epilogue

[NOTE: my blog has still "officially" been moved to posterous. this is just the epilogue to these posts.]

just re-read some of my old posts - its always interesting to read what i've written in the past. i feel it appropriate to write a final chapter to the story of my posts here on blogger.

it's amazing what can happen in the space of one year, and darn near staggering when you step back and look at 5- or 10-year increments. ten years ago i was a sophomore in college, working at a roofing company, and had just decided to major in psychology. five years ago i was about to graduate with my master's degree but was unemployed. one year ago i was trying to gain my footing in a new job and had just signed a contract to build a house. two years ago the US was fluttering with excitement as barack obama was elected president; tomorrow is the midterm elections, and the US is a mix of apathy, despondence, and fury at the current state of affairs.

in all cases, be they public or private, we are quick to judge the outcome by our present status. i have previously posted on my tendency (like many others) to seek refuge in religion during difficult times. and in doing so, i illustrate the lack of foresight and [often irrational] anxiety that is innate in my humanness.

a lot of my blog posts have been about the journey of figuring out "who" i am (i guess that was how blogs got started in the first place, right?). i haven't figured it out yet, of course, and i don't think i ever will...or that anyone really ever can figure it out, as we are always growing and changing and evolving. (props to heraclitus for figuring that out some 2500 years ago.)

even if i may not be able to exactly articulate 'who' i am, i do know that i am increasingly disinclined to describe or label myself as anything which i do not entirely embrace. two particularly poignant examples in the present sociocultural climate would be political and religious affiliation. groups in these particular realms expect their members to agree with and embrace certain tenets, or descriptors, that the group leadership has identified as being "this is who we are and what we believe." (see: Oklahoma Republican Party's Platform. for the record, religions as a whole aren't quite as bent on forming in-groups/out-groups , hence their many denominations.)

in my youth i was comfortable finding groups that were "close" or a "near fit" to how i saw the world and declaring my membership with them. labels color the world in black and white binary and allow us to simplify everything so that we don't have to spend time or brain power wrestling with the gray areas of life. us vs. them, right vs wrong, good vs evil, it's all very efficient.

i'm guilty of using labels to describe myself and others, and i'm trying to stop. i'm also trying to be accepting of people who are comfortable identifying with groups that are "near fits" for them. i really enjoy intellectual dialogue (and, when blogging, monologue), and i hope we can agree to disagree about something - it'd be kind of a shame if we felt the same about everything.

okay, i think i'm officially out of thoughts for this blog. thanks google, it's been a blast. (p.s. - i love gmail & google docs!) now, on to posterous!

moving, but not deleting

an FYI for anyone that may still subscribe to my blog - i'm having a bit of a re-interest in blogging, but i'm moving to posterous.

you can continue to read/follow/share on my new blog at posterous.com/andymoore.

Need vs. Need

Many of you know that I work in the HIV/AIDS community in Oklahoma, a state that has developed a reputation for not being particularly embracing to people of alternative lifestyles or perspectives. I spend much of my time designing programs to improve access to treatment and care, enhance education and prevention measures, and perhaps most of all - how to garner increased funding for our programs. As is the case with most non-profits and governmental entities, I am often faced with the reality that the need is great while the resources are few. So, I set out to do what you always do when requesting more funding: Demonstrate the level of our need.

That's where things get sticky. Oklahoma's economy is closely tied to its tangible resources, namely oil, natural gas, and wheat. While it initially seemed that the global economic crisis might not have a substantial impact this state, Monday's announcement that Oklahoma City Public Schools will be eliminating 131 teachers and administrators and closing three elementary schools in an effort to trim the district's budget by $17 million cast a decidedly pessimistic light on the state's ability to weather this storm unscathed. Along with the Department of Education, most state agencies are looking for ways to cut program spending, including programs that directly affect our clientèle. The response from all levels of the Oklahoma HIV/AIDS community has been "No way! We need this money! HIV/AIDS is still a big deal!"

This is true. Every nine-and-a-half minutes someone in the US is infected with HIV [Video]. Here in Oklahoma, there are an estimated 4,605 people living with HIV/AIDS, nearly half of which live in the Oklahoma City metropolitan statistical area. Yes indeed, this is still a big deal.

According to UNAIDS, Sub-Saharan Africa has around 25 million people living with HIV/AIDS. They've had 2 million new cases reported in just one year - that's more than the total number of cases in the US. And in some African countries, close to 30% of the population is HIV-positive. Infection rates in southeast Asia continue to climb, especially in places like Pakistan, Afghanistan, India, China, and Thailand. So, that's obviously a big deal as well. One could argue that the situation in Africa is worse than the situation in Oklahoma. But how much worse?

I find myself struggling with this issue on a regular basis. How do we determine where to direct our resources? Should we develop a global Level of Need rating system and apply it to all countries? (Hans Rosling has already collected that data; even on a logarithmic scale the United States' need pales in comparison to Sub-Saharan Africa.) How do we decide how much funding should go to prevention and how much should go to treatment? Or, would we be better off to fund something else altogether, like HIV testing, access to fresh produce or iodized salt, mosquito nets, needle exchange programs, education, housing, economic development, etc.? (Watch this video for a much more academic conversation on this question.)

The answer, I suppose, is simply "Yes." Yes, we should support efforts to prevent, identify, and treat HIV both domestically and overseas. Yes, we should support efforts to reduce poverty and increase education and protect people from malaria-carrying mosquitoes. Yes, this is a big deal, and we should fight it. Fight it in lots of places, with lots of tools.

stagnation on everest

there have been dozens of moments since my last post in which i felt inspired to blog, but like millions of others, i've moved away from blogger to more interactive services such as facebook and twitter. somewhere along the way i apparently decided that i can express myself just as adequately in 140 characters as i can in a long blog post. and perhaps for the most part that's true. but i also realized that its not just my creative production that has been truncated; it's my inspiration as well. lengthy, well-developed theories and postulates and theses on relationships and god and love have given way to abbreviated statements of observation designed to be consumed and discarded.

this realization came to me as i sat in my office, staring at my desk, seemingly waiting for the next fleeting moment of inspiration/motivation/need/request/information to strike my brain and jolt me into action. i've become so conditioned to simply respond to external stimuli that i have noticed that my skill in accessing and utilizing my intrinsic motivations has decreased. apparently, as you get better at reacting, you get worse at simply acting. i feel as thought my ability to have original thought (call it inspiration or motivation or whatever) has been compromised. i long for the days when my mind was full of ideas and my heart was filled with excitement at making those ideas reality.

at my core i will always be a scientist, and so naturally my first inclination is to figure out why and/or how this changed occurred. was it the long, cold, dark winter? is it an increase in my intake of caffeine or sugar or calories in general? is it simply a neurological shift that occurred slowly and is just now noticeable? is it that the genius who lives in my walls has gotten lame?

i don't have an answer to those questions. after several days of dwelling on it, i decided that figuring out the cause doesn't always have to come before working on the solution. so, i've started working on identifying and testing solutions. i've been watching TEDTalks during lunch, spending scheduled time in silent introspection, and talking to people whose opinion and insight i value and trust. i'm not there yet, but it's a start.

i know i can excel at doing the day-to-day requirements of my job - just like i always knew i could pass any test in school. if my boss gives me a task, i get it done quickly, without errors, and great quality. that's easy; that's the minimum required. i'm not looking to just do the minimum. hell, i'm not satisfied with B+ level work. i want an A.

i think this is the problem i've run into with most of my jobs. my employer doesn't expect much from me; at least, they expect much less than what i know i'm capable of, and therefore meeting their expectations isn't really a challenge. i'm thankful that my current employer gives me great latitude in my position. i may not see or speak with my boss for days (or weeks) at a time, and its generally up to me to keep our programs running smoothly. and they do, because, again, that's the minimum.

i want to be the best. i want to design programs that deliver world-class care and services to our clients. i want my staff to be the most engaged, proficient, and satisfied staff possible. i want other agencies to look to us for inspiration and partnership and support not because we're the largest, but because we're doing the best work. i want to do all this because our clients deserve it and because it needs to be done.

this is my everest.