Back in the early 1980s… when I went to camp… there was an interesting artist papering the sidewalks and buildings of NYC with pieces of colored paper with one-liners. Jenny Holzer went on to make a serious mark in conceptual art.

Now, I’m a summer camp director. I had a to look up what ‘conceptual art’ meant. I’m more of a Monet, Penley and Jim Lee kind of guy.

One piece that Ms. Holzer put up everywhere – including on hats – was this phrase:

Protect me from what I want.

This is something I completely understand. You do, too… but maybe not at first. Let me explain with a camp situation.

A Trip to Canteen

You are heading to canteen. What will you choose? Skittles or Legendairy Ice cream? Hershey’s or Air Heads? Hmm….

Actually, you want all of them. And, let’s say some really generous CIT is running show and wants to make a ‘positive’ mark by granting your wish.

You get it all. Everything you want. So, you walk away with a hoard of candy and start enjoying it all. You got what you wanted.

Including the stomach ache that comes from eating too much of the sugary stuff. And the side-eye glances from your friends who only got one of those candies. And that fuzzy feeling on your teeth that says ‘yikes – cavities inbound!’

Please protect me from what I want. See what I mean?

“But wait a second, Cole – that would just be a one-off thing! That doesn’t happen every day.”

I disagree. In fact, I think wanting things – much more than what we need right now – is a feature of our human nature, not a bug. We humans, left to our natural system, always want more.

Why? It has to do with our long-ago ancestors just barely scrapping by just to exist and create more humans who, eventually, turned into you and me.

Go enough months and years and decades and millennia with barely enough to eat and you’ll change the brain of every human that follows.

That pinging in our brain saying ‘Want more! Take more!’ comes from a natural place. And, in this time of abundance, it’s a natural instinct of which we need to be thoughtful. Because it leads to stomach aches, anxiety (did enough people like my post? do I have enough followers?), and more.

The Protection

So, if this is such a big (and natural) concern of ours, how we do we protect ourselves from what we want? Two things. The first is being grateful for that which we already have in our lives.

The second is choosing to be courageous enough to make a choice that is different than what your body and your mind and your friends want.  (See how I worked in all three of our values there?)

As you get older, your wants will change. Just like the boy and tree we read about at campfire each summer.  

The question is, will you be thoughtful about your wants? Will you protect yourself for those easy wants that lead to negative results – screen time, I’m looking at you – and those hard wants that lead to good things instead? (Ok, ok… I’ll go stretch more now.)

Be grateful. Be thoughtful. Be courageous. (And… stay warm this weekend!)

A slightly different read than our normal post but this past weekend was a powerful reminder of many things.

We are all built. We are creatures always in a state of construction. We are 3-D printed out of the things consume. Our minds are filled with the images and words and sounds to which we attend. At the best of times, we are selective of these inputs.

How does camp play into this? This past weekend’s bowling party in NYC reminded me of the impact of summer camp.

Parent to Cole: “Who are these young men? They could not be more kind and friendly.”

Those, ma’am, are our CIT ‘Boys.’ I put the last word in quotes because their actions this past weekend – getting new campers connected, bowling with the little ones, having fun and being welcoming to the new parents – showed they are fast becoming good men.

Parent to Cole: “My daughter just came up to me and said ‘everyone is so nice!’” That is part of what Weequahic is: a collection of pretty great young people. The other part is what Weequahic does: creates a community in which the best of what is inside a kid shines.

Parent to Cole: “We needed a GAC re-fill.”

Back to the statement above. CS Lewis once said:

“If you want to get warm you must stand near the fire: if you want to be wet you must get into the water. If you want joy, power, peace… you must get close to, or even into, the thing that has them.”

This is why we should get back to camp. It’s full of that which brings out the best in us. It’s full of people who focus on being where they are and with whom they are. And as we know… camp is all about the people.

Ah…. Can’t wait for camp.   

There is a great old blessing in the Jewish tradition:

“May you be covered in the dust of your rabbi.”

Campers – what does this mean? Well… to me, it means that you are following the teachings and habits and life of someone more learned, experienced and wise than yourself. The blessing then means… take that which you want to imitate from that teacher and become more like them.

The Imitation Game

We humans are an interesting bunch. We’ve got these great opposable thumbs, a huge brain relative to our bodies and the most intricate communication abilities in the animal world. We discovered the use of fire, survived millions of years of evolution, built machines to ply the waters and explore the stars and… developed things like Tiktok.

(Sorry – couldn’t resist.)

How did we make it this far? How did we – who are certainly weaker than lions and bears and the weather – survive and thrive from then to now?

By imitation.

We learn by imitating those who came before us who survived and thrived in a difficult place and time. We, as a species, kept doing this over and over for thousands and thousands of years. So much so that this imitation operation is unconscious in many ways. What we eat, the words that come out of our mouths, the mannerisms…

We are covered in the dust of our teachers, of those we follow and observe the most. Which begs the question:

You Choose

Who are you choosing to follow?

If this impulse is hard-wired into our operating systems, then we need to be thoughtful about who we are observing, who we are following. Because their dust – their actions, mannerisms, words, opinions – are going to collect on us and influence everything we do.

How can you tell who you are following, whose dust you are collecting?

When you are young, it’s pretty easy: just look at your parents and your older siblings. But it’s more about your parents. (So, parents… whose dust are we collecting?)

When you get older and start to naturally shift your focus towards the larger world, this is when you need to get more serious about your choices. Take a look at your phone history, web browser or calendar. What books do you read the most? What was your most listened to artist on Spotify this past year? What stories do you tell yourself the most?

My friends, we all collect dust from those we follow. Be thoughtful on who you choose. Have a great weekend!