Forgive a slightly similar setup from a couple of years ago, but it gives me a way to share the following anecdote:
January 1, 2017, 12:00am
A good friend had invited several of us over to celebrate the new year with a few drinks and some games on a highly sought after NES Classic. A feeling of “thank goodness that’s over” was in the air, and someone thought it would be fun to write down elements of 2016 we hoped would not return, then set them alight at midnight. As we should have realized, setting pieces of paper on fire in a small glass container where oxygen could not easily enter was a near impossible task. Tipping the container out onto the snow-covered sidewalk did not make things easier, and we gave up after two or three of the paper slips flickered for a second or two. Beginning 2017 with a failed gesture of defiance was an amusing political symbol if nothing else.
January 1, 2018, 12:00am
I’ve seen in about half of the new years of the last decade with the same group of friends, and it was a thrill to do so again after being elsewhere last year. This year, everyone was elsewhere, and friends in four cities and three states gathered to ring in three progressively tipsier 2018s, playing party games over video conference. Technology is brilliant.
So, then, 2017.
Towards the end of 2016, I was reasonably settled in my job, learning an enormous amount of new things with colleagues I loved and projects I enjoyed. Out of the blue, someone suggested a new opportunity I might be a good fit for, but I fell at the final fence. In January, a much better opportunity with a new organization presented itself, and after several hours of interviews I…didn’t get that either. These two experiences prompted a lot of thinking about where my career was going, and lead me to take a new job I was not very well suited for and at which I did not succeed. I’m sincerely grateful to some very patient coworkers who prevented that from being any worse than it was, and sorry to some employees who deserved far better from me. The collective impact of these episodes meant I jumped at the chance to move to Seattle this summer and do something completely different.
People seem to have all sorts of different expectations about career stability, so I’ve no idea whether the above sounds normal or insane to anyone else. As I’d held the same position technically for four years and practically for closer to six, it felt incredibly strange. Doing the same thing for a long time in an organization develops particular kinds of expertise and levels of influence which are immediately lost in these transitions. On the other hand, as a 29 year old I’ve got another 40 years of work ahead of me, so this is likely going to happen again and again. With that in mind, I wanted to document two things I’ve noticed about changing jobs in the last 12 months. Neither of these are novel, but are things are want to make sure I remember the next time I throw everything up in the air.
Curiosity actually saves the cat.
When I was learning to drive, my parents were appalled to discover I didn’t know my way around anywhere. I’d been driven by them to and from various places for years, but as my only role in the process was to get in the car and get out again, I hadn’t bothered to take any notice of what happened in between. This lead to a handful of frustrated moments realizing far too late that I’d ended up in the wrong lane at a stoplight or highway exit, but it did not instill in me any great change in behavior - in the 8 years I had a license prior to the advent of turn-by-turn directions on phones, the surfaces in my car not covered in Pepsi cans were covered in printed out pages from Mapquest.
In the office, this lack of curiosity about how to get from A to B leads to death. In many organizations, the first few weeks of a job consist of learning step by step processes and the rhythm of which processes are invoked at which time. The path to being able to meaningfully contribute, though, is in the whys and wherefores and steps in between, in understanding enough about how you got to step 25 to make some reasonable guess at the yet unwritten step 26. If I had any awareness of this before, it’s been turned up x100 this year - it’s good to be bothered by things you don’t understand, and being the new guy is an excellent cover for having a thousand questions about everything.
Work, not approval.
In Fort Collins, if things would go well at work and I was pleased, I’d immediately fret that I was getting too invested in it. Since moving away, I’ve been surprised by how much less I’m plagued by this feeling now that work genuinely is the only thing I’m doing. In Colorado there were great friends, church, music, comedy, etc., which meant work wasn’t anywhere close to the “only thing” going on. In the six months I’ve been here, I’m mostly working, riding the bus, and sleeping. And the difference, I think, between that being life giving or not, is in where affirmation comes from.
What makes a day good or bad? That answer will wholly be about work sometimes, and this is ok as long as it’s not wholly wrapped up in pats on the back (I am not sure how someone wraps up a pat). In a new place, you spend your whole time asking other people for things instead of getting to play the hero who has the answers, and this can be surprisingly draining if you’re used to things being the other way around. Finding some measure of “was my work meaningful today?” other than the number of people who said they were pleased by something you did is vital. Which is a terribly silly thing to write just before hitting ‘post’ and anxiously checking for likes.
“Likes good things, dislikes bad things. Not here for hookups despite my incredibly suggestive pictures. ESFP.”
So goes the majority of personal blurbs on any online dating service. If I were a different person entirely, this would be where I’d begin recounting a recent date, carefully disguising the identity of someone who didn’t consent to be written about by changing a letter in their first name. It was nice to meet you, Lundsay. Alternately, this might be the beginning of one of those “hilarious” suggestions of a new name for such a service, along with descriptions of the types of people they might specifically try to attract. Alas, no. Instead, I’m hung up on those four letters at the end.
It is an interesting ploy, leading with a supposedly objective, scientific classification of your personality. Sometimes this is done with Myers-Briggs, sometimes with various formulations of “introvert” and “extrovert”, lately expanded to include “extroverted introvert,” “introverted extrovert,” “desiccated coconut,” and so on. To define yourself in this way is an attempt at setting others’ expectations appropriately, and to subtly suggest that any conflicts arising as a result of this predisposition should resolve themselves by other people realizing that’s just who you are. But is this wise?
I stood up from a restaurant table recently during a meal with some friends, and attempted to make my way to the restroom. I was immediately met with loud protests from the group, who assumed I was attempting to sneak home unnoticed. I explained I wouldn’t do that, as it would involve sticking them with my share of the check, but someone quickly jumped in with the suggestion that “if Thom has decided he’s done for the night, he’d probably just pay the whole tab rather than stay until the end.” This was useful as everyone laughed and allowed me to escape to the bathroom, but I couldn’t escape the realization that I had, in fact, done exactly that in the past. I’m quite bad at people, it turns out - selfishness and cowardice combine to produce many ungraceful social interactions, the occasional Irish Goodbye being one of the less harmful examples.
Many others are, thankfully, much better at people than I am, and as the introvert/extrovert debate rightly points out, some tend toward the opposite extreme and self destruct during any periods of silence. Anyone who has gathered together with friends or families for an extended period of time in the last few years has seen the way we now handle troughs in the conversation by collectively disappearing into our devices for a few minutes. Certain people can’t handle this, and use those moments as an opportunity to read their social media feeds aloud as though the rest of us are interested, often providing an unsettling window into the things they find amusing. The more outgoing have the upper hand in this situation, as my reticence to start a conversation is neatly complimented by my ability to ignore them.
I’ve participated in exactly one Myers Briggs exercise, one of those formal work training days where a dozen colleagues find an excuse to get out of the office together for a few hours. After listening to presentations and completing questionnaires, we were split into groups across the room, introverts and extroverts divided like boys and girls at a junior high dance, or virgins and popular kids at a high school one. After we were settled in our teams, the facilitator asked if anyone had done this before, and something important came to light. A friend in the “extrovert” corner, who those of us who had been around a while knew as someone who didn’t feel especially comfortable around people, but had worked like hell to become good at it to further their career, noted that in a previous course she had been called an introvert. The instructor had a minor mental breakdown, explaining that these are scientifically proven unalterable personality traits. They must have done it wrong the first time.
This is the flaw in the -vert divide, and is why I wish we would stop using the terms altogether. It’s not that I don’t believe we have such predispositions. But classifying them in the way we do hurts all parties involved. When my inept social skills cause me difficulty, I need two things: hope that I can improve to attain a better outcome in future, and encouragement to work at this. Diagnosis as an introvert, as though I have some genetic malfunction, both condemns me to a life of embarrassingly bad interactions with others and relieves me of responsibility for this. Is there a more hopeless place to be? Those impacted by the social failures of others are also not well served by this silly psychologizing. The mental muscle we all need to exercise to hold together a society full of other broken, frail humans is not a bland tolerance which pretends we’re not broken or frail. We only help our fellow creatures move forward by providing the kind of relational safety in which boundless patience and strong admonition to change can work together for good.
I’m bad at people. And you might be bad at silence. We both need to know that we can change, we should change, and we’re loved. Diagnosis a-verted.
To my surprise, I have something in common with Katy Perry (apart from the whole “kissing a girl and liking it” thing). In a recent profile by the New York Times, they announced her current slogan as “i know nothing”, uncapitalized in the name of authenticity. There’s apparently something in the air - Miley Cyrus also recently caught a bout of restraint, having discovered self righteousness is as powerful a drug as any other on the market.
But where was I? Ah yes, “i know nothing (sic)”. I don’t wish to have that printed on t-shirts or in my Twitter bio, but it does describe my frame of mind this week. Next Saturday, I’ll leave Fort Collins and move to Seattle, to begin a new job with Amazon. Everyone’s reaction when I mention this is to ask “are you excited?” And I have no idea. The main thing I am is baffled - when will they realize their mistake? When will Ashton Kutcher jump out and explain I’ve been Punk’d? There’s no false modesty in this, incidentally - I’m not feeling unworthy, just really confused, as if I’d been told I’ve got a new job as the back of someone’s neck. How did this happen?! i know nothing.
To make a list of people and places I will miss is a fool’s errand, as I will inevitably forget someone and accidentally upset them. But the fact that I will miss anyone/anything at all has genuinely surprised me over the past few days. Had you asked me a week ago, I’d have thought about it and confidently said that, while I love my friends and family around here, I’m still a single 28 year old, and the only good thing about that is the ability to move anywhere for any opportunity at any time. But as reality has set in, I’m unexpectedly somber. You all have made more of a mark on me than I’d thought, Fort Collins.
In a few weeks, when I’m settled and doing less wandering around in a daze, I’ll write something more reflective. But while I’m caught between being elated at a wonderful new opportunity and confused about leaving behind so many people I care about, I’ll be honest that I don’t have anything more to say than that. I’m super excited about everything that lies ahead, and I wish I could take you all with me.
One apropos thing was pointed out to me recently - several years ago, after a year and a half on the front lines at ADP, I had the chance to work on upgrading all of our clients to a new product, in a project which put my career on the map in a way it hadn’t been previously. It’s fitting, then, that the very last thing I’ve worked on there, 6 years later, is another new product which replaces it. Life very occasionally ties itself in a neat bow.
Here’s to the future! i know nothing.
T
(p.s. a logistical note - I leave Colorado next Saturday, July 8th. If you’re reading this, we should see each other before then.)
As soon as I got out of the car, I knew the day would go differently than I’d planned. I’d driven up to Blue Lake, a favorite hike of mine 4 miles west of Chambers Lake. Solo hiking is as close as I get to therapy - nothing so far in my life has led me to believe the presence of an expensive judgmental stranger will be useful in unwinding the week, but the sound of a river rushing down the canyon is a pretty reliable path to “calm.” I’d spent an excellent morning up here on Labor Day, and was interested to experience the other end of the season. There’s plenty of tree cover throughout, and most of the route is marked by blue arrows, pointlessly pointing out that the well trodden bit between the trees is the trail.
Alas, “seasons” are differently defined at 9500 feet, compared to my idyllic foothills city - up there, the snow hasn’t cleared by May 13th. Determined to make something of the day, I stumbled ahead, only occasionally ending up groin-deep in slush. For about a quarter mile, I was hopeful that it would get better as I got farther along - that the part under heavier shade from trees would have experienced more snow melt. I went to school in Ault. As with so many areas of life, my optimism remained undimmed until I’d gone far enough that turning around would have constituted significant effort - with the journey back to the car looking equally unpleasant, I conceded it would be a slow, soggy day.
The snow was deceptively firm at first. Like the crispy mashed potato on top of a shepherds pie, it sounds hard when tapped with a fork, but under no circumstances should someone stand on it. Moving tentatively but quickly seemed to be the best strategy. The descriptions of the ground in Lewis’ “Great Divorce” came to mind, designed to keep you moving toward the goal by being uncomfortable to stand on for any sustained period. Having no certainty about what precisely was beneath my feet, I rapidly reevaluated the utility of the blue arrows.
And then they ran out. I hadn’t noticed last time, not really needing them. Suddenly, I had no more ideas about whether to head north, south, east, or west than I had ideas about which direction actually was north, south, east, or west. Fortunately, snowpack is relatively good at preserving footprints, so I headed off in the direction most feet had printed. This is a conflicting situation to be in, though - how do I know this person went the right way? Will the footprints lead to a summit, or a corpse? To avoid dwelling on that unpleasant thought, I noticed a dry patch under a tree, and hopped down the bank to rest.
Unable to escape the feeling I was trapped in an overworked metaphor, any energy gained was used in the climb back onto the path. I resumed tracing a stranger’s footprints, and felt glad it wasn’t possible to confuse a person’s shoes with any other animal’s paws. One in the eye for all the “dogs are better than humans” people I know. Although a dog (and a sled) could have pulled me more effectively. Thinking about it, however, so could a car. Which would have had made a far more dependable track.
A discarded Nalgene poked through the snow. This didn’t seem like a good sign - no one looking to lighten their load discards their water. On closer inspection, it was full of urine. Why had someone urinated in a container, when the woods are entirely capable of withstanding the deluge? This strikes me as the same sort of person who leaves the plastic film on the screens of their electronic devices. As I pressed forward, I caught an encouraging sight - enough snow had melted to form a viable path. It had been there for a considerable distance, I realized - why hadn’t I moved over sooner? Mr. Footsteps hadn’t either. Perhaps he, like me, had considered forward progress challenge enough without also looking for better alternatives. Walking on mostly-dry earth was a welcome relief, but the nagging sense it would end soon stopped me from truly relaxing (see “work, why vacations don’t” in index).
I’ve no idea why I assumed summit-or-corpse were the only potential outcomes. Abruptly, halfway from the summit, footprints stopped entirely. It seemed wrong to turn around, at first - I’d been following someone so long, I’d adopted the general direction as my own. One nagging thought crept in as I continued forward, though - If I keep going and this isn’t the right direction, what if someone later follows my steps?
Out in the woods by myself, thoughts of any impact on my fellow man were far from my mind. Additionally, anyone who has met me would know I come after “spitting into the wind” on the list of reliable navigators. On the other hand, I don’t know anything about the footprinter I’ve been following, either. Any myths we believe about our lives being independent as long as we’re “not harming others” vanish when we realize we’re imprinting the earth with each forward motion.
I didn’t turn around immediately. On some level, the danger of being an unusually convenient food truck for a bear or mountain lion would at least have spared me the walk back to the car. But it would also have permanently denied me the summit. Retreating back to the blue arrows until the path is more clear felt like defeat, but a summit next month is not a defeat. It’s a summit.
This is the nicest way to express what many people seem to be saying about the past twelve months. Why, though? Because Donald Trump killed David Bowie? Given the political trajectory the year would take, the man who sang “Loving the Alien” and “I’m Afraid of Americans” needed to be silenced early. I think the reason for most people’s 2016 antipathy runs a little deeper.
Facebook noticed something earlier this year which I think helps us understand our current cultural moment: they noticed that people were sharing more content than ever, but the content wasn’t their own. (note to Bloomberg, I would happily have linked to your original version of this story, but it has an autoplaying ad. Please stop urinating in the internet swimming pool).
In years past, users shared their status (words about how they were doing) and their photos (evidence of how they were doing). Lately, users mostly share links to other content - badly filmed youtube clips of a stranger’s kids not actually doing anything interesting, quotes wrongly attributed to Stephen Fry, etc. Most commentary at the time explained that this was due to privacy concerns - the wider our virtual circles, the less we want to share with everyone inside them. I think this hints at the right idea, but it’s much more basic: our lives are complicated, and we don’t know how to express that, so we opt for cat videos.
“How are you?” is a stupid question to ask under most circumstances. That’s not a novel observation, but I think it gets at the heart of hashtag expletive 2016. When asked to take stock of the past year, we generally talk positively for the same reasons we ungrammatically say “I’m good” when asked how we’re doing - the actual answer is tricky, and if we have to pick one of the two binary options, we’ll opt for the one with fewer follow up questions. In 2016, the tide turned, and the usual response to “this year sucked” is a reassuring nod followed by “I know.”
Collectively, we’re all understandably jumping on the opportunity to have feelings affirmed which are usually left unexpressed. But does that mean it was a bad year, really? Or are we all so lacking in relationships deep enough and safe enough to process the good and the bad honestly, that we run toward generalizations which let us validate our more painful experiences? 2017 will be terrible and wonderful, full of celebration and sorrow. Here’s to knowing and being known by those with whom we can share all of it.
These two stories have the same plot - “person uses economic system unethically to their own advantage.” That one of them is filed under the website directory “crime” and the other under “business” only reflects the reality - the welfare fraudster is thwarted by the rule of law, and the biotech extortionist faces “the court of public opinion,” who pursue the case only for as long as clicks generate advertising revenue.
These stories reduce our thinking about economics to something like “humans are fundamentally self interested, so the only system which will cause a society to prosper is one in which it is in everyone’s self interest to make as much as they can.” This line of reasoning only works in the abstract, however - our daily experiences are filled with good, hardworking people who hit rough patches from time to time for thousands of complicated reasons. It’s also impossible to apply with any consistency - the benefit cheat is used as proof that such programs should be stopped, and the person driving up the price of vital drugs is merely an unfortunate side effect of a system to which there is no alternative.
In various parts of the world, people are wondering if there is an alternative. The reelection of Syriza in Greece, Jeremy Corbyn winning the Labor party leadership in the UK, and the pace at which Bernie Sanders’ campaign is gathering momentum are all evidence of a willingness to challenge some basic ideas which have ruled the West for decades. In response, some are just putting their hands over their ears - when challenged about the lack of affordable housing, the UK Prime Minister explained the most important strategy to solving the issue was growing the economy, not doing something practical like introducing lower down payments for people who are planning to actually live in a house rather than rent it out for twice what people can afford. In the US Republican debate recently, the only thing more certain to get a round of applause than bashing the current administration was to use the phrase “I will never support a policy which makes it more difficult to do business in America.”
I have no idea where any of this will lead over the next few years, but I’m optimistic that there could be a more reasoned debate about these things. Maybe we could lose the assumption that profit rules the world, and that all of life is figuring out how to best build a society around that reality. Maybe flawed people with huge potential for good and bad elected by other flawed people with huge potential for good and bad run the world. We need systems which fight our tendencies toward laziness and greed, and help us when our lives are impacted by others’ similar tendencies. We don’t need systems which assume one is morally wrong and the other is inevitable.
A friend and I got into a heated conversation about this issue a couple of years ago which amusingly lead him to exclaim “It’s social darwinism!” quite aggressively to a surprised server who had come to refill our water glasses. That’s not particularly relevant, but it’s good to end on a joke.
Just in time to count down to the new year, I finish bluffing my way through Mustang Sally on the bass, subbing in for a musician who didn’t arrive. I play the bass roughly as well as I do car repair - given enough time, manuals, and privacy, I can almost get to “adequate.” On this occasion, I had none of those, and with added pressure - this song was always my dad’s show piece when he used to play bass in a band. It’s a good thing he wasn’t also 30 feet in front of me (oh, wait, he was).
January 1, 2016, 12:00am.
Paper Bird are about 1/3 of the way through their set at the Oriental Theatre in Denver, and they stop to count down to the new year. They break out a bottle of champagne to give all the band a drink, and foolishly leave the still-mostly-full bottle close enough to the lip of the stage for the front row to grab. It was never seen again. The fog machine which ran for a couple of minutes before the band came on appears to have been a waste of money, as the audience supplied plenty of their own, uh, fog.
These were both lighthearted, fun bookends to a difficult year. I’m conscious as I’m writing this that compared to most of the world throughout history, it was an unbelievably good year. I had heath, food, shelter, and iDevices. I saw some unbelievable live bands (nights watching The Decemberists, U2, and Jon Foreman will all hold a special place in my memory). I spent a brilliant week in Chicago with my dad and sister where we ran around being tourists 18 hours a day yet somehow didn’t have pizza, a hot dog, or go to Wrigley, and spent another brilliant week here in FoCo with them recovering. Got a promotion. Objectively, it was an excellent year.
Disjectively (does he know that’s wrong, or is he just playing with us? or is he not sure, and using this overdone device to hedge his bets?), it felt like a year in which I didn’t know who I was.
I have yet to accomplish some of the basic “adult” things - having a partner, kids, house, minivan. I attempted the last one in February, but only made it halfway. In the past, I’d have said this didn’t bother me much day-to-day, as there was still plenty of life to get on with. I didn’t realize how much of a lie that was until this year - in truth, not having a personal life in which to find my identity was only possible because I found my identity in my work life. In 2015, I went through the most difficult period in 5 years at my current job, and found myself undone.
Running out of parts of life to find optimistic is an annoying mental exercise. The running-in-a-swimming pool feeling of our worst days is a common experience, but this year it felt as though the steps along the side to get out had been removed. Nothing truly significant was ever wrong, but however much I knew that intellectually, it rarely made a difference to my emotional state. This made me a terrible friend, as I often blew off people I cared deeply about in order to chase after any misguided interaction which might improve my personal or work life, or to wallow in self pity alone. Or, worse, to go and drink.
I am about as good at self control as I am at car repair or bass playing, and Fort Collins offers many delicious hop-and-malt-based recipes for disaster. It’s an ugly journey from going for a drink because you’re lost in the world to accidentally finding yourself asleep in the bathroom of a Five Guys you went into because you’d been out too long. It’s a slippery, greasy, salty, cajun seasoned slope. It’s remarkably counterproductive, too - the proverbial highways of 2015 are littered with relationships crashed by my drunken text messages. Note to self, replace all metaphors before posting.
Over the course of the year I would recognize this, and stay away from the bars for a few weeks, but the symptoms only stay away as long as you treat them - as soon as I thought I’d regained control, I’d lose it. The reasons I was frustrated didn’t change just because of a few weeks of looking for different distractions - I was still seeing all of life through the lens of things I didn’t have. I still hung my identity on things which could fall away at any moment.
The wise thing to do would be to wait to write until there’s a neatly packaged ending, until a newfound appreciation for the rule of a sovereign, good creator over the world has given me rest in my current (objectively fine) circumstance. That would be a bit dishonest, though. I’m grateful for these two weeks at the end of the year to reflect and start to see more clearly, but I’d hesitate to declare any further progress than that. Whatever else 2016 is about, it can’t rise or fall based on finding a partner, being successful at work, or anything else so terribly circumstantial. Reasons to live need far stronger foundations.
My apartment is disappointing. I know this, because everyone who has ever been inside has remarked on one of its less savory elements, like the fact that I don’t own any tables. Or curtains. Or the fact that the windows don’t open. Or the leak in the ceiling.
This was all news to me - I have remarkably little awareness of the parts of the world around me unrelated to the task at hand, which is why my shoes are always untied and I have to rely on external feedback about my breath. But now others have pointed out that my home is unlikely to attract someone to spend their life with its tenant, I have been moved from disinterest to incessant complaining. How lucky for my friends.
Whenever I start ranting about this, someone will inevitably say “why don’t you just move, then?” This is a completely reasonable question, and I don’t have a good answer. Similarly, if you’ve been around me for any length of time, you’ve either witnessed me drink too much and talk/text unending nonsense, or you’ve heard me be frustrated by my tendency to do so, and an inevitable question of the same kind arises - “why don’t you just stop, then?”
Regardless of the inventiveness of my response, the truth is that if I’m not willing to take any of the more direct steps to fix those problems, then there are some things I consider worth more than their resolution. This isn’t wrong in itself - very few things are ultimate. I consider the lack of men’s 29" length jeans available for sale FREAKING ANYWHERE to be a significant problem, for example, but I wouldn’t want to pass a law requiring stores to stock them. In so doing, it becomes clear that for all my whining, I value certain things about a free market more than I value the convenience of being able to purchase clothes that fit.
This self-awareness of the way we communicate our values is missed from the public sphere sometimes, I think. One common economic conversation goes like this:
Person A: “Corporations are amoral, so we need to obligate them to contribute to the country and pay workers fairly through taxes and wage requirements.”
Person B: “But we can’t do very much of that, because they’ll just go to another state/country, and then what would we do?”
Person B would likely not say they think corporations rather than governments are the final authority in the world, anymore than I would suggest I enjoy beer more than I hate the consequences of drinking too much of it, but the options we consider “off the table” communicate more about what’s really going on in our heads and hearts than the words we say.
When nine people were shot in Charleston ten days ago, the first reaction of several was to say “we must not use this moment to talk about gun control.” Franklin Graham said the problem was not guns, but Hollywood’s corrupting influence. Rick Perry said the problem was not guns, but drugs. Facebook was full of well thought out political discourse, such as memes which said “no one blames the car in a car crash” and “Cain killed Abel with a rock.” Would changes in gun laws have made a difference in this instance? I don’t know the facts or the potential solutions well enough. But when a person’s first/loudest response to a shooting is to protect their right to keep and arm bears, it communicates more than just opposition to gun control. It shows the things they consider less important than maintaining the current levels of access to guns.
No hidden fees! No contract! No one forcing you to eat lawn clippings!
Are you interested yet? Does it matter what I’m selling, when the terms are this good? Does it even matter if I know what I’m selling? Do you want to be forced to eat lawn clippings? Those are the choices - my nebulous shadow of an idea, or everyone being forced to eat lawn clippings.
I knew you’d come around.
This is roughly the proposition Ted Cruz offered students of Liberty University last week. Cruz’ speech announcing his candidacy was the first major announcement of the 2016 campaign, and hundreds in the Liberty audience applauded his every word. Almost 40% of Republicans polled this week said they would consider voting for him, twice as many as prior to the speech. I have three questions for them/you/pronouns:
Why are the accomplishments of a leader’s family important?
Cruz’ first 10 minutes were spent describing how his mother and father rose from poverty, prison, and vice into education, entrepreneurship and Christianity. I’m sincerely pleased for them, but I’m pleased in the way I am when people talk about their March madness bracket. I’m glad you’re excited. The difference is that (with a few exceptions) people aren’t trying to get me to change my worldview based on their ability to predict basketball results.
Cruz, however, wants us to believe that his presidency will allow Americans to pull themselves up by the laces of their Converse because his parents did the same. Unfortunately, you cannot simultaneously ask people to like you because your parents were good, hardworking Christians and ask people to like your vision of America where all you need is a work ethic to succeed. I’m not discounting the contributions parents make in instilling the kinds of values needed to contribute usefully to the country, but many of us have had great parents and become total train wrecks, and vice versa. It isn’t relevant to the discussion.
Why are platitudes to which we all can agree important?
“Imagine, instead of economic stagnation, booming economic growth.”
“Imagine young people coming out of school with four, five, six, job offers.”
“Imagine that every single child, regardless of race, ethnicity, wealth, or zip code has a right to a quality education.”
I’m on board with the above quotes. Everyone who runs for office in every country in the West is on board with the above quotes. Perhaps a good rule would be that if every single candidate in a given race could make a particular statement, we shouldn’t applaud it from any candidate. If it’s something that Megan Fox could say if she ran for office, it shouldn’t be enough for a prospective president to gain approval.
Why do you trust someone before they have presented any realistic plans?
Toward the end of the speech, Cruz got slightly more specific about things he would do differently than the current administration:
Repeal the Affordable Care Act
Abolish the IRS
Repeal Net Neutrality
Repeal Common Core
You might agree with Cruz’ assessment that the current administration has failed in these areas - but he didn’t provide any alternatives, and these aren’t binary issues. “No regulation of healthcare, tax, communication, or education” does not solve the problems created by those issues any more than closing Facebook would have solved the problem that people believed they could “do their part” for American Sign Language by dumping ice water on their heads.
Politicians are often cornered into saying things like “I’d rather people voted for the opposition than didn’t vote at all,” and we seem to associate some virtue with lining up for the ballot booth. I think we can raise the bar a little bit this time. As we gear up for another 18 months of mudslinging, complaining about mudslinging, and some pesky voting at the end of it, let’s make our reactions to this campaign season about specific, positive policies, not personality, platitudes, or unfocused anger with the current regime. Let’s aim to see everyone proud not just to get something that says “I Voted”, but that they cast a vote informed by the specific policies they believe will make our country a better place.
Longer pieces never really go well for me on stage (the below is actually long for me…), so I’ve only attempted this once, but as the relevant news story has reared it’s head again, I thought I’d post my notes in written form.
The following is a dramatic reenactment of a recent news story.
Hey Bill, isn’t it great being up here on the 493rd floor of this building?
I don’t know Johnny, I’m getting kind of worried.
Why’s that Bill? Is it because he gave us both the same voices?
No - something even worse. I’ve heard they’re going to implode the building.
Oh no! What should we do, Bill? Or am I Bill?
I don’t know, I’ve forgotten. I think we need to get out of here… But I’ve been here on the 493rd floor all my life, since my mother gave birth to me.
Did she had the same voice as us?
Probably. But the point is, we need to get out of here, leave the 493rd floor before they blow up the building. Let’s go as far away as I can think of, somewhere we will be safe during the implosion… Floor 490.
Are you sure we can get there in time?
Oh yeah, we’ll be fine. Plus, when we get there, there’s a vending machine!
Perfect! Yes! If we run away as far away as we can think of to floor 490 and eat all the food in the vending machine, we’ll definitely be safe when they implode this 10,000 story building.
-That was two bison, running away from the Yellowstone volcano.
