If I Ever Feel Better

Today is a momentous day for the United States and to a less extent the world. Barack Obama has been sworn-in as the first African American President. You already knew this. You also know that he’s been elected on a platform of change and hope - a claim that he will take the USA to a better, more optimistic place. This is a tough order under any circumstances, let alone when your nation is embroiled in two wars and facing a deep recession.

He’s also going to face the usual array of entrenched special interests, as well as the intransigence of Congress (on both sides) and the social divisions that will take a long time to heal. I think he’s a man of character and will do his best not to be defeated by these barriers. But I am also cynical enough to expect that he will not always succeed. After so much hope, disappointment and disillusionment is inevitable. Looking back at great leaders of the past, all have had their failures and weaknesses. Unless Obama actually is the Messiah , he will have his too.

You know what I can’t be cynical about?  Hearing kids say that Obama makes them believe that they can do anything.  The thought that prior to this moment, they have been cursed with the expectation that they can’t do so many things breaks my heart.  Self-belief is not enough in itself, but it can make a world of difference.

Whatever happens from now on, things have already gotten a little bit better.

Talk to a guy in the lead-up to his wedding and he’ll most likely express horror at the amount of effort that goes into planning the thing.  In all likelihood, he’ll tell you that he’d rather get married at the beach with 5 close friends and what the hell are “wedding favours” anyway?  I used to wonder whether this was gender expectations - an Aussie bloke isn’t supposed to get excited about this kind of thing.  But on the other hand, the way some brides carry on, fatigue and apathy from the groom-to-be are just natural reactions.

Even marrying the most fantastically down-to-earth girl imaginable, there is still a lot to be organised. I’m off the hook for almost all the planning, by virtue of being unable to inspect locations or talk to local providers.  In a lot of ways, it’s a typical guy’s dream: just turn up and marry the girl you love.  What could be simpler?  I’m realising that I’m just like all the other guys.

I helped a photographer friend shoot a wedding yesterday and for the first time noticed the details and elements that go into making the day happen - because, let’s be honest, all I’ve ever done at previous weddings is play Bridal Bingo and check out the bridesmaids.  The lesson?  It’s a BIG job.  My heart went out to Nikki and I just wanted to find a way to make it all magically happen.  Is there someone you can pay to do it who isn’t Martin Short or J-Lo?

Remember the best bonding experience of your life.  Think about the shared challenge or thrill and the relationships that formed out of it.  Think about the honesty and understanding that you felt.  Then look a bit to the side, to the periphery of your memory.  See anyone?  Who’s just outside of the photo?  Maybe you can only see their arm, their shoulder or half of their face.

Group dynamics are a funny thing.  I’m always trying to get my head around them in my untrained pre-Psych 101 fashion.  Something I’ve been thinking about for a year or so is how close relationships and group bonding leave others on the outer.  Because every group is defined by something common, anything from an artificial work structure (HR, Sales Team B) to a shared sense of humour, there are always going to be people who don’t meet the entry requirement.

Sometimes you won’t notice it, but other times you will spot people who are in the same place or situation, but are somehow omitted from the group that forms.  They might be the shy ones in a group of extroverts.  They might be the non-English speaker who doesn’t get the jokes.  They might respond differently to events than everyone else.

This might not be a big deal and for the most part we just appreciate the groups and bonds that we have the chance to form.  For those on the outer, their opportunity for bonding is probably some other time, with someone else in some other place.  Maybe it’s because I have felt on the outer so many times that even in the midst of becoming close to a group, I notice those who are left out.

At my high school reunion in September, just over a third of the year level turned up.  Most of them were from the self-identified “cool” group.  Quite a few of my friends were there, but even more didn’t make it.  Their absence was pretty obvious and yet several people said to me “Isn’t it great that everyone could be here?” or “That’s what I love about our year level - everyone was friends with everyone!”

Every time you draw a line around a group, there’s someone who’s going to be on the other side.  That’s not so say we shouldn’t do it.  We just shouldn’t kid ourselves that the circle is the whole world.

After a lot of talk about Guitar Hero on this blog last year, I finally got to play it over the holidays.  It’s more addictive than I could have expected and I’m determined to hold off on getting it as long as possible so that I can continue to do other things with my life like hold down a job and a relationship and eat.

Since I posted about whether video games will kill the guitar star last year, it’s funny to read Steve Wells’ rant in The Guardian about how actual guitars need a redesign to be…well, more like Guitar Hero.  More buttons, fewer finger callouses.

Maybe the geniuses and inventors are already busy at reworking the guitar for a new generation.  Steve Jobs probably has a guitar that you play with a click-wheel in production as we speak.

I was listening to Morrissey’s “America Is Not The World” recently and laughing at his line about how “the President is never black, female or gay”.  I’m guessing Moz’s mind has already been blown.  Imagine what will happen when the Degeneres 2016 campaign kicks off?

By now, you’ve probably heard about the group of British atheists who have sponsored a series of bus ads that tell people that there’s “probably no god” and that they should just get on with life.  It’s a clever campaign, fitting with the more (dare I say) evangelistic flavour of 21st century atheism but with much less militancy and condecension than a Hitchens or a Dawkins (even if Dawkins gave it his blessing).

Even as a believer, I’ve got no problem with the campaign - freedom of belief and expression and all that.  I was, however, struck by a recent article in The Guardian applauding the campaign.  James Randerson makes the comment that “Atheists are by definition free-thinkers who don’t follow the crowd.”  Really?  I thought that by definition atheists were people who didn’t believe in a deity.  Maybe there’s more to the Greek root than I knew.

I can see how this view came about.  In the Western world, Christianity was dominant for so long and so integral in the development of the academic and intellectual world that coming out as a non-believer was clearly bucking a trend.  This would have even been true up until the turn of the last century in many quarters and would still be the case in some families and cultures.  But for the average Guardian reader?  I’m not so sure.

Can someone who grew up in an atheist or agnostic family, attended secular schools and universities and works in a white collar profession in a large Western city be automatically deemed a free-thinker for their own atheism?  This is not to say that atheists who grow up with other atheists are sheep-like or uninquiring.  Many come to atheism based on profound intellectual inquiry and through deep struggle.  But there are also environments in which atheism (or some other disbelief) is the default position.

My maternal grandfather, a long-time agnostic, would often take my brother and I aside when we were younger.  “I know that you respect your parents deeply,” he would say, “but you can come to these own decisions for yourself.”  I used to laugh to myself afterwards.  Having come to unbelief within a devoutly Catholic family, he felt strongly that free-thought was the polar opposite of religion.  To my mind, though, my beliefs were my own.  They were the product of my own quest and my own investigations.

I can’t claim that my parents or environment have played no role in the evolution of my faith.  It’s highly probable that in another family, I would never have been exposed to the experiences, ideas, people and books that have led me here.  So I’m not going to call myself a free-thinker - just someone who thinks as hard as they can and is aware of some of their blindspots.  And I think that’s the most any of us can really claim.