Laying foundations

My heart's a bit heavy.

In all we do we're always laying a foundation. May we see with clarity the house we're really building.

Social Media & Communication

In an Evernote blog, Chris Hardwick says:

Social media used to be, “hey, I’m awake, look at what I had for breakfast.” Then it very quickly became something where people realized they could get news really fast. So then it became a real, substantive information outlet. And then they started to realize, oh, this can create actual social change.

But now I think social media has really morphed into, unfortunately, a lot of yelling. The loudest voices do tend to rise to the top. I do think there are still very powerful uses for social change on social media, but it’s such a crazy time right now that I don’t see as many superfluous tweets anymore.

As many outrageous things as there are going on in the world, I do think we’re a bit addicted to outrage and social media is sort of the outlet for that. It’s not all negative. I don’t want to paint that picture. But social media used to be just be silly and fun and now it’s heavy. I feel like social media is really heavy right now.

And follows it up with:

Anyone who’s been on a forum since there were forums knows that within two or three lines of any thread—and I’m sure there’s some sort of a formula for this—it just becomes a [cursing] match. Then it just becomes like a shouting schoolyard.

Communication is meant to be in person. It really is meant to be in person. That’s how our brains have developed. We read people’s faces, their expressions, we take social cues, visual cues. We can hear intonation, their audio cues.

When you’re just reading text, a lot of what you’re reading is through the filter of your own baggage. You can infer what you think the writer was intending, but there’s so much nuance and subtlety that’s lost. And then on top of that, people are interfacing with machines, which is very impersonal.

And so, when you’re reading text, if you’re misinterpreting it and then saying f— you back, your brain is thinking that you’re doing that to a machine. Because you’re interfacing with a machine and not a human being.

Endure

I don't *feel* like God says too many things to me, but I *feel* like He told me, three times, to "endure".

And that's all I got.

Art

I'm not trying to recreate someone else's art frame by frame, pixel by pixel, word by word, or brush stroke by brush stroke. I'm trying to recreate how they made me feel.

Restaurant Sides

In some neighborhoods, restaurants be like: "Our sides are french fries, baked potato, baked sweet potato, fruit cup, or steamed veggies; for an extra dollar we'll make it a loaded baked potato!"

In my neighborhood: "Sides are french fries, hot wings, or both."

The best Christmas gift

You know you're getting older when no matter the new toys and gadgets, you feel like the best gift you got was a pair of comfortable pajama pants...

Christmas decorations...

All these folks telling me to "weep with those that weep" or "rejoice with those that rejoice" only when it fits them.

Just because the establishment, like Walmart and the outdoor mall, is putting out Christmas decorations now DOESN'T MEAN we just gonna skip Thanksgiving!

PEOPLE RISE UP and savor those beans, greens, potatoes, and tomatoes - YOU NAME IT!