Hype Aversion

I certainly chuckled when I saw the Urban Word (Phrase. Whatever.) of the Day this morning:

Hype Aversion

Rejection of an insanely popular idea, game, show, place etc. simply because it is so insanely popular.

"I'm enjoying season three of 'Lost'."
"Season three came out four or five years ago."
"I know, I suffer from hype aversion."

I'm pretty sure I did this about MySpace, Facebook, & Twitter before I eventually joined those three platforms 6-18 months after the rest of the world had already been enjoying them as new ways to connect with other people. You could consider me a contrarian market indicator: if you happen to hear me hating on some new technological phenomenon, invest in that stock right away before I start to love it.

(BTW, there's still time: I remain skeptical about Microsoft Kinect. Even though I've never tried it. Just as I was before ever logging on to MySpace, Facebook, or Twitter...)

I've thought about this in a related way before when I wrote on hyperbole. Sometimes we lose touch with the amplification of our language. And in doing so we may lose perspective. It's the reason, I'm convinced, some are moved to hate Duke basketball or Tim Tebow. I'll let Tuscaloosa News Sports Editor Cecil Hurt, in a column from 2 years ago, take it from here:

I was never convinced (Tim) Tebow’s decision to sign with Florida instead of Alabama was quite the inner struggle that it was purported to be on the ESPN special chronicling his recruitment. But he says it was tough and I will give him the benefit of the doubt. He’s been on my past two Heisman Trophy ballots and if, unlike Glen Coffee, he decides to return for another season in college, he’ll probably make my list for 2009 as well.

I refrain from calling him “Superman,” as television commentators do repeatedly, not because he isn’t a great player and a fine young man, but because ultimately, the over-the-top hyperbole doesn’t do Tebow any good, either.

The Florida quarterback seems to have turned just about every person with a microphone into a blathering fan. In the end, one fears, it will end up having the same result as Dick Vitale’s endless paeans to the Duke basketball program. You’ll start to resent the subject because the messenger — or, in Tebow’s case, the legions of messengers — finally push you to a point where you say “enough is enough.”

I ended up watching the BCS championship and wondering if Tebow had any teammates. That’s not Tebow’s fault, but it was the impression you were left with by the Fox broadcast. It’s great to say that Tebow was “willing his team to victory,” but there must have been at least 21 other Gators who were doing a little something.

And so hype aversion sets in, and people begin to talk about how Coach K or Tim Tebow must be frauds. People sense a need to voice negativity as a strange counter-balance to unencumbered love-fests.

Don't believe in it yet? Ask a regular viewer of ESPN their opinion of Brett Favre. Better yet, do it in July or August.

I could be way off-base, but it occurs to me that a whole cultural subset has emerged out of peoples' deep need to counter-balance excessive hype. We call them hipsters. They don't shop at The Gap or Old Navy essentially because the style of clothes at those stores get too much play. So they develop more eclectic tastes. Same goes for tastes in music & entertainment. In essence their whole lives, it seems, become a counter-balance to what prevailing culture says is "awesome!" or "great!"

Which seems silly to me. Sorry, hipster friends. Even my own behavior seems silly in retrospect. How could I have hated something so neat as a tool like Facebook that helps me maintain relationships with people I haven't seen in years? What's more, hated it before I even tried it, before I even fully understood what effect it would have, almost entirely because others around me were singing it's praises? That's silly.

So I'm going to try to stop being averse to trying new things just because a lot of hype surrounds them. And I'm going to try to manage my aversion to hype and hyperbole in ways other than imposing a personal embargo.

So somebody tell me more about this fun new toy I've heard about called the iPhone.

The Hide of a Rhinoceros

I've been thinking about hurt feelings lately. Mainly because it was my feelings that were hurt. So here's what I've been wondering about.

There's this statement about ministers that they need to have the hide of a rhinoceros and the heart of a child. I don't know how true that is. It sounds pithy. And there's a good point behind it: you need to have a big heart and a thick skin. Which, when you think about it, the two are sort of in tension. Because when you open yourself up to care about other people -- whether in ministry, or just in general -- you become more sensitive to their likes & dislikes. And in being more sensitive to others, you tend to also become more sensitive about your own likes & dislikes. And especially when certain someones jump all over your dislikes -- it's difficult not to be offended.

So is the same true about developing a thick skin? In making you less susceptible to pain, does it also make you less loving in terms of sensing other people's pain? Questions I'm wondering about...

Because it is a virtue to me to not become irritable. I admire people who can step above the drama of feeling slighted. And I have a difficult time being with people who never pass up an opportunity to get upset. From Day 6 of The Love Dare:

To be irritable means "to be near the point of a knife." Not far from being poked. People who are irritable are locked, loaded, and ready to overreact.

If you're like me, you can instantly think of a handful of people who fit the profile. And they're probably difficult to get along with, or to make happy. And you don't wanna be like those people.

Until you realize that the things that offend them are probably the same kinds of things that get you up in arms. Am I right?

But that whole "hide of a rhinoceros" idea -- that doesn't mean that you're impervious. It does not mean that you have impregnable armor on. It just means your skin is thicker. So perhaps getting irritated isn't the same as being irritable. Right?

But how do you know the difference?

The one thing that comes to mind is what made Jesus irritated after he'd had his triumphal entry into Jerusalem. He entered into the Temple, and was disgusted with the way commerce was happening there. And so he whipped into action. I don't believe I'm prepared to say that Jesus was irritable. I'm not sure anyone could say that. But he did get irritated.

And why? Was it becomes someone had stepped on his toes? Or become the final straw on the camel's back? No. It was because what broke the heart of God broke Jesus' heart. What was happening there violated God's values. It was wrong, and it deserved that response.

There's a sign at the athletic facility for the University of Alabama football players that Saban has the players look at & touch/tap before they enter the practice field. It says, "Out of myself and into the team." That is, that the team's ambitions, goals, and values are more important than any one person's ambitions, goals, and values. Or, to put it another way, "He must become greater; I must become less." (John 3:30) The things that violate God's values deserve a tough response. And the more that it is those kinds of things that upset us, rather than our own selfish pet peeves, I'd say that the more we can measure our spiritual growth.

I'm trying to learn that getting irritated does not necessarily mean I or anyone else is irritable. And I'm trying to discern the difference between the two. But sometimes I wonder if that requires more sober-minded thinking than I am even capable of.

Pet Peeves

This will be short & sweet, but here's a thought -- how selfish are pet peeves? You know: those social behaviors that there aren't written down rules for that make you flip out. I'm trying to cut down on mine.

Why? Because it's hard enough for people to keep up with Scripture and the laws of the land. We also expect people to hold to some arbitrary code of morality of our own making that others must observe in our presence at all times? Who do we think we are? Isn't that the height of arrogance?

I suppose these sentiments are an open invitation for comments from friends that they may know will crawl under my skin to their own amusement. But whatever. I could stand to work on patience. We all could. I dare you to dump some of your pet peeves, and see if you don't become a more welcoming, loving person in the process.

Lamenting the 21st Century 5-star Diva

For those of you who enjoy my sporadic rantings and ravings, I feel guilty for depriving you. It may sound like a pathetic excuse, but sometimes I begin to feel like there is too much girth of opinion and writing on the web. And, when you can probably find half a dozen like it if you look hard enough, what does my opinion really mean? With so much noise, what is one more yell into the echo-chamber?

Anyway, I waited long enough & I don't think there's an opinion out there like this one. It's another sports blog. I know I get sports heavy when I write. I apologize. But anyway, for those of you who like to read my words, here are a few more...

Lamenting the 21st Century 5-Star Diva

Social Fruitflies

I had to chuckle at the sight of today's UrbanDictionary.com Word of the Day:

Social Fruitfly
Like a social butterfly, without any charm or beauty. An unwanted pest.

It brought to mind an old Randy Harris lesson. One of his points is that every church has a social fruitfly. He even cracked wise and said, "Now some of you think I'm lying, thinking, 'That's not true!... Some church is missing their's because we've got TWO!'" His point was that it takes a whole church to love on people like this. Not just one person can handle the job. Maybe Sister Always-Wears-Purple can give her a phone call & chat -- JUST for 15 minutes, because you can only take a Social Fruitfly in doses. And perhaps Brother Always-Talks-Football can make sure that the Social Fruitfly feels welcome the next time a group is getting together to catch a movie. Partly because Brother Always-Talks-Football would really do well to branch out in terms of thinking about what's important.

Everyone takes their turn. Nobody feels over-burdened. Everybody dispenses a little bit of the grace that they themselves have already received.

Jesus loved the least of these. The Social Fruitflies -- they appear to have been real comfortable around Him. He became known for the love that he showed them. And then Jesus made the pivot to say, "A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another."

I think that includes the Social Fruitflies.

Annointing a Saint

Don't call it a comeback. Call it a Revival.

Wrote a few words about the passing of a good athlete & great person over at a blog I do with a buddy that we call "Saints, Sinners, and Sports." You should check it out.

"Of Sinners & Saints"

'Nobody's Perfect'

No, I will not be exegeting the hit song by Billy Ray Cyrus' daughter.

They say that sports is a microcosm of life. That being the case, Armando Galarraga taught the world how life is supposed to be lived: with a smile on your face, and with no malice in your heart.

In case you're not a baseball fan, I should help you catch up. On Wednesday night, the young Galarraga was on the verge of throwing a perfect game. It's so rare that it's only happened 20 times in Major League Baseball history. What's a perfect game? That's where a pitcher retires all 27 batters he faces without allowing any walks, hits, hit batsmen, or errors. That last one is critical, because it means your team-mates have to be perfect, too. And as we learned tonight, so do the umpires.

Let's pick it up in the 9th inning. Galarraga had faced 24 batters, and none of them had reached first base. The first batter of the 9th inning steps in, launches a rocket, and Armando got a little help from his friends with an incredible catch by Austin Jackson. It was so stunning that Armando himself unleashed a grin at how good his fortune was that Jackson hauled in that fly ball. 2 outs away.

After a groundball out to shortstop, only one out separated Galarraga from a perfect game. What happened next, as FDR once said, will go down in infamy.

You just have to watch for yourself.




The first base umpire blew the call. He admitted it himself. [ESPN]

"It was the biggest call of my career, and I kicked the [stuff] out of it," Jim Joyce said, looking and sounding distraught as he paced in the umpires' locker room. "I just cost that kid a perfect game."

"I thought he beat the throw. I was convinced he beat the throw, until I saw the replay."

Never has wrong been so unanimously wrong.

And as far as we know, nothing can be done about it. Major League Baseball's instant replay rules didn't allow that play to be reviewed. So it stood. Perhaps the Commissioner could make a special ruling, but that would be unprecedented.

A perfect game -- baseball immortality -- robbed by the proverbial blind ump. It's the stuff of a Classic Greek tragedy.

But that's not the end of the story.

Sports and social media went into a firestorm as the game ended. Twitter was all aflutter. Every single baseball analyst was getting their words in. Even former sportscasters that now host shows on cable news networks. The consensus? "This was wrong!" You can probably identify with it: an overwhelming injustice was done. I think it's fair to say that our nation hasn't seen anyone upstage a big moment like this ever since Kanye West did the deed to Taylor Swift. It's that big.

And if you still don't quite get it, maybe this will help. There are scant few things in life that you can point at & not criticize. Especially in your own life. How many things have you ever completed in your life that you can look back upon & call it perfect?? Unless you're one of those people who grew up never missing a day of class in school, and never had so much as even an A-, and never so much as saw a pimple when you looked in the mirror, you've never been perfect. We've all had blemishes; we've all had ink blots on our record at one point or another.

Which is what makes the luster of a perfect game all the more special & sacred. For ONE day -- for one brief moment in time -- a pitcher can point to that and say, "That was perfect."

Until that moment is robbed from you by someone else's imperfection.

And then, in the locker-room after the game, with more maturity than anyone else in the world demonstrated on Twitter, on the diamond, in the press box, or anywhere else, Armando Galarraga shrugged off the bad call by saying, "Nobody's perfect." I'm not sure how you muster the will to say those words. But he did. Twice. [MLB]

Galarraga said he gave Joyce a hug when Joyce apologized to him after the game.

"He really feels bad," Galarraga said. "He probably feels more bad than me. Nobody is perfect. I give a lot of credit to that guy. That (an apology) doesn't happen. He apologized. He feels really bad. Nobody is perfect. What am I gonna do? His body language said more than a lot of words. His eyes were watery, he didn't have too say much. His body language said a lot."

And here's where the game being a microcosm of life pivots from mere entertainment to teach us something about our existence. Armando's right. Nobody is perfect. Life is not fair. It is one of the more difficult discoveries of life when you begin to realize this fact yourself. And I'm not just talking about the cruel twists of fate where the ball doesn't bounce your way. It's especially heart-breaking when people let you down. And they're going to. 'Cause nobody's perfect.

And how we deal with that fact determines in large part how we deal with life going forward. It is perhaps the definitive hallmark of maturity for one to be able to be able to react in a positive way to other people when they deliver to you a negative experience. Extending mercy when outrage feels better, or even right. To give your wife a hug when she locks her keys in the car for the third time this year. Or to give your husband a kiss when he gets lost despite the presence of a Rand McNally map, an iPhone, and a Garmin. Or cracking a wry smile on the field, and effectively shrugging your shoulders in the locker room, when an umpire blows your perfect game.

Armando Galarraga's reaction begs me the question, and I pass it along to you as well: am I that sort of person? Or am I way more impatient?

I want to be like Armando. I want to be the kind of person that gives people permission to be human. I want to be able to not break bruised reeds or not snuff out smoldering wicks (Is. 42:3). But there are far too many moments where I'm not.

I wish I had a visual reminder. I think that would help. If I had an image that stood before me day after day that would remind me for all time that nobody's perfect. Because no matter how much I look in the mirror, Satan always seems up to the challenge to twist my thinking.

I think I have just such an image in mind. A poster. A wide-lense photograph from down the first baseline, back in the stands behind home plate. It would be of the moment right after Galarraga touched first base with his right foot. He's starting to lift his arms in triumph & he's looking up at the umpire. And Jim Joyce is emphatically extending his arms to make his infamous, heart-breaking call. And in true Successories style, this poster would have a caption.

I think you know what it would say.