I Have a Dream...About Chicken and Waffles?

So there I am, sitting in my cubicle, minding my own business, listening to the local NPR station while working, and then I hear about UC-I's special MLK Day celebration... I'm not generally the type to get too loud at the office, but I couldn't help the raucous laughter or outrage coming from my half of the cubicle, both generated from the same basic question: What's wrong with serving chicken and waffles for MLK Jr. Day?

When I was listening to the newscaster, he said that he didn't understand what was wrong with serving chicken and waffles for MLK Day; after all, chicken and waffles were served at popular Black clubs during the Harlem Renaissance, and tons of Black people like chicken and waffles...heck, White people like them, too! Everyone likes chicken and waffles! What's the problem?

For one, neither chicken nor waffles have any particular cultural relevance to Black history or the Civil Rights movement. Perhaps if there had been a Black Jesus-level round-table of Civil Rights forces like Malcolm X, Dr. King, and others, all sitting around eating chicken and waffles, then there'd be some grounding in this kind of insanity. But there wasn't.

The commentator pointed out that chicken and waffles were popular at a restaurant that gained a lot of popularity during the Harlem Renaissance...so what? Since something is popular in the Black community, it's alright to bring it up during MLK Day? Why stop at fried chicken and waffles? Let's replace the juice dispenser with Kool-Aid dispensers, give people gold chains at the cash registers, and teach 'em how to dougie on the way to the lunch table. Instead of dealing with something POPULAR in Black culture, how about we deal with something RELEVANT to Black culture if we have to take those steps...but this is all besides the point.

I was rather unhappy that I couldn't call in and speak my mind...and then a caller who had moved to the States from Canada went and said exactly what I was thinking: Since when is MLK Day a Black holiday, anyway?

Martin Luther King Jr. Day is not about Black people. And it's certainly not about chicken (or waffles). It's about celebrating the dream of a man who believed that one day our society could learn to look past trivialities, that one day we could appreciate people for the decisions they make and the quality of life they strive for, not an irrelevant attribute that a person is born with. Today we still fight against the nightmare biases of racism, misogyny, homophobia, and religious intolerance, amongst many other things. But every day, every time we try to understand another culture, try to embrace a person outside our experience, we get a little closer to King's dream.

So yeah, I'm still a bit offended at the chicken and waffle offering. But I appreciate the spirit of cultural understanding that was attempted to be given at UC-I. A chicken bone or a waffle is a damned poor substitute for an olive branch, but it was a nice try.

The Language Barrier

Josh Boykin here, once again attempting a revival of the blog that digs into all sorts of social questions and ponderings. It's been a while since I've posted anything here, but I'm planning on doing regular Monday night updates from here on forward. Keep an eye out!

For those of you don't know, your favorite blogger (assuming I'm your favorite blogger) has relocated from the Midwest out to the West Coast for an internship. I'm working for Disney as an Attractions Host at the Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage. (Translation: I work a ride at the park.) It's a pretty interesting job, and definitely different than anything else I've ever done for multiple reasons. The highlighted reason this post: the language barrier.

To inform the uninformed (another skillful way of saying "for those of you who don't know"), Anaheim, CA hosts Disneyland, a colorful cavalcade of people and places that's been "making the magic happen" since 1955. It's also about 2 hours north of Mexico. Yeah, not so shocking to you CA natives, but I, as a IL resident until about 6 weeks ago, was pretty shocked when I found out the news. Then again, there are a lot of people who come to the park straight from Mexico. And I have to admit that it makes me feel a little ignorant to not be able to convey any information to non-English speakers when there are problems.

You see, when you work Finding Nemo, you essentially get 6 basic questions, each of which have relatively simple answers. They include things like "Does this ride have Fastpass?" (Answer: No.) and "Is the wait time really X minutes?" (Answer: Yes. Our queue always holds tons of people, but we load them all really quickly and en masse.) But when someone asks me these questions in Spanish, or if they need help finding directions to something else in the park, I'm completely at a loss. If we don't have certain Cast Members (that's what we call our employees) on shift, then the Guest is at a loss.

Now, I understand that there are tons of different languages spoken in our park on any given day at any given time, and to suggest that we somehow staff the park to have people who speak all of these languages at all times is pretty outlandish. But when you live two hours away from Mexico, and when Mexican immigration is such an integrated part of life here near the border, I suppose I just expected that more people would be available to handle bilingual situations. That expectation would "handle" the problem, but I don't feel like it would actually HANDLE the problem.

My Spanish education history: 2 years in Middle School (the equivalent of 1 year of HS), and 2 semesters my Senior year of college. That's it. In a country where entire sections of town have so many Spanish billboards that I don't really know what the advertisements are saying, I've neglected to really reach out and break my own personal language barrier. Schools all over the globe teach their students 2 or even 3 languages, while it seems that our education system has been stuck in the "if you're going to be in OUR country, you'd better learn OUR language" mode.

The fact of the matter is that, as the global community begins to truly envelop the globe, more linguistic flexibility's going to be necessary. Yes, English is becoming a bit of a standard, but I definitely feel like in my own life I would have stood to benefit if I'd picked up a couple more years of Spanish. Or French. Or German. Or something. In fact, I think part of the reason that people don't really understand how to speak/write English properly (even when we're raised with the language) is because the focus on basic grammar and the building blocks of language has been done away with; learning foreign languages helps students understand the mechanics of their own languages while applying those concepts to new methods of speaking. Then again, some people aren't really worried about learning how to communicate across cultures, apparently.

One of the most ignorant commentaries on our education system came straight out of the Rock River Times, the free publication distributed in Rockford, IL about (coincidentally) the Rock River area. You can check out the whole post here, but the specific part I'm referring to is here:

"Why do we bother with French, Spanish, gym and other classes that provide no real value to high-schoolers? The merits of PE classes have been well debated for years, but I’m not sure I’ve heard a debate with a replacement curriculum placed in the scenario. PE sacrificed for economics, absolutely. I have heard many adults tell me they had Spanish in high school but can’t speak it. What’s the point? You can learn Spanish for a few dollars in a few weeks if you really had a desire to learn. While we’re at it, let’s get rid of the four-semester requirement for algebra—isn’t two enough? Does anybody remember or use this stuff?"

I'll completely admit that I don't remember much of my Spanish from before college, but that doesn't mean that it never should have been taught in the first place. His "if you really wanted to learn, you'd pay for the lessons and do it on your own time" argument is BS; the reason we pay taxes for public schooling is so that we can educated children about the skills that they'll need to succeed in their environment. As our society becomes increasingly multi-lingual, the concepts that come with learning a foreign language become even more important. How about teaching languages at EARLIER ages, when people's brains are more pliable and are able to more easily adapt to the information? That certainly would have helped me a bit.

-Josh

A Minor Discourse on Race in America

Well, it's been a long time since I posted anything on this blog... I've heard many people tell me that I should re-activate this blog and start writing again... I can't guarantee that'll happen, but you can consider this a special edition of Struck Lightning, one that might turn into a regular update if I can muster up the energy and material.

Anyway, today I was tooling around on Facebook when my father told me about a discussion that was developing on his page. It was a chain of comments generated from a link he posted: England's Smartest Family is Black. A friend of my father's posted the first comment: "It is good news...But why do you think it is good news?" I, being a black man, didn't really think there was anything to think about this being good news. Racial stereotypes were being torn down by the knowledge, and it's also just refreshing to see children achieve at that rate. The comments continued on down the page, but then my father's friend posted a series of questions related to other posts made. 

When I read the questions, I wasn't quite sure what to think about them, whether they were simply devil's advocate-style, or if they were supposed to be rhetorical...regardless, I'm taking them as a fantastic opportunity to start some race-related discourse, one which our "post-racial America" could certainly stand to benefit from. So, I'll begin this post with thanks to my father's friend, and a statement that I certainly mean no malice or condescension. But I know that sometimes racially-sensitive arguments sound targeted or angry by default, and since I'm not there to clarify or vocally deliver some of these points, I'll just have to trust that you understand I'm being sincere in my words and meanings.

Question One: "@ Brenda, if America was so racist, how did Obama become elected President?"
Voter turnout doesn't necessarily measure the racial climate of America. I certainly doubt that Obama's election could have taken place in the 60s (or beforehand), but let's not forget a couple key facts in our analytical process.

1. Each person's vote is equal in an election, but the amount of power each person wields in society is not. If a physical majority of "non-racist" people (who likely each still hold their own individual opinions about race) vote for Obama, that does not imply that American society, dominated by the opinions and resources of a comparatively small group of people in charge of politics and corporations, has gone through an overwhelming racially-related change.
2. Obama is not your everyday-racist's "average black man." Many of the stereotypes that are evoked when "racists" think of black men aren't present in Barack. It seems that many racists would think that "black men" speak in "ebonics," are uneducated, and are only concerned with rap, women, and jewelry. I too often find that a faulty logic I like to call the "but my grandma's different fallacy" comes into play here. Example: Ask a child what old people are like, and they may provide the common stereotypes about the elderly: they don't move around well, they can't hear well, they're stuck in bed, and the like. When you ask that child about their own grandmother, you'll likely hear "Oh, Grandma's different!" Just because racist Americans see Obama fail to "act black" as many would describe it doesn't imply that their concepts of racism have been erased.

Please, regardless of these points, understand that I truly do think that America is COMPARATIVELY improving in terms of race relations. But your second question already points out an area where racism still seems to be prevalent: law enforcement.
Question Two: "@ Warren, I don’t know the stats, but there is an unquestionable larger amount of US prisoners, (offenders), who are AA. Why is that when they are guarantee(d) free education through High School?"
A couple erroneous assumptions in the base of this statement before we get to the law enforcement bit.

1. Education does not prevent people from committing crimes, the benefits that come from education like stable housing, money for food and other household resources, and comfortable living CAN stave off the drive to break the law. Still, people can still find incentives to commit crimes even after being educated....can we say Watergate? Wall Street money laundering? The entire classification of "white-collar" crime? The rich woman who shoves Victoria's Secret lingerie into her purse just for the "rush?"
2. The statement assumes that everyone assumes the same level of education, and that the level of education provided prevents criminal mentalities. Considering that the only "guaranteed education" in the US is provided through public schooling, we have to note that schools get their money from property taxes (at least, they do in IL). The amount of money that comes in determines the quality of teachers, administrators, and technology that come into the school. If the neighborhood around a school is poor, than the school will be, too. Can we assume that the education that is "guaranteed" at an upper-class, suburban high school is going to be of the same quality as an underfunded, inner-city school? 

(Please note that both of these assertions point to socio-economic traits as opposed to racial ones; I can point out the work of the Harlem's Children Zone; when black children are raised with comparatively similar opportunities to white children, they've been proven to receive similar test scores.)

Regardless of these points, let's get something straight right off of the bat: whether or not a person is arrested for a crime has nothing to do with their level of education. For a minute, close your eyes and imagine that you're a police officer having a cup of coffee outside in a rather well-to-do area. Across the street a man in a business suit is standing outside of the driver's door of a BMW, jiggling something around that's not quite in your view. He's working at whatever it is, then suddenly is able to open the door. He gets in. 2 questions follow:

1. Tell me what you think just transpired at the car. Was he having key trouble, or was he breaking in? Sure, because I'm proposing this situation to you in a theoretical debate, you can already see what point I'm driving at. But go ahead and replace the businessman with a man in a backwards, flat-billed baseball cap, a baggy jacket, and baggy jeans anyway. Do you think you'd be just as tempted to say the two situations have the exact same story?
2. What race was the businessman, and what race was the man in the baggy clothes? Did you assume that the businessman was white, or that the man in the baggy clothing was black? Even though I posited those points in a racial debate, I never specifically stated that either man was a member of ANY particular race.

The point of these questions? To prove that racial overtones pervade law enforcement, and not necessarily because cops are "racist" in the sense that they fly Confederate flags on their lawns at home and hunt for innocent black men to arrest. But racism, boiled down, is essentially is what happens when we let the skin-tone of an individual influence our conduct in a situation, and WE ALL DO IT. ALL THE TIME. Acting on unconscious racism that flies through our subconscious causes conflicts between groups, regardless of what group is giving preference (or a lack thereof) to what other group.

The overall point? We can already draw tons of correlations between the lack of opportunity provided in low-income areas (which are often dominantly minority (or "AA" in many cases) and increased crime rates because, as my dad put it, "Unfortunately, when people don't have any employable skills or hope for a job, some people think the only way to survive is to steal or beat people up." But, all of those socio-economic, non race-related findings aside, this question boils down to one of my original points: regardless of how "non-racist" a group of people may be, the biases of the people who wield power are the ones that have effects on a society. Should an individual member of a police force more frequently transpose images of crime on top of images of minority groups, they're more likely to try to discover crimes being committed by those minority groups, regardless of whether or not they're ACTUALLY committing offenses. 

Question Three: "@ Janice, Do you think Obama is getting “lambasted” because of his race? Do you think the “far right” would be happier if Obama was white?"
Ah, now here's a fun one. My answer: I think Obama is getting "lambasted" for his performance, just like any other president. Politicians act in their own best interests, just like everyone else, so if Obama's actions don't fall in line with the things they want, they'll issue criticism. Do I think that a white president in the same situation would take as much heat? I would say yes, if not even moreso.

Oh, weren't expecting that one, were you? Well, that's because politicians can't afford to be publicly negatively racist. That's a sure-fire way to keep yourself from getting elected in today's national political sphere. Even if they could get away with race-related accusations, most politicians are white anyway, so those types of arguments alone wouldn't be enough to conduct any sort of political discourse. But that's okay, because politicians don't need racism. They've got their own -ism to conduct their work with: Party-ism.

That's right, modern American politicians throw accusations across the aisle like..well, like something that people throw across aisles all the time. A Democrat's always going to take crap for being too liberal from the Republicans, and Republicans are going to get grief from Republicans for being too conservative. Both parties take flak from their individual parties for being too fiscally tight or loose, too much like the opposition party or not enough...it's a mess. But if a white president made the social changes that Obama has made, particularly the white presidential option that we were given last election in John McCain...Fox News Radio has already done a pretty solid job of tearing McCain apart for being "too liberal" in his suggestions to do things like close down Gitmo and provide rights to foreign people awaiting trial in the US for crimes. 

Regardless of anyone's personal stance on these issues, I'm reasonably certain that the Republican party would have hung McCain for pushing policies like reformed health care and increased government spending. In the meantime, a white Democratic president would have just as much to get blasted for in the news based on Obama's policies, though maybe we wouldn't have heard about the "terrorist fist bump..."








Anyway, let me close by commenting on your closing paragraph (at least, the last one I saw before making this post):

"We must look at each other with the eyes of Dr. Kings dream speech, “based on the content of their character”. I do feel disturbed when some parts of our society expect me to respect persons who purposely act and talk ignorant and use their race to make me feel that I am a racist. I am not a racist; I simply do not respect ignorance. Yes, this problem does cut across racial lines." (copied verbatim)

In contrast to the rest of this post, this piece may feel a little more tense than the rest, and that's because I feel that many of my friends may fall into the blanket statement you cast. My fear is that the base of your statement may rely on an incorrect assumption an incorrect assumption that lies in the hearts of many people, both white and the "non-ghetto" black: the idea that you can somehow ascertain a person's intellect or "ignorance" based on how they speak. 

For one, when you say that "people purposely talk and act ignorant," it seems that you're suggesting people choose to communicate in a particular manner or dialect to purposely antagonize another branch of society. Generally that's not how communication works; people learn a style of language manipulation in order to facilitate communication with the people around them. If people often communicate with people in their neighborhood, and those people use a dialect, then people will adopt that dialect. Just like American English is different from British English, varying ways of speaking DO NOT imply intelligence (or a lack thereof). It's not frequently that people will learn a language or dialect simply to antagonize a group or set themselves apart from another group; the benefits wouldn't outweigh the effort.

But bounding out of the theory and into the fact, there's absolutely NO WAY to figure out whether or not a person is "ignorant" based on the way they talk, or the way that you perceive their actions. Now, if by "talk and act ignorant" you don't mean "talk and act stereotypically black/urban/'ghetto'," I apologize and ask you to clarify so that I may better address your statement. But some of the smartest, most open-minded and progressive people I met during my 4-year career at Eastern spoke with slang, wore baggy clothes and backwards caps...one of them even had a child already. I'll make a point to say that the particular man I just mentioned not only has always made a point of taking care of his family and gorgeous baby daughter, but he also graduated on time with a Bachelor's degree in Communications and is working for the Illinois Student Assistance Commission. He's always been one of the most studious people I've known in college, and has set a fantastic example for many men to come. He's also black, if you wanted to know.

As a whole, I can EASILY count off numbers of black men who may be roped into your visual/auditory test for "ignorance" that would talk circles around any number of white men that would pass this supposed test, white men who would prove to be ACTUALLY IGNORANT, which is to say that they were intellectually lacking, unable to create any sort of logical discourse based on their ungrounded, untested beliefs, and didn't care to do anything about it. The idea that you can somehow figure out a person's mental capacity or lack of "ignorance" simply based on how they look or how they talk undercuts the very portion of Dr. King's speech that you cited. 

Nobody wears "the content of their character" on the bill of their cap or on the waistline of their pants. Nobody broadcasts the content of their character when they're talking in whatever form of speech you're not familiar with, whether it happens to be "ebonics," or perhaps just the broken English of immigrants who haven't fully absorbed the language. You see, in order to understand the content of someone's character, you have to actually get to know that person. That involves much more than a peripheral assessment based on speech or any other facet you can gather information about in a few seconds. You have to spend time with that person, learn about who they are, where they come from, how they became the person they are. When that happens, both people grow from the situation, learning both about themselves and the world around them. And until people take the time to do that, Dr. King's "dream" is going to stay just that.

-Josh


*EDIT*


I've received a comment on my Facebook page that I'd like to briefly address here. Emily writes:


I couldn't comment on your blog 'cause I don't have a "profile", but I wanted to say something:

On your last point, I agree 1/2 way. I don't think you can guess a man's character based on dress, but speech is different. A person can talk with a "Ghetto" dialect and still say relevant and intelligent things. If someone has nothing to say but offensive arrogant, "street-speak", I AM going to assume that they are ignorant- though not necessarily stupid. Of course, one must judge each case independently, but as a general rule, if that's the first thing I see out of a person, I'm going to count them out. The same applies to Hilbillies, though, and believe me, I've known enough people who fit into that category.
Nice arguments, though.


I think that we're both essentially making the same point, but I still stand by the idea that you need to actually converse with someone to glean whether or not they're "ignorant," or what exactly it is they're ignorant of (this will be the topic of my next post). My hope is that you don't assume that someone is ignorant simply because of an excerpt of a conversation you overhear, or because of an action you witness when walking by. I feel that these are the situations people often use to rule whether or not someone is ignorant, but I also feel like you can be quite surprised by what people can tell you if you just give them a fair chance.


Regardless, I feel like you pegged a great point at the end of your comment, a point I certainly meant to address at the end of my post, but forgot about somewhere around 2 in the morning. Ignorance knows no racial/cultural bounds, but neither does intellect. The content of a person's character is also not displayed on the front of a worn-out "wife-beater" t-shirt or on an over-sized belt buckle. It also doesn't show up on a sombrero, yamaka, or other clothing of that nature. (I could start talking about Confederate flags, but that would work in the opposite direction and make this a really, really long post.)


In summary: I feel that you do yourself a favor (as well as the person you're talking to) when you don't rule them as "ignorant" until you've actually talked with that person. Your definition of "offensive arrogance" may just have to do with the way a person interacts with their friends, and perhaps a conversation with you could change a person's perspective on life, changing them for the better. In the end, you may be right and a person may be just as ignorant as you expected, or maybe even more. But you may be wrong. And the world certainly is full of surprises worth finding.

Haiti, and a Poisonwood Fog. This is Important; Please Read This.

As a notice, Struck Lightning will be sticking to its periodic blog format until resources are obtained that allow me to move back to audio format. In the meantime, I hope you'll enjoy the print version of Struck Lightning.



Six days ago a devastating magnitude 7.0 earthquake rocked the country of Haiti, taking the lives of thousands as well as decimating the infrastructure of a country already suffering from political unrest, poverty, and diseases like AIDS. Whereas life may have been a day-to-day guessing game on January 11th for many Haitians, it's now a second-to-second, minute-to-minute clash for survival in a society fighting to find medical relief and shelter, necessities even more basic than the ones they fought for before.

But, unless you've been living in a news-vacuum for the past week, you already knew that.

They're fighting for food. FIGHTING. For FOOD.

Perhaps this tale is a little more unfamiliar to you. Across the ocean there's a country called the Democratic Republic of Congo. This land is filled with plants and animals reminiscent of many people's images of Shangri-La or Paradise.

The okapi, an animal native to DRC.

The DRC is also filled with minerals and gems that the modern world revolves around like diamonds and tantalum, an important component in cell phone production. Because of this the DRC is suffering through turmoil not wholly unlike Haiti, though theirs is not one caused so much by natural disasters. The greed of colonialism and the power of the "almighty dollar" has been a non-stop source of bloodshed for at least the last 50 years in this region of central Africa as governments have changed and been overthrown. People have attempted to escape en masse for years.

This is a story I didn't think about until I started reading The Poisonwood Bible.

Mass migration and fear, also native to DRC.

Kingsolver's novel tells the story of a missionary family of six entering the Congo (the DRC's title in the 60s) in the 1960s with good intentions and idealistic dreams dashed in the face of the realities of malnutrition and greed they encounter. And though the book is a novel, much of The Poisonwood Bible is grounded in the real-life situations present back then, information both recalled from her personal visits and research conducted through multiple sources. It's well-crafted, contains spectacular character development, and is one of the most gripping, historically-accurate, modern-times relevant books I've ever read. And I only got halfway through it today.

After finishing my assigned reading I realized that the Food Court here on EIU's campus was about to close for the night. Closing my book and throwing on my shoes, I ran out the door and out into the cold. For the third night in a row a rather thick fog envelops the Charleston, IL evening, lowering visibility to dangerous levels. For lunch I'd had a Subway Tuscan Chicken sub, and I figured that I wasn't really that hungry since I'd eaten just a few hours ago. Still, I cautiously crossed the street and grabbed a late-night power-dinner: Special K Breakfast Bar, Rice Krispy Treat, and a bottle of V8 Splash.

When I walked back outside and stood in the thickly-layered fog, I suddenly found myself in an awkward position. I looked down at my pre-packaged food, then thought of Kingsolver's book on my bed. Quickly I saw comparisons in my head:

American shoes. Made from many quality materials.

Congolese shoes. Made from old tires.

American lunch. Made from chicken breast, cheese, vegetables. Sauce optional.

Congolese lunch. Made from a tuber called cassava. Trace amounts of cyanide NOT optional.

There's been a fog in my consciousness, a fog that's allowed me to slide through even the past six days of constant news coverage about Haiti without truly internalizing the idea of the pain that's out there in the world. But learning about the DRC in Poisonwood has burned that fog off for me, showed me that help is needed all over the world at all times. I'm going to try to do my part, even if just for a minute.

There're two morals to this story:

1. Read Kingsolver's The Poisonwood Bible. I swear on everything I respect and love that it will change you.

2. Take action. Now, I'm not saying that everyone should up and adopt children from foreign countries, or hop up out of their jobs and families to join the Peace Corps or whatnot. There are people ready right now to fly over and administer aid. Medicine, food, clean water, and other tools needed to rebuild countries like Haiti and DRC are out there, but they're waiting for the right combination of manpower and dollars.

Tonight Haiti especially needs our help. Two more earthquakes, at magnitudes of 4.6 and 4.7, struck Haiti just yesterday. The crisis isn't going to just fade away.

The problem is huge. But we can solve it together.

Today you can save lives while in line waiting for food, or even in bed. Take action by sending a text with the word "HAITI" in it to 90999, donating $10 to the Red Cross Disaster Relief fund. It'll take 5 seconds, and the money will be billed to your cell phone account. I swear you'll barely even notice you've done it when everything's said and done.

The price of one dinner out with friends at a sit-down restaurant can save the lives of Haitians whose lives have been changed forever due to a circumstance they never asked for (don't get me started on Pat Robertson). If you can't afford it yourself, look for other ways in your area to contribute to disaster relief, or encourage a friend to send the text and go halfsies. There are infinite ways out there to help, to take action.

I'll be taking action tonight by texting "HAITI" to 90999, knowing that my $10 will do better in the hands of the Red Cross I could have done myself. What are you going to do?

-Josh

New Year's Resolutions and McDonald's

Ah, the time for resolutions is upon us...pretty reliably every year I make a resolution involving some sort of working out and something like that. Like a majority of the American populous, by the time February something-or-other has rolled around, I've more than forgotten about my workout commitment; by this point I've started frequenting the drive-thru more than before and am already sleeping through my classes. What can I say? McDonald's is delicious. But for those couple of weeks in January I, like a large portion of the the resolution-creating masses, am dedicated to making this year THE YEAR, the one where I really do it. For those couple weeks, I'm really effective at whatever it is I've set to. And this year I'm going to use that to my advantage.

I once started eating baked chips with my lunch instead of the normal fried ones because they were "healthier." My suitemate, Kit, pointed out that unless I was planning on swapping out for those baked chips on a long-term scale, there was pretty much no point in me even trying them. Changing to baked chips for one day wouldn't have any effect on my overall health or habits. And for a couple weeks or so, I made that switch. Then Cheetos started calling my name, and, well, that was the end of that game. Moral of the story: Don't commit yourself to things you're not that interested in staying committed to. Maybe if I'd combined eating better with a workout plan, or a food journal I'd have actually accomplished something with my chip change. But the swap was just an impulsive idea I came up with when standing in line.

I think there can be a lot of power in the New Year's resolution. The beginning of a new year can be the chance for you to make that critical change you've been looking for, whether it's something like quitting smoking or working out. My recommendations:

1. Resolve to do something important and achievable. Make this the day that you do something positive for yourself, and improve yourself as a whole. At the same time, don't resolve to quit smoking cold turkey if you're going through a pack and a half a day. Be realistic and safe; resolving to cut down your smoking by a cigarette a day or something like that makes much more sense.
   
2. Keep track of your resolution. Get a calendar and check off when you successfully do whatever it is you resolve, whether you run that mile and a half or drive past the Dairy Queen without buying something.
3. Reward yourself for long-term successes. Do something that you enjoy for every couple of weeks that you keep your resolution going. Go out to a nice dinner, buy yourself the game or whatever that you've been thinking about. Give yourself an incentive to keep the trend going.
4. Take yourself seriously. Part of holding to a resolution is understand you've got the potential to do it. There will be difficult parts and times when you don't think you can carry through with it, regardless of what the goal is. That's part of commitment as a whole; staying with anything for a stretch of time will bring on stress and will likely make you want to quit at some point in time. But understand that you've got the potential to carry through it if you really set yourself to it.

My resolution? Write at least once for myself every day. Whether it's this blog or another one, fiction or whatever, I'm going to take time every day to do what's important to me. After all, it's hard to get published when you don't have anything written. ::grins::

Anyway, Happy New Year, Struck Lightning readers. Thanks for sticking around, and I'll see you in 2010.

-Josh

The Economics of Christmas

I wonder how much they're going to say the economy was "stimulated" by holiday spending. I'm not quite sure. But, truth be told, a whole lot less would be spent on the holiday if people would just wait until the day AFTER Christmas. You all know what I'm talking about: holiday price reduction sales. Now maybe you don't know that I'm an anti-holidite, but I consider myself almost legally opposed to holidays. I'm a pessimist, and I won't support the efforts of anyone or anything that tried to force me into "good will" or "cheer." Pish tosh.

Regardless, as I tramped the aisles of Wal-Mart today (three of them, in fact), I was blown away by the number of sales and price reductions. I mean, half off of all candy? Damn right I was all over it. I bought THREE Chocolate Oranges. Damned right, and just in time for my usual "I'm going to work out and lose weight" New Year's resolution. Fan-effin'-tastic. You know, there are some solid days to zero-in on...the Friday after Thanksgiving, the day after Christmas, and seemingly now EVERY weekend in between. As my economic background and empty wallet cry at me, I wonder if I could have done a little better if I'd kicked Christmas back a couple days...

Now, of course, I realize that for some of you the idea of pushing back "Christmas" to the 26th or even the 27th sounds like a blasphemy. But come on, what's the big deal? Unless you're a real big fan of the Winter Solstice, the date's completely arbitrary anyway. Jesus wasn't born on Dec. 25th and Joseph wasn't watching It's a Wonderful Life the night before. And that's all under the assumption that you even care about the religious connotations. Between the nonsense Old Navy commercials and catchy church marquee one-liners, everyone (along with their mothers) seems to want to tell you how/when to spend your Christmas.

At the end of the day, this "Christmas" thing is just about what you make it. For me, it's about hanging out with the family for a little bit and eating some food, a sort of Late Winter Thanksgiving. I could care less when it happens, and sometimes I think it'd be better for everyone if we just the gifting part of Christmas. The presents don't hurt sometimes, but I'd rather get gag gifts then go through the awkward "Wow, that was expensive but I don't really like it," or the infamous "Damn, you actually though I'd like this ______." Still, rants like this remind me of one of the best Christmas gifts I ever received: a gift-wrapped photocopy of an essay about happiness. The act of the gift itself, as well as the essay, changed me in ways I can't even describe. And that gift cost her virtually nothing. Unless it's copyrighted, in which case I hope she's already masked her identity, shredded her credit cards, and moved to a non-extradition country. Copyright infringement's a big deal, don'cha know.

So, at the end of the day, what's it matter how this whole "holiday season" is done, particularly Christmas? I know I just talked shit about those churches and commercials telling you what to do, but now I'm gonna eat my words and do it myself. If it makes you feel better, go ahead and do the whole deal on the 25th. Or, save a few bucks by buying your tree the night before and the decorations the day after. Take that extra cash and get brand-name butter for the rolls. At the end of the day, make sure that ALL your holidays, Christmas, New Years, and all the others, are spent the best way you know how to do them. If it's spending time with your family, friends, or even just finding some peace and quiet in a hotel room, make them all count. Find your own happiness, because that's the real reason for the season. It's the reason for every season.

-Josh

Don't Call It A Comeback

Another semester through, and here I am writing in this damned thing again. Why, you might ask? Because I plan on bringing Struck Lightning back next semester.

"But Josh, how many half-assed projects are you going to start up and drop off like two-year olds at the babysitter?" That's an excellent question. One with a decently complicated answer.

I attempted NaNoWriMo, the 50K word writing competition, again this year, but did far worse than last year. 7,000 words. Pathetic. But I actually showed those 7,000 words (or at least a large part of them) to friends, and I feel like that's an accomplishment on its own. Regardless of the fact that my final word count was miserable at best, there's something about taking the effort to show my work that made me take myself more seriously as a writer...and I think other people were able to take my writing more seriously as well.

Time's gone on since November, and now I've come to a bit of a turning point in my life. I've got 3 classes, an internship working for a literary journal, and my creative undergraduate thesis. A lot to handle, but the further I get into the things I care about, the more satisfied I am with life. Still, I tend to get excited about things and then burn out. That's gotta stop. I know how to start projects, but now I've gotta learn how to stick with them.

Struck Lightning's starting up as a sign to you all that I'm ready to commit, to you and to my craft. It may just run as a written blog for a bit, but the audio will come back soon. And I'm going to make it the best I can. Hope you're up for the trip.

-Josh