Tag Archives: relationships

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Let’s Have Words, Friends

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I have a new theory. I think it might solve all of the world’s problems. I think if everyone in the world played Words with Friends, we would all be a lot better off.

There are two major ways I came to this theory:

1. Sometimes, I have a heated discussion with someone, and then after our discussion, I have to figure out how to get ahead of him/her in our Words with Friends game. This is incredibly therapeutic. The thing about friends, acquaintances, and strangers is that we don’t have a built in mechanism to love them.

In my immediate family, that mechanism is the dinner table. If we are having a disagreement, we typically have to put it aside for an hour or so while we break bread together. When a family member refuses to come to the table, that’s the cue to the rest of the family that something is really wrong and needs to be righted. It’s a system.

In the non-family world, we don’t have to put our differences aside often enough. We get to pick our friends, our romantic partners, the strangers we are hanging out with at the bar. But invariably, differences arise, even among the people we’ve picked. And then, we find a new group. We move on.

That’s not really sustainable. We can’t do that forever. At some point, we have to decide that a friend is worth having, differences and all. And Words with Friends then serves as our dinner table. I might get in a fight with my friend, but several hours, I will check my Words with Friends game, see my game with her, make my move, and smile a little. It’s a reminder we are still friends.

2. Sometimes I kind of feel like all of the world’s arguments are just an exaggerated game of Words with Friends. I mean, if you look at the news, and see what people are actually upset about, what they argue over, what they fight wars over, it’s never really as dramatic as those kinds of actions should imply. I think it’d be cool if all the world leaders played Words with Friends with each other. Would they fight about that? Probably. But no nation or military would support a leader who was going to war over Words with Friends. Just sayin’.

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What The Notebook and The Kite Runner Have in Common

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This doesn't have a lot to do with my post. Although, the "yes means yes" is a feminist formation of "no means no" so it kind of relates to my side note at the end. But I really like the blog this is from, and it's too good not to post. Some Ryan Gosling eye candy for your Tuesday night.

If you are a regular reader, you know that I think that Ryan Gosling is about one of the coolest people ever. I made this decision a long time ago when I was forced to watch The Notebook by a gaggle of girls. I say “forced” because I would never first watch a Nicholas Sparks movie of my own accord. But friends, neighbors, and countrymen, let me tell you that it takes very little to convince me to watch The Notebook these days.

The Notebook has one of my favorite scenes from any movie ever in it. When it’s on television, I usually flip back and forth with something more manly like Teen Mom until the scene happens. But once it does, I’m hooked. I have to watch the whole thing. The scene happens when poor-handsome-charming Noah (Gosling) and rich-beautiful-witty Allie (Rachel McAdams) are caught together late at night. Allie’s wealthy stuck-up father sends the whole town searching for his missing daughter and when she is found with Noah, she is forbidden from ever seeing him again.

Noah reaches Allie’s house just as the forbidding is happening. I haven’t seen the movie in a while (shame, I know) so I’m a little hazy on specifics here, but somehow, Noah and Allie get into a fight over the whole thing. Allie starts hitting Noah. And then Noah does the coolest thing ever, he starts hitting himself. It’s awesome.

This scene is relatively similar to one of my favorite scenes in all of literature. It happens in The Kite Runner. Amir (main character) and his servant/best-friend, Hassan, get into a fight one day by a pomegranate tree. Amir starts smearing pomegranates on Hassan. Hassan begins to pick up pomegranates himself and do the same. It’s a deeply moving moment, mostly because by this point it is relatively clear that Amir is doing horribly by Hassan. He is in the position of power in the relationship, and he regularly misuses it. And so Hassan’s submission is striking and hard to imagine.

I love these scenes because they are sacrificial. They show love that is so full, that the lover loses his sense of ego. It’s beautiful. There’s that song “Love is a battlefield.” It’s not. Real love doesn’t have winners and losers. In fact, people who think that end up being like Amir. They abuse and take advantage of the people they care about. Real love is about people working together.

[Sidenote: Sacrificial love is a tricky thing. There are a lot of people suffering out there because they are being abused by loved ones. That’s not right. Sacrificial love can only be sacrificial if it is a real, free, and true choice. If someone is demanding you to be submissive, that person does not deserve your sacrifice.]

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A Change In Perspective, I Was Praying That You and I Might End Up Contemplative

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Sometimes a change in perspective, like Ohio weather, hits us unexpectedly, disorients us for a while, and then profoundly alters our feelings.

Our brains are funny machines for two reasons. First, they often work on problems without us knowing, running endless permutations of solutions of those problems until they sneak exactly the right one into our self-talk during a conversation. Second, when our brain is running these calculations the absolutely last thing it tries is changing perspective.

You can’t blame your brain, though. It’s hard for you to be someone else too. That’s what a change in perspective requires of your mind. It must take on the thoughts and feelings of another sentient mind. Imagine you were suddenly given the body structure and muscles of Michael Jordan in his prime. Would you know how to use them? I figure that’s kind of what it’s like when your mind is forced to change perspective.

Lucky for you, you are in charge of your mind. And you can make it do the hard work of changing perspective. But Spencer, I can already hear your minds whining, why do you want my person to make me change perspectives?

It’s very simple. It will make you happier.

Here’s an illustration. Suppose you are driving, and you are at a stoplight. You are the first car to go when the light goes green. Before you go through the intersection, though, you cautiously look both ways like a very defensive driver should. It’s a good thing you did because a car shoots through its red light. If you had gone, it might have hit you.

If you are anything like me, your immediate reaction is to get mad. What kind of idiot driver was that? He could have killed me! Doesn’t anyone respect the driving laws anymore? Yada yada yada.

This is boring. And that anger is never going to serve a useful purpose. So I like to change that energy. So I imagine the times in my life when I might run a red light. I know that I would most definitely run a red light if my future children’s births were happening. I like to pretend that every red-light-runner is a dad-to-be or mom-to-be rushing to the hospital. After all, it’s just as likely that that’s the case as that the red-light-runner is a selfish horrible law-breaker. And your brain will probably settle on the latter explanation well before the former.