Obi-Wan

Why “Obi-Wan?” Two reasons. First, “Kenobi” makes a cool pun with my real name. Second, in a broad sense, I share a bit of personal history with this fictional character.

In the original 1978 Star Wars movie (now, was that episode I? Episode 4? Episode...ahhh, the first one) Kenobi relates to Luke Skywalker how, many years ago, he chose to take on a certain task which was quite beyond his ability to do well—and something which, if done less than well, would result in things far worse than he imagined. This was a task he was advised not to attempt by a much wiser person, but, in an illustration of the difference between self-confidence and plain arrogance, Obi-Wan considered himself quite capable of doing in spite of the advice of one wiser voice.

As it turns out, of course, he wasn't quite as skilled as he imagined he was—and worse, the name of his own recently deceased mentor would forever be associated with this debacle.

Obi-Wan's overconfidence resulted in the deaths of millions of people across the entire galaxy, including nearly all of the Jedi. Those few who remained were grew old still hiding from Obi-Wan's legacy—including Obi-Wan himself.

Now, he did manage to somewhat redeem himself in the end, and the movie itself ends on a stirringly grand and triumphant note. But this world is no fictional creation, nor is redemption so neatly and tidily wrapped up. And the "end," if there is one, may be a very long time coming.

Meanwhile, not so long ago and in this very galaxy, I was similarly confident in my ability to perform a certain task, and that I could do it quite well, thankyouverymuch. Predictably, of course, came the shockingly rude discovery that I wasn't quite as capable as I had assumed. Several innocent people paid a stiff price for my arrogance. I'll probably spend the rest of my life in the process of attempting to "redeem” myself as best I can. And no, for the record, I don't consider myself to be nearly so “wise” as my namesake is generally considered to be—rather, remember how he himself failed and how the final act in his process of redemption was giving his own life in order to save another, and in so doing, saving countless others as well.

Now on to things of less than galactic import. I'm married (32 years as of April '08!) to a wonderful woman who has given me far more than I could ever hope to return and whom I love deeply, more deeply each year than the last, and three terrific children, all grown (more or less). I don't intend to write much about my personal life, including my family, except in general terms, in part for their privacy and general protection.

Now, all prospective writers, bloggers, and webmasters take careful note, for I'm about to reveal one of Life's Frustratingly Immutable Truths. Listen carefully.

No matter how smart you have become, and no matter what perfectly valid reasons you have for thinking so, the Internet is a surpassingly efficient tool for rudely revealing you to be the fool you really are, or at least the fool you will think you are after discovering how very many people have forgotten more about your own field(s) of expertise than you have ever learned, and are quite willing to let you know.

If you are honest/brave enough to permit comments or feedback of some sort on the web page that you intended to let your wisdom light the way for a weary and ignorant world, you will make this discovery quickly enough to cause mental whiplash.

It's been years now and I'm still using Ben-Gay on mine.

I say this to emphasize that there is nothing particularly special about me, certainly not in comparison to the plethora of excellent engineers and technicians in the world (not that you needed to be told this). I'm not smart enough to be a real "expert," though that won't stop me from trying to be. I'm currently not a writer in any other venue. I'm neither a law professor nor a doctor (nor do I play one on TV the 'net) and in my life I have practiced mainly electronics (mostly self-taught), programming (ditto), sound engineering and recording, and a smidgen of a few dozen other rather ordinary things. But I do love to write, and I do have opinions, and even the occasional good idea. Hence this blog.

I'm a music lover and erstwhile musician (vocals, keyboards, guitar, trumpet), although I don't play professionally any more. I mainly listen to "classic rock" and classical music, mostly—stuff ranging from Bob Seger, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Led Zeppelin, Queen, the Strawbs, ELP, and King Crimson ("who?") to Holst, Orff, Copland, and Ralph Vaughan Williams. I dislike Bach. It may have to do with the mathematically precise construction of his music as opposed to the more harmonic, emotional appeal of composers such as Vaughan Williams and Holst. For me music is something with which to get away from the usual way my brain works (that is, I can analyze a problem well and solve it logically; I've been called “Spock”), so I tend to seek out music that offers a change from the logical and technical. Or something like that.

I cannot listen to music as a background while doing something else. If I hear music I am compelled to listen to it, to devote my full attention to every note, every detail, as fully as if I were in a concert hall. This isn't particularly by choice, but I don't find it to be a handicap. It's rather just another way music enriches my life, something that it always has done.

I enjoy electronics both as a hobby and a profession, particularly where it intersects the areas of music and sound.

My politics and other perspectives is a blend of “small-l” libertarianism and conservatism, becoming more libertarian with time, which means that while I voted for George W. Bush twice, I'm also deeply dissatisfied with much of what he's done and has failed to do. I'm furious at the SCOTUS for completely disregarding the Constitution on numerous occasions.

My dear wife is considerably more straight-line conservative than I am, which means that we don't discuss politics very often (actually our politics aren't really all that different).

But there is a much deeper chasm between us than mere politics.

I was raised a fundamentalist, evangelical Christian, and became more fundamental and devoted with time, as did my beloved. Our marriage, in fact, was largely based on our strong mutual faith. We both attended a well-known southeastern university of Bible and missions. I spent quite a lot of time in study of the bible and even in learning enough ancient Greek to help me understand the Bible more completely, with the result that I have a good deal more knowledge of the Bible than the average Christian. I was also a Creationist.

Then, quite suddenly, during 2004, I began to question and think about things I had never before allowed myself to really think about—after all, I just knew that some things were simply true and beyond any question, such as the accuracy, veracity and verbal inspiration of the Bible. I first began to think about these things, then slowly question them, then apply logic and what knowledge I had to them, with the eventual result that I am now pretty well described as highly skeptical of the existence of God at all.

Whew. Yes, this was an obviously dramatic and entirely unexpected development. Not a good thing for our marriage, but I had no real choice, as you will see.

My beloved wife, on the other hand, insists that I certainly do have a choice in what I believe. Being the person she is, though, she can't understand how my mind works—I cannot simply believe something by force of will; I have to be led there by the available evidence. It's a completely backward thing for me to shape my grasp of the facts according to what I believe (although that is exactly what I did for forty years)—my beliefs, rather, must be shaped by my grasp of the facts. All my life I had joked about dividing people into arbitrary groups (“there are two kinds of people in the world: those who divide people into two kinds, and those who don't”), but, as it turns out, there actually are two fundamentally different kinds of people, at least in terms of how they form their beliefs. Steven Den Beste, who also was raised a Christian, said it well, regarding why he is now a mechanistic atheist:

“There is one question which is the critical question in life. It's the most fundamental question there is. You might even say that it's the question of life, the universe, and everything -- except that the answer isn't "42". Indeed, it's not clear that it has a single answer. It's a question we all deal with constantly, and each of us must live with the consequences of whatever answer we choose. So what is this profound question?

Do you prefer unpleasant truths or pleasing falsehoods?

...About 30 years ago I embraced the idea that truth was always better than falsehood irrespective of whether it was pleasing. There are various reasons why that was, for me, the best answer but those reasons don't apply to other people and it may not be the best answer for everyone.

Because of that, I became an atheist. While I would prefer the comfort of religion, I cannot bring myself to accept it. It is, to me, a pleasing falsehood. To me, atheism makes the most sense. But atheism is cold, uncomforting. I have come to accept atheism and to make the best I can of it but it doesn't fill the hole that religion would fill in my psychic needs. That is part of the price I pay for taking an extreme realistic point of view of the world.”

Like Steven, I would very much prefer the “comfort of religion”, but I simply have no choice but to reject it:

“In essence, I'm not a mechanist because I want to be, but simply because I can't be otherwise. No other way of looking at the universe makes sense to me.”

That pretty well sums it up. Does this create problems in my relationship with my wife? Of course it does. Doesn't that bother me? Yes, deeply. Also, when one rather suddenly goes from believing that there's a blissful, eternal life after death, and that God also helps us during this life, to denying that any of that makes any sense, it can be profoundly depressing for a while. You betcha. Couple that with the fact that my wife cannot understand why I can't just "make up my mind" to go back to the way I was, and blames me for not simply doing so, and life can get kinda tedious at times.

I may never quite get used to it.

(Don't misunderstand, though—we have a wonderful relationship in spite of this.)

Wrapping it up:

Congratulations on making it this far. Here's where we get a bit more personal.

(The whole reason for my going into this kind of detail about myself is so that you can understand where I'm coming from when I write what I do, not out of some inflated sense of self-importance. All writers like to think that someone, somewhere is interested in what they write. Of course, all it takes is a glance at my traffic stats to keep me humble.)

I've been officially on disability since 1997 due to a few chronic health conditions that, among other things, cause severe, unrelenting pain and extraordinary fatigue. The only reasons I can function at all are several powerful prescriptions that offer me some semblance of normalcy, but which also come with certain side effects. Yes, I've tried all sorts of alternative, “natural” things in an effort to improve my health, but with no results. My condition is treatable, but not curable with current medical knowledge.

During the last few years that I worked I was in so much pain so much of the time that, in retrospect, it's a wonder that I survived at all. What this did, though, was to teach me to be able to think clearly and logically although my entire world, both inside and outside, was screaming for attention. My work was demanding and stressful anyway, but then almost all rewarding work is, and I look back on those days and miss very much being able to do what I did.

One of the reasons I decided to stop thinking about blogging and actually take the plunge was that I believed it would help me to focus my mind (which doesn't work nearly as well as it used to)—focus it on positive things, not negative, and on the future rather than the past. This I need very much, because I still have my family, and they depend on me. I've failed to be there for them all too often. Fortunately, blogging has had that very effect on me, for which I am quite grateful.

Finally, as you can imagine, being out of work for so long and having the sort of medical bills that we have means that we also have no money to speak of. Hopefully I will eventually build up enough traffic that I can make a few dollars on ads, but if anyone has any reasonable, respectable suggestions for work I can do from home, perhaps using the internet, I would appreciate it. No, I'm not interested in the latest amazing get-rich-quick scheme, but in proposals for honest hard work that I can actually physically do and that have a good chance of yielding enough money that groceries are no longer hard to come by. That's all I really care about, not buying a new car every year and living in an ostentatious home or anything like that. (I'm already checking into a few such things, but I will always appreciate suggestions or advice.)

Gosh, this was long. Thanks for sticking with me. If you happen to appreciate my perspective and writing, please consider hitting my tip jar.

Y'all come back now, hear?