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Strategic

The Strategic theme enables you to sort through the clutter and find the best route. It is not a skill that can be taught. It is a distinct way of thinking, a special perspective on the world at large. This perspective allows you to see patterns where others simply see complexity. Mindful of these patterns, you play out alternative scenarios, always asking, “What if this happened? Okay, well what if this happened?” This recurring question helps you see around the next corner. There you can evaluate accurately the potential obstacles. Guided by where you see each path leading, you start to make selections. You discard the paths that lead nowhere. You discard the paths that lead straight into resistance. You discard the paths that lead into a fog of confusion. You cull and make selections until you arrive at the chosen path—your strategy. Armed with your strategy, you strike forward. This is your Strategic theme at work: “What if?” Select. Strike.

Empathy

You can sense the emotions of those around you. You can feel what they are feeling as though their feelings are your own. Intuitively, you are able to see the world through their eyes and share their perspective. You do not necessarily agree with each person’s perspective. You do not necessarily feel pity for each person’s predicament—this would be sympathy, not Empathy. You do not necessarily condone the choices each person makes, but you do understand. This instinctive ability to understand is powerful. You hear the unvoiced questions. You anticipate the need. Where others grapple for words, you seem to find the right words and the right tone. You help people find the right phrases to express their feelings—to themselves as well as to others. You help them give voice to their emotional life. For all these reasons other people are drawn to you.

Input

You are inquisitive. You collect things. You might collect information—words, facts, books, and quotations—or you might collect tangible objects such as butterflies, baseball cards, porcelain dolls, or sepia photographs. Whatever you collect, you collect it because it interests you. And yours is the kind of mind that finds so many things interesting. The world is exciting precisely because of its infinite variety and complexity. If you read a great deal, it is not necessarily to refine your theories but, rather, to add more information to your archives. If you like to travel, it is because each new location offers novel artifacts and facts. These can be acquired and then stored away. Why are they worth storing? At the time of storing it is often hard to say exactly when or why you might need them, but who knows when they might become useful? With all those possible uses in mind, you really don’t feel comfortable throwing anything away. So you keep acquiring and compiling and filing stuff away. It’s interesting. It keeps your mind fresh. And perhaps one day some of it will prove valuable.

Connectedness

Things happen for a reason. You are sure of it. You are sure of it because in your soul you know that we are all connected. Yes, we are individuals, responsible for our own judgments and in possession of our own free will, but nonetheless we are part of something larger. Some may call it the collective unconscious. Others may label it spirit or life force. But whatever your word of choice, you gain confidence from knowing that we are not isolated from one another or from the earth and the life on it. This feeling of Connectedness implies certain responsibilities. If we are all part of a larger picture, then we must not harm others because we will be harming ourselves. We must not exploit because we will be exploiting ourselves. Your awareness of these responsibilities creates your value system. You are considerate, caring, and accepting. Certain of the unity of humankind, you are a bridge builder for people of different cultures. Sensitive to the invisible hand, you can give others comfort that there is a purpose beyond our humdrum lives. The exact articles of your faith will depend on your upbringing and your culture, but your faith is strong. It sustains you and your close friends in the face of life’s mysteries.

Futuristic

“Wouldn’t it be great if . . .” You are the kind of person who loves to peer over the horizon. The future fascinates you. As if it were projected on the wall, you see in detail what the future might hold, and this detailed picture keeps pulling you forward, into tomorrow. While the exact content of the picture will depend on your other strengths and interests—a better product, a better team, a better life, or a better world—it will always be inspirational to you. You are a dreamer who sees visions of what could be and who cherishes those visions. When the present proves too frustrating and the people around you too pragmatic, you conjure up your visions of the future and they energize you. They can energize others, too. In fact, very often people look to you to describe your visions of the future. They want a picture that can raise their sights and thereby their spirits. You can paint it for them. Practice. Choose your words carefully. Make the picture as vivid as possible. People will want to latch on to the hope you bring.

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“One day—and it won’t be long—we are going to wake up and it is just going to be too late.” This quote from Mahesh Chaturvedi, in the 2006 New Yorker article “The Last Drop” by Michael Specter, we read perfectly sums up my feelings after the readings this week. I am afraid we have reached this point. We are past the point of no return when it comes to the environment and rather than discovering how we can fix it, we will just keep discovering how much we have ruined it. We have read in several places about the belief that regardless of the problems of today, the technology of tomorrow will save us. We are now living in the tomorrow of the 1970s. Yet as much as fantastic advances have been made in solar and wind power, hybrid cars, and even “fuel efficient” jets, technology is also increasingly telling us that the planet is changing for the worse and changing faster than we ever realized it could. Our vision, or at least my vision, of the future is shifting from utopia to dystopia.

One thing I had not ever really thought of though was the application of the Tragedy of the Commons to resources like air and water, even markets depending on how you look at things. When I learned about the Commons in undergrad, I think we usually talked about it more as a thought experiment proving people’s tendency to act greedy and selfish . The more I have read this week for class the more I’m realizing just how poorly we are managing perhaps the most precious resources we have—air and water. I liked Hardin’s example of how providing food aid has never led developing countries to plan better for the future. The more I read about the water situation in the American southwest the more it became clear that the problem is not that no one is regulating the Commons there; the problem is that whenever lack of water has come up against development, more water was brought in from outside and development continued. Rather than realizing these huge megalopolises were being built in the middle of a desert where they had no right to exist, more water could always be brought in to meet growing needs. As a result, the Colorado River doesn’t even drain into the ocean anymore and one of the “regulators” has proposed piping in water from east of the Rockies!

But the costs of this system are starting to become clear. Farmers in Northern California and the central valley will tell you how restrictions on the water they can use for irrigation is hurting their business. Our growth and development is outpacing the ability of the planet to sustain us. Even in the West where we have historically looked to technology to save us when the environment doesn’t we are starting to realize the costs of our decisions. We need to drastically change how we allocate and use our resources if are to avoid catastrophe. Will it really take faucets running dry in Los Angeles before we start?

Well, in this second edition I want to point to another example of a company that “gets it” when it comes to advertising. The lesson this time is that you should sell something more. What I mean is that just because your product is mundane and utilitarian doesn’t mean your marketing has to be that way. Take the case of Stouffer’s. Stouffer’s makes frozen meals. That’s pretty much it. They pre-make millions of meals, put them in boxes, and sell them in the freezer aisle. Now, I’m sure you could do an ad campaign about how kids like the taste of Stouffer’s lasagne or about how many moms prefer Stouffer’s over Hamburger Helper. But what Stouffer’s does instead in their newest campaign is sell you a better life. Their “Let’s Fix Dinner” campaign is about the importance of spending time together as a family around the dinner table. And again, instead of going with simple infographics or a single family around a table, the whole commercial is presented in this really cool stop motion animation. It’s about families sharing their stories with each other. It’s about restoring relationships. You should buy their product because it helps fix your family. Hyperbole for sure, but I bet you didn’t know you could get that from a frozen dinner, now did you? Check out their ad and let me know what you think…

Click here to view the embedded video.

It is the desire of human beings to be known. We desire to be known by our God, our families, our friends, and our neighbors. Being known is being loved. The rich often have easy access to the tools and audience needed to make themselves known, but the poor are often excluded. Being known restores dignity and identity to the marginalized and oppressed. A powerful method for knowing someone is hearing their story. The power of a story can change the world, but only when it is heard and shared. I will help all people—but especially the poor—access the tools, medium, and skills they need to tell their story.

There is a lot of suffering in the world…

I am privileged to live in one of the richest countries in the world. I am a white, male, American. I have had more opportunities by nature of my birth than most people on the planet earn over their entire life. I did nothing to deserve this. I have also spent 27 years of my life living in a political and economic system benefiting from the oppression of millions, maybe even billions, of people around the planet. From poor immigrant day laborers here in the US to sweat shop workers in SE Asia to children mining ore in Africa. I have done relatively little to stop this or change this system.

For that I am sorry…

I know something else. It’s not my fault, and I have been forgiven. It is important to make clear that I’m not off the hook. If I continue not to act, I move from committing a sin of passive omission to a sin of active commission. What I mean to say is that I can go out into the world without feeling guilt about the past. If I am acting out of guilt, trying to perform a penance and repay generations of wrong doing I will die before I repay even my own debts. Just as our deeds cannot get us into heaven, nor can they repay the sins of our fathers (figurative or literal). I am not bound to a life of penance that simply reverses the role of slave and master. God has called us to a life of service. To a life of seeking to restore relationships and build life. Again, if I am seeking to repay my guilt my work will never be complete. I cannot redeem myself, only God can do that and Jesus DID do it on the cross.

So what does this mean…

Because I am not acting out of guilt I am free to love. My service is an act of worship. I’m not trying to make up for things that I can never undo. It also means that I recognize the broken system that I have come from and will choose to stand against it as often as I have the chance. I will live a life that is set apart and different from the standards and norms of the world. I recognize some people I come into contact with will want me to apologize, and as much as I can I will. My hope is that whatever injustice happened or is still happening can be brought to a close and we can move on. I believe firmly that God has called us to restore relationships and build the kingdom, and this takes more than apologies.

“In large part, the root cause of global injustice is anchored in a fundamental theological and anthropological error that has been referred to today as ‘money-theism.’ Money-theism deals with the idolization of capital, expressed as worship of the gods of the marketplace, and is often practiced through the rituals of the stock market and the liturgies of global capitalism. In this system people are measured in terms of their net worth, accumulated possessions, and incomes rather than their human worth, the quality of their character, and their spiritual depth. The value and worth of human beings have become more and more reduced to a ‘market fundamentalism,’ where the market alone defines what it means to be human.”

Pulling into the church parking lot with my mom there were three cars. Ours, my dad’s, and a pickup. No big deal we figured, maybe people were just running a little late. So we go inside to find the caroling group that is usually around 15-20 is just five for this year. Maybe it was the weather, maybe people were just busy, but starting a night of caroling with a choir of five doesn’t usually bode well. Never the less, my dad had told at least a few people we would be coming by so we couldn’t just call it off all together.

Our little group of five seemed pretty pitiful, and when there was no one home at the first stop, and the second had the wrong people home, I was really starting to question whether I should have just stayed home. I texted my brother joking that he had made the wise choice staying at home to prep the Christmas cookies and punch. I even started writing this post in my head, thinking about how I would have this great awkward Christmas story to tell. But then a funny thing happened, the woman at our third stop was home and we started singing.

No one would ever mistake us for a concert choir, nor was our little show very long. But as we sang I started to feel better about what we were doing. It’s hard to be a pessimist while singing Jingle Bells, right? I figured at this point, it might not be the most fun way to spend an evening, but at least it wouldn’t be completely misirable. But it was at the next home, and the one after that, and the one after that the real importance of what we were doing became clear to me.

My dad is the one who picks the routes. Generally the houses we stop at are a mix of widows, families my dad has done funerals for, or just people from the church who have a hard time getting out of the house. What struck me was how happy these people were to see us. But it wasn’t the songs we chose or how long we spend singing, it was just being there that was important. By showing up at their doors we were telling them they are known. They are not alone.

I spent a lot of time wollowing over the break about going to the Rosie Thomas concert by myself. I wanted so badly for someone to go with me and share the experience. But while I missed that companionship for just one night, there are people who experience that feeling every single day of their life. The widowed spouse spending their first Christmas without their partner. The orphan who doesn’t know the love of their parents. Those who might be thousands of miles from any other family or friends. The poor who have to sit outside in the rain while I sip hot cider. For one brief moment, these people felt known. We came to them, and sang for them, and hugged them, and wished them merry Christmas. And it cost us nothing.

I think part of everyone’s story is the quest to be known. What is love other than a deep intimate knowledge of that which is worthy? We seek to be loved by God, by husbands and wives, by friends and family. We want these people to know us and in that knowing we are loved and accepted. The sad thing is that the lack of being known can be crushing. I complain about not going out every night with friends, but if I locked myself in my room and didn’t come out, people would notice. My parents, my friends. They would call and say they missed me at church, they would look for me online to chat or knock on my door. Can you imagine living a life where if you locked yourself away, no one came looking for you? The opposite of being known is not being rejected or hated, no for those things you must at least be acknowledged. The opposite of being known is being insignificant. I can’t imagine living a life where if I disappeared no one would come looking. When we knocked on those doors and sang our songs, we were saying to these people, “You are significant, you are worthy of being loved.” Maybe our ragtag little group of carolers weren’t the most impressive choir ever assembled. But I think, I hope, for the people whose doorsteps we showed up on we helped them to feel known.

-Best of 2009-

Brooklyn Blurs – The Paper Raincoat
A new find this summer that released their first album this fall. Great orchestral pop from NYC. Their album has a story it is loosely based around but you don’t need to know it to appreciate the music. Apparently they played a show in Santa Cruz before I moved but I didn’t know who they were at the time and missed it.
Link:

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It All Depends – The Paper Raincoat
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The Hazards of Love 4 (The Drowned) – The Decemberists
This, The Hazards of Love, was my pick for album of the year in 2009 in July. Then Fanfarlo happened. Still, what other bands are ballsy enough to release an hour long prog-rock album these days? When they could have (and many other bands do) veered toward the safety of 3 minute pop songs, they released an epic that is very demanding of listeners. At live shows they literally play the whole album start to finish with no breaks. I tip my hat to you, Mr. Colin Meloy.
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The Wanting Comes in Waves/Repaid – The Decemberists
Prog-folk-rock at it’s greatest featuring guest vocals from Shara Worden of My Brightest Diamond. Colin Meloy’s voice seems to be kinda messed up in this performance so just ignore that and enjoy Shara. It shouldn’t be too hard.
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Ghosts – Fanfarlo
I actually missed when this album, Reservoirs, first came out because of how the Zune store works. But holy crap. This took The Hazards of Love out back and pummelled it to death to claim the title of Album of the Year in my opinion. Not quite the epic scale of Hazards and definitely more poppy, but it’s like indie-pop cocaine, I can’t get enough! Great album start to finish. I could probably put all of the songs on this list but I’ll stick with my top three.
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Harold T. Wilkins, Or How to Wait for A Very Long Time – Fanfarlo
Was actually off an earlier EP before being on Reservoirs. Harold T. Wilkins was a British journalist and amateur historian who wrote two large volumes on flying saucers.
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These Walls Are Coming Down – Fanfarlo
What’s left to say? Best album of ‘09, in my humble opinion. Actually, I guess I haven’t really said what it is I like about Fanfarlo and Reservoirs. I really like bands with big sound and lots of instrumentation, so Arcade Fire, Beirut, Decemberists, etc. Fanfarlo has this great mix that includes at different points everything from melodica to mandolin to violin.
Link:

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Hello Seattle – Owl City
I’m one of those people who has had their fingers crossed for years that The Postal Service would finally release some new material but since Ben Gibbord has pretty much killed the project I figured that was that. Enter Owl City. Leave it to a guy living and recording in his parents basement to fill that void. Great electric pop album. Fireflies is the single from the album, but this song’s about Seattle!
Link:

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Little Secrets – Passion Pit
I don’t dance. Ever. So you can imagine how funny it is when I hear this song and can’t help but do a little chair dance. And what band seriously features 4 keyboards?
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Sign the Dotted Line – Jeff Mangum
Mangum was the lead singer of Neutral Milk Hotel. Chances are you’ve never heard of Neutral Milk Hotel unless you are an indie pop-rock loving hipster. But if you in fact are an indie loving hipster, than their seminal album Airplane Over the Sea is probably among your favorite albums of all time. Music that ranges from beautifully composed to wild and frantic and Jeff Mangum’s voice whaling away make it unique if nothing else. You can see in them the roots of groups from Fanfarlo to Arcade Fire to Clap Your Hands Say Yeah. Airplane Over the Sea was their last full length album and it came out in 1998. Mangum rarely plays shows and hasn’t really released any new music since 2001. So when this song came out on a Chris Knox tribute album, it was a pretty big deal.
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Wait it Out – Imogen Heap
I don’t often listen to Imogen Heap so it seems a little strange to put her on a best of list but her music is just so good that I inevitably find myself wanting to hear more.
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Honey Bee – Zee Avi
Final new find of the year and the newest. Zee Avi is actually from Malaysia originally but she plays acoustic pop that oozes happy even when she is singing about breaking up or having an affair. I first heard her play a NPR Tiny Desk concert a few weeks ago. She just played a show in Seattle earlier this month but it was on the same night as one of my school finals so I didn’t have a chance to go. Fantastic album. As I said on twitter, think Madeleine Peyroux sings Jack Johnson.
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Valentino – Diane Birch
I’m not quite sure what to compare Diane Birch to. Not because her music is werid or experimental, I just don’t listen to much other stuff like it. I guess she can best be described as somewhere in between Norah Jones and She & Him. A little bit of a rock/jazz throwback feel to the music but her voice is definitely the selling point. She has an impressive range and very strong vocals.
Link:

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-Best of the Rest-

Since I haven’t really done a best of list before, this is a collection of some songs that I’ve listened to a lot in the last year but since they are from 2008 or earlier I haven’t written about them before. Think of this like the cherry on top.

Just Like Honey – Headless Heroes
Fantastic cover of the Jesus and Mary Chain song.
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I Don’t Know – Lisa Hannigan
I didn’t realize this was a 2008 album, how time flies! Still one of my most listed albums/tracks of 2009. I absolutely love her voice.
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King of Carrot Flowers, Part 1-3 – Neutral Milk Hotel
Neutral Milk Hotel remains one of my all-time favs. Airplane Over the Sea is one of the most influential indie-rock/pop albums of the last 20 years. Go reread what I wrote above about Jeff Mangum.
Link:

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The Penalty – Beirut
Beirut is a band that I didn’t like when I first listened to them. Then even after I got their album The Flying Club Cup I didn’t listen to it much until I started listening to Fanfarlo. Love the vocals and backing of the brass.
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Blue Mind – Alexi Murdoch
Alexi Murdoch needs to quit whatever it is he’s doing and record more music. Seriously.
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-Bonus Round-
I’m still kicking myself for not going to the Fanfarlo show when they were at the Croc this fall. Oh well, here is a live performance by them recorded by @sarahana at SXSW.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Link: http://hoovesontheturf.com/200904/fanfarlo/

-Bonus, Bonus Round-

If for some reason you’ve never heard of or seen inbflat.net, you should definitely go check it out. It’s music, and I found it in 2009, so I’ll count it as a best of. Very cool project! My friend @javajunky even contributed to it.

I believe God has indeed called all to be great and some to even change the world. Maybe God has called you to be a claims adjuster. Not the most exciting work, I know. But maybe He has called you to that role to be a source of compassion to people who have just lost everything in a house fire. If He has called you to be a camp registrar maybe it is so you can be a source of hope and grace to families struggling to stay together. But at the same time, so often we encourage musicians and writers and artists and dreamers to get “real jobs” rather than create something beautiful. As if God is more glorified in an 8-5 existence than an unpublished manuscript or an overlooked song posted to YouTube.

As I have started telling people that my passion in life is to be a story teller I seem to get one of two responses. I either hear something like, “Oh cool!” Or something like, “Hmm, so what are you actually going to do?” Maybe the latter response is born of experience and pragmatism and the former idealism and NPR, but so what? Maybe God hasn’t called EVERYONE to change the world, but if a few more people try would we be that worse off for the lack of a few more accountants or lawyers? Take a chance, indulge God a little. Who knows, you might even change the world if even just a little bit.

I don’t know how I feel about that.

I haven’t taken a photo because I haven’t seen any. That might sound a little crazy but if you’re a photographer I think you understand. When you really are in a groove you see life in f-stops and focal lengths. You walk down the street framing things at 50mm f/16. Colours and contrasts seem to jump out at you, forms and shapes, curves and edges, lines and forms…

Part of my problem is that my photography hasn’t ever been about a creative process. It’s been about people and events and places and documenting them. I mean I know I walk around talking about how everyone has a story to tell, but I right now I feel like I don’t have much of a story.

This is not to say that life isn’t incredible for me right now. Grad school might be the greatest thing that has happened to me, ever. The people I’ve been meeting, the doors it has opened, the things it’s making me think about.

But I can’t shake this feeling that something is building inside me. That there is a great idea laying just beneath the surface and I haven’t been able to give it form yet. It keeps peaking it’s head out here and there, in conversations, in blog posts, in tweets. But it’s not there yet…

I think part of it is that I want to do something excellent. Something remarkable. Now, to be fair I’m sure there is at least a part of me that wants that for the personal accolades. I’ve received some amazing unsolicited complements from friends recently and I think I’ve been letting them go to my head a little bit, but I think it is part of a process too.

You see, I’ve become increasingly convinced recently that in order to do something amazing, something really great, you have to be a little bit arrogant. I don’t mean that in a bad, self-centered kind of way though. I mean it in the sense that you have to believe so strongly that what you are doing is worthy of your effort that when people doubt or ignore you it gives you no pause. There loss. They’re wrong to say my writing isn’t good, or my photos are unremarkable, or my music isn’t beautiful. You have to believe that you have been called to do something so strongly that it becomes the singular focus of your life, the driving force that defines who you are. Then when people tell you your dreams are too big it only pushes you forward rather than dragging you down.

If I may be so bold, this is kind of my own personal “I have a dream” speech. My dream is to see people doing what they love, what they are passionate about. I want to see them living their lives with out hesitation, without a care but for call of their heart. Write that novel. Try out for the community theater. Take photos. Travel. Tell stories. Hug a friend. Restore relationships. Seek justice. What.Ever.It.Is.

We spend so much time worried about things that hold us back that we have become incapable of taking risks. Life is like a swimming pool. The point isn’t getting out, it’s being in the water. It’s not about where you end up. It’s about how you get there. Dive in.