Erick’s Neighborhood

I recently finished Gary Haugen's "Good News About Injustice" audiobook.
He's the founder of the International Justice Mission and a friend of mine
and his wife spent a summer in Thailand helping bust criminals who abused
children. I wanted to remember several great points in his book:

- Churches should fight on behalf of individuals rather than for a specific
economic or political system--and thus case work goes directly to helping
people in need. I agree with this though of course governments and other
individuals can and should fight against communism and totalitarianism to
help people--this just shouldn't be the emphasis of the Christian church.

- Just over a hundred years ago, America was in very bad shape in terms of
human rights. Besides the obvious civil rights and racial and gender
inequality issues, there were actually brothels in the US were children were
enslaved and the local authorities didn't do anything about it (sounds like
many third world countries of today--and this can actually show that
progress can happen faster than you'd expect).

- He had a sobering quote from a theologian (someone named Wright I believe)
regarding the problem of evil: no supposed "solutions" regarding the
explanation for evil can be taken seriously unless they address issues like
the intentional burning of children.

I finished Homer's Odyssey a few nights ago--the excellent Robert Fagles
translation--and enjoyed the beautiful phrases that were repeated regularly
(e.g. "When young Dawn with her rose red fingers shone once more..." or
"wine-dark sea..."). I was also impressed by Odysseus's machismo but
surprised at how violent the ending was.

Yesterday we saw a very good movie: "Tell No One" which was an intelligent
thriller with a great story, action and many twists and turns.

*http://calnewport.com/blog/2009/06/22/on-the-value-of-hard-focus/*

"School work, like any work that requires demanding thinking, is
tiring. After a grace period of maybe 20 - 30 minutes, your mind starts to
disengage. In the red book, I compare the sensation to a weight descending
inside your skull. Your energy fades and you begin to experience a desperate
craving for novel stimulation. Nothing in the world seems more tempting than
to go seek such stimulation — to check your e-mail, or sift through your
Facebook feed like a hyper-extroverted gold prospector.

Hard Focus

To succeed as a student (or a novelist) you have to fight that feeling and
keep working. I call this ability hard focus.

Our student from above probably lacks hard focus muscles. She has no
training in keeping her concentration locked even after resistance builds.
And because of this, she’s collapsing well short of the finish line in the
mental marathons she needs to run as an upper-level student.

Fortunately, as Marukami explained, this deficiency can be remedied in the
same way that a runner builds his endurance: you have to try to push
yourself, each day, a little farther than is comfortable. Over time, your
threshold raises.

My Marathon Training

Consider my own example. I’m in the middle of a challenge that might scare
most students in my position: I’m writing a doctoral dissertation and a book
simultaneously. (Literally: my thesis and manuscript are due within a week
of each other.)

This requires, on average, 4 - 6 hours of hard focus (split about evenly
between the two projects) per day, five days per week.

I could not have pulled this off five years ago. But in the intervening half
decade, I’ve been pushing hard to expand my hard focus capacity. As my
graduate student experience progressed, I systematically increased the
amount of time I would force myself to work continuously without a break to
seek unrelated stimulation. This culminated in my current schedule in which
I write for 2 - 3 hours, take a break for lunch, e-mail, and exercise, and
then work on my thesis for 2 - 3 hours, before finishing for the day.

My life right now is not easy. And you’ll have to ask me in September if my
training was sufficient to get me all the way to the finish line. (I don’t
like to mention my challenges publicly because I’m superstitious and feel
like its taunting the Gods. I made a reluctant exception for this article
because I think the bigger point is so important.) But for now, it’s not
overwhelming. Like the well-trained marathoner at the 19th mile marker, I’ve
built up the required muscle mass to keep moving at a good pace.

Conclusion

These thoughts all lead to a simple conclusion. When assessing your progress
on producing things of real value (the best path to building
a rewarding and well-rewarded life), consider your own capacity for hard
focus. Most important accomplishments boil down to this single, often
overlooked ability."

Finally saw this movie last night & it was excellent. Agi had read the book
and she said the movie was probably just as good. I loved the father
character and how he stood up to the Russian soldiers. He also had a very
interesting perspective that all morality was based on theft: don't steal
another life or tell a lie to another as that steals his ability to tell the
truth (kind of sounds like an article in Fortune or what an Ayn-Randian
disciple would say). But the idea has merit.

I'm also nearly finished with Homer's Odyssey. Nearly every evening I've
been chipping away at it. It's surprisingly exciting and violent and but
certainly beautiful too.

Agi and I were on the priority list at our doctor's office and got the call
today to come in and get vaccinated. The nurse who gave it to me seemed
pretty sick and beat up actually and said she "probably had the swine flu a
few weeks ago." Our nurses and doctors just got their H1N1 shots today too
in fact. Very nice of them to bring us in on the action.

Most importantly, we're very thankful our boy has been so healthy and he'll
be 4 months next week. On a walk with him the other day using the "bjorn
borg" carrier it was crystal clear to me that if I had to press a button to
die 100 trillion deaths for him I'd do it immediately. I suspect most
parents would and it's also given me much deeper insights into why God did
what he did for his children. I also suspect I'll never have to push such a
button. But I've realized that I'll probably have 100 trillion opportunities
(I hope!) made up of moments of every day for years and years that call for
sacrifice and inconvenience for our little guy. This will be hard but good.

I told Agi today that I'd love to get an "eau de baba" -- you can't beat the
infant baby smell (ok with some exceptions).

"Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing
himself." – Leo Tolstoy

New_Mexico

During the first weekend in October, I traveled to Albuquerque, New Mexico, to see the annual Balloon Fiesta.  The balloons were colorful and big as expected, but what impressed me most was their quietude.  Despite hundreds of them hovering in the sky, all that could be heard was the occasional propane burner releasing hot air into the balloon. 

The Fiesta was the primary reason for the trip; however, other highlights included: 
• Petroglyph National Monument
• Santa Fe
• Hyde Park aspen groves (at their peak!!)
• Taos Pueblo
• Rio Grande Gorge.  

We've watched this past week (and recently re-subscribed to Netflix--we love
those guys):

- Love Story: Excellent. The male lead was especially good and authentic I
thought. My expectations were low for this film (thought it would be
standard chick flick) and the characters developed in a very genuine way.
Agi loved this movie in high school and said she specifically remembers how
the young couple were studying together all entangled on the couch and
thought that's the way to to go.

- Born into Brothels: Very moving real-life portrayal of kids living with
their parents in a brothel in India and a young American woman's efforts to
give them a better life and an education.

- Underground: A Serbian movie some friends from church highly recommended
and one that Agi had seen in college. She said it's like "Pulp Fiction of
Central Europe." It was wild, maniacal, beautifully filmed and left you
with an understanding of the deep tragedy that the Yugoslavian countries
lived through in the 20th century. Others brutally abused them and they
abused themselves up through the 1990s.