Sounding Like Home

Last night I stopped by my mom’s house for a visit. We went out to eat and then went back to her house to watch television. She likes the Biography Channel and we saw that a program called Johnny Cash’s*America was about to start, so we settled in to watch it. She is a big Johnny Cash fan. I never really followed him, but he’s growing on me.

The biography of Cash featured various singers and other well known people talking about him. Senator Lamar Alexander from Tennessee was one of those people. He said something that instantly had me diving for my Blackberry to make sure I captured it for further contemplation. He said, “You get in trouble when you stop sounding like where you grew up.” He made the point that Cash never did that.

I watched the rest of the program, but I kept thinking about what Alexander said. How exactly does a person sound like the place he grew up? And what about the people who didn’t have the greatest upbringing? Do they even want to sound like the place they grew up? And why would straying from that sound get a person into trouble?

I think Alexander was talking about the importance of staying rooted in everything that made us who we are—remembering the specific struggles, and lessons learned, and sacrifices others made for us, even if the people who did so weren’t perfect. And I think he was talking our youthful idealism, our outlandish dreams, and our deepest desires. Mix all of that together and you have the makings of a person who will sound believable.

When we forget all of that and begin to get lost in doing what is expected of us or doing something because we have to, then we self-medicate in one form or another in an attempt to kill our conscience because we can’t stand to listen to its protests. Only later do we discover that living a life of detachment cost us the essence of who we are, or were.

Photo credit: Sanja Gjenero

Little Nuances Makeover

Okay, it’s not really a makeover. But I’ve made a few changes over the past few weeks here at Little Nuances and I’m hoping you like them.

Blogroll

I never have done “link exchanges” with other bloggers here unless the exchange benefits readers. People who come to Little Nuances, at least those who don’t know me, presumably come because they want to slow down a little and examine life. I want to examine it with them. So, I typically link to blogs with a similar focus. I revamped my blogroll yesterday (see the section on the right side of the page titled “Blogs That Dig Deeper”). I added several blogs and I removed a few—both of which I did to stay in line with what I’m trying to do here. I hope you’ll visit a few of the blogs on my blogroll if you get a chance.

Subscriptions

A month or so ago, I added a subscription option for those who are interested. I’ve used FeedBlitz for quite some time—it allows readers to receive posts via email if they so choose. But for those who aren’t interested in that option, I really didn’t highlight the fact that they could use an RSS reader. So, I added the link “Subscribe in a reader” at the top right side of the page. If you’ve never tried reading blogs in a reader (sometimes called an aggregator) you might want to give one a shot. Using a reader will allow you to scan many blogs on one page. If you see something that intrigues you, click on it and read. It saves a lot of time. If you click on the subscription link at the top of the right side of the page, you’ll see that you can use:

• My Yahoo!
• Newsgator
• My AOL
• Bloglines
• Netvibes
• Google Reader
• Pageflakes
• and several others

If using a reader is new to you, just go to one of the above links, set up a free account, and begin clicking on subscription links when you visit blogs you find yourself returning to again and again.

Polls

I’ve also added a poll on the right side of the page. Each month I’ll put up a new pole because I genuinely want to hear your thoughts. I am planning to blog about the results of each pole and I’d really love to have a dialogue with you in the comments of those posts.

Comments

Speaking of comments, I’ve also made it easier to comment on posts here at Little Nuances. I turned off the “word verification” feature so you won’t have to go through that hassle any more. I’m going to leave comment moderation on however, so if your comments don’t show up right away, that’s why.

If you’ve never commented on a blog before (some people still send comments via e-mail, and that’s fine, but I’d love to have a running dialogue with you here on the blog instead), then I’m going to walk you through that so you’ll feel more comfortable. To comment on a post here at Little Nuances:

1. Click on the “Comments” link under the post you want to comment on.
2. Type your comment in the “Leave your comment” box. It can be long or short.
3. Scroll down a little and under the “Choose an identity” section, you can choose any of the four options, including being “Anonymous.” If you choose to be anonymous, you can still include your first name at the bottom of your comment, and in fact, I’d prefer that you leave a name.
4. Once you have chosen an identity, then click on the orange “Publish Your Comment” button.
5. Your comment will go into a queue and at my earliest convenience, I’ll review it and accept it (assuming it isn’t comment SPAM or somebody looking for a fight). 

The Deep Web

The New York Times published an article on Sunday about Google indexing its one trillionth website recently. The article says that as large as that number is, it’s only a fraction of what is on the web. Lots of information in databases and catalogs and all sorts of other mediums remain un-indexed at this point because search engines can’t find them. This section of the Internet is called  the “Deep Web.”

Of course, Google is trying to figure out how to find and index the Deep Web so its users can benefit from these untapped resources.

In some sense, all of us are in the same battle. I can’t tell how often I’ll be having a conversation with someone or writing an article about something and I know that I must have something on my bookshelves about that very topic that would be useful, but I don’t know where to start to find it. That’s one of the reasons I’m so found of marking books as I read them. But I probably have just as many unread books on my shelves as I do read books. And its the unread books that are the problem because I don’t know exactly what is in them.

Of course, a person can never really read everything he or she wants to, so the concept of the Deep Web remains a constant in all of our lives. And not just in books.

I heard a man tell a story the other day about how he took the time to record an interview with his mother before she died. He asked her questions about her life and she provided details he may have never known, and by doing so, she provided details that future generations in his family certainly wouldn’t have known. Now he’s going to incorporate the interview onto a DVD using a program like Movie Maker. He’ll splice some of the interview into one section while pictures from his mother’s life scrolls by. Then he may put in some of his own narrative, followed by more from his mother as more pictures and videos appear.

By interviewing his mother, he accessed the Deep Web portion of his heritage and he preserved it for future generations. If he hadn’t done so, much of the information would have been inaccessible.

Just being aware of the Deep Web in life (metaphorically speaking) makes me want to do something to make sure I preserve as much of it as possible. How about you?

Series of Firsts: First Record Player

Being an introvert growing up, I had a hard time expressing myself. In high school, I began to let everything out via the pen. Before that, there was music.

We didn’t have a lot of money growing up, but somehow my mom always made ends meet. She even gave my sister and I an allowance. When I wasn’t spending mine on baseball cards, I was spending it on albums or 45s. I bought a crazy cross-section of music, from Olivia Newton John to Aerosmith.

When I was probably 10 or so, my mom bought me a record player. I can’t tell you what brand it was, but I can picture it clearly in my mind. The record player and speakers sat in a case that looked a little like a goal post on a high school football field. The record player was on top and the speakers were on the bottom.

Listening to music on that record player helped me connect with the world and it gave me hope for breaking out of my shell one day. One song I listened to over and over was “Boats Against the Current” by Olivia Newton John. I haven’t heard the song in decades, but I can still recite all of the lyrics. Here’s a taste:

I was a dreamer
You were a dreamer
But perfection is consuming
And it seems we're only human after all
And we’ve both been takin’ the fall
But tomorrow
We’ll run a little bit faster
Tomorrow
We're gonna find what we’re after at last

Sometimes, I’d take the speakers out of the case and I’d lie on my back in my bedroom. Then I’d move the speakers up close to my ears and I’d get lost in the music. I used to do that with Aerosmith’s “Dream On.” I could sing right along with Steven Tyler:

Every time I look in the mirror
All these lines on my face getting clearer
The past is gone
It goes by, like dusk to dawn
Isn't that the way
Everybody's got their dues in life to pay

I don’t know why, but people didn’t really use headphones in those days. One of my cousins had a really expensive pair (they were huge), but I never really even considered buying a pair. As you can imagine, that led to my mom telling my to turn my music down on more than one occasion.

I was already a reader at that point, but my record player opened me up even further to the power of the arts. Of course, that doesn’t always mean a person is going to be influenced in a positive way, but I tended to gravitate toward motivational, introspective music that pushed me out into the world. And that was a good thing.

He’s Just Not That Into You

A friend and I went to see He’s Just Not That Into You last night. We were the only guys I could see in the entire theater who probably weren’t dragged there by a woman. But that’s okay. We both wanted to see the movie, and we kept the obligatory empty seat between us—because that’s just what guys do.

Overall, I think the movie was mediocre. My biggest problem with it was—it has so many main characters that it is hard to get close to any of them. But putting that aside, the movie made several valid points about finding love. Of course, the main point is to be honest with ourself when we can see that another person is not doing whatever it takes to be close to us. Going weeks without talking, the unreturned phone calls, the brush offs, and the lack of fire in the other person’s eyes should convince us that it isn’t going to happen, but since we don’t want to hear those words, we hold on to false hope.

Why do we hold on false hope? Because coming to the conclusion that we just aren’t what another person wants in a mate is too much for the heart to take. And because the thought of starting all over again with someone new is frightening. But of course, if we looked at the situation objectively, which we’d rather not do because we have too many emotions involved, we’d realize that we couldn’t possibly be a good fit for everybody and of course moving on is frightening. But the reality is, we really only need to be a fit with one person and the quicker we are honest with ourself, the quicker we can move on an maybe find a real match.

That point comes through in the movie loud and clear, and for me, that made the movie worth seeing.

Building on Ruins

A couple of years ago, I wrote a post about about something Elie Wiesel said in the preface of his book, Night—his firsthand account about surviving Auschwitz and Buchenwald. It was one of the most difficult books I’ve ever read. I don’t think I’ll ever forget it.

Yesterday, I read in the USA Today that Wiesel’s foundation has been swindled out of nearly all of its assets. You’d like to ask, How could a person do such a thing? But in light of what Wiesel endured in concentration camps, it hardly seems like a question that needs to be asked.

It’s just heartbreaking to hear about. But his response after his foundation was swindled brought a tear to my eye. Here’s what he said: “All my life has been about learning and teaching and building on ruins. That will not change.”

How different might our world look if more of us built on our own ruins?