Seconds :: 089
Happy weekend, friend.
We're out at a diner on a Saturday morning. The kids excitedly order for themselves and when the waiter asks what I want, I abstain.
"Nothing, thanks," I say.
Peak dad, I suppose.
I'll just have the half bagel that Abe won't eat. And a few spoonfuls of Golda's acaí bowl.
I'm not sure how or when it happened. But as the food came out, it hit me. In my life, my needs have become secondary. My kids have become the primary.
We go on vacation to places that I hate, but they love. Like the beach. We spend lavishly on childcare and extracurriculars. I haven't bought a new shirt in 3 years. And then there's food. I'm eating so much of their sloppy seconds (of stuff that I don't even want in the first place).
After the diner incident, I'm thinking about being second. About seconds in general. Second-hand gifts. Second-guessing and second chances. Second looks and Second ave.
Take a second.
And let's go.
Every Second
I'm standing outside my kids' school making small talk with someone's grandma when suddenly the door opens and Abe runs out and into my arms.
"Enjoy every second," she says, as if she's reading from some book of clichés.
"It goes so fast."
I'm not a cynical person, but I just don't think that's possible. It's a nice reminder, sure, and I try to remind myself of how short this time is and how good things are now. But when my socks are wet because they splashed half a bathtub onto the floor? When I go to give a kiss and I get spat on? When they're pulling each other's hair and slamming doors so hard they break?
I don't enjoy every second.
I just think we're too focused on compressing. How much can I get out of this second right now? Everything is optimized for quick consumption. A whole war shrinks into a headline. A shifting culture summarized in a Tweet. Your last 60 minute meeting sent to you in a 2-sentence email.
This compression is creating a feeling of freneticism.
We're always behind.
Always catching up.
But I find that when I decompress, I feel calmer. When I go from seconds and into weeks, I feel calmer. When I stop reading the news on social media or honestly even a "real" news site and look at slower news like in The Atlantic, The New Yorker, or The Pudding, I feel like I'm helicoptering out of a hurricane. I can see themes. I can be smart. I can actually think.
Catching up 100 times a day isn't working for me.
And enjoying every second isn't either. Let me work on a longer timeline.
I could find something to enjoy at least once a day.
There's a meaningful highlight once a week.
Or one core memory every month.
When I'm old, I won't tell a new parent to enjoy every second.
"Enjoy one thing this week." I'll say.
Hm.. Not as catchy though, huh?
Second Guessing Second Chances
Being a parent has made me more aware of my own worldview. Because I need to teach my kids about the world, I also have to explain how things work. What are the rules and how should we interpret them?
So I'm walking through our local library a few weeks ago, and I reach for Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. Maybe Golda and I will start the series that I once loved reading. I stop. Think about it for a minute.
"No, I probably shouldn't." I say to myself, with all of JK Rowling's anti-trans statements...
In our house, we stopped listening to Michael Jackson, Chris Brown, R Kelly, and Diddy. We don't watch Woody Allen or Casey Affleck movies.
But my worldview says otherwise. I want my kids to feel that it's ok to not be perfect, to make mistakes, or hurt people accidentally, apologize, and to learn from those mistakes. I want it to be ok to not agree with someone's politics. And to have a different opinion without being bullied. I want to help create a world where they can be offered second chances to improve.
One core struggle of being a parent is teaching kids about how the world should work, while the world actually works differently. We should share our things but the world rewards greed. And when it comes to having an opinion, the world says be perfect, unoffensive, and right all the time or get cancelled.
So I want a world with second chances. Rehabilitation. Atonement.
...then I look around. Next week, Louis CK kicks off the Netflix is a Joke comedy festival with a show at the Hollywood Bowl. Kanye West just performed two sold-out shows. This month, Johnny Depp released a trailer for his new Christmas Carol movie, "Ebenezer."
I do believe in second chances. When we're afraid to speak and act because we might get called out, recorded, or publicly shamed, there doesn't leave much room for growth. And even less room for experimentation. We ought to be more open to people that try things that make them look uncool– dancing, asking someone out, dressing uniquely. We need to be able to look back at ourselves and be embarrassed. Because now we know better.
I just don't know where to draw the line. I don't want to conflate something like sexual assault or domestic abuse with political beliefs. Cancel culture means that we talk about Harvey Weinstein and Ellen DeGeneres in the same sentence; as if Lance Armstrong and Colin Kaepernick both deserve to be banned from the sport. Obviously not everyone deserves a second chance and not every act deserves to go unpunished. Part of that learning requires that there are consequences commensurate to the severity of the act itself.
As a parent, it's my job to help shape my kids' worldview. One tool for that is culture– movies, books, paintings, comedy, sports... And if I have to draw lines somewhere, I'll start with these two.
First, physical abuse towards others is not tolerated. Beliefs and opinions I'm open to having conversations about. Second, if the work itself is worthy of shaping values in a meaningful way, I'm willing to separate the art from the artist.
When she's ready, I think I'll choose to read the Harry Potter books with Golda.
A Career Second Act
For the first decade of my career, I made ad campaigns. The next decade I pivoted to freelancing in tech as a designer and starting my own business. Late last year, I took a full-time job at a startup.
I forgot what having a caring manager felt like. I missed having a reliable team I like showing up for every day. I had lost a sense of being a part of a team as a freelancer, and only recently reclaimed it.
The feeling I have is like starting over– like I'm 21 again learning how to do my job– only this time I have 20 years of prologue.
It's a second act. Like in a play, I've just come off an intermission and there's a new energy. I have a renewed sense of purpose but with a backstory that implies I'm prepared to take on the road ahead. The path I'm on that parallels my first act.
In my second act, I'm trying to not make the same mistakes in my first. It's a story that I'm holding more loosely than I did the first time around. I'm in control but also open to seeing what unfolds before me. I'm just curious to know what kind of story I'm in. Man vs man, man vs nature, or man vs self? Rags to riches? Action/Adventure? Coming of age? Comedy or tragedy?
I'm already invested in the story. I like the characters.
I guess we'll see what happens.
Second Hand Problems
Last month a New Yorker article came out featuring several of my close friends. The article used our synagogue's congregation as an example of what's going on in the Jewish world regarding Israel. While I felt like the author accurately portrayed an increasingly nuanced conversation about Israel, the fallout of the article has been challenging.
Our community is feeling fragmented. Polarized. And, in a lot of ways, at odds with its leadership.
As I've been thinking about how to live in this time of conflict, I came across an article about the dismantling of American society from the top down. The US Government under the second Trump administration has been deconstructing the foundations of the government and destabilizing the American trust in democratic systems.
It was impossible for me not to see the connection. This increasing distrust in leadership. The feelings of polarization and isolation, requiring radical independence and personal leadership.
We are inheriting a set of problems. A sort of second-hand crisis of isolation, instability, disillusionment of leadership, and a slow dismantling of community.
Last week, I pitched the idea to a few friends in the community that we need to just get together. To be together. Not to talk about Israel and have a big town hall meeting to make everyone feel heard about politics, security, and Zionism. But just to realize that by being together, we are human. We are people with slightly different ways of living and being and we can share space, parenting within a village of people that–whether I agree with their politics or not– I do care about.
So we had a picnic. Shabbat in the park with 20 people. Sharing pizza and letting our kids run around together and just being together and it was good.
I'm rejecting the inheritance we're being given. That just because things are falling apart in the country or the government or the world, that our community of families needs to too.
We don't need second hand problems. We just need a second set of hands.
–––––––
I'd like to propose a motion. That this month we all take a small action like this. Simply to get together in a group. Not getting coffee with a friend or seeing one person, but bringing a small group of people together.
We're a lot better in person. We're a lot more alike than it seems. What do you say? Will you second the motion?
Thanks for reading. Thanks for replying. Refridgeyalater,
Jake
Second Looks
The Case Against Brevity (Gloria Mark)
The Second Mountain, David Brooks)
At Synagogues, Tensions are Boiling Over (Eyal Press / New Yorker)
The United States is Destroying Itself (Rebecca Solnit / The Guardian)
Mere Exposure Effect (Wikipedia)
Louis CK Sincerely Louis CK Transcript (Scraps from the Loft)
On second thought...
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A few topics I cut from this month: One story about almost getting arrested at a beach in El Segundo, one story about a restaurant on 2nd Ave and e 2nd St where my parents met my in-laws for the first time, the second amendment, my second grade teacher Mr Perez
The Email Refrigerator is a monthly delivery of essays, poetry, imagery, and thoughts, written and curated by Jake Kahana. Why a refrigerator? Well, it's where we look for snacks, a little freshness, and where we hang the latest, greatest work. And besides, "newsletter" sounds like spam.