#566. Discounting our small steps toward stupid.

A few weeks ago, I called one of my accountability partners and confessed that I’d been listening to techno music lately.

Whoa, Footloose’s John Lithgow, what’s wrong with techno music?

Nothing. There’s inherently nothing wrong with techno music or electronic music or drum and bass or a million other iterations of that genre of music.

And twelve years ago, when I was in college in Birmingham, Alabama I loved techno music.

If the question is, “Yeah but did you ever go to a rave and wear reflective pants?” The answer is “Yes.”

Did I spin and dance around with glowsticks in my hands? Yes.

Did I have futuristic sunglasses that looked like I might be driving a motorcycle from the year 2065 that can also travel up the side of walls? Yes.

We could play that game all day, but simply put, I jumped into rave culture with both feet, which meant that on some weekends, I took ecstasy from strangers, danced in a dark warehouse for eight hours and then crawled my way back outside into a sunshine that felt accusingly bright and painful.

Fast forward twelve years and life is different. I am different. Who I know God to be is different. But on a Tuesday afternoon a few weeks ago, I noticed that techno music had crept back into my life.

Again, there’s nothing wrong with techno, but for me, it’s the soundtrack of a period in my life that is pretty dark. And when I listen to a lot of techno, there’s a part of me that wants to “reminiscence” about that time. Despite the hurt and the pain and the emptiness that came from those moments, there’s still a part of me that likes to put rose colored glasses on.

And perhaps bigger than that, there’s still a part of me that wants to hide. When things get tough, when the pressures of trying to fulfill a lifelong goal like writing a book start to pile up a little, I still reflex to a degree into my old ways and try to hide. So for me, techno music becomes an escape. A chance to close out the world, close out my day and be surrounded by a steady, faceless, wordless beat.

For me, techno is a small step toward stupid.

Have you ever noticed those in your own life? This is the first time I saw techno that way. What usually happens is that I listen to a lot of techno. I start to pull away from friends and family. I get more secretive with how I’m spending my time. I make small bad decisions that grow into large bad decisions. And I start hiding deeper and deeper in the shiny objects I used to care so much about when I used to care about nothing.

Then a few months later, I crash. It all falls apart and with a great degree of surprise I proclaim, “How did I end up here? I never saw that coming.”

Meanwhile, all along, I was taking small steps toward stupid.

You know who else did that? The prodigal son.

For most of my life I just assumed that the son, upon getting all his inheritance from his father, immediately left the farm on a fast track to hookers and pig sty living. But that’s not what the Bible says. In fact, in Luke 15:13, the moment after he got his money is described this way:

"And not many days after the younger son gathered all together and took his journey into a far country, and there wasted his substance with riotous living." (KJV)

I've written about this before because it blows me away. He didn't leave instantly. You get the sense that he packed his stuff. He got his things together and prepared for the long journey deep into the heart of stupid. He took small steps.

I don’t know if you discount your small steps toward stupid, but if you do, if there are patterns you're missing, I challenge you to think about them today. What are they? What are your small steps toward stupid? Techno is one of mine, but I'll go first with a couple more of mine in the hope that they'll spark some of your own.

Two more of my small steps toward stupid:

1. My weight
I don't think I've talked about this before, but my weight fluctuates by about 30 pounds. That might not seem like a lot, but going from 135 pounds to 165 pounds is a fairly big shift. When things feel chaotic, I tend to control what I can and end up not eating enough and being skinny. After a period of that, I tend to let everything go and pendulum swing back the other direction and gain so much weight that the button of my pants could spring off and kill someone.

2. My quiet time
When I'm taking small steps toward stupid I tend to stretch the boundaries of what "quiet time with God" really means. For instance, last June and July I started to lie to myself and say, "Well since Stuff Christians Like is about God, writing it kind of counts as a quiet time." That's not true, but when I'm headed toward stupid, my quiet time tends to disappear.

Those are a few small steps toward stupid I take. Yours will be different. Gaining weight and listening to techno might mean nothing in your life but chances are, you have your own small steps toward stupid.

What are they?

And how can we all stop taking them?