Knight and Day: A Review of the Dark Knight Trilogy

Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight trilogy has accomplished many great things over the span of its run from 2005 to 2012.  Nolan’s trilogy recreated the comic book movie genre, allowed for the most popular movie villain of this decade, successfully revitalized a dying hero and gave us one of the greatest movie sequels ever.  However all of these pale in comparison to Nolan’s greatest victory: the successful changing of someone’s mind.

Before I saw Batman Begins I had two resolutions:

1. Batman was a lame hero.  My friends and I could not relate to him like we could with Spider-Man, who tried to date cute high-school girls, was kind of a dork, and had fun being a mutant-spider-kid.  Bruce Wayne was as emotionally cool and brooding as Wolverine, but come on, the man was a genius, billionaire playboy, something Wolverine never had as a crutch and something that Tony Stark wore brashly on his sleeve.  Lastly, he was not awesome like the epic Superman.

2. I did not want to see Batman Begins.  This was partly because at age 14, the trailers for the movie had given a very good indication of what the film would be like: dark.  I did not thing I would like a movie so dark, nor a hero as dark as Batman.  The movie did well but I still did not care to see it.  Not until my father rented it for me to watch, assuring me it was a good movie, did I give it a try.

Seven years later, I consider Batman to be my favorite hero and all three of the movies are in my Top 10.  So what happened along the way?

The Gotham Next Door

There are a few defining characteristics of the Dark Knight movies that separates them from all other superhero movies.  One of those is the gritty realism that each film adheres to.  Part of this is due to Batman as a hero and the fictional world he inhabits.  Gotham is not a Metropolis or Spidey’s New York.  The name is the only blatantly fictional element about it.  The city is a dark, foreboding, dangerous and real.  No supernatural heroes or villains exist to fight for this city’s soul.  The fight between the damnation and the redemption of this city is left to regular people, as in the real world (sort of; look to the Afterword for more on this).  Mayors, policeman, citizens and petty criminals are all part of a huge war in these films, not one supernatural figure versus another.

Batman may be a billionaire, playboy genius but that is all he is (I recognize the humor in that statement).  His scientist pal, Lucius Fox, oversees the creation of some fairly amazing inventions but none of them are as otherworldly as an Iron-Man suit and each of them are grounded in reality. For example, Batman’s morally mucky gadget at the end of The Dark Knight, the one that uses every cell phone in the city as a means to track the Joker, is fictional, but only barely so.  The contraption’s implications also come across loud and clear to an audience who lives in the post-9-11 era.

The villains of Batman are horrific, and part of the horror is that we recognize them as only slightly beyond the realm of reality.  There are no green power-ranger goblins, no “god”-like powers, and certainly no overdose of radiation that creates these villainous figures.  No, they are far more sinister.  The villains are ideologically driven  ”good guys”, judges, crime lords, psychiatrists and oft-kilter lunatics.  The Joker was imitated by the insane James Holmes in the Aurora theater shooting a few months ago, but what made the Joker so horrific was that we all recognized that he existed before Ledger took upon that role.  Enough murderers, serial killers and insane bombers had been around for us to see the semblances of them in the uncanny Joker.  And the weapons of the villains also strike closer to home.  They prefer the efficient means of gasoline, crashing planes and trains, assaulting public spaces, the influence of bought-off government officials and the power of a simple, deadly bullet.

Gotham, its citizens, its heroes, and its villains are presented to us with a straight face.  They are a city we all recognize, with villains who we fear far more than any Norse god or mutant being.  The stakes are far higher.

The Hero Gotham Doesn’t Deserve

But of course, the Dark Knight movies focus on one thing in particular: The Dark Knight.  In some ways, Batman has always struck me as the super-hero equivalent of Moses.  He is born into the super-elite, and after abusing his privileges and losing his way, returns to set “his people free” from those he once called “brothers”.  A defining mark of Batman is his genuine, deep love for the people of Gotham.  Spider-Man’s arc echoed the theme that “with great power comes great responsibility.”  Most other superhero films simply take for granted that if you have great power, you are indebted with using it for the good of others.  With Batman, there remains a little of that theme, but it’s not for the general well-being  of humanity or simply because he has a duty to be a hero that drives Batman to do what he does.  Rather, Bruce Wayne takes upon the cowl due to an undying affection for the people of Gotham, for the suffering, the afflicted and the oppressed.

Look at the way that Batman is challenged over the course of the three films:

1. Batman Begins: Villain: Gotham is too corrupt and does not deserve a second chance.  It must be wiped out.  Batman disagrees, steps in and fights the “good guys” in order to save his dark, dirty city.

2. The Dark Knight: There is no truth or “goodness”, so why fight?  All is corruptible, but  most importantly, all is chaos.  The soul of the city is at stake between the chaotic grip of a madmen or the hold of a hero.  In the end, the hero takes the fall for all the “sin” of the city in order to stop the madman.

3. The Dark Knight Rises: Look at how your people have rejected you; they, more than ever, are not worthy of life.  The city must be destroyed, once and for all.  Batman is broken, but rises up to save his lost city once more, this time for all to see.

There are Biblical themes galore in the arc of Batman, and those are all worth of inspection, and all serve as reasons for why I love the movies, but neither of them will be discussed in length here.  Except for one.  The reason Batman is such a powerful hero, and the movies so resonant, is that they so clearly represent the greatest epic being told.  The Dark Knight movies dimly echo the story of a Savior who wages war against utter wickedness and those who deem themselves as righteous, and who loves a lost, broken, hurting people with such passion that He takes a cross for them rather than leave them to the chaotic and hellish end that is coming upon them.

Batman loses everything he holds dear in his fight against the darkness that seeks to engulf the city in flames, but his sacrifice is worth it.  The singular reason why I love this trilogy so much is that the evil is strong, real and horrific, the world gritty, familiar and close-to-home, but the resolution perfectly clear: evil and darkness will never ultimately triumph.  I find it no mistake that the final end to Gotham’s plaguing evil occurs at dawn in the end of the third film.  For a trilogy so steeped in darkness, in content, in color, in scenery and in setting, the final act of the grand finale occurs at daybreak.

Ironically, the reason I love The Dark Knight Trilogy so much is that in the end, the light triumphs over the darkness.  Courage downs fear, truth absolves chaos, and love outdoes hate.  It is a hard path, filled with violence, madness, and grief  along the way, but the harder the battle, the sweeter the victory.

“The night is always darkest just before the dawn.  I promise you, the dawn is coming.”

- Harvey Dent, The Dark Knight

Afterword: When I say the fight for a city’s soul is left to “real people” I am not discounting the spiritual war going on nor the fact that true victory is achieved through the work of God.  I mean only that God does not give us supernatural heroes to fight the earthly battles for us; we are called to take this upon ourselves, much in the way Batman, Jim Gordon, John Blake and others do.  So my point was not an entirely humanistic one, but an admission that in our world, as in Batman’s world, normal people are called to rise to the task and bear responsibility for their city.

Reflections from a Rookie Teacher (Part 2)

This is a continuation of my reflections which started in this post here.

1^st and 2^nd Grade

I may yet come to realize that 2^nd graders are a pain in the butt.  But I don’t think that will happen soon.  At least not until the day when I don’t teach a 1^st grade class prior to it.  Because here’s the deal: this week I’ve taught a bunch of age levels and have yet to come across any of those problems people always refer to.  “I wouldn’t have the patience.”  “I wouldn’t be able to stand those kids!”  “I don’t have the energy.”  I had heard all these similar statements prior to teaching, and had found them wanting in validity.  The kids were fine.  Granted, most of the younger ones had their parents with them, but still, other than some easily distracted 4^th grade boys, the worse thing I had to deal with was a Kindergartner being too shy to answer a question.  I began to think the concept that teaching kids was an intimidating feat was naught but a fabrication.

To quote the line so often used in those millions of Prometheus ads: “I was so wrong.”

These kids are insane.  Again, it’s mostly the boys, but I’m going to lump the girls in with them at this point.  They are in-sane.

I am not a strong supporter of the idea that every other kid suffers from ADD or ADHD.  I think they suffer from a lack of smacks on the butts.  Again, I’m no parent, but this is my take, and it was solidified this first week of teaching.

The main menace, who I’ll call Jack, is the 7-year old, little American white boy equivalent of Godzilla.  And his Mom is Tokyo.  She was stressed out, on edge, always talking and trying to control him, but to no avail.  He had black marker streaks coursing down his arms, was always talking, and when I escorted this group of characters to the restroom, he proceeded to run around grabbing everyone, yelling and making crazy noises.  I told him, rather sternly, he needed to be quiet, and put his back against the wall.  He did not.

Back in the classroom he threw a tantrum when I tried to get him to read aloud to me, to which his mom continued to reassure me that sometimes it was just hard for him to focus.  That’s not true.  He could focus really well on dropping his book.  Literally every fifteen seconds his book fell to the floor.  He would laugh apologetically, get up from his chair and pick it up.

After the tenth time, I stopped my playful “hey, pick that up and try not to let it fall, ok?” routine.  This time I went over, lowered myself to his level, looked him in the eye and told him “I don’t want to see this book on the ground ever again, ok?  Keep it on your desk or I will take it away from you.”  He stiffened up, nodded and proceeded to miraculously learn how to keep his book on his desk.

The rest of the kids were not quite as menacing, but nearly as crazy.  One kid could not stop talking.  If he wasn’t making the most random, unnecessary comments out loud, he was blurting out that he loved me and that I was his favorite teacher.  Another kid, every time I would say something, would blurt out some smart-alecky response.  I had to tell him on multiple occasions he was not allowed to speak unless I asked him to.  His grandmother just shrugged and chuckled whenever he broke that rule.  After class she came up to me.

“I think this class will be good for him,” she said.  “You see, he has ADD.”

Apparently so do all other 1^st grade boys.

Conclusion

Besides my uneasy relationship with the 1^st graders, I came out of this week satisfied.  I really, really liked teaching.  There is little stress at all being in front of a group of kids, and not nearly as much stress as being in front of a room of parents as I had thought.  I felt in control, in command, and was able to see both the kids and the parents really engage with what I was saying.  I wasn’t just the teacher saying things to them but I was actually teaching. They were listening, following what I had to say and writing notes and nodding their head in agreement.

I decided I will do my best to do this as much as I can whenever I am being taught by another.  It really makes all the difference.

Ultimately, by the great grace of God, I survived, and more than that, I would say I have succeeded.  Before every class, during every class and after every class I was very passionately seeking the help of the Lord, and each time He supplied it.  I am excited for the next week, for seeing my students again, for acting out more crazy stories, for having great discussions and for feeling satisfied with what I’ve done by the end of the day.

Reflections from a Rookie Teacher (Part 1)

A picture of a teacher with whom I share no similarity too in both appearance and teaching subject.

The first student I would ever teach of what could possibly be a long-time profession (or a decidedly 10-weeks only stint) was a minuscule, curly haired Kindergartener named Coen.  She didn’t want to talk to me and buried her face in her grandmother’s thigh when I introduced myself to her.  I got to spend fifteen minutes with just Coen and her grandmother before everyone else started to arrive, which was great.  In that time I got to actually see and talk to a Kindergartner for some time before the rest of the horde arrived.

My first class went extremely well.  Kindergartners sum up all that we romanticize about children.  They are adorable, at turns shy and silly, always wanting to please, ever curious and too shell-shocked by the still fairly new world they inhabit to begin terrorizing it just yet.  Teaching them was the perfect way to start the week off.

First Class – Kindergartners

I begin teaching to a mostly cold audience.  The parents are the only ones listening, each one of them silently begging me with their eyes to save their children from a lifetime of illiteracy.  In the short time I got to spend with the parents before beginning the class I learned enough to conclude that nearly every one of them was deathly afraid that their kid was so far behind in reading that they might as well go make good use of those newly budding college-savings now.  Seriously, the way these parents worry about their Kindergartner’s reading ability, you’d think that not being able to read Tolstoy by age 6 qualified their kid for a spot in the Hunger Games.

The kids?  They are immensely curious about everything except for the guy standing in the front of the room talking.  They look at their mom, they look at their hands, up at the ceiling or better, at the completely bare, white cement walls, as if it was some artistic masterpiece.  At some point I take a short breath and think: well, at least I’m getting paid nicely for this.  But it all changes when we do the read aloud.  Everything changes.

Before crazy monkey dramatization.

It is in that moment, halfway through the read-aloud of the book Caps for Sale that I realize something very profound: kindergartners are absolute suckers for an adult making a total fool out of himself in an effort to act out a group of crazy monkeys.  Up to that point I only heard tense silence.  Then, when I first acted out the antic of some monkeys, I got a few chuckles as if by necessity.  Ha-ha.  Thanks for trying.  We appreciate the effort.  But then, as the craziness escalates to the point where I am jumping up and down yelling “Tsz! Tsz! Tsz!” (because some ignorant author believed that this was the sound crazy monkeys make), I hear something that is quite wonderful indeed.  I hear seventeen Kindergartners bust out in raucous laughter.  The girls giggle but the boys have that really awesome mix between a belly laugh and their still-high voices.  It’s like a rolling “heh heh heh heh”.

Post crazy-monkey dramatization.

At this moment, I realize that this job will be more than a way to earn some money.  I realize that this is slightly awesome.  If you have any desire to be the center of attention and you are not afraid to make a fool of yourself then let me assure you there is a very welcoming audience to be had in a group of Kindergartners.  By the end of the class they all left happily, hopping up and down, high-fiving me, and hugging my calves (because that’s as tall as their bodies are).

I end the class and everyone leaves the room.  I take a sip of my iced coffee, stretch my back, say a much-owed prayer of thanks to God and smile smugly.  This job will be awesome.

4-5^th Graders

My next class is a group of 4-5^th graders.  They are not quite as adorable as Kindergartners but they have a completely different charm of their own.  They are beyond the stages of utter evilness and are mostly mature.  Mostly.  By mostly, I mean the girls are mature and a few of the boys.  The rest of the 4^th and 5^th grade males obviously have some catching up to do.

They are not menaces, for sure.  And they really can’t help themselves, I realize.  For instance, one of my favorite students is a little guy named Jalen.  Great kid.  Paid attention, participated, didn’t cause problems.  That is, until halfway through class when he raised his hand.

“Yeah, Jalen, what’s up?”

“Uhm, well, Mr. J,” he says, “I think…” he reaches his hand into his mouth to check again.  “Uhm…I think my tooth is coming out.  There’s blood everywhere.”

I quickly run through a list in my mind.  Nope.  Nowhere in my three weeks of training did I get prepped for this.

“Really?  That’s awesome Jalen!  Here, let me give you some tissues.  If you think it can stay in there a little bit longer, just try not to mess with it, ok?”

Ha.  Only a little later did I realize that a reading teacher is no match for the fascination presented by a precariously loose tooth that gushes out blood.  For the rest of the class Jalen was lost to me.  He must have stopped me five more times to give a status report.

“Mr. J!  I can turn the tooth around mostly!”

“That’s great, Jalen, but I need you to stop touching your tooth and to look at your workbook.”

“Mr J!  I’m burping up blood!  Can I just hit my mouth on the doorknob and knock it out?”

“No Jalen.  You may go to the restroom if you need to, but wait for your dad to get here to pull your tooth out, ok?”

And on and on it went.

All the other boys are easily enticed to joke around and talk with each other if prodded by some more alpha male, which every class has.  The girls just sit there, looking up at me, constantly adjusting their glasses and oblivious to all else but the desire to learn to read better.  I find great irony in the fact that there was once debate in ages past over whether to educate girls.  It’s a dumb question.  Girl were obviously meant for the classroom.  Boys?  I don’t know.

Adults

I teach one class of adults.  The class consists of three high-school seniors, two college students, one middle aged guy and one elderly woman.  I like it.  There’s nothing really exciting about it and there’s a tad bit more pressure; especially when the elderly woman looks at you with a bit of bewilderment upon walking in.

“Are you teaching this class?”

“Yes ma’am.”

“And have you ever taught before?  Have you ever taught adults?”

“Nope.  This will be my first time.  But I have already done some teaching before and I look forward to the challenge.”  (Note:  my “previous teaching” experience consisted of the three class I’ve taught since starting two days ago).

“Well,” she says with a sigh as she takes a seat.  “I’ll let you know how you do.”

I laugh politely.  I’m sure you will.

At the end of the class she came up to me and told me she loved the class and was excited for the rest of the program.  She then makes for the exit.

“Oh, by the way” she says, catching herself before she leaves the room.  “You did a wonderful job.”

A History of My Summer Jobs

My first summer job was picking weeds at Disney.

Many people express some sympathy for me when I tell them this, but I deserve none.  Half of my eight-hour work days were spent napping in the work van, having free ice-cream, riding roller coasters and getting treated to free putt-putt golf and cookouts.  Yes, all while being paid.  The other half of my day was spent pulling weeds from beautiful landscaping areas located in the most beloved place on earth, surrounded by thousands of happy, interesting and exotic vacationing families, working with my best friends, joking, laughing, slacking off and getting paid more money than most people in the world earn for doing far more serious jobs.

At some point, while being paid to loll in an air conditioned room, licking the vanilla ice-cream off a spoon, all provided by my employer, I thought to myself that the rest of my work-life might not be as pleasant.

I was right.

My next summer job was nothing to complain about, but to be clear, it was no Disney.  In fact, I am incredibly grateful for it, and learned a lot through the experience and didn’t even mind driving an hour to and from it every day.

I was working at a produce distribution plant called FreshPoint.  My first two weeks were spent learning the ins-and-outs of sales, working side-by-side with accountants, delivering fresh produce to customers, running a hectic front desk and presiding as quality control.  At least, that’s what I put on my resume.  What really happened was that I spent a few days sitting by sales people selling stuff, and when they gave me an hour window to do the sales myself, it was 10am in the morning, and no one called.  The only work I did for accounting was spend two days straight putting thousands of newsletters into envelopes and mailing them off to clients.  By ‘delivering fresh produce to customers’, I really mean that I sat in the passenger seat of a delivery truck and watched the main guy deliver the produce and have me tag along.  And when I say that I presided over quality control, what I mean is that I spent the other 12 weeks of my summer standing alone in a cooler/freezer breaking down an infinite amount of boxes of produce into smaller packages.

The work was not deliriously fun, but honestly, I enjoyed it.  The time alone gave me ample time to think, which I loved, and it was semi-hard work, requiring me to lift heavy, icy boxes of lettuce, help unload trucks, and stand all day, so I felt satisfyingly exhausted at day’s end.  In addition, the job paid well, which kept me with a good opinion of it.

My third summer of work was interesting.  I sarted back at FreshPoint with mild excitement to return to the exact same routine as I had experienced last summer.  But not long after returning, FreshPoint explained that they were unable to provide me the same hours as last year, and with it being an hour away, and gas prices sky rocketing, it became clear that it was not a wise idea to continue working there.  So I looked for another job and found one right in front of me.  It was  huge blessing and I was able to leave FreshPoint on good terms for a job that was 15 minutes away and paid almost exactly the same.

My new job was at an engineering corporation.  That, I too put on my resume.  What was I doing working for an engineering corporation?  Standing in a copying room, scanning thousands upon thousands upon thousands of engineering drawings.  And when I wasn’t doing that, I was sitting, digitally filing those thousands upon thousands upon thousands of  engineering drawings.  Yes, it was as thrilling as it sounds.

I actually did enjoy working with the various architectuaral drawings and I was able to learn a few good skills.  I gained a lot of knowledge in Excel as well as with working with top of the line printers which would help me with my internship the following semester.  I liked working with old paper covered in beautiful, intricate technical drawings on them and poring over those fascinating diagrams always kept my work semi-interesting.  So I survived what could have been the most boring job ever invented and continued my general success with obtaining good summer jobs.

So here comes my 4th summer, and possibly my last experience of being in the business of needing a “summer” job; I’d like to obtain a job with a bit more longevity and security by the time Summer 2013 rolls around. I am the far more excited and anxious about this job than I have ever been with the others; and for good reason.

This summer I will be teaching reading to pretty much anyone above the age of 3.  I’ll be working with kids entering Kindergarten to high school students, to college age and senior-age adults.  I will spend 10 weeks trying to help them get better at reading and get more “absorbed” into books and good literature.  Our “textbooks” include such material as The Lord of the Rings, Henry Huggins, Jane Austen and Dr. Seuss.  If you know me, you know why I am excited for this job.  I love to read, I love books and I like to earn money.

All my teaching aspirations personified.

There are two other reasons why I am excited about this job.  The first is that I will finally experience that part of working I have never really experienced before but am longing to know: the feeling of knowing that my work matters.  In all my other jobs I knew that my work mattered to some degree, but it can be mindbogglingly hard to see how packing a head of lettuce into a box for the millionth time is going to do anyone a whole lot of good, and it is easy to feel unnecessary and easily replaceable when you are standing in the same spot for an hour pressing the “scan” button on a copier machine.  I believe I did my work well at both of those jobs and I know that both of those companies needed me to do those jobs to run efficiently, but the level of challenge and the actual reward were so minimal that work was not something I saw much joy or purpose in beyond the paycheck.  Becoming that single, crucial main variable in a room of 12 kids is going to be radically different.  My mistakes might make a difference.  A good job might result in lives deeply changed.  If my teaching is competent enough that, combined with the curriculum, I can get just a few kids to love reading and they grow up to be book lovers and end up doing something crazy to affect the world because of what they have read, this what I did will have mattered a great deal.

The second reason I am excited about this job is that it will wake me up and challenge me.  I am already facing challenges I have never had to deal with, and to be honest, I am loving it.  I am currently in Orlando, undergoing the second phase of my teaching training and it is long, involving and exhausting.  From 8 to 5:30 we are talking, interacting, teaching and discussing.  The first day I left with some anxiety, and when I was headed back early this morning and sat in my chair again, I had a deep sense of fear.  I did not want to try teaching in front of the group.  I did not.  I wasn’t comfortable with the lesson plan, I wasn’t confident in my ability and I knew I was going to fail.  The fear was some of the strongest I had ever felt, and it had jumped on me out of nowhere.  The day before might have found me a bit timid but certainly not this fearful.  In the span of 2 hours, and with a great deal of prayer, the fear subsided.  I ended up getting called up to model something I had done really well in a small discussion and it went over well.  That was a defining moment for me, a moment I knew was coming.  At that moment, I desperately cried out to God and He supplied the strength to overcome the fear of the challenge standing before me.

That said, the challenges come with their share of rewards as well.  Right now I am writing by the window of my own hotel room in Orlando, from which I can see the incredible Universal Studio fireworks and turn the air condition down as low as I please –  it’s delightfully chipper in here.  I can relax and read the Bible or a book without distraction and can kick back to watch the Heat game while eating out of my own personal gallon of Blue Bell Ice-Cream.  This summer I will get to travel around the state, and when I am done with my job, I will have some incredible experience to put on my resume.  Oh, and I will have  substantially more money than I have now, which is certainly not the least of the rewards.

God has been good to me as far as summer jobs come.  I have never gone without one when I needed one and He has provided some really interesting, neat and helpful positions over the past few summers.  I am excited for what might be my last summer job and I look to take on the challenges of teaching with God’s help and to experience the rewards of truly making a difference with my work.

I’m sure it will be the second best thing to getting paid to nap and eat ice-cream.

Marketing Reinvented

“Content marketing is the only marketing left.”

- Seth Godin

 I recently discovered my new favorite blog the other day: The Content Strategist, powered by Contently.com.  The blog focuses on all aspects of creating, managing and correctly using high-quality content in a new age where the old advertising and journalistic models are rapidly being replaced.  As an Editing, Writing and Media major, and headed into a Master’s program for Rhetoric and Composition, I find this to be fascinating (and not in part because it concerns how I will probably earn a living).

Contently expound on a few major thesis, found in their blog, their free e-book, and thier manifesto, all of which I believe are true and are going to have great impact on how we receive and relate to news, advertisements and any other media where content is king.  I’ve listed them here for my own sake of understanding them better as well as for the possible interest of anyone else.

Relationship is everything.

1. Social = Success.  Period.  - It comes as little surprise that in a day where Facebook is as ingrained into our lives as brushing our teeth that a company and/or new’s outlet’s best way of reaching and befriending customers is through the realm of social media.  The Content Strategist  argues that most company’s success in the near future will be almost entirely based on their ability to productively use the strange new tool of social networking sites, such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and blogs.  In a post by Ella Rhiley-Adams, the founder of Federated Media, John Battelle, lays out the important difference between marketing on the television and marketing in the age of Web 2.0.  When it comes to television and the old ways of marketing he says that “the value of content is directly proportional to the efficiency with which it aggregates ‘eyeballs,’” but today “the value of content on the web is directly proportional to the number of connections it starts or sustains.”  Essentially, if a company’s online content fails to spread among people and cause any sort of relationship, it will die.  The internet is founded on the social platform and if your content is not socially spreadable it is inefficient and ineffective.

“The value of content on the web is directly proportional to the number of connections it starts or sustains.”

- John Battelle, Founder of Federated Media

2. Publishers and News Corporations Are Dead - In an age when Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, can tweet that Osama bin Laden has been killed by American soldiers before the news corporations ever get it out to the public, we know that one of the main strengths of news corporations is lost; speed.  In addition, with the public perceiving so many slants on the actual story by different news outlets (Fox=conservative, MSNBC=liberal, etc.), they are starting to opt out for people with less reputation but greater reliability.  Even since their inception, blogs have continued supplanting the old model of getting news out with relative consistency.

Breaking news courtesy of everyone’s favorite news anchor, The Rock.

Book publishers are feeling the heat as well with the rise of self-publishing and dying need of a hard-copy to legitimize a book’s “quality.”  The new age of e-books has broken down the floodgates for all those aspiring authors looking to get their books out to the public.  The problem with both the new model of news and book publishing is, of course, how will we know what is good news and good books without news corporations and publishers acting as a watchdog?  Answer: the same we figure out what is “good” most of the time.  If online content is good, trustworthy and written well, it will be shared on Facebook, Twitter and more.  Soon it will be prominent.  If a book is good, and many people find great literary content coming out of an unknown author, it is relatively easy to let the world know, since we’re all about three clicks away from each other.  It all comes back to the keyword: social.  The rise of social networks on the web allows for the spread of quality content.  People don’t want to share something they think is trashy or that they think is only ok; they share what they love.

3. Rise of the Quality Content/Death of Pop-Up Ads- The end result will be that those with the best content wins.  This is great, since that is how it should be all the time.  The internet forces transparency, and those who try to hide behind cheap advertising gimmicks only come out looking bad.  Have you ever once been persuaded to click on those annoying pop-up ads?  Neither have I.  But if a company, like Dell, has its employees working with customers over Twitter, having conversations, sharing tips for improving computer speed, and publishing blogs that are relevant and helpful to their consumer base, all without any advertising other than the fact that their name is attached to great content,  than one might form a favorable impression of a company.  This is how it will play out.  The structure of advertising will become much less organized, much more social, and much more headed by great contract content writers.  This will lead to the death of stupid advertisements and result in a much more involved, much more socially-oriented, and, ideally, much more profitable way of connecting with customers.

Grantland, my wonderful source for sporting news delivered the right way.

Here is an example of these principles at work.  Bill Simmons is a writer for ESPN who had a great idea.  He wanted to take the model presented by the Huffington Post and have a bunch of excellent writers and/or celebrities publish content they wanted to publish, and have it all in one place.  The one requirement was that it be sports-related.  He threw the idea out to ESPN, who at first didn’t want it, until he threatened to bring it elsewhere, in which case ESPN then agreed to partner alongside him.  The result is working favorably for ESPN.

Grantland is one of my favorite sites on the internet, because it takes the dull, dry way of sports reporting modeled by the CNN-style ESPN writing and turns it on his head.  Excellent writers are putting out insightful, entertaining, factual and extremely well-written sports content all in this one place.  There are the obvious articles that deal with the current games and then there are articles dealing with whatever else these writers feel passionate about.  It’s like a journalist’s/news reader’s dream come true.  On Grantland, content is king, and because of that, it is a joy to read.  This is what the future of web content, publishing and news reporting looks like.

We endeavor to support the rise of quality content, in a freelance Internet, commissioned by brands that care about transparency and social good, and by media companies that believe that great creative work is worth paying for.

- Contently.com (from thier “Contently Manifesto”)

How to Make Long-Distance Relationships Work

These are probably more helpful than some of the cell phones I have had to deal with over the last few years.

I consider myself extremely lucky to be in a relationship with an amazing girl.  Hannah Marie, my girlfriend of three years, is my best friend and the person I like being with most.  Our story is kinda funny.  I have thought she was the most beautiful girl in the world since I first found girls pretty, and after liking her for many years, she finally caved in and liked me back.  We started dating the summer before I left for college.  Since then, we have kept a relationship up over the course of three years, through two universities, summer camps, jobs, internships and the like.

Over the course of these three years I have realized two things.

1. I really do like this Hannah Marie girl, and…

2. I really do hate long-distance.

Allow me but a moment to expound on the highly sophisticated form of torture Hannah and I have willingly put ourselves through.  The “honeymoon” period of our new dating relationship was condensed to roughly a month and a half before I was off at college.  During this period many people, seeking our best interests for sure, encouraged us that our relationship had as much of chance of lasting 3 months as Kim Kardashian’s marriage had of surviving 2 months.  Needless to say, we both proved them wrong.  When I first went to college I was flooded with a bunch of “How to Be a Christian in College”-type books that every relatively Christian kid is sure to receive when they finish High School.  One of them, at the end of the book, gave a list of helpful advice.  One of the prominent pieces of advice was to “Dump your High School Girlfriend.” I have never read another line in that book.

The torture is made all the worse by those friends who happen to have girlfriends by their sides almost all the time.  The idea of being with the person you like nearly everyday is relatively alien and foreign to me.  It is like something out of a Lord of the Rings movie; awesome, but ultimately a fantasy.  Add on to that those few people that warn you that you’ve wasted three years of your life dating someone who you can’t see on a regular basis.  These people actually make the agony a bit lighter…it’s something to laugh at.  The warning is always “well,  I guess you are missing out on all the fun.”  Yeah, I guess they are right. I would rather date someone I like less and find less attractive and amazing, so long as they are close by.  Okay.  That makes sense.

Honestly though, I am not sure I would recommend going the long-distance route to many people.  Mine and my girlfriend’s circumstances were unique in that, while we had only been dating a little while before being pried apart, we had known each other for many years.  If you meet a girl at a party who lives in California and you are from New York, I am not saying to trust your hormones and begin a long-distance relationship.  This has to be someone you want to be with for a while, not a friend with benefits.

With all that said, if you should still so desire to start a relationship spanning the state, nation or globe, here are some tips I’ve learned along the way:

1. Don’t Have Sprint Cell-Phone Service – Just don’t.  I was on the verge of a violent outburst of cursing nearly every day, particularly after Sprint decided to drop our call for the fourth time in a 5 minute span.  This affliction spanned two living locations and multiple phones.  Few things have made me more willing to just forget long-distance than Sprint.  That is sad, but true.  I’m not advertising for any other phone brand, but I am saying, if you value love and sanity, don’t get Sprint.

Me sentiment toward Sprint cell phones.

2. Text a Lot – My girlfriend and I do not have the luxury of having to worry about either being clingy or overbearing.  The flip side is that it can be easy to become disconnected from the other’s life.  In order to somehow fill in the gap, we text a lot through the day, and it keeps us on the same page with what the other is doing.  I don’t think a relationship can function well if both people are not on the same page with the other’s life.  If I am unable to relate or know what she is up to, what she has coming up in 2 days, or about the quiz she has at 3pm, I firstly can’t pray for her, and secondly am reduced to more of a “boyfriend” than an actual friend.  So we make an intentional effort to keep each other actively updated on the other’s life, as my father can attest to, whenever he calls to let me know the amount of texts we send to each other every month.  Hey, we got unlimited texting, so I’m going to use it.

Note: Don’t text and drive.  Or at least don’t use this post as an encouragement to do so.

3. Get a Car/Plane/Boat/Bicycle – Relatively simple.  We went our first year without either of us having any form of transportation and that wasn’t too fun.  I got a car between my first and second year at school and it made seeing her far more easy.  Just knowing I can get up and leave to see her at any time – be it in class, on a Sunday afternoon, or a Friday night – is relatively wonderful.  It breaks that feeling of being isolated.  Before, getting to see her would require someone else to be headed in the same general direction and that is not very reliable.

I like to say that my car saved our relationship; she likes to say I over-exaggerate.

4. Talk About Your BF/GF A Lot – I do not mean that your life should be so centrally revolved around your bf/gf that you can not talk about anything else, or that you try to annoy other people (single people are fun) with the fact that you have a girlfriend.  What I mean is that you need to talk about them and make it known to most people you get in contact with that you have a bf/gf and that you really like them.  It is a precautionary measure.  I have known people for a while and found out only through Facebook a few months after first meeting them that they have a girlfriend or a boyfriend far away.  That is just weird.  I also have had friends fall for people and be seriously considering dating them before finding out that such-and-such was in a relationship with someone back home.  My point is, for the sake of those who might ever be attracted to you, talk about your girlfriend.  For the sake of yourself, to keep yourself accountable and transparent, talk about your girlfriend.  And, uhm, because you are crazy about her and she is your favorite person in the whole wide world, please, talk about your girlfriend.

5. Make God First – Obviously, I am not married or even engaged.  I am not able to tell you the in and outs of “successful dating” or how to have an enduring love.   I differ to Joshua Harris and Gary Chapman on those issues.  But I do know that in any relationship, be it friendship, marriage, dating, or just with your siblings, making God the goal, the purpose, and the point of the relationship is completely and absolutely integral.  Not that I’ve done it perfectly.  But when the point is to make sure your relationship glorifies God – in dating, this might be through purity, equal respect for each other, maintaining a right sense of closeness and distance, and through serving and sacrificing for the other as one should do for any friend or enemy – than you have the most important element needed to make any relationship work out.

Even if one is a Gator and the other a Seminole.

At the FSU vs. UF game in Gainesville.

“Long distance sucks.”

- Everyone

Soli Deo Gloria

I am in the midst of reading the book The Explicit Gospel by Matt Chandler.  It is explicitly simple in its aspiration to present the Gospel without holding back any punches, without dressing it up, and without taking away from the entirety of the message.  The first three chapters are titled “God”, “Man”, and “Christ” and I have just finished the chapter on man.  The chapter was rather interesting because it was all on hell.

Not a good chapter for anyone who calls themselves a humanist.

At chapter’s end Chandler asks:

                “Are you really going to believe we’re not worthy of hell?

Thank God for His response to all this blasphemous nonsense: the wrath-absorbing cross of Christ. ” – Matt Chandler

This is obviously supposed to segue into the following chapter on Christ, which I assume will be a tad bit more joyful, but what struck me about this last sentence was that it was the first time in the entire chapter you got a bit of the good news.  Chandler dissects nearly every major passage in the New Testament that describes gehenna (hell) and always shows from the Bible that hell is simply the natural place for those who attempt to belittle the glory of God or to ascribe any glory to themselves.  So horrible, so blasphemous, so maddeningly eternal is this sin, that hell is simply the natural end result from misplaced glory.  As Piper says: “The horror of hell is an echo of the infinite worth of Christ.”

There is, in this chapter on “Man”, so very little to find joy in.  We have fallen so far, we have hardened our hearts so greatly, and we are so cold to the smoldering reality of an all-consuming glory.

And here is my fearful realization.  I don’t know the glory of God to be so damningly glorious…yet.  That God is glorious beyond comprehension I believe whole-heartedly, but to know God’s glory as so great that one moment of glory ascribed to ourselves deserves an eternity of suffering?  I fear that my regard for the glory of God is in desperate need for drastic change.

My earnest prayer is to see and know what David saw and knew when he wrote:  “So I have looked upon you in the sanctuary, beholding your power and glory (Psalm 63:2).”

Summer Reading

This summer I get the opportunity to work for the Institute of Reading Development.  I will be working throughout all of Central Florida helping younger and middle-school children improve their ability to read and to get “absorbed” into books, as well as teaching high school and college students how to be read more efficiently and speedily.  I am excited to be a teacher and can not wait to begin.

One of the more exciting aspects of the job is the actual reading.  Since signing on with the Institute I have already consumed a variety of books, transporting me to new places and introducing me to a variety of new characters.  Many of the books and stories I had read before, some of them I was familiar with, and others I had never known existed.  Either way, the requirement to read such a wide expanse of literature was one of the better job tasks I have ever been given.

Even though I will be busy teaching other kids to read using the curriculum books of the Institute, I want to ensure that I am continuing to read and am pouring into good books myself.  This will be hard, as my time will be lessened considerably.  But last summer, while working full-time, I read more books in a short period than I ever have in my life; books ranging from oranges, to theology, to the Vietnam War, to newspaper editors, to neurology, to books on hiking the Appalachian Trail.  I was the quintessential image of a carnivorous reader.  I would like to replicate that book-consuming madness this summer.

Since my job will require an expansive amount of traveling, I have decided to invest much of my commute into audio books and podcasts.  I am thrilled.  I have only ever listened to sermons on long trips but have never been able to listen to a book all the way through, due to most of my driving being short trips from my apartment to my school.  I want to cram as much books into my summer as possible.

As of now, I have started the summer off by reading 7 or 8 books, so I would say I am off to a pretty good start.

 

Next up for me: The Explicit Gospel by Matt Chandler.

Any suggestions for books to listen via my iPod this summer?  Feel free to let me know.

Redeeming My Free-Time

“Employ thy time well, if thou meanest to gain leisure.” – Benjamin Franklin

I know I am not alone in this.  There is a strange sadness to be had when you find yourself plagued by the inability to manage your free-time.  For instance, while at school, I work tirelessly with the goal of getting to winter or summer break.  I plan a variety of things to accomplish, books to read, and projects to begin once I finally have the time.  Then, when the break finally comes around, I find myself sleeping in, wandering aimlessly about my house, taking an inappropriate amount of naps in proportion to my increased sleeping regimen and generally at want for something to do.  Just God forbid it be anything harder than turning on my laptop.

Free time is one of the hardest things for me to manage.  There is a reason for the proverb “If you want something done, give it to a busy person.”  At school, free time is easier to get the most out of because it comes in such short supply and you know you may not see it again for some time.  At home and on break I find myself plagued with an overabundance of free-time and become paralyzed, unsure of what to do first, how much time to devote to something, and wonder if I can’t just put it off one more day since I have such a long time before responsibilities return.

I am now in the midst of putting these free-time blues to rest.  Part of the reason is because I only have a few short days left until I begin training for my job this summer, and the other part of the reason is that I want to accomplish a lot more this summer than earning a paycheck.  There are some books I really want to read, some things I really want to learn, and I really want to focus on writing far more than I previously have.

Today was my first day of acting out this exercise in “carpe diem” and I did the unthinkable thing of making myself get up at 7:30, do some physical exercise, and jump into the Scriptures.  These past two weeks of vacation have been a time of rapidly declining physical, mental and spiritual discipline and I desperately needed to get back to challenging myself and making sure I was growing, rather than slowly weakening.  I will be busy this summer and on some days I will be required to get up early, travel an hour and a half or so, teach four long classes to young students and drive home late just to get up early and do it all over again.  I am not and will not be ready for that by napping throughout the day and browsing God’s Word at my random leisure and I will certainly not feel satisfied if I am unable to accomplish something I really want to do this summer, such as learning a programming language or getting a lot of writing done.  So I finally realized I could no longer afford to let my precious days of freedom slip by unconquered.

Like splashing cold water on your face in the morning, waking up from an overly long holiday from work, challenges and personal growth is not fun, but necessary and maybe even a little refreshing…although, to be fair, I did schedule a small, short nap into my day.

Slowly but surely, right?

Greetings

Welcome to The Servant Scribe.  My name is Joshua Corlew and I look forward to using this blog as a place to post at least 3-4 times a week.  What will my posts concern?  I’m not certain, but I have no doubt they will range from pieces of the creative writing that I will be working on over this summer, to random thoughts about God, life and the world, to whatever cool images I come across on the internet.  The tagline for this blog is “The personal scriptorium of Joshua Corlew” which I think accurately describes my vision for this blog.  I hope that after a substantial amount of time I can return to this blog and find an abundance of material for my own perusal.

In addition to creating a personal library, there are a few other specific reasons I have for wanting to start blogging again.

1. I Really Enjoyed Blogging – As an aspiring writer, there is nothing more essential than writing daily.  Blogging required me to do that and I loved it.  I enjoyed planning topics to blog about the night before and then waking up and cranking them out.  Sometimes I enjoyed it so much I would produce blog posts in batches, while other times my creative well was so dry I couldn’t think of half a subject to discuss in roughly 300 words.  But since I forced myself to write anyways, those days were probably best for me.

2. To Help Clarify My Own Thoughts – I had been aware of this effect before, but could never put it into words.  Thankfully Michael Hyatt, the former CEO of Thomas Nelson, says it perfectly in his own blog MichaelHyatt.com (highly recommended): “Sometimes I joke that I don’t really know what I think about a subject until I have blogged about it.”  The same is true for me.  I think clearer and more productively when I’m writing and working things out on paper.  Part of it comes from the visual aid I get from seeing my thoughts placed into separate blocks of sentences and paragraphs, allowing me to study, rearrange and edit them.

3. To Improve My Writing – I want to be a good writer.  Heck, I won’t lie, I want to be a great writer.  I have never been good at having small goals or humble aspirations; I tend to aim big, sometimes to my detriment.  That said, my desire to be a great writer is severely impaired by my lack of writing.  A blog that forces me to write habitually should help improve my word-smithing as well as help hone my personal style.  At least, that is the goal.

My writing-idol, C.S. Lewis, hard at work on some great piece of work. Or maybe just grading student’s essays.

4. To Create a Presence on the Web – I am a recent graduate and, like many graduates, I am interested in jobs, making connections, creating my personal brand and stuff like that.  I am hoping that a blog will help me build a solid web presence over time.  At worst I hope to take part in some great discussions over some of my posts with people I might never meet in person.

5. To Glorify God – However good my writing may be or ever become (or however bad it is), I want to always keep it purposed towards the mission and glory of God.  That doesn’t mean every post is going to be spiritual-centric, but ultimately, I want my blog to matter.  Pointing to Jesus is the surest way to make sure that happens.

If you are interested in subscribing or returning to my blog I would be honored.  Thanks for checking out The Servant Scribe in the first place and I hope to see you again soon.