Southern Gentleman Or City Kid?

This takes a bit of a detour from my more common blogs of generational scrutiny, but maybe not as much as I was anticipating when the thoughts were running through my head this morning.  

I grew up in the Metro Atlanta suburbs, but the difference between myself and the vast majority of those around me lies in the fact that I was not an import or transplant, but born here.  My father's family moved to a little "city" called Alpharetta in 1969, which was long before it was considered metropolitan by any stretch.  When my parents were engaged, they began building a house after buying some land from my grandparents which was finished by the time they married in 1978.  My sister was born a few years later, and I came along two years after her.  

The area we lived in was heavily wooded, had dirt roads all over the place, and it was your fairly typical smaller city until the population surge a few years before the 1996 Olympic Games.  Pastures, wooded areas, and older homes were developed into subdivisions, shopping centers sprang up, sidewalks were poured, and schools popped up continually - property values also went through the roof.  Here was my family of my mom, dad, sister, and uncle next door (my grandparents had passed a few years prior) all living on a three acre spread watching a small city become a massive, affluent suburb.  

The thing is, my dad comes from a long heritage of farming and his two brothers were the first men in the family to break that tradition when one became a commercial welder and the other a commercial machinery mechanic - dad followed suit becoming a warehouse manager before ultimately being a carpenter.  Though, when I was a kid, my grandparents still farmed and had multiple, large vegetable gardens on our properties, as well as chickens, and your typical herd of cats running around.  That is how I grew up: seeing my grandparents in their feeble age plowing gardens, picking vegetables, pressing cider, shucking corn, canning, tending to chickens, and drying bed sheets on a clothes line, among many other things.  All of this was normal to me growing up even though everyone else I knew at school lived in a subdivision and had no experience with any of that stuff.  

When I was a kid, my parents did not have a lot of money to spare, so just like my grandparents and uncles, they saved money in the winter by heating their houses with wood heaters and fireplaces.  I grew up carrying in the firewood we had split over the summer so we could burn it on cold nights to keep the furnace from kicking on.  This is not uncommon in neighboring areas, but in Alpharetta?  None of my friends had to do that.  

Fireplaces give off a type of heat that has more of a comforting feeling to me than having a furnace running.  There is something about it you only understand if you grow up with the experience and I really do not know how to explain what I am talking about, so take my word for it.  

Today, for the first time in probably over ten years, I went back to that place.  I had things I could have been doing today for work and such, but my dad and I went over to my uncle's house instead and split firewood for a few hours.  As far as seeing the benefits of this effort are concerned, I will not since I no longer live with my family, but helping with things like that are traits I learned from watching my grandmother and grandfather.  These are the things you do because you care about people, no matter how sweaty, sticky, or dirty those things happen to be, and no matter if you have time for it or not.  

Any of that is irrelevant when you have a job to do.  

I let that all slip away for a few years because I was too focused on what I was doing for a living, where I was living, "friends" who ended up not mattering, going out to places which had no lasting impact on my life, buying a bunch of toys I did not need - it was nice coming back today and remembering the things I did growing up which have shaped me into who I am currently.  

I am the city kid who may have escaped the southern accent, but I never want to forget where I came from no matter where I may end up.

Grace and Peace,
-Drew

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Y R U So Hung Up On Being Smart?

Thus was my Facebook status earlier today.  The question is why I would write something that was pretty harmless, but could be taken the wrong way by certain people.  The answer is because I wanted to write this blog as an offshoot of that very status and train of thought.  I would not call that status a precursor necessarily, but what I said helped my brain start ticking a bit while I was covering fifteen miles of sidewalk and boardwalk on foot.  There you have it.

Nobody wants to be stupid, or at least I hope not.  I have gone on my tangents of opinion about self-education and the importance it holds in our development, so I am not going to repeat myself here, but give a different sort of perspective instead.  I said a few blogs ago (here) that I would not talk about religion or politics and that is still very much intact, even if you may beg to differ (that is your right).  I am going after all "religious" people, which is a demographic I somewhat belong to.  You can pick on your own demographic, right?  Who cares?  I am doing it anyway and if you are "spiritual" you may also fit into what I am about to say, so you are not safe either.  

*This isn't EVERYONE.  It's a thought-provoker and not a judgment, so cool off and if you are going to attack me, turn around now knowing that I am speaking about myself as much as anyone else who identifies.*

I think everyone has an internal want to have somewhat of a leg up on other people intellectually and for me, I find that more prominent when people have some set method of a belief system in their life.  Whatever makes you fulfilled as a person is fine with me, but I see some of us using it as a means to "one-up" other people, which I do believe is defeating the purpose, no matter what you believe.  You may not be entirely sure what I am talking about, but consider the people you see on social media, or even in speaking with them person who make a point of saying many words when few will do.  

A big part of me really wanted to do a screen grab of the following quotes, but for the sake of not making it obvious to people who actually know me, I will have enough respect to keep that refrained.  A few months ago, my friend put up a Facebook status of:

"The leading cause of death is living."

Which is true, funny, and brutally honest.  It was, however ruined by someone commenting this:

"I would go as far as to say living life without God causes death."

Awful verbage aside, reading that immediately made me say to myself:

"He ruined it because he thought he sounded smart."

To somewhat defend what he wrote, I understand that he is obviously a Christian (I am as well) and part of believing that means to spread your beliefs, but what person who does not hold Christian beliefs is going to read that and say:

"It all makes sense now!  He put it so profoundly and in a way I could actually understand!  Get me to a church, now!"?

No.  Just...No.

So, what was the purpose in him posting that?  It surely had nothing to do with spreading a message of faith to the world, but it had everything to do with him wanting to sound intelligent.  If I am wrong, I invite you to tell me and I will let you hold that opinion, though calling out internal motives behind the things people say is something I am very skilled at figuring out.

Those who claim other spiritual beliefs do the same thing and at the end of the day, it has nothing to do with wanting to spread spiritual joy or influence because most people can see right through the motive if they pay enough attention.  Had I wanted to sound like an intellectual and highly-spiritual being, I would have posted my status this morning as something like this:

"Basking in the transcendental beauty of nature and enjoying the rays of the sun peaking over the trees as the crisp, fall air floats delicately over the flowing stream while enjoying the wellness mother earth uses to heal us all."  

(Excuse me for just a moment, I need to puke.)

Now, some people would instantly put a "like" on that if they saw it on Facebook, though it would never fit on Twitter, so that is not an option for a re-tweet.  Some people would sit back and say: 

"Wow, he/she is so deep."

The way I see it though, is that something like the quote I made up above fits more readily into a book, a sonnet, poem, lyrical stanza, or something more formal than social media.  I guess, for me, my rule of thumb seems to be that if I think of a status update which would require as much editing as a chapter of my book in order to make it sound proper, I am trying much too hard.  

I was that person at one point in time, however.  There was a period of God knows how long when I would actually proof read and edit my potential status updates and tweets before posting them for the world to read - not giving it a once over before posting, but actually taking the time to add and move words around as a means of sounding more enlightened.  I learned by reading the ridiculous posts of other people that I was not all that different and probably had other engaged people who were naive enough to think I was smart; or sitting back, thinking I was a pretentious, disconnected moron.  After coming to that realization, I told myself anything I posted from that point forward went straight from my head, maybe checked once for punctuation and then posted.  No more of this editing to sound intelligent or posting anything with the intention of looking so.  I realized being quote-worthy is something that should come off the fly and that nothing I say spiritually or religiously online in such a short form is going to make anyone more or less intrigued by what I have to say whether I added any big words to it or not.  Maybe I have become too literal in my age and experience, but being thought-provoking is natural and unable to be forced, therefore, posting something punctuated and to the point seems to be better received than something which seems as if you are trying too hard.  

"But you shouldn't care what other people think."

If you really had no care for anyone else's approval, posting status updates and tweeting out things would not be an activity you took part in.  Think that over - those things are posted so people read them, specifically.  We can say we are not looking for approval, but that is what so much of our generation thrives on because (in my case) it is what those who pay attention to you ask for.  

All I am saying is that playing the intelligence game in or out of religious context holds a certain level of stupidity unmatched by others and I can see right through it.  If you post something profound and "enlightening" followed by the majority of other posts using words such as "dat", "u", and are unable to capitalize or punctuate even those short sentences, well, just think that one over for a minute.

I am not perfect, and I lived in the "I have to seem intelligent" world for a long time, just as I did with many other things I talk about on this blog.  I made a pact with myself because of that to stop writing anything which is not in line with the way I speak on a daily basis.  Believe it or not, excluding the lack of contractions in my writing (I was taught to not use those in formal text), the way you read this blog or anything I post online is pretty spot-on to my vernacular in everyday life.  

All I am saying is that we should be ourselves whether online or in-person without hiding behind a religious cloak of so-called "intelligence", nor a spiritual one, nor one made to influence our own ego.  

Just be yourself because there is no need to play the role of "the smart one", "the enlightened one", or "the deep one".  The world has enough people trying to be something they are not.  Instead, always push to figure out and expose the real person you are without trying to be anything you are not.

Whatever you do, though, for the love of all things you may find holy, use proper punctuation...

Give me that, at the very least.

Grace and Peace,
-Drew

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Social Media Without Consent...

Yesterday, I posted what you see in the image above on my Facebook page because it is entirely true.  I have not been to a concert or any sort of performance in the past five years or so when there was not a sea of people in front of me watching the entire event through the screen of their smart phone.  Actually, if I am being honest, I have been going to concerts for well over a decade and remember the days when every ticket had "Photography and Video Prohibited" printed across the bottom.  Back then, smart phones did not really exist and mass-market digital cameras took lower quality pictures than the current iPhone.  

Why are we raising the next generation to do crap like this?

Why are we not teaching them to live in the moment instead of missing it completely by trying to capture it as a means of showing off on social media?

I will be the first to say that social media is not bad, and I wrote a blog explaining my reasoning for that here.  The random junk I post on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram keeps the human aspect within reach of my readers and subscribers, as well as being an outside business tool.  Honestly, if not for this blog, I would have ditched Facebook months ago (as I have done before), but it is a necessary evil for Drewcoustic.com to successfully exist.  I promised to be honest with my readers and I am throwing that out there right off the bat to be certain I am doing so.  The biggest concern I have though is not with the teenagers and twenty-somethings posting horrific, blurry concert videos, but with the upbringing of the children growing up behind them.  

When I was a kid, I hated having my picture taken and am not all that keen on it today either because I am not a photogenic person.  Most people I know who were like me as children hold the same feelings into adulthood.  You know how that one person is always walking around a birthday party taking pictures (sometimes drunkenly) and you see certain people holding their hand out to allude the "photographer"?  Those are the people I am talking about.  Would I go as far as holding my hand out in avoidance?  No, because I am a little more mature than that, but anyone who knows me well enough to care knows that being in pictures is not really my thing, which is why you rarely see any new images of me on social media (that and I really do not like "selfies").  I will be in a picture for the sake of a memory, but anything that will get lost in a jumble of others on social media or eventually deleted from a memory card does not matter in the long run.  Does that makes sense?

Why did I bring that up?

Because I am about to make some people really angry.

Children.  

I fear for them right now - from the most recently born kid, and all the way to pre-teen ages, and I do not even particularly like children.   

There has been this running joke on television shows, in movies, and whatever else for years now about courting couples "meeting the parents" and them bringing out the baby book of embarrassing photos for their significant other to see and laugh at.  Most people my age have one of these laying around their parents' house, and generally they do not contain anything out of the ordinary aside from awkward photographs of your life growing up, but I always treated it as something somewhat sacred.  Baby and childhood pictures are the things only my grandparents, some aunts and uncles, or some of my mom and dad's close friends have seen (or a significant other if I ever have one).  My growing up was something shared with family and the people directly experienced with it and I am thankful for those times.  But we are losing the close-knit and family-specific moments in this most recent generation. 

What?

 I read an article a while back which I cannot find, but will link to it here if I come across it again that was written by a mom with two young children.  When this mom started a Facebook account, she did the typical thing that many parents do of continually posting pictures of her children and captioning those images with little stories about what was happening.  After a few years of doing this and noticing her eldest daughter shying away from her iPhone camera while trying to capture little life moments she was sharing with the world, she thought a bit.  Her pondering led her to the realization that her daughter had been growing up with an iPhone camera in her face for a few years and was now of the cognition to understand what was happening.  She then asked her daughter if she wanted her to take pictures of her and put them on Facebook. 

Guess what her daughter said?  

No.

Anytime from that point forward that this mother wanted to take a picture of her daughter, she asked first and also asked if putting that picture online was okay, and most of the time she still said "no".  

Now, should your kid tell you what to do?

Absolutely not, but I do believe children should have a choice in the matter before parents go on about putting hundreds or thousands of pictures of their children online for strangers to see.  If the children are not of age or mental capacity to give consent, the parents should probably think a little bit harder about what they are doing.  

"But I only have close friends and family members on my Facebook."

Extended family, distant cousins, church friends, high school or college "friends" you have not spoken to in over a decade, friends from where you moved from before you had children...  

Need I continue?

I am twenty-seven years old and every time someone in my family dies, I get pulled into this vortex at the funeral parlor of my parents or a relative motioning me over to someone who says:

"I haven't seen you in twenty years!  You were this big *motions* when I last saw you!  Do you remember me?"

Nope, and there is no way I can step out of that one-sided, irrelevant conversation without being awkward or rude toward you, because faking a smile takes more effort than being honest.

That person?  The person I had not seen in twenty years and probably will not again before one of us dies? (I'm being honest.)  That person has no business knowing the first time I used the bathroom by myself, has no business knowing how much I cried when given a vaccination at the age of nine, and has absolutely no business being able to know every milestone I have gone through in life if I have no actual relationship when them.  That is not me saying those people are irrelevant to the world or bad in nature, but them knowing so much about me when we never, ever see each other is weird and really an invasion of privacy.  Had my parents posted the chronology of my life online for a few hundred, a few thousand, or the entire world to read without my consent, I would be livid with them and probably very bitter for a very long time. 

I have read similar photo captions of children on Facebook:
"He didn't want his picture taken. LOL!"

Then, here is a tip:  Do not post it online.

Look, I do not have children, nor do I have plans to have any at this moment.  You can say all you want that:

"You'll understand when you have kids."

But I value privacy, so I will never understand exposure without consent.  Even on this blog, I do not post names of anyone I have mentioned (good or bad) and I do not use a text message screen-cap or any other image without asking consent of anyone involved.  I never will.  I talk about many things on here that have to do with my life, but there are many things I do not talk about that this blog will never know about. Privacy is huge with me, because remember, nothing on the internet is "private" no matter what your settings on social media say.  No IT technician I know posts anything considered private on social media, because they know that everything on the internet is saved in multiple places every time you click "send" or "upload" and that anything you "delete" is never actually removed from the internet.

If you want to take a picture of yourself holding your kid and use it as your profile picture, that's fine!  But a chronology of your child's life in vivid detail when they cannot give consent is probably not going to work out very well as they get older and more informed about what is going on.  

Then again, they are your children to raise in any way you see fit to do so.

Pictures and images intended for few can be sent by email so they are not seen by many instead.

I just wanted to give everyone something to think about.
"You wouldn't say any of that to my face."
I do not post anything on my blog that I am unwilling to say in person.
Try me.

Grace and Peace,
-Drew

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What's The Deal With Being Famous, Anyway?

Tiffany thinks she's famous...

Admiration can be a bit tricky and something that varies between people's opinion as much as their skin tone, nationality or religious stance.  What I mean by saying that is how people react to different forms of celebrity and how they allow those people to impact them whether they have met them in person or not.  Some of these actions make no sense to me, but I will get into that shortly.

When I worked for my previous employer, I met quite a few people whom many would consider to be famous, including current and former Braves baseball players, a few professional musicians, professional golfers, NFL stars, and some prominent business figures - but I never cared, because to me, people are people.  I remember once, a coworker approached me and said:

"Hey man, did you see Ed Reed?!"

"Who?"

"Ed Reed, man!  Plays for the Ravens!  Come on, man."

Nope, and he seemed a little offended about that.  I had no idea who he was, but later found out that the man in question and I had spoken briefly prior to being told that information.  Some other coworkers of mine were on the same boat as the first one, even though most of them did not pay attention to football and would have passed him on the street any given day without a second thought;  but as soon as they were told of his prominence, the swooning became pretty fierce.  That sort of reaction really confuses me.  

The thing is, I do not really follow sports, so I could cross paths with most iconic athletes and have no idea who they were.  Even people I could pick out of a crowd as having some form of popular culture significance do not really matter to me as far as my nerves and emotions are concerned.  Dave Matthews is my favorite musician, by far, but I would like to think that meeting him would not make me act like a belligerent air-head, though thanking him for his music and shaking his hand would not be out of the question at all.  I just see people as people - end of story.

Do not for one minute take this as me saying that having an admiration for someone who has made an impact in your life is a bad thing, because it is not at all.  If someone seemingly untouchable and admired by you is close enough that you have the chance to thank, them, I hope you can one day.   Maybe I think on a different plane than most, but really, the only "famous" person I have met and given a second thought to was Arthur Blank and that admiration has nothing to do with sports, but personal achievement on his part.  I admire business and artistic brilliance more than anything else, and he personifies what being successful in business is all about.  A few years ago, he knew me by name, but I still never saw him as anyone better than me or felt the need to give him anymore attention than someone else who crossed my path.  That is not to say I would turn down an opportunity to pick his brain a bit and have a good conversation beyond casual small-talk, but you know what I mean.  

As I said before:  I must be on a different plane than most people because I have never "freaked out" or become nervous around anyone who is famous, yet I have seen so many others do exactly that for reasons I cannot seem to understand.  The world I worked in a few years ago had upper-management and partners within the company running around, telling anyone below them to suck up to anyone of certain fame and to treat them more prominently than anyone else who walked in the door, but instead of doing so, I would often just stay away.  Anyone, even "celebrities" know when someone is putting on a fake smile or being unrealistically nice, and them having a title of fame is not enough for me to act like that.  Maybe I am missing something here, but I still do not see the point.

I guess the thing about me is that I find value in different places than most and do not pay attention to the facets of who "should" be famous, according to mainstream media or sports agendas.  I would much rather admire the people I can actually spend time with and those who allow me to invest in them the same way they invest in me.  The real value I see in life has everything to do with real, tangible relationships, and has nothing to do with what I see on television or in movies.  

I admire my parents and my sister because we have a family bond that has never been questioned and never been broken.  We are a solid unit which is rare as so many other families are completely broken, unfortunately.

I admire the few, real friends I have, because they understand me more than any celebrity would ever take the time to.  

I admire my best friend because she has been through quite a bit in her life and always emerged as the most beautiful, intelligent, and driven woman I have ever met.  There is something more special about her than anyone else I have had the honor of knowing.

I would choose spending time with any of the people above as opposed to someone famous who would most likely soon forget me.  That is the real and honest truth, and I hope you believe me.

"But, Drew, you always say that music speaks to you and helps you through life.  You're telling me none of those great musicians you speak so highly of would phase you if you were given a chance to meet them?"

I would love to meet any musician who has made an impact on me because of my love for music, but music is about the composition and the emotions it creates within me.  Music is one of the few things in life which can catch you in the moment.  Meeting someone on that level whom I respect would be great, but is not at all necessary for me to keep enjoying their music.  

Sometimes you can listen to a song you have heard in the past many times at just the right moment so that it creates an entirely new emotion within you which you had never experienced before.  I appreciate the person behind creating that moment and admire their brilliance, yet they are all just normal people like everyone else - but given a great and respected gift.  

At the end of it all, while music gives you moments of perspective, clarity, and emotion, I have a small group of people I love who I can live those experiences with on a daily basis, without question, without expectation, while the moments spent in the presence of anyone famous will be brief and most likely not all that enthusing once the initial shock value wears off.

Where was I going with this?  

I do not know.  Just live the things which are most important.

Value beauty in every single day.

Grace and Peace,
-Drew

 -Add me.  Stalk me.  Tweet me.  I really don't mind.-
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For The Record: This Is Not How You Go About Things...

I am self-admittedly one of those people who has a stubborn streak of irrelevant stupidity concerning problem solving.  What I mean by saying such a thing is that I will try whatever I can to avoid having someone fix an issue for me.  This happens in my personal life as well as in the random, stupid instances which cannot be readily controlled.  There are exceptions to this idea because I try very hard to only allow myself to be impacted by this mindset.  The last thing I want to do is irritate another person because of my own lack of internal reasoning. Case in point? Car tires.  Specifically, one car tire.

Dead-center, you can see a gouge in the tread of this otherwise solid Toyo tire that was on the front of the Thunderbird.  What did I run over?  I have no idea, but there is a slit big enough to shove a penny through which made it unusable.

Back in March of this year, I bought a cheap tire plug kit and tried to remedy the problem as I have done a few times in the past.  The plug held for about two days and then blew out in Atlanta when the car was sitting in a parking lot.  Strike one.

"Go get a new tire, Drew."
No, not yet, because I am a stubborn idiot.

I am also one of those car guys who completely hates space-saver donut-type spare tires you get in every car these days, so I keep a full-size spare in the trunk on a rim that does not match the others on the car, but is still the proper size (that awful factory spare doesn't match anyways). Running on a mismatched rim that had a good tire on it never bothered me, but still, every now and then I would go back to that perfectly good tire and try to mend its only blemish - that rather large gash. Because, again, I am an idiot.

A few months, a few more attempts at plugging the gash, some rubber adhesives, and a bottle of "Slime Brand" tire sealant (For the love of God, NEVER put that stuff in a car tire.  I knew better, but did it anyway.) I made the decision to take the tire off the rim to patch it from the inside as you are supposed to do in the first place.  I took auto shop in high school, so I have changed my fair share of tires, but with the proper machine, of course.  Breaking down a car tire without that magical machine though?  Never.  But instead of paying a few bucks to a tire shop, I grabbed some patches from the parts store and, well...

Yep, with my dad's help as a second hand to hold the thing down, we took the tire off the rim (for the record, he told me to take it to a shop, but being his offspring, he is well-versed in my occasionally questionable decisions).  The tire was full of that Slime sealant also, but I spent some time cleaning all of that useless crap out of there and did not take any pictures - probably because I was covered in the nasty, green goo.

That is an internal, radial tire patch kit.  This meant I was finally going to get this thing fixed and the stupid hole would be mended as I triumphantly conquered an issue I should not be conquering myself in the first place.  But, thrice now, I am an idiot.

See that?  Can you see it?  Patches installed after roughing the surface with a wire wheel on a drill.  I used two patches because there was another small hole, which was no big deal, but, when in Rome, patch a tire?  Right?

After a few choice words, we had the tire stretched back into place. 

And also seated the bead "properly", meaning someone nearly lost a finger.  Bazinga.

It held air!  The patch worked and all was well!  I drove home after work fully aware that my stupid car tire issue which I had allowed to consume random intervals of my spare time and resulted in many unnecessary roadside tire changes had been addressed and remedied.  Such an accomplishment.  With a little effort and...

It went flat.
My patch gave out in less than twenty-four hours. Sometimes I try too hard and take the most difficult path in life that I can just for the challenge, because I thrive on silly things that most people find annoying.  I see all of this from a viewpoint of principal and personal resilience, while others see it as stupid and unnecessary.  I was testing my own patience through it all and was determined to not be shown up by a tire of all things. Yet, in the end, I put my tail between my legs and bought a new Bridgestone tire over the weekend...

The old tire with the hole in it?  It is in my garage right now.  I am no hoarder, but I will not be satisfied until I find a solution to the problem. Again, because for the fourth time now, I am an admittedly stubborn, stupid, unnecessarily resilient idiot.  

For the record, this is the only time I have not yet succeeded in an automotive repair endeavor.  If I can convert a car from an automatic to a manual transmission, rebuild an engine, and build a fully-functioning race car in my garage, this stupid tire will not prevail...

Grace and Peace,
-Drew

 -Add me.  Stalk me.  Tweet me.  I really don't mind.-
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Religion & Politics - Explained By An Idiot...

I needed a picture for this blog. This one sort of fits into the topic...Maybe...

Were there ever two topics I steer fairly clear from concerning my blog, they have always been religious opinion and political opinion.  I majored in Theology (that's another story) so imagine the people from my past who have sent me messages saying how I should focus this blog on religion and "convert" people - or the sneers I get from some I knew growing up when I tell them I do not belong to a church and have not in over two years.  Imagine, if you will, the same principal applying to my political opinion, because that also happens far more often than it should.  The reason I stay away is not for the sake of controversy considering how I often express the extent that my generation has become more dependent, entitled, and enabled than any before us.  With all of that said, one can easily see I do not care who I offend with the truth as I see it, but I am also well aware of how damaging sparking a religious or political discussion can actually be.  Behind my entire idea lies certain evidence pointing to one, solid truth: most of us do not read enough to hold the opinions we have and if we do read, we prevent ourselves from being allowed the self-education and application to form any solid basis of thought as we should.

What?

Nobody wants to be the statistic, but everyone wants to be the exception. Within the rest of this blog, think of yourself as the statistic, meaning the person I am describing while staying away from thinking you are "so much different" from everyone else.  Got it?  No, really, for the rest of this blog, you are within the majority of the population.

Being entirely real with you, most of us do not read and educate ourselves enough.  I am not speaking on a scale of formal education because we have more college graduates now than we ever have when comparing population to formal education percentages.  What I am making reference to is based around the way we look at the world and what shapes our thought patterns because what I see is our lack of being able to think for ourselves.  Why are there more Republicans and Baptists in the southern half of the United States than in the north?  Environment.  Many of us simply become what it is we know as children and do not allow ourselves to branch outside of what we were raised within.  Comfort zones can be dangerous, but there is a bigger issue here.

Even those who have been "highly educated" formally grasp onto becoming whatever their environment displays for them, which is an ever shrinking entity thanks to technology.  Do you have any idea how many supposedly smart people I see on Facebook or through email blasts who post, send, and share incorrect information with everyone they know because their emotions overpowered their logic?  Without taking so much as a five minute window to research the validity of the content they are exposing to the world, they do damage and spread rumors which are often untrue or completely inaccurate.  Why?

WE DO NOT SELF-EDUCATE 

Living in a time with information at our fingertips and everything we could ever possibly need to know right in front of us, but lacking the motivation to use our brains is a scary thing to consider.  Something as simple as getting emotionally involved with a lie that spread a few months ago about the cast of "Duck Dynasty" being persecuted because of their faith went viral, sending Christians into an uproar and many of my Facebook friends re-posted the same information.  I typed that into Google after first seeing it and nearly instantly found that someone had fabricated the whole story - it never happened.  Politics work the same way and the process will never stop because we cannot be bothered to learn the truth behind anything.  We would much rather simply believe what we are told and draw others into the fire of ignorance right along with us.  

Do you need more proof?  Take a look at this article:

http://www.askmen.com/dating/doclove/you-re-just-a-friend.html

Nothing about the article has anything to do with religion or politics, but has everything to do with our perception of truth.  This person is telling the world that healthy communication with another person is dependent upon mind games?  What?  The same mind games we play with ourselves and adopt into the relationships he is speaking of because such is considered "normal" instead of being upfront and honest with people.  I just wonder who has read his article without consulting other outlets to answer his question and walked away with the mindset of dishonesty and prejudice as being socially acceptable.  The scary thing is that I am fairly certain lies and deception are "the norm" for us currently.  Many, many people subscribe to askmen.com and have surrounded themselves with the information within that site so often that they believe the first thing they see, hear, or read is fact without testing any of it against other information.  I think that is insane, but I also trust very few people for that very reason.

All I am saying is that as a generation and as people in general, we really need to stop believing everything we are exposed to.  We have an obligation of real self-education to our future generations.  In the same way that you cannot write a high school or college-level research paper based on one source, we also cannot live our lives effectively with that lack of understanding. 

Research does not mean our opinions must change, but enlightenment is key to survival, and education is key to advancement within anything of importance. 

I am very far from perfect, but...

Do I have a political opinion?  Absolutely, but I have spent more time than most people I know developing it in a way that makes sense to me and is not at all based upon the mainstream media.  As such, I probably will not discuss it with you because of what my independent research has shown me. Politics get you nowhere.  Period.

Do I have religious opinion?

Yes, and I am still a Christian.  The thing is, I have both the formal and informal education to back up my beliefs and most other people who claim to be a Christian have minimal knowledge of what that means at best.  Call me critical, but I am being very critical and am well aware of that fact.  But after spending some time away from the church, I see the outside perspective and just how insane Christians look to those who are not within that demographic.  Me being like the majority of them only makes me look hypocritical and closes off my circle even more than I have it set up to be now.  

Do you see what I mean?

Research everything before forming an opinion.  

Look at every angle and never assume you know all the facts about anything by paying attention to only one source of information.

The worst thing we can do is allow the next generation to be as closed-minded and disconnected to facts and opinion as is the majority of our current generation.

Grace and Peace,

-Drew

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Learning Things Without Intending To Do So...

I have been trying to figure out what to do with this for the better part of a week and have just now had the brilliant idea to start the writing process as I am struggling to keep my eyes open.  Today has been a long one for me, but I learned about how easily thought patterns become lost if not acted upon a few years ago, and have yet to let anything else slip from my conscience for the sake of laziness.

When viewing my blog on a computer or tablet (sorry smartphone readers) for the past few months, you will have noticed a little button on the top-right of your screen, sort of tucked away among my RSS, Facebook, and Twitter buttons, which looks like this:

That is a logo for a non-profit organization, which I mentioned a few months ago when I wrote a photo blog about my grandparents here  and the main website of the organization can be found here.

Caring Together In Hope hosted an event with a guest speaker/author/caregiver and I was invited to attend - which was also the first public event hosted by the organization.
Now, do I have any relevant experience dealing directly with Alzheimer's or Dementia?  Not that I can imagine, no.  However, anyone who knows me (or reads about me - shout out to my new Danish subscribers, by the way) is well aware of my thoughts on self-education and the importance I place upon learning anything and everything possible.
When you stop learning, you stop growing.
What you are learning does not matter quite as much as the fact that you are taking the time to live a new experience and have more knowledge floating around in your brain.  I went to this event because I believe in the cause of my best friend's family, and also because I wanted to have more education about the motives behind their message and purpose, but what I took away from the event was much greater than I anticipated.

The person who was speaking at the event is oddly not what I am going to address here, (but click this if you're curious) though she is a very motivated and intelligent communicator.  What I took away from the event was actually based more upon the family both behind the scenes and at the forefront of the cause.  You see, for the past year or so, my best friend and I have been talking on and off about Caring Together In Hope and we, in some way, always landed on the same topic of it being family-based.  The thing is, everyone within their family who were compelled to be involved did so and this first event they hosted brought in family from out of state to back up the cause - all for a few small hours in a conference-style environment.

I can tell you measurements and angles in carpentry, I can balance a budget, and I can also read automotive engine blueprints pretty competently, but estimating crowd size is something I cannot do because I lack the "eye" for such a thing, so keep that in mind.  The first CTH event attracted well over one-hundred people, by my shoddy guessing abilities and I imagine most of them were patient caregivers in some capacity or another, which is the basis of the entire non-profit.  Considering this organization did not exist a little over a year ago and this being their first public gathering, I would call that a huge success.
A success unreachable without people who feel passionate about the cause.
A success in this instance which would not have been possible without family.

The reason I mention this at all is because I understand the family demographic and my background is in working with the public.  With those years of experience, I can easily say that most families are pretty skewed and disconnected in pretty horrible ways.  Seeing this family and the way they came together to create something designed to help others in a stressful and taxing situation they know and understand, though?  Saying such is rare would be quite the understatement.  This worked though, and people are being reached in a positive way, just as their family intended when the idea first arose.

I come from a family (duh?) and we disagree with all sorts of things.  Actually, I am in business with my family, so the head-butting in some situations is inevitable, but nothing we are not able to get through.  Those instances are how certain relationships and all families are built by design or naturally, if you will.  Putting a few people into a room to discuss anything can be met with all sorts of opposition or points of view, but within those rare, caring families, there is always an opportunity for a good common-ground and big things can be achieved with enough focus.  This shows strength for a common passion and purpose and at the end of the day is what actually matters.  Maybe everyone does somehow get along though and everything goes off perfectly?  Well, I doubt that, but it is a compelling thought.

Have you ever seen a group of people who join together to use their individual strengths for a common purpose so well that you can almost see their personal motivation preceding them?  I did at the CTH event.
Those are the rare moments we should probably pay a little more attention to when they happen to us as individuals or anyone surrounding us.  We tend to be a little too distracted to notice smaller details like that these days and maybe we are missing some pretty great moments.

All I know is that regardless of the main focus of the event I attended, the reasons I admire my best friend's family so much were made even more relevant and solidified in my mind that night.
At the end of it all, people were reached, a message was shared, and a purpose was served.

This is why I admire them.
This is why I respect them.
This is why I will always have a link to their organization on this blog.

I believe in family.
Sometimes family goes far beyond blood.
That night, I learned about Alzheimer's and Dementia as well as taking in a little more about what it means to be passionate for a cause.
We can all use our individual strengths to create something with purpose bigger than us.
What are you doing to achieve that?

Grace and Peace,

-Drew

 -Add me.  Stalk me.  Tweet me.  I really don't mind.-

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