New Features Aplenty

I've added a few interesting new features to my blog.

The most important of which is an RSS feed (finally!) so all of you saavy Google Reader users out there can add my to your feeds.

There's also a cool new Blogspot feature called a blog list that not only lists my favorite blogs out there on the web, but shows the title of the most recent posts. So if your blog is on there, make your titles really snappy and post frequently, because the list is arranged based on the most recent posts. May the best blogger win!

Haha, just kidding, no pressure and all that, but seriously anyone cruising for blogs to track should check out that list.

And There Was Much Rejoicing

Today is a very big day everybody!

Today I get to take the first name off of my list of infamy to the right. My dad has started blogging! In typical Doug Fike fashion, he took his time getting into it, but his blog is bigger, more nuanced, and built on a better platform than mine, lol.

You should all go check it out, cause he's at least as awesome as I am.

dfworldview.squarespace.com

Check out some of the incredible photography in his Photo Blog section. There's some really cool, artistic new series there.

Midnight Secrets

Here's another freewrite that appeared in my notebook recently. Ironically, I wrote it yesterday afternoon during a DDQ session...but I was paying very close attention I promise:


Last night I climbed the tree outside my window. The sill was open, just a little bit. I couldn't help myself. The bark of the old elm felt good, like little slips of brittle paper with ancient messages scribbled inside. My toes sank down into the wood, leaving a trail of five fingered smiles as I climbed.

It is a very tall tree, the kind that grows taller and wider as you climb. It smelled like very old furniture, which made me happy. The branches spread out over the roof of my house. As I climbed higher, I heard the music. Little tender trills and icicle bells danced in the air, just loud enough to hear. It was what had drawn me outside, though I didn't realize it until now. I peeked over the top of a very large branch, and that's when I saw them. The little people were dancing on my roof again.

Some of them plucked at tiny little harpsichords, while others tapped and rattled on acorn drums. Each one wore its own little hat. Some were floppy, others were very proper, but they were each a very different color. Some of them had tied little bells into their hair or their wings, and they tinkled like Christmas ice as the twirled in tiny circles. I wanted to watch them forever, but I knew better. Everyone knows, if you're lucky enough to see the little people dancing, you mustn't stare. Some things cannot be owned.

I kept climbing, because there was more tree. The branches grew thinner and began to bend, but I asked them to be brave for me, so that I could reach the top, and they straightened right up. They were good branches. I'm glad my mother taught me how to ask nicely.

The tree ended quite suddenly. The leaves up there were very faint and foggy, I still remember that bright silver taste they left in my mouth. You could run your hands through them if you wanted to.

The moon was waiting for me, like I knew she would be. She told me little secrets. They weren't very important, but they made me very happy. I would share them with you, but she made me promise not to. I'm sure she would share some of her secrets with you, if you asked very nicely.

The Changing Shape of Seasons

Something I've been thinking a lot lately: growing up.

In years past I've thought more about the parts of growing up that effect me. Job, relationships, my own family some day. But lately I've been reflecting on the part of growing up that effects the people in your life. It's such a significant shift in so many ways, that I've seen how it begins to play out in your important relationships.

Take my relationship with my parents, for example. This year at home has been intense and amazing. I came into it relating to them primarily as their child still, and I'm coming out of it relating to them more as a peer in many ways.

I think its a subtle thing, but important. I've talked with them about things I've observed in their marriage. I used to ask their permission for things that I now ask their perspective on. And in a lot of ways, I've noticed how much more active my spiritual and relational radar is for our family. In the past those are the kinds of things I would have expected them to keep track of. How is the family doing? Do we need to stand together to pray for something or someone? I'm noticing and taking responsibility for those things in ways I never would have a few years ago.

So now that question I've been wrestling with is, how do I healthily and fully step into the dynamics of this new season, without cutting myself off from the amazing insight and perspective I'm privileged to have from friends and family? It feels like a strange tension to walk out. I suppose that all of the various dynamics of this very new phase of life as things I just need to walk out as I become aware of them.

For those of you in a similar season shift who read this blog, how have you been experiencing this transition? Any specific areas, responsibilities, or challenges that you're particularly aware of right now? I'd love to hear about them.

A Long Silence

Sorry for the long absence. Hopefully Demetri Martin kept you entertained somewhat while I was away.

hehe...B Batteries.

Anyway, this is normally the part where I would talk about how busy everything has been, blah blah blah, but it really hasn't. I mean, I've been working on a lot of things, and I spent the last weekend at the Dandelion Seed Conference in Charlottesville (which was amazing and I'll need to post on that at some point).

But mostly, I've just been mentally tired. I've been stubbornly avoiding any non-essential "thinking and expressing yourself" activity lately, hence the long silence. I'm not really sure why. I've noticed that I get that way sometimes. When I've been engaging a lot, all of the sudden I just need to disengage from it for a while. It especially happens when there's something in the back of my mind that I'm thinking a lot about...

I suppose I finally found the outlet I needed though. Two nights ago I stayed up all night playing Mass Effect (an amazing space opera epic roleplaying game on the PC, for the uninformed). I finally crawled in bed for a few hours around 8am.

You'd think I'd wake up tired, but I was so refreshed and energized that morning, and I have been since then. I rolled out of bed and crossed three things off of my to-do list in about 30 minutes, and I've been on a roll ever since.

I guess I'm still learning how important it is for me to regularly disengage and really give myself permission to do that with abandon.

So, keep your eyes peeled for regular posting once more. I've been thinking about a lot of things, and having some very interesting discussions with cool people, so expect some more philosophically oriented posts for a while.

Although I can't promise I won't get goofy on you. That's just how it is.

Demitri Martin

'Warcraft' Sequel Lets Gamers Play A Character Playing 'Warcraft'

It was only a matter of time until Blizzard hit on this idea. The only question is, why didn't it happen sooner?

Freewriting

I've been doing a lot of freewriting exercises recently. I pulled the idea from Writing Down the Bones (there's an old post about it on here somewhere). The idea is to just put your pencil on the page and keep writing as quickly as you can, to practice loosening up and writing more genuinely. It's been a really fun exercise, and I'm actually liking some of the little pieces I end up with. So I've decided to start a mini-series on here of some of my favorites:

06/06/08

Something sleeps under the pavement of this city. It waits just behind the concrete walls. It isn't evil, any more than it is good, it just is, like a summer storm. It is the distant thunder that tells you that a riot of color and smells you might never see is happening just behind you, and if you turn fast enough, you just might catch it out of the corner of your eye.

There is just something more under everything, whispering little words to us as we walk to work. It is like dark sunlight.

It is why we write songs, and break boards, and ride horses. Because we know that there is more, and we all think secretly that if we write songs about breaking boards while we ride horses, well maybe then we would find it.

I often wonder if someday we will all wake up with shiny new car keys on our pillow. If the more will just be there, like ice on a winter morning.

We will all remember how to fly. We will race fire and eat clouds. We will tame unicorns and spend whole decades under the ocean.

The Price of tax cuts

I stumbled across this article, and found it interesting. Well actually I found it terrifying. As we head into the general campaign, this is the kind of "numbers and data" information I really value.

Walking Around

You can get pretty far if you just pretend that you belong.

I spent the afternoon walking around downtown DC by myself, just getting some fresh air with no particular plan in mind. I was kind of trying to find a restaurant that I thought was in the area I was wandering, or I thought I might stumble across a bookstore or something.

I circled several blocks, and was thinking about giving up and just eating any old place, but I was walking past a Marriot, so I figured, "why not ask the concierge?"

Anyway, just kind of strolled up to the desk and asked about the restaurant. She pointed it out to me on a map, then gave me the map and also circled a nearby bookstore and a movie theater. She was very helpful, and almost made me wish I was staying there. I was feeling very cool and secret agent like as I left with the top secret map in my back pocket.

Then I pushed on the door that was clearly marked "pull" for like 10 seconds on the way out.

What?

Like you've never done that before...moving on.

I went in search of my restaurant, but I never made it there. A block from the hotel I got hit by a torrential downpour. I mean the kind of rain that looks like it should hurt. I was only about two blocks from the theater the concierge had pointed out, so I went there instead. Since I was pretty much instantly soaked, I found a perverse kind if satisfaction in strolling down the sidewalk, smiling and waving to all the people running by under flappy umbrellas. They were very confused. It was great =).

So instead of the sushi restaurant I had been questing for, I ate at McDonalds, as that was the only real option though. It was cool though, because I had a coupon for a free sample of the new addition to the menu, a southwestern chicken sandwich. It's kind of like the annoying, B student little brother of a Chick-Fil-A sandwich, in case you were wondering. Some cops who were hanging around to wait out the rain chased out a homeless looking guy who wasn't buying anything, which seemed unfair to me because it was raining on him too. I wanted to buy him some food but he left pretty fast.

I ended up watching Indiana Jones, which was good in that it gave me something to do while I waited for the storm to pass, and bad in that the theater was - of course air conditioned...I tried to use the shivering to create friction with the seat, which didn't work but made me feel like I was doing something about the situation. At least I dried off fast.

The storm was pulling a Hillary Clinton by the time the movie let out. Everyone knew it was over but it hung around and kept sputtering anyway.

Two blocks in any direction from the Verizon center (where the theater is), you will find bright lights and those kind of fake facade restaurants and buildings that are supposed to look authentic but just look like Disney knockoffs. With the rain coming down, it felt exactly like walking through a movie set, especially since I was again the only person without an umbrella. I even took off my hat so the water could run all the way down my face. I told the doormen outside a hotel I walked past that it was a nice night for a swim, which they laughed at.

So basically, my aimless wandering ended up exactly the way I had hoped it would, interesting and unexpected.

Life is good.

How vs. Why

A few years ago mom decorated one whole wall of the Inn's bathroom with pages taken out of a "Decade in Review" edition of Time Magazine from the 1960s. It's a great idea, tons of interesting little articles that cover everything from music and the emergence of television to politics, the economy, and Vietnam.

One little add all the way up by the ceiling caught my eye recently. It reads"

"Boy.
Drop out of school, and that's what
you'll be called all your working life.

If you want a good job, get a good education."

It got me thinking about how subtly but significantly things have shifted since the dawn of the Information Age.

I think the link between education and success is even more widely accepted today than back then, but I wonder whether the assumption the education = school is as iron clad as it once was.

Honestly, I believe that very little classroom education beyond middle school fundamentals really prepares students for success in real life today.

Now, don't misunderstand, I also think that any education or mind-expanding exercise is worthwhile. I'm glad that I understand the principles behind algebra, physics, biology, english literature, etc. But at the same time that I appreciate them, and think students should be educated in all of those things, is a working knowledge of those fields really what makes up a good education?

Who is teaching students how to accurately evaluate the pros and cons of a situation when they're trying to settle on a course of action? Who teaches them to create realistic budgets? How to healthily and constructively work in a team environment? To learn to value delayed gratification? To think and reason critically, from several viewpoints? To push their own thinking out of the box intentionally when problem solving? To give and receive constructive feedback?

My point is, today education in America focuses on information and data. We teach facts. We learn when things happen without discussing why. We teach kids how things work, but not how to understand themselves and others so that they will actually be able to DO SOMETHING with that knowledge.

To me this approach just seems totally backwards. Information is everywhere. If you want to know how something works, or when something happened, or how to solve for X, just Google it. I think its time we started to take advantage of the general availability of information. Let's focus less on turning students into walking encyclopedias, and start teaching them how to make the most of the knowledge at their disposal.


Agree with me? Think I'm nuts? I'd be really interested to hear people's thoughts on this spontaneous rant, so drop a comment.