No Parking

We (people) impose order on our environments.  We build dams and levies to reign in our rivers, we carve roads through forests and through mountains of stone, we breed dogs to be friendly and corn to be productive.  Where many of us come together, we lay down laws and put up signs in pursuit of delineating those things that shall be allowed and those that shall not.

Some rules seem somewhat arbitrary on the surface (you may park your car along the street in precisely this spot on these specific days at these few particular hours), but generally derive from some sensible premise (the street cleaning truck cannot clean the street if your car is in the way).  Rules are designed by society to improve on the experience of society; rules and their design are what enable society in the first place.

Where things get complicated, though, in my opinion, is when people expect rules where there are none.

Since we operate almost exclusively within systems and constraints that we ourselves designed, it can be jarring to take a perspective step back and realize that just outside the cone of electric light there are some dark and complicated shadows.

For instance, biology requires that we mate and raise little versions of ourselves to perpetuate the species.  And that's it, the entire evolutionary rule book is that short: make more humans.  There is no naturally provided guidance about whether your kid(s) should go to pre-school or daycare, whether you should let them see you cry, whether you should put their college funding ahead of your retirement savings...  That's not to say that we haven't learned some tips and tricks to optimize "successful outcomes", but it does suggest that the very term "successful outcome" can have widely varying meanings around the world.  And so the rule remains, either individually or in aggregate: make more humans.

I've come to see humans as techno- or systemo-cratic creatures.  We respond well to a "do this and then that will happen" approach, but the actual experience of living in the real world very often turns out to be highly random or variable.  A spouse can internalize all of the best advice about how to be a good spouse and still find themselves divorced.  A parent can navigate the narrow and twisty path of giving enough but not too much attention to their kids and still end up with a "problem child".  A student can study hard, keep their nose clean, hit all their marks, and still fail to find a good job.  If there are actual "rules" to the game of life, they are designed for the statistical mean experience, not for individual data points.

Religious and secular philosophies attempt to glean a set of rules for the human existence from the natural and physical laws we can observe, and/or the "perfect standard" we can imagine, but again those systems seem to address the aggregate experience of the group and not a given individual.

I am feeling that the upshot is that in the case of an individual, rules are not rules but guides, because for an individual there is no guarantee that following rule X (or step, or process, or system) will produce result Y.  Maybe because NTTATS.

I'll think on this a little more, but the general sentiment above came out of a relatively brief conversation I had with my wife and life partner last night, and I wanted to capture the gist of that for further reflection.

21 months!

So now you are 21 - party time!  Hey!  This is a placeholder, because Daddy's off work this week and we are maxing out the family fun time.  I'll come back soon to post some recent pics/vids/anecdotes to commemorate this milestone.  Love you, Buddy!

[I've decided to reopen this post versus starting a new one]

Some videos I had planned to share here have migrated away from a readily accessible location, so we will stick with photos for now.

Your personality has really ramped up in recent weeks - not that you haven't always been awesome, but lately your conversation skills and...awareness of interpersonal relationships?...has really improved.

This shot is now the "lock screen" on my phone.  You don't know who the Ninja Turtles are, but you could be their Pai Mei...

And this shot is now my phone's wallpaper...you seriously (still) love tractors and anything else with a steering wheel that we can let you sit on and "drive".  The special obstacle this love has created for us in recent weeks is that you are no longer content to sit in your car seat, but wish instead to be in the driver's seat...we keep trying to explain things like licenses and laws, but you don't care.  You just want to drive.

Have I told you lately how much I love you and your mom?  I do.  I really, really do.

Some things are changing around here in terms of career outlook, and those changes will propagate out through the rest of our lives, and it's all terrible exciting and anxious and fun and unknown, but one thing that I have no intention of allowing to change is how much I love you two and want to remain focused on family.

In the meantime, keep doing what you are doing: you're fun, sweet, and pretty adorable.

I love you, Buddy.

Do it tomorrow

So far in your life, how many times have you read, heard, seen in someone offer up the advice: "don't wait"? It could be for expressing your love, or taking that chance on a new career, or whatever, but the sentiment comes up over and over.

Do it now. Do it today. Live your life NOW.

You've heard it 1000s of times. At least, I have. And I've felt that urgency to act. But...

Sometimes there is a reason, but often there is not... we just fail to act. The status quo persists, or the obstacles to action seem to high, or or or.

My thought for the day: don't save it. Spend it. If there is love, share it. If there are new ideas, embrace them. 

Month 20

A few days late!  Sometimes life comes at you fast, you know?

This has been a great month.  I hate it when people toss around terms like "blessed" cheaply; after careful consideration, I can say that I have felt truly blessed in recent weeks to be stuck with a kid like you and a wife like yo' mama.

today, I weigh "awesome"

We took a trip to Asheville, NC this month, for a long weekend break from home.  After touring the Biltmore house, we checked out the little "village" they have built for additional tourist dollar extraction.  One bit was a barn with retired farm equipment set around for viewing; this is a great time to share with the world your intense passion for tractors...

old MacDonald better watch his back - there's a new farmer in town

I'm sure that I would have been happy in an alternate timeline where we didn't have a child, but this actual timeline has brought me so much joy, and so much of it in ways I could not have anticipated.  Hearing you say "tractor, tractor, TRACTOR!" with this gleam of hungry joy in your eyes is so much fun.

It's not just tractors - you want to drive everything.  Anything with a wheel, you're going to wheel it.  And if it doesn't have a wheel, you're going to figure out how to drive it anyway.

no, I am NOT ready to stop driving the boat

Each passing month has brought new excitement too, in the form of opportunities to play and explore and experiment.  For example, you have learned both the solo and tandem approaches to sliding

Also?  You eat like a champ.  More and more, you are taking food off of Mom and Dad's plates, and in some cases when we are out to eat, you even get to order your own food from the menu.  At home, less of your food comes in a pouch with a picture of a baby or Elmo on it (ed note: you have always eaten a lot of fresh fruits and veggies), and more and more comes from the produce section of the store.

I've started thinking of you as "2"...maybe it's the concept of rounding up?  We have a few more months before you are officially 2, and I'm guessing there will be some new rounds of awesome in those months, and then we will have a special 24 months / 2 years post!  Stay tuned, and stay cool.

Daddy loves you very much!

Happy 20 months!

More tomorrow...

Month 19

You woke up with a 102+ fever this morning, the morning after your old man turned 35.  Some mornings (and months!) are harder to appreciate than others.  Even so, the last 30 days had some highlights worth mentioning here:

• you traveled out of the country, to Aruba for a few days, to celebrate the wedding of one of Mom's cousins.  You did great.  I intend to write more, later, about traveling as a small family with a young kid(s).
• you have pretty well mastered eating with a fork
• while you are still not making sentences, you are saying many words, more clearly and in appropriate contexts.  It's very cool to see your ability to communicate (verbally and non-) improve so much over such a short amount of time
• on one of our semi-regular trips to the Aquarium, you walked pretty much the whole way around the exhibits, up and down ramps.  That was a big change from being carried or strollered around

So...sorry this month's post is a little mechanical and uninspired.  Be sure that you are still inspirational, but Daddy's kind of down today.

NTTATS update: further thought

When I first started talking (here and elsewhere) about the concept of "No Two Things Are The Same", one of the more valid questions/criticisms was concerned with the practical implications: what can I do with this knowledge?

At the time, my best answer was a somewhat vague "well, you can approach new ideas and decisions armed with the knowledge that No Two Things Are the Same"...today, I'm happy to report that I feel the same way, but have some more concrete examples.

It's well know and accepted (and reasonable) that folks like to use examples (precedents, analogies, etc) to make a point, or to suggest best practices, or offer a contrast, and so statements like the following are pretty common:

During the credit crises of 2008+, the banks of Canada weathered the storm much better than the banks in the States - we should model our banking system on Canada's!

New Zealand has this awesome, pro-business tax policy and everyone there is happy - we should follow this model in the US!

I chose these two examples because they are similar in my view: the population of Canada is about 1/10th that of the States, and the GDP of New Zealand is a rounding error to the US.  Further, the demographics and urban/rural distribution of Canada creates a far different banking scenario than could apply to the States.

In neither case does the surface difference between the US and the other countries automatically invalidate the suggested policy, but those differences point out a very different reality on the ground in the example countries.

Based on my anecdotal experience, some folks are naturally more skeptical / sophisticated about applying some basic criticisms to suggestions like those above, but many people aren't...they hear "Canadian banks remained well capitalized" and they readily accepted the suggestion that the Canadian banks were subject to the exact same stresses as those applied to US banks.  So a more thorough acceptance of NTTATS in society could serve to shift the balance towards more critical thinking.