The central problem for humanity: control...

I've got two classes I'm taking this summer...and so many things I have going on this summer...and so many things to write/blog about...

Including a very good movie called Veronica Guerin which, quite unintentionally, (much like my experience of Bowling for Columbine, which led to stop supporting gun control and to advocate gun responsibility in the context of gun rights) illustrates to me so clearly the tragic folly of the drug war...how even the most violent elements of the organized crime element in the drug culture clearly the consequence of its illegality...

How drug dealers and lords (unjustifiably, but nevertheless) generally turn to violence to both intimidate for money as a function of an underground economy and to avoid prison, as well as all of the other petty reasons that people turn to violent crime, of course...an issue I've decided to take on squarely in the book, with a genuinely open mind to how I might be wrong and a thorough engagement with the best empirical evidence I can find on the subject...

When I look back...the thing I regret most in my relationship with Brandi was the control issues and the fighting...Brandi and I shared mutually on this problem, but it just looks sad and foolish in retrospect...and I also regret not just respecting her choice to leave and be with someone else better...I really did try...hard...harder than anything I've ever done, I think, except try to earn her back...

I worked through some really profound jealousy and all kinds of ugly feelings to be friends...but, in retrospect, I very much wish I would have done better by her and by Greg, her husband and boyfriend at the time...I just didn't know how to understand or deal with all of the feelings that I was going through at the time...that's always true, isn't it?:)...but in this case, it meant pushing away my closest friend, quite unintentionally...

If there's one thing in my life that I regret most, it's that one...

And if there is one most important lesson I learned from my first year of teaching, that was it...

That the single most important mistake that we make with kids is trying to control them so much...or, really, trying to control them at all...which we can't do in any meaningful way...only temporarily, and with huge costs that come with it...costs in the form of serious interference within and disruptions of our relationships with kids that undermine many of the very good intentions and purposes we have in guiding them into adulthood...

And costs to them, in the form of limits on their learning and growth and maturity, which extend long into adulthood, if you notice how many adults never really take more mature, responsible relationships with others nearly seriously enough...and others who only do so when they can control others, which just starts the cycle all over again...

You can spot a really serious control issue a thousand miles away...

Charles Krauthammer has a serious control issue...David Horowitz does too, and is the common denominator between his radical left-wing days and his radical right-wing days...Hillary Clinton has a serious enough control issue...as does Bill to a much lesser degree...Ralph Nader is a good example of someone on the left with a serious control issue...

Three people that Melissa and I just watched on this Inside Deep Throat documentary, have serious control issues: Charles Keating, Larry Parrish, and Roy Cohn (in his own deeply hypocritical and dysfunctional way...it was something of an open secret that Roy was a homosexual, arguing on public airways for Harry Reems, the male star of Deep Throat, to get 5 years in prison for his role...all the while, Roy was engaged in homosexual sodomy that was both illegal longer than pornography and far more obscene to the Americans revolted by Deep Throat)...

You can see it in peoples' faces, actually...you know that look like they're persistently in battle with people?...that look of both personal suppression and like they're just persistently furious with the world?...lots of suppressed anger...and lots of unrealistic ideas and expectations of the world...

Fred Phelps, the God Hates Fags preacher from Topeka, Kansas...serious control issue...

Most politicians, even those with better intentions, often have more or less serious control issues...

Hitler had that look...as did Stalin...as does Fidel Castro...Kim Jong Il does as well if you get past that wry little smile...

Brandi and I were different in the sense that we didn't suppress our anger...which was healthy...we expressed it all the time...whatever was on our minds, typically, I think (when I reflect, the honest truth is I have no clue about how much Brandi was sharing or holding back with me...but I assume that she was sharing most of the time)...

We just needed to learn healthier ways of expressing that anger...and perspective on what was really an important issue to have conflict about...and what was more minor...and, as I've learned with Melissa, how to just let go of control issues altogether, as much as possible, since it's completely fruitless to try to control someone else who always does and always will make their own choices and decisions...

I very much regret all of the ways that I took Brandi's and my relationship/friendship for granted...most of all because she's opted, at this point, for an all-or-nothing gambit...no relationship and no friendship...she, at least, has my blog, I suppose...I have absolutely no clue what's up with her -- except that she's frosted her hair...I saw a picture on the internet:) -- since she doesn't really share anymore...one of life's minor tragedies for me:):)...

There's so much learning as a part of the living and being human...and I've experienced so much...

And if the long-term trends tell me anything its that my relationships keep getting better...the more I learn the deeper, most important lessons...

I'm looking forward to a romantic relationship with someone that has passion and has minimal if any control issues...with conflict that is constructive, generally, and challenging in a supportive way rather than in a controlling or hurtful way...

But what I'm looking forward to, most of all...is having a family where issues can be worked out closer to the way that so many of us wish they could be worked out...reasonably...decently...with better communication and more thoughtfulness rather than with more force...

Why, commentators keep asking, is America growing, economically, but we don't seem to be feeling it?...

I think this is it...and how miserable it makes us feel...how much it limits our learning and growth...and how much we rationalize it, even as we persistently complain about being micro-managed and controlled...

It's the single biggest bitch that people I know have about their work, their relationships, their families, and just about every interaction with others that they have...

And it's something that we've all been romanticizing, as of late...as much out of worry for our children as anything else, I'm sure...

And, sadly...it is generally counterproductive...

And that, more than anything else, was what I had very much reinforced for me, this year...

I always say and I very much had it reinforced this year, that if you are convinced that more punishment or more control makes kids smarter, more responsible, less trouble, nicer, more decent, less self-centered...check out the relationships between parents and kids in special education (especially for those without clear, rigorously-identified disabilities other than being behind their peers, academically, as a matter of a maturity, and/or having more serious behavior issues)...you will generally find parents who punish their kids more, control them more, and otherwise seriously undermine their maturity, learning and value for education, generally...

Most if not all parents that I've encountered love their children and want the best for them...

But some parents (and teachers) are more persistent in making foolish mistakes over and over again with their children...and reap the consequences in their children's choices and behavior...

I hope I'm learning a way out of that trap...

And I'm learning a lot about kids and people, in the meantime...

I've got homework and cleaning to do:):)...have a great week, everyone:):)...

Love,
Ben