40 Thoughts for 40 Years

Today is my 40th birthday and I thought I’d take the chance to share a collection of small thoughts I’ve had this year. As you can see in the history of this blog, I used to post much more of my thoughts online. However, as I got older, I realized people rarely change their minds. So I spent less time putting my thoughts on the internet.

But if you know me, then you know I still have a lot of thoughts and love to put them out there. So over the years, I’ve gotten in the habit of texting myself what I might otherwise posted online. It’s become a kind of miniature private blog to myself. So, for my 40th birthday, I got myself a present. The chance to share about 40 of the things I’ve texted myself over the last year (organized by date texted, not topic):


True greatness requires longevity.

Investment in institutions (government, school, business, communities) is the key to human thriving. Institutions attempt to systematize beyond the influence of individual human choices. In that way, they are also inherently dehumanizing.

The bias of the news is that there is always something newsworthy. You’ll never see the headline “Things are mostly the same as they were yesterday”. Daily news needs to talk less about the present. More about the past. And a lot less about what the future might hold.

Just because a habit was once adaptive, doesn’t mean it’s working for you now.

Religion can offer us an ancient sense of humility: Our free will is constrained by our weaknesses. I’m grateful it’s also constrained by a loving God.

Parent as if you knew your kids were going to be okay. You’ll push them less and enjoy them more. Then they’ll probably turn out okay.

Capitalism is said to have an invisible hand that guides markets. Democracy needs to have a visible hand that voters can see, appreciate, and want to support.

Move away from “is what I’m saying the most correct” to “is what I’m saying the most effective”.

It seems like Adam and Eve were never meant to die. Never meant to go to heaven. Maybe this is the purpose of the human story. To end up better than where we started.

The American empire will eventually fade. Instead of putting energy towards holding on to as much power for as long as possible. Maybe it’s more productive to put that energy towards supporting growing nations that might share our values (maybe like India, Brazil, Ethiopia, etc).

One of the best ways to make America more resistant to radicalism and more open to gradual change is to help us realize just how successful they we've already been.

Every piece of criticism needs to be couched in the context of predetermined acceptance.

If someone is primarily describes the “good news” of Christianity as just delayed gratification (wait for heaven), that is truly some very bad news.

Your emotions are true, but they might not be telling you the truth.

Avoid financial advice that sounds like easy money or a complicated workaround.

Unlikely benefits of having a lot of children younger: Every year early you have a child, is an extra year you are in their life. Every extra child you have is an extra family member for them after you are gone.

The tradeoff to the many benefits of the 18th-century Enlightenment was an over-reliance of what we can see and understand. Apparently there is a lot about the world we will never understand. Thinking otherwise turns us into skeptics and conspiracy theorists.

We should replace the phrase “I can’t do that” with “I don’t want to do that” (because the benefits of success aren’t worth the costs to try)

“Don’t worry what other people think. No one is keeping your score. They are only keeping their own score” -Jeff Probst

Maybe everyone everywhere is struggling and needs to be treated with kid gloves. If so, I’ve got a lot of more apologies to give.

When you compare men and women, remove the top 1% (which is mostly old white men). Then by almost all measures, women are doing just as well if not better than most men over the last 30 years. This is both a celebration of the progress made and a model for how we can help moving forward. This is a big idea I’ve gotten from listening to Scott Galloway

Immigrants are an incredible piece of positive social engineering. There’s something about the immigrant experience that even makes them perform better than other marginalized groups. Are Kamala Harris and Barack Obama successful people of color, or are they products of a family with an immigrant work ethic and talent?

I’m less afraid of AI taking over society like Terminator. I’m more afraid of AI negatively affecting the way humans actually live their lives in the real world. This is already happening with social media algorithms.

The average age of inaugurated Presidents when I was a kid (Clinton, Bush, Obama) was 49. The average of the next 3 presidents (Trump, Biden, Trump) is 75.

Cynicism is a type of cowardice.

“Identical twins, raised apart are more similar than fraternal twins raised together. The most important thing you give your children is genetics. The second is zip code” -Daniel Pink
I feel like this justifies my laissez-faire parenting and the fact that I’m so picky about houses. Note: I’ve been technically homeless for over 6 months.

When things are bad, just keep pushing. When things are good, slow down.

Too much advice, even too much good advice, can create anxiety in the receiver and actually end up being taken incorrectly and become bad advice. If you feel that now, just stop reading this blog post ;)

People only get better when it’s easier to improve than to stay the way they are.

One of my greatest personal flaws is I love the simplicity of Checkers and I am easily tired from the complexity of Chess.

A good summary of the U.S. economy of my adult life: The price of non-essentials have gone down (TV’s, computers, air travel, etc) largely thanks to automation, but the price of essentials has gone up (housing, groceries, college, etc), largely due to fixed human labor costs. Curious how AI will affect this,.

There is never a more fickle mistress than the approval of others.

The bad times will come and go. So will the good times. It’s all about enduring and enjoying the now. If life is a gift, we’ve got to accept it all with gratefulness. Somehow.

Expectations are what drive us. They are also what drive us crazy.

My pitch for a new cult: “25 year Amish”. There are costs to living in the modern world. So instead of tying your culture to an arbitrary century like the Amish do, just delay all technology you use by 25 years. So go out and get a Blackberry and start ordering books from Amazon.

If you find yourself serving someone, something, or some group more than they serve you… great! That’s the purpose of life. To become a net positive on the world.

Negative emotions are key factor in human survival. Ignore them at your own peril.
That said, see above about the news high jacking your emotions.

People are not drawn to you. People are drawn to how they feel about themselves around you.

Earnestness is not a measure of whether what you are hearing is in fact correct. Earnestness is saying confidently what you think is correct. This is what makes Trump so believable, yet so incorrect.

It’s weird that as you get older your parents have less impact on your daily life. But it’s not until you’re older that you realize just how much they impact who you are.

I have found that my own lack of empathy is a lack of willingness to endure the feeling someone else in having right in front of me. It is brave to embrace the joy and sorrow of the world around you.

This NYT article is about how one of the most powerful things you can give children to increase their resiliency is an intergenerational self. An idea of how they fit into the larger narrative of their family history. A way to test this, is to see how much of the stories about their parents and grandparents they know. My wife and I played a trivia game asking our children these questions. They scored an average of 84%!

Career advice for my children: cast a wide net of hobbies and interests and then follow the ones that offer the lifestyle (money, hours, satisfaction) you desire.

You don’t get to choose who you are. That is largely a function of who you spend your time with. But you do get to choose who you spend your time with. I’d suggest regularly participating in more than just one group to ensure a healthy competition of ideas.

I’d like to increase not only my transparency, but also my vulnerability. One challenge for myself is to use more “I feel” statements. People will commonly respond incorrectly to vulnerability, but worst case scenario I’m just giving us all practice.

I’ve gotten very good at communicating with large groups. My challenge for the next decade of my life: give more individual attention.

Takeaways from "Crazy Busy"

These days I finish books about as often as I blog (not very much). One reason for the lack of both is busyness. This Spring Break I took some time and read "Crazy Buzy: A (mercifully) Short Book about a (really) Big Problem" by Kevin DeYong. Here are my takeaways:

Efficiency and punctuality are a part of functioning and showing respect in America, but they are not absolute virtues globally (and certainly not historically).

If you doubt the level of complexity and opportunity in America just visit the cereal aisle.

One way to combat the burden of busyness is to ensure your lifestyle has a "margin". That is, you plan to make room for the eventuality of the unplannable. To not do so is arrogance from a finite person.

A fallacy: "Busyness serves as a kind of existential reassurance, a hedge against emptiness. Obviously your life cannot possibly be silly or trivial or meaningless if you are so busy." -Tim Kreider of the NYT

A primary cause of busyness is pride. Ask yourself: "Am I trying to do good or to make myself look good?" I'm personally guilty of sacrificing the unconditional love of my family for the praise of those I'm less intimate with.

Jesus never ended a sermon with "do more or disobey". The original sin was not a lack of effort for God, it was an attempt to become Him.

This is not a permission to be apathetic. We should hurt for those who hurt. However, our circle of influence will always be smaller than our circle of concern.

Jesus spent 30 years in relative calm before a whirlwind 3 years of public ministry. So don't fear, Jesus (more than most pre-modern people) felt the weight you likely feel of busyness. He was constantly around the disciples, preached to thousands (without a microphone), was swamped by the sick, and sometimes even had to escape by boat. Yet, he certainly had to leave cities with more sick and hungry (literal and spiritual) to continue his larger Mission.

Busyness isn't a planning problem, it's a personal one. You must create a simple list of priorities or "unseized" time will flow towards our weakness and squeaky wheels. At the same time, we have to respect others' priorities and appreciate when we hear "no".

One of the most common American forms of busyness is Kindergarchy: Rule by children. "Children have more options and more opportunities, but parents have more worry and hassle. We have put unheard-of amounts of energy, time, and focus into our children. And yet, we assume their failures will almost certainly be our fault for not doing enough."

In his book, Selfish Reasons to Have Kids", economist Bryan Caplan (remember him?) cites numerous twin and adoption studies that conclude almost every desirable trait parents wish to pass down (health, happiness, intelligence, likeability) are more nature than nurture.

"One of the most resilient and cherished myths of parenting is that parenting creates the child" -Leslie Leyland Fields

However, Bryan Caplan does show 3 traits that can be impacted by parenting: religion, politics, and appreciation of how they were parented. So, perhaps we should just try and instill those and not stress about the others so we can "have a better life and a bigger family".

Technology helps us do more of what we want. So, it can (and often does) feed into our desire for busyness. Easy half-solution: put your phone out reach and/or create full on technology Sabbath day(s).

We actually work less and rest more than we did (farming was hard), but the two are significantly less separated. We work while we play (and visa versa) much more. I may have tried to post this near 5pm so you wouldn't read it at work.

"You can borrow time (from the future), but you can't steal it. There is no such thing as a free coffee boost.

A not very sexy, but correct, concluding point: "If you have creativity, ambition, and love, you will be busy." But how busy?


HT to my brother in law Stephen for the book!

Birthday Wishes for a Proper Family Narrative

As is often the case every couple years on my birthday I take a self diagnostic and write a "Birthday Wishes for" post. Whether it was Happy Parenting in 2008, Political Perspective in 2010, or Empathy in 2011, the exercise has become a neat anti-New Year's Resolution (check my post history to see how those have worked out). This year, nothing seems more relevant than a simple wish for a happy family. From the NYT:

“There was a lot of research at the time into the dissipation of the family,” he told me at his home in suburban Atlanta. “But we were more interested in what families could do to counteract those forces.”

Around that time, Dr. Duke’s wife, Sara, a psychologist who works with children with learning disabilities, noticed something about her students.

“The ones who know a lot about their families tend to do better when they face challenges,” she said.

The uniqueness of the answer is concealed in just how simple "knowing" was measured:

Her husband was intrigued, and along with a colleague, Robyn Fivush, set out to test her hypothesis. They developed a measure called the “Do You Know?” scale that asked children to answer 20 questions.

Examples included: Do you know where your grandparents grew up? Do you know where your mom and dad went to high school? Do you know where your parents met? Do you know an illness or something really terrible that happened in your family? Do you know the story of your birth?

Dr. Duke and Dr. Fivush asked those questions of four dozen families in the summer of 2001, and taped several of their dinner table conversations. They then compared the children’s results to a battery of psychological tests the children had taken, and reached an overwhelming conclusion. The more children knew about their family’s history, the stronger their sense of control over their lives, the higher their self-esteem and the more successfully they believed their families functioned. The “Do You Know?” scale turned out to be the best single predictor of children’s emotional health and happiness.

Loyal blog readers may be thinking, but what about that whole Life's Not a Story, It's a Mess quarter-life epiphany. I am certainly still weary of creating overarching life patterns where none exist, but that doesn't mean we can't create some general narrative:

Psychologists have found that every family has a unifying narrative, he explained, and those narratives take one of three shapes.

First, the ascending family narrative: “Son, when we came to this country, we had nothing. Our family worked. We opened a store. Your grandfather went to high school. Your father went to college. And now you. ...” [sound famialiar? -HB]

Second is the descending narrative: “Sweetheart, we used to have it all. Then we lost everything.”

“The most healthful narrative,” Dr. Duke continued, “is the third one. It’s called the oscillating family narrative: ‘Dear, let me tell you, we’ve had ups and downs in our family. We built a family business. Your grandfather was a pillar of the community. Your mother was on the board of the hospital. But we also had setbacks. You had an uncle who was once arrested. We had a house burn down. Your father lost a job. But no matter what happened, we always stuck together as a family.’ ”

It's not about creating a false story that leaves out the gritty details. It's about creating an inter-generational understanding of the world. This seems to be the strength of long lasting institutions (think the military or the Catholic Church). In fact, one of the big realities of Biblical wisdom is having a God's eye view of history. This just seems like a healthy step in the right direction.

It also works for institutions like businesses. Which is why at our most recent State of the Theater meeting, in which we added several new members to Alchemy, I took a few minutes to put where we are going in context of where we have been.

This has also given me the idea of creating a new end of the year project for my US History courses. Every year we create a large timeline going around the room labeled by pictures of the presidents a graphic organizers of every topic. After exams this year I plan on assigning students to investigate their own family heritage and narrative and label our giant timeline with the names and stories. I look forward to completing it myself.

Top 5 Thoughts on Kids and Money

While going through my email recently I came across some thoughts from my brother-in-law on kids and money. My response was my top 5 thoughts on kids and money (earlier):

1) There are chores you have to do because you are a part of the family. There are extra chores you can do to earn money (I think I might let my kids bid against each other on these).
2) During the summer they can do extra work for you/neighbors/businesses.
3) The older they get the longer their pay periods are.
4) Buy a piggy bank that can only be cracked open. Anything they add to savings we will match dollar for dollar (like my own retirement account). Encourage them to keep a ledger of what has gone in so they can have an estimate of when/if they want to crack it open.
5) I'd like them to tithe, so pay day is church day so they can take their "first fruits" to church that day. I'd also like to encourage them to give money away. I'm not quite sure what the kid equivalent of a tax deduction is.

I Had Roses and Apologized to No One

my sick station

I've been holed up in my guest bedroom with a "flu-like virus" and a fluctuating fever of over 100 degrees since Sunday afternoon. Most recent record was 103.8 degrees and the scale says I've lost 5% of my body weight. This is the worst I've physically felt in memory. I haven't been able to keep any real food down and haven't gone to work all week. It's been an interesting contrast to the last time I took some time off, right after my baby girl was born in October.

I've been reminded of the phrase at the title of this post, "I had roses and apologized to no one", from everybody's favorite libertarian superhero V for Vendetta. There is a character dying in prison of a deadly disease, but instead of dwelling on her current state, Valerie remembers back to the few good years she had before her world went bad. So I've decided, while I'm in my sweaty, hacky, drug filled state, I'd like to remember those 3 weeks in October:

looks this good overdue

By October 10th my wife Traci was already 3 days overdue, so we decided to get out of house, grab a bite to eat out and buy me some khaki corduroy pants I'd been wanting for so long. When we got home I gave my wife free reign on a movie selection. She choose a classic Traci favorite, The Break-Up. I guess we were prepping for our real tears with some celluloid ones.

taking a stroll,
pausing for contractions

Traci starting feeling labor pains in the middle of the night Thursday morning. For the next 20 hours or so, we labored in the house with our doula and walked around the neighborhood. The actual process of contractions, although very intense, were, in my wife's own words, "not as bad as expected". And I really enjoyed the bonding of going through it together.

not all newborns are that cute 

The last hour or so of the birth was a different story. This is the only part they show in movies because it is super intense. My wife did amazing job and at 3:32 am Friday, October 12th Traci gave birth naturally to Mae Harper Brookie. 20.5 inches and 6 pounds 4 ounces, long and thin just like her parents.

about to leave

Our plan was to spend as little time at the hospital and get to the comfort of our new home quickly. However, I was blown away at the quality of the midwives, nurses, lactation consultants, etc (though the rumors of bad food were true). I've concluded that the last big innovation in medicine is great customer service.

resting on the porch

We got home with Mae on Sunday and thus began a wonderful 2 weeks at home together (in fact I'd been so busy leading up to the birth I hadn't really spent a full day in our new house yet). The 3 of us trying to figure out eating, sleeping, and soothing together. Cuddle naps with Mae while my wife lifeguarded to ensure everyone's safety. Friends and family brought us delicious meal after delicious meal and they were all so sweet to Mae.

family of Kiko the new baby giraffe

We mostly kept ourselves during this time, with a few trips to the outside world. Some strolls around neighborhood, church, a meal out with my family, and even got a chance to walk downtown, baby strapped to me, to say goodbye to a friend moving away. And Halloween is always more fun with a baby. I ended up only missing one Alchemy show, but the theater ran just fine without me.

Like the bad times, the good times are mostly out of our control. A year ago I came to Greenville saddened by my work load, the impossibility of finding a house we could agree on, difficulty getting pregnant, and the improv community I left behind in NC. And here I am a year later with all of those desires fulfilled. I embraced the reality of suffering then, and I embrace the reality of joy now. We shouldn't brag on the upswing or be ashamed on the down. Stop and enjoy the roses you've been given and hold on to them for the future. Apparently my baby has been smiling up a storm the last few days. I look forward to seeing it in person myself. Here's a teaser for us:

Inconsequence of Baptism

When my wife and I moved to North Carolina and  began searching for a new church, I put out a request for Useful Church Criteria. I decided then to use church doctrine as my primary measure and we found ourselves at another reformed presbyterian church. After three years there we left with very few long term relationships. So when we moved to Greenville, we used intimacy as our primary criteria. For almost a year now, my wife and I have been attending a non-denominational house church of about twelve in Greenville. The church's larger gathering has clear baptist roots and now that we are pregnant we have come face to face with church doctrine once again. I am meeting with my church leaders today to discuss the issue and I assured them I would give it significant thought. Here are those thoughts.

The New Testament introduces a new sacrament to the God's people, baptism. There are several examples of baptism in the order of conversion and then baptism: "Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved", “Repent and be baptized", "Simon himself believed and was baptized", etc. However, because this was a new sacrament, none of them would have had a chance to be baptized as a child and some of them had already been baptized once by John the Baptist. The issue is complicated when household baptisms are discussed: "The Lord opened her heart to respond to Paul’s message. When she and the members of her household were baptized", “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved —you and your household.”, "I also baptized the household of Stephanas", etc. Did these children, wives, servants all believe simultaneously? Possible, but it is unclear. Baptism is further muddled when you look at all the other ways the word is used: "in a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.”, "They were all baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea", "don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?", or finally “Can you drink the cup I drink or be baptized with the baptism I am baptized with?”

This post is not primarily about how I side on the issue of baptism, it is about how I think the local church should deal with it. So I will quickly explain the conclusions that I have come to agree with. Like the New Testament term baptism, the Old Testament term circumcision is used in a variety of ways. Everything from the literal act, to more figurative, and to even more figurative. And in many of these uses, they apply to those who are special to God and/or those who are submissive to God. All the men of Israel were physically circumcised, but not all the men in Israel had figurative "circumcised hearts". So there is a presidence for sacraments to be a signal of God's devotion to men, not of men's devotion to God. In fact, I see few Biblical examples of people choosing God and numerous examples of God choosing people, who then resist, and are eventually overwhelmed by God's pursuit. Circumcision, grace, and salvation are all a gift, one that cannot be denied. Baptism, I believe, is the New Testament sign of that gift for all those within his church, believers and their children.

Though my conviction in the good news of Jesus is strong, my conclusion on the issue of baptism is not conclusive. For this reason I believe theological differences of this kind are inconsequential to church membership and leadership. For the baptist tradition to not allow membership on this basis and means to prevent 80% of current believers and essentially all believers prior to the rise of Anabaptists in the 1500's from joining your community in good conscience. Is scripture, the Holy Spirit, and the collective wisdom of the global church that unhelpful? When you consider the issues worth dividing the church over, and there are certainly some, I don't believe this is one.

I understand this post lacks both depth and breadth, but I stand confident my charge to "preach the gospel—not with wisdom and eloquence, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power." I should however clarify my likely overly controversial title. I do think baptism should have little consequence over church participation. I do not think baptism is trivial. It is inconsequential, not unimportant. It is mentioned way too often to ever be ignored. What is consequential is my church's support of my decisions as a father. I need them to trust my commitment to my family more than they trust their commitment to a specific type of baptism. That is the question I optimistically look forward to having answered at my meeting today.

New Baby New Blog

That's right, my wife and I are having a baby! And here's the most recent post from my new baby blog, written from the perspective of the main character:

It's official, I'm a boy or girl! You'll have to solve this word problem to find out which: 

I'm the most popular baby in the world. I charge the minimum wage in 1994 (in 1996 dollars) per hour to be baby-sat before midnight. But I get a dollar more per hour if you keep me up later. Last Friday, I earned $28.50 for being baby-sat by the neighbors until 1:30am. What time did I start? 

If it's before 8pm I'm a girl. After 8pm I'm a boy. Good luck!

And here's the first heartbeat and ultrasound!