Howdy folks!
Got a good one for you today!
⛰ Quote
“Until we know we are wrong, being wrong feels exactly like being right.”
— Kathryn Schulz, Being Wrong
🤔 A Short StoryQuestion
“Smart. DUH.”
Before we were married, Katie asked me this question: “Would you rather your kids be smart, or kind?”
I mean, don’t get me wrong. Kindness is obviously nice and all. But if you’re forcing me to choose, I gotta go with smart. Smart means good grades. Better college opportunities. Stronger career paths. If you are smart, the world opens up for you. You can make discoveries or build things that help people all over the world. You can be independent and successful and make more money.
Kindness is great. The world needs more kind people. But smart seemed much more useful. (I had also just finished college and wasn’t feeling particularly smart myself, so perhaps I was just hoping my future children would be more smarter than me ever could of been one day).
Katie was horrified. She said kind. I believe she briefly reconsidered our entire relationship.
Three years later, I was teaching 4th grade in a Memphis public school. The star of the show was Alexis. She was one of the smallest kids in the school, but she was a firecracker. She was brilliant. Funny. Quick. Sharp. There wasn’t a question that she didn’t have an answer for.
One day, I asked the class, “What do you think ‘pulchritudinous‘ means?” I wrote it on the board.
“Bad and Bougie!” quipped Alexis.
“You know… y’ain’t wrong!”
Alexis kept us moving. She was a powerhouse. One of the smartest kids I have ever taught. The other girls in my class flocked to her. She was the Alpha.
Kayla was another girl in my class that year. She was much softer and quieter. She was slower—not from an intelligence standpoint, just personality-wise. She walked slower. Talked slower. Kinda had the “beach vibes” thing going on. She desperately wanted to be in Alexis’ group too. She wore the same scrunchies. Brought in the same Pop-Its and ZipLock bags of homemade slime.
Alexis was having none of it. Eventually, she turned the rest of the class against Kayla. Even the boys. You don’t know what real power looks like until you have seen a fourth-grade girl get fourth-grade boys to fall. in. line. Everyone teased Kayla. They wouldn’t sit with her or be her partner. They didn’t even want to stand next to her in line.
Alexis was sharp.
I began to see that sharp things can cut.
It got so bad, that one afternoon I sent Kayla across the hall to sit in a second-grade classroom.
Then I gently closed the door.
And lost my ever-loving, God-forsaken mind.
In five years of teaching, I cussed about plenty of things. Lack of funding for basic needs. Pointless meetings. Broken air conditioning. Standardized testing. Copier jams. (Lord Hammercy, copier jams).
This, however, was the only time I ever cussed at my students.
I may have reminded them that every morning I dropped off my one-year-old daughter at daycare and barely saw her so that I could spend my entire day, week after week, with their ungrateful little wretched selves. I think I told them, in some ways, I was their daddy?? Details are unclear. At some point, I threatened to call every single parent, auntie, grandma, or cousin on my contact sheet. “I DON’T GIVE A DAMN WHAT KAYLA DID. YOU WILL STOP TREATING HER THIS WAY. NOW.”
Their jaws dropped.
Every single pair of eyeballs blinked at me in stunned silence.
My words hung in the air.
Finally, somebody whispered:
“…he just said damn.”
I thought about Katie’s question a lot that year.
Smart? or Kind?
Drat.
By the end of that year, I had a different prayer for my own children:
Please, God, let my kids be kind.
I’ve changed my mind about plenty of things in my life. Skinny jeans. Cargo shorts. Pineapple on pizza. Minivans. Pickleball. Birds.
Mamaw was the first person I ever knew who wore Crocs on purpose. I used to tease her endlessly about it. Those aren’t real shoes. I heard they’re edible. They look like clown shoes.
Ten years later, I asked for a pair of Crocs for Father’s Day. I made it abundantly clear that this was my one true desire.
Father’s Day came and went.
No Crocs.
I was crushed.
That night, as we were going to bed, I finally told Katie, “Man… I am a little sadder than I should probably admit that I didn’t get Crocs…”
Her eyes went as wide.
She rolled over, reached under the bed, and pulled out an Amazon bag. She’d ordered them months earlier and had completely forgotten about them.
My first pair of Crocs.
Some things I’ve changed my mind about because I learned more. Some because I experienced more. Some because another person showed me something I couldn’t see before. And apparently some because foamy clown shoes are extraordinarily comfortable year-round.
I’m increasingly convinced that changing your mind isn’t necessarily a sign of inconsistency. Sometimes it means you’ve been paying attention.
So I’m curious:
What have you changed your mind about?
Big or small. Consequential or completely ridiculous. Hit reply; I’d love to hear it.
📚 A Quick Update
What I’m reading:
How to Know a Person by David Brooks
The art of seeing others deeply. Brooks explores what it means to make another person feel truly seen, heard, and understood—a skill I increasingly think is one of the most important we can develop. Learn to ask questions that invite stories instead of answers, and you may discover that understanding another person has a funny way of changing your mind.
Theo of Golden by Allen Levi
This actually pairs remarkably well with Brooks. Theo is an older man from Portugal who arrives in a small town in Georgia and begins quietly paying attention to the people around him—learning their stories and finding small, tangible ways to love them. It’s incredibly moving. I cried four times. We need more stories that celebrate kindness.
The Dog Stars by Peter Heller
I would put this in the genre of “Post-Apocalyptic Poetry.” Most of humanity is dead. Survival is brutal. It’s kill or be killed. And somehow, in the middle of all that devastation, Heller writes some of the most simply stunning observations of beauty I’ve read in a while—fishing and hunting, flying over the mountains of Colorado, grief, loneliness, and the strange gift of human connection.
Stay curious, my friends,
David
PS: Confessions of the Beloved is DONE! Stay tuned. 👀
DAVID SCOT MUSSER 