Response

An erudite reader responded to my column last week about bad parenting: “One question: Do people respond to requests for stories? It seems your call to action should be a bit higher up in the post and set apart rather than at the end and as part of another paragraph. Thoughts?”

“Do people respond?” The question got me thinking. “Do people respond?” is a subset of “Why do I write these blogs?” OK, so why do I write these?

The reason people go to therapy is not so that they can listen to someone suggest solutions to their issues. The reason people go to therapy is so that they can get someone to listen to their issues.

Because, in a typical day, no one does listen. “But enough about me, what do you think about me?” isn’t the most popular joke of the past year because every one of us has experienced that same boor. “What do you think about me?” is popular because so few of us have the time, inclination, or experience to be open to listening.

In this culture, there is information overload. “500 Channels with Nothing On” intones Springsteen. Everyone has something to say, most have something to sell. No one is listening. Why are the customer service lines so annoying? (If you think listening to this recorded message one more time will cause you to lose five more IQ points, press ‘one’ now.”) Because the caller can’t make himself heard, can not express his needs, can not get his request acknowledged let alone resolved. Why are the robo calls maddening? Because no one is listening. Hang up, sign up for the “Do Not Call” list, or just go jump in the lake. Your response will not be acknowledged. That’s why you are mad as hell and [don’t want to] take it any more.

Just a few generations ago we were desperate for information. Dickens sent his novels in installments to the states and people crowded the docks shouting, “What happened to ‘Little Nell’?” In the western states, a week-old newspaper had value. Travelers were bombarded for information about ‘back East.” Today–to the contrary–there is too much information. No one can take it all in. (Not that anyone would want to, mind you. But if even one percent of one percent of the billion web pages were worth knowing about, well, you do the math.)

So why do I write these posts? Because I want to be heard. Why do I ask you to respond? Because (unless I’m very much mistaken) you want to be heard as well.

I want to have a forum for my ideas. Rather than addressing one family at a time in my office, I want to reach out to my 5000 email addresses each week. I’ve been thinking about education, parenting, addiction, education and relationships full time for well over 30 years. I want you to know what I’m thinking about and I want to know if what I’m thinking is way off base. I want you to have the opportunity to say what’s on your mind as well. There’s a reason people place their over-turned soap boxes in crowded parks. They want to reach a larger audience than the one they might be expected to find in their own basement.

Admittedly, I’m more pleased with the “Attaboys” and the “Yes, David, you’re so right, I never thought of that before, I’m going to change the whole way I raise my kids” than I am with the responses that begin “David, you ignorant slut.” But the dissent has been inspiring as well. I’ve been called out a few times and I have learned from my (admittedly public) mistakes.

What else do I get out of these blogs? Discipline. And if there’s one thing my little ADD brain (Squirrel!) needs, it’s discipline. Discipline is good for me. I run six hours a week.* Surely I should write for three hours out of 168 that I am allotted each week.

Emerson said that a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds, yet here I am with my 75th consecutive Tuesday morning at 10:00 am and I haven’t had one response from Ralph Waldo. (Although, to be fair, the possibility that Emerson is having computer problems can not be discounted.)

The last reason that I can think of today that I write these blog posts is so that I can I quote Emerson, Robinson, Simon and Garfunkel, and (today) Shelley. There is something to be said for the transmission of ideas over the generations. Socrates without listeners has no Socratic Method. So with as little irony as possible, here is what Percy Bysshe had to say on the subject of how long I can expect to have my thought talked about and responded to.

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: “Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
`My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!’
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away”.

***

Good, huh?

Needless to say, I eagerly await your responses.

***

* Did I tell you that I’m running my first ultra next month? Six of us from our informal running group–David, Bruce, Daniel, Vilma, Lorna and me–50K in the Everglades. Should be a hoot. We even get to carry a horn. Why do we have to carry a horn through the swamp for 31 miles? The race organizers say we should blow the horn if we see an alligator in order to scare said alligator off the trail. Daniel, who is more skeptical, suggests that the reason we have to have a horn is so that if we do see an alligator we can blow the horn to help the race organizers come identify the bodies. I like the first explanation better.