Joe Morris

President Obama, SOTU (via girlwithalessonplan)

Oh, Mr. President.  This is frustrating.  As someone who works in higher education, I know my colleagues at my university have worked hard to keep tuition at a manageable level.  In fact, our particular institution has not raised tuition in two years, and state legislation prevents all public universities from raising it at a percentage greater than the Consumer Price Index’s. 

Meanwhile, state institutions have received some deep cuts for the past two years, and this week our Governor suggested cutting another 12.5% in state appropriations.  For our institution alone, this means a $10 million dollar cut.  Add this to the previous two years’ reductions, and it means we’ve lost 25% of state appropriations in three years.  State appropriations now sit at the same level as they did in 1997, and with inflation and the value of the dollar, we actually have less money to work with.

We’ve been cutting the fat, Mr. President.  We’ve been doing so for years, sir.  We’ve cut budgets, offered two rounds of incentivized retirements, and left non-essential positions unfilled for salary savings.  More and more work is piled on those left, and we feel increasing pressure to produce more with fewer resources.  I speak for my colleagues and myself when I say we’re reaching a breaking point. 

So tonight, when you tell us to stop tuition from rising or risk funding being cut, you’re putting us in an impossible situation.  When supply goes down in one area, it has to go up in another.  The only other source of revenue available to us is tuition. We’re in a situation where we’re being forced to choose among increasing tuition, laying off faculty and staff, or reducing the quality of education by reducing effective programs and services. 

No one at a university would disagree with your belief that higher education should be affordable to all—our adherence to academic freedom nearly requires us to share in this belief.  But forcing higher education into a Catch 22 will only exacerbate the problem, not solve it.  If you’d like to help, put pressure on states to provide more appropriations to public institutions.  This will help us keep the student’s share down.  Keep offering more in student aid at the federal level.  Ask the private sector to establish more scholarships as philanthropic endeavors.  We’ll continue doing what we can to be innovative and responsible with the resources provided to us. 

Abed: Troy, don’t you think it might be fun doing this Christmas pageant for the Glee Club?
Troy: Abed, we hate the Glee Club.
Abed: Yeah. I guess I just like liking things.

—Community, “Regional Holiday Musical”

Abed’s point is one that I have considered for quite some time—why is it that people think it’s cooler to hate things than it is to like them? Sure, everyone has the stuff they like, the stuff they don’t. Fine, whatever. My beef is with those who seem to shit on those things that others find joy in.

What is the point in that? To assert your “superiority” over others? To demonstrate your higher standards of taste? Here’s the thing: there’s no fulfillment in hating things, only enjoying them. You don’t gain anything by putting down something other people like. Except a reputation as an asshole.

Consider this. Those that truly like something spend time learning about it and other relevant topics. They often hone a skill or craft. They bond with others over a mutual interest. And probably most importantly, they relax and enjoy themselves. Why deny that to someone just so you can look down at them?

I have a theory why people do this. It’s because sharing the things we like with others makes us vulnerable. Holding something out and saying “I like this” gives others the power to crush it and hurt you. Some people just can’t handle that, so they go for a preemptive strike and crush your thing first.

Don’t do that. Take it easy for once and let others enjoy what they enjoy, as long as they aren’t forcing it on you. Stop being such a dick and find something that YOU genuinely enjoy.

P.S. Speaking of things one likes, have you watched Community?  It’s great.  You can see the clip containing the dialogue I quoted above, or the full episode that parodies Glee.  Enjoy.

It’s Adventure Guy Time!

Steven Pressfield, The War of Art

Here’s to a year of running headlong into my fears.

The Golden Rule. The concept of “doing undo others as you would have them do unto you” is the basis of many people’s personal system of ethics. It’s a generally beneficial rule to follow—that is as long as you’re considering whether what you want done to you is what others want done to them.

Recently, though, I had an intriguing thought. What happens when you reform the rule and change its recipient, when you phrase it “Do unto yourself as you would do unto others”?

I think most people would have difficulty adopting this ethic, much less putting into practice. Popular American Judeo-Christian ethics promote the consideration of others over oneself. The Bible, in various locations, urges believers to consider the thoughts of others over their own, to love and do good toward enemies, to refrain from responding in kind to violent or malevolent behavior. For better or worse, these proclamations lead most people to consider others more worthy recipients of goodwill than themselves. If asked whether they held the ethic of “do unto yourself as you would do unto others”, I think most Americans would say they did not.

Getting them to agree that this ethic is even beneficial or “good” might be difficult, although I think more people are willing to agree now than in the past. An impressive amount of research has shown that attending to one’s own needs is important for physical and emotional health, and these results are slowing trickling out into the public conciousness. Even still, the stigma against professing such an ethical belief—and being considered a selfish asshole—is still fairly strong.

Those few who might say they did hold such an ethic would likely say they have trouble consistenly applying it to their lives. I certainly do. I’m far more likely to extend grace to others than I am to myself. But what makes it so difficult, especially when I know doing so will make me a more healthy and fulfilled person?

I can’t speak for everyone, but in my case it comes down to a issue of self-worth. Or a lack of it, I should say. It’s simply easier for me to care more about others simply because I don’t care a lot about myself. For a long time—and especially when I was a Christian—I thought that was the appropriate way to think about myself in relation to others. While I think it’s easy to assume from the Bible that believers are supposed to hate themselves and love others, I think it’s the wrong assumption. In several places, believers are challenged to love others as much as themselves; for someone with low self-worth, this isn’t a challenging thing to do. It also isn’t very rewarding for anyone involved.

If we’re going to love others as much as (or more than) ourselves, it seems it’s important to first love oneself greatly. And this means treating ourselves with the same consideration, understanding, forgiveness, and mercy that we show to others. So before you start to give yourself any negativity, consider this: “Would I give my friends or family this much grief over the same thing?”

If not, cut it out. You’ll thank yourself for it.

An Amazon.com review of the 2001 TV movie “Call Me Claus”, starring the incomparable Whoopi Goldberg.

Needless to say, when asked if this review was helpful to me, I responded no.

On my drive back from my parents’ home after Thanksgiving, I noticed a billboard advertising a local steakhouse. Its tagline? “Shut up and eat it!”

That billboard is pretty representative of our nation’s zeitgeist. Our world is now one in which riots occur over $2 waffle makers, in which political discourse is primarily composed of people vilifying each other, in which discussion of celebrities’ marriages are longer than the marriages themselves.

Ours is a nation nursed on individualism. We revere those who succeed by the effort of their own will and conquer their environments. The cowboy, the astronaut, the self-made millionaire; they are our national heroes. They built our country. Their values have been infused into our national identity.
Unfortunately we have never been weaned from the individualism on which we were raised. Those values are no longer helpful to us. We are no longer a country where resources are plentiful enough to waste, where our freedoms do not affect others. “Neighbors” were once people who lived five miles away; now we live on top of each other.

We can no longer afford to keep independence as a national value, especially since we’ve taken it to its extreme. We’ve passed the point in which we simply don’t care what happens to others—we’ve moved on to actively causing them problems. We don’t just trample slow people waiting for an XBox; we pepper spray them to make sure WE get one. Because we got ours, right?  Those people can go fuck themselves.

We no longer tolerate the slightest discomfort for the benefit of others. “Hmm, we could institute a national health care system to make sure most Americans have access to affordable health care…buuuuut that would mean paying a bit more in taxes! Screw that! I need every dime I make so I can go see the shitty movies Adam Sandler keeps pumping out. And besides, I have insurance. It isn’t my responsibility to provide it to someone who doesn’t.” Let’s hope you don’t lose your job so you don’t have to beg others for help from crushing medical expenses.

We have become arrogant, cold, irritable. Take our political discourse as an example. Reasoned debate is thing of the past. Our Congress runs on maneuvering, trickery, and exploiting procedures…as opposed to, you know, arguing a law’s merit or deficits and then taking a vote. Gridlock is now begrudgingly tolerated as no one knows what to do to stop it. We also have vice-presidents that tell others to go fuck themselves and shoot them in the face with birdshot.

If we are to succeed and grow as a nation, we desperately need to adopt interdependence, empathy, and a sense for the greater good as core values.  Our problems are too large for individuals to solve anymore.  They require collective work.  If we don’t adopt them, we will be a nation doomed to think that “Shut up and eat it!” is an appropriate advertisement.  It just isn’t.  “Shut up and eat it!” is the YouTube comment of marketing slogans. Unfortunately, it’s also unsurprising.

By the way, I also saw a hotel sign that advertised, “Clean rooms. Waffles.”  That was it.

30 Rock, bringing the funny yet again.

I’m reading The War of Art, and I must say it’s kicking my ass.  I’ve often conceptualized writing as the gift of a muse, granted if sufficiently invoked.  (My offerings usually consist of Ho-Hos and raspberry lemonade Crystal Light.)  The reality—which this book pulls no punches in sharing—is that writing is work.  Hard work.  And I’ve been too lazy to put forth the effort.

You know what’s worse, though?  That I would prefer gambling on pure inspiration rather than honing and steadily improving a craft.  Seriously, inspiration might have brought us “Baby Got Back,” but there’s a reason you don’t own an album called The Very Best of Sir Mix-A-Lot.  Lightning never strikes the same place twice. 

Time for a paradigm shift.  If I’m going to think of myself as a writer (and maybe even try to be a good one), then I’ll have to practice.  On you unfortunate saps.  Sorry.

This is quantitatively the funniest.  It’s provable by science.

Have you ever wanted to look inside people?

You’re right, that sounds disturbing.  I don’t mean look inside in a literal, “Turning Japanese” sense.  What I’m imagining is the ability to know a person’s composition, their makeup, by just looking at them.  It wouldn’t be telepathy, necessarily—you wouldn’t know their exact thoughts at the moment.  You’d just be able to read their formative experiences, their wounds, their strengths, their insecurities.  All the things that make a person who he or she is.

Ever since conceiving this ability, I’ve considered whether or not I could handle having it.  It certainly appeals to me.  I enjoy getting to know people, and knowing them so thoroughly—so completely—seems satisfying in some bizarre way.  I suppose because it would mean instant intimacy with every person I met. 

But could I shoulder that burden?  Others wouldn’t need to know I had that ability, of course, but I have to believe it would be impossible for it to not affect me.  I think it really depends on what I’d see when I looked at people.  My hope is that I would see a multitude of people with some sort of inner strength, with dented yet hard-won virtue.  My fear is that I would mostly see the pain people silently drag behind them every day…the emptiness inside them, the edge of which they teeter on.  And as much as I need to see the former, I don’t think it’s worth the risk if it means possibly seeing the latter.  I couldn’t bear it.   

You guys.  Seriously.  These are the kinds of connections my brain comes up with.

Why are Ke$ha and Maroon 5 talking about how awesome Mick Jagger is (his looks and dancing, respectively)?  Have they not SEEN him?

GPOY

I enjoy writing, but I’ve been out of the habit so long that it’s almost strenuous to do it.  I’ve been waiting for my muse to strike, to have something interesting to share here.  As any professional writer will tell you, this is not how good writing works—instead of teasing out ideas, you have to wrestle them into submission and drag them out. 

With that in mind, dear reader, I’ll be posting more writing here.  It will most likely be mediocre and unpolished at best, but it will at least get me motivated and back in the rhythm.  And if you don’t enjoy it?  Eh, suck it.  

God, I wish more people would give “apologies” like this.

(via fuckyeahlaughters)

Brilliant. 

Louie C.K.  Love ya, boo.