SPLUT!

That's right, I'm citing the pie-in-face "sound" from the Garfield comics. Because that's how this blog will come out, I think. I have a few things to say, but haven't given over the time and thought to an actual post* (usually, when you read a post here, it's something I've thought about for days, and written, then revised, then edited over an hour or two). I also have the sneaking suspicion that things might get said that I don't even anticipate. But the main reason I feel this is a SPLUT! is because there's no structure. It's going nowhere. I just don't want to lose what's been on my mind. There are at least two subjects to address, and I feel they'll intersect, but I cannot tell how.

Scott told me last week to read Vote for Larry. "It's what would happen if you ran for president," he said. I picked it up, and I read it in four days (not counting Sunday). And he was right. I imagine it would have been almost exactly like that book.
I remembered as I started reading it, that this had once been my ambition. I had never given half a flip about politics, I couldn't even feign interest, until I heard Howard Dean speak at Castleton in September 2004. That was a huge turning point for me. When I returned from VT, I began executing a plan, and if I'd stuck with it I would be running for Senate right now. (How crazy is that to think about? Today could be thirteen days until my election!) I was planning to run for president in 2012 (ahem, the end of the world).
So the book was awesome, because it not only followed the framework I anticipated, but followed the course all the way to the end (which I never dared to even imagine). It was like having the experience without having to actually do it. (In most cases the not-doing would be frustrating; the only reason I'm willing to accept it here is because it's an experience I've decided not to have).

I mentioned it to Leslie, and she said she'd vote for me. I pried, and she elaborated: she said she thought I'd be much less selfish that others running, and in regards to my argument that I felt like I would make a mess out of it, having no actual experience, she said she thought, in the end, intention is more powerful than skill.
Yeah? But isn't the road to Hell paved with good intentions? However, the book very nearly convinced me to vote, and after that text-relay with LG I was almost ready to join the race all over again.

Over there to the left of the blog, I've got a twitter feed. It's what I use to blog when I'm not at a computer, basically. It's limited to 140 characters per entry, and so I find myself really using my imagination and vocabulary to say what I want in such a short space. It's like writing haiku, really. So I tried to formulate what was going through my head. And this is where twitter is a very useful tool: when I experiment with different phrasing, and with synonyms, when I find what works, I end up dismissing a lot of nearly-working words and phrases. And it's by looking at what doesn't work and examining why that I get a better understanding of what I'm thinking.

This is what I started with: "I was going to run for president. Do I believe in something bigger, or do I just imagine it's bigger? No, I think the presidency is small potatoes."
This is what I ended up with: "I know better than to run for president. I'm running for something bigger, right?"
This second version (which is really a third of fourth version) actually represents what I think. Thing is, yes, I think shaking up the system would do the system some good. But... so what? I explained a while back that I wouldn't take the position of manager ever again** because in doing so I would agree to seriously prioritize the concerns of the company for whom I worked, which would be problematic. Same thing if I were President. I would take the job entirely seriously (more seriously than most Presidents ever have, I daresay). I think I'm actually against what most people want. However it's intended to be a system by the people and for the people, and I would adopt that view. I honestly and (though these words may suggest otherwise) humbly believe I could rock your American socks off. I think many people would see it as a good thing.
Sure, the system could benefit from shaking up... but why benefit a system I don't believe in?

When I say something like that, I usually get responses as though I'd said, "I think the system is flawed." A lot of, 'Yeah, I know the system's not perfect, but it can't get any better if we never try,' and the like. But that's not what I'm saying. I actually think the system is stronger and healthier than do most people I talk to. And even if it were perfect, I still wouldn't believe in it, because I believe the system itself is the problem, not it's flaws. What? Yeah, here's news for ya: with the exception of the electoral college, ** I think the system actually is perfect.

But I digress.

-----

Here's the other thing.****
I have a tendency to fall into patterns, and this is something I notice in more ways than I care to take the time to describe. In an email timestamped 19:35 17 Sept 07, I wrote, "I find myself being too much of a smart ass at times. The tendency grows, and occasionally I need to lose my sense of humor for a week or risk losing friends." I wanted to pull out an old reference rather than to explain it here-and-now, because I hope this will make sense, rather than simply serving as an excuse.

First of all, why do I do this? I know why: because it works. See, I put myself into a new situation (let's say, "moving to Seattle & getting a new job"), and one of the ways I deal with nervousness is to make jokes. After a while, I put my attitude on auto-pilot (wit requires thinking, but I could do better to focus my thinking elsewhere; however the smart-ass comments are how I communicate with people, see?). See what I've done there? This worked, and so I set it as a constant, rather than a thoughtful connection. That allows me to apply my mind to something else... and once that's established, I set another "constant," and move on, constantly making progress by standing on the shoulders of my former-self.
And I do this with everything, eventually. Smart-ass comments, relationships, driving, conversations, and on and on.

My base is that I care about people. When people form a favorable opinion of me, I believe it's because of this. But then I set up my autopilots, I form concepts. Because I do this, I'm able to set out at work opening boxes and letting my mind wander onto Things To Say (remember when I said the blogs I post take me days?), Ways To Help People See Beyond Their Own Concepts, and things like that. As I wrote in an email timestamped 02:17 21 Oct 08, "Lately it's been increasingly clear that I've neglected the care I used to connect with people. I don't listen well. I don't simply contact somebody to remind them that I am interested in their well-being. It's like being the kind of father has no time for his children, because he's so busy working all of the time, and [...] his real and entire motivation is their well-being." I care about you, but I'm too goddamned busy to show you. The result is, even though my brain is thinking, all the external world sees is a smart-ass who talks constantly without thinking at all about what he's saying.
Which is to say, Scott (and everyone else, really), I'm sorry about things I said while I was in Tennessee. I wasn't thinking when I said them, and therefore they reflected no actual thought at all.

That was point A.
Point B is, I can't have faith in "the system," because it requires thinking and acting in this way, by relying on this thinking in concepts.
Point C is, I think everybody behaves and progresses in this way, and even though it feels like a lot of progress is made, it's really only detrimental because
Point D is, I care about you (everyone), and feel it is disrespectful to take that for granted for even a moment.

THANK YOU, AND GOOD NIGHT.

-----

* Of course, having said that... this entry took 1h53m to compose.

** (P.S., I'm entertaining the idea of being a manager by the end of the year. But that is another story for another time.)

*** In his new book, John Hodgman discusses the Electoral College; he says that while the campus itself is nice, the town of Electoral is actually a "shit-hole."

**** (It's kind-of the same thing.)

Adventure, excitement, and... not so much.

So now that there is internet here,* I've come around to using it a little. Luckily, so far this has come to checking my MySpace and Facebook once every couple of days, and that's about it. Oh, and the occasional glance at A Softer World, and the weekly nods to Post Secret and Something Awful's Photoshop Phriday.

But taking a sick-day today (which is lame, but I'll get to that in a minute), I've poked the 'net a bit more than usual, and I noticed that I haven't really been filling this blog with the adventure tales it was created to hold.
And the real, sad thing is... I haven't had any. I've been boring and lazy. What a disappointment, to me, and to you.**

But I realized that, without internet, I've filled my blogging void with actual conversations with actual people. So I've got things that have been on my mind without being online-d.***

So.
Everything in my life changed, fairly recently. When I came back from TN,**** Jenn & Josh picked me up from the airport in a pickup; we drove straight to the old apartment, loaded up, and moved into the new one. Now all the places I used to walk to (I try to only drive to work) are not so convenient to walk to. I wouldn't have thought that would make a difference, but it does--I wasn't in a routine, but it was still felt like trips to the library, South Lake Union, and such were a part of who I was as a person. Now I visit different libraries (there are an amazing number of them here), and never go to Lake Union at all.

I actually don't go anywhere at all. That's why this sick-day is lame: it's my day off! I'm not avoiding work, I'm avoiding going into the city.
Jenn had a visitor here recently, a friend-of-a-friend stopping by for a little couchsurfing on her way to Canada. She and I talked briefly, and she mentioned thinking it odd that she wasn't drinking much (being on vacation and all). It made sense to me: there's things to do, things to see. It was that moment (combined with a moment in TN) that made me realize, I drink when I'm bored. I don't "have to drink to have a good time," but that's why I do it nonetheless. That's why I drank and smoked in Tucson--I was very, very bored, especially once Scott moved away. It was something to do--more importantly, something to do which passed the time.

So.
I'm working on becoming active again. This is why I hardly use the internet, even with it now readily available, and why I don't watch TV, even with cable (which Josh couldn't live without). It is my intention to read more, to see some good movies (Ari just texted me out of the blue yesterday, telling me to rent The Fall), and also to get out and do some things.

Any suggestions?
(Even if you're not in Seattle, ask somebody, or google around, and leave a comment! Let me know what you find! I'll go on adventures, and report back here!)


* Btw, I need a name for this place. In TN we had "J140"--our apartment number, which worked just fine. But here... "3"? That doesn't work. In Tucson, we had "BLC" (standing for "Bitch Loved Cake"), AKA, "The Cake House." I don't know what the previous residents of this apartment enjoyed, so that's no help either.

** By "you," I mean Scott, since I suspect only he reads it. Hi buddy.

*** And I don't mean Heroes. I have another blog for that.

**** That's the subject to a much longer post, about who I am, why I do what I do, and how I feel about it. And yes, I still have to complete my post about money, which should have preceded my last post (and therefore said post would have made more sense).
And now that I've got my brain ticking on the subject of motivation, I should blog about the movie Hotel Rwanda, and fighting. I'd start all of this now, except I don't want to sit around online any more!

Different Rules for the Same Game

“So what do you think of all this economy?” This would be the start of a conversation with my father, but… Leslie? Why does she think I think anything of it? Why is she thinking of it? It’s out of character for us both. But it got me thinking about it.
“I’m just excited,” she said, “that people are coming to realize how it’s all imaginary. It’s imaginary numbers!” I’m not excited, though I feel like I should be. This is the end of Fight Club, right? If what I hear is true, then all that’s missing is the Pixies on the soundtrack. But I’m not excited. Maybe V was right—we need the symbol. Fight Club had buildings collapsing. All we have to represent the failing economy are worried faces, nervous voices.
I’m not excited, because even if people are getting a glimpse of the forest, they seem mostly concerned over the lack of trees. There is more concern over the illusions lost than over the fact that it was an illusion anyway. It’s being treated like a problem, like it’s something to be corrected. So no, I’m not excited. I’m disappointed.

“Why do you have goals,” I asked Jenny (not my sister, but another Jenny). “To have something to work towards, to be active,” she answered. And what’s the benefit of being active? To reach the goal, of course. It’s like my car: I had a good job, and the only bill I had to pay was for my car. And the only reason I had a car was to drive to work. To pay for my car. To drive to work. And so it goes.
But we can be active without goals. Even more, we can hope to achieve something without considering it a goal. I don’t float to my car on the hopes and dreams of placing my right foot on the ground, and then my left, and then my right; I walk. I want to be a better person, but that’s not a goal, it’s just something I’ve assumed as part of my regular activity. I read, I think, I meditate, I act politely. It’s not my goal; I’d only be disappointed by my imperfection if I didn’t try. I don’t need a goal, only to start over once it’s been reached.

I remember hearing the theory that x holiday (x=Valentine’s Day, Secretaries’ Day, etc) was invented by the Greeting Card Companies in order to sell more cards. Well, that’s our economy. We are expected to have jobs in order to put in and take out, so we can keep putting in and taking out, to keep that prayer wheel spinning. Just like Jenny’s goal, just like my car. This is the American God; this is the mythology the Next Great Empire will learn about our fallen civilization. We believed in these imaginary numbers, and allowed our belief in them to shape our lives, our entire understanding of the world. What science we know still relies on the likes of Apollo and Selene in the form of economical reliance.
I’m not excited about what’s happening, because the thing to be excited about is seen as a problem to fix—and people are fixing it, and in the American Way: throw money at it! The illusions are falling! Quick, clap your hands and say, “I do believe in money!” and 700 billion fairies will fly in and keep Tinkerbell from dying. And once we close that curtain, we can finally turn back to the Great Oz and ask what’s next.
It’s going to be very different, though. The economy will be run in a completely new way. That’s the selling point: “they maintained the illusion poorly; we now have an opportunity to maintain it well.” Different rules, but it’s still the same game.

My father told me of the wealthy Germans, following WWI, with wheelbarrows full of cash and prizes, going to the store hoping to get some food, “but, “he said, “they never tell us what the Germans who weren’t wealthy did.” I told him of two weeks ago, when I couldn’t go to work because I couldn’t afford the gas to get there & back. I spent that week eating nothing but peanut butter and honey sandwiches and being just fine. I told him that when the economy does go belly-up, he and I will be sitting on the curb, eating sandwiches, while the people go by with their wheelbarrows, still thinking they’re the more fortunate ones.

do I?

1) i'm "'typing" this on a wii whilst drunk.
2) i'm supposed to be here in TN, but have yet to discover why. I've been having fun, but fun's not what I'm about. Scott's got shit existential, Leslie's got shit physical, and others seem to have shit personal... and I'm on vacation? Michael and I talked about being "on" all the time, but is there ever, in my world-view, time to be "off"?

Before I left here for the last time last year, I blogged, 'I don't belong here any more.' Do I belong here now?

Court Anonymous fights dirty. Fights with teeth. Fights girls.

"I hope you're as bruised as I am," she said when I came into work on Tuesday, and I have to admit that was hot. But the bruises were reminders of a different kind of gratification. I didn't remember the details, I just remember this girl at the beach wanting to start something. And I remember getting hit. A lot. And I remember ultimately taking her down.

"Throwing sand, that's dirty." Talking about it here-and-there throughout the day brought it back enough that I was able to piece together bits of the brawl. "Eventually my fists started hurting, and I had to use my elbows to hit you anywhere I could, to hit you where it counts." I didn't remember that at all. How does someone forget an elbow to the groin? "When I did that, did it really knock you down, or were you just faking it toget me?" Oh, yeah, now I remembered. I don't remember the impact of the elbow, I just remember the sound of the air exiting my body, and then my face hitting the sand, and the sound of the sand in my ear. And as soon as I realized she was standing right next to me ("Are you okay? Here, let me help you up."), that's when I threw the sand. I couldn't see, but as soon as I heard her sputter, I tackled her, held her wrist and she yelled as my teeth met the skin of her neck.

Then, my arm tight around her neck, choking her: "Who won this fight?"
"We both did."
"No, who won this fight?"
"We both did."
"No, who won this fight?"
"You did. You won."

fin

Pay Attention to the Man Behind the Curtain

[this is going to be a rough blog, best to be considered a first-draft... more a collection of statements than a cohesive work...]

If you hold on to the handle, she said, it's easier to maintain the illusion of control. But it's more fun if you just let the wind carry you. -- Brian Andreas

In the book The Way Out, Dirk Vaughn recounts waiting in line for a backcountry permit. He listened as the people ahead of him asked questions about "which trails had toilets, wooden steps, shade, cell phone reception." He goes on a rant from there, and it's one that I agree with (heck, it might be one I've had myself). He makes his point: "We're so addicted to information and knowing everything a person can possibly know that we can't just say oh, here's a nature trail, let's go check it out."

Now allow me to reintroduce myself. I am an advocate for giving up control. I don't need air conditioning--I can survive without it (and have, for almost half my life). I don't need television, I don't need computers, I don't need my car, I don't need anything I don't have, and neither do I need most of what I have.

And yet I have a hard time giving up control. I doubt any half-hour of the day goes by that I don't check my phone for missed calls or text messages. I didn't even see how deeply this addiction ran, because I didn't see it as such until I read that passage from the book. That really brought some things together for me.

I like it when I forget my phone somewhere. BAM! It's out of my hands. It's not good enough to lack coverage--then, I just check the signal status constantly. But that made me realize that not having the phone took more than the physical object out of my hands--it took the control it allowed me out of my hands.
Which made me thing of traffic. I typically don't mind traffic, and when I would drive from Murfreesboro to Nashville to work I would actually enjoy it... because it took control out of my hands. I have to bust my ass to get to work on time (not that I did, really), but as soon as I hit traffic, sorry, nothing I could do.

And this tied to my appreciation of disaster. That is perhaps hard to explain, but another example is a microcosm of the situation: They say that if you want to hear God laugh, make a plan. I make plans with the actual hope that they'll fall through. Traffic? Flight delayed? Car broke down? Power outage resulted in a reset alarm clock? Hurricane destroyed your house? Bliss.
A couple of years ago, hearing the Post Secret guy talk (I can remember his name any other time, of course), he read a postcard, Everybody who knew me before 9/11 thinks I'm dead. It sent chills down my spine, and I think that feeling was a combination of horror and exhiliration.
The only thing that seems to feel good to me is to give up control, I'm starting to realize. (This isn't even a new thought; I'm just experiencing a more full realization of what I've always known... that Andreas quote up there is from a print I've had on my wall for years, and I've always known it was right.)
But check this out: I could be am described as having self-destructive behaviour. I took this into great consideration when planning to leave Tennessee and, rather than making a plan that couldn't fail to get me out, I simply sabotaged all the plans that could keep me there. Now, if this is self-destructive behaviour, would that imply that these plans, this control, is our concept of self?

I advocate giving up control, and yet I go on controling my life. As I mentioned in a previous blog, I won't allow myself into a management position at my job, because I know what a control freak I am. We're taught to believe we should be in control. We're taught to be in control, and never even question whether we should be. It's not even acknowledged that we could not be.
But we "have to" be in control... the only other option is chaos, we're given to believe. Except that's not true... that's the backdrop painted by people who want to be in control. One more tapestry in the story we tell ourselves we need to perpetuate. L. Frank Baum tells us if we look past the curtains, you'll find the Wizard. Daniel Quinn calls it Animism. Buddhas call it Nirvana. Jesus calls it Heaven. I call it Life. It's all there really is, but for the illusions of control we've made to distract ourselves from it.

Books

I first heard of Jeffrey Ford around the end of January, when Leslie told me about a collection of his short stories. What she told me was amazing enough on its own, but when I looked into the author and found out his first novel was titled The Physiognomy, I got really excited... Physiognomy is one of my favorite words, and it was actually the subject of what could be considered my first blog entry (before the term 'blog even existed).
The book was out of print, and of course the Himmel Park library in Tucson didn't have it (the library only stocks books I'm not looking for, as best I can tell). But at Seattle's Central Library, I found it. In large-print only, but I wasn't going to be picky (although the large type did give me headaches for the first few days of reading).
ANYWAY, I finally finished the book the other day. It was a really cool story set in a really interesting sci-fi world. The narration is from Cley, Physiognomist First-Class (physiognomy refers to the study and reading of faces, and in this world physiognomists are basically detectives), and follows him to a mining town, where he's been sent by Master Drachton Below to find out who stole... a piece of fruit. Cley sees it as a punishment after being overheard mentioning that the Master's own facial features suggest an over-abundance of pride. After the crime is solved, the story follows Cley to an island for extended punishment, and in the last third of the book he tells of what happened once he was restored to his esteemed position in the Master's Well-Built City.

The book and the story were great, but I didn't see where it was going. There was no mystery to solve (even though Cley spent a third of the book assigned to such a task, the investigation consisted of looking at faces, so we're not given many clues to go on), and no gaining momentum throughout. For the majority of the reading, I felt these were missing elements, however the last chapter proved that everything in the book was just as it should have been. I don't know if I've ever been so satisfied by a final chapter in a book as this. There are two other books that follow, but they are both out-of-print, and my magical library does not have them. Luckily, The Physiognomy is being reprinted in October, and Memoranda and The Beyond are being reprinted for November.

So after I finished off the book, I still couldn't sleep, primarily due to an abundance of painful bruises (yeah, just wait for the blog about that story...), so I scanned the stacks of books around my room, trying to feel out what I ought read next. I picked up Round the Bend, thinking it was the right time to re-read it, but no. Other things that weren't right include The Martian Chronicles, Living Buddha, Living Christ, Salt of the Air, Days of War, Nights of Love, The Holy Bible, Oryx and Crake...
When Christmas shopping in 2006, a book caught my eye and at a glance I knew it was Scott's gift. A couple of months later he handed it back to me and told me I ought to read it. The book is The Way Out by Craig Childs. From the back cover: this taut, intensely dramatic narrative immerses us in a labyrinth of canyons in the American Southwest where virtually nothing is alive... and where we pay witness as two men confront not just immutable forces of nature but the limits of their own sanity.
And when I saw the book on the shelf there was no way to have known that a year later, Scott and I would have been living in the same desert for months having faced our own issues with nature and sanity. Craziness.

At this point I realize I wrote more than I anticipated about these books. This was meant to be a short introduction to a very different subject, and to go down that path now would seem really out of place... so I'll make it a new entry instead.