Son, Have You Seen The World?

I've blogged a few times about songs from the artist Rise Against.  I'm about to do so again.

I haven't listened to them tons lately, but there's a new dishwasher at work and he likes them a lot.  So I was sitting there, working, this afternoon, when a song came on that I've heard before.

However, I recently really heard it for the first time, just a few weeks ago.

It's called Hero Of War.

I debated for a long time about whether to post the lyrics, as they contain some foul language and descriptions of violence.. however, it didn't feel right just to describe the situations to you.  It would water it down.  Therefore, if you have a minor around that likes to read over your shoulder (I was one of those) and you don't want them reading this.. send them away now.

Rise Against - Hero Of War

He said "Son, have you seen the world?

Well, what would you say if I said that you could?
Just carry this gun and you'll even get paid."
I said "That sounds pretty good."
Black leather boots
Spit-shined so bright
They cut off my hair but it looked alright
We marched and we sang
We all became friends
As we learned how to fight


A hero of war
Yeah that's what I'll be
And when I come home
They'll be damn proud of me
I'll carry this flag
To the grave if I must
Because it's a flag that I love
And a flag that I trust


I kicked in the door
I yelled my commands
The children, they cried
But I got my man
We took him away
A bag over his face
From his family and his friends


They took off his clothes
They pissed in his hands
I told them to stop
But then I joined in
We beat him with guns
And batons not just once
But again and again


A hero of war
Yeah that's what I'll be
And when I come home
They'll be damn proud of me
I'll carry this flag
To the grave if I must
Because it's a flag that I love
And a flag that I trust


She walked through bullets and haze
I asked her to stop
I begged her to stay
But she pressed on
So I lifted my gun
And I fired away


The shells jumped through the smoke
And into the sand
That the blood now had soaked
She collapsed with a flag in her hand
A flag white as snow


A hero of war
Is that what they see
Just medals and scars
So damn proud of me
And I brought home that flag
Now it gathers dust
But it's a flag that I love
It's the only flag I trust


He said, "Son, have you seen the world?
Well what would you say, if I said that you could?"

Last night I finished the book A Lucky Child: A Memoir of Surviving Auschwitz as a Young Boy, by Thomas Buergenthal.  At the end of the book, the question that burns for him is why.  Not "Why did this happen?", but "Why did some lose their moral compass while others died standing for what they believed?"

Those are both great questions, but I think the second one is much more poignant.  Asking why something happened questions the idea of fate - "Why did God allow this?", but conversely asking why someone would descend to a level where they treat other humans as dispensable puts the question not on God, but on ourselves.  Why we allow ourselves to choose things we know to be morally wrong.

The same thing occurs in the song I posted above.  The singer describes going to war and making decisions that devalue human life and our unalienable rights ("We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal, that they are endowed, by their Creator, with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness." - USA Founding Fathers).

The question he asks is not why did this happen or why did I allow it, but something even greater - why am I hiding it?  Every man, woman and child desires to conceal the things they've done wrong.  It's ingrained in our blood from Adam and Eve, hiding in the Garden after they sinned.  In the song, the artist paints a picture of coming home and being hailed as a "hero of war", but in his heart and his head, he's saying, "You have no idea what I've done.. all you see are the pictures we choose to send over.  I am not the person you think I am.  I am no more a hero than you; in fact, I am less."

I think those are two questions we ought to be asking ourselves about all the choices we make, and actions we take, in our lives.  Firstly, are we holding true to our moral standards; respecting others and ourselves?  If not, why?  Are we afraid of something or someone, trying to earn recognition, trying to survive, to get that one more bit of moldy black bread as if we were a starving Jew in a Nazi camp? 

When the day comes and we do make mistakes, why do we let people believe what they want to believe?  Maybe it does less harm.. but really, does it?  Are you willing to hold in your wretched secrets to allow others to think you're a hero of war, when you just effectively lied to your boss about a job you didn't get done, because he believes it was someone else's fault and you didn't tell him?  What happens if they ever find out.. wouldn't you rather it was from yourself and not a third party? 

Really.  Why do we do the things we do?  Honesty rarely gets people raises, but it garnishes respect and trust.  To let others down is also to let ourselves down - they may forget, but we cannot.  We reap what we sow.

What's more valuable to you?

A War We All Can't Lose... Dangerous Muse.

I have a new favorite song.  Written by a local, and better yet, someone I know personally... although I don't know if he'd remember me all that well.  I went to school with his daughters.  His name? Andrew Smith.  The song? 

Dangerous Muse.
(http://www.roadmapmusic.com/mood/intense/) [The second track, click the yellow "play" button to listen)

I'm becoming a huge fan of ballads.  I saw Great Big Sea live on Friday night with a friend, and heard this title track from their new album, Safe Upon The Shore.  Check it out here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KlZUwVTfQyU&feature=related

The reason I love ballads is because they produce in me a very ethereal (in the metaphysical sense) longing for life.  As ballads are a much more ancient form of music than rock and pop, they immediately transport me into this primal sort of thinking, where nothing matters but the will to live and the strength to fight for what I love - my family and my home.  To a place and time when there was naught but the plow and the sword to live by, when a man worked the earth and went to war whilst his woman stayed and took charge of the house and children, and sang to them about the day their father would come home.

Nowadays, things have changed so much, as the natural course of technological advancements decree.  There's nothing wrong with that... people live and die as they always have and always will, but now there's more ways to die as well as more ways to prevent one's death, through medicine and things... but sometimes I feel like we've lost something important over the centuries, which is that will to live.  Live, meaning not just remain physically sustained, but to have something you'd give your life for, to take opportunity, to learn and achieve and have something to show for the years you've spent on earth.

Maybe this doesn't apply to everyone.. there are plenty of motivated people here that are doing just that.  However, and I see it personally every day, there are more and more folks who have no idea what they want out of life.. people who just sit and play games or watch movies, go to work, come home, eat, and sleep.  They're just existing, and you know it because they're bored all the time, but when the question comes, "What should we do?"  they never have an answer.

I feel like that sometimes.  My life is (ironically) like the images from a heart moniter... I hit highs where I feel like I can do anything and be anyone, but they're only temporary and after a few months I find myself down in a valley again.

A friend once told me that humans get bored with anything after approximately three months, give or take.  We need constant change in order to stay motivated.  I've never seen a study to corroborate her statement, but I have to believe it, because it's true for me.

Two examples in the last months - my job, first of all.  I loved it for a month, and then the novelty wore off, and then the un-novelty wore off, and I get bored now, and all the staff are in the same boat because tempers are continually wearing shorter.  Hour reductions start April 2nd, and I get laid off for the summer April 29th.  I couldn't ever see myself saying this in the beginning, but I can't wait for it to end now.  I'm in my fifth month, and it's grating on me.

Second example is trampoline and tumbling.  I've been taking classes for two months, and practicing on my own at a small gymnastics gym my mom works at.  Everything was great and I was learning and progressing fast enough to suit my expectations.. until two weeks ago.  I got tired at the end of practice, couldn't land a trick that I can normally, and since then I'm really not even motivated to try anything.  I was so close to landing some things I've been working on for weeks, and I don't even care any more.  I want to know how to do those and other tricks still, but I get on the trampoline and I can't find the drive within myself any longer - it's just as easy to jump off again and walk away.  It doesn't matter to me.  Now I want to learn to play my bodhran, but it gets frustrating (as I'm learning off of youtube with no formal instruction), and I know that eventually I'll give that up too. 

It bothers me, because it's sort of difficult to become good at anything when you only try for two or three months, but at the same time how do you keep yourself excited and willing to pursue your goals when you walk in one day and find out that it doesn't even matter to you any more?  Even with dogs, something I love and could do all day, I find myself feeling 'done'.

The bigger problem is, when I get bored with my current interest, I tend to get bored with everything else as the feeling spills over from that one activity into the rest of my life, and I enter into a cycle of depression.  Having dealt with this a number of times in past years, the only solution I've been able to find is to learn something new.. but often I have problems motivating myself to even get out and try.

I'm entering into that again now.. bored with life and the things I've been doing.. I can't wait to get out my bike and go riding until I'm so exhausted I can't even think about being bored.  Go swimming and relax in the warm summer sun.  But I still need something to do, something that's worth getting up for and being excited about.

And I need to figure out how to stay motivated for the things I'm involved in now.. otherwise I'll end my life being mediocre at a thousand different things, but with no great skill in anything to show for all the time I put into it when I was interested.

I don't really have a big question for introspection this week.  But if you know how I'm feeling and maybe have a way to get past it, please comment and share.  If you don't have a solution but still can identify, comment anyway so we can all be moody, uninterested suckers together.

Just kidding.. sort of.

Oh, and by the way, this is the greatly anticipated (one can dream, can't one?) part 3 of that three piece thought I started a few weeks ago.  Although... ach, nevermind.  It wasn't all that great anyway.

A New Creed To Succeed

If you know me at all, you ought to know that I love dogs, and anything to do with dogs.  That includes playing and petting, exercising - even the nastier things like bathing and scooping poop - if it means I get to spend time with a beautiful canine, I'm in.  However, I ESPECIALLY love training.

To have a dog, or any animal for that matter, execute a behaviour perfectly and on cue not only looks good to others because your dog is "obedient" and "smart", it is also a hugely satisfying feeling to know that this animal has done this thing because you taught it to.

I've owned dogs for the past roughly 11 years.  I've learned some things about training and care and what works, as well as plenty that doesn't work at all.  I've built confidence in my abilities to teach and to handle a dog, and knowledge in how to approach different personalities.  However, nobody's ever finished learning, and if someone thinks they know everything there is to know, they're probably an arrogant person and not fit to hang around anyway.

That being said, I have recently (in the last three weeks or so), entered into the world of clicker training.  Clicker training is the use of a clicker (essentially a thin piece of metal that makes a clicking sound when bent) and reinforcement (food, play, or anything the subject likes) to capture behaviours and put them on cue.

For example, teaching a dog to come on cue is the first thing any trainer will do.  Essentially, you "click" the dog first when it even looks at you, and then for taking steps toward you, and eventually for running directly to you past various distractions.  Each time you click the dog, you offer it a reward, known as a reinforcer.  The dog does not understand that you are teaching it to 'come'.  What it does understand that every time it comes to you, you make that sound and it gets something it really likes (often a food tidbit works great).  You then add a "cue" (a word, hand signal, scent, flashing light), and as the dog continues to perform the behaviour, it will begin to associate with the cue given at the same time, and it learns, "Hey, when she says, "sit" and I put my bottom on the ground, I get a treat!"

This is known as operant conditioning.  What it means is that the subject learns that every time A occures, B follows.  A common example from human life is the stove - we've all learned that A - putting our hand on a hot burner results in B - getting burned.  At the same time, we've learned that removing said hand stops the pain.

Clicker training is the technology evolved from operant conditioning. There are negative reinforcers -  like in the example just given, when we remove our hand from the element (A), the negative aspect (the burning sensation) is removed (B), resulting in a more positive experience and something retained.  There are postive reinforcers as well.  The dog learns that every time it hears the clicker (A), a reward follows (B).  All that's required now is to pair the behaviour with a cue of some sort, transfer the behaviour reinforcement from the click to the new cue, and you shortly have Fido performing his sit quickly and reliably.

There are two major rules to clicker training, and the first is that there is no punishment involved whatsoever.  If the subject doesn't offer the behaviour wanted, it doesn't get a reward - simple as that.  Secondly, that you must set up the training in such a way that you ensure the subject will eventually succeed.  Ensure that your dog has nothing better to do while you're training it a new behaviour, so that it gets so bored it will eventually sit naturally - and you click.  The dog will go, "Heyyyy... what just happened?  Hm.  What did I do?  Maybe I can do it again..." 

You may have noticed that I've been using the word cue instead of command... on http://www.clickertraining.com/, author and clicker trainer Karen Pryor makes this statement in an article about clicker training falcons:

To do this, we need to understand more about cues. A cue is different from a command. We give our dogs commands all the time: Come here. Lie down. Get in the truck. Shut up. A command is a signal to do something, but it is also a threat: Come here Or Else. Or else I will make you do it. Or else I will reprimand you. If the command is not heeded, we often escalate the threat aspect: we yell the command, for example. This often works with dogs. Sometimes it works with people. But we all know it NEVER works with birds.

That doesn't mean, however, that you can't tell a bird what to do; you just do it with cues, instead of commands. We don't normally teach cues methodically; animals pick them up. You decide to go to the store, so you make sure you've got your car keys. The dog hears the keys jingle, and runs to the front door. That sound has become the cue for a behavior: "Get to the door fast, and I might get to go for a ride." A cue is like a green light: it's a window of opportunity to do the right thing and get reinforced for it. Here's the cue: my fist in position. Step onto my glove, and you'll get a click and a treat. The cue need not be so obvious: a whistle or a gesture that's nowhere near the perch can tell the bird "Get on the perch and I will click you.

The big difference between a cue and a command is that while a command is an implied threat, a cue is a positive signal: a cue is an opportunity for reinforcement. When the cue is well-learned, it becomes a sort of "on" switch for action. The animal WANTS to do the behavior the cue indicates, because it has paid off handsomely now and then in the past. It doesn't stop to ponder, "Yes, but do I want a tidbit more than I want to sit on this telephone pole?" It just responds. "Oh, he said 'Come!' Good, here I come!" So, once you have established a cue, you don't need to escalate it, to get results. When the light turns green, we step on the gas immediately; two green lights, or a bigger green light, would not make us step on the gas any faster or better. When the phone rings, we answer it, even though sometimes the caller is a roofing salesman and sometimes we were doing something we really enjoyed more than phone calls when the phone rang. It's a cue, cues mean a chance to get something good, and we respond.

Makes sense, doesn't it? 

So here's my thought for the day. 

What if we applied this to our lives? 

Not just training our pets to perform pretty tricks, but actually applied it.

We all know someone who is simply way too busy.  Activites, kids, meetings, travel - they just have no time.  What if you're that person?  You probably find that not everything you do gets done as well as you could do it, and I'm willing to bet that it's because of a lack of time to apply to it.  You haven't set yourself up to be successful.  It doesn't even have to be about reaping a reward, but even that would come.  By reducing the amount of things in your schedule, you free up time to better complete those events and tasks that you have still committed to - but you also have time for coffee with friends, for a warm bath with candles, or a date night with your spouse...

What about our kids?  Asking them to clean their room often seems like more of a headache than a help.  But what if you put a bit more effort into creating a situation where they are more likely to be successful on their own?  Instead of putting up just shelves for the toys, label boxes with pictures of Lego, dollies, and cars, then place matching labels on the shelves where the boxes should go.  Put organizational bins in the closet for craft supplies, and then put into practice the same principle clicker trainers use to teach a new behaviour - make the reward for offering the wanted behaviour (cleaning up) much more tempting and substantial than the children's current activity.  For instance, putting away your toys means you can help mommy bake and decorate cookies afterwards. 

There's even a training technique where trainers call the animal away from what it's doing (for instance, a dog chasing a squirrel), but then reward its obedience by allowing it to return to the same acitivity.  So let's say Sarah is playing with PlayDoh, but has neglected to tidy up her tea party things from several hours ago.  Her mother might say, "Sarah, dear, it's time to clean up your tea party, but you can go back that after you're finished."  Sarah obeys because she knows that the PlayDoh wasn't taken away, but rather postponed. 

If you think hard, you could come up with thousands of similar situations for anyone.  I'm not trying to compare people to dogs or birds, but sometimes the same principles work for both.  Why don't we start cueing ourselves and others instead of commanding? 

How can you set yourself and those around you up for success today?