Musing about Writing and Wasting Time

 

Writing is a Discipline that Needs Strict Parameters

It seems like I don’t have a lot of interest in writing anymore. At least not to the level that I did a few years ago. What is the culprit? Could it be that work takes up a larger part of my life, to the degree that I have less time? Not really, my responsibility has picked up and so has the number of accounts I manage. But it hasn’t added to my workload significantly. Most jobs have seasonal ups and downs that dictate how many hours you work. Mine is no different. Summers and springs are busy. The rest of the year settles into a type of normalcy, in a sense.

I should probably apologize for all the question begging that this post is bound to heap up like mulch on a freshly planted rose garden. Just think of these are rhetorical questions the writer is trying out on himself.

Am I occupied with other interests? Again, not really. I’ve had a consistent gym/fitness routine for the last 5 years or so. It changes a little from week to week but not dramatically. If anything, I’ve matured in both my running goals and weight lifting. The running is certainly easier to measure. New times can be compared against older times and I can see how much weight I’ve lost. Modern gyms have these full body composition scanners that give you all sorts of indicators. You can learn which side of your body is stronger, what your bone density is like and what an ideal weight would be.

For the first two months of the year I was busy studying for my personal training certification test. But last month I passed the test and received the certificate. I still don’t have a job, but I’m looking. Here too though, I’m not overwhelmed with a part time job.

 I might be mistaking my lack of writing interest for just plain laziness. Sometimes I like to dress up the words instead of looking at the thing straightaway. Laziness becomes “lack of interest” or “lack of passion”. Those sound high minded. No one ever admits to being lazy but it’s a common problem. Creative types talk about “writer’s block” and “creativity deserts” when the problem is much more carnal. I made up the one about creativity deserts but I kind of like it. I’ll have to work it into a conversation at some point.

Television gets the best of us sometimes and if we’re honest, we probably watch too much. Here I’m counting YouTube as TV, as it takes the same form in my life. Hours of wasted viewing on the silly, the weird and the angry, encompass evenings that I’ll never get back. YouTube is at least highly curated where TV is just a scatter shot of whatever’s in the barrel. If we don’t like the show we turn it off. YouTube allows the viewer to scrub past ads and click off. It doesn’t let you off though, it’s going to suggest something similar. Really they don’t suggest anything. They just play the next adjacent video, ready or not. For me it skews right and newsy with a dash of funny. I end up with a lot of Megan Kelly and Tim Dillon clips.

It gets in the way of writing but not too much. It used to be that I couldn’t go more than 2 days without a writing fix. I didn’t update my blog every other day, but I did feel the need to journal some event or attitude. When I couldn’t think of anything significant I’d practice. These practice sessions allowed my mind to wander. A lot of my blog posts started off that way. I’d start a mental thread about sports or politics that slowly turned into a one about family or Christianity. It’s not the best way to write but it can be fun. The best way is through narrow parameters. The stricter the focus the more creative the essay.

The mind craves discipline. This seems counterintuitive. Don’t the best artists and writers need to be free to let their minds wander? No, you lose focus without definitive goals. It might take longer to arrange your thoughts and discard ideas that don’t fit the limits, but you’ll be able to avoid wasting time on unnecessary trails. I used to write blog posts for business websites through a 3^rd party marketing company. Perusing through the list of requested blog posts, I noticed some were brief while others, very detailed. The companies with long, specific items and keywords were the easiest to write for. It’s like they cut the extra fat off the steak before they brought it to me. The websites that listed one or two instructions didn’t know what they wanted and hoped the writer would come up with something creative.

That’s OK if you understand the industry you’re writing for. But it’s rarely the case. Not to mention, the ones with marginal instructions were quick to fire my copy back for revision. It’s like they were saying “No not like that”. They could’ve saved us both some time with tight instructions and a short list of what they didn’t want.

I exaggerated when I said it seems like I don’t have any interest in writing. But a lot of the old tricks aren’t working anymore. I’ve always believed that writing is like other disciplines in life, it needs to be forced until it becomes routine. It’s not secret that I mentioned fitness at the beginning. The most important thing that fitness has taught me is that improvement must become routine. If it’s true for weightlifting then it’s true for creative pursuits. Why do I seem to fall in and out of “interest” in writing? Because it’s ceased to be routine. The reason doesn’t really matter.

Salvation is the Good News of Easter

 

Easter Commission: Reflecting on God’s Faithfulness

Easter forces reflection in me of God’s goodness in big and small seasons of life. That reflection fulfills the message of Christ to ‘go into all the world’.

In Tulsa, there is a neon cross that looms large on the West side of the Arkansas river. It’s visible in the dark from the bike path that stretches the length of the river. On occasion I’ll do my early run there. In the winter especially the sun doesn’t pop above the horizon until after 7:00. Most of my route is in the dark. I can’t tell where the cross is located. The west side is full of industrial parks and factories. There are a few churches, but none big enough to mount a cross that size. The bright contrast between light and dark makes me take notice.

Healing of the Body

It reminds me of times when I was in trouble and God rescued me. Those memories still evoke strong feelings. Difficult seasons stay in our minds long after the stress has subsided. What’s left is the faith we built through it. How many times did I run out of money and eat saltines until pay day? There was always a free meal I hadn’t counted on or a refund from a forgotten transaction.

I’ve had a few health issues too. I had severe asthma as a kid. Being able to run like I do now wasn’t a sure thing. But I witnessed God’s faithfulness through healing and restoration. In adult life I took seriously the instruction to ‘pray for those who persecute you’. This one I resisted hard. God’s way of living is contrary to ours. It takes years of retraining to develop a willing heart. But when I complied, I noticed a positive change in the person who created such difficulty for me.  

When we let Him, He brings to mind His victories in our lives. No detail is too small.

Promise of Restoration

The company I work for used to sew patches on school jackets. I called a customer one day to come pick up his jacket after we had worked on it. In the two days before he came to the store, a shoplifter walked in and stole it right off the finished rack. We didn’t realize it was gone until he’d left. I had to tell the customer that a thief made off with it. That made me look irresponsible; I don’t think the customer believed my story. I asked God to make it right. Amazingly someone spotted the thief with the jacket a few weeks later. I was vindicated.

Nothing sharpens your focus like hardship. Did you ever get separated from your parents in a grocery store as a kid? You could feel the panic start to rise, your temperature spiked and your breathing quickened. You forgot about the magazine on the rack that stole your attention not long before. Nothing mattered like finding mom and dad. All distraction fell away instantly as you zeroed in on being rescued. Eventually it worked out and you were wiser about wandering off the next time.

Like kids we all tend to wander off sometimes. Startling events bring us into focus and strip away everything that’s not critical to solving the problem.

Finding the Lost

That was the situation in Acts 16 when Paul and Silas were arrested for preaching the gospel. The jailer faced a startling event that changed his world in an instant.

“Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” (NKJV)

An earthquake had just shaken the ground and loosened all the chains of the prisoners. Paul reassured him that no one had left and that he shouldn’t harm himself. It’s a recognition of the plight he’s in. Nothing is left but the truth of salvation. The world as he knew it changed in an instant. If not for a word from Paul, he would’ve taken his own life.

His security in the prison fell away in an instant. He recognized the immediacy of the moment and surrendered his life. Some of us coast along without an earthquake moment. We aren’t guaranteed one either. We don’t always get a chance to see our situation in stark relief. Jesus scolded the elders (Mark 8:11-13) for not being able to discern the times. It’s up to us as well, to recognize the fleeting nature of life on earth. It’s less painful to learn from another’s example. The jailer that Paul baptized, made sure his family was also baptized.

“What must I do to be saved?” should force us to examine our lives with eternity in mind. The cross still has the power to connect with the soul and bring about repentance. It still reminds us of the ultimate sacrifice and the innocent blood.

Conclusion

If you’ve wandered off and felt the immediacy of a scary moment, there’s hope in the cross. Even before your frantic search for help, God was looking for you. There are reminders everywhere of His faithfulness. It just might take a neon cross in the darkness to get your attention.

Go tell someone today. He is Risen! Happy Easter

 

Will DOGE Actually Work?

 

DOGE Saves the Country, Or the Fiscal Floor Caves In

I’ve wanted to write something about DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency) for a while. There is an underlying sense that I shouldn’t get too excited about it. I tell myself not to fall for it. You’re never going to watch the government cut its waste or spending by a significant amount. The spending rot is too deep. Best to wait for the floor to fall out from under you and rebuild the house. The termites have eaten through too much of it. Yes, it's a pessimistic view. I have a twinge of guilt every time I think about it. But remember, the staggering amount graft that is uncovered on a daily basis props up someone. Actually it’s propping up a whole lot of someone’s.

DOGE is what it looks like to attack the corruption in spending from the outside. It can’t happen from inside.

Inside Baseball

Back in 2010, Senators Alan Simpson (Wyoming) and Erskine Bowles (North Carolina) put together a committee to “study” how to reduce the debt. They correctly evaluated the problems and presented a plan. The plans were sensible but the political will wasn’t there. These commissions only ever serve to provide travel opportunities and a nice pay day for fortunate bureaucrats. Nothing actually gets cut. No one needs to do a year long study to figure this out. Blue ribbon commissions find information we already know and find a way to get paid from the process. It's a neat trick.

It’s impossibly hard from a political standpoint, much easier to pay everyone off with projects for their communities and sign off on another bloated budget. It’s why my ‘wait for the floor to cave in’ is an understandable response.

Outside Baseball

But if Trump is different and Elon is different, maybe there is hope. If nothing else, DOGE is a true outsider approach. No insiders were ever going to fix it. Mafia members occasionally rat on each other, but they also take on new identities, move to the heartland and take up farming. Exposing corruption is dangerous. Make no mistake, this is corruption. And to have such a serious group of men sharing the responsibility of taking it to the deep state is very encouraging. If you haven’t seen the interview on Fox News with Brett Bair I suggest you watch it. All of these men are accomplished in the private sector. They’ve all volunteered to help reorganize federal spending and show where the fraud and waste is. No surprises yet, it’s overwhelmingly fraud so far.

Defining Leadership

At no point during the interview did I think any of these guys were press hounds. They’re sober about the future of the country and patriotic enough to do something about it. Musk put a target on his back by supporting Trump after the Pennsylvania assassination attempt. That gave others the courage to do likewise and share some of the burden of being called Nazis or Fascist's or whatever. I’m much more confident after hearing from the team. It’s easy to be cynical about motives, but they seem to care deeply about the future of the country and how much has been stolen from future generations.

Musk recognized that this administration is serious about putting the country on a track to fiscal sanity again. No businessman wants to give voice to an untrustworthy president or give support where it won’t be reciprocated. It’s risky. It’s especially risky for Republican administrations because the press can ruin you. We’re seeing some of that with the bombing of his Tesla dealers and desecration of cars in parking lots. I’m sure he knew this kind of thing was possible. But he can rely on an administration that actually punishes crime and backs American business. 

The Twitter Takeover

Buying Twitter was a watershed moment for Elon Musk. He entered the political fray and if he had any illusions about an American left that just wanted free speech, he was quickly disabused of that notion.

He let a handful of journalists (Taibbi, Shellenberger) comb through Twitter’s databases. Matt Taibbi in particular showed how the federal government was silencing conservative voices through implicit threats. Twitter was basically the communication arm of the FBI. In a lot of ways, DODGE feels like a much larger version of the same idea. Expose fraud in the federal government and show how corruption works at scale. And what a scale it is? Twitter prepared him for this. But if Twitter was an on base single to right field, DOGE is a grand slam to win the game.

Discovering wasteful spending at the federal level isn’t a tough thing to do. The late Senator Coburn, Oklahoma’s own, used to release a Wastebook every few years on government waste. We knew about the bridges to nowhere and the silly research grants for video games studies. But no one was specifically targeted or held to account. The sense you get from reading them is irritation at the lack of oversight. You can almost hear the zany Benny Hill music playing in the background as the list of dumb spending is read aloud. The tone of the report though is ‘common guys, we can do better'. But Senators have to get reelected. They can scratch the surface and point in a direction, but they can’t name names. 

Nothing against Coburn, he was an honest man. But where he grabbed the low hanging fruit of waste, Musk is going for the jugular. 

Like Simpson and Bowles, real change happens from outside because it has to. 2025 is going to be a rocky year with a lot of naming of names if DOGE is anything like what it needs to be. It will all be for naught though if guilty parties aren’t charged and we don’t have a sensible plan for budgeting. Grifters that feed off the public teat should be punished severely, or America will be overrun with them.

Conclusion

I’m usually pessimistic about the attempt to reign in a federal system. But I’m optimistic for at least some big moves going forward. What does that look like? Can we actually reduce the fraud by a significant margin and half the budget? Will known fraudsters be held to account and serve as avatars for other, would be-con artists who would fleece the taxpayers? The relentless exposure is good news so far. Had Elon Musk done enough work to allow DOGE to function with a manager once he is gone? That day might come sooner than the May deadline.

Every political fight like this comes down to willpower. If not, we wait for the floor to give way and work on a rebuild plan.