We currently live in the movie age I only dared dream of as a child: all my favorite heroes rendered big as life on the big screen. It's only kind of a shame I've outgrown it to some degree. But nostaliga is a hell of a drug, so I dutifully watch the majority of them anyway, from the clunkers to the keepers. And while I'm not so interested in seeing spider-man's origin story for the umpteenth time anymore, I am interested in the broader phenomenon of the comic book industries shift in focus from print to cinema.
To be sure, both DC and Marvel and printing books and promoting the hell out of them, but sometime since Iron Man and Iron Man busted into the screen, it seems the central canon of their myth-making has shifted quite rapidly from the print universe to the MCU. With that, the movies themselves have begun to resemble comics books in editing an execution in a way that really hinders the story-telling, imo.
It used to be you'd watch more or less a complete movie, more or less contained with itself, with only Agent Coulson and the little bits at the end hinting at a broader lead-in to the Avengers movie. Since the Avengers, however, the movies themselves seem more like summer comic book events, with all the positives and negatives that go along with it. All your favorite heroes in one place? Check. Broader tie-ins to spin-off stories? Check. Epic-scope action but so many moving pieces there's no time to actually focus on any one character or idea with any depth? Check, check, a thousand times check.
I was addicted to comic books for quite a while. The main culprit was an addictive personality and the teaser at the end of ever issue. It didn't matter how tidily an individual issue was at the end, there'd always be some sort of non-sequitor] leading into the next plot. For me, it was just enough of a hook to get me into the next issue "What does mister sinister have planned!!!?", even if it made no sense in the context of the current issue. It was aesthetically damaging to the story of the issue, while completely functional in giving me a reason to tune in next week too. I found it and my inability to not check the next week out completely annoying.
Unfortunately, the MCU movies are turning into this type of story-telling almost exclusively. Avengers 2 was so busy setting up all the spin-offs and sequels it almost didn't have time to tell the story it was actually there to tell. It felt much more like comic book editing and storytelling, especially in the worst sort of pulpy, "I promise the real pay-off is in the next issue" kind of way.
It took me a long time to figure this out, but the primary motive of the storyteller plays an important part of the storytelling experience. There's stories that an artist has to tell because they are truth, beauty and wonder and there are stories a corporation tells because it's building a franchise and it matters less that the stories express the truth, beauty and wonder of the world, which they might, than viewers buy the next installment. They're trying to run a business here after all.
I'm not saying the latter style of storytelling is evil or anything, but I prefer the former, which generally only occurs in a utopian ideal where whether the story makes enough money to feed the artist isn't really a factor. If you write to eat you write to please others more than yourself, and that's not wrong. That said, it feels like the current editorship at the MCU in particular, (the complete bro-run clusterfuck that is the DCCU is better left untouched for my current purposes) has lost a certain sense of subtlety in weaving it's universe together.
GotG was delightful in part, I believe, because it had so little connection to the MCU at the time, and no reason to include material irrelevant to the proceedings at hand. In fact, I'd argue that the parts of the movie that dragged the most were the bits with Thanos, precisely because they were there as a placeholder to tie it in to the larger MCU, with the implicit promise of a pay-off down the road. Avengers 2, on the other hand, was all the more insufferable because it felt like the action occasionally got paused, and an editor walked out from behind the screen, coughed into a mic and said, "See this? This has nothing to do with the movie, be sure to watch Thor 3 to get the rest of the story!" In a comic book this kind of asterisk is skippable, in a movie it grinds momentum to a halt.
All of which is to say, in terms of tying all the MCU movies together, less would be so much more. It WAS so much more pre-avengers. I feel like the editors and producers have lost sight of the fact that ALL that is necessary to get my ass in a seat for the next installment, is to make this one so good I'll leave the theater hungry for more. This was my experience with Fury Road, and I didn't even know a sequel was in the works until after. The movie itself certainly didn't waste time horning that in. I'm hoping someone above my paygrade can gently remind the folks in the Disney story-telling empire of the beauty of simplicity.
When I was young and dumb, among my greatest wishes was that before the end of the world, Lucas would get around to making the Star Wars prequels he'd always hinted at and special effects would get good enough to bring all my favorite superheroes to life. I never imagined that so many of these movies would so unnecessarily leaving me feeling so hollow. Be careful what you wish for kids.
Wednesday, May 20, 2015
Monday, May 18, 2015
So I lied about not writing more about Fury Road.
So let's take it as a given that I don't have anything more intelligent to say than any of the legions of people who wrote about Mad Max: Fury Road so far. I complained last week that the proliferation of think pieces of every good thing threatens to destroy my enjoyment of good things before I have the chance to see them, but really that is a silly thought. If the necessary consequence of good art is getting people to think, and then those people go on to actually express what they think using words, I can't be against it. Telling stories to each other and talking about the kinds of stories we tell to each other is very important to me, after all.
My favorite commentary so far comes from Warren Ellis, whose work I adore. He likens the film to a scream from the last century, a doomsday time capsule telling us the same stories of apocalyptic collapse that weighed heavily on everyone's mind in the 80s. I like that theory. I have no good counter-narrative. I would suggest, as an aside, however, that the collapse of Mad Max's world has never really gone away, we've just gotten used to the possibility and think about it less. The nuclear arsenals remain, in what level of maintenance and upkeep I don't know. I trust the system to maintain those systems indefinitely not at all. I can imagine a future where nuclear war happens because we maintain the necessary infrastructure so poorly that accidents happen and we unleash nuclear hell more or less by accident and incompetence. This is the scenario that actively concerns me.
Beyond the nuclear danger, little else has changed either. Profit is still at war with the environment, women still fight an intractable war against men who believe it is their heritage to dominate, war itself is still a very profitable business for arms makers. In the aftermath of a really stupid misfire of thermonuclear armament, we would still be dealing with the societal poisons currently kept at bay by our more civilized impulses. All of which is why Mad Max is still strangely relevant and thought-provoking.
Fury Road shies from these ideas not at all, although I wouldn't say it beats you over the head with them. In fact, any think pieces beating readers over the head with the politics of the film run the risk of diminishing the beautiful minimalism of the plot. The film is, first and foremost, capital-A Art and should be appreciated as such. The themes are poignant, yes, but first and foremost it is goddamn beautiful. The cinematography, the wide shots, the costuming, the characters, all completely, 100% mesmerizing from start to finish. Just when you think you're getting bored with the aesthetic novelty of the shot a new wonder pops into frame. Just when you think you might have time to catch your breath it shifts back into gear again. Just a spectacle from start to finish, one made all the more delightful by actual character development and heart with absolutely no fat left to trim.
Very few movies seem to come along like this anymore. It almost seems like we're ecstatic when a movie comes along that has even a basic competence in telling a clean, engaging story. Which isn't to diminish Fury Road as merely competent, but to say that basic competence, and dare I say some actual heartfelt soul, is part of what I think has people going gaga over it for. I think maybe we're all currently kind of drowning in a flood of nostalgic, corporate creations, in a maybe we should be careful what we wish for kind of way. Movies like the Avengers are nice, but they seem less works of art, and more carefully tested and pruned franchises, where every scene exists in service of leveraging the franchise as a whole for maximum profit. The percentage of time in Avengers 2 devoted purely and exclusively to setting up other characters and franchises for content in future movies is not inconsequential, as others have noted, and it has a real, detrimental impact to the story-telling.
Mad Max has none of that bullshit and that is part of what makes it wonderful. I'm still thinking about scenes a day later, not for the political statement, not for the franchise potential, purely because they were just gorgeous moments in time. The blind leader of bullet-town riding astride his car-tank in the marshlands, firing his guns defiantly. Immortan Joe's completely mesmerizing look as he drove his big-boy big-wheeled truck to get back "his property." Max and his insane visions. The craziest, most beautiful dust storm you've ever seen, the completely bonkers vehicles (porcupine sedan, people fishing platforms, a truck solely devoted to a guitarist whose axe breathes fire, complete with giant drum section in the back). The war boys. The grizzled women of the desert biker gang. It is an experience, and it stays with you.
The violence, while always my least favorite part, while occasionally disturbing in implication, especially for new parents I would think, was probably just right in that it was enough to instill a sense of danger , one that starts very quickly and never really lets up, but not reveled in to the point of distracting from the film. It also serves as a indicator of just how mad everyone has gone in the aftermath of societal collapse, much like every other Mad Max movie. Everyone seems a little gone to one degree or another, and the brutal violence is just one facet of that new reality.
The politics and themes are themselves beautiful. The redemption themes are far and away my favorite part. Furiosa's drive to redeem herself for her part in the system she perpetuated, Nux's redemption by women who refuse to hate him, and insist on kindness in the fact of madness. The seeds of civilization (literally and figuratively) are essentially carried exclusively by the women of the film in a way that felt honest to me. While the women are indeed protected by an extremely violent man and woman, I love that they never flinch from the ideal that maybe more killing is not the path to a better future. Idealistic or not, someone has to carry that torch to the other side of madness. Max is not so much hero here, as survivor. Grappling with his demons, struggling to maintain a grip on the here and now, even as it threatens to destroy him. Furiosa is on the real hero's journey. It was her arc and Nux's redemption that really grabbed me the most. Max is mostly there to witness and survive it, as usual.
Fury Road is gorgeous. It is a provocative work of art. If you can stomach the violence I can't recommend it enough. Yes, it's a little bonkers, but let's be honest: we're all mad here. Max's world is a warning of just how mad we can get.
My favorite commentary so far comes from Warren Ellis, whose work I adore. He likens the film to a scream from the last century, a doomsday time capsule telling us the same stories of apocalyptic collapse that weighed heavily on everyone's mind in the 80s. I like that theory. I have no good counter-narrative. I would suggest, as an aside, however, that the collapse of Mad Max's world has never really gone away, we've just gotten used to the possibility and think about it less. The nuclear arsenals remain, in what level of maintenance and upkeep I don't know. I trust the system to maintain those systems indefinitely not at all. I can imagine a future where nuclear war happens because we maintain the necessary infrastructure so poorly that accidents happen and we unleash nuclear hell more or less by accident and incompetence. This is the scenario that actively concerns me.
Beyond the nuclear danger, little else has changed either. Profit is still at war with the environment, women still fight an intractable war against men who believe it is their heritage to dominate, war itself is still a very profitable business for arms makers. In the aftermath of a really stupid misfire of thermonuclear armament, we would still be dealing with the societal poisons currently kept at bay by our more civilized impulses. All of which is why Mad Max is still strangely relevant and thought-provoking.
Fury Road shies from these ideas not at all, although I wouldn't say it beats you over the head with them. In fact, any think pieces beating readers over the head with the politics of the film run the risk of diminishing the beautiful minimalism of the plot. The film is, first and foremost, capital-A Art and should be appreciated as such. The themes are poignant, yes, but first and foremost it is goddamn beautiful. The cinematography, the wide shots, the costuming, the characters, all completely, 100% mesmerizing from start to finish. Just when you think you're getting bored with the aesthetic novelty of the shot a new wonder pops into frame. Just when you think you might have time to catch your breath it shifts back into gear again. Just a spectacle from start to finish, one made all the more delightful by actual character development and heart with absolutely no fat left to trim.
Very few movies seem to come along like this anymore. It almost seems like we're ecstatic when a movie comes along that has even a basic competence in telling a clean, engaging story. Which isn't to diminish Fury Road as merely competent, but to say that basic competence, and dare I say some actual heartfelt soul, is part of what I think has people going gaga over it for. I think maybe we're all currently kind of drowning in a flood of nostalgic, corporate creations, in a maybe we should be careful what we wish for kind of way. Movies like the Avengers are nice, but they seem less works of art, and more carefully tested and pruned franchises, where every scene exists in service of leveraging the franchise as a whole for maximum profit. The percentage of time in Avengers 2 devoted purely and exclusively to setting up other characters and franchises for content in future movies is not inconsequential, as others have noted, and it has a real, detrimental impact to the story-telling.
Mad Max has none of that bullshit and that is part of what makes it wonderful. I'm still thinking about scenes a day later, not for the political statement, not for the franchise potential, purely because they were just gorgeous moments in time. The blind leader of bullet-town riding astride his car-tank in the marshlands, firing his guns defiantly. Immortan Joe's completely mesmerizing look as he drove his big-boy big-wheeled truck to get back "his property." Max and his insane visions. The craziest, most beautiful dust storm you've ever seen, the completely bonkers vehicles (porcupine sedan, people fishing platforms, a truck solely devoted to a guitarist whose axe breathes fire, complete with giant drum section in the back). The war boys. The grizzled women of the desert biker gang. It is an experience, and it stays with you.
The violence, while always my least favorite part, while occasionally disturbing in implication, especially for new parents I would think, was probably just right in that it was enough to instill a sense of danger , one that starts very quickly and never really lets up, but not reveled in to the point of distracting from the film. It also serves as a indicator of just how mad everyone has gone in the aftermath of societal collapse, much like every other Mad Max movie. Everyone seems a little gone to one degree or another, and the brutal violence is just one facet of that new reality.
The politics and themes are themselves beautiful. The redemption themes are far and away my favorite part. Furiosa's drive to redeem herself for her part in the system she perpetuated, Nux's redemption by women who refuse to hate him, and insist on kindness in the fact of madness. The seeds of civilization (literally and figuratively) are essentially carried exclusively by the women of the film in a way that felt honest to me. While the women are indeed protected by an extremely violent man and woman, I love that they never flinch from the ideal that maybe more killing is not the path to a better future. Idealistic or not, someone has to carry that torch to the other side of madness. Max is not so much hero here, as survivor. Grappling with his demons, struggling to maintain a grip on the here and now, even as it threatens to destroy him. Furiosa is on the real hero's journey. It was her arc and Nux's redemption that really grabbed me the most. Max is mostly there to witness and survive it, as usual.
Fury Road is gorgeous. It is a provocative work of art. If you can stomach the violence I can't recommend it enough. Yes, it's a little bonkers, but let's be honest: we're all mad here. Max's world is a warning of just how mad we can get.
Wednesday, April 22, 2015
Fessing up
Not that anyone actually reads this blog, but you may have noticed I removed Edward Feser from the blogroll. Not that anyone cares about blogrolls anymore either. Anyway, I enjoy his anti-materialist philosophy, even though it comes from a conservative catholic place. That is, until I started reading some of his "arguments" against homosexuality. To wit, he thinks what I do and who I love is an abomination and I'm not impressed with his arguments for why he thinks that. It boils down to naturalism and anything not "penis in vagina" being some kind of moral sexual sin, which is ridiculous. Our entire civilization is built on using our appendages to do "unnatural" things. From building airplanes so we can fly to using the mouth to give blow jobs, which don't, in and of themselves, seem to be cratering civilization as we know it. I just don't buy that sex has some special need to be "natural", I don't buy that "penis in vagina" is the only "natural" sexuality given the high degree of homosexuality in nature, I don't buy that sex catholics are uncomfortable with is the same thing as sex that is destructive to society. "I'm personally uncomfortable with it, therefore society is ruined." is a terrible argument, with few, if any, justifications.
And as much I like to see materialism taken down a peg from time to time (I support materialism as far as it goes and no farther), I can't continue to advertise for yet another christian looking for reasons to be uncomfortable with the gay, especially one using the same tired, old arguments. Who I love isn't wrong, it's just not what he prefers. I wish people like him could tell the difference between those two things. If your philosophy is flatly contradicted by the lived experience of people you are lecturing to, maybe it's time to re-examine your philosophy. Just saying.
*editting to add:*
Honestly, it was the comments that sealed the deal. The fact that he tolerates such a toxic "christian" community in his comments was reason enough to stop reading.
And as much I like to see materialism taken down a peg from time to time (I support materialism as far as it goes and no farther), I can't continue to advertise for yet another christian looking for reasons to be uncomfortable with the gay, especially one using the same tired, old arguments. Who I love isn't wrong, it's just not what he prefers. I wish people like him could tell the difference between those two things. If your philosophy is flatly contradicted by the lived experience of people you are lecturing to, maybe it's time to re-examine your philosophy. Just saying.
*editting to add:*
Honestly, it was the comments that sealed the deal. The fact that he tolerates such a toxic "christian" community in his comments was reason enough to stop reading.
Monday, April 13, 2015
Bootstaps - A Rant About Gaming
I game, a lot (TOO MUCH), but I don't like identifying as a gamer. I know there are other gamers like me, who are a little older and enjoy the hobby but are equally embarrassed to claim the hobby because of all the, sadly quite rightful, negative associations with it. Which is to say, the general culture of gaming is incredibly juvenile and selfish and immature and any adult worth his salt is probably going to want to seek identity beyond a simple "player of games." I run a large, LGBT-friendly guild in FF14, which I got riddicked into leading but maintain because I like having a safe haven for LGBT people to go where they can play without having to tolerate juvenile homophobia. Even there though, I run into a lot of situations where being asking to be the tiniest bit considerate of other people is considered a grave affront in this modern, sophisticated consumer culture, where no tastes should not be indulged and no thoughts left unfiltered, apparently. The customer gamer is always right after all.
Most of my adult friends, who I know all play games, all seem to do so in privacy and treat it like a guilty pleasure away from their wives and lives and I don't really blame them, although I wish we could still talk about it occasionally without the embarrassment. And yet I'm conflicted too. It's fine to play games, but I've come to find I need a broader, more interesting and challenging set of activities to absorb myself in as I get older. Children are players of games and they are better at it than I am, (in that they enjoy and embrace them without complication) and I do, contrary to appearances, aspire to master more as an adult than I did as a child. My job is very adult, sure, but it increasingly seems like I owe it to myself to challenge myself more in my hobbies to learn new and complicated things that are worth sharing with other people. Gaming is fun, and I enjoy playing with friends, but it's hard to share with other people, you know? Try sharing your level 70 character with another gamer or non-gamer and watch their eyes glaze over. It's like sharing a dream you had once. Or the details of your masturbation sessions. No one cares how you make the little man jump or how many times you stroked it 'til you came.
I tend to see our collective and comforting wallow in nostalgia and gaming in particular as a sign of massive arrested development across western culture. I could be wrong, I'm not saying yes definitely that is what that has to be, but it is my impression. An entire generation of men (and women) collectively refusing to embrace the mantle of "adult" with some post-modern sophistry dancing around the idea that "adult" can mean anything, so why can't it mean eternally a teenager in thought and deed, and who says our parent's generation really grew up anyway? Look at how they're ruinning the world and how childish THEY are.
Yes. Exactly. Look how they're ruinning the world. And where is our generation while christian leaders tell their flock that christian charity should not extend to homosexuals and secular leaders crucify their own in pointless purity crusades (Do you now or have you ever felt uncomfortable with homosexuality? If so, you are history's worst monster). And so what if people are older than you act childish? If you're mature enough to understand that certain behaviors are childish and unhelpful, you're mature enough to understand you choose your own behavior regardless of what other people are doing.
The world needs our generation to put down the controller and pick up a book. Despite our triumphant moralizing on twitter, a lifetime of gameplay and consumerism does not in fact prepare one to challenge adult leadership on a practical or philosophical level. It's not enough to know something's wrong, you have to know why it's wrong, which principle it violates, why that principle is important, where you get that principle from, why one principle is better than another, how to convince someone who holds different principles than you that yours might be better, how to honestly listen to someone when they try to convince you that their principles are actually better than yours, how to be humble, how to be kind to those you really dislike, how to serve others without losing your purpose or dignity or rights, how to be, in essence, actually GOOD are not qualities you learn from a-b, jump, jump, right-trigger. Or from buying the thing that promises to end your eternal search for something you have as yet been unable to define, but you keep shelling out money for regardless. Challenging power will require us to do more studying, and less consuming, at the very least.
The one of the many great tragedies of adulthood is the number of people that leave college prepared to fall into a job that doesn't challenge them by day, and hobbies that don't challenge them by night, like the learning was over the moment they graduated. The bizarre disconnect of education in a consumerist culture is college is theoretically teaching us to learn how to learn with the idea that we keep learning after we leave college. We are supposed to learn more languages, more about humanity, more about religion and humanism and philosophy and what makes us human and how to get along and all that stuff. Some of us are lucky enough to get this on our job, the rest of us are working jobs we don't like or learn much at to pay for the netflix binging and gaming and therapeutic consuming in the evening, all the while bitching about how awful the adults are making everything. I'm not saying we're 100% wasting our lives away, but I am concerned that we are, as Postman put it, amusing ourselves to death. Or perhaps gaming while the world burns.
When I see news articles about educators or parents calling cops on a child throwing a tantrum it boggles my mind, like they need an adult to handle a child and consider police the grown-ups, somehow not realizing that there are already adults on scene who should be prepared to handle the situation. Or adults willing to hand over their preferences to algorithms who choose things for them, or adults eating up the spiritually and philosophically dead and divisive garbage their leaders spew out to keep the culture war churning and frothing enough so that nothing ever changes without ever even questioning it. I mean, I don't know if you've noticed but this government has effectively ceased to function (in that it takes them years to agree on a yearly budget and both parties [and I'm sorry, but especially republicans] seem committed to throwing their sabos in the gears when the other party does something so illegitimate and reckless as win an election). When you don't challenge the opinions and ideas of your leadership you are essentially letting them infantilize you, or keep you like cats. Adults challenge bad ideas. Adults ask for and give accountability. Adults train themselves to recognize factual and philosophical inconsistencies between what their leaders say and do. Adults remove other adults from power when they cannot meet these basic standards.
It is my increasing conviction that adulthood actually requires something of us beyond self-gratification and masturbatory self-congratulation having finished gratifying ourselves*.
And I know that as I say all this, that it's pointless to say all this, that you and I are going to keep gaming, and keep shotgunning netflix and hope some adult out there stands up and champions some good ideas against the absolute onslaught of dehumanizing and dangerous ideological sludge currently threatening to drown us all. Far better, I know, for me to actually live by example and encourage people to join me. I'm not there yet. But I think it's important to actually say out loud, at least every now and then, that we are the adults we've been waiting for, and nothing gets better until we finally grow up.
So why am I yelling at you? I'm not, I'm yelling at me. But perhaps you disagree. Fine. I'll try and make my case better another time. There are a couple of assertions and straw men that could probably be cleaned up. I think I've been mostly writing this more as a message to me than a message to you, which is not an uncommon occurrence in my life. But I think adulthood requires more of me than I've been giving it. I think that is an idea that will require action on my part**. I suspect I might not be the only one.
*If we ever want anything to get better.
** If I ever want anything to get better.
When I see news articles about educators or parents calling cops on a child throwing a tantrum it boggles my mind, like they need an adult to handle a child and consider police the grown-ups, somehow not realizing that there are already adults on scene who should be prepared to handle the situation. Or adults willing to hand over their preferences to algorithms who choose things for them, or adults eating up the spiritually and philosophically dead and divisive garbage their leaders spew out to keep the culture war churning and frothing enough so that nothing ever changes without ever even questioning it. I mean, I don't know if you've noticed but this government has effectively ceased to function (in that it takes them years to agree on a yearly budget and both parties [and I'm sorry, but especially republicans] seem committed to throwing their sabos in the gears when the other party does something so illegitimate and reckless as win an election). When you don't challenge the opinions and ideas of your leadership you are essentially letting them infantilize you, or keep you like cats. Adults challenge bad ideas. Adults ask for and give accountability. Adults train themselves to recognize factual and philosophical inconsistencies between what their leaders say and do. Adults remove other adults from power when they cannot meet these basic standards.
It is my increasing conviction that adulthood actually requires something of us beyond self-gratification and masturbatory self-congratulation having finished gratifying ourselves*.
And I know that as I say all this, that it's pointless to say all this, that you and I are going to keep gaming, and keep shotgunning netflix and hope some adult out there stands up and champions some good ideas against the absolute onslaught of dehumanizing and dangerous ideological sludge currently threatening to drown us all. Far better, I know, for me to actually live by example and encourage people to join me. I'm not there yet. But I think it's important to actually say out loud, at least every now and then, that we are the adults we've been waiting for, and nothing gets better until we finally grow up.
So why am I yelling at you? I'm not, I'm yelling at me. But perhaps you disagree. Fine. I'll try and make my case better another time. There are a couple of assertions and straw men that could probably be cleaned up. I think I've been mostly writing this more as a message to me than a message to you, which is not an uncommon occurrence in my life. But I think adulthood requires more of me than I've been giving it. I think that is an idea that will require action on my part**. I suspect I might not be the only one.
*If we ever want anything to get better.
** If I ever want anything to get better.
Tuesday, April 07, 2015
Breaking Rebel Hearts
I have been working on a deadline for the last week and a half or so working 10-12 hour days and my brain is pretty much mush at this point. So the only thing I have to talk about is the new Madonna album I've been absorbing since it came out, and it's eventually dawned on me that it's really two separate disks that someone unwisely smashed together into an unholy super-album. There's an album more focused on pop, sex, love, and dance and another which, while still pop, is more focused on spirituality, personal growth, existential malaise. I have split them up into two playlists that I think make more sense in terms of tone/content.
Rebel Heart - Sinner
1. Unapologetic Bitch
2. Bitch I'm Madonna
3. Hold Tight
4. Iconic
5. HeartBreakCity
6. Body Shop
7. Holy Water
8. Inside Out
9. Best Night.
10. S.E.X.
Rebel Heart - Saint
1. Living for Love
2. Devil Pray
3. Ghosttown
4. Illuminati
5. Joan of Arc
6. Wash All Over Me
7. Veni Vidi Vici
8. Messiah
9. Rebel Heart
You're welcome.
Rebel Heart - Sinner
1. Unapologetic Bitch
2. Bitch I'm Madonna
3. Hold Tight
4. Iconic
5. HeartBreakCity
6. Body Shop
7. Holy Water
8. Inside Out
9. Best Night.
10. S.E.X.
Rebel Heart - Saint
1. Living for Love
2. Devil Pray
3. Ghosttown
4. Illuminati
5. Joan of Arc
6. Wash All Over Me
7. Veni Vidi Vici
8. Messiah
9. Rebel Heart
You're welcome.
Thursday, March 26, 2015
Learning isn't Easy
So there's this atlantic article, which @freddiedeboer is currently tearing to pieces on twitter, which is yet another article asserting that the tech version of any aspect of human civilization, in this case teaching, immediately renders the human aspect inferior and irrelevant. Which is a wonderful idea if you're a tech giant selling teaching equipment, less so if you actually care about whether people are learning and motivated to learn.
Said article references TED talks as a key educational element in future classroom lectures, as broadcast by "super-teachers", which is similarly ridiculous. TED talks are roughly as informative as NPR programs which are roughly informative as the back of a cereal box, and they function mostly as infotainment for educated people so they feel good about being educated and conspicuous consumption thereof signals to other citizens that you are in fact, educated and modern and know all the right things. It's the intellectual version of keeping up with the Joneses'.
So how can I dismiss TED talks and NPR (just to pick on a couple) as not educational, when they are clearly given by well-educated people on very thoughtful topics? Because they demand almost nothing of the listener is my response, and as such function more as brain candy than brain food. Or at best, a brain bite, rather than a full meal. It reminded me of an article I read earlier this week from Robert Twigger on Aeon, talking about polymaths. Specifically, the section on the importance of the Nucleus basalis on learning. This is the portion of the brain, if I understand correctly, that generates acetylcholine, a key neurotransmitter in memory formation and learning.
In his article, Twigger asserts that:
The third, aspect of what activates improved memory is what interests me the most: "intense focus, maintained through repetition or continuous application." Which is not something I'm convinced that the modern emphasis on tech and tech products is actively fostering in the world. When you see people addicted to their phones and their computers, and complaining about their use of such, what are they typically complaining about? In my experience, almost universally their reduced attention span, their constant need to be dividing their attention between this app and that app and this other thing. To be sure, the highly motivated can mostly likely minimize distractions and focus heavily on learning through apps and computers, but what about people who are constantly asking, like the over-used acting joke, "What's my motivation?"
Ideally, this is where a teacher comes in. Again, the answer I'm being given from the Atlantic is that kids are just naturally drawn to tech because it is it, and now and modern and shiny and why wouldn't they learn when given a computer? To be sure, children are drawn to computers, but what app inspires them to focus hard on a topic and learn it well in a virtual environment? It brings to mind another article I read this week, via @shelske. In it, he outlines the key factors in motivating change (from the book Change or Die by Alan Deutschman), the first of which being:
"a new, emotional relationship with a person or community that you can relate to who inspires the possibility of change."
Isn't that what we want a school to be? A community that inspires students to the possibility of change? Moreover, can we ever realistically expect machines themselves to be the sole motivator for learning? If human relationships are one of the key motivators for change, and I suspect they are, does it not make the role of responsive, interactive human teacher irreducible in education?
So as far as I can tell, if it is indeed true that intense focus is required to genuinely learn, and human relationships are key (be it parent, teacher or more likely some combination of the two) in providing the inspiration and willpower to focus and learn anything well, then any tech solution that diminishes either one of those two elements of education is either misguided at best or actually harmful and counterproductive at worst. So while tech and tech promoters do seem to answer the questions of, "is it new, is it modern, is it shiny, do people want to fiddle with it", it seems important to point out that these are not really important questions in to how to best serve students in their education.
A better question might be, "How do we get students inspired and focused in a world seemingly hell-bent on distraction and entertainment disguised as education?" Hint: the answer is NOT, "disguise our own education as entertainment and distraction."
As bastions of education and learning that have existed for centuries, the universities needed to do nothing more than provide the materials and space for focus, and the human beings, or "teachers" as I like to call them, to inspire students to take advantage of it. Embracing the attitudes and equipment of universal distraction as a way of keeping up with the times and appearing modern is not victory for education, it is the surrender of the timeless necessities of human learning to the fickle consumerism of the present moment by the strangely weak-willed guardians of institutional power and as such, in my humble opinion, is a gigantic mistake.
Said article references TED talks as a key educational element in future classroom lectures, as broadcast by "super-teachers", which is similarly ridiculous. TED talks are roughly as informative as NPR programs which are roughly informative as the back of a cereal box, and they function mostly as infotainment for educated people so they feel good about being educated and conspicuous consumption thereof signals to other citizens that you are in fact, educated and modern and know all the right things. It's the intellectual version of keeping up with the Joneses'.
So how can I dismiss TED talks and NPR (just to pick on a couple) as not educational, when they are clearly given by well-educated people on very thoughtful topics? Because they demand almost nothing of the listener is my response, and as such function more as brain candy than brain food. Or at best, a brain bite, rather than a full meal. It reminded me of an article I read earlier this week from Robert Twigger on Aeon, talking about polymaths. Specifically, the section on the importance of the Nucleus basalis on learning. This is the portion of the brain, if I understand correctly, that generates acetylcholine, a key neurotransmitter in memory formation and learning.
In his article, Twigger asserts that:
Between birth and the age of ten or eleven, the nucleus basalisis is permanently ‘switched on’. It contains an abundance of the neurotransmitter acetylcholine, and this means new connections are being made all the time. Typically this means that a child will be learning almost all the time — if they see or hear something once they remember it. But as we progress towards the later teenage years the brain becomes more selective. From research into the way stroke victims recover lost skills it has been observed that the nucleus basalis only switches on when one of three conditions occur: a novel situation, a shock, or intense focus, maintained through repetition or continuous application.
The third, aspect of what activates improved memory is what interests me the most: "intense focus, maintained through repetition or continuous application." Which is not something I'm convinced that the modern emphasis on tech and tech products is actively fostering in the world. When you see people addicted to their phones and their computers, and complaining about their use of such, what are they typically complaining about? In my experience, almost universally their reduced attention span, their constant need to be dividing their attention between this app and that app and this other thing. To be sure, the highly motivated can mostly likely minimize distractions and focus heavily on learning through apps and computers, but what about people who are constantly asking, like the over-used acting joke, "What's my motivation?"
Ideally, this is where a teacher comes in. Again, the answer I'm being given from the Atlantic is that kids are just naturally drawn to tech because it is it, and now and modern and shiny and why wouldn't they learn when given a computer? To be sure, children are drawn to computers, but what app inspires them to focus hard on a topic and learn it well in a virtual environment? It brings to mind another article I read this week, via @shelske. In it, he outlines the key factors in motivating change (from the book Change or Die by Alan Deutschman), the first of which being:
"a new, emotional relationship with a person or community that you can relate to who inspires the possibility of change."
Isn't that what we want a school to be? A community that inspires students to the possibility of change? Moreover, can we ever realistically expect machines themselves to be the sole motivator for learning? If human relationships are one of the key motivators for change, and I suspect they are, does it not make the role of responsive, interactive human teacher irreducible in education?
So as far as I can tell, if it is indeed true that intense focus is required to genuinely learn, and human relationships are key (be it parent, teacher or more likely some combination of the two) in providing the inspiration and willpower to focus and learn anything well, then any tech solution that diminishes either one of those two elements of education is either misguided at best or actually harmful and counterproductive at worst. So while tech and tech promoters do seem to answer the questions of, "is it new, is it modern, is it shiny, do people want to fiddle with it", it seems important to point out that these are not really important questions in to how to best serve students in their education.
A better question might be, "How do we get students inspired and focused in a world seemingly hell-bent on distraction and entertainment disguised as education?" Hint: the answer is NOT, "disguise our own education as entertainment and distraction."
As bastions of education and learning that have existed for centuries, the universities needed to do nothing more than provide the materials and space for focus, and the human beings, or "teachers" as I like to call them, to inspire students to take advantage of it. Embracing the attitudes and equipment of universal distraction as a way of keeping up with the times and appearing modern is not victory for education, it is the surrender of the timeless necessities of human learning to the fickle consumerism of the present moment by the strangely weak-willed guardians of institutional power and as such, in my humble opinion, is a gigantic mistake.
Sunday, March 22, 2015
Technics and my complete inability to put a longform thought together
I'm still kind of stuck on Technics and Civilization. Not because it's not a good read, it's great, but because I keep thinking I need to take copious notes and write some kind of meaningful essay-length review about it once I'm done. But, I'm starting to realize this is maybe like trying to run a marathon first thing after not exercising at all for 10 years. Plus, my to-read pile is only getting larger, that last trip to Powell's really put an exclamation point on how big my to-read list has gotten. And realistically I'd probably be better served with some reading for a while, if only to relearn the ability to patiently focus on something for more than five minutes.
So I think the new plan is to plow through my reading list at a comfortable pace, and write whatever I have to say in whatever way I can manage to form the words, and hope both the reading and the writing and the thinking get better over time. Gotta learn to run before you can fly. And walk before you can run. And crawl before you can walk. And flail helplessly while rolling about before you can crawl apparently.
If you need me, I'll just be over here flailing about helplessly.
So I think the new plan is to plow through my reading list at a comfortable pace, and write whatever I have to say in whatever way I can manage to form the words, and hope both the reading and the writing and the thinking get better over time. Gotta learn to run before you can fly. And walk before you can run. And crawl before you can walk. And flail helplessly while rolling about before you can crawl apparently.
If you need me, I'll just be over here flailing about helplessly.
Friday, March 20, 2015
Mind Muscles
One of the many reasons I've dialed down my know-it-all cynicism is just how limited our language and ideas are on certain topics. For instance, there's very little more important to my daily life than my mental health, but the language and tools to address mental health barely exist in the common culture, and maybe not even in a clinical setting.
We know what it means to be physically healthy more or less. Each person will have an ideal weight, and should have a certain blood pressure and resting heart rate and blood sugar level, etc. And if those are out of whack for some reason, the solution is relatively straight forward: eat healthier, and do some regular exercise. And one can go into MANY specifics, or try to short-cut them with magic pills that may or may not contain side effects, but the in general we all know the solution: eat better and exercise. AND we generally understand what those activities entail (working up a sweat, and eating as close to un-processed as possible). And while there is still a ways to go on our knowledge of nutrition and the biochemistry of the body, we still know things like: leafy vegetables and regular exercise seem to be very good for the human body and there's a fairly solid body of practical research backing that up.
So what about my precious, fragile mind? What are the metrics for maintaining my mental health? What is a preventative health regimen for the mind? What mental exercises should I do to maintain optimal mental health? For the most part, the questions of "what mental exercises should I do" seem to be held back by "what are the specific metrics of mental health" as far as I can tell. Is mental health simply being able to function in my daily life, in the culture I was born into? Is it thriving in my environment, as opposed to simple functioning? Is lots of memorization good for me? Is it actively learning new things every day (I've read some interesting things on that front)? Is it reading challenging material? Is there such a thing as mental candy and should I avoid too much of it? Is there such a thing as mental health food and I should consume more of it? We have a wealth of material attempting to address these questions with specific answers, but so far, in nailing down specifics of how to talk about and assess mental health and processing it seems to come down to shrugs and how we feel about it, you know? In fact, most of the solutions in mental health seem to be in pill form, as if to address a simple chemical imbalance, but the medication seems clumsy and I'm really much more interested in the mental equivalent of eating right and exercising, and I still haven't found something satisfying on that front with any kind of intelligent and compelling research to support it. Of course, it's possible they exist and I just haven't seen them. I'm pretty sure I haven't been exercising my brain very well or otherwise contributing to my own good mental health.
The only thing I need to know, that some other people seem to agree on, is that the mind and body are linked, so a healthy body is a tremendous asset to good mental health. I struggle with depression, but I would much rather do the equivalent of eating right and exercising to claw myself out of it rather than take meds. I don't like anti-depression meds, they let me function day to day, but kill my sex drive something fierce. And I think a healthy sex-drive is maybe a key component of my long-term mental health, you know?
But are touch screens rotting my brain? Is a trashy novel really junk food? Do I need to rigorously study something for a few hours every week/day to stay in tip-top mental shape? I honestly don't know, and I'm not sure anyone else really does either. I find that frustrating, don't you?
We know what it means to be physically healthy more or less. Each person will have an ideal weight, and should have a certain blood pressure and resting heart rate and blood sugar level, etc. And if those are out of whack for some reason, the solution is relatively straight forward: eat healthier, and do some regular exercise. And one can go into MANY specifics, or try to short-cut them with magic pills that may or may not contain side effects, but the in general we all know the solution: eat better and exercise. AND we generally understand what those activities entail (working up a sweat, and eating as close to un-processed as possible). And while there is still a ways to go on our knowledge of nutrition and the biochemistry of the body, we still know things like: leafy vegetables and regular exercise seem to be very good for the human body and there's a fairly solid body of practical research backing that up.
So what about my precious, fragile mind? What are the metrics for maintaining my mental health? What is a preventative health regimen for the mind? What mental exercises should I do to maintain optimal mental health? For the most part, the questions of "what mental exercises should I do" seem to be held back by "what are the specific metrics of mental health" as far as I can tell. Is mental health simply being able to function in my daily life, in the culture I was born into? Is it thriving in my environment, as opposed to simple functioning? Is lots of memorization good for me? Is it actively learning new things every day (I've read some interesting things on that front)? Is it reading challenging material? Is there such a thing as mental candy and should I avoid too much of it? Is there such a thing as mental health food and I should consume more of it? We have a wealth of material attempting to address these questions with specific answers, but so far, in nailing down specifics of how to talk about and assess mental health and processing it seems to come down to shrugs and how we feel about it, you know? In fact, most of the solutions in mental health seem to be in pill form, as if to address a simple chemical imbalance, but the medication seems clumsy and I'm really much more interested in the mental equivalent of eating right and exercising, and I still haven't found something satisfying on that front with any kind of intelligent and compelling research to support it. Of course, it's possible they exist and I just haven't seen them. I'm pretty sure I haven't been exercising my brain very well or otherwise contributing to my own good mental health.
The only thing I need to know, that some other people seem to agree on, is that the mind and body are linked, so a healthy body is a tremendous asset to good mental health. I struggle with depression, but I would much rather do the equivalent of eating right and exercising to claw myself out of it rather than take meds. I don't like anti-depression meds, they let me function day to day, but kill my sex drive something fierce. And I think a healthy sex-drive is maybe a key component of my long-term mental health, you know?
But are touch screens rotting my brain? Is a trashy novel really junk food? Do I need to rigorously study something for a few hours every week/day to stay in tip-top mental shape? I honestly don't know, and I'm not sure anyone else really does either. I find that frustrating, don't you?
Operating note
Two mini-reviews of Saga and Sex Criminals over at my "reviews and crap" blog. Short version: both are pretty good. Note to self: read more comics.
Tuesday, March 10, 2015
I went for a walk
Depression has as many faces as the people it wears. For me, it most frequently manifests as a denial of self. For me, depression is refusing to thrive, for reasons I can rarely articulate.
Depression is denying myself the pleasure of _______.
So, generally, for reasons I cannot even now explain, I deny myself the pleasure of hiking (and the greater outdoors), the stars, sex (even masturbation to a degree that seems to surprise my male friends), of exercising and getting fit, of becoming good at something like piano or Japanese or drawing, maintaining a social network, going out, going to bed on time, waking up at an hour that leaves me room to breathe, of getting my work done on time, of finding a career that matches me better, of not feeling anxious, and, in general, of feeling good about myself.
Sunday, I allowed myself the pleasure of a long (6ish mile) hike in Forest Park. I don't know what it is about silence right now but goddamn I need it. The birds and the wind in the trees were acceptable noises. Soothing even. There were some children accompanied by a bored parent who were shrieking in delight at streams and mud, but the trees politely muffled the sound for me. Children can be loud, but I can't hold it against them. I'm secretly just jealous that I'm not that uninhibited anymore.
But there was a decidedly pleasurable relaxation of tension deep in my chest as a result of the exercise and the luxurious quiet of the great outdoors and I am glad I decided not to deny myself the pleasure, at least for a day.
Depression is denying myself the pleasure of _______.
So, generally, for reasons I cannot even now explain, I deny myself the pleasure of hiking (and the greater outdoors), the stars, sex (even masturbation to a degree that seems to surprise my male friends), of exercising and getting fit, of becoming good at something like piano or Japanese or drawing, maintaining a social network, going out, going to bed on time, waking up at an hour that leaves me room to breathe, of getting my work done on time, of finding a career that matches me better, of not feeling anxious, and, in general, of feeling good about myself.
Sunday, I allowed myself the pleasure of a long (6ish mile) hike in Forest Park. I don't know what it is about silence right now but goddamn I need it. The birds and the wind in the trees were acceptable noises. Soothing even. There were some children accompanied by a bored parent who were shrieking in delight at streams and mud, but the trees politely muffled the sound for me. Children can be loud, but I can't hold it against them. I'm secretly just jealous that I'm not that uninhibited anymore.
But there was a decidedly pleasurable relaxation of tension deep in my chest as a result of the exercise and the luxurious quiet of the great outdoors and I am glad I decided not to deny myself the pleasure, at least for a day.
Friday, March 06, 2015
Pent Up
I'm feeling a little pent up right now. My consciousness is circling my brain anxiously looking for an outlet, but I've connected them all wrong. All my old outlet nozzles are connected to nothing inside and my inner tubing keeps dead-ending just under my skin. I could bleed it out through my pores, but why.
But I gots the open relationship squirmies and I gotta get it out. I got the "my body wants to movey-groovey" and I gotta let it out. I got the words in a jumble, but I gotta write 'em out. I got ye ol' yarn ball of anxiety and repression and I gotta start pulling strings again.
Pulling strings is good. Pulling threads is life. I pulled one and left the dry desert of Reno for the lush fields of Portland. I pulled another and at the end were handsome dudes and lost knowledge. I pulled a third and knitted a nice sweater.
I need to allow myself the privilege of sweating and howling at the moon and cultivating and co-sharing with curious confidants before I get the deep down crazies.
But I gots the open relationship squirmies and I gotta get it out. I got the "my body wants to movey-groovey" and I gotta let it out. I got the words in a jumble, but I gotta write 'em out. I got ye ol' yarn ball of anxiety and repression and I gotta start pulling strings again.
Pulling strings is good. Pulling threads is life. I pulled one and left the dry desert of Reno for the lush fields of Portland. I pulled another and at the end were handsome dudes and lost knowledge. I pulled a third and knitted a nice sweater.
I need to allow myself the privilege of sweating and howling at the moon and cultivating and co-sharing with curious confidants before I get the deep down crazies.
Wednesday, March 04, 2015
Split blog disorder
I have a hard time deciding what to do with my blogs, which is why I have like 10 of them. Sometimes I think this blog might be better served by me just curating pictures/posts that strike a chord, letting readers see if it strikes a chord with them. Well, which is to say sometimes I think this blog is really pretty and meaningful and then I open my mouth and say something and it changes to my teenage journal. So I wonder if I shouldn't keep my text posts in another tumblr entirely. My short stories in another. I could probably do a whole blog just on the trials and tribulations of an open relationship (not too far into it yet, but just a feeling).
It seems like the platform I want doesn't exist though. I want a blog and a social network. I want to write about a lot of things on a wide variety of topics, but with enough flexibility that users can screen out the topics they want to hear about and don't want to hear about very easily.
I want a clean, ad-free, centralized content management system that allows to me to generate 1 to 100 types of content in separate feeds (blog/microblog/twitter/tumblr/research papers/thinkpieces/essays/etc) that users can subscribe to, comment on (either verbally in small sound files or in text), like or tag with an emotion where other users can second the emotion and/or add their own, IM, video chat, feeds organized into theme pages around various topics, formatting I can impose, that users will see as default but can subvert to their own liking as they need to. Why this doesn't exist yet, I don't know, the tools are there, they're just currently around in spiritual and pragmatic wastelands like FB and Twitter.
There's a better blogging/social media/net communication portal just waiting to happen where we can talk to each other, and share the things we want to share in a wide variety of formats without unduly imposing on subscribers and the first person to realize it is going to be successful beyond their wildest dreams.
There's a better blogging/social media/net communication portal just waiting to happen where we can talk to each other, and share the things we want to share in a wide variety of formats without unduly imposing on subscribers and the first person to realize it is going to be successful beyond their wildest dreams.
Showdown at the OKC
So, I'm back on the OKC just to see what's out there. I'm listed as bisexual and in an open relationship so I don't expect to get a lot of attention. So far I've only been awkwardly asked to join some kind of bear cult and told I shouldn't haven't shaved, which is more or less what I expected from Portland in the first week. Which is A-okay, honestly, not feeling super confident right now. The transition to an open relationship was not entirely smooth for me emotionally , but I'm doing okay with the idea now.
That said, my impulse here is more to continue to try and get my shit together than it is to jump back into dating a lot. Work on learning piano, journal, practice my Japanese, actually read, try and write coherently about what I read, get some goddamn exercise, if only to extend the amount of time I'll have to procrastinate later in life, etc. Maybe get out of the house in some fashion where I'll end up meeting people and then if I click with someone out there that's fine.
But I think I've learned enough to know that my relationship with other people is only as good as my relationship with myself and if I'm being honest with myself it's the relationship with myself that needs work again. So maybe I need to listen to my gut on this one.
That said, my impulse here is more to continue to try and get my shit together than it is to jump back into dating a lot. Work on learning piano, journal, practice my Japanese, actually read, try and write coherently about what I read, get some goddamn exercise, if only to extend the amount of time I'll have to procrastinate later in life, etc. Maybe get out of the house in some fashion where I'll end up meeting people and then if I click with someone out there that's fine.
But I think I've learned enough to know that my relationship with other people is only as good as my relationship with myself and if I'm being honest with myself it's the relationship with myself that needs work again. So maybe I need to listen to my gut on this one.
Monday, February 23, 2015
Procrastination vs Death
I don't feel like I've been doing much with my spare time for a while. Development generally consists of exciting and painful growth phases followed by rest and recuperation phases, but this year+ hibernation I'm crawling out of may have been a bit excessive. I have many times thought how nice it would be to have a time or suspended animation machine that would let me wake up 50 years, time having neatly dealt with all my little problems by serenely passing them by. To procrastinate then, is to be a frustrating mix of wise and foolish: wise enough to know all of our problems fade to insignificance with the passage of time but foolishly succumbing to the temptation to do nothing, hoping there will be enough time on our personal clock after to do something else or perhaps resting lightly in the delusion that maybe I, for the first time in history, will turn out to be immortal. The singularity is right around the corner you know! Or perhaps Jesus. Or maybe the Buddha or Odin or Allah? Who can give me immortality? Is it Ra, god of the sun? I can be in Egypt by morning. I have a lot of procrastinating to do and I need more time to do it.
Of course, the universe is not required to play along with my delusions so I remain obstinately mortal and procrastination, by any definition, is still more or less just wasting my own time. Moreover, the universe, obstinately unconcerned with my hopes dreams and personal and psychological well-being, moves on and moves objects and people as it will and occasionally the little space I've built for myself where I allow myself the delusion of sameness and stability and safety keeps the walls but loses the floor and my dogmatic belief that I can get my shit together if I just float here in sameness long enough gets shattered by the realization that I've been sinking for a while now and if I want to see the sunlight again I'm going to have to get my shit together enough NOW to at least swim for it.
Which is to say, getting one's shit together is a laudable and reasonable aspiration but asking the world to, you know, maybe stop for a while in the meantime is not as much as such. I keep asking the world to stop and it keeps laughing and at some point maybe I should take the hint, you know?
The latest Wile E. Coyote freefall moment was prompted by my partner's request for an open relationship, which truly I never saw coming. It has not been the end of the world, although I initially processed it like it was approaching that, although I believe we have worked through it with an arrangement more or less to my satisfaction and comfort and I believe I have made the best choice of the choices currently available to me. But it has been yet another stark reminder that even people I know well can and will surprise me and that the universe is under no obligation to proceed as I have foreseen it.
There is a form of monogamy, that I often practice, where one is tempted, if not outright encouraged, to believe that what is joined should never be rent asunder and that who I am now is who I must always be and how I feel now is how i must always feel and what I have with another person will always be there for me to take comfort in and I'm convinced that this is maybe not the best version of monogamy out there. It's too tempting to let it slide into personal procrastination where maybe I stop taking care of myself (check) and stop taking care of the other person (sometimes check) because we are committed and we don't have to keep trying so hard to be visibly "mate material" all the time and that what is "good" about it is the eternal commitment and co-dependent attachment of it all.
It seems to me like it must be better to take the world as it is, on the only terms it will offer itself to me, and accept that the only constant is change and that a commitment to change together is a fine thing, but the recognition that a given relationship may not work for all parties forever is not such a bad thing, in that it provides incentive to maintain oneself and tend the relationship. So at least if it does end I can take considerable comfort in the knowledge that I was engaged and and kept up my end of the arrangement as best I could and really that's all I can ask of myself in any relationship. This is not at odds with monogamy in theory to be sure, many fine relationships embrace the uncertainty, but it may be at odds with monogamy as frequently practiced, where fear of uncertainty leads to an unrealistic sense of security and procrastination and jealousy and co-dependence. To be in a healthy monogamous relationship then may necessitate recognizing one's partner is tempted by others and is still attracted to others and sometimes wants different things than you and is sometimes a really different person than you but can be trusted to abide by the terms of your relationship (which are there, even if only implied) and can be trusted to come home to you even if someone else merits a lingering glance from time to time. More to the point, letting oneself forget the fickle and chaotic nature of the universe and the people within it leaves one more flat-footed when the rug is inevitably pulled out again.
So to me, at this point, the open relationship is just extending that trust to an admittedly scarier, and admittedly socially controversial degree, of letting the other partner date casually and meet and fuck new people and trusting them to abide by the explicit agreement one might have made about that kind of thing and trusting them to still want to come home to me. The particulars of the agreement are very much specific to the needs of the individuals within the relationship, but what's important is that there is an agreement and a good faith effort to abide by it. Not that it is better than monogamy per se, not that I don't personally have my concerns about the whole endeavor, but I think it's the best fit for us right now and it's been the conclusion of both of us staring at the frightening uncertainty of it all face on, and doing our best to come to terms with it. My partner and I are considerable late bloomers in our own way and I think the relationship had stalled while we both avoided the implications of that. Is an open-relationship the best answer for that? Maybe not, but we don't see another we're happier with at the moment.
I have few beliefs these days, but I do believe in grown adults get to come to their own arrangement in who they love and how they love them and I believe in embracing uncertainty and learning to be nimble in facing life's challenges rather than constantly trying to plant oneself on shifting sand, even though I am objectively terrible at actually being nimble (emotionally or otherwise). So while I am not super thrilled at the wake-up call, I am grateful to once again be attempting to face the world as it is and preparing myself to adjust to the world as it will be. I am grateful to be awake.
And while it's clear I'm still going to struggle with depression and insecurity and self-esteem in the near future, it's becoming clearer once again that procrastination is a habit best left behind me. I keep building safe, unchanging places and getting frustrated when the floor falls out, and building a new eternal delusion, only to have the floor fall out again. And again. And again. Maybe it's time to admit it's just trap doors all the way down and try something new.
Of course, the universe is not required to play along with my delusions so I remain obstinately mortal and procrastination, by any definition, is still more or less just wasting my own time. Moreover, the universe, obstinately unconcerned with my hopes dreams and personal and psychological well-being, moves on and moves objects and people as it will and occasionally the little space I've built for myself where I allow myself the delusion of sameness and stability and safety keeps the walls but loses the floor and my dogmatic belief that I can get my shit together if I just float here in sameness long enough gets shattered by the realization that I've been sinking for a while now and if I want to see the sunlight again I'm going to have to get my shit together enough NOW to at least swim for it.
Which is to say, getting one's shit together is a laudable and reasonable aspiration but asking the world to, you know, maybe stop for a while in the meantime is not as much as such. I keep asking the world to stop and it keeps laughing and at some point maybe I should take the hint, you know?
The latest Wile E. Coyote freefall moment was prompted by my partner's request for an open relationship, which truly I never saw coming. It has not been the end of the world, although I initially processed it like it was approaching that, although I believe we have worked through it with an arrangement more or less to my satisfaction and comfort and I believe I have made the best choice of the choices currently available to me. But it has been yet another stark reminder that even people I know well can and will surprise me and that the universe is under no obligation to proceed as I have foreseen it.
There is a form of monogamy, that I often practice, where one is tempted, if not outright encouraged, to believe that what is joined should never be rent asunder and that who I am now is who I must always be and how I feel now is how i must always feel and what I have with another person will always be there for me to take comfort in and I'm convinced that this is maybe not the best version of monogamy out there. It's too tempting to let it slide into personal procrastination where maybe I stop taking care of myself (check) and stop taking care of the other person (sometimes check) because we are committed and we don't have to keep trying so hard to be visibly "mate material" all the time and that what is "good" about it is the eternal commitment and co-dependent attachment of it all.
It seems to me like it must be better to take the world as it is, on the only terms it will offer itself to me, and accept that the only constant is change and that a commitment to change together is a fine thing, but the recognition that a given relationship may not work for all parties forever is not such a bad thing, in that it provides incentive to maintain oneself and tend the relationship. So at least if it does end I can take considerable comfort in the knowledge that I was engaged and and kept up my end of the arrangement as best I could and really that's all I can ask of myself in any relationship. This is not at odds with monogamy in theory to be sure, many fine relationships embrace the uncertainty, but it may be at odds with monogamy as frequently practiced, where fear of uncertainty leads to an unrealistic sense of security and procrastination and jealousy and co-dependence. To be in a healthy monogamous relationship then may necessitate recognizing one's partner is tempted by others and is still attracted to others and sometimes wants different things than you and is sometimes a really different person than you but can be trusted to abide by the terms of your relationship (which are there, even if only implied) and can be trusted to come home to you even if someone else merits a lingering glance from time to time. More to the point, letting oneself forget the fickle and chaotic nature of the universe and the people within it leaves one more flat-footed when the rug is inevitably pulled out again.
So to me, at this point, the open relationship is just extending that trust to an admittedly scarier, and admittedly socially controversial degree, of letting the other partner date casually and meet and fuck new people and trusting them to abide by the explicit agreement one might have made about that kind of thing and trusting them to still want to come home to me. The particulars of the agreement are very much specific to the needs of the individuals within the relationship, but what's important is that there is an agreement and a good faith effort to abide by it. Not that it is better than monogamy per se, not that I don't personally have my concerns about the whole endeavor, but I think it's the best fit for us right now and it's been the conclusion of both of us staring at the frightening uncertainty of it all face on, and doing our best to come to terms with it. My partner and I are considerable late bloomers in our own way and I think the relationship had stalled while we both avoided the implications of that. Is an open-relationship the best answer for that? Maybe not, but we don't see another we're happier with at the moment.
I have few beliefs these days, but I do believe in grown adults get to come to their own arrangement in who they love and how they love them and I believe in embracing uncertainty and learning to be nimble in facing life's challenges rather than constantly trying to plant oneself on shifting sand, even though I am objectively terrible at actually being nimble (emotionally or otherwise). So while I am not super thrilled at the wake-up call, I am grateful to once again be attempting to face the world as it is and preparing myself to adjust to the world as it will be. I am grateful to be awake.
And while it's clear I'm still going to struggle with depression and insecurity and self-esteem in the near future, it's becoming clearer once again that procrastination is a habit best left behind me. I keep building safe, unchanging places and getting frustrated when the floor falls out, and building a new eternal delusion, only to have the floor fall out again. And again. And again. Maybe it's time to admit it's just trap doors all the way down and try something new.
Friday, February 06, 2015
Status Report
Feb 5, 2015 (6 days before my 39th birthiversary).
I have emerged from yet another long hibernation to survey the unattended clutter that has accumulated while I slept and find myself, once again, displeased. Troubled along so many vectors I have a hard time plotting the shape of it. Maybe it's best to tackle this topically.
ROMANCE
While it's probably not a terrific idea to go into details, new and exciting challengers have emerged in the romantic life of me, super-pal Jimmy Wholesome, that have prompted the current round of general house-cleaning. While I am grateful for the boot to the ass the universe has graciously bestowed upon me as motivation to clean house, I resent the general untidiness of the universe and it's inhabitants and lament my inability to self-motivate. As it turns out my life needs constant tending. Who knew.
WORK
Is a mess and a mess I've been unhappy with a long time, so long even I am tired of hearing myself talk about it. But it doesn't have to be a mess forever. I am optimistic I will figure out a good course of action for myself. Eventually. Hopefully sometime before the heat death of the universe.
SOCIAL LIFE
I have let my social life whither on the vine in the last year or so. So I am preparing a new socializing push to refresh existing friendships and forge new ones. This will likely involve getting out of the house. And maybe being on a schedule that leaves me free in the evenings when, I'm told, human types like to congregate and talk about consumer products and TV shows. But I look forward to it. I've got the chops, I just need to sharpen them up.
GENERAL EXISTENTIAL MALAISE
I think most people just call it depression, but I think I've been struggling with it for years. Coming out of the closet made everything, in many ways, better, and I am grateful for that. Although there are some of other core problem areas to sift through. I have a hard time finding my motivation to thrive for a variety of reasons I am still trying to understand and I'm very hard on myself for it. I never felt a part of my childhood church culture and now that I've left it I find I haven't found a place to land in the "secular world" where I feel I belong. I have not found my people or my place or my purpose (the all-important 3 p's) and I think it leaves me feeling generally untethered and listless and anxious. For some the answer is to just DO something which I understand, but I also understand myself and my tunnel vision obsessive tendencies so I'm loathe to just grasp on to something and go with it for fear I'll wake up 10 years down the line and wonder, "what the fuck am I doing?" If I can train myself to recognize "the wrong path" sooner rather than later maybe I'll be more comfortable of the idea of "just doing something."
ANXIETY
I am generally an anxious creature, which I am working on. This is something that developed later in life and I am not thrilled with it. Most days I have a general feeling that I need to be anxious about something, about who I am or what I'm doing or what I've done and I generally fill in that gap with some reason without really thinking about it. This is probably my strongest reason and motivation to exercise as I know from experience that helps a great deal. I've also set up a reading corner of my own with a turntable and a nice reading chair to provide myself with some "chill the fuck out" space. Sometimes the inner animal can't be reasoned with, it just has to be soothed.
CRIME & PUNISHMENT
I've been having tremendous difficulty the last few years letting myself move forward in any meaningful way, or even allowing myself the pleasure of consuming art that I would find very edifying. I pretty consciously know what I want to work on and I generally watch myself in amazement as I deny myself the privilege. There are some truly wonderful and imaginative TV shows for instance that I would love to start/finish but I generally choose to marathon trashier TV that I'm not that interested in instead. It's become pretty clear to me that some part of me desperately wishes to be punished, for being flawed or being gay/bi, or being something other than what other people want me to be. I carry the explicit and implicit judgements of other people FAR too readily and I really need to stop, but I find it really challenging even though I know pretty much what the issue is at this point. I would dearly love to stop carrying the real and imagined judgements of other people forever though. Note to self.
WRITING
There's really nothing standing in the way of me writing except my own foolish self. The above mentioned sense of deserving no good thing and maybe some more punishment and a REALLY bad case of smart kid syndrome are the big culprits here. It's clear to me that I need to write to be a happy person, not because it's going to make me rich and famous or well-liked but because I have thoughts I want to articulate and things I want to share and stories ideas that pop into my head non-stop that I would love to realize in some fashion. But the smart kid in me won't let me do it without being perfect at it the first time and the silly sadist in me wants to punish me for not being a smart kid. It's silly bullshit and I'm tired of it. I hope to get past it and finally write stories I'm happy with before the Big Crunch and the next Big Bang recreate the universe anew. The same goes for my stalled progress in learning piano and Japanese.
POLITICS
Man, fuck politics. The corruption and structural stagnation that has brought our government to a standstill and feeds and endless culture war seems insurmountable to me right now. I am sure it is NOT, but jesus. We desperately need to get our collective shit together. I find it all very depressing.
SCIENCE and WOO
I've been reading a lot more "WOO" material recently, including books on near-death experiences, evidence of life after death, UFO sightings, and so forth. Except Sasquatch which I find completely uninteresting. "A big primate lives in the woods!" Who cares. While I am myself a scientist and believe strongly that it's a good way of accumulating many types of knowledge, I don't really love the way people talk about it sometimes. I've been struggling to articulate it in ways that don't make me sound crazy. People seem to have a hard time distinguishing between beliefs that have some scientific evidence in support, and beliefs about science that reinforce their worldview. Science is good but it is not all that is true or necessary to consider. Reason is good but feelings exist and have their moments of primacy and importance. I largely read woo material because I've always been interested in what's outside the comfortable assumptions of the crowd and I like entertaining a reality bigger and more interesting than the current bullshit. So I like to read about other people's strange experiences and consider whether they might actually be true, or at the very least indicative of a grander, more interesting universe than the common wisdom currently assumes. Do I think they're all telling the truth? No. Do I think some of them might be a little delusional or unbalanced? Yes. Do I think that mean's it's all bunk? Not necessarily. Anecdotal data is not as good as scientific data, but it is evidence of something nonetheless, and even if it just turns out to be evidence of the many twists and turns of human psychology I find that in and of itself interesting. So I don't know how much of it is real, and to be truthful you don't either, we just have beliefs about "how the world must really be." But I'm happy to consider these other possibilities and not assume can't have experienced something I haven't experienced. I just don't recommend making any big life decisions or wasting too much time on unsupported anecdotes or just really incomplete information which is where I think people tend to go wrong either way. So no, I'm not falling off the deep end just yet, just looking into the water and wondering how deep it goes.
MORTALITY
I used to be terrified of dying with sins left unforgiven and burning in hell. Or dying before accomplishing God's purpose for me here on earth. Or dying before seeing the prequels Lucas was rumored to be working on like a decade before they came out, which was an extremely misplaced fear as it turns out. And then dying and having it be nothing. And then dying and having it be something worse. And then just the ending of fabulous, wonderful, conscious me (despite the fact that my consciousness disintegrates nightly). Now I'm just worried about dying before I get my shit together. Of dying before having said all the things I want to say and art left unmade and people left unloved. Of having wasted my time dithering on this anxious bullshit rather than using the time I have doing what I want to do. Which is a nicer fear of mortality really. But really the ultimate currency is time and I want to spend it better. Relatedly but not causally, I'm also thinking of volunteering in a hospice somewhere in town. It seems important to tackle death head-on both in oneself and in others and I can think of no better place to start.
SPIRITUALITY
I've been finding myself less hard on religion recently. For all the problems in most major world religions, they still seem to consciously address and attempt to answer important existential questions for more directly than the secular world which just seems to shrug at some of it, as if embarrassed to be associated with anything religion even talks about. I'm still trying to define for myself what spirituality is and why it's important to me, but it is. I will not likely be returning to christianity in this lifetime and will also avoid anything predicated on making you feel like shit for existing and offering themselves as the only absolution (because the mind fuck there, once you see it, is too obvious to ignore). I may try one of the westernized buddhism churches in town soon, just to see. I'm not sure I can even buy into buddhism that deeply, but I think spirituality has a value, and spiritual practices may be very useful in finding emotional and intellectual peace of some sort, even if there's nothing supernatural involved. I respect the search for meaning, I respect the search for peace, I don't think religion ruins everything and I don't think all religious believers are nuts or delusional and I'm trying to find a way to live with them more or less amiably without too much antagonism. To be sure, it seems like religious types could be meeting me half-way a bit more on that, but it's not an excuse to succumb to cynicism. Who knows, maybe I'll find something half-worth believing in, or at least practicing.
WHEREVER I GO, THERE I AM
It's weird to be days away from 39 and still be writing self-absorbed "what the fuck am I doing?" updates like this. This is really, really not how I imagined yours truly at age 39. I'm not quite sure what I expected, but I think I expected ... more grown-upedness? Confidence? Capability? Stability? Clarity? More and more I feel I can be that guy. Or perhaps am becoming that guy. I can feel him impatiently wiggling and straining against the current man-child artifice I've carelessly worn for years, wanting to take charge. Or at least have a say. My child-self is a nice kid, but maybe he shouldn't be running the show, you know? But I am still proud of myself sometimes. Yes, I'm a bit of a late-bloomer, but I came out of the closet, I moved to a better city, I left an abusive relationship and I'm asking myself a lot of the right questions. Questions I hope to answer before the universe forces the issue one way or another. Or ends in a fiery conflagration only those outside of time and space will be privileged to witness.
And that's the update this year. For those of you still reading, I thank you. For those of you who quit two paragraphs in, you're off the list! Not enough changes to talk about, a lot of omphaloskepsis, but there it is. Me in a nutshell. Cracking ever-so-gently.
James Haus
Age 39(ish)
Transmission ends
I have emerged from yet another long hibernation to survey the unattended clutter that has accumulated while I slept and find myself, once again, displeased. Troubled along so many vectors I have a hard time plotting the shape of it. Maybe it's best to tackle this topically.
ROMANCE
While it's probably not a terrific idea to go into details, new and exciting challengers have emerged in the romantic life of me, super-pal Jimmy Wholesome, that have prompted the current round of general house-cleaning. While I am grateful for the boot to the ass the universe has graciously bestowed upon me as motivation to clean house, I resent the general untidiness of the universe and it's inhabitants and lament my inability to self-motivate. As it turns out my life needs constant tending. Who knew.
WORK
Is a mess and a mess I've been unhappy with a long time, so long even I am tired of hearing myself talk about it. But it doesn't have to be a mess forever. I am optimistic I will figure out a good course of action for myself. Eventually. Hopefully sometime before the heat death of the universe.
SOCIAL LIFE
I have let my social life whither on the vine in the last year or so. So I am preparing a new socializing push to refresh existing friendships and forge new ones. This will likely involve getting out of the house. And maybe being on a schedule that leaves me free in the evenings when, I'm told, human types like to congregate and talk about consumer products and TV shows. But I look forward to it. I've got the chops, I just need to sharpen them up.
GENERAL EXISTENTIAL MALAISE
I think most people just call it depression, but I think I've been struggling with it for years. Coming out of the closet made everything, in many ways, better, and I am grateful for that. Although there are some of other core problem areas to sift through. I have a hard time finding my motivation to thrive for a variety of reasons I am still trying to understand and I'm very hard on myself for it. I never felt a part of my childhood church culture and now that I've left it I find I haven't found a place to land in the "secular world" where I feel I belong. I have not found my people or my place or my purpose (the all-important 3 p's) and I think it leaves me feeling generally untethered and listless and anxious. For some the answer is to just DO something which I understand, but I also understand myself and my tunnel vision obsessive tendencies so I'm loathe to just grasp on to something and go with it for fear I'll wake up 10 years down the line and wonder, "what the fuck am I doing?" If I can train myself to recognize "the wrong path" sooner rather than later maybe I'll be more comfortable of the idea of "just doing something."
ANXIETY
I am generally an anxious creature, which I am working on. This is something that developed later in life and I am not thrilled with it. Most days I have a general feeling that I need to be anxious about something, about who I am or what I'm doing or what I've done and I generally fill in that gap with some reason without really thinking about it. This is probably my strongest reason and motivation to exercise as I know from experience that helps a great deal. I've also set up a reading corner of my own with a turntable and a nice reading chair to provide myself with some "chill the fuck out" space. Sometimes the inner animal can't be reasoned with, it just has to be soothed.
CRIME & PUNISHMENT
I've been having tremendous difficulty the last few years letting myself move forward in any meaningful way, or even allowing myself the pleasure of consuming art that I would find very edifying. I pretty consciously know what I want to work on and I generally watch myself in amazement as I deny myself the privilege. There are some truly wonderful and imaginative TV shows for instance that I would love to start/finish but I generally choose to marathon trashier TV that I'm not that interested in instead. It's become pretty clear to me that some part of me desperately wishes to be punished, for being flawed or being gay/bi, or being something other than what other people want me to be. I carry the explicit and implicit judgements of other people FAR too readily and I really need to stop, but I find it really challenging even though I know pretty much what the issue is at this point. I would dearly love to stop carrying the real and imagined judgements of other people forever though. Note to self.
WRITING
There's really nothing standing in the way of me writing except my own foolish self. The above mentioned sense of deserving no good thing and maybe some more punishment and a REALLY bad case of smart kid syndrome are the big culprits here. It's clear to me that I need to write to be a happy person, not because it's going to make me rich and famous or well-liked but because I have thoughts I want to articulate and things I want to share and stories ideas that pop into my head non-stop that I would love to realize in some fashion. But the smart kid in me won't let me do it without being perfect at it the first time and the silly sadist in me wants to punish me for not being a smart kid. It's silly bullshit and I'm tired of it. I hope to get past it and finally write stories I'm happy with before the Big Crunch and the next Big Bang recreate the universe anew. The same goes for my stalled progress in learning piano and Japanese.
POLITICS
Man, fuck politics. The corruption and structural stagnation that has brought our government to a standstill and feeds and endless culture war seems insurmountable to me right now. I am sure it is NOT, but jesus. We desperately need to get our collective shit together. I find it all very depressing.
SCIENCE and WOO
I've been reading a lot more "WOO" material recently, including books on near-death experiences, evidence of life after death, UFO sightings, and so forth. Except Sasquatch which I find completely uninteresting. "A big primate lives in the woods!" Who cares. While I am myself a scientist and believe strongly that it's a good way of accumulating many types of knowledge, I don't really love the way people talk about it sometimes. I've been struggling to articulate it in ways that don't make me sound crazy. People seem to have a hard time distinguishing between beliefs that have some scientific evidence in support, and beliefs about science that reinforce their worldview. Science is good but it is not all that is true or necessary to consider. Reason is good but feelings exist and have their moments of primacy and importance. I largely read woo material because I've always been interested in what's outside the comfortable assumptions of the crowd and I like entertaining a reality bigger and more interesting than the current bullshit. So I like to read about other people's strange experiences and consider whether they might actually be true, or at the very least indicative of a grander, more interesting universe than the common wisdom currently assumes. Do I think they're all telling the truth? No. Do I think some of them might be a little delusional or unbalanced? Yes. Do I think that mean's it's all bunk? Not necessarily. Anecdotal data is not as good as scientific data, but it is evidence of something nonetheless, and even if it just turns out to be evidence of the many twists and turns of human psychology I find that in and of itself interesting. So I don't know how much of it is real, and to be truthful you don't either, we just have beliefs about "how the world must really be." But I'm happy to consider these other possibilities and not assume can't have experienced something I haven't experienced. I just don't recommend making any big life decisions or wasting too much time on unsupported anecdotes or just really incomplete information which is where I think people tend to go wrong either way. So no, I'm not falling off the deep end just yet, just looking into the water and wondering how deep it goes.
MORTALITY
I used to be terrified of dying with sins left unforgiven and burning in hell. Or dying before accomplishing God's purpose for me here on earth. Or dying before seeing the prequels Lucas was rumored to be working on like a decade before they came out, which was an extremely misplaced fear as it turns out. And then dying and having it be nothing. And then dying and having it be something worse. And then just the ending of fabulous, wonderful, conscious me (despite the fact that my consciousness disintegrates nightly). Now I'm just worried about dying before I get my shit together. Of dying before having said all the things I want to say and art left unmade and people left unloved. Of having wasted my time dithering on this anxious bullshit rather than using the time I have doing what I want to do. Which is a nicer fear of mortality really. But really the ultimate currency is time and I want to spend it better. Relatedly but not causally, I'm also thinking of volunteering in a hospice somewhere in town. It seems important to tackle death head-on both in oneself and in others and I can think of no better place to start.
SPIRITUALITY
I've been finding myself less hard on religion recently. For all the problems in most major world religions, they still seem to consciously address and attempt to answer important existential questions for more directly than the secular world which just seems to shrug at some of it, as if embarrassed to be associated with anything religion even talks about. I'm still trying to define for myself what spirituality is and why it's important to me, but it is. I will not likely be returning to christianity in this lifetime and will also avoid anything predicated on making you feel like shit for existing and offering themselves as the only absolution (because the mind fuck there, once you see it, is too obvious to ignore). I may try one of the westernized buddhism churches in town soon, just to see. I'm not sure I can even buy into buddhism that deeply, but I think spirituality has a value, and spiritual practices may be very useful in finding emotional and intellectual peace of some sort, even if there's nothing supernatural involved. I respect the search for meaning, I respect the search for peace, I don't think religion ruins everything and I don't think all religious believers are nuts or delusional and I'm trying to find a way to live with them more or less amiably without too much antagonism. To be sure, it seems like religious types could be meeting me half-way a bit more on that, but it's not an excuse to succumb to cynicism. Who knows, maybe I'll find something half-worth believing in, or at least practicing.
WHEREVER I GO, THERE I AM
It's weird to be days away from 39 and still be writing self-absorbed "what the fuck am I doing?" updates like this. This is really, really not how I imagined yours truly at age 39. I'm not quite sure what I expected, but I think I expected ... more grown-upedness? Confidence? Capability? Stability? Clarity? More and more I feel I can be that guy. Or perhaps am becoming that guy. I can feel him impatiently wiggling and straining against the current man-child artifice I've carelessly worn for years, wanting to take charge. Or at least have a say. My child-self is a nice kid, but maybe he shouldn't be running the show, you know? But I am still proud of myself sometimes. Yes, I'm a bit of a late-bloomer, but I came out of the closet, I moved to a better city, I left an abusive relationship and I'm asking myself a lot of the right questions. Questions I hope to answer before the universe forces the issue one way or another. Or ends in a fiery conflagration only those outside of time and space will be privileged to witness.
And that's the update this year. For those of you still reading, I thank you. For those of you who quit two paragraphs in, you're off the list! Not enough changes to talk about, a lot of omphaloskepsis, but there it is. Me in a nutshell. Cracking ever-so-gently.
James Haus
Age 39(ish)
Transmission ends
Wednesday, January 28, 2015
Ceaselessly back into the past
I was born in the grand and meaningful year of 1976, so my nostalgia for 1972 is a curious thing, considering the cells that would eventually congeal and host my consciousness where still far too scattered to appreciate the times.
For the last few years my life has been more or less a series of dissociation practices, and the most recent is an unintentional convergence on the early 70s.
My TV watching dissociation has turned truly strange. I pick a show I don't care about all that much or really know much about and binge watch the entire series online until I've seen all of it. I settled on "The Bob Newhart Show" roughly around the same time I bought a turntable (after whatever brain parasites that live in Portland found their way to me) and bought a bunch of records from the early 70s, again, not consciously, including some lovely Tchaikovsky, Vivaldi, Organ Fugues, Simon and Garfunkel and Olivia Netwon- and Elton John and have been steadily working through my choices in the darkwood ikea corner I created for myself that, now that I think about it, reminds me very much of the darkwood motifs I spent my early years in.
The Bob Newhart Show ended much too soon and I've since moved on to WKRP in Cincinnati and Gatchaman, both airing in the early 70s, in Gatchaman's case an original run from 1972 to 1974, much like the Bob Newhart show.
I don't know why I'm marinating lightly in 1972 right now. All I know is it feels nice and I like it.
For the last few years my life has been more or less a series of dissociation practices, and the most recent is an unintentional convergence on the early 70s.
My TV watching dissociation has turned truly strange. I pick a show I don't care about all that much or really know much about and binge watch the entire series online until I've seen all of it. I settled on "The Bob Newhart Show" roughly around the same time I bought a turntable (after whatever brain parasites that live in Portland found their way to me) and bought a bunch of records from the early 70s, again, not consciously, including some lovely Tchaikovsky, Vivaldi, Organ Fugues, Simon and Garfunkel and Olivia Netwon- and Elton John and have been steadily working through my choices in the darkwood ikea corner I created for myself that, now that I think about it, reminds me very much of the darkwood motifs I spent my early years in.
The Bob Newhart Show ended much too soon and I've since moved on to WKRP in Cincinnati and Gatchaman, both airing in the early 70s, in Gatchaman's case an original run from 1972 to 1974, much like the Bob Newhart show.
I don't know why I'm marinating lightly in 1972 right now. All I know is it feels nice and I like it.
Monday, December 22, 2014
New/old review on Science and the Afterlife experience.
I have been, for some reason, dragging my feet on reading new books until I comment on the ones I've read most recently for reasons that are likely irrational. I'm working through my reviews of my paranormal mini-tour and discovered tonight to my delight that I had actually written a passable commentary on Science and the Afterlife Experience by Chris Carter shortly after I read it. I think I am settling on a new format for non-fiction reviews, but this will do for now in the interests of moving forward. I'm not entirely certain it's vital I give a New York Review of Books worthy discussion of a book on the paranormal on this blog that I'm pretty sure only I read anyway. I do want to write a bit about being interested in the paranormal in our age of science and religion but I guess that's coming after.
I think maybe, though, I didn't do an awesome job of covering the focus of the book which is carefully compiled reports of the most credible experiences across three broad groups: reincarnation, apparitions and mediumship. All three sections are incredibly interesting, and it's a good overview of the kind of experiences that people report as evidence for all three topics. Even the mediumship section, a field which has historically been filled with charlatans, introduced a new facet I had never heard of, which are the cross-correspondences, the supposed attempts of departed souls attempting to pass coded messages back through multiple mediums in order to establish some sort of confidence in their authenticity. You may or may not be convinced by that, but I thought the idea was clever and fun.
If you're at all interested in a fair assessment of experiential reports of the paranormal, you can't do much better than Chris Carter and Science and the Afterlife Experience.
I think maybe, though, I didn't do an awesome job of covering the focus of the book which is carefully compiled reports of the most credible experiences across three broad groups: reincarnation, apparitions and mediumship. All three sections are incredibly interesting, and it's a good overview of the kind of experiences that people report as evidence for all three topics. Even the mediumship section, a field which has historically been filled with charlatans, introduced a new facet I had never heard of, which are the cross-correspondences, the supposed attempts of departed souls attempting to pass coded messages back through multiple mediums in order to establish some sort of confidence in their authenticity. You may or may not be convinced by that, but I thought the idea was clever and fun.
If you're at all interested in a fair assessment of experiential reports of the paranormal, you can't do much better than Chris Carter and Science and the Afterlife Experience.
Wednesday, November 26, 2014
Celibate but Equal
I was reading a christian man's account of coming out over and over and how dear his community of gay, celibate Christians is and his struggle with it all in general today and it broke my heart a bit. On the one hand, who am I to say he can't have that strong conviction and make that choice and still be perfectly happy, you know?
On the other, I know that my view on being gay pre-gay-sex and post-gay-sex are night and day. Having sex with another man for the first time was the closest I've ever been to a spiritual moment since leaving the church. All my pre-conception about how wrong and guilty I would feel afterward melted away in a feeling of naturalness and completeness. For me it was a moment where the missing pieces all fit into place and I finally had a glimpse of what it meant to take comfort in physical intimacy of another human being. It was the opposite of awkward. It was the opposite of broken. It was a moment of genuine completeness, where I first understood the kind of completeness straight people had with each other, and that I could have that too. And, more importantly, that if a god embodying love existed, there was no way he would object to showing affection to another man that left me feeling so whole.
I guess if I could tenderly offer my advice to the well-meaning and celibate gay christian, it's to commit that particular "sin" at least once. Please don't spend your whole life segregating yourself behind sex-proofed glass because well-meaning straight christians are posing as experts on a topic they have very little actual experience with ,with only 3 questionably analyzed bible verses as their support.
Taste and see if it is good. I promise you, it is.
On the other, I know that my view on being gay pre-gay-sex and post-gay-sex are night and day. Having sex with another man for the first time was the closest I've ever been to a spiritual moment since leaving the church. All my pre-conception about how wrong and guilty I would feel afterward melted away in a feeling of naturalness and completeness. For me it was a moment where the missing pieces all fit into place and I finally had a glimpse of what it meant to take comfort in physical intimacy of another human being. It was the opposite of awkward. It was the opposite of broken. It was a moment of genuine completeness, where I first understood the kind of completeness straight people had with each other, and that I could have that too. And, more importantly, that if a god embodying love existed, there was no way he would object to showing affection to another man that left me feeling so whole.
I guess if I could tenderly offer my advice to the well-meaning and celibate gay christian, it's to commit that particular "sin" at least once. Please don't spend your whole life segregating yourself behind sex-proofed glass because well-meaning straight christians are posing as experts on a topic they have very little actual experience with ,with only 3 questionably analyzed bible verses as their support.
Taste and see if it is good. I promise you, it is.
Fringe-ology review
Having finally decided I'm just going to have to admit my writing is just plain not going to live up to my standards for now, I managed to arrange words into a review of Steve Volk's Fringe-ology, which I recommend highly to anyone who wants to dabble in fringe topics. There are other reasons I dragged my feet on this one, but I'll not go into them now.
Hopefully I can crank out a few more lackluster reviews over the next work or so about a couple more "fringey" books. And maybe pen an essay about why I'm interested in it and I should probably be less hesitant about admitting that. And then on to less fringey things.
Hopefully I can crank out a few more lackluster reviews over the next work or so about a couple more "fringey" books. And maybe pen an essay about why I'm interested in it and I should probably be less hesitant about admitting that. And then on to less fringey things.
Wednesday, November 19, 2014
Getting Goat (a short story based on real goat events)
Everything I have ever written and everything I will ever write is garbage compared to this headline. ht @ErrorJustin pic.twitter.com/kD9V0JnFpL
— Saladin Ahmed (@saladinahmed) November 20, 2014
How I imagine this went down.
******
I'd been working the local beat for two weeks when I got the call from my editor.
"Goat on a roof. East side. Might be a good human interest story."
"I don't know how many humans are interested in goats, Bob."
Bob sighed melodramatically. "Just go check it out. It's a slow day anyway."
On scene were two uniformed cops, facing off with the goat at them from his perch on the roof, scampering angrily to the edge and back to bleat at them defiantly.
"Maybe we should mace the thing," said cop one.
"Really Johnson? You want to be known as the guy who maced a goat off a roof?" Cop two was arching his eyebrow at his partner.
"Nah man, I'm just tired of taking this goat's crap," Kowalksi whined, before dodging the stream of urine now gently arcing over the edge of the roof in their general direction. "Motherfucker!" he cried, scrabbling at his belt for something violent.
Cop two reached out and put his hand on Johnson's heaving outrage in a placating gesture. "Johnson, let's take a moment and see if we can't think of a response somewhere in between doing nothing and tasing a goat, shall we?"
I wandered over to the elderly lady watching the spectacle in her bathrobe from over the fence. "It's so sad to see it come to this." she said. Mrs. Katsch had been neighbors to the indignant goat and her owner for 5 years. "She was always such a good kidd." She said, her eyes brimming. "But she was never the same after the war."
"The war?" I asked incredulously. Although I was not surprised that the afternoon would choose to double down on weird.
"Oh yes, she and good old Colonel Hastings worked together in one of those gulf thingies." She said, waving in the general direction of war thingies in the Gulf of Somewhere Else. "They were part of an elite bomb-sniffing unit or some other crazy thing. Had some hard times don't you know." Mrs. Katsch leaned over the fence and whispered loudly but conspiratorially to me, "Word is, they killed a few people. Or saw a few people die. Or something just horrible like that. But they never talk about it. And after the war, they couldn't stay together for the memories, you know." Mrs. Katsch was tearing up again. "So Colonel Hastings gave her to good old Mr. Newton here, but he's never been able to keep up with the mood swings and the PTSD that poor little thing came back with after the war. That goat only respects one man." And then louder, to the officers still discussing the best way to get the goat off the roof that wouldn't go viral from dashboard cam footage, "That goat only respects one man!"
"And where is Mr. Newton now?" I asked, in what I thought was a very professional tone given the circumstances.
"Oh, he went off to get ... oh here he is now!" she said, waving at the old beat-up pick-up that had just pulled up, with what I presumed was Mr. Newton in the driver's seat.
"Oh thank goodness you're back!" shouted Mrs. Katsch, "the poor dear's just out of control!"
Newton nodded briefly, but not unkindly to Mrs. Katsch while on his way to unload his passenger, a slightly older gentleman with gray in the temple, a cane for walking and a slight limp. After extricating himself from Mr. Newton's assistance, Mr. Hastings set his gaze on the unfolding scene and marched over to the house.
The goat noticed him about half-way over and sat down and watched him with unreadable eyes.
By the time Mr. Hastings arrived at the edge of the lawn where the officers were standing, the scene had gone quiet, pregnant with expectation. He planted himself, looked up and said, "Hello Billy Jean."
The Goat bleated softly.
Mr. Hastings locked eyes with Billy Jean and then asked quietly, but sternly, "Do you want to tell me what's going on here, soldier?"
Billy got up and walked to the edge and bleated at the police. Looked over her shoulder at Mr. Hastings, and then walked back over to him, bleating plaintively.
"Billy Jean, I didn't ask for excuses, I asked what was going on here." Colonel Hastings was having none of it. "Why don't we ignore these fine gentlemen for now and you just come on down here. So we can talk."
Billy Jean looked down uncertainly and at Officer Johnson suspiciously. Billy bleated once.
"Yes, that was an order." said Mr. Hastings in reply.
Billy Jean trotted up the roof and disappeared over the other side. Whatever goat magic she worked to get back down remains unclear, but within moments she appeared around the other side and approached Mr. Hastings almost shyly before stopping just in front of him.
Slowly, awkwardly, Mr. Hasting's knelt, bad leg and all, and put his face close to Billy Jean and talked quietly to her for several minutes, his gaze never leaving her eyes and his hand gently turning her head back to him when she looked away. It ended, to my surprise, with a gentle kiss to her furry nose.
He stood up, and looked directly at Mr. Newton. "Next time Sam, call me before it gets this bad." He walked stiffly back to the car.
"Absolutely Colonel Hastings," said Newton, hurrying around to open the door for a man he clearly admired and maybe feared the tiniest bit.
Colonel Hastings looked back once at Billy Jean and nodded, his face a mask of professionalism, his eyes watering, before Mr. Newton sped him away. Whatever history had made this moment of shared peace possible also making it impossible to stay.
The officers were leaving, Cop Two laughing at Officer Johnson's blustering excuses. Mrs. Katsch walked back inside, "Such a good man," she said.
Billy Jean watched the truck drive away until it was long out of sight. And then looked up at the stars starting to poke through the evening twilight, chewing grass quietly. Momentarily sheltered from the storms of the past by the kind words and steady friendship of the only man she would ever trust.
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