Gen X college holds own vs. Gen Z

It's time for me to battle Sophie. Mano y mano.

I grew up on games and competition, and we played constant board games, cards and HORSE. Was it too much competiton? ... Probably.

Sophie is a bit of a gamer as well, and I just concluded a trip to the Bay Area in which Dina, Chloe and I spent Thanksgiving with the eldest daughter. She is a sophomore at UC Berkeley, and we did indeed play a family game of hearts when we visited. ... Gamers.

But I feel the need to compete more with Sophie. We don't need to grab a basketball and get in the driveway and play a no-holds-barred game of one-on-one like in The Great Santini.

Rather, I say we go toe-to-toe and compete with our college lives. Whatcha got, Sophie? Bring it. 

I must say that college appears to be a much, much different experience than when I attended in the early 1990s. But which experience is better?

Now, are our experiences in any way indicative of every person of an entire generation? Well, uh, yes, indeed, they are! I went to The Ohio State University, and, overall, my college experience was positive. But the question is: Who has a better college experience — Gen Z kids or us Gen Xers?

1) Social Life. I assumed the Gen Xers and I would win this in a landslide. I am still friends with many college buddies and feel a connection with a vast number of college peers. Gen Z kids seem more concerned with their phones.

However, Sophie has quite a network of friends through her dance troupe, and she appears to be doing perfectly fine socially. I am also impressed that she does not drink any alcohol, or do any type of drugs, and that is excellent. For a lot of us Gen Xers, beer fueled our social lives, and when I realize that #MeToo moments were happening a lot, it knocks us down a peg. Winner: Tie

2) Academics. I had the freedom to study whatever in the world floated my boat, and I tell Sophie she has that freedom as well. I landed on English, and I enjoyed the freedom of coming into college undecided and finding my way.

Sophie, on the other hand, is majoring in computer science, or some sort of computer-science related field. As a parent, I believe it is my duty to support my daughter's pursuits and not criticize them. But as a writer, I got to question computer science. I mean that field hardly existed when I was in college, and what is the allure of computers?

I get that Gen Z kids love their phones, which are basically magical calculators. But for me, I wouldn't devote my career chasing digital waterfalls. However, Sophie's courses look quite more in depth than me, remembering that Samuel Taylor Coleridge was a Romantic poet. Her course work is way beyond calculus, and she took a fascinating neuroscience class about how the brain actually works. Winner: Gen Z

3) Emotional Life. I am not so sure I considered having an emotional life when I was in college whatsoever. In fact, the term "emotional intelligence" was not even coined until the 1990s.

Sophie is pretty chill and adaptable. What impresses me most is how she handles adversity. She's got grit. On the flip side, I see a lot of older people still emotionally immature. I've often said that there is a distinct lack of emotional education in the schools, but then it is reasonable to develop emotionally on our own. Winner: Gen Z

4) Spiritual Life. After being raised Catholic, it was nice to get to college and realize I finally didn't have to sit through masses any more. Thank God! But that didn't mean my spiritual life was over. Instead, it started a lifelong search for meaning and a spiritual life, and the dropping of Catholicism actually improved my spiritual life in the long run.

I did not raise Sophie with organized religion, and I believe she is open to many faiths and spiritual approaches. But for her generation, I wonder what the deal is. Many just blindly follow the faiths of their parents, or community, and I believe the United States is in the midst of a spiritual crisis. Heck, Dwight from The Office wrote a book called Spiritual Boom: Why We Need a Spiritual Revolution.  Winner: Gen X

5) Sports Teams. I just don't see how Cal can possibly compete with The Ohio State Buckeyes. Yes, the Bears had Aaron Rodgers and Marshawn Lynch, but come on? The Bucks are in a different echelon.

Plus, somehow the Big 10 has 18 teams now. Say what?!? The AFC has less, with 16 teams. The economics of college sports is just totally whack and goofy. What is going on here? Winner: Gen X

Well, there you have it.

At first glance, it appeared that Gen Z was in a runaway with a 2-0 lead over Gen X when it relates to the college experience. But then, buoyed by spirituality and sports teams, Gen X caught fire and forced a tie.

So it turns out that the college experiences between the entire generations of Gen Z and Gen X are even — even Stevens. 

Let's do the Time Warp again

It's astounding. Time is fleeting.

Oh thank God, the 2024 Presidential Election will end — hopefully, maybe — this week, and I'm not sure any song sums up the state of U.S. politics more than Time Warp from The Rocky Horror Picture Show.

What is going on here?

I hardly see any conversations occurring in the country about the key issues of the day — the wealth gap or health care or military spending or school-to-prison pipeline or globalization. The state of media has become such that the idea of having a public discourse of important issues is long gone, replaced by he-said-she-said talking points to get elected, memes and 10-second video clips.

If I thought the state of public discourse was at all-time low heading into the 2020 election when I blasted Facebook and the state of media, is it any better now? But let's look at me, the writer, here. You're getting this commentary from a former staff writer at newspapers for 12 years, and newspapers and network news are now referred to as "legacy media."

You're getting this commentary from someone who felt there was a semblance of public discourse back in the 1900s and early 2000s and maybe even the early 2010s. But now?

Madness takes its toll. But listen closely, not for very much longer.

One of the main issues in this year's presidential election is the repeal of Roe v. Wade by the Supreme Court in 2022. OK, that was quite a move. It's now again a hot-button topic, and, yes, it's important. But it's obscuring other important issues. 

While the federal government and Supreme Court could be coming together to balance the absurd dominance of Fanmag (Facebook, Apple, Nvidia, Microsoft, Amazon and Google), like European countries are attempting to do, the Supreme Court instead overruled abortion. Hmm.

That egregious ruling pulled many people's eyes off many pressing issues of the day, including trillion-dollar technology companies' dominance in the market place. Instead of focusing on that issue, and a boatload of other important issues, we're debating abortion rights again.

I thought we, as a society, agreed about the legalities of the touchy subject of abortion. It's really more of a moral issue than a legal issue. Right? But Roe v. Wade, which was ruled upon in Jan. 1973, is a debate again 51 years later.

(Refrain: All) Let's do the Time Warp again. Let's do the Time Warp again.

Another key talking point in this 2024 Presidential Election is immigration, securing the borders, etc. But here's the problem with that. California, the main border state and gateway to immigrants, went through this in the 1900s — the 1980s to be exact.

Back in the early '80s, California saw a huge influx of immigrants, and that led to a whole lotta racism and struggle, but landed on legislation that then saw 3.5 million legal immigrants come into California between 1984 and 1994.

Nowadays, the outdated immigration system isn't working, but there are easy fixes that everyone, regardless of political party, agree on. And here is what is baffling. Immigration is by far impacting California more than any other state — not even close. Yet in California, immigration is not a hot-button topic like it is in non-border states.

(Refrain: All) Let's do the Time Warp again. Let's do the Time Warp again.

Look. The Snooze Button Generation prides itself in being a nonpartisan blog, and we're not promoting a certain candidate here. We're simply saying that the state of political discourse is at an all-time low. It's obviously because of how we obtain news — or opinion masquerading as news.

I'm hoping that this is the nadir, and we somehow return to reasonable, issues-related discourse. But I'm worried that with our echo-chamber, smart-phone world, we'll never return to actual issues again. Perhaps the advancement of all this personal technology has an inverse effect on many individuals' personal progress.

(Refrain: All) Let's do the Time Warp again. Let's do the Time Warp again.

Active aging enables freedom

Well, another year has sped by in my aging process, and I turned 51 on Friday. I'm loving this aging thing and have accidentally committed to something called "active aging." Love it!

The World Health Organization states that the four pillars of active aging are health, lifelong learning, participation and security. Huh? I got to think about those pillars and explore them. I invite you to do the same and Benjamin Button your life.

Health is the No. 1 pillar of active aging. Health is extremely important to me and may be more complicated than it seems. I used to only think of health in terms of mental and physical health. What else is there?

Like many, I discovered the Wellness Wheel, and I realized that health has eight components. To be committed to those, we'll probably need an action plan as opposed to a vague idea. Actually, we'll probably need eight action plans.

Next pillar of active aging: lifelong learning. The great news about being a high-school teacher in my 50s is that I am totally relevant and the kids see how dope and fire I am. Kidding!

The good thing about being an aging high-school teacher is that you are forced (I'm pretty sure you're forced unless you're oblivious and stuck in the past) to update your operating system and do your best to see the world through your students' eyes. Of course, that is impossible, but you can glean A LOT from the youngsters' perspectives.

Lifelong learning? Of course. I might be getting certified in scuba soon, and I count myself fortunate to have a career that enables lifelong learning. Hey, don't just listen to me. Billionaires should not exist, but billionaire Mark Cuban once said, "Whatever job you take, you're getting paid to learn. And once you accept money for education, that's a good thing. But once the education stops, you got to pivot to something new."

Excellent point. And monetizing learning? I can sign up for that.

Pillar No. 3 is participation. Oh boy. That's a big one, especially in this era of echo chambers and online rabbit holes. I'm not so sure human beings participate as much in their actual communities as they used to because of all the online distractions.

Again, for me, I am part of a school community so that's at least something, but I definitely can work more on being a part of my community and connecting to others — perhaps through more activities.

Security concludes the pillars, and it is nice that I'll have a teacher pension when I retire with some solid retirement accounts. But not only that, teaching is such a secure living that I again feel fortunate for that career. I fear for corporate folk in their 50s in which they could be replaced by someone younger and cheaper.

I guess with these pillars, I'm realizing that high-school teaching, when done smartly, helps one's health. Of course, I've run across frazzled, unhealthy teachers who haven't quite gotten to the Wellness Wheel yet. But there is hope for everybody.

Our emotional, spiritual, intellectual, physical, environmental, financial, occupational and social health all matter, and I say that best way to improve those is to start small and build on our tiny, healthy habits.

Freedom is the cousin of discipline, and a little discipline, connecting to what is important — our health — will help us with happy, fulfilling exists. Active aging, ultimately, allows us live the lives we actually want.

The art of overachievement

It feels great to overachieve. But what does that even mean?

Achievement and goals can be tricky to gauge because we usually move the goalposts back once we achieve something. So in a way, we can never fully achieve anything if we keep moving those goalposts.

Of course, I need to talk about my Cleveland Guardians, who had the best record in Major League Baseball at one point this past month, only to wobble to a 2.5-game lead in their division.

Heading into the season, I would have just been happy for the Guards to have a winning record — for sure. But then, they swashbuckled to a 58-37 record at the All-Star Break, so it was reasonable to move those goalposts to “I hope they get a bye for the first round of the playoffs!”

By any metric, the Guards have overachieved this season, but if you think about it, practically anyone who is a professional athlete has overachieved. Of course, there are exceptions to that, such as the Philadelphia Phillies' Bryce Harper, the No. 1 overall pick in 2010 and an All-Star at 19, now in the midst of a 13-year, $330 million contract. With that background, it's impossible to overachieve. Right?

But for most not in the Bryce Harper stratosphere, becoming a pro athlete usually is a celebration of overachievement. With the Guardians, they always will be an overachieving team because of their low, low payroll. They started the season with the fourth lowest payroll in baseball, only to collect a couple midlevel veterans to have the eighth lowest payroll.

Let's put this payroll thing into perspective in the non-salary cap MLB. The Guards' $106 million payroll is nearly one-third of the Yankees' $316 payroll. Two players — Shohei Ohtani ($70 million) and you can actually pick one of six other guys and I'll go with the Angels' Anthony Rendon ($38 million) make more than our entire team. So let's just repeat: The Guardians always will be an overachieving team because of their low, low payroll.

But the fact that the Guards compete and frequently beat these overpriced dudes makes their success even sweeter.

The Guards' Jose Ramirez leads the way with the overachieving. He’s been spectacular for us and has only played Cleveland, but because of the small market and his less than adonis-looking body, he often is overlooked as an elite MLB player. He is on a contract that in the realm of reality is astronomical — seven years, $141 million — but in comparison to elite MLB contracts, he might still be overachieving.

 

As I get older, I understand that goals are important, and I’ve been goal-driven throughout my life. But finally, I see that the process matters as well. Baseball, to me, warrants more of a focus on process than most other sports because of its linear nature. One pitch at a time. Base to base. One, two, three strikes. Three outs. I find a unique mathematical beauty to the game. 

To truly overachieve, one must embrace the process, and my Cleveland Guardians have turned that process into an art. Yeah, I could get hung up on some front-office moves that actually hurt the team, or I can get frustrated because they've come down to earth and are 19-22 since the All-Star break.

But, nah, let's enjoy these hungry rookies and youngsters try to maximize their talent by playing smart, fundamental baseball and enjoying the art of base running, fouling off pitches and overachieving.

Art sneaks into Polack's world

It's hard to be an artist in the modern age. For some, they might chuckle at the word. Artist?!? Are you kidding me?

It's curious to me how many people nowadays either 1) consider business, technology and science so important, that they couldn't care less about art, or 2) hardly have a relationship with art.

Buoyed by absorbing Your Brain on Art (2023) by Susan Magsamen and Ivy Ross as part of my school district's superintendent-led book club, I've brought art more into my life, and that's been a spectacular addition. 

One deep thought is how it behooves me to experience art in a nonjudgemental way. Just experience it. No need to judge.

For the longest time, I've been rating art. Which work is better than the next? What is your favorite? If you could have any painting in this museum, what would it be?

Although I sometimes still ask those silly questions, I've found it much more rewarding to just soak in art and see what I actually feel — and not think. The new approach has chilled me out, and not only that, I've been noticing more details — brilliant details — in art and the world that I used to disregard.

I consider this blog a borderline artistic endeavor, but I thought I should try doing something different artistically. Unfortunately, my skill level is exceptionally low in pretty much every discipline of art, so it wasn't easy to come up with a project.

Here's what I finally did: I printed 365 photos that are 4 inches by 4 inches and then put them together in a giant calendar for 2025. The pictures consist of people in the inner circle of my life, and I had the photos represent the days or things we actually did that day in the past 10 years.

I tailored "Points of Love," as I call it, to my beautiful wife, Dina, and gave it to her for her birthday. She says it is the best present she's ever received, and it's probably the best present I've ever given anybody. See the video below or here to check it the project.

The best, or worst, aspect of my project is that anybody, especially a child, could do it. It gave me a reason to go through photos in the mysterious cloud, and whenever things felt too tedious, I'd take a break.

Little discoveries poked through as I put together this project, such as how February and September seemed to have the least photos. That was a little peculiar, I felt, because of Valentine's Day and my birthday being in September, but that's how it is. December — fuhgeddaboudit — had the most photos, by far. Merry Christmas to you!

But, really, the project was all about the audience — Dina, and on some level, me, Sophie and Chloe. What an small, intimate crowd. I guess anybody who comes to my house is the audience as well, but, eh, why would they really care?

Dina and I celebrate our seventh wedding anniversary in three days and have been together for 10 years. That means she was here when the girls were 9 and 7. We've built quite a life together, and based on the photos in "Points of Love" and our feelings and opinions, we've been on a loving, meaningful ride.

I'm pretty sure a lot of us snap, snap, snap photos all the time, never to look at them ever again, let alone print them. I must say that it's a completely different animal to observe a printed photo than one on the phone or Interwebs. Plus, it's pretty freeing to do a project like "Points of Love," or this blog, that is not commercial whatsoever.

I've always had an affinity for art, and back in 2010, this blog announced that Claus Oldenburg edged Jasper Johns as the "Greatest Living Artist." The blog then compiled a Top 10 list of the "greatest living artists," which is ridiculous. However, it may not be that absurd because modern art is so commercial and such a spectacle, that making a David Letterman list might just fit with the landscape.

Since 2010, Oldenburg along with Christo and Lucian Freud have passed, but the other seven artists on my list still are living. And that includes Jasper Johns, who is 94.

It feels great to revisit art and forget about the commercial aspect of it, if that's possible. I just read Rilke's Letters to a Young Poet, and I found some points meaningful, including how Rome is too touristy. And he was saying that back in 1903.

In Rilke's final letter, he concludes it by making a curious comment on art. He writes: "Art too is just a way of living, and however one lives, one can, without knowing, prepare for it; in everything real one is closer to it, more its neighbor, than in the unreal half-artistic professions, which, while they pretend to be close to art, in practice deny and attack the existence of all art — as, for example, all of journalism does and almost all criticism and three quarters of what is called (and wants to be called) literature."

Gosh, I imagine artist types have been forced into "unreal half-artistic professions" for centuries. But c'est la vie, to create art, or childlike poster-board projects, can be freeing.

The Year of Coffee Shops

We parents have a lot of guilt — or at least I do. I am so sorry for addicting my youngest daughter, Chloe, to caffeine. My bad!

It began in 2020 when she was doing online eighth-grade school. She, Dina and I would walk to Ding Tea in the afternoon, and she and Dina would get tea drinks. I'd do the walk, then come home and have an espresso.

Sophie's online school went longer than my and Chloe's school day, so she didn't often walk with us and partake. Then, a bit of irony hit, when Sophie got a job at Ding Tea the summer before senior year in high school.

Through this caffeine addiction, we all have bonded, and Chloe's junior year in high school — on some level — was "The Year of Coffee Shops."

Chloe and I went to 27 different coffee shops, and without talking about it much, she made a critic's spreadsheet of these shops. She critiqued atmosphere, quality of coffee, vibe and a few other things. Eventually, a couple shops, especially Homeboy Coffee in Artesia and Wood Coffee Co on 10th in Long Beach emerged as our favorites (We actually went to Wood with Dina and Sophie as well yesterday). We went to many places multiple times, but in the back of our minds, we kept searching for new shops — new vibes.

All the while, Chloe diligently did her school work as she swashbuckled through five AP classes with her badminton journey, advanced orchestra, K-Pop club and friends also a part of life. So she'd work her butt off at these coffee shops, and I did a little and then tried to make it look like I was working as I collected Pokemon Go characters.

Anyway, Chloe finally ended junior year two weeks after me and a month after Sophie finished Year 1 at Berkeley. Then, during that schools-out weekend, we hit up three coffee shops new to us on three consecutive days. But that wasn't our plan. Our plan was to visit the Watts Towers as a Father's Day outing, and on the way, we ate in Paramount and stopped at Patria Coffee Roasters in Compton.

There is something to be said about driving in Los Angeles on surface streets and not the freeways — when feasible. You get more of a feel of neighborhoods, and I realized that my ideas of certain neighborhoods were off. Next to Patria, for example, a park called Wilson Park stands in all its glory, where there were so many kids on bikes that it resembles a unique version of CicLAvia.

After Patria, we realized it would behoove us to get out of our immediate Long Beach/Cypress area and explore some new neighborhoods. So the next day, we went to Ced Coffee & Donut in Little Saigon Koreatown in Westminister. Incredible drinks!

The day after that, we returned to Little Saigon at Trung Nguyen Legend. Totally worth checking out.

So with Chloe's junior year being "The Year of Coffee Shops," it was interesting/surprising how we took it to the next level once she got out of junior year alive. I thought we might be done. OK, phew, maybe it was time to kick back, maybe go to the beach or something. Nope! We did more coffee shops elsewhere.

When you go to so many coffee shops, you learn how to better use Yelp and the Interwebs and not even try for mid coffee shop. Only the best for us! We also are so comfortable in the context of however they do whatever they do wherever we. Honestly, there's not much range for how people do things.

I must say one of my favorite experiences was in February, when both Chloe and I were feeling guilty for going to so many coffee shops and questioning our caffeine addictions. Somehow, through a lengthy, roundabout conversation, we somehow got affogatos at Aroma Di Roma in Belmont Shore that day. Fuhgeddaboudit!

That started a wild, two-week stint in which I believed there was NOTHING GREATER IN THE WORLD THAN THE AFFOGATO. Eh, the writing was probably on the wall then — Chloe and I might want to cut down our caffeine.

Well, that will have to wait, I suppose. She turns 17 tomorrow, and we don't want caffeine-withdrawal headaches on that big day. Happy birthday, Chloe. Let's get some affogatos.

Praise the messenger

"Rooting for the Yankees is like rooting for U.S. Steel."

With the twisted economics of baseball, big-market teams, like the Yankees and Mets, spend major money on players while teams like my Cleveland Guardians work with shoestring budgets. So when our budget-strapped teams actually are winning, it feels so awesome!

For the third consecutive season, the Cleveland Guardians have the youngest team in Major League Baseball. Their payroll ranks 27th out of 30 teams, yet they stand with the third best record in the league, only behind the Phillies and U.S. Steel.

The start of this Guardians season has been an utter blast, and there are reasons to think this is not a fluke. But this blog entry isn't about the awesome Guards' start. It's about the Cleveland media and our main man, Tom. Why not praise the Cleveland media during this wonderful stretch?

When we witness political mudslinging, economic inequality and social injustice, we sometimes forget about the actual issues and blame the media. But then it seems rare to praise the media when things are going well. Let's do that for a brief moment.

Honestly, we couldn't cheer for these scrappy, young underdog Guardians if the Cleveland sports media didn't exist. Our love of the team has a lot to do with the thoughtful, entertaining product the team presents.

The voice of the Guardians — Tom Hamilton — with his radio buddy Jim Rosenhaus along with the TV team of Rick Manning, Matt Underwood and Andre Knott truly make the Guardians experience worthwhile and deserve major credit for the joy Guardians fan experience. And, of course, stalwart beat writer Paul Hoynes and Cleveland.com's coverage is excellent, too.

But of all the exceptional Cleveland sports journalists out there, I must single out Tom Hamilton as the top of the top, the best of the best. He's our Vin Scully. I cannot say he is better than Vin Scully (which he is) because I once said that to a Dodger Fan and nearly was punched in the face — gotta be careful.

Now, you might say that I am totally biased (which I am), but I challenge you to listen to Tom Hamilton and compare his broadcast with any other's on the MLB app. While I have run across a few respectable announcers, most are borderline, incompetent or flat-out dull. Do they even want to be there?

Tom is vivid and clear, insightful, and has a love of the game that is contagious. I love his emotion, especially on the details of the game, such as getting excited over a ball the dirt that is blocked by the catcher that prevents a runner from moving to second base.

On the TV side, Manning and Underwood with Knott offer insights that we mere fans might not have considered. While they are an excellent broadcast team, I do not see as big of a gap between their broadcasts and other markets. However, Hamilton and Rosenhaus' radio broadcasts are major steps beyond other markets. And of course, let's give major credit to the teams behind these front men because we all know that the producers and crew make or break broadcasts.

Earlier this year, longtime Yankees announcer John Sterling retired. He was excellent and deserves his accolades, but many markets just don't have a respectable, day-in-day-out broadcast wizard like him or Scully or Jon Miller in San Francisco. They might think they do because of the regularity of listening, but sadly, their guys aren't really talented or insightful.

In Cleveland, we have maestros in radio, broadcast and print (or Cleveland.com, if you will). Both Hamilton and Manning have been a part of the Cleveland broadcast side since 1990, so that's 34 years. That is a darn long time, and strangely, they don't feel as if they've been there that long because they keep things so fresh. Hamilton actually has been at it longer than Cleveland icon Herb Score, who was on the radio for 29 years.

Every night, Hamilton creates a stirring narrative, puts a vivid picture of what's happening on the field through words alone and then punctuates it with appropriate emotion. I mean, fuhgeddaboudit, Tom's da best!

Oh, and good news, Tom Hamilton also has explained what I need to get in case I have rust to bust or what type of sausage to try. He also put in my mind the mathematical odds of scoring four runs in any of the first four innings and the value of a free car wash in weather-erratic Cleveland. Let's praise Tom and the Cleveland media. ... Ballgame!

Connection keys our health

Editor's Note: The Snooze Button Generation originally published "100 Nonfiction Books I Recommend" in 2019. As we read more nonfiction books worthy of recommending, the list continually updates. Today, "Together" by Vivek Murthy enters the Personal Growth category.

I've often found myself in conversations with fellow Gen Xers about how cool it was as kids when we'd ride our bikes to our friend's house and follow the accepted rule of the day: "Be home before the street lights come on."

My gosh, how things have changed. Our kids had no desire to go out on their own. They cocooned themselves at home, and soon parents followed suit. Facebook came around, and many of us spent an inordinate amount of time on trivial things, such as social media, the Internet or streaming TV.

So the United States now is experiencing a mental-health crisis and various societal ills, and Surgeon General Vivek Murthy wrote a compelling book Together: The Healing Power of Human Connection in a Sometimes Lonely World (2020). Murthy's main point is that a lot of our nation's mental and physical health problems stem from a lack of community and connection.

That thesis rings true, and he explores various stories and facts to support it. The book, coincidentally, came out one month into the Covid shutout, and its main point has been amplified following that disaster. With lack of in-person, human connection a problem before Covid times, it's even worse now.

Personal technology, a fugazi of connection, is probably the biggest reason why individuals are so disconnected. They mistakenly think by spending hours upon hours on their screens that they are participating in connection, but in reality, they have accidentally given away their much-needed human time to the nothingburger of screen time.

When we toss in the political division that many Americans still swirl in, the lack of neighborhood connection, spurred by the loss of local news, and misconceptions of service, then it's easy to see how so many Americans are isolated. It might be counterintuitive. But service and giving, by the way, are not draining activities, but rather cup-filling ones. When we help others, we also help ourselves.

So the surgeon general of the United States has used his platform to wave his arms and point out this isolation, loneliness epidemic, and it was no newsflash to me. However, I did realize that this has been happening for at least the past 30 years. 

Back in 1995, Robert D. Putnam wrote an article Bowling Alone: America's Declining Social Capital and a subsequent book, in which he examined the United States' declining social capital. Since 1950, there has been a steady decline of in-person social interaction upon which Americans used to find, educate and enrich their social lives. Now, Americans literally find themselves sick without enough social interaction because we are social animals that are being neglected.

Of all that Murthy writes in Together, I found Chapter 7: Circles of Connection to be the most illuminating. Basically, we have three tiers of friends — our inner circle, middle circle and outer circle. The inner circle is our loved ones who we see every day. Sometimes, real close friends and confidants are there. The middle circle are our friends we see now and again and connect with every so often. Our outer circle are our colleagues and acquaintances.

Murthy suggests we connect with at least one person a day, preferably through a conversation or FaceTime who is in our middle circle. It's also important to understand that our inner circle cannot replace, or trump, our other circles. As human beings, we need to know that there are many, many people that do indeed care about us. It's not just our loved ones, but a whole menagerie of folks who've we've connected with and have affected us throughout our lives.

It's crucial to remember how important we are and how we care about so many people and vice versa. The chapter on our circles of friends begins with this brief quote from Ralph Waldo Emerson: "The only way to have a friend is to be one."

Then, as the next chapter opens, Murthy uses the following quote, which we'll end with. It's from Christopher Robin in Pooh's Grand Adventure: The Search for Christopher Robin.

"There is something you must always remember. You are braver than you believe, stronger than you seem and smarter than you think. But the most important thing is, even if we're apart, I'll always be with you."

Darkness before light on Opening Day

My hometown of Cleveland will experience quite a day next week, when the Guardians play their Home Opener two hours after a rare total solar eclipse.

Cleveland is a city in an ideal path for the eclipse, and the Land will be totally dark for nearly four minutes, starting at 3:13 p.m. on Monday April 8. Two hours later ... "Play ball!"

With extra tourists expected to be in downtown Cleveland for the eclipse, this Opening Day could be one of the most memorable in Cleveland history. But for me, I got to go with Opening Day, 1991, as my most memorable. 

Back on April 16, 1991, a few hundred St. Ignatius students, myself included, trekked two miles to Cleveland Municipal Stadium for the Indians' Home Opener vs. the Texas Rangers.

We students bought $5 tickets for the bleachers and saw the Indians lose 3-1 in what turned out to be a 57-105 season — the worst season in Cleveland Indians history. But to cut school for the only time in my high school career and not get in trouble because so many kids did it — that was pretty darn cool.

The attendance for that 1991 Home Opener was 46,606, even though the baseball capacity of the stadium was 74,000. The next day attendance was a mere 6,023. Before you knew it, a scenario of walking up on Opening Day for $5 tickets would be long gone.  

In 1994, the Indians moved to Jacobs Field, where they became a powerhouse and were in the World Series in 1995. If you build it, they will win — apparently. The Jake soon had 455 consecutive sellouts from '95 to 2001.

Mimicking the darkness of this year's Opening Day followed by the light of play, the Tribe experienced A LOT of darkness before stepping into the light. That's a pretty common narrative. I think about the crucifixion then the resurrection, and I personally know many people who've had dark times only to commit to not revisiting those and are having bright lives. 

Reminiscing about Cleveland Municipal Stadium, it's kind of wild how long that dreary stadium hung around. It opened in 1931 as the largest open-air venue in the world. It was a multiple-purpose stadium, then housed the Tribe until 1993 and the Browns from 1946-1995. It was totally outdated for a long, long time.

Even though Jacobs Field — now called Progressive Field — is the 10th oldest facility in Major League Baseball, I think it's still one of the nicer ballparks in the league. 

The "new" Cleveland Browns Stadium, AKA the Factory of Sadness, is the 12th oldest NFL stadium, being built on the site of Municipal Stadium and opening in 1999. There is talk about either putting $1 billion into renovations for the Browns Stadium or possibly constructing a dome in Brook Park.

But baseball and football are much different animals. In baseball, we have 81 home games as opposed to about 10 in football (considering the preseason and playoffs). The United States goes bananas for the NFL, while Major League Baseball is practically an artisan affair by comparison.

TV-wise, the NFL boasted the top 50 watched sporting events in 2023. For the top non-NFL sporting events, Game 4 of the World Series came in at 42nd place. Look, popularity between the NFL and Major League Baseball just isn't comparable.

But for me, Opening Day garners more hope than the Super Bowl. It's a symbol of spring and newness, and I am a devoted Cleveland Guardians fan. Yeah, we could talk about the economic ridiculousness of pro sports and how corporate they are, but win or lose, I genuinely enjoy the Guardians and the process of the 162-game season.

While winning always is nice, World Series, total eclipses — you can have them, sure, but there is a certain comfort, love and brightness when the first pitch comes at the corner of Carnegie and Ontario.

We are not our accomplishments

Editor's Note: The Snooze Button Generation originally published "100 Nonfiction Books I Recommend" in 2019. As we read more books worthy of recommending, the list continually updates. Today, "Never Enough" by Jennifer Breheny Wallace enters the Education category.

With my alma mater Saint Ignatius High School in Cleveland praised on pages 195-199 in Never Enough: When Achievement Culture Becomes Toxic — And What We Can Do About It, it made it easy to recommend Jennifer Breheny Wallace's 2023 book.

The harsh truth is that achievement culture in schools often is toxic. Kids stay up all hours doing their schoolwork. They have a difficult time staying healthy. Many are disconnected, and they have an unsustainable lifestyle that, I believe, is an accidental and involuntary response to our cruel, billionaire-led, wealth-gap system of economics.

As a mom of three teenagers, Wallace explores this toxic culture and offers solutions for parents and educators. As a dad of two teen daughters and as a high-school teacher, I must say that she nails the culture we've been facing, but the solutions aren't anything earth-shattering.

It's real easy for parents to get wrapped up in competition and comparison, and so kids follow suit. I respond most to Wallace's parenting tips because, although I agree wholeheartedly with separating self-worth from achievement and unconditionally loving my daughters, I admit that I've talked about the college-admissions process so much, it's absurd.

By focusing so much on college, I think I undermined how important character, connection, communication and community are — among other things — in comparison to academics. Because the college-admissions process often is a divisive, self-centered exercise in disconnection, students and parents take it too seriously, and their values often become obscured by the vacuous and vague idea of "success."

We parents and educators can change our own behavior and attitudes, but we can't change the toxic individualistic culture our kids find themselves. Heck, a lot of this is old news. You've likely heard the stories of how pregnant ladies in New York City often battle for placements on waiting lists for preschools before their kids are even born. The madness often starts before birth.

Perfectionist parenting leads to perfectionist youths, and both are illnesses. We need to strive for purpose, not perfection, and, sadly, too many parents and students find themselves derailed by a culture that I continue to assert is a byproduct of "our cruel, billionaire-led, wealth-gap system of economics."

Perhaps my favorite part of Never Enough is the sense of hope that we have through genuinely connecting with our children and with positive individuals in our children's lives. However, it might be easy for Wallace to say that because she is in a position of privilege as a cultural oligarch herself.

Harvard-educated Jennifer Breheny used to be an associate producer at 60 Minutes, and Mike Wallace set her up on a blind date with his grandson, Peter. So Chris Wallace is her father-in-law. Maybe this is irrelevant, or maybe it's uber-relevant because we're living in the influencer, oligarch world, and she figured out how to be one of sorts with an extremely important topic.

And, hey, Wallace found herself interviewing Coach Mike McLaughlin, a teacher and soccer coach at St. Ignatius. Mad props! Coach Mike explained that the goal of the school is to have students "balance their own personal needs and goals with a responsibility to help others meet their needs and reach their goals, too."

I have discovered that true service, which can only involve a symbiotic relationship with those being served, is difficult to find. It can occur under the right circumstances, and St. Ignatius does its best to put students in a path of true service by requiring it and urging them to develop relationships with those they're serving.

"You don't have to fly to Haiti and build a shelter to do meaningful volunteer work," Coach Mike tells Wallace. And so I wonder why so many elite students don't actually do volunteer work close to home, or if they do, why does it have to be something grandiose they put on their college transcripts?

Maybe some just never realized they actually have the ability to make an impact in others' and their own lives, and that only can start in the home and in their actual community. 

Accidental wisdom seeps in

Patience is the companion of wisdom. A wise person sees the big picture and recognizes that they are not God or the most important person in the world.

Kindness is wisdom. Wise people are also humble.

True wisdom comes from sifting through all the noise and finding simplicity at its core.

I've discovered that it's not effective to actively pursue wisdom. Rather, wisdom seeps in over time. Wisdom is more of a feeling than a thought.

At least that's what I'm feeling nowadays, in which I've had a pretty good stretch in life, realizing the phrase "accidental wisdom" probably is redundant. Perhaps wisdom only can be accidental.

While I've been accused of being a bit too woo-woo and partially agree with that, I've been a bit more relaxed of late and have reprioritized my activities and what's important to me. Quality time with my beautiful wife and daughters tops the list of my daily goals. And then, bike rides and walking around El Dorado Park's Nature Center or other worthwhile landscapes, whenever possible, have been my focus.

C'est la vie. Why concern myself with trivial things when I can be looking at the ocean, trees, lakes or turtles?

I had much different feelings for most of my life. Not only did I eschew nature, but I reveled in the glory of manmade constructions, such as The Rock (AKA New York City).

After getting a master's in journalism in The City and working in newspapers for 12 years in New York and L.A., I was an inevitable newshound for most of my life. While I stay abreast of the world's happenings just once daily on the AP News app and German's DW (Deutsche Welle), I think another source of the main sense of calm, and wisdom, I've been experiencing comes from my distinct lack of social media, TV news and scrolling.

So as we head into a presidential election in which I honestly believe is an embarrassing media-gross process and event for Americans, I simply refuse to follow it. Nope. Disregard. Dismiss. Not taking the click bait. I've got an actual life to lead here. I got trees to see.

I don't have any regrets having that 12-year career in newspaper journalism during a time when newspapers existed. I still vehemently argue that we need quality journalism as a part of our nation's checks and balances. Unfortunately, that journalistic ideal is a pipe dream, but it would be nice not to have the Washington Post owned by Amazon and The New York Times telling me the time length each article takes to read on its app.

Henry David Thoreau once said, "If we read of one man robbed, or murdered, or killed by accident, or one house burned, or one vessel wrecked, or one steamboat blown up, or one cow run over on the Western Railroad, or one mad dog killed, or one lot of grasshoppers in the winter — we never need to read of another."

So, yeah, I think Biden/Trump, again, is just the icing on the cake that shows the news cycle we witness in the United States is not only ridiculous, but toxic. It just feels so good to give myself permission to dismiss it and not get hung up on the painful news of the day.

It took me a while getting here, but I guess it's accidental wisdom. Like rings around trees, my wisdom has been sneaking up on me and helping me enjoy my days more and not wasting them on the dreadful news of steamboats blowing up.

Quick nunchi in Costco

If you can't beat 'em, join Costco.

After eschewing Costco for most of my life because it symbolized lame overconsumption in my mind, I finally succumbed and joined.

"Wait, you never had a membership," the clerk said as I signed up.

"No, never."

"Really?"

Do I look like a Costco member? What does that even look like? Why didn't he believe me?

I liken myself to an artiste of sorts, kind of like Thurston Moore from Sonic Youth, downtown New York, East Village or Lower East Side. Why would I be in freaking Costco?

Is there some sort of spiritual connection happening in Costco as we revel in oversized pot pies, 3-pound bags of tortilla strips and 15 packs of coconut water? Is God speaking to us?

Eh, I'm not so sure that exists because it seems so mindless. Do we even notice each other as we grab our 40 packs of spring water and 10 packs of Kleenex? Are we supposed to notice each other? How do I blend in among these big-ass pumpkin pies and chocolate cakes?

In stark contrast to my foray into Costco, I just read a small book called The Power of Nunchi: The Korean Secret to Happiness and Success by Euny Hong. Nunchi has no true translation in English, but it's perhaps best described as "reading the room" or seeking first to understand or, for me, finding power in not speaking.

I suppose I take a lot of American culture for granted, such as self-promotion and the myth of individualism. On the other hand, I don't know if I can accept Costco. On some level, that big ole warehouse just ain't right!

Do we really need all of this stuff? Isn't it a bummer that so much of our culture is disposable? Do you think I will use three cans of Reddi-wip, or is that two and a half cans too much?

While rolling my supersized shopping cart in Costco, my mind drifts to the nunchi book and how nunchi differs from empathy. While I take it as a given that one should strive for empathy, Hong questions that.

Empathy puts the focus on one's self other than the actual person. We try to "put ourselves in their shoes." But shouldn't we really just listen, soak in what the person is saying and allow them to be seen and heard?

I've often chastised myself for overtalking. I am just so hilarious and insightful that it's best that I talk over as many people as possible so I can be beheld in all of my glory. ... Uh, not the best look.

So as I push my oversized shopping cart, I get out of my head and notice what I see. People appear jostling for space and time. Many do not, or cannot, consider the others around them. This is consumption. This is California. This is Costco.

I do not have any answers, but I'm developing questions. Are we just members of the consumption class? If it's disposable, does it have any worth?

Why do I rush so much? Why I am happiest when my mind is blank? Why must you get a three-pack of guacamole when I just want one?