Everyone has been talking about racism lately. I have been listening and thinking, but I have largely been silent on the internet, though I have talked about it with others. I have felt unsure of what to write–and I don’t tend to just go along with what is trending. I want to be more genuine than that.

I talked with my kids and things seemed really simple: we need to treat people with kindness and fairness. People haven’t done that, and we need to do better.

But it isn’t all that simple. This is about police brutality right now. That’s where the conversation started. I support police reform–my husband was a law enforcement officer for a few years, and I witnessed problems with training, policies, and attitudes. Black lives matter, and there have been horrific and horrible acts, many of which do not make the news and do not ever find any justice or resolution.

But in all of that, there are some issues without clear solutions.

We need to learn to compromise and not maintain all-or-nothing thinking. Public policy is rooted in ethical assumptions that can be complicated–do we value freedom, equality, justice? What do we value most? What does freedom and equality and justice even mean? These are also important questions and we can’t skip over them, assuming that they have easy answers.

And there are many things missing in the conversation, such as gun control, education, the support of families, and building up better communities.

I don’t always have the right words, but not many people do. I feel uncomfortable in my own experience sometimes, uncertain that I have something to say that is helpful or relevant.

There are a lot of problems in the world, and we can’t fix everything at once. But we can just try to be a little better, and to support good causes, and to be compassionate to others even if they don’t agree with us on everything.

Sometimes I think a lot about ideas sometimes. Maybe some of these thoughts will be interesting. Maybe you won’t know what I’m talking about. Do you ever have random ideas that you don’t know what to do with?

***

When I’ve had some spiritual questions and thoughts and doubts, I’ve often thought that spiritual knowledge functions differently than rational knowledge. I can’t prove spiritual things through being rational, and if I reject spirituality based on rationality, then I have to throw out spirituality in general. The best way to seek spiritual knowledge is to ask God and to trust that answer.

***

Null hypotheses are sort of how we operate in life in general. We assume something to be true, and then we have to find enough evidence to convince ourselves we are wrong. We usually don’t set out to learn something; we set out to prove something. But sometimes we are wrong and need to reject the null.

***

So utilitarianism tries to maximize happiness, but you could have an ethical system that maximizes something else, like freedom or justice or something like that. And you could also have an ethical system were you could maximize ethics–so if a choice maximizes good choices, that would also be a good choice.

***

Money is really only an incentive for the utility it brings us right now instead of the utility it will bring us later. We save because of the security it brings us now. We say we save for the future, but we are really just saving for the future we are imagining in our own head, not the actual future that is unknown.

words headline lead sentence paragraph

search

make sense of jumbled pieces

words to fit the world together

google facebook new york times

trying to get past paywalls

what is happening

what will happen

millions of answers

no answer

sleeping searching

wake and shut it down.

words don’t exist

noise recedes

the pounding of needing to know fades

left with quiet

stillness

calm

find when I stop searching

I recently read a homeschooling book (The Brave Learner by Julie Bogart) that said that you should focus on routines instead of schedule.

What’s the difference between a routine and a schedule? It’s time for some definitions from Google:

A routine is “a sequence of actions regularly followed”

A schedule is “a plan for carrying out a process or procedure, giving lists of intended events and times.”

This is incredibly helpful for homeschooling, because sometimes we have days off. We can’t really meet deadlines and sometimes we end up doing things before deadlines. When the kids wanted to work on their handwriting books and finish them that day, I let them. There are days we spend reading all the time. And then we drop back into our routine (journals, workbooks, etc.).

Sometimes putting dates on everything makes life a little bit too stressful, especially when those dates and schedules are our own expectations in the first place.

I think there are times for schedules. I’ve made schedules to finish books and classes. But sometimes we put expectations on ourselves that we just don’t need and we forget why we are doing things in favor of keeping our schedule.

Schedules are helpful, but they are a means to an end, not the end itself. If schedules become more important than people, than that’s a problems.

Routines can be helpful too, and at times they can be more helpful than schedules because they are in place when they need to be, and then when life happens, they can be put aside while we deal with things.

And when you are behind schedule, since you can’t change the past, then your schedule has simply changed.

Mostly positive attention for my kids
Listening instead of lecturing
Compassion and love
Setting a good example
Apologizing for my mistakes
Guiding and helping more than punishment
Always keep a respectful voice
Yelling is only for emergencies
Setting clear limits and rules
Teach children what is right and what is wrong
Never, ever help my children do the wrong thing
Lots of wholesome recreation and time together
Gentleness, meekness, kindness, and mostly love

Is there anything new happening?

What are some challenges you have right now?

What sort of music do you like?

What hobbies do you enjoy?

Have you read any good books lately?

Where did you grow up?

Watched any good TV shows lately?

What projects are you involved in?

What do you like to learn about?

Is there anything you would like to learn?

How do your religion and beliefs affect your life?

Do you have any good recipes?

What are the things that you struggle with and what are the things you feel you are doing good at?

What do you wish you could do but you never get around to it?

What is a regret that you have and how did you learn from that?

What have you learned from the people you love?

Where have you lived over the years?

What is your family like?