Catching up

[Murfreesboro]

Your description of Phoebe's interest in and compassion toward the younger competitors tells me that she really does have ethics and a strong character. I have no doubt that she is determined not to do to them what was done to her.

Sadly, Karl is not currently disciplining himself w/re/to diet and exercise, though he was once a model of dicipline on those scores. He is the one who suffered a psychotic break (twice) in his mid-20s, and he isn't exactly the same person now that he used to be. For one thing, the medications he takes made him gain 100 lbs in the first month. He was getting stretch marks like a pregnant woman and had no idea what they were. I know it was the medication, because he tried to ween himself off it over a period of several months, and the weight started to come off. Neither of us could believe that he needed to take medicine like that forever, but then the break happened again, and he was back in the psych ward. Now fear of returning there rules his life. He used to have normal interests, like sports and music, and dating, but now he mostly reads theology (although just lately he's been reading political philosophy and economics, seriously, like, teaching himself higher level math to follow some of the econ arguments). He left his grocery job at Gordon's a couple of years ago for higher pay and benefits at Walmart, but he got hired for a night shift (10-7), so now he does janitorial work and helps stock the produce when it comes in at night. I'd hoped he might work himself into a different type of position with normal hours, but he says he likes not having to deal with customers, even though, at Gordon's, he appeared to be a customer favorite. They were always giving him things and inviting him to their restaurants while offering him discounts.

He seems to have a very depressed and negative self-image now. He tends to assume that most people don't like him, even though I think that is far from true. He serms to magnify every negative thing that happens to him and completely forget all the good things. Once I made a list of all the encouragement and "attaboys" he'd received over the years, from mentors to teachers to bosses to peers. It was a fairly long list. He looked at it as if all of it were news to him, completely forgotten.

I knew nothing about mental health issues before all this happened to him. In some ways it's not too different from getting hit with cancer out of the blue. You can survive it, but it changes you.

[TheHeadlessHorseman]

He seems to have a very depressed and negative self-image now. He tends to assume that most people don't like him, even though I think that is far from true. He serms to magnify every negative thing that happens to him and completely forget all the good things.

I knew a guy like that when I was working at Home Depot, I still know him, but he's a completely different person today. He was a few years older than me, and back then he was very antisocial, and didn't talk to many people, aside from the rest of us that worked the night shift with him. He would say that the only reason that we even talked to him was because we worked together, and when he talked with us he would stare at the floor instead of look at us directly. He was also very awkward around women, and thought that he couldn't ever go on dates because women wouldn't ever go for a guy like him.

But after about 2 years of working with us he decided to put some trust in us and hang out with us in the mornings after work at a coffee shop, and eventually he became comfortable socially and was able to start talking to women. He found a good woman that loves him, and today he's happy. His life changed for the better because he was willing to let us in and make some new friends, and once he did that his social circle, and self confidence grew. So there's always hope if you're willing to put the effort in.

although just lately he's been reading political philosophy and economics, seriously, like, teaching himself higher level math to follow some of the econ arguments

That's interesting, is there a specific reason that his interests pivoted in that direction so suddenly?

I think that economics, and the higher level math that he's learning could be a step in the right direction if he intends to get actively involved. Along with the political philosophy that he's expressed interest in, it could be something that gives him a sense of purpose if he was to pursue it. The way you talk about him sounds like he has a introverted personality, and he obviously isn't comfortable in social situations, but sometimes people with that issue can come out of their shell once they find a specific direction, and become very vocal and dominant people in those areas.

[Murfreesboro]

From your lips to God's ears. I do think he is the main one holding himself back.

I wouldn't say that Karl's interest in political and economic philosophy is sudden, because he's had periods like this before. Several years ago he was reading Machiavelli and Adam Smith. He also read Marx, but mainly The Communist Manifesto. He found Das Capital not worth the slog. This summer he's been reading Keynes pretty assiduously, also Aristotle's Ethics. But always in the background there's his obsession with religion. He doesn't really read theology, like Aquinas for example, but he seeks out and pores over every Biblical text he can locate. He's read whatever the Coptic Bible is, and Eastern Orthodox, and the Catholic Bible (Douay Rheims? Not sure I spelled that right), and the various English translations used by Protestants over the centuries. He can talk your ear off about the "filioque" dispute between the Roman Catholics and the Eastern Orthodox. I guess he's just trying to make sense of the world, and he's going to religious, political, and economic thinkers in an effort to do that.

As a boy Karl shared a bedroom with his older brother, who was a super student, valedictorian, National Merit Scholar, Phi Beta Kappa in college (so was their sister a few years later). But Colin really focused in on math, to the extent that he taught himself calculus when he was a high school sophomore, and went.straight through school for a PhD. The boys have always been close, but I think Karl started out defining himself in contrast to his brother. Colin was doing math, so Karl did sports. I think Karl saw how much work it took to excel academically at Colin's level, and he decided it wasn't worth it. Now he reads and studies on his own as if he were a grad student, but he's seemingly not interested in pursuing degrees. He just wants to learn it for himself. I have mixed feelings about this. I respect his sincerity, but I also know his scholarship is unlikely to profit him professionally if he doesn't get the expected certifications.

[Murfreesboro]

Like me, Karl writes well and seems to be more comfortable on paper than he often is in person. As a teenager he used to write poetry and short stories, some of which were pretty good. He doesn't seem to have much interest in creative writing nowadays, but I could see him writing about philosophical topics. I've sometimes wondered, if he were to lean into politics, if he could be a speech writer

As an adult, Lydia is the one who has done more writing. During the pandemic she wrote several plays and even completed a novel she'd started in high school, completely revising it after she'd written the first draft. But she hasn't been writing much since she took her job at the bookstore, I think because the irregular hours and some interpersonal conflict with the staff have sapped her energy. She does keep a notebook of ideas, though, and she collects phrases she overhears in conversation that catch her ear.

[Andybev01]

The comedian Lewis Black has a bit about something that he overheard in a restaurant that begins " if it wasn't for my horse, I would never have spent that year in college." and he just takes it and runs.

Snippets of conversation can be wonderfully inspiring.

[Murfreesboro]

Yes, they can!

She had to do that as an exercise in creative writing class years ago. She used something I'd said that absolutely baffled her teacher. I think, in her version, I'd said that "They can't make daylight saving year round. Don't they know all the children will die?"

Of course I'd been talking about the experiment in year-round daylight saving during the energy crisis of the Nixon administration. So many school kids got killed waiting for busses in the black dark that TPTB couldn't wait to reverse that law. But of course, without that context, the statement made no sense.

I'd be very happy to give up spring forward/fall back, but I really wish that they'd opt for year round standard time. Sometimes I feel like I'm the only person left alive who remembers that early '70s fiasco.

[TheHeadlessHorseman]

I apologize for not being around for the last few days, but I was finalizing the details on a business deal. I'll tell you about it tomorrow.

Honestly, it sounds like Karl and I would have some very interesting conversations. As I have previously mentioned, when I was in my late teens to my early 20s I read about 20 different versions of the Bible, and the differences varied from small to drastically different between them. I know there are other people out there that have read the multiple versions, but I haven't ever met any of them personally, as they are usually upper class professors that would probably look down their nose at a guy that works in a restaurant.

Now he reads and studies on his own as if he were a grad student, but he's seemingly not interested in pursuing degrees. He just wants to learn it for himself. I have mixed feelings about this. I respect his sincerity, but I also know his scholarship is unlikely to profit him professionally if he doesn't get the expected certifications.

I understand what you mean, and I guess there are different ways to look at it.

On one side of it, our society puts a heavy emphasis on education, and the preconceived notion that the higher level of education that you attain, the better that your opportunities are to secure long term employment, and financial stability. While that is definitely true, and you won't ever hear me argue that fact, because you have heard me say multiple times that being educated is extremely important to success, and I want those same opportunities for my kids if they should choose to continue their education after high school.

On the other side of it, some of the smartest people that our society has known throughout history have been reclusive loners. While some of them have invented things, or shared their philosophies that have reshaped our world, there are others that search out knowledge for themselves, to expand their mind, and attempt to answer the questions about our place in creation. They don't do it for any profit or recognition, or to brag, but simply, to know, and they are perfectly fine going through life unknown to the world.

I think that I'm living proof that you can achieve success without any fancy degrees as long as you're willing to put in the hard work to get there. In my opinion, a degree is just a piece of paper to brag to the world about how great you are, and if you're going to waste years of your life to get a degree and then you just end up as some corporate yes man kissing some wealthy guy's a**, then what was the point? I don't need a piece of paper to tell the world how smart I am, or to validate myself to anybody.

Regarding Lydia and her writing, that's very impressive that she has written plays and a novel. What was her novel about, and is she published? Has she directed or overseen the production of any of her plays?

[Murfreesboro]

No, Lydia is not published. Her novel was a kind of mystery, with a midpoint turn and another surprise at the end. Originally she set it in Columbus, OH, a place she'd never been at that time, but when she revised it she set it here in Murfreesboro, so she was able to be very specific about the setting.

She has also written narrative poems in blank verse, and some of them are pretty good. As a theater major, she is most attuned to plays, and she's written 2 or 3 "responses" to Shakespeare. At one time thete was a grant available to people who did that, but it might have expired. One of those plays did get to a table reading (she got a group of local actors to read it together), but she never took it any farther. The play she chose for that reading was a comedy, but I preferred a different one she'd written, a response to Measure for Measure. She's also written at least one play based on the Biblical story of Achitophel.

[Murfreesboro]

I could write a lot more than I have time for right now about our society's attitude toward higher ed. For now I'll just remark that I think there may be a sea change going on about that. I think there may be a return to valuing people who work with their hands, and I foresee a boom in apprenticeships and vocational training.

[Murfreesboro]

Returning to the subject of higher education, there's so much to unpack about what you said that I could probably write for days, but neither of us has time for that in one fell swoop. I'll begin by focusing on what you implied about the innovations of self-educated people. There is no doubt in my mind that the brilliant self-educated have made some of our most important innovations. If you are familiar with the books of Walter Isaacson (sp?), he's made a career of writing biographies of people like that--Ben Franklin, Steve Jobs, Leonardo da Vinci. Maybe I've forgotten some of them. But he is absolutely fascinated by the way in which brilliant people with limited formal education think outside the box, partly because they aren't taught to think conventionally. David McCullough's book about the Wright Brothers explores the same issue.

My mother had a brilliant mind but never went beyond high school. I remember being reminded of her when I was reading criticism of Mark Twain in grad school. The critic, I forget who it was, remarked of Twain that "He was a self-educated man, and, like all self-educated people, had surprising depths and shallows." I thought, "Oh, that's Mama." Those who follow their own interests and curiosities may miss knowing some of the things that college-educated people expect you to know, but what they know they really know, and usually much better than their college-educated peers.

George Washington was another self-educated man who had or developedcl an absolute genius for leadership. And of course most people know, or used to know, that Lincoln was also self-educated.

[Murfreesboro]

There used to be a rubric that people went to school for the three Rs, "Reading, Writing, and 'Rithmatic." That's comically expressed, but I'd say that it's actually true. If a brilliant, ambitious person has learned the basics in those areas, he has what he needs to learn on his own.

[TheHeadlessHorseman]

Due to time constraints, and being tired, I'm dividing this post into different parts, you can choose which, if any, you want to reply to. I didn't bother to proofread it, so enjoy any typos that you come across.

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Sometimes you have to stand there and let your dreams die.

If you remember, I recently told you that I would be using those words again soon.

You guys already know that when I was around 20 that I started to invest in real estate and I bought up large pieces of undeveloped land, and that in recent years I have been selling some of that land for a rather decent, and, at times, exorbitant profit. I told you awhile back about a piece of land that I have in Montana that I purchased specifically for the purpose to build a dream house with farmland and a ranch out there one day for the family that I would eventually have. I even used my art skills to design what that dream house would look like, going as far as to draw up the blueprints for it. It truly would have been a beautiful house if it ever got built, very similar to the house we grew up in.

Of course, you know how my life turned out, and it's very clear that my kids have their roots here, and I won't do anything to disrupt that. They might venture into the world on their own one day, but for now, this is where their home is.

I was contacted by my agent about a month ago, and he told me that a group was interested in purchasing the land in Montana from me. They offered me a insanely high price for it, but in my heart, I knew that I didn't want to sell the land because it meant that I would be letting my dream die. So, my agent and I agreed that we should send them a ridiculously high counter offer so that they would refuse, and I would still have the land.

Well, to our utter shock, they accepted the offer.

The deal was wrapped up, and the funds were transferred into my account last week. If I'm being honest, it a bittersweet victory. On one side, it means that beautiful house that I designed won't get built, and that calm life away from the city that I wanted in my youth won't ever happen now. Though, back then I actually thought about what my retirement would look like, and now I look at retirement as something that I don't want to ever do. It's funny how you look at life differently as you get older.

On the other side, it's more money than I could have ever imagined that I would get for that land, and far more than any reasonable person should have paid for it. At least I know that the funds are there for my kids when they need it, because everything that I do in this life is for them, and their happiness is the most important thing to me. When I told my wife about the deal she was speechless, and jokingly asked if I was ready to take that vacation to Egypt now?

Of course, I know that I'm going to lose a sh*tload of it in taxes, I lost a whopping $164,532.12 in taxes on the last land deal... Yeah, you read that correctly. What was the 12 cents for? F*ck if I know. This deal was for even more than the previous one, so I can expect to pay more than that this time, but there's still going to be a beautiful chunk of change after that. Oh, well. On a side note, I still have multiple pieces of land that I'm holding on to, and my wife pointed out to me that maybe one day I could still build that house somewhere else.

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Regarding my schedule this month.

Between work and play, I've got a full schedule this month. We are going to be visiting the usual attractions, haunted houses, murder mysteries, escape rooms, pumpkin patches, plus a lot of Halloween shopping, parties, and other fun. Phoebe will also be competing on the 4th and 5th Saturday this month, so Halloween is going to be busy for us. She will be competing during the day, then the kids will go trick-or-treating at night, and then they will be having a sleepover with their friends that night. So if you guys don't hear from me that often this month then you know why.

_____________________


Last week I had a weird dream about Phoebe, she was older, probably late teens to early 20s, she was wearing her Gi, and she had pink hair, which really isn't surprising because that's her favorite color. The funny thing is that she looked exactly what I would expect her to look like at that age. Anyway, she was telling me about a upcoming fight in a tournament, and that it was against her best friend, and she was feeling conflicted about it. I told her that she shouldn't let her friendship stand in the way of her success, and that regardless of how she feels about other people, that her path is more important to her than the friends she has, and that if the other girl is really her friend, then they will still be friends after Phoebe beats her. It's funny, because that's exactly what I would tell her in real life.

_____________________


Speaking of Phoebe, on Friday night I had that conversation with her about her path in martial arts. I told her the truth about life, what the board wants from her out there, and how her choice will affect her path in the sport. I also explained about having compassion for her opponents, and when she should punish the opponents that deserve it, she said that she knew exactly which kids deserve to get the sh*t kicked out of them. I told her to think about it very carefully before she makes a decision, and she said that she will.

In the interest of neutrality, I had invited Jenny to come to the restaurant the next day so that she could explain to Phoebe exactly what he wants her to do. Phoebe sat there and listened while she laid out this plan of dominance for her, Phoebe hardly reacted to what she was saying, and she had the same serious look on her face that she does when she is competing. Then Jenny asked her if she understood her, and Phoebe said yes, then she asked if she could talk to Phoebe privately, but I refused, and I told her that anything that she had to say to her, that she could say it in front of me.

She looked at me with a deranged smile, and then told Phoebe without any hesitation in her voice, that she wants her to go out there and deliberately hurt the other kids, that she wants her to make them suffer, and that she would be rewarded for it. That no matter what she does to them, that she would be exempt from any consequences, and that she will make sure that Phoebe becomes one of the most respected and best competitors that the sport has ever seen.

Phoebe looked her in the face, smiled, and told her that she would think about it, and let her know her answer when she's at the next tournament. Jenny seemed very pleased with that response, and said that she was looking forward to their new partnership. Then she shook our hands and walked out.

Talk about having a conversation with the Devil.

The funny thing is, I know my daughter, and I get the feeling that she was manipulating Jenny, but I guess time will tell. That night I asked her how she felt about the conversation, and she said ... that woman is nuts, but she kinda makes sense. I told her that she still has time to think about it. Of course, I reminded her that her choice will determine how people will view her going forward, and to my surprise, she said ... I don't care if they hate me, as long as they fear me.

The strange thing is, that's very similar to what I said to my wife last month, but I didn't ever say that to Phoebe, so she either overheard us talking, or that's legitimately her opinion on it, and if that's true, then she is clearly aware how to intimidate her opponents, and of her place in life.

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Regarding education and work. I'm going to make this short because I've already been typing for awhile, and I'm supposed to get up for work in a hour.

First, I agree with everything you wrote here.

But he is absolutely fascinated by the way in which brilliant people with limited formal education think outside the box, partly because they aren't taught to think conventionally

That's true, mainly because they aren't restricted by the same narrow and complacent way of thinking that every other person is programmed to follow.

I'm somebody that has worked hard in this life to get what I have, and even with my limited high school education, I have made some extremely smart decisions in business, and in life. With my incredible memory I'm sure that I would have killed anything that college or university would have put in front of me. But that wasn't my path.

It's funny, Murf, with my memory and everything that you have told me about yourself, I could probably write a biography about your whole life because I still have every single story and detail in my head. Then again, I could do that for almost every single person that I know. I guess that ability is something that no school could ever teach me to do.

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Regarding Lydia, I don't know her personal circumstances, and you mentioned that she has been having issues with other employees at the book store, but between the plays and novel that she has written, it seems like she has a passion for it that should be encouraged. As I said, I don't know what her life is like, but maybe you should give her a little push to motivate her to start writing again.

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I was hungry. I just ate some cold pizza. It was good.

[Murfreesboro]

I don't think I've ever met anyone with your precise gifts, the memory, and the need for so little sleep. You'd have killed it in college, and probably would have graduated early. But I don't know that your life would have been any more successful than it already is.

I can feel your regret about the property sale, and I understand your decision. Your wife is right that you can still build the dream house someday. Montana is beautiful, but so are many other places. Once you have more of an idea of where your girls may ultimately settle, perhaps you'll find a place not as far from them as Montana.

I hope Phoebe makes the right decision for her. It sounds like she has this woman's number, at least.

I think what Lydia wants right now is a job with 9-5 hours and the weekend off, so she can participate in local theater again. Yes, there has been some friction at work, just the in group/ out group stuff that happens in mostly female communities. What's weird about it to me is that the ring leader appears to be a woman closer to my age than hers. Some people never grow up much past middle school.

My husband has always believed that Lydia's path forward is as a writer/director rattan an actress. However, she's good at acting and enjoys it for now. The last time she acted, about three years ago, she actually got an award for best supporting actor of the season (they do that in the local theater around here, give out awards). So she is good and made an impression. But her dad and I think acting talent is more widely distributed than talent for writing and directing. Then again, many young actors also write, because they create material for themselves if they can't get hired. Sometimes YouTube is their way in.