Category Archives: good karma

On napping

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There are times in one's life when the only answer to any given set of problems is to just sleep on it, turn off all the gadgets, stop worrying about email, close the door, put up your feet, and close your eyes--even if it's the middle of the day. Napping is nature's way of taking you out of the equation for a little while so you can gain a bit of perspective on whatever is bothering you. In our rat race world, napping while the fires burn is not considered the adult answer to getting things done. I am of the opinion, however, that mental fatigue is one of our greatest enemies to clear thinking and coherent problem solving. When you are tired, nothing makes sense, everything lies in ruins, chaos swirls around you, your head hurts, and you feel like throwing the computer out the window. You couldn't write a coherent readable sentence if your life depended on it. When you feel sleepy and fatigued, when your eyes are heavy and close on their own, when you cannot hold up your head anymore, give yourself a break. You are no good to either yourself or anyone around you. Anything you do in this condition will probably just be something that you have to redo tomorrow. Perhaps it is time for a nap. I've always been able to put my feet up, tilt my head back, close my eyes, and drift off--at a moments notice. Now I also know that many people hate napping because they feel infinitely worse after sleeping twenty minutes, but that strange feeling of lethargy and disorientation doesn't hang on very long, and in a couple of minutes I'm up ant at 'em again, refreshed and ready to rejoin the fray. A twenty minute nap is balm for the parched soul. There is something about unchaining the mind for a moment, letting go, and descending into the maelstrom of the unconscious mind. The problem with fatigue is that no amount of coffee or other stimulant can re-order a disorderly and tired mind. The mind may be awake when pumped up on coffee, but that doesn't mean the the higher functions of problem solving or creativity are functioning at all. You might be able to stay awake, but should you really be at the wheel of a huge vehicle hurtling down the road at seventy miles an hour? Taking a nap is like rebooting the computer when nothing will work. The major problem with napping is that it seems sloppy by modern office standards and practices. Any given business does not what their employees napping on the job--bad for productivity, you understand, or is it? The trouble with sleeping on the job is that it smacks of slacking, lolly-gagging, and goofing off unless it is done with a certain aplomb. One must be organized and not snore. Strategic napping is all about not letting anyone see you nap, get your nap in, wake up, and get your feet back under you before anyone notices you've been gone for a few minutes. No more than twenty minutes, no drooling, no snoring, no sleeping in public, no sleeping during meetings, lectures, or sermons. Twenty minutes of shut-eye can rejuvenate even the toughest day. A little cat nap can turn work into pleasure, give you that solution which has been eluding you for days, calm some shattered nerves, realign a warped perspective, brighten a dark countenance. In our work-a-day world, we never rest or sleep enough. In fact, one of the worst habits most of us have is to rob ourselves of necessary rest and sleep, and we do this every day. Well, the next time everything is a mess, and nothing seems to work, close your door, set the alarm on your phone, turn down the lights, put up your feet, and nap.

On having coffee on Beacon Hill

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Walking around Boston today was a fascinating experience. Although I have been here before, I've never had a chance to visit Harvard, or the Commons, or Beacon Hill, or the colonial historic district and all its old historic sites. All of the Italian restaurants, the cobble stone streets, the brownstones, the T, Harvard, were all wonderfully folkloric, picturesque, curious. wonderful. Even the cemeteries were creepy and ancient. Yet, it was a strange accident of just going the wrong way which took me up Beacon Hill, past the new state house and up Joy street. The state house was closed because it was Saturday, so I meandered up into Beacon Hill with its brownstone row houses, fancy cars, narrow streets, Christmas decorations, piles of snow. I was a little chilled by the damp cold of the morning, so I walked into a small coffee house to get something warm to drink. I got my double espresso with a drop of milk and took a seat by the window to watch the people go by. Being Saturday morning, the place was bustling with all sorts of folks, tall, short, skinny, fancy, gym clothes, running clothes, rich, not so rich, me, delivery guys, double-parkers. And everyone wanted their coffee a little differently. Lots of people want their coffee with soy milk--cow milk being a problem. Many people didn't want coffee, but they did want tea or cocoa. Some people had trouble deciding, but indecision may or may not have been their exact problem. The conversations were animated and people talked about Christmas, traveling, work, men, women, coffee, shopping, flowers, the price of clothing at Saks. But Meghan, the young lady making the drinks was unflappable even when people got a little testy about whether the whipped cream for the top of their quadruple caramel mocha (with sprinkles) was real or not--it is, by the way. She questioned me about how much milk I wanted, and she listened well, and aced my version of a Spanish "café con leche." I like a strong coffee drink, not a milky milk drink with a little coffee in it. I was fascinated by Meghan's persistence and patience as she maneuvered among a flotilla of persnickety customers. I know she wasn't making that much money either. Baristas don't make tons of money, but here she was, this hardworking young person, doing her job on a sunny Saturday morning in January. I was in the coffee shop about a half hour watching the world go by, interact with Meghan (and colleague, Jessica), talk to each other, get their coffee, and move on. In a way, this little coffee place is not really a microcosm of the world, but it was a microcosm of life on Beacon Hill this morning. When I travel I am often more interested in the coffee houses and beer joints than I am in the museums and historical monuments. Life is in the people who live in these places, who work behind counters, who serve the public, take tickets, brew coffee, make sandwiches, give directions, help a lost traveler. Meghan and her fellow Bostonians were very kind to me as I meandered from Boston to Cambridge and back to Boston. What I will remember about today will be the people. Harvard was closed, so I didn't even meet anyone there--not memorable. Coffee with Meghan on Beacon Hill? Priceless.

On Santa Claus

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I am not here to discuss the veritable existence or not of Santa Claus, but I would like to offer a few thoughts on that rather rotund, if not jolly, red-suited, white-bearded, generous fellow. His very appearance is strange given what America considers to be aesthetically appealing in male beauty: oldish, chubby (rather fat, actually), lots of facial hair, white hair, suspenders, large black boots. 007 would never look like that. Santa Claus is an odd figure who actually scares small children who are often faced with having to meet Santa up-close and personal, sitting on his lap. Though known for his kind generosity, he also keeps a naughty and nice list, which is a rather sinister proposition, especially if you have been naughty. Santa represents a threat to impose punishment if certain levels of good behavior are not observed. The naughty-nice list is a strange sword-of-Damocles type weapon which for some causes a certain amount of personal introspection. Some people worry about how bad they have been during the year because they know they deserve nothing, nothing at all. The mere existence of Santa suggests associations with the supernatural, or perhaps the magical, but the flying sleigh and reindeer imply that all is not what it seems to be--Santa is not just Santa, and those reindeer are not run-of-the-mill quadrupeds. The question of his residence is also very problematic: he lives on an ice flow which has trees and fixed foundation buildings. Yes, the ice is permanent, and ice houses or houses on ice are totally possible because we see the behavior in Minnesota all the time, forming small cities of ice houses on area lakes. The elf population, however, is really problematic. My question is how Santa funds the feeding of his workforce, the housing for so many reindeer, and flying sleigh maintenance. Elves are not particularly problematic because of the Harry Potter documentaries explaining the care and feeding of these magical creatures, but still I wonder about their toy-making skills. I also wonder about how Santa makes it down chimneys in his unhealthy state of chubbiness. Chimneys are dicey enough to maneuver even when you are skinny, but if you are carrying around an extra sixty or seventy pounds, you might not make it down the chimney at all. I think the perks of being Santa, however, are very nice, but quite unhealthy, being free cookies and milk at all his stops. Perhaps being Santa is harder than it looks. Mrs. Claus does a lot--let's out his Santa suit, overfeeds him, tells him he's going to be late, nags him about new curtains for the living room, stuff like that, so we know who to thank for all those gifts on Christmas morning. I worry that Santa Claus is part of patriarchal conspiracy to enslave elves, repress reindeer, spread the wealth, and generalize breaking and entering. I also worry about Santa's blood sugar and waist line. He does not lead a healthy lifestyle, and his cholesterol must be sky-high. I worry about Santa, and maybe you should too. So Santa is the generous, fun guy, handing out free stuff, watching over us all, checking the “naughty/nice” app on his phone, wondering if it will storm this Christmas Eve.

On the thesis

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Generally speaking, whenever anyone writes anything, they want to accomplish some objective, argue some idea, express an opinion, make a point. Writing, however, is a little harder than some imagine, and it can often get in the way of a well-argued thesis. Somewhere between having the idea and making the argument, the author falls into a series of labyrinthine mazes surrounded by endless linguistic dead ends, infinite mangled grammar structures, and enough semantic smoke and mirrors to foil even the most earnest essayist. Many writers simply lose track of their objective, and their thesis dies a slow and painful death beneath a mountain of rubble consisting of headless nouns, crippled verbs, dead adjectives, mindless adverbs, stumbling articles, and wild interjections. The thesis lies crushed under this heap of flotsam and jetsam even before it has had a chance to flower, to be heard, to sing. The writing, of course, would be easier if the writer would isolate the thesis ahead of time, make sure that it is arguable, and focus it under a microscope before some lame attempt at exposing it to the world before it is ready. A great thesis should be neither too general nor too specific. It should not be a straw man that the writer would like to knock over in some naive way. A great thesis should not suggest black and white answers. A great thesis should establish a problem that the author wishes to address in some specific way. In this way, the author may explore alternatives and options that may or may not establish a clear answer. Not all thesis have either complete answers or clear solutions. A thesis will give a reader something to think about as the author marshals their arguments for or against. Yet, a thesis should not be so ambiguous that it can serve any argument or any line of reasoning. A thesis is a stance on a subject which the author must either attack or defend or dismiss or defend. A spurious thesis based on fallacious underpinnings and untrue suppositions should always be left on the ash heap of discarded writings. The first and most important parameter for a good thesis is that it be true in some honest and earnest way. This is the ethical responsibility of the essay writer, whether he/she be writing about politics, religion, art, sex, war, literature, or history. The thesis must be defensible within the realm of reasonable scholarship and accepted paradigms which have been accepted and established by the vast majority of writers in that field. Being a complete naysayer or iconoclast, though interesting, can often lead the thesis writer right out into left-field. Purposefully leading people astray is both dishonest and disheartening. Writing a paper without a thesis is like trying to find a treasure without a map: you may bang around in the dark for a long time, but you will never find anything. A good thesis is concise without being pedantic, suggestive without being overbearing, intriguing without being arcane. The thesis will lead a writer to tame the verbs, choose the nouns, avoid the adverbs, and carefully select their adjectives before blindly running downhill to their conclusions. Often, a great thesis cannot be completely proved or disproved, especially if the object of that thesis is a question with many answers or a conundrum with no answers.

On the thesis

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Generally speaking, whenever anyone writes anything, they want to accomplish some objective, argue some idea, express an opinion, make a point. Writing, however, is a little harder than some imagine, and it can often get in the way of a well-argued thesis. Somewhere between having the idea and making the argument, the author falls into a series of labyrinthine mazes surrounded by endless linguistic dead ends, infinite mangled grammar structures, and enough semantic smoke and mirrors to foil even the most earnest essayist. Many writers simply lose track of their objective, and their thesis dies a slow and painful death beneath a mountain of rubble consisting of headless nouns, crippled verbs, dead adjectives, mindless adverbs, stumbling articles, and wild interjections. The thesis lies crushed under this heap of flotsam and jetsam even before it has had a chance to flower, to be heard, to sing. The writing, of course, would be easier if the writer would isolate the thesis ahead of time, make sure that it is arguable, and focus it under a microscope before some lame attempt at exposing it to the world before it is ready. A great thesis should be neither too general nor too specific. It should not be a straw man that the writer would like to knock over in some naive way. A great thesis should not suggest black and white answers. A great thesis should establish a problem that the author wishes to address in some specific way. In this way, the author may explore alternatives and options that may or may not establish a clear answer. Not all thesis have either complete answers or clear solutions. A thesis will give a reader something to think about as the author marshals their arguments for or against. Yet, a thesis should not be so ambiguous that it can serve any argument or any line of reasoning. A thesis is a stance on a subject which the author must either attack or defend or dismiss or defend. A spurious thesis based on fallacious underpinnings and untrue suppositions should always be left on the ash heap of discarded writings. The first and most important parameter for a good thesis is that it be true in some honest and earnest way. This is the ethical responsibility of the essay writer, whether he/she be writing about politics, religion, art, sex, war, literature, or history. The thesis must be defensible within the realm of reasonable scholarship and accepted paradigms which have been accepted and established by the vast majority of writers in that field. Being a complete naysayer or iconoclast, though interesting, can often lead the thesis writer right out into left-field. Purposefully leading people astray is both dishonest and disheartening. Writing a paper without a thesis is like trying to find a treasure without a map: you may bang around in the dark for a long time, but you will never find anything. A good thesis is concise without being pedantic, suggestive without being overbearing, intriguing without being arcane. The thesis will lead a writer to tame the verbs, choose the nouns, avoid the adverbs, and carefully select their adjectives before blindly running downhill to their conclusions. Often, a great thesis cannot be completely proved or disproved, especially if the object of that thesis is a question with many answers or a conundrum with no answers.

On bifurcating paths

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How do we end up where we are? The other day a visiting student asked why I became a college professor, and I was at a loss for words. The bifurcating paths of my own life seem chaotic, capricious, and strange. How does one pick a major? Deciding a path of studies is simple for many, but how did a boy from the prairie of southern Minnesota decide to study a language to which he has no ties, neither genetic nor tradition? I had no family in Spain. None of my family had ever been a Spanish teacher or a professor of literature. My people are farmers who tilled the ground, raised chickens and pigs, milked cowes, bailed hay, and picked corn. Nobody had ever conjugated a verb in Spanish, no one had ever read the Cid or Don Quixote, no one had ever worked in a university, written a scholarly paper, or published a book. So an economics professor who didn't know me put me in a Spanish class when I was a freshmen, but only because I had already studied Spanish for five years in junior high and high school. I had done that because my mother and the Spanish teacher were best friends who had met in the League of Women Voters. So what happens if the Spanish teacher's husband doesn't get a job in the local college that brings him (and his Spanish teaching wife) to my home town? What would have happened if I hadn't had a politically active mother who was interested in social justice for women? Where do the bifurcating paths begin? Does it matter that my father had a terrible job in another town that motivated him to search for better work in the town where I grew up? The paths have been splitting over and over again for decades and continue to split even as I write this. So I majored in Spanish at an American-Lutheran-Swedish school whose specialty was really pre-med majors and Lutheran pastors. After I graduated I couldn't get a decent job, but I was motivated to go back to school by a random comment by a favorite History professor--"What about Middlebury?" he said. After I graduated from Middlebury I decided I wanted to live in Europe for awhile, so I did that. Six years earlier, in 1980, walking past a bulletin board at St. Louis University in Madrid I saw an advertisement for the graduate program in Spanish at the University of Minnesota. I applied in 1985, they loved me, I loved them, and I graduated with my PhD in medieval Spanish literature in 1993. The combination of happenstance, historical caprice (Franco was dead), luck, coincidence, serendipitous causalities, and unnatural timing have carried me through the vortex of the space-time continuum to this place called Waco. If the dominoes had not fallen in a very specific way, I might be someone completely different, but even knowing that, I wouldn't change anything, and I say that as if I had any control over any of that chain of choices and happenings. I am the most unlikely person doing a most unlikely job given my history, family and circumstances. How does this happen?

On bifurcating paths

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How do we end up where we are? The other day a visiting student asked why I became a college professor, and I was at a loss for words. The bifurcating paths of my own life seem chaotic, capricious, and strange. How does one pick a major? Deciding a path of studies is simple for many, but how did a boy from the prairie of southern Minnesota decide to study a language to which he no ties, neither genetic nor tradition? I had no family in Spain. None of my family had ever been a Spanish teacher or a professor of literature. My people are farmers who tilled the ground, raised chickens and pigs, milked cowes, bailed hay, and picked corn. Nobody had ever conjugated a verb in Spanish, no one had ever read the Cid or Don Quixote, no one had ever worked in a university, written a scholarly paper, or published a book. So an economics professor who didn't know me put me in a Spanish class when I was a freshmen, but only because I had already studied Spanish for five years in junior high and high school. I had done that because my mother and the Spanish teacher were best friends who had met in the League of Women Voters. So what happens if the Spanish teacher's husband doesn't get a job in the local college that brings him (and his Spanish teaching wife) to my home town? What would have happened if I hadn't had a politically active mother who was interested in social justice for women? Where do the bifurcating paths begin? Does it matter that my father had a terrible job in another town that motivated him to search for better work in the town where I grew up? The paths have been splitting over and over again for decades and continue to split even as I write this. So I majored in Spanish at an American-Lutheran-Swedish school whose specialty was really pre-med majors and Lutheran pastors. After I graduated I couldn't get a decent job, but I was motivated to go back to school by a random comment by a favorite History professor--"What about Middlebury?" he said. After I graduated from Middlebury I decided I wanted to live in Europe for awhile, so I did that. Six years earlier, in 1980, walking past a bulletin board at St. Louis University in Madrid I saw an advertisement for the graduate program in Spanish at the University of Minnesota. I applied in 1985, they loved me, I loved them, and I graduated with my PhD in medieval Spanish literature in 1993. The combination of happenstance, historical caprice (Franco was dead), luck, coincidence, serendipitous causalities, and unnatural timing have carried me through the vortex of the space-time continuum to this place called Waco. If the dominoes had not fallen in a very specific way, I might be someone completely different, but even knowing that, I wouldn't change anything, and I say that as if I had any control over any of that chain of choices and happenings. I am the most unlikely person doing a most unlikely job given my history, family and circumstances. How does this happen?

On a day off

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Although most working folks work a lot of days, sometimes having a day off is not an entirely bad thing. I'm not talking about "mental health days", which I do not recommend if you want to keep that job, but days in which the entire work force is taking off due to holiday or some such similar circumstance. Having a day off is a breath of fresh air. You don't have to get up early and shave. You can get up late and make coffee, have breakfast, read the paper, take your time, and maybe not shave if you don't feel like it. In fact, a day off is about not having to do anything you don't feel like doing. You don't have to climb into the the hustle and bustle of the mass transit system. You get a break from whatever it is that you do, and you must admit that no matter how much you love your job, sometimes it's good to have a little break from the routine. You don't have to be in charge, make decisions, get it done because the office (or whatever) is closed for the day. For a day, time stands still and doesn't punish you into hitting your marks, sticking to a schedule, making sure that production doesn't falter. Have a day off is like refilling your tanks--water, gas, air--and starting over. And when your day off falls on a Friday or a Monday your heart just dances with joy. You finally get a chance to break the daily routine and do something different: have a cook out, go to the cabin, fish, ski, have a picnic, visit somebody, go shopping for something other than groceries or underwear. A day off means never having to say you are sorry. Maybe you finally get to try out your new recipe for fish soup? Or you go hiking in the local state park, or maybe you sit by the fire and read a good book as it rains outside. A day off is about the freedom we willingly give up so we can pay our bills, mortgage, car. Perhaps what makes a day off so sweet is that you recuperate the independence that you had as a child to do whatever you want. A day off makes that next Monday morning sweeter still because at least for a moment you were free once again.

On a day off

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Although most working folks work a lot of days, sometimes having a day off is not an entirely bad thing. I'm not talking about "mental health days", which I do not recommend if you want to keep that job, but days in which the entire work force is taking off due to holiday or some such similar circumstance. Having a day off is a breath of fresh air. You don't have to get up early and shave. You can get up late and make coffee, have breakfast, read the paper, take your time, and maybe not shave if you don't feel like it. In fact, a day off is about not having to do anything you don't feel like doing. You don't have to climb into the the hustle and bustle of the mass transit system. You get a break from whatever it is that you do, and you must admit that no matter how much you love your job, sometimes it's good to have a little break from the routine. You don't have to be in charge, make decisions, get it done because the office (or whatever) is closed for the day. For a day, time stands still and doesn't punish you into hitting your marks, sticking to a schedule, making sure that production doesn't falter. Have a day off is like refilling your tanks--water, gas, air--and starting over. And when your day off falls on a Friday or a Monday your heart just dances with joy. You finally get a chance to break the daily routine and do something different: have a cook out, go to the cabin, fish, ski, have a picnic, visit somebody, go shopping for something other than groceries or underwear. A day off means never having to say you are sorry. Maybe you finally get to try out your new recipe for fish soup? Or you go hiking in the local state park, or maybe you sit by the fire and read a good book as it rains outside. A day off is about the freedom we willingly give up so we can pay our bills, mortgage, car. Perhaps what makes a day off so sweet is that you recuperate the independence that you had as a child to do whatever you want. A day off makes that next Monday morning sweeter still because at least for a moment you were free once again.

On my bucket list

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What if I said that I have nothing on my bucket list? The whole idea of making a list of things one wants to do before one dies is absurd. I find the idea of a bucket list absurd because it means that you are doing something with your life other than what you want to do with it. There are no countries I want to visit that I haven't already visited, but if I visit Japan and India, great, but no bucket list. Visiting Russia is a fine idea and if my path goes that way at some point, I will go with it, but no list. I have no great urge to bungee jump, no need to eat puffer fish. I know people that climb mountains, scuba in the Bahamas, kayak in the Amazon, sail the Pacific Ocean, hike through Death Valley, but I know who I am and none of those activities would complete me. Don't get me wrong, I've skied in a blizzard, canoed until my arms fell off, tried to swim in Lake Superior, come face-to-face with a real black bear, jumped into a frozen river (cut a hole first), hiked the Buffalo Mountain range, run cross-country in a snow storm, and driven a car across Spain. My heart has gone racing on more than one occasion. I've acted on the amateur stage, sung in five operas, spoken in front of hundreds of people and lead hundreds of students across the wilds of Spain. I don't need to learn to downhill ski, make baked Alaska or install a new car engine. A bucket list suggests that I have lived my life wrong in some ironic and twisted fashion and that I want to make up for wasting the last fifty-three years. There is no one I would like to meet, and I especially do not want to meet any famous politicians or celebrities--they all have their own problems. Regular people are a gift to all humanity and those are the people with whom I now spend my time. There is no food I want to try, no mountain I want to climb, no person whom I would like to meet, no activity I would like to learn or do, no place I would like to visit. Sure, there might be a book or two, I would like to collect. There are still a few things I would like to write or I would like to write better--write the perfect essay, let's say. I write poetry, but I have no intention of ever publishing any of my minor inventions. No bucket list for me because I hope that I can feel good always about all that I have done and not feel envy towards others about what they have done or accomplished. The grass is not greener on the other side, it's just different. You cannot eat the scenery no matter how pretty the countryside is. My life will not be better or changed if I take up sky-diving, drive a race car, or do anything that is equally dangerous. I live each day as it comes, make the most of things as they develop, and always give thanks for another day of opportunities. Living where and when you are is one of the most important lessons I ever learned. Life does not start when you finish your degree and graduate. Life is what is going on around you all the time. The trick is learning that little secret and letting yourself be happy here and now. The bucket list is about failure, incompleteness, desire, and alienation. In the end, the bucket list is more about suffering than success, more about bad decisions and personal repressions. Perhaps the only thing on my bucket list is this: be happy in the here and now and not worry about when I will be happy with my life. At some point everyone figures out that waiting for Godot is just simply absurd.