Wednesday, September 29, 2004
A father's wish list
By Russell King
What, really, do we wish for our children? What is it we’re really willing to work to help them obtain or achieve? Health and happiness are the two quickest answers. Good education? Financial security? Home and family? Sure. Some parents also mention values or character traits, such as toughness, honesty and a good work ethic. There’s one, however, that almost never gets mentioned, but is at the top of my priority list: spirituality.
I’d like to help my kids find, explore and nurture their spiritual lives. (This path gets a little sticky, so bear with me.)
I know such talk is out of favor these days, and that by writing that sentence I’m in danger of being lumped in with angry, paranoid fundamentalism that, in the name of God, clings to a pre-scientific past in a willful--sometimes prideful—embrace of ignorance.
The again, neither do I wish to be classified with arrogant, paranoid scientism that, in the name of humanity, clings to the modern fantasy that the scientific method is the only way of knowing and that what lies beyond scientific methodology is either inconsequential or imaginary—thereby engaging in another sort of willful, prideful ignorance.
I want my kids to know and love science and the wonders it gives us. Learning about the advances in astronomy, biology and physics has brought me hours of intense pleasure and left me awestruck more than once. Using the technologies that spin off from our advances in science is not only fun, effective and cool, it’s often life-saving and life-enhancing. But I also want them to know that the limits of science are not the limits of existence, experience or knowledge.
I want my kids to know and love culture and the wonders it gives us. Art, literature, philosophy, history, economics, social science, politics, communities, personal relationships: There are opportunities for great meaning, insight and accomplishment here. To be part of our current efforts to advance our concepts of peace and justice is nothing short of breath-taking. But I also want them to know that the advances to be made and wisdom to be acquired through culture are neither the only nor the highest.
There is something more. I cannot measure it, test it or even adequately describe it, but I’ve experienced it, so I know it. And because my experience of that something more is so profoundly, so powerfully, positive, I want to help my children find it for themselves.
I’m not talking about religion. I think religion vital—which is why I volunteer three days a week to work in my church’s youth programs—but spirituality is beyond even religion. My religion is merely an expression of my experience of spirituality. It’s the words, the symbols and even the rituals with which I am most comfortable using to express my spiritual life. My children will have to find their own ways of expressing what they experience. Teaching them to use my words, symbols and rituals isn’t my job, helping them find the experience is.
I also want for them, of course, some of the rewards I see attached to a spiritual life. With a spiritual life, my children will come to know that they are far more—and far more valuable—than the identifying categories we so often apply to ourselves and each other: race, occupation, ethnicity, nationality, sex, sexual orientation, height, weight, hair color, education, social status, economic status, religion, denomination, political leaning, language, philosophy, etc.
Grounded in the notion that they are something beyond these labels, part of something beyond the external circumstances of their lives, my kids will be better able to endure life’s moments of crises, pain and loss, and better able to enjoy life’s moments of beauty, passion and joy.
Spirituality has more to do with being than with doing--being awake, aware and alive. It’s about perspective--seeking and seeing the best and the beautiful in everything and everyone. It’s about growing—expanding our capacity to live, love and learn. It’s about making the world a better place by giving yourself a better vision. The funny thing is, spirituality is always there, always with us, we just have to learn to listen and look.
No financial or social stature will ever enrich their lives as much as a spiritual life. No amount of work will ever reward them as much as the effort they put into their spiritual growth. No personal or professional network will ever serve them as well as being connected to their inner selves. No friend can offer as true a love or sure a guide as the love and guidance found in a spiritual life.
This, more than all else, is what I wish for my children.
By Russell King
What, really, do we wish for our children? What is it we’re really willing to work to help them obtain or achieve? Health and happiness are the two quickest answers. Good education? Financial security? Home and family? Sure. Some parents also mention values or character traits, such as toughness, honesty and a good work ethic. There’s one, however, that almost never gets mentioned, but is at the top of my priority list: spirituality.
I’d like to help my kids find, explore and nurture their spiritual lives. (This path gets a little sticky, so bear with me.)
I know such talk is out of favor these days, and that by writing that sentence I’m in danger of being lumped in with angry, paranoid fundamentalism that, in the name of God, clings to a pre-scientific past in a willful--sometimes prideful—embrace of ignorance.
The again, neither do I wish to be classified with arrogant, paranoid scientism that, in the name of humanity, clings to the modern fantasy that the scientific method is the only way of knowing and that what lies beyond scientific methodology is either inconsequential or imaginary—thereby engaging in another sort of willful, prideful ignorance.
I want my kids to know and love science and the wonders it gives us. Learning about the advances in astronomy, biology and physics has brought me hours of intense pleasure and left me awestruck more than once. Using the technologies that spin off from our advances in science is not only fun, effective and cool, it’s often life-saving and life-enhancing. But I also want them to know that the limits of science are not the limits of existence, experience or knowledge.
I want my kids to know and love culture and the wonders it gives us. Art, literature, philosophy, history, economics, social science, politics, communities, personal relationships: There are opportunities for great meaning, insight and accomplishment here. To be part of our current efforts to advance our concepts of peace and justice is nothing short of breath-taking. But I also want them to know that the advances to be made and wisdom to be acquired through culture are neither the only nor the highest.
There is something more. I cannot measure it, test it or even adequately describe it, but I’ve experienced it, so I know it. And because my experience of that something more is so profoundly, so powerfully, positive, I want to help my children find it for themselves.
I’m not talking about religion. I think religion vital—which is why I volunteer three days a week to work in my church’s youth programs—but spirituality is beyond even religion. My religion is merely an expression of my experience of spirituality. It’s the words, the symbols and even the rituals with which I am most comfortable using to express my spiritual life. My children will have to find their own ways of expressing what they experience. Teaching them to use my words, symbols and rituals isn’t my job, helping them find the experience is.
I also want for them, of course, some of the rewards I see attached to a spiritual life. With a spiritual life, my children will come to know that they are far more—and far more valuable—than the identifying categories we so often apply to ourselves and each other: race, occupation, ethnicity, nationality, sex, sexual orientation, height, weight, hair color, education, social status, economic status, religion, denomination, political leaning, language, philosophy, etc.
Grounded in the notion that they are something beyond these labels, part of something beyond the external circumstances of their lives, my kids will be better able to endure life’s moments of crises, pain and loss, and better able to enjoy life’s moments of beauty, passion and joy.
Spirituality has more to do with being than with doing--being awake, aware and alive. It’s about perspective--seeking and seeing the best and the beautiful in everything and everyone. It’s about growing—expanding our capacity to live, love and learn. It’s about making the world a better place by giving yourself a better vision. The funny thing is, spirituality is always there, always with us, we just have to learn to listen and look.
No financial or social stature will ever enrich their lives as much as a spiritual life. No amount of work will ever reward them as much as the effort they put into their spiritual growth. No personal or professional network will ever serve them as well as being connected to their inner selves. No friend can offer as true a love or sure a guide as the love and guidance found in a spiritual life.
This, more than all else, is what I wish for my children.
Tuesday, September 21, 2004
A deadly disease threatens our sons
By Russell King
A number of diseases that once threatened children have been all but wiped out over the past few years. Smallpox is one. Polio is another. But one particularly deadly bug that infects boys is, after being thought nearly eradicated, making a comeback. This killer is commonly called “insensitivity.” As a dad, of course, I’m keen on protecting my sons from this infection.
Insensitivity, in this sense, means being willfully ignorant of available information. Ignorance is curable, but willful ignorance is far more dangerous and very difficult to cure. As is the case with many diseases of the brain, Sensitivity Truncation: Ultramasculine Premeditated Ignorance Disease (or S.T.U.P.I.D.)—as it is officially known in the medical fields--actually prevents its victims from seeking help.
The mode of infection is osmosis, as the prevailing view of what it means to be a man soaks into the brains of boys. If that prevailing view is contaminated by S.T.U.P.I.D., boys are at increased risk of infection. The alienation, isolation and repression caused by the disease can remain with its victim for a lifetime and diminishes both the quality and the length of the victim’s life. Years ago, before we recognized insensitivity for the killer it is, infected men died—at rates far exceeding those of women--from S.T.U.P.I.D.-induced causes such as heart attacks, suicide, alcoholism, drug abuse, work accidents, and even execution.
The bug is re-infecting our cultural definition of manliness and putting us at risk for an epidemic of S.T.U.P.I.D. Because S.T.U.P.I.D. victims are frequently at risk for harming themselves and people around them, infected patients should probably be quarantined as a public health measure. Certainly, the CDC should begin examining this threat.
One of the more recent examples of S.T.U.P.I.D. was California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s description of people who opposed his or President Bush’s legislative plans as “girlie men,” implying they were weak and fearful. S.T.U.P.I.D. sufferers often mistakenly equate being weak and fearful with being female, just as they mistakenly equate being strong and brave with being male. This confusion is a sad but classic symptom of the disease.
Perhaps the most noticeable example of S.T.U.P.I.D. is Vice President Dick Cheney’s repeated ridicule of Sen. John Kerry’s call for greater sensitivity in fighting the war on terror. Cheney portrayed sensitivity as a weak, unmanly trait, as if insensitivity—willful ignorance of available information—is strong and manly (that telltale confusion again).
This association of sensitivity with weakness or unmanliness, and its subsequent rejection and ridicule, is an almost universal symptom of S.T.U.P.I.D. Sufferers of S.T.U.P.I.D. frequently mistake sensitivity for gentle affection, which, stricken as they are by their disease, they also mistake for weakness or unmanliness.
Being sensitive, gentle or affectionate all require greater effort, strength and courage than being their opposites, of course, but victims of S.T.U.P.I.D. are, by virtue of their disease, unable to discern this data. A vicious virus, indeed.
Cheney’s confusion can further be seen in his contention that "[Kerry] talks about leading a more sensitive war on terror, as though al Qaeda will be impressed with our softer side," without mentioning the fact that, as we know, Kerry actually said, "I believe I can fight a more effective, more thoughtful, more strategic, more proactive, more sensitive war on terror that reaches out to other nations and brings them to our side."
Cheney is willfully ignorant of the fact that, in 2001, President Bush claimed, "Precisely because America is powerful, we must be sensitive about expressing our power and influence." Even Cheney, last April, declared that "We recognize that the presence of U.S. forces can in some cases present a burden on the local community. We're not insensitive to that." It seems that "sensitivity" has not always been such a sissy word to this administration. We can only wonder at the source of infection.
The epidemic of S.T.U.P.I.D. is indicated by the aping by many newspapers of the vice president’s words without noting his distortion of Kerry’s words or his obvious impairment by S.T.U.P.I.D., and by the countless American men who heard or read these words without seeing the illness in them. Stricken as they are by willful ignorance, S.T.U.P.I.D. sufferers do not recognize the symptoms in themselves or others.
Fortunately, American dads can protect their sons. First, spend more time with your sons. Second, be sensitive in ways that your sons can see. Third, talk to your sons about how insensitivity leads not only to failure and misery, but often to death. Finally, gently point out when male politicians, athletes, actors and other masculine influences are afflicted with S.T.U.P.I.D. Explain that these people are sick and deserve our pity and our help. Good luck, men.
By Russell King
A number of diseases that once threatened children have been all but wiped out over the past few years. Smallpox is one. Polio is another. But one particularly deadly bug that infects boys is, after being thought nearly eradicated, making a comeback. This killer is commonly called “insensitivity.” As a dad, of course, I’m keen on protecting my sons from this infection.
Insensitivity, in this sense, means being willfully ignorant of available information. Ignorance is curable, but willful ignorance is far more dangerous and very difficult to cure. As is the case with many diseases of the brain, Sensitivity Truncation: Ultramasculine Premeditated Ignorance Disease (or S.T.U.P.I.D.)—as it is officially known in the medical fields--actually prevents its victims from seeking help.
The mode of infection is osmosis, as the prevailing view of what it means to be a man soaks into the brains of boys. If that prevailing view is contaminated by S.T.U.P.I.D., boys are at increased risk of infection. The alienation, isolation and repression caused by the disease can remain with its victim for a lifetime and diminishes both the quality and the length of the victim’s life. Years ago, before we recognized insensitivity for the killer it is, infected men died—at rates far exceeding those of women--from S.T.U.P.I.D.-induced causes such as heart attacks, suicide, alcoholism, drug abuse, work accidents, and even execution.
The bug is re-infecting our cultural definition of manliness and putting us at risk for an epidemic of S.T.U.P.I.D. Because S.T.U.P.I.D. victims are frequently at risk for harming themselves and people around them, infected patients should probably be quarantined as a public health measure. Certainly, the CDC should begin examining this threat.
One of the more recent examples of S.T.U.P.I.D. was California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s description of people who opposed his or President Bush’s legislative plans as “girlie men,” implying they were weak and fearful. S.T.U.P.I.D. sufferers often mistakenly equate being weak and fearful with being female, just as they mistakenly equate being strong and brave with being male. This confusion is a sad but classic symptom of the disease.
Perhaps the most noticeable example of S.T.U.P.I.D. is Vice President Dick Cheney’s repeated ridicule of Sen. John Kerry’s call for greater sensitivity in fighting the war on terror. Cheney portrayed sensitivity as a weak, unmanly trait, as if insensitivity—willful ignorance of available information—is strong and manly (that telltale confusion again).
This association of sensitivity with weakness or unmanliness, and its subsequent rejection and ridicule, is an almost universal symptom of S.T.U.P.I.D. Sufferers of S.T.U.P.I.D. frequently mistake sensitivity for gentle affection, which, stricken as they are by their disease, they also mistake for weakness or unmanliness.
Being sensitive, gentle or affectionate all require greater effort, strength and courage than being their opposites, of course, but victims of S.T.U.P.I.D. are, by virtue of their disease, unable to discern this data. A vicious virus, indeed.
Cheney’s confusion can further be seen in his contention that "[Kerry] talks about leading a more sensitive war on terror, as though al Qaeda will be impressed with our softer side," without mentioning the fact that, as we know, Kerry actually said, "I believe I can fight a more effective, more thoughtful, more strategic, more proactive, more sensitive war on terror that reaches out to other nations and brings them to our side."
Cheney is willfully ignorant of the fact that, in 2001, President Bush claimed, "Precisely because America is powerful, we must be sensitive about expressing our power and influence." Even Cheney, last April, declared that "We recognize that the presence of U.S. forces can in some cases present a burden on the local community. We're not insensitive to that." It seems that "sensitivity" has not always been such a sissy word to this administration. We can only wonder at the source of infection.
The epidemic of S.T.U.P.I.D. is indicated by the aping by many newspapers of the vice president’s words without noting his distortion of Kerry’s words or his obvious impairment by S.T.U.P.I.D., and by the countless American men who heard or read these words without seeing the illness in them. Stricken as they are by willful ignorance, S.T.U.P.I.D. sufferers do not recognize the symptoms in themselves or others.
Fortunately, American dads can protect their sons. First, spend more time with your sons. Second, be sensitive in ways that your sons can see. Third, talk to your sons about how insensitivity leads not only to failure and misery, but often to death. Finally, gently point out when male politicians, athletes, actors and other masculine influences are afflicted with S.T.U.P.I.D. Explain that these people are sick and deserve our pity and our help. Good luck, men.
