Do I Really Desire to Marry?

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When my Stake President met with me years ago he told me some interesting things. After he clarified the process of how divorce affects me as a member of the LDS Church, he reassured me that I would not be penalized for the agency of others. Then he said, “You don’t have to remarry if you don’t want to, but you’ll probably want to”. My father asked me last Sunday if I really do desire to marry, and I have to confess I’m not really sure that’s what I desire.

I make the case to people I meet that people make time for the things that matter to them. If I really desired to marry, I would make an effort to be in places where meeting women with strong potential to be my wife and mate are likely. Yet, rather than socialize with prospects, I take on extra classes and spend my weekends hiking with a few male friends. My behavior on how I spend my time indicates that I do not actually value it as much as I claim that I do. That being said, I followed the advice in a book my sister gave me years ago entitled, “Alone but Not Lonely” in which the author advocates that you spend your life doing what you like and allow God to bring into your life the people who belong. This is how I justified these choices, but they have not led to many long term prospects and to even fewer prospects for matrimony.

Many people use the cliché that behind every successful man there is a woman. What they don’t say is whether the woman mentioned was directly involved in the man’s success; that is inferred when sometimes it's not true. Despite what women may claim to the contrary, I have achieved what I achieved in life in spite of women rather than because of them (my mother excluded). My ex wife in part criticized me because she never thought I’d amount to anything, but now I have achieved a decent standard of living and a life with which I am comfortable. I can afford to do what I like and live how I like and eat what I like and still save for retirement, in part because I don’t have her or any hemi-clones eating away at my earnings. In short, I got where I got without the help of these women, and so I don’t see why I should trade my security for their companionship.  Everything I control is under control, and I like those things the way they are.

Routine is the order of the day in my household. You may say that I have deep ruts, habits and preferences I am unwilling to bend for most people. I told someone recently that I know if I really care about someone because I’m willing to accommodate and compromise. I’m not willing to change most of my life for just anyone or for most of the people I know. When it’s the right person, I’ll be excited to change to make it right for them and change myself to really be the Doug they think I am all the time rather than just when I’m on my best behavior. I know that, because I did it once.

In short, I have always been looking for what the women I meet bring to the table. I know a lot of nice women. I know very few who would elevate my life in a visible way by joining me. So basically, when I look at one, I decide whether I’m willing to change my life to bring her into it, and quite frankly most of them do not make that cut. I’ve only actually known one woman with whom I actually discovered I wanted to have children, and unfortunately she rebuffed my affections. If I don’t want to have children with you, why would I marry you? If I don't want to marry you, what's the point in dating you?

My routine is ultimately one of logic and reason. It revolves around only the things that ultimately I do control. Sure, I could date on the internet, accept blind dates, join meetup groups, and the like, but ultimately those are fishing expeditions. When I choose instead to work extra hours or visit the gym or nurture friendships I already have, I essentially show that I'm putting my time into things that already are and things that I can control rather than speculating in things that may never be. I have learned that it is otherwise to throw good money away after bad money. Perhaps this is why I'm upset about the women I have dated, because I feel like I unwisely invested myself in things I ultimately don't control and from which I ultimately derived no lasting benefit. I don’t always like going home alone, but I don’t have to answer to anyone and I enjoy my independence. At this point, I know that if I don’t want to have children with you, then I don’t really desire to be with you.

By virtue of my choices, I have taught myself that I mean what I say. Sometimes I will eat donuts, but it’s because I know the cost and because nobody must pay it besides me. When I do things I know I shouldn’t or for reasons that are incorrect, I own it, and I have to fix it, and nobody else is hurt. When I make a promise, I follow through on it. I have yet to love a woman romantically on whose representations I could ultimately rely, and so I stick with what I know. That may sound strange for a man who lives in a gambling town, but that’s how I feel about it. It’s a gamble enough for me to put money into a vending machine.

I know what I desire out of life for the most part. I’m no longer interested in getting to know people for the sake of experiences. If I decide to date a woman, it’s because I’ve already spent time with her on a platonic basis and decided she is someone I could marry. I don’t date or “meet up” or “hang out” to see what’s out there. I go do what I like because then I always enjoy what I do, and if someone special comes along with whom to share it, that’s just an added bonus and a welcome one.

You May Contribute a Verse

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If most people are honest, I think they would admit they'd like to leave something behind by which to be remembered. Reality dictates however that centuries from now, most people won't remember who we are or what we did. Some people may frit their lives away because they believe what Shakespeare wrote about life being a poor player who struts and frets his hour on stage only to be heard no more. I kind of like Whitman's notion that in all of the hubbub, each of us may contribute a verse.

By the time I was old enough to realize what would echo into eternity, I had already been through some things that would echo dissonance in my future. They're not the black marks of eternity per se, but there is a certain stigma that comes with having been divorced, for example, from which I cannot really escape. As a matter of fact, it did happen, but that is no longer the truth of who I am nor the verse that I choose to contribute. It did however help me realize that I needed to take control and choose a verse before the verses chose me.

I suppose in part that's why I started writing this blog. Rather than wait until other people put words into my mouth or spread libelous stories about me, I decided to go on record and let people know me. Among the most interesting comments I have received anonymously to this blog are the following: "The great part about your writings, Doug, is your honesty..." and "I love how you take the honest look at yourself, even though it's painful sometimes...". I am me. I have to live with that. You have to live with yourself.

Most of the people who have ever lived decided rather than contribute a verse to the play of life that they would give in to their base animal instincts. Like De Tocqueville wrote, they seem preoccupied with "petty and paltry pleasures with which they glut out their lives", which is precisely what the powers of this world desire. They seek to keep us from doing either what we ought or what we like, staging a marionette show that soothes the somnambulent public. I sat on the couch this morning reading scriptures before I left for work and considered just how mainstream lascivious and licentious behavior seems today. I honestly think in their effort to drown out the routine and hardship of mortality with intoxicating substances and relationships most people forget that overindulgence and fornication are actually sins. We have no need of more verses on the subject of slaking lusts. History is resplendent with that, and it shows us that such behavior is common.

Consequently, I think most people pass ignominiously into the night even when they think they're making a name for themselves. You have to remember that half the people are below average despite what we think. Someone once wrote that "The heroes are remembered for their victories, and the failures are remembered because they tried, but the vast majority are forgotten because they are average". I think that's why my students are so offended by a grade of "C", because we fear being average. In a world that venerates wickedness and subsidizes sloth, average is ironically more praiseworthy than ever. So many people no longer try or they involve themselves in one-up-manship about things that do not become a man. I will confess that I have made mistakes, but I did not let them make me.

Sometimes I wonder what kind of verse I will leave behind. Until recently, I believed that my greatest contribution to the world would be through my family, through children that I would raise and to whom I would bequeath my legacy. I am no longer convinced that I have any prospects of posterity, and so it falls to me to consider in what other way I may contribute my verse. I console myself that I have never even seen marijuana let alone done any drugs and that there are no bastard children anywhere who can claim my DNA and that I when I tell someone that I love them I mean it. Several years ago, when I moved into this house, I started to wonder if I would become the Don Quixote of the 21st Century, tilting at the windmills of injustice, intemperance, impropriety, and immorality. A few people volunteered to serve as my Sancho Panza, but none of them are there when the time comes to joust.

Years ago, I told my best friend about my Final Directive. On my tombstone, I just want the initials VIR beneath my name (indicating "man of honor"). It is my hope and my aim that maybe one person after I die will think of me and say as Anne says in "The King and I" of me: "I don't think any man was as good as he could have been, but this man tried." So far, that particular King of Siam is a myth, but if I can become that for real, that would be a verse worth contributing.

As you go forth today and tomorrow consider what verse you would like to contribute. As you make choices from there, consider if they actually lead to the verse you designed. You see, we tell on ourselves by the things we actually do what really matters to us. You can tell me all day long that you think people should be a certain way, but if you don't walk the walk, I know you don't really believe that. Someone dear to me once asked me what I would do in her particular circumstances. I told her that I only knew what I would like to think I would do, and that only if I were put in that position would I know what kind of man I truly was.

For now, I'll do the best I can to be the best Doug I can be. Whose opinions should I have if not mine? Whose values should I have if not mine? Whose life should I live if not mine? You may not like it or join it or want anything to do with it, but in the end each of us must live with the person we have decided to be. The verse we contribute will echo into eternity, and each of us will be known by it. I am the one who writes my own story. I decide the person I'll be. What kind of person will you be? Will you be inversed or well-versed?

Full Measure of Devotion

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The undergraduate who works with me came back to work Wednesday and asked me an interesting question. He asked me if I expected people to rise up and challenge the political winds, and I told him that I expected most of them would piss and moan like impotent jerks and then roll over and take the punishment. People are willing to do almost anything as long as it doesn't cost them personally. This is why they will hand out money easily but don't show up to do the work, because even if you support me with money, I still have to go do the work or find someone for hire. We do the usual- flowers, chocolates, and promises we don't intend to keep, and then when people call us to the carpet we tell them that it doesn't matter what we said or did because it's in the past and that Christ would command us to forgive them. I think they're missing the point of Christ if they think that.

I told my young padawan that most people today esteem lightly what they have because they didn't have to pay much for it. Nobody had to cross the plains in a wagon or eek out an existence here farming the desert. America's poor today have more than some kings of antiquity. Too many of us think that if we are free to do some things that we are free, assuming that the things allowed me are things I desire to do. Our ignorance of history and our own religious traditions obfuscates the truth that freedom is the exception to the rule. Daniel was thrown into the pit of lions because he prayed vocally to his God after the king passed a decree that prayers be offered only to him. Most Americans don't know that several signers of the Declaration of Independence really did lose "their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor" to establish this nation. There are battlefields the world over full of the graves of men who paid the last full measure of devotion to defend their way of life.

Some Christians like to point to the story of Job as something that we can expect as a consequence of faithfulness. I do not think that Job's story is always ours. True Christianity requires of us the full measure of devotion. Just because a thing can occur doesn't follow that it will or that it must. Sometimes the reward of doing the right thing is that you did the right thing, and some of the other prophets died for their beliefs. Job and even Ester are exceptional because they are the exceptions. I am unaware of any Shakespearean story in which the happy ending comes in media res. I am more convinced than ever that hiking is a metaphor for life, because when we reach our intended destination we are still only half way done.

For this life is the time for men to prepare to meet God, for afterwards cometh the night during which no labor can be performed. Although the promise of restoration given to Job does stand, it does not say when the restoration will come. Many people in history stood for truth and right and died the martyr's death. I think of Thomas More who was beheaded for refusing to honor a king above God, and I think about one member of the Knights Hospitaler who opined the fact that while the Pope commanded death of infidels he did not think that Christ would agree. In fact, Christ taught the exact opposite. He reminded us that if we were of the world, the world would love us, for the world loveth its own, but the world hates us because we are Christ's. Then, He showed us how to pay the Full Measure of Devotion.

A small garden in Israel holds the tomb of Jesus who paid the last full measure of devotion for man. He understood that this life is not the end of our story. During His final prayer in Gethsemane, Christ asked His father to remove the cup of His travails and then uttered this truth. "But if not..." and then He was faithful until it was finished. Well, at least the sacrifice was. There was still more to suffer. From there, He was betrayed for 20 pieces of silver, detained without warrant, questioned without counsel, accused without corroborating testimony, taken before an illegal trial, scourged contrary to Roman law, and crucified at the behest of a mob. Crucifixion is one of the most barbaric forms of execution because it usually takes forever to die. He was nailed to the Cross, not just in His palms, but also in His wrists because they feared His weight might tear through the flesh in His hands. Then they gave Him vinegar when He asked for water, gambled to divide His belongings, and kept His mother from tending Him. So surprised were the Romans that He was already dead that they stabbed Him with a spear to prove it. He died an ignominious death.

Christ's example teaches us that sometimes life does not have a watermelon at the end of every chapter. Sometimes life is hard, and sometimes life is work, and sometimes life will cost us our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor. Far too many of us have the misbegotten notion in our heads that a life of righteousness necessarily MUST lead to immediate and excessive prosperity in life. We assume that the prosperous are virtuous and that the struggling are wicked; apparently we learned NOTHING from the New Testament. In fact, sometimes we strike bargains with God in which we promise to obey God if He blesses us with what we demand only to blame Him when, after we defy His commandments, He refuses to follow ours. Christ healed a man who was afflicted from birth, not because of wickedness, but so that Christ could prove that it has nothing to do with that whatsoever. We do reap what we sow, but the happy ending usually only comes in the final act of existence, and Christ's life shows us precisely that. If we truly wish to inherit with Christ and live with Him and be like Him, we can expect nothing less than to suffer what He suffered so that we can fully appreciate the rewards of full devotion to truth and virtue that only true conviction can afford. Periodically people tell me that they wish they had my faith. What they really usually mean is that they wish they could attain my level of faith without having to endure and overcome. Christ showed us that such a notion is fairy tale.

I firmly believe that sometimes God allows good men to pass through deeper and longer troughs than any other person as a reality check for the rest. People are watching us, and if proper behavior always and immediately led to prosperity, people would behave well to gain the prosperity. Contrarily, we know that many of the prosperous are anything but virtuous, and many of them are criminals, miscreants, malcontents, and eager to compete with Lucifer for dominion in hell. Instead, like Daniel and Moses and the Founding Fathers, we are asked to stand fast a little at the risk of being heroes to set the example. Wicked men will describe our efforts as "tilting at windmills", but sometimes they need to be challenged, because they don't belong. Far too many Christians even show that like the rich man who came to Jesus they are willing to do anything to follow Christ as long as it doesn't cost them anything. They too walk away with hopes dashed.

Like God rewarded Christ, I firmly believe that each of these who stood and fell for his convictions will have the reward of eternity in the end. When we cross to the next world, those of us who fought and gave our full measure of devotion will walk amongst the hosts of living and dead. They will see the nicks in our Swords of Truth, the dings in our Shields of Faith, and they will know that a brave warrior has returned home, even if while alive we thought we lost. Christ, who descended below all things, shall rise above them in the end. That is where, I testify, He will hand out the watermelons of faithfulness to those who valiantly and vigilantly vindicated the virtuous. For some the rewards do come here, and I really hope that whoever you are that you find your land of promise in this life and start to make a homestead there. But if not, I testify that as Joshua and Caleb were promised in Deuteronomy for their faithfulness, in the end you will enter the promised land and have your inheritance if you showed you were willing to pay the requisite devotion. Like my cousin says, "It will be alright in the end. If it's not alright, it's not the end." Until then, a full measure is required.

Clothes Mark the Man

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It's the first day of class, and since I'm fairly young, I dressed up like usual to establish that I'm the professor. Indeed when I first started teaching at 28, I stood in the hall among the students with a backpack and waited until a few minutes before class started to reveal I was the professor. Now I carry an attache bag so that I stand out, but today I wore the brand new suit I bought myself last year after a dog tore my last pair of suit pants, and it's sharp. I was walking across campus, and at least a half dozen other people who I know to be professors but that I don't recognize me nodded at me, as if we were acknowledging clandestinely membership in a secret club. My hiking buddy came by and said I looked very professorial. Now if I can just sound that way.

Very few people seem to be dressed to impress today. Even though I know the students are competing for first impressions and trying one-upmanship on each other in their attire and trends, most of them look very much today like they will weeks from now. After a few weeks, I dress down because it's more comfortable and more human in order to seem less aloof, and I'll wear my labcoat in lab because it would be silly to go in a nice suit. However, everyone assumes, and rightly so, that I am here to teach, and they all think I clean up well. I was hoping to wear this suit out on a date with a special someone, but I guess I'll wear it to impress God on Sunday and to impress upon students that I am legitimate.

Clothes mark the man. Just last week, I was chatting with a young fellow I know about what he should wear to his court appearance. It actually required him to wear a suit because he had so many tatoos, some of which definitely needed coverage, and to legitimate him before a judge. Last time I went to court, I shaved off my beard so that I would look more amenable to a judge, but I am relatively comfortable in a suit. I look so at home in it that, four years or so ago, when I attended a gala at the Wynn in a private area, I marched right past the guards without being stopped because I looked like I belonged.

Paradoxically, in academia today I don't look much like I belong. I am probably one of the better groomed men with a beard, and I am the only one in science who will wear a suit this week, and I might be the only one in my department besides the dean who will wear a shirt and tie even. Some of the others dress well, but it's more business casual. Maybe this will intimidate more students, as I was told today by a former student that I'm extremely intimidating, but for those who stick around maybe they will also see that I am personable and familiar because I have no aspirations for grandeur and wealth, meaning one day these students may become my boss. For this week and in lab, it will be obvious that I work there, that I'm working, and that I have something to say, because that's what my professors did.

The days appear to be gone during which professors always dressed to the nines, and so it's difficult sometimes to tell the difference. One of the physics instructors always dresses nicely and consistently over the entire term whereas I will eventually end up in a dark denim jean and striped collared shirt. I know I need to command and commend attention, and so since my resume and titles and wages don't evince the width and breadth of what I actually know, I look the part so that people will take me seriously.

When I wear a suit it makes people think. At the beginning of term, nobody seems to mind, but if I wear it later, my boss assumes I have a job interview. When I walk into Walmart wearing one, the greeters stand up straighter and the managers shake with fear. When I wear one to church people wonder if I'm trying to impress God. Sometimes a suit is a sign of respect. I have been to plenty of funerals and weddings, and it's the right thing to do. Likewise at job interviews, as I know a fellow who was NOT selected for a professor slot because he came to the interview in jeans. At the beginning of term, and perhaps for a longer duration than I will decide, it's the right thing to do. We don't have a dress code, but perhaps we should. When I show up for class, even though they have never met me, I think it will be obvious who the instructor is even if I first sit in the back row, which I have been known to do.

From here on out, everyone I saw today will probably recognize me, even if they don't register why. I am already recognized by people when on my bicycle or shopping or in a lab coat. Maybe I can be recognized as the well dressed man whose career is as well suited as his attire. Maybe I'll keep dressing like this and set a new precedence. It would not be the first time.

Calling Things As They Are

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I received my gas bill today, and it was addressed to someone named "Dugles". Somehow, nobody at the gas company felt that spelling looked odd, and it will probably end up on my credit report as one of my "aliases" because I'm going to pay it. This is not the first time some other person has misspelled or misused my name. For many years now, Gouglas has appeared as an alias, even though I have never used it. In class, I tell people to call me "Doug" or "Professor" or for those who feel particularly brave, "Oh captain, my captain", and none of those appear elsewhere. Although probably just a matter of typos, I have to wonder sometimes what goes through people's minds when they try to communicate, because English really is an awful language in which to communicate.

After my second town hall visit with Congressman Stephen Horsford (D-NV), I realized that many people mean different things with the words they use than I do. He kept talking about how he was going to "fix" things, and so I asked if he meant fix as in "to repair" or as in "to make permanent". You see, I have a 1914 copy of the Oxford English Dictionary at home, and 100 years ago, "fix" did not mean "to repair" according to that volume in ANY context. Yet, in modern parlance we assume that they mean what we mean, or perhaps more appropriately what we hope they mean. It reminds me of the exchange from The Princess Bride where Inigro points out to Vizzini that inconceivable does not apparently mean what he thinks it means.

Many things are inappropriately named. We talk of how we had a "near miss" with another car, when if we really nearly missed it means that we actually had a collision. We talk about trying without realizing that this form of conversation predicts defeat. We talk about health care when what is actually meant is health coverage. We misapply the word love in many contexts when everyone knows that my love for chocolate cake is very different from love for a woman. We answer grammatically incorrectly that "it is me" when the appropriate asks us to say "it is I", and we talk of "by the by" which means the exact opposite today from its meaning in 1620. English is one of the worst languages in which to communicate because it obfuscates meaning, omits detail, ensnares the senses, misleads the mind, and expresses nearly enough to any number of putative interpretations that you can say almost anything and mean either everything or nothing at all depending on how recipients take it.

On Tuesday night, I went out with my friend for his birthday. During our conversation afterwards, he told me that I am the only person in his life with whom he does not have to interpret when I speak with him because I say what I mean. I don't really have time to play games or an interest in subterfuge, but this makes me unique and a target, because it's uncommon. I heard years ago that Theodore "Dr. Seuss" Giessel said that you should "Be who you are and say what you think because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind", and I took that counsel to heart. Most people however do the opposite. They call things the Affordable Care Act when it's neither affordable nor about care. They talk of budget cuts when it's really cuts in the increases. They talk about compassion and Christian values when they are interested in anything but that, unless they are the recipient of your charity. In essence, most people are duplicitous when they talk, and it creates all sorts of problems.

For almost six months now, I've been struggling with a problem. I made decisions based on what appears to be misinformation. Since I speak my mind and tell the truth and am straightforward with people, I mistakenly assume that other people are too. At the very least, the best information I have is what other people volunteer for me unless I snoop, and so I make decisions based on the representations given to me. What now seems foolhardy made perfect sense with the information provided to me, but if it was inaccurate or misleading or disingenuous, I can't help that. It didn't bear fruit because the information was bad, not because I made a mistake. Back during graduate school, I learned that I spent an entire year working on a project that was a red herring. The information published based upon which I predicated my research turned out to be falsified. I assumed that the scientist was on the square and started where he finished only to discover that it was a sandy foundation and wasted both time and money. The information based upon which I started turned out to be faulty, but my efforts looked that way in the end.

Honesty truly is the best policy. People make decisions based on information given to them, and when you undertake to mislead people by calling a tomato a cantelope, you waste other people's time and money. When I decide to waste my time and money, that's my business, but when I discover that you have done so by misleading me, then in essence you have stolen my life and substance. When we call things as they really are rather than as we prefer them to be, it may not feed our ego, but if you really care about other people, you don't lie or mislead or miscommunicate. You do the very best you can with what you have and call things as they are. It brings serenity to you and me both.

I'm a Thoughtful Guy

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I showed up Saturday at my hiking buddy's house and handed two spray bottles to his housekeeper. She started to laugh and cry at the same time. You see, the week before, there was discussion that they needed some more, and I told them I would bring some this week when I came. When I asked what was the matter, she told me that it was because I had listened AND acted on a need, which is very rare for people in general, let alone males. She said I was a mythical creature- a guy who actually listens and who follows through on his representations. I have been this way for a long while.

For a long time now, I have spoken about things that matter most. Some of my students remember (and remind me when I don't have exams when I promised) that I say "people make time for things and people that are important to them". If you matter, even if the thing seems silly, I will remember and act on it. Perhaps I won't act when you expect or hope, but I do follow through and keep my word.

At Christmas one year, I gave a woman about whom I really cared a series of gifts that might seem strange to you. They mattered to her, and my friend's housekeeper said they mattered a great deal, because they were things she mentioned she needed or would like that I procured unbeknownst to her. She was looking forward to a Linkin Park CD, which I bought her. She told me that she really liked Phil Collins, so I made her a CD of his music. She told me that she needed new mechanical pencils, so guess what, she got those too. I bought her a book The Five Rings that she mentioned that she wanted and all of Douglas Adam's books because she said she'd always wanted to read them. I tracked down a copy of the Book of Mormon with the angel Moroni on the cover because she was looking for it. None of the gifts were expensive, but they were all thoughtful because they showed that I listened to her and acted on the things she told me.

It goes beyond just piddly things of small financial value. Also that year (I gave her a different gift every day for 12 days), as the final gift, I gave her a tape measure on which, at her height, I had embossed the phrase "Practically Perfect in Every Way". For Valentine's Day that year, I started in January learning how to fold origami flowers and gave her an origami flower bouquet. It was thoughtful, meaningful, and from the heart.

Some people protest this kind of gifting. They told me back then that I wouldn't get any kudos for paper flowers because it wasn't normal or expected or valued. On the contrary, I knew that a woman who didn't get why I did that wouldn't get me and certainly wouldn't be able to keep me. Anyone can go out and buy stuff, but it takes a real effort to procure something thoughtful. Each of the last three Christmases, I have brought my mother to tears with my thoughtful gifts. The first year, it was a collection of books she used to read to us as children in England; the next year, it was a special nativity set; this last year, it was the note I wrote. My father likewise complimented me on my thoughtfulness because he doesn't "need" anything. One year, I got him a set of pipes that you can connect together in different lengths for leverage; then I bought him a set of tools my mother said were too rich for the budget; last year I got him a set of pipe clamps that are the best he's ever owned per him; this year, I bought him snowshoes for the cabin. Thought went into these gifts the same as it does for the things I say I will do. You may have to wait until Christmas, but they do come.

Valentine's Day quisquilia has already appeared on store shelves. I hate, nay detest, this holiday because so many people insist that you must do something special this day even if there's no thought put into it whatsoever. I feel as if every thoughtful thing I do the rest of the year is ablated by failure to follow the kitten caboodle and fall in line with the standard and expected gifts. Far too many women show up in the office and attempt one-upmanship on coworkers to show whose spouse loves them more because of how much money they spent. My point is that I could buy an island for a woman and still not give a flying pinwheel for her. Things are not gifts; they are excuses for not giving a gift of self.

One of my associates who is a psychiatrist by profession told me that this attitude renders me rare. She thinks I belong in a different time, when romance and chivalry really meant something and were appreciated. Most people think mostly about themselves, and while I do that as well, I genuinely try to think of thoughtful things to do. Last night, I was the person who took my friend out for his birthday, and I was one of the first to congratulate him on his birth even though we are not blood. Most of the people who spoke to him did so just barely before the clock struck midnight in their time zone or sent a text. I took him out and spent time with him.

When you really care, you put thought into things. My parents tried to impress this on us by encouraging us to participate in angel tree giving and in making gifts rather than just buying things. Although I do buy things, I buy things that impress people with the thought I was able to invest in the selection of a gift rather than waiting until the last minute and doing "any old thing". If I do something for you or give you something, I mean something by it. I don't say things I don't mean or do things I don't really choose to do. Jack Rose taught me at Youth Conference in 1994 to never let anyone force me to do something good against my will. If you matter to me, I invest my time, my life, my thought, and my substance in doing things however small to show you that I care. After all, people keep telling me that it's the small things, and the reactions of people when I deliver on my representations showed in their nonverbal cues that it did make a difference. I remembered what they said because they mattered to me, and I delivered because I wanted to show them that I thought about them and about what they said.

I take pictures and write a journal to remember things and people that were important to me. Although many more chapters of my life than I would like closed without the harvest I hoped would come, for my part the times were real. If you have moved on, know that I think of you, more often perhaps than is wise or than I would like, because you mattered to me. When we truly think about people well, we show who really matters and what truly matters to us. I tried to enrich your life by sharing mine with you, and mine has been made more full because you were in it. You are still in my thoughts and prayers, even those of you who wronged me openly and unabashedly, because I am a thoughtful guy whose thoughts often return to his Savior and his hopes for a better world.

Moral Foundations of Society

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Sometimes we know very little about the places where we live and how they came to be. People are frequently surprised to learn that Las Vegas (which was known as Meadows at the time) was actually founded by Mormon pioneers. Enough time has passed that we forget the premise and purpose behind why people went where they went and did what they did. For most people that I know, history didn't exist before they were born, and so they care very little for original intent because those principles were laid down by people distal to them in space and in time.

Tonight we travel back to Deerborne, MI, part of Henry Ford’s industrial empire. Like so many towns in the Michigan area, Deerborne was originally a company town, built and populated by workers and families of the expanding Ford Motor Company. People came here as part of their remuneration for working at Ford, but the accommodations were not equal. One historic neighborhood was built by Ford for executives at the tractor plant. As a condition of living in this community, residents had to sign a “morality clause”. Ford seemed to believe that the only workers worth keeping were people with values and standards, and although he wanted to keep people with him as much as possible, the morality requirements are unique to a corporate environment. While we have companies setting up recreation rooms and daycare and free lunch, Henry Ford asked them to conform to what amounts to an Honor Code.

I am not really a fan of honor codes. I visit the campus at Brigham Young University twice per year to rub it in their faces that I have a beard and don’t conform to the asinine requirements set to attend BYU. Basically, in order to attend BYU, you have to conform to their honor code. I know that plenty of people disobey it and even more push the restrictions to the limits. What seems to be a puritanical idea, a vestige of a bygone era, was actually once the order of business during the Industrial Revolution. Although only one person was ever evicted according to records, the Ford Morality Clause is still legendary in Deerborne. Other people now live in the same buildings, but it is well known what house was once owned/inhabited by the only exile, and he was sent packing for having a still in his basement.

It’s kind of paradoxical in our time that a man would be exiled for such a relatively minor infraction. As Colorado legalizes marijuana, as citizens of Utah overturn rules against homosexual unions (but do nothing to extend civil rights to polygamists), as the mayor of Toronto admits to doing cocaine and the president of the united states admits being in a choom gang, and as politicians and athletes and actors confess and brag about their trysts and indiscretions, Ford once evicted a man for brewing his own alcohol. It’s a big thing. Over half of Nevada’s road fatalities this year involved alcohol impairment. Sometimes the modern parlance belittles morality. At the same time they point to individuals in history who transformed the world, they forget that many of these people did not fundamentally transform the standards of moral behavior.

Standards of moral behavior contributed to the establishment of civil society. The modern political movement is that the rules apply except when particular people desire an exemption. Duplicity is not a standard. It sets up incongruities between people and balkanizes society. Too many people seem to only want rules so that they can avoid them or get around them. People who want to establish the rule of law and prevent felons from obtaining citizenship since our felons lose it as a consequence of a felony are considered “cruel” and “uncompassionate” and “radical” and “terrorists” because they want to uphold the law. You see, like any game, we consent to play because we know the rules apply. When they try to change them during the game always and only to favor themselves, often at our expense, they act hurt that we don’t acquiesce to their every demand. They HATE conservatives as evinced by their rhetoric. Conservativism is not a radical prospect. It is the position of tradition. It seeks to preserve what has built civil society and helped it succeed rather than trying to reinvent the wheel. I find it a paradox that preservation is laudatory when it comes to ancient ruins and crumbling edifices of a decadent past and considered taboo when it comes to preservation of morals, principles, and standards.

Traditional morality when properly taught and executed elevates society. Thomas Paine wrote that “Society in every state is a blessing, but government even in its best state is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one; for when we suffer, or are exposed to the same miseries by a government, which we might expect in a country without government, our calamity is heightened by reflecting that we furnish the means by which we suffer”. What the New Morality actually endorses is anarchy- if it feels good, do it. Rather than living well, they live it up and care nothing for the psychological, emotional, and civil harm they cause. Their dalliance with deviance threatens to undermine civil society and render us among the ruins they so vehemently fight to preserve. Rome fell because bread and circuses could not slake their lust.

Like Ford’s company towns, our nation still needs standards. Why? If morality is subject at all times to interpretation, then it is not a standard. James Madison told the people after the Constitution was ratified that “Our Constitution was written for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” On the excuse of equality, they seek to make behaviors equivalent but claim that it’s about making people equal. We are already equal under the law. Each of us may marry exactly one member of the opposite gender. What bothers me more about the homosexual agenda is that while they claim that it is natural and needs to be accepted, they are completely intolerant of the notion applied the opposite direction. If heterosexuality is how a person was born, how can they be criticized for feeling as they do about heterosexuality? As for drugs, every chemical has an effect. I am a chemistry professor, and I am unaware of any drugs that don’t have counterindications or interactions or some kind of adverse effect when used long term. I don’t care what potheads contend, chemistry is the study of how matter changes, and when you put in THC, you get something out that might not be what is optimum for human health.

Maybe you are an exception, because there certainly are plenty. Most moral codes are adapted to the weakest among us as a means for their protection. It would however be a gross violation of civil society to assume that you are in every way at every time. Civilization requires me to surrender part of what I want to furnish protection for the rest. It requires the exact same of you. I tolerate a great deal of decadence daily because it doesn’t harm me directly, but that doesn’t make it good or right or wise for you to continue. If you demand that I accept you as you are, then you MUST accept me as I am, even if I vehemently disagree with you. That's called being an adult.

You don’t have to live in Deerborne or work for Ford or sign an Honor Code. The great thing about America is that we have options. You may live somewhere where what you prefer prevails. Ford recognized that people, like standards, are worth keeping and that anything worth doing is worth doing well. I find it ironic that so many people piss away their lives and call it living when they could be living so much better than they are. They will spend for quality care and possessions but spend their time and their limited mortal probation in all sorts of riotous living. This they call “freedom”. I defy you to name any civilization that was immoral that lasted. I defy you to find a person who has lived well because they were miscreant and malcontent. Eventually you reap what you sow, and if you are rotten inside, it will rot your outside too. Look at Michigan now. Ford’s Morality Clauses have been replaced with other kinds of causes, and Michigan is the most violent and decrepit of places generally in this nation despite all the Alabama and West Virginia stereotypes. No nation ever fell because it was too moral. Chew on that for a while.

Batchelors: Home Alone

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Just before the year ended, I watched Home Alone as part of my personal traditions. It is probably for this reason that I made the commend about how at the end of the year it wasn't Kevin McAlister but I who was Home Alone. I was thinking today about how long I have lived without a woman's direct influence in my life, and having just watched that movie, some parallels became clear. Home Alone, aside from the burglary part, depicts fairly accurately what it's like for a man who goes for a prolonged period without a female influence in his life.

Yesterday my hiking buddy came by for a visit. He mentioned that I needed a woman to clean up after me. True, it is fairly obvious that I live here alone, but some of that isn't my fault. In addition to the fact that I had the flu for two weeks and didn't clean much, some of the clutter downstairs amounts to brickabrak from my late friend that she left me when she died. I'm sorting through it, taking out the trash, and preparing the rest to either pass on to her kids or donate to goodwill. My decor is very masculine, and there is a layer of dust on most everything. My buddy and I both hate to dust, but he hires someone to do that kind of cleaning and I do it when I get around to it since nobody here appreciates what I do.

Parallels from the movie both inspire me as well as give me pause. I leave loose legos beneath the windows downstairs in case someone break in while I sleep. A year before I moved in, several homes were robbed by entry through a side living room window, and it might not deter the intruder, but it sure buys me time to respond, and I have a bowie knife ready at all times when I'm not on campus. Other things gave different impressions. Like Kevin, I go do what I want, spend my money on what I want, and do what I like in the rooms of my house. I eat what I like and dress as I like and decorate how I like. I have made my hopes at family all but disappear.

The movie also details a single male at Christmas. Like Kevin, I go alone around the neighborhood to look at lights and attend concerts. I chat up the old men in the neighborhood and shop for necessities and decorate the front room (although not as much as he does). I even ask God to give me a family. Each year, however, there's nobody there in the morning on Christmas Day, so I guess I must be naughty. I do what I like and don't have to answer to anyone, and as I made my annual video for my family Christmas gala I realized just how much cool stuff I did in 2013.

Many men bow to a woman in order to compromise and "be happy". I know that being Home Alone is no panacea. I didn't go into a field of study that my mother demanded or marry a woman my mother picked or buy a house my mother insisted I buy. I did however follow the principles my mother espoused and followed in footsteps of faith and family. For at least a little while longer, I live close to my parents and talk with them about things that matter and things that affect us. When I finish, I drive to my place and do what I like. It was nice to sleep there a few nights ago when I took them to the airport and be back in my mother's house. There's something nice about that, and I hope some day I get to enjoy a home, a hearth, and a family of my own. For now, I have my independence and answer to nobody.

I know that I know love and that I know how to compromise. I once knew a woman who didn't have to ask me to change. I voluntarily did so because I wanted to be the man she thought I was. When I meet the right woman, I know I will want to please her, not that I compromise myself, but that I am flexible enough to make us work. I also know that the right person will be someone with whom I am excited to have a family. Sure, I could make it work, but Kevin wasn't hoping that just anyone would be there Christmas morning. He asked Santa for his family.

For now, I make it work. I make plans for what might be with landscaping and decoration and defense, but I know that if I had children I would need different plans. You can't leave legos everywhere or leave a knife lying around if you have children. Thankfully, I haven't been robbed yet, but I haven't found anyone who was actually willing to follow through on changing my batchelor status. Both of my immediate neighbors and the guy across the street are single parents, so I guess I'm in the right neighborhood. Unlike Kevin, I don't plan on living alone forever. Then again, not everything else went according to plan either.

Faith Matters More

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I've attended a few funerals, and I've seen a number of years come to an end. Before work this morning, I took my parents to the airport, and I was reminded anew that there's a limit to what you take with you. I imagine most of the travelers came for the New Year and are now headed home, jubilant perhaps at having spent New Years in Vegas. Big deal. I have spent six of them here now, and I don't have to fight traffic or crowds or overpay for a hotel in order to see the spectacular strip show of fireworks (which is pretty impressive usually). As each year ends and each person died, I look back at what they accomplish and what I have accomplished, and I'm tempted, based on the metrics measured by men, to count each year and my life a failure. I know better. Faith matters more than accomplishment.

The scriptures and more modern history are replete with examples of men of faith whose accomplishment was to be "of faith". Noah didn't manage to convince anyone who wasn't in his immediate family to repent and join him in the Ark. Abinadi may not have known whether he convinced any of the wicked priests to repent, and if he did, he might not have known that Alma survived. When Shadrach, Meschach and Abednego were cast into the fire by Nebuchadnezzar, that act didn't accomplish anything, because we know that Babylon continued to increase in wickedness. When Wilfred Woodruff returned from a mission to Japan, John Taylor told him that "his success was that he continued in the absence of success". Sir Thomas Moore's faithfulness to God over earthly kings didn't dissuade King Henry from divorce or win his case, and he paid for it with his life. Countless times I have seen people do the right thing and have nothing to show for it. Faithfulness is their reward.

Ludvig von Mises wrote in Human Action that people choose virtue because they feel it is its own reward. In essence, we value virtue more than any advantage the alternatives afford. We learn this in our lives, as we rise with each new year and don't have to regret getting sauced or having random intercourse with strangers because we did things that were urgent and important with our lives. I know that there are examples in scripture of people who did accomplish a great deal. Moses brought millions of his people out of Egypt and Peter raised a man from the dead and Gideon defeated the Midianites with a handful of men. However, these people were ALSO people of faith, and without their faith, they would not have been able to accomplish what they did. After all, Naaman's servant points out that following the prophet's counsel is more important than the identify of the river in which we wash.

If accomplishments mattered more, then it wouldn't matter how a man achieved anything. We would celebrate Attila the Hun for his imperialism, Heinrich Himmler for his many murders, and whoever that guy is who has 37 children by at least a dozen different women. Money and fame and fortune and power would be the only thing venerable, and people who actually did play fairly would be written off as weak or posers. Our best doctors would be the best at cheating their way through medical school, our best soldiers would be the people who spent the most time playing World of Warcraft, and our best politicians would be the most popular people in the world. Achievement without virtue is just as evil as the evils decried by achievers in those who don't have much to show. Even moderation in excess is a sin.

When my paternal grandfather died a few years ago, I looked at the guests with some surprise. In attendance were captains of industry, commerce, governance, and religion, who all filed in the back of a chapel to pay silent respects to my grandfather. He was never a very wealthy man or an overly important one beyond the confines of our family, and when he died, he left little behind besides his family. All of these people came to commemorate his character, for they knew him by his reputation rather than by his socio-economic status. Although I didn't register it while he was alive, Grandpa John tried to instill in us a desire to be men of good character rather than men of good fortunes or good looks. He knew that rapport mattered more than reputation, that richness of spirit mattered more than the size of our bank accounts and that doing our work honorably mattered more than how the world chose to honor our work.

Without faith it is impossible to please God. A man may do many might works and have many wise words, but unless he does it with an eye single to the glory of God as much as possible, it availeth him nothing. Acts and accomplishments are wonderful, but we know a lot of people who believe that the ends justify the means and accomplish things in an immoral, unethical, or illegal manner. How can that be praiseworthy? How can that be faithfulness to oneself? I am living my life true to my principles, trusting in the God of Truth to reward me for principled piety.