The 12 Labors

When every soul incarnates on this earth (or someplace like it), the great god Zeus (or some reasonable facsimile) sends the swift god mercury (or at least something zippy with wings) to assign 12 important labors during their time on Earth (or wherever). It is not a punishment, it is not the law, but if you're not going to bother checking off the list, we hope you'll enjoy reincarnation and another exciting opportunity to finish your homework.

These are the labors Zeus (I think) has given you in the year of our lord 2018. They number 12 (ish).

1st Labor. You are to survive your childhood with your spirit intact. There are few true actual, verifiable adults, in the larger multi-contextual cosmic definition of adult, on this planet and so the over-grown children who end up raising you will undoubtedly mess it up in any number of exciting ways. Your job is to survive inattentiveness, over-protectiveness, religious hoo-ha, corporal punishment and all the attendant mind fucks they will inflict on you in order to make you a "productive adult" which rarely happens here. Your job is to learn what is wisdom and what is the unresolved emotional issue of an over-grown child and guard the former while discarding the latter. Unhappy "adults" will attempt to beat the joy out of you over the course of 18 years or so. Do not let them. As you will likely never become a cosmically mature adult over the course of your time here, and the assaults on your spirit will not magically relent over time, you are instructed to continue guarding your spirit indefinitely.

2nd Labor.  You must leave your religion. This is not to say you must lose your faith, but you must lose blind devotion to any institution, blind devotion to any institution is by definition religious, and question authority. Especially institutions or authorities that would prefer you not question and instead maintain a blind devotion. Earth is certainly does not lack for institutions who will try to impose a definition of "exactly how it is and it is no different." and holy crap are they wrong. We're all laughing up here at how ludicrously wrong they are, honestly. Zeus is certainly not neutral on the existence and goodness of Zeus, but you also don't have to take someone else's word for it. Think for yourself. The great thing about Zeus is all roads lead back to Zeus (or Athena or the Star Goat or Ethical principles arrived at via Reason and Study or what have you).

3rd Labor.  Do not buy what they are selling you. You will be bombarded from an early age, left in the tender care of an sophisticated advertising industry by the stressed out over-grown children that are your parents who are only too happy to let the TV babysit you for 30 goddamn minutes of quiet time, by a barrage of messages indicating you are the best and most central person that has ever existed so long as you buy, buy buy. Products are fun to buy, products are at times necessary to buy, but you may discard the entire messaging industry surround the purchasing of products as the manipulative bullshit it is. Your job is to resist manipulation in all forms, from flattery to insults designed to provoke a sense of insecurity. Humans on earth have developed an extensive machine designed to destroy of obfuscate all context that is not consumerism, so you will have to be vigilant and proactive about resisting and destroying that machine. This labor will last your whole life, so pace yourself.

4th Labor.  Give a damn about something other than yourself. People will tell you selfishness leads to the highest good, but they are wrong. Take care of yourself yes, but establishing a context which does not have you at the apex is crucial to walking the Earth as something other than a self-absorbed psychopath, because self-absorbed psychopaths are not fun at parties. You're nice and all, but you're no Zeus. Leave the over-weening, if well-deserved, self-congratulation and adoration to Him. Or Her. Or whoever.

5th Labor.  Discover your purpose. You are likely to be born into a society of wealthy hoarders who will tell you hoarding wealth is the highest good and most noble purpose. This is so laughably untrue Zeus can't aim his smite lightning correctly he's laughing so hard (or Athena her bow, or Zarquon his mutation ray). Hoarding wealth looks great to tragically unmedicated hoarders, but there are hundreds if not thousands if not millions of better and more attractive purposes that you will find fulfilling and will help you get laid at parties (getting laid at parties is fine, but not in and of itself likely to be a satisfying lifetime purpose). Not every purpose is for every person, you will probably have to try a few on before you find one you like. This process may take a while so do not give up.

6th Labor.  Know what you know and know what you don't know. Embrace humility as the consequence of and only path to knowledge. You're here to learn (see the 10th Labor), and you can't do that if you think you already know everything. Trust Zeus, his messengers, the Goddess Athena and the Benevolent Star Goat Balthazar, you arrive here a blank slate and even the most diligent of students will leave having experienced and learned only a tiny fraction of the greater cosmic reality. The sooner you willingly embrace how little you truly know, the sooner you can get out of your own way and start learning some interesting and useful things in the short time you are given here. To quote one of your most famous philosophers: It's a great big universe, and we're all really puny. Except Zeus. Oof, is he BIG.

7th Labor.  Develop whatever personal practice will lead you to internal peace and external kindness. Your time here is too short to spend it at war with yourself and everyone around you. There is a calm at the center of the storm. Find it.

8th Labor.  Hold the line against evil without becoming it. There are lost people and corrosive ideologies and flat out evil ideas that are hostile to human bodies and souls alive in this world. They will act and so must you. Your job is to know what is evil and what is not and why. It is further to your job to oppose it in word or deed as necessary, without becoming it yourself. This is, at times, tricky and you are likely to fuck it up. Don't give up! There is nothing evil would rather you believe than it is too hard to oppose evil or too hard to think about silly things like ethics and philosophy. It is not. Know what your ethics are and how they guide your behavior. A well-grounded set of ethical principles will see you through the hardest of times. If your ethics lead you to evil acts or lead you to fail to defend against evil acts then revise, revise, revise.

9th Labor.  You must become a better person every day. You'll notice a lack of specificity in the wording of some of these labors. What is evil? What is better? It is part of your job to figure it out. It is a perfectly human response to dissociate and check out and just get by without really thinking about what it means to be a good person and what it means to be better. But your job is not to dissociate, your job is to try. The counter-productive and perfectly human tendencies that inhibit your growth are presented as another exciting opportunity for you to grow and overcome. You may thank Zeus at your leisure. Address all complaints to the Benevolent Star Goat Balthazar.

10th Labor.  You have to learn. You have been designed from the ground up to learn automatically every day. Your feelings, your reactions, you instincts, all learned reactions to stimulus. That unconscious learning is a gimme, a value-added product offered free of charge by Zeus, Athena and the grand pantheon of interstellar gods, deities and notable quotables. Conscious learning is then your responsibility. Look, if you're not going to bother, then this whole thing is just a big waste of time. Learn. Learn something interesting and share it with someone else. Zeus commands it.

11th Labor.  Help. We're all in this together whether we like it or not. Take care of someone else and they take care of you. That is the deal. That is the best of life as a social primate. Hell is other people but help is other people too. I am sorry, but I don't make the rules. Zeus does! Be a helper. Big yellow birds and kind, be-sweatered men have known for centuries what science is confirming today: helping works.

12th Labor.  Die well. Greet the end of your life with no regrets. It doesn't matter than you didn't get it all done, it matters that you tried. It matters that you spent your time well in a way you will not regret at your last breath. Leave a legacy of art, family, friends and ideas who embody what you thought was best in life. Perform your labors and die satisfied. This is Zeus's final task for you, although the Star Goat has also signed off on it.

12ish Labor.  More of a reminder really. A rider. An addendum. A "just so you know." You only get the one body and must maintain it yourself. No trade-ins, no do-overs, no fancier models are currently available. We are sorry for the inconvenience.

Status Update

Circling the drain!

I ran out of money this week in a monumental cock-up on my part. It surprised me when it shouldn't have for one, and for two I have been in denial about a couple of financial realities for a while now. The most salient aspect of which is that my rent has gone up $500 since I've moved here and my salary halved a year ago. So I need to get a room mate or, more likely, move in the next month or so. I have a loan against my retirement account I am trying to get started, but the office for that is not calling me back for reasons I don't entirely understand. Anyway, shit is fucked up and bullshit and it's entirely my fault.

I've been spending a lot of time at a diner I like, with people I like, but it's $15 a breakfast every day which added up quick. So between eating out too much and over-priced rent I've blown through entirely too much money and that was stupid. But the diner was my social life on life support and my apartment is in an area of town I really like (not even fancy, rents here are just stupid now thanks to capitalisms tendency to destroy communities).

So if my benefits ever finds the time to call me back (I will be going up the command chain at the end of the week if I haven't heard back yet, because jesus christ what the fuck is the hold-up). I should be able to get through the next month and move and that will be change, good or bad. Although at this point in my life any change is likely good.

But otherwise I am still stagnant, still isolated, with no community or purpose to latch on to. It is not fun and I don't recommend it to anyone.

All I've really wanted for a long time now is a little quiet and I just can't create it for myself. Working from home is a misery because my cat drives me nuts. If I hadn't had her for 12 years or so and she wasn't already dying of kidney failure I might give her away. I had a life bond with my other cat, may he rest in peace, but this one has always been a more ... mercurial relationship. Sometimes it's good, sometimes it's the worst. But she actively hates peace, quiet and concentration and some writers like to play that off as cute, but it drives me nuts because she's not actually teaching me important life lessons when I can't get my fucking work done. Gah. Did I mention she's dying and I feel incredibly guilty for being frustrated with her all the time? It's true. She's going to Actually Die at some point and I'm going to feel terrible about this last year.

But I digress. I just want quiet and I need to work harder at creating that. I'd love 6 months on an island or a sanitarium but I'll settle for a quiet home life for a while. I don't know, something. A purpose, an opportunity, a connection. Some god damn thing.

I just don't understand why I basically don't function anymore socially or productively and I don't know what to do about it. And I'm too broke for therapy! But hey, I have a blog where I can ramble/whine about it.  Which is SOMETHING.

I get invited to drinks and whatnot but I don't really feel like I fit in so I don't have a good time. I mean transparently the problem is my self-esteem is cratered and I don't really do anything interesting worth talking about anymore aside from reading a few good books. But I feel 1000% percent more boring when I go out with people. I just don't have a lot to say anymore and I'm not too happy so I'm not fun to be around. Also I have a stupid unrequited crush that is a bad idea and I know that because I've done this 20 times before, but here I am again.

I really desperately need to get out of the house on the cheap. I should probably start volunteering somewhere at the very least. Maybe try some meditation groups or buddhist churches. Part of the problem is I'm desperately unhappy but not really sure what I actually want to do instead of what I'm doing, even though it would likely be better to be doing literally anything else than playing video games and hating myself. I'd probably be fine if I could find somewhere to just put my head down and work in a small group for a while. Meanwhile, I'm waiting for my cat to die before making any big life changes which suuuuuucks for all involved.

Anyway, I continue to hate this whole big stupid phase of my life. When I figure out how to stop being so stubbornly unhappy maybe I'll have a better update.

What rough beasts

I think a lot about "psychic weather." The ebb and flow of ideas, thoughts and moods that blow through a population. I mean, I think there are prosaic explanations for the moods and memetic ideas and how they move through the population of a very social species. For instance, the way panic moves through a crowd does not require a supernatural or paranormal psychic explanation. Primate social dynamics likely suffice. Still, if we're just talking about the felt experience of the world, I think about psychic weather because it feels like such terrible storms are forming everywhere.

Maybe weather is the wrong metaphor. Maybe it's memetic beasts run rampant, inspiring smug rationalizations for cruelty and and a terrible, hateful animosity for the other in every host they find.  Maybe there are vast fields of space with energy gradients we can't yet measure that affect the whole species and we just drifted into the Hateful Asshole nebula. Maybe it's a particularly pernicious set of ideas that have developed a life of their own.

I don't really know. All I know is there is an ugly, spiteful spirit loose in the world and I don't like it. Further, I can see who the bad actors are. Assholes aren't subtle and you can tell who is wallowing in the worst version of themselves and who is egging them on. And what I really don't like is how few concrete and organized responses in favor of kindness, community, aiding the needy and loving the other exist. I don't know who I would point to as leading the counter-charge against the truly malignant forces currently challenging the post world-war democratic order. Everyone else either seems asleep, or outraged but helpless, or so deeply up their own ass they have yet to find their way back to daylight. And that I REALLY don't like. The ideas we value matter and they are not an inevitable force of the universe and we have to fight for them. I wish we understood that half as well as the "pain and suffering for you is corrective and incredibly convenient for me" and "we need a pure ethnostate that only likes ketchup" crowd does.

*the sound of a fighter plane crashing*

Ugh, I'm super bummed about another potentially exciting relationship down the drain. I keep telling myself that it's just that the timing is wrong, but the timing will always be wrong as long as I am this stupid, tragic version of myself who's barely functional and not in any shape to share my life with someone. Cannot wait to finally be past my bullahit.

Look to Windward

Look to Windward by Iain M. Banks
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Extremely satisfying, as his books tend to be. Extended mediations on culture and mortality in truly fantastic and fascinating environments. I could read a whole series of books on the airspheres and giant floating creatures that essentially function as biological, if completely alien, versions of the Culture ships. The crescendo of tension as all the players came together in this one was particularly page-turning. Recommended.


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Inversions

Inversions by Iain M. Banks
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

While I generally like the Minds And Drones and ships and things, I liked this more subtle take on the series. Those things are there, they are just only obliquely mentioned and interpreted through the eyes of someone who could not possibly understand them. A good book on its own merits unrelated to the Culture, although I'm still struggling to unpack what the moral of the story was. It feels more like a snapshot of a Special Circumstances mission to a developing planet. However, it remains unclear what the culture intends to accomplish here, other than a general push away from barbarism. I guess part of the lesson was monarchies are not necessarily evil and populist revolts not necessarily good.

In any case, I liked it and recommend it and look forward to reading the rest of the books in the series.

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Excession

Excession by Iain M. Banks
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I'm reading through the culture books in order, and this is one of my favorite so far. I'm not sure what I think of the Culture in general, but I find the universe interesting and compelling and I like hanging out there. While there is a lot going on here story-wise it largely feels like an extended contemplation of morality and mortality.

Sometimes it feels in these novels like the Minds are more people than the spoiled hedonists they coexist with, and sometimes it feels like they are scary, if generally benevolent, gods for all intents and purposes. That said, some of my favorite moments in this book were long conversations between ship Minds and how they differ from and relate to each other and bicker in ways that made me laugh out loud.

Good book. Good premise. Interesting Universe. Highly Recommended.



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ch-ch-ch-changes

I had a minor visit to the ER last weekend that while not life-threatening was extremely uncomfortable and more than a little embarrassing. But it put a fine point on the ways I have not been taking care of myself.

I also had a minor and partially caffeine-induced panic attack last night looking at my budget last night, but the ultimate message was the same as the ER visit: things cannot continue this way indefinitely. Also, it's incredibly frustrating to have 350k sitting in a retirement account with no access to it. Although now that I'm hourly instead of full-time I may have more than I thought. I will need to call them first thing next week to confirm. A one-time raid of my retirement account would help me a great deal.

I mean, first of all, thank god. I cannot remember a more hopeless or isolated time in my life. Largely the result of personal choices yes, but still. I have no idea what my purpose is or where I belong and it is maddening. I want to be useful I've just lost sight of how to be. A decade of anti-networking as some kind of massive self-own isn't helping either.

I am thinking seriously about what next steps are. I still want to write, but how to make words into money is still some time and practice away. I think I would to get into hospice grief counseling, as it seems important to me and I like the idea of bringing comfort to people according to their particular beliefs without needing to impose my particular beliefs on them. Death and dying is the one time your beliefs get to be your own without challenge and I find that comforting and refreshing.

In the meantime, I am looking for other work and have no idea what I'm doing. Still polishing up my resume, basically using some templates I found online. Kind of hesitant to keep going in data visualization, even though I really like it at times. Leery of corporate environments I guess. I like academia and might just try to stay there, even by going back to school, as little as I like the thought of more debt. Although applying to a tech company in Montreal has some appeal. Honestly, I  am wide open to opportunities at this point, I just need to look for them.

In the nested meantime of the first meantime, I don't know what's going on with my cat.  Some days she's great, other days less so. Her kidneys are clearly failing but it seems to be a slower process than with my dearly departed boy. I feel like I'm holding my breath waiting for that to play out as well. Also, working from home is a misery with that cat. I love her, but she is anti-productivity or self-improvement as a general rule and it drives me nuts. Difficult all around.

But clearly things are changing. And have been changing. And I have wasted a lot of time and money with my head in the sand.  And things cannot continue as they have indefinitely.

Thunderbird by Jack McDevitt

Thunderbird by Jack McDevitt
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

3 stars is a little low, I should probably have given it 4. I really like McDevitt and his sensibilities in general. I just find it sad that the natural and inevitable conclusion of humanity finding a stargate turns out to be: we aren't ready. That said, given the current state of the world, I can't help but agree. I wanted to escape and instead got a poignant reminder of how far we have to go as a species in terms of culture and kindness.

Good book, as was the first, depressingly accurate read of the human race at present.


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when is it too much?

How much connectivity is too much and how would we know when we've crossed that line? What standards do we have for human health and happiness that aren't unbearable restrictive and in and of themselves harmful to human health and happiness?

There seems to exist a strain of thought that posits we need more information, more context, in ever increasing quantities provided by technological mediums that annihilate time and space and transcend the boundaries of this puny flesh. That the ultimate goal of human life is to know it all, possibly all at once. But to reach that far infinity of knowledge would make us god and biologically speaking we don't seem designed to handle the rigors required of godhood.

So how much information do we try to process before this puny flesh rebels in an avalanche of crude emotional frustration? Where is the reasonable line between godhood and mortality?

I think, at this point, given the paucity of knowledge we have so far collected, trying to set that line fixedly would be folly. But it seems like something we should think about. At what point does trying to process too much information just make us miserable? Is processing information feeds endlessly truly necessary or even desirable in finding the balance between growth and happiness? At what point does our generally laudable tendency to push the limits of our capabilities pass beyond self edification and into realms of counterproductive misery?

To speak somewhat less obliquely, my basic thesis is that the human animal in human flesh is social (to varying degrees by individual), and requires semi-frequent contact with other humans to remain psychologically and physically healthy. Further, that while media can enhance these connections, a human being would not be fulfilled by social interactions mediated entirely by technology of various sorts. So there must exist a healthy balance somewhere between social media and first-person socializing. Also, we do not currently know where that line is or how to define it.

How does the social animal change when we go from socializing primarily in churches and schools to corporate structures with colleagues, and personal socialization greatly atrophied in favor of social media.  Which is not to say people don't socialize in churches and schools, but the latter seems increasingly plagued by tech enthusiasts who keep asking "well can't we just use tech to mediate that?" As if mediating all human interaction by a tech interface automatically makes it better.

The questions are: what does healthy socialization look like? How much does it vary by individual? What social interactions are worth NOT mediating via tech, no matter how challenging? How do we know that? What does it look like to rely on mediated social interaction too much? How do we know that? What kind of regular public meetings (religious services, classes, festivals) are important to maintain for the mental and emotional health of social primates such as ourselves? How do we make sure they continue to exist? How do we move forward technologically while still maintaining healthy communities for ourselves?

There are about 50 more questions to ask in this vein. The answers will vary depending on perspective, but I dearly wish we asked them more often.

My sense of modern society is that it is trying very hard to leave the limitations of these bodies behind, but also that as long as we keep waking up in them we will be unable to. i propose instead of imagining how we might become more godlike machines we first consider how we might become happier and healthier primates. What's the point of becoming machines if it won't make us happy? How can we know how to be happy then if we don't know how to be happy now?

myths and notes

I am finally making some progress on my mythology research. introductory as it is. I learned a lot from the Egyptian mythology reference book I just finished and the Poetic Edda is fascinating, both in content and just by how fragmentary and debated it all is due to lack of contextual information. My impression is that a lot of cultural information did not survive the transition from oral histories to written ones.

I see Neil Gaiman rewrote the Norse Mythologies, which is something I thought of doing 15 years ago but never did (as I'm sure 1000 others have considered as well). It makes sense that he would do it, he being an actual writer who writes, but I wish I had done my own version. I am considering doing an interpretation of some Egyptian fables though.

I think I have it in my head that Gaiman has staked some territory on modernizing myths, but that doesn't really hold up to examination I think. I mean, there are plenty of other authors doing their own take on these common myths for one.

More importantly though, I don't think there is "canon" as such when it comes to ancient mythologies. The fragments we have through the Edda and various archeological finds in egypt and Greece are by no means complete, and more importantly represent only a partial understanding of those myths by those particular people at that particular time. The Edda is not how it was, it is just the earliest version we have of those stories, as related by these particular story tellers. They were telling these tales through the lens of their own experience and culture and time period and, truthfully, each of us can do the same, whether we choose to commit them to paper or not. There are ways to do that that are truer to the original sources than not, but like all art, myths get to be what we see them as. The object may be less to describe the world through myth, but to describe the storyteller in how they relate to myth. So I guess I have given myself permission to write what I need to.

The other things I want to write is something about archetypal ideas that exist as beings on higher planes who are in conflict, and life on earth affected by the fallout of the victors and losers over time. I probably need to read more Jung to flesh this idea out. I'm not sure explicitly what my influences are here, and maybe I don't need to to write a flight of fancy, but I would like to not be recreating the wheel when I talk about it. If there's a history of thought here, I want to tap into it I guess.

That last is a weird idea, and it is probably just confirmation bias, but I I am interested because I am often struck at how ideas sweep a populace. Either as a natural progression of ideas as they bump into each other or, more fantastically, as a kind of psychic weather that the solar system drifts through on it's journey through the galaxy.  The first I want to read academic schools of thought about and the second fantastic stories about. I may have to write the second myself.

faithless

I don't like this version of myself. Timid to a fault. Total, unreliable flake socially. Breaking half my social engagements out of anxiety or depression or just a general lack of self-esteem. I don't say this to be hard on myself, but I don't like being this fragile and this ... incapable. It just makes it impossible to connect with people in a way that feels good.

I have no purpose. I have no community. I have few friends to lean on. Consequently my self-esteem is in tatters and I have no well of strength to draw upon. Or rather, I do, but I have lost the discipline or the know-how.

the one thing I miss about religion is the well of strength to draw on bit, and if the price wasn't so high ( a complete abandonment of my critical thinking and self respect) I'd be tempted to go back to it. I think that is why I am looking for some kind of replacement spirituality/philosophy. I need something bigger to believe in, but I have no interest in being taken in by the first charismatic cult to come my way. (I both loved and hated yoga for this reason).

There's a book called "fuck your feelings" which is just advice to do the necessary regardless of how you feel. It is probably good advice that I am not following. Discipline can be defined as doing the thing even when you don't feel like it. So discipline is good, but maybe not in and of itself. What purpose you apply your discipline to factors in.

But doing all the things when they feel wrong is not ideal. Doing all the things but feeling nothing, having no internal purpose or compass is still empty. I'd be getting thinner or getting a lot done, but to what end? I think I am hesitant to really start pulling because I'm afraid of ending up 5 miles in the wrong direction.

I think the argument that sways me the most is that adulthood comes with certain obligations and expectations (which I have not really been living up to) and that I can at least try to meet some bare minimums while going on my spiritual quests.  Maybe "other people are counting on you to be functional" suffices as motivation in the short term. I don't give a shit about making the rich richer, but it is good to be there when other people need you to be.

But regardless of my discipline, I think my relationships and social connections will suffer until my self-esteem is better, and my self-esteem won't be better until I ground myself with a better sense of who I am and why I am here.  This is why dating and friendships have been so spastic lately, I can't share myself with people until I know who I am and what I have to share. I can't know where I exist in relation to other people until I have some independent sense of my own position.

I don't know man, disconnection is not fun. I don't recommend it. I keep hoping for a divine flash of inspiration, but the gods won't tell me shit, lazy fuck that I am.

I guess it's on me then. Oh good.

There but for the grace of god go I

There but for the grace of god go I is an awkward saying. I heard it a lot as a kid and it took me a while to parse it. Maybe I was not a bright kid. I don't know. It just didn't make a lot of sense to me for the longest time.

Eventually, it clicked. "If god wasn't looking out for me, I would be that person." Honestly, this initially struck me as kind of a shitty condescending snobbery. "I may have my struggles, but at least I'm not you, you poor wretched bastard. #Blessed"This said, of course, with absolutely no intention to help the individual currently being pitied.

Assuming somewhat more charity in the reading, it's a reminder to be grateful. If you are a fervent believer, specifically to god, who has not let you fall through the cracks of society, in his or her or its divine wisdom. And it is good to be grateful. People report change in their lives merely by adopting a grateful mindset and it strikes me as something I should try. Although I have not. There with no sense of gratitude go I.

Falling through the cracks used to look so far away. If there was a world where I was on the street or addicted to drugs or an elderly shut-in it was through the woods and over the hills and across the ocean and far, far away.

Now, it feels like one weekend of bad choices away and I'm not sure I love that. Although without community and without purpose you are almost by definition if not falling through the cracks of society, at least eyeing them flirtatiously. There's just so little in this civilization that I love and consumerism is time-filling but empty. Why not fall through the cracks if this is all we're going to be doing with ourselves? Creating a world where kids legitimately fear being shot to death in class and the working class has a lifetime of debt and no brighter future to work towards, led ever forward by fools, cowards and psychopaths. There but for the grace of god go we. And if god isn't protecting us from this shit, well, there we go.

Part of my problem with "success" is my instinctive response to looking like a success in this society is, essentially, "there but for the grace of god go I." Instagram influencers, climbing the corporate ladder, saving the world with another stupid app, acquiring wealth and losing my goddamn mind, gaining political power in the USA and losing my goddamn soul. There but for the grace of god go I.

Of course, it is this nearness to the "go I" part of the saying that helps me understand how shitty it is. The inherent judgement of the other as less than. Of how much that saying describes christian america and how much it damns christian america in the description. A person steeped in genuine humility wouldn't think that way I think. I don't know, maybe instead of looking at people we could just help. Or at the very least try not to hurt. Doing Less Harm would be a solid improvement in modern american life I think. Democratic party, you are welcome to that slogan.

I am not really doing my part, although I want to. I'm not so good with people, homeless or otherwise, so maybe I shouldn't be on the frontlines in terms of people management, but there are many, many opportunities to not be a self-absorbed consumer in this society. I should probably get off my ass and try one. Hospice volunteers are still needed I would imagine.

Hospice still seems like good and necessary work. No self-comforting illusions there. There you will some day go, grace of god or no.

Stuck Schmuck

So I'm stuck still. I'm pretty sure I've written some version of the last post 3 times now. I guess I'm still chewing on it. I clearly need to read some more. As it turns out, people have thought through some of these thoughts before.

Like everyone and their dog*, I'm still thinking of starting a podcast. More to flex creative muscles than anything. Or even just to practice conversational skills that are clearly getting rusty. Or maybe talking to myself would feel more acceptable if I could claim it was a podcast.

Similarly, I've been thinking of doing a stand-up routine. Some jokes about how I sat down to play one video game and 20 years later got up to get some water and discovered I was a fat, depressed shit. Ha! The jokes, as you might intuit, would be self-deprecating. Although largely as catharsis. My sense of self-flagellation is, in its own way, jovial. If I am frustrated by my choices, I am also amused by them on some level. Partly because I understand them as choices not intrinsic faults.

I'm still hooked into gaming. It's nuts. It's fun, but ... it's still not quite who I want to be. God of War has sparked some thoughts about gods and such, but I'm not sure I needed to spend 40 hours in the game to do that.

To use the metaphor of the Jophur, there is a master ring that is slowly forming.  A mantra of increasing frequency is "free yourself of this burden." That burden being the labors given to me by video games. Or any of the other lotus flowers I keep eating. The burden is apathy. Free yourself of apathy. And addiction.

This is not a good state to date from. Potential suitors just get frustrated by my lotus-eater ways and I do not blame them. I'm not sure I would date me in this state. And by 'not sure' I mean '100% would not'.  I used to think it was all timing. "Oh the timing for us is terrible." Well, the timing is always terrible when I'm not ready.

At the same time, my hermetic ways are driving me nuts. I both value my independence and crave human contact. There's an exciting electric tension between the two that I would happily ditch in a second for a good shoulder rub. I miss people but I'm not sure how I want to fit with them yet. And for someone who has rarely been lower, I am strangely picky. I don't just want any community, I want one that makes sense to me and that I resonate with. That community has yet to spontaneously generate in my living room though.

I am still too unsure who I am and where I fit post-Adventism. It makes it difficult to connect with people. I like the concept of gods giving you labours. Like, if you can't find something to do, well, the gods have some chores they need doing. At least then if someone asked what I was doing with my life I could say, "Oh, descending into the underworld to bring back the beauty of Persephone for reasons that are not mine to understand." We might all still judge me for not creating labors for myself, but we'd agree it was good to have purpose.

I should be in therapy, but part of the reason I'm not is, yes money, but also I'm not really ready to do the thing. I am forever on the cusp of revelation and change but always end up eating one more lotus flower. They are delicious, and do we not have more than enough time on this island?

We do not. Free yourself of this burden.

*"hi, welcome to More Bark than Bite, a podcast by me, Sparky the Talking Dog!"

Psyched out

When I am trying to make sense of things I am grateful for the help I find, even in the oddest places. I just finished Till We Have Faces and that contained some helpful passages, even if it did not end with me reconverting to Christianity. Or converting to Christianity. I'm not sure I ever really gave it any particular devotion. It was just the one meal on offer throughout my first two decades. When the only meal is fish you can declare yourself a proud eater of fish, even though you don't really like fish that much and would probably eat other things given the opportunity.*

Legion, oddly enough, offers me some help.** I mean, it's a wanton dive into psychological craziness. Kind of a joyful counterpoint to Lynch's heavy shamanic dream states. I appreciate both for the enthusiasm it embraces the Marvel telepathic mutants and all their attendant craziness and for the questions it brings up. Frankly these days I like any work that tries to make any sense of how the human mind works and dives in without hesitation. Plus that show is pretty dang creative. Just mesmerizing to watch.

I just love the way Legion talks about ideas, as living things, good or bad. I think I need to read more book on psychology (and, again, see a therapist). Like everyone on the show seems half mad, but it seems to be a sort of good natured ribbing about the kind of monkeys we tend to be, and how even the shallowest analysis of how we think leaves one with that impression. My favorite element this season is Division 3, an organization trying to defend against imminent psychic assault but without only one half-crazed mutant on the roster with any actual ability in that realm. Any scene set there features an announcer in the background describing various symptoms as signs of psychic attack. "Disorientation is not normal. If you feel something, say something." and so on.

We have such a rich and detailed vocabulary surrounding physical health, as limited as we know that knowledge to be, but it's much harder to describe a healthy psychology, at least for the non-psychologist.  Is this because of an overall trend towards materialism and reason? We know the mind is a product of a brain so we tend to focus on the health of the brain and its attendant chemicals rather than the thoughts it thinks and the feelings it feels and their intrinsic coherence. Or maybe it's capitalism, and we can only define sane as that which leave a body producing and consuming at an acceptable rate. I'm not sure I like where we're at in thinking about our thinking, is all I'm saying. Which is why I like shows like Legion and Twin Peaks: the return.

One of Vonnegut's books (the Sirens of Titan?) starts with someone babbling about a primitive age was so primitive it didn't even understand the 53 portals to the soul (or something like that). Which I took as Vonnegut's acknowledgement that as limited as our knowledge of bodies is, our capacity for discussing and assessing the mind and the soul is even more so.

Which is why I like reading C.S. Lewis. For all the christian apologist stuff, he seems to be one of the few authors that takes the struggle to reconcile how best to reconcile the needs of our feelings and the needs of our intellect. We live in a materialist age and we talk with a faint embarrassment when it turns out our feelings exist at all. How unreasonable. What a lack of discipline.

In David Brin's uplift series he talks about an alien race that is composed of a series of layered rings, each with its own thoughts, that makes decisions by consensus. And the race called the Jophur, which employ a master ring to provide a coherent sense of identity to the composite being, and brings order to the stack through electrical shocks. I'm not sure we are meant to be the Jophur exactly.

I'm not sure we should live lives in constant religious ecstasy. Or forever committing horrors against other people out of fear of the gods. Or at the whim of whatever emotion takes us. But I don't think we are complete without letting that side of ourselves free on a semi-regular basis. This, to me, is the central benefit of religion, the freedom and permission to feel your goddamn feelings without shame. Taking the time to feel deep down what it means to be part of something bigger than ourselves, which we transparently are even from the most secular point of view. We are all very reasonable now but we are also very repressed as a result. We remain creatures that feel first and think second,  and maybe it serves us poorly to shackle and punish that first part of us 24/7.

I think we might have over-corrected in our pursuit of reason and it worries me. And I feel it a lot in this culture and it bothers me. I just want an understanding that our feelings are as important as our thoughts, and that there's such a thing as thinking that does more harm than good as much as there is such a thing as emotions that hinder more than they help.

 It's balance, baby, balance. That is all I am trying to say. There's a time to think and a time to feel and we could be less shit about how we talk about that in this culture.


*Not to be crass, but it occurs to me this metaphor, while not clever, works equally well for sexual orientation.

**Help that I should probably be seeking form a qualified therapist. But who has the money for that shit?

Psyche!

Till We Have Faces by C.S. Lewis
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Probably my favorite novel by C. S. Lewis. I'm not really into christian apologetics at the moment, but I appreciate his facility with words, his in-depth knowledge of mythology and philosophy and most importantly his honest attempt to reconcile the irrational and rational sides of humanity and how best to tend to each without diminishing the other. This is the kind of conversation I wish there were more of in the world. For him, the answer was best expressed in Christianity, but for me I'm not so sure. I do feel him a kindred spirit in that particular search though, the desire to reconcile thoughts with feelings in a way that is beautiful and alive.

Some of his best work and one that will leave you thinking for some time after. Who are you really? What is your true voice and what story does it tell you over and over without ceasing? Where is you face? Why do you hide it?

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Call Me by Your Name

Call Me by Your Name by André Aciman
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I watched the movie first, although the movie compliments the book nicely. The book has some insights into Elio's thinking that the movie failed to convey so well. Elio's obsessive over-thinking and the strange dance shy people do all rang very true for me. the prose is beautiful and engaging and I was underlining frequently.

The movie truncates and wraps up and neatly cauterizes what the book draws out into an open wound. I was weeping by the final pages over these two beautiful idiots both for what they had and that they never had and by extension perhaps for what I have had and never had. Could they not be together because of timing? Fear? A random and ultimately cruel universe? I'm not sure and I'm not sure it matters what it was specifically, but I found it affecting nonetheless. I do think of Oliver as a traitor though. In that, Elio was quite correct.

I adore this book. Like all good art, I think it changed my life.

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to write or not to write.

I have vowed to write more, but have yet to be disciplined about what to write. I've had several story ideas I was very excited about, which have since faded to nothing because I forgot to write them down. Also, I am still pre-occupied with the general trainwreck that is my life. But here are some things I've been thinking about.

I, an poorly educated stem major, have been thinking about and reading some about philosophy, ethic, morals, purpose, etc. Christian apologists tend to claim christianity supplanted the pagan gods for a reason, and I am inclined to agree if not for all of the same reason. I think we are ripe for the next great moral framework to supplant christianity but it hasn't happened quite yet. It could be humanism, but it isn't yet. It could be some fusion of old and new ideas and gods but it hasn't happened yet. It is still trying to be born, stymied greatly by the dystopian horror also currently trying to breach the amniotic sac of bad ideas and break it's way into our world. Maybe the next phase only gets born as opposition to a greater evil though.  I do not have the details or evidence to argue these assertions just yet.

I am still at war with my addictions. I cannot yet break from from bad habits of technology or diet or lack of exercise into habits that I am sure would make me feel much better. Getting closer every day, but no watershed moment just yet.  Good art keeps trying to save my life though. Call Me by Your Name, however flawed, nudged something lose and I am still turning it over. It's not quite depression, it's more a lack of purpose and connection, as I believe I've mentioned before. Hoping to get it before it gets me.

The other cat is starting to show the same signs of kidney failure as the last. She and I do not have the same connection as I did with Zapp, but I am not looking forward to another round of "hey, your cat is dying." I want to write a book on cats and religion and history. A history of religion and cats. I'm not even quite sure that's the book idea I had. God, I need to write these things down.

My face is almost not completely fucked, although I still need to actually meet a dermatologist to confirm. Hooray?

Call me by your name

I finally got around to watching Call Me By Your Name this week and I'm still thinking about it days later.

I don't think it's the most epic romance I've ever seen, but it was sweet and lovely and life affirming and such a stark contrast to the life I've been living.

Let's set aside the gay stuff for a second, even though it's more or less central to the whole experience. Just lingering by proxy in such an idyllic setting was ... shocking? Invigorating? I traditionally go to movies to escape to outer space but who knew what I really needed was lingering shots of riding bikes through the Italian countryside? That depiction of life, albeit as inherited wealth, complete with servants, was so refreshing. Even in a much more modest home, would I enjoy swimming every day, riding bikes into town and community events like dancing and volleyball? Yes, yes I would.

Are some of these community things absent from my life because times have changed or just because I have changed into someone who tries very little to improve his life? I don't know, but my relation to the setting of this film is simple longing. Well, longing is a central theme of the film and my relationship to it in general, but specifically the setting. Goddamn gorgeous.

Continuing to put the gay stuff aside temporarily, I also felt a strong sense of desire for Elio's family life. When I was young I dated my own Marzia, the daughter of a professor with a rich family life. their house was a clutter of musty books and their conversations were about music and writers that largely went over my ADD comic-book loving head, but I adored them all the same. Talking about philosophers and composers and the finer points of the humanities is extremely soothing to me, as it turns out, and I appreciate having a friendly place to do that. Elio's family life reminds me much of that time I spent with her and her family.

We even had a similar arc to Elio and Marzia, albeit years later. She admitted she broke up with me because she felt there was always a part of me I couldn't give to her and when I started dating men it clicked. She remains one of my truest friends and still the only ex I have a good and strong connection with. She' is also the sole reminder of what a delight the humanities loving lifestyle can be whenever I visit her and her own giant collection of books and music.

So I long for that scholastic home life, but I also greatly envied Elio a family that only cared that he was happy and supported him no matter who he happened to love. I kept waiting for it to go dark, for his father to become irate, but it never happened. I'm not sure Elio understands how good he has it. But I can't be the only queer watching this with an ache in their heart about how their own family experience contrasts with the almost high fantasy portrayal here. I'm not saying it's unrealistic, just so pure and life affirming that it almost doesn't feel like real life. Real life, historically, being less affirming of the humanity of those experiencing it.

I mean, this film is a pure gay coming of age fantasy in many ways. An ideal setting, an ideal family, an ideal lover, an understanding ex-girlfriend, etc. that's kind of what makes it beautiful. A pure and good expression of the world it is possible to create.

I say it's not an epic romance because while I found the lead actors both handsome and good at their craft, the chemistry didn't seem quite believable to me. As a man who has kissed men I didn't quite buy their sexual chemistry. Of course, epic romance and smoking sex scenes is not really the intent here anyway. It was much more about Elio's awakening and Oliver's liberation at being allowed to be exactly who he was without pretense for a few sweet moments.

Elio's adolescent weirdness rang extremely true for me and Timothee Chalomet did such great work with it. The sense of longing he had for Oliver was very real to me. And rang very true of how weird I was as an adolescent and how I was when I first started to try and date men, albeit at a more advanced age.

Oliver's sense of liberation when he finally gets to be with Elio struck a chord as well. It's left fairly ambiguous whether the both of them are gay or just bisexual but this is clearly a part of them they don't get to express openly in 1983. The sense of joy at being able to let their guard down with each other is very real. Was the tragedy that their joy was to be short-lived solely due to circumstance or from the assumption that this is something they would not be allowed to have long term? Part of the tragedy is we just don't know. Does Oliver get engaged to a woman because he is truly bisexual or because he gives up on ever having what his heart truly desires? Much like Elio's father did, as he reveals in a moving final speech.

So as much as the film is about longing it is also about loss. About letting loss numb you to the point you stop believing you can be who you truly want to be and be with who you truly want to be with. It happened to Elio's father. It may have happened to Oliver. Only Elio, in a moving and lingering final shot on his face as he stares into the fire and lets himself feel what he feels, refuses to cut part of himself away to spare himself pain.

This movie is begging us not to surrender our deepest selves in the face of pain or loss or a world actively hostile to who we truly are. And so I am still thinking about it several days later.

Inifity War = a numb ass at the theater

I don't know if I need to spill ink over Infinity war. It was what it was. I liked it as a spectacle. It is basically a comic book cross-over in movie form with all the good things and bad things that brings.  All your favorite heroes meet each other!  Hooray!

But aside from spectacle, it relies heavily on the character work from all the pervious films to drive this one, because there's no time to develop it here.  You really, really have to care about a character coming in to the film to even start to care what happens to them here. A lot of amazing things happen that land with no weight because you know the ending will absolutely be reversed, and, more importantly, there's not enough time to establish any sense of stakes and therefore, inevitably, loss with any of the characters. I think it's supposed to be Tony carrying the emotional weight here, but he's not really given any more time than the others to develop it.

The only death that seemed sad was spider-man's, but that's largely because they pulled the "I don't want to go," line which was powerful the first time I saw a character say it, but seems cheaper and cheaper as a trope the more time goes on. Even the post-credits scene is less an emotional after-punch than an ad for the next movie. Not that that's particularly unusual, but it doesn't help things land any harder.

I don't know, it didn't crush my soul and I liked it okay. I can 100% see why someone would be tired of these things at this point though.

Also, my ass really was numb at the end.