I am doing 43 things.
Monday, September 26, 2011
Sunday, September 25, 2011
I Want a Tablet But I Want My Life More...
...I watched the other day. I had a fairly hefty to-do list that included shooping, acquiring, and then actual hands on modifications with said acquisitions. So I did my errands and then watched.
I see people sit in front of the TV, the computer, their phones all day. Some do one thing all day. Are they sequencing DNA for the eradication of cancer? Maybe they are on the phone negotiating peace (or even launching a war) between two factions who have been rivaling since the beginning of time. Or the TV has a special on how to fix cars, budget better, get fit.
It happens at home. It happens at the station. I do not see people anymore work with their hands. I do not see them apply basic concepts of follow-through based on effort. I do not even see someone look up instructions on how to fix a doomiflatcher and then go fix it. I see them fed information and never DO anything with it unless it is to send an email or update it on their Facebook. It boils down to I never see them THINK.
I heard someone the other day state that he was deeply frustrated, depressed, and ADD. I asked him how much time he spent DOING something. Reading, getting out, cleaning his house, playing golf, anything? He watches TV, visits his head-cracker and updates his frankly boring and miserable existence on FB so we can all see it. I asked him if his shrink ever asks him how much time he spends on FB, slumped on the couch, boring the rest of us. He says no. I said you don't think it is odd that he can spend hours doing FB and doodling on the computer but if compelled to do a work task he cries his ADD makes it so hard? He did ask if the medications he was on would preclude him from riding an apparatus. I was forced to tell him his medications wouldn't... but his lack of drive and inability to BE IN EXISTENCE would keep him off my crew.
I see people sit in front of the TV, the computer, their phones all day. Some do one thing all day. Are they sequencing DNA for the eradication of cancer? Maybe they are on the phone negotiating peace (or even launching a war) between two factions who have been rivaling since the beginning of time. Or the TV has a special on how to fix cars, budget better, get fit.
It happens at home. It happens at the station. I do not see people anymore work with their hands. I do not see them apply basic concepts of follow-through based on effort. I do not even see someone look up instructions on how to fix a doomiflatcher and then go fix it. I see them fed information and never DO anything with it unless it is to send an email or update it on their Facebook. It boils down to I never see them THINK.
I heard someone the other day state that he was deeply frustrated, depressed, and ADD. I asked him how much time he spent DOING something. Reading, getting out, cleaning his house, playing golf, anything? He watches TV, visits his head-cracker and updates his frankly boring and miserable existence on FB so we can all see it. I asked him if his shrink ever asks him how much time he spends on FB, slumped on the couch, boring the rest of us. He says no. I said you don't think it is odd that he can spend hours doing FB and doodling on the computer but if compelled to do a work task he cries his ADD makes it so hard? He did ask if the medications he was on would preclude him from riding an apparatus. I was forced to tell him his medications wouldn't... but his lack of drive and inability to BE IN EXISTENCE would keep him off my crew.
Wednesday, September 14, 2011
Post-911 Crisis of Faith...or Lack Thereof.
I find myself feeling traitorous towards my own kind. Like going vegan when your dad is the Head Cannibal.
The past few weeks have been 9-11, 9-11, 9-11. I do not underestimate the horror of the event. I do not think it is possible to COMPREHEND the enormity of the event enough to underestimate it. I think you have to adapt to it at the level of your understanding.
So I am a firefighter. 9-11 came and I thought, "Is it really that big a deal?" Then I was horrified. 343 firefighters lost their lives. 2974 dead and 24 presumably dead but missing. $970 million in FEMA money. Approximately $1.4 billion given to 9-11 associated charities. Lives the world over were affected. It was no small thing.
In New York I went to the site where the Twin Towers were and it was astonishing in pondering the logistics of the collapse itself. However, I wandered around a bit but never felt the seemingly heart-wrenching every one else was experiencing. I thought, "It will come." I climbed my several too many flights of stairs for 9-11 like I always do with people I love and admire. I told some people I work with who put their lives on the line in between reading the sale ads at Krogers and breaking into B-shift's food locker. I read some news reports. I looked at some pictures. I read "God Bless One and All" several dozen times.
Still nothing. I wonder if it was that for every 9-11 article I read (He was wonderful. We still set the table space for him. Her last words were... apparently there was the greatest concentration of nearly sainted people on the planet in the disaster sites on 9-11-2001) I read some hate-filled blog about the poor of the country, Muslims in general, and general Tea Party rhetoric.
So we are willing to be compassionate and on our knees and eyes-swollen like boiled eggs with tears of the ages for those that are dead. It seems we are unwilling to give of our compassion to our living neighbors. We will not educate our children to compete in a global market for fear they will/will not learn about God and will/will not be given scientific information on basic human biology. We will kill a man for the words he says. We do not believe that every person deserves equal rights and we are far too concerned with whether two pee-pees are touching rather than concentrating on eradicating common disease and malnutrion.
So perhaps it is merely a crisis of faith. Or a disaster of lack of faith. I do not think that the firefighters died in vain. Never that. But what I do wonder is if our faith can carry us from anniversary to anniversary.
The past few weeks have been 9-11, 9-11, 9-11. I do not underestimate the horror of the event. I do not think it is possible to COMPREHEND the enormity of the event enough to underestimate it. I think you have to adapt to it at the level of your understanding.
So I am a firefighter. 9-11 came and I thought, "Is it really that big a deal?" Then I was horrified. 343 firefighters lost their lives. 2974 dead and 24 presumably dead but missing. $970 million in FEMA money. Approximately $1.4 billion given to 9-11 associated charities. Lives the world over were affected. It was no small thing.
In New York I went to the site where the Twin Towers were and it was astonishing in pondering the logistics of the collapse itself. However, I wandered around a bit but never felt the seemingly heart-wrenching every one else was experiencing. I thought, "It will come." I climbed my several too many flights of stairs for 9-11 like I always do with people I love and admire. I told some people I work with who put their lives on the line in between reading the sale ads at Krogers and breaking into B-shift's food locker. I read some news reports. I looked at some pictures. I read "God Bless One and All" several dozen times.
Still nothing. I wonder if it was that for every 9-11 article I read (He was wonderful. We still set the table space for him. Her last words were... apparently there was the greatest concentration of nearly sainted people on the planet in the disaster sites on 9-11-2001) I read some hate-filled blog about the poor of the country, Muslims in general, and general Tea Party rhetoric.
So we are willing to be compassionate and on our knees and eyes-swollen like boiled eggs with tears of the ages for those that are dead. It seems we are unwilling to give of our compassion to our living neighbors. We will not educate our children to compete in a global market for fear they will/will not learn about God and will/will not be given scientific information on basic human biology. We will kill a man for the words he says. We do not believe that every person deserves equal rights and we are far too concerned with whether two pee-pees are touching rather than concentrating on eradicating common disease and malnutrion.
So perhaps it is merely a crisis of faith. Or a disaster of lack of faith. I do not think that the firefighters died in vain. Never that. But what I do wonder is if our faith can carry us from anniversary to anniversary.
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