Why so Cynical?

Why cynicism?

Cynicism is learned trait the way anything is. Ever tried to throw a baseball? The first thing you learn is how to hit the strike zone. When you’re a kid this is the most important thing. Other kids will likely swing and miss at pitches right over the plate. Young kids don’t have the skill in their arms or the timing in their wrists to square up and drive one out to left field. Some advance quicker than others but baseball is a game of averages. Most kids swing and miss. Learn to throw strikes first. Worry about sliders and curve balls later. Negativity works the same way.

Cynicism creates early doubt in small personal matters but if not corrected becomes your default philosophy on life. 

Kids learn to be cynical right around the time they learn to play baseball. It isn’t intentional of course. No parent pops up off the chair on a beautiful Saturday and says “Listen, Toby (ruffles his son’s hair) these Senators and Congressman in Washington are out to screw us hard working folks. They line their pockets at the expense of decent people like me and your mom.” It’s generally more subtle. When effective, cynicism creates a feedback loop that parses every success and explains every failure.

How many times have you blamed a football player for dropping a pass because he wasn’t in a “contract year” or blasted the electric company for being “greedy” when the bill shot up in the summer? Ever blame the church clergy for having their “hands in the till” after a Christmas donation push?

Usually we learn to expect losing from our favorite team. The Chicago Bears fans have a saying, shorthand really: S.O.B for Same Ol Bears. Did the kicker miss a 30 yard field goal to lose the game in overtime? “SOB”. Did they just burn through another quarterback that throws picks and loses games? “SOB” In reality most franchises have up and down seasons and similarities between fan complaints can be heard across fandom. Most people dump on their team.

Cynicism plants a seed that says “Expect less”.

Cynical people are class conscience. I used to think it was an old world or even European thing to view people by breeding and money, Downton Abby style. Maybe it always existed in America but more in pockets of the country than something in the ether. I see resentment of success and wealth more than disdain for the poor. This is almost the reverse of the old model where titled land holders joined exclusive clubs and kept ‘undesirables’ out of certain industries.

 In America we have too many ‘victims’, victims of poverty, of discrimination, of sexism, of homophobia and of ‘reckless’ capitalism. If you’re a victim there’s a group. A person who imagines they are taken advantage of will most likely always feel that way. The negativity reminds the individual of the mistreatment, unfairness and the ‘stacked deck’. 

Cynicism is easy because you don't need to defend the failures of a system or belief. You needn't have awkward conversations about why a famous athlete (Lance Armstrong) turned out to be crooked and vindictive. We can cover ourselves up with cynicism like a shield and pretend we “ain’t surprised” when someone famous falls from the pedestal. 

Change is tough for jaded people but some common wisdom from the interwebs goes like this. First recognize the problem. If you always bring down the conversation in group with a dig about pop culture, religion and politics, you have a problem. Second, stop hanging around others who complain and assume ulterior motives about everything from sports to the manufacturing of foods-“they use horse meat you know!” If people have stopped being around you because of your dark cloud and social anomie consider yourself warned. Third, accentuate the positives (yes I know, but it fits).

If being a cynic means assuming conspiracy or wicked design behind every good deed, try instead to relate something positive with the individual. You don’t have to ignore that inner Sméagol that says “I knew they were up to something” but don’t encourage it either. Overwhelm negative with positive. Do it enough times and the new positive feedback replaces the old.

The same mind that learned how to throw a curve ball and picked up cynical thinking can undo it through replacement thinking and positive attitude. The mind is a wonderful tool. 

Sadness in Vegas

Sadly another shooting claimed the lives of almost 60 people late last night. This time a Vegas country music concert became a horrific scene of mayhem as fans ran for cover as a man from across the street rained down bullets on them. I got the alert early this morning on my phone. I need to turn that thing off for peace and quiet before I start the day. Some days are tough enough to just begin as it is. This is partly why I start off my days with teaching and a bible verse. I need to get my mind centered on positive things. Also I avoid the radio in the car on the way to work. I used to love the local talk radio station, anymore though I need to go to God.

There is still too much we don’t know about why the 64 year old single man decided to go sniper on a crowd of people. I won’t say conspiracy but some things don’t add up. He used a fully automatic weapon. Those are almost impossible to get even by illegal means and he wasn’t really a gun guy. He owned a handgun and a couple of rifles but nothing in his past suggests a fascination with firearms. The Islamic terrorist group I.S.I.S claimed responsibility but even this seemed fishy. So far investigators can’t locate any evidence of that. I am sure older white Americans occasionally sign up for jihad without anyone knowing how radical they are, but it isn’t likely. This guy owned a handful of properties and seemed to be well off if not wealthy. Nothing suggests he might fire indiscriminately into a crowd killing 60 and wounded over 500.

 This was monstrous--a real nightmare scenario for Vegas police. Over 40,000 fans crammed into an open air venue make a perfect target for a psychopath. Unfortunately even large scale mass murders like this recent act of terror are getting too common. This may carry a news cycle for a few more days; the ugliness of it washed over by the regularity of it. Not that the slaughter of so many people happens every few weeks but the lone killer taking a few with him before he offs himself is shockingly regular. The Orlando night club shooting happened just over a year ago. Most of these acts of terrorism, recently, are connected to Islam. This may be as well but he doesn’t seem like the convert to Islam type.

 I.S.I.S has been keen on a war with the West from the Paris concert killings to the Brussels airport bombing and truck attacks in London. They have professed jihad and set about recruiting Americans, Brits, French and other Europeans. This latest one is a real mystery, a total head scratcher. It could take a week or so to make sense of it. God be with the families of those poor souls gunned down for doing nothing more than enjoying live country music. I started off trying to read other stuff online, Facebook posts and job board listings. Everything seems hollow next to this. Tom Petty also died today but there doesn’t seem room in our minds for mention. Nothing against Tom but a whole lot of people just had their world turned upside down. Fixating on celeb deaths and sports feels so wrong.   

Economy and Trade: the next 20 years

There is a shift afoot.

The election of Donald Trump means a change is coming in economic thinking at the policy level. Globalization has defined the trading order for the last 25 years or so, but like a rusty freighter it is starting to show its age. Assembly line workers who saw their jobs outsourced have always felt cheated. Replacement jobs and training haven’t been there for laid off men and women hoping to replace big incomes. It isn’t just Donald Trump who is pulling back from economic entanglements; the Europeans are seeing a rising tide of nationalism. This is bound to change the international thinking on economics and determine trade policy for the next 20 years.

Economics is theory, the big picture stuff. It won’t explain why cotton prices suddenly jumped up in June or why steel prices dropped in December, that’s business. It can give you scenarios where prices might swing, or historic trends where political and social pressures existed on the market. Economics is a snapshot of the existing trading system and a historic record of how it got that way.

It isn’t a surprise that it’s changing; the dismal science is due a makeover. Economic Nationalism is on the rise in America and across Europe. Economic Nationalism is a phrase used by Steve Bannon (one time Trump advisor) to explain his view that the U.S. government should support American companies through tariffs, subsidies, tax breaks and quotas at the expense of other countries. So basically everything once thought of as anti-competitive Steve is for. Did you hear the president’s inaugural speech in January? That was Bannon. He wrote it. It pitted ‘elites’ against regular folks, politicians against citizens and nations against nations. It wasn’t exactly nasty but it laid out a case (in some minds) for a government that hasn’t valued its citizens. It has chased after foreign investment and low wage workers.

 Like multiple theories of economics though, there is some good and some bad.

Why do protectionist policies lead to sluggish growth? because any business or industry that isn’t pushed to keep prices low gets lazy. Companies that rely on regular installments of federal money tend to relax their research and development side and pay higher wages. The downside is Uncle Sam just took away the small firm’s ability to compete. 

The wild tiger is more likely to hunt than one in the zoo.

I always go half-way with Bannon. Foreign countries like China play a different version of trade than we do. The economic models we learned in school that show how trade benefits everyone are seriously lacking. You remember the Ricardo ones don’t you? Country A has sheep and makes wool clothing, country B grows gapes and bottles wine. Instead of country A growing grapes and bottling their own wine and country B doing the same with sheep and wool, they trade. This trade creates an advantage for both nations since they specialize and gain the comparative lower costs.

The model works well on a mathematical level but there are too many missing pieces that throw off the balance. The missing pieces get chalked up to ‘elites’ benefiting themselves at the expense of hard working Americans. But it's really tough to draw a straight line between jobs going to China and long term unemployment in the US. The gains are spread out, more diffuse. They mean lower prices at Target and Kohls but lower wages for workers. Gains for some, losses for others.

 It’s a tough sell for politicians: “Vote for me and you’ll probably lose your job but don’t worry, the gains will be marginal and spread out.”

Trade is anything but fair. Modern economies have all sorts of clever ways around straightforward competition. Tariffs aren’t used a lot anymore since a lot of work has been done to eliminate them. Countries still use subsidies to prop up their industry. Agriculture in the US couldn’t survive without them, neither could Chinese steel manufacturers or Japanese car makers. So the Economic Nationalists are right about foreign cheaters either helping their companies or propping up the currency.

“Why bother playing by an old trade model where we get screwed every time? How about instead we help our own companies first and trade later”? He figures.

Mainly because in order to grow big companies need overseas markets and blocking tires from Mexico means they’ll refuse to buy machinery from us. Also, I don’t think Steve realizes that certain manufacturing jobs don’t pay what they used to. Everyday market forces make it impossible. Foreign car companies like Honda, Nissan and Volkswagen started getting better and cheaper, right around the early nineties. Americans began buying them and putting a squeeze on Detroit. Putting up tariffs on Japanese and Korean car makers would have held off the onslaught for a while, but GM and Ford couldn’t compete overseas forever. Legacy costs also hampered the American companies; paying ruinous fees to retired workers would have undercut their ability to be competitive anyway. 

Banon and Trump are right to be skeptical about Chinese business and current iterations of ‘free trade’. For both Republican and Democrat lawmakers any international trade deal was considered good, because ‘free market’ equals good—or something like that. 

The Trump version of economics, which is really Bannon’s, insists companies look first ‘in country’ for tax deals and breaks before leaving for a low wage environment. As to how the policy toward economics will be affected it remains to be seen. Most supporters of globalization (free trade) sound a little humbler these days as populist politicians get elected all over the Western world. They admit that the benefits of trade have been gradual and slow while the downsides have been immediate and ugly—losing a job always is. Globalists aren’t ready to change their belief in the free market (neither am I) but admitting to missteps is a start. Agreeing to reconsider, and walk away from, large scale trade bills is a good move.   

"If Grace than Deeds"

Depression is a strong word for occasional ‘funks’ in life that drag us down.

 It suggests clinical, medical problems that demand attention and action. I fall into these shallow pits occasionally and have found the quickest way out is through selfless behavior, good works. No this isn’t one of those “So what is your biggest weakness?” interview questions where I get to pretend my weakness is actually a strength. “Well you know..I just love everyone so much, I don’t know when to say no.” This actually helps. Focus on someone in need. Any need. Just get involved with helping others and stop focusing on self. That clears up the funk clouds quicker than anything.

Good works allow others outside the faith to see a healthy example of love. That love exemplified through Christ’s death and resurrection is the goal, salvation is the point. Lead them to Jesus.

Good works have gotten a bad rap the last couple of years. Works are constantly juxtaposed with grace, as if humans must choose between them. Like the scene from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade where a totally subjective grail choice determines the drinker’s fate. If it’s been a while since you’ve seen it, Donavan the antiquities collector goes for the shiniest most bejeweled cup to drink ‘eternal life’ from. He sips from the wrong one mistaking it for the holy grail. Tthe Knight deadpans “He chose poorly” as Donavan’s rapidly aging body decomposes seconds after his sip. He got one chance and picked the wrong cup.  

We think our choice is limited to accepting grace and eschewing deeds. Grace and deeds are not mutually exclusive, they exist together. One is a gift and the other constitutes action--if grace than deeds.

 Ephesians 2:8-9 “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith-and this is not from yourself, it is the gift of God—not by works so that no one can boast.” (NIV)

Paul uses ‘deeds’ so Christians see an obvious contrast between something offered and something earned. He is saying that no one can earn it so don’t even try. Good works are still an essential part of Christianity and witnessing to the lost. Again, the best way to show the character of our Father is through good works and generosity. Don’t imagine deeds aren’t critical to winning souls and touching lives.

James 1:27 “Religion that is pure and undefiled before God the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.” (ESV)

There can be no doubt that ‘widows and orphans’ falls comfortably under the works category. Works are encouraged in order to show the Father’s love. Just don’t imagine works can be traded in for credit at any time. Salvation through grace is free. Isn’t that wonderful?

The knowledge alone should get you out of your funk.

Overgrowth

I like to prune my landscaping area for overgrown weeds.

Actually I don’t like it but I have to, if only for a couple times a month. I am that guy who really wants a decent looking yard with trimmed plants and hedges but balks at having to do the work. Once I start it isn’t so bad to keep going but the work is never done. It seems to get worse every year. I realized this today while pulling weeds out of the exact same spots as always. I’ve never put in the time to prevent them from coming back. Not really. In one case I dug a small trench on the back side of the fence to prevent crabgrass from jumping from the lawn to my evergreen area.

 Oklahoma has these strange weeds that grow horizontal instead of straight up. If they grew straight up it would be easy to yank them right out of the ground. Because they run along the ground it’s impossible to see them until they’ve grown a couple feet long. They get through mulch and wrap around plants and bushes, entangling themselves and making it tough to pull out. Keeping them away requires serious dedication because they grow without water and seem to thrive everywhere. 

The quick fix is to rip out the existing weeds and wait till the plants are covered again next month. A better way is to put in place barriers that prevent encroaching brush from taking over. It takes longer though and requires more attentiveness. It’s worth it but mostly I just don’t like working that hard.

 Keeping my yard nice takes more diligence than I often can muster. The Christian life feels this way too often. Those unattended areas of life become havens for all types of unwanted growth. Zones that get ignored, un-managed and open to influence become the areas overrun with messy problems. Only when we put real effort and attention into stopping the weeds of life from getting through do we make any progress. Most of us get lazy though. We deal with the results of overgrowth. We apologize for angry outbursts aimed at family; we break off disastrous relationships after serious emotional damage. We clean up the mess. We clean up the mess because it’s easier than preventing the problem. It takes work. We hate work. 

Many get comfortable dealing with the overgrowth convinced it isn’t a big deal. “Everyone has issues, after all” we tell ourselves so we can keep going without putting in any real work. It isn’t until the weeds become unmanageable and we get exhausted with the process that we make a drastic change. We dig a trench, cut the grass, remove excess roots and pay attention to unwanted growth. 

Only by setting a plan and sticking to it with all the diligence we can muster does our life begin to change. Real change. Change that sticks. The kind others see and learn from. One effective lesson from Alcoholics Anonymous is to do a ‘fearless inventory of ourselves’ in order to progress. Another way to say that is to do an honest assessment of past behavior and evaluate potential trip wires. This doesn’t just have to be about drugs and drinking, or even alcohol related triggers. Chances are most of us need to clean up areas where behavior often gets out of control. Like the weeds it comes back stronger if ignored. Be targeted and honest about the problems.

Tempted to rob the bank? Maybe use the drive through instead—and leave the ski mask at home. Have trouble staying faithful to your wife? Keep away from nude beaches and massage houses on your ‘cultural appreciation’ trip. Seriously though, for every hang-up there exists ways to avoid traps and keep the weeds from getting out of control.

Besides, we aren’t alone.

“I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you’ll have trouble but take heart! I have overcome the world.” John 16:33 (NIV) 

NFL Protests: An Exercise in Selfishness

This is the second time I’ve written about Colin Kaepernick. The scenario last year really pissed me off for two reasons. First, non-political events are being dragged into the political realm like a calf to a butcher. Sports is one of those areas, especially football. Second, because refusing to acknowledge the anthem and to bring attention to oneself is so unfair it should be met with scorn and derision for everyone engaging in it. What does the flag (and the anthem) have to do with your particular political grievance? 

Under this logic, any player with ANY political complaint could sit during the anthem. Don’t like immigration? Have a seat. Income tax too high? Too low? Protest the flag. Don’t have enough health care? Take a knee.

This is silly and gets us nowhere except at each other’s throats because the protest is out of bounds.  

I just read a story about some NYC cops who support Colin Kaepernick and his anti-flag demonstration that caused such a fuss last year. The Giants were thinking about bringing him into camp this year as a backup to Eli Manning. Because of the hate mail and pressure they decided against it ultimately. This has been the case with a few other teams, Baltimore to be specific. I don’t want to open the Kaepernick can of worms again but the guy plays in a league with pretty strict policies on everything from off the field behavior to dress code. They didn’t try to stop him from ‘demonstrating’ and sounding like an ass whenever he spoke. He got what he wanted. Now he’s ostracized and he doesn’t like it. He is reaping the rewards of a conscious decision he made and explained to all football fans who frankly didn’t want to hear it.

Some players are going on record saying he should be on a team. Or that he was treated unfairly. The argument usually is the player is being denied some ‘right’ to speak or demonstrate. Using the flag as a prop for your personal grievance is the lowest form of dissent and he should have known it. I can’t imagine doing that in a foreign country with genuine human or religious rights violations. The flag IS the country, good or bad. When supporters of Colin act surprised at the hatred from fans it proves they don’t get it. There are so many high profile ways to bring attention to political issues. Join a group. Start a group. Call a reporter and bloviate about the state of country. Give money to a campaign or cause.  Kneeling for the anthem or holding up a fist is cheap and dirty.

 It’s using a platform that isn’t yours for a cause that isn’t relevant to the game.

There still seems to be some question as to why NFL football fans write letters and react angrily to Colin Kaepernick and I think sports media needs a lesson in why this is. I hear radio hosts comparing Kap’s ‘sins’ to ‘sins of other athletes, drug possession, spousal abuse, drinking and driving, they like to weigh one versus the other. But not standing for the national anthem isn’t a moral failing or poor decision at a night club like a lot of other player misdeeds. There isn’t a scale for this kind of thing. He made a statement on a platform that wasn’t open to him. He stormed into our house, put his cleats on the furniture, and pissed on the floor. Then he shared his thoughts on America as a racist country (the country he makes a lot of money in) and why it must change. He also insisted on ‘doing his part’ by not standing for the anthem, an unrelated act to either cops or the country’s founding.

He is reviled, not because of his views but because he chooses the wrong venue to share them, especially in settings where they aren’t wanted. We’re all upset when our team’s star athlete gets caught with drugs or pulled over for drunk driving. They’ve let everyone down including teammates and fans, family and friends. Ultimately we forgive them when they get on track and make it right. Kaepernick didn’t just offend our sense of liberty and patriotism though. He didn’t tell us something awful, about the country, we weren’t prepared to hear. He didn’t ‘expose our inner racism’ or highlight the unfairness in the system. He didn’t bring attention to anything other than his own fruitless crusade. He stole the attention due the flag and all it represents—liberty, freedom, heroism for his own childish ends. He willfully and spitefully insisted that his on-field rebellion was linked because of cops killing blacks.

He has succeeded in one way. Other players are now sitting during the anthem. They took the most outrageous and beside the point effort toward attention. This is why I think they’re just malcontents. There are countless ways to voice opposition as stated before. Platforms exist for this type of ‘anti’ activism. When it starts bleeding into sports, a traditionally non-political sphere, people feel cheated. They write letters demanding the owner of their favorite team reject Colin. They call the headquarters and yell at the phone operators, they call radio shows and voice displeasure. If left wing activist groups behind Kaepernick thought this was a good idea they’ve been proven wrong, very wrong.

I don’t want to boycott the NFL or turn off the games over this non-sense but if I have to I will. This politicizing of everything needs to stop and I don’t pretend to know where to begin. If support for Kaepernick grows and color commentators feel the need to remark on protests, show the sitting players, or remind the audience of the on-going debate. I’ll tune out. It’s actually getting easier for me to turn off shows I find objectionable. It’s easier than getting angry all the time. I’ll just deny them the one thing they crave, attention. 

Risky Business

I used to love playing Texas Hold ‘em with friends in the student apartments when I was in college. I learned something about gambling and the risky nature of betting money. I’m not good at it. I try to cautiously gamble, which is impossible, and carefully wager money. One of my friends use to say he could read my ‘tells’ easier than most. “Really?" I said. "What do I do that makes you know the kind of cards I’m holding.”

“Easy.” He said. “You’re cheap with fake money the same as with real money. You only make large bets when you’re holding sure winners like Aces or Kings.” I tried to argue but he had me. Some people can’t hide their tells. I haven’t played cards much since then. I tried overcompensating for a while by being reckless, bluffing a lot and losing quicker. I never really enjoyed it anyway. 

I’m risk averse on most things and card games are no different.  

 Gambling for poker chips is a poor measure for determining a person’s risk aversion. Individuals have different levels of risk tolerance for important things in life. I never cared about winning poker chips so I didn’t work hard at it, content to manage it comfortably and stay in the game. This might seem a little backwards. Why wouldn’t I play careless with worthless chips and bet heavy with small cards or risk it all on a bluff? Because I didn’t value winning at poker, I valued the experience of being with friends. The reward was fun, not winning.

At some point the scales tip though and the reward IS worth the risk. This is true of everyone at some point in life. It isn’t as easy as we pretend though.  We all have a risky, wager it all mentality for the right kind of reward. So what is it that turns you into a risk seeking Vegas high roller? Is it job freedom or romance, maybe a hobby?

 Figuring out what might take the better part of life.

Some people are easier than others. Professional athletes want to win and their competitiveness sometimes leads to taking performance enhancing drugs to get a slight edge. Their reward is winning medals or signing big contracts but the competition is incredibly tight so they risk getting caught and having their name destroyed. If it wasn’t worth it they wouldn’t keep doing it. Of course not all do it, but cheating at such high stakes is not unusual. They establish the reward and determine the risk. 

 Most people face the risk/reward paradox at some point in life. Some can navigate the high stakes real better than others. Day traders and commission salesman come out on the competitive side while government workers and salaried employees stay on the safe side. Most of us land somewhere between those careers on a graph, depending on our personal risk tolerance, our comfortability taking chances.

At some point in life all of us take an uncomfortable risk (or should), a step further than we intended. A step we aren’t sure about but that feels right regardless. People who start businesses know this feeling well. The strength required to make a company profitable is superhuman at times and demands regular overtime hours. From hiring honest, loyal workers to keeping customers happy and (hopefully) coming back takes an individual who knows risk. There aren’t guarantees for success and the statistics are against new ventures. Persistence and guts make the difference when talent falls short. 

Small business is not for the faint of heart yet countless people do it because the risk for them is worth the reward. Ask a business owner why they take on the burdens of running it and they’re likely to say something like, “I get to be the boss.” Or “My kids will have something of their own”. Maybe “I love the job, I am good at it.” “I make more money going it alone than working for someone else.”

Different reasons and different rewards but each one figured out the particular scale tipper and went ‘all in’. Some figure it out early in life and others much later. We all have it though and in most major points in life (career, marriage, finance) the scale tips and we make a bet.

As for cards, I just can’t do it anymore. I never enjoyed it much anyway and losing any amount of money is just too painful. Besides after this article everyone knows my ‘tell’. How can I possibly go on?