Geoff's Miscellany

I finally quit school. I won’t say I left teaching.

Callings stick with us forever. Every dad is a teacher.

I taught for a long time, even became an administrator.

I taught Biblical studies, Latin, Greek, Geometry, Statistics, Algebra 2, Pre-Algebra, Logic, Public Speaking, Introduction to Computer Programming, and Strength and Conditioning. In college I taught introduction to systematic theology and the history of Christianity in the United States.

I had fun.

The things that shape who we are and how we think are pluriform and sometimes mysterious. This is especially so in the age of the internet stuff that may disappear forever after you read it. Every once in a while, the Internet sends it back to you.

Around 2008-2009, I was quite depressed. And while I was still known for being a social butterfly at work and school, and many people even called me for advice (I remember distinctly two women with doctorates in psychology contacting me for relationship advice), I was languishing. There are probably three main reasons for this:

Few realize the effort it takes to rebel against the oppressive spectre of obeso-normativity. To exist as a person of size is to be under constant threat of being appropriated into size-sameness.

But I will #resist. America is full of folks of cis-weight homogeneity. But I wish for America to be weight diverse. 

I've come to appreciate Jordan Peterson. It's rare for me to find a recent scholar from whom I learn more than one or two important things. Peterson is an exception. 

Edit: Everything I've said below remains true, but as I read Peterson's books and listened to some of his podcasts, I realized that there were things going on with his worldview and poltical aims that were unsavory to say the least. I'll leave the post up in the interests of showing that you can learn from people with whom you radically disagree.

This is just a stream of consciousness about the experience of fatherhood:

1. When the struggles with Avery and Margot began toward the end of the pregnancy, I had never felt so defeated, alone, or weak. I didn’t handle it well, and I suspect I’m still recovering from that. 
2. That’s not a complaint, it’s just a shift in perspective. Before fatherhood, I easily recovered from sorrow due to death or the fear thereof. Other things got me down. But rarely the near death or sickness of people I knew.(not sure why, I was just wired that way)
3. The stresses of parenthood are like those of every life change. The passions of the body and soul find new ways to tempt you to sin.
4. I’ve never been big on sleep, but my sleep is so shallow these days it’s finally catching up to me.
5. I’ve always been very protective of children and been very aggressive to bullies. But with my own daughter that instinct has multiplied so vastly. When I read ancient literature, the insane lengths of revenge for hurt family suddenly makes sense to me (not that I endorse that). But I have rethought several aspects of my politics and ethics. 
6. I do more fully understand wha Jesus meant when he said you couldn’t follow him without hating your family. Here’s how: if I had to choose between the whole world and my daughter, she wins every time. I’d build a space ship, turn the moon into the Death Star, and blow up the sun if it would keep her safe. Anyway, Jesus seems to be saying to put that sort of devotion beneath your devotion to him and adherence to his teachings.
7. I find watching somebody sleep is now a deep joy.
8. Few processes are more fun than watching somebody learn to be a person from scratch. 
9. When Jordan Peterson says, “you have to know that you’re a loaded gun, especially around children, or you’ll harm them irreparably” is good counsel. It’s weird how you can suddenly and accidentally get mad at a person who doesn’t even have a will yet.
10. I make up songs all day now. That’s weird.
11. Since discovering the pregnancy, I’ve read so many parenting books and so much psychology and evo-psych literature that I’m actually forgetting author names (never done that before...could be sleep deprivation).
12. Having a child wakens you, profoundly, to the value of a dollar and the beauty of nice neighborhoods. 
13. Few moments are so heartbreaking as watching my daughter’s pristine worldview get shattered by bumping her head or suddenly getting hungry.
14. She recently started emulating “I love you.” She makes a weird three syllable sound with her tongue floppping about. It’s the best.
15. Unless you’re a terrible person who would definitely be a bad parent, you should get your life together and have kids in order to experience meaning in life.

1. Pro-life made sense. Abortion is the most insane inversion of the order nature I could and can imagine.
2. I thought prison sentences for most crimes made no sense.
3. Keeping the government mostly out of the market made sense (though I was skeptical of conservative opposition to minimum wage increases and I thought tariffs made sense)
4. I also thought that going to war all of the time seemed to be a "liberal" use of money.

My Skepticism Rose

The Five Stages of Conservative

1. Stage 1: “Mark my words: if the extreme left had its way, they’d foist X upon us! These nutjobs must be opposed at all costs.”
2. Stage 2: “Omigosh, now even thoughtful, mainstream liberals favor X! Fortunately, it’s political suicide.”
3. Stage 3: “X now exists in 45 out of 50 states. Fellow conservatives, we need to learn how to adjust to this grim new reality.”
4. Stage 4: “X isn’t so bad, really, when you think about it. And you know, sometimes change is good. Consider slavery…”
5. Stage 5: “Hey, I was always in favor of X! You must have me confused with a [paleocon, theocon, Bible thumper, etc.]. But everyone knows that mainstream conservatism has nothing to do with those nutjobs…”

Christians do this, too.