I just finished watching Black Hawk Down, as part of my recognition of Memorial Day. It is a film that honors US soldiers who died fighting in Somalia in 1993. 19 men died during an operation to restore order to the starving city of Mogadishu. The film does a good job of presenting a balanced view of the issue, honoring those who fought without glorifying war.
Memorial Day is officially designated in recognition of those who died to protect our country, as opposed to those you survived serving in the armed forces, who are honored on Veteran's Day. I feel that they are pretty linked, as both groups risked the same thing by joining the military, and veterans who survived combat usually experienced losing their teammates in the conflict. That is a loss in and of itself, even if they personally survived. And while there is a quote in the movie about people not choosing to be heroes, some just are, in reality that is not entirely true. Some people deliberately take bigger risks than others to aid their fellow soldiers, even to the point of certain death. The movie highlights two Delta Force operatives, who voluntarily inserted against a force of hundreds to protect the victims of a helicopter crash. Neither survived, and both were awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor. I worked on Act of Valor which celebrates the selfless act of Mike Monsoor, jumping on a grenade to save others in his unit. That act was choosing to be a hero, and fully deserving of the high level recognition it has received.
The US value its troops and their lives far more than any other nation. We give our soldiers the best gear we can make, and don't leave a man behind. When Mike Durant was captured during the Mogadishu raid, we mobilized a whole fleet of Marine units to come rescue him, and would have taken over the city to find him. But we didn't offer anything to negotiate for his release, because that incentivizes future kidnappings and further endangers our soldiers. He was released under they threat of massive retaliation.
So our value for our men in the big picture prevents us from negotiating for their release. Obviously that policy has been ignored recently, but compared to European nations who are constantly ransoming their captured citizens to fund ISIS, we are still doing pretty good. We speak the only language the enemy respects, force and violence, and have managed a number of successful rescue operations recently.
Hopefully we will continue to honor the sacrificed lives of soldiers in past struggles for freedom, by continuing to defend freedom in the future. And I am one who believes that freedom is the most valuable thing one could fight or die for, but that view seems to be losing traction in the modern world, where true freedom in misunderstood or taken for granted. But those who died for it didn't take freedom for granted, and no one else should either.
Monday, May 30, 2016
Friday, April 22, 2016
Is Change Good or Bad?
The US Presidential Election primaries have been more interesting than usual. This is probably due to a number of reasons. As our world becomes more interconnected, news travels faster, and people's thoughts and opinions are easier to poll and share. We also live in a more polarized political climate, as people become more entrenched in their positions, and less willing to tolerate compromise. But regardless of those magnifying factors, this race is a unique one, with both major parties experiencing close races from vastly different candidates. Both parties are facing the possibility of a rogue third party campaign on their side of the political spectrum, and that would usually spell certain defeat by dividing votes against a united opposition. But if both parties experience major splits, that would lead to a four way race in the general election, and it legitimately becomes anyone's game. I believe this could be a positive thing, depending on the form that it takes, by giving people more options at the polls, less manipulated by political parties and cross party sabotage of stronger candidates. Depending on the outcome, this scenario could cause a major shift in the traditional two party system.
I do have concerns about the direction our country appears to be headed, but change has rarely been a positive thing recently. Most of the changes seem to have been for the worse, leading one to want to see a stop to the change we are experiencing. But really, we all want change, just the right type of change. The popularity of political outsiders on both sides of the aisle during this election season is evidence that I am not alone in my concern about complacency towards business as usual.
I recognize that the future has looked scary in its own way to every generation. People born in 1890 would have grown up using horses for transportation, and been flying in jets when they retired. Our own parents used slide rules and typewriters in school, and saw the shift brought on by TVs, computers, and the internet. We have seen the cultural changes from cell phones, and will soon see the effects of Virtual Reality and other advances changing how we live and experience life. Some of those changes will be good, others bad, as with everything else in life.
While I am concerned about my own future, I am an adult and quite capable of taking care of my self in a wide variety of situations. I worry more about my new born son, and the world that he will grow up in. I can't expect to protect him from all of the changes in our society, and his experiences will be vastly different from mine. But if I see the possibility of our society collapsing in on itself within my lifetime, it seems like a near certainty that he will witness that, whatever it ends up looking like. Hopefully he will be even more prepared for it than I am, but it sure doesn't seem that way when I look at him now.
I do have concerns about the direction our country appears to be headed, but change has rarely been a positive thing recently. Most of the changes seem to have been for the worse, leading one to want to see a stop to the change we are experiencing. But really, we all want change, just the right type of change. The popularity of political outsiders on both sides of the aisle during this election season is evidence that I am not alone in my concern about complacency towards business as usual.
I recognize that the future has looked scary in its own way to every generation. People born in 1890 would have grown up using horses for transportation, and been flying in jets when they retired. Our own parents used slide rules and typewriters in school, and saw the shift brought on by TVs, computers, and the internet. We have seen the cultural changes from cell phones, and will soon see the effects of Virtual Reality and other advances changing how we live and experience life. Some of those changes will be good, others bad, as with everything else in life.
While I am concerned about my own future, I am an adult and quite capable of taking care of my self in a wide variety of situations. I worry more about my new born son, and the world that he will grow up in. I can't expect to protect him from all of the changes in our society, and his experiences will be vastly different from mine. But if I see the possibility of our society collapsing in on itself within my lifetime, it seems like a near certainty that he will witness that, whatever it ends up looking like. Hopefully he will be even more prepared for it than I am, but it sure doesn't seem that way when I look at him now.
Thursday, February 25, 2016
Why is Writing so Hard Now?
This process used to come easily to me, so I don't know why it has been so difficult recently. Maybe I am just out of the habit. Maybe I just don't have the time, but that is all relative. I am expecting a baby any day now, so then I really won't have the time. Most of my effort recently has been put towards marketing an idea on the internet, which it turns out is hard to do. I have a Kickstarter campaign in progress, that will complete at the end of the weekend. It is unlikely to be a success, barring direct intervention from God, but it has been a learning experience.
People always tell me that you learn more from failure than success, but I had never really experienced that. I was usually successful at what I undertook, and I knew a lot, so that conflicted with the premise. My primary failures were in regards to relationships with girls, and it is debatable whether I really learned that much from those experiences. My biggest failure to date had probably been a large investment in a startup company that never went anywhere. I didn't learn much from that, besides not to trust other people, because I wasn't very involved in the process. I just have a giant stack of boxes in my barn to remind me of that decision. Supposedly the owner learned a lot from the experience, but so far on my dime.
But this experience marketing my movie on the internet has taught me all sorts of things, even if it does end in failure. It illustrated to me how hard it is to create something out of nothing. I learned all sorts of things about PR firms, internet advertising returns, and the challenges of sharing an idea, and getting people to invest or buy into an idea. The sting of failure is probably also mitigated by success in other areas. I got hired onto my first serious paid project in two years, exactly one hour after launching my marketing campaign, so I haven't had as much time to focus on it as I was expecting. But that is a good problem to have. Ironically I am in a similar position in that project, trying to create something out of nothing, but my area of responsibility in that process is much more familiar to me. And the fact that I will be able to do much of the work from home is the culmination of years of planning and effort to put myself in that position, just before my first child is born.
And kids will be whole new adventure, which will give me plenty of new ideas and content to share on here and/or none of the time to actually share it. I am pretty nervous about the early stages of that process, but I am told by nearly everyone that you adjust to it more than you expect as it happens. So we'll see.
People always tell me that you learn more from failure than success, but I had never really experienced that. I was usually successful at what I undertook, and I knew a lot, so that conflicted with the premise. My primary failures were in regards to relationships with girls, and it is debatable whether I really learned that much from those experiences. My biggest failure to date had probably been a large investment in a startup company that never went anywhere. I didn't learn much from that, besides not to trust other people, because I wasn't very involved in the process. I just have a giant stack of boxes in my barn to remind me of that decision. Supposedly the owner learned a lot from the experience, but so far on my dime.
But this experience marketing my movie on the internet has taught me all sorts of things, even if it does end in failure. It illustrated to me how hard it is to create something out of nothing. I learned all sorts of things about PR firms, internet advertising returns, and the challenges of sharing an idea, and getting people to invest or buy into an idea. The sting of failure is probably also mitigated by success in other areas. I got hired onto my first serious paid project in two years, exactly one hour after launching my marketing campaign, so I haven't had as much time to focus on it as I was expecting. But that is a good problem to have. Ironically I am in a similar position in that project, trying to create something out of nothing, but my area of responsibility in that process is much more familiar to me. And the fact that I will be able to do much of the work from home is the culmination of years of planning and effort to put myself in that position, just before my first child is born.
And kids will be whole new adventure, which will give me plenty of new ideas and content to share on here and/or none of the time to actually share it. I am pretty nervous about the early stages of that process, but I am told by nearly everyone that you adjust to it more than you expect as it happens. So we'll see.
Sunday, November 29, 2015
Making a Movie
While I have liked the job that I do in Hollywood, I have always focused on the technical aspects of filmmaking, as opposed to the creative side. I didn't go to meetings about script revision, or character development. I dealt with things like file types, compression formats, and data security. As time went on this became a more deliberate distinction, for a number of reasons. For one, I was a leading expert on the technical front, and that was not true in the creative side. With technical issues, whether an idea is "good" or not is measured by if it is true, and whether or not it actually works. With creative ideas, whether or not a suggestion is "good" is measured by how much it is liked by other people. I prefer to avoid such subjective issues, because I like being right. Looking back, I guess I was afraid to lose the status I had earned of always being right. I valued that my bosses trusted my judgment enough to take significant risks based on my technical input. My ideas were very outside-the-box compared to the industry at large, and my company was willing to invest in unproven ideas based on the fact that they trusted I could make it work if I said I could. And I always made it work, and never lost a single shot in ten years. But I nearly always refused to offer my creative input, even when it was deliberately sought.
My avoidance of creative conversations may have been to my detriment in the long run, since that is where the upward mobility is, and those ideas and experiences are less time sensitive. I was the best at what I did because I was well connected with the technologies that were being developed at the time, and what that meant for my industry. Those technologies are still in use, but are no longer the area where the most significant innovation is taking place, so I am out of the loop in that regard. The concepts of good storytelling are not going to become obsolete anytime soon, but that world can never be totally conquered by a single individual. There is always more to learn, and ways to improve.
This is all on my mind, because after years of avoiding the creative aspect of filmmaking, I am considering trying to create a film of my own. I won't be doing it on my own, but I will have to take the lead in regards to the creative direction, which is going to be a challenge. Unlike my actual job for the last ten years, this is the role I was trained to play in college, with an Art Degree in Multimedia. So I am pitching my idea for a documentary about the importance of Freedom to anyone who I think might be able to help or support the project. Freedom is a fairly intangible concept, so illustrating that in a visual format is going to take some creativity. But I believe it is possible, and that this is an important time for that idea to be better understood by the public at large. It is unlikely to become a financial success, but it can still succeed in spreading the message due to the innovations in streaming video and online distribution. If I can create something that presents and defends the idea that "Freedom is the opportunity to experience the consequences of your own actions," and that "Freedom is more important than life itself" then that will be a success in and of itself.
My avoidance of creative conversations may have been to my detriment in the long run, since that is where the upward mobility is, and those ideas and experiences are less time sensitive. I was the best at what I did because I was well connected with the technologies that were being developed at the time, and what that meant for my industry. Those technologies are still in use, but are no longer the area where the most significant innovation is taking place, so I am out of the loop in that regard. The concepts of good storytelling are not going to become obsolete anytime soon, but that world can never be totally conquered by a single individual. There is always more to learn, and ways to improve.
This is all on my mind, because after years of avoiding the creative aspect of filmmaking, I am considering trying to create a film of my own. I won't be doing it on my own, but I will have to take the lead in regards to the creative direction, which is going to be a challenge. Unlike my actual job for the last ten years, this is the role I was trained to play in college, with an Art Degree in Multimedia. So I am pitching my idea for a documentary about the importance of Freedom to anyone who I think might be able to help or support the project. Freedom is a fairly intangible concept, so illustrating that in a visual format is going to take some creativity. But I believe it is possible, and that this is an important time for that idea to be better understood by the public at large. It is unlikely to become a financial success, but it can still succeed in spreading the message due to the innovations in streaming video and online distribution. If I can create something that presents and defends the idea that "Freedom is the opportunity to experience the consequences of your own actions," and that "Freedom is more important than life itself" then that will be a success in and of itself.
Friday, October 23, 2015
Worth my Weight in Gold
So it randomly occurred to me the other day that I was probably worth my weight in gold. It must have been a God thing, because I don't naturally come to conclusions like that. But I was curious to see if that was actually true. It order to figure that out, we need to establish the value of the two items in question. One is quite easy. At 145lbs, with current prices, my weight in gold would be worth about 2.7 million dollars.
But am I worth $2.7 million? Obviously it can be a philosophical question what one life is worth, and there are many answers. Biblically one is worth more than all, so a human life or soul is worth more in the eyes of God than anything else in creation. Another way or determining value is to evaluate how much something costs to create. By that measure, we add up all of my parents' expenses in raising and caring for me, plus college tuition, as well as how much the government has paid in tax deductions and insurance companies have paid out in claims. I doubt that would surpass $2.7 million in my case, but that is not usually how value is determined anyway.
Value is usually determined by what people are willing to pay for something. Hence Biblically humans are worth everything because God was willing to pay his life for them. But if we look past that issue, at a more limited scope of our impact here on earth, how would we determine one person's value? If someone wanted to buy me, they are essentially buying my time, since that is all I really have to sell. That is essentially what slavery is, so while I don't foresee myself going down that road anytime soon, let's examine it hypothetically. If someone else could buy my productivity for the rest of my life, what would that be worth?
Our worth in that regard is not necessarily determined by how much we are paid, although that is usually a related variable. Our work must be worth more than our wages in order for our employment to be worth something to our employer. This is why we have unemployment when wages are artificially raised to a "minimum level." Some people's work is worth more than others, based on their skill set and talents. So what is my work worth?
The value of my work depends on what I am doing, because my tasks vary greatly, and I am usually on the spending side of the ledger instead of the income side. I have had some periods at work where I was very aware of the fact that I was saving my company at least $1000/day, so my work was worth at least that much. But that was only during times of major expansion where my innovations can be compared to the usual ways of doing things in my industry. Other times it was less significant, but still valuable. Based on my pay and the economics of what I spent my time doing, I would estimate that I was worth at least $100K/year to my company when I was working full time. If my work was worth $100K/year, I would hit $2.7 million in value before I turned 50, assuming I started after graduating college. Therefore, at least in the video technology world, I am worth my weight in gold.
Of course by that measure my "value" decreases as I get older, so at some point that would cease to be true. Fortunately our value does not decrease in the eyes of God as we grow older. And we are worth far more to him than our weight in gold. But it does make for an interesting examination of value.
But am I worth $2.7 million? Obviously it can be a philosophical question what one life is worth, and there are many answers. Biblically one is worth more than all, so a human life or soul is worth more in the eyes of God than anything else in creation. Another way or determining value is to evaluate how much something costs to create. By that measure, we add up all of my parents' expenses in raising and caring for me, plus college tuition, as well as how much the government has paid in tax deductions and insurance companies have paid out in claims. I doubt that would surpass $2.7 million in my case, but that is not usually how value is determined anyway.
Value is usually determined by what people are willing to pay for something. Hence Biblically humans are worth everything because God was willing to pay his life for them. But if we look past that issue, at a more limited scope of our impact here on earth, how would we determine one person's value? If someone wanted to buy me, they are essentially buying my time, since that is all I really have to sell. That is essentially what slavery is, so while I don't foresee myself going down that road anytime soon, let's examine it hypothetically. If someone else could buy my productivity for the rest of my life, what would that be worth?
Our worth in that regard is not necessarily determined by how much we are paid, although that is usually a related variable. Our work must be worth more than our wages in order for our employment to be worth something to our employer. This is why we have unemployment when wages are artificially raised to a "minimum level." Some people's work is worth more than others, based on their skill set and talents. So what is my work worth?
The value of my work depends on what I am doing, because my tasks vary greatly, and I am usually on the spending side of the ledger instead of the income side. I have had some periods at work where I was very aware of the fact that I was saving my company at least $1000/day, so my work was worth at least that much. But that was only during times of major expansion where my innovations can be compared to the usual ways of doing things in my industry. Other times it was less significant, but still valuable. Based on my pay and the economics of what I spent my time doing, I would estimate that I was worth at least $100K/year to my company when I was working full time. If my work was worth $100K/year, I would hit $2.7 million in value before I turned 50, assuming I started after graduating college. Therefore, at least in the video technology world, I am worth my weight in gold.
Of course by that measure my "value" decreases as I get older, so at some point that would cease to be true. Fortunately our value does not decrease in the eyes of God as we grow older. And we are worth far more to him than our weight in gold. But it does make for an interesting examination of value.
Wednesday, September 30, 2015
The Significance of Freedom
Freedom is a very interesting concept. It is not at all tangible, and frequently misunderstood. In one sense, no one can take your freedom away, but in another sense they can impose some severe limits on your available options. Freedom is what makes good and bad possible in the world. Without it, there would be no sin. So is freedom a problem that must be overcome to remove sin from the world? Is freedom a good thing or a bad thing in the grand scheme of things?
I believe that freedom is not only a positive thing worth pursuing more fully, but they most significantly important thing to pursue above ever life itself. Most members of the Church would agree that freedom is a good thing, but I would ask them whether they believe that because they are Christians, or because they are Americans? Basically it comes down to: "do they believe that God agrees with them that freedom is a good thing?" I believe that God does agree, and see strong evidence in the Bible to support that claim.
When God originally created humans in the Garden of Eden, there was no death in the world. Death was introduced only after sin entered the world through mankind's decisions. God didn't have to place the tree of Knowledge in the Garden, allowing sin to enter the world. He could have given Adam and Eve life without end in the garden, without the possibility of their fall. But no matter how comfortable, they would have essentially been prisoners, with no option to leave. They would be God's captive audience, not choosing to spend time with him, but doing so because it was the only option.
Instead, God did place the tree in the Garden, which allowed the possibility for sin. So he chose to provide freedom at the expense of unlimited life. Therefore he must have determined that freedom was more important than life. And if God thinks so, it must be true. Now the Judeo-Christian world has not always been the best at recognizing the importance of freedom, likely because of the restrictive nature of Old Testament Law. But the Christian Biblical worldview is what eventually led to the creation of the first political system that valued the freedom of its citizens, when the US Constitution was ratified. It is the logical conclusion of the Bible story, where God empowers his creatures to make their own choices and deal with the consequences. He is constantly trying to love and shepherd them, but never at the expense of free will.
I believe that freedom is not only a positive thing worth pursuing more fully, but they most significantly important thing to pursue above ever life itself. Most members of the Church would agree that freedom is a good thing, but I would ask them whether they believe that because they are Christians, or because they are Americans? Basically it comes down to: "do they believe that God agrees with them that freedom is a good thing?" I believe that God does agree, and see strong evidence in the Bible to support that claim.
When God originally created humans in the Garden of Eden, there was no death in the world. Death was introduced only after sin entered the world through mankind's decisions. God didn't have to place the tree of Knowledge in the Garden, allowing sin to enter the world. He could have given Adam and Eve life without end in the garden, without the possibility of their fall. But no matter how comfortable, they would have essentially been prisoners, with no option to leave. They would be God's captive audience, not choosing to spend time with him, but doing so because it was the only option.
Instead, God did place the tree in the Garden, which allowed the possibility for sin. So he chose to provide freedom at the expense of unlimited life. Therefore he must have determined that freedom was more important than life. And if God thinks so, it must be true. Now the Judeo-Christian world has not always been the best at recognizing the importance of freedom, likely because of the restrictive nature of Old Testament Law. But the Christian Biblical worldview is what eventually led to the creation of the first political system that valued the freedom of its citizens, when the US Constitution was ratified. It is the logical conclusion of the Bible story, where God empowers his creatures to make their own choices and deal with the consequences. He is constantly trying to love and shepherd them, but never at the expense of free will.
Monday, August 31, 2015
Fatherhood
I wrote down some thoughts about two months ago, the first week we discovered my wife was pregnant:
"My wife and I learned this week that we currently have a baby on the way. The initial reaction was a strong feeling of the enormity of that responsibility. And while that is true, it ceased feeling overwhelming after about 30 seconds, and the feeling has not returned. We are as prepared as anyone without kids can really be, and it was assumed this is the direction we would eventually be going. It will shift the focus of our marriage a bit, no longer fixated on each other, but towards the rest of our family.
It is crazy to think about the world that we are bringing a child into, and what it will be like as they grow up. I see more negative changes than positive ones at the moment, but it is difficult to tell how much of that is perspective as opposed to objective reality."
It is interesting to look back on that and see how much my perspective has shifted with my experience the last two months. My wife has been very sick most of that time, which has been quite challenging and stressful to deal with. While I still believe that my original assessment was correct, and that we are as prepared as we could be as individuals, I don't think that our relationship was as prepared as it could be. We have not been married for very long, and this happened sooner than we expected. Not counting time spent on the road, we have hardly had 6 weeks of married life to establish "normal routines." And nine months of pregnancy is a much longer time to get through, which has its own (hopefully temporary) "normal routines." Those are not things that I want to continue to see happening after that process is over, but we don't exactly have strongly established patterns to return to.
So while I am excited to be having children, and believe this is the path God intended for us, I can't help but feel that I somehow missed out on most of what should be "newlywed bliss," or something like that. I assume that after the baby is born there will be a whole new set of challenges and stresses that will tax our relationship in different ways. Right up until they leave for college, right? Now maybe this whole train of thought is just my reflexive response to the weight of the responsibility of having a child, and I would feel like I am losing my freedom, regardless of how long we had been married. I don't know if it is, and either way, I don't know anything I can do to remedy the issue, besides just continuing to press onward.
"My wife and I learned this week that we currently have a baby on the way. The initial reaction was a strong feeling of the enormity of that responsibility. And while that is true, it ceased feeling overwhelming after about 30 seconds, and the feeling has not returned. We are as prepared as anyone without kids can really be, and it was assumed this is the direction we would eventually be going. It will shift the focus of our marriage a bit, no longer fixated on each other, but towards the rest of our family.
It is crazy to think about the world that we are bringing a child into, and what it will be like as they grow up. I see more negative changes than positive ones at the moment, but it is difficult to tell how much of that is perspective as opposed to objective reality."
It is interesting to look back on that and see how much my perspective has shifted with my experience the last two months. My wife has been very sick most of that time, which has been quite challenging and stressful to deal with. While I still believe that my original assessment was correct, and that we are as prepared as we could be as individuals, I don't think that our relationship was as prepared as it could be. We have not been married for very long, and this happened sooner than we expected. Not counting time spent on the road, we have hardly had 6 weeks of married life to establish "normal routines." And nine months of pregnancy is a much longer time to get through, which has its own (hopefully temporary) "normal routines." Those are not things that I want to continue to see happening after that process is over, but we don't exactly have strongly established patterns to return to.
So while I am excited to be having children, and believe this is the path God intended for us, I can't help but feel that I somehow missed out on most of what should be "newlywed bliss," or something like that. I assume that after the baby is born there will be a whole new set of challenges and stresses that will tax our relationship in different ways. Right up until they leave for college, right? Now maybe this whole train of thought is just my reflexive response to the weight of the responsibility of having a child, and I would feel like I am losing my freedom, regardless of how long we had been married. I don't know if it is, and either way, I don't know anything I can do to remedy the issue, besides just continuing to press onward.
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