Real Joe

Sunday’s NY Times Magazine chronicles the sad saga of Elizabeth Shin, the M.I.T. student who committed suicide two years ago. She and her parents seemed to have been caught up in the culture of over-achievement way before college, and the pressure cooker atmosphere at M.I.T. was more of the same. And now they and M.I.T. are caught up in the culture of litigation, rather than grieving, learning, forgiving, changing, and moving on.

After reading about Shin’s suicide, I happened to read the May issue of Fast Company, which has some interesting takes on the Enron debacle. Read Wall Street’s Den of Thieves and Are All Consultants Corrupt? and then ask yourself: Does the culture of over-achievement in our schools (high school and post-secondary) have anything to do with the culture of dishonesty on Wall Street and ethics-be-damned pursuit of cash in our professional services firms?

At times I think my three twenty-something sons are missing out on too much by not going to college. Not tonight after I stumbled on this interview with Charles Handy:

“Most important of all, however, was the lesson that I learnt from the study of people who create something in their lives out of nothing — we termed them alchemists. They proved to me that you can learn anything if you really want to. Passion was what drove these people, passion for their product or their cause. If you care enough you will find out what you need to know and chase the source of the knowledge or the skill. Or you will experiment and not worry if the experiment goes wrong. The alchemists never spoke of failures or mistakes but only of learning experiments. Passion as the secret of learning is an odd solution to propose, but I believe that it works at all levels and all ages. Sadly, passion is not a work often heard in large organizations, nor in schools, where it can seem disruptive.”

Enron employees talk about the passion at Enron, but delve a little deeper and it soon becomes apparent that that’s not the kind of passion Handy’s talking about.

Marriage — as its veterans know well — is the continuous process of getting used to things you hadn’t expected. – Tom Mullen

I had no idea when we got married that my wife would be the one with the financial smarts and discipline in our household. You’ll be shocked to hear that it’s still not exactly easy to appreciate her for bringing this to our relationship. But I am getting better at it.

Washington Post columnist Richard Morin wrote last month that “Instead of rejoicing when our wives start making bigger contributions to the family income, we husbands tend to become more gloomy, suffer more headaches and generally feel more pressured and stressed,” citing a study published in a recent issue of the Journal of Marriage and Family. “It may be that the persistence of breadwinning expectations for men in our culture contributes to personal pressure and stress when their wives increase the percentage that they are contributing to the total household income,” one of the authors is quoted as saying.

But how about this explanation: “Married women may draw attention to the increased size of their contribution as a means to obtain greater equity in decision-making and sharing of household duties with men. This may be unwelcome to some married men and therefore lower their psychological well-being.”

The shrinkspeak phrase “… and therefore lower their psychological well-being” might be more accurately stated “… and therefore pisses them off but they’re too chicken to admit it so they walk around with their tail between their legs.” Likewise, “Married women may draw attention…” might be more accurately stated “Married women may start getting bitchy and demanding…”

This phenomenon is not so surprising when you tie it to the traditional dance of the sexes that I wrote about earlier this month in the High-achieving women=scary? High-achieving men=sexy? piece.

A long and thorough Providence Journal article on the lost art of going to confession for Catholics. But it misses another key reason that confession has fallen out of favor for most Catholics: the way that most priests administer the sacrament, it’s way too psychologically simplistic for those sins that truly matter to people.

If I’m bothered by my own hurtful or wrong behavior, but I don’t understand it or I have no clue about how to stop it, what sense does it make to say “I’m sorry” and ask God’s forgiveness via a priest who mechanistically says I’m forgiven and then gives me a penance that has nothing to do with making amends or getting back on track?

I think confession in the hands of savvy priest could be a powerful and meaningful sacrament, more closely aligned to the practice and principles of the Twelve Steps of AA.

Lynn, who maintains the LynnUnleashed weblog, posted a interesting commentary about my Men, pit bulls, and a woman columnist piece and pointed me to it. My wife says to say she agrees with you 100%, Lynn. Oh oh.

My hunch at the time I wrote that was that it probably wasn’t physical objects like makeup, shoes, purse, etc. that women use to partially define their womanhood. “What in life” leaves it open. Lynn wondered about make-up, “But does make-up ‘define womanhood’? The notion seems kind of silly… The need to define oneself seems to be a uniquely male characteristic which men extend to females as well.”

I still haven’t quite got a handle on this. But it seems that women place so much emphasis on their physical appearance because they’re constantly getting the message that that’s what men value, which in turn implies that they tend to define themselves by having a relationship to a man. To put it grossly for a woman: “If I’m not in a relationship, then I’m nobody.” (The male corollary might be, “If I’m not getting laid, then I’m a nobody.”) Or put another way: The more insecure a woman is, the more she’ll be inclined to use a man for her security. The more insecure a man is, the more he’ll be inclined to use dangerous things or activities to shore up his sense of power in relation to other men, as he hopes this will ultimately be attractive to women.

Also, women tend to pride themselves on being good shoppers, both for themselves and their family and friends. It’s woven into motherhood and their traditional role in the domestic empire. Is that any different than men and their tools and their traditional role in the domestic empire? It seems that shopping and using tools are both related to our roles as providers — “how we in part define ourselves.”

More to come on this as I keep noodling on it… and get feedback from y’all and my sweetie.

This article chronicles how current “…American pop culture sees dead people.” Jeesh, I had no idea there were so many books and TV shows on this. Just a week ago, I picked up the current issue of Skeptic magazine, after reading Deconstructing The Dead: Cross Over One Last Time To Expose Medium John Edward by Michael Shermer, as well as perusing the James Randi Educational Foundation’s site. Randi slices and dices medium James Van Praagh, the subject of the CBS miniseries “Living With the Dead” that starts this coming Sunday.

I plan to do more reading before I expound on all this afterlife stuff, but what struck me about the Newsday article was the notion that the explosion of books and movies about communicating with the dead could be related to the aging of the baby boomers.

“Today’s trend seems to be not only a reaction against making death the antiseptic province of funeral homes, but also a reflection of baby boomers’ grappling with the loss of their parents and, increasingly, their peers….The baby boomers are poised to remake the experience of dealing with death, grief and loss… “

Now that makes sense, at first blush. We’re not content with the traditional notion of heaven and hell but we’re not keen on the notion that we’re no different than a raccoon or a dandelion — once we’re dead, dat’s it, dat’s all, der ain’t no more. But regardless, the bigger question for me is how does our involvement with all this afterlife stuff contribute to us living a better life — one of satisfaction as well as a contribution to the world?

I can imagine having a Real Joe syndicated newspaper column someday. I’d be happy, right? I also can imagine that the day would come when I’d write a column which would generate 2,300 emails, most of them hateful, and some threatening. Would I still be happy? Maybe not.

Such is the case with columnist Jacquelyn Mitchard who chronicles the reaction to her opinion piece on pit bulls in last week’s Breaking a vow of non-silence column. Mitchard’s reaction will probably make the situation worse for a while, as she’s taking it personally and indicating it in her writing. It adds fuel to the fire.

I’d guess the vast majority of her nasty emails are from guys, though she doesn’t say so. She doesn’t seem to understand what a mean-looking (sounding? acting?) dog can represent for some us. It’s not all that different than a mean-looking car (loud pipes), a bad-ass motorcycle (my lifelong preference), a foul-smelling cigar, or any one of a thousand other things that we use sometimes to partially define our manhood. Danger is often part of the equation with these items. It’s both genetic and cultural and part of the dance that connects us to other men while defining our differences from women.

So Jacquelyn: 1) No need to take it personally. I’m not excusing the personal attacks, especially any guys who actually threatened you — not only dumb and wrong but a crime. And I understand it must be hard to break a 20-year vow. But the Internet makes nasty email easy to send, something you couldn’t have known when you made your vow. 2) Nasty email writers are not usually nasty people. 3) Try to understand the deeper significance of the nerve you touched. Maybe write a column about what in life women use to partially define their womanhood that would upset them if a man suggested that they do without. 4) Be happy. There are a lot of aspiring columnists out there who’d love to have the influence and impact you have with your column.

Or how about “Straight, but not narrow“? I like both those phrases, which I just learned from this article about a high school senior who created a Gay-Straight Alliance at her school, caught hell from her peers for years, but ultimately turned around the typical homophobic culture there. Gutsy kid. I never would’ve been able to do that, not even in college.

In 9th grade, when I was still under the spell of my dad’s anti-Semitic rantings, I told a kid a joke about Jews that I’d heard. He looked at me flatly and simply said, “That’s not funny.” I was stunned. A year later he became one of my best friends. And when we were seniors, he confronted me again when I called another kid a hurtful nickname.

Funny how I’ve never forgotten these two small instances of someone gently but firmly not going along with the crowd, standing up for someone else who was being put down. It’s always been so easy for me to think “What I say won’t make a difference” when mainly I’m feeling insecure and fearful of rejection. I’d like to think I’m beyond this now, but there are probably instances where it still happens. I best crank up my internal radar to see if it is.

Whatever you do will be insignificant, but it is very important that you do it. – Mahatma Gandhi

Trying to save your kid’s tadpole just might be one of those memories he has of you that crystallizes his perception of you as a dad. It’s not what Gandhi had in mind, I’m quite sure, but it works at that level, too.

Doc Searls has a cool little story in his blog about how he used Google to try to save his 5 yr. old son’s tadpole. It’s an seemingly insignificant snapshot from his life as a dad and a techie. He was probably trying to make a point about his love for Google and its pervasiveness in his household (it was the kid’s idea to look on Google). But since I’m trolling for other aspects of our lives as men, it has greater appeal than that. I have no idea if Searls is a decent father or not, but what matters is the story.