I have to change the order in which I do things. Leaving this here lil ol’ blog until late in the evening encourages a ‘bah I’ll do it tomorrow’ reflex that isn’t helpful. But, blogging in the morning feels unnatural (and I would have to work like a speedy demon to finish a post before the wife heads off to work and I start my day with the little dude).  This blog is the main voice I have to you, my audience, and when I neglect the blog, I neglect the audience. Bad writer, naughty!

Here is today’s “daily meaningless benchmark of Max’s development that caught me off-guard”: The little dude can look straight out of the front windows without assistance.  I hope his basketball skills start developing, because this fellow is going to be a tall guy. He can also pour liquids carefully, without upending the container and flooding the counter with milk or juice or what have you. Yay, fine-motor skills!

But back to me yelling at everyone. When I post/tweet/email something that I’m really passionate about, I tend to get slightly over-dramatic. I’m pretty sure that sometimes my enthusiasm comes off as shouting. It’s a hard line to walk, being excited and passionate without being too intense and off-putting.

On the other hand, I suspect that my moments of unbridled optimism are misread as naive.  It is possible to be both optimistic and fully aware of the negative obstacles standing in the way of progress.

Self-published author update: It’s been a month and a half since the book went up for sale (for sale here, for anyone who is late to the party). Sales have slowed down, since everyone I am in regular contact with has purchased a copy. And, for the record, thank you wonderful people. The next challenge is to find new opportunities to put the book up for sale: local bookstores, artisan’s markets, etc… This is the kind of stuff that an actual publisher would take care of for me, but until I can build a loyal and sizable audience, I have to go it alone. And no, ‘sizable’ does not refer to your weight. I love you all just the way you are.

(Either the title is poetically cryptic, or it’s sleep-deprived nonsense. Up to you!)

Human beings are contextual creatures. Our identities are built around the experiences we’ve had and our perceptions of the world around us. More importantly, our identity is informed by the people who we share these experiences with. A lot of us try to create a definition of ourselves that is entirely derived from within, but it’s an incomplete definition. You are not simply defined by your work, or your role as a parent, or by the wealth you’ve accumulated.

I think this lack of completion is what leaves people lost and depressed as they look for some kind of direction. Sadly, the first fix they attempt is to fill that identity gap with material possessions. We’re all a little too comfortable with the role of ‘consumer’.

So what’s the missing piece? Citizenship. By joining different groups of people and working with them, you create the other pieces of yourself that fill in the gaps between work, family, and individualism. By being a part of something bigger than yourself, you get a better idea of who you are.

I’ve heard the blame being laid on the isolating nature of modern technology, that iPods and personal computers cut us off from the world around us and disintegrated society, but I have a different theory. Go a little further back in North American history to the suburban post-war boom of the Fifties. The suburbs pulled us away from community centres, religious institutions, civic organizations. As the years went on, we pulled further and further away from the groups and the crowds and even our neighbours. The electronic devices weren’t the cause of this retreat, they were a reaction. The kids turned inward and blocked out the unsatisfying noise around them.

But there was a search for community that kept taking place in the electronic realm. Facebook could in no way be as popular as it is if there wasn’t a desire for connectivity with other people. For some of us who had never learned the real world skills to seek out and forge new bonds with the community around us, technology gave us alternate means to learn how to find our community. Strange that it was around us the whole time, but there’s no point in dwelling about any lost time.

I’ve turned a corner in my own socialization: I’ve moved past tolerating social interaction to actually enjoying it. I meet new people and I try to find out what they’re about and what we can share together. And I get really excited when I imagine the interesting and wonderful things we could accomplish together.

Not that I’m actively engaged in villainy at the moment, but if I were, I’d be a nervous wreck. I’m trying to give frank and useful criticism/writing advice to a friend of mine, and now that I’ve sent that advice to him, I’m anxious and nervous. As per usual, I am exaggerating the fragility of other human beings as I imagine him reading my email and crumpling to the ground, weeping and burning his manuscript to embers.

And why do I assume that every person is on the verge of utter ego collapse, so delicate that any unsavory news should be avoided or, at the very least, delivered with the softest of kid gloves? A very good question. I always ask myself very good questions.  Well, I’m going to chalk this eccentricity to a fondness for dramatic resolution, coupled with a devious pessimism still lingering from my childhood. My creative little brain likes to come up with the biggest and flashiest possible scenario, and tragedy gives you the biggest bang for your buck.

Most people are resilient beasts, able to take a crushing amount of disappointment and sadness and still pick themselves up and continue on. Then again, some people fall apart when their coffee isn’t hot enough. Humanity is funny sometimes. Anyway, I hope he takes my advice with good humour and still likes me afterwards. It’s always about being liked.

Speaking of being liked, I love humanity. Yes, that does sound strange, but that is the literal meaning of ‘philanthropy’. It’s an interesting concept because it goes beyond an act of charity and more towards a way of living life. I’m just going to quote the Wikipedia article here, partly because I’m lazy, but mostly because it is how I feel:

“Put simply, philanthropy is the pursuit of excellence in every facet of human life, for every human life, by imagining and implementing new systems, to bring that philosophy to fruition.”

When we worry only about ourselves, when we close our doors to our neighbours and shut our borders to the vulnerable, we lose sight of our potential. Your profits are meaningless if your community withers around you. Anyone who tells you that you should be afraid of the “chaos lapping at our shores” is trying to manipulate you and trick you into giving up on the inherent goodness of humanity. Don’t.

This weekend, go do some good. Start small, so small that you don’t feel any inconvenience at all. I call it ‘lazy philanthropy’.