How young Edric made himself a general buffoon, and how you, if so inclined, would ideally galavant so as to avoid such malady.

Dear Readers,

I once worked with a young man by the name of Edric. For the sake of professionalism and personal feelings, and because Edric is a rather spicy name, I call him Edric, but his name was as you may have guessed not in fact Edric. I will not say in which of my past jobs I worked with him, and there have been enough that you probably cannot guess; so there.

Onto the story:

Edric was by any normal consideration a superb human being. He had many friends, a magnetic personality, was good at what he did, and was fundamentally very kind. In short he had all of the tools to be successful and happy in this here American society. (No readers, don't worry, Edric is not me, but so flattering of you to make the error ^^.)

However, like Smaug hoarding altogether too much gold and upsetting one too many lake dwelling persons, thus inevitably attracting a ragtag but charismatic band of a wizard, a little person, and a bunch of uppity dwarves, or Oedipus not paying quite enough attention to prophets and subsequently ending up in what we might call a rather awkward family situation, Edric had but one tragic flaw.

Edric was condescending. He did not condescend over talent, or looks, or anything like that, but rather personal ethics. Although Edric was of a very ethical sort, taking care of his friends, paying his debts, doing what he was paid for, never stealing and so forth, he had little respect for those who didn't adhere to these principals. This fact happens to be true of a lot of good-natured ethical people, but Edric took his one major weakness a step further and made his opinion public. Regularly.

He didn't do this by wheeling off all willy-nilly-Don-Quixote-after-a-windmill style. Edric was quiet in his expressed disdain. If a co-worker sat on Farmville all day, letting the responsibility for his work vanish into the bureaucratic morass of his employer, Edric would snort and scoff quietly to himself, ask his fellow pointed questions that indicated the other's ineptitude, and suggest when the slacker was in earshot that Edric himself had enjoyed his productivity for the morning and couldn't understand how the firm was behind on goals.

Now you may be thinking Edric's fault to be not such a fault at all. What harm is there picking on a scallywag or two, especially when said picking might be deserved? Well the problem for Edric was that he was in general such a good guy, and worked at such a dilapidated company that in some way or another, almost everyone with whom he worked fell up short of the Edric bar. That is not to say that this bar was particular high, in fact a nice, normal, fully civilized adult would usually be fine in the eyes of Edric, but for whatever reason he DID work in a place where people failed his test.

There is something about human nature that Edric didn't understand reader. In our hearts what we all want is not that complicated. We want to respect ourselves, and we want our friends and acquaintances to respect us. This means very different things to different people, but few men and women who meet this standard are not quite satisfied with their state of being.

Prior to Edric, many of his work averse colleagues were likely in a state where they had some measure of self respect, and some measure of respect from their peers. When Edric saw their Farmville playing, their assignment redirection, their petty mean acts against others for no greater reasons than questing for attention or boredom, he let them know. It didn't matter that the way he let them know was quiet, or that only he, they, and very observant bystanders would notice the exchange. Edric was letting them know that they shouldn't respect themselves for what they were doing, and that at least one person and probably others did not respect them for what they were doing.

Because Edric's disdain was unfortunately only targeted at the least mature elements of society, their reactions were unfortunately among the least predictable and most negative that could be expected. They freaking hated Edric. He was a threat to peaceful well being, a snake in the Eden of sloth, a Samuel L. Jackson telling you that he was in fact tired of these Mother Fucking Snakes on this Mother Fucking plane, if Snakes were lazy, mean office workers and planes were offices.

How did they react? They whispered, snorted, and quietly made their positions known in return. Some, amongst themselves would say things like:

"That Edric sure has a way of putting his nose where it doesn't belong doesn't he?"
(Translation, oh crap he's onto me! You don't work either do you? What should we do?!!)

"Oh Edric, at it again..."
(Translation, I'm going to pretend that Edric is doing something vague, yet seriously wrong to mask admitting my weakness, but we know the score. Time to go to work boys.)

Others would act independently, putting Edric in difficult situations by giving him extra work, submitting damaging rumors about him, implying that he was incompetent to his face, and generally doing the things that modern employees can do to reciprocate offense against a perceived threat without exposing their soft, soft asses, sweet, sweet deals, and fatty, fatty gravy trains.

At first Edric took no notice, or chose not to notice, but slowly, he began to be affected. Edric still respected himself, but the closest thing he was getting to respect from his colleagues was fear. The human mind is a strange thing in that it begins to believe what it hears enough times, and so little by little Edric's self confidence too, as well as the legitimate respect of many elements in his place of employment, began to fade.

This changed Edric's often cheery and energetic demeanor to a bellicose and often bitter one, and was a dark specter over his heart.

Edric began blaming his co-workers increasingly for their actions. He saw a world turned against him, and grew furious that things could be so unjust. Where once his gestures of contempt were quiet, difficult to decipher, they began to be sloppy, overt, even aggressive at times. This only served to further goad the work weary workers around him, and they returned fire.

At this point you can likely see the vicious cycle that took place in Edric's life. I will leave it up to you to decide whether or not everything ended well, and if Edric found a way out of the mess. Now comes the important part. Why were Edric's actions misguided, and why despite perhaps being right, should we never do what Edric did unless ready to face the consequences?

People hold their self image too dear to take assaults against it lightly. The same is doubly true for ongoing attacks. No matter how toady, no matter how repulsive, no matter how awful a certain person's way of dealing with others and himself might be, pointing this out to him is obviously going to have repercussions. Edric was in a position where he truly thought he might make the world a better place by facing off against wrongdoers, and where he felt fully justified in his actions. When they retaliated, all he saw were the same negative traits manifesting higher, and felt outraged that he, of all people, would have to be the victim of this kind of assault.

Edric was not prepared to face the consequences though. He liked his job, he liked the respect that others showered on him for his good work, and he had not realized that this was the mana on which he lived. When it was taken, he wilted and was sad.

What does this mean for us? In the situations where we are surrounded by half efforts and poor morality, we often have to choose between struggling against this, and our peace of mind. In Edric's case the "evil" he saw was not really harming the world in any powerful way, nor was it something Edric had any hope of changing, but he still flung himself headlong at it like a fool, and was surprised when things went poorly for him.

The nail that sticks up gets hammered down, so if you're going to stick up you'd better like hammers. If not, I suggest being pragmatic and withholding criticism from all improper channels.

That is all readers, you may disagree but hopefully Edric's story has helped you to consider the issue,
Tim

"Hans" or I'm pretty sure that's not my type of date

Today I have fairly awkward story to share with you,

So recently I had the opportunity to go to Switzerland for two weeks. I saw many amazing and unforgettable things there and gained plenty of random tales. One of the more interesting ones involves a Swiss German I met who we will call Hans.

It started in a hostel in Interlaken, a town on two large lakes that contain the runoff from Europe's highest and possibly most gorgeous range of mountains. This hostel was a large affair with beds for over 100, a gaming room, and a full cafeteria. As I was there during tourism off season things were pretty quiet during breakfast on a clear morning day. While I ate near the counter, the resident chef got to talking to me.

He was a blonde haired, blue eyed man who look to be in his late thirties. Standing around five foot eight he was hardly tall, and while physically fit had a slight gut to him, presumably from drinking lots of good Swiss and German beer. His English was heavily accented, but passable, although he frequently could not find the words to express a simple thought. I was struck by how friendly and open he was, talking to me for about forty five minutes about his life in Switzerland and what I should do while there.

As most Americans do, I eventually got tired of talking and wanted to go do something else. As I departed he smiled and said that we should have a beer later. I laughed and said sure. What a nice guy!

So I got back from hiking up to Schilthorn (the site of that 1969 Bond ski chase scene)after about eight hours and go to make myself some dinner in the kitchen basement of the hostel. As I walk down the stairs Hans sees me waves, smiles again, and says he gets off work soon.

I strike up a conversation with a South Korean woman in the kitchen after she asks me if I am American. It happens that I am a pretty big fan of professional Starcraft (That's another story, but it's a crazy big thing in some subcultures of South Korea). She herself had only watched a few matches but thought it was funny that I knew about it. As we talked, I noticed that Hans had migrated downstairs and was now in his street cloths. He was sitting outside of the kitchen using an internet booth and evidently on Facebook. He had not said anything to me when he came downstairs. Kind of strange...

At some point Hans cuts into the conversation by more or less demanding that I help him add me on Facebook. I don't see a way to gracefully decline, and so I provide my contact info. When the South Korean woman leaves later, and I get up to go, Hans asks me if I would like to share a beer outside. Generally I try to accept social invitations and be open to new experiences, so I went along with it. Hans leaves and says to meet him upstairs in a bit.

I go back to my room and accept the Facebook invite. I see that Hans is bisexual and single. Now I am thinking that the man is interested in men and potentially me, but hey, perhaps he is just being friendly, and if nothing else it would be awkward to just leave him standing down in the lobby.

I go downstairs and don't see Hans, then look outside to a large grassy green where one family of tourists sit around a table, and Hans sits 50 fit away alone at another. He has two large beers out.

Sitting down at the table, the fact that my beer as well as his are already open immediately becomes apparent. Slightly concerned now about being drugged based on Hans's erratic behavior earlier, I take the beer closer to him and we discuss life, Switzerland, and the hostel/cooking business for a while. The conversation starts to get strained due to language barrier after about forty minutes. It is then that Hans shifts the subject towards what I am doing later, raising his eyebrows a bit and smiling more. I'm fairly certain of his intentions and trying to think of a way to politely excuse myself when I notice his shirt.

For some reason it had not become apparent earlier in the conversation, but it really is a peculiar shirt. Mostly black with cutoff sleeves, it has a bunch of logo pins attached to it and a picture of a guitar. The pins in tiny, tiny lettering all say "Let's fuck". There is silence for about 45 seconds. Hans continues to smile and winks as he raises his eyebrows again. It seems he has noticed me reading his pins. I tell Hans I am tired and going to bed for hiking tomorrow despite his complaints of it being too early and me being boring/needing to try to have more fun in Switzerland.

I block Hans from Facebook and set my profile to friends of friends only as I wonder how acceptable it is to be bothered by bisexuality. Normally I don't pay very much attention to orientation, but normally I am also not the somewhat blunt target of an alternate perspective. The room down the hall distracts me from this line of thought as I realize that since getting back they have been blaring some dubstep. This same room was cranking dubstep when I left in the morning, and had been doing more or less the same as far as I could tell every day since I arrived at the hostel three days prior. I almost crack up and get out my book to read before bed. Switzerland can be a strange place.

Until next time readers,
Tim

Some weirdo I know

Well hello there readers,

Today I have a short somewhat biographical snippet to share. It's about a peculiar specimen of humanity to whom I owe quite a lot.

My dad is funny, intelligent, caring and creative; in short he is a wonderful man. He is also a huge weirdo.

I'm not talking about that social-outcast-make-elaborate-villages-out-of-toothpicks-and-glitter-all-alone-all-day type, but more the kind who does things just because other people don't, loving every second of it.

He trained in resource economics and programs computers, he ostensibly likes charred meat and black licorice, and he keeps plastic prehistoric sea creatures on his work desk at home, and a large actually frightening plastic rat on his shelf at work. This is a man who worked as a draft counselor, advising people how to get out of war duty during Vietnam, and who moved from Michigan to Seattle alone just to change the pace of his life.

When my sister and I were collectively about as big as the TVs were at the time, he would read to us every night and continued doing so for years. What did he read for 90% of that time? Lord of the Rings... over and over and over. We've been through that one series at least six times.

Given the choice between a luxury all expenses paid vacation featuring all of a cities fineries, and a walk in the mountains, he would almost certainly take the walk.

I still have at best a very hazy idea of what this particular weirdo did during his life between 20 and 30, and I pry more details from him now and then. A tragic accident wiped out all photographic records of the man from his earlier life, so I don't even know what he looked liked.

These kinds of details are not isolated events, there are thousands of them and together they form a human being. Not only that, but they rubbed off on me. What I'm trying to say by this is that when people look at me and say something to the effect of "You're an odd one Tim" (and believe me, this justifiably happens a lot) I smile for a reason. I know why I'm a strange fellow and it's more than a point of pride.

-Tim