It’s Not Enough To Have An Idea, You Have To Own It
Brainstorming can yield some great ideas. When we put our minds to it, we can come up with all sorts of things. But unlike playing in the playground, the sand castles we build in real life have to be things people can live in.
Sometimes in a frustrating situation, I find that it’s easy to reflect on the course that would’ve been the easiest and in retrospect, it seems like what should’ve happened. Maybe because it seemed like the most logical thing at the time or rather because I didn’t consider it more seriously. The reasons are plentiful, but hindsight is 20/20.
When you’re working at a glacial pace or trying to introduce something that’s never been done before, it’s critical that as the person proposing the change that you understand the path. It’s your responsibility to be a sort of tour guide, project manager and leader without making the “tourists” feel like they lack control of what they see and when they see it. Of course, there’s a reason for “guided tours.” You know the path and if it’s a safari, it’s better to have you there than to have someone untrained walking you through a place where wild animals live.
This came up in the classroom once and a student asked me, “How do you not doubt knowing what’s really right if you’ve never been in that exact situation before?” It was one of those oddly timed questions that I needed to think about, because it wasn’t immediately relevant to the discussion even. But when I came back to it, I was able to say very simply… “It’s not enough to have an idea. You simply have to own it. And if you can’t own the idea, then it’s probably not a good enough idea for what you’re trying to do and you need to head back to the drawing board or seal the fissures where they exist as you find them.”
I felt like one of those “easier said than done” kind of things. But the more I reflected, the more it made sense. As an idea person, you can sometimes fall in love with all sorts of possibilities that seem right at the time or that you don’t “market test” thoroughly before proceeding. In an institutional environment, I’ve always done this, recognizing how critical buy-in can be. But it’s a lesson applied well to all aspects of life, I believe.
What I’m doing: Finishing Chicken vindaloo.
What I’m avoiding: Packing for Kansas City tomorrow.
The vindaloo was pretty good. I should’ve bought basmati rice the other day though, it was the only thing missing from the meal.
Authenticity in the hinterland
One of the (many) frustrating things about rural life is how one deals with matters of race. I tend to handle such things with a matter of deft ignorance, because I think the overwhelming majority of folks are too ignorant to have conversations about it and I’ve retired from the game of being the black guy in meetings trying to educate you on what you should’ve been taught even if it’s not your fault.
But when one of the debaters repeated something she heard from another kid about how “white” I sounded to them, it bothered me like it hasn’t in a long time. Now, it’s not as if I haven’t been to that rhetorical Wal-Mart before. But I think it’s my overall frustration which being “otherized” that has made these kinds of situations more difficult than they were when I was younger. I don’t think I dealt with them better, but it was just different.
The kid that said it was one of the black kids here, which sort of makes sense. And I don’t think he meant it as people in the formative years meant it, but rather, a semblance of shock and confusion at an otherwise assimilated negro or something. I don’t even want to be writing about this, but it bothered me and I didn’t know of a better way to get it out.
My posture is generally by design. I spent entire too long trying to cultivate a persona that was mostly contrarian. If you expected left, I went right. I thrived on throwing you off, being atypical and challenging your assumptions of what I was supposed to be. But it wasn’t dictated by societal expectations, rather gravitating towards what I found interesting. In other words, it’s not an act. But on some level. I guess it is in the sense that my comfortability inhabits a world that doesn’t exist. I don’t feel especially comfortable anywhere, rather it’s the people in the circumstances that determine my emotional comfort zone. I think these days, I try not too hard to think about it because if I did it’d be depressing.
But I think the most interesting realization I’ve had here is how my strangeness probably gets misinterpreted for some kind of cultural clash; when it’s really about something else. No matter where I end up, there will always be some kind of difficulty with assimilating to the mass market. I’m not exactly a mass-market kind of guy in my style, speech, music, food or much of anything else.
Where I’m starting to evolve is finally shedding the vestiges of a younger self that was so content to jump through hoops to prove myself in the eyes of whoever, however that was supposed to manifest itself at that particular time. I don’t think I care too much about acceptance, I just want to be seen as competent and interesting, to the extent that I care at all about their perceptions.
If I want anything, it’s to be able to be satisfied with where I am and what I’m doing. To be pleased with the course I’m on, because it’s been a long time since I could say that.
On Time Well Spent, Pt. 1
I tend to personalize things a bit too much. I can’t put a finger on why that started, but as I notice I have to remind myself that it’s not always about you. One of the things I underestimated about being (back) in the hinterland was how much I’d yearn to have connections with real people more regularly.
It’s not to say there aren’t interesting people floating around the stock yards and cornfields or even on campus. Our lives are just different. I realize this is a conscious choice that we make at phases of our lives to dictate what we’ll do, how we’ll do it and why. I think it’s really easy to look at someone else’s life and think “What am I doing wrong? Is there a blueprint to this that I’m missing?”
One of the things about the time when there were people around in my circle constantly, was how fragile I knew it’d be. It seems the more you run into friends who’ve “embrace” the accouterments of grown-up life — spouse/kids/house — is a certain kind of plainness to it all. It’s as if, they’re quite pleased with what they’re doing, but aren’t especially concerned with whether anyone else is happy with it. This is horribly anecdotal and owes largely to how many friends I don’t have who despite good jobs simply haven’t been able to find someone they like to marry and are in a major state of transition. This probably makes it easier for me to cope because in my circle there’s nothing especially odd about my life. There’s a practicality to where we find ourselves and we’re all at various stages of finding it.
I’m not writing about that, though. I’m instead thinking about how we synthesize our networks to find what works for us. People live where they want to, connect with whom they find some commonality and do stuff that (presumably) gives them some satisfaction. One of the things that began my glacial shift politically comes from this idea that you derive so much of your identity to where you live and interacting with people who share your values. I don’t now if it ever occurred to me before how much this was important. It’s this kind of structure that makes rural life sustainable for so many people. They find people who fit them, they make it work and live lives that provide a semblance of satisfaction.
Connections are about sacrifices. You choose your friends and some people come and go. Others remain for a long time. You accept that no one is perfect, that people with warts and all still matter. Choosing a place to live is full of the same kind of sacrifices unless you’re wealthy enough that it doesn’t matter.
As I try to connect the pieces on the board, I find myself assess and re-assessing what’s really important and it seems that right now, it’s not even about people. I yearn for the kind of satisfaction that’s eluded me because of choices I’ve made. That part can’t be overstated, because it’s a lot easier sometimes to dismiss choices as circumstances.
I used to believe that experiences mattered more than stuff. I feel more strongly about that now than ever. I loathe checking boxes, making middlebrow choices in an inevitable rush towards retirement; then stuffing my future kids with a bevy of unrealized expectations aimed at fulfilling promises (for me) that I made to myself but couldn’t keep for one reason or another.
Maybe this makes my thought process seem too much like a zero-sum game, but I don’t see it as that. There’s a balance between making conscious choices towards an unknown future; delaying satisfaction in an effort to play a part in a larger context without understanding whether any of that will really matter to you or not. On the other hand, there’s something to be said for building a foundation from which you can reap the benefits should you find yourself in a situation where you can’t move at the speed you’re accustomed to.
Connection is a process and exercise and right now, it’s about building a sustainable foundation for a live worth living. But the key part of that sentence is the last part, life worth living. If you’re not living it, it’s not worth much.
