The Values Sort

#47 Politeness

The next four cards all fall under the heading of “Conformity”. Here we go. Let’s get this deed done. You will not be shocked to learn that I can be quite an impolite person. I have that capacity. But in truth, as I sit and reflect on what on Earth to write about this idea, I do think I am quite as polite as I can be. It’s a learned behavior, maybe for all of us, but certainly for me. My mother taught me the value of politeness. When I was young we were but simple country folk. Still, my mother taught us which fork to use in the correct order. She taught us to use our napkins efficiently and sparingly, to keep our elbows off the table. I was apparently the last human being to address my elders by Mr. & Mrs. and I did so until I was a teenager. Sometimes I still do, and it really seems to weird some people now. Not a very polite practice at my age I suppose, actually. When we answered the rotary phone on the wall we’d say “Hello, Walton residence, this is Nick speaking”. What a nerd. I did grow up with a value for politeness, but I think it’s one I easily trump with other values. It didn’t make it very far in my sort because, much like the last card, it can feel, (in today’s society), cloying and inefficient. And that bothers people. It bothers me. It feels like politeness can also be weaponized and used as a blunt object with which to subjugate others. To put oneself on a morally superior footing. “At least I wasn’t rude about it”. If we’re not vigilant and watchful, politeness can cover all manner of sin. Politeness can even cover abuse or in the worst cases crimes. I am thinking of a crime now in my head, covered up for years and hidden under the guise of politeness. I am gratified that this seems less common now than it was when I was younger. Politeness often demands silence. “Don’t make a scene”. Many people today are more willing to make a scene. Perhaps not enough people. I think the complex part of politeness to me is that it seems to often fly in the face of kindness, a value that does not have its own card but is nevertheless among my own personal central values. Politeness uses the correct fork and then quietly slips its sharpened handle between your ribs. Kindness shoves over and scrapes half its food onto your plate–there’s enough to go around. Polite is nice. Kind is kind. In the end I find politeness suspicious at best. It does feel too-often antithetical to kindness and in a binary choice I know where I land. I know I land with kindness and it alarms me to feel like I’m in a world where not everyone shares this hierarchy of values. I will be polite until it is untrue. Until it is unkind or harmful. And then I will let the chips fall. I will try to be polite. But I will not be silent. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit nickfromoregon.substack.com [https://nickfromoregon.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1]

#46 Respect for Tradition

I placed the photo upside-down on purpose. Just to be difficult. I thought it would be funny to start by disrespecting the 45-essay-long tradition of putting a normal photo atop each post by making you crane your neck around. I really ain’t got much. I do not actively respect very many traditions. As I’ve aged, I’ve become less conservative—in that there are fewer and fewer things from the past that I see a substantial value in conserving. It always feels like we end up conserving the wrong bits, anyway. We can’t be trusted to be conservative. (This is not necessarily a political statement. Don’t get weird). When I think of tradition, I think of people trying to shoehorn their loved ones into doing something “the way it’s always been done,” despite the world changing, the sands shifting ‘neath our collective feet. I find the traditionalist’s perspective to be primarily one of a head buried in that sand. What customs are important to me? I’m really wracking my brains. I like that we gather, but I never really care about doing it on Christmas. I’d much rather have sporadic, randomized gatherings. I love receiving gifts! But I don’t need them concentrated together. I’d prefer to be thought of when I’m thought of, and never for you to feel a sense of urgency or obligation. (Seriously though, about those Island Punch Spindrifts... that’s a tradition I can get behind). As I sit and reflect on Respect for Tradition, I see that I’m actually somewhat antagonistic toward the concept. I get barby and short-tempered when I’m forced to participate. To me, traditions often feel like Peer Pressure from the Dead. Or from those who refuse to live into the future. At best, they can be stifling and boring. At worst, they feel toxically rote and obligatory. And as we discussed in the Responsibility essay, obligation is the enemy of care. But then. Then I look at the 5-year-old child in my house. We have a little child living with us now. They came from a place where things were not predictable. For me, a man who has had safety and stability for 40 years, “Tradition” feels like a cage. But for them? Tradition feels like a floor. “We always wash our hands before we eat.” “We always watch a movie on Friday.” “We always say goodnight.” “Bath, Books, Bed.” I am realizing that while I hate the obligations of tradition, I deeply value the rhythms of tradition. Because Rhythm can create Safety. When my friend and I shared a Schnecken (that espresso split for two), we were building a micro-tradition. It wasn’t a law handed down by an elder; it was a recurring kindness we built for ourselves. When I take a photo of every single person who does the Values Sort with me, that is a tradition. It is a ritual of honoring the moment. And I do love that tradition. Perhaps I have been looking at this card wrong. I thought “Respect for Tradition” meant worshiping the past. But maybe it just means respecting the infrastructure that holds us together. If a tradition is a wall that keeps people out, I hate it. I will kick it down. But if a tradition is a trellis that allows a new vine to climb up out of the dirt and find the sun... then I can respect it. I can get behind it. . I am building new trellises now. I am building a trellis for my family. I am building some trellises for my friends. I am respecting the necessity of doing the same good thing, over and over again, until it becomes a part of who we are. So, I will leave the photo upside down. Because that is my tradition now: To question the way things are done, and to only turn them right-side up if they actually serve the people I love. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit nickfromoregon.substack.com [https://nickfromoregon.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1]

#45 Moderation

We’ve left my five chosen values behind and these are getting trickier to write. I feel like we’re back at the beginning again writing about “Wealth” or “Social Recognition”. I feel awkward and ham-fisted. Because indeed I am, and anyway, we are very near the beginning again because as I’ve said before these values are arranged in a great wheel; spoiler alert, the last card in the series is #57, A sense of belonging, (feeling that others care about me), which is, if you think about it, strikingly connected to card #1, Social Power, (control over others, dominance). Let the circle be unbroken. Let’s DO THIS. This card is moderation, the photo for which I took on the backdrop of a box of my favorite commercially produced shortbreads, Walkers. I will, left to my own devices, eat this entire box in one sitting. Cup of coffee, nervously read the news, I’ll blow right through them. Some of these cards feel made just for me because I guess I was really made for them. Some of these cards are so difficult for me to get my head around as to be laughable. I laugh at this card. I snort, snicker. I LOL. I am not naturally moderate. I am naturally obsessive. I am positively addictive in ways. I must be mindful of the vices I allow a foothold in my life lest they take me over completely. And sometimes they do. Sometimes they do. I have discussed some of these things here in these essays; To my great disgust I smoked cigarettes. I will drink Spindrift, (Island Punch if you’re feeling gifty), until my blood is carbonated. I am currently obsessed with these essays and I am more than a little nervous about what might come next, once I do reach card #57. Where is #58? What will I do? It’s actually not a small anxiety in my life. I feel them coming to an end and I’m already sad. I am also full throated in my love and my care for people. I am not moderate in my fondnesses. I have, on more than one occasion, utterly overwhelmed someone with the depth of my affections for them. It’s too much! They haven’t felt they’ve earned it! But it’s honest and it’s true. If I decide I like you there’s little you can do to keep me from liking you. On my road to 200+ values exercises I have written, let’s say, 175 absurdly long text messages. I overwhelm people with my words, I overwhelm them with intended-kindnesses that can even, I imagine, seem disingenuous. I love people as I’d like to be loved. Immoderately. Is there time in this life for moderation? I guess I don’t really know if I believe there is; not in relationship to people, to loving them and liking them and vying for them. There’s not enough time to love people as much as I’d like to. Why measure out my love as if there is some hard limit on the amount I have? I have not reached it yet, and I don’t imagine I will. I am also sometimes immoderate in my rage. This, we’ve discussed as well. Try calling my children names! Disrespect my wife, be needlessly unkind to my friends. I’ll have a difficult time moderating my response to you, and it will not be laden with kindness. Is there time in this life for moderation? I guess I still don’t really know, not when it comes to the defense of the weak or the loved or the defenseless. I defend people as I wish I’d been defended at various times in my past; viciously and thoroughly. Immoderately. So. Moderation. Is it worth even pursuing? Well, yes, probably so. Because in my immoderate justice-rage there is very often collateral damage, and anyway, it’s not always righteous in its origins. Sometimes I am caught in a shameful situation and I react badly. I react in a way that feels taken over and I’ll fight with someone for no reason, over nothing, for too long. There is value in the pursuit of moderation. I have admitted to the capacity for dishonesty. It is a terrible feeling to be caught in a lie–a feeling I know. It’s a kind of a self-wounding to wound someone else that way. A double edged sword by which we’re all sliced way open, our insides showing. And to respond immoderately in that place of pain is damaging for those around me. I smoked cigarettes. At one point I drank too much beer. I eat shortbreads like pacman. Nom nom nom. Forget about keeping a bag of gummy worms in the middle console of the car. Those things are gone. Yesterday. These displays of my great lack of moderation catch up with me. Sometimes quickly like the distance and sadness I feel between me and a friend when I’ve been unreasonable. And sometimes they’re longer term. Will I pay the big price for my smoking? Will I develop diabetes as is a hereditary potential for me? Will my relationships with those I’ve perceived as wrong doers ever recover? Can they really be that bad? And what of my family? If I’m not careful I make unilateral decisions about who we do and do not relate to based on my immoderate judgments. How then shall we live? Moderation in all things, friends! Even in moderation. The answer I think, for me, is discipline in my proclivities. Mindfulness of my tendencies. I can grow! I can change! I can become a better version of myself by observing my values and rejecting the things I find to be harmful. I can be justifiably angry and not wound others unnecessarily in my anger. I can be mindful of the collateral damage I cause. I can choose peace instead of violence. I can decide not to always choose the path of extremes. I can choose a moderate, measured response and I can enjoy the benefits and rewards. Like the last essay on humility, perhaps, for me, it’s not really about moderating myself in relation to anyone else, but simply about moderating myself. Full stop. Being willing to hold things in my hand and prioritize my responses to them. I can rage for injustice! I can make room on the bench even if it means using my weight to shove some boorish inconsiderate oaf off the other end. But I must always be aware. Mindful of the boor as well as the weaker one. I can be aware of how my actions and words and responses will affect the whole group in a situation. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit nickfromoregon.substack.com [https://nickfromoregon.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1]

#44 Humility

I needed to look up the word effacing. I could use context clues—I got what it meant the first thousand times I thumbed through the deck. It means what I imagined it would: To erase. To make oneself smaller or less conspicuous. I am not humble. I am loud and somewhat boorish, and I can be rude and perfectly monstrous the better you get to know me. I can be outlandish. Just far, far too much sometimes. I would like to be more humble. I would like to be more modest. But I think “self-effacing” gets into complex territory. I am willing to shine less so that others may shine more. It’s part of the job of humanity to lift one another, to float all boats. But if I’m taking up all the space in the harbor... well. I reflect on this very thing we’re doing together—here, now, as you read this. I have told more than one person something to the effect of: “This is for me. I do not need anyone to read my content or validate me in this.” But. I mean. I want people to, right? The truth is—I’ll share it now, 44 essays in—I hope there are people reading these. I do hope people are gathering value from my words. I hope people “like, share, and subscribe.” I’ll go further, friends. I am hoping this turns into something. Which precipitates something else. Which generates interest and energy for something more. I hope I look back at the second half of my life, when I am very old, and see that the day I discovered the Values Deck was the day my life changed. The day something new began. I want to build a website. I want to write a book. I want to use this big mouth and my propensity for communication to benefit the people around me. That’s what I want. Is that humble? Am I humble? There’s the rub. In truth, I don’t just want to help you. I don’t only operate from a place of purity and altruism. I am beset by the needs of the one. And for me, for now, that means validation and comfort. It is to be known and beloved and appreciated. What does this say about me? It is a flowing gradient. There are moments when I can honestly say it is all about the other. When I’m sitting with someone doing their values sort for instance, it’s very nearly always this way. I do feel my best when I’m looking out for others. But there are other days when the gradient shifts, and I am lowly and in need of validation—more than validation sometimes, praise. I lost a good friend once because of this. He had been, for a time, my very closest pal. We worked together and we played together. We invented the Schnecken together. It’s a German word meaning “snails,” but commonly refers to cute little sticky buns. I’ve used the word as a stand-in for any kind of tasty treat since I saw the incomparable Nathan Lane use it in The Birdcage. “When the schnecken beckons,” Lane says, sampling a second treat at the corner bodega. In our context, a Schnecken was a double shot of espresso, split into two 5-ounce rocks glasses and topped with a little water. (And a little cream if ya nasty). The point was a single pull of espresso shared between two people. It was our way of encouraging people to come and spend time together, and my friend and I did just that. But at a certain low point in my life, I cried out to him. I was flailing and thrashing about in need of validation, love, and preferential affection. It was too much for my friend to bear. It was too much for him to shoulder, holding me up in this time of great sorrow. And we drifted. Just like that. I was not modest. I was not self-effacing. I sucked all the air out of the room. My lack of humility—my inability to see things from another person’s point of view—was the death knell for our friendship. The Schnecken is meant to be shared. I drank it all. I reflect on my marriage. It requires near-constant re-calibration to humility for both of us. We would call it “preferring one another in love,” which comes from the Bible (Romans 12, if you’re taking notes). I think the thing I dislike about “self-effacing” is the implication of disappearing. The goal, from my standpoint, is not ultimately to become less, but to make space for others to become more. I reflect on my place of privilege in this current society. I’m large. I’m white. I’m ruddy-cheeked and ruggedly built. I generally get along in this life just fine wherever I go. Nobody hassles me. Nobody stops me and asks for my papers. People usually trust my words. I do not walk around under the weight of strangers’ suspicions. I have so far enjoyed the privileged position of not having to care. And I reflect on my wife the woman. My friend the Black man. My friend the trans man. What of them? Do they also enjoy my place of position? Or are they standing lower on the ground they were given? How can my modesty—perhaps even my self-effacement—make more room for them at the table? I am physically incapable of becoming small. But I am capable of moving over. And I am capable of blocking the door open. I have chosen to care. To try, anyway. It takes a choice—an endless series of choices—to give a s**t about others. To root out any stem or seed of tokenism. To stop trying to earn my high place, and start using it to pull others up. Maybe that is humility for a loud man. Not silence. But amplification of someone else. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit nickfromoregon.substack.com [https://nickfromoregon.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1]

#43 Acceptance of my portion in life

I visited with a college professor yesterday. He taught that biology class series that changed my life. Yesterday I had the opportunity to tell him so. The class was environmental science, and it was a required class for my course of study, (forestry). I have already told you that I did not finish this course of study–I am not a silvaculturalist today. This biology class was part of the reason I quit. The comparison between the things I was learning in the class with the things I was learning in and about the forestry classes and industry were so stark. And I found myself drawn into a fuller and more beautiful observation of the natural world and away from the extractive practices of my youth and of my course of study. Of the classes I took that year I do not retain very much mensuration, (the branch of mathematics focused on calculating lengths, areas, and volumes of geometric shapes, like tree shapes), I could not easily, if called upon, estimate the board feet in a stand of timber today. But I still happily keep and occasionally refer to my copy of Pojar and Mackinnon’s Plants of the Pacific Northwest Coast as well as my Oregon State dichotomous key. I’ve added to the list the Sibley guide to Trees and more recently, (and perhaps more delightfully), Pete Wohlleben’s The Hidden Life of Trees. I entered the program thinking of logging. I left the program thinking of the preservation of our natural world. Not that the two are necessarily mutually exclusive! This is not a political statement. Don’t get weird. My house is made of wood. I went into that class very dubious about its value in my life. I spent a year measuring logs both standing and lying, and counting insects, and learning about the impacts we have on our natural world and learning lessons about hairbrushes broken too easily. I could not have articulated the change it made in me at the time. But in hindsight I see that it was a point of inflection and it changed my perspective. Which did in turn affect my values, which catalyzed beliefs in my life, which had forever impacted my vision and mission. Many of my actual behaviors and thoughts and actions in life have ultimately been affected by this class and I’m grateful. When I visited my professor, (the first time we’d seen one another in more than 20 years), it was as though no time had passed and I remembered why I liked him and his class so. One thing he showed me as we sat and ate gingerbread in his living room near his warm fire, was thirty years of data he’d collected on bird species present on his 28 acre property. It was delightfully nerdy and reminded me of a dataset I’m collecting. I have done this values exercise with over 200 people. And at the end of each one, (with permission), I take a photo. A beautiful photo of the respondent and their choices. I do not publish these photos or share them with the world, but I do look at them myself. I will flick through the album on my phone, land on a person, observe their values, check the date and think about their lives in the days or weeks or months since we sat together. It’s really been a fascinating experience in addition to being a beautiful one. Interestingly, in the times that I’ve done this, only two people have had a matching set of five values. This says nothing, really, as they are unrelated in any meaningful way and both people will have landed on those choices for different reasons. In fact, out of 57 cards, it’s remarkable that I would even have had a full match at all in only 200 samples–a big number for me, but not a particularly huge dataset. It’s also notable that there are several cards that are chosen only very seldomly. Preservation of my public Image. Social recognition. One of my favorite tasty little mysteries, one card has been selected exactly one time. Acceptance of my portion in life. Submitting to life’s circumstances. One time. One person. Sitting crosslegged on her living room floor with me. One time. Now what do you make of that? What does that say about my friend who made this selection, I asked her after the exercise? And what does it say about over 200 other people? I reflect again on my professor. He does not try to count all the birds in Oregon. He accepts his portion. He accepts his 28 acres and has a beautiful, ring-bound volume of collected data as his reward. Do you not yield? Do you not submit? Do you not accept the circumstances of your life? Obviously I’m making a mountain out of a molehill here, because as I have noted these are five cards, five choices in comparison with the compendium of human experience. There are fifty seven cards. There must be 57 million things that we could value as humans. Things with words like Kindness or Generosity, or things that are beyond words like a baby’s warmth or a long love in the same direction. Still, it’s a value that, far from discarding flippantly, I wrestle with. Submission to life’s circumstances. I have bent my knee to life’s circumstances. Is that always the right choice? Can we value it and still fight, still rage against it? The submission? Or is the fight itself a lack of submitting to the slings and arrows of this life? And is approaching submission as a defeat a sort of defeat in itself? For what of positive circumstances? Do we submit to those as well, or do we expect them and take them for granted? Do we deserve all that we have? All that we get? All that happens, how it happens and when? I often think of my college professor and the things I learned in that year. Not just mensuration and dendrology and planned obsolescence. But the things I learned about my own self. It was, as college often is, one of my first experiences outside of my parents’ sphere. I had lived on my own for some years by then. I was accustomed to that Lucky-Charms-and-cheap-beer lifestyle. But everything I was and wasn’t in those fresh, crispy years of early adulthood was still measured against who I was within the context of my home and family. And environmental science was a breath of something new. I often wonder–what if I’d stayed in? I make the comment, I’ve made it here, that there’s probably a place where a guy with a big mouth and a big love for people could have made a home with a forestry degree. I could be something really neat, like a park ranger. And instead I am not. I am a coffee roaster, an occupation I have already admitted I do not have a particular passion for. I must accept this. I must let go. And besides, if I had not followed the life path I did, I may never have developed my dataset, my 200 people, (and counting), I may never have married my partner, I may never have done and seen a million wonderful things. Not everything is perfect in my life. Not everything is always peachy-keen for an entrepreneur. My business struggles in this post COVID era where people make buying decisions very differently on some levels. Not everything is perfect in my family; my own children are growing up and pushing against boundaries I don’t even know that I should have set in the first place. In my recent essays I have discussed my faith. Out of something and into something new. Metamorphosis. But what does it mean for the caterpillar? Is there any sense of loss? Probably not for the caterpillar. But for us? As I continue a life-long transformation it is necessary to accept the circumstances of that transformation. My portion is my portion. My portion is indeterminately good and indefinably difficult. This is true for us all I think. For every choice we make there are a million more we do not. And we can spend our lives, if we’re not careful, regretting those paths. What does it mean to submit now, today to the circumstances of my life? This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit nickfromoregon.substack.com [https://nickfromoregon.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1]