I've been thinking a lot about death. Kinda weird considering I'm 19, in good health, and living in America, right? But I can't get it off my mind recently.
I think about how it's the one thing every single living organism on this planet has in common. How it's inevitable, unpredictable, and, a lot of the time, feared. It's the ultimate punishment. It's a sobering threat. It's a serious matter. It's an ominous predicament.
It's kind of boring to think about, really.
I guess more specifically, I've been thinking about my own death. I wonder how it will happen. I have certain hopes, of course. For example, I kinda hope I don't die in my sleep. This is due mainly to the kind of life I have dedicated myself to. It'd be pretty anticlimactic to lead a life dedicated to changing this world, to reaching out to the farthest places of the earth to bring hope and life, and then fall asleep one night and never wake up.
Don't get me wrong, I want to die at an old age.* I've still got a lot of life left in me to be hoping for a car accdent tonight. But I want to die doing something I love, y'know? And although I do love to sleep, I want something more... substancial.
Defending a village from raiders, perhaps? Spreading the Gospel? Delivering relief supplies? I dunno, but something cool like that. I see how dieing while asleep appeals to some, but to me it seems like a bunch of poffycock and tom foolery.
Also, I wonder what my funeral will be like. If we go based on the D.O.D. (death on duty) form I filled out for the fire crew last summer, I would have Ben Stein read my eulogy and I would leave all my stuff to Sarah.** But that doesn't really tell us anything.
A good friend of mine, Chase, said he went to a funeral over Christmas break. He described it like this:
"The first half was mourning. Everyone really missed him, so we were all in and out of tears, holding each other and remembering all he meant to us. But then the second half was bizzarre. We realized that we knew where he was, and that we'd catch up with him before long, so there was laughing and dancing and singing of his favorite songs."
I want my service to be like that. Because here's the bottom line: I know where I'm going. I realize this is a sketchy statement to a lot of you reading this blog, but I don't know what else to say. God is a real and living Being, far greater than anything we can even imagine. I've become convinced of this and I try every day to live my life accodring to this.
And I guess the reason I've been thinking so much about death recently is because I'm no longer afraid of it. It's still a strange concept, don't get me wrong, and I'd be lieing if I told you I wasn't a little bit apprehensive. But, I dunno, I'm kind excited for the day I get to see what it's like to walk in His presence.
Thanks for reading,
-Daniel K
P.S. Another reason I've been thinking about it is because I'm still trying to find a way to get into the abandoned Gates Rubber Factory here in Devner. Google image search it... it makes American Flats look like a merry go round.
*That is, of course, assuming the world doesn't end in 2012.... Dun dun duuuun!
**Except my pack of wolves. Those belong to the Mammy.
Thursday, January 22, 2009
Saturday, January 10, 2009
Wintermester.
Class: COM 297 - Leading Effective teams
Instructor: Ryan Hartwig
Dates:01-04-09 to 01-09-09
Location: School of Education 103
Required Reading: "Creating Effective Teams" (Wheelan, Susan)
It's weird how that's what a class looks like on paper. Weird because it tells you everything you need to know about the class, but nothing you need to know about what really matters. As it happens, a lot of what I learned in "Leading Effective Teams" matters.
On the first day of class, Professor Hartwig introduced us to a quote. "The true measure of a leader is not what you do, but what others do because of what you do." Prof. Hartwig kept reinforcing that statement with one of his own: Your actions matter. What you do now echos in the lives of others, rippling out across our world. Thus, how you lead a team (whether for school, work, church, or whatever) matters. And how you are a member of a team matters. And how you react, how you speak, how you love, how you hate, matters.
I know this has the tendency to sound kinda fruity or idealistic, but think about it for a little bit. All of our lives are built on a series of events. Like the extremely well-done scene in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, if one thing had happened slightly differently, our whole lives would be changed. If, for example, you had not chosen to sit down and read this blog, perhaps you would have instead gone to Starbucks and bought a coffee. While at the coffee shop, you could have witnessed a fender bender and seen how the two people reacted. From seeing their reactions, you could have decided "Wow. That was really ridiculous. I will never react that way to a simple fender bender."
And just like that, your life has changed.
Yet we never seem to take this into consideration because we are only present in one reality. Our minds would explode if we were constantly thinking about all of the possibilities of our actions (or sometimes more impactful, our nonactions.)
Prof. Hartwig reminded us on several occasions throughout the week that our actions matter. This tied in wonderfully with the next huge point he made on the last day of class: saying something is 'natural' is the enemy of innovation.
We were discussing the dark side of teamwork when this topic came up. You see, a lot of people (especially in today's society,) attempt to paint teamwork as a utopian idea. Two heads are better than one, right? Teams, composed of multiple individuals, are far superior to a singe individual, right? Yet when we work in teams, the team can become our harsh master. If you are in a team on the job and your task is to get a certain project done by tomorrow, yet your day went haywire and you find yourself at 5 PM (the end of your work day) without that project done, when will you do it? In you own time, of course. The team is relying on you... you've set up norms of getting work done on time, no exceptions. So you work that night, cutting into family time or football time or Starbucks time or whatever.
Wait, wait, wait. You just worked overtime for no pay. Would your boss ever require you to work overtime with no pay? Not legally! There's no way you would do that! Yet you just did. The net of peer pressure and norms set up within the team forced you to do something completely absurd.
And the worst part? We don't even think about it that way. What do we think? It's natural. You always have to make a sacrifice like that to be in a team. It's natural. It's always been that way... people have always had to work overtime for no pay to get a team project done on time. It's natural.
It's not natural. The 9-5 workweek - 8 hours a day, five days a week away from your family, friends, people who may need you - is not natural. Two parents holding jobs that force them to leave their kids in daycare with strangers in order to pay for created needs such as iPods or TVs or computer games is not natural.
We have to think about this stuff, y'know? We can't go through our lives accepting these created concepts as natural, otherwise we are doomed to live a bland, by-the-letter life. As soon as we consider these things to be natural, it kills any innovation. We can't be innovative enough to change a tree's composition or the color of the sky, because those things are natural. Don't think for a second we can't change the composition of a 9-5 work week.
I want to end this blog with a quote by Prof. Hartwig that has been occupying my mind nonstop since Friday morning:
"If we created it, we can change it."
Thanks for Reading,
-Daniel K
P.S. I changed a few things on my blog to make it more open. Even if you aren't a registered Blogger.com member, you are now allowed to comment and otherwise participate. Thanks for your continued readership!
Instructor: Ryan Hartwig
Dates:01-04-09 to 01-09-09
Location: School of Education 103
Required Reading: "Creating Effective Teams" (Wheelan, Susan)
It's weird how that's what a class looks like on paper. Weird because it tells you everything you need to know about the class, but nothing you need to know about what really matters. As it happens, a lot of what I learned in "Leading Effective Teams" matters.
On the first day of class, Professor Hartwig introduced us to a quote. "The true measure of a leader is not what you do, but what others do because of what you do." Prof. Hartwig kept reinforcing that statement with one of his own: Your actions matter. What you do now echos in the lives of others, rippling out across our world. Thus, how you lead a team (whether for school, work, church, or whatever) matters. And how you are a member of a team matters. And how you react, how you speak, how you love, how you hate, matters.
I know this has the tendency to sound kinda fruity or idealistic, but think about it for a little bit. All of our lives are built on a series of events. Like the extremely well-done scene in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, if one thing had happened slightly differently, our whole lives would be changed. If, for example, you had not chosen to sit down and read this blog, perhaps you would have instead gone to Starbucks and bought a coffee. While at the coffee shop, you could have witnessed a fender bender and seen how the two people reacted. From seeing their reactions, you could have decided "Wow. That was really ridiculous. I will never react that way to a simple fender bender."
And just like that, your life has changed.
Yet we never seem to take this into consideration because we are only present in one reality. Our minds would explode if we were constantly thinking about all of the possibilities of our actions (or sometimes more impactful, our nonactions.)
Prof. Hartwig reminded us on several occasions throughout the week that our actions matter. This tied in wonderfully with the next huge point he made on the last day of class: saying something is 'natural' is the enemy of innovation.
We were discussing the dark side of teamwork when this topic came up. You see, a lot of people (especially in today's society,) attempt to paint teamwork as a utopian idea. Two heads are better than one, right? Teams, composed of multiple individuals, are far superior to a singe individual, right? Yet when we work in teams, the team can become our harsh master. If you are in a team on the job and your task is to get a certain project done by tomorrow, yet your day went haywire and you find yourself at 5 PM (the end of your work day) without that project done, when will you do it? In you own time, of course. The team is relying on you... you've set up norms of getting work done on time, no exceptions. So you work that night, cutting into family time or football time or Starbucks time or whatever.
Wait, wait, wait. You just worked overtime for no pay. Would your boss ever require you to work overtime with no pay? Not legally! There's no way you would do that! Yet you just did. The net of peer pressure and norms set up within the team forced you to do something completely absurd.
And the worst part? We don't even think about it that way. What do we think? It's natural. You always have to make a sacrifice like that to be in a team. It's natural. It's always been that way... people have always had to work overtime for no pay to get a team project done on time. It's natural.
It's not natural. The 9-5 workweek - 8 hours a day, five days a week away from your family, friends, people who may need you - is not natural. Two parents holding jobs that force them to leave their kids in daycare with strangers in order to pay for created needs such as iPods or TVs or computer games is not natural.
We have to think about this stuff, y'know? We can't go through our lives accepting these created concepts as natural, otherwise we are doomed to live a bland, by-the-letter life. As soon as we consider these things to be natural, it kills any innovation. We can't be innovative enough to change a tree's composition or the color of the sky, because those things are natural. Don't think for a second we can't change the composition of a 9-5 work week.
I want to end this blog with a quote by Prof. Hartwig that has been occupying my mind nonstop since Friday morning:
"If we created it, we can change it."
Thanks for Reading,
-Daniel K
P.S. I changed a few things on my blog to make it more open. Even if you aren't a registered Blogger.com member, you are now allowed to comment and otherwise participate. Thanks for your continued readership!
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