Parallel parking perspective

I was waiting to meet some friends for lunch one afternoon at a calzone shop downtown. My chair by the window was a front-row seat at one of the worst parallel parking jobs I've ever seen. The spot on the corner of the block was available, and it's long enough that a compact car can simply pull in nose first. Evidently this guy thought his little sedan couldn't pull off that maneuver. His backing angle was wrong, and his bumper hit the curb in the middle of the space. He promptly pulled forward and cut the wheel, backed up, and slammed into the Jeep behind him. The Jeep lurched but was protected by its huge aftermarket bumper. The stunned gentleman in the sedan pulled forward into the street, cut his wheel, and hit the curb at the end of the block. After this, he backed into the Jeep again. He pulled forward, jumped out of the car, and ran diagonally across the intersection. I don't remember if he even put change in the meter. If he'd have asked, I would have stood on the sidewalk and helped him park.

One of the interesting things about parallel parking is that it's always easier to know what to do when you are watching someone else than it is when you are doing it. When your vista is from the outside, you can see exactly where the curb is. Knowing when to cut the wheel is easy. When you've got the outside perspective, knowing where to stop before ramming the car behind you is simple. When you're in the car, your view is impeded by the very vehicle you're trying to park. When you're detached from it, you've got better feedback on the situation.

Life is much like parallel parking. Often we have little perspective from within our own situation. We have endless data about how the circumstance feels and what it's like to turn the proverbial steering wheel and work the pedals, but the view we get from a four inch mirror pales compared to the angle we get from the eyes of someone on the sidewalk. As confident as we can be in our own ability to navigate life, sometimes getting someone else's perspective on our plans can save us a lot of headaches. Although that Jeep wasn't scratched, but I'm sure that sedan has some battle scars.

Tattoo moments

Several years ago, I had a friend that I met with regularly. We'd talk about whatever was on our minds and try to help him sort out a direction for his life. He was single, a bit younger than me, and tended to be impetuous. One day he spontaneously announced his intentions to ride his motorcycle to a beach across the country for college spring break. That was the day we coined the term "tattoo moment".

I have nothing against tattoos, but I don't have one myself. My primary hurdle to getting ink done is determining what I would like to have painted on my body for the rest of my life. My inner graphic designer screams, "It might look great today, but in a decade it will look so played!" I understand that a tattoo (much like a scar) tells where you were at a certain part of the life journey, but my fear is that I might regret the vintage drawing I chose for my arm. What seemed like a good idea at the time might not seem so great after a dozen trips around the sun.

The real tattoo horror story is the drunken tattoo. Fueled by alcohol and the reckless abandon of the moment, needle hits skin and you wake up with a bad headache and the name of a girl you don't remember carved on your forearm. Bad news. Suddenly your options are limited to long sleeve shirts or only dating girls named "Brooke". What happened in Vegas didn't stay there--the secretary took the minutes on your arm.

My friend and I defined a "tattoo moment" as any time you might do something that you'll regret later, be it ten minutes or ten years later. We decided that recognizing and considering these choices before they are made is probably a good idea. A brief "pause and reflect" could save you from a bad metaphorical ink job. Its a commitment to awareness. Our emotions and hormones might be amped up in the moment, and giving a decision some time to breathe is frequently the right option. Nobody wants to wear long sleeves all the time.

Content is king

I've got an iPod so small it can double as a bookmark. I can watch movies on it. I can stream endless movies, music, lectures, and other media on my laptop and even on my phone. If I wanted to pay for it, I could have more cable channels than I could surf in an hour, let alone during commercials. I've got a big screen on my wall and a small screen in my pocket, and both of them are useless unless there's something to watch on them. Content is king.

Creating media used to be the realm of commercial ventures with budgets that could purchase small islands in the Pacific. Now anyone can film and publish a movie worldwide with a phone. Even the large studios and the interest of people with large money can barely make a dent in the content glut. Now everyone can jump in the fray to create content to keep our screens flickering and our subwoofers bumping. But is it worth consuming?

Eventually, you have to ask yourself how many hours of your life are you willing to give to watching bicycle wrecks, college pranks, and the lancing of severe acne. At some point you'll want to take something worth hearing on your iPodded run. What good is a Kindle-style reader if there's nothing worth reading? All those gadgets are useless without input, and they have little value if their output isn't worth hearing. Content is king.

We need good content. That's where you come in.

The need has never been greater for gifted individuals to create content that is valuable, beautiful, provocative, interesting, and reflective. If you are a creative person of faith in Christ, consider how essential it is that you create. You have allowed God to invest in you, constructing in you a paradoxically unique yet universal perspective on life. Inside you beats a heart that has seen redemption in brokenness, purpose in bleakness, and questions even in hope. God wants the world to see through your eyes. But there's just one thing: Do a good job.

Don't dip your pen in the tired cliches of church talk. Don't merely rubber stamp the "Christian" adjective before everything you do. That's a marketing ploy that makes you look as authentic as a plastic dashboard Jesus. Create from your perspective of faith, and let God flow through who you are. Let people see through your eyes, and go at it with both guns blazing.

Content is king in this world of ubiquitous media. You are so necessary. There are endless screens to fill and ear buds to ring, and you've got an angle that needs reflected. Do what you do well, and you'll be in demand. We've seen enough mento bombs on YouTube. Bring us your craft.

Veneer

I ran into a casual friend at a local wi-fi hotspot. The free internet there collects laptops like a porch light collects dead bugs, and that day was no exception. I sat across from my acquaintance and never even considered what he was feverishly pursuing on his computer. He looked embarrassed and confessed to me that he was playing a video game. As if I demanded an explanation, he told me how busy he was and how this was the only chance he had to unwind a bit. I didn't mind that he was squeezing in some downtime, but he certainly minded what I thought of it.

I find it interesting how consumed we can be with how others perceive us, particularly how careful we are in our appearance to total strangers. We suck in our gut, hide the laptop screen, and disguise an ugly mood with a smile for someone that simply walks by us--someone that we may never see again and wouldn't remember us if we did. Why do we care so much about people who may not give us more consideration than the color of the last doorknob they turned?

I think we all have an "ideal self" in mind. We might not have all the details worked out, but we've got a general image that we hope comes to mind when others think of us. Our primping and flaw hiding for the anonymous masses has less to do with them and more to do with us. We desperately want to be this "ideal self", so we try to strut it when we can. For ninety-three minutes on the plane, we can convince that guy from Milwaukee that we've got our lives sorted, assembled, and in effect. Be jealous, Mr. Cheesehead, very jealous. Until the wheels hit the tarmac, we can be that desirable person.

It's easy to varnish our veneer in public. We can walk poised until someone else passes us on the sidewalk, but few of us care about our posture on our living room couch. Why don't we try? Because everyone at home can call our bluff. They know who we really are, because that's who we are around them. Our inner children come out to whine, and they've blown our nose too many times to be fooled by any bravado we might muster. Our 'perfect face' would be a waste of time.

Showing passing strangers our peacock feathers can be intoxicating, especially if the interaction strokes with the grain of our image. But strengthening this outer shell does little to help our inner core--the part that connects with our ongoing relationships. It's easy to be perfect alone, but being a better person in relationships takes work. This kind of work could rarely be called "intoxicating". It involves honesty, messes, and apologies. It doesn't stroke our egos--it whips them into shape.

I enjoy the occasional nod from a stranger. It scratches an itch. But the reward of long-term relationships seems more important to me. That Packer fan on the plane might have thought I was fantastic for an hour conversation, but life is much longer than an hour. I hope I can be valued by the people that really matter to me--my family and friends. That's an image I hope to project through my veneer.

Stinking world

It's a silly story that might remind you of yourself, regardless of your facial hair configuration:

An old man napped every afternoon on a riverside park bench. One day some mischievous kids decided to prank the old guy by placing limburger cheese (the stinkiest of all cheeses) on his moustache. When the 'stache sporting geezer woke up, he noticed his world wasn't as fragrant as before his siesta. Overlooking what was literally right under his nose, he issued verbal citations to everything in proximity:

This bench stinks. That tree stinks. The park stinks. Those people stink. This whole world stinks.

If your whole world stinks, check your moustache.