The Ass and the Halo

           I am sitting on a glass skylight above the underground parking garage in Ann Arbor, across from the public library, waiting for it to open. Any unfortunate soul who happens to look up at this particular skylight while parking there, on this beautiful Saturday morning, will see my ass – covered in polyester basketball shorts, but its outline and substance no less – a story or two above. But not only that. They will see it haloed by blue sky and sunshine. Can you hear the angels singing? Oh poor soul, looking up the crack of another son of God.

            However, even this unexpected witness may have a better insight into the heaven of atmosphere here, than those who chance to look up at another skylight down the block. There is the backside of the man who inspired me to set my burden down. He is snoozing in public at 8:30 AM, the sun full in his face. His grey t-shirt is, and has been, unable to cover his mighty stomach, now loosed from its constraints with apparent relief and obvious abundance. Yes, he is a champion. He looks like a great white whale, beached on a pedestal of concrete, a veritable Moby Dick of skylight sitters. He looks human, and is wearing khaki shorts, white socks, and black sandals, but I wouldn’t trust to appearances overmuch. Captain Ahab sought him from public library to public library, and now, he is found at last.

            When the sky rains fire, the monsters are unleashed from the sea, Revelation comes true, and we all have the mark of evil on our right wrist and in our brains, still the great white whale will sit and wait for his death, his nemesis, his deliverance. All the crackers in creation will pray on loudspeaker systems, the microphones in their hands, after eating some down-home cooking under the large pavilion tents. And still, our sidewalk-sitting skylight-covering behemoth will sleep on. And Captain Ahab is nowhere to be found, to harpoon the estate of overnourished flesh.

            Ah, I tell you all this with a smile of mischief, but this is not all that there is to life. We are not stuck with end-times or white whales or Melville. We are not stuck with talk of angels, or of demons for that matter. We are only stuck with realities. We are stuck with bodies; we are stuck with language; we are stuck with weather, and needing to occupy some particular portion of the earth while we live. We are stuck with judgment, to a greater or lesser degree, and we are stuck with feelings. We are stuck with imagination, and stories, and colorful turns of phrase, and colorful characters. We are stuck with humor, and stuck together by it. We are made whole by the winking acknowledgment of absurdity. We are made kinder by allowing ourselves, and each other, our judgments as wit, rather than as definite. We are made clean by kind laughter. Not all laughter is kind, but that which is has a cleansing effect, like letting sunshine and a breeze into a dark and musty room.

            We are released from what frightens and disgusts us by making it safe. Humor is our way of defusing ourselves with a general acceptance, rather than insisting on defusing and changing what is around us. It is the greatest blessing god ever gave to us holy fools, us human beings. Even that which is rude, risqué, intolerant, objectifying, or stereotypical is better put into words that make us laugh kindly and smile more widely than kept inside, or expressed with conviction. With the exceptions of serious situations – which are far more rare than most of us think – the truth, or a story or joke that is near to it, should be said with a smile. And when a smile eludes us, it should be said in a way that makes us laugh.

            I am not always a happy man, but I am in the sunshine now. And in the unlikely event that someone is parking below me, may they hear the angels sing. I am singing, too, and I’m not even an angel.

The Main Lesson from the book 'Switch: How to Change When Change is Hard'

            Have you ever struggled with changing your habits? Most of us have. But luckily, research can come into play in figuring out how to make the process less difficult than it might be otherwise. I found the premise of the book Switch: How to Change When Change is Hard, particularly interesting. (Being one of four brothers, I was also pleased to see that the authors, Dan and Chip Heath, are brothers who have learned how to play nicely and write books together.)
            Basically the book Switch tells us that, to maximize the chances of motivating ourselves or other people to achieve a goal, we need to make that goal justifiable, desirable, and accessible. This process of mobilizing your audience (whether yourself, another person, a group of people) may involve, first, convincing your audience that a given outcome might be a good goal theoretically (reasons); second, motivating them to desire the theoretically reasonable goal, so that it becomes a personal goal that they want to work toward (desires); third, directing their attention to the concrete steps to the goal you have persuaded them to wish to seek out. If you have persuaded them effectively enough, supervision during implementation can be done with a light touch, because they will want to take those steps of their own accord; sometimes, perhaps, they will even have to be restrained from taking them too quickly. 
            The first two steps, convincing and motivating, constitute persuasion. But clearly, persuasion is not enough without direction. In the same way, direction is not enough to lead an audience to pursue a goal unless they are already persuaded of its value, whether by you or someone else. 
            For those who have read it already, the connection of this description to the metaphor used in the book is that reason is the rider you must convince, desire is the elephant you must motivate, and the steps to success are the path you must direct reason and desire to follow.
            Though there are no silver bullets or magic potions for the difficult process of losing twenty pounds or getting a better job, persuasion and direction can help you direct the intelligence, desires, and skills you already have to better outcomes. Knowing what habits you need to change (reason), why you want to change them (desire), and how to change them over time (direction) are the first steps. 
            Feel free to email me at wilson_zach(at)yahoo.com, or comment below. What tips and books on change have you found most helpful? In the meantime, keep fighting the good fight. Or, as the Heath brothers might say, keep riding that elephant!