I just cleaned my apartment while listening to one of my favorite classic hip hop albums, Peaceful Journey by Heavy D & The Boyz. I used the actual CD and played it on an actual CD player. There was no computer involved; no Internet; no apps, playlists, or recommendations of similar artists I might enjoy. Just the music I know and love and was listening to intentionally in the moment. The experience was joyfully minimal and I felt unusually focused. I was free to do what I wanted with no unnecessary complications or distractions. Sometimes it can be ironically liberating to not have the world at your fingertips.

Last night I was watching Arsenio, and during the monologue he made fun of Bill Nye for looking awkward during a recent performance on Dancing With The Stars. Since in this instance Arsenio is a comedian doing his job, and since TV contestants presumably know that getting made fun of by comedians is part of their job, I think this sort of teasing is fine.

But then I got to thinking about the rest of us. In order to succeed at something, it's clear we must first attempt to do the thing. And if we attempted more things, we'd infinitely increase our likelihood of succeeding at those things. But a lot of the time we don't attempt things because we know there's a good chance we'll get made fun of if we look awkward or fail.

Imagine all the things you would attempt, and potentially succeed at, if you knew people wouldn't make fun of you but would instead show support. Imagine what we could all learn, share, and accomplish if a willingness to look awkward while trying something new was celebrated instead of used against us as ammunition for ridicule.

A lot of people think it's a virtue to be open-minded. What it means to be open-minded is that you're willing to consider new ideas and take into account new information in an unprejudiced way. I agree that this is a virtue.

However, the word is often misused to mean an unconditional acceptance of everything. To think that anything is bad, wrong, or untrue in an absolute sense is therefore considered closed-minded, rigid, intolerant, and unacceptable.

But here we have a self-contradiction. To someone whom he considers closed-minded, this type of self-proclaimed open-minded person will essentially say, "I accept everything. You don't. I find that unacceptable." In other words, if he thinks it's wrong to be closed-minded, he himself is being closed-minded.

So the truth is that we're all closed-minded in this sense, just about different things. And that's fine, because being open-minded in this sense wouldn't be a virtue anyway. It couldn't be because it isn't logically possible unless virtue itself doesn't exist. If there is no right and wrong, then we can logically accept everything, including not accepting things, because nothing matters anyway. But if right and wrong have any real meaning, then accepting things for the sake of acceptance will get us nowhere.

The real virtue is in considering new things with an open mind and an open heart. And a natural result of considering things is that we gradually form theories and draw conclusions. Sometimes the most rational conclusion you can draw is that a certain thing is bad, wrong, or untrue in an absolute sense. And this doesn't make you closed-minded in the slightest unless you refuse to reconsider your position should new information or ideas present themselves.

In actuality, a person who seems closed-minded in the misused sense of the word may in fact be the most open-minded, and the most virtuous, of us all.

I think most interpersonal conflicts are based on misunderstanding. People are usually cool until someone, through misunderstanding, thinks someone else has said or done something uncool. Instead of assuming the best and trying to understand the other person, we too often assume the worst and, if anything, try to confront that person in a condescending and dismissive way. The typical outcome, of course, is that feelings get hurt, enemies are made, everybody feels self-righteous, and nobody learns anything. An unfortunately common and surprisingly inept state of affairs for a species that figured out how to go to the moon almost half a century ago.

Earlier I posted a short thought which I found amusing. A few minutes later I deleted the post for several reasons. Here's the original post, followed by a discussion of why I deleted it:

"You know those Mexican grocery stores that sell sexy little party dresses for girls? Well, I would like to see a Victoria's Secret with a full produce section."

When I wrote that, I was listening to a Mexican singer I like and thinking about certain aspects of Latin American culture which I find admirably festive and delightfully different from the Midwestern culture in which I've spent the majority of my life. When I've seen it in certain Mexican grocery stores, I've always loved what to me is a refreshingly oddball juxtaposition of women's clubwear and everyday food items. If this can happen in a grocery store, why not in a women's clothing store? In my opinion, the resulting image is silly if not hilarious, not to mention admirably festive and delightfully different.

However, based on what I feel is often an easily offended, overly-P.C. American social climate we have these days, there are certain words and phrases in my original post which I'm pretty sure would immediately cast me in an unflattering and misrepresentative light. The very appearance of "Mexican," "sexy little party dresses," and "Victoria's Secret" might very probably establish me, however inaccurately, as a racist, sexist pervert. In this particular case, a racist, sexist pervert with an inexplicable grocery fetish.

But that type of negative perception would have nothing at all to do with the intention or the spirit of my original thought. I think this is probably true of a lot of thoughts which, when expressed, are almost automatically construed as offensive or hateful by others. Sometimes a racist pervert is a racist pervert. But other times it's simply an appreciator of differences in culture and gender who thinks it would be funny to sell fruit and vegetables in a clothing store.

I'm a Christian but I don't go to church. Mostly because I think church is boring. And let's be honest: if you think of church as a concert or a show, church IS boring. But that's where I've been wrong. Church isn't a show--it's a hospital. A spiritual hospital for the soul. And if a person is sick or injured, what sense does it make to say, "I'm not going to the hospital because it's BORING"? Of course, that's not to say all churches are good or right for all people. Hospitals and doctors can be bad; so can churches and clergy. But both things can be good too. This weekend I'm going to start looking for a good church.

I've always been a good person, but I've also been tormented and lost. Over the past few years, and with God's help, my demons have begun losing their hold on me. Not unlike an astronaut whose mission is finished, I'm finally coming back to the world. This is maybe my favorite song:

JUNKIE XL (Feat. ROBERT SMITH) - Perfect Blue Sky