Role Playing

Posted on 21 July 2010 by Erik Hare | 10 Comments

Long ago, there was Ward Cleaver. He wasn’t much of a Dad – in fact, he wasn’t even real. But the father in “Leave it to Beaver” was a strong figure all the same because he was, without a doubt, clearly in command of the world around him. The 1950s was an age of men – a time when Rosie put down her riveter and settled in to raise the kids and do the wash and, if necessary, get a prescription for Valium from her doctor.

The black and white images might still flicker on the teevee sets of our minds once in a while, but they stopped being relevant a long time ago.

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Connections Theory

Posted on 19 July 2010 by Erik Hare | 17 Comments

It’s been nearly a year since I first distilled down what I’ve come to think of as “Connections Theory”. I’ve expounded on the subject in many different ways, sometimes without using the same words, as a way of thinking this out in public. Many of you have responded with insightful comments and a few questions on the side – what is that guy going on about? I’d like to nail this down into a simple, direct statement.

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Suspension of Disbelief

Posted on 16 July 2010 by Erik Hare | 11 Comments

Everyone has the experience at some time. You’ve read a book or seen a movie that you absolutely loved, and you want to tell the world about your new obsession. You might even know someone that you’d love to share this new world with. So you start telling them about the intricate details of the plot and characters and after rambling on and on … and then you see their eyes slowly glaze over. What went wrong? Often it’s that you had suspended your disbelief in something that sounds too absurd to tell easily. It makes sense to you, but the retelling leaves you sounding a bit crazy.

This doesn’t just happen with fiction. A disconnected world requires a lot of suspension of disbelief.

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Rage Against Rage?

Posted on 14 July 2010 by Erik Hare | 10 Comments

The situations have been coming on strong for years, but they seem to be peaking. Everywhere you visit on the internet, and sometimes even in public, we all run into someone who can take any subject and make it into a kind of right-wing rant:

“Sure is hot today!”
“That’s not evidence of global warming!”

It wasn’t long ago that characters and attitudes like this were the domain of the other side – those who were against The System, The Man, The Establishment, They. Has everything flipped, or is this all one big phenomenon?

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Obligations

Posted on 12 July 2010 by Erik Hare | 5 Comments

In the ecstasy of the moments after the winning goal of the world cup, Andres Iniesta was outside of himself. Yelling, screaming, mad with adrenaline and victory, he stripped off his shirt in a popular gesture. But Iniesta had another shirt underneath that read Dani Jarque siempre con nosotros – Dani Jarque is always with us, a tribute to a teammate who died suddenly of a heart attack a year ago. Ecstasy meeting tragedy became a triumph. That’s the nature of our obligation to those who have gone on before us, a calling not just to the departed but to our better selves – and a deeper appreciation of the moments we have.

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