My dad had Gillian Barre (the same affliction Jenna Jameson claimed to have) as a kid and went to a “special school” for a couple of years in elementary school to relearn how to walk that gave him a dark sense of humor. Waterhead kids that stopped showing up in class because they died and how they’d send run of the mill c student black kids there because they assumed they were retarded. I couldn’t match his black humor but his use of humor to deal the oddities of life definitely rubbed off on me.
there is a world in which reddit's CEO has to explain to investors why the front page of their site only has sexy pictures of john oliver. Sounds like a great investment opportunity!
My dad tried to teach me how to drive when I was fifteen-years-old. My dad was also a Mathematician. If, in your formal education, through high-school, college, graduate school, perhaps, you ever had a Mathematics class with a professor, and you thought to yourself, wow, this Mathematics teacher just might actually be a lunatic. Well, I am here to tell you that I have grown up and been around Mathematicians my whole life. They are lovely. But, your thoughts then were ABSOLUTELY correct. My dad had a Honda Civic without power windows, air conditioning, or even a stereo. These "features" would have distracted him too much. The first thing that he told me when I got in the car was, "Okay, you are going to want to put your right foot on the accelerator pedal and your left foot on the brake pedal." I had, of course, no idea how to drive a car*, but I knew this wasn't right. "Dad, I don't think this is how you drive a car." "What do you mean? This is exactly how I drive this car everyday." My dad ONLY ever drove this car the mile and a half to campus and back. Me getting out of the car, "Mom?!". *The first time I actually did drive a car, this same stripped Honda Civic, was when my dad got so black-out, bourbon drunk after a football game, that he threw me keys and told me, "You have to drive.". I remember not even knowing how to properly put the key in to the ignition. We somehow got back home.
It's kinda hard for me to describe my relationship with my Dad over the years, it's been kinda like night and day. Don't get me wrong, he was a great father and it wasn't always bad, but he had a temper with discipline methods that were arguably abusive, especially by today's standards. I still cringe a little when I hear a leather belt drawn from my belt loops. Over the years I've reconciled it with the realization that he was young ( only 20 when I was born ) and a product of his own upbringing and his father's "discipline". I swore when I had kids that shit was gonna end with me, and I'm proud to say it did. On the other hand, as the decades passed, he mellowed out and became a different person altogether. He worked hard at a local factory until some steel pipes fell on him, and even after that he tried to keep working for several years, if only on lighter duty, until they finally forced him out. We nearly lost him to a massive heart attack 20 years ago. In that instant, when I saw the rhythm on the heart monitor that was not conducive to life, any resentment or feelings about the past disappeared. He's an amazing father and grandfather.
This happened with me when my dad died. He was not abusive by any stretch of the imagination but not perfect either. My mom forbade spankings after we were 5 (she had been horribly physically and mentally abused by her mother whom I never met). He had a temper and could blow his stack at the drop of a hat. He was a neat freak that had a booming voice when our shoes and backpacks were strewn about. It could be jarring and possibly an underlying cause of my anxiety. It wasn’t personal or vindictive tempers just ran in his family (granddad was the exact same neat freak that could be heard two towns over). All this surface level stuff didn’t seem to matter after he died and I just tend to remember the fun we had hunting and dirt biking and watching movies. Funny as I too swore I’d not get that upset at my kids. As I got older I started to realize how much other people straight up ignore you when you ask them to do something. “Please put the instant read thermometer on the fridge, it has a magnet just for that, I use it everyday and you put it in completely random drawers when you straighten. Just please so I don’t have to search for it every time.” 47x drawer searches and requests later “FFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUCK!!!!” I kinda get his frustration now. Then there is my brother and sister in law with my nephew. They don’t discipline him in the slightest. Talks back, throws tantrums, they had just glassy eye stared and move on. Until a few weeks ago when he was arguing with my sister in law and actually HIT her. He actually got grounded and they took his iPad away. That’s the new threat they use to keep him in line. I just have to find a medium between that and my dad.
My happy medium was simply saying I'd never use more than an open hand to spank their bottom, not hard, and never more than once. And even then, I rarely did even that. Oh man, I totally get this. I do most of the cooking now, and you wanna see me get pissed, watch me search for something when it's not put away correctly. Or trying to open a drawer because someone crammed a ladle or something in there and now it's stuck. And FFS, is it so hard to fold the friggin throw blanket when you're done, or just stack your shoes neatly against the wall so I don't trip over them? I realize my neat freak ways stem from my time as a paramedic and being in some serious hovels ( you wouldn't believe me if I told you ) but damn...
My Dad was a champion. Both of my parents worked hard, but my Mom just didn't have the time (due to her job as a waitress, and later a union rep for hotels, restaurants, and bartenders) nor the inclination to do the other activities. Dad was a coach, scout leader, and encouraged all of the extra curriculars that I wanted. Supported the nerdy things, the sports things, whatever. One day he took me to a Warhammer store because I was in to high fantasy shit. He helped me paint minis. Ensured that I knew how to use tools, how to sew, etc. We still talk on the phone at least once a week. Sometimes every day of the week. I think I got spanked 4 or 5 times in my life. Looking back, I deserved it every time. So far, I've given my kid a single incident of 3 open handed smacks on his bare ass when he kicked the cat. I felt terrible afterwards, but it was immediate. It was effective. Much like the way a light socket teaches kids not to put their fingers inside.
My stepfather met my mom when I was 2 and my brother was 5. Although he wasn't the most loving/nurturing stepdad, he worked hard to provide a nice life for two kids that weren't his. I definitely inherited his work ethic though. I remember when times were lean and he had to let some guys go, he'd work 18 hour days to keep the shop open. Only difference between us is that he's still working at almost 82 and I don't haha
I hold such respect for Boy Scout leaders. My stepson was a scout and seeing the leaders give their time every week for the meetings, usually one a weekend a month for an outing and they'll use their personal vacation time for the annual two week camp trip.
I wouldn't call myself a neat freak, and it might be from my time in the military, but everything has it's place. However, in my wife's eyes, that place is wherever she finished using it. She's also someone who will lose her keys/phone/sunglasses, etc in a pocket of clothing she's currently wearing or while holding the item
For me this dovetails with a certain level of minimalism. My parents have a kitchen drawer that's just filled with all manner of things, many of them redundant. Three sets of measuring spoons. Four ladles, etc etc. Part of my organization is having everything I need, and nothing more. I'm never looking for a [tool] I'm looking for the [tool]. It helps keep the mental model of the kitchen in my head, because the boundaries of the set of items is logical and fixed. I'll give away items if necessary to achieve the minimalism required; the most absurd of which was probably when I received 13 butter knives in a flatware set for 12, and gave away one of the butter knives to get back to exactly 12.
My wife bought a massive dinnerware set at a thrift store. Something like a 36 place setting set... for a family of 3. We have 5 sets/places in the cabinet for normal use, the rest are in the garage, packed in a large bin. We'll never run out or have mismatched shit, there's no way we're ever going to break that many bowls or plates.
I believe true minimalism is a luxury. It is mostly for those affluent enough not to need the cheap backups, the extras, the padding for a rainy day. You use exactly what you choose and buy another when you feel appropriate. I was gifted a Hudson's Dirt Cheap flatwear set for 12 from my mom when I got married. It's a nice basic, heavy set that won't show wear and won't look dated overtime. Except, since it came from HDC, it had 2 sets of tea spoons and no soup spoons. I contacted the company. I now have 24 small spoons and 12 of the rest. I also have a lot of matching, plain white plates and bowls from Old Time Pottery. Like I think I have 20 each small and dinner plates. I like having extras in case they chip and so I don't have to scramble to wash a dish. It's easier for small parties too.
I don't think of myself as one either, though I'm sure my family disagrees sometimes. I'm like you, everything has a place and that's where it should go. The big thing in our house is, every horizontal service becomes a catch all for anything and everything and it makes the house so cluttered. I hate it.
Yes and no. There are definitely things where it's affluence that lets you operate without a margin of error, but there's also a lot that avoids waste just by being mindful of what you actually need and use. My kitchen has three knives: a chef's knife, a bread knife, and a paring knife. I could certainly afford to go out and spend hundreds on a Wusthof block that holds a dozen knives or whatever, but there are precious few kitchen tasks that can't be accomplished with just those basic three. I could replace those three many times over before approaching the cost of a full block, and to this point I've never had to replace them even once. I also follow the Alton Brown rule of "never buy unitaskers" which keeps clutter down from the start. There's definitely some Sam Vimes "Boots" theory of socioeconomic unfairness at play, but if you can afford to pay a little more up front for many items, you'll save money in the long run. I'm sure my one large and super useful cutting board costs less, and has gotten more use, than the half dozen cheaper and smaller boards that dot my parents' kitchen.
I think minimalism also requires a significant amount of predictability in your life. If you have one of something and you're single and healthy, you probably just do without the thing if it breaks until you can replace it. If you have one of something and you have a small child, or a dependent parent, or unpredictable days, doing without the thing might not be an option. Or if your cashflow isn't very regular (or if you have no cushion), you might need to take the opportunity to acquire a backup when it presents itself and not when you need it. I suspect most peoples' definition of minimalism is a luxury. It may or may not require affluence, but it either requires affluence or a lifestyle with a pretty high level of predictability (and ability to do without).
Your wife and I are the same person. My brothers and I rebelled against the neat freak nature of my dad and granddad. I can remember where everything is if no one touches it. I prefer things have their own place though and I much prefer organized over simple neatness. My mom is the opposite and everything has to be neat, ie not cluttered surfaces, and just throws things in drawers and cabinets as long as it’s off the counter or floors. You can spend an hour looking for a cheese grater that wound up in the drinking glass cabinet.
A tourist sub went to visit the titanic (apparently this is a thing?!?) and it has gone missing. Reported missing yesterday. It has enough oxygen onboard for 3 days.