I always enjoy a BoMToons update, I should push myself to make one as well but writeups are tougher than they look. The vast majority of last year for me was figuring out how being a first-time father works. I hope I maintain enough energy to do something like build my little guy a cool bed!
So many times, it happens too fast...you trade your passion for glory. Don't lose your grip on the dreams of the past, you must fight just to keep them alive.
Age 43, Male
Software Engineer
Somewhere in Nevada...
Somewhere in California..
Joined on 11/29/05
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Good to hear from you Shawn! I'd definitely enjoy reading an update from you. It does take some time though, esp. after it's been a while. I tend to make a notepad with stuff I think of for a week or 2 before I make a post. Having my life documented in a different, more "blog" ish way compared with FB, I think is a really cool perk of NG.
Being a new dad is overwhelming. It's a huge adjustment to go from living just for oneself to having a tiny, helpless, human depending on you. It can be really tough at times, but I think it's forced me (and still is forcing me) to grow in lots of ways.
This is going to be a huge text dump, and you might have seen it already on my FB, but here are some good thoughts on marriage and family from a book of essays I read recently called "The Myth of Romantic Love:"
"...aggressive sentiments against marriage are usually expressed today in the name of "freedom," "openness," "play," or "serious commitment to a career." Marriage is pictured as a form of imprisonment, oppression, boredom, and chafing hindrance. Not all the accusations are wrong; but the superstition surrounding them is. Marriage is an assault upon the lonely, atomic ego. Marriage is a threat to the solitary individual. Marriage DOES impose grueling, humbling, baffling, and frustrating responsibilities. Yet if one supposed that precisely such things are preconditions for all true liberation, marriage is not the enemy of moral development in adults. Quite the opposite."
"Sanity, we think, consists in centering upon the only self one has. Surrender self-control, surrender happiness. And so we keep the other out. We then maintain our belief in our unselfishness by laboring for "humanity" - for women, the oppressed, the third world, or some other needy group. The solitary self needs distant collectivities to witness to its altruism. It has a passionate need to love humankind. It cannot give itself to spouse or children."
"There is a pervasive tendency in Western thought, possibly the most profound cultural undercurrent in 3,000 years, in which liberation is imagined as a breaking of the bonds of finiteness. Salvation comes as liberty of spirit. "Don't fence me in!" The Fall results from commitments that "tie one down," that are not subject to one's own controlling will. One tries to live as angels once were believed to live - soaring, free, unencumbered.
The jading of everyday, the routines of weekdays and weekends, the endless round of humble constraints, are, in this view, the enemies of human liberty.
In democratic and pragmatic societies, the dream of the solitary spirit often transfers itself into a moral assault upon institutions, traditions, loyalties, conventions. The truly moral person is a "free thinker" who treats every stage of life as a cocoon from which a lovely moth struggles to escape the habits of a caterpillar. This fuzzy sentiment names each successive breakaway "growth" and "development." It describes the cumulative process as "liberation... The romantic undercurrent takes as the unit of analysis the atomic individual. The realist alternative takes as the unit of analysis the family. To put it mythologically, "individual people seek happiness through concentration upon themselves, although perhaps for the sake of service to others." Most television cops, detectives, cowboys, and doctors are of this tribe. The "family people" define themselves through belonging to others: spouse, children, parents, siblings, nieces, cousins, and the rest. For the family people to be human is to be, so to speak, molecular. I am not solely I. I am husband, father, son, brother, uncle, cousin; I am a family network. Not solitary."
"People say of marriage that it is boring, when what they mean is that it terrifies them: too many and too deep are its searing revelations, its angers, its rages, its hates, and its loves. They say of marriage that it is deadening, when what they mean is that it drives them beyond adolescent fantasies and romantic dreams. They say of children that they are piranhas, eels, brats, snots, when what they mean is that the importance of parents with respect to the future of their children is now known with greater clarity and exactitude than ever before.
Marriage, like every other serious use of one's freedom, is an enormous risk, and one's likelihood of failure is rather high. No tame project, marriage. The raising of children, now that so few die in childbirth or infancy, and now that fate takes so little responsibility out of the hands of affluent and well-educated parents, brings each of us to breathtaking vistas of our own inadequacy."
"It is almost impossible to write honestly of marriage and family. Who would like the whole world to know the secret failures known only to one's spouse and one's children? We already hate ourselves too much. Given our affluence and our education, we are without excuses. We are obliged by our own vague sentiments of progress and enlightenment to be better spouses, better parents, than our ancestors - than our own parents, or theirs. Suppose we are not? We know we are not. Having contempt for ourselves, we want desperately to blame the institution [marriage] that places our inadequacy in the brilliant glare of interrogation."
"Being married and having children has impressed on my mind certain lessons, for whose learning I cannot help being grateful. Most are lessons of difficulty and duress. Most of what I am forced to learn about myself is not pleasant."
"The quantity of sheer impenetrable selfishness in the human breast (my breast) is a never-failing source of wonderment. I do not want to be disturbed, challenged, troubled. Huge regions of myself belong only to me. Getting used to thinking of life as bicentered, even multi-centered, is a struggle of which I had no suspicion when I lived alone. Seeing myself through the unblinking eyes of an intimate, intelligent other, an honest spouse, is humiliating beyond anticipation. Maintaining a familial steadiness whatever the state of my own emotions is a standard by which I stand daily condemned. A rational man, acting as I act? To try to act fairly to children, each of whom is temperamentally different from myself and from each other, each of whom is at a different stage of perception and aspiration, is far more baffling than anything Harvard prepared me for."
"My dignity as a human being depends perhaps more on what sort of husband and parent I am than on any professional work I am called upon to do. My bonds to them hold me back (and my wife even more) from many sorts of opportunities. And yet these do not feel like bonds. They are, I know, my liberation. They force me to be a different sort of human being, in a way in which I want and need to be forced.
Nothing, in any case, is more poignant and private than one's sense of failing as a father. When my own sense of identity was that of a son, I expected great perfection from my father. Now that I am a father, I have undergone a psychic shift. Blame upon institutions, upon authorities,upon those who carry responsibilities, now seems to me so cheap. Those who fail in their responsibilities have a new claim upon my sympathies. I know the taste of uncertainty. To be a father rather than a son is to learn the inevitability of failure."
I'm sure it's way more than just psychosomatic, but who knows maybe that's why it's all the more effective on me too. :) Happy that helped either way, possibly in connection with the dawn of a new decade, brighter times, and an impressive base of seemingly self-growing reading material! Only ones I recognize here are Asimov and Dickens, but very interesting repertoire... I need to read more. Hope to get into some H. P. Lovecraft soon.
Also that 3D printer sure took a looong time to set up! Complicated stuff. Seems a bit like magic when you watch it in action though. Very cool.
Ha ha, did it take a long time? I was just using the included China-produced fold-out instructions. I later realized there's a really good "set up" video for my printer on YT that made a lot of confusing things much simpler...
I've been curious about Lovecraft too... especially cuz I'm a Metallica fan... maybe I'll pick one or two up...
Thanks for the push to vitamin D, practical advice!
That bed too. Wish I'd had something like that when I was little. :D
Ha ha, it turned out nice, but I'm still self-conscious about my woodworking abilities...
Well compared to a regular 2D printer that works pretty much out of the box... ;) I have no idea what the norm time is for one of these, maybe not so long after all. Have you ever tried a 3D pen btw? Curious about those too - they seem pretty handy.
deathink recommended The Dunwich Horror for starters, so that's finna be my entryway into the Lovecraft world. Not sure what to expect. It's a name that pops up ever so often, often in correlation to awesome dystopian artistry, yet his books have somehow all evaded my list of reading material through the years, nothing even in school. Expectations are null but hopeful.
Oh, The Thing that Should Not Be, The Call of Ktulu, For Whom The Bell Tolls... didn't realize they had work inspired by him too! Interesting. Makes you wonder how much other popular culture is a brim with similar inspirations...
:)
Ha ha, this is my first 3D printer, so I had no setup expectations.
I guess a lot of people use the 3D print pens as sealers for seams in larger 3D printed pieces.
I've never been a huge fan of horror stuff, but I'm willing to try it out! ;-P
And thou shall not doubt those woodworking skills! ;) Doubt most parents build beds for their kids at all these days. It's a cool thing.
Long as is doesn't collapse and incur serious damage...
I lost a lot of sleep coming up with a design that wouldn't injure the kids... it seemed like a chore at the time, but I'm pretty proud of the whole thing now.
Ah that makes sense. I figured it might allow for smaller details too, also nets and similar. I imagine the printer does have some limitation there? Only solid forms?
I haven't read much horror overall, but same, think I could get into it.
Definetely something to be proud of. :)
Chin up, brutha! No one likes to be SAD. Often, when it comes to the seasons that tend to affect my mood the most, I try to give myself a bit of perspective and imagine what life is like for folks living in Alaska. Can you imagine going a month or two without seeing the Sun? Yikes! I'm not even in Alaska, but we just had our first rays of sunshine in 2020 yesterday, and I could almost taste the vitamin D. My energy was so low before that, I felt like I needed to hibernate.
Another fantastic, in-depth post, to say the least. Loving all that 3D printer action, definitely. Your recreation of Thor's Hammer, the mighty Mjöllnir, FTW! The light-up Maneki Neko is super fun and totally kawaii. And, since the material of a guitar pick always affects the sound, I have to wonder just what the one you made for your daughter actually sounds like when she plays...
On the bookish side of things, I can really appreciate that you finally decided to flip through "The Road Less Traveled" during your convalescence and found it to be helpful. Really sorry that you got so awfully sick, though! Some of the most unpleasant times I've ever had have been thanks to migraines, so I definitely feel your pain. Mine are often accompanied by visual snow, which is always fun! In a wildly debilitating sort of way. Ha.
I first read through Asimov's Foundation series in my teens, and found it surprisingly transformative. I mean, it didn't really change me in any sort of obvious way, but like any intensely imaginative and thought-provoking experience, it expanded my thoughts about the world and, myself, and—dare I say—the universe. Of course, I also consider the seminal Studio Ghibli film, "My Neighbor Totoro," to be a similarly inspirational experience from my childhood.
While I may not particularly enjoy coloring outside the lines in an actual coloring book, I always find the ideal as applied to life to be quite refreshing. Whenever things are feeling old, stale and stagnant, I try to change my perspective. Something of a paradigm shift, if you will. I mean sure, you're always you and I'm always me, but that doesn't mean we can't attempt to walk a mile in someone else's moccasins. And hey, if that fails, there's always standing on your head!
Keep on keepin' on, man. I know it's super cliché and all, but seriously...it's a new year! Why can't there be endless new possibilities to go along with it, am I right? After all, we are only limited by our imaginations! ...And gravity. Can't forget gravity.
Do your best to remain chilled, computer cowboy. And keep looking up.
Thank you, I always appreciate your detailed comments.
Your migraines sound like a special kind of "wonderful." I'll have to rewatch Totoro sometime... I thought it was cute, and creative, but not necessarily life-altering/inspiring... I'll re-watch with that perspective.
Practicing ACT has been quite helpful pragmatically. You can't keep a good man down (for long anyway).
@BoMToons Well, the fact that I got to see it in Japan when I was only 12 may have had something to do with it. I've always had kind of a rampant imagination, and while I found Totoro and his little friends to be charming, the standout performance for me goes to the Catbus. At the time, I was kind of in awe of the crazy amalgamation that was part feline and part vehicular transport. It was like a shot of adrenaline to my creative nerve center, and while it may not have exactly opened my third eye, it did allow my imagination to wander into previously unknown realms of possibility.
Eh, I was a weird kid. I suppose, when you get right down to it, a big part of it was being exposed to another, very intriguing culture when I was young. As long as you're open to it, something like that is bound to expand one's horizons. #themoreyouknow
Catbus is, honestly, my best memory of Totora also. I wonder if the catbus feels "full" when people get in...
@ChronoNomad eep! Totoro*
I realized that I never got around to sharing my anecdotes regarding members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. I could go on and on about this, but I'd like to just share one story that I think illustrates what it is like to grow up in a majorly LDS-dominated area as a non-religious child.
So, I grew up in south-eastern Idaho in a town where the church is virtually omni-present. My neighbors were LDS, my teachers were LDS, the mayor was LDS, nearly everyone of my classmates in school were LDS, you get the picture.
The particular anecdote I'd like to share serves to show the exclusion that I had felt having not been a member of the church.
I lived in a cul-de-sac at the time, I was maybe 8 years old or so. The snow comes down heavy in Idaho, and one of our neighbors had a four-wheeler with a shovel attached to the front to serve as a sort of makeshift snowplow, and it worked fairly well. I'll mention now that we were the only house in the cul-de-sac occupied by people who were not members of the church.
During the winter, this particular neighbor would get out the 4-wheeler plow, and go all along the cul-de-sac, plowing the sidewalk in front of everyone's houses. Except for one. When he got to our house, he would get off of the 4-wheeler, pick up the shovel, drive AROUND our portion of the sidewalk, then continue plowing on the other side.
Acts like this were commonplace throughout my childhood. Members of the church were never violent toward me, of course, and were always nice to my face, but they would do things like this leaving me feeling like something of an outcast in my community.
I'll go ahead and say that I'm not posting this in an attempt to make anyone abandon their faith, but I would hope that stories like this one might help people realize how their actions affect other people, and that we should always strive to be inclusive even - and perhaps especially- to people who are not of our creed.
That's really sucky. You'd think they'd plow yours rather than everyone else's! I lived in UT for quite a few years and was really glad to get out of that culture (though that doesn't represent ALL Mormons everywhere for sure).
TomFulp
A great read as always! I forget if I had brought it up in one of your previous posts but I read Bad Blood this past year and it was a fun read - has some parallels to the WeWork scandals this past year, where it's gotten easier for start-ups to raise money and as a result founders have been getting unprecedented levels of control, which in these cases gets abused. It's also a great look at someone emulating Steve Jobs' "reality distortion field", where they say how things are and expect the world to bend and make it true.
In podcast land, episode 36 of the RESET podcast talks about California's new data privacy law, including conversations with a lawyer interpreting it a company and the person who drafted it. The law has good intentions but as always seems to be the case it may actually strengthen Google and Facebook's position.
A recent episode of the Fresh Air podcast is about "The Future of America's Contest With China." I wouldn't say anything in there was mind-blowing but it was a cogent discussion about the state of things.
I love seeing all your 3D printing activity! You're living the dad dream I was intending to be living by now, I really gotta get on that.
BoMToons
Definitely looking forward to Bad Blood, lots of people have recommended it to me, but I'm trying not to spoil to much about it so I can be appropriately shocked and appalled ;-)
I'll add your recs to my podcast listening queue (I've been mostly burned out on podcasts and doing audiobooks lately, but I'll restart with those).
I really want my kids to have a headstart/leg up on tech, but mostly the confidence that, if they can imagine it, they can make it. It's fun for me too though!
Thanks for dropping in, it feels like great things are happening with NG. I'm looking forward to seeing what happens with Ruffle, growing subscriber rates, Nightmare Cops, etc. in 2020.