new perspectives

Working receiving in Tucson's BN, we listened to music. Sometimes it was low-key, sometimes it was a party, and sometimes it helped vent frustration. Always, though, it really set the mood for the day.
Working receiving in Issaquah's BN, we've got one mood, and it's set by NPR. We're not so sociable in this store (not anti-social, mind you; just not as social as in Tucson). Bryan and I hardly speak a word back there all day. I'm always listening, and always given a lot to think about. And since I've gotten the internet back, I use it mostly to re-listen to interviews I've heard or caught parts of.

Here are a few, and what I thought of them.

Gene Robinson
Gene Robinson is an openly gay Episcopalian bishop. His whole talk is quite good, and he's an entertaining speaker. The bit that I caught on the radio, though, and the part that really clicked with me was toward the end, about the last twenty minutes.
At this point he speaks of discrimination: "You know what an '-ism' is: it's a set of prejudices and values and judgments, backed up with the power to enforce those prejudices in society. So you have a prejudice against people of color, and if you're white, you have the power to enforce those prejudices and set the society up to benefit white people at the expense of people of color. So, as a white man, I never have to say anything bad about a person of color, I never have to use a racial slur, I never have to tell a bad joke... all I have to do is get out of bed in the morning and I benefit from being white in this culture. So tolerance is simply not enough. I can be tolerant and let things go along the way they always have, benefiting me because I'm white. So unless I am working to dismantle that kind of racist society, then I'm reaping its rewards."
And this is part of why I feel guilty, very often. Why I hate to be lazy or self-indulgent. Because whenever I am not working toward becoming the person I desire to be, I am benefiting from, and therefore enforcing, the world I desire not to live in.

I also appreciate his perspective on his faith, which I share: "I don't argue that you should 'do this' or 'vote that way' because God says so. That's a Theocracy. What I do is use my own religion. I use the values that I understand as a religious person to understand what it is that I long for, and I hope for. [...] I'm all the time saying, 'For me this is true,' and never saying what needs to be true for you."
I believe the nature of true love is understanding, and I find that for me to express that requires that it is clear that I want to understand you. I want you to know that I believe what I believe, but do not use it as a lens to look at you through.

Ken Robinson
This interview kept me glued to the radio. I thought it was just amazing. As with a lot of things I read / hear people say, I see the world changing in ways I'd personally hope for, or at least prefer to what we've got now. I think the understanding of reality that Sir Robinson portrays in this interview (and in his talk at the 2006 TED conference, and in his book, "The Element") reflects the concerns of many people (after listening to this interview several times, Katie and I discussed the declining esteem of medication in psychology). In addition to having interesting things to say, he's also an effective storyteller.

Malcolm Gladwell
Which of these do not belong: [ Billy Corgan / Buddy Holly / Tom Waits / Barack Obama ] ?
The answer is Buddy Holly. Because there's not an "A" in it. The obvious answer, though, is Obama, for not being a musician. And the answer isn't incorrect.
This is how I feel about Malcolm Gladwell. He points out something so basically obvious, draws the lines to explain how these simpler ideas point to different answers, while the majority of people simply beat their heads against walls for decades, trying to understand why Obama belongs, and Holly does not.
In his new book, Outliers, Gladwell argues that circumstances that lead us to class distinctions and racism have simpler explanations. I don't know that he's 100% correct, but I believe more in what he says than I believe that black people run faster, and rich people learn better.

Within that interview, Gladwell points out that the people who do best in school are the ones told they do best in school. As soon as he said that, I was struck dumb with the instant realization that this applied to me.
When I moved to Tennessee an 1986 I lived next door to Maitreya Dunham, who is an amazing mind indeed. (When I house-sat for her a few months ago, Nathan asked if the house began discussing complex theories with me when I walked in.) Before, when I lived in Texas, I did quite well in school. After moving, I became (and remained, even into my latest stab at college) a C-average student. Mom and dad were concerned at the drop, and wondered about it. Maitreya and I were so alike, and yet she made As, and I made Bs, Cs, Ds, and Fs. "You're very smart," they'd say. "You're a good student."
When I heard Malcolm Gladwell give state his observation, I realized that Maitreya, at the top of the class, understood she was at the top of the class, while I always heard that I wasn't as good as she.

This is just a story about the revelations I have while listening to some of these people talk, by the way. I'm not unhappy about it, and in fact at this point I'm exceptionally glad for it, for reasons that would take so long to explain. I feel I need to say this, though, since I understand how that story could be something to be bitter over. Nope, I'm a happy person, and I think it's wicked cool that Maitreya and I live close again. We're way overdue for another game night, though.
I should call.