Category: Introspection Page 14 of 22

Personal posts

Dude Walkin by Alejandro Escamilla from Unsplash.com

Smile and a Hello

On February 27, 2014

I say hello to people and give them a smile as I pass them on the street. I try to bring a little friendliness to everyone around me. If I’m having a bad day, it can help lift my spirits. My hope is that if they’re having a bad day I can lift their spirits.

I may be the only smile they see all day.

When I lived alone, I would take Metro to work, work all day and take Metro home. Besides the people I had to talk to at work I may not speak to another living soul all day. It alternated between lovely and lonely. So I did something small.

I started smiling and saying hello. Some people I saw needed a friendly face. Others needed a smile. Many days it was Me who needed a friendly face. And when you smile at someone, they often smile back.

I got my smiles by giving them away.

Smiles are free and the worst response I ever got was no getting a smile in return. It hasn’t cost me anything to say Hello. Smiles are priceless. Give more of them away and what you get back is more precious.

I love watching The Olympics

By Carl

On February 8, 2014

In Introspection

I love watching the Olympics.

During the 2012 London Summer Games I was on vacation for the first week of competition. Staying at a condo near the beach, my wife and I spent the entire week doing the same thing.

We’d wake up mid-morning and enjoy a leisurely breakfast. We’d get dressed and head down to the beach for the day. Once we had enough of the ocean, or if chased off by rain, we’d get dinner and retire to be delighted with amazing feats of athleticism.

Gymnastics has long been my favorite summer event. Just watching the things they can do boggle my mind. I remember watching with a friend long ago when we were kids just saying, Can’t do that! Can’t do that! the entire time.

Each night we laughed and sat with our mouths agape at the feats pulled of by those tiny gymnasts. I remember watching a blind Korean archer set a world record.

I don’t much care what the event is. I will sit and watch it. I watch because I love seeing people perform at the peak of their lives. I am seeing the best. Today alone, I watched a 15-year-old Russian girl dazzle me with her skating.

I watched as Marissa Castelli was dwarfed by her partner Simon Shnapir. Their height different is 14″ and despite only standing 6’4″ looks like a 8 foot giant on the ice. When he threw her into the air, I wasn’t sure if she would ever come down. They had quadruple spin in their program!

I saw cross-country skiers race across the frozen ground and collapse into a pile at the end. Even if you’re at the top of your game, it’s still exhausting.

I’ve enjoyed some of the downhill skiing, marveling at the skiers reaching 80 miles per hours. I am looking forward to the bobsled, luge and skeleton because I like to pretend that sledding is am Olympic event. I am really looking forward to the next two weeks of competitions. I want to laugh and cry and cheer with the athletes.

Despite pulling for Team USA, my favorite part of the games is when an athletes from the host nation is performing. The roar of the crowd is deafening. It has to be the most spectacular feeling of their lives. To be out on the ice or slopes in front of their countrymen. Just as I cheered for the Brits in London, I am pulling for the Russians in Sochi.

A Koan of Carl Holscher

By Carl

On December 31, 2013

In Introspection

To write a review post, you need to remember the year first.

Title courtesy of Sid

We’re all in this together

By Carl

On December 5, 2013

In Introspection

I sat down on the couch tonight and just wanted to lose myself in something as I ate dinner. I found the Daily Show. It was the only thing on that looked even remotely acceptable. I’ve enjoyed it so I watched it. This is the first time I’ve seen it in months. And it struck me as they were playing a clip from FOX News.

The Daily Show is FOX News for the Left.

It’s all the same rhetoric. It’s all the same finger-pointing and laughing at the other side for being oh so wrong about everything. It’s all the same mean-spirited jokes and mocking that got us to where we are today. A nation divided against itself.

We are not good neighbors. We sit in our homes and think our thoughts and wonder how the other side could be just so wrong about things. How could they be so stupid?

We're all in this together. Photo by [Nicholas Swanson](http://nicholasswanson.com/) via Unsplash.com

We’re all in this together. Photo by Nicholas Swanson via Unsplash.com

It’s because we have the same problem. We each think we’re right and the other side is so clueless they aren’t even worth listening to. We shut each other out. We cling to our thoughts like grains of sand through an hour-glass. We are so sure we’re right, we never take a moment to question our own beliefs. We never take a moment to question.

We never re-evaluate our beliefs. We’re just right. We know it. And that’s all that’s important.

But that’s not important. It’s terrible to cling to ideas and never change them. Throughout our lives we learn and change our ideas about things as we gain new information. If we took the same stance we do now as children, we’d never learn to read or write. We’d never learn to drive or tie our shoes. Or eat anything other than candy three meals a day.

We learn. We take new information in and we change our attitudes. We change our beliefs and ideas. We take in more information and that changes us. We become more understanding and compassionate. We learn empathy. We learn to respect their opinions and ideas. We don’t have to agree with everything, but there might be something they say that makes sense. There might be some truth from this person who is just wrong.

The only way to find out is to open our hearts and our minds. Learn something new. Really listen to each other. Do they have a valid point? Do they believe in things you also believe in? Do you believe the same thing but wouldn’t allow yourself to see it?

We are more similar than we’ve been led to believe. We are all on this planet doing our best. I am trying to be the best Me I can be.

It’s tiring listening to the fighting and name-calling. It’s time for some tolerance and empathy. Sure, I will never agree with everyone about everything. But I am a complex person with varied beliefs, ideas and motivations.

I am not a single thing. And neither are you.

Our personalities are all made up of many factors. We’re an amalgamation of what’s around us and what we’re exposed to. We’re sponges sucking up parts of the world.

So before I sit down and listen to one extreme viewpoint, I need to recognize it as just that, an extreme viewpoint. The Daily Show is comedy. It’s faux news. It’s meant to inform as much as delight. It’s meant to rile you up and get you hating *the other side.** But that’s exactly what FOX News is doing too.

I believe that FOX News does its viewers a disservice claiming it is Fair & Balanced when in truth it’s as balanced as one kid on a seesaw. But what’s to say that viewers of that network don’t feel the same way about MSNBC or CNN. Everyone has their own biases.

They’re all for-profit networks. It’s their job to make money and they make their money with viewers. The more viewers they have, the more money advertisers will pay. And how do you get more viewers?

Create a narrative. US Vs. Them! It’s a fight now. Everyone chooses a side. We’re right. They’re wrong. Now they’ve got you. You’re part of their side. You need to tune in and see what the other side did that was so terrible.

We are all in this together. And we are all trying to do the best we can with what we have where we are. We are all trying to get through life without instructions.

Have some empathy and compassion for those on the other side from you. We are all more alike than we are different.

Did your job exist 10 years ago?

By Carl

On December 2, 2013

In Introspection

When I was in high school, approaching graduation, there were only a few careers put before me. I had to choose what to study in college. I had to find something that would prepare me for the real world. And pay my bills.

I wanted to be a zookeeper when I was young. I loved the outdoors and animals. Then that morphed into working for National Geographic when my interests collided with my budding geekiness. I wanted to travel the world and document what I saw from the lens of a camera.

When I was in high school the Internet was going through a bubble and a bust. But even then, the jobs I knew existed were the age-old professions like doctor, lawyer, fireman, police officer, or military service. I had no idea what I wanted to do. Nor did I have any idea the world would change so much between then and when I entered the job market four years later.

But now, there are jobs that simply weren’t around a decade ago. There were no software developers or graphic designers. No mobile developers or systems administrators. Computers filled rooms or tables. They didn’t fit into your pocket. People who understood these systems were only found in labs or universities. They weren’t inside every company and government agency.

There are thousands of jobs today my guidance counselor wouldn’t have even dreamed about in the year 2000. I graduated high school and entered the college world 13 years ago. ((I feel old.)) I went to college for four years to learn that I didn’t want to work in Advertising. I hold a B.S. In Mass Communications. But after four years I didn’t know what to do with that. I had no real world skills. I couldn’t get a job with it.

So as I was floundering and desperately hunting for something to pay the bills that wasn’t McDonalds when I graduated, I stumbled across a want ad for people to set up new computers. This was a job I could do. I called the number on the page and spoke to the woman on the line. She gave me an office number and a time to be there. And I was.

I don’t remember if there was much of an interview process. I think it was, “Hey, you’re got two strong arms and can read English. You’re hired!” Maybe there was more to it. But I got that job. And that led me down a completely different career path than I thought I was preparing myself for.

Since then I’ve worked in technical support and taught myself what I needed to know. I’ve learned enough to fix problems and have fun doing it.

My college degree hasn’t ever opened doors for me. But it made sure those doors were not closed prematurely. And being in the right place at the right time launched my current career path. And that’s something I never could have predicted.