I recently sent an email to my business partner. It was a reminder to use this new application to keep track of new business contacts. That way he wouldn’t have to ask me about them in person. He responded with the following:
THX1138: “Gone is the time you have to ask me for client updates.”
Citizen 0003: I’ll be sure to submit any question or communication, Stories or Discussion to you through Highrise or Facebook. What exactly are we allowed to talk about in person? And what things are forbidden? Must any interpersonal discussion only be allowed through comments? Do we need to have an online meeting to discuss this? Has the new “Read My Emotions Usually Communicated Through Body Language Instead Through Online Communication Thereby Eliminating Human Contact” (R.M.E.U.C.T.B.L.I.T.O.C.T.E.H.C.) feature been made available yet for a better transfer of emotional body language through Highrise?
The place has a standard of excellence that I have never seen in a movie theatre. They approach films with almost a religious reverence.
Before the movie starts, they play film scores on the speakers instead of pop music. They test the audio before each screening, with employees walking the aisles to make sure it is optimal. They only show one trailer (while they test the audio). There are no terrible cartoons with dancing candy. And, if you’re late for the movie, you have to wait for the next showing. They are warriors for the movie-watching experience.
Picture if you will, every person in your neighborhood running down the street, screaming at the top of their lungs, knocking down mailboxes and breaking windows. Instead of calling the cops, you decide to join them. You have so much junk bottled up inside and you have to deal with it. You bust down your front door, tear into the yard, and let the wild rumpus start.
Maybe it will need to come to this. Ancient people use to mourn by tearing their clothes and groveling in the dirt. They would do this for days. King David once refused to eat or bathe for a week, and spent all his time lying on the ground. Today, we surf the internet and eat ice cream.
It’s time for a rumpus revolution. As the great theologian (Bono) sings, “I want to run, I want to hide, I want to tear down the walls that hold me inside…” We keep way too much to ourselves. We don’t know how to express, how to feel, how to love. Not like we should. Not like we need to.
That’s why Spike Jonze’ adaptation of Where the Wild Things Are is so important. It tells us something about what it means to be human.
Watching this film was therapeutic for me. An hour and a half of primal expression. Running, screaming, growling, climbing, destroying, building forts and throwing snowballs. Pure energy and imagination.
I was reminded of a time when I didn’t care. I was trick-or-treating and dressed like a bear. I would scratch with my paws at the neighbors door, hold out a bucket for the candy, and growl. And there wasn’t an inch of self-consciousness in me. I did it because I had to. There was something inside of me that I innately needed to express.
I forget how to express it now. I haven’t growled at anyone in a while actually.
Where the Wild Things Are is a simple story. Max, a lonely little boy from a broken home, runs away one night after a fight with his mom. Angry and confused, he spends an evening in the woods, conjuring up an imaginary world in which he takes a voyage to a distant land. He discovers a small tribe of creatures and proclaims himself king over them. Together they build a kingdom, implementing regimented diplomatic activity, such as running through the woods, howling at the moon, knocking over trees, building forts and then tearing them down. And fighting. Lot’s of fighting. Like Max’s own life, this family of creatures is extremely dysfunctional. They have no direction. They are angry and confused and don’t know why.
Each creature represents a part of his life. It’s his internal dialogue, dealing with the anger. While he wrestles with what he doesn’t understand, he is able to eventually channel his pain into a question (which is harder to come up with than an answer, really): How can I make everyone okay?
He puts a lot of pressure on himself. Like we all do at times. His sister is too cool for him. His dad is gone. And his mom has a boyfriend. He’s angry, and wants to fix things and make them right.
I can relate. I remember when I was eight years old being angry about my parents divorced. I remember thinking that I could fix it. Maybe I could confront them and set them straight, make them change their minds about the whole thing. But I couldn’t. I was only a little boy.
And so Max concludes the same thing. In the end, he realizes that he is not a king. He is only Max. He spent all this time running like a maniac through the woods, only to conclude what he already knew. And that is the most important thing. Sometimes we need to run wild and howl at the moon. I think this is a way of asking a question that we don’t know how to ask. We need to do it, not so much because we need an answer, but because we just need a good howl at the moon.
But for some reason we’ve forgotten how.
I wish I was more like King David, who once pretended to be insane in order to get out of pickle. I think I’m too self-conscious to pretend to be insane. I feel that there is a fundamental passion that is missing. We spend far too much time staring at computer screens with glazed expressions.
As for Max, we’ve probably seen him at Wal-mart yelling at his mom. Or heard him next door, declaring war on his back yard. We might have almost hit him with our car while he was riding his bike and not paying attention. His hyper-activity makes us uncomfortable. We find his behavior disturbing. We judge his parents. I think we need to stop and join him instead, grovel in the dirt a little and howl at the moon. There are walls to be torn down.
Remember to be a friend. People hide their insecurities, just like you hide yours. Consider the feelings of others first, and don’t worry about yourself so much.
Don’t be afraid of awkward moments. Push through them. If you are not experiencing awkwardness, you are not growing.
Remember the consequences. Remember the pain you feel right now. There are reasons your teachers, your pastors, and your parents said the things they said.
Remember that ninety-nine percent of the things you worried about never happened.
Remember not to think too highly of yourself. Because you do. Forget about yourself and you’ll have more fun.
Remember to write things down or you will forget them.
Without it, all activity under the sun crumbles. Words become meaningless, work becomes pointless, and relationships become flat.
Without definition, there can be no communication. We could not comprehend what is spoken or written. Without definition, there is no order. If jobs, tasks, and positions are not defined, institutions fall apart. Without definition, there is ambiguity in relationships. There would be no clarity between professional and personal, romance and friendship, acquaintance and comrade.
Definition is the context for communication, order, and community. It is the antithesis of chaos.
It is scary to me that society champions relativism the way it does. We accept phrases like truth is relative, which is really the same thing as saying there is no definition. And if there is no definition, there is no context, only a vacuum.
It’s strange that we have to let go of what we actually don’t hold on to. We presume to have control over the things that, in reality, we don’t. The addiction to control is humanity’s dirty habit. Most of the stress in our lives is caused by it. If only we knew how to let it go…
Anarchy and deconstruction is not the answer. The answer is order.
Instead of control, we ought to strive for order. There is a difference. Control is dictatorship and ownership. Order is management and stewardship. Order gives us direction and conformity. It gives us definition. We cannot control, but we can maintain order.
When we accept that all we really need to be concerned with is being good stewards of that which we’ve been given, our enjoyment of life will increase.
We all desire to experience something greater than ourselves. I think that’s why we go to concerts.
Last Friday, I took a trip down to Charlotte with my friend Jill Nance, to see what ended up being the last stop of Coldplay’s Viva La Vida tour in the U.S. The concert was amazing. Coldplay delivered an incredible experience, both musically and visually. But there was a little surprise that made the night all that more special. And it happened like this…
When we first found our seats we were a little disappointed. We were off to the side and far from the stage. Not the seats we thought we had.
And there was this huge box right in front of us.
I made a comment about the box blocking our view, and the lady sitting next to us leaned over and said, “Don’t complain. You won’t be disappointed.”
She spoke like someone who knew something we didn’t. She had this subdued excitement, but she wasn’t subduing it very well. Then I noticed there was a foot switch on the box. Rumors spread. Anticipation grew. There was chatter. Interrogations. Tweets. Then suddenly, life was in Technicolor…
And it was all Yellow…
Halfway into the show, while we were all tweeting and losing ourselves in the Strawberry Swing, I stopped for a moment to contemplate the similarities between rock concerts and religion.Something about the way the guy next to me with the Bud Light was lifting his hands.
Then there was commotion by the box. Some roadies next to us began to lift tarps, revealing a piano and guitars. The crowd around us started to stir, and suddenly the box in front of us lit up, and two roadies lifted the piano onto it. Coldplay finished playing Strawberry Swing, stepped off the main stage, and walked all the way over to our little box.
The entire band performed two songs five feet in front of us!
I don’t even remember what the first song was. The second was a piano-solo rendition of The Hardest Part. Standing next to a professional photographer, who at this point was finding it unbearable that all she could bring into the show was a cheap point and shoot, I tried my best to capture the moment via cell phone.
And then I got video of Chris Martin shaking Jill’s hand…
It’s an interesting thing to me that Chris actually looked bigger on that little stage. It was the way the energy of the crowd surrounded him. In that moment, he was larger than life. I kept having to tell myself he’s just a guy. More talented and harder working is all. But the music has a way of tricking you.
I am convinced that the music and spectacle we create are reflections of something greater, something we can’t quite put our finger on. It’s beyond any one person. We are drawn to it. That’s why, among other things, we go to concerts.
I use to think those girls at The Beatles shows – the sobbing, screaming fans that maul each other for a closer look – were ridiculous. And they are. But in the same way we all are. We are all drawn to something greater than ourselves.
“I want to repeat one word for you: Leave.” -Donald Miller
I have concluded that the best time to get away is when it feels like the worst time. When life is too busy, when there’s too much going on to even breathe, that is when you must… leave.
Last weekend my old college roommate, Joel Smoker and I left our homes and ventured into the backcountry of Shenandoah National Park. Three days and twenty-five miles later, we hiked out of the woods with the refreshment that comes from blazing the trail, sleeping by rivers, and realizing that for a time we’d completely forgotten about the busyness we’d left left behind.
Socrates said the unexamined life is not worth living.
I’m not a huge NASCAR fan. But I do know that professional drivers spend more time maintaining their cars than driving them. A race car has to be maintained meticulously because the unexamined car is not worth racing.
About a month ago my friend Won recommended a Mark Driscoll talk which sort of rocked my world. In it he talks about how most of us spend all our time working in our lives when we ought to spend much more time workingon our lives.
Now through most of December I’ve been thinking about that talk, and how I spend too much time staying busy, and not enough time working on what’s really important. Then one morning, a few days before Christmas, I was reading Proverbs and suddenly a light went on in my head.
It’s your life!
Proverbs is a collection of sayings by the wisest man that ever lived. There seems to be a common idea throughout. That is that wise, principled living brings life, and foolish living brings death. For example…
“Keep my commands and you will live…” (4:4)
“Hold on to instruction…guard it well, for IT IS YOUR LIFE.” (4:13)
It says things like this over and over again. I interpret it this way: it’s your life. Your one and only life. It’s all you have. It’s a gift. It’s yours to manage. Don’t squander it, don’t reck it, don’t waste it. It is your life. Examine it. Maintain it.
It hit me kind of like a race car would if you were standing on the track. I’ve been racing, but haven’t worked on my car. What’s wrong with me?!
So I’ve been spending the past week writing down some ideas and principles, and trying to figure things out. I’m not going to make any overly ambitious resolutions this year. But I am resolving to work on my life in 2009 (not just in it).
Working in
That’s flight mode. Caffeine. To-do lists. Appointments. Errands, tasks, projects. Phone calls. Events. Entertainment. Work. Promotion. Harnessing opportunities and shooting for the stars… Rinse and repeat. I’m exhausted already.
Working on
Breathe…
Alone. Reflection. Prayer. Quiet. Learning. Developing good habits. Health. Eating well. Exercise. Planning. Ingraining principles deep within my thinking.
How all this is going to work, I don’t know yet. I do know I’m going to have to say no to some things, and maybe get up a little earlier. I also know I’m going to have to make some plans, set some personal goals, etc.
How can more time working on make you more affective on the working in? In what ways could you be working on your life that you aren’t now?
