Mid-November 2018

It has been some time since I wrote.  I should write monthly, not quarterly.  I am sorry.

One of the challenges is to find both energy and unimpeded opportunity in the presence of a host of competing urgent things.  You are the important, whether or not you are urgent. 

I feel like, in the past week or so, my mind and heart have gone from being a single core processor to a dual (or quad) core operating at higher rate.  I am thinking better, and also feeling in color (without injections of testosterone).  I have been thinking about how Jordan Peterson engages the bible as myth, in the sense of epic and deeply meaningful symbolic, and started processing through the question "what are the myths that made me".  It feels like I am speaking the true name of myself, and each time I do it, I gain power and life. 

Should I tell you about me?  Should I tell you about you?  I am doing something, intentionally, that Jordan said was a miracle some several thousand years ago: I am speaking to the future, trying to make a deal with the future.  This future, unlike his example with the farmer and the grain, is outside my lifetime, but in yours.  The question behind the question becomes, how can I give you a great gift that you can receive outside my lifetime, that you can realize?  It is a game of catch, but what to throw?

The myths that made me are terrible.  They are crushing. 

My mother ran away from home as a pregnant teen in the early 1970's so that my grandfather could not drive/enforce her to abort me.  She started running then and has been running since.  I think it both made and broke her.  She ran from her ex, moving every 3 months for years and years, because he had promised to kill us all, so there was a dangerous and damaging several decades there.  For me I had to ask "did I destroy her life", "do I owe her a huge debt now".  It set up a reliance when I was young that became much more of a codependency as a teen.  It was healthy for me to move out of her home.  It was healthy for me to walk, and stumble, and struggle under my own sometimes heavy burdens without her as the context.  I have been, and will be, pro-life because it is too easy to put a crushing pressure on a teenage girl, to pressure her to abort the child.  I think that pro-choice folks would get a lot less aggressive opposition if they could make sure it is the girls choice, and not someone forcing her to do it, like they force her to do other stuff.  It feels like they have bought into their own binary narrative, when the world is more than "either-or".  There are cases where the availability of abortion on demand enables more, much more, oppression than it eliminates. 

I asked my grandfather, when I was in 6th grade, if he did that, if he pressured her to abort me, and if he really wanted me dead.  He said his baby girl was in a scary and dangerous place, and he just wanted to help her.  I saw in his face, that in my asking the question, he looked in some reverential fear at that moment toward the holy ground that he had transgressed when my mom was pregnant with me.  He saw a piece of the terribleness, of the just consequences of his actions.  He wished she had a different trajectory in life, but he had taken a presumptuous hand, he had committed the sin of hubris against something great, in what he had done.

If I write here, in this public forum, one that is searched and analyzed by many robots, by many actors, some of my other myths, then I will set myself up for harm.  There are things that most folks simply cannot process.  They have no capacity for thought in the domain, and only a pre-programmed response, and I can see that response from here.  I would tell you some of the others, as I figure them out, but not the government(s), not the business entities (A,G), not the employers or potential employee analytics firms, have any right to know or use abuses that happened against me as a child as weapons against me or against you.  They can't help themselves.  I see the clusters and chains in how the algorithms candidate youtube videos, or feed posts at either facebook or linked in.  The humans view through the broken lens of the machinery.  That eye doesn't capably measure itself, so it can't self-diagnose, or self-improve. 

Your lives are rich, and busy, and sometimes hard.  There is, thank God, so far, very little in the way of terrible.  The bears that mauled me, and your mom, you have not yet even seen them with your own eyes.  I like to think that is protection, but not over-protection.

I am going to have to re-read "Letters from Dad" and try this again.  I think that I have "departed from the way", though I didn't know it.  I sincerely hope to try again at this, and get it right.

I love you.  I delight in you.  I admire you.  You are the best of me.  You make me delight to work hard, and try and enable and empower you in life.  May you have a good and healthy life.  May God make you great, and make your life meaningful.  May your hearts be full of integrity, and may you do the best things.  You are blessings to me. Thank you.

Late august, 2018

I saw this and it was beautiful.
And I wish I had said it to you.

Here is the link (where will it be in 10 years)
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/dear-daughter-leave-when-you-valued-sara-johnson/

Here is the woman who wrote it:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarajohnsonsj3/

Here is the content, lets see if this blog is around in 10 years.

I was encouraged to share this letter. Most of us know the feeling of rejection or not feeling valued. Unfortunately rejection and not being valued has no age requirement. I wrote this letter to my daughter when she was cut from her volleyball team. She was the hardest worker, dedicated to the off-season, and most passionate person I knew when it came to the love of volleyball. 

The letter:

Dear Daughter,

Unfortunately, in life, there are times you will not be valued. Do not stay where you are not valued. Do not waste time in self-pity because someone did not value you. Your value, your worth, comes from your heart, not from someone else.

Today you were rejected by someone. Your heart felt broken, it was not. You even trusted the person who did not value you. They led you to believe they valued hard work, passion, off-season dedication, and attitude. They led you to believe these qualities were important to them when in fact to them they are not. Your heart hurts because you believed the words of someone who let you down. You are better leaving when you are not valued.

It is ok and normal to grieve when you close a chapter in your life and start another. Do not confuse self-pity for grief. Grief is part of celebrating what was joyful and good, grief is sadness to saying goodbye, grief is leaving to move onto the next journey. Self-pity is subjecting yourself to another person’s power. Self-pity is allowing imperfect people’s errors to consume your energy.
It is ok to grieve today and tomorrow to focus on what’s next. Take all your hard work, all your contributions, all your passion, all your heart, and put it to the next thing. Do not feel like everything you did for all those years was a waste. It was not. You are the amazing person you are because of your journey.

You will be able to recognize the next time you are not valued easier and when that happens (because it will), you will have the strength, experience, and self-worth to leave it. You might be in a friendship, a relationship, or a job where you are not valued. You will have the strength, experience, and self-worth to leave it. You can even grieve leaving, but you will know your value in your heart and you will take all that hard work, passion, energy, and attitude and apply it to your next journey.
You will not be valued by some people. People are imperfect. Leave those who do not value you. Grieve the closing of one chapter and then move onto the next journey.

Be proud of what you value. Be proud of your hard work, be proud of the attitude you displayed, be proud of the sportsmanship you demonstrated, be proud of the energy you expended and be proud of the skills you developed. You put yourself out there when others wouldn’t step into the arena. You gave your heart. It was hurt, not broken. Give your heart again to your next journey.
You will have the strength to leave when you are not valued again. You will grieve again. Your journey will be more amazing than the last because of it. It wasn’t for nothing. It was for the next thing.

I can’t wait to see you shine again in your next journey!

Love,
Mom

And now it is June (2018)

Girlies,

You are going to the Terracotta army exhibit today.  (link) I hope you enjoy it, are challenged by it, and such.

More wins:

• Earn rating as "Expert" or "Master" in Chess.  (link)
• Save a life: life-long quality; this means that life is more than a heartbeat, make a lifetime meaningful.
• Build and race in the American Solar Challenge (or equivalent)

While it isn't "lifetime glory", it is more accessible, and can be a year-long glory to do some things.

Year/s long glory:

•  Learn and be functional in a programming language (alice, scratch, python, r, ...)
• Save a life: heartbeat; this means one person who would physically die doesn't.  (one year per life)
• Save a life: year quality; this means that life is more than a heartbeat, make a year meaningful.

I want you to try.  Don't fall asleep.  Don't be imobilized by your idea of who you might be, or should be.  Don't be dead: be alive.

mid-june 2018

Hello girlies.

I had dreams/nightmares from Ready Player One last night.  I dreamed that someone in an avatar like Kali, and someone in an avatar like "Aech" were trying to destroy my world.  It was no fun. Looks don't make destruction any less painful.  I think that I'm thinking about yesterday.  Yesterday was hard, and I think it is dangerous to talk too much about it on a public forum because folks who don't take the time to understand, who want to cause some sort of harm, might manipulate my words badly, and use them against me later on.

Let's talk about something else.

Someone up-voted one of the better, harder, posts that I've made on parenting.stackexchange.com.
https://parenting.stackexchange.com/questions/22370/how-can-i-become-part-of-my-daughters-life-again/22381#22381 . I wanted to share it on the Parenting forum within Yammer at my work, but I'm afraid that when people find out about the excrement I have had to walk through in my life, they look at me like I'm covered in poop, and it compromises friendships and community.  I'm a survivor, not a victim, yet the culture isn't capable of looking at what I survived and thinking it tainted me.  I had no choice about going through it, I was a kid.  That is shame.

Can I share about some, what seem to be pretty good ideas?  Here you go:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=psN1DORYYV0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iCvmsMzlF7o

When you finally read these, assuming they last, I don't know if youtube or the videos will be around.  I hope they will, but only God owns the future.

Biggest mathgirl.  I'm about to wake you up, kiss your cheek, and say happy birthday. I really should have woken you and middlest mathgirl up at like 6am on your respective birthdays and took you to breakfast.  I might try that this weekend.  I feel like I missed that this year.  We did it last year and you both loved it.  The littlest mathgirl is still just a few months old, and can't yet appreciate such things.

Littlest mathgirl, our little Valentina, you are getting big.  You smile and fuss, and you coo (that is what they call the making baby noises trying to figure out speech).  You are learning to articulate your hands, and control their positioning.  You support your bottle, and sometimes you push it out of your mouth mid-drink, and get angry at yourself.  You still sneeze a lot.  I installed a new activated carbon air filter.  I'm tempted to get a section installed in our AC that allows 3" filters instead of just 1" ones.

We sold the Phoenix house, and made nothing on it.  Paid 10 years, bought right before the 2008 crash, and have nothing to show for it except a deep sense of relief to not be there.  Never buy a home when you are "nesting".  Never let someone falsely tell you it is a "good investment".  If they use a period of time under the life of the loan you are going to have to get to argue about value, then they aren't being fair.  Salesfolks can skew the facts in order to make a profit.

I have to get to work.  They don't pay me to not work.  I'm trying to change the world for the better, but it is hard.

God keep you all three.  God bless you and God keep you.  May he bless your going in, and your coming out, and along the road you walk.  May he bless your rising up and your laying down.  May he bless you in evening, and night, and morning.  God bless you my loves, and God keep you.

late May 2018

Hey Girlies.  Greetings.
Salutations?

It is may and my last post was February.  It seems that I'm descending from one per month to one per quarter.  When I'm gone and you have only memories and these letters that might be sparse.  I could argue that I'm investing in the memories, but how much do you remember being 9, 5, and 4 months?

Do I tell you about the last 3 months, as a log of the stories of your life and how very much they have meant to me?  I could.

I can tell you about today, who you are, who I rejoice to see you as.  I could.

I could tell you about tomorrow.

Begin with the end in mind.  It is one of the 7 habits of highly effective people.

I have discovered that I have a list of things, for which I would be proud of you for the rest of your life.  There are trends in them, of hard work, commitment, excellence, being part of something bigger than yourself.

Here are some of the items:

• Eagle scout - scouting is for boys and girls now.  I can't tell you how very much I want to teach you camping, fishing, and outdoors skills.  I don't know how to do that here, like I did in Arizona.  
• Run a marathon - like your mathmommy.  It puts you in the top 1% of fitness in the world.  
• Pilots license - be a pilot.
• Blackbelt in a martial discipline
• Engineering (or capable science) degree
• Know the bible well, Love Jesus, and walk as a disciple of Jesus for your lifetime, and teach your kids to do the same. 
• Graduating high school any time between age .. now and age 14.  Making good stride that way.  I hope to start studying with you for SAT soon.  I figure that if we can get you into college then the folks who want to use "public" "education" to rob you of your minds, your nobility, and your excellence will be forced to shut up, to some degree. 
• Earning a college degree (including bachelor, associates, master, or PhD) before age 18. 
• Fields medal, nobel prize, or any significant technical award.
• Being published in high caliber technical journal/s before age 18.  You can keep up after, if you like as well.
•  Save/invest/earn enough to retire, then don't touch it until retirement age.
• Being able to give your kids an inheritance such that some substantial part of it can also be given to their kids.  I am in debt enough that outside of education and character, I have no substance to give you, and I wish better for you and for your kids.
• Become a master of something, or a "doctor"'.  I'm not saying medical, but I mean it in the ancient philosophical form: a profound healer and advancer of the field.  Be a master - head and shoulders better than the average person at something hard, something noble, something worth doing with your hands, something that takes hard work and results in a creation of tangible value.

There are also some things you can do that will cut me deeply for life.  I hope that neither you, nor your children, nor your grandchildren do them.

These are terrible things.  Devastating.  Never do them.

• Never murder a child.  This includes abortion.  I am adopting, and right at half my friends have done the same.  Don't buy the political hate that says folks don't care after the child is born - I care deeply.  Just as I have cared deeply for you, I would care deeply for any child God puts in my care. 
• Never become addicted to drugs.  Meth.  Opiates.  Acid.  X.  None of it.  If you are a slave, I will not be able to respect you.  I will think of the profound brokenness of your auto Beta and I will be filled with both sorrow and disgust.  I get enraged, shaking angry, at the smell of marijuana.  There have been more than enough drunks in our bloodline to fill up the quota for all of time, do not do it.  Do not be owned by drugs.  Not by sugar, chocolate, or anything else.  Don't be owned - you are not property.  It devalues and destroys humanity.
• Never be a prostitute or stripper.  Never.  My piece of human fecal matter of a male chromosome donor loves and solicits those professions.  Thousands of fathers have visited those instead of caring for their children.  They are an anathema.  You cannot love me and do that at the same time.  I can't not see it as hate.  Nothing in the world will destroy your capacity to receive love, or even detect it, like that - it will break you deeply.  It destroys families.  
• Don't marry a God-hater.  Don't marry someone like Chad Thibideau, who used the appearance of godliness to abuse his wife, and who caused profound harm to the church.  Wolves in sheep's clothing are predators, don't marry those.  Don't marry an anti-theist.  Don't marry someone who does not walk daily and deeply in the commands of Jesus.  You should know and live the commands, and you should not be surgically bonded in heart, soul, and life, to someone who does not have that.  It will deeply wound me, and it will deeply harm you and your kids.
• Don't waste your amazing talent and potential to become nothing.  You are gold, do not become a reverse-Midas touch to yourself and turn the gold/treasure that who you are and what you can become is into a pile of manure.  The world will try to do that on its own, don't help it.  Don't let sloth turn you to nothing.

 God keep you girlies.  I pray that the highest, noblest, kindest, power in the universe, the only one worth trusting, keeps you well, keeps you to the best of the best wisdom He has.  May God keep you from the darkness, and help you to live in and walk in the light.

I love you deeply.  I am proud of who you are, and who you are becoming.  God keep you.  God keep you.

late late late (end of Feb, 2018)

We had a great christmas.  It was sitting in drafts and is now published.  I didn't know it was, until I just looked.

We had a good January, enjoying snow.
We had a fun February.  We have a new kiddo, mathbaby #3.

And yet, they are not logged here.

I should try to re-read my books for you, and then start again writing all three of you letters.
Trying to not be a failure of a dad, or even a flake.

It is too small to be average.  If everyone did that, would the center move upward?

Late December 2017

Well girlies,

You are in the basement playing with your new (to you) Disney Infinity toys.  We bought them from  a mom who couldn't sell them to the video exchange store we love.  At $2.50 a figurine it was a great deal.

You had a good Christmas, and it has snowed, so you were able to sled for the first time since 2015 winter.  We spent a good part of the day going up an down a giant hill in an innertube we bought on clearance a few springs ago, and some borrowed sleds.  You were bundled in your thermies, clothes, snowpants, snowboots, winter coat, extra hats, and gloves.

Today was the first time we tried the self-heating hand warmers made by HotHands.  They were surprisingly effective with the ~10°F and wind.

Afterward we went to McBurger (what I call McDonalds) and you had happy meals.  There was a brother and little sister with an age gap like yours, and they were struggling to get along.  I told you that I was proud of how kind you are to each other.  I tell you that when you both are grown up, you are going to want a team.  You want a capable grown-up to be a friend and strong ally, like the force only different.  The cheapest it is ever going to be is to earn the trust and friendship of your sibling today.  They can be a great friend and great ally.

One of my deepest regrets is how badly I botched that with my siblings.  Even if we started today, there is never going to be a bridge starting from when they were young.  My sibs and I competed, instead of cooperating.  Someone had to win and someone else had to lose.  It looks like a zero sum game, but its really a negative sum game over time.  When I moved away, my family imploded.  Some parts are still there, the bomb doesn't make the brick and metal not exist, but the life-trajectories of J. or B. are not something we can go back in time and amend; the damage is extensive.  They never get a healthy childhood. Their personality and character breaks, strongly driven by crushing trauma, but then having layers and layers of choices and habits of thought and emotion layered upon them are a symphony of sorrow that only infinite hate could rejoice in.  This is one of the many reasons that I need Jesus.  He is truly the only one that can take something devastated, and do any good with it.  He did that with me.  He continues, for some amazing and unfathomable reason, to continue to do that.  Maybe someday he will do that for them.

Girlies, I want you to live with kindness.  It means something big in heaven.  It is one of the "fruit of the spirit", but really is one of the currencies of heaven.  In heaven, what we call gold they call pavement.  What they call gold is the only thing worth having.  The agrarian meaning of "fruit" is lost in translation to a technical civilization.  If you have the hand of God on you, doing to you and through you the things of heaven, that is a good thing.  It is a super-human thing.  Kindness can be a super-human thing. Patience can be more powerful than the whole world.

Wind-chills are going to get bad tonight.  Scary for a mathdad who lived 16 years in Phoenix before moving to where water falls from the sky, sometimes in feet per day, frozen.

I love you.  I delight in you.  You read so well.  You think so well.  You love well.  I delight in that.
Math-big-girl, you are competitive but need to get better at sportsmanship.  Sometimes you are a sore looser, and a poor-sport.  We will see what can be done there.  Soccer?  Martial arts?  I don't know. 

God keep you girlies.