2015 Resolutions

New Year’s Resolutions are total bullshit.

Here are mine:

1.       Parent better

2.       Learn how to parent better

3.       Learn how to husband better

4.       Husband better

5.       Floss

6.       Run a half marathon

7.       Eat less cheese (I currently eat a 3 pound wheel a week)

8.       Ear train (the current lineup includes Everclear’s Santa Monica… requests?)

9.       Juggle 4 objects (I can juggle 3 but not while I sing the alphabet song)

10.   100 pushups without stopping

11.   Complete the running video that was so rudely interrupted around 4 years ago when a cat vehemently, maliciously, and ubiquitously urinated on and in my laptop

12.   Eat beets

13.   Rock out more

14.   Jazz it up more

15.   Keep a lower profile

16.   Seem less squirrelly to the uninitiated

17.   Take notes on movie editing for aforementioned running video that was so rudely interrupted around 4 years ago when a cat vehemently, maliciously, and ubiquitously urinated on and in my laptop

18.   Create a 12 step program for arsonists

19.   Write a decent short story about a guy who has an idea about making a running video only to be rudely interrupted when a cat vehemently, maliciously, and ubiquitously urinates on his laptop but he perseveres and along with the help of a rag tag little league team he beats the all star Yankees, publishes his short story in the New Yorker, and gets to meet Woody Allen after a rain drenched stay in Manhattan.

20.   Make fewer resolutions

21.   Research the meta-analysis of the breakdown of complex statistical data

Masturbation

I bet you didn't know the lyrics from this Running On Empty hit are about masturbation.

Listen and learn.

Lightbulb!

Well the xmas holiday has come and gone and all I can say is, I may hate xmas. 

Now if I know anybody, I know you; and you my friend are one of the most centered, close-to-self-actuallized-as-anyone-I-know type of people. So this may not resonate with you because you are so goddamned self-aware and level headed so my apologies up front. 

I am not self-aware or level headed or keep an even keel of any kinds of sort. I have no idea what makes me tick or why I do what I do, while I’m doing it or after I’ve done it. Sort of.

But this particular xmas I may have become AWARE of a few things. 

Now I am aware that I grew up poor and that I bore much more sensitivity to this growing up than my younger brother. For example, I never in a million years would have brought a girl to my house due to the conditions, yet my brother dated the prom queen and mysteriously had no reservations about bringing her home. So I do know that I am sensitive to the poverty I grew up in. CHECK.

I am also aware that I am not exactly the world’s biggest fan of religion in general and catholicism specifically. A couple of philosophy degrees and a few history books can do that to a guy.

So now, (in Gru voice: “lightbulb”) take the holiday that uniquely celebrates materialism and christianity, wad it up into a big ole ball of bitterness and marginalization and judgment and stuff that down my piehole till I choke. 

So when I found myself tense enough to bounce dimes off of me about the gift exchanges and the xmas mass with the in-laws I think I had what some call, an epiphany. 

I may not like xmas. Now don’t get me wrong, I like giving gifts and seeing people smile, heck I love new socks, I like get togethers and breaking break…I’m not some misanthrope or Debbie Downer who pu pu’s anything that the masses love. Full disclosure, I bought that Paula Abdul album back in the day so there’s no arguing I hate anything popular.

I just don’t like it when I feel judged. And you, yes you, are judging me about my ability to provide gifts a la fiduciary gain and about my morality or lack thereof, especially on this holiday we call christmas. 

Tis tough for a poor kid from the rust belt who’s gonna burn in hell.

But, maybe the devil will throw me a bone and play some Paula Adbul down in the soul furnace. 

“Or I am I caught in a hit and run…”

Simulating Compassion

Wright is essentially (from the greek ontos – that without which a thing cannot exist) saying that our biologically based kin selection style compassion has expanded our moral imagination and that one of the enzymes has been travel and technology. 

He referred to roads, the wheel, and writing which in many ways has just made the world smaller. The internet has made the world smaller and as Thomas Friedman argues, flat (the playing field is level for all). I can recall a photographer I saw speak at Ohio University say that travel is the best antidote to prejudice. This makes sense; once you spend time with people outside your kin selection circle you begin to realize that they share the same life issues as you do…and your what Steven Pinker calls, moral circle, expands. 

This brings me to something I began thinking about after, oddly enough, some sports related events that happened while I was working at the Ohio University College of Medicine with a very smart, opinionated colleague.

The first thing was that he considered Bobby Knight a great basketball coach because he won and because he had a good graduation rate. We’ll come back to Bobby Knight. 

The second thing was Todd Bertuzzi’s hit on fellow NHL player Steve Moore. After this incident began to make national headlines our office began to talk about the hit and I discovered that some people took no issue with this and referred to it as “part of the game.” 

Alright, so how could these two sports incidents in any way relate to Robert Wright’s TED talk?

I think what could help speed up the expanding of the moral circle or moral imagination, if you will, is simulation. S-I-M-U-L-A-T-I-O-N.

Back to Bobby Knight: so while discussing whether or not Bobby Knight qualifies as a great coach with my colleague, I brought up the point that he choked one of his players, Neil Reed, during a practice. So I asked my colleague if he would consider Bobby Knight a great coach if he choked one of his daughters.

I think he was dishonest when he answered “yes, and she’d deserve it.” He hung on to his point to try to save the argument but it got me thinking. 

What if we could simulate these events and put in people that are really relevant to you or my colleagues (in your kin selection circle if you will)? 

So take the Bobby Knight and Todd Vertuzzi videos and use technology to replace the practically meaningless Neil Reeds and Steve Moore’s with your children, or your brother, or your sister? 

Wouldn’t this assist in expanding our moral imagination and bring a healthy dose of compassion to our sports and perhaps to the world at large?

What if we could use simulation to replace the nameless, faceless victims of domestic or sexual violence with those in your kin selected circle? Would you feel the same about Ray Rice if that were your daughter or your wife or your sister? What if the faces of the dead from drone attacks that show on the nightly news were replaced with those in your kin selected circle? What if Eric Garner were replaced with someone you love?

Would you feel the same?