Lost Season 3 Thoughts

The writers of Lost are nothing short of brilliant. They’ve been able to connect the characters in life and on the island, they’ve brought so many things full circle, they can create an unsettling eeriness, and give mysterious power to the island-and still make it all somewhat believable. Given, that’s a writer’s job but to be honest, when Stephen King’s “The Mist” turned out to be filled with creatures from another dimension, I just didn’t buy it. But a mysterious island that is filled with people with interconnected lives, polar bears and crazy scientists bent on fertility research-that I can buy.

But the most powerful tool the writers of Lost use is suspense. They began in small ways, with little teasers for the next commercial break and then used the teasers to connect the next episode. By Season 3, this is so evolved that they now leave teasers and don’t come back to them for three or four episodes. They also do this in the back stories. Suspense is created by the viewers sheer uncertainty of their perception of a character’s moral code. Is this character really going to kill this man, or con this person? They seem decent enough on the island, but I’m not sure their real story. The writers have finally tapped into the ultimate way to create suspense-flash forwards. Whereas up to this point, Lost has been suspense created on what’s to come next, what decision will this character make in this story, who’s side is this person really on?-the situation is now completely reversed. The last episode of Season three offers the first “flash forward” a glimpse of what has already come to pass. The viewer is now in the position where the writers hint at key decisions that are currently happening and the viewer is left trying to put those decisions in the order that lead up to that event coming to pass. It is the most brilliant form of suspense.

More observations from Season 3
Spoiler Alert: Don’t read if you think this might ruin your Lost viewing experience.

The Free Market Economy
The political system of the Island seems to be pretty simple-it’s entirely free market where the only currency are cons. Everything seems to be traded through a system of cons, exchanging favors in order to set other people free. The only way to get ahead is to be brilliant at manipulation and making people think they are doing what they want to do, when really they are doing what you want them to do. An example is when John Locke blows up the submarine, accomplishing his goals, but also finding that he has really fulfilled the wishes of Ben, who was looking for a way out in his agreement to let Jack and Juliette off the island. Whereas I thought manipulations like this might decrease as people found out they can’t really get anywhere by hiding everything, the manipulations have actually increased and become the only form of decision making and barter on the island.

The Dharma Initiative

Again, I thought more would be revealed about what the Dharma Initiative was about. As it turns out, less is being revealed about what the Dharma Initiative was, only what happened to it. It is more unclear as to the purpose of the island-originally it was thought to be the Dharma Initiative, but since there were other groups on the island that have been warring over control for the island, it seems there is a lot more going on than the Dharma Initiative.

The “Others” are revealed to be a remnant of a group the overtook the Dharma Initiative through the help of Ben, and they are now a group being run by leadership of Ben. Ben is working under the mysterious control of a being known as “Jacob”. But what is the purpose of the “Others” and why did they have to annihilate the Dharma workers? They carry on in the spirit of the Dharma Initiative, using their facilities and conducting experiments. But it also seems they are not working towards the goals of the Dharma Initiative, their goals seem to be survival and the biddings of the Island.

Big Questions

• What is the Dharma Initiative?
• Why are people warring over the Island? Who are the Others, really, and what are their goals?
• Why is everyone connected, why does everyone seem to fit (Locke’s dad being the con man who ruined Sawyer’s life, who happens to show up at the island)?

Other Interesting Things:

It hit me today while I was in church, the term ‘House of Jacob’ is everywhere in the Bible. Jacob is a mysterious being who resides in an old house in the jungle on the island. I don’t really know where that leads, but it’s certainly creepy.

Again, the season finale of Season 3 brings with it the first flash forward. The episode tracks through part of Jack’s life which until the very end, the viewer still perceives as a ‘flash back’. But it turns out that Jack is actually back from the island and struggling very mightily with a prescription drug addiction. He meets with Kate to express regrets over what happened on the island. This creates a very foreboding suspense for the viewers because the entire time, we have been pushing forward in the hopes that all will end well, that the survivors will make it off the island and everything will be okay. But this is not the case as we see that once they finally get off the island, things are still very, very wrong. This is a mind-blowingly ingenious way to create suspense-you find your hopes crushed, you hang on every word trying to figure out, “What exactly are they talking about, what went wrong?” By giving clues as to what happens in the end, the writers are actually creating more drama and chaos.

I think Season 4 is definitely about to go into high gear. I cheated an episode or two ahead before I wrote this, and I definitely think this is the season where your head just wants to explode. Everyone said Season 3 was really a turning point into the chaotic, but I see only the last episode as a jumping off point for the madness that is sure to ensue in Season 4.

Lost Season 2 Thoughts

Back at it again, I have finished the daunting task of watching all of Season 2. A lot of folks told me that Season 2 was there favorite and I think it mostly has to do with the escalation of confrontations, both inner and outer, of the characters as well as the depth of connections amongst members on the island. My observations on Season 2 are a little brief but feel free to add to them in the comments!

Spoiler Alert: The following may contain important plot elements

General Observations on the Season

The characters seem to be confronted more and more with their inner demons.
Charlie is confronted more and more with his drug habits, with Virgin Mary statues packed with heroin staring him in the face repeatedly. He is forced to come to terms with the fact that his actions and his past may drive people away from him. John Locke is confronted with his inner demons later in the season, as he struggles with the purpose of the island. Up until late in Season 2, everything has happened just as John has said-for a reason. The island seems to be the place where everything makes sense for Locke, and Locke is quick to pick up on it. He gives in to the mystery of the island and follows it on faith alone. This leads him to the Hatch and in Season 2, leads Echo and Locke to Station 5 on the island. But this is where things begin to fall apart and John’s inner demons of a lack of purpose come to the forefront.

These confrontations lead to a lashing out of the bad qualities in the characters. They seem to be compensating for their past here on the island. Jack is a good example of this. In Season 2, Jack becomes overly heroic, whereas in Season 1 it was as though heroism and leadership were being thrust upon him. Jack and Locke quarrel for half the season in a leadership struggle, and Jack seems emboldened to act over this struggle for power. He is more brash and less logical, typically leading to other characters to point out what he is missing.

Connections deepen in the members of the island.
To friends who are unfamiliar with the show, I compare it to the movie Crash, only in 40 minute episodes. I mean where do the connections end really? Season 2 reveals that Anna was hired as a body guard for Jack’s dad on his escape to Australia where he died. Jack’s dad was also the doctor who was supposed to operate on Shannon and Boone’s dying father in the car crash. The first episode reveals that Desmond, a character who had a small chat with Jack years ago in the states, is the man in the Hatch. Desmond was given his boat by Libby, a passenger in the tail section of the plane. Libby has a small romance with Hurley, where it is revealed that she was also at the mental institution where Hurley was being treated. Kate’s mom served Sawyer and his partner at the diner she worked at, just before Sawyer conned a woman out of $600,000. Echo finds that his brother crashed and died on the island, who was shot and accidentally ended up on the drug trafficking plane, saving Echo’s life. Desmond discovers that he may have allowed the machine in the Hatch to send out electromagnetic waves which may have crashed Oceanic Flight 815 in the first place. And finally, we find that the character that trains Desmond to replace him is none other than the U.S. Military officer who coerced Sayid into torturing an Iraqi officer in the Gulf War. It’s enough to make your head spin, isn’t it?

And these connections are all pointing to something, but I guess it’ll take another 4 seasons to figure out just what.

Mystery of the Island

This continues to unfold as the island becomes a more and more powerful and mysterious force. Echo stands head on with the black mist that seems to haunt everyone else, and it backs down. I’m eager to say it senses fear, in which case Echo would fit the bill. But Locke had a similar experience where he was unafraid of the mist and still was taken by it. Maybe it was his curiosity that the mist took him for.

More is revealed about the purpose of the island with the discovery of another station. This leads Locke to believe that everything about the project on the island is revealed but I’m very skeptical and believe Station 5 is as leading to answers as it is misleading. Proof of this are the handwritten notebooks spit out in the middle of nowhere that Jack, Kate, Sawyer and Michael find, proving that Station 5 is as much a meaningless task as the Hatch. These were notebooks filled with observations that were supposed to be delivered straight to the project headquarters.

Political connections

This leads me to some political connections. Someone told me a political science professor at the University of Kentucky used Lost as a basis for a lecture and I’m doing my best to piece together some elements. There are definitely traces of anarchism, though I can’t put them together well enough to describe it. There is this element where everyone is watching each other. So even though Station 5 is revealed to be surveillance for the Hatch, Station 5 is being watched by someone else. I think eventually this will be revealed to be the power structure of the entire island-each station working towards some meaningless goal and all the while watching to see what the other stations are up to. I believe this comes from ideas put forward by Foucoult but I’m not too sure. His idea was a prison cell with doors positioned just so that you never know who is watching. In this way, prisoners monitored their own behavior and acted in all times as though someone was watching him.

There are also strains of aboriginal anarchism in the “Others”. This comes mostly from a book I read called “Ishmael” by Daniel Quinn. In it he describes ancient tribal tactics wherein tribes didn’t attack one another with the hopes of conquering the other. They attacked sparingly in order to keep their enemies on their toes. This seems to be the strategy of the “Others”. They attack randomly and take what they need, to get what they want and to keep the survivors at bay. But their goal never seems to be to overtake or expel the survivors.

There is also an enormous collective commons problem within the survivors that is amplified in Season 2. While I hoped the group would rally together as was indicated at the end of Season 1, they seem to only further splinter the group into pieces.

In a collective commons problem, a group has a set pool of resources. If everyone invests in the pool of resources and shares goods commonly, the whole group as well as the individual benefits. But if members abstain from investing, while still sharing goods, they benefit greatly at the detriment of the group. This is known as a freerider problem. It’s exemplified in Season 1 by the character of Sawyer, who stows away resources constantly. He benefits greatly from the finding of resources by the group, but invests little back in. This becomes a problem when individuals acting altruistically, such as Jack when trying to heal someone, are dependent upon individuals like Sawyer, who are hoarding valuable resources. This problem is amplified in Season 2-Sawyer hoards all the extremely valuable resources for a short time, Jack and Locke quarrel over leadership, Michael fights for his son at the expense of two lives and four hostages. These are costing the group in major ways and preventing them from being an extremely strong group together. Everyone seems bent on their own ideas and their own pursuits. But I guess that’s how things go when you’re stranded on a mysterious desert island.

That’s about all I’ve got for now. I wasn’t as sharp with the connections and the questions in this season, but I did get quite caught up in this season. At this point now, my least favorite character is Michael because of his selfishness. But the episode focused entirely on Claire was pretty hard to bare still. Let me know what you think and I look forward to Season 3.

Lost Season 1 Thoughts

I know what you’re thinking and yes, I did just start watching Lost. And I know what you’ll think while you’re reading this, and yes, I realize that many of these thoughts or questions will be answered later on in the show. But this show is amazing and I’ve developed somewhat of a hobby of breaking things down like this so I just wanted to share some connections I noticed throughout the first season.

Spoiler Alert: The following may contain important plot elements.

General Observations About Characters

Season 1 is where many of the stories of the characters are told, mostly pertaining to what was happening to them immediately before getting on the plane. The stories are developed layer upon layer, and the trend towards the end of the season reveals that some of these stories begin interweaving up until the the boarding of the plane. These are some of my observations about what the characters and their stories hold in common:

Each character has something they’re running from, as well as something that’s pushing them forward.
Charlie is running from his past as a junkie and what’s pushing him forward is his relationship to Claire and the hope of a more stable life. This is the driving force behind his actions on the island, as one of his former relationships failed because of his attempt for stability that ended in a moral failing. Claire seems to be running from life she hoped to make with the father of her baby, as she boarded the plane in hopes of giving it to an adoptive family. She also is very hesitant to trust another caregiver in Charlie. Sayid is running from a very troubled past as a soldier and is being pushed forward in hopes of finding his childhood friend, Nadia. Jack, even though he is sent to find his father, is running from the memory or shadow of his father. He seems to be pushed forward by his drive and his commitment to excellence in all things. John Lock is running from a troubled past and from his boring life in hopes of adventure. He is being pushed forward by the onset of the most real adventure he could ever experience.

The exception to this is Sawyer, who seems to be the only character that is running away from everything, with nothing pushing him forward. This is probably why he is very comfortable at the island as a scavenger, and also why he goes on the suicide mission of leaving on the raft.

Most characters found themselves in compromising situations before the crash.
It was their response to these situations that is indicative of their overall character disposition. For example, Charlie is repeatedly confronted with compromising situations involving his drug addiction. In one episode, it’s revealed that Charlie romanced a woman in hopes of stealing from her in order to buy drugs. After romancing her and even getting a steady job (hopes of a steady life), his morals break and he gives into the need to purchase drugs. I think this will be developed more later, as the last episode showed him with a stash of heroine from the drug traffickers wrecked airplane. In contrast, Jack is faced with being swept up in covering for his father’s malpractice in surgery. For a little while, he gives in, but eventually does what is right by changing his testimony. Sawyer and Kate face compromising situations and usually their morals fail.

Most Characters are either Con-artists, or have been conned themselves.
John Locke was conned into a kidney transplant by his long lost parents. Claire was conned (or misled rather) in having her baby, as well as being led to fly to Los Angeles. It’s unclear whether the palm reader foresaw the plane crash, but I believe he did. Michael was conned into letting the mother of his child move away and raise their child, and then after her death he was conned by the stepfather into taking Walt back. Boone was conned into helping his sister, by his sister and her boyfriend.

Sawyer and Kate are the ultimate con-artists in real life, holding a string of cons in their real lives. (i.e. Kate romancing the bank robber in order to get the model airplane)

Other general observations:
Characters seem to be bent on making deals

• Despite being stranded where their focus should be on survival and stripped of the constraints of a market society, they still enter into a system of exchanges of favors. An example is Kate, who seems to be bent on making deals with both Jack and Sawyer.

All characters seem to do both good and evil

• This is based particularly on the immediate situations. For example, Michael is generally good but when it comes to his son, he is capable of evil.
• The epitome of this aspect seems to be Kate, who is equally capable of very good things as well as very evil things. Her most evil acts seem to be what’s in her past, before the wreck, and her evil on the island seems to play out in a series of cons, manipulations and her secrets. In this sense, she is almost the Luke Skywalker of the island and it seems to be only a matter of convincing her to join the Dark side. This is why she is equally capable to handle Jack, through a series of manipulations and good-doing, and Sawyer, through a series of cons. When Jack asks her why she thinks she can handle Sawyer, she says, “I speak his language.” This is also the reason she is probably equally drawn and attracted to both Jack and Sawyer, as they represent the two sides of her.

Character Foils

There seems to be two major character foils (characters that represent opposing worldviews). The first is Jack and Sawyer. Jack represents a character committed to excellence, integrity and the greater good. Sawyer represents a character committed to self-preservation and manipulation. They are almost exact opposites and as mentioned above, represent the two sides of Kate, thus the reasoning behind her spending equal time with each of them. Jack seems bent on guarding himself, while Sawyer seems bent on exposing him, and Kate as well. It will be very interesting to see how their characters connect more, especially with the connection of Sawyer’s meeting with Jack’s dad at the bar. It is also interesting the development of Sawyer into a more trustworthy character through Kate’s influence.

The other major character foil is Jack and John Locke. While they are not opposite reflections of one another like Jack and Sawyer, they represent opposing philosophies. They both are capable of great leadership, and also possess great expertise (Jack with medicine, Locke with surviving). But they represent different outlooks. As Locke said in the season finale, Jack is a man of science, Locke is a man of faith. While Jack does not believe much in the purpose of their being on the island, he believes in preserving the greater good, and helping as many people survive as possible. He’s almost possessed by a drive to save everyone.

Locke, however, is bent on the belief that the Island means something. This stems mostly from the miraculous healing of his paralysis upon landing on the island. He pursues the purpose of the Island in almost fascist-like leadership, where lives are only important in their advancement of exploration of the Island’s purpose. For example, Boone’s death was an acceptable loss because it was the fulfillment of the Island’s wishes and advanced understanding of the Island. The Island is pursued by Locke with religious fanaticism and this is why he and Jack’s worldviews are at odds on the island.

The Power of the Island

It’s obvious there is baffling mystery surrounding the island. So many happenings are inexplicable, and attributed to the mystery of the island. The island seems to possess the ability to bring out the best in people and the worst in people. This is epitomized in the leadership of Locke, who is almost a spokesperson for the Island, as he puts many characters through tests to reveal something about themselves on the island.

There also seems to be great mystery surrounding the island, in the events preceding the crash. Examples of this are the palm reader, who reads Claire’s palms and has a very powerful prophetic experience, and Hurley’s mysterious lottery numbers that continue to point to their being on the island.

What Brought Them All to the Island?

This is brought up throughout the first season. Hurley believes it is his cursed numbers, Jin believes his punishment for his sins against a fellow man and his wife, Locke believes it to be fate. I think there is some sort of element of fate, of the Island all bringing them together for some sort of trial. Their lives seem to all be filled with hiding secrets, and though they are guarded, a key to survival on the island will be more openness and honesty. There also seems to be the appropriate trials for people on the island. Charlie becoming clean and then being confronted with a wrecked plan full of heroin seems to be fate testing him. There’s plenty to test Jack as a doctor and Locke as an adventurer. There’s the test of Claire being able to trust someone else to help raise the baby, after being betrayed by the baby’s father. There’s also the need for dependence and relationship repair in both Michael with his son and Jin with Sun. These are trials that the Island seems to be able to solve.

There’s also the element of fate of all the passengers ending up on the plane. Despite many obstacles, some passengers ended up on the plane. Sayid was supposed to fly to L.A. a day before but delayed in order to claim the body of his friend. Hurley was late as ever but determined to fly on this flight in order to attend his mother’s birthday. Locke also experiences complications when the airport’s wheelchair is missing, but is carried on by airport employees. It seems that despite all these obstacles, all were able to make it on board.

Questions

I’m really wondering what the numbers do mean. So far they mean something to Hurley, Danielle, and Kate. They are also on the hatch. So it seems integral to the story of the Island. I’ll be interested to see who else is affected by them.

What will Kate be on the island? She seems to be overall a good character, but with such an evil past, when will this start emerging on the island?

What in the world happened with that boat that found the raft with Michael, Sawyer, Jin and Walt? Who are they and how did they know about Walt?

How did Claire get on the plane? She’s way too late in her third trimester. I doubt she even tried to get a doctor’s approval, but even if she did, a doctor never would have approved. How did she get through the airport terminal in such a late stage of pregnancy and still get on the plane? Did she lie? Was it fate?

**Also, at this point my least favorite characters are Charlie and Claire. They’re meant for each other because they both freak out, they’re stubborn and overly emotional. They make judgments in extremely unbalanced emotional states and then they don’t listen to anyone when they try to talk them out of it. This drives me nuts!!

Well, I am going to press on through the seasons, and I really am enjoying the break down of this show. So much fits together so well and the writing is excellent. My one major disappointment is the skipping over of Charlie’s drug withdrawls. This would have been a very traumatic experience and it was only played out in one mention of the episode where Charlie is sweating profusely. Anyway, let me know your thoughts, and don’t spoil anything for me! I still have four seasons to go!

Concert Review: Derek Webb

I just spent a night of getting my mind blown seeing Derek Webb open up his Black Eye Tour in Louisville, Kentucky. This is actually the second year I’ve seen Webb in concert, and I think the juxtaposition of the two concerts is what really blows my mind.

I loved the first concert (because Webb is awesome; to be discussed later) because it was stripped down, informal and engaging. In an old chapel in Georgetown, Kentucky, pumping through a tiny PA system, Webb walked on stage with a 12-string guitar and a notebook containing hundreds of songs. After the first couple, he proceeded to break a string, change it and banter aimlessly while he took requests from the audience. This would be the pattern for the rest of the evening. Each song ending in applause, followed quickly by shouted requests from the audience and candid banter from Webb while flipping through his binder of songs throughout the show. I loved the stripped down quality of the whole show, the bravery it must take an artist to forget about putting on an elaborate show and actually just play some honest music (he even covered Dylan that night) and joke back and forth with the audience.

I stuck around to speak with him after the show, wanting not to be “that guy” that musters up fake conversation to pretend he’s cool enough to talk to a famous musician. So all I wanted to say was, “Thanks for saying a lot of things that other people won’t say,” (more of a comment on some of his social and political stances). Amazingly, Webb engaged me in conversation for at least a half hour after that, talking about the upcoming election (it was September) and all sorts of things. On the whole, a stripped down, honest, engaging night and I loved it.

But the guy continues to blow my mind. Before our conversation, I overheard Webb telling a fan that his new record was going to be very electronic, urban and he was very excited about it. It didn’t seem very appealing from what I had just seen. Walking into the concert last night, which was at the 930 Art Center, I had no real expectations, just excitement to see Derek Webb again.

In he walked, with a drummer and a keyboard player, to a stage decorated with ceiling light bulbs and instantly I was floored. His new album, which he played all the way through, is a perfect blend of driving bass, catchy drum loops mixed with brilliant acoustic percussion, and a synthesizer-keyboard wizard that will blow your mind. The concert provides a perfect match, becoming somewhat of a performance art piece where one track dies and flows into the next one and the ceiling bulbs become flashing connections to the mood of the music. To say the least, his new album, Stockholm Syndrome, is catchy and creative. The concert performance is a perfect match. And to please his longtime fans, he even played an acoustic set filled with request shouting and candid conversation. What an amazing show!

Quick facts on why I am a fan of Derek Webb

1. He talks a lot. And so do I, so that makes me feel more at ease. But he also has a lot to say, between all the hilarious and aimless chatter he’s prone to do. Emerging from a “Christian Artist” background, I’m pretty sure he broke ties with that because he had a lot to say that some might view as “unchristian”. But I think it’s important to not just be a quiet, docile follower in a church, and sometimes saying what the church needs to hear the most will get you shunned from it. I admire many of the things Webb speaks out on, and find his brash honesty and sincerity extremely refreshing.

2. He’s got talent. Each of his CDs is a unique experience. They aren’t an evolution or progression of the same writing style, refined over time. He re-invents himself almost as much Coldplay and each step has been brilliant in its own right. It’s great to hear someone with that “Christian Artist” background emerge with some amazing talent and creativity.

3. He articulates a Christian worldview, sometimes in an “unchristian” way. He’s frustrated with a world that avoids social justice, who hopes for political salvation and sometimes just doesn’t get it about Jesus. He tries to think of other ways to bring hope and to live out the Way. He calls out the Church. He cusses sometimes. And I think that’s the biggest reason why I am a fan of his.

So in short: See him in concert, buy his new CD*, and follow him on Twitter!

*If you do buy the CD, make sure it has the track “What Matters More”. There’s some sort of controversy over the content of the song, and it’s not being sold in some places (which is all the more reason to make sure you have it).

Read and Write Culture

I have two friends who would be absolutely lost without their GPS in their cars. In fact, even with the GPS, they still tend to get lost.

I sit next to them as they passively wait on the instructions from the digital voice which controls our directional fate. Not relying on any surroundings, intuitive sense of direction, or even, God forbid, street signs, they listen only to that voice. But in many cases, this passivity and over-reliance on the all-knowing guidance from the tiny box mounted from their car windshields tends to lull them to sleep, or somehow the voice fades into the background amidst the iPod hooked into the dash or the conversation flowing throughout the car.

Somehow they miss the directions. And rather than trusting their judgment which tells them to turn at the light when it doesn’t look exactly like the map on the screen, using directions (the cardinal ones) to re-orient themselves, or figuring out which streets they can take to get back on track, they sit back…

and wait for the GPS to re-calculate.

What my GPS-reliant friends are showing me is a growing tendency towards passivity- towards letting things be worked out for them, for people or companies or technologies to hand them something and they take it at face value. They accept it as the best possible something that company or person or technology could ever offer them.

I’m using this example to address specifically an issue I have with the rise of a “Read and Write Culture”. With 2.0 technologies at our fingertips, information is changing quickly and in the hands of numerous sources-rather than the slower processes of the past through the work of just a few sources. In the 2.0 era, information, technology, social interaction and institutions have become as much about receiving (“Reading”) them as engaging, changing and informing (“Writing”) them.

So the cool thing about 2.0 is that it’s as much about what you put out there and change and innovate as the structures that allow you to do so. Facebook and Twitter wouldn’t be much without folks posting pictures, links and status updates, and folks wouldn’t have as many ways to express themselves on the internet without Facebook or Twitter.

But my trouble is folks who are becoming too comfortable with what everyone else is dishing out, and not engaging or changing anything. Or not even bothering to find out the underlying structure of what allows them to engage in 2.0. What I fear is a generation falling back into the power structures of old, allowing information structures to consolidate into hands of a few sources. What troubles me are folks who plug in the iPod, GPS or computer and just go, folks that are receiving and folks that are so plugged in and reliant on their information giving gizmos that they aren’t adding anything to it.

They’re not writing.

And other folks are noticing this.

This comes from Transparent Office, a blog geared towards helping 2.0 technologies become effective in businesses. This literally shows that 2.0-ers are not writing. As the threshold for participation becomes higher (meaning more investment and knowledge is necessary) the less they are being used. The bulk of people are engaged in social networking and file sharing. But on the edge of the spectrum, tools such as blogging and wikis which require intense amounts of user-generated content cause a drastic drop in user participation.

Mac vs. PC

My thinking on this issue came to a particular light when recently I made the decision to crossover from the PC realm and purchase a new MacBook. The debate over Mac vs. PC basically came down to two camps in my circle of friends: those that knew the underlying structure and power that PCs could offer in a more cost-effective manner and those that knew the ease of use and care-free nature that Macs can provide users.

The first group had a deep understanding in what makes computers tick, they can alter and change PCs however they want, they can get a lot out of them and can put a lot into them. In my mind originally, these folks were the essence of Read and Write culture. Not only could they engage and participate in sharing information, but they could even manipulate the structure of the device that allowed them to share information. They experimented with operating systems, finding optimum performance in components well outside the norm of what the majority of people use.

The second group, in my mind, seemed bound up in the vertical hierarchy of information sharing, officially licensed and distributed by Apple, Inc. These folks could exchange information so long as it was through the proper channels that Apple provided. These folks also seemed quite helpless when it came to knowing the devices they were using to share information. When asked why I should consider Macs, they shared horror stories about slow, older computers that crashed and had many problems; problems that I knew could easily be handled by my PC friends by a simple defragging of the hard-drive, an inexpensive RAM upgrade and some good anti-virus software.

In my mind, the latter folks are lumped together right in with the folks that are attached to their GPS’s and iPhones, and any other devices that fill in where our brains seem to be lacking. These people are passively allowing others to write their technological experience for them and are thinking nothing of it. These people are strictly readers-and this is what I am afraid of in a post 2.0 era.

What I think is most important about 2.0 technologies is that each user should strive for balance in being both a reader and a writer. The argument posed in the Power Law of Participation is that most users are unfamiliar with the more invested 2.0 technologies, and this may be the case with the Mac vs. PC battle as well. It may take more engagement to maintain a balance in reading and writing.

But I’m also hoping that some of it might be that structures are being better at meeting users needs, and that frees users to focus more on producing than worrying about underlying structures. What I also realized in my breakdown of the philosophies of Mac users vs. PC users was that Mac users, in my experience, were some of the most exceptional at generating content (movies, photography, writing, presentations). The simplicity of Macs and the operating system streamlines many of the slip-ups and management that PCs generally require. And I was very pleased to find that I only had to make a few minor adjustments to the default settings of Mac OS X because it is so geared towards ease of use already. So maybe, in a sense, Mac vs. PC users are both writers in their own ways.

Maybe there is more to be understood about Readers vs. Writers, Mac vs. PC, Underlying Structures vs. Generating Content. But in my opinion, there is definitely a need for users to be as much Readers as they are Writers in this 2.0 era.

Out to Camp-Back in 5 Weeks!

Hey folks,

This summer I am working my fourth summer with  the wonderful  people of Passport Camps (read more here). I am in charge of Recreation and we are staying at the very scenic Mercer University in Macon, Georgia.  Things have been going great so far-we have finished a week  of training and one week of camp.  Our theme this year is especially exciting-it is called  “[re] Mix” and it is a challenge for youth to  re-emphasize their need (or for the first time to realize) for the gift of grace from Jesus, to change some things in  their own personal life, and to change their outward actions because of this gift. Last summer was a very challenging outward focus towards social  justice in the world. This summer’s theme is for [re]centering and [re]membering the way Jesus’ actions should affect our lives and how that should affect our actions towards the world. It’s a very inward, discipleship focused theme,  which I think is important,  but it is also a call to change outward actions because of the inner changes-which I think  is extremely important.

We have some amazing folks working with us this summer-folks from  all  over the Southeast in various denominations. We have a Teach For America teacher from Arizona.  Also,  our pastor  is an amazing woman named  Brenda Thompson, she is a Duke Divinity student. I wake up every  morning in disbelief of the talented folks I get to  surround myself   with every  day, and in  amazement at the great things they  can  accomplish. A sidenote-there are only four males on  staff (myself included)  which makes for a very interesting dynamic in staff.

I wanted to update folks who  may not be aware, or may  not be fully  aware of things going here this summer. I feel  like my life at camp  has taken a huge toll on  my life outside of camp  and so this is an attempt to pause and re-connect the two. Please feel free to contact me by commenting,  email of Facebook message. Here is my camp  address, as I  love old fashioned mail:

Chris Hughes
Passport Staff
Mercer University
1400 Coleman Avenue
Macon,  GA 31207.

Please pray for our camp,  as you  feel  so inclined. The summer is an important shift  for church  groups, so it is essential that folks treat is a great time for possible change. Lastly, the best way to keep track of all the goings on of camp and my life is through my twitter-I’ve been updating quite frequently with pictures and funny side comments about camp. Find me there at twitter.com/chrishughes34. I hope that as you read this, you are having an exciting summer,  that you seek out new ways for God to challenge you in the freedoms of summer  and that you stay connected with those folks around you that have supported you thus far.

Good Ministry

I have just returned from a mission trip in Charleston, South Carolina working with a group called Charleston Outreach and this is an amazing group of folks committed to ministering. To be honest, this is a mission trip I have been on for three years, just in different cities around the country. Two years ago it was New Orleans, last year it Arlington and every year I have been given some new insight about ministry. Each of these places began with open minds ready for God to take them wherever God might lead. And they have evolved into these organizations totally dependent on the movements of God and outreach to places where no one else is going. This is to say, that these are folks that are committed to God, but wanting something more than a church with a building where you say “Come here and meet us.” It is a group of people going to where the people are and meeting their needs and introducing them to this man named Jesus.

I was a little taken aback by the man named Chuck that runs Charleston Outreach, as he walked in with flip flops and hair down to his shoulders. In fact, he was way more chipper than I would have liked. But it was so refreshing to see him as we spoke more and more throughout the week and hear his thoughts about the church. I could tell he had about the same amount of disdain as I do for these churches where people get dressed up nice on Sunday and sit in a pew and do nothing for the Kingdom. But he had this unique desire to unite his ministry with these churchy folks rather than keep them separate. He wanted churches to shoulder the responsibility of working on their own projects in Charleston, and then his ministry would bring in folks from around the country to be the hands that work on these projects.

I’ve done a lot of thinking on the subject of ministry, and I have been pretty blunt on my dislike of churches that separate themselves from the very things that Jesus spent his life doing. Everyone knows the story of Jesus turning over tables in the temple and it’s a fun story because we like to picture this funny image of a temple that looks more like an open-air market (Charleston has one of those, too). But the real fear, the thing that not many places are talking about, is that many churches look like this today. These things separate churches further from ministering. I have had many realizations like this over my time in college, as I began to think of church as more than just a building where people come to see a show, and more like a group of people struggling together and working towards a purpose. So as I set out to possibly, somehow, some way enter this world of ministry, I think it’s important to point out what I think makes good ministry.

First, I think it’s important to define ministry. So as far as I believe, ministry is about people and it is about growth. I think it’s also about purpose and commitment. So now that I can say what ministry is, I want to share what good ministries do. And I’ve come down to three crucial concepts for ministries that draw me to them:

Ministry should have a purpose.

I’m not talking about ministries like a homeless ministry, which obviously has a purpose, though it is still relevant for such ministries to constantly consider their purpose and reinforce it in their group. I’m speaking in a much broader sense. For example, people join youth groups or college groups or campus ministries or camps. Quite generally, folks just think that as long as young people are hanging out with some cool Christians once a week, that they are doing OK. Let me say as a person who has been in a youth group for seven years and then college ministry for four years, this is not enough, especially at the college level. Ministries should be driving towards a purpose.

My friend, Robert Kahne, did a lot of work with a leadership training group last summer called Acts 1:8 and came back with some surpising revelations to share. My general assumption was that campus ministries across the state were basically youth groups for college people. As Robert found out, each campus minister generally tailors their ministry to what their passionate about. The minister at Western Kentucky is all about discipleship so he pairs up every freshmen with an older person to be discipled by. The minister at Morehead State holds office hours with each member on their leadership council to keep up with what they are doing. Ministries should have these kinds of focus to them, so that after welcoming new folks into the group, you can begin working towards that purpose together.

Do not assume that just because you have 100  people coming to your group every week, and you have 100 different ministries, that they are all purposeful, effective and meaningful.

Ministry should add depth.

Author Greg Ogden writes (paraphrase) that the church has become spread a thousand miles wide and two inches deep. The fear that I shared on my seminary applications is that a person could go to church their whole life and learn the same three or four concepts. Some would say that is all that you need, but I would say NAY. There is so much dynamic to the Bible, so much context and history to it that it is no wonder Jewish rabbis grilled their disciples before allowing them to follow.

Ministry should add depth, especially at the college level. I want to speak from experience; in college, ministries are great at welcoming new members. They shower you with free food (especially Baptists) and parties and world-record-setting water balloon parties. But after that, there’s nothing new to sustain people.

This goes back to having ministry with a purpose. I think if you have a purpose, when you work towards it, naturally you will go deeper and deeper into it. Your group will become more familiar with it and more able to discuss it meaningfully. At this point, the group becomes cyclical. Those that are now able to dig deep into faith issues are able to teach the newer folks to join the group. This is from Hebrews 5:

¹¹We have much to say about this, but it is hard to explain because you are slow to learn. ¹²In fact, though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you the elementary truths of God’s word all over again. You need milk, not solid food! ¹³Anyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is not acquainted with the teaching about righteousness. ¹⁴But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil.

A pretty blunt passage of scripture that basically sums up this entire concept. It is no wonder atheists can beat out Christians on a debate any day because we are so uneducated about our own faith. Jesus spent 30 years learning and growing before he spent about three years ministering. Our education to ministry ratio should be a little bit more balanced but you get the idea. But to stay on the same concepts and drink the same old milk, it would be like singing “Jesus Loves Me” for our whole lives. It’s time to chew on some deeper issues.

A warning. I realize that by picking a purpose (i.e. discipleship) and adding depth (i.e. wrestling with deep issues) ministries may lose numbers. In fact, it may be an even more drastic drop off than many ministries see already. My belief is that this is not the case. I think the reason ministries lose numbers is because they don’t take the necessary steps forward to keep people growing and keep them wanting to come back. Ministries are very good at welcoming people but bad at growing their faith. Drinking the same glass of milk week after week will eventually go sour. But even if I am wrong, and the problem of drop off cannot be solved by adding depth, I think purposeful, deep ministries will attract more committed folks. The people who go to the BCM at Western Kentucky and stay are there because they are seeking discipleship. They stay because it is what works to grow their faith. By being more purposeful, ministries can be more effective, and if it is not what is helping people, they can find some place that will help them.

Ministers should be tired

This one is my own personal position on the idea of ministry. Ministers should be tired, meaning they should be available, they should be investing in their ministries. The campus minister at CSF has a hand in everything that goes on at CSF (Christian Student Fellowship). The campus minister at Morehead State holds office hours with council members to see what they are up to and he generally does not go to bed until around 2 AM.

In many ways, I hold the camp I work for (Passport Camps) in very high regard and anyone in camp ministry will tell you one thing: you will be tired. You will be exhausted, in fact and you will understand more fully than you ever have in your life the concept of Sabbath when Saturday (your day off) comes. But you will also feel so extraordinarily blessed by investing every ounce of your efforts into effective ministry that sees changes and develops relationships. You will stay up hours into the night, after camp activities are over, to talk with fellow staffers about faith (or smoke cigars, whatever happens to strike your mood). Or that’s my experience anyway.

There is something to investing everything and putting your everything into something you believe in. I think that’s why so many folks in the Bible railed on and on at the importance of giving up everything to following the way of Jesus. Some would say that it’s alright for ministers to set up these walls that they won’t cross, or these certain hours that you can reach them at and that they have commitments to family, etc. But people don’t have questions or crises or need to talk to someone at convenient business hours. In fact, in my experience these things happen at the least convenient times in a person’s life and they happen late in the night, or even early in the morning. So it’s my belief that ministers should exhaust themselves by investing their lives into people, especially if they expect this out of other folks involved in their ministries.

This would be my ministry manifesto.

If I could write one. I think there are some very important things in there that if nothing else, would have helped me a lot more in my walk throughout college. Do any of these strike you as important concepts for effective ministry? Are there any others that come to your mind as effective tools for ministry?

Viva Open Source

Here at Micah 6:8, we have a new look! Or at least a new operating system. That’s right, the laptop formerly known as my Dell is now running on Linux and it is awesome! Why is it so awesome you may ask? Well, Linux is Open Source, which is one of those new fantangled technological words that means nobody really owns it. You don’t have to pay to get this operating system. I take it as my own personal way of sticking it to the man. There is a lot of development for Linux, and most of the stuff for OSX and Windows are taken from Linux, or so I hear. The only problem I’m having with the transition is that there are not a lot of programs I’m used to running on windows that I can’t run on Linux. Which basically means my iPod is on hiatus because to run iTunes on Linux is quite tricky, and I won’t be able to acces the iTunes store or the Podcasts. For a sampling of some of the cool features on Linux, check out my friend Robert Kahne’s post on the subject.

While I’m on the subject, here are some other cool gizmos I’ve gotten into. I encourage you to give them a try, they will really enhance your Internet experience:

• Pandora-I generally explain this as XM radio on the Internet. You can create an account and then enter any artist or song you may like. Pandora will then create a station after that artist/song based on the type of music and then will find other artists that sound similar. Adding one artist will generally find you about four or so different artists, so what you’ll want to do is add variety to that station by adding more artists. You’ll be surprised at all the awesome music that will come up, and you can listen to it wherever you might be.
• Twitter-This is a social networking utility that allows you to post short 140 character updates to answer the question “What are you doing?” I didn’t understand the value of this when my Political Scienc professor explained it to us but now I love it. For folks familiar with Facebook, it is essentially Facebook Status, and that is all it is. But because it is limited to that, I think it takes on a whole new dimesnion to status updates and I have actually linked my Facebook status to feed from my Twitter account. The upside to Twitter is not only can you connect with all your friends, but there are plenty of other interesting folks on Twitter. CNN runs an account, using it to give one like updates such as “Barack Obama sworn in as President at 12 noon” at the moment it happens. I also follow my favorite author, Donald Miller and a photographer buddy of his named Jeremy Cowart, who both gave updates as they experienced the Presidential Innauguration. I also get a daily dose of silly humor from a musician I like named Daves Barnes, who posts questions like “Who would win in a fight, Jackie Chan or Jet Li and why?” Anyrate, you get the point. Find me on there.

These last two are just hilarious and I hope they will brighten your day:

• Lolcat BIble- Just read it.
• I’m On a Boat- I got my swim trunks and my flippy floppies. Never thought I’d be on a boat.

Happy Monday!

People Persons

Part of my new adventure is about connections, about relationships-the connection we have with each other, with our lives and with our friends. It’s about stretching the limits of those connections, putting myself at odds with those connections, recapturing the importance of them. My journey will be about putting aside the apparent connection human beings have with schedules and goals and programs to get into.

My journey is not about programs.

It’s about re-connecting. When I was 16 years old, I wanted to be the type of fire fighter that parachuted into national parks to fight forest fires. Somewhere between that young, eager naivete and now, life has a way of beating the hell out of you. Realizing our connections that matter is important, re-connecting with something we’ve lost is essential. I have a friend who realized after she graduated college that after all the options she had considered after college-jobs, graduate programs, traveling-the thing she wanted to do most was get back to the acting and music that she was involved with when she was younger.

My friend Kyle reminded me of the importance of connections this afternoon.  Kyle is a listener. He will hug you every time he sees you. I was telling him about my need to vent or else my problems become passive aggression and come out as sarcastic side comments. My friend Kyle the listener explained to me that people were one of the most important things to him. Before school, work, before so many other responsibilities, he would place priority on people-on talking to them or listening or whatever they needed. Connecting with people was Kyle’s bucket list.

This is when I realized that my friend Kyle the listener has always been an anomaly. Most Christian folks at UK pick one campus ministry circle to be a part of. It’s almost like picking a church. Every now and then you might dabble and try something new but more often than not you want your familiar atmosphere. Kyle is involved in two of these circles. I also realized that he is not on either of their leadership teams.

This is the pinnacle of my realization.

Kyle is really good with people.

But he is not on leadership, not on any council or on any ministry team. There is no institutionalized demand or desire for Kyle’s people skills. It seems that the simple answers for the needs of churches are met through minsters and committees. The answer for the needs of people are government and stimulus packages and jobs.  But are these really the answers to the need for connection in people’s lives? I tell you this to tell you that as a person serving on a leadership council at one of those campus ministries, it has always been my job to minister to people-to connect with them on the basis of my position.  But who is doing a better job-myself, churches and committees, the government? Or my friend Kyle the listener?

My original pick for this blog title was Institutions vs. People. What do YOU think about institutions (it can be anything, really) and meeting the needs of people? I personally came to the realization that I don’t like the idea of intermediaries coming between connection with people, even if they are ministries or the like. What are your feelings about organizations as a way of helping, ministering or building relationships with people? Leave me comments below.

Don’t Vote.

Unless you can bring yourself in good conscience to do so.

Seriously.

Take time to grind through what it means to vote, what this change or hope could be. I had to do it. I had to realize as much as I want something new, something to hope for and a better person in the White House-my vote alone will not bring that. The new person in the White House can’t do it either. More than ever, I feel like we are throwing our hopes under the wheels of a presidency, and that’s mostly because our problems are so big, we don’t think we can solve them. But our country has come to this.

So when I say don’t vote, I re-iterate what the video says. Don’t vote. Take time to realize what the act of voting will mean to you. And then if your conscience allows-vote.

For the record the writer of this blog voted and officially endorses:

Barack Obama and Joe Biden-President and Vice President

Bruce Lunsford-United States Senate

John Yarmuth!-United States House of Representatives

I was a little torn for U.S. Senate race between Mitch McConnell and Bruce Lunsford. It would be a long time before another Kentuckian is that influential in U.S. Politics and Lunsford seems amateur at best. But take is as my vote to end cronyism and the politics of old in the U.S. See ya on the flipside of one of the craziest elections in U.S. history.