Heavy Mental ~ Derek Hambrick's blog

Ever since our son’s first birthday, we’ve had a little tradition in our family: We sing happy birthday to him at 8:54 a.m. each June 30, the time he showed up.

Today marks a decade of doing that. It’s also a mile marker of sorts since this is the first time we’ve done so without him here with us. He spent the night with a friend yesterday, but thanks to some telephonic coordination, our tradition continued.

Admittedly, it didn’t occur to me until yesterday that we three wouldn’t be occupying the same space when the time came for our tradition. And when it did, it felt… odd. The best i can give for why I feel this way is that we weren’t sharing the same space. We weren’t proximate. The more I consider it, the more that reason stands its ground.

As an 11-year-old big boy (as of an hour ago), he’s moving so to speak into his own. Growing up. Filling out. Speaking up. Standing out. See… Even the words I scratch up to describe his journey reflect that.

It’s a far cry from a decade ago, leaning over the edge of a bassinet and quietly singing to a (thankfully) sleeping little boy for the first time. Proximate. Intimate. As close as you could get it seemed without actually reliving his birth. Family.

Ever since that day, there’s been change in that proximity. Not bad, mind you. And as we continue our little tradition, it will continue to change. And that’s OK. This year, it’s aloft thanks to the wonders of the T-Mobile network. And years from now… Who knows? There may come a time when singing to him requires calculating time zones and paying international rates. Still, I think we’ll continue to do it undaunted.

Today’s call was quick. His voice told me that he liked it. I could tell he was having fun with his buddy and wanted to get back to that business. Can’t blame him. But there’s meaning for me and his mama.

The irony of writing about National Screen-Free Week using a screen that I carry on my person at all times ain’t lost on me. At least it’s authentic irony rather than the veneer of irony that’s mistaken for wit these days.

OK that was kinda haughty. Sorry. Truth is, I’m having a hard time with keeping screen-free week screen free. And it’s beyond the fact I use a computer for my job. Maybe it stems from having an Atari 2600 Childhood. Maybe I’m hardwired so to speak. But I don’t think so.

At home, we don’t really watch TV. No computer games. Heck, not even phone games anymore. But I find myself reaching for my cell out of boredom, checking my Facebook or email, using it as a crutch. That’s not good.

Don't kill it. Don't love it. Just cool it.

With all conveniences, I suppose that in using them, our (unspoken) task is to self-regulate. Otherwise we risk using them to our detriment,  opting for pixels over personal interaction or… gasp!… reflection. That sure beats using “the truncheon in lieu of conversation,” but in the long run I’m of the mind that the effect of both are similarly detrimental, making us more subjects than sentients.

Still, screens provide an escape. And that isn’t always a bad thing. But for me, for this week, going screen free is quite the challenge. Looks like I picked the wrong week to quit the fourth wall.

It’s that time of year again!
No, not rampant consumerism, running amok and foaming at the mouth, promulgating debt-driven spending traditions as artificial as the plastic that enables them.
In this time of holiday traditions, I’m reposting one of your favorite entries and one of my favorite traditions: The Advent Spiral!
What is it? Find out.

There are times in your life when hard work and aspirations seem to crystallize into something beautiful, when things seem to, well … fit  … when they come together in a moment – or perhaps a series of such.  For me, this tends to prompt some realization. And usually that realization comes from reflecting lucidly on your circumstances. Sometimes you think about things, and other times things just come to you. Tonight’s the latter.

Either way, at such times, you’re able to reflect clearly on where you are, but more importantly where you were, and even more importantly than that how far you’ve come along your path. Once we come to these moments when we can look back and see our trajectory, it’s an amazing thing. Sometimes we can’t grasp their beauty, let alone their importance. Sometimes we do.

As a writer, I think that it is my duty to try to capture these moments, when they’re mine to hold. I have ability, even if sometimes I don’t have the inclination to be the chronicler of these moments. I’ll admit it: Writing is hard – that’s a truth that even appears in that classic on the craft, On Writing Well. So maybe that’s the reason I don’t write these moments down. And maybe that’s a cop-out.

That aside, tonight is such a night of reflection. This moment is such a moment. In my capacity as a writer (in the professional sense) I’ve been able to write about our company values insofar as they were embodied by and recognized in – 12 individuals out of 50,000 in the Americas Region. Writing about them wasn’t a tough task – as I told one of the speakers after the award ceremony tonight, “It’s hard to screw up talking about someone who’s so spectacular.” Regardless, it’s an honor to be a part of some high-caliber, small-gathering event like our firm’s Chairman’s Values Awards.

The silent cynic in me might protest that while the video scripts I wrote turned out pretty dang nicely, some of the speakers avoided the talking points I wrote like a vegan avoids bacon. But that’s fine. Regardless, it was I whose words formed the foundation of the festivities. I’m not gloating, but rather acknowledging what I’ve done – how far I’ve come. That’s important and a hard lesson in itself for me.

Recognizing that, I am here and I am grateful. This is one of those moments. This is one of those times I can stand on the mesa, turn around, look down, and see how far I’ve climbed. But like the words I penned for the CVAs, even these words have to change because I don’t believe in mesas. I don’t believe in plateaus. I do believe in effort and the occasional waypoint that affords you a brief time to look back before looking – yet again – ahead. So tonight, French-cuffed and heady on prose and Guinness – before turning my eyes to what’s ahead of me – I have the capacity to look around, look back, and be grateful before setting sights on the un-trod incline.

Well, not really. But believe it or not, I stumbled on an interesting similarity.

A good friend and fellow scribbler recommended a book on writing. Authored by Steven King, On Writing provides a kind of narrative illustration of writing. It’s in the book’s first section, dubbed “CV” by the author, that I found a little crystal of similarity between an author whose tomes I’ve never cracked and an education that’s dear to me.

How’dya like this guy to read you a bedtime story? Sheesh.

It goes a little like this:

“… TV came relatively late to the King household. And I’m glad. I am, when you stop to think of it, a member of a fairly select group: the final handful of american novelists who learned to read and write before they learned to eat a daily helping of video bullshit.”

I can’t apologize for the decidedly non-Waldorfian language; King certainly doesn’t. Yet I can applaud his honesty. He continues:

“This might not be important. On the other hand, if you’re just starting out as a writer, you could do a lot worse that strip your television’s electric plug-wire, wrap a spike around it, and then stick it back into the wall. See what blows, and how far. Just an idea.”

I think that he’s talking about TV as an anti-creative. I’m not saying that TV isn’t creative — and I suppose that he’s not either. I really think that it’s an art, TV. At least an artistic medium. And so it demands creativity — to be good at least. After all, it took creative minds to write and produce all those episodes of M*A*S*H and put together a show like “Whose Line Is It Anyway.”

Ironically, Decatur has a Waldorf School.

But TV offers creativity in the same way a frozen entrée offers you gourmet fare: you may get it, but it’s not your creation. That’s where Waldorf comes in. The idea behind the education — at least as far as media and screens are concerned — is not to shun technology, the oft-misunderstood intent, but rather to delay its introduction into a child’s life so that (and here it comes … forgive the 4-line sentence) creativity can develop on its own.

Give it time, in other words.

Something else that Steven King included in this book rings true with the Waldorf approach:

“I’d like to suggest that turning off that endlessly quacking box is apt to improve the quality of your life as well as the quality of your writing.”

A blog post is too short a span to expand on Waldorf’s concurrence with that statement. But let me say that the benefits of limiting screen time are tremendous.

Before this book, I’d not read any King novels. While I don’t like his preferred genre (’cause I get spooked easy!) I might pick up Stand By Me or Shawshank Redemption also written by that master of macabre. But I just have to wonder, if, when I do read the latter, will I hear Morgan Freeman’s voice in my head since I saw the movie first?

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2012 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

600 people reached the top of Mt. Everest in 2012. This blog got about 2,700 views in 2012. If every person who reached the top of Mt. Everest viewed this blog, it would have taken 5 years to get that many views.

Click here to see the complete report.