Mark Oberg-Uris

Built To Spill Randy Described Eternity HBO’s Reverb (1999)

Am I just a monster? It's been 4 years since I became a father and I'm beginning to fear for my soul. The truth is I just don't like being around kids for very long. Historically, this is not uncommon among fathers, but today it feels almost illegal. It's causing me a lot of confusion and anguish. The ideal amount of time I would like to spend playing with my kids is probably about 70-140 minutes a week—roughly ten minutes each day, maybe 2x/day, taking breaks from work. My feelings of love toward them are perfectly strong, but if I have to watch them or entertain them for more than about 10 minutes my blood starts to boil. I just want to be working, or accomplishing something. I try to be grateful, but it doesn't work. It's 9 AM this morning, Saturday, January 3. It's a sunny, warm day here in Austin, and my four-year-old son is begging me to play catch in the street. I was drinking coffee, still waking up, so I didn’t really feel like it, but at this age his desire to play is insatiable. He begged and begged, so I conceded, and with a smile. I have no problem being a kind and loving father, the problem is only that I do not enjoy it. It's not that I'm trying to maximize my personal pleasure; it just seems wrong that I experience so little delight when my dad friends all claim to experience so much. It was beautiful. We live on a picturesque, tree-lined block. I am even relatively relaxed from the holiday rest. Playing catch with your son is supposed to be an iconic, peak experience. Yet for every single minute, on the inside, I just don't want to be there. I want to be drinking my coffee in peace. Then I feel guilty and absurdly ungrateful, and ashamed, when we're done. I know that when he is a teenager, I'll long to have these days back. I have all of this perspective rationally, and I've been very patient and steadfast trying to digest it, but nothing fixes me emotionally. Am I a terrible person? Or is my feeling within a certain range of historically normal and it's modern parenting norms that are off? Whether it's my fault or not, I don't even care, I just want to figure this out. Something is wrong and I no longer have the excuse of being new to this.

The Cure - Just Like Heaven

the midrange fade bag from five tonight my word

I try not to give life advice on this app. Life’s got a lot to it. But I will say, once your kids know the truth about Christmas it’s never ever the same. Still amazing but not the same….. For anyone with young young ones still—my advice—keep the magic going as long as you possibly can. As long as you possibly can.

You can easily increase the quality of life for 99.9% of US citizens by properly dealing with the very few well-known repeat "notorious" offenders—putting them in prison or mental institutions. This is an easy win, and that's a rare thing in the policy world. You do it, then life is immediately better for every citizen. If your answer is it's morally wrong because of individual rights, then believe me, being in a fully funded institution is far, far better for someone than living on the streets in their own filth, tortured by their inner mental demons, and in constant anguish over who knows what. Their own families (when they can be found) want this for them as well. That's often why they are out on the streets—because they became too much for their parents/grandparents/brothers/sisters to deal with. You're doing nobody any favors, nobody, by letting these people roam the streets in anguish, creating even more anguish.

Trent Williams with HIGH PRAISE for Brock Purdy: “When you’re in that huddle, there’s only one voice speaking. You got 10 grown men staring at you. You can’t fool grown men. The confidence that he has in the huddle no matter what phase of the game, those long play-calls, just getting everybody where they need to be, from A to Z he does it at a really high level. I say it all the time, he’s a god send for us to get him where we got him in the draft. Obviously he’s getting what he deserves now, but he’s still the same guy from his rookie year. He’s just a baller, man.”