See ya around… in August.

It’s great to be able to cause happiness with 20 cents of bread, peanut butter and grape jam. (American grape jam is much more like jelly than it is jam, but I digress.) I’m not often happy about simple things. PB&J doesn’t make me smile the way it makes my boy smile. Neither does loading the dishwasher.

Maybe I’m missing something? I’ve gotta go help a little boy load the dishwasher.

Sometimes it is my attitude that keeps me from learning what God would have me learn from life. It’s easier for me to blame circumstance, other people, or whatever else I can find to fit in there. The reality is that the most common culprit is my attitude, my heart.

I’ll go so far as to wager that it’s the same for you.

And yes, there’s one geared towards the hypocrisy we men use, too. I’m all for equal opportunity.

Obviously, my approach to story and art are very heavily impacted by my world-view. No sense apologizing, right? I believe that man is engaged in a struggle. Either it’s a struggle with God, “I’ll have it my way,” or it’s a struggle with self, “I’ll have it His way.” (That’s gross oversimplification. I’m sure 12 of you just had 3 thoughts each that don’t fit into this construct. My apologies. Oversimplification is never fair to anyone, and I just did it to myself.)

Struggle does seem to be a fairly universal theme for humanity. I mean, we live in North America, in a time where income and wealth are at unbelievable heights, and yet we all seem to struggle. In my time as a bank manager, I got to interact with people who could personally write checks that blew my mind. One of them was what we all commonly refer to as a cat lady. None of them was content. All struggled for something different, something better, something more.

I think good art reflects (and helps instruct us in) the struggle. This seems to me to be as true in art that doesn’t reflect my world view precisely (like In Good Company, a movie about the corporate struggle that seems to understand corporate life incredibly well) as it is in art that does reflect my world view (The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe’s treatment of Edmund, for example, which makes my rebellious self sick to my stomach when I think about it and compare it to how I receive grace).

It’s not an attempt to instruct. Life instructs us every day — I watch my tomato plants grow and naturally think about the complex nature of how what I put in to the little cup they’re growing in impacts their growth. That’s a lesson. The tomato plant didn’t wake up thinking, I’ll show him today. But it did because of its nature. Art’s kind of like that.

It’s good for us. It’s fun too. If it’s not, you may want to start picking different stories, different art. It draws our attention in ways that we don’t always expect. It engages our hearts in creative ways. It keeps us thinking.  That’s why I value art and story. That’s why I want to teach my child to cherish good art.

I value humor because humor communicates. It is easier to build bridges laughing than it is arguing. It humanizes people, levels the playing field, and puts people at ease. It helps friendships to develop.

It also has power in tense situations or with difficult topics. It lets us hear things easily that would otherwise be difficult or painful.

This is all true only when used well. Humor can also be demeaning. It can make people feel unvaluable. It can be the most off-putting thing about a person. I’ve met those people. Sadly, I think I’ve even been those people (that person, but, hey, it sounded better).

I care about humor and endeavor to use it (or point you to it) here because we can build common ground and see the world through each others’ eyes most easily when it’s funny.

It’s amazing the leaps of logic that a little brain will make. I wish I was half as creative as he is. He’s got a story for just about everything. He can’t explain it very well yet, but he’s getting better all the time.

Interesting, I think, that just when he gets best at explaining his creative stories, we’ll figure out how to culturally squash them and force him to think concrete, logical thoughts. Not that concrete logical is all bad (or even most bad), but I guess, as an adult trying to find my story teller again, I wish I could figure out how not to squash my little guy’s inner story teller.

The team gets plastered, that is. The fans probably do, too, but that’s economic activity, not sports activity.

(Aside: could it be incorporated into sports activity? Would we really be able to tell if the Maple Leafs were incompetent AND drunk? I doubt it… A whole new horizon for sponsorship just opened up.)

All kidding aside, there is something intangibly great about loving a perpetual loser. When I find out someone is a Leafs fan, I feel like there’s an instant bond there. We both know what it’s like to hope for a Cup victory year after year and never get it. If they’re an old enough Leafs fan, I’ll ask what it was like last time the Leafs brought the cup home. It’s been a while, though, so it’s hard for them to remember. That camaraderie is built around something totally artificial (does it really matter, cosmically, what the Leafs are able to do next year? Probably not at all, yet I can instantly be on friendly terms with someone based on it). Just goes to show you that even in adversity, there are some benefits.

And once they’re playing drunk, think of the fights we’ll see!

I hate the sound of personal branding. It sounds dirty. I wouldn’t ever want the day to come where you think, “Nike, Walmart, Starbucks, Andrew Mackay.” That sounds wrong. I don’t want to be all about pumping myself up and making you think I’m awesome.

But then, clearly something compels me to come here and write this every day. I want to say things that are worth hearing. I want to communicate that God is great, that stories and art help us see that, that the story you tell / we tell through our families is gravely important, that humor and community and camaraderie are good and valuable.

No matter what, having a desire to do that means, on some level, that in twentieth century (twenty-first, I guess) parlance I am building a brand. Maybe it’s not such a bad thing. But, can we call it something else?

“You’re coming of age in a 24/7 media environment that bombards us with all kinds of content and exposes us to all kinds of arguments, some of which don’t always rank that high on the truth meter, And with iPods and iPads and Xboxes and PlayStations — none of which I know how to work — information becomes a distraction, a diversion, a form of entertainment, rather than a tool of empowerment, rather than the means of emancipation.”

As someone who is conservative leaning, I’m supposed to be concerned about the ” None of which I know how to work.”

I find myself instead pretty encouraged. The President is on to something here. The more access to information my generation has, the more stupid things they read / watch / consume. That seems fairly counter-intuitive. I’m not sure about the means of emancipation — that sounds pretty lofty –  but there was a time when access to libraries was what made the difference between civilized education and uncivilized education. Now that information access is unparalleled, we’re so distracted that all we care about is what Lindsay Lohan’s up to.

Good for you, Mr. President, for calling us on it.