David Kuo: July 2008 Archives

I've long been a fan of J.J. Abrams - Felicity, Alias, Lost, etc. This short lecture by him is wonderful, insightful, funny, and inspirational...

Our young daughter is engaging the world and loving it. Now 3 and aware that only most of the universe revolves around her she is exploring the other creatures she runs across - particularly those her size. This means that she walks up to children and says, in a high, sweet, clear voice that emphasizes each syllable, "Hi! What's your name? My name is...." and off she goes.

Kim and I find ourselves nearly doubled over by the sheer joy and innocence of it. There is a complete absence of anything corrupted in the questions, in the voice. It leaks wonder. And we can hardly stand it.

Sure we celebrate it. We laugh and we listen and we laugh some more. But in our ironic and cynical age, her innocence is all the more jarring. We already mourn its loss and all that will come before its loss. We long to hold it, protect it, bottle it before it is gone - if only to feed back to her one day.

Perhaps the greatest tragedy of all is that she will have no particular memory of it. Maybe that is the ripping pain of innocence - not its loss but its slow slide into forgotten memory.

But then, one day, hopefully, she will stand on a playground and watch her own daughter teeter confidently over to another child and say, "Hi! What's your name? My name is...."

My prayer for her now is that in that moment she will remember her own innocence and celebrate it.

Several years ago, while attending an Atlanta Braves baseball game at Turner Field - their home park - my wife kept getting a quizzical look on her face. It only occurred when the Braves were at bat and usually during a moment when things were going well for them.

Finally she turned to me and said, "Isn't that odd?"

"What?"

"Isn't it odd that the Braves play the cavalry charge to rally the team? I mean, aren't 'braves' rather opposed to, say, a cavalry charge?"

As a Mets fan any insult leveled against the Braves is fine by my book. But her observation was of a different magnitude. I suppose it only underscores the fact that there are few thinking Braves fans.

Last night a different question - "Why is it," she asked, "that men so frequently disparage one another using the word 'dick' when said body part drives so much of their existence?"

I tried to think of some sociological or psychological answer. Knowing the little bit that I do about Freud I really didn't want to go there. And sociologically I was stumped. So I did what I did at the Braves game and smiled and said, "Wow, I have no clue."

Of course that might just be the right answer to her question.

A simple plan for helping America's youth - make them all ride and take care of horses. The world would change.

I spent the day with my two oldest daughter at a horse show in western Pennsylvania. Before my daughters started riding "horse show" conjured up images of snooty people sipping white wine, eating brie, and golf clapping while million dollar horses and their riders pranced around a ring. Let me paint another picture - me sitting on a red Dale Earnhart folding chair with a pot-bellied pig trying to eat my shoes while boys and girls of all ages rode their horses in virtually every imaginable way. This was a horse show for the rest of us.

The most inspiring thing of the day - apart from the blue and red ribbons the Kuo girls kept winning... not that winning matters of course - was seeing scores of young women confidently riding and commanding strong-willed horses. These are young women growing up with the confidence that they really can do almost anything. We need more of this.

In a world where too many parents bestow false self confidence, horses teach teens the real meaning of self confidence. To master the art of riding is to master something of significance. But more than that, horses teach about responsibility, order, and consistency, three pretty decent things.

It is time to take our kids riding.

The Three Little Pigs are directly responsible for the degradation of American creativity and general childhood guilt.

For the past several weeks the Golden Books version of The Three Little Pigs has made it onto Livvy's high demand book rotation. It is a wretched little story.

In this version of the story, pig one builds his house of straw because he would rather play his fiddle. Pig two because he wants to go join the bugle corps or something. Meanwhile, pig number three is the hearty and noble mason who constructs his little brick house.

Mr. Wolf comes and blows down house one and house two (but doesn't eat said pigs) and then splashes down the chimney of the brick house but doesn't die, just runs away.

I've got no issues with the wolf. He's hungry, whatever.

But the moral of the story is that one needs to always put their industrious work ahead of their play or else they are going to end up nearly eaten by a wolf.

Ridiculous.

Kids need to have their imaginations and their creativity fostered. Industriousness is not the highest virtue. Yet that is exactly what these wretched pigs preach.

Horrors.

Away with the pigs. Away with this story. Kids should go out and play their fiddles and join the bugle corps and play their little hearts out and our stories should celebrate that instead of plaining suggesting that work and its byproducts are the most important things in the world.

I think Jesus would agree with me by the way. Nowhere in Jesus' description of the Kingdom does he say that industriousness is anywhere near the top of the virtue food chain. So away with The Three Little Pigs and in with stories encouraging passionate creativity and play.

Has anyone read The Shack? If so, what were your thoughts?...

Note - Most of my blogging now occurs at Culture11.com a new media company. My blog is here. Very interesting little MTV interview with pop sensation Katy Perry - of "I Kissed a Girl" and "Ur So Gay" fame. It...

Twice in the last 48 hours God has winked at me. They were wry little winks - ones of the sort that I might normally miss. This evening a friend who I haven't heard from in months and months...

Several months ago - around the time I stopped blogging with any regularity - someone accused me of being the devil. And if it wasn't the devil, then it was certainly one of his minions. It is hard to shake...