Brady Helps

I heard an idea that the opposite of love is not hate; it's indifference. And that makes sense to me.

To love is to have an intense feeling of deep affection, and hate is an intense dislike — both love and hate are intense feelings for a thing. They are not opposite, they are like gemini twins.

Both love and hate require something to be significant to me to be felt. For me to have an intense dislike for a person or an idea, that person or idea must be significant enough to me for me to have intense dislike. Love would be no different. In the same way that someone becomes blinded with love, another can become sick with hate.

To be indifferent, or apathetic, towards someone or an idea is to have low-to-zero regard for their existence. For that person or idea to be so disconnected for you that expending any energy towards it would feel like a waste. Where the maount of care for another is so low that cutting the person from your life is as easy as flicking some speck of dirt off your clothes.

Apathy scares me. I don't believe I've personally met anyone or an idea truly apathetic of another. I could say that my mom was quite aggressive towards me, but out of a lack of regard for my humanity? Hardly, it was because she cared for me so much that she showed herself the way she did. Also, I'm not naive enough to know that I might be being naive to claim that I've never personally met a human or an idea that I truly believe is apathetic. I hope that I never develop apathy for another or an idea. I hope, even if it's only nominal, I can always care about what or who I experience.

Love and hate, I wonder if they're misunderstood in a sense. I wonder if caring enough to have hate is a form of love. For example: I might hate the behavior of the drunk Marquette University kids that showed up to my gig; but I perhaps I deeply care about them so much that I expect more from them — perhaps it's not hate, it's disappointment... or because I'm in my mid-40s and have so little tolerance for foolishness, I do hate their behavior... and prefer them get off my lawn, too.

How much truth gets traded away for socially-lubricative norm'y politeness?

And, maybe that question isn't even the right question. Perhaps the right question is:

How much fidelity do I lose as I increase normy politeness?

Suppose a person applying for a job reaches out to a recruiter friend. The friend receives the resume and says "thanks for sending the resume over. I can forward your resume to a friend at a different team."

The person applying, as I see it, might see the world this way: "great, so are you passing on my resume and that's why you're passing it to a friend?" That person may want to transmit that message with no loss in fidelity. How far would that get the person?

The person replies back "thank you for taking the time to review my resume. I would welcome an opportunity to be introduced to your friend. Thanks for your time." A well-worded and pleasant response. But I see it differently.

Being polite reduced the fidelity of that person's belief — we still don't know how the recruiter dispositioned the resume they received from the person, whiuch is the real outcome of interest!

Going further, I'll say the recruiter's attempt at being polite reduced their own fidelity — they didn't communicate how they dispositioned the resume.

Politeness created a black hole of potentially uncomfortable yet honest information that neither party wants to address. Is it worth it?

I advocate against politeness and I advocate for kindness. And being truthful and honest, even when it's uncomfortable, is being kind, and kindness is loving.

Imagine a world where the recruiter says: "Person, thanks for sending me the resume, I don't have a job that I can interview for at the moment, I wish I could help you there, but I can't. However, I have a friend in another division who might have a need, I'll forward your resume and see if they're open to an introduction. If they are, I'll introduce you. That's the best I can do." The person can then reply "Got it. Thanks so much for the kindness."

Kindness requires a bit more effort than politeness. The payoff for the recruiter is that the person on the other end feels perceived, gets relief, and thinks well of the recruiter and their company. I work in marketing, and that's great marketing!

I realize that advocating this position makes me difficult to communicate with for the median person. At the same time, it oddly makes me a breath of fresh air for some. For myself, the jury is still out.

As much as we want to block the things that don't serve us from our lives; I speculate life doesn't work that way. In fact, perhaps irrationally, I almost believe that unconditionally loving the things that don't serve us frees us from their grip on our lives.

Unconditional love, as I understand it, is simply a heartfelt desire to hope that [insert object of unconditional love] achieves its maximum fulfillment, whatever it might be. And unconditional love does not require unconditional acceptance.

I unconditionally love my mom, and I do not accept the torture you put me through having to wear penny loafers as a child.

I unconditionally love my team, and I do not accept their taste in K-pop boy bands — BTS.

I unconditionally love the things I blocked from my life, and I do not accept engagement with them in my life at this point.

We need to replace the "block" button with a "You Do You, I'm Good Here" button.

When the mind wakes up at 4:30am it has ideas, aims, and dreams. The body follows.

Now, two hours later, I still can't think of what to say.

Smidge : Another form of "smidgen" which means a small amount of something.

Smidgen, in the United States, dates back to the mid-19th century. And that word is likely related to the Scottish word "smitch" or "smutch" meaning a small amount or a slight stain/smear. Essentially, small or barely noticeable quantity.

Erica, a dear friend, asked me if I could move a coffee date a smidge later. I've now learned that a barely noticeable quantity of time is approximately 1 hour.

Brian, a friend, told me his desire is to have a butterfly effect on people's lives through his work. If he's doing his job well, perhaps his clients could achieve better work-life balances, treat people better who then treat others better, and the ripples extend and extend.

I never heard of the butterfly effect. I didn't look up the word, I liked how I heard it from Brian.

We need more humans that think like Brian thinks.

Yesterday, my mom and I spoke about resilience — and what it means to have it. She was commenting that a mutual acquaintence didn't exert much resilience during a difficult life experience as evidenced by their poor behavior. I said perhaps we don't have as much resilience as we think we have. I thought about it more, and I think we were both wrong.

Resilience : The capacity to withstand or to recover quickly from difficulties; toughness.

The history of resilience:

1. Etymologically, resilience is derived from Latin, resilire, meaning to "leap back" or "recoil."
2. In the 17th-19th, engineers used the word to describe a material's capacity to absorb energy when deformed and release it upon unloading, like a sponge that recoils when you stop squeezing it.
3. In the 20th century, resilience found a new home in psychology, referring to a person's capacity to adapt to stress ,trauma, or adversity without long-term dysfunction.

My issue with these definitions is not the definitions themselves; it's how I see people interpret the definitions. And the interpretation that I frequently observe is: "someone is resilient if they show steady stoic-like responses to hardships." Well, withstanding or recovering don't have to imply "stoic-like" response to tragedy.

Here's how I think of it:

• Capacity is like a container — there's a limit to how much can be in the container before it overflows. Capacity requires self-awareness.
• Withstand or recover quickly — can mean "stoic-like" response but it can also mean to return to a pre-hardship state, or persist in a weakened state before total collapse, or something similar.

Therefore, I prefer this interpretation of resilience: being so self-aware of one's capacity to endure hardship before they totally collapse that they're not at all surprised by their reaction to difficulties. Said more simply: not being surprised by how one reacts when shit gets real.

Under my interpretation, there's no expectation that you be "stiff upper lip" when life gets tough. My interpretation requires you to develop self-awareness for your capacity to endure hardship and to be mindful enough that your reaction doesn't surprise you.

It's easy to act like nothing's wrong when the world is on fire. It's much harder to be self-aware that the world is on fire, you're on fire, and you're not surprised that you're in shock.

"The beginning of the path to finding God is awareness. Not simply awareness of the ways that you can find God, but an awareness that God desires to find you." - Fr. James Martin, "The Jesuit Guide to (Almost) Everything"

At last night's gig, a gentelman named Bobby stop me. Bobby spoke about how he observed people sit back and relax in their seats when we began to play. He said that he could feel energy from the bandstand to him, almost inviting him to find joy. Bobby spoke that we're all on a journey, and the journey is made brighter by our music.

In my journey to find a state of life where I can express my heartfelt benevolence for people to achieve their maximum possible fulfillment from the music we make, I believe I've also learned that those people I seek to serve want to find me.

I bet the same is true for me.

I notice that when people enter zoom rooms or get on telephone calls they ask each other about the weather. When I lived in Florida, my mom would tell me "make me jealous, and tell me how warm it is" and then would laugh. I don't understand — why do we care about the weather and why is it funny?

File this under "things David doesn't understand about how and why we do the things we do" file.

I caught myself the other day asking a co-worker in Nebraska if they received snow. I then asked myself why I cared, I didn't. I then asked myself, then why did I ask? I didn't have an answer other than "social lubrication" which I probably need more of than less of.

I don't mind being asked about the weather. I don't mind talking about it. So what's getting me bent out of shape? Dear reader, I'm trying to understand that with you now.

I often think there's so much more to notice in the world and about people. I often find myself on calls asking about someone's interior decor, or a fact they've told me about themselves, or to point out how well matched they are outfit-wise. These types of observations seem remark-worthy and therefore remarkable. More remarkable than weather, most times.

I think the answer is not if I care about the weather, but if the weather is then worth being remarked on, and if there's something more worthy to remark about.

Perhaps the disconnect I'm seeing is that there's so much about humans that's worth remarking and querying on; and climate is just one small part.

Noticing the whole elephant has its pros and cons.

While walking the other day I came across another walker. When they noticed me they began looking in every direction but towards me. Walking towards each other — I looking at them to see what they would do, them looking in any other direction but towards me. We pass each other — no acknowledgement from each other and only me noticing them and them doing what they could to not look at me. Or so it seems.

Perhaps the other walker really enjoyed looking around. Maybe they wanted a solo walk and to feel cut off — I get that, I love that too. Perhaps I am hideous and imposing — I'm big, I have a prize-winning RBF, I'm dark, I've got facial hair... I get it... I am the face of Pascquale from Chuck-e-cheese driven childhood nightmares.

An hour later I walked into a coffee shop. I noticed someone walk in — they looked at me standing away from the register, looked at the register, looked back at me, and then looked at the register. I said, "I'm not in line." They looked away and walked away.

After leaving the coffee shop, in the parking lot, people walked from their car towards the door. I noticed them and smiled, they immediately looked away.

What social contract am I breaking? Is there a norm I wasn't taught as a child?

I'm trying to think if I actively look away from people when I approach them. I can't easily recall a time, though I'm sure I do. Generally, I'm more interested in seeing if and how people recognize me.

Maybe I'm a victim of noticing.