Not All Those Who Do Not Wander Are Not Lost

A few months ago my friend Nick put up an excellent blog post entitled Not All Who Wander Are Lost, taking his cue from this Tolkien quote to discuss the idea of Christians as pilgrims, subjects of Christ as King.  I wouldn't think of this as responsive to that post, but of course I'd recommend you go read it anyway. He incidentally noted that probably most who wander are lost, which seems likely to me.  And yet, one need not wander to become lost.

Also, many of those who do not wander are hobbits.

It's amazing how "lost" one can get without ever knowingly straying from the path. That is, by a series of reasonable decisions with outcomes which may be anticipated, each of which fits neatly with the rest, it's quite possible nevertheless to stray far from the route intended. I've had frequent occasion over the last few months to reflect on decison-making processes and metrics, as well as the results I've obtained by them over the years.  It's a topic that naturally fills untold shelves in the business and economics literature, but is easy to gloss over in the day to day. My contention is that we (or maybe just I) often only make medium-sized decisions.  Things happen with regard to larger and smaller decisions, but I think it often falls short (or long) of conscious decision.

Sometimes you run into decisions that raise the stakes by inevitably impacting the way you live for the next year; the next five years; or the rest of your life.  Visible, high-impact decisions can call everything into question, and decision-making in that context is as much about reaffirming and rightly understanding one's identity as it is about making the decision. The decision flows from identity, and identity is defined by the decision. We are in large part defined by the commitments we make and how we fulfill them or fail to do so.  So the conscious decision to make or execute upon a commitment, or not, is defining of and reliant upon identity. It will make you and reveal you.

For the decisions big enough to warrant attention but not big enough to confront you with yourself, we think about it and do the best we can with the information available. That's the stuff of traditional economics, among other fields, and I needn't discuss it here.

I think the little things are more similar to the big than the medium.  I don't have the time or energy to optimize every detail of my life. They are built into habit; the result of latent decisions or dispositions acted out in tiny ways again and again. Over time I can try to adjust things to improve them on a one-off basis, but frequently that will only go so far without acknowledging the habit, addressing an underlying issue of identity, or healing a sinful heart.

What this highlights, to me, is just how fundamentally and pervasively debasing are the effects of the fall, and how critical for thriving it is to know God well and be reconciled to Him.  It is easy to become lost through the culmination of so many great and miniscule actions if we do not seek ardently after and hold fast to truth and an identity built upon the rock of our salvation.

I wonder, then, how many latent decisions I have made, large or small, without conscious deliberation.  I wonder where I will discover one next.  And I wonder if I will like what it reveals about my heart, or just show me to be lost, without having ever wandered.

A Poem for Today

In the summer of 2011 my boss, a lively, big-hearted woman transplanted from Georgia, handed me a copy of this poem.  I don't recall the context in which that occurred, but it seemed quite random.  I read it, and again, and thanked her for it.  Days later, my wife left me for the woman she was seeing.  When I read this poem again, I wept (which I suppose I was doing a lot of anyway, but no matter). Since then I have often returned to it in times of difficulty, uncertainty, or conflict.  But especially in sorrow.

The poem is called Kindness.  The author is Naomi Shihab Nye.

[Update:  For copyright purposes, I am substituting a link for a reprinting of the poem.  I do hope you'll follow it.]

Kindness (http://writersalmanac.publicradio.org/index.php?date=2007/07/23)

Dusting Off the Old Brain

My dear friend Nick McAvoy has, from time to time, used the charmingly grotesque imagery of "dusting off the old brain" to describe points of personal transition that awakened new or long disused channels and degrees of intellectual engagement.  I have begun to feel in the last few months that I may be coming upon one of those periods of renewal after a long and fitful slumber.

I like to fancy that I do have, at least on some occasions, the energy and focus required to think well upon a subject.  Yet there is a limit, imposed by the sheer physicality and temporality of life.  For several years my energies had been absorbed almost entirely into the work product of the law firm where I spent my days, nights and Saturdays (rarely Sundays, however, and delightfully not; on which, perhaps more later).  During this period, serious study and reflection were difficult in any area, because the time not spent in productive employment was either used in vain or vainglorious efforts at recovery, or in the practical busywork of maintaining my small household.  Before the firm, law school had a similar effect of crowding out other areas of study and reflection that would have yielded more satisfactory results. Just as early monasticism kept a sliver of ancient scholarship alive through the dark ages, so for me church and music have been continuous backstops against the total loss of intellectual engagement.  But it has been at a low ebb.

The horde of Ghengis Khan approaches!

The limiting reagent was time, but as I began to wind down my law firm job, available time quickly multiplied, and the buffer of renewed exercise could no longer consume it.  I started with a history podcast from Dan Carlin's Hardcore History series called 'The Wrath of the Khans."  Hearing of a time and place and people far from me, in addition to being absolutely fascinating in its own right, helped to take me regularly once again out of my routines of middle class subsistence and forced me to think about the world at large.  This blossomed into further pursuits of history and philosophy, and I feel that I am only just beginning to recover my faculties.  I look forward to giving my curiosity increasing time to roam in the future.

My hope is that I may leave some record here, if not of understanding, then at least of curiosity and exploration.  I bequeathed myself a few old posts from 2012; great empty hulls that never made it out of dry dock, but I may soon attempt to bring them to completion. (One of these is an amusing missive, likely inappropriate post-Crimea, to Russian readers, who, to my surprise, I found to be surprisingly common among those who stumble upon this blog.)  In general, though, I will likely stick with shorter posts about whatever happens to intrigue me at the moment, from a deliberately limited perspective.  Rather than making an illusory assay at fairness or comprehensive coverage, I'll content myself to a pointed thought or two at a time, and perhaps something larger will emerge from the pattern. Or perhaps not.  Either way, I am excited to be writing something other than a mortgage again.