May 2009 Archives

STONE HARBOR, NJ Last night's violent storms have given way to one of those crisp, clean, beautiful days at the New Jersey shore. Now, however, it is time to sweep the house, pack the swimming suits and the car; it is time to begin the journey back home.

Another long anticipated week at the beach has run its course; but we have renewed connections with one another, with the sand and sun, with the clouds, rain and the energy of the earth. Next year, the we all will be older, different, exposed longer to the love and hate of the world.

For now, the sun shines beautifully as we pack, grateful for another year together.

STONE HARBOR, NJ Today is my 40th birthday: I feel the curvature of the arc of my life, the contour of its trajectory. As it begins, I hope, to press toward its apogee and ultimate return, I sense at once the bodies that influence its course and the direction toward which it tends.

Now more than ever, I am aware of what I can and cannot control. The way I relate to others, but not their responses; the integrity of my decisions, but not their consequences; the living attention I invest in my kids, but not the arc of their lives...

As I turn 40 today, I pause to appreciate this before I return to running with my kids and laughing on the beach ... if the sun decides to burn through the clouds over which I have no control.

Although I fancy myself someone who takes advantage of the web, I must admit that I find myself repeatedly going to the same sites all the time: the New York Times, Slate.com, the Centre Daily Times, Google Reader, Truthdig.com, etc.

I mentioned this at dinner the other night and recently minted Dr. Michael Brownstein, suggested that I needed StumbleUpon.com. When I returned home, I checked it out and have found it thus far to be quite refreshing.

I signed up for a free account, was asked about some of my interests and then was able, on a click of a button, to plumb the vast recesses of the internet. StumbleUpon.com serves up websites based on your interests and you can teach it what you like and don't like, share with friends and email sites you find interesting.  There is even a way to limit it to University sites if you want.  I uploaded the StumbleUpon Firefox toolbar, and now when I have a moment, I just click the Stumble! button and see what happens.

Here is a link to my public profile on StumbleUpon.com if you want to see the sites I have said I liked.  If you join, feel free to make me a friend on it so I can see what you have discovered.

In less than a week, we will be going to the polls again here in Pennsylvania. Although this primary lacks the national interest of last year's Presidential primary, it remains nevertheless important to local politics.  

The title of this post comes from George Vaillant, the director of one of the longest running longitudinal studies of physical and mental well-being that has ever been undertaken. My attention was drawn to him and his study by Josh Miller after he posted a link on Facebook to this article by Joshua Wolf Shenk in the Atlantic (thanks Josh).

"The take home lesson is to always enjoy where you are now."

A simple lesson, a difficult task. But the study offers a view of each concrete life in one sweep, not as a series of moments, but each as a kind of whole.  In this it is akin to great literature. To see the whole of life in this way is to be reminded of its brevity, and of its incalculable depth.

Yesterday Alan Levine, aka cogdog, gave a presentation on 50+ Ways to Tell a Story using Web 2.0 technologies. The presentation was excellent as it introduced us to a variety of tools available online for telling stories. The power of Levine's presentation was the way he told and retold the same story about losing and then finding his dog, Dominoe, using the different tools.