Dads

Great Ask MetaFilter thread on important things fathers have taught. Some of my favourites:

• You know a girl likes you if she runs to see you.
• Call home if you're going to be late.
• My dad once told me that marriage is not a 50/50 relationship. You have to give 100% all the time.
• If you're going to present a problem, be prepared to present a solution.
• Lombardi time! (10 minutes early is right on time.)
• If you can't turn around and effectively argue the other side's position, either you don't understand the argument or it's not worth arguing about.
• It's better to beg forgiveness then ask permission.
• Don't lend your grown children your nice tools — you will never get them back. He also told me over and over again never to argue about something that you can look up.
• My dad taught me that it is worth investing in good tools, and in general that good quality is usually worth the extra money. He also taught me to love reading and talking about ideas. More recently, he has shown me that life can get better as you get older — there is always something new to learn.
• Show up.
• Now matter how hot the weather, how late the dinner, or how cranky the kids, you should always make time to sneak up behind your wife/husband/partner at the stove and smooch the back of her/his neck.
• Always carry a pen.
• The four food groups are caffeine, nicotine, salt, and grease.
• Life is long enough for many careers; you will find many ways to fulfill your dreams.
• Asking for help doesn't show weakness; it shows trust.
• Laugh at yourself. We are all ridiculous.
• Accept responsibility for the consequences of your own actions.
• My father taught me (implicitly) that authority comes from the use of fear, popularity, or knowledge. I picked knowledge.
• My father taught me (implicitly) that just a very small handful of really special and unusual parent-child interactions — "hey, let's go across town for no reason whatsoever and eat a hot dog" kind of stuff — can form the basis for some significant childhood memories. I made my kids dinner entirely out of desserts once, as a result of this.
• My father taught me (explicitly) that if you're going to go to the trouble of doing something, finish it.
• If anyone ever refers to you as a "bad drunk" stop drinking immediately and never have another.

My dove is on her way to Italy. Fly safe!

Posted at 2006-07-01 18:57:31 by Richard • Link to Dads
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Idle Words

Always worth reading.

Posted at 2006-07-01 13:59:34 by Richard • Link to Idle Words
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The Elementary Particles / Atomised

The agonising existential torment induced by the first two hundred pages — an endless parade of the decay and depression of ageing, loneliness, frustrated desire, and shattered love — are a prerequisite for the almost religious state induced by the next thirty. There is a palpable sense of redemption, a positive feeling of everything not mattering in quite the way you think.

At some point in the future I should start reading again at Chapter 4, perhaps making notes, but I'm not sure that the meaning would be preserved without the extended preparation.

Should you read it? Well, if there are any cracks in how you perceive the world, and you have any capacity for empathy, you would be at risk of plunging yourself into a dimly-lit pit in which life seems doomed; the final chapters might save you. I suppose that's a ‘yes’.

I first poked my nose into this book in 2001. I'm glad to have finally finished it!

Pertinent commentary:

The Guardian: “You're not meant to like Atomised, by Michel Houellebecq, warns Nicholas Lezard”:

• This is a bold and unsettling portrait of a society falling apart.
• There is not too much doubt that Houellebecq is an unpleasant person.

Culture Wars:

• a dark and difficult novel

(On an entirely unrelated note: don't get the decaf house coffee in Coupa Cafe in Palo Alto. It's undrinkable.)

Posted at 2006-07-01 13:54:14 by Richard • Link to The Elementary Par…
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