Wedding Toast

I was at my daughter's wedding over the weekend, and she asked that I prepare a toast for the occasion. In addition to the daunting task of uttering the line "her family and I" when asked who gives this woman to be wed, I had to get through the following speech before we cut the cake. I practiced and practiced and was never able to read it aloud without choking up. I think I did OK with the actual toast (I had to "take a minute" a couple of times) but it seemed to turn out well. Here is the text:

"When you have the good fortune to have a child, a beautiful little daughter, you are immediately scared. Scared beyond belief that you won't be able to shoulder all the responsibility of sheparding this new, fragile life into the 'veil of tears.'

As she grows, you foolishly grow more confident: Confident that you can help shape and steer this undirected bundle down a safe and rewarding path. You actually believe you can keep her from harm's way.

But somewhere, things change. Your little girl turns out to be a little person, then a not-so-little person, then a fully grown 'I'll make my own decisions' woman.

And you are scared again. Scared beyond belief that somehow, somewhere you made a mistake, you forgot an ingredient in the magic potion. Will your darling child be able to avoid the dangers, the pitfalls of a dangerous world? Did you fail her?

So she chooses. Some you agree with and some you don't. You are alternately relieved and anxious. Sure, Erin understands Bob Dylan. Good choice. Sure, Erin pierced her eyebrow with a saftey pin, when she was 14, on a Saturday morning, while cleaning the house. What were you thinking? Seriously.

As those choices pile up, and you are consulted less at first and more later, you force yourself to relax. Your beautiful little daughter has a big, beautiful mind, and will, and sense of self. Her choices fit - her. She learns from her mistakes; mabye not always the first time, but eventually, and at least as well as you.

So here's to you Erin and your terrific choice of Daniel (not such a bad chooser himself) to be your friend, partner, and mate. May you both have many choices in front of you, and may you find all the challenges you need and all the secrets you desire.

Please always be kind one to the other. Laugh at your own foibles, and relax. They almost always turn out just right."

Birthdays

My 51st birthday just passed, so this is an excellent time for some contemplation. Particularly since I spent it at the Ballpark in Arlington watching the Texas Rangers lose again. The dogged blows of defeat were softened somewhat by the company (Thanks T, Jeff, V, and John) and the drinks, but mostly by the comfort of the Gold Club.

At 51, sitting outside in Texas heat no longer is nostalgic (ah, the summers of my youth), just crazy. Instead, we adjourned to the air-conditioned Gold Club to barely pay attention to the game and to learn of wonderful events like Beer Kickball, at which John apparently excels.

On a different note, I also learned that I will soon (sometime in January) be introduced to my grandson. Yes, Erin did the ultrasound and is revealing the gender - the little fellow finally cooperated by turning around and proudly displaying his equipment.

Grandson - a strange concept to me, having only had one daughter and one stepdaughter. Well, I firmly believe boys are easier to raise than girls (based solely on the single shred of evidence that if they were harder to raise than my daughter, people would kill them). Hopefully, he will be as smart as Erin was, and as determined to create his own sense of self. What appeared to be difficulty turns out to have been the very best thing, because Erin is aware of herself, of others, and knows how to make her way in this rather difficult world. I am glad my grandson is getting solid parents. I take at least 50% credit :)

It is not always easy to do the right thing, as I am learning yet again. Justification and rationalization are easier. Work that is not fulfilling can be soul deadening, but work where you find yourself compromising your principles is soul killing. I am sure someone out there must have also run up against this issue.

I am currently reading Geoffery Wolff's biography of John O'Hara, very cleverly titled The Art of Burning Bridges. While not an O'Hara fan (Pal Joey, Butterfield 8, Appointment in Sumarra) I find it very interesting to read about his mixture of insecurity and arrogance. When you meet someone who is just totally full of himself, often they have had very unsettling events in their past, and that event most likely is a distant or unloving parent. John O'Hara was a pill as an adolescent, totally full of himself, but his father disdained him to such a degree that on his (father's) deathbed, his last words were "Poor John." Damn, what a curse to carry, particularly if you are a high self monitor (to use a psychological term) who pays careful attention to how other people react to you. As parents, I am not sure we understand how the slights we offer our children can be nourished into full-fledged personality problems as they grow older.

So my advice - if you are a parent, tell your child you love them, because you probably do, but you may not make it obvious. Be comfortable with their sins - it's not our place to judge. And if you are a child, forgive your father or mother for those hurts because they probably didn't mean it. Life is so distracting that things get said and actions taken all the time that have no meaning other than they were convenient in the moment.

Just Installed FIOS

I just got the new fiber optic network from Verizon, FIOS, installed. TV, Internet, and phone service all through fiber optic cables.

The speed is great (movies download very quickly) and the TV works as promised. Very satisfied, so far. They also offer a good HD TV package, so I no longer have to have local cable to get local HD channels (a problem with my dish service previously).

However, as there is balance in the universe, when one technological tool is functioning well, another must fail. My swimming pool pump went out yesterday and I fear will need replacement. Arrggh. I KNEW pools were expensive, but this one is killing me, what with replacing parts after only three years.

backyard flowers

Web 2.0 and Marketing

The rise of consumer control over market messaging is a revolution that will reform how marketing and advertising companies communicate. In the spirit of revolution, we hold these truths to be self-evident:

• Consumers will actively avoid advertising and marketing unless there is some ROI (Return on Involvement) and technology makes it easy to do so
• The most trusted source of information about a brand is friends and family
• Technology allows anyone to publish anything - including opinions about brands, services, and products
• Social networks can be an extremely efficient communication channel and a way to involve consumers in creating the brand
• Companies that embrace new media and consumer-controlled communication will flourish; those that don't ignore this trend at their peril (of becoming irrelevant)

The Tipping Point

http://gladwell.typepad.com/gladwellcom/

So I am sure that lots of you already know the power of The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell, but I just finished it and, DAMN, is this an important book.

If you dig psychology, and want to get a great rush, read this book!

The power of Word of Mouth is becoming truly evident in marketing and advertising. MySpace and Facebook and other social networking sites are going to be the only channels that matter very soon.

Tip of the cap to the references to Albert Bandura and Bibb Latane' in the book - two really influential social psychologists.

And if you don't know what the Fundemental Attribution Error is, then don't complain about relationships until you do the homework, bucko. The bottom line: human nature is not simple, not at all.

Self Awareness and Self Actualization

I had an interesting conversation with friend Steve regarding prerequisites for making choices about our lives. What is required to make a healthy choice about something that might be potentially unhealthy, like drinking alcohol or using drugs or having sex with someone for the first time?

As usual, Steve is thoughful and cogent. He suggested that it requires the ability to be self aware (how am I handling this? Is this causing me pain? Is it causing others pain?) and at least some understanding of what it means to be self actualized.

The latter is important. Although most of us aren't self actualized, if we do not understand the concept of self as independent and whole, it can be dangerous to use substances that cause great emotional or physical pleasure, because we may turn control over to that substance (or person associated with it).

Before experimenting with some of the "dynamite" laying around in our lives, it seems best to make sure that you know what makes you good and whole. If you start off that way (good and whole), then anything you add to the mix isn't the cause of it, and therefore you can control it.

Thanks, Steve, for the conversation and insight.

On Crises of Middle Life

I am feeling a strong ennui in my life. Each day seems a bit redundant, even pointless at times. I get up, go to work, solve problems, handle crises, and I am not sure what, if anything, it means. I talked with my friend and fellow psychologist Steve and he reminded me of something we learned many years ago in our graduate studies.

Erik Erikson, a German development psychologist and psychoanalyst, created the Stages of Psychosocial Development. Similar in structure to Freud's Stages of Psychosexual Development, Erikson looked beyond adolescence to the whole human developmental life span. Maybe there was something to learn here.

Erik Erikson

Erikson postulated eight stages of psychosocial development. Each is described as an Ego conflict that must be resolved. In mid-life, Erikson thought the primary conflict was Generavity vs. Stagnation.

This stage starts when you are in your late 20's and extends throughout your middle life (nowadays, often defined as 60 or 65). It is your productive years, and those who resolve their Ego conflict in the direction of Generavity do so by raising children, contributing to a productive work life, and taking part in community activities. Other activities that support Generavity include mentoring, teaching, writing, social activism, creative artistic expression or anything that satisfies the need to be needed.

However, if you don't resolve towards the Generavity pole, and instead slip into Stagnation, your life is characterized by a slide into self absorption, manifested by rejecting others and not really caring for anyone else. That seems to be the core: if you resolve your conflict towards Generavity, you create the ability to care within you - care about others, care about the planet, care about justice, care about truth and beauty - just the ability to give a damn.

Later psychologists have warned that a headlong rush into Generavity can lead to overextension (someone who is so busy they have no time for themselves). I don't know how I managed it, but I seem to be both overextended and stagnant at the same time. I find myself pumping innumerable hours into work, but I don't get any satisfaction from it, nor do I feel needed. I feel like a cog in a machine, to cliche' it.

Lately, I have found myself exhibiting signs of self absorption. I am more withdrawn from those around me, and I have turned to more hedonistic pleasures (drinking, gambling) to try and fill in some space within me. I think this is dangerous, and highlights the difference between being productive as defined by the GNP and being productive as good ol' Erik might have meant it.

What to do? I started a blog. Good thought starters are hard to come by, and I hope to toss some out. And I think I will look for a way to teach. I used to teach formally (college professor) and I have spent a good deal of my working life teaching informally. I have a granddaughter on the way, a built in reason to care and share.

Any thoughts on this subject are most welcomed.

Road Trip

The iconic representation of a generation caught between "On the Road" and "On Golden Pond."

The Road Trip is an event that never fails to live up to the hype. It is reinforced by the strong draw of novelty, seeing things you never thought you would. It could be the Grand Canyon, or the father of two of your best friends that you didn't know were related, or a deep woods woman serving BBQ out of a roadside shack, but the road trip always shows you something unexpected.

The road trip maintains its allure through the support of the Out of Town phenomenon. When you are on the road, you are whatever you want to be. There is no reference point. You are just a stranger in a strange land, just an ephemeral spirit passing through. You might sit down to a chicken fried steak dinner in a small town in Iowa, and strike up a conversation with the waitress, and find out she is 20 and the daughter of the owners and when you pay, she says, "Where are you going? Can I come along?" And as you drive off in twilight, headed back to a life that disappeared for a weekend, you wonder "What if?"

As you drive all night, hurtling towards a known but not yet understood destination, maybe you find yourself in New Orleans at 6 a.m. Maybe you want beignets and coffee, or maybe you want a drink. And maybe you find a bar open in the French Quarter with a three-legged dog and a sign behind that bar that reads, "You bartender is . . . Pamela, John, Willy, Amelia . . . and as you order a Bloody Mary and lean in between the regulars downing gin at 6 a.m., you ask, smart-assing it, "Which one are you?" The bartender is everything about the place, eveything that is there. And you are not; you are everything that is different and anticipatory and disruptive. "Which one do you want me to be?" and you collapse in shock and admiration, because that is what you needed to hear!

The road trip distracts you because it does not require you to make meaning of anything that happens. You may step back from the requirement to justify your existence, and instead allow the world you drop in on to be what it is, and you watch it like a movie, involved but not integral. You have no meaning in the world where you find yourself on a road trip. All your meaning is located elsewhere. When you travel, you slip the bonds of personal definition and become just an object in another person's existential angst.

Whether you catalyze the action (Dean Moriarty) or simply observe the flow (Sal Paradise), the road beckons.