Holding on to Memories

In the age where digital natives are the future, what from our past will we today give to them? Perhaps there is a reason why genealogy is finding reclamation in the digital age. Will technology and tradition find a home in the digital realm of online services like ancestry.com? Will the generation gap be closed by Brit-ripped, celebrity-produced shows like, Who Do You Think You Are?

For all the attention and hype about iconic celebrities finding the real non-Hollywood story about their family past, it is likely to be another fashionable trend in popular culture, if we fail to hold on to those memories by passing them on to the next generation.

Holding on to memories is not a passive action. If generations to come are to remember the heritage of their familiar roots, then today we must plant our family tree in rich soil. We must graft ourselves to the past, not so as to stay buried in the past, but grow a broader and stronger trunk. As we rely on the foundation that our ancestors established for us, generations to come depend us if they are to make beautiful the canopy of our tree.

What fertilizes the family tree? How do we strengthen the core of that tree? While record-keeping is essential, just as tilling and pruning is for plant life; story-telling is what truly fertilizes that tree. The tradition of passing on orally from one family member to the next the fond memories and vivid stories of “yesteryear” is crucial to a healthy family tree.

Holding on to family memories involves human interaction of the older generation telling the stories of their lifetime to the younger generation. Raw family videos posted on YouTube or spontaneous snapshots shared on Facebook are no replacement for live testimonies. The social media has nothing compared to hearing “in person” the dramatic retelling by my grandmother of how she wrestled with snakes and popped their heads off as she grew up on the farm. A picture may be worth a thousand words, but my grandmother’s words were priceless. It’s one of those things that you say, “You just had to be there.”

And that’s the point of holding on to our memories. You have to be present with your family when they share their stories, so you can receive today from them what they received from their past. And then you for the future may pass on the memories you received to the next. Memories are made when people who gather together spend time sharing stories, keeping the memories alive in one another.

Normal vs. Perfect

What is normal anyway? Normal is undefinable and subjective. If normal is based on statistical tendencies, then normal is just a glimpse of what is popular. If normal is based on social and cultural norms, then normal is just a reflection of a particular group of people. "Normal" is not something to achieve but a by-product of what already is.

Jesus never said, "Be normal as your heavenly Father is normal."

Perfection on the other hand is definable and objective. No wonder Jesus said, "Be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect" (Matthew 5:48). Yet some say that perfection is not achievable. They should rethink their position. Perfection is achievable--that is something to strive to achieve. Many people may fail at being perfect, and perhaps this is why we focus on being normal instead. Regardless of the failure of being perfect, perfection is still something we all must strive for--and maybe then perfection would be normal.

Then again I've been told that I'm a perfectionist.

The Greatest Movie Ever

To prove a point, let’s imagine the following:


The most exciting, most amazing and the greatest movie ever is playing at the movie theater. Everyone under the sun is exploding to see this movie. Let’s call the move, “America.” You are desperate to see “America,” the greatest movie ever. Because “America” is the greatest movie ever, you know that there are going to be a ga-zillion people waiting in line to see it, and the theater room will be packed. So you have three options:

1. You wait in line to purchase your ticket, and then use your purchased ticket to wait in line to get seated in the theater room. No matter how early you get there, the word is out and people are flocking from everywhere to see “America,” the greatest movie ever.

2. You find an alternate way of purchasing your ticket. So you skip the line to purchase a ticket and wait in line to be seated in the theater room. You realize that you may pay a premium price for your alternate methodology of legitimately purchasing your ticket, but you believe it is worth the extra money.

3. You say screw waiting in line, and forget purchasing a ticket. You sneak your way into the theater room where they are playing “America,” the greatest movie ever.

Okay, which option would you choose?

Now let’s reflect briefly on all three options. Option 1 is the “normal” legitimate way the vast majority of people go to see “America,” the greatest movie ever. Because it is the greatest movie ever, demand to see this movie will always be high, but for the vast majority of people, the wait is worth it. Option 2 is the “alternate” legitimate way that some people, who can afford it and have the means to acquire it, go see “America,” the greatest movie ever. Because everyone wants to see this greatest movie ever, the reality is that there are some “privileged” people who just have or take advantage of what they have or have been given. This is just a reality of life. Option 3 is the illegal and immoral way that a few people go see “America,” the greatest movie ever. Usually these individuals are teenagers, who because of their rebellious nature, try to “give it to the man” and skirt authority and reject order. Generally speaking the rest of the people who have legitimately made their way in line and to their seats are on the look-out for these “hooligans” who are few and far between.

What happens if these “hooligans” were rarely caught, and eventually were allowed in by those running the movie theater? Less purchasing people would be getting access, prices for tickets and concessions would eventually go through the roof, and purchasing people would be wondering why bother paying for “America,” the greatest movie ever.

No what would happen if the parents of these teenage hooligans began to petition the movie theater to allow their teenagers repeat access to “America” without ever waiting in line and without ever purchasing a ticket? Furthermore the teenagers embolden by the system then begin to demand that the concessions be given to them for free! How do you think real movie goers, who love experiencing the whole movie theater atmosphere, would react? How do you think legitimate consumers of “America,” the greatest movie ever, would respond? What is the inevitable fate of “America,” the greatest movie ever?

Reason tells us that movie theaters would eventually go out of business because they could no longer afford what it costs to run a movie theater. They could not pay their electricity bill, they could not afford to hire staff, they could no longer purchase food to sell. Worse of all, the movie theater would no longer be able to show “America,” the greatest movie ever. Why? Because the reality is, even watching “America,” the greatest movie ever, costs money.

Let Us Remember VHS

As the world becomes populated by "digital natives" and daily activity centers around our collection of apps, let us never forget the lessons learned in history from the Age of the VHS tape...

This was an age where "bootlegging" had nothing to do with resolution quality because you were happy just to have a glimpse of the movie. In fact the lesser the quality, the better you could hone your viewing skills. This was a time when putting together your compilation tape took hours with considerable reflection and a keen control of the pause button. But this entry is not to romanticize about the past.

I post this blog to illustrate a moral point. The VHS tape was our last best vestige of the degradation done when making a copy of a copy. In our common digital age, copying is nearly undetectable and in most cases acceptable or even worse expected. With the environmentally sensitive, they call it "recycling." And for the economically wise, it is called "re-purposing." In fact we have become experts in copying that you can no longer tell that it is a copy. And for those targeting the digital natives with their iPhone myopia, you need only to update the application with the latest trendy icon to garner the greatest hits. This common functionality has taken over common sense morality. We've breached the "feels good, do it" parameters of individual preferences and entered a society where duplication is a moral norm, especially when it goes "viral."

To end on a lighter note, I turn to entertainment: I worry that we are loosing real quality in favor of high definition. How many more remakes in television, film or music do we need before we realize that viewing the same ol' same in 3-D is still viewing the same ol' same. Or do people really think this is how we make a "real classic?" Nowadays I wonder if "nothing new under the sun" is literally becoming reality. Personally I prefer the inspiring low-res black & white TCM classic over the expired  digitally-enhanced HBO video on-demand. Remember at least with a bootlegged VHS, you would immediately recognize the fake for what it is---not the "real thing."

Participating in Evil

Evil does exists. I've always believed this, yet I never gave it proper attention. I am not one to "incarnate" evil even when it comes to political individuals. However I do believe just about anyone is capable of committing an evil act. But this is not the point of this entry. Evil does exists and we participate in its propagation.

Evil exists separate from human actions, but prefers to "breed" within them. Too many people give attention to evil when it is obvious, such as in heinous crimes. Yet not enough individuals give evil its proper attention. Evil relies on our willingness to ignore it.

Evil takes its time. It prefers a slow pace, almost like it is being patient. Evil does not wait for its victim to be vulnerable. It feeds off the slow roasting temperature of the ignorance and apathy from its victim. Evil rises in the oven of sloth because laziness is its yeast ingredient. And evil is done before you even realize it exists.

Our participation in evil is quite simple: think that bad is good, ugly is beautiful and lies are true. In other words, believe the profane is sacred or just reject the sacred all together. Evil is not the opposite of good, evil is the absence of good.

Choice: Life or Health

On the "eve" of the potential passing of one of the most significant and radical changes in our country's history, ObamaCare, I thought these words would serve well repeating...

If you had two people in front of you who needed help, who would you help first? The person whose life is in danger or the person whose health is in need of improvement?

I would like to think that the rational person would see the obvious moral obligation is to help the person whose life is in danger. And I would like to think that the other person would completely understand it and in fact help if possible.

So why then does President Obama want to rush to help "fix health care" by telling everyone to "buck-up" and give him a bill that overhauls our current way of doing "health care"...yet he wants everyone to be patient and wait for a reduction in abortions?

I am confused. This would be like telling the person whose life is in danger to wait and see how it goes while attending to the needs of an ill person.

Furthermore why does President Obama want to reduce abortions? If the fetus is a person at conception, then the obvious rational moral choice is not to work to reduce abortions but to eliminate them all together. If the fetus is not a person until born, then why care how many abortions are performed?

Again if you had two people before you, one whose life is in danger or one whose health is in need of care, who do you help first? I think the answer is simple and obvious, but then again maybe I'm confused.

A Life Less than Fiction

We need to be reminded of the truth learned from fiction: In order to write fiction the author must first have a plan. Even if the fictitious story begins with an simple idea, the author must still first take that idea and "flesh it out" according to a plan. The idea is to be developed into an intentional story with specific characters who have a significant role within a plot that has purpose.
If an author takes an idea and proceeds to tell a story without a plan, chaos ensues. Many consider this a form of lying and use the euphemism, he "told a story." And even with a plan chaos can still ensue if the plan is not a "good plan."
God has the perfect good plan, and his plan is truth. If we insist on writing our own story misaligned from his plan, then we will live in fiction at best and chaos at worse while everything in between will be a lie.
In seeking the truth of God's plan for my own life, I am confronted and bombarded daily with the reality of the chaotic lives of other people. People who desire to "tell a story" because they lack a plan sufficiently aligned with God's plan. Perhaps lying ensues more than chaos, but I surely encounter one or the other on a daily basis.
My observations may seem judgmental but I assure you that I am describing the reality of my life. Though talking politics is taboo, I think a current case in point is relevant, though not the only reality of my life that is less than fiction. That example would be the US Government's current efforts for a "health-care plan." The simple idea (with good intentions) is to provide health care for everyone. This simple idea however is being told without a well-developed "story." The politicians don't even humorous us anymore with "fictitious stories." No, they simply are attempting to "will an idea" upon the people. Some call this forced indoctrination, others perhaps may call it "tyranny."
In my professional life, I have witnessed and continue to witness a similar pattern: Push an idea without a sufficient plan, let alone a good plan or the necessary resources. An insidious behavior has developed in many people who otherwise are definitely not enticing. That is the paradox. People of influence who are otherwise not influential are in positions of authority.
Perhaps I suffer from my own delusions of grandeur or I do live in "Bizarro world." Authoritative individuals who have become so because of incompetency seem to be the antagonists in my life, if I dare say that I am the protagonist in my own life. Truth be known, there are days that I'll take a "great story" of fiction over the "simple ideas" being pushed in real life.

Retention vs. Retrieval

Over the past centuries, a great transformation in the human experience has occurred. Much of this transformation has occurred not on what we experience but how we experience the events of human history. And how we experience the events of human history has taken a radical turn as the literacy rate of individuals increased. We no longer retain history, we retrieve it.

Prior to the majority of people being able to write and read, how we experience the events of human history was retained through memory. In other words the previous generation passed on their experiences of events to the next generation through an oral tradition in which memory was the vehicle for transmitting history and most importantly the meaning of that history.

As the competency for writing and reading increased, these memories became stored more than transmitted. Therefore as the oral tradition diminished so too did our capacity to transmit meaning through memory. We became reliant on the written tradition to somehow preserve precious memories across generations. Of course with the written tradition came a new way of interpreting those "written memories" of human experiences of significant events in human history. Somehow the preservation of peoples' experiences were no longer dependent on a person's memory, but captured in words that just didn't need interpretation but relied on the interpretation to give meaning to those experiences. Therefore meaning came through interpretation not preservation.

Today we face a new literacy that has gone beyond the written word to the digital tradition. Just as human history has endured the transformation from the oral tradition to the written tradition, where interpretation replaced preservation, we are now at the threshold of a new age in human history. Retention of human events is no longer expected, just retrieval of the event. This presents us an unprecedented dilemma. In the oral tradition, meaning came from memory through appreciation (this is preservation). In the written tradition meaning came from interpreting the memories of those who appreciated. Now in the digital tradition, there is no longer retention of memories through appreciation, preservation or interpretation. Now there is simply retrieval of information.

Of course the information has meaning, interpretation and preservation of experiences, yet it is lost in the vastness of accessible information. Lost in the skill set to retrieve information that has meaning only in the moment of that retrieval. Are we retrieving information or seeking to preserve memories?

Is the next generation becoming so narcissistic that even the events of human history have no meaning to be preserved and passed on? This has a profound impact on the soul of the human person. God created us in such a way to seek meaning beyond ourselves. We are spiritual creatures who were never created to retrieve information for our own self-satisfaction. We owe past generations a debt of gratitude in preserving the memories of human history. Let us teach the next generation to cherish history beyond their own experience. I ought to cherish the memories of those before me because it was their experience, not mine.