ThomStratton.com

Looking back, it seems like I’ve been a bit negative this week. That may have been a by-product of some heavy pressure at work. One of our team is in the Army Reserve, and is being mobilized to go to Africa to assist in the Ebola fight over there. I’ve been assigned to drop what I’ve been doing and take up his workload, and we’ve had about two weeks to make the transition.

I certainly don’t mind, and I completely understand. I support our military, and I support sending them out to help relieve some of the suffering in the world. And this guy is a good guy. I appreciate his sacrifice. He’ll be away from his family for nine months, and he’ll have to miss his daughter’s high school graduation, among everything else. Staying here and picking up his work certainly seems the least I can do.

But that said, picking up his work has been stressful. It’s an entirely different part of the system we support, and my contact with it has been minimal thus far. There’s a lot of complexity, and a lot of messy edges. It’s not enough to just be able to do his work. There’s a lot of deeper understanding needed to be able to re-create his work. I began the two week countdown feeling like the fairy tale girl placed in a room full of straw and ordered to spin it into gold.

Fortunately I now feel like a farm girl placed in a room full of wool and told to spin it into thread. I understand the process involved, but I don’t have much experience with actually doing it yet. That will come. Unfortunately, it will come under fire. Our system roll-out continues apace, and they’re not going to slow down for li’l ol’ me. So yeah, even though I’m feeling okay about all of this, I’m still a little more stressed than usual.

But soon it’s the weekend! And so I leave you with, hopefully, a few things to make you smile.

Like the latest NFL Bad Lip Reading!

And a little Dr. Who parody:

Of Studio C’s “Breaking Bad” parody:

“I divided by zero.”

No wonder my daughter is freaking out about high school. It’s not high school itself that’s got her worried. It’s how her choices in high school will impact her ability to go to college. They started early on this school year pounding it into her and her fellow eight-graders that everything they do from here on will determine where she can go to college and whether or not she’ll be able to afford it. In typical teen fashion she’s been taking this to mean “one slip-up and you’re through.”

But I didn’t really understand just how heavily this message is getting pounded into them until last night. I accompanied her to a meeting at the high school discussing options for advanced academics. When I was in high school they had a handful of honors courses you could take, and three or four AP subjects you could for college credit. Today her high school is offering around 40 AP-focused classes, and around a dozen classes that can be taken for both high school and college credit.

This was all prefaced by a presentation where they presented statistics about how much better AP students do in college than regular students (I wasn’t entirely impressed. Sure, AP students average a 3.3 GPA, as opposed to a 2.5 GPA for regular students, but if they care enough about their education to take AP classes they’d likely be focused, motivated students that would get a 3.3 GPA even if they skipped the AP classes.) I could feel my daughter’s blood-pressure rise as she took this all in. “Take AP classes or you’ll fail college!” was the message I think she heard.

The other message I heard was that AP and CE (Concurrent Education, ie. the classes for both college and high school credit) classes save you money. This is undoubtedly true. The ability to pass some college classes before even going to college will reduce your tuition, certainly. But there, too, they’re mostly succeeding in convincing my daughter that she needs to start working a part time job at age fourteen to get enough money for college. Yikes! While I commend her for her dedication, I’d hate to see her have no fun at all for the next four years just so she can go to college and no longer remember how to have fun.

If her experience is typical, it’s no wonder kids go to college and lose their minds, getting involved in all sorts of stupid things. The focus seems to be on “cloister yourself now to ensure college success later” while totally forgetting that once you get to college you still need to perform. Eight years of high-intensity schooling just for a bachelors during a time in their lives when kids are still figuring out who they are can’t be healthy. It’s bound to lead to high-intensity partying just to keep from going totally bonkers.

And, assuming they make it that far, they still face a high rate of unemployment upon graduation, while facing mounds of student loan debt. I think we’re about to create a new “lost generation”.

On the way home I had a talk with my daughter and tried to reassure her we’re not expecting her to work herself to the bone during high school, and that we’ll find a way to help her get through college. I would hate to see her have no fun, have no further chances to explore and discover herself, because she’s so stressed out about getting into college. Being a kid is tough enough. We don’t have to go out of our way to make it worse.

What relevance does the State of the Union Address have any more? It’s just more political theater in which everyone cheers for their guy and (mostly) resists booing the others’ guy. It’s a chance to see how good a president is at telling lies with a straight face as they take credit for everything good that’s happened and distance themselves from, or blame the other side for, everything bad. It’s just another piece of performance art to convince us our politicians are really, really trying hard to make things better, while all the while they intend to start in again the next day doing the same old things.

I’m beginning to understand now why my dad always yelled at the TV set.

I always love the carefully-worded statements implying how “I’m in favor of warm hugs, puppies, and cocoa before bedtime, and if it were up to me we’d all have those, but my opposition keep getting in the way because they obviously hate puppies, hugs, and cocoa! It’s as if they’re totally oblivious–or rather expect us to be totally oblivious–to the fact that the trouble is not necessarily that the sides disagree over the result, but rather disagree over the means of getting to that result. Seriously, do they really expect us to believe that the other party is opposed to a strong economy?

In short, the SotU Address is the yearly event in which our political class attempts to get away with calling us stupid to our faces. They bury us in red tape and tell us its a ticker-tape parade in our honor.

For all the hype, the feel-good lines, and the vague, glowy promises, the only truth that came out last night was when President Obama stated that he isn’t running for office any more and a bunch of Republicans applauded. Obama fired back with something like, “I don’t need to, because I won twice.”

In spite of all the words, this moment revealed the truth about what is going to happen when they all get back to work today: more of the same sniping, name-calling, and childish behavior. I was embarrassed for both sides. That was low-class all the way, both the Republicans who started it and the President for refusing to rise above it. It’s a prime example of why Americans have a low opinion of both the President and the Congress. You could lower them all into a shark tank and they’d spend their last minutes arguing over which side most resembled the sharks and whose blood would be more American.

Is it any wonder why most Americans would probably support that a possible, or at least entertaining, solution?

It’s no secret that Disney is hard on parents. To be a Disney protagonist you have to have lost one or both of your parents, and chances if you still have one of them alive they will be clueless and largely uninvolved in your life.

Now, I realize that this is as much a simplification made neccessary by the medium as anything; do you really need two parents in a cartoon when every character you include takes dozens of people to include? Not if one will do. The same goes for plot. Do you really need two parents interfering with the protagonists destiny? Not really. And we can’t have them too “with it”, either, or their heroic offspring would be locked in their room instead of out having death-defying adventures and generally saving the world.

I’m bringing this up because last night our family watched Disney’s “Tarzan” for the first time. Only two out of six parents survive the movie. One of the dead was a “blocking figure” father who  provided the larger arc of Tarzan’s story: getting his “father” to accept him. And of course we can’t have him just accept him, it has to be on his death-bed. The on father that survived was of the largely-clueless and impotent variety who largely served as an excuse for Jane to be out in the jungle in the first place, and to give her permission to shack up with jungle-boy at the end. Jane’s mother was dead before the story even opens, and Tarzan’s birth parents were dead mere minutes into the movie.

I may be alone in this, but I really would have liked to have known more about Tarzan’s parents. How did they come to be on that ship? What happened to that ship in the first place? Who were they that they were able to build such a phenomenal house in such a short time?  (I realize Disney takes liberties here.) His mother was perhaps the loveliest character ever drawn by Disney, if you ask me–and I’m a guy who fell hard for Belle. His father seems like the ultimate man–even from what little we saw of him it seems highly unlikely a jaguar could have taken him down.

They both deserved so much better than the Disney standard “death and dismemberment” program. Theirs was a story I would have liked to have known–and have had turn out differently.

Okay, we’ve become accustomed to Hollywood crowding themselves into their risk-averse corner and producing mainly remakes, reboots, and movies from popular novels. But evidently TV, which in recent years has been the only place left to go for original, risk-taking entertainment, is beginning to follow suit. Fox has revealed plans to create a ’24’ continuation (sans Kiefer) and revival/reboots of ‘X-files’ and ‘Prison Break’.

No wonder I don’t have time for TV or movies any more. It’s an investment of time I can’t afford to make when when they really just want to show me the same old same old, re-prettified and updated for “modern sensibilities”, ie. sexed-up and explosion-packed.

Something I read recently mentioned the movie “Gone Girl”, which I knew nothing about. So I looked it up in Wikipedia, which is a great tool for finding out the plots of movies without ever having to waste my time watching them. Often there will be a section about the movie’s critical response. I was a bit surprised to find that this movie was pilloried by some groups as being anti-feminist, among other things. Based on the synopsis I read, if you could really say the movie was “anti” anything, it was anti-crazy-people.

But clearly we aren’t allowed to watch a movie as just a movie. Every movie is Important, and cannot be taken as just a small, personal story, but as representative of something larger and broader. Amy in “Gone Girl”, evidently, can’t just be Amy, who goes a little crazy, she’s supposed to be taken as Everywoman, and therefore anything negative she does is a slam against women and a sign of the writer/director’s misogyny.

Strange, but every time some group or another complains about the levels of sex or violence in a film many of the same people are quick to claim “Hey, it’s just a movie! It’s not meant to be viewed as anything but itself!”

Now, I’ve always thought that most human beings are able to tell truth from fiction and know that just because something happens in a movie doesn’t mean that it’s the same way in real life in every circumstance. I thought nearly everyone can figure out that just because Amy framed her husband as being abusive doesn’t mean that every woman who claims she’s been abused is lying. I was under the impression that people were able to evaluate situations on a case-by-case basis. Silly me.

Clearly, I’m behind the times and need to adjust my thinking yet again. So just to be clear:

• Sex in movies: Good
• Graphic violence in movies: Good
• Negative depictions of men: Good
• Negative depictions of women: Bad
• Decent plots in movies: Optional (so long as there is sex and/or violence and/or explosions)
• Critical thinking about movies: Unnecessary (You will be told what to think)

And people wonder why I don’t watch many movies.

I recently read “Yes, Please!” by Amy Poehler. Mostly she just convinced me that I really am weird. Granted, she is a comedian, and comedians can’t seem to resist being “edgy and original” by always swearing and talking about sex–just like every other comedian. But seriously, are real people so obsessed with sex and their naughty bits? Does everyone else enjoy admitting to having been high during many of the important events in their life, even while admitting they never want their kids to do drugs? Does anyone else find this sort of thing uncomfortable to read? No? Just me? Okay, that’s kinda what I expected. I am weird.

But I may have something of an ally in Poehler when it comes to pushing back and against the continued depersonalizing of culture by technology. Her final chapter, entitled “The Robots Will Kill Us All” seems to be saying that we are becoming far too dependent on our devices, which do not really care that much about us. She also provides a number of ideas on how to stave off our eventual elimination at the hands of robots, but the culminating idea is “Be more kind.”

Now I will hand it to Poehler. In spite of all her raunchiness and need to talk about her body, she does seem like a kind person. She speaks unkindly of very few people in her book. Much of it is spent praising many of the people who helped her get where she is. Some of it is telling on herself for times when she was not very kind. So I’m willing to give her the benefit of the doubt.

Unfortunately far too many people I hear advocating “be more kind” as the cure to society’s ills seem to totally miss the point of that advice. They only want to be more kind to those they feel deserve it. As some book I’ve read put it, if you only love those who love you, what do you really gain? The real test of love and kindness is to be kind and generous to those who are not deserving.

Instead, far too often, what we get is people beating their favorite target groups with a bat, screaming, “Be more kind, you *#%$*@!!!” And believe me, I can relate. I’m far, far better at figuring out what other people are doing wrong than I am at getting myself to do what’s right.

But if we really, really want to be revolutionary we need to learn to be kind to everyone, even the ones who don’t deserve it or appreciate it. Especially to those who don’t deserve it or appreciate it. It’s not easy, but I believe it’s essential. If we only spend our time “high-fiving” our own team we only serve to widen the already too-wide rifts between people. Bridges are built through being kind to the people who are unworthy of our kindness, to the people who have no reason to expect any kindness from you.

Unexpected kindness is what will save us.

This is an odd piece which turned out to be largely personal psychotherapy. I’ll understand if you don’t really want to go wandering through my mind with me. It’s kinda dark and scary in there and, as mentioned, there are times even I don’t want to be there.

The other night our family watched the video of The Piano Guys’ concert at Red Butte Gardens. At one point cellist Steven Sharp Nelson played a piece with full symphony backup. He’s usually quite fun to watch when he plays because he has an expressive face, and he clearly loves what he’s doing. But as the piece grew more dramatic I recognized some expressions that weren’t normal for him. He was getting emotional over the experience. At the end of the piece we could make out that he had been crying.

I envied him for a couple reasons. First, because he’s a cellist, not a vocalist. He can get emotional and still play just fine. When I would get emotional during a piece my throat would close up and I couldn’t sing. Not good, and one of the main reasons I prefer to perform in choirs. No one notices if I check out for a while. The second reason was because I recognized what he was going through, and it’s been a while since I experienced that. He was having a musical moment, when the power and intensity of the performance overwhelmed the fact that he had performed and practiced this piece hundreds of times, and spoke to him. I loved experiencing those moments as a performer.

A few songs later they played “Bring Him Home” from the musical “Les Miserables”, and it was my turn to cry. That song has a powerful emotional connection for me, and it only seems to increase with age and life experience. It only took about eight notes of the introduction to get me.

I enjoy art that has the ability to trigger emotion (most emotions, anyway; not revulsion, nausea, shock, etc). But I hate being alone in a crowd in my reactions. It’s one thing to get emotional while performing a song with a hundred of my closest friends. Even if they’re not feeling it as strongly as I am, I know they’re experiencing…something…with me. It’s entirely different to be crying in a movie and having all my kids are staring at me. It’s definitely not a shared experience. No connections are made–if anything I feel further alienated.

Perhaps I get emotional over art because it’s got to come out sometime. I feel like I wear a mask most of the time. I don’t like showing an emotional response in my daily interactions, except for humor. Humor is acceptable. Most everything else is not. I don’t know where I learned this, but in most cases the more negative the emotion the more I try to keep it inside. It might come from being bullied in younger years.

The last thing you want to do is let the bullies know they’re getting to you. So you put on the mask so that they don’t know they’re hitting the target. It’s not even so much what they’re saying as that they’re targeting you in the first place. You learn from experience that showing any response at all will just prolong the torment, so you learn to act like you’re not hearing them. You keep your head down and you escape at the first opportunity.

Art has often allowed me a release, I suppose. It’s an acceptable outlet for emotion, and even if it’s not the emotions I have stored up, it’s okay to transmute them and let them out in some other form. But it also means that I prefer to enjoy art alone. No one else needs to witness my emotional purging. No one else really experiences it the same way I do anyway. I’ve learned that through the years. People may enjoy the same music or the same movie, but it’s very, very rare that someone experiences the exact same response for the exact same reasons. My response can be deeply personal and unique, and I would almost rather someone was ambivalent than enjoy the same thing for different reasons. If I do find someone who “gets it” there’s an instant bond that goes more deeply than perhaps either of us appreciate.

My daughter and I enjoy the same musical group. But I quickly learned we like it for very different reasons. The songs she likes are not often the ones I like. We can connect over that music, but it’s a low-level connection. My son, however, gets emotional over the same scene in the same movie, and I’m pretty sure he “gets it.” Boom. Instant bond.

The older I get the more I’m learning just how much I live inside my own head. Perhaps it would be easier to connect with other people if I just tried more. Perhaps if I had more practice I could learn how to find and cultivate more low-level connection points. I don’t know. All I know is that for the most part I don’t mind living in my head. It’s a great place to be–most of the time. Sometimes something negative gets in there and won’t leave, and it’s not a fun place to be. I’ve yet to develop the level of control necessary to drive it out, and far too often I have to just wait until it gets bored and leaves on its own.

Other times it just gets lonely in there. How I wish I could find more people who “get it”, and more people who “get” large portions of me, not just a few random points.

The ironic thing is that I suspect there are a great many people out there who are the same way. But just wanting to be understood is not enough, usually. Being understood in all the right ways, at all the right connection-points is rare and cannot be forced.  And it’s wonderful when it happens.

So just what am I trying to say here? I don’t know. This post started in one direction and then veered off into sensitive territory. All I can say is this, I suppose: If you’re one of those people with whom I have connected, know that you are rare and appreciated. I don’t let just anyone into my head. Most people never get past the front gate.