​I played a lot with our kids as they grew up. Maybe I’m just a big kid at heart, but it was fun to be around them, throwing a ball, tossing them in pool during the summer, going sledding during the winter or playing hide-and-seek.
 
There’s so much to be said for a child’s laughter, their smile, that pure unbridled joy as they get lost in the moment. That’s probably why it was always so much fun for me, and even today I fondly watch parents playing with their kids, hearing the shrieks and missing those times.
 
So, it’s with a bit of nostalgia as the coronavirus makes us housebound hearing three of our neighbor dads out in their respective yards laughing and conversing with their kids. Home from work for whatever reason (self-isolating, or their positions being deemed non-essential), over the past week as I’ve driven down our driveway, it’s been entertaining to see and hear them playing with their children.
 
It’s a silver lining coming from our current situation – reconnecting with kids. Parents with non-adult children have the extra opportunity now to spend time teaching, playing and learning from their offspring. It’s totally understandable that without school, having the kids underfoot all day can also cause a lot of stress (and respect for the teachers who have them most of the day during the school year). I get that. Keeping kids engaged, despite their innate abilities to find things to do for themselves, can put a strain on you as a parent.
 
That being said, the positives far outweigh the negatives. It’s reflected as I hear the fathers’ voices through the woods that surround our house, the energy as they build a wood fort collectively or pull their children in the driveway in a wagon. Or just plain watch them skateboard down a slight incline, probably concerned of a potential crash, but exultant in seeing their kids taking it on, unleashing themselves with the pure joy of doing something new and on the edge.

I think that’s one of the biggest things which is so amazing about being a parent and learning from our kids as we grow up (I’ve always found it odd that we talk so much about teaching our kids, and for me, I think our kids have taught me more than I taught them, and I’m forever grateful for that): You watch them push boundaries and never think twice about it.
 
Sadly, we can easily lose that quality as we age. Maybe that’s why I’m still a big kid at heart – wanting to continue feeling those first-time joys of experience as we try something new. It could be the first time you get up on your bicycle without the help of your dad or the first time you caught a ball in a baseball mitt.
 
Listening to the three fathers who surround our house, I hear in their voices that joy of experience, listening to their kids, explaining something, adding information. And most likely, their world is being enhanced in that same way, a memory for them of bonding and play.
 
In this chaotic and cautious time, parental bonding and play is so, so critical and valuable to the family, both in terms of connecting to your children and in assuring them you are there for them. I hope those of you who are in this stage of life enjoy these moments.

​Regardless of how bad something is, you can find some good. With the corona virus overwhelming us emotionally, psychologically and financially, maybe it’s worth it to see a bit of the other side.
 

• Air pollution is down.
• Traffic jams disappearing.
• Fish reappearing in Venice.
• Telecommuting’s benefits become clearer to the doubters.

An unheralded positive change is an adjustment in behavior. It’s one I quickly saw. I didn’t necessarily expect it, but when you consider our current circumstances of a world on edge, it makes sense.
 
I’m talking about people answering their phones, text messages and emails. The standard practice is to not answer your phone unless you know the caller by looking at the ID. If you don’t know the person, you let it go to voice mail, then listen, and later, if you care, you might get back to that individual.

That’s been standard phone response protocol for many years. This past week has seen a turnaround. In fact, I’m hard pressed to remember my phone calls not being answered these past 7-10 days. And if they aren’t, the VM is returned promptly (which in and of itself is a minor miracle).
 
Clearly, people are wanting to connect. We want to talk to others, partly because we are socially isolated, but also partly (I’m confident) because we’re all facing the possibility of getting really sick or perhaps even passing away. So, suddenly that phone call becomes more important.
 
I’m not sure why it’s taken the virus for us to respond to others this way. Courtesy and respect should be a given, and when you get a call, you should get back to that person in an appropriate timeframe, no ifs, ands or buts.
 
Like phone messages, getting others to respond to texts or emails is equally problematic. Because we use the excuse of being “busy,” we pretend we don’t have time to write back. Texting is a bit more immediate and more likely to draw a rapid response in normal times. But even it is neglected for days at a time for certain people. When they do finally apologize for taking an extra long dump that lasted three days, you know their excuse is totally tepid.
 
Emails get ignored all the time. Yeah, there’s a lot of spam emails, so it can take a few minutes to scroll through your feed and 33 seconds or so to write back to someone.

Writing back is not hard. It’s easy. You just have to commit to do it. Be responsible.

With the virus raging, we’ve suddenly become more responsible when it comes to these common communication courtesies. We reply quickly. We ask how the other person is doing. We speak at length.
 
All these are good things. We’re reconnecting. It shouldn’t take a virus for us to act this way. It should be the way we behave day-in and day-out every day of our lives. But we don’t, instead using the excuse of how busy our lives are.

I never have bought that excuse. You have time to call a friend or spend 21 seconds writing and sending an email or text. Do it now. You’ll feel better and more connected.
 
That’s something good the pandemic teaches us – reconnecting to our friends and loved ones. Let’s hope this fresh attitude lasts long after the virus and its after-effects fade from our memories.

​Is it just me, or do there seem to be more and more issues you have to deal with daily in your life that are so complicated that you can’t wrap your arms around them? Your only option seems to be to give up, feign indifference or act like you know something that you don’t.
 
This applies to many things. For example, when you look at the change in your medical plan on an annual basis, who the heck can figure out which of the three options clearly makes the most sense? Not me. Sure, you can take an educated guess. You have a slight inclination that one choice is better than the other, but do you write down the 23 coverages involved in each and what causes the clauses to kick in and measure each against the other? Of course not.
 
You muddle through, not really understanding. You have a gut feel for it, but you don’t know or understand the full details. You easily could get hosed when you have to go in for a procedure and find out you must pay $4,563 out of your pocket before the surgeon will touch you with his implements.
 
These complications hammer us in multiple parts of modern life. From signing papers for a mortgage to figuring out how to set up a new computer, we are often expected to master information and technology that we have no background in.
 
Most recently, my wife and I have watched “Jeopardy” on TV. Listening to the questions is what got me started on the idea for this column.

Five or ten years ago, I would have said I could have done much better on “Jeopardy” than I believe I could today if I was a contestant? Why is that? As my wife and I discussed, it’s because the questions have gotten so complicated and esoteric that half the time I don’t even know what the categories mean, much less how to pose the questions to the answers that pop up under each selection.
 
The other night as we watched, I probably was able to definitively come up with the questions on five or six of the choices. Some of that is due to the specific categories being arguably ones that I know nothing about.
 
But it was also frequently that they dug so deeply into a historical, scientific or artistic endeavor that I couldn’t even begin to process the material. Am I that stupid? Have I slowed down that much? Or is everything so much more complicated that only people who study up on all the nuances of the world can do well on these types of shows?
 
Part of the reason they have to make the shows harder is because we have so much more information and ability to dig into it these days. Google, the smart phone and the internet drive this. Because of access, the quiz show makers have to come up with tougher and tougher standards.
 
I also think that there’s an element of ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder) in the people who do well on these shows. Their personalities are driven by a razored personality that digs and delivers data in seconds. They read, comprehend and regurgitate rapidly. And they win at “Jeopardy.”
 
I’m not that guy. I think I’m reasonably intelligent and know some weird stuff that others don’t. Years ago, I might have been able to win a “Jeopardy” session. That ain’t happenin’ today. But maybe I can surprise with a response culled by my brain from years ago and basic knowledge from my old school days. It still feels good when you get it right and no one on the show had the answer. Face.

​I posed this question to a friend today: Who are the three people who bore you the most? It came up because we’d been talking about who we choose to associate it. We avoid angry people. We stay away from people who cause us problems. We minimize contact with someone who bores us.

At the same time, if you go through the litany of people you know in your life, there are those you WANT to hang out with. Those are the people who charge you up. They make you feel good. You want to listen to what they have to say about the world.
 
Back to boring. What makes someone boring? Why does our mind wander when this type of person begins to speak? Why is it difficult to pay attention to him or her?
 
I have to say that the primary factor to me is someone who drones on and on. Speaking endlessly without asking you questions is the recipe for a boring time. The person who monologues you demonstrates he doesn’t care what you think and presumes (or maybe he doesn’t presume, but is instead unaware of his actions) he knows more than you. Or he doesn’t care what you think.

Anyway, he’s blah, blah, blahing you to death. You’re wondering where you can get a good bologna and cheese sandwich on white bread for lunch while he’s talking, talking, talking about the advancements in nut and bolt wrenches that when properly applied can the speed of the project spin in counter-clockwise motion in just such a way that you have no idea what he’s talking about because your mind is elsewhere.
 
You yawn. This doesn’t send the message you want.

He continues. Now he’s into the vagaries of how he cut his hand and the proper way to dress a cut. He explains all the details so thoroughly, you’d think he was an emergency room surgeon, but NO, he’s just another guy wanting to go on and on with nothing to say.

That’s probably the second thing that allows someone to achieve lifetime membership in the boring person club: Having nothing to say. Hey, dude, if you have nothing to say, ask a question instead. See what the other person has to say. Maybe it will be more interesting. But you’re too tied up in yourself to even recognize everyone in your presence is looking around the table wondering how to get you to shut up.
 
There is also the person who over-details you to death. Every story has to get into minute details, ones that don’t mean anything to the point of the story, and in fact, often detract from that. The boring person doesn’t know how to leave these out.

Instead, he goes on and on, expecting you to hinge on the exact detailed description of how he filled the lawn mower gas tank yesterday. “Okay, buddy, sure thing, that’s amazing. Tell me more about how you turned the cap and filled it up.”
 
We all bore others at times. Mostly that probably happens with the people we know best because they understand our patterns and have heard our stories more than the people we’ve just met. Those people get more leeway for that reason.
 
But if you’re at a cocktail party or just getting to know someone, will you please put on your listening cap, ask a few questions, listen, show some enthusiasm? You may find you make a friend.

​​If you go back in time to analyze how the human species used to hunt, and develop weapons to kill each other, before we learned to extend our reach through the development of the technology of the day (a spear, for example, that you threw), you had to kill the beast (or your enemy) with your bare hands or a rock. You would trap the animal, or choke the human you had a tribal disagreement with, eye-gouge him using brute strength to win, or perhaps grabbing a rock to pummel them in the head.
 
From there we learned to extend ourselves. Technology development to kill sets us apart from others in the animal kingdom. Humans use their brains to develop better weapons. At first that meant sharpening rocks so they could be used as knives to stab others, Then the spear became applicable, and we could throw it, killing others from a greater distance (at the same time distancing ourselves from our enemies or prey).
 
Bow and arrows, along with the slingshot, followed, further adding to the divide so that we didn’t have to see eye-to-eye and could instead site and launch farther and farther away. The catapult, a unique, bigger weapon, was built to send objects even farther, wreaking havoc and fear upon your opponent. “OH, crap, here comes another boulder, Ignatious. TAKE COVER!” Then, BAM, the huge stone would land and scatter the troops.
 
Cannons, gunpowder and bullets all followed this evolutionary path of placing one invention on top of another, applying knowledge from a craft artisans in the previous age to develop something stronger, more accurate and capable of furthering destruction.
 
Bombs, tanks, chemical weapons, satellites and nuclear warheads have completed this cycle in the past 70 years or so, leading to our current inability to reign in or even quantify what has been developed and deployed in the name of “protection” or “warfare” or “preparation to defend ourselves.” You can choose your term.
 
What’s deeply disturbing is the human capacity to continue weaponizing at these higher and higher levels without coming to grips with the issue really of “why.” Or, “how much?”

As technology leapfrogs and grows increasingly sophisticated, what do countries get when they write a contract for an F-36 jet aircraft that only a few people understand and can judge in terms it’s safety, value, integrity and capability to deliver what a company says it will deliver? Quite frankly, we don’t know what we’re getting. We’re taking educated guesses.
 
Which leads to further growth and spending in the arms markets. To keep up, we think the other team is ahead. We want the next best thing. We invest. The other team does the same thing. We can’t prove anything, so we keep inventing and pretending we’ll come out on top.
 
That’s the goal – to defeat the foe, the terrible beast. No budget can be too large to assume supremacy and impose your will.
 
It’s why shortcuts get taken and companies lie about their results or don’t provide complete explanations. Keep it under wraps so no one really knows.
 
Sadly, this continues the cycle of fear and paranoia that infects many at high levels around the world as we eye each other suspiciously, rather than recognizing our shared humanity. We demonize others to emotionally beat on them. It doesn’t have to be that way.