Compare and contrast and then evaluate

 

 In my classes, I often used the question structure of "compare and  contrast, and then evaluate..."  It is a useful question and taught bigger and more important skills than just gathering facts. It gave students a method or a rubric that they could use throughout their lives.  With this structure, you can determine the value of things, the correctness or "rightness" of most things.  So, which car to buy or where to go to college or where to live.  And, I suppose and fervently hope, who to vote for and who to respect as a leader.

I freely admit that the process is important but I have to say that it doesn't always lead to the best or right conclusion.  Some people have other inputs which affect the results.  Today seemed to me to be a perfect example or opportunity, though, to use this process.

One one hand, you have Jimmy Carter.  The many recent eulogies have listed his many identities:  son of Georgia, farmer, father, husband, veteran, businessman, representative, governor, president, peacemaker, builder, Christian, and many other selves which made the man.  And remember, those earned titles of who he was came with many, many, adjectives, most of them positive. Loving, faithful, successful, caring, dedicated, honest, servant, and humble were just some of these adjectives that celebrated the man.  None called him perfect as he wasn't, but when you compare or contrast him to many, well...

Many or most of us lack in our lives compared to Carter's.  At best we need to look at his life and see it as aspirational and something to work towards.  I struggled today, though, because it is our nature to compare and contrast presidents and with Trump and Carter, the differences are stark.  It was particularly jarring today as I read today's news.  Trump, as a venal, dishonest, convicted felon in 75 minutes denigrated the whole judicial system, threatened our neighbors with territorial expansion, ignored 75 years of the greatest military and political alliance ever, lied about elections, the economy, his record and and and...  This is just a brief recap-- an actual transcript is terrifying.  More than anything, if you compare and contrast and then evaluate the two men, I at least, find one former president lacking in character and content.

So what?  That's a good question.  The crux of this rant is that we need to keep comparing and contrasting and then evaluating.  I suspect that there will be plenty of differences in which to apply this rubric.  I think that we could do a bit better evaluating.  Some people are simply lacking in all those positive adjectives ascribed to the man we are honoring today.

Life is a contradiction...

 

I have been trying to write for the past several  weeks and it is hard to do.  I have conflicting feelings about our country and its people right now—mostly I simply do not understand how this all came about.  Well, I do, and that is part of the problem.  I do believe in simple adage, “if someone tells you what they are going to do and what they are and especially if they repeat again and again, just believe them.

 The challenge is that more than half of those who voted (but not more than half of the population) ignored that.  Part of me wants to say, fine, then you live with higher prices and misogyny and racism and hate and incompetence and all the other things that this administration will bring but unfortunately, all this will affect everyone, including and perhaps especially those who didn’t vote or vote for him.  So like many others I am learning how to navigate this mess.  An early grade for efforts would probably be a C or C-.  This is hard.

Another reason why I am conflicted is that while the country is in a state of decline and despair, my personal life is pretty darn good.  There are many indicators of this, including the simple fact that I have lived where I live, in the same house, for more than five years.  I know that many live in the same place for years and decades but that has not been my life.  As an adult I have never lived in the same place for more than four years and even in those four-year stints, I have never lived in the same house for that long.  I have come to find out that this is a very nice concept—I should have tried it before!

This stability has been facilitated by a great, stable, long-lasting relationship with a partner who is smart and fun and adventuresome and who really is partner in my/our lives.  It hasn’t been easy—heck, I’m very certainly not easy, and there have been some bumps along the way, but this is a very good thing.  From cooking to talking to traveling to planting a garden, she is a part of all of this.  We have fun, and sometimes even laugh out loud before 7 A.M.   We plant perennial flowers, not annual flowers—that is how serious this is!    I am a lucky guy. 

That adventure part?  We went to London over Christmas—but that is a different post.