useless skills

my husband and his college friends used to swap useless skills. at the time i thought that this was silly. i have always prided myself on my seriousness and don’t often make time for “uselessness”...no matter the form. they, however, loved to spend time together discovering new and unique ways to build their connections. they flipped bottle caps in a bizarre way, rolled magazine pages into tight tiny cones to blow out of pvc tubes, and debated all manner of topics to pass the time. over the years these skills have come quite in handy as my husband has entertained countless throngs of kids at our home and have been the framework for a strong scaffolding with these five friends.

come to find out, useless skills are so not useless. they serve, in fact, to connect us which is useful in every way.

my greatest useless skill is this: i know the michael jackson thriller dance. i learned it in college to perform it at a lip synch my senior year. my roommate, her twin sister and i spent hours in the basement of our dorm rehearsing. when i think back on it i’m not sure how i learned it. those were the days before everyone owned vhs machines. mtv was relatively new and there was no cable access on campus. regardless of how i learned it,however, i learned it well and it will never leave my mind.

every once in a while this completely useless skill turns out to be a blessing in disguise. a few years ago i picked my son up late from school and found him in his biology teacher’s classroom with ten other students ranging from freshman to senior. they had moved the tables to clear the center of the room and had thriller playing on the smart board. they were trying to learn the dance. one thing led to another and i spent the next two weeks making connections as i taught them how to spin and shrug and squeal like m.j. the biology teacher and myself became very good friends. later that year i taught the mr. westside contestants so they could perform at homecoming. i was invited to all of their graduation parties and have maintained connection. this past school year i received a phone call from my daughter’s life long bff asking if i’d come teach it to the concert choir at her school. this brought me a whole new cadre of high schoolers to greet at the store and around town.

who knew that my silly and useless skill could give me an opportunity to engage with a generation of folks not my own? who knew that it would give me a chance to laugh and bond and make a genuine connection with people i otherwise would not have known or encountered? i certainly didn’t. 

research and social commentary posit that, within our social networks we connect most frequently with the people we see most often in our everyday real lives. further, as our social networking connection with these individuals increases, the actual time we spend with them face to face decreases. it seems that, while our social networks may be large, they may also predispose us to spend less time actually with people.

as this face to face time decreases, as our social practice and conversational skills decline, i beg of you to reach into the recesses of your mind and body and find some useless skills to put on loan. 

do you juggle? can you fix a car? can you blow a double bubble? do you make the perfect apple cobbler? is your ice cream maker gathering dust in your attic? is embroidery your hobby, or stamp collecting, or are your old hot wheels rusting in the garage? do you know a silly song or a classic poem? have you an old appliance or tool that others of us have never seen? can you paint? sketch? play the harmonica?

do you have an aunt in a retirement home, a neighborhood school that could use a volunteer, or a church/synagogue/mosque with a social committee that might need an extra hand for a project? is there a children’s hospital in your town or a neighbor or a long lost friend you haven’t connected with recently? are you waiting in line with someone? have you ended up with a person you don’t know at your volunteer opportunity this week? are you swinging on the swing next to a new to you face? there must be some way to make some connections with people outside of your normal circles.

i find that we stop ourselves from these kinds of encounters for fear of seeming odd or being laughed at or, worse still, rejected. we tell ourselves we don’t have the time, we’re over committed, over booked. we are certain that no one else would be interested in whatever mundane skill we have to offer. the reality is, however, that this need not be a huge investment of self or time or skill to be meaningful. the sharing or passing on of your useless skill might take place in an instant. it might take 10 minutes. it isn’t necessarily the depth of the encounter that counts here, it’s the risks you take in initiating it. it’s the instant where you say, “i’d like to share something with you and if you’re interested, i’ll teach it to you.” it’s saying, “real life connections matter...even though i’m far more comfortable living with the digital ones available to me on my phone.”

what you may consider useless, common place, average, or normal is likely anything but. we all benefit from encountering each other. those encounters are more meaningful when we leave them having learned from one another. even if it’s a useless skill or treasure or insight or laugh. risking connection in real time and space is a skill and it is never useless.

technological disobedience

i’ve been thinking a lot lately about civil disobedience. actually, about civil disobedience and smart phones.

defined by websters as, “the refusal to comply with certain laws as a peaceful form of political protest,” civil disobedience is a polarizing topic. in many ways it fits right up there with religion and politics on the list of things not to bring up on dates or in interviews or, really, in general. we all like to be polite. to go with the flow. to keep the peace. when we do venture into discussions about this idea we like to discuss times when history tells us the disobedience was worth it and worked. since we know that justice was eventually brought about in these instances, we see a tidy past. we don’t always like to look deeply, however, at the risks taken, the fear experienced by the “disobedient,” and the ugly truth that without the benefit of hind sight we might not condone the participant’s behaviors when they were engaging in them. 

this matters to me because i am working hard to be technologically disobedient. 

defined by me, technological disobedience is the refusal to comply with certain unconsciously derived social and communication based norms as a peaceful form of social and economic protest.

if you’ve spent more than 20 minutes with me in the past 18 months you likely know that i am living with a (very) broken phone. it turns on and off at will and yet won’t let me power it off without removing the battery. it will not silence or vibrate and when i remove the battery to keep it from ringing, it takes up to 6 hours for any messages sent during the time it was out of commission to register. it has added it’s own feature, actually stating the name of the caller over the ring tone. since i use this phone in both my personal and professional life i don’t feel comfortable having it completely un-powered and so, it interrupts my life much more than it would if i could simple mute the ringer.

the only positive thing i have found about this situation is that it has given me ample opportunities to share my technology disobedience.

at first i didn’t want to buy a new phone just for the simple fact that everyone assumed i would. “what? you can’t turn it on or off! are you crazy? get a new one.” “why?” i wondered. i was used to this one. it sent and received calls and texts and that is all i really needed. people, however, seemed incensed at this, however, and their complete lack of understanding baffled me. it made me want to move further into the resistance to see what i could learn.

a secondary motivator was that i knew that if i bought a new phone i would be forced to renew my contract. i also knew that my carrier no longer offered phones like mine without a data package attached. i am angry that this choice no longer really belongs to the purchaser. i am also discouraged that so few people make the switch to internet enabled phones without first making a conscious choice to do so. i know myself and understand the temptation to check email frequently, to fill any moment that presents itself with being productive and marking things off my to-do list. an internet enabled phone could easily serve to increase my productivity. it could also, however, serve to distract me from moments of quiet, of learning to wait, of important opportunities to tolerate boredom. i was choosing to be in control of this temptation for myself and wanted my voice to matter to those who had taken this choice away.

the problem is, they didn’t seem to care. i emailed customer support to see if i could have the same plan, with no data package, if i bought a new phone. “no way.” i called and talked, at length, to curt who literally laughed when i told him i was trying to stay in control of my own interaction with screens, therefore wanting my phone to be just a phone. when he laughed, i hung up. next, i thought i’d try the in-person approach, confident of my ability to communicate face to face. “you don’t need to be worried. it’s really easy to navigate. you’ll love it. you can do everything you could do on your computer right here on your phone. it won’t change your price that much and you’ll love it. it’ll make everything so much easier. seriously, no one doesn’t have it anymore,” the sales associate told me, assuming that i was simply intimidated by having my phone turn into a computer before my eyes. when i tried again to say that i actually was making a conscious choice not to have my life be easier and that it was not fear of technology that was driving my choice but rather a desire to live counter culturally, she stared at me blankly. she, literally, could not wrap her mind around wanting a high quality phone but not wanting it internet enabled. she offered to get her manager. i thanked her, told her i didn’t need to talk to anyone, and left. discouraged.

my frustration at this point was that my deliberate act of defiance was simply shrugged off as technophobia. many thought i didn’t understand how “easy” a smart phone would be to get used to. i told them that this was exactly my concern. that we had all become far too easy with technology’s grasp on our lives. others assumed i “must not really need a cell phone.” they quipped that, perhaps, i was having a hard time joining the 21st century or that i must live a life where no one needed to get in touch with me. when i would try to engage them i kept track of how long it took before their eyes glazed over and they checked their own phones for the time. few people really cared.

i waited a few more months and began, reluctantly, to research phones and carriers to see if i could give my business to someone who shared even a shred of my conviction (i guess i am a little bit crazy). what i learned in this stage of my disobedience stopped me short. some of the materials used in the production of our portable technologies are mined solely in mafia controlled areas of africa. their sale contributes to horrible persecution of the disadvantaged at the hands of corrupt and money hungry mobs. by not buying a new phone right away i was able to share this information with others when my phone rang in times that it would normally have been silent. protesting the majority culture’s tendency to buy new(er), better products in quick succession and at mind numbingly short spans of time, became my focus in this part of my disobedience. if it meant that one violent act might be avoided by waiting to purchase a new phone it was worth it to me and time moved on.

almost a year has passed and recently my phone has begun dropping calls indiscriminately. i frequently can’t hear callers well and they hear my voice as far away. my disobedience is preventing me from  maintaining some of my responsibilities and is costing more than i can afford relationally. my desire to challenge social norms in peaceful ways is not diminished and yet my ability to do so in the way i have been is beginning to hurt more than help.

so, it is now reluctantly time for me to switch gears. to find a way of speaking up and speaking out that does not include a broken phone. in the coming weeks i will be buying a new one.

this is not, however, without great sadness. it is also not without great anger that i won’t have the choice to disable the supposedly “smart” part of my device. it will hurt me to walk out of a store where i’m celebrated for “finally joining the rest of the world” with an attention getting phone i do not, really, want. i am sad to appear to the world as though i have a computer in my pocket and to have that world think that i actively wanted it that way. i hope they will watch long enough to see me still sit silently, be bored, and not be entertained by the screen i possess. 

and so, when you do NOT hear my phone ring or when you see me fighting with a touch screen that i despise, please do not ask me how excited i am. resist the urge to tell me that i’ll wonder why i didn’t do this long ago. and, please, remember that i was disobedient in this particular way on purpose and as long as i could be and it was worth it.

the other 8

the news of a u.s. helicopter being shot down in afghanistan this past weekend is everywhere. war, it seems, is ugly. regardless of ones’ political leanings or personal opinions no one can deny that death is sad. especially for the loved ones left behind.

what is hitting me in these days following this most recent loss, however, is how we speak of the fallen in war. “30 american’s killed...22 of whom were among the most elite forces our military has to offer.” i have yet to hear or read a report where the 22 navy seals killed are not called out among the 30 killed. “those 22 seals will be very difficult to replace,” i heard one reporter state. my heart sunk. 

what about the other 8? the civilian interpreter and the seven afghan troops? they, too, will be hard to replace.

don’t get me wrong, i feel deeply and sickeningly sad for every single family member of a slain service person. that’s just the point. every one of them will be impossible to replace. for their parents. for their children. for their spouses and friends and neighbors and fellow soldiers/interpreters and...

this is an issue for us in the west, however. title, position, power, or even amassed resources seem to get us more press. go to any graduation and you’ll see how academic position gives greater recognition for some. open a magazine and see how title buys recognition (how many devoted and highly integrous maintenance workers are featured in lifestyle stories)? look around at farmer’s markets to notice who can afford food from the earth? 

everyday, in the smallest of ways, we each have an opportunity to break the trend. to notice all 30 and to grieve them regardless of level of training, education, rank, or status. to thank God for making them and to honor their memory regardless of the station they achieved. to make their lives matter...by recognizing them and your neighbor and the person who just cleaned the bathroom and the farmer that grew your lunch and the person who funded your last loan and and and...

holding our treasures loosely

When my daughter Kaija was nine she began taking art lessons. Her teacher preferred the term “studied with,” so, when Kaija was nine, she began “studying with” an art teacher. We both loved the studio where she studied. It was in the city and full of energy and warmth. Large tables filled the center space and the surrounding walls held shelves brimming with objects and books of images. A huge cage, with a permanently open door, housed a bird that could come and go between the room and the perch. The sound of giggling children and teachers filled the space not taken by the music played from around the world. Artists of all ages and abilities could chose their medium and worked along side one another, giving critique and praise as asked.

Everyone began their study with a self portrait created through additive clay sculpting. Kaija was excited to begin. A full six months (and many hundreds of dollars of class fees) later, she was finished. Her sculpture stood approximately two feet tall, wore Kaija’s trademark bright colors, and had her hands clasped at her waist. She was painted, glazed, and ready to fire. Into the kiln she went.

During the six months that Kaija had spent creating her self sculpture many things had occurred. A hesitant “separater” from me, she had grown to love the studio. She emerged from her two hour Friday afternoon sessions a lighter being than she entered. It was as if the difficulties of the traditional classroom setting that she faced all week at school fell off of her as she entered the studio and she left floating. Having struggled her entire life to adequately give shape and life in tangible forms to the ideas and images in her mind, she seemed freer to create and explore than I had ever seen her. Even when she spoke of not liking her sculpture, she was able to see value in the making of it. This was new.

Given that I am not an artist and had little understanding of the process she was learning, it was difficult to accept that little observable progress seemed to be made each week. After her second month at the studio I began studying the sculpted Kaija each Friday as we arrived. My real Kaija would take the clay girl off of the shelf and unwrap the many wet rags that had kept her pliable for the seven days since she had seen her last. Many weeks I couldn’t see any visible difference when I picked her up. Sometimes, when I’d come to get her at the end of class, Kaija would proudly display the parts of her sculpture that she had undone. From my ill-informed perspective, not only was she not progressing, she was going backwards. I wondered when she would ever complete this first project, giving her the freedom to explore other mediums and forms in class. I added up the dollar amount that this self portrait would represent when the firing was complete and hoped she would be ready soon.

Little did I know that this would be the exact time that things would go South. Or North. Depending on how you see things.

Once in the kiln I could not wait to see Kaija’s finished work. I determined where it would live in our home and Kaija’s teacher hoped to include it in an upcoming gallery show. When I got a call from the studio the next week, however, I went numb.

Kaija’s piece had exploded in the kiln.

When I asked (certain that the answer would be “yes”) if it could be reconstructed from the pieces in the kiln, a long pause ensued. “Perhaps...” the kind instructor said with a pause that belied the real story. Her sculpture lay in pebble size pieces at the bottom of the kiln. While reproduceable, it would never be put back together as it was. 

I agonized about how to break the news to Kaija. I worked myself up into a tight ball of disappointment, fearing that Kaija would be crushed by the loss of her work. I waited until I could wait no longer to tell her what had occurred. Without missing a beat she said “O.K.” and headed back to her bedroom to play. That was it. Moments later I checked in to see if she was crying inconsolably (as I had) and she was, instead, fully engaged in creating a camera out of a box. She seemed un-phased. Completely. Truly. She had already moved on. I kept waiting for her to fall apart. I was obsessed. I couldn’t let it go. Certainly, “one of these days,” this loss would hit her and she would grieve.

That day never came.

Come to find out, Kaija had learned the real lesson of studying art...and life. I don’t know if she was created with it or if she learned it during her months in the studio but she had figured out that, while the outcome is meaningful, it is nowhere near as important as the process of creation.

In truth, she was not very happy with, or connected to, her actual self portrait sculpture. It was an “assigned project” that had served its purpose. It had, in her mind, been completed when it went into the kiln. It had given her a way of integrating into the culture of the studio. It had provided an avenue for her to engage the instructors  and other students about. It offered an opportunity for her to explore the relationship between the creator and the created. The sculpture was secondary to the internal work she was doing...that of nurturing her creative self, learning to handle the frustration of not being able to give physical form to an internal image, and of asking for help in the creative process. These were the outcomes. The sculpture, to her, was just a “thing.” The really important lessons had happened deep inside of her.

There was so much for me to learn from her during those weeks. There is so much for all of us to learn from her now. 

We, in Western culture, become so tied up with that which is measurable and seeable. We want the finished product so that we can display it, alongside of our other accomplishments and awards. What we miss in our pursuit of these is the slow, steady learning to be had in experimentation, the resilience we develop through loss and failure, and the deepest reward of internal growth. We don’t understand the freedom to be found in holding the finished product lightly in deference to the process itself. The changes to our insides are frequently much more important than those to our outsides and yet we often matter less to ourselves than we allow the opinions of others to matter. We look to “show off,” rather than internally value, our growth and development. The statue matters more than the process involved in making it.

Learning how to be part of team can be much more meaningful in the long run than being awarded the trophy for most points scored. Cultivating the ability to tolerate ones imperfections is more healthy than spending ones resources (financial, time, energy, etc) trying to force physical “perfection.” Mastering the fine art of being a peacemaker may not win external accolades but will bring with it a calmer internal world. The externals can be taken in a second. The internals cannot be taken. Ever.

Kaija’s teachers worked tirelessly to recreate her sculpture using pieces from the kiln and photos taken before firing. The reproduction weighed four times what the original sculpture had weighed and has been completely disowned by Kaija. In her mind, it is not hers. Hers was lost in the firing. Her sculpture served its purpose and didn’t ever need to come home. Oh that we might all be so faithful to what really matters, holding our treasures loosely.