Month: June 2024

Folly and Redemption

On a chilly January night, the Jacksonville Jaguars and Los Angeles Chargers took the field in North Florida.

It was a National Football League playoff showdown, featuring two compelling teams led by rising stars.

A great game was in store. Or was it?

The game got off to an inauspicious start. Jacksonville quarterback Trevor Lawrence threw an interception on the second play of the game.

The misfire put Los Angeles in prime position to score. The Chargers put a touchdown on the board less than a minute later.

This was hardly the start Jaguars fans were expecting. But they surely didn’t expect what was still to come.

On Jacksonville’s next possession, Lawrence threw another interception. The Chargers took advantage of the blunder, scoring again.

Lawrence went on to throw a third interception later in the first quarter, and fourth in the second quarter.

By the time halftime arrived, the Chargers led the Jaguars by a score of 27 to 7. Lawrence was directly responsible for 17 points of that 20-point deficit.

It looked like the Jacksonville’s season was about to end with a thud. But another plot twist was in the offing.

The Jaguars came onto the field with renewed purpose in the second half. And slowly but surely, Jacksonville started chipping away at the deficit.

Lawrence stopped turning the ball over, tossing touchdown passes instead on three straight drives. And the Jaguars defense held the Los Angeles offense to three points, bending but never breaking.

With just a few minutes left, Lawrence found the ball in his hands one more time. His team trailed by two points.

Lawrence confidently led the Jacksonville offense down the field, putting them in position to kick a field goal.

The kicker drilled the attempt through the uprights with no time left on the clock. The Jaguars, improbably, won the game by a score of 31 to 30.

Their season was still alive.

In the days after this playoff football game, two narratives percolated through the media.

One claimed that the Los Angeles Chargers had choked. On the precipice of a road playoff win, they got complacent. And in doing so, they fell apart.

It was a compelling argument. Teams rarely waste 20-point halftime advantages in the NFL playoffs. Doing so requires them to squander countless opportunities, to be the architects of their own demise.

The label is sure to stick.

Even so, the more prevalent narrative from this game was that of Trevor Lawrence’s redemption. Pundits marveled at how the Jaguars signal-caller faced down adversity and led his team to a scintillating victory.

It was the stuff of Hollywood legend, it would seem. Except that it wasn’t.

You see, Lawrence hadn’t overcome adversity. He’d simply cleaned up his own mess.

His bone-headed decisions and poor throws had put Jacksonville on the brink of playoff elimination. As the leader of the team, it was his obligation to atone for his poor play.

Lawrence ultimately did that. But his second half performance was hardly the stuff of redemption.

Redemption, you see, has a distinct definition. It’s the process of getting back up when you’ve been knocked down. Of rising to the mountaintop after coming up short.

There’s a certain amount of pain intertwined with this process. There’s the haunting ache from having done your best – of having gotten so close – and finding yourself with nothing to show for it.

That ache serves as fuel to make the previously impossible, possible. That fuel is a key element of redemption. And it demands a baseline of achievement to even find a place in the tank.

What Lawrence did in the first half of that playoff game hardly counts as a baseline of achievement. He’d dug his team a deep hole through impotence, and you could hardly say that he deserved a better outcome than the one emblazoned on the scoreboard.

This was folly epitomized.

And yet, Jacksonville escaped unscathed.

Perhaps Trevor Lawrence wasn’t the only one to exhibit folly.

Yes, from a bird’s eye view, any analysis of his gridiron adventures seems silly.

This was but a game after all. Even with the hundred-million-dollar player salaries and tens of millions of TV viewers, football remains far from existential.

Yet, far from the bright lights of football fields, we’ve taken similar liberties with our pens. We’ve rebranded folly as redemption. And the implications are stark.

For such a reframe kneecaps the principles of accountability and remorse. It dulls our empathy and feeds our ego at the least suitable of times.

Indeed, if we classify our errors as chances for redemption, we fail to recognize their impact. We neglect to consider who our misdeeds hurt, and in what ways.

That collateral damage gets sidelined, deferred, ignored.

We put the humility on the back burner. We decline to make proper amends.

And as we rise from the ashes of our blunders, we recast ourselves as victims. Victims who have overcome strife on the road to achievements.

This is what happens when we tie redemption to folly. And it’s sickening.

I don’t know how we’ve gotten to this depraved reality

Perhaps we’ve internalized too many fairy tales. Perhaps we’ve taken silver linings from too many Steven King novels.

Perhaps it’s something different entirely.

Regardless, we need to open our eyes.

For when we neglect what’s now in favor of what’s next, we exacerbate our missteps. We cause the fissures of our blunders to become faults and fjords. We carry an air of entitlement, rendering ourselves too big to fail.

We lose. And everyone in our orbit suffers.

It would be far better to take our folly at face value. To accept the consequences of our mistakes and marinate in our remorse. To make amends, hat in hand.

Such habits will help foster a sense of compassion within our soul. They’ll steer us away from recklessness. They’ll provide a more sustainable path forward.

And above all that, they’ll keep us from commandeering redemption for our own grandeur. The concept can return to its rightful pedestal until we can raise ourselves up to prove worthy of its mantle.

This is how it should be. And I hope this is the way it will be.

Folly and redemption are oil and water. Let’s stop trying to mix them together.

The Butterfly Effect of Caution

Watch out for the turkey.

I heard this warning one fall as Thanksgiving approached.

I was quite young at the time – maybe 9 or 10. And I was perplexed.

You see, I wasn’t the biggest consumer of turkey back then. I preferred chicken.

But I sure feasted on the Thanksgiving turkey my relatives prepared each year. It was exquisitely roasted, neither too dry in texture nor too gamey in flavor. And it was perfectly carved.

It was everything I wanted at the center of my holiday plate. Why would I need to watch out for it?

My parents explained to me that the caution had nothing to do my relatives’ turkey. It was more about what was contained within all turkeys. Namely, an amino acid called Tryptophan.

Excessive Tryptophan makes you sleepy, they said. It exacerbates the food coma feeling that often overcomes Thanksgiving dinner guests.

These words didn’t quite land with me. After all, I had the metabolism of a hummingbird back then. I’d often watch television or play games with my cousins after the Thanksgiving meal was over. Midnight would approach and my energy would be nowhere near gone.

Turkey couldn’t possibly be the problem. No matter what anyone said.

My youthful innocence is long gone now. And so are my days consuming the Thanksgiving cornerstone.

I swore off turkey entirely in early adulthood. I no longer had any tolerance for its taste, no matter how it was roasted.

But even though I’ve heeded the advice of the naysayers, I don’t quite agree with the principle of it.

Turkey isn’t something we need to be wary of.

Not too long ago, I came across an article about which fruits best improve health.

Now, I’m no flagbearer for the clean eating movement. But the title was intriguing enough that I clicked through. (But not so intriguing that I saved the link. Apologies.)

The article went fruit by fruit, explaining each’s unique benefits. Much of this wasn’t news to me; I understood that berries were high in antioxidants and oranges had plenty of Vitamin C.

But when it came to bananas, something stopped me in my tracks. The article mentioned that the fruits provide a beneficial boost of tryptophan.

No way, I thought. Not because I was skeptical of the science. But more because I couldn’t imagine readers seeing tryptophan as a benefit.

Heck, I sure couldn’t.

The lore of the Thanksgiving Turkey Coma has taken over our society. It’s as much a part of the holiday narrative as family and football. And it’s turned tryptophan into a boogeyman ingredient.

In fact, tryptophan is so reviled that it sits on ingredient blacklists, alongside monosodium glutamate (MSG) and saturated fat. It deters health-obsessed diners, rather than attracting them.

For that reason, I was sure the article’s sales pitch for bananas would fall flat.

But we might be the ones who are bananas.

Yes, further research proved to me that we have tryptophan all wrong.

These amino acids, it turns out, are essential in creating serotonin. That’s the neurotransmitter impacting our moods, our pain tolerance, and yes, our sleep cycles. Without tryptophan in our bloodstream, we’d be a frazzled, unstable mess.

Fortunately, most of us don’t have this issue. For even if we’ve sworn off turkey, plenty of other foods contain tryptophan. Foods like chicken, eggs, fish, peanuts, milk, cheese, and – yes – bananas.

No matter our diet, the purported boogeyman ingredient has come for us. And we’re better for it.

It’s time we got the message.

Up in the mountain valleys of Utah live millions of followers of the LDS Church. Or Mormons, as they’re colloquially known.

Mormons live by a strict honor code. Alcohol, tobacco, coffee, and tea are forbidden by the church. Swearing is not permitted. Chastity is demanded until marriage.

For many of those outside of the LDS movement, these requirements seem a bit mind-boggling. Myself included.

I don’t smoke, and I’ve been sober for years. But I can’t imagine going a week without a cup of coffee or a four-letter word.

Yet, I defy this code of conduct with unease. I occasionally find myself wondering if those following the LDS Honor Code have it all right, and I have it all wrong.

The answer is far from straightforward.

You see, many Mormons live prosperous lives without a caffeine jolt or the chance to cuss someone out. But many non-Mormons live equally prosperous lives with those elements woven in.

The key to prosperity, it seems, is not necessarily bequeathal. Instead, it’s moderation.

It’s possible to thrive while drinking a cup of joe a day, rather than four. It’s possible to be considered classy, even if a swear word passes our lips now and then (but no more often than that).

Moderation is an art, not a science. We can leave our own mark – much the way Picasso and Rembrandt left unique brushstrokes on the canvases they graced.

The problem is that many of us are more Pollack or Rauschenberg than Picasso. Our grasp on moderation is nonexistent. It’s all or nothing.

This is how the lore of the Thanksgiving Turkey Coma can take root. We’d rather cast out the amino acid that causes us to doze off than consider how we can enjoy it more responsibly. We’d rather abstain than restrain.

I call this the Butterfly Effect of Caution. And it’s a serious problem.

For it leads us to blow things out of proportion. To stop in our tracks needlessly. To take a machete to what demands a scalpel.

The truth is there’s often a fair deal of good in what we label as bad. There are benefits in the balance.

But our turn toward sensationalism can keep those treasures beyond our grasp. It can turn lizards into Godzilla, computers into Skynet, and tryptophan into the boogeyman.

Yes, The Butterfly Effect of Caution causes us to lose more than we stand to gain. But we still have the power to choose a new path. A more moderate path.

We can let loose now and then without sabotaging our air of professionalism. We can hit the gym without provoking a world of pain.

And we can take a few bites of turkey, rather than resigning ourselves to imminent slumber.

The choice is ours.

So, let’s set that butterfly free.

Scope of Effect

It was an ordinary candy shop.

A row of ice cream vats sat behind a pane of glass. A bevy of other sweets – saltwater taffy, gummy worms, cotton candy and the like – was arrayed neatly on shelves along the far wall.

Nothing pointed to this place being special. But looks can be deceiving.

For this candy shop was in the middle of a resort town. Day after day, the large sign over its front door beckoned to a new set of tourists.

Many of these tourists were hungry as the sign caught their eye. Others were in the mood for a sweet indulgence.

Either way, this shop was perfectly placed to seize the opportunity. And those tourists were more than willing to open their wallets to make it happen.

It was a symbiotic relationship. The perfect mix of supply and demand.

This was clear to me as I surveyed the ice cream options one day.

But then another thought crossed my mind. A more sinister one.

What if something disrupted the harmony? What would happen then?

This wasn’t an artisan candy shop, you see. That ice cream wasn’t hand-cranked in house. Neither were the shelf-stable confections.

No, suppliers shipped these goods into town every week or two. The manager of the shop took delivery. Then the staff diligently stocked the shelves and filled the vats.

It was a team effort, but also a delicate chain to maneuver. For it would only take one loose link to send the whole thing haywire.

Maybe a storm elsewhere would delay delivery of the ice cream. Or an issue at a confectioner would pause production of the shelf-stable candy. Maybe a contagious illness would keep several staff members from their shifts, forcing the shop to close temporarily.

In a vacuum, these disruptions might seem minor. But for a business such as this, they could prove devastating.

Devastating in a way that few could rightly appreciate.

When I was a teenager, I got into a fender-bender on the way to school one day.

I was trying to change lanes in stop and go traffic on the highway, and I accidentally dinged another car in the process.

No one was hurt, but both vehicles sustained some damage. So, the other driver and I each pulled onto the shoulder and exchanged insurance information. Then we waited for the authorities to arrive.

It was cold that morning, and I was none too pleased about standing on the side of the road for close to an hour. I was also dreading the weeks I’d be without the car while it got repaired.

These were all notable concerns. But at the end of the day, they could be classified as first world problems.

First world problems refer to the trivial inconveniences we often contend with. Things like losing service on our smartphones at an inopportune time, or accidentally placing a lunch order at the wrong location of our favorite quick-serve restaurant.

These issues can make our days more of an ordeal. But they don’t pose an existential threat, as so many third-world concerns do.

We’re not generally at risk of getting devoured by a wild animal, sickened by non-potable water or robbed blind in our sleep. Our ability to maintain security, nourishment, and shelter remains strong as ever.

In many ways, the pure existence of first-world problems represents an indulgence. The fact that we can stress about things that ultimately matter so little shows how fortunate we really are.

Yes, the fender bender was problematic. But at least I had a car to begin with.

And sure, any number of risks could have sunk that candy shop I’d visited. But the death of a resort town business hardly represented the collapse of society.

Still, such thinking carries profound risk.

And that risk is not exactly tolerable.

There are many famous images from the 1930s in America. But perhaps the most poigniant is a photograph by Dorothea Lange.

The image — titled Migrant Mother — features a dark-haired woman staring slightly askance of the camera. A worried look covers her face, while her calloused right hand supports her chin. Faint lines appear on her forehead, framed by the backs of her children’s heads.

Migrant Mother speaks to the strife of the Great Depression, when poverty and despair ran rampant. Many Americans lost their livelihoods and their life savings. They ceded their modest homes for rickety shacks and spartan tents. They waited for hours in line for soup or bread.

The last vestiges of the frontier had been stamped out. America was in no way a third-world country. But it wasn’t thriving either.

The government took aim at this morass. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt worked with Congress to pass the New Deal – a set of reforms that included public works projects and a social safety net.

Not long after this, America soon got involved in World War II. The war effort turbocharged the economic engine, lifting our nation out of poverty once and for all.

And despite a few close calls, that engine hasn’t fully idled in all the decades since.

The journey from Migrant Mother to the present day tells the story of our nation. Of its resilience. Of its resolve. And of its penchant for rationalization.

You see, from the moment pen hit paper on the New Deal, the dominant concern in America gained top billing. The misfortunes of everyday Americans have continued through the years. But instead of being profiled in Dorothea Lange portraits, the afflicted have found their struggles marginalized.

You lost your job? Your house burned down? That’s too bad, but it’s no national tragedy. Pick your head up. There are plenty of opportunities to land on your feet.

So it goes with perceived first-world problems, time and again.

This train of thought is factually accurate. But when it’s presented this way, it can be quite harmful.

For while these misfortunes might be individualized, they still cut deep. Those who lose a job or a home must cauterize the wound while those around them continue to thrive.

The dissonance is real. And a message of pick your head up only furthers this isolation.

It invalidates the pain the afflicted is feeling, and it implores them to suffer in silence. None of which is healthy.

The occasional blowback from this type of behavior tends to make headlines. We’re aghast when an ex-employee opens fire at their old workplace. We’re despondent when someone robs a bank to claw back some of what was taken from them.

These newly minted criminals can do better than to violate the moral code. But so can we.

We can do more to consider the scope of effect that an individualized tragedy can have. We can do more to support the afflicted. To hear them, to see them, and to assure them they’re not alone.

We can be kind. We can be empathetic. We can follow the golden rule.

We can, and we must.

For such behavior makes our nation a better place. It allows our society to keep moving forward without leaving the fallen in the dust. It helps fulfill our promise while forestalling our demise.

And that’s an ideal worth working toward.

So yes, I truly hope that resort town candy shop continues to thrive. But should misfortune befall it – or any of us – I hope that we can help soften the blow.

First-world problems are real-world problems. Let’s treat them accordingly.

The Sensory Connection

My father opened the canister of coffee beans and dumped several into the electric grinder. Then he turned to me.

Big noise coming, he warned. He wasn’t kidding.

With a crescendo of sound, the machine vaporized the beans into coarse grounds. As it did, a savory aroma filled the air.

My father gathered the grounds into a filter. Then he put the whole thing into a coffeemaker and hit Brew.

A dark liquid soon filled the carafe, with steam wafting off the top of it.

My father poured himself a cup and let it cool. The aroma took over the kitchen.

I want a sip, I exclaimed. My father obliged.

With great anticipation, I put the cup to my lips. But what washed over my tongue was not what I expected.

It was sour, bitter even.

I put the cup down in disgust.

Some days later, my family was out and about.

I was started to get hungry when I spotted the glow of the Golden Arches. A McDonalds location was nearby.

I want a burger and some fries, I cried out. Can we stop?

My parents looked at each other and sighed. They know there was but one answer.

Moments later, we were inside the McDonalds. The odor of burger grease filled the air as we placed our order.

It was an unconscionable scent for our noses to endure. But it proved to be just a momentary distraction.

Our burgers and fries soon arrived. And we devoured that food like a pack of wild animals.

Each bite beckoned for another in quick succession. We couldn’t slow down.

Sure, the greasy odor was still there. But the food was savory enough that we didn’t care.

Our taste buds had won out decisively.

As I write this, it’s been years since I had a McDonalds burger. And it’s been hours since I had a cup of coffee.

Yes, my behavior has inverted. Chalk one up to getting older.

But my questions surrounding these delicacies have not.

Indeed, every time I take a sip of my bitter brew, I wonder why I continue to commit myself to such unpleasantries.

And every time I catch a whiff of that greasy McDonalds odor, I wonder why I ever thought it was a good idea to eat there.

The answers, of course, are as sensible as they are nuanced.

Coffee offers me the caffeine boost I need to get going each morning. Since I cut back on sugary drinks years ago, it’s one of the few beverages left that can offer me energy and alertness. Plus, it still does smell amazing.

And McDonalds food always tasted heavenly to me as a child. I didn’t need an olfactory cue to get my Pavlovian responses going. The smell, in fact, was irrelevant.

Yes, one sense has long been sufficient for me to enjoy coffee and – at one point – McDonalds. Smell and taste needn’t be in concert for either.

Still, this is more the exception than the rule.

Smell and taste are often inextricably linked. What seems soothing to our nostrils is often palatable to our tongue – and vice versa.

Some of this has to do with these body parts sharing an airway. But it also just makes intuitive sense. It seems right.

So, when the chain is broken, we’re devastated.

Consider the early days of the COVID pandemic. Some of those unlucky enough to be afflicted with the virus back then lost their sense of smell. Once the shock of this development gave way to despair, many found themselves with a deep sense of longing.

I didn’t experience such hardship, but the accounts I read of those who did were harrowing.

Flowers, cologne, leather – these soothing aromas were all relegated to a fading memory. Some food now tasted strange. And even if it didn’t, the lack of a scent took the joy out of eating them.

Many lived in this version of hell for months before regaining their sense of smell. Others still haven’t recovered it.

Either way, the affliction continues to cast a long shadow. What was one simple is now complex. What was once joyous is now fraught.

Smell and taste might not seem as essential as the other senses. But they’re plenty important.

And they’re generally better together.

If you spend a little too much time on social media these days, you’ll likely see a strange term bandied about. An abbreviation called ASMR.

ASMR describes the tingles you feel down your spine when you’re exposed to a certain trigger. Many of these are sound based, such as the crunch of boots on fresh snow. But visual identification also plays a critical role in the ASMR process.

Seeing what it is you’re hearing can help you place it. Suddenly your memory recalls how that same trigger felt in the past. And that sets the tingles in motion down your spine.

(OK, maybe it’s not exactly this way. I’m not a scientist, after all. But I’d wager this explanation is not all that removed from reality.)

I’m no aficionado of ASMR. I don’t tend to spend my mornings watching videos of wrapping paper getting crumpled.

But as an extreme introvert, I understand its importance.

You see, our senses are our superpowers. But those powers can overrun us.

Sometimes, this can lead us try to something seemingly repulsive – like coffee or a McDonalds burger. Other times, it can cause us to endure prolonged bombardment – such as the loud noise and bright lights of a rock concert.

Regardless, a rogue sense is rarely beneficial without moderation. Concerts, coffee, and McDonalds can each wreck you if enjoyed too frequently.

The key to avoiding this fate – to harnessing our superpowers – is to tap into something radically different. Something that ASMR provides.

That something is the sensory connection.

Yes, when we experience our senses in tandem – one building off another in a subtle way – we can attain a sense of profound bliss.

We connect with our environment rather than recoiling from it. We open ourselves to both novelty and reflection. We give our soul license to roam free.

It’s no wonder that many of the most wholesome things in life – renowned literature, haute cuisine, strolls through nature – evoke the sensory connection. The vehicles for these indulgences might be our eyes, or our tongues, or our feet – but they’re hardly running the show. It’s a team effort.

We best not forget this. Or else we miss a golden opportunity to get the most out of life.

Single sense thrills have their place in our world. But they don’t belong in the center of it.

Let’s open ourselves to something greater Let’s tap into the sensory connection.