She Speaks

I have the exciting opportunity to offer Gridbook's first guest blogging: a response to the blog by my brilliant and insightful wife...

I yelled at my husband today... because I am a Fortson (and of course a sinner too). It is a generational feature of the Fortsons to become loud as they become increasingly passionate about finding the truth. My grandfather died of high blood pressure. My aunt died of an aneurysm. Of course, I do not know how I will die but it may well be caused by some inner pressure that has just exceeded its maximum. They both raised their voices in direct proportion to their passion. For my grandfather, the issues were spiritual. He would pace the floor with his Bible, becoming more agitated and adamant as he made his point about predestination. My aunt championed social justice. She became incensed over racial inequalities and would work herself into a foul mood over topics of poverty and injustice.

I don't know if my causes are quite as defined. Sometimes I just yell... because of everything I haven't figured out yet; because I haven't yet found a satisfactory social or spiritual hook to hang my hat on, a battle ground to fight my life's fight and defend to the death. I haven't found that thing for which I'm willing to sacrifice my blood pressure and the health of my arteries. But I am a Fortson and I will pace and fuss and yell (mostly in the privacy of my home) until I find it.

In the meantime, my husband blogs. He constantly puts out his thoughts, emotions, and ideas for all to see. And I disagree with most of them. Is that any wonder when the first conversation we ever had was him discussing how he could sympathize with (but not justify) supporters of the KKK? Would you be shocked to know that the first time I visited him at his home, I discovered that he proudly flew the Confederate flag? (These are not things I rushed home to tell my parents.) Yet I married him with love and pride and would do it a thousand times again.

However, I must now speak because my picture appears on his blog, next to his writings. My name is mentioned in his thoughts. My son is discussed in these entries. And I do not endorse all of his views. He will always vote pro-life. I will not. He is unflinchingly against wealth, the upper-class and accumulating materialistic things. I love a cushy lifestyle. He loves to advertise his views by covering his car in bumper stickers. I prefer for my views to remain private unless it is absolutely essential that they be revealed. I could go on about our differences. They are as opposite as black and white. Yet just as our son will reflect our unity, somewhere in our diversity we agree.

I most wanted to say to you, his readers, that he is married to a woman who does not think like he does, respond the way he does, or arrive at the same conclusions that he does. Although I am passionate, I am not public. I do not wish to publish my thoughts or opinions, mainly because they are constantly evolving, deepening, widening, wisening. What I think today may be developed into an entirely new thought after I experience tomorrow.

So while I thought it was “time to speak,” what I want to say is still being formed and developed and perfected. And someday soon, I may be able to say in exactly the way I want why the gridbook does not reflect who I am.

I am the great granddaughter of slaves married to the great grandson of slave owners—I am a black woman. I will soon give birth to a son who even more than me will have to create his identity everyday—I am a mother. I am married to a man who is the antithesis of my views and approaches to life—I am a wife. I am the daughter of a full-time homemaker—I am creating a career. I am a believer in Jesus Christ although I am often ashamed of His followers—I am a Christian. I am both proud and disappointed in my country, its leaders, citizens and policies—I am an American. I believe that everyone should have a choice when it comes to their bodies and their lives—I am pro-life. I am not easily defined. The boundaries around my thoughts and beliefs are constantly shifting; widening, deepening, excluding—I am complicated.

I kept my middle and maiden name when married, adding "Davis" to who I already was because none of me was lost at my marriage to Jonathan Davis. I only grew. I added on. I expanded.

Missing Y2K

I first heard about the Y2K Bug and survivalism about 10 years ago. According to the theory a programing glitch would cause all computers to fail on the first day of the new millennium. Since computers ran everything some speculated that this could lead to a catastrophic collapse of all technology, economy, government creating a new dark age in which modern people would be helpless without the services and structures that had sustained their lives. Many people I knew were preparing for the worst, stockpiling food, weapons, and supplies, making pacts to care for each other when safety suddenly became tenuous. I must admit on New Years Day 2000 I had a slight sense of disappointment. Nothing happened—the modern world had survived unscathed.

Perhaps the wildness and romanticism of being a 23 year-old made the collapse of everything seem more exciting than dreadful, but I don't think I was alone in being hopeful about the “end of the world as we know it.” While fear may have played a role, the overwhelming feeling I recall in people's voices when they spoke of the coming disaster was ecstatic anticipation. People were eager for the power grid to go down never to come on again.

I have recently become aware that expectations of modern society disintegrating are still alive and well. The newer theories for the coming collapse are more diverse (economic depression, oil running out, terrorist attack, global warming, bird flu, etc) but the final prediction is the same: The system becomes too unstable to continue. The store shelves and gas tanks go empty. The lights go out. The government stops working. Suddenly the world we knew is gone and won't be coming back. People are fascinated with the idea. There are hundreds of websites with information and debates on how to prepare for this. Hollywood has become caught up in survivalism in films such as “28 Days Later” and “I Am Legend”

After seeing Y2K and 9/11 do little to disrupt the modern world, I am much more skeptical about the contention that our system is a house of cards awaiting the slightest tremor to send it to pieces. The secret wish that it would all fall apart, however, is not as easily banished from my mind. Is this just the destructive impulse to tear apart the world we inherited? It seems to me that this is essentially a hopeful rather than violent phenomenon. Survivalists don't want the world to end, they look forward to a new beginning.

Why would so many in the world's freest and richest nation eagerly dream of destitution and danger? It must be a symptom of fatal flaws in our culture when many of our strongest impulses and deepest hopes are for the implosion society. Has our culture been swept up in the current of building wealth and feeding appetites that it lost track of deeper but more subtle human needs? Has the technology that made everyone's lives easier ended up making us feel more isolated? Has the mass society of cars, computers, and cities distracted us from our sustaining relationships with each other, the earth, and God? Or perhaps the human mind is always that of hunter-gather which expects to find itself barely scraping out a living and living in a tiny tribe, and the world of modernity is just too much for it to bear—a dream from which we keep expecting to wake up?

In the end, I don't think that the doomsday predictions of the survivalists are very likely. For better or worse the modern system is stronger than it appears. I also don't believe that my romanticized expectations of living after a crash would be liberating like it was in my imagination. We may be stuck with the modern world, but we should examine it more critically. If the modern world isn't remedied to accommodate our ancient needs it may end up ruining us yet.

Representative Government

With all of my talk about controversial politics it was about time I actually broke down and talked to a politician:

2/17
Hello Representative McKillip, My name is Jonathan Davis, and I am one of your constituents in Athens. I am writing to ask you to support HR 536 “The Human Life Amendment.” This is not a liberal or conservative issue as much as supporting basic human rights and dignity. As a physician who has taken care of preborn children as well as the elderly and infirm I can assure you that they are deserving of protection under our laws. I believe firmly in this amendment and hope that Georgia will be able to lead the country in assuring all Americans are recognized and protected. I will be watching how you vote on HR 536, and it will influence my own voting when elections come up. -Jonathan Davis

2/19

Hi Jonathan! I appreciate your thoughts and do have certain reservations about the Resolution and its rather far reaching implications. I will review it if it makes it to the House floor. Please feel fee to send any thoughts on other matters that are important to you! -Doug McKillip (House District 115, Athens)

2/19
While I understand the "far reaching" aspect of this bill in terms of political power (challenging a Supreme Court statue and quite a few special interests) the idea of giving the most basic legal protection to every human being in Georgia could not be more simple. It is not far reaching to protect the basic human rights of every individual, it is one of the most basic ideas that this country is about. I do hope that you will reconsider your reservations about this bill. I believe the basic respect we afford to other human beings is one of the most important issues in this country today. If you end up opposing this bill I must respectfully say that I would be required by my conscience to most vigorously oppose your reelection. Thanks again for listening to me. I really appreciate the letter back. This is the first time I have ever been significantly involved with my local representative, and it is so good to hear back from you personally (something that never happens with my representatives in Washington). Democracy in action! Thank you very much, and if you do change your mind on HR 536 please do let me know. -Jonathan Davis

2/20
Hi Jonathan! I really make an effort to return all emails - especially when we disagree - I do believe it is crucial to communicate because it is the only way to hear different ideas. Maybe we will agree on the next one. Take care. -Doug

Unfortunately the representative is not supporting the resolution, therefore I will have to oppose his reelection. It is sad that I must oppose him since it is quite refreshing to have some two-sided communication with my elected representative. A wise friend and I recently had a long discussion on the whole idea of representative government by the citizens. His analysis of the flaws of democracy was brilliant and eye-opening (an excellent argument I could not do justice here). I still believe that representative government is the best way to run a society, but sadly the results of this exchange are not encouraging. Perhaps it is just the nature of human beings that we oppress others even in the best government system?

Good News and Bad Christians

Yesterday was Easter, the day that we celebrate the miracle of new life and resurrection. This year I couldn't help but reflect on how the actions of Christians are such pitiful reflections of this ultimate spiritual truth we claim to believe.

I have a next door neighbor whose only contact with us since we have moved in has been to come by and invite us to a church function. Last week I spoke to him again. It was a situation in which neighborly cooperation would have been expected (a falling tree right on the property line endangering his home). Rather than offering any help he rather rudely insisted I could expect no help from him and that it was my responsibility to fix the problem. He didn't even offer the basic neighborly respect that one might expect of any self-interested person sharing a property line. I would think that someone who tried to evangelize the neighborhood for Christ, might be a bit more interested in acting Christ-like towards his neighbor.

Of course, in my own life I find myself espousing Christian values with my actions leaving much to be desired.

This is the truly amazing thing about the Grace of God: it isn't only for the good but for the bad—for those of us that least deserve it. I can stand in church on Easter and praise Him despite all the foolishness of His children. In the end Christ's grace is so powerful that He is redeeming the us in spite of ourselves.

Professors and Physicians

The ever-present temptation to be arrogant with opinions:

So last night in my creative writing class the conversation drifted to the exciting primary contest between Clinton and Obama. A professor who was taking the class punctuated his input with, "Either would be better than our current president who is both a fool and evil. Electing him twice is proof of the absolute idiocy of voters!" He said this with a very self-assured tone, as if that is the final word on the subject and any reasonable person must concur.

I bit my tongue rather than stir up an argument. While Bush's presidency has been far from ideal, I voted for him twice and I still think I made the right decision today. I voted based on my own political values, which are likely different from this professor's, but are not necessarily less valid or less well-reasoned. I felt irritated that this man in a room full of well-educated adults he barely knew could declare most Americans idiots and his ideas superior to everyone else's. As I watched this older gentlemen who I believe was a professor in the English department, I thought about him spending all day teaching young people about a subject which he knows well and they do not. It is understandable this experience could leave him with the impression that he is far wiser than the average person and everyone is in desperate need of him to teach them what is true.

Of course, this led me to consider my own experience. As a physician I am always telling people things about their bodies that they didn't know. Having unequal knowledge in a narrow field has a tendency to make us over-estimate our own intelligence and the need of others to hear our opinions. It made me think about this blog. I want the controversial opinions here to be expressed humbly and in the spirit of free dialogue, but is that the case? I wonder if I am just another blogger on a political soap box acting as if I understand the world better than anyone else.

Recently at dinner with my parents I confidently said that I couldn't understand how anyone could vote for Mitt Romney who I declared to be obviously nothing but a pretty face and a charlatan. My parents kindly informed me that they had both voted for Romney and went on to explain quite well that on the issues that were important to them he was the best candidate. While their political priorities are different from mine, they made a very intelligent choice based on their own priorities. I felt embarrassed.


As the race for president continues I promise I will really try to be more humble and open to disagreement as I express my opinions both in this blog and privately.

Why Isolation Needs Celebrities

After seeing the Oscars on TV, it is interesting to reflect on how this small group of people in the film industry have have become the obsession of an entire country.

It is natural to speak and think about the people that we know, but with the breakdown of community we no longer have a network of people who know each other. Even deep friendships these days are not communal; they are relationships in isolation. Therefore we have no one to speak of when we talk to one another.

As a replacement we are given these public personalities of the “stars” to satisfy this basic human need for community. We enrich them and then harass them in order to be able to watch their vapid lives. We imagine closeness with them because we have seen them act out intense scenes on film.

While listening to people incessantly discussing the tumultuous romances of movie stars is pitiful, what is even more sad is the reason people are obsessed with them. We talk about them because we are so very lonely. We were told that isolation is part of being an adult. While it may be childish that grown people hang on every affair of the stars, the desire for a community for connection for a people our own is real and meaningful.

A Tragic Mulatto

While my overwhelming feeling about our son we expect to be born this summer is joy, I have also have some of the self doubt that likely affects all new parents. One particular concern is the complexity of race my son will face:

Why is the biracial child always supposed to be a tragedy stuck between two worlds? Historically it was typically the white parents that hid these inconvenient results of affairs (Strom Thurman). Now the typical scene is older white grandparents raising a mixed child after the dissolution of the relationship that brought it about. Certainly the acceptance of these children that were once viewed as proof of the crime of miscegenation (or even rape) has improved in recent decades, but they are still often viewed as problematic in-between people. While the virulence of Racism (the belief that race makes a person superior or inferior to others) has become exceedingly rare, the problems of race in America—prejudice, misunderstanding, inequality, resentment, interpretation of history—are far from resolved. Here in Clarke County, Georgia there is still a palpable division between black and white populations. While much of racial integration in the United States may be producing a melting pot, here it still quite obvious on a drive through Athens that “haves” and “have nots” are still mostly divided by race.


So I will be a white father to a son that everyone will usually identify as African American. He will be biracial, but in most people's minds that will count him as black (eg: Haley Berry and Barack Obama both have one Caucasian parent). He will carry the cultural weight of expectations based solely on his skin color. He will have people expect him to be somehow better at sports, more sexual, cooler, tougher, more rhythmic, and less interested in learning. These are the expectations (even admirations) that our society puts on black boys. He will be informed by people that barely know him that he has been wronged by crimes committed years before his birth, and because of this he must act or identify himself in way to amend these ills. He will be told by others that he must be a individual, and any identification with any ethnicity or appeal to his unique dilemmas as a biracial man is nothing but weakness or whining.


But what will his father tell him? I am a product of my own place and I have never known many of the pressures my son will face. I wish I could say that my own experience of interracial marriage has helped me “figure out” the complex and often unspoken rules and taboos of race in today's America, but I have no great wisdom to offer my son.


What he will have for certain is two parents who know themselves and will love each other and him deeply. Beyond the self-knowledge he will have from the experience of his home, I'm not sure he will have much education on the confusing situation he will inherit. I suppose like most children he will have to figure out his identity on his own.

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Gridbook Fiction

This blog has become a fascinating place for essays and discussions on arts, culture, death, politics, community, and practicing medicine. So, I suppose I should mention my fictions. While I have been writing fiction as long as I could write, I have been much more private with my fictional works than my essays.

Fiction is more difficult to reveal to the world. Fiction is more subjective, but unlike poetry which is exclusively personal, fiction seeks to engage the reader with story out of the writer's imagination. Fiction reveals what the author feels to be meaningful, terrifying, and beautiful. But unable to speak directly about such transcendent things, the writer weaves them into a story and then gives the story to a reader. As Flannery O'Conner said, “You tell a story because a statement would be inadequate.”

There is also the risk of appearing foolish. Saying I hope to publish novels someday sounds like someone saying they hope to be a movie star—a pipe dream and a magnet for mediocre talent. Despite all of my years of working on my fiction, I still often doubt if any of the pieces are good enough to present to readers yet.

But I have spent too much of my life on this writing (much more time and energy than I have spent on this blog) to keep it hidden due to my own insecurities. I can only improve my skill as a writer by putting my fiction to the test of being read. So I have created the page Gridbook Fiction to be the literary sister site to The Gridbook Blog. Right now it only has a few stories (and one downloadable eBook) but I expect to add more over time.

Feel free to read if it interests you.

A Diet of Dreams

I just saw the film “Into the Wild.” It is a different perspective from Krakauer's brilliant biography of Christopher “Alexander” McCandless, but it's telling of the brief enigmatic life of McCandless is no less profound in it's effect on me. It is the story of a life I could nearly have chosen. I highly recommend both the book and film. I have included the response I wrote in my gridbook journal after I first read the book in 2003:




I finished "Into The Wild." Who cannot love this reckless young man? What older man cannot read this and see his own self in younger dreamier days? Chris McCandless lived out so many of my boyish fantasies. How many times have I looked longingly into a forest or a mountain range and thought "What if I just left the road and walked out into that?" I read and recall myself running a tiny path through the woods in the heart of a violent storm hearing the ancient trees crashing across the path behind me—exhilarated and feeling more alive than ever. I remember myself wandering the remote mountain villages in Haiti with nothing but a water bottle and a camera.

I recollect hearing Alexander often spoken or even sung about by friends in college; he had already become a sort of patron saint for young men like us. I got out my old CD of songs from college which mentioned McCandless. Listening to Tom singing years ago on these recordings always is emotional for me—relics of a world that no longer exists for me, a world that shaped me. I recall the nights in the cabin beside the fire with other wild-hearted young men singing songs, reading each other our melodramatic poems. We all had bigger dreams and bigger ideas then: meeting before sunrise to sing prayers in the form of Gregorian Chants, because ancient monks had purer hearts than we ...playing soccer naked at midnight after butchering and cooking our own pig ...reading books by men long dead ...growing long beards ...sleeping in abandoned garages and cotton fields as we wandered the back highways without a map ...walking barefoot and reading books in trees.

We didn't take things as far as Alexander. We were mostly normal college students who usually slept in beds, flirted with girls, and ate processed foods, but we all had a piece of ourself in another world. When we wanted we could partake in the food of saints and dreamers. Now as an older man I am exclusively a man of the "real world." Alexander turned his back on the "real world" and lived exclusively on a diet of dreams far more vigorous than our occasional tastes, and he died of starvation in his sleeping bag. Who cannot envy this arrogant, foolish boy who never sold out?

My days of risks are over. I have a wife now, I will not run in a hurricane or wander uncharted villages alone again. These minor risks were appropriate for a young man, but now my wife is my priority and I must act responsibly. I am proud to be her husband and would never trade her for any one of McCandless' freedoms. I will soon have patients that depend on me for their life and health, and this will also be good. The ties that bind us are good. There can be virtue in this world too. One of those virtues is discipline. I have a huge test soon, and I have spent an entire day in this book and these sentimental musings. These are things I cannot do. Too many people are trusting me.

I leave this now to try to refocus myself on the work that has been set out for me. As I go I say a silent prayer for Jade and Fernando–the last two among us to live so exclusively on a diet of wild dreams–wherever in the world they might be . I could imagine either of them turning up dead on an adventure even more beautiful and foolish than Alexander's, but I pray that they are safe, as I also earnestly pray that they are doing nothing so banal as my work today, that they never give up that which I have chosen to leave behind. Somehow knowing that they are out there living these dreams makes my own burdens feel lighter.

The Other Caribbean

How should we best live in a world with inequality?

I just went on a cruise in the Caribbean with my in-laws: a celebration of my wife's parents' birthdays. We celebrated on a large beautiful ship that carried us through the warm waters of the Caribbean. The ship was a floating pleasure palace taking us to private beaches with perfect turquoise water.

Perhaps I am already too disillusioned to enjoy this Caribbean, because I have seen the other side of these islands—the side hidden from vacationers. I lived a summer in Haiti eight years ago, so the warm blast of tropics brings to my mind suffering, disease, and death. Unlike our own sterilized tropics of Florida, the paradise of the Caribbean seems to me a bandage hiding a gaping wound of human suffering.

This place has become the perfect escape because here among the impoverished the American can live like a king. We are taught to imagine the poor people as living charmed idyllic lives. Their suffering and squalor is carefully hidden from tourists.

On this cruise another island people, Indonesians, did all the manual labor on the ship. They were hard working and kind to all of us over-eating vacationers. I asked one Indonesian man what he does on his days off, but he has no days off—not a single one in his 11 month work contract. I asked what he does when he goes ashore, but he isn't allowed off the ship. All this labor for what I'm sure I would find a shockingly small salary. This is certainly a job he chose of his own volition, but not in some fair system in which transactions are beneficial to all parties, rather out of desperation because his world contained no opportunities at all. It is his cheap labor that makes this pleasure cruise affordable to Americans.

I don't think all inequality is necessarily wrong, but it is not a thing to desired. It also seems obvious that inequalities easily become opportunity for exploitation of those less advantaged. Our use of the people of these islands for our enjoyment demonstrate a pattern of exploitation, both intentional and unconscious. These island are populated by the decedents of sugar plantation slaves—the sweet, fattening substance was produced by the most brutal form of slavery this continent ever saw. Are we so sure that now our behavior towards them in the tourism industry is not also exploitation? Do we not purchase the destitute of the world cheaply with our dollars?

When I was a boy I first saw third world poverty in Mexico on a vacation. We were American tourists on buses, being taken from a beautiful hotel to a scenic destination. Out the windows I couldn't help but see them, people dressed in rags living in tin shacks. My father saw me staring. He said, “A lot of people here have it very hard, but I am glad we came here. Being here on vacation means the money we spend goes to improve their economy here.” My father is a good man, who worked hard and saved to give his family a nice vacation. He was genuine in his belief that he was being socially responsible with his tourism, and I believed him then.

But I have since lost my confidence that trickle-down economics will save the destitute in a world that is stacked against them. I have also come to believe that coming here to celebrate our good fortune in front of those who have nothing is an unintended insult to them. Treating our fellow man with dignity requires we don't use him wrongly.

I'm not always sure how to live in a world with inequality, but I am certain this will be my last pleasure cruise in the Caribbean.

Gridbook Endorsement: Ron Paul

The Gridbook Blog endorses Ron Paul for President in 2008.

First I should say that it is not my intention to tell anyone how they should vote. Many people of good conscience, strong values, and excellent intelligence (such as my wife) vote differently than myself for various reasons. The intention of discussing politics on a blog, however, is to influence thought and shed light in the sometimes dismal world of political power. With all the discussion of politics (with a good bit from a personal perspective) on this site I think it is reasonable for me to also let you know for whom I am voting and why I think this person would make the best president.

With an atypical set of political stances it isn't easy to choose a major party candidate to support. It is much simpler to pick out the ones that I think would be the worst (such as Gulliani and Clinton) than the best. I initially found Ron Paul by accident when googling the term "consistent life politics." All I knew about Paul before was that he is a Libertarian with a small but passionate following, particularly on the web. I decided to do a little research on this congressman. Although Dr. Paul doesn't use the term "consistent life" to describe his politics, his positions seem to adhere better to consistent life values better than any other candidate of which I am aware.

First of all Dr. Paul is very pro-life on Abortion. Unlike a lot of Republicans that give the tragedy of abortion lip service but don't seem inclined to do anything to stop it, Paul is pro-active and has introduced legislation to amend the constitution to define human life as running from conception to natural death. Paul is also opposed to aggressive and violent intervention around the world. He is the only person running for president in either party that voted against the Iraq war from the beginning. While he is not a pacifist, he seems opposed to the use of deadly force in most cases that don't involve national defense. He is opposed to the federal death penalty, although he seems open to it on the state level.

Dr. Paul mostly discusses these positions based on his constitutionalist, limited-government values, however, his underlying beliefs seem consistently compassionate and anti-violence. His experiences as an OB/GYN and a serviceman during Vietnam seem to have left him with a strong aversion for violence. He is quoted pointing out how odd it is that his fellow pro-life, Christ-loving politicians so often seem the most eager for war and bombing. I couldn't agree more.

I certainly am not a Libertarian. I do not have the same confidence that just because free markets create wealth they can also fix all other ills if sufficiently unrestrained. (I have even been known to border on Socialism) But with the recent poor performance of liberals and conservatives in the executive branch, I am certainly willing to give a Libertarian a try. Having listened to quite a few of his speeches and interviews I cannot help but be struck by his intelligence, straightforwardness, humanism, and apparent integrity. Like his policies or not you have to be impressed with Paul's character. I know that looks can be deceiving in politics, but he certainly seems a breath of fresh air compared to most candidates who seem unable to speak in anything other than prefabed sound bites.

There are certain positions on which I would differ from Dr. Paul like immigration and certain approaches to civil rights, environmental policy, and medical care, but looking at the overall candidate I cannot help but pick Ron Paul from the rest of the major party candidates as most worthy of my vote.

I strongly encourage everyone to learn more about Ron Paul before you go to the polls this primary.

Changing Decades

Reflections from my journal. The two pictures are ten years apart.

I turn 30 tomorrow. While I am certainly not old yet, I am no longer young. I know that it sounds odd, but this change of decades has caught me by surprise. I didn't really see myself as older, in fact my idea of myself hasn't changed much in the last decade. While the decade from ten to twenty contains necessary change from child to adult, this next decade was more like the simple passage of days that suddenly added up to another decade without being aware of aging. While I have certainly had new experiences and learned new things, I am psychologically, physically, and mentally not very different from that twenty year old—not enough to feel ten years older. This combined with the rapid gestation of our first child, and my first real job as an independent MD, has created a sense of suddenly finding myself much older.

Perhaps it is due to a culture that glorifies youth and fears aging, but I had really grown attached to my idea of myself as a “young man.” Being a young adult allows one to be idealistic, hold strange ideas, and act eccentrically, write fiction, and wear worn and torn clothes—all acceptable and expected in young men, but a bit silly for a grown man. And what is one to do about this surprising loss of youth? Nothing is more pitiful than an adult who tries to seem young by dressing or talking like young people. I must accept that I am no longer young and attempt aging with grace—realizing that 40, 50, 60, etc. will likely overtake me with similar stealth.

These sorts of thoughts make me question how I have used my time. While based on average life expectancies I still have over half my life ahead of me and I am hopefully still far from the stage of unavoidable physical and mental decline, I have passed the freest of decades now. As a father and practicing physician much of my time from now will not be my own.

Myself as a twenty-year-old would have expected to do more over this decade. I would have expected at this point to have done more to make the world better, to have written some important book, and to have a deeper relationship with God. Instead I find myself with a job, a mortgage, accumulating things I don't need, thinking more about my own desires and comfort than about what is right and true.

There is good reason to stop and reflect at thirty. Too often ideals and hopes fade as we age. The Baby Boomers were right to not trust anyone over thirty—look how sold out and self-absorbed they became as they aged! Aging is inevitable as long as life goes on. I can only hope that the apathy, atrophy, and closed-mindedness won't be necessary side effects of becoming older.