How My Son Lights Up My Life

Allister, my one year old son, has recently learned that he can turn a light on or off with the flip of a switch. It's not that easy for him to flip those switches as it is for adults, he can't normally reach high enough. I put a bench for him to stand on by the light switch in his room the other day and he turned the light on and off to his heart's content. He giggled and pointed with glee at the way lights would shine forth or hide themselves at his command. It was one of those joyful moments of parenting to see my boy learning, appreciating, and enjoying the world around him and his place in it.

Seeing my child find such happiness in turning on and off a light inspired me to consider how wonderful a thing that really was. Why shouldn't he be excited? It wasn't that long ago that lighting his room would have required lighting some sort of fire, and been significantly more dangerous. I'll let my son play with a light switch, but I wouldn't let him play with matches. Risk aside, it is easier to flip a switch than even the simple process striking a match and touching it to the wick of a candle.

The infrastructure required to make this happen is remarkable to consider. I have a fleet of servants devoted to ensuring that electrical current flows properly to my house. Sure, I share those services with thousands of other people, but I receive a service that many of the stateliest lordly manners full of servants didn't enjoy.

I once had a history professor opine that, "civilization is the gift we get for free." I often consider how fortunate we are to live in the time we now live. Not everyone would agree with me, but I reject the thinking of the paleo-nostalgia and 'born in the wrong era' crowd. I like to remind people that it wasn't until 1980 that smallpox was a very real threat to human life and happiness. Now, it's one so theoretical it's hard to think of it as real rather than as fictional as other elements of Victorian romances, Gothic horror stories, and wild west adventures. Steven Pinker's The Better Angels of our Nature presents convincing evidence of how much violence (not just to one another but even toward animals - did you know cat burning as a form of entertainment in medieval times?) has declined throughout human history. It's almost certain that the future will be even better than our era, but even by the meager standards of rivalry and jealousy we can look back on the whole of human history and smile smugly at how we have it better.

That's an exercise that we need to actively perform, though. Whether you call it the hedonic treadmill, progress of civilization, or just ungratefulness it's easy for even the most wonderful things to become commonplace and ignored. We relegate miracles to an expectation, and then become grumpy when they stop being performed for us, if even for only a few hours. I'm blessed to be a parent, because when I see my son learning to walk, trying new foods, or playing with the light switch I can see a glimpse of the world through the experience of someone from whom that world is new and unknown. The world I see from those eyes with my much more mature perspective seems pretty wonderful.

Trick or Treating: The Last Bastion of Neighborhood Community?

People don't know their neighbors any more.  Our interactions are more and more impersonal, mediated by computers.  We have fewer and fewer real communities to engage in.  They're being replaced by forums and social networking groups.  These things aren't as bad as people often make them out to be, but they do present problems.  We're cut off from genuine interaction.  It's being replaced with a type of self promotion, making it harder and harder to 'be ourselves' and be accepted for who we are.  We're exposed to less diversity because we don't spend time with those whose ideas and opinions differ from us.  Churches, neighborhood barbecues, and kids playing in the street used to serve these purposes.  Most people don't go to church these days, I can't remember the last time I heard about a neighborhood barbecue, and we setup play dates for the kids nowadays.  There's one area that still hearkens back to the days of the local community, though.

Trick or treating is a wonderful Halloween tradition that builds a neighborhood.  Once a year parents and kids walk around, say hi to their neighbors, show off costumes, and share sweets.  What a classic community building activity that is!  Families can talk afterward about how cute the kid down the street looked dressed up like a princess, or which families in town gave out the best candy.  Finally, a time when a family can discuss their neighbors and how much they enjoyed spending some time with them!

This is an important lesson for our children, too.  364 days a year we tell our kids about 'stranger danger,' but on Halloween they're finally encouraged to meet new people.  They're rewarded with candy, given to them in return for wearing an amusing costume and displaying it for thirty seconds at the neighbor's door.  This activity will teach them that they don't have to be suspicious and scared of every person they share the world with.  They might even learn that many people are kind human beings.

Even this noble tradition is dying out, though.  We're learning how to make imitation trick or treating that, like imitation food, is a pale shadow of the real thing that carries little of the original value.  Church groups do 'trunk or treats' to make sure families can collect candy with kids while remaining insulated from their neighbors and any community they don't approve of.  Trick or treating routes are less and less up and down the street you live on and instead are becoming visits to homes of family friends.  Some people in a sickening twisting of the tradition in pursuit of efficiency and increasing returns worthy of a heartless corporation go up into the wealthy areas of town, spurning their own neighbors, because 'they give better candy.'

Let's not become that people.  Let's continue to love our neighbors and even learn to enjoy their company.  Let's teach our kids to build a community and meet those they share the world with.  Let's go trick or treating around our neighborhood this Halloween.

Thoughts from the Airport

I love airports. An airport is an exciting nexus of modern human existence. A coming together of people, people on journeys. Some leaving to see others for a joyful celebration, some doing the same but for a somber purpose. Still more arriving, perhaps wearied from their voyage and excited to meet friends and settle in at their destination. Or excited to finally be in the place to where they anticipated coming.

They're grand testimonies to modern technology, and while some worry and fret over technologies march forward I marvel and embrace what it's brought us. It was 107 years ago that man first lifted himself from the ground with nothing more than ingenuity, effort, and luck. And now we've mastered the craft so well that anyone can do so for the same price as an expensive piece of clothing. We build what are cities unto themselves to support people taking to the skies day by day. That is what an airport is.

The airport I'm at now is perhaps not one of these, being smaller than where I arrive, the Denver International Airport, but it still excites me. Today I played a game with myself. I tried to move slowly, sauntering through this buzzing hive of humanity. Airports usually excite me and I energetically pull keys and shoes off at security checkpoints, forcefully drive forward toward the gate from which a few tons of steel, silicon, and modern aeronautics will carry me to wherever I wish to go in the world, and then arrive somewhat disappointed that I've been so efficient only to arrive early enough to wait. I still arrived early enough that I've spent about an hour and a half waiting, but it's certainly been enjoyable. The air conditioning has deceptively made the sound of a waterfall in the section of seats next to mine. It's rained and a few brilliant blasts of lightning and deep peels of thunder have been mine to enjoy. Most of this time though I've used to read and, now, to write.