My Archetype

Coming to terms with Archetypes:

The idea of an archetype began, as most of our ideas did in Western Philosophy, with Plato. Of course, his concept of an archetype varied pretty substantially from the concept that has developed from his work. To sum up Plato's ideas, the archetypes were absolute forms and all of experienced reality was a shadow of this truth. For instance, we could see something and know it was a chair despite being different in color and material than any other chair we had seen because our souls recognized the archetype of the chair.

Still, it was Carl Jung who picked up Plato's idea and developed the archetype as we understand it today, innate prototypes for concepts that appear as universals across cultures as interpretive templates for understanding reality and literature. Jung claimed that there were a large number of archetypes some those that are commonly sited are from his book Man and his Symbols (with Marvel Superheroes as examples):

1. The self, the part of us that regulates (Dr. X, Mr. Fantastic, Captain America).
2. The Shadow, the wild and untamed part of ourselves (Hulk, Deadpool, Phoenix).
3. The Anima, the archetype of the feminine (Storm, The Invisible Girl, sometimes Shadowcat)
4. The Animus, the archetype of the masculine (Wolverine, The Thing).
5. The persona, the mask, the hypocrite, the part we show to the world (Spider Man, Johnny Storm, Iron Man).

This was never meant to be a comprehensive list and Jung as well as Jung's disciples, especially Joseph Campbell added to it. These others included: the child, the hero, the savior, the great mother, the wise old person, the trickster, the devil, the scarecrow, the teacher and rebirth. the list could go on indefinitely. People have found an understanding of these archetypes very useful in understanding them as part of themselves, or as reoccurring concepts of literature.

It has also become popular for many people to use these as an instrument for interpreting Old Testament scripture, using new testament scriptures like Hebrews 8:5 as a basis, and seeing New Testament examples, especially those dealing with Jesus as "true types" rather than archetypes. Of course, the writer of human writer of Hebrews could not have been aware of Jung's theories, but if we accept the concept of Divine Inspiration, we can accept that God was.

What has gotten really interesting to me has been the archetypes that Jung developed in his book Psychological Types. He really developed just a couple types there: the rational judge and the irrational perceiver. Each of these could be divided into three. The rational judge could either be a thinker or a feeler. The irrational perceiver could either be sensitive or intuitive. Some of you are probably already seeing something familiar developing here, The Meyers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) to which Katherine Briggs and her daughter Isabel Meyers added the archetypes of "the introvert" and "the extrovert."

I had taken MBTI tests before and never really worried about them until I was married. So, I fall into an archetype sort of, who cares? It wasn't until I was married to someone who lives in the world in a very different way than I do that I was concerned. Suddenly, I was required to explain my thoughts and actions, and I lacked the words to do it.

This blog is about "coming to terms" and for me the MBTI has really helped me come to terms. I learned more about my type and more about my wife's type and have been able to really improve our relationship through it. Learning about myself this way has also had some really fascinating side effects. I have been able to find out what my type should do to improve our work habits, something that has helped me at my job. I have become more aware of my personality weaknesses and have learned to put myself in situations where they don't matter or where they can be worked around. Finally, I have found groups on the internet that discuss my type, and we can all help us understand it. Here is a post I made in one such group based on the comment one group member made, recommending that we exclude those not of our type:

• I joined the open group and then asked to join this one because it helps me think about myself in a more systematic way. Even those who are not INTP seem to be trying to come to terms with the archetype, which is what I am trying to do. I am trying to come to terms (defined: find language) for explaining myself, especially to my ENFJ wife. I really do think it has helped and should probably thank the active posters in this group for that, even those that are not INTP.
  
  It is true, that some people who post the most here are not INTP. I am far more likely to respond than post (I), but generally willing to give my thoughts on the subject. If we didn't have people here ENGAGING our archetype, we'd probably have a pretty empty board.
  
  I also get annoyed by people who seem more "J" than "P," especially those who take a particularly anti-religious bent, actively stereotyping and categorizing using categories that they don't seem to see bleed too much and are too anomaly pocked to be useful. Still, we get so much "J" from the religious point of view, that it is also interesting to hear the "J" arguments from secular perspectives.
  
  Finally, I am not sure what criteria we'd use if we wanted to exclude people. Even the best indicators misapply, and I am not sure that mathematical tests are the best for applying the concept of the archetype. I think there is a reason that Jung is considered fringe in the Social Sciences, but widely accepted in the Humanities. It is because a literary reading of oneself seems to indicate the validity of the existence of archetypes. Granted, in three out of the four types my scores are so strong that the mathematical tests always agree, but I do occasionally get "F". Where statistical significance fails, the best scenario is to read about the archetypes and see where best fit seems to be. It doesn't really make sense to exclude people based on this.

Studying archetypes is fun for looking at the Bible and literature, but it has recently also made a difference in my life. It has helped me to understand why I act the way I do, and either change it or explain it.

7 Epiphanies

Coming to terms with those enlightening moments

You know those moments where things just click and you suddenly realize
something life changing. I've been thinking about those times in my
life lately, and there are lots. Still, I think I can break it down
into seven really big epiphanies.

1. 1984: I can choose to beleive
   what I want.
   I wasn't just raised in a Christian home, my Dad was a pastor. We had a
   great youth minister who did puppet shows. Still, I wasn't entirely
   convinced about the whole God thing. I had an active imagination, and
   the whole thing struck me as one of my little fantasies; what if you
   had an invisible friend who could do anything? It was fun to play, but
   was it real? I remember my church had a prayer meeting and everyone was
   real into it and I was just hanging out, as usual, trying to be good so
   I didn't get spanked. I looked at this one guy's eyes when he openned
   them at one point and they were different, glossy, I guess. I started
   looking at everyone's eyes and they were all doing the same thing. I
   asked my Dad on the way home what was up with everyone's eyes and I
   don't really think he understood what I was asking. I started watching
   eyes. I noticed this same thing happenning sometimes when people were
   taking communion or having a good prayer meeting. Finally, I made a
   connection. This is a real tangible thing that happens in the presense
   of God. Imaginary things don't make real changes.
   
   
   
   Still, I thought there might be more to it than that. I realized that I
   still didn't have
   to beleive in God, even with this "evidence." I found it pretty easy to
   move back and forth between believing and not. So, I realized then that
   a person can choose to believe things. While the choice to believe in
   God is a pretty big thing, realizing that beleifs in and of themselves
   were a choice was pretty big in and of itself. Since then, I have been
   able to "try on" beliefs about all kinds of theoretical or
   controversial things. Sometimes that's worked. Sometimes it hasn't.
   God, on the other hand, has shown me results again and
   again. I admit that miracles still wig me out, but I know that God is
   real.
   
   
   


2. 1987: I am in control of what my
   mind does.
   When my parents moved to a place that was not in a town, they thought
   they were doing something good for me. They might have been, but I
   didn't see it at the time. Previously, we'd lived in a town with about
   2500 people and I had things I liked to do. I loved getting change
   together and going to the drug store to get a comic book or the
   convenience store to get a soft drink. I was an avid window-shopper and
   loved walking downtown and looking at stuff. It was a small enough town
   that I could go about unattended and it was safe. Moving to the farm
   was, to me, boring. I would often read fantasy novels to deal or just
   walk around and wish I could do something. One day, I was in one of my
   fantasies and I realized it had been fun. I realized that I never
   needed to be bored. I hurried in and told my mom that I never needed to
   be bored because if nothing interesting was happenning, I could always
   still think about interesting things. She thought it was so funny. She
   told my dad about it later and he laughed. She told my grandmother
   about it and they laughed together. I know they thought it was funny,
   but to me, it is still one of the defining moments in my life. You can
   choose to be bored. You can choose to be scared. You can choose to be
   angry. You can choose what your mind does because if you don't like
   what it's doing, you can just think about something else.
   
   
   


3. 1991: I don't have to tell
   people everything. My cousin and I were into music and decided to go together on one of those
   CD of the month clubs. We'd divide up the CD's and the cost. It was a
   pretty good deal, but I wasn't sure what my parents would think. Would
   they be against spending the money, especially on secular music? That's
   when my cousin pointed out that I really didn't have to tell them.
   Honestly, this had never crossed my mind. Not only could I just not
   tell my parents things, there were all kinds of things I didn't need to
   tell. If I thought someone would disagree with my point of view on
   something, but I didn't want to fight, I just didn't have to tell them
   I dissagreed. Before this, I really kept myself apart from people
   because I was afraid they wouldn't like me if, say, I told them I
   didn't have a nintendo or something when they were discussing games.
   Now, I realized I could just not mention it. I wasn't lying or even
   letting someone believe a lie. I was just not talking about it. My
   parents wouldn't be actively believing I wasn't in a music club. They
   just wouldn't be thinking about it. In the end, it was my cousin who
   got in trouble for joining the club. My parents found out, but I don't
   think they cared.
   
   
   


4. 1995: I can learn to like things.
   I really don't count most of my college epiphanies here. One should
   experience epiphanies in college. I had millions of minor epiphanies
   during that time, but a couple of big ones. One of these epiphanies
   came as a result of my Music Appreciation class. I always liked music.
   I sort of liked pop (of the early 90's), I liked "alternative" music
   and I liked quite a bit of rap. I didn't like classical. That changed
   in my classs. Not only did I learn to understand other genres, I
   learned to love them. As I found out more about differences in the eras
   of music and differences in the styles of the composers, I fell in love
   with classical music. This taught me that it was possible to learn to
   like things I didn't like. Sometimes, I still let myself dislike
   things, but if something seems to have stood the test of time and seems
   to be loved by the best and brightest, I find out why. Then, I learn to
   like it too.
   
   
   


5. 1997: There is absolute truth.
   Realizing that I could choose to beleive things or not, and realizing
   that I could control what my mind does left me a bit of a relativist. I
   mean, I beleived what I did, and thought about what I thought about and
   if you wanted to beleive other things, go for it! One of the things I
   loved to do, however, was argue. Not in a mean way, just finding
   someone with an opinion and trying on the other side. We'd hash it out
   and have a good time. It was exactly one of these that pompted my
   fourth epiphany. A very good friend of mine said something that took a
   relativist position. So, I jumped on the other side. The fact that a
   lack of absolute truth is so obviously self contradictory not only
   convinced the other party in the argument, but it convinced me too. I
   can choose to beleive anything, but sometimes my choice is true,
   sometimes it isn't.
   
   
   


6. 2005: I can learn anything
   anyone else can learn.
   I've never been all talented in math.This was a problem for me throughout grade school and high-school. When I got to college, some very patient teachers finally got the ideas into me. Continued patience in graduate school helped me even more. The fact that I could learn something I didn't think I could learn should have brought about this epiphany sooner. Still, I felt like I was dependent on these really caring people, and on my own I couldn't get it. I finished my dissertation and decided to reward myself by doing something I'd always wanted to do. I built my own computer. I had upgraded my computers several times, and thought I knew the ends and outs. When a box of parts came in a big brown box, and I began looking through them, I realized I was in over my head. I got online and started reading about different parts and procedures and before long, it all started to make sense. Not only did I build my own computer, I really taught myself how. Since then, I've taught myself all kinds of practical skills. academic skills and just fun things to learn. I now realize that I can learn anything anyone else can learn. It may be slower in an area where I am not talented, but that's all.
   
   
   


7. 2009: I can do anything if I
   have to.
   In 2009 I lost what I thought was a secure, tenure
   track job at a small midwestern liberal arts university. I began
   immediately applying for new positions, but to no avail. Eventually, I
   had to pay my bills, so I found jobs. They were mostly horrible jobs,
   shovelling rotten beans, driving railroaders, cleaning up after old
   folks in rest homes. I hated them, but I did them. I learned something
   really important then. There is no job to hard, to gross or too
   demeaning that I will not do it if I have to. That also means that I
   could make myself do those things at other times. It didn't make me
   happy, but I did it.
   

Why it's not all over for America.

I was probably as shaken about the credit downgrade as anyone. It hits our national pride, our sense of self and our view of the world. That at least one of the three major indices sees the American economy as worse than that of France or England, makes us feel a little bad. Still, I wouldn't say that America is down for the count. We have a few things going for us.

1. We don't have to be #1 to be pretty amazing. Maybe a hit to our national pride isn't such a bad thing. Honestly, do you have any fewer tangible assets since the downgrade? We don't have to be the biggest fish in the pond to be a fish too big for the other ones to eat. Maybe recognizing that there are other fish just as big will keep us from being jerks.
   
2. We are a nation of immigrants. I think that this part of our national character is something that S&P forgot. This means a number of things. First of all, if the economy is bad in one area, we are willing to move. We have always been willing to move and have a system of laws that make it relatively easy. It is true that people became rather embedded for a few decades after World War II, but dying in the place you are born is not the American way and never has been. Our economy will be strong because where the economy is strong, people will go. This also means that we will continue to import the best and brightest from around the world and include them as full members of our society. This is not true of the other great economies.
   
3. We are bound by a dream that makes us work hard. Americans are not a homogeneous group. We have differences in race, ethnicity and religion. We disagree over some really basic issues. Still, we all want something and it is that idea which is enshrined in the Declaration of Independence. We are all out to get life, liberty and of happiness, and we will keep pushing for it. We want to live our lives outside the bounds of another's control. For many that means owning one's own home and business. For others, it just means being able to get a vacation in. In either case, we don't judge the other because we recognize that they have the right. We know that we don't have the right to happiness, but we definitely and defiantly have the right to pursue it. We will always work toward this end, and that is what will raise our economy out of any depression. This is not true of all the other great economies.
   
4. We are a bunch of hackers. Come to any poor neighborhood in America, and you'll see cars on blocks. This is the result of trying to make one working car from a bunch of broken ones. When alcohol was outlawed in the US, people built stills. When sales of gun magazines over a certain size were outlawed for sale in the 1990's people made their own. Our national foods, the hamburger and hot-dog, are made out of the parts of the animal you'd otherwise not eat. The DMCA has just taught us how to break encryption quietly, and accept the downgraded product. Sure, we probably like quality as much as the Swiss do, but when we can't get access to it, we make something work rather than do without. We will always make it work. Even our own laws or our own economic problems cannot stop us. This is not true of all the great economies.
   
5. We have many diverse natural resources. We actually have debates as to whether or not to import our oil, or just use our oil here. There is coal, iron and copper all over the place. We even have a lot of gold. Our farms feed the world and our forests replenish quickly. Our lakes are huge and our rivers, full of fish and hydroelectric energy. We have vast sunny planes for solar power and huge windy areas for windmills. Yes, we have to be careful with all this, but we haven't really touched our potential. I'd venture to say that none of the great economies are as well situated.

So, we might be okay. I am not saying that America will last forever, but I think we'll get through this.

Public Speaking Lecture Series

I may not have blogged for a couple weeks, but I have been very active in the digital world. I put together a lecture series about public speaking. I put together my Rhetorical Quest Public Speaking Lecture Series mostly for my own online public speaking class, but was careful about licensing to make sure it could benefit everyone. The production values I ended up with were not what I envisioned when I envisioned the course. Perhaps one day I can re-work the series using high-quality cameras. I also think it would be more fun with an audience. Still, it is out there and I really would love for you to take a look.

Grading criteria

Coming to terms with grading

To my students:

It is difficult to explain how much you mean to me. Without you, my work would be meaningless. You never fail to amaze me with your ability to accomplish great things. I see so many of you working so hard, struggling with balancing lives that incorporate so much more than your studies. I know that you have dreams and goals and are working hard to accomplish those goals.

And then I have to assign a number and a letter to your work. I have to look at it and decide whether it is worthy. I have to sit in judgement and pontificate as to the merits of the work you have done. While I am sometimes surprised at the work you have done, I am also often surprised as to the reaction to my judgement. Sometimes I see delight in a grade higher than expected. Other times, I see disappointment in your faces. I really believe that neither of these is necessary. You should know the criteria according to which I judge your work.

F	0%-59%	This work is below the level that any college student should ever submit to the instructor. The work may have been received after a due date. Significant aspects of the assignment are probably missing. Numerous, serious errors appear throughout the assignment. The work shows a lack of understanding of the material or worse, a disregard for instruction. Any of these criteria constitute adequate grounds for failing on an assignment.
D	60%-69%	The work may have excellent potential, but fails to meet the level of work expected at the college level. Some portion of the assignment may not have been accomplished. The work may appear not to have been edited for spelling or grammar, may not follow an approved citation format or in some other ways falls short of basic standards that should be expected of all college level work.
C	70%-79%	The work is acceptable, college level work. The assignment might still contain insignificant stylistic errors, but has clearly been edited and proofread and redone to correct the majority of them. Everything is done precisely as it is required in the assignment. If the assignment requires four sources, there are four sources. If the assignment requires a 5-7 minute speech, the student gives a speech between 5 and 7 minutes. If the assignment requires the student to state an opinion, the student states an opinion. The list could go on indefinitely, but the student is doing precisely what the assignment says and is performing at a college level.
B	80%-89%	The assignment not only accomplishes all requirements precisely as stated, but some aspect of the assignment has exceeded the quality expected of a college student. If there are any errors in style at all, they are rare and incidental. Often there is a level of professionalism and polish which moves beyond what the assignment could require. Sometimes, the execution of the assignment shows special insight into the nuances of instruction. Other times, the student has found a way to incorporate their own personality in new and creative ways.
A	90%-100%	The assignment vastly exceeds the quality of work expected of a college student. All requirements of the assignment are met and most are met with an extraordinary level of professionalism and/or creativity. Additionally, the student may have worked within the confines of the assignment to do something bold and innovative.

I hope that reading this chart can help you. I am relatively certain that most of my instructors and professors in college held similar criteria. In fact, a few of them shared their criteria with us early in the semester. I remember being thankful for their clarity. I think you should be comfortable knowing that if you do what the assignment says, you are always going to pass. I also think you should know that if you really do work that exceeds the requirements of the assignment, that you will be rewarded with a grade which is better than passing.

** edit 8:40 7/20/11 because I saw a spelling mistake.

My Sweet Ride.

Coming to terms with debt, frugality, hope and junker cars.

My wife and I have degrees, and the debt that comes with them. Actually, we have more significantly more debt than people do who get out of college, but I have a PhD and she had significant family issues in college both of which caused a pretty severe accumulation. If we pay on them like we are supposed to, I will still be making student loan payments with my retirement checks. We don't want to live that way however.

Lately, while the federal government has been making plans to raise their debt ceiling, my wife and I have been actively working to reduce ours. We have quickly moved out of consumer debt and now only have those student loans on which we can make payments above and beyond the official plan.

Living within one's means when one's means are massively reduced by student loan debt is not easy. We have made sacrifices. We have missed out on things. Our lives are struggles, but we are not just struggling to make ends meet. We are struggling to see those ends disappear. I have taken extra assignments and teach extra classes at work. We live in a tiny apartment. We drive junker cars. We are going to do this.

Still, we have to live. We need groceries, electricity, transportation to and from work and fun. We need these things even while we are living in a tight way. So we have to make these things cheap. We've generally tried to live with just one car between us. It is an old car, bought with cash, and requiring no payments. Still, it really isn't enough. Most days we can mash sharing the car with bus schedules (the bus stop is only a mile away) and make it work. Sometimes this is really, really difficult.

Furthermore, our cheap, old car is really not the best for getting some of the cheapest fun around. We live in a town on the edge of the beautiful Gila National Forest and the Chihuahua Desert. Hiking, camping and nature are obvious and free-to-cheap fun. Our little car, however, doesn't do well on Forest Service roads.

So I needed something with better clearance and that I could drive maybe once or twice a week to work. The problem was that it would have to be a second car purchased while living on our tight budget. I found one. I bought a car this morning for only $250. It meets all our needs.

To me, finding any functional automobile at all that fit in our budget was a miracle. You might say: "That hunk of junk! How is that a miracle?" We can afford it. It can get me to work a couple days a week and will be a great fishing, camping and hiking car. It's perfect. It's a miracle. It gives me hope.

Furthermore, I really think that junker cars are usually a better deal. I always drove junkers growing up. My dad always drove junkers. One day, when I was 19 and knew everything, I decided I was tired of buying junker cars. So, I went into debt to buy a "reliable" car. It was an Oldsmobile Cutlass Sierra. I bought it for $3000. According to an online inflation calculator, that would be 4355.56 in today's money. I ended up spending more on repairs every month than I did on payments and to make both I took out that first student loan.

Junker cars save alot. According to an article originally posted in Kipplinger's Personal Finance, the average American spends about $479 per month on a car loan. To me that means that if you buy a $500 car about every two months, you're money ahead. The truth is, that no car I've ever bought for this amount has lasted fewer than three years. See how much I haven't spent?

Now, don't misunderstand me. If I thought I was going to have to live this way forever, I'd be borderline suicidal. I don't believe that. I think that finding a car for $250 is a miracle. I think that miracles happen like this all the time if a person is managing his or her finances correctly. I believe that more miracles are coming and that we will be able to get out of debt much sooner than our creditors think and that when we do, we will be able to buy very nice cars, with cash, and no car payment.

Excited about budgets

Coming to terms with Budgets, Math and being a nerd.

The story.

I recently posted on my status on Facebook:

So, in case there was any doubt as to whether or not I'm a nerd, I'm really excited about our fiscal month budget for July 15-August 15."

My brother responded with "porque" and the answer became something much longer than should really be on a Facebook status. So, it is now a blog.

Reason #1: it's Math and I Can Do It.

There is probably just something about my nerd nature that makes me love budgets. I've always been a nerd, more comfortable with my imaginary friends than with real ones, but I couldn't always accept it. First of all, I really wanted to be cool. Secondly, I wasn't really good in math in grade school and high school. How could I be a nerd if I didn't like math?

I didn't like math because I wasn't good at it. I wasn't good at it because I had trouble keeping things in neat rows. That meant that it was hard. My teachers were always frustrated because they could tell I understood the concepts, I just got the answers wrong. Not being good at math continued into college. It wasn't until I was in graduate school and had to take statistics that I learned my way out: spreadsheets. Spreadsheets keep everything in nice neat rows anyway. Furthermore, when you use spreadsheets, the concepts and the data are all you need. They make it neat for you. So, I like it. I feel like I can do math because I can make the computer do math. It is like a blind man suddenly seeing.

I like it when all the numbers add up and it all just works. Really, since I use a zero-sum budget, ultimately, I am excited that 1-1=0. I have no money at the end of each fiscal month, exactly as it should be. I enjoy watching it all come together as I enter the data. Each bill paid with money that hasn't come in yet feels like a foe vanquished. I enjoy a filled out zero-sum budget because it lets me imagine a future and causes that future to come into being.

Since this blog is primarily a response to my brother's question, and since we are both table-top role players, I think he will understand this: It is like filling out a character sheet for a role playing game. You put in your abilities, their modifiers, relate them to weapons and can imagine how such acts will work out in "real life." It is the same with budgets.

Reason #2: we're winning and we know it.

My wife and I fell off budgeting when we were between academic jobs and having enough money to buy groceries was all we could hope to accomplish. Since we have come into a better position, we went back to the zero-sum budget. Every month as we work out our budget, we can see real progress. We use goals advocated in Dave Ramsey's Seven Baby Steps to gauge our progress. It seems like every month we move closer to our goals. As we do so, life becomes easier.

In the next fiscal month, we will be completely free from consumer debt and we have already been able to vastly increase our payments on student loan debt as a result. We've also been able to start saving seriously for a second car, a trip home for Christmas and other necessities. All of this will be happening while simultaneously increasing our individual discretionary spending: that means money we can play with. That is something that can really excite a person. It isn't just that we are paying our bills and can feel okay, the budget puts it all there in black and white. We are improving our lives. I didn't get a raise, I just have more money all the time because when I get money I know how it will be used.

Reason #3: Because I am a nerd.

I like budgets because I like budget-type things. I set goals for each week and each work day and put them in little charts and cross them out when they are done. Each week on Wednesday I draw up a menu for the entire week, go through the cupboards to see what I don't have to cover that menu. Then I make a shopping list in which I buy everything I need to make everything I need that week. The shopping list is a function of the budget and the menu.

It is fun. My motto is that you can always change your plans if you have plans. I like plans. They give me comfort. Today is July 8^th. Do you know how much you are spending on groceries the week of August 8^th? I do: $45. I may go as low as $40, but $45 is my max.

Now, things happen that are unplanned. A good budget has contingencies built into it. If I get a speeding ticket or the car breaks down, we can make it all work. If a person gets the attitude that since there are contingencies there can't be a plan, it all breaks down.

So there.

That, my brother, is why I am excited about the budget we just created for 7/15-8/15.