The Universe's Quirky Sense of Humor

Ever since I moved to Boise I have been very pleased with how things have been working out. Sure, it has been stressful on a lot of levels to go through all the challenges of moving, especially since my husband can't come to join me for another few weeks. Although he makes the trip down here to spend time with me nearly every weekend, there have been a lot of decisions to muddle through and tasks to take care of that I've had to navigate on my own.

I have had my moments of homesickness and loneliness to be sure. It has also been a bit disorienting to more or less "camp out" in a nearly empty house. I just brought a few basics with me. I have a bed to sleep on and we bought a couch and love seat to go in the family room. But other than that, the whole house is bare. I have just enough dishes, towels and such to get by in a pinch, but none of the extras or personal things I'm so used to being surrounded with. So that has been odd.

My sweet husband brings down loads of boxes every time he comes to visit on the weekends. This last trip down he brought the dining room table and chairs- YIPPEE! I was so glad to get them here. (He'll make do with a card table for the last few weeks he is in Oregon finishing up his work there.) Week by week my gathering of things continues. It has been interesting for me to find what things I miss and what things I probably don't even need to keep afterall. Some of it I may just sell, give away to friends or donate when it comes time for our major move with all our stuff in the middle of July.

So, as I said, there have been a few bumps and some awkwardness and challenges to cope with throughout this move. But overall, it really DOES feel like a fit.

I have been especially pleased with the house we moved into and I really like our neighborhood. There have been several things that have felt almost uncanny with how well this place exactly meets our needs. I'm not much of one for believing in things being "meant to be". I generally reject the whole notion of predetermined fate, preferring the idea that we create our own realities, making the best of whatever circumstances may come along. I believe in owning my own choices.

In fact, in the sociology class I teach I emphasize this a lot in they final lecture with the Sailboat Analogy which I have told over and over for many years. I posted this back in August 2007 for the 300th post of this blog....(Click HERE to revisit.) That little story represents the guiding principle of my beliefs, capsulizing the idea of both personal responsibility and acceptance of things beyond our control.

So imagine my surprise when I found that very concept recorded on the wall of the room that will be my office here.

Tonight my painter friends were over visiting and discussing some projects I may have them help me with next. These are the folks that did such a great job of painting our whole house before I moved in. Sherri said to me "did you find the place where there are words on the wall?" I looked at her blankly, having no clue what she was talking about. She said "There are words on the wall in your office. We noticed it when we were painting."

Keep in mind the third bedroom designated as my office is still mostly empty, with one wall being stacked with packed boxes waiting for my desk, bookshelf and file cabinet to arrive. Because of this I really have not spent much time in there.... Still, I have been in there enough you would think I would have seen something like a pattern of words on the wall. I looked at each room very carefully when the painting was all done and was very impressed by how smooth and clean it all looked. I never saw any words.

So I went into the office and I looked particularly closely to see if I could find what they were referring to. Even then, I still didn't see it until it was pointed out to me. Sure enough, right there on the wall where all the boxes are sitting there are words just about at my eye level. Apparently at some point a former resident of this house had put laser cut vinyl lettering up as decoration. However, when they decided to change the look of the room, rather than remove the words, they just painted over them. It's hardly noticeable. But if you know right where to look, you can VERY FAINTLY see them. In big block letters it says:

"We cannot control the wind"

then, underneath that in italic script it reads:

"But we can adjust our sails."

Go figure. Yeah, I belong in this house. No doubt about it.

POST # 300 - SAILBOAT ANALOGY

I'm winding down the final week of my summer classes. I always wax a bit nostalgic as these classes come to a close. I've enjoyed getting to know my students and sharing this time with them. Now they will move on to other things and may or may not give their SOC class a second thought. There is all together too much of intellectual bulimia going on in college....students CRAM information hand over fist into their brains to hold onto it just long enough to pass exams and then purge it all once the class ends in order to make room for the next binge. That makes me sad.

But I like to believe a few of them will have a somewhat enhanced perspective as a result of having studied with me this semester. To try to give them some framing context to take with them as they leave, I always close with the following message to my online students:

When I teach this course in a traditional classroom, on the last day I always wind up with my sailboat analogy. It involves pictures on the board, some interactive exercises, and other things I can't do very well here - but I do want to share the basic idea behind it.

Have you ever been on a sailboat? When I used to watch sailboats when I was little, I assumed that when the wind pushed the sail, the boat would go in whatever direction the wind was blowing. As I got older, I realized that made no sense. If that were true, the captain of the boat would have no control whatsoever of where he or she was going.

Later I learned that sailors use a specific technique of adjusting their sails called "tacking". By pulling on various ropes they move the sails this way and that. Based on the angle of their sails, they can move the boat in just about any direction, so long as there is sufficient wind. It works sort of like playing pool - you can make a cue ball go in different directions depending on which side of the ball and from what angle you strike it. You make the boat go in different directions by changing the angle of the sail.

What does that have to do with Sociology???

SOCIAL FORCES are the wind of our life. We have little or no control over many social conditions such as our culture's attitudes towards race, gender or age. Sometimes events or perceptions will be thrown at us, which are less than ideal. Many times other people in our lives will make choices that have a huge impact.

However, we are NOT completely at the mercy of society or other people's behavior. We are the captains of our ships, and by adjusting our sails, we decide what directions our lives will go. How you present yourself in the world in terms of the vocabulary you use, the way you dress, the way you treat people in relationships, and what attitude you choose to maintain is in YOUR control. And your life will have a very different outcome based on the choices you make.

I had friends in Michigan who sold their house and business, bought a big sailboat and went sailing around the world. They had a 10 yr old son at the time. They simply pulled him out of public school and got a good home school curriculum to take with them. They took an amazing adventure that changed all of their lives. They would write to me from various ports telling stories of how they came through storms, times when the wind stopped for days, and other challenges. Yet they were very much on track, going from land mass to land mass pretty much according to the schedule THEY had planned. The reason they were able to be successful in their journey is that they were very knowledgeable about the currents and wind patterns, and used that knowledge to their advantage.

I believe that as we become more knowledgeable about SOCIOLOGY, we become better equipped to make wise choices in how we relate to others. This expertise empowers us to move forward in the direction we most desire, regardless of some of the barriers that may occur as challenges. There are still lots of things over which we have no control. However, the better we understand the nature and power of social norms, groupthink, bystander effect, racism, sexism, ageism, and all those other things we have studied, the better equipped we become to thrive in what may at times be a very stormy world.

The whole reason I asked you to write the personal and world examples in each of your value summaries is because I honestly believe this stuff matters in your life. I want you to see how it touches you and how it touches the world in which you live. It's not just a bunch of technical terms that you need to memorize in order to gather points on a quiz, never to think of again. These concepts affect your life each and every day. I want you to see how you are a part of your own culture. I want you to see where you fit in the world through the eyes of SOCIOLOGICAL IMAGINATION.

For me, this class is more about shifting the way you THINK and PERCEIVE than it is about filling your heads up with bits of information. I hope that at least a few of you will notice more and analyze deeper as a result of this class. Because even if you never take another SOC class, unless you become a hermit in a cave who never interacts with others, you will be living sociology for the rest of your lives.

There will be storms. There will be calm. Through it all, take care in how you trim your sails. I wish you smooth journey.

(I just noticed as I uploaded this that it is the 300th posting of Mind-Muffins. - feels like a good reason to go bake a cake!)