One day the professor introduced us to an old movie called A Face in the Crowd starring Andy Griffith.  Griffith plays a bum-turned-celebrity, who at one point meets a faltering politician who requests help from Griffith to become successful.

Many of us would think that in order to make a successful political campaign, one should find the issues that are relevant to the nation and prescribe solutions for them; immigration, debt, etc (notwithstanding this year’s election).  However, Griffiths’ response was basically the opposite. He advises the politician to get a dog, because people like dogs.  He tells him to stop pressing his lips together because it makes him look like a sissy.  He tell him to go by the nickname “Curly” because the man is balding, and could use the humor.

Why, you may ask?  Griffith answers this by introducing the politician to a tweedledum former convict who has has hired to be his consultant.   Griffith says, “If this stupid guy doesn’t like my show, there’s something wrong with it.  How are you going to get this man, this bush monkey, to vote for you?…You need a whole new personality.”  The politician follows his advice, and what do you know?  Without changing a word of his beliefs, the politician suddenly becomes an overnight success.

The concept behind this something that Marshall McLuhan came up with in 1967, called “the medium is the message”.  The idea is that the form in which a message is delivered is more important than the actual message itself.  It’s like the saying “It’s not what you say, it’s how you say it”.

Why does a picture on Instagram garner more interest than a post on facebook?  Because visuals are more interesting than words.

Why is the preamble to the Constitution treated like it’s straight from the mouth of God?  For one thing, it’s written in iambic pentameter – a Shakespearean type of poetry, which gives it rhythmic quality and lets it go down much easier.

Why did Freud refuse to listen to (most) music?  Because music manipulates us in ways that the mind can’t comprehend.  This is why I think why worship music is so popular, and why it never stops playing during the entire church service in some places – music is a drug that can pacify a congregation and allow us to accept whatever is being said…regardless of a Scripture’s actual context or relevant truth.

Why was Martin Luther successful in starting the Protestant Reformation, while Jan Hus a hundred years earlier was burned at the stake when they both had the same radical message?  For one thing, Luther had the advantage of the printing press, which allowed him to send his ninety-five theses to all of Europe within two months of him writing it.  Thomas Paine did the same thing with Common Sense in the American Revolution; as of today, in proportion to the USA’s population it still holds the record for highest sale and circulation of any book in American history.  Paine wasn’t even a Christian and published it anonymously, but because he quoted a lot of Scripture and structured it like a sermon, the Protestant colonies ate it up.

For another thing, in both the Protestant Reformation and the American Revolution, there was some serious coloring-outside-the-lines, shall we say.  Luther called the Roman Papacy a “rotten paunch, crude ass and a fart-ass”, a “truth werewolf”, and a “toad-eater and a fawner”.  In the American Revolution, what we today call the “Boston Massacre” was really no more than a street-fight initiated by rowdy Bostonians throwing stuff at British soldiers and challenging them to fire.  Need proof?  John Adams himself defended the British soldiers during the trial, and got most of them exonerated.  However, Paul Revere’s famous engraving of British soldiers firing at “innocent, peace-loving bystanders” fueled the Patriot cause for “justice” against the British, leading to the First Continental Congress less than a year later.

Neither personal insults nor manipulation of truth is what I would call fair play.  Yet to many, Luther and the Patriots are basically divinity.  History is written by the victors.  It all makes sense now why Tony Kushner, who wrote Angels in America, said “Art that’s polite is not much fun.”

The point I’m getting at is that perhaps we need to ask ourselves if our idea of truth can really survive without a marketing strategy.  To me, I had always believed that truth doesn’t need gimmicks, advertising or photoshopping; that a product speaks for itself.  But now, as I watch the church commit ever-increasing resources to in-building coffee shops, before-service donuts, new color schemes, fancy media displays, better singers, hip young pastors, and “Christian entertainment” – I can’t help but wonder, is this all REALLY in the name of communicating that “Jesus is the only way”?  And if it needs all this outside help…can the message still really be about an omnipotent God?

I’m sitting in another General Education class as I write this.  That’s correct, I am not paying attention to what the teacher is saying.  But a quick survey of the room reveals that I’m not alone – I’m just perhaps being the most purposeful in my inattention.  The girl next to me is snooping on facebook.  The guy in front of me staring at a creepy piece of art on his laptop called called “All Shall Perish”.  Most other people are either staring at the front of the room with their eyes glazed over, or haven’t moved a muscle in so long that I suspect they’re having out-of-body experiences.  Oh, and, about half the class seems to be skipping today.  You’d think the professor would be bothered by the fact that most people don’t care about what he’s talking about.  I mean, we did pay thousands of dollars to be here.  But nope, he’ll just keep talking, because unfortunately, I suspect he’s used to this.

The most alarming part about this whole thing is that any student who’s reading this article is probably thinking, “Uh…it’s like that in all my classes.  So what?”

AM I THE ONLY ONE WHO THINKS THAT THIS IS A TWISTED IDEA OF WHAT LEARNING IS SUPPOSED TO LOOK LIKE?

Let me rant further, since I don’t think everyone is quite aware of just how pathetic things are.  In my Shakespeare and Music class, not a single person said a word in class for three weeks (I eventually spoke up a few times because I enjoyed the look of shock on my colleagues’ faces).  Most of my classes tell us to read books, but no one but the keeners actually bother to get a hold of them, let alone read them, because we’re rarely quizzed on them, they’re on topics that we don’t care about, and half the time we don’t even talk about the reading in class anyways.  I sometimes don’t get a word of feedback on essays that I spend a week writing.  A few times I haven’t even gotten a grade back.  I remember walking 20 minutes to get to class one day, only to discover my history professor wasn’t there, and 20 minutes later, his assistant showed up and put in a movie that was more like French porn than a history lesson, after which I had to walk back home.  You’d think “higher learning” would have at least heard of online streaming.

People being bored isn’t what concerns me – everyone deals with that.  It’s the fact that we’re paying to be desensitized to actually learning anything.  If this continues, what happens when we ACTUALLY need to learn something?  How will we even be able to tell the difference between stuff we actually need to know for life, and stuff that’s just there to fill up a semester?

And what happens to the idea of taking initiative on something?  Everyone’s passionate about something – but do we still know how to take action on those things?  Or are we waiting for someone to assign us to take action?  Scary thoughts when you consider that our generation’s gonna run the world someday.

If you didn’t notice, this is an issue that I am fiery-burning-hot-passionate about, because, having spent 4 years traveling the world and learning all sorts of great things before coming to college, I am concerned for those of us inside the degree machine.  It’s not that everyone’s in a bad spot (I’m apparently getting one of the top 10 most pointless degrees, little surprise that I’m ranting hmm?), but even for those who’ll get good jobs after college…do we need to become some morbid cross between a chained animal and zombie for 4 of the best years of our lives?

You’d think that since the United States has one of the most expensive average college tuition costs in the world, college would have something important to say.  But when I talked about college to a guy who started a media company that’s just about to release their first full-length action thriller film (something I’d be game to do someday), he said he taught himself everything he knows, and that college is only good for networking.  Yikes.

Look, maybe back in the 1700s, colleges had the corner on the education market.  But with the dawn of the internet age, I’d say the playing field leveled out a bit.  You want to learn graphic design or animation?  Go to youtube or lynda.com.  Want to write?  Listen to podcasts.  Join competitions.  The thing is, you actually will have to TAKE INITIATIVE yourself to do it.  This is, unfortunately, what college seems to be educating us NOT to do.

OK, jut so I don’t get an unnecessary amount of nasty comments, I’ll give you the positives in college.  I’ve made some great friends, really enjoyed my theater professors, and two internships, and had lots of other cool opportunities.  I’d argue that I really had to pursue some of of these opportunities though (it took 3 meetings with professors and 6+ emails for me to get organized enough to submit an application for a scholarship).  I also got 2 summer jobs through connections here (one job pays me 30 cents more per hour than I was making before I went to school! Yes!).

Another great per about college is the fact that people feel sorry for you when you’re in school, so they’ll do whatever they can to help you.  Academic discounts, Museum passes, respect from relatives, etc.  I mean, as long as you’re paying the big bucks, you can be puking jungle juice in some basement for four years – as long as you’re not in your PARENT’S basement doing something silly like, you know…getting a free degree online at University of the People.

But you say, “Yes, but you haven’t graduated yet.  Wait till you get that degree”.  Yes, well, some of my friends HAVE graduated, and they’re even more broke than me, and they themselves are complaining about how much school DIDN’T prepare them for.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y_ZmM7zPLyI]

This is also not an attack on professors.  I’ve really enjoyed some of my professors, especially the ones in my major.  Honestly, I think professors are getting the shaft just as much as the students – I don’t think most of them are making the big bucks.

And I’m not going to say a degree is meaningless.  Not yet.

But the problem I’m getting at in this article is the idea that students are paying to get something that they’re not actually getting – USEFUL KNOWLEDGE – and never realizing it till they’re 21, scared, broke, and $20,000 in debt, because they’ve been too drugged up with football games, frat parties, and a false sense of “school pride” to even realize how swindled they were.  It’s kind of ironic that this is the measuring stick that we use to separate the knowledgeable from the deficient…

This is just the tip of the iceberg.  Be sure to watch the video I posted above – I’m not alone in these thoughts.  This was a rant, but if I could pick one moral of the story, it’d be simply this: if college is teaching you to shut up and stop taking initiative with your life, you may need to re-evaluate what you’re doing.  Fair enough?  All right.  Oh, did I mention I’m still in class?  I guess I’ll tune in…for now.

Further resources:

www.uncollege.com

University of the People

The College Conspiracy documentary

Strike Student Debt

What’s the answer to “how are you?” that we seem to get 90% of the time?

“Oh, I’m busy.”

Busy, huh? Funny, that’s exactly what the last 10 people said also. I thought I was the special one, being so busy.

We’ve all had times in our lives where we’ve been busy. But lately I’ve been having way too many conversations with way too many people who are “overwhelmed”, “falling behind”, “just needing to catch up”, etc.  So if you’re one of those people, reschedule your next 3 meetings and postpone your dinner date, cause we’re gonna take five minutes and TALK.

Since you’re short on time, let me ask you straight up: why are you busy?

Here are your two possible answers:

A) To avoid my inner thoughts
B) Because I desire connection with others

If you answered A), please reroute to my article “Got Spiritual Credit Problems?”. If you answered B), congratulations! Your journey continues below.

“But what if I just chose B) because I didn’t want to choose A)?  I don’t even know what B) means…”

Well, my friend, think deeper.  I sincerely believe that the only reason humans do anything is to make connections.  Connections with God, people, animals, androids…we want connection.  I mean, you don’t join clubs because you hate people. You don’t go to church, synagogue or seances because you dislike the idea of connection with the divine.  And you don’t have a job just so you can earn money, much as many of us seem to think so. Money = power, and power = connection, no?

Connection is good.  So why is it that the busiest people are often the least happy?

Let me refer to my life in answer.

My high school life was the quintessential example of the overachiever. Co-President of the Student Council, played volleyball and basketball, got top grades in my class, co-led a small group, led a worship team at church, worked, played lead roles in drama productions, international missions trip…and that all not including social events, or eating and sleeping (which actually it didn’t always include, due to busyness, of course).

Sometimes this lifestyle was fun, but, as I journaled at one point, “I seriously don’t like my life a lot of the time…it’s too…I don’t know…busy and screwed up.” Funny, because, a year earlier, I had written, “IF YOU ARE TOO BUSY FOR GOD, STOP”; ie., if I don’t have time to cultivate a relationship with my very purpose in life, there’s no point to anything else.  Guess I got too busy to remember that.  And sadly, it wasn’t till I got out of high school and moved to another country that I felt like I was able to put my brain back in.

Therefore, I propose that the reason people can get so unhappy when life gets busy is that they lose sight of the reasons why they got busy in the first place.  Have you become a victim of Busyinitis?  Take this test: ask yourself when the last time was that you actually realized, in the moment, that you were connecting with someone and/or simply feeling fulfilled. NOTE: looking at old photos and thinking about how great things were “back in days of yore” doesn’t count –  how do you remember how you ACTUALLY felt when that picture was taken?

If you can’t remember the last time you really felt great, and you don’t expect to have this experience anytime soon, ask yourself: is what you’re doing REALLY worth it? Because, see, it’s a trap to think that you’ll only feel fulfilled in some pie in the sky moment in the future. For example, people often say college was the best time of their lives.  Well, I’m in college, and I don’t hear ANYONE say that.  Perhaps we’re too busy to realize we’re “having the time of our lives”?

So let me offer you some healthy combat tips for fighting Lord Busyness:

1. Keep in mind that you can feel fulfilled even when you’re on the journey. Know why?  Because YOU’RE ALWAYS ON THE JOURNEY.  All you gotta do is just decide whether you’re going to enjoy it or not.
2. Understand that life is like going for a swim.  Sometimes you just gotta stick your head under and paddle, but if you want to make sure you’re actually going the right direction, you’re gonna have to stick your head up and take a look around every so often.
3. Do less better.  Be careful what you sign up for; like Kris Vallotton says: “good is the enemy of best”.
4. Give your life some some margins to be able to scribble in.  Shutting off the ability to be spontaneous can be really depressing.
5. Whatever you do, FIND PURPOSE IN EVERYTHING YOU DO.  If you don’t know or can’t remember why you’re involved in certain things, lay ’em on the altar and see what they’re really worth.

If this article caught you in the middle of a torrent of activities and you’re wondering how exactly you can reach for this lifeboat of serenity before you spiral away again, I’d say you have two options.  You could stick your head under and paddle hard till your responsibilities are through, like I did in high school, and then reassess everything after.  Or you could proclaim, “carpe diem!”, flip your desk over, and march triumphantly out of your daily humdrum into your bright, free future.

Whichever level of drama you choose, you owe it to yourself to give yourself some space.  Life’s too short not to realize when you’re actually living it.

A public man, though he is necessarily available at many times, must learn to hide. If he is always available, he is not worth enough when he is available.

-Elton Trueblood