You Can't Make Mistakes.

My father and I are always harping on the idea that simplicity and elegance go hand in hand. Every time it talks, it seems, we end up talking about something that doesn’t work because it is poorly designed or engineered. Approximately ten times out of ten, this design flaw can be reduced to an over-complexity which removed any elegance from the design.

This perennial theme in our discourse has led me, over the course of my life, to seek out the most simple, elegant solutions to an any problem that I am presented with. It has served me well over the years. The problem though, is that I often come off like I know what I am doing in situations when I might not. We must not forget that my motto—listed at the top of this page—is that if you don’t know what you’re doing, you can’t make mistakes. This was apparently the personal credo of my great-grandfather, and then later, it was my father’s as well. I have lived by this credo for years and years and it has served me well. The one disadvantage, as I mentioned, is that if you know a few tricks and some ways around very complex solutions, then you appear as a genius, and people—especially those with or for whom you are working—expect that no matter what the situation, you can figure out a solution.

This is sort of a slippery slope, though, because I also see these things that I don’t understand or know how to do as little challenges, which I will attempt to meet and generally will well exceed even my own expectations. That really makes it look like you know what you are doing.

The problems arise when someone assumes you knowledge about any given situation or problem to be greater than the simply problem solving logic capacity. This is when you are asked to work with someone else.

Give me enough time alone and free reign to do things in the way that I know best, and I will shoot brilliance from my fingers. Any problem, all day long, I can do it. However, ask me to work with someone else, and I am literally only as smart as they are, and that is usually woefully stupid. Now, I’m not saying that I am smarter than everyone else. What I am saying is that there seems to be a universal constant that says that if I am to be paired with someone for the purpose of completing a task, there is an 85% chance that they will be an idiot, a hack, or just a moron.

I do have the distinct fortune of having brilliant friends. Every time I collaborate with someone that I know well, everything is great. But, anytime that I am working with someone I barely know, not a chance. I am not even sure, as I said earlier, that this is a problem of intelligence, but just a problem of not understanding the underlying simplicity of any elegant solution and a general inability to think outside of what they know and understand. I am in no way daunted by things that I don’t understand. Possibly, I thrive when I understand the least.

I am not sure what the solution is, except to be on the lookout for people and situations that wil slow me down and simply turn and take another course in those situations. Beyond that, I guess that I would be totally screwed. Well, here’s to simplicity and elegance in the future. May the complex non-solution be a thing of the past.

Earlier today, I felt it inappropriate to write about Jerry Falwell’s death because of the nature of the feelings and thoughts that I have on his life and career. Then, I started to hear more and more folks on the radio (NPR) talking about his life an career, lauding him for being a great, compassionate, caring man who loved his family and his savior.

I changed my mind.

Jerry Falwell was a mean-spirited bigot. He may have been a kind man when he was baptizing your grandson or consoling you after your mother’s death, and you can cry about his untimely death on the radio all you want, but he was not a good man when he claimed: “I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People For the American Way, all of them who have tried to secularize America. I point the finger in their face and say ‘you helped this happen.’” with regard to the attacks on the World Trade Center in New York on 11 September 2001. He was also not a good man when he pointed out that the AIDS epidemic was an example of “God’s wrath against homosexuals.” When he said these things and many others, he was a hateful, cruel bigot, and his death is only as untimely as any other hateful, cruel man.

Thankfully, the leaders of movements like the one that Falwell started are usually the charismatic, motivated individuals involved and the followers are not so energetic in their bigotry. They need someone to listen to, someone to look up to, someone to follow. Now that their leader is gone, perhaps those who supported Falwell’s mission will get distracted by some other hateful discipline and move on to that instead.

While it would also be shameful to celebrate the death of any man, it has been said that we should never lament the death of an old man, because he has lived a full life. We certainly shouldn’t lament the death of a man like Falwell. Rather, we should take pity on him, because if he truly believed in the doctrine which he purported to, then it is most likely that he is burning in the hell that he promised would be the inevitable home of so many good people the world over.

So, here’s to you Jerry, keep that fire stoked. I am going to go have a nice cold beer in your memory.

I’ve been an avid blog reader for years and years, since before blogs were even called blogs. I used to have a blog on an early site called Diaryland. I am not even sure if Diarylandstill exists, but it got me interested in the genre and I was hooked. I still believe that blogs represent a step forward in internet media and publishing because they allow for quicker and often better vetted publication of information online, but they also encourage and require the use of another skill which is flagging world-wide: reading.

I was reading Laila Lalami’s blog this morning in which she wrote about a recent talk that she gave at a university about her book Hope and Other Dangerous Pursuits (http://www.lailalalami.com/blog/archives/004706.html). She identified that it was likely that many of the students attending the talk were not regular readers, but rather just took what they found objectionable about her work and attacking it without regard for the book as a work of literature. They came to the talk with something to say rather than coming prepared to listen and learn something new.

Her discussion of this phenomenon reminded me of a recent string of experiences that I had at public talks, happening about a week apart. The first was a talk given at Western Michigan University by a group called One Voice. This group is made up of Israelis and Palestinians who are working toward peace in Israel/Palestine through dialogue. Their talk was interesting, nothing particularly new, but interesting nonetheless. They have some good things to say, they are positive, but they understand the situation enough to know that the conflict will not go away overnight. I wanted to know more about the organization itself and their involvement in various communities in Israel and Palestine and was excited about the Q&A portion of the presentation.

I was horrified, however, when the Q&A began because it seemed that no one in the audience had listened to the speakers, even for a moment. My friend—who just so happens to be a Palestinian woman who grew up in Jerusalem—and I just looked at each other, sort of dumbfounded. These people were all asking questions which had already been answered in the talks, asking questions which were well outside the scope of the topic at hand, or they were pontificating from a particularly biased point-of-view. It was upsetting, to say the least, but ended up being helpful for me.

I was scheduled, the very same weekend, to give a talk at the First Presbyterian Church in Richland, Michigan on misconceptions surrounding Islam, Muslims, and the Middle East. I had been mildly concerned about the sort of response that I would receive, but had no real idea what to expect. The talk that I had just attended, however, made me terribly anxious. I totally scrapped my talk at this point and rewrote a simple outline handout and off I went.

Rather than beginning the talk by talking, I began by asking questions. I figured that this would be the easiest way to disarm anyone who had come with an agenda. I asked the group before me to define and describe the words “Islam, Muslim, Muslim World,” and “Middle East.” They responded and played right into my hand. It was perfect. Most of the people in the room qualified their definitions by first identifying that they were relatively ignorant about the topics at hand, though they were quite opinionated as well. We started examining their responses as a group and I was able to explain the roots of some of their misconceptions. I felt like we were opening some minds to new ways of conceptualizing something that until that day they had considered strange or intangible.

But, there was that one guy. There is always that one guy. He chimed right in pontificating about how “they” encouraged violence and “we” were currently stuck in a situation which we wouldn’t be able to get out of with even more of a fight. He went on and on about how “they” are different that “us.” Finally, thankfully, the Pastor of the church just stopped him and asked that he allow others to speak and allow me to respond to his concerns. I explained that the majority of the issues which he was concerned with were not actually included in the topic of this talk, but were still valid concerns which might actually be informed by our discussion. The Pastor explained that I was not an expert in war history or anything even remotely related to it and that it would be unfair to put me on the spot about those things, since I was only there to talk about misconceptions and how we, there in that room, could affect change simply by opening our minds a bit.

All in all, it was a great talk, but the mood in the entire room was derailed by one guy who had come with an agenda, prepared to pontificate and who was not satisfied by my answers, so that he had to ask me questions which I had already addressed. The others seemed uncomfortable, almost as though they felt pressured to choose a side: the side of the sympathizer, or the side of the loyal Christian American.

After the talk, he came up to me, shook my hand, and apologized for being so hard on me, saying that he had very much enjoyed the talk, though he still had concerns weighing on his mind. I thanked him for his candor, wondering if he was being disingenuous, or if he had just been posturing throughout the talk, unwilling to move out of his comfort zone like the others had. It is still unclear to me, but I assume that the latter is more likely.

What I wondered as I walked back out into the cold and blowing snow—it was February at the time, and there had been a blizzard since morning—was why it is so difficult for some people to remove themselves from their own concerns, even momentarily, and have compassion and concern for others, even those to whom it seems least possible to relate. I still don’t understand why that is the case.

What I do know is that this experience was only beginning. In the following months, I had opportunities to lecture several friends classes as a guest, to have discussions with groups of undergraduate students, and to share my point-of-view—both personal and professional. What I found time and again is that our misconceptions are powerful and even when there is compelling evidence presented to the contrary, we are often hesitant—if not completely resistant—to changing our points-of-view and relinquishing bias. Sometimes, when faced with those kind of odds, the only thing to do is just shrug and laugh and say a little prayer in hopes that things will change for the better, before they change for the worse.

There has recently been a spate of attacks in Kalamazoo. These attacks seem to be unprovoked, carried out by small groups of individuals who are walking through the city, often in broad daylight. This is disconcerting for two reasons: 1) These attacks have gone relatively unreported until a recent feature in the local newspaper. 2) These attacks are unlikely to let up when the college community leaves town for the summer in the next few months.

This is clearly an indicator of economic downturn, which doesn’t really make it better. When things get rough, people turn to crime. Everyone’s morals shift when there is change for the worst.

Regardless of the cause, Kalamazoans need to stay on their toes and keep an eye out. If you are being attacked, attempt to get away, and move to a place where there is a large group of people. If you see a police officer, attempt to get closer to him/her. If you are running away from someone who has a gun, or who you expect may have a gun, run in a zig-zag pattern to make you a less-easy target.

We live in scary times–not just in the world in general, but in our own backyards as well.  This is why it is ever more important that we take care of each other, watch out for our neighbors, and know how to defend ourselves. The effects of terrible situations nation and world-wide are going to be felt by each and every one of us. It would do us good to keep that in mind.