The Embarrassment of Having

I'd have a serious problem if I were rich, I think. I'd be in a constant state of embarrassment.

The other day, I was driving behind a really expensive car and it had some kind of flamboyant license plate: "LOVINLIFE" or something like that. It got me thinking about having and having not and about how far I would go in exhibiting my wealth externally were I to suddenly jump up another few income brackets.

I have never been too interested in status symbols; never interested in impressing people with what car I drive or what clothes I wear. That is not to say, though, that I don't sometimes covet expensive things. I save for and spend money on musical equipment. My thinking is always about the joy these things will bring me in the doing, not in showing them off to others. Mostly, anyway.

A year or so ago, after a long time playing on the same, old, tired drum set (since about 1992) and making-do with some cracked cymbals, I decided it was time to upgrade and replace stuff. I bought a beautiful new kit and shiny new cymbals. Sure, I showed some it off to my friends on Facebook and, as I have said before, I am a great gawker at the aesthetics of drums, so I do take some pleasure it how they look. It may even seem contradictory to ths piece that I have posted pictures of my drums in order to illustrate that very point. But, there are differing circumstances...

One night my band was playing and we went on break between the first and second sets and I was standing off to the side enjoying a pint. I saw two younger guys -- in their twenties -- walk up to my drum set. They were pointing and nodding, wide-eyed and good naturedly covetous of the drums that sat gleaming under the stage lights.

All About The Swagger?

An interesting experience, today, talking with a classroom full of high school seniors: As we wind down the year of my "College Writing" class, I tend to get into "real life" writing tasks. This is both my chance to prove to them the writing will be part of their lives beyond college and to hand them a few pointers on resumes, e-mails, cover letters, etc. The general lesson, of course, is that all of these tasks call for "clarity, brevity and precision" in their work. Same skills, different tasks.

One of the topics we covered was tone. A student asked how one can sound confident without sounding egotistical. He is a bit of a rare bird among the young flock even to have asked this question and you could see some quizzical expressions around the room. In the culture that surrounds these young people, they are bombarded with bragging. Muhammad Ali opened a real can of worms when he shocked everyone by announcing, "I am the greatest! I said that before I even knew I was." It was cool, then -- it was pleasingly cocky. But now, it is pretty common. 

So, some of these kids didn't really know what their fellow student meant. They were confused. Sincerely, so. They were baffled. "Self-confidence is all about the swagger, right?" their eyes seemed to ask me. 

Of course, we talked about balanced tone, blah, blah, blah... 

But it is interesting. These guys are bombarded daily with media-driven behavior traits. There is no agenda behind it; it is not a conspiracy to corrupt our kids or to draw them away from good old-fashioned values. It is more like a spreading sickness, really. Each exposure leaves kids more and more contaminated with examples of cockiness and egotism, expressed without shame or remorse. How are they supposed to react? It's the norm. 

If parents want kids to be even remotely humble, it is going to have to be handled at home and parents are going to have to point it out: "Look how arrogant that guy/girl is." Otherwise, it will just seep in... Actually, it may seep in regardless of our attempts. It's a heck of a tide to fight.