Drew Bray

Signal To Noise, Part 2 (a)

Drew Bray — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 12:32:28 -0700

In many ways, the signal to noise ratio, as it pertains to relationships, is often easy to recognize. In my marriage, for example, it’s not uncommon for my wife and I to find ourselves in a place where we’re saying, “We just seem to be missing each other lately.” Or, “I would have done that if I had any idea you wanted that done. You just had to come right out and ask.” (that last one is usually me not picking up on “hints” that my wife would argue should have been pretty obvious). The disconnection, or static, is easy enough to spot but the causes can sometimes be subtle and sneaky. So, with fair warning about my stream of mixed up consciousness, I will now get into first main area (Part 2a) that I think plays a part in busying up the signal.

a. the meaning of words

I have recently learned some hard lessons in this category. I am now beginning to trust the power of raw material. Instead of couching so many things I say to people (hoping to be as inoffensive as possible), I’m working on letting the meat be consumed the way it is rather than dressing it up with too much bbq sauce. To give them black and white, not gray. Gray can frustrate people especially when they want something more distinct. Because, while I’m patting myself on the back for being really sensitive, they are confused and often misled. It’s contemptible. This is not to say that tact and timing are virtues to discard. I am simply learning to give people more benefit of the doubt in being able to handle the real drew bray and not this other drew gray. (sorry – couldn’t resist, yes I could have, but I chose not to.) There I go apologizing again. NO! Forget it. Deal with it. My puns are awesome.

This brings me to another point about words. Take “awesome” for example. It’s an awesome word which now can be used to describe God’s creation (rightfully so) or a parking spot closer to the store than one 10 yards away. It’s as if we don’t REALLY believe in what we’re doing or saying so we compensate by slicking it up with misleading descriptions. If something or someone is truly remarkable, then the evidence should speak for itself. It shouldn’t rely on our insecure and vain marketing. And if that something or someone is NOT remarkable – let that be the case so we can work on it (assuming that’s even possible). Even still, let it be average. Because if everything in this world is AWESOME, what’s it awesome in comparison to? When “average” is the signal, but “awesome” is the noise – we manipulate expectation by creating a false sense of identification. Again, I think the implications on relationships here is intuitive.

my mind at war

Drew Bray — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 12:00:43 -0700

The quest for the knowledge of good and evil (the original curse and the one from which so many others are born) rubs up against the virtue of having an open mind and this is the battle that often renders me unproductive. William Young, in his novel The Shack, frames these often opposing forces as such: expectation versus expectancy.

Here’s an example: we recently moved into a new home. The garage, up until last weekend, was an absolute disaster. Standard stuff really – boxes, gear, bags, equipment and so on – general mayhem. For some reason I have a goal to park cars in garages. So the gauntlet was laid down. And here’s what my “attack” looked like. I got out there in clothes I predicted would get dirty and torn and shoes that would be sturdy yet comfortable for the many trips up a ladder. Then I got right to it! I started staring. Just looking at it all. Not doing much. Just looking. But from all sorts of angles mind you. Just to be sure. Sure of what I’m not sure but sure enough I was doing it. Staring. Unproductively.

Or was I? I told myself, “There has to be a plan here, some way this is all supposed to be put together.” The only way to figure that out was to stare, right? Then there’s the “just go with it, man” part of me. An equally strong part of me. A part that said, “Just start moving a few things around and it’ll all come together. But please do something because Ali is going to keep on coming in here and you’re looking kind of dumb just standing around.” Somehow, the best of both worlds eventually collide in an exquisite moment of intense productivity. But it takes a while. (By the way, the inaugural drive out of my garage the next morning brought me far too much satisfaction.)

Such is the case with sorting out my opinions. It’s the left brain vs. the right. Cognitive vs. Emotional. Pragmatic vs. Whimsical. So if I come across as one who seems like he’s a bit mixed up at times, now you know why. You know, perhaps a better description for the dynamic is a dance than a war. And much like getting a chance to watch my folks dance - it's obvious they've had practice because it all looks good to me and they definitely seem to know where they're going with each other.

… soon back to the regularly scheduled programming

Signal to Noise Ratio, Part 1

Drew Bray — Sun, 18 May 2008 22:17:38 -0700

From time to time I read Seth Godin's blog. He's considered to be a venerable expert in the field of marketing. He also happens to be a prolific blogger, a propensity for which I am lacking. I respect his ability to write concise, clever, and adaptable ideas. By "adaptable", I mean his thoughts, while clearly intended for a marketing and business savvy audience, can often be useful for everyday living. His blog from a few weeks ago was titled "signal to noise". In it he takes a dynamic common in radio transmission and relates it to the distribution of information on the internet and concludes that the web is in danger of being disproportionately noisy.

Wikipedia defines signal to noise ratio as such: Signal-to-noise ratio (often abbreviated SNR or S/N) is an electrical engineering concept, also used in other fields (such as scientific measurements, biological cell signaling), defined as the ratio of a signal power to the noise power corrupting the signal. In less technical terms, signal-to-noise ratio compares the level of a desired signal (such as music) to the level of background noise. The higher the ratio, the less obtrusive the background noise is.

It got me thinking. What a cool picture that is for dynamics we find in so many areas of our lives. It can be extremely useful to keep in the front of your mind as a filter while watching the news, for instance. I don't care what type of reporting you're bent towards - listen with this "signal to noise ratio" in mind for a few minutes and tell me there isn't a disturbingly impressive amount of noise with only the occasional, vague semblance of signal.

Then you get the commercials. These guys specialize in noise. They hypnotize us with it. How many times have you seen a commercial, been rightly entertained by it, and then have no idea what product or service has been pitched? Or worse, you have a good idea of what the product is, but the way it's dressed up is so sensationalized that it shows such a demonstrable lack of concern for the truth.

Unfortunately, it's the unsuspecting public that take commercials more seriously than they should who get the short end of the stick when it comes to their well-being. They see these good looking, successful, slim models mowing down some kind of triple beef patty with onion rings burger, fries, and a large (64 oz) coke while having, seemingly, the most amazing time doing it. Well shoot, that looks good. I can go for some of that right now. Until you go there, order the loot, bring it home and there's no good looking people around your apartment, no hip music being spun by a dj ('cause who doesn't have one of those in their house?), and the meal looks like a truck drove over it. But it's cool because at least you've got that prescription medication that is supposed to help your heartburn. Never mind that "some side effects may include..." loss of sight, anal leakage, or sudden death. Of course, those good looking models in the commercial for this drug were too busy repelling down a mountain or kayaking through the rapids or pushing their daughter on a swing - all with ridiculous smiles on their faces - while the announcer was disclaiming these "side effects", and you just weren't paying attention. NOISE experts.

"Signal to Noise Ratio, Part Deux" will explore implications on relationships. Stay tuned...

change out your light bulbs

Drew Bray — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 21:10:27 -0700

I know, don't be nervous. By it's title, this blog might seem like another en vogue, trendy, and tired "go green" campaign. But this is not that blog. However, having said that, the premise proposed in this blog would support such a campaign, the virtue of which would not require us to wear birkenstocks and patchouli oil, but instead hold our ideas (light bulbs) loosely and change them when they burn out, which may be more often than we realize.

The header for my blog page is "Moving the Swing". I chose this because it seemed to fit a posture of learning that I believe is crucial to our growth in any category of life: spiritual, physical, emotional. To move a swing, we pump our legs back and forth until we get some motion going. It's certainly more interesting than sitting idle and lazily hoping someone will come around and give us a boost. That does and should happen and is a great case for building a life sustaining community around you, but hasn't God called us to more initiative when it comes to our own extensions and contractions on our swing of life?

We don't know what we don't know. And if all we've learned so far is what we're practicing, that familiarity may be found contemptible before too long. The mana from today will do us no good tomorrow. Romans 12 vs. 2 exhorts us to "be transformed by the renewal of your mind". I cite that verse not to pluck it from its intended meaning but rather to suggest it's transferability into other areas of life.

Now here is a charge that can and should be practiced for life: "forgive as you have been forgiven". It is safe to say that we may never claim mastery over that call. And it is one that will forever find new context in our lives for us to practice. My encouragement is not to trade transcendental truths like that for new ones but, instead, to find what "general rules" (light bulbs) we've been living under that can be looked at, reworked, thrown out, and changed.

Take diets, for example. From our grandparents, to our folks, to us - three measly generations - how much have sensibilities on healthy eating changed? And it can be such personal thing too! Things that we avoid feeding our kids today, my parents will staunchly defend as being perfectly fine for us when we were kids. It's not as if things turned out horribly for us, right? But that can't be the bar we set for ourselves. The absence of irreparable illness can never equal the presence of optimal health. Now in their defense, and not to sound too Ralph Nader-like, but the manufacturing and distribution of food today is an entirely different animal than it was in their day. Meaning - the same food item we find on our food store shelves today should not be confused with it's counter part decades ago. (Let me now throw in a quote for our current manufacturers, marketers, and distributors ... "To have the right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it" - G. K. Chesterton.) Finally, where ignorance kept them blissful, education and research makes us accountable.

So, as the fads of new and improved ways to be healthy come across our paths, let's simply look with more scrutiny at those light bulbs. Let's get in the game and fight to make useful the ideas and rules we integrate as our own, all the while holding them loosely. If it's our assumption that integrating newly learned "general rules" into our paradigm (changing out bulbs) is of value, then we must continue to move the swing. Extend as we learn and contract as we practice. I recognize that the daunting and un-motivating dynamic in this could be that if what we learn in our future will potentially blow up our paradigm of today, then what benefit is there to learning if we can never believe it to be perpetually true? Again, I believe the answer is that we look to give the benefit of the doubt to the evolution of those "general rules". We learn. We integrate. We eliminate. And we do it over and over again.

So, here's the "what do I do now?": It's too overwhelming to change out EVERY bulb in your life. Frankly, that's not even the goal. Instead, pick one or two bulbs to tackle today, this week, this month. On the food front, maybe it's beginning to learn about "partially hydrogenated oils" (found in staggering amounts of food items, by the way) and eliminating them from your diet. You may learn (not from the marketers, mind you) that those partially hydrogenated oils are one engineering process away from being considered an actual plastic. Maybe another bulb replacement is switching from processed white (flour, rice, bread) to brown/whole wheat/whole grain (flour, rice, bread). Or substituting the naturally sweet Agave for white sugar. Moving closer to foods found in their natural state rather than those that have been overly tampered with in order to survive on shelves for a few more months/years.

Pertaining to the accommodation of our preferences ... understand this: that the more you don't, the more you won't and the more you do, the more you will. And as you do - smile - because now you're swinging!

forget sailing to the moon

Drew Bray — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 20:32:08 -0700

"What can we gain by sailing to the moon if we are not able to cross the abyss that separates us from ourselves? This is the most important of all voyages of discovery, and without it, all the rest are not only useless, but disastrous." - Thomas Merton.

Thomas Merton is, without a doubt, my deserted island writer. You know the question: If you only had one album to take with you to a deserted island, what would it be? My answer: Kind of Blue, Miles Davis. I can listen to it on repeat for years and still find new conversations within it. Its layers and textures of extraordinary improvisation force you to listen and give, not take. Give it your attention, ask it your questions, and draw your conclusions. Then do it again. And that just gets you through the first Coltrane solo. There's so much more to come!

I esteem Merton very much the same way. "No man is an Island" might be my favorite of his and would certainly accompany me on that island. I love the serious attention he pays to the "real self". We are undeniably and perpetually distracted into thinking that marque accomplishments in life are the reason we're here, when that scary adventure across the "abyss that separates us from ourselves" is the real underestimated treasure.

I have written a few songs for my wife. A few songs about my wife. I sang the first one at our wedding. I've sung the second one at other weddings. They seem to be well liked. I'm sure there are those who like the songs for their melody and feel. I believe my wife likes them for the stories they tell. The song is not the hero. Love is the hero. The journey and relational discovery are more significant elements in the songs than their catchy or un-catchy choruses.

When Logan, my daughter, figured out how to buckle herself in her car seat, it wasn't the neatly snapped straps of the seat that was impressive, but rather that it represented a beautiful fight. The battle she fought for weeks trying to sort it all out. The frustration. The anger. The determination. The resolve. The belief. The victory!

I believe God did not waste his time or artistry on any of us. We were made to reflect a goodness that is worth discovering. We are swings designed to move. To do so, we extend by learning and contract by habit-ing, all the while moving with enthusiastic anticipation across that abyss.