Too Nice To Be A Prison

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The Opening Rant

Everyone thinks optimism is a superior worldview. "Just keep your chin up," they say, "Everything will be OK." I'd argue that between optimism and pessimism, pessimism is the more prudent worldview. Every time I'm optimistic, it's because I'm too lazy to be pessimistic. Sure, I could save up money for the future but I'm sure everything will work out even if I don't. I could put a bag of tools in my van during a road trip, but I'm sure it won't break down. My smarter decisions have come from being pessimistic. I probably won't wreck my motorcycle today but I'm still going to wear a helmet because people are blind and they might pull out in front of me. The boat probably won't sink but I'm still bringing a lifejacket. When pessimists are surprised it's because something good happened. When optimists are surprised it's because something bad happened. I'd rather be surprised with good things. This is also why I don't trust confident people - confidence is just optimism. It's also why I'm more likely to take advice from sour, grizzled codgers who look like they trusted optimism once but have since learned better. Janice reminds me that I'm turning into one of those people myself. I'm sure living overseas has nothing to do with it.

Speaking of living overseas, in the last article I talked about our new house in Papua New Guinea, just in case you forgot. But our favorite feature of our new house isn't actually the house but the row of palm trees that grows right beside it casting a lovely shadow of privacy on our porch. The palm fronds rustle with every breeze and with only a little effort it can sound like wind in pine trees. And with a little more effort you can ignore the distant rumbling of the generator. And with a lot more effort you can ignore the bird-sized beetles that occasionally wander out of the row of trees.

The Beetle

The other week I was lying on the hammock that I had just re-attached to the porch posts. It broke when Adi and Juliet were sitting on it. Adi complained about a sore backside for a day or two and had the audacity to blame me for the incident. Juliet seemed to be fine, probably because of the diaper. I suggested Adi should just wear diapers. She was offended (Adi is old enough to realize that not all my jokes are funny). I was offended because my engineering failed. I had looked at it and said, "That'll probably be OK." Stupid optimism. I resolved that the hammock rope will never break again. I like to say that "Nothing succeeds like excess" so I attacked the problem with wire cables, some repurposed industrial free-castering toolbox wheels, and some custom designed 3D printed components. And so there I was, lying on the hammock admiring my handiwork. It was a case study of how pessimistic people make better mechanical engineers. I clasped my hands behind my head, relaxed, and began a long contented sigh only to get interrupted by a large prehistoric insect clinging to the porch ceiling above me. I recoiled stiffly, spinning myself around in the hammock like a stone in David's sling, then shot off towards our front door, a trail of emphatic euphemisms in my wake.

"Adi! Elliot! Come look at this bug!"

They responded like I hoped they would, screeching, pulling their hair, and asking why God created such a thing.

"I wonder what it is?" I said, as I snuck a little closer.

"If you don't know what it is, don't touch it!" Elliot said, something I tell him often when we visit the reef, thinking of the fish that stung our friend, the deadly Venomous Cone Snail that Janice found on the beach while searching for shells, or the caterpillar that sprayed acid on a missionary who was just trying to use the toilet in peace.

I got out a ruler and began taking measurements as best I could while staying an arm's length away. Our specimen's body was over 3" long and a good 1" thick. The antenna were 7" long! After sending a picture to some Bible translators who live in the bush (or "real" missionaries as I like to call them) I found out that the bug in question was a Wallace's Longhorn Beetle. It wasn't dangerous at all. In fact, it's "good" to eat! It tastes even better if you find it in larvae form, or so I was told. I only ate one grub in my life and it had the consistency of a dried glob of Elmer's glue and it tasted like a stinkbug smells, so I know better - no matter what they say.

Still it's better to have large bugs on our porch than bandits.

The Burglaries

There's been burglaries blotching up the neighborhood like an infectious rash. These are small time crooks, not sophisticated drug cartels with machine guns. Still, I'd rather not wake up with any burglars in our house regardless of their sophistication. It's possible that no one may try to rob us but I'm pretending like they will. I'd rather be pleasantly surprised they didn't than sorry they did.

Our organization is building a new base and our family was the first to move into one of the new houses. One of the features of the new houses are imported, fancy-pants, double paned windows from Australia that are supposedly strong enough to withstand break-ins. This meant we wouldn't need bars over the windows. But after another mission just down the road got looted I got a little pessimistic and we did some re-evaluating - and some drilling and bolting and welding. There is a construction crew here on base during the week building the last couple houses and the foreman, a Philipino man named Julius, offered to get Londrick the welder to fabricate some bars for my windows.

The Window Bars

"Sure," I said. "I think some steel bars would be better for my sleep than a new mattress at this point."

"Oh yea," he said, "We install bars in the Phillipines all the time." He took a finger and slashed an imaginary blueprint into the air. "Zing. Bing. Done," he said.

"Sure!" I said. As the old adage goes, "An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure." So it stands to reason that a 100 pounds of steel bars is worth about 1600 lbs of cure. Who would say no to that?

Several days later they hung what could be described as a cattle guard for an Australian road train on our front window. It looked like this cattle guard could hit kangaroos all day long. I was optimistic. Janice was less so. "I feel like I'm in a prison," she said.

"No," Manu, a missionary neighbor from another organization was visiting and nibbling on some leftovers sitting out on the counter. "The prisons here don't have bars that nice. That's waaay nicer than a prison," he said.

As our kids were observing all the security projects around the house, Adi said, "I kind of hope the robbers try to break in. It would be kind of adventurous."

"Yea!" Elliot said. They were confident in the bars, bolts, and extra screws. That's because kids are dumb. They're optimistic. Confident.

"Don't say that!" I said. I've failed enough to know that just when I think my door is impenetrable, a beetle will land on it and knock it off its hinges.

Here in Wewak concertina wire, fences, and bars over your windows are the hottest home accessory. I got so used to seeing them that when we returned to Ohio for furlough last year, I found it shocking that there weren't looters just helping themselves to whatever they wanted.

"How crazy is it that no one has razor wire around their house?" I asked Janice. "I could literally walk into that yard and carry their swing away. Isn't that crazy that people don't steal stuff?"

Janice rolled her eyes. "You asked me this ten times already. Can we talk about something else?"

But razor wire isn't our only theft deterrent. We also have a dog named Sami. Sami is some sort of heavy set, junkyard style guard dog, the kind that can accidentally knock you over with her tail. Our kids are flung halfway across the yard if Sami gets too happy. But she can almost rip the fence out of the yard if there's a new person on the other side of it. Sami chews things up, slobbers on your pants, and occasionally knocks our children over, but she's a good dog to have around.

Summary

I think Jesus summed it up well. "In this world you will have trouble, but take heart for I have overcome the world." I'd argue that it's smart to assume things will go wrong because they will at some point. And hope in the things of this world will always ultimately fail you. You need to find hope in something outside this world. That's the challenge; to see through the dirty atmosphere stinging your eyes to the hope on the other side. I'm ultimately an optimist but temporarily a pessimist. I like how humorist Jean Shepherd summed it up: "In God we trust. Everyone else pays cash."