than 150 people. This contradicts the notion that, through social media, we can maintain relationships with thousands of people, even if they consist of nothing more than knowing what we’re all eating for breakfast.

Then today, I saw this commercial while absentmindedly watching one of those shows where a lot of people make faces at each other, then go out and work for 20 minutes and make a gazillion dollars.

While I tend to agree with the YouTube comment that puts it eloquently, “I like this commercial but lol @ baby boomers being anything other than the generation that ruined America,” I thought there was a lot of truth in the central idea of the commercial. There isn’t much substance in many of our “networked” relationships. I might know from Facebook that my friend’s dad had just sold 50 pounds of honey in three days as a newly minted apiarist. But I wouldn’t know how much that meant to a man who had bounced from one job to the next, if I hadn’t heard my friend tell it to me over steak and asparagus.

Don’t get me wrong: there is value in getting to know more and different people as we go through life. Earlier in the week, another friend mentioned he was intentionally getting to know people outside of politics, in an attempt to keep from continually revisiting the same topics, stresses and gossip that crop up within such circles. I try to do the same, but in those moments I find myself revisiting friendships forged first in middle school (mainly because I know that I can’t possibly be more awkward than when we first met). Those are wells I can draw from every now and then, because we drilled them a long time ago. They are deep, even if the water might taste a little musty (it’s the nostalgia).

I just wonder if we might be a little better off if we stopped making so many “friends,” and instead focused on making a few of those friendships better. It might not lead to as many party invitations, but we also wouldn’t have to worry about making as many excuses.

 

A toast to my brother

Photo courtesy of The Photography Collection

My brother married his longtime love on Saturday, and I had the privilege of serving as his best man. Below is the toast I gave at the reception.

Even though I am Micah’s older brother, I can’t say that I have always understood him. When he was a toddler, for instance, I didn’t understand why Micah was so fascinated by the contents of his diaper – and I especially didn’t understand why he felt the need to share them with the rest of us. Let’s just say Micah showed his artistic talents at an early age by proving that he could work in any medium. His art, as they say, was truly organic.

As we were growing up, I didn’t understand Micah’s curiosity. Whether it was getting his head stuck in the stairwell, dining room chairs and just about anything else; stuffing holly berries up his nose; enjoying the culinary delights of wild mushrooms from our backyard; or trying to see just how far his fingers could get sucked into the elevator doors at Disney World, Micah never stopped exploring the limits of his own humanity. Unfortunately, often those limits had to be explained to him by a medical professional.

As we got a little older, I didn’t understand how my little brother suddenly became someone I liked to be around. We played outside for hours, talked about sports and superheroes, and rode our bikes throughout the neighborhood. I didn’t understand how he could draw the X-Men just like they were in the comic books, while mine always had arms that were 10 times as big as their heads. I found myself wanting to be Micah’s friend, not his superior. I started to understand what it meant to be an older brother, and how the unique relationship between us couldn’t be duplicated with anyone else.

By the time I went to college and Micah was in high school, I didn’t understand why Micah studied all the time. He literally rewrote his U.S. History textbook – I know, because I saw it. I didn’t understand why he wouldn’t give himself a moment’s rest as he pursued college scholarships, developed multiple art portfolios, practiced piano and studied the Bible. I didn’t understand why he wouldn’t just take a break. What I didn’t understand was that Micah was determined to do the best he possibly could in every endeavor, and that the little details that most of us overlook truly mattered to him.

 

Tennessean is Tenne-grieving

Today I found out that my former employer is imposing yet another round of layoffs, this time threatening to gut the newsroom beyond recovery. There is a lot to be said about how those cuts will impact power, corruption and development in Nashville and Tennessee, but there will be time later to speak of the abstract. Tonight, I’m just too darn sad for the people who are there now to care about anything else.

I went through three rounds of layoffs in my three years at the Tennessean, including a merciless bloodletting that occurred while I was on vacation. I was either too young, too stupid or both to think that I could ever be impacted by such events; I was right only in the sense that I cost too little in my early years for my termination to produce any real savings for the company. It seems the notion of “last in, first out” never occurred to me — or to management.

But the continued cuts affected everyone long after the pink slips were distributed. Eventually, the combination of abysmal morale and utter hopelessness was too much for me to overcome, and I took a different path. Since then, many of my closest friends at the Tennessean have also left, although some remain. There was a mini-exodus at one point, but with the Pulitzer finalist announcement, there had been reason to hope again. Some folks had actually returned in recent months, eager to once again make meaningful contributions while praying that the worst was behind the paper.

It wasn’t, and it won’t be for a while now.

 

Rose Ceremonies are for Suckers

Tonight Lindsey and I were eating dinner after a long day, and she reminded me of the times we would watch trashy TV and make fun of it. I reminded her that we in fact did that last night, when we watched Miss Tennessee lose to Miss California in the Miss USA Pageant, or, as I like to call it, “The Amazing Race to Coherently Complete a Sentence.”

But that didn’t stop us from watching The Bachelorette, which, while not as enjoyable as its more popular and skinnier older sister, is still some quality prime-time ridiculousness. I always enjoy when Ultimate Bro Host Chris Harrison reminds contestants to ask themselves if they are on the show for the “right reasons.” Presumably UBHCH is implying they should be on the show for love, which I would argue is exactly the wrong reason to go on a show that consists primarily of drinking and frolicking in international tourist traps. The right reason would be something along the lines of, “To launch a short-lived, D-list celebrity career that culminates in at least a dozen tabloid magazine cover appearances, three cable reality contests and the presentation of a TV Guide Award.” (Those still exist, right?) Maybe not the most noble reasons, but the right reasons given the environment.

I imagine that part of the show’s appeal is to convince us that all the pretty people are actually pretty messed up, because they’re looking for love/fame in the most ludicrous way possible. In comparison, our lives are pretty good. I might not get to jump off waterfalls in Costa Rica or have a picnic in the Serengeti, but I get to hold a beautiful, loving woman in one arm and pet my absurdly loyal dog with the other as we all fall asleep on the couch in a safe, cool place. I get to share real kisses with the woman I love, not drunken makeouts with a woman I might like. I look over at her and know that she picked me for all the right reasons, and that I’m better for it.

I’ll take that over a TV Guide Award every single time.

 

Kidnapped

I have confessed to some of you recently that for the past several months, Lindsey and I have been following probably the most expensive telenovela in the history of Univision, Triunfo del Amor. I couldn’t begin to go into the myriad storylines, but I have narrowed them down to a few common themes:

1. Everyone is the son or daughter of someone other than their presumed parents;

2. Everyone has a son or daughter that they either don’t know about, or one that they discover is not theirs;

3. Everyone over the age of 16 will be either married or dead by the final episode.

The show’s female lead, Maria (of course), is about to be kidnapped thanks to the antagonist, a Catholic zealot who makes Cruella de Vil look like Mother Teresa. She orchestrates this effort from jail, thanks to various cronies who line up to work for her, even though everyone she associates with eventually ends up with a bullet in the face or a poker to the skull. I have always wondered why henchmen don’t inquire of their predecessors’ fates, but I guess even crooks gotta eat.

Unfortunately, kidnapping is nothing unusual in real-life Mexico, where violent drug wars have torn through the country. My last visit came in 2008, just a few months after a grenade went off in historic Morelia, the city I lived in during college. The blast killed seven or eight (or maybe more; the official count frequently changed) during an Independence Day celebration. Since then, things have only gotten worse; Mexico is now as dangerous as Iraq for journalists and just about everyone else. A few weeks ago, bodies were found strewn around the entrances of Morelia. They were the latest warning, except nobody is quite sure anymore who exactly is being warned.