Defeat

In Seattle now, hanging with my friend Mark, who recently had his Bar Mitzvah, at the tender age of 52. For our inaugural distance book club, Mark suggested that we read Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik's mid-sixties classic The Lonely Man of Faith. Soloveitchik takes as his jumping off point a well known split within the Old Testament, which happens at the very beginning. Genesis I narrates the creation of a man (Adam the First) charged with achieving majesty and dignity, of commanding over nature. Genesis II, by way of contrast, has another creation myth, in which man (Adam the Second) is created from dust and is charged with caring for nature.

On this chilly Shabbos morning, I woke up to find Mark studying the book, and he read me passages about Adam the Second in which Soloveitchik characterizes his posture before Being as one of "defeat." I had read the book -- admittedly I kind of jammed through the second half of it on the plane out here -- but hadn't really picked up on the "defeat" aspect of Adam the Second's condition. This demands reflection. In some sense, it is not so different from the word "Islam," which literally means "submission," as opposed to "Jihad," or "struggle."

Just sayin.

Off the grid

On the way to Charleston yesterday, as you may have guessed, we stayed off of 95. Took 1 south to Southern Pines (where the team at Subway was exceptionally pleasant), then made our way to Georgetown on an array of smaller roads. Some of them much smaller, thanks to Sergei and Larry.

Mostly, the trek was not rewarded in terms of scenic beauty. A stultifyingly flat and lonely landscape of low economic activity, punctuated now and again with a Dollar General, a church, a truck, a cluster of ranch style houses. In one yard, a guy was driving a golf cart, for no apparent reason. But, on the other hand, the overall effect was that we left the Eastern Multiplex of big roads, warehouses, subdivisions, strip malls and chain restaurants for a few hours, so that when we re-entered it on the outskirts of Charleston, it was a little jarring.

And we got a clear view of the challenges, nay the near impossibilities, of leaving the places we passed through, and thereby an appreciation of how fortunate we are.

At many country crossroads there were signs advertising for high-speed internet. Access to it is by no means a foregone conclusion outside the Multiplex. I was reminded that, at the Person County Democratic meeting, there was a resolution read out, one that was making its way up from another local chapter, which talked about the import of high-speed internet for those in the countryside. It was filled with a great many "whereas" clauses ("whereas, access to the internet is indispensable to modern living...."), so it sounded very quaint. But it bespeaks a real and present need.

And now we are here. Outside it is cold and rainy. It is not supposed to be that, in lower South Carolina in late March, but what are you gonna do. Time to saddle up.

Gearing up

Getting packed to head out to Charleston, SC on Spring Break.  I may or may not be posting from the road, time will tell.

Was up in Roxboro last night with mom and Natalie at the Person County Democratic Convention. Each time I step out and get into this process, I learn a little more, but mostly I appreciate how much other people are doing. There is a small core cadre of people up there working hard, but much to do.

It was nice to let mom show Natalie where she grew up, though we were a little rushed.

My big mouth, as yet unopened

Yesterday evening I attended a fundraiser for Josh at the home of Bill Bell, the former mayor of Durham. I should say first off that the man's house was not ostentatious: there is not a hint that the man has had occasion or inclination to misuse public funds or influence thereover. He worked at IBM for a while, and then served the citizens of Durham for a couple of decades, and appears to live like an entirely normal person.

Secondly, it occurred to me that, as I spin wheels trying to figure out how to help the Democrats achieve goals in the 2018 cycle, specifically up in Person County where we are trying to help them win back District 2 for the NC General Assembly, rather than trying to pull rabbits from a hat in a place I don't know well, I should be thinking about raising money down here in Orange County, where there is more money to be raised. So maybe we do another event.

However, that will involve talking to Mary. Since we've done some work on the house, I ought to be able to pull it off, but I will tread gently for now.

Me and my big mouth

A non-profit on whose board I serve has some financial challenges (which doesn't?).  Legislation promulgated after another scandal won't let it pay its Executive Director properly (the E.D. is an MD), and its primary client, a division of the state of NC, is way behind in paying its bills. And there's other little stuff, mostly about cash flow and political challenges to the organization's ability to diversify its funding streams. I won't bore you with it.

The key thing is this: we haven't been good or aggressive about asking for money and building a donor base, and partly that's a function of not having learned to tell the organization's story. So I had the great idea of kicking off a fundraising campaign at the organization's big conference, which is in 5 weeks. And, in yesterday's board meeting, I led the discussion and said that the drive should be led by the Board, and that a member of the Board should address the conference. I was of course thinking that the Chairman would be the best person, as he has been leading the Board for many years now. But it turns out he has to go to Africa on work.

So guess who gets to make the speech?  If you guessed me, you win.

So, over the next five weeks or so, I have a fair amount of learning to do so I can make a rousing speech. I also need to get myself a new suit, something I have been meaning to do. I just hate going to the mall.

I also may end up calling up some individuals to ask for money, so don't be shocked if I call you.

Dailiness

I was just reading Nick Murray (as I do daily), in which he exhorts advisors to journal daily, on the grounds that it makes us better people. It was a goal of mine when I started this blog to write daily, and I did it for a while, then I trailed off a little, though my aggregate productiveness over these past 13-odd years is not bad. I've blogged on more than half the days.

Yesterday I'd say my most important lesson was around time management, and some of it was about my own productivity, some of it about observing someone else. I had a ton of things on my task list, as I always do. A colleague showed up unexpectedly at the office, and took me off on an abstract topic that really wasn't headed anywhere and really wasn't productive. Later in the day I got further insight into some really bad habits that lead to chronic underproduction, which cause me to focus more on what I should be doing: learning things that help me help others better, and connecting more with people whom I can help.  Also, continually focusing on limiting the number of things I'm involved in. I basically resigned from a board yesterday in an email. A board with an ill-defined mission, non-inspiring leadership, that just isn't doing much.

But I continue to try to ramp up on Democratic Party activity, in Person County specifically. And get home for dinner.

That's it.

Fire potential

Pretty much constantly, I find myself driving past piles of wood by the road from trees people cut down in their yards and thinking: "Free firewood! I ought to throw that in the back of the car and take it home to burn it."

The problem is, of course, that I am too lazy to actually make the fires. I kept the fireplace clean this year till after my fundraiser for Josh, and since then I have made maybe three fires. I keep finding myself in the rec room with Graham or Natalie watching TV rather than in the living room with Mary, watching a fire.

Fact is, the narratives of the two are more or less one and the same. It is just that TV excites more passion in the moment and offers one more to discuss, whereas fire expresses the essential truth.

Bureaucracy and spiritual progress

A couple of weeks ago I was at an Al Anon meeting, and we were reading from How Al Anon Works, a section which tells the tale of the early days of the fellowship. It was founded by Lois, who was married to Bill W, founder of AA. In the early days, it was just her and a few other wives of alcoholics, but then they started having groups and a small office for the national organization, and soon the small cadre found themselves dealing with massive volumes of correspondence and administrative work to support groups in formation around the country and figure out how to develop some basic reading materials, guidance, etc.

I was reminded of a thread I vaguely remembered from Juan Linz's Sociology of Religion course I took in 1986. This was not a class I did particularly well in or took particularly seriously. But I did take a couple of things from it, namely volumes I and II of Max Weber's monumental Economy and Society. These are dense and daunting tomes, the reading of which did not really match up well with my somewhat indisciplined way of life in college.

But I took certain key things away from the course. Foremost amongst them is the idea that baseline religious worldviews permeate everything we do, and that, in Weber's view, there was something special about Protestantism (and Judaism) that seemed to account for their success in forming societies which generated wealth. And that bureaucracy, to the extent that it facilitated a diffuse, abstract, rational and granular division of labor across an ever more abstract economy, was good, the embodiment of rationalization. And that the monasteries of the Middle Ages played a key role in the preformation of modern bureaucracy.

Some of this I may have imagined. I now just pulled the books off the shelf and pawed through the tables of contents, then looked at the Wikipedia article on Weber. Each is enough to make your eyes glaze over.

In any event, to bring it back home, my point is this: it was the belief in an idea, in the case of Al Anon the idea that alcoholism is primarily a family disease, at first the idea that an alcoholic's behavior fucks up a family and makes family members crazy, later the idea that dysfunctional and destructive behavioral patterns are learned by successive generations of families within which substance abuse dominates and are passed on, it was the belief in this idea that drove Lois W and her early team members to sit down and do a bunch of tedious work that eventually evolved into something that has persisted and done a lot of good. The belief in an idea let them suck it up and grind on through boredom, and this grinding was, in some sense, holy.

The truth is painful

After the first soccer game of the season, I am in considerable pain, both in my calves and also my right knee. The trick is to get through this evening without letting it become too apparent, so that Mary won't be able to claim that I am "injured," and thereby have some sort of moral authority over me. I will tough it out and keep it on the dl.

Talking points

Met with a guy this morning about the Orange County Dems "County to County" initiative. My mom and I are trying to figure out how to move the needle up in Person County, where she is from and where we own property.

Then I get back to my desk and read that Kudlow is trying to push the "phase two" tax cut concept even before he is fully in the saddle as National Economic Advisor. It occurred to me that the Democrats really need to figure out how to articulate the value proposition of government per se. We have let the Republicans define the agenda ("the state is bad") for all too long. The underlying thread to most of it is:

1. The government takes hard-earned money that you owned and gives it to people who don't deserve it (mostly people of color)
2. You should be able to do whatever the fuck you want to. Regulation is bad

The Republicans have defined the narrative for too long, because they have figured out the simple themes and have been able to pound them hone relentlessly by staying on message.

We need an equally simple counter narrative.

Retreats

We were out at the house of this artistic couple who have openings at their house all the time, and have a little apartment which lets them hosts artists in residence. The guy their had taken a sabbatical in which he drove 20,000 miles across 21 states and visited 50 retreats over the course of 5 months. It occurred to me that I might apply using my blog. I mean, I write more than most writers do, no doubt about that, I just don't edit much.

Old pictures

For the second day in a row I was sucked down into the rabbit hole of looking at old pictures of the kids when they were younger. At some level, there is nothing more rewarding. At another, nothing more wasteful. It is hard to figure out which is more true.

But it is not the right time of day for it, that's for sure. I need to get this season's soccer games on my calendar and then press on with the day.

Pre-Genesis aliens

The Al-Anon daily readers with which I have been starting my day for some time had gotten a little stale of late, so I conferred with my friend Mark, out in Seattle, has been reconnecting with his Jewish heritage. He suggested a few titles for me, including The Lonely Man of Faith by Joseph Soloveitchik, a towering figure in the rabbinical world who for decades taught Jewish Philosophy at Yeshiva University. I had suggested to Mark that we might have a distance book club, and that this might be a good place to start. To which I said, OKURYV.

In this 1965 book, Soloveitchik takes as his jumping off point the contradictions between Genesis I, in which God makes man to dominate the world, and Genesis II, in which God makes man to tend to it. I read for a little while, and then realized that, if I was going to really take this little book of Soloveitchik's seriously, I needed to go back and take in the referenced scripture. So I went and got my Bible off the shelf. Actually, I got the New English Oxford Study Edition, with the revised translation, because I couldn't find the King James edition I have had since childhood (but never really cracked). I know it is around here somewhere.

So I start reading, from the beginning, and God is making the world by proclamation, using all these words: light, water, earth, firmament, fruit, seeds, beasts, etc. And I realized that the only way (s)he would have all of these words was if (s)he had already made other worlds.

Which really made me pine for Star Trek. Since Graham and I finished watching Deep Space 9, he has insisted that we watch The Blacklist, in which James Spader has a lot of fun playing a master criminal, and lots of people die. But, compared to the majesty of the Star Trek universe, with its ever-expanding cast of extra-terrestrial beings and its genuine, multi-decade attempt to grow a franchise which meditates as seriously as possible on the growth and interplay of civilizations and species, it fairly pales. I will make a serious push for us to get started with Voyager as soon as possible.

Newer cars

After resisting for a while, because I really don't want to sell her, but I know I should, I went to the car parts store to get "For Sale" signs to hang in the window of my lovely 2008 Silver Outback with a stick shift (98k miles, $8500). As I was checking out, the guy at the register, an African-American guy in his mid-late-20s, asked me what I was selling:

"A 2008 Outback, but with a stick shift"
"Oh, a newer car."
"Newer?"
"Well, I've never owned anything newer than a 2000."

Turns out, right now he's driving a 1995 Lexus. "It's in great shape. I mean, it had the engine rebuilt a couple of years ago, but it's basically like new."

I do love people who drive their cars for a while and come to love them just because. That aspect of car culture is endearing, and its slow demise with the advent of autonomous vehicles will be bittersweet.

But I also remember when the natural order of things seemed to be three TV networks (ABC, CBS, NBC) plus a little more (PBS, channels that carried syndicated stuff) and three automatkers (GM, Ford, Chrysler) plus some scrappers and foreign cars for those cool enough to live in university towns. And that all changed.

Tuning the boy

Mary was out at a meeting yesterday evening, and before transitioning from homework to TV time I paused Graham in the living room, where we had a small basket of laundry to fold. Graham asks me: "So I asked mom and I guess I should ask you: when you were in high school was there anything you weren't good at?" I assured him that there were plenty of things: science, scoring goals, high-level leadership, music (even though I organized our monstrous reggae band, I wasn't very good at my instrument, which is no surprise, since I had never played it before), basketball... The list of things I sucked at was actually longer than the list of things I was good at. We just don't talk as much about the things we're not good at.

Graham is beginning to perceive a fair amount of pressure. Natalie got into Yale, I went there, Mary went there, his friends are getting increasingly geared for the long game of high school. There are even those who question aloud whether the pressure-cooker atmosphere of East Chapel Hill is right for Graham. It could be that it isn't.

But I have to believe that he can make it through. Natalie has exceptional drive and discipline, it is true, but also just a good groove about her. She and her friends are so incredibly supportive of one another. In many ways many attributes the stereotypically sisterly components of female gender coding has just plain worked for her, have carried her through. We need to figure out how to harness some of that for Graham, to get him to knit better with his friends.

He and Jake had a blow up a few weeks back, Graham got frustrated and tossed a chess board that he and Jake were playing. Almost certainly Graham was losing, which would have annoyed and threatened him. Graham sent an apologetic email after mom figured it out and coached him. I wonder if a follow-up phone call or in-person conversation might not be in order. Email is better than nothing, but actual human contact is better even.

Processing speed

Played tennis with Z yesterday, we will not discuss the results here. Let's just say that he played really well, I was proud of him.

All week long the meteorologists predicted that it would be breezy, and man were they right. There were gusts of up to 50 mph, or so they said. All I know is that it was really windy, and that we were the only ones out there fool enough to be trying to play a match.

On one side, the wind was more or less at your back, on the other, more or less blowing towards you. But there was also substantial cross wind. And, in tennis, you switch sides after every two games, which means the conditions were changing regularly. Add to that the natural variability of the wind, there was a lot of change to process.

Graham not too long ago had a neuropsych evaluation done, which determined that his cognitive processing speed was somewhere around the 18th percentile, while his verbal communications were something like in the 99th. That's a big gap. My sister Leslie, who works with kids on the spectrum, knows of others with similar gaps, and it's hard to coach them to bridge this gap.

It strikes me that I am probably something like that too. I am not really all that quick, which means that, from a young age, when guys were standing around trading barbs and whatnot, I was far from the quickest. I might drift off, think of something pertinent, and then be looking for a place to interject it, but the really quick and dominant guys (Cool, Whitey, Josh, Crabill) would have long since carried the conversation elsewhere. That's not where my core strengths were best focused.

A blog is just my speed. And, since all the research indicates that the number of people who can trade in the markets on a short-term basis and add value in a statistically significant way is vanishingly small, shepherding people towards long-term financial goals also makes a lot of sense, counter-intuitive though it may appear.

And this was particularly apparent to me yesterday out on the court. It is always hard for me to stay on message on the court. Usually it's best for me to try to run down balls and let the other person make a mistake, but it's boring and hard to stick to that. Shifting winds and trading sides added even more variables to the task of sticking to my game plan. But it was all good, I got some exercise, had some good yucks; it was a hundred times better than just going for a run.

Imagine your calendar full

I got an email the other day from a guy, a 401k wholesaler, which said something like how he had some magical system for filling my calendar with prospects. There are those who really want that, to have some system that generates lots of leads with generic prospects to whom they can sell things so they can create a huge book of business. It is like they want to develop a machine that puts them into the situation which all doctors complain about now, where they are providing cookie-cutter services under time pressure for a bunch of people they hardly know.

When I think about that, it just bums me out. I would much rather have what I have now, an organically evolving business in which I get to help out and spend time with people I've known for a long time. In which I get to keep learning stuff which is useful to them.

And now, it is time to go brush my teeth and keep reading about the evolution of the post-war, post-Bretton Woods global currency markets, and the defense of the British Pound in 1964. Good stuff.