Learning from Failure

A lot of things today, loosely connected at best.

To set the mood, a few recent anecdotes involving my kids.

I got new glasses today, and for the first time in many years a change in style. Since before the kids were born I've been rimless, as invisible as possible. Each member of the family had a pretty big reaction to seeing me when they got home. [Younger]'s was my favorite: "You look like a study guy." I think he just called me a nerd.

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Me: "[Older], stop kicking [Younger]! [Younger], stop kicking, [Older]! I said Stop! Everyone put your feet away."

[Spouse], walking into the room: "Before Mom cuts them off with an axe."

[Younger]: "Wait, do you have an axe?"

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For the past month, five-year-old [Younger] has been talking about how he is going to get buff. He's asked to go to the park so he can use the exercise equipment. Tonight he upped his game with the claim, "Even my glutes are going to be shredded (I know what that means)."

Those were all the younger brother, and one from the older.

God [Older] is near. He presented that note to us from around the corner, avoiding an appearance. I wasn't sure if the news was meant to be ominous or exciting. It was certainly intriguing.

And:

The boys are spending their first week of summer at a YMCA camp at a local school. When I picked them up just now, [Younger] was grumpy and taking it out physically on [Older]. I asked how their day went.

"Good, until [Younger] started attacking me," said [Older].

[Younger] just grunted. I asked if his whole day was bad or just the end with [Older]. He said the whole day. [Older] said [Younger] was just saying that because he was mad, and would tell a different story when he calmed down. [Younger] backed up his claim by saying some of the other kids were picking on him. I asked the nature of it, and responded to his description by saying, "So they just like making you mad?"

"Yeah" [Younger] said.

"I don't blame them," [Older] said. "I like making him mad, too."

We haven't always controlled the content that fuels their imaginations, but we've done everything we can to nurture their creativity, openness, and playfulness. I hope they are as imaginative as possible.

Over the weekend we introduced them to an activity that has been one of the big sources for creativity and imagination in my life: role-playing games. Their honorary uncle guided a first session of Magical Kitties Save the Day for the three of us. It's an excellent beginner role-playing game for kids. My favorite aspect: you gain experience points for failure. I think all RPGs should adopt that rule. It's a great lesson for games and for life.

I really like the whole list for ways to gain Experience Points--saving the day, having fun, and learning lessons are all great--and failed rolls is my favorite.

Our bedtime story that night was telling their mom the tale of our kitties' adventure.

This article doesn't completely convey the magic of watching the show, but it's a great introduction to one of our other sources of inspiration for imaginative play.

How Bluey Became the Best Kids’ Show of Our Time

No other series gets the strange, hilarious magic of play.

So I watch the Australian children’s show Bluey with a mix of awe, wistfulness, love, and a dash of resentment. Bluey is about a family of cartoon dogs who live in Brisbane: a mom named Chilli; the dad, Bandit; and their two daughters, Bingo and Bluey, roughly ages 4 and 6. It’s really a show about Bluey and Bingo playing elaborate games with their parents and their friends, about the joy and strangeness of children’s imaginations and desires. Every streaming platform offers an endless list of animated children’s series following puppies solving problems, cartoon girls in wish-granting fairy-tale worlds, and heroes on adventures. All of it is about imagination, but almost none of it is all that imaginative. Bluey is the only one that knows how hilarious play can be, how silly and intense, how trivial but life-changing. I sincerely love watching it, unlike the countless kids’ shows I keep an eye on in the background or the ones I sit down to watch with my kids because the experts say shared screen time is the gold standard or whatever. . . . 

As the episode escalates from a minor mess all the way up to spilled food and an emergency outdoor-toilet situation, my kids’ gasping, room-filling laughs incapacitate them. They laugh so hard I wonder if they’re hallucinating.

It registers differently with me. In “Cafe,” I watch the dad, Bandit, and wonder at his patience, his perpetual willingness to pretend to eat yet another imaginary hamburger, his constant readiness to play along. In “Sticky Gecko,” when Chilli struggles to get everyone out the door on time and eventually explodes in frustration, I feel as if I’ve been socked in the stomach. That was always part of creator Joe Brumm’s concept: If he was going to make a children’s show, he felt it should be legitimately entertaining and meaningful for parents, too. . . . 

Bluey is a triumph of good-natured naturalism, a clarion understanding of what play really feels like and its importance in childhood. At the same time, every era gets children’s programming that reflects that generation’s ideas about parenting. Modern parents are supposed to be playmates — authority figures who are also engaged participants. So it’s fitting that Bluey achieves an unusual feat for children’s programming: a true double-vision viewing experience for parents and children watching together. . . . 

Bluey has no set rhythm for how an episode’s action will play out. This is essentially kids’-TV sacrilege. Even great shows, like Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood or Octonauts or The Magic School Bus, are rhythmic and comforting, the nursery-school version of a grown-up’s procedural mystery. On Bluey, there is only the central idea that, somehow, it will be about a game Bluey or Bingo plays, and usually an episode will push the game toward some deeper meaning. “Dance Mode” is about the feeling of going along with something even when you’re privately unhappy. “Cafe” is an episode in which Bluey plays café with a new friend, but it is actually seven exquisite minutes on the difficulty of making friends as an adult. In “Grandad,” Chilli chides the girls about taking care of their bodies so they can grow healthy and strong, but the story takes a swift left turn into Chilli’s concern about her own aging father. This is among the handful of episodes I have walked away from in tears.

For children, Bluey’s lessons are interesting suggestions, not direct appeals. The parent side is where Bluey’s behavior modeling feels more pointed. “In reality, half the episodes when I do my story arc, the main character is Bandit or Chilli,” Brumm says. “They’re the ones learning something.” The adults make mistakes and get snappish with one another, but their imperfections are small and sweet. They are aspirational, a beacon of what life could be like if we were all more open and forgiving. The show is never judgmental, but it’s hard not to compare myself to these damnably patient cartoon dogs.

I don’t begrudge Bluey its magical imaginary of idealized parenting. It creates envy and longing and a touch of shame. It often leaves me feeling as though I come up short. But it has also made me examine my behavior as a parent. I think about the pile of abandoned babies on my desk and my unwillingness to cede to my children’s desires. And I think it may inspire me to be more capable of playing along.

It’s really a show about Bluey and Bingo playing elaborate games with their parents and their friends, about the joy and strangeness of children’s imaginations and desires. . . . Bluey is a triumph of good-natured naturalism, a clarion understanding of what play really feels like and its importance in childhood.

Sometimes I think my wife and I enjoy it even more than our kids do. And it certainly inspires us to take their imaginations seriously and give them our full effort.

Another good article, this one about one of my favorite authors for teens.

Y.A. Author A.S. King Lost Her Child. She’s Still Trying to Save All the Others

The award-winning novelist opens up about her daughter’s suicide—and her mission to be there for young readers who need someone.

In her most recent novels, King tells her stories through abstraction, constructing dreamlike narratives in books like I Crawl Through It, Still Life With Tornado, or Dig, which won the 2020 Michael L. Printz Award—the Oscar for best picture in the Y.A. world. She deals with topics like bullying, death, racism, anxiety, and other real-world concerns, but in her stories everything feels symbolic and nothing makes literal sense. Is there a better metaphor for adolescence than that?

Her readers are able to project their own experiences on the stories, the way people do with poems or song lyrics. . . . 

“In my books, the surrealism is a way to hide it from the adults so that the kids can feel it and be validated,” she said. “How I do that, I don’t know. I think part of it is I had to do the same with my trauma.” . . . 

The kids who reach out to her often feel the same, and they are not all strangers. Some are friends of her late daughter. “One of them called me: ‘You’re my trusted adult. So, I hope you don’t mind me sharing this with you.’ I’m like, ‘Oh, my gosh, not at all.’ Whether they’re having troubles or struggles or are excited or whatever, or they want to bounce stuff off me.”

It’s not always easy for them to connect with parents, teachers, or other guardians. “You don’t share your trauma with your parents because your parents would never be able to handle it,” King said. “Whether our parents are really awful or even if they’re doing their best, we are all like, I can’t tell my mom that.”

Readers seek her out because they need commonsense advice from someone who hasn’t already been telling them what to do. “They write to my email or they find me on social media, or they find my Instagram, things like that,” she said.

It’s also not always easy to hear these things, but King doesn’t complain. She feels she’s built for this. “I joke about being a pain sponge myself.” It comes with immense responsibility. . . . 

Many kids find her online, through social media or her website. A few show up on her porch. Others find her at book festivals. The organizers of the Rochester Children’s Book Festival have even started giving her a special place in the hallway, separate from the main event. “They didn’t want these kids to be talking about personal things in a larger arena with authors lined up behind a table. And when they said that to me, that made my heart swell.”

I've included King and her books in some of my previous posts, too: Letting Two Books Speak for Themselves, The . . . States of America, and Send Love. And this relevant quote.

Blowing up isn't always external. It's not always easy to hear or see. Synapses fire every day in my brain. Thinking is just like exploding until it eventually scars you and you can't interact with people anymore. It's like one big, final detonation.

― A.S. King, I Crawl Through It

On to more adult matters. This Facebook post from the rector of the Episcopalian church we attend speaks to where we are in our gradual return to normal from the pandemic.

Hi Friends.... I've noticed a lot of people in stores and other places being pretty impatient. Hell, we all had to change everything about our lives this last year, and every week, it seems like the goalpost was constantly moving. I get it. It might be worth committing to being gentle, kind, and supportive of all those around us. AND it might be worth doing a gut check when you feel the frustration/ rage/ anxiety coming up over what are tiny things. The emotions and processing of last year are likely catching up with all of us across society. Take a few deep breathes, think of a lovely place, person or thing, and be kind if you can muster it up.

After so much sheltering in place and social distancing, we've kind of forgotten how to be around each other.

Of course, our political polarization doesn't help. The former president and some of his supporters have been talking about expecting a coup to put him back in power by the end of the summer, so it's hard not to feel outraged.

"People get addicted to feeling offended all the time because it gives them a high; being self-righteous and morally superior feels good. As political cartoonist Tim Kreider put it in a New York Times op-ed: 'Outrage is like a lot of other things that feel good but over time devour us from the inside out. And it's even more insidious than most vices because we don't even consciously acknowledge that it's a pleasure.'"

The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck

By Mark Manson

A reasonable amount of concern and reaction is good, but this is an important reminder to not get lost in outrage.

This is a good corrective to my thinking. I've ranted many times from my left wing perspective about the evils of American individualism.

Everyone Thinks Americans Are Selfish. They’re Wrong.

The United States is notable for its individualism. The results of several large surveys assessing the values held by the people of various nations consistently rank the United States as the world’s most individualist country. Individualism, as defined by behavioral scientists, means valuing autonomy, self-expression and the pursuit of personal goals rather than prioritizing the interests of the group — be it family, community or country.

Whether America’s individualism is a source of pride or concern varies. Some people extol this mind-set as a source of our entrepreneurial spirit, self-reliance and geographic mobility. Others worry that our individualism is antithetical to a sense of social responsibility, whether that means refusing to wear masks and get vaccinated during the pandemic or disrupting the close family bonds and social ties seen in more traditional societies.

Everyone seems to agree that our individualism makes us self-centered or selfish, and to disagree only about how concerning that is.

But new research suggests the opposite: When comparing countries, my colleagues and I found that greater levels of individualism were linked to more generosity — not less . . . 

That individualism was closely associated with altruism was . . . surprising. But even after statistically controlling for wealth, health, education and other variables, we found that in more individualist countries like the Netherlands, Bhutan and the United States, people were more altruistic across our seven indicators than were people in more collectivist cultures — even wealthy ones — like Ukraine, Croatia and China.

On average, people in more individualist countries donate more money, more blood, more bone marrow and more organs. They more often help others in need and treat nonhuman animals more humanely. If individualism were equivalent to selfishness, none of this would make sense. . . . 

It seems that individualism is fundamentally misunderstood.

So maybe our selfishness has a different source.

This is both good advice for raising and working with kids and a reminder about how to break down some of the polarization. I've always had this value, but I'm sure I fail to embody it as often as I succeed.

True Inclusion Requires Viewpoint Diversity

Erin McLaughlin, an educator in Pennsylvania, believes that, in school and in life, people should study what others think and why. But in her estimation, many educational institutions that purport to value diversity and inclusion fail to treat viewpoint diversity—which she defines as “the recognition that nobody’s worldview is complete, and that no one marker of identity actually defines the way we see the world around us”—as a vital part of civic education. Her mission: to persuade educational institutions to put viewpoint diversity at the center of their cultures and curricula. . . . 

She has developed what she calls the Viewpoint Diversity Curriculum, which poses questions such as “Can I go beyond my personal experience?” and “Can I find a way to constructively connect with the other side?” . . . 

When you present students with different viewpoints, they develop critical skills, learn how others think, and understand why they came to a given belief. . . . 

Teaching viewpoint diversity is really about embedding that value in a school’s entire curriculum and culture—a shared language and approach seen in all classes and assemblies, adviser meetings, and more. . . . 

The second objective is to cultivate intellectual humility so that students recognize that their worldview is incomplete and biased, and that other people have much to teach them. No matter how smart or moral we are, our worldviews aren’t complete. It’s easy to judge, but it’s better to be curious, because we don’t have all the answers. . . . 

We have to be able to have difficult conversations where people disagree and everyone gets their say without feeling pressure to voice a particular opinion. The goal isn’t building consensus for the correct way of thinking; it’s increasing understanding amid different ways of thinking, because consensus doesn’t actually exist. . . . 

No matter who you are, you have a unique way of viewing the world, and it deserves a spot in the school. . . . 

Viewpoint diversity isn’t about trying to change someone’s mind. But if you can get people to be open to new ideas, having conversations with other people and being able to disagree in a way that is constructive rather than just being judgmental, that’s your best chance to change minds—and regardless, you understand more and coexist better. Right now, we’re in this self-indulgent and self-righteous culture of just ripping other people down. But to what end? . . . 

This is actually where I think most diversity training goes wrong: It’s useful to feel guilty when we understand that we violated a value that we believe in and should uphold, but it’s useless and ineffective to shame a person even when they don’t understand what they’ve done wrong. What you can do that is much more effective is to find out what a person does believe in and then appeal to that value. . . . 

Students appreciate the opportunity to speak freely and to look at other sides of arguments that they may not have felt comfortable exploring in a more typical classroom setting. And I see students recognize that they might be wrong, which I think is the most valuable part.

A very good corrective for those of us on the left, something to always keep in mind. We want to exchange information, not attempt to force minds to change.

In addition to always striving for viewpoint diversity, I'm very good at being ambivalent.

The Surprising Benefits of Being Ambivalent

Although ambivalence usually has negative connotations, Schneider and her fellow researchers propose that there can be some concrete benefits. People who look at both sides of every issue can potentially make better choices and be more accurate by the time they finally do make a decision. . . . 

The authors believe that the quality of indecisiveness represents a stable personality disposition or trait. . . .  “Trait” ambivalence, in other words, outweighs “state” or situational ambivalence according to their framework. . . . 

People higher in ambivalence were less likely to fall prey to either attributional bias. . . . 

Reflecting on their findings, the authors suggest that the reason ambivalent people are less prey to bias is that “ambivalence leads to broader processing and incorporation of diverse perspectives.” People high in ambivalence “see the world not as just good or bad, but more mixed and full of evaluative opposition.”

Unfortunately, though, there may be a cost that comes along with this more balanced appraisal of the world. . . . For the chronically ambivalent, the inability to resolve conflict can lead to tension, worry, and an overall negative state of mind.

And, I probably experience some of those "side effects."

This link just came across my feed and I enthusiastically passed it on:

A List of Some of the More Than #2000Verses in Scripture on Poverty and Justice

I remember my parents using a curriculum from Sojourners in their Sunday School class at some point when I was a young teen. In one of my seminary classes we read a book by Jim Wallis and the professor shared the story of this bible full of holes.

"Hole-y" Bible Gets a Digital Makeover

Our CEO, Jim Wallis, tells a story from Sojourners' early days in the November 2011 issue of our magazine that reminds me of this new online word-search for scripture.

Jim writes:

One of our first activities was finding every verse of scripture about the poor, wealth and poverty, and social justice. We found more than 2,000 texts that we then cut out of an old Bible. We were left with a "Bible full of holes," which I used to take out with me to preach.

A Bible full of holes.

Good information to exchange. It looks like they're trying to make it trend with the #2000Verses hashtag.

In Acknowledging Children as Philosophical Thinkers last month I included a couple of articles describing advancements that feel like science fiction coming true. Here's another.

The Age of Killer Robots May Have Already Begun

A drone that can select and engage targets on its own attacked soldiers during a civil conflict in Libya.

Why it matters: If confirmed, it would likely represent the first-known case of a machine-learning-based autonomous weapon being used to kill, potentially heralding a dangerous new era in warfare.

How it works: The Kargu is a loitering drone that uses computer vision to select and engage targets without a connection between the drone and its operator, giving it "a true 'fire, forget and find' capability," the UN report notes.

This one is much less positive than the others.

When I saw this panel of a comic, I realized I love this two-word phrase. Each word can be either a noun or a verb, so it has a dual meaning depending on which is which.

From Resolutions

One is a true statement describing something I love, the other is good encouragement for something hard. It's from the book The Shape of Ideas: An Illustrated Exploration of Creativity by Grant Snider, of which I wrote:

A collection of short comics from Snider's blog, Incidental Comics, around the theme of creativity. All were amusing; some insightful. Some resonated more than others, though I assume which would change depending on mood and context. I was surprised I'd seen a few before as social media memes. A favorite is The Art of Living. This book makes for an easy, thoughtful diversion with the potential for meditation.

Here are a couple of other favorites.

Partly Cloudy

The Secret

Pay attention.

Finally, a poem I really enjoy.

Michael Mark

A DAILY PRACTICE

After I write Temporary on each sticky note

and press them onto socks, silverware, bills,

my hair, I put one on each maple tree in the yard,

and notice I don’t think of them as eternal

as much. All it takes is a single written word

on red, yellow, green tags to remind me

the car isn’t mine. The house isn’t mine. Snow,

money, flowers do that just being themselves

but I stick one on fear and another on hate,

pushing with all my weight so they stay. Dogs

are born with the knowledge, so no need. But

old people, even shrinking in hospice beds, yes.

Somehow they transform Temporary into Still Here.

Babies are so hard, I almost can’t. When the pad

is empty, I wait for the glue to lose its grip and fight

the urge to blow or peel them off. Sometimes a wind

comes. And I stumble around, trying to catch them.

—from Poets Respond

May 25, 2021

Probably more than the poem itself I like the practice it describes.

Remembering that everything is temporary, particularly failure, makes it easier to weather changes.

There. I connected some of it a bit.