127 Hours

Near the end of his ordeal as portrayed in Boyle’s film 127 Hours, Aron Ralston, after cutting off his arm to free himself, turns to the boulder that has trapped him for the last 5 days, snaps a photo and says, “Thank you.”

While it could be argued that the film reinforces the sentiment that “What doesn’t kill you makes you stranger,” I think that Ralston, Boyle and co. have a different lesson in mind: “What makes you realize your weakness and dependence is better than strength any day.”

Fan Bias – Ignoring the Evidence Part 1

My daughter being silly.

I was supposed to take my daughter to school this morning,  but in my rush to sleep I set my alarm later than I should have. My wife woke me up a few minutes after it went off, and I moped off to the shower and spent way too much time daydreaming about upcoming projects (that is not a euphemism). When I dried off, I realized I was late. I knew right then that it was too late to get my daughter to school on time, but I refused to believe it.

My daughter was groggy and slow-moving, and I was curt in my attempt to speed her up. I had the data, but I ignored it. I knew who was to blame, but I blamed my daughter. Every muttered question had a perfectly logical answer:

Q: “Why is she so slow?”

A: “She’s six years old.”

Q:”Why is she so groggy?”

A:”Because she was up past her bed-time?”

Q:”Is she going intentionally slower every time I ask her to speed up?”

A:”Yes, because all you’re giving is negative reinforcement so she’s damned if she does and damned if she doesn’t  you idiot.”

All these questions were being answered somewhere back in my subconscious, but I forged on determined to get her to school on time…even though I KNEW we would not make it.

At some point all this registered and I realized that I needed to ask for her forgiveness. It was my fault we were late, and my behavior is the type of stuff that complexes are made of. Kids all-to-readily accept blame for sins of the father, and here I am reinforcing that destructive tendency with my behavior.

Even after all that I still forged on. I was self aware enough to realize:

A. That we were late.

B. That I was not acknowledging this and making matters worse with my brusqueness.

C. That I needed to ask for forgiveness.

It was not until we arrived in the school parking lot that I turned to her and apologized. In her typical cheery voice she said, “It’s okay Daddy.”

It’s not really.

It’s not.

Next time I want to examine how this tendency to ignore the evidence contributes to Fan Bias, a phenomenon I will be exploring in detail in upcoming posts.

The Speck and the Plank

A little while back I wrote this short post on Wikileaks:

Why I Don’t Trust Wikileaks

While at a Church meeting that week, I had a little revelation that’s taken me too long to act upon (perhaps one of the greatest faults of the Western Church-failing to practice what we learn and/or preach).

One of my weaknesses is my impulsive urge to jump in with a hastily-formed opinion in reaction to some event or post that has gotten me riled up.

The above post qualifies.

That Sunday I scribbled the following in my notebook:

“This week do not reveal evil, but reveal good. This week do not overcome evil with evil, but overcome evil with good. You can spend your whole life working on the evil within. Repent for [the] Wikileaks [post].”

Again, this was over a month ago, and just yesterday I found myself writing another reactionary blog post in response to a video praising Assange.

So, very belated, here is my official post asking for forgiveness for the previous post.

Why?

Because I’m just adding to the noise. I realize that the problem is not just “out there,” but I have plenty of problems right here in my own cynical and self-righteous viewpoint.

The world has enough pundits. It has enough people pointing the finger, and I have followed suit, assuming that the best way to beat the finger-pointers is to continue pointing the finger.

But it’s all just a silly game of tag that will never end.

So, rather than point out the faults in other’s writings and thinking, would it not be a better move to learn something from them? Take the meat and spit out the bones?

Is there something in their life and work that I can learn from?

I am much more self-deprecating than many people I know, so I always have people telling me that I’m too hard on myself. I think the reverse is true actually. I don’t think that any of us are hard enough on ourselves. We’re hard on ourselves with the stuff that doesn’t matter, but ignore the big issues, and sometimes it’s the opinions from people we respect least that get at those issues on some level, so rather than deal with it, we toss out their opinion on a technicality (and write an incendiary blog post as punishment).

I still disagree with Wikileaks, but what does my opinion matter? Why should you trust me if I have yet to deal with my own evil? Rather than fight forced transparency with an appeal to censorship, perhaps the best response is voluntary transparency.

I believe that individual evil is the problem with the world, and I’m not immune to it, so rather than focus on others’ evil and feign objective righteousness (the modus operandi of journalism which is now being one-upped by Wikileaks), if I am really to live out my worldview, I need to turn that magnifying glass inward.

I have plenty of baggage to unpack.

Jesus said we are to remove the plank in our own eye before focusing on the speck in our neghbor’s. What would happen if we Christians actually lived that one little command?

MPAA and the Growing Christian Film Industry

Just wrote a little piece for RealLab Productions with the above title: http://reallabproductions.com/2011/01/03/the-mpaa-and-the-growing-christian-film-industry/

I’ve been tapped to do some shooting for RealLab in Georgia for the upcoming documentary Soul Winners.

 

Why I Don’t Trust Wikileaks

It’s the old saying about the pot and the kettle.

I defer to former soldier A. J. Martinez who just so happened to write two  blog posts that should stand as beacons of journalistic integrity:

Analysis of Wikileaks’ Collateral Murder Video

Transparency and Ignorance

My summary of Cablegate in two tweets:

* I can’t find an entrance to Wikileaks anywhere…and I couldn’t care less. (1)

* Not a case of “The Man” against “The Whistleblower.” It’s a case of “The Man” against “The Man.” #wikileaks “Who watches the watchmen?” (2)

Concluding thought: Will Wikileaks supporters be singing the same tune when Wikileaks or some copycat group starts hacking and releasing their own private information that could be incriminating when taken out of context and interpreted by an uninformed and often ignorant populace? Oh, stop complaining-the people have  a right to know!

New Short Film

My newest screenplay Kids Get in Free is up on plotbot.com.

It’s marred by many a formatting error and typo, so consider it a very early draft.

Would love to hear your thoughts and input!

http://www.plotbot.com/screenplays/kids_get_in_free/screenplay

Hot Keys

I wrote this as an expression of the frustration I’ve felt with certain programs boasting steep learning curves.

My Contribution to the Cigar Guy Meme

If you haven’t heard about this, Know Your Meme will catch you up to speed: http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/smiling-cigar-guy-tiger-woods-ryder-cup

UPDATE (10/7/2010) – So I was mistaken when making the above video. He’s not wearing a turban…It’s a red wig. More and more this is looking like a hoax. Ahh, the internet.

Well, I might as well keep the Cigar Guy Rap current, so here goes:

UPDATE:

The Cigar Guy Rap has been featured on URLesque: http://www.urlesque.com/2010/10/08/cigar-guy-update-turban-is-a-wig/

UPDATE (10/09/2010) :

The Cigar Guy Rap has been featured on Golf.com: http://blogs.golf.com/presstent/2010/10/the-hunt-for-cigar-guy-continues.html

Also, Golf and Sports writer Stephanie Wei named a post after a few of Cigar Man’s exploits from the rap: http://www.weiunderpar.com/post/cigar-guy-races-centaurs-rides-kangaroos-across-alaska

My First Short Film: Checklist