the tindog coffeehouse

Yes, I know I’m a week late in saying it, but Happy New Year.  Now can I start out the year with a little honesty?  I mean, we’re friends, right?  Here goes…

I’m a failure.

At least according to the world.  I’m not rich, I’m not famous.  Heck, I’m not even “Internet famous”.  And I probably won’t ever be.  I don’t have thousands of Twitter followers or Facebook friends, and chances are, no one is even reading this blog post.  I have a steady but mostly unfulfilling job that consumes the best hours, days, and years of my life but nothing that even closely resembles a social life outside of that.

Donald Miller talks in A Million Miles in a Thousand Years about viewing life in terms of telling a story, with a narrative arc that includes overcoming obstacles in order to get what you (the protagonist) want.  He writes on his blog:

A story involves a person that wants something and is willing to overcome conflict to get it. If you plan a story this year, instead of just simple goals, your life will be more exciting, more meaningful and more memorable. And you are much more likely to stick to your goals. For instance, rather than saying I want to finish getting into shape this year, I’ve written down that I want to climb Mt. Hood with a couple friends. I have a vision of standing on top of the mountain in May, taking pictures and all that. Now my goal has a narrative context. That’s just a simple story, and I’ve planned some stories that are far more difficult but I only use that as an example. If my goal were to lose twenty pounds, I doubt I’d stick with it. But when you have friends flying up from Texas to summit the mountain with you, you’d better believe you are going to be hitting the stairs. I have to, because it I don’t, my story will be a tragedy. Again, stories give goals context.

That’s great advice.  But it depresses the hell out of me.

(We’re still being honest, right?)

Why is it depressing?  Because it’s a lot harder to say than to do.  Because I feel helpless and worthless and trapped and alone.  And that sucks.

I know I’m not supposed to admit that.  I’m supposed to “engage my audience”, “cultivate my online community”, “build my personal brand”.  I’m supposed to read more and blog more and network more and do all the stuff that will drive traffic and generate bigger numbers.  Because I’m told by the people on the Internet that that will make me a better person.

Instead, after taking a 3-month break from Facebook, I quietly reactivated my profile and promptly unfriended half my friends.  And I actually made a conscious decision to blog less, not more.

It’s not that I don’t want friends; I do, absolutely.  Everyone wants to be liked and appreciated and respected and lauded for their achievements.  But as much as I like love it when people take the time to read my posts and even take the time to leave a comment, this blog was never meant to attract an audience; it was meant for me, as an outlet.  If others stumble on it or want to follow along, that’s great.

So by any quantifiable measuring stick, I’m a failure.  I’d like to say I have all these grand goals ahead of me for the year, but I’m not making any promises.  I will, however, continue to try to be the best husband, father, and Christian I can, even if that doesn’t really mean anything to most people in this day and age.

And, well, there you go.  If you’re still reading, I’m sorry if I’ve totally bummed you out.  But I think it needed to be said.

Previously:
A little social network housecleaning
A different checklist

I don’t want the Father, I want a vending machine
I don’t want the Father, I want a vending machine
I know what I want if you know what I mean
I don’t want the Father, I want a vending machine

– Derek Webb, “The Spirit Vs. The Kickdrum”

A lot happens between Chapters 5 and 6 of the Gospel of John.  By the time we get to John 6:1, Jesus has attracted a huge following.  At least 5000, and that was likely just counting adult males.  Including women and children, that number could’ve been 10 or 15,000.

Jesus took the time to feed them all, and He didn’t just give them each a small ration of fish and bread.  They had so much food, they couldn’t eat all of it, leaving twelve basketfuls of leftovers.

But that wasn’t enough for them.

John 6:15 says they wanted to force Him to be their king, so He had no choice but to get away.  Eventually, they caught up with him, though, hungry and demanding more food.  Here they were in the presence of the Son of God, and all they could think about was themselves.

Sound familiar?

So who are you following?  And who’s following you?  How many Twitter followers do you have?  How many friends on Facebook?  How many people are subscribing to your blog?  And why are they following you?  Why are you following them?  And while we’re at it, why do you go to the church you go to?

These relationships you surround yourself with, these various communities and social networks, are they there just to serve your own needs, build up your own ego, make you somehow feel all warm and fuzzy?

Because that’s not what Jesus is about.

Yes, Jesus met His followers’ immediate needs by hosting an impromptu fish-fry.  But that’s not why He was there.  He was there to sacrifice Himself, die so that we could have something a lot better.

The crowd didn’t want that, though.  They only cared about what they could get from Him, not about what He had to offer.

Too often, I’m guilty of the same thing.  I go to church only to get something, not to be an integral part of the body of Christ.  I get excited when I have new Twitter followers or new blog readers.  I’m happy when it’s all about me, me, me.  As if I’m anyone important.

I’m not saying we shouldn’t be active online or that it’s wrong to promote your blog or whatever.  But I have to remind myself of what’s really important.  It’s not about some numbers on a web page or how many brownie points I get for having perfect church attendance.  It’s about developing a personal relationship with the Creator of the universe and showing His love to a world that desperately needs it.

Previously:
In the beginning…
A little social network housecleaning

This blog post wasn’t supposed to be here.  Instead, it was supposed to be a different post I wrote a couple of days ago.  It was a good one, too, or at least I thought so at the time.  But I didn’t publish it.  After thinking about it overnight, I decided it was best to delete it.  And I’m glad I did.

The topic of the post isn’t important.  It wasn’t anything controversial or anything I haven’t written about before.  But it was the tone of it that bothered me when I reread it later.  It was caustic, mean-spirited, and divisive, and I would’ve regretted publishing it.

Proverbs 5:1-2 (NLT) says:

My son, pay attention to my wisdom;
listen carefully to my wise counsel.
Then you will show discernment,
and your lips will express what you’ve learned.

I’d like to say that I always show discernment in what I say or write, but the truth is, I don’t.  In fact, I’m lousy at it.  I’d like to say that every word I speak or write reflects God’s wisdom and glorifies His Kingdom, but it doesn’t.  In fact, very little of it does.

I think I’ve gotten a little better at choosing my words over the years — only after leaving a trail of destruction in my wake — but I’ve still got a long way to go.  Thankfully, this is one time I chose correctly.

I promise I haven’t forgotten about the blog. I just haven’t had time in the last few weeks to post anything of any significance. I’m hoping to get a little more caught up later this week, though.

In the meantime I did want to make a quick comment about the Lost season finale from last week:

Lost dabbles in a lot of different religions, and the finale was no different with its heavy dose of Egyptian imagery.  But the biggest revelation was of course Jacob and his unnamed nemesis.  To me, the Christian symbolism between the two characters was really amazing, with Jacob taking on the role of Jesus and the man in black as Lucifer/Satan.

A theology student could write an entire thesis based off of that one episode, but I’ll simply say this: The man in black spent hundreds of years (at least) looking for a loophole that would allow him to kill Jacob, and he thought he found it by taking the form of John Locke and deceiving Ben Linus (a longtime disciple of Jacob’s) into killing his master.  In the same way, Satan thought he had found a loophole when Jesus, the very Son of God, was betrayed and murdered.  It didn’t quite turn out the way he hoped, however.

Therefore, I predict Lost will conclude its final season with the defeat of the enemy (“Not-Locke”) upon the return of the resurrected Jacob.

BONG!

Since joining Twitter last November, I’ve gradually blogged less and less, not because I wasn’t interested in blogging, but because there are times it’s just quicker and easier to fire off a quick tweet and be done with it.  But then a lot of times I feel guilty, as if I have some sort of obligation to meet a blogging quota.  (I don’t, do I?)

Then, of course, there’s the Facebook versus Twitter dilemma.  When I want to announce something amazingly profound to the citizens of the Interwebs, like how I could really go for a ham sandwich right about now, do I post that nugget of eternal wisdom on Facebook or tweet it?

Of course some people do both.  There’s the Twitter Facebook app that ports your tweets automatically to Facebook (in the form of your Facebook status).  And the next version of TweetDeck will allow users to post their updates to Twitter, Facebook, or both.  I don’t really like this approach, personally, simply because not everything I say on Twitter is necessarily appropriate for Facebook, and vice versa.  Plus, at times it borders on spamming your friends, and Facebook users are already being spammed enough as it is.

So to help navigate these perilous waters of social networking, I’ve devised a simple “Blog-Facebook-Twitter” decision matrix in the same vein as Rock-Paper-Scissors.

• Does what you want to say require more than 140 characters or involve block quotes of any kind?  If so, then Blog beats Twitter.
• Do you have the overwhelming desire to use the “@” symbol when referring to someone or tag everything with a “#” hashtag?  If so, then Twitter beats Facebook.
• Do you want to make sure that everyone you have ever met in your entire life sees your announcement and that it will be commented on by the kid that beat you up in First Grade that you are now inexplicably Facebook friends with?  If so, then Facebook beats Blog.

I hope that helps.  And be sure to follow me on Twitter.  You know, just in case I get any more cravings for lunchmeat.

I was all set to write some sappy blog post about looking back over the year and looking ahead to 2009, but, eh, whatever.  We all know this year has sucked in a lot of ways, and it’s been a tough one for our family, so who really wants to rehash all that?

So, as I enjoy the last couple of days of my vacation, I’ll just wish everyone out there on the Interwebs a happy New Year.

(And I promise I’ll try to be more interesting next week.)

If you’ve been to this blog before, you may have noticed a little redecoratin’ going on ’round here. Yes, I redesigned the blog, and I’m pretty happy with how it turned out. Hope you like it, too.

I actually rolled out the new design a couple of days ago (briefly) but yanked it when I realized the sidebar wasn’t showing up at all in Internet Explorer. (Stupid non-compliant browser!) Luckily I found the problem, although as is typical in web design, it created a few other minor issues which I’m hoping to work through (or learn to live with).

Being on Wordpress.com, as you may know, means being able to choose from only a limited number of templates. And although you can customize the CSS, the amount of customization varies widely from template to template, depending on how it was built. When I initially setup the blog last year, I picked a template I mostly liked and tweaked the CSS a little, and that was it. But I was never fully happy with it.

I like this design much better. It’s cleaner and the text is easier to read (kind of important in a blog, being able to read it). Hopefully, I can get the last little bugs ironed out without calling Steve Ballmer too many nasty names. (Maybe I’ll just throw some eggs at him.)

In the meantime, feel free to leave your feedback. And thanks for the visit.

Let me first preface this by saying I don’t have a Facebook profile, nor do I have a MySpace page, nor am I on Twitter. Or any other social network for that matter. I understand the idea behind them and see the potential value in them for some people, but for me personally, no.

Recently there’s been a lot of controversy floating around about Facebook’s Beacon system. Essentially, it works like this. You have a Facebook account and shop online at a company who is participating in the Beacon system, such as Overstock.com or eBay. Regardless of whether you’re logged into Facebook at the time, if you buy something from one of these companies, all of your Facebook friends are automatically notified of what you bought. Huh? Yeah.

The main controversy is not the system itself but the fact that Facebook rolled this out without notifying anyone beforehand, and now that it got caught with its hand in the cookie jar, it’s allowing people to opt out of the program.

So there’s a couple of things going on here. First, there’s the obvious “opt-in vs. opt-out” debate. Users should never be automatically be opted into anything like a mailing list or whatever. It just shouldn’t happen. Give them the opportunity to voluntarily sign up for the service if they want to, but don’t turn it on by default.

Then there’s the larger argument about privacy. If I buy something online, I don’t necessarily want all my “friends” to know.

But it really goes further than that. What is the point of Facebook anyway, or any social network for that matter? By definition, a “social network” is a network of friends and/or acquaintances, in this case communicating through the medium of the Internet. Your Facebook “friends” may or may not be your real friends, but regardless you’ve allowed them to be a part of your network. So anything you choose to make public within your social network or any social network you participate in is fair game, like it or not.

Beacon, although a stupid idea, is not the problem. The problem is with the willingness of so many people to share so much information about themselves willingly on the Internet for all to see, including friends, family, your current employer, and your future potential employers. How many people have lost their jobs because of something they foolishly posted on a blog or didn’t get a job because of an embarrassing photo that was hastily posted on their “private” MySpace page? To point out the obvious: Don’t ever put anything on the Internet that you would be embarrassed about or that would put your relationships or your job in jeopardy, even if you think no one else will ever see it. And don’t assume that because it’s password-protected that you’re safe; if the data exist on someone else’s server, you don’t have ultimate control over how it’s used.

Which brings up the issue of this blog, and something I’ve been wrestling with since I started it a few days ago. This is a personal blog, one of countless thousands of such blogs out there. I don’t really have a definitive identity for this blog as of yet, but I do want to have the freedom to say whatever is on my mind–good, bad, or ugly. But obviously, it is also a publicly viewable blog, and even if I mark it private, I have to assume that it will be viewed by someone at some point. So certain topics, while important to me and a big part of my life, are automatically off limits. Even though I may feel like blogging about certain things going on in my life, it’s not always a good idea to do so. Discretion, as Shakespeare wrote, is the better part of valor.

Coincidentally, Jacquielynn Floyd wrote about Facebook and the subject of privacy in her Dallas Morning News column today, summing it up this way:

But for a culture that purports, at a philosophical level, to cherish individual privacy, we certainly seem to be in a hurry to throw it away.

I couldn’t have said it better myself.

Ok, so I’m a computer guy. My first computer was an Acros 386 running Windows 3.0. It was a high school graduation gift, and I loved that machine. Good times.

Computers have obviously come a long way since then and so have operating systems. Remember Windows ME? (Sorry to bring back painful memories.) It used to be that Windows was so unstable you had to restart the computer every so often just to get the stupid thing working again. Today, XP and Vista are much more stable and reliable, but sometimes a clean boot is necessary just to clear out the memory and start over fresh.

Well, that’s kinda how I’ve felt lately, like I need to be rebooted. Just start over fresh, clear out the cobwebs. Hence the blog. No, nobody needs or cares about another random blog. I don’t expect anyone to read this. So, if you are reading this, then you probably need to find a more productive hobby.

So how to reboot? Well, I need to exercise more to start. Still thinking about how I can start adding some exercise into my day. More on that later. I also need to eat less and eat healthier. Those are no-brainers. I need to be praying daily and spending time in the Word. That’s not hard to do so much as I just get lazy about it. And finally, I need to stop dwelling on my circumstances. I need to focus my attention on others, get more involved in church, stop sittin’ around feeling sorry for myself.

I guess that’s a good place to start. Or restart.