#284

I have a friend in China who has a daughter the same age as Meg-pie. He's a professional colleague from Tianjin and now an appreciated longtime friend. I've been around him for countless meetings, dinners, beers, and brutally long and stressful workdays. Early in our time together I discovered a fascinating thing about him: he loves his daughter as much as I love mine. Seven thousand miles away and the cares, concerns, and feelings are the same. I was like, holy shit this is crazy! Right?! Of course not; I'm being facetious, but only a little. Because I can't deny I felt something worthy of notice and reflection, when it was made plain to me personally, experientially, on the other side of the world, that dads are the same everywhere. The same! I felt refreshed, reassured, and a little stupid, yes. I felt the reinforcement of a harmony or solidarity that I knew existed, but that I needed to touch, apparently, to poke at and examine firsthand. Even if expected, a moment can have impact. As a dad, I'm loving, clueless, vulnerable, bewitched, too-much-of-this, too-little-of-that, and I know it's the same everywhere. There are no experts, and no perfect kids. The preacher's son? The principal's daughter? Lamas, gurus, saints? They don't have kids. With the right promptings, we all overthink, overshare, overfeel. Stoicism and Zen and all that can wait, along with simplicity, certainty; we're parents.

Michael said, "I tried to hack the WiFi at school." Being a technologist, myself – although not a coder or hacker – I was intrigued. I said, "Oh, what does that mean? Did you get access without a password? Defeat security, steal data, download secret files, unleash a worm, change your grades like Ferris Bueller? What'd you do?!" He didn't expect interrogation. He said, "Oh, I just tried to glitch it out, you know, the network." I was comforted that he didn't make sense. I'll assume he doesn't have the knowledge or tools yet to be Edward Snowden. It's interesting though, that he finds the concept inspiring. So now I can add "cybercriminal activity, prosecution, felony, prison" to my ever-expanding list of irrational father fears. And this reminds me: it's essential that our kids know how to protect themselves from cybercrime. So "cybercrime victim, theft, privacy protection, reputation destruction, complete and total devastation" can be added, also.

As I write this, I'm looking out the window at 333 West Wacker, a curved glass tower on the river and the location of Ferris's dad's office according to the movie. Legends of the Fall, Good Will Hunting, Rocky II, Saving Private Ryan, Ferris Bueller's Day Off. Five best movies ever. Honorable mention: Gladiator, The Revenant, Last of the Mohicans, 310 to Yuma, The Last Samurai, Wedding Crashers, The Departed, Blood Diamond, Hoosiers, Tombstone, Predator. I shouldn't have started a movie list.