unexpected beauty

The kid in the featured photo is graduating from high school this week. He read that hardcover Dick and Jane until the spine basically dissolved. He just felt so happy to be a person who could read, so impressed by himself (and with good reason, if I may say so–he was barely four). He doesn’t like to read much these days but sometimes I see that same spirit in him–that awed faith in his own capacity, marvel at his own growth. May that feeling continue to visit him throughout his journey toward being himself.

I just finished Bad Stories by Steve Almond, which was so so so good (order it). The point he kept making was “We take our grievances seriously, but not our vulnerabilities.” Meaning that as a society, we get all bent out of shape about hot button things that make us angry on an emotional level, and are distracted from the larger things that really threaten us–things we could actually maybe do something about (things we SHOULD do something about). He also drew this really important parallel between our attitude towards sports and our attitude towards politics–this loyalty to the team or party that defies reason and exists outside of our actual interests. I have two sons who are pretty obsessed with sports. Football and baseball in particular. They have their teams (Baltimore everything, forever) and it doesn’t matter what happens, there’s no switching teams. Never mind that their actual lives are not affected by anything that happens on the field. They read stats before bed, obsess over the draft, heckle their friends who prefer other teams (though if you know anything about the O’s you know they’re getting heckled pretty good themselves right now).