Problems are for Solving

…but you might find it helpful someday.

Public TVs are things people tend not to touch. So if you’re alone in a waiting room and turn the station to something you won’t be distracted by and turn the volume down, but not quite all the way down, people will assume that’s the way it’s supposed to be.

I found that extremely helpful today when I really didn’t want to see constant “we have an election in 2 weeks” coverage. :0)

I’m in the car (Seth is driving) on the way home from Indianapolis. I have some thoughts on the whole experience, but I probably won’t get any flesh on them, at least in written form, anytime soon. Here are some extremely brief (possibly overly simplified) reflections from my week, in no particular order:

1. If I come again I want to figure out a way to bring more of my family, in particular my wife and oldest son. My wife because I have missed her horribly (and she, me) and three nights is just a long time to be away when I’m taking vacation. My oldest son because he missed his brother terribly and would have loved to share the experience. This, however, was Toby’s 10 year old trip and as it ought to be was just him and me.
2. I got some good time to talk with Toby and get to know him a little better as he’s growing. And I’m looking forward to our friendship growing as I pursue things with him that he takes interest in.
3. Everyone in the known universe is a geek. Some people are geeks about sports (quoting batting averages, etc.), some about fast engines, some about games, some about music, ad infinitum. And among different types of geeks there are geek specialties. And this week I got to see many of the sub-specialties of gamer geeks. And some of them were quite interesting, others disturbing.
4. While I consider myself to be normal (don’t we all) I did not feel as out of place among gamers as I thought I would. Certainly there were times when I thought, “do I really belong here?” but most of the time I thought “except for some morality issues that separate us, Toby is a lot like people here.” And since I like hanging out with Toby and Seth and Ralph, there was no feeling of non-belonging despite various differences.
5. I like playing games. I also like games to keep moving. I found myself losing patience with the slowness of moving by our opponents in the massive heroscape scenario we took part in this week. (See my FB account for some pretty cool (and some awfully taken) pictures of the event. Some of this is my need for more patience, and some of it is my desire to have things moving, and some of it is my lack of desire (possibly to a sinful extent) to stop and enjoy the moment when the next moment is more attractive to me.
6. Gamers need Jesus. I overheard just enough conversations sitting around while Toby talked with the homestead to realize that there are hurting, self-centered people just like me that just happen to be immsersed in stuff that I am not. And in that context, Christians need to engage this subset of people who need Jesus just as we need to engage the stockbrokers who need Jesus and the street people who need Jesus and the people on our street who need Jesus.

I’m sure I”m forgetting something, but if I didn’t write this down right away I’m sure I’d forget it. I’ll close the post with a nice picture of Toby doing what Toby does well–concentrating on a visually pleasing art project. I’m thankful for this time with him.

Due to some “opportunities” I’ve had lately at work (read: stuff I’ve had to do that most of me would rather not do for a number of reasons) I’ve learned a couple of things about myself.

The first was not a surprise. I like talking to groups of people. I especially like it when I’m talking about something I’m passionate about like my family or the place I work or principles of biblical economics or a particular passage of Scripture that has changed me or some such odd thing that excites me. No matter how many people or how much I’ve prepared, I get a rush from getting up and talking about it–especially if I can get some of the people listening to be excited about it too. I think I’ve known that for a while.

The second was more of a surprise to me. Most people consider me (because of my natural confidence in getting up in front of a crowded room) to be an extrovert. And in that context, I certainly am. But in another context that has come often with these new “opportunities” I’m not. In the past year I have taken part in quite a few mixers, cocktail parties, hospitality suites, or some other odd such room full of people who are there for similar reasons but most of whom I don’t know.

These are opportunities for what some people call “networking.” For me, they are opportunities to hide in the corner or sit at a table and hope somebody comes up and asks me what I do so I can tell them. At least that’s what I’d like to do. I know several people who can “work the room” in that context and come out meeting several people that you’d want to meet in the situation. They do it well and naturally. I don’t do it well and I’d prefer not to do it at all. I don’t like to talk to people I don’t know and suddenly steer the conversation to what I want to talk about. It feels rude and unnatural. Certainly in the context where that’s what everyone is doing, it’s not necessarily rude and quite expected. That’s why we’re there–to network. But I don’t do that well.

In a recent even where I was placed in a room where I knew all of one person it hit me as to one reason why I have so much difficulty. Before this year I attended lots of these types of events. Sometimes weekly or more. And it was my job to go there and do certain things.

When I worked in catering.

My experience, before this year, with rooms full of dressed up people who I didn’t know who were all there for something to be together was bringing food and drinks and cleaning up. Don’t talk too much–at some of these events the hired help is supposed to appear almost invisible. And at this recent event, I would have felt perfectly comfortable opening up a conversation with the wait staff walking around the room taking glasses and offering hors d’oevres, but I felt out of place every time the person I knew was out of my sight. I didn’t belong–I was an outsider.

Now maybe this new insight will help me the next time I attend one of these events (which will happen again in the near future) to come more out of my shell. Maybe understanding why I’m so reticent to talk to the “guests” at an event like this will help me to mix it up a bit more and do some “networking” more naturally. I don’t know. But at least I feel a little better understanding even a small part of why I’m uncomfortable working a room in these contexts. Certainly I won’t be at ease like some of my friends who are so good at this–but maybe I’ll be just a little less uncomfortable and that will make a big difference.

So, if you’ve made it this far, thanks for reading. You now have a glimpse into a part of my soul that maybe you’d rather not know. And as I write this, so do I.