Try as I might, but this Gen Xer just can't stay addicted to his phone — like the Gen Z kids. At the end of the day, maybe we more seasoned folks aren't meant to be on our phones so much. Oh well.
Last week, I took a major step in curbing my phone use by deleting Pokemon Go. I went on a field trip to spa-like Cal State Fullerton, tried to do a Pokemon party with a student and then realized he was playing the game the whole time and even walked into somebody.
Wait a second. Is this what I look like when I'm mindlessly spinning Pokestops and collecting constant Pokemon? Ugh. I don't want that.
I deleted the app, and my life almost instantly got better. The curious thing is that I just wrote about my Pokemon addiction two months ago. Perhaps that blog entry made me realize how silly it was. While it's great to walk 30 miles a week, do I really need to be on my phone during those miles? And do I really have to walk 30 miles every single week?
This whole Pokemon Go addiction, just to be abruptly deleted, has me pondering how pop culture has gotten so ephemeral that I need to reevaluate where I spend my time. Also, I am wondering if our attention-economy pop culture world now is destined to be utterly uncool because of its tech-enforced, engagement-calculating parameters.
Surprisingly, I find my time — and attention — valuable, and I just don't want to waste it on mindless scrolling or the completely unnecessary 24-hour news cycle or Podcasts (I much prefer music). Yes, I will indeed live the majority of my life away from tech and pop culture, but then what do I do when I want to dabble in a movie or TV show or music or whatnot? I'm not deleting all of pop culture from my life, like Pokemon Go.
This blog functions as not only a record of my life, but a record of pop culture for Gen Xers in my demographic. A topic needs to grab my full attention for me to write about it, and I've noticed some things that have grabbed my attention have come and gone, like the wind, Bullseye. They're gone now. Poof.
The Podcast SmartLess and Costco jump to mind. Against my better judgement, I lauded SmartLess two years ago, but I had already seen that the Podcast's utter focus was commercialism. Then, it became even more commercial, and even more commercial, and I haven't had a desire to listen for a long, long time.
Last year, I wrote about how I finally succumbed to joining Costco. That membership lasted a year. Hey Costco, I'm good; your novelty wore off. Plus, my family prefers its big-box items from Target, so OK then.
As I ponder my reversals on Pokemon, SmartLess and Costco, I guess it all goes back to the first Noble Truth of Buddhism. Nothing is forever, and this is painful.
While I am not sure the Buddha envisioned that truth applied to Pokemon Go, I believe that truth is important to remember as the world often appears to be changing with warp-like speed. But is it really?
I'd like to think people are the same as 30 years ago. But perhaps modern technology, like comments on YouTube videos, brings out the worst in people. Perhaps modern technology pushed individuals into being way less cooler versions of their ultimate selves.
Media-wise, if we're living in this winner-take-all, attention economy, then it's exceptionally hard for anything to be cool in that space. I mean, really. Once anything goes viral, isn't it passe by then? If the masses determine what gets attention, isn't that completely uncool and unworthy of our attention?
It's kind of like when the frat boys started to like Pearl Jam, and we just knew, OK, Pearl Jam just isn't worth our attention any more. But now, it's not just the frat boys, who happened to be in college by the way, adding the likes to Pearl Jam. It's everybody. I mean everybody.
And it doesn't matter how uneducated, or clueless, one is. Your phone attention counts as one engagement as does the engagement of The World's Most Sophisticated Man. But, wait, isn't it highly likely that more uneducated folk are on their phones longer than the smart ones? Of course. Ahh, no wonder the world looks like it does!
It reminds of a George Carlin joke: Think of how dumb the average American is. Then, understand that half of the country is dumber than that!
And now, these people, who do not have the capacity to read full-length books, have slot-machine supercomputers in their pockets. Buzzes, beeps, memes, a red circle with a number in it, zero regulation — how could society not denigrate?
But, alas, I'll still hit up pop culture to escape that ugly truth, and where I put my attention is crucial. While White Lotus and my glorious Cleveland Guardians appear absolutely worthy of it, I have to be pretty discerning with my attention.
John Mulaney, for example, had a killer show about L.A. about 10 months ago, and now it's no longer about L.A. and is about nothing in particular. Totally uncool now — but at least the show's opening sequence remained.
Editor's Note: The Snooze Button Generation originally published "100 Nonfiction Books I Recommend" in 2019. As we read more books worthy of recommending, the list continually updates. Today, "Levels of the Game" by John McPhee enters the Sports category.
Blown away.
It's been a while since I've felt blown away by a book, but John McPhee's Levels of the Game (1969) did it to me. I must admit that right off the bat, I was skeptical because of the publication date.
One Hundred Nonfiction Books I Recommend overflows with 21st century books. Levels of the Game is only the 13th book I recommend from the 20th century, and only the fifth prior to 1990. Y'know, it goes back to how our reading minds have contorted in the digital age and how many 20th century books can't compete with our 15-tabs-open, notification-receiving, Podcast-listening digital minds.
Upon publication of Levels of the Game, Robert Lipsyte of The New York Times wrote: "This may be the high point of American sports journalism."
This is not hyperbole to say that Lipsyte was correct. It just very well may be the high point of sports journalism. Of the 10 categories of books I recommend, sports books are the weakest. It's not out of not reading these books, or giving them chances, but they too often are mere commercial products extolling heroes. Then, when I read the sports books that supposedly have chops, I react with: "Eh, doesn't do it for me."
In Levels of the Game, the narrative thread is genius. It follows just one match, a semifinal in the 1968 U.S. Open between Arthur Ashe and Clark Graebner. This was the first U.S. Open in the open area, and that means it was the first time pros were allowed to compete against amateurs. It used to be only for amateurs.
Both Ashe and Graebner had amateur status and earned no prize money from their matches. It was a time when they both arrived at their match via subway, and Ashe was a lieutenant in the Army while Graebner was — and still is — a paper company executive in New York City.
The match is significant because two Americans are facing off in the semis whereas no American had won the U.S. Open at Forest Hills in 13 years. The winner would have a shot at defeating either a Dutchman or Australian for the title.
McPhee reports the path of the match and highlights significant points throughout the 150-page book. Early on, the reader realizes that McPhee has traveled to Richmond, Va., to interview and report on Ashe's background and Cleveland, Ohio, to report on Graebner. By the way, as a Cleveland native, I had quite a bonus to hear about him graduating from Lakewood High and his family moving to Beachwood as his dad attended dental school at Case Western Reserve.
One way I approached the book was to not look up the result to keep it a bit of a cliffhanger. I assumed Ashe probably was going to win because, honestly, I had never heard of Graebner. But Graebner won the first set 6-4 and had a pretty untouchable serve, so let's just say this, if you don't want a spoiler's alert, stop reading here.
The match itself is secondary to exploring the lives of the two, who were Davis Cup teammates and comrades. On Ashe's side, we see what life was like, training under Dr. Robert Johnson, who created a tennis academy for African-Americans in Lynchburg, Va. We also see glimpses into Ashe's father, Arthur Sr., and learn that Arthur Jr. lost his mother at age 6 when she was 27 and had complications from a pregnancy.
In Graebner's world, we see how he was an only child, and he and his father were obsessed with tennis. Graebner, who wore black glasses and had a striking resemblance to Clark Kent, was a power server in a time in which players still used wooden rackets.
When the match gets tied 6-6 in the second set, the narrative shifts to the players' assessment of each other as well as their different ideologies. Then, a lengthy quote from Ashe that extends beyond a page explains his relationship with Graebner, his humanity for the Clevelander and the complexity of Ashe's empathetic position in culture, despite facing many oblivious to society's ills.
The nuanced quote is so insightful that it probably doesn't serve it well to take any of it out of context, but here goes: "(Graebner's) a nice guy, but he has become accustomed to instant gratification. As soon as he wanted something, he got it. Put all this on a tennis court, and the high-strung part, the conservative, and the need for instant gratification become predominant."
In era before tiebreakers, the match gets tied 6-6 in the second set. Graebner finally loses his serve for the first time in the match to conclude the second set, 8-6. So weird to think of that game, that moment. Where would we be if Graebner holds on?
In the third set, Ashe leads 6-5. It's Graebner's serve, and Ashe takes a love-15 lead. McPhee points out that at this juncture, the two have played 186 points. Each player has won 93 points. But from then on ... it's all Ashe. He wins that game and the match in four sets.
Ashe goes on to win the U.S. Open final the next day, and he also wins the Australian Open (1970) and Wimbledon (1975) in his career — three Grand Slam titles. Beyond tennis, Ashe had a gift for diplomacy and leadership, and even when Levels of the Game was published, he had visited the White House four times by age 26.
Toward the end of the book, Ashe says a few memorable things, including the constant judgment and stress he faced. "It's a great feeling to away from all this crap in the United States. Mentally and spiritually, it's like taking a vacation. It's like going from New York to the black world of Richmond and Gum Spring. Your guard goes down. Everywhere else I go, my sensors are out. Everywhere."
A few pages later, McPhee explains a lot of the criticism Ashe endured. Then Ashe, who we lost at age 49 in 1993, answers the criticism with an eloquent, three-page quote in the final few pages of the book.
My favorite part of the quote is this: "We'll advance by quiet negotiation and slow infiltration — and by objective, well-planned education, not an education in which you're brainwashed. Education reflects a culture's values. If that culture is warped, you get a warped education."
One glorious Saturday afternoon in November 2013, I stumbled across a Lord of the Rings pinball machine for sale at Cal Bowl in Lakewood. I snagged the thing and tuned it up to perfection. It might remain my most prized possession.
Ten years later in November 2023, Chloe randomly was playing Pokemon Go. I was curious what she was doing and announced, "Well, if you can't beat 'em, join 'em."
Every since Space Invaders entered my life in 1980, video games have been a part of it. Soon, it was Mario Bros. and Tecmo Super Bowl on Nintendo, and now, this Pokemon Go thing, I must admit, is a full-on addiction. I think it's a healthy addiction, but I'm not 100 percent sure.
I just won't stop playing. Most weeks, I walk more than 50 kilometers (31 miles) to get rewards from the app.
For those who know the game, you will not need this brief explanation. Pokemon Go is an augmented reality game that was globally popular as soon as it came out in 2016. Augmented reality means that it combines real world and computer-generated content.
So I'll be walking down the street and see a mural in real life, but then that mural will exist on my phone as a Pokestop to spin (click on), collect as a postcard and get rewards. That's pretty cool. I've collected more than 12,000 of those. ... Whoa. I've saved 650 of them.
And then there's the characters, the Pokemon. There are more than 1,000 of those. They're cute and collectable, kind of like virtual Beanie Babies. I've snagged more than 14,000 Pokemon. ... Egads.
When I'm pretending this isn't an addiction, I liken it to the best Fitbit ever because it rewards me for walking. Good deal!
Walking in different places is my favorite thing about it. Without that, I wouldn't do it. Chloe recently had me download the new Pokemon Trading Card Game Pocket, a virtual card game. It doesn't work at all for me. It has nothing to do with walking. I'm not a fan of non-physical video games. Pinball and Pokemon Go at least involve some sort of physical element.
For a lot of 2024, my singular focus in life was to evolve the Pokemon legendary character Zygarde to its fullest form. That meant I had to walk path upon path to collect 250 Zygarde cells. You can only get three Zygarde cells per day, and it's erratic how many one gets for a path. Sometimes, it's zero. And sometimes, I just didn't see them. Getting those cells took forever.
Finally, this past November 2024, I fully evolved Zygarde, and that's the picture of him above. After that mega-accomplishment, I figured the game was over. But then, I just kept playing. I still collected Zygarde cells (I'm not sure why), then I figured out how to use Reddit to find raids and collect legendary Pokemon. What was happening here?
Dude, it is a full-on ADDICTION. Pokemon characters are ranked on a scale of zero to three stars, and typically, there are three versions of each Pokemon like baby, teen and adult. I pretty much have three stars of every Pokemon in every version. Wild!
And I have my Pokemon into teams. I have nine different teams of 18 Pokemon on each. That's 162 specialized Pokemon for my criteria. My most important category "best buddies" just grew to 20. You get a best buddy when you earn 300 hearts with the Pokemon you choose as your sidekick, and getting one best buddy is a pretty lengthy process.
Look, enough already. This all is craziness. It's obsessive video gaming. It's one thing to use Pokemon Go as motivation to walk, but then, why am I putting hours upon hours into the game at home without walking? Where is the justification for that?
I see the mindless phone consumption of my students, and by George, I don't want to be like them. I want to be mindful, and I don't need to devote my life to Pokemon Go. I'm better than that!
In this blog, I've often written about and recommended books that questions social media, the phone and our current attention economy. Reader, Come Home and How to Do Nothingare my favorites. Right now, I just finished a book in a similar vein, Bored and Brilliant by Manoush Zomorodi.
I couldn't agree more with the premise of Bored and Brilliant, that to be more creative, we have to embrace boredom and not give away all of our break moments to screen time. Our brains need time for space, and nowadays, so many people don't give themselves a break away from their phones. For me, I actually am excellent with phone discipline — except for this Pokemon Go thing.
In Bored and Brilliant, Zomorodi suggests deleting the app that we use most and see what happens. She quotes author and tech behavior expert Nir Eyal, who says we should ask this question: "Is this product serving me or hurting me?"
I've had social media off my phone for years and am disciplined enough to look at the news (DW from Germany is what I prefer) only once a day. But the reality is that the kid's game, Pokemon Go, probably isn't serving me any more. Yet I'm confused because it often gets me out to walk. And that's a good thing.
I am thinking of deleting the app, but I just don't know I can do it.
OK. It might seem like an odd topic as Baby New Year slides down the firefighter's pole of life into 2025. But I've been thinking about dead rock stars a bit since the Morrison Hotel in downtown Los Angeles caught fire a few days ago. Perhaps this year, too, this blog will go back to its original focus — pop culture of interest to Gen Xers.
Somehow, the Morrison Hotel endures, even though Jim Morrison has been deceased for 53 years. Morrison, as many are fully aware, is on the list of dead rock stars at age 27. ... Gone. Gone as a mere youngster.
Jim Morrison, Kurt Cobain, Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin are the most significant members in the 27 Club. They all were hugely famous singers, and I realize something else. They're all American.
That's got to mean something. I mean, we have other a few others in the unfortunate 27 Club that are British, including Rolling Stones guitarist Brian Jones and Amy Winehouse, who died in 2011. But Jones was no singer, and Winehouse is pretty late to the game as the only significant 21st century member of this unfortunate club in my estimation.
The 27 Club is a decidedly American phenomenon, and it's got to mean something about our culture. Right? Well, let's explore.
Truly, if you took away the Americans, there really would not be a 27 Club. Also, let me mention that famous downtown New York artist Jean-Michel Basquiat is in the club, and Mississippi bluesman Robert Johnson — described by the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as "the first ever rock star" — started the club when he died at 27 in 1938.
As Sinead O'Connor might sing, "nothing compares to..." these American icon deaths at 27 — or really American icon deaths at any age. Paul McCartney, 82, is still going pretty strong for his age as is Mick Jagger, 81. If the United States has any vague counterpart to those two Brits, I'd go with Michael Jackson (dead at 50) and Prince (dead at 57). Both had drug-related deaths.
I am not qualified to talk about addiction, or mental illness, or even life if the limelight. But the premature deaths of all of these American pop icons has to mean something. And it's just now that I'm mentioning mega-icons James Dean (dead at 24) and Marilyn Monroe (dead at 36).
I suppose all we can do is accept the fact that on some level, American pop culture has been toxic, absolutely toxic, for decades. So, yeah, we're heading into 2025, and my wish remains that American culture would become a little less toxic. But I just don't see that happening.
On Christmas Day, I noticed that the most streamed movie on Netflix was Carry-On, a mid movie that probably keeps your attention but has no real substance and is about terrorism at LAX. Merry Christmas!
Also on Netflix, it aired two highly watched NFL games, and as anyone knows, football is the most violent sport on planet earth. Somebody might say that's not right. What about boxing or MMA? But football is played on such a ginormous scale in the United States — and is such a fabric of American culture — that I deem it as more violent than any other sport. American football is hardly played in other countries, by the way.
Dead rock stars, the NFL, some guy named Jake Paul, divisive politics — when the market place dictates the culture, the lowest common denominator prevails. We all lose. We all lose because we are indeed better than this junk.
The market place determines way more than pop culture in the United States nowadays. Gen Z is the most stressed generation in history, and a big part of that is the impending doom of trying to maximize themselves as human resources. Kids are forced to think of themselves as human resources exceptionally early in life. I mean, in the Long Beach Unified School District, for example, students pick their high school and a career pathway when they are in eighth grade.
I just feel we need some type of return to humanity and not human resources. We have signs all around us that this market-first American culture does not work. On the pop culture front, I see a huge desire for us to have music and books and movies that have staying power and are not so dang disposable. We're so desperate to have that — and feel that — that many now look back on 1988's Die Hard as "a great Christmas movie."
We want culture with staying power. We want McCartneys and Jaggers. We don't want disposable pop stars and movies.
Dead at 27?!? I actually wonder how many 27-year-olds are truly alive. I bet by the time many turn 27, they are just working their butts off on hamster wheels of paychecks.
I hope to god our kids are alive at 7 — although I hardly see any playing outside. I hope they're also alive at 17, but the ones I see are so stressed about their schoolwork and getting into college that I question if they actually enjoy that age.
This wide-open marketplace comes with a price, and I don't think it's a stretch to say part of the cost of this disposable culture is the destruction of American icons. OK, then. Happy New Year!
I grew up on games and competition, and we played constant board games, cards and HORSE. Was it too much competiton? ... Probably.
Sophie is a bit of a gamer as well, and I just concluded a trip to the Bay Area in which Dina, Chloe and I spent Thanksgiving with the eldest daughter. She is a sophomore at UC Berkeley, and we did indeed play a family game of hearts when we visited. ... Gamers.
But I feel the need to compete more with Sophie. We don't need to grab a basketball and get in the driveway and play a no-holds-barred game of one-on-one like in The Great Santini.
Rather, I say we go toe-to-toe and compete with our college lives. Whatcha got, Sophie? Bring it.
I must say that college appears to be a much, much different experience than when I attended in the early 1990s. But which experience is better?
Now, are our experiences in any way indicative of every person of an entire generation? Well, uh, yes, indeed, they are! I went to The Ohio State University, and, overall, my college experience was positive. But the question is: Who has a better college experience — Gen Z kids or us Gen Xers?
1) Social Life. I assumed the Gen Xers and I would win this in a landslide. I am still friends with many college buddies and feel a connection with a vast number of college peers. Gen Z kids seem more concerned with their phones.
However, Sophie has quite a network of friends through her dance troupe, and she appears to be doing perfectly fine socially. I am also impressed that she does not drink any alcohol, or do any type of drugs, and that is excellent. For a lot of us Gen Xers, beer fueled our social lives, and when I realize that #MeToo moments were happening a lot, it knocks us down a peg. Winner: Tie
2) Academics. I had the freedom to study whatever in the world floated my boat, and I tell Sophie she has that freedom as well. I landed on English, and I enjoyed the freedom of coming into college undecided and finding my way.
Sophie, on the other hand, is majoring in computer science, or some sort of computer-science related field. As a parent, I believe it is my duty to support my daughter's pursuits and not criticize them. But as a writer, I got to question computer science. I mean that field hardly existed when I was in college, and what is the allure of computers?
I get that Gen Z kids love their phones, which are basically magical calculators. But for me, I wouldn't devote my career chasing digital waterfalls. However, Sophie's courses look quite more in depth than me, remembering that Samuel Taylor Coleridge was a Romantic poet. Her course work is way beyond calculus, and she took a fascinating neuroscience class about how the brain actually works. Winner: Gen Z
3) Emotional Life. I am not so sure I considered having an emotional life when I was in college whatsoever. In fact, the term "emotional intelligence" was not even coined until the 1990s.
Sophie is pretty chill and adaptable. What impresses me most is how she handles adversity. She's got grit. On the flip side, I see a lot of older people still emotionally immature. I've often said that there is a distinct lack of emotional education in the schools, but then it is reasonable to develop emotionally on our own. Winner: Gen Z
4) Spiritual Life. After being raised Catholic, it was nice to get to college and realize I finally didn't have to sit through masses any more. Thank God! But that didn't mean my spiritual life was over. Instead, it started a lifelong search for meaning and a spiritual life, and the dropping of Catholicism actually improved my spiritual life in the long run.
I did not raise Sophie with organized religion, and I believe she is open to many faiths and spiritual approaches. But for her generation, I wonder what the deal is. Many just blindly follow the faiths of their parents, or community, and I believe the United States is in the midst of a spiritual crisis. Heck, Dwight from The Office wrote a book called Spiritual Boom: Why We Need a Spiritual Revolution. Winner: Gen X
5) Sports Teams. I just don't see how Cal can possibly compete with The Ohio State Buckeyes. Yes, the Bears had Aaron Rodgers and Marshawn Lynch, but come on? The Bucks are in a different echelon.
Plus, somehow the Big 10 has 18 teams now. Say what?!? The AFC has less, with 16 teams. The economics of college sports is just totally whack and goofy. What is going on here? Winner: Gen X
Well, there you have it.
At first glance, it appeared that Gen Z was in a runaway with a 2-0 lead over Gen X when it relates to the college experience. But then, buoyed by spirituality and sports teams, Gen X caught fire and forced a tie.
So it turns out that the college experiences between the entire generations of Gen Z and Gen X are even — even Stevens.
Oh thank God, the 2024 Presidential Election will end — hopefully, maybe — this week, and I'm not sure any song sums up the state of U.S. politics more than Time Warp from The Rocky Horror Picture Show.
What is going on here?
I hardly see any conversations occurring in the country about the key issues of the day — the wealth gap or health care or military spending or school-to-prison pipeline or globalization. The state of media has become such that the idea of having a public discourse of important issues is long gone, replaced by he-said-she-said talking points to get elected, memes and 10-second video clips.
If I thought the state of public discourse was at all-time low heading into the 2020 election when I blasted Facebook and the state of media, is it any better now? But let's look at me, the writer, here. You're getting this commentary from a former staff writer at newspapers for 12 years, and newspapers and network news are now referred to as "legacy media."
You're getting this commentary from someone who felt there was a semblance of public discourse back in the 1900s and early 2000s and maybe even the early 2010s. But now?
Madness takes its toll. But listen closely, not for very much longer.
One of the main issues in this year's presidential election is the repeal of Roe v. Wade by the Supreme Court in 2022. OK, that was quite a move. It's now again a hot-button topic, and, yes, it's important. But it's obscuring other important issues.
While the federal government and Supreme Court could be coming together to balance the absurd dominance of Fanmag (Facebook, Apple, Nvidia, Microsoft, Amazon and Google), like European countries are attempting to do, the Supreme Court instead overruled abortion. Hmm.
That egregious ruling pulled many people's eyes off many pressing issues of the day, including trillion-dollar technology companies' dominance in the market place. Instead of focusing on that issue, and a boatload of other important issues, we're debating abortion rights again.
I thought we, as a society, agreed about the legalities of the touchy subject of abortion. It's really more of a moral issue than a legal issue. Right? But Roe v. Wade, which was ruled upon in Jan. 1973, is a debate again 51 years later.
(Refrain: All) Let's do the Time Warp again. Let's do the Time Warp again.
Another key talking point in this 2024 Presidential Election is immigration, securing the borders, etc. But here's the problem with that. California, the main border state and gateway to immigrants, went through this in the 1900s — the 1980s to be exact.
Back in the early '80s, California saw a huge influx of immigrants, and that led to a whole lotta racism and struggle, but landed on legislation that then saw 3.5 million legal immigrants come into California between 1984 and 1994.
Nowadays, the outdated immigration system isn't working, but there are easy fixes that everyone, regardless of political party, agree on. And here is what is baffling. Immigration is by far impacting California more than any other state — not even close. Yet in California, immigration is not a hot-button topic like it is in non-border states.
(Refrain: All) Let's do the Time Warp again. Let's do the Time Warp again.
Look. The Snooze Button Generation prides itself in being a nonpartisan blog, and we're not promoting a certain candidate here. We're simply saying that the state of political discourse is at an all-time low. It's obviously because of how we obtain news — or opinion masquerading as news.
I'm hoping that this is the nadir, and we somehow return to reasonable, issues-related discourse. But I'm worried that with our echo-chamber, smart-phone world, we'll never return to actual issues again. Perhaps the advancement of all this personal technology has an inverse effect on many individuals' personal progress.
(Refrain: All) Let's do the Time Warp again. Let's do the Time Warp again.
Well, another year has sped by in my aging process, and I turned 51 on Friday. I'm loving this aging thing and have accidentally committed to something called "active aging." Love it!
The World Health Organization states that the four pillars of active aging are health, lifelong learning, participation and security. Huh? I got to think about those pillars and explore them. I invite you to do the same and Benjamin Button your life.
Health is the No. 1 pillar of active aging. Health is extremely important to me and may be more complicated than it seems. I used to only think of health in terms of mental and physical health. What else is there?
Like many, I discovered the Wellness Wheel, and I realized that health has eight components. To be committed to those, we'll probably need an action plan as opposed to a vague idea. Actually, we'll probably need eight action plans.
Next pillar of active aging: lifelong learning. The great news about being a high-school teacher in my 50s is that I am totally relevant and the kids see how dope and fire I am. Kidding!
The good thing about being an aging high-school teacher is that you are forced (I'm pretty sure you're forced unless you're oblivious and stuck in the past) to update your operating system and do your best to see the world through your students' eyes. Of course, that is impossible, but you can glean A LOT from the youngsters' perspectives.
Lifelong learning? Of course. I might be getting certified in scuba soon, and I count myself fortunate to have a career that enables lifelong learning. Hey, don't just listen to me. Billionaires should not exist, but billionaire Mark Cuban once said, "Whatever job you take, you're getting paid to learn. And once you accept money for education, that's a good thing. But once the education stops, you got to pivot to something new."
Excellent point. And monetizing learning? I can sign up for that.
Pillar No. 3 is participation. Oh boy. That's a big one, especially in this era of echo chambers and online rabbit holes. I'm not so sure human beings participate as much in their actual communities as they used to because of all the online distractions.
Again, for me, I am part of a school community so that's at least something, but I definitely can work more on being a part of my community and connecting to others — perhaps through more activities.
Security concludes the pillars, and it is nice that I'll have a teacher pension when I retire with some solid retirement accounts. But not only that, teaching is such a secure living that I again feel fortunate for that career. I fear for corporate folk in their 50s in which they could be replaced by someone younger and cheaper.
I guess with these pillars, I'm realizing that high-school teaching, when done smartly, helps one's health. Of course, I've run across frazzled, unhealthy teachers who haven't quite gotten to the Wellness Wheel yet. But there is hope for everybody.
Our emotional, spiritual, intellectual, physical, environmental, financial, occupational and social health all matter, and I say that best way to improve those is to start small and build on our tiny, healthy habits.
Freedom is the cousin of discipline, and a little discipline, connecting to what is important — our health — will help us with happy, fulfilling exists. Active aging, ultimately, allows us live the lives we actually want.
It feels great to overachieve. But what does that even mean?
Achievement and goals can be tricky to gauge because we usually move the goalposts back once we achieve something. So in a way, we can never fully achieve anything if we keep moving those goalposts.
Of course, I need to talk about my Cleveland Guardians, who had the best record in Major League Baseball at one point this past month, only to wobble to a 2.5-game lead in their division.
Heading into the season, I would have just been happy for the Guards to have a winning record — for sure. But then, they swashbuckled to a 58-37 record at the All-Star Break, so it was reasonable to move those goalposts to “I hope they get a bye for the first round of the playoffs!”
By any metric, the Guards have overachieved this season, but if you think about it, practically anyone who is a professional athlete has overachieved. Of course, there are exceptions to that, such as the Philadelphia Phillies' Bryce Harper, the No. 1 overall pick in 2010 and an All-Star at 19, now in the midst of a 13-year, $330 million contract. With that background, it's impossible to overachieve. Right?
But for most not in the Bryce Harper stratosphere, becoming a pro athlete usually is a celebration of overachievement. With the Guardians, they always will be an overachieving team because of their low, low payroll. They started the season with the fourth lowest payroll in baseball, only to collect a couple midlevel veterans to have the eighth lowest payroll.
Let's put this payroll thing into perspective in the non-salary cap MLB. The Guards' $106 million payroll is nearly one-third of the Yankees' $316 payroll. Two players — Shohei Ohtani ($70 million) and you can actually pick one of six other guys and I'll go with the Angels' Anthony Rendon ($38 million) make more than our entire team. So let's just repeat: The Guardians always will be an overachieving team because of their low, low payroll.
But the fact that the Guards compete and frequently beat these overpriced dudes makes their success even sweeter.
The Guards' Jose Ramirez leads the way with the overachieving. He’s been spectacular for us and has only played Cleveland, but because of the small market and his less than adonis-looking body, he often is overlooked as an elite MLB player. He is on a contract that in the realm of reality is astronomical — seven years, $141 million — but in comparison to elite MLB contracts, he might still be overachieving.
As I get older, I understand that goals are important, and I’ve been goal-driven throughout my life. But finally, I see that the process matters as well. Baseball, to me, warrants more of a focus on process than most other sports because of its linear nature. One pitch at a time. Base to base. One, two, three strikes. Three outs. I find a unique mathematical beauty to the game.
To truly overachieve, one must embrace the process, and my Cleveland Guardians have turned that process into an art. Yeah, I could get hung up on some front-office moves that actually hurt the team, or I can get frustrated because they've come down to earth and are 19-22 since the All-Star break.
But, nah, let's enjoy these hungry rookies and youngsters try to maximize their talent by playing smart, fundamental baseball and enjoying the art of base running, fouling off pitches and overachieving.
It's hard to be an artist in the modern age. For some, they might chuckle at the word. Artist?!? Are you kidding me?
It's curious to me how many people nowadays either 1) consider business, technology and science so important, that they couldn't care less about art, or 2) hardly have a relationship with art.
Buoyed by absorbing Your Brain on Art (2023) by Susan Magsamen and Ivy Ross as part of my school district's superintendent-led book club, I've brought art more into my life, and that's been a spectacular addition.
One deep thought is how it behooves me to experience art in a nonjudgemental way. Just experience it. No need to judge.
For the longest time, I've been rating art. Which work is better than the next? What is your favorite? If you could have any painting in this museum, what would it be?
Although I sometimes still ask those silly questions, I've found it much more rewarding to just soak in art and see what I actually feel — and not think. The new approach has chilled me out, and not only that, I've been noticing more details — brilliant details — in art and the world that I used to disregard.
I consider this blog a borderline artistic endeavor, but I thought I should try doing something different artistically. Unfortunately, my skill level is exceptionally low in pretty much every discipline of art, so it wasn't easy to come up with a project.
Here's what I finally did: I printed 365 photos that are 4 inches by 4 inches and then put them together in a giant calendar for 2025. The pictures consist of people in the inner circle of my life, and I had the photos represent the days or things we actually did that day in the past 10 years.
I tailored "Points of Love," as I call it, to my beautiful wife, Dina, and gave it to her for her birthday. She says it is the best present she's ever received, and it's probably the best present I've ever given anybody. See the video below or here to check it the project.
The best, or worst, aspect of my project is that anybody, especially a child, could do it. It gave me a reason to go through photos in the mysterious cloud, and whenever things felt too tedious, I'd take a break.
Little discoveries poked through as I put together this project, such as how February and September seemed to have the least photos. That was a little peculiar, I felt, because of Valentine's Day and my birthday being in September, but that's how it is. December — fuhgeddaboudit — had the most photos, by far. Merry Christmas to you!
But, really, the project was all about the audience — Dina, and on some level, me, Sophie and Chloe. What an small, intimate crowd. I guess anybody who comes to my house is the audience as well, but, eh, why would they really care?
Dina and I celebrate our seventh wedding anniversary in three days and have been together for 10 years. That means she was here when the girls were 9 and 7. We've built quite a life together, and based on the photos in "Points of Love" and our feelings and opinions, we've been on a loving, meaningful ride.
I'm pretty sure a lot of us snap, snap, snap photos all the time, never to look at them ever again, let alone print them. I must say that it's a completely different animal to observe a printed photo than one on the phone or Interwebs. Plus, it's pretty freeing to do a project like "Points of Love," or this blog, that is not commercial whatsoever.
I've always had an affinity for art, and back in 2010, this blog announced that Claus Oldenburg edged Jasper Johns as the "Greatest Living Artist." The blog then compiled a Top 10 list of the "greatest living artists," which is ridiculous. However, it may not be that absurd because modern art is so commercial and such a spectacle, that making a David Letterman list might just fit with the landscape.
Since 2010, Oldenburg along with Christo and Lucian Freud have passed, but the other seven artists on my list still are living. And that includes Jasper Johns, who is 94.
It feels great to revisit art and forget about the commercial aspect of it, if that's possible. I just read Rilke's Letters to a Young Poet, and I found some points meaningful, including how Rome is too touristy. And he was saying that back in 1903.
In Rilke's final letter, he concludes it by making a curious comment on art. He writes: "Art too is just a way of living, and however one lives, one can, without knowing, prepare for it; in everything real one is closer to it, more its neighbor, than in the unreal half-artistic professions, which, while they pretend to be close to art, in practice deny and attack the existence of all art — as, for example, all of journalism does and almost all criticism and three quarters of what is called (and wants to be called) literature."
Gosh, I imagine artist types have been forced into "unreal half-artistic professions" for centuries. But c'est la vie, to create art, or childlike poster-board projects, can be freeing.
We parents have a lot of guilt — or at least I do. I am so sorry for addicting my youngest daughter, Chloe, to caffeine. My bad!
It began in 2020 when she was doing online eighth-grade school. She, Dina and I would walk to Ding Tea in the afternoon, and she and Dina would get tea drinks. I'd do the walk, then come home and have an espresso.
Sophie's online school went longer than my and Chloe's school day, so she didn't often walk with us and partake. Then, a bit of irony hit, when Sophie got a job at Ding Tea the summer before senior year in high school.
Through this caffeine addiction, we all have bonded, and Chloe's junior year in high school — on some level — was "The Year of Coffee Shops."
Chloe and I went to 27 different coffee shops, and without talking about it much, she made a critic's spreadsheet of these shops. She critiqued atmosphere, quality of coffee, vibe and a few other things. Eventually, a couple shops, especially Homeboy Coffee in Artesia and Wood Coffee Co on 10th in Long Beach emerged as our favorites (We actually went to Wood with Dina and Sophie as well yesterday). We went to many places multiple times, but in the back of our minds, we kept searching for new shops — new vibes.
All the while, Chloe diligently did her school work as she swashbuckled through five AP classes with her badminton journey, advanced orchestra, K-Pop club and friends also a part of life. So she'd work her butt off at these coffee shops, and I did a little and then tried to make it look like I was working as I collected Pokemon Go characters.
Anyway, Chloe finally ended junior year two weeks after me and a month after Sophie finished Year 1 at Berkeley. Then, during that schools-out weekend, we hit up three coffee shops new to us on three consecutive days. But that wasn't our plan. Our plan was to visit the Watts Towers as a Father's Day outing, and on the way, we ate in Paramount and stopped at Patria Coffee Roasters in Compton.
There is something to be said about driving in Los Angeles on surface streets and not the freeways — when feasible. You get more of a feel of neighborhoods, and I realized that my ideas of certain neighborhoods were off. Next to Patria, for example, a park called Wilson Park stands in all its glory, where there were so many kids on bikes that it resembles a unique version of CicLAvia.
After Patria, we realized it would behoove us to get out of our immediate Long Beach/Cypress area and explore some new neighborhoods. So the next day, we went to Ced Coffee & Donut in Little Saigon Koreatown in Westminister. Incredible drinks!
The day after that, we returned to Little Saigon at Trung Nguyen Legend. Totally worth checking out.
So with Chloe's junior year being "The Year of Coffee Shops," it was interesting/surprising how we took it to the next level once she got out of junior year alive. I thought we might be done. OK, phew, maybe it was time to kick back, maybe go to the beach or something. Nope! We did more coffee shops elsewhere.
When you go to so many coffee shops, you learn how to better use Yelp and the Interwebs and not even try for mid coffee shop. Only the best for us! We also are so comfortable in the context of however they do whatever they do wherever we. Honestly, there's not much range for how people do things.
I must say one of my favorite experiences was in February, when both Chloe and I were feeling guilty for going to so many coffee shops and questioning our caffeine addictions. Somehow, through a lengthy, roundabout conversation, we somehow got affogatos at Aroma Di Roma in Belmont Shore that day. Fuhgeddaboudit!
That started a wild, two-week stint in which I believed there was NOTHING GREATER IN THE WORLD THAN THE AFFOGATO. Eh, the writing was probably on the wall then — Chloe and I might want to cut down our caffeine.
Well, that will have to wait, I suppose. She turns 17 tomorrow, and we don't want caffeine-withdrawal headaches on that big day. Happy birthday, Chloe. Let's get some affogatos.
"Rooting for the Yankees is like rooting for U.S. Steel."
With the twisted economics of baseball, big-market teams, like the Yankees and Mets, spend major money on players while teams like my Cleveland Guardians work with shoestring budgets. So when our budget-strapped teams actually are winning, it feels so awesome!
For the third consecutive season, the Cleveland Guardians have the youngest team in Major League Baseball. Their payroll ranks 27th out of 30 teams, yet they stand with the third best record in the league, only behind the Phillies and U.S. Steel.
The start of this Guardians season has been an utter blast, and there are reasons to think this is not a fluke. But this blog entry isn't about the awesome Guards' start. It's about the Cleveland media and our main man, Tom. Why not praise the Cleveland media during this wonderful stretch?
When we witness political mudslinging, economic inequality and social injustice, we sometimes forget about the actual issues and blame the media. But then it seems rare to praise the media when things are going well. Let's do that for a brief moment.
Honestly, we couldn't cheer for these scrappy, young underdog Guardians if the Cleveland sports media didn't exist. Our love of the team has a lot to do with the thoughtful, entertaining product the team presents.
The voice of the Guardians — Tom Hamilton — with his radio buddy Jim Rosenhaus along with the TV team of Rick Manning, Matt Underwood and Andre Knott truly make the Guardians experience worthwhile and deserve major credit for the joy Guardians fan experience. And, of course, stalwart beat writer Paul Hoynes and Cleveland.com's coverage is excellent, too.
But of all the exceptional Cleveland sports journalists out there, I must single out Tom Hamilton as the top of the top, the best of the best. He's our Vin Scully. I cannot say he is better than Vin Scully (which he is) because I once said that to a Dodger Fan and nearly was punched in the face — gotta be careful.
Now, you might say that I am totally biased (which I am), but I challenge you to listen to Tom Hamilton and compare his broadcast with any other's on the MLB app. While I have run across a few respectable announcers, most are borderline, incompetent or flat-out dull. Do they even want to be there?
Tom is vivid and clear, insightful, and has a love of the game that is contagious. I love his emotion, especially on the details of the game, such as getting excited over a ball the dirt that is blocked by the catcher that prevents a runner from moving to second base.
On the TV side, Manning and Underwood with Knott offer insights that we mere fans might not have considered. While they are an excellent broadcast team, I do not see as big of a gap between their broadcasts and other markets. However, Hamilton and Rosenhaus' radio broadcasts are major steps beyond other markets. And of course, let's give major credit to the teams behind these front men because we all know that the producers and crew make or break broadcasts.
Earlier this year, longtime Yankees announcer John Sterling retired. He was excellent and deserves his accolades, but many markets just don't have a respectable, day-in-day-out broadcast wizard like him or Scully or Jon Miller in San Francisco. They might think they do because of the regularity of listening, but sadly, their guys aren't really talented or insightful.
In Cleveland, we have maestros in radio, broadcast and print (or Cleveland.com, if you will). Both Hamilton and Manning have been a part of the Cleveland broadcast side since 1990, so that's 34 years. That is a darn long time, and strangely, they don't feel as if they've been there that long because they keep things so fresh. Hamilton actually has been at it longer than Cleveland icon Herb Score, who was on the radio for 29 years.
Every night, Hamilton creates a stirring narrative, puts a vivid picture of what's happening on the field through words alone and then punctuates it with appropriate emotion. I mean, fuhgeddaboudit, Tom's da best!
Oh, and good news, Tom Hamilton also has explained what I need to get in case I have rust to bust or what type of sausage to try. He also put in my mind the mathematical odds of scoring four runs in any of the first four innings and the value of a free car wash in weather-erratic Cleveland. Let's praise Tom and the Cleveland media. ... Ballgame!
Editor's Note: The Snooze Button Generation originally published "100 Nonfiction Books I Recommend" in 2019. As we read more nonfiction books worthy of recommending, the list continually updates. Today, "Together" by Vivek Murthy enters the Personal Growth category.
I've often found myself in conversations with fellow Gen Xers about how cool it was as kids when we'd ride our bikes to our friend's house and follow the accepted rule of the day: "Be home before the street lights come on."
My gosh, how things have changed. Our kids had no desire to go out on their own. They cocooned themselves at home, and soon parents followed suit. Facebook came around, and many of us spent an inordinate amount of time on trivial things, such as social media, the Internet or streaming TV.
So the United States now is experiencing a mental-health crisis and various societal ills, and Surgeon General Vivek Murthy wrote a compelling book Together: The Healing Power of Human Connection in a Sometimes Lonely World (2020). Murthy's main point is that a lot of our nation's mental and physical health problems stem from a lack of community and connection.
That thesis rings true, and he explores various stories and facts to support it. The book, coincidentally, came out one month into the Covid shutout, and its main point has been amplified following that disaster. With lack of in-person, human connection a problem before Covid times, it's even worse now.
Personal technology, a fugazi of connection, is probably the biggest reason why individuals are so disconnected. They mistakenly think by spending hours upon hours on their screens that they are participating in connection, but in reality, they have accidentally given away their much-needed human time to the nothingburger of screen time.
When we toss in the political division that many Americans still swirl in, the lack of neighborhood connection, spurred by the loss of local news, and misconceptions of service, then it's easy to see how so many Americans are isolated. It might be counterintuitive. But service and giving, by the way, are not draining activities, but rather cup-filling ones. When we help others, we also help ourselves.
So the surgeon general of the United States has used his platform to wave his arms and point out this isolation, loneliness epidemic, and it was no newsflash to me. However, I did realize that this has been happening for at least the past 30 years.
Back in 1995, Robert D. Putnam wrote an article Bowling Alone: America's Declining Social Capital and a subsequent book, in which he examined the United States' declining social capital. Since 1950, there has been a steady decline of in-person social interaction upon which Americans used to find, educate and enrich their social lives. Now, Americans literally find themselves sick without enough social interaction because we are social animals that are being neglected.
Of all that Murthy writes in Together, I found Chapter 7: Circles of Connection to be the most illuminating. Basically, we have three tiers of friends — our inner circle, middle circle and outer circle. The inner circle is our loved ones who we see every day. Sometimes, real close friends and confidants are there. The middle circle are our friends we see now and again and connect with every so often. Our outer circle are our colleagues and acquaintances.
Murthy suggests we connect with at least one person a day, preferably through a conversation or FaceTime who is in our middle circle. It's also important to understand that our inner circle cannot replace, or trump, our other circles. As human beings, we need to know that there are many, many people that do indeed care about us. It's not just our loved ones, but a whole menagerie of folks who've we've connected with and have affected us throughout our lives.
It's crucial to remember how important we are and how we care about so many people and vice versa. The chapter on our circles of friends begins with this brief quote from Ralph Waldo Emerson: "The only way to have a friend is to be one."
Then, as the next chapter opens, Murthy uses the following quote, which we'll end with. It's from Christopher Robin in Pooh's Grand Adventure: The Search for Christopher Robin.
"There is something you must always remember. You are braver than you believe, stronger than you seem and smarter than you think. But the most important thing is, even if we're apart, I'll always be with you."
My hometown of Cleveland will experience quite a day next week, when the Guardians play their Home Opener two hours after a rare total solar eclipse.
Cleveland is a city in an ideal path for the eclipse, and the Land will be totally dark for nearly four minutes, starting at 3:13 p.m. on Monday April 8. Two hours later ... "Play ball!"
With extra tourists expected to be in downtown Cleveland for the eclipse, this Opening Day could be one of the most memorable in Cleveland history. But for me, I got to go with Opening Day, 1991, as my most memorable.
Back on April 16, 1991, a few hundred St. Ignatius students, myself included, trekked two miles to Cleveland Municipal Stadium for the Indians' Home Opener vs. the Texas Rangers.
We students bought $5 tickets for the bleachers and saw the Indians lose 3-1 in what turned out to be a 57-105 season — the worst season in Cleveland Indians history. But to cut school for the only time in my high school career and not get in trouble because so many kids did it — that was pretty darn cool.
The attendance for that 1991 Home Opener was 46,606, even though the baseball capacity of the stadium was 74,000. The next day attendance was a mere 6,023. Before you knew it, a scenario of walking up on Opening Day for $5 tickets would be long gone.
In 1994, the Indians moved to Jacobs Field, where they became a powerhouse and were in the World Series in 1995. If you build it, they will win — apparently. The Jake soon had 455 consecutive sellouts from '95 to 2001.
Mimicking the darkness of this year's Opening Day followed by the light of play, the Tribe experienced A LOT of darkness before stepping into the light. That's a pretty common narrative. I think about the crucifixion then the resurrection, and I personally know many people who've had dark times only to commit to not revisiting those and are having bright lives.
Reminiscing about Cleveland Municipal Stadium, it's kind of wild how long that dreary stadium hung around. It opened in 1931 as the largest open-air venue in the world. It was a multiple-purpose stadium, then housed the Tribe until 1993 and the Browns from 1946-1995. It was totally outdated for a long, long time.
Even though Jacobs Field — now called Progressive Field — is the 10th oldest facility in Major League Baseball, I think it's still one of the nicer ballparks in the league.
The "new" Cleveland Browns Stadium, AKA the Factory of Sadness, is the 12th oldest NFL stadium, being built on the site of Municipal Stadium and opening in 1999. There is talk about either putting $1 billion into renovations for the Browns Stadium or possibly constructing a dome in Brook Park.
But baseball and football are much different animals. In baseball, we have 81 home games as opposed to about 10 in football (considering the preseason and playoffs). The United States goes bananas for the NFL, while Major League Baseball is practically an artisan affair by comparison.
TV-wise, the NFL boasted the top 50 watched sporting events in 2023. For the top non-NFL sporting events, Game 4 of the World Series came in at 42nd place. Look, popularity between the NFL and Major League Baseball just isn't comparable.
But for me, Opening Day garners more hope than the Super Bowl. It's a symbol of spring and newness, and I am a devoted Cleveland Guardians fan. Yeah, we could talk about the economic ridiculousness of pro sports and how corporate they are, but win or lose, I genuinely enjoy the Guardians and the process of the 162-game season.
While winning always is nice, World Series, total eclipses — you can have them, sure, but there is a certain comfort, love and brightness when the first pitch comes at the corner of Carnegie and Ontario.
Editor's Note: The Snooze Button Generation originally published "100 Nonfiction Books I Recommend" in 2019. As we read more books worthy of recommending, the list continually updates. Today, "Never Enough" by Jennifer Breheny Wallace enters the Education category.With my alma mater Saint Ignatius High School in Cleveland praised on pages 195-199 in Never Enough: When Achievement Culture Becomes Toxic — And What We Can Do About It, it made it easy to recommend Jennifer Breheny Wallace's 2023 book.
The harsh truth is that achievement culture in schools often is toxic. Kids stay up all hours doing their schoolwork. They have a difficult time staying healthy. Many are disconnected, and they have an unsustainable lifestyle that, I believe, is an accidental and involuntary response to our cruel, billionaire-led, wealth-gap system of economics.
As a mom of three teenagers, Wallace explores this toxic culture and offers solutions for parents and educators. As a dad of two teen daughters and as a high-school teacher, I must say that she nails the culture we've been facing, but the solutions aren't anything earth-shattering.
It's real easy for parents to get wrapped up in competition and comparison, and so kids follow suit. I respond most to Wallace's parenting tips because, although I agree wholeheartedly with separating self-worth from achievement and unconditionally loving my daughters, I admit that I've talked about the college-admissions process so much, it's absurd.
By focusing so much on college, I think I undermined how important character, connection, communication and community are — among other things — in comparison to academics. Because the college-admissions process often is a divisive, self-centered exercise in disconnection, students and parents take it too seriously, and their values often become obscured by the vacuous and vague idea of "success."
We parents and educators can change our own behavior and attitudes, but we can't change the toxic individualistic culture our kids find themselves. Heck, a lot of this is old news. You've likely heard the stories of how pregnant ladies in New York City often battle for placements on waiting lists for preschools before their kids are even born. The madness often starts before birth.
Perfectionist parenting leads to perfectionist youths, and both are illnesses. We need to strive for purpose, not perfection, and, sadly, too many parents and students find themselves derailed by a culture that I continue to assert is a byproduct of "our cruel, billionaire-led, wealth-gap system of economics."
Perhaps my favorite part of Never Enough is the sense of hope that we have through genuinely connecting with our children and with positive individuals in our children's lives. However, it might be easy for Wallace to say that because she is in a position of privilege as a cultural oligarch herself.
Harvard-educated Jennifer Breheny used to be an associate producer at 60 Minutes, and Mike Wallace set her up on a blind date with his grandson, Peter. So Chris Wallace is her father-in-law. Maybe this is irrelevant, or maybe it's uber-relevant because we're living in the influencer, oligarch world, and she figured out how to be one of sorts with an extremely important topic.
And, hey, Wallace found herself interviewing Coach Mike McLaughlin, a teacher and soccer coach at St. Ignatius. Mad props! Coach Mike explained that the goal of the school is to have students "balance their own personal needs and goals with a responsibility to help others meet their needs and reach their goals, too."
I have discovered that true service, which can only involve a symbiotic relationship with those being served, is difficult to find. It can occur under the right circumstances, and St. Ignatius does its best to put students in a path of true service by requiring it and urging them to develop relationships with those they're serving.
"You don't have to fly to Haiti and build a shelter to do meaningful volunteer work," Coach Mike tells Wallace. And so I wonder why so many elite students don't actually do volunteer work close to home, or if they do, why does it have to be something grandiose they put on their college transcripts?
Maybe some just never realized they actually have the ability to make an impact in others' and their own lives, and that only can start in the home and in their actual community.
