Back in 2000, the White Stripes released my favorite album from their discography: “De Stijl.” With tunes like “You’re Pretty Good Looking (For a Girl),” “Apple Blossom,” “Death Letter,” and “Your Southern Can is Mine,” the album is, indeed, chock-full of some of the band’s strongest work. It’s also beautiful commentary on art. The Dutch art form from which the album gets its name is also one of my favorite art movements. Otherwise known as Neoplasticism, De Stijl is an art movement that focuses on simplicity with its geometric shapes and use of neutral and primary colors. It’s stripped down and simple, very much like the White Stripes’ music.
Just inside the album’s booklet, frontman Jack White penned a short paragraph expanding upon the very concepts the album sought to illustrate. The blurb ends with a statement that I’ve always loved:
“Even if the goal of achieving beauty from simplicity is aesthetically less exciting, it may force the mind to acknowledge the simple components that make the complicated beautiful.”
“Wagon Deverell and I used to call it Fossil Cod Society Meeting”
A few weeks ago, I made a special delivery to my father-in-law’s place. I had a book for him and decided to swing it by on my way to the greenway for a lunch-break training run. I made it a point to tell him I couldn’t hang long – I had an hour to get in my run and make it back home before my next meeting and he understood. Despite the pressing schedule and conflicting priorities, I found myself enjoying our conversation so much that I stayed and chatted for my entire break. It was a meaningful moment between the three of us (me, him and his kitty Loretta Lynn).
A few hours after getting back home, I received a text message from him asking if we could figure out how to hang a little more often. He’d mentioned a similar relationship he once had that led to the formation of the aforementioned Fossil Cod Society – just two men grabbing a beer and talking, sharing and learning together. It was a fine idea in theory, but putting it into practice would be a challenge. Weekdays are nearly impossible to schedule with work and home obligations, and mine and Katie’s weekend social calendar books months in advance. To muddle things even more, despite having done it so many times, I’m just not the kind of guy who loves going out for a drink with the boys. Still, I put a day on the books about three weeks out and said I’d look forward to it.
By the time that afternoon rolled around, I’d worked five days at the office, woke up at 4am four of those days and completed eight workouts for the week. I was positively exhausted. By the end of the work week, I’m also usually suffering from a good amount of mental and emotional fatigue that comes with putting in the hours with corporate America but also from being so connected all the time.
Like I’ve said recently, I’ve eliminated most social media in my life. Instagram is my sole presence these days and I’ve done a great job of shaping my algorithm to be mostly pizzas, tattoos, puppies and Paris Hilton. Still, every day I’m made aware of the depressing state of our country. Having to be constantly reminded that the country we love is being led by an authoritarian regime is extremely tiring. Falling into comment sections that are full of abject racism and homophobia makes it challenging to have hope for the world or to feign enthusiasm for much outside of going to bed early.
Nevertheless, despite how I was feeling that Friday afternoon, I found myself on Pops’ doorstep right on time to pick him up. I took him to one of my favorite Mexican restaurants because they serve giant mugs of Dos Equis Amber. The bartender brought us our brews, a basket of chips and a bowl of hot queso and we did exactly what we set out to do: just talk.
We chatted about our respective heritages and life philosophies, about our personal histories and thoughts on mortality. There was a history lesson in his family’s Indigenous ties, we shared some of our darkest moments, discussed how aghast we both were at the behavior of our country’s leadership and shared many very silly stories that were rather meaningless, yet somehow appropriate.
About an hour (and two rounds) later, I noticed something very important: we both had our phones laying face-down on the bar. Neither of us had checked them despite receiving countless notifications the entire time. During our hang, nothing short of life-threatening disaster mattered. Maybe it was the effect of my favorite cerveza Mexicana but this realization was calming to the soul.
The world in which we currently find ourselves is one where people are encouraged to be informed, connected and reachable at all times. They’re not taught, however, how to verify sources, how to identify bias or how to listen. We’re constantly surrounded by information, yet very few people know how to manage it effectively.
It’s been said countless times, but most people listen to respond rather than listening to understand. It’s led to a modern society where sharing opposing opinions leads to verbal brawls more akin to a Wrestlemania main event than they do discourse between two people who love each other. Disagreements become battles, spats become rumbles, friends become enemies.
We’ve developed a desire to be correct more than to learn or adapt.
Pops and I didn’t solve any of the world’s problems but we did learn about a lot of the good, bad and ugly moments that make us both human. At one point, we found that we share a mutual dislike of people while simultaneously being fascinated by them.
Our digital world makes it very easy to form this strong dislike. Online relationships are shallow by nature and the way we interact with others has been diminished to the minuscule value of a blue thumbs up or an angry face reaction — quick, no-thought-required presses of a button with no real emotional tie. Despite the heartless nature of online interaction, I’ve seen people stress to the max and even cut friends from their lives based either on the amount of likes they’ve received from them or seeing how many heart reacts they’ve given someone else. And this isn’t even taking into account how easily rage-induced we can become when we see something that offends our sensibilities!
The internet age has made it incredibly difficult to pursue genuine fascination or practice authenticity — an ironic reality considering its primary purposes of engaging and connecting.
In a word, it has made human connection … complicated.
At some point during our time at the bar, I made a declaration about one topic or another – likely either about a perceived gaping wound in our country’s good standing or about my impossibly strong love for his daughter – and he replied with, “I’ll say cheers to that!” As we clinked bottle to glass, some of my precious Dos Equis Amber sloshed out of my pint and splashed into the table, some going into our chip basket, the rest divided between the countertop and my forearm. We each took a sip, put our drinks down, then sat in silence for well over a minute. It wasn’t an awkward silence or one born of the fact that neither of us could think of what to say, but because in that moment, the ability to sit comfortably and quietly in such a noisy world said everything that was on our hearts.
The rest of the world was spinning, but we were still.
The internet screamed and shouted, but we were quiet.
The pitifully obtuse society in which we participate stressed about what the rest of the world thought about it, yet we were indifferent.
A real-life reaction that had heart, substance — a simple moment that provided a glimpse into the very thing that makes this complicated life worth living. It was everything we needed, and I can’t wait to do it again.
-jtf