posted @ 16:09...

I guess it's once-a-month posting for me. After my harsh bank teller rant last month, I figured I should write something nicer to offset that. But I can't think of very many nice things. There's always my wife, who is very nice. She continues to demonstrate patience, even though I tell stupid jokes and do things that piss her off. We're in our seventh month of marriage, so the honeymoon is over, but I still become deeper in love with her every day. ("aaawwwww, that's sweet," you say. To that I respond, "Bug off. Get your own.")

A "special issue" of Fast Company came today, and right there on the cover was a phrase that somehow made things fit. I'm training to be a firefighter, while at the same time not being exactly sure why I'd rather do that than deposit people's paychecks. The phrase was "work that matters." For the magazine, it probably means something different than what I've taken from it. I look at it in sharp contrast to work I've done that very much didn't matter. I was a project coordinator for a team of website designers... We designed websites for banks. Personally, I believe the only thing that "mattered" about that work was that it paid the rent. It didn't make the world a better place. It didn't save anyone's life. And as far as I know, it didn't get anyone closer to Heaven, which is what I believe should define the word "important." All I did was help impress a bunch of small-town folks with some basic web design & nice graphics. And I helped some wealthy men become even more wealthy. I guess that's the part that bugs me most -- not because I wanted a piece of the pie, but because they didn't need it. They were already doing fine, and people are hungry. Not just people in Africa or Afganistan, but there are people right here in Austin who don't know where their next meal is coming from. So many people in this country claim to be Christians, yet when it comes to people who are truly needy, we fail to follow the example of Christ. In fact most effective charity organizations are not "Christian" entities, so they don't even have that reason.

And I know that the executives at the company where I used to work probably don't consider themselves spiritual, or Christian, or religious, or whatever you call it... they're just greedy. But still, it bothered me. That's all for now; my wife will be home soon...