It is really, terribly, easy for me to think about what I can't do, and put my energy into excuses, rationals and even highly nuanced critiques so that I don't actually have to produce anything.
It is much harder to produce stuff. One way to get over the ledge into the production "zone" is to aim at the "low hanging fruit" and do what you can do first. That provides a base, and some specifics, which will help you move to the more complicated stuff.
Wednesday, August 31, 2011
Sugar and Mood.
Well, I'm going to stop eating refined sugar, to the extent possible. And what is possible is that I can cut out all unneccessary sweets from my diet at least, stop adding sugar to my tea or coffee, and basically undo my own self-inflicted association with sweets and release. If I can do that, then I think my tolerance for sugar will come way down, and I'll recognize the presence of sugar in my food much more than I do now, and I'll generally be much healthier.
Two reasons for doing this. One: primarily mood. I'm fairly convinced that excessive sugar intake makes me like complete shit later on in the near term future. Two, health: let's face it, my grandmother (who died when I was in high school) had major insulin-type issues, of which I'm only now becoming aware. So, best to ween myself off this stuff before it becomes all consuming.
I'm bound to be irritable, but I'll be clear that I will eat a lot of food, just not highly refined sugars. Which also means that I'll watch refined flours, too.
Two reasons for doing this. One: primarily mood. I'm fairly convinced that excessive sugar intake makes me like complete shit later on in the near term future. Two, health: let's face it, my grandmother (who died when I was in high school) had major insulin-type issues, of which I'm only now becoming aware. So, best to ween myself off this stuff before it becomes all consuming.
I'm bound to be irritable, but I'll be clear that I will eat a lot of food, just not highly refined sugars. Which also means that I'll watch refined flours, too.
Tuesday, August 30, 2011
Umbrage
To the extent we take offense with people who strive to make a lot of money, say, an oil executive, or financial consultant of some sort, I ask why we don't take a offense with people who strive to have a very high status, one that doesn't always correlate well with copious quantities of cash, like a professor. Who critics professors in this sense? Only the lunatics on the far right, and only because of the professors' perspective on issues they disagree with.
It seems odd to me that people might hold a high opinion of one and not the other. What's the distinction?
Add: Which is to say that we don't take issue with naked ambition, necessarily, as long as it is couched in the right terms; we take issue, instead, with people who are more successful than we are financially because we perceive them as immorally benefiting from our unwillingness to enter certain fields. Which is to say we find ourselves exceptional and make others less so because of their perceived moral faults.
It seems odd to me that people might hold a high opinion of one and not the other. What's the distinction?
Add: Which is to say that we don't take issue with naked ambition, necessarily, as long as it is couched in the right terms; we take issue, instead, with people who are more successful than we are financially because we perceive them as immorally benefiting from our unwillingness to enter certain fields. Which is to say we find ourselves exceptional and make others less so because of their perceived moral faults.
Monday, August 29, 2011
Love is Hard Work.
Two notes for the moment that I figured I should write down. The first, love is hard work, in that love is passionate and mischievous, and addictive, and compulsive, and then, once all of those things exist, it calms down, settles into something else, and that something else will determine whether lovers stay together post-coitus and the period of time around coitus that is so fro-la-la-licking good. I'm not sure whether two people should be able to combine their visions of each other--that is, stay on the same page--through explicit words, as in they communicate all of their desires all the time and they mostly agree--or whether it should be something less overt, more of a feeling that the relationship is going in a good direction.
There are certainly times doing either option allows a relationship to slide downhill, and there are successful relationships that work either way, too, so perhaps my distinction isn't correct. Perhaps there is no method for a successful relationship, except for all of the things that allow for successful relations with people generally. But, if that's all there is--just general niceness, consideration, ability to work, communicate, laugh, etc., then what keeps people together? What is the bond of love? I'm not sure that it is fully static--i.e. that once you love someone, the love doesn't require some maintenance of sorts, even though, and here's the trick, I think that's the kind of love we expect from others: we want love that is universal and impermeable to stress, disease, corrosion. We want someone to love us regardless of what we do. And that's never, ever, going to happen, even though someone may tell us that they do love us in that way. Which is why how we communicate, and whether we communicate, about our relationship matters a great deal. The harder truth is perhaps that we have to keep showing the person we love we are worthy of their love after the drug of initial lust has worn off.
And that's funny. It is funny because, if we had the criteria that a relationship required absent the initial drug-type phase, then we might not pick the same damn partner we ended up picking because of all of our heady emotions. Which is to say that it is incredibly hard to navigate the field of potential partners and find the one that will work out best in the long term, not because predictions are very difficult, but because we delude ourselves at the early stages of relationships to believe that our emotions are more sincere and more lasting than they might actually be.
There are certainly times doing either option allows a relationship to slide downhill, and there are successful relationships that work either way, too, so perhaps my distinction isn't correct. Perhaps there is no method for a successful relationship, except for all of the things that allow for successful relations with people generally. But, if that's all there is--just general niceness, consideration, ability to work, communicate, laugh, etc., then what keeps people together? What is the bond of love? I'm not sure that it is fully static--i.e. that once you love someone, the love doesn't require some maintenance of sorts, even though, and here's the trick, I think that's the kind of love we expect from others: we want love that is universal and impermeable to stress, disease, corrosion. We want someone to love us regardless of what we do. And that's never, ever, going to happen, even though someone may tell us that they do love us in that way. Which is why how we communicate, and whether we communicate, about our relationship matters a great deal. The harder truth is perhaps that we have to keep showing the person we love we are worthy of their love after the drug of initial lust has worn off.
And that's funny. It is funny because, if we had the criteria that a relationship required absent the initial drug-type phase, then we might not pick the same damn partner we ended up picking because of all of our heady emotions. Which is to say that it is incredibly hard to navigate the field of potential partners and find the one that will work out best in the long term, not because predictions are very difficult, but because we delude ourselves at the early stages of relationships to believe that our emotions are more sincere and more lasting than they might actually be.
Friday, August 26, 2011
Beware of Confidence
Unfortunately, we often trust confidence intrinsically. We like it when people speak up, when they make direct eye contact, when they shake firmly, and when they stand behind their assertions. The problem is that confidence doesn't beget truth, and that someone can be good at the confidence game but terribly wrong about the subject at hand.
This gets deeper, though, because it is true that a lot of the things we're personally confident about are things we're emotionally supportive of, which means that we can fool ourselves into thinking we're right, when in fact we're very wrong, instead we sit emotionally invested in our wrongness. We really want to believe that what we believe is right. The latest diet, the latest partner, the latest career move. We crave certainty like we crave release, and in a way it does provide release. A productive self-examined life isn't a very fun life. At least not in the short term.
Personally, I've always had a tendency to essentialize some schema onto the world around me and decide that it was the most irreducible structure of relations, or motivations, or [name your phenomena], but I've been wrong more than I've been right, and if I'd have been more flexible in the past, I'd have suffered less--or been productive more. I hope. If it is just irrelevant whether I've been wrong or right, well, then I can see how meaningless life could get, how one might want to manufacture confidence for the sake of certainty, how it could be easy to repeat phrases to try to get a hold or lose a hold or just exist without the torment for a few moments. I don't want to intuit answers though. I want to know them. Beware.
This gets deeper, though, because it is true that a lot of the things we're personally confident about are things we're emotionally supportive of, which means that we can fool ourselves into thinking we're right, when in fact we're very wrong, instead we sit emotionally invested in our wrongness. We really want to believe that what we believe is right. The latest diet, the latest partner, the latest career move. We crave certainty like we crave release, and in a way it does provide release. A productive self-examined life isn't a very fun life. At least not in the short term.
Personally, I've always had a tendency to essentialize some schema onto the world around me and decide that it was the most irreducible structure of relations, or motivations, or [name your phenomena], but I've been wrong more than I've been right, and if I'd have been more flexible in the past, I'd have suffered less--or been productive more. I hope. If it is just irrelevant whether I've been wrong or right, well, then I can see how meaningless life could get, how one might want to manufacture confidence for the sake of certainty, how it could be easy to repeat phrases to try to get a hold or lose a hold or just exist without the torment for a few moments. I don't want to intuit answers though. I want to know them. Beware.
Wednesday, August 24, 2011
Behavioral Modification
There's a strong feedback loop going on out there, and in here, right now. Smells vaguely of stale cheerios. I'm talking about how we seek out confirmation of our own activities--and importantly, our thoughts--through others. And those others, they're seeking the same stuff out at the same time.
Which is why it can be really refreshing to meet people who know what they want independently of others, and don't lack the courage to vocalize it to anyone [who might help them acquire it or impact their wants through restriction or accessibility].
So what provides this difference? Are these people less flexible? Isn't it better to get something done than to play a game of concession? Even if that thing isn't as perfect and ideal as the thing you or I thought of when we backed away from previous action because it wouldn't comport with our notion of perfection? Isn't it better to chose, to get one's hands dirty and know what it feels like to be dirty, for oneself if nobody else?
I think so, obviously. But we can't just decide to transition from the first type of person to these second. Behavioral modification isn't that easy. If we really want it, we have to pattern it, over and over, and re-train our minds. That means we'll have to be very, very, uncomfortable for some time into the future. But, like learning a language, what at first is a tongue twister slowly reveals itself to be natural, even thunk organically, and the only difference between the two, I think, is repetition, and a willingness to keep on trying.
Which is why it can be really refreshing to meet people who know what they want independently of others, and don't lack the courage to vocalize it to anyone [who might help them acquire it or impact their wants through restriction or accessibility].
So what provides this difference? Are these people less flexible? Isn't it better to get something done than to play a game of concession? Even if that thing isn't as perfect and ideal as the thing you or I thought of when we backed away from previous action because it wouldn't comport with our notion of perfection? Isn't it better to chose, to get one's hands dirty and know what it feels like to be dirty, for oneself if nobody else?
I think so, obviously. But we can't just decide to transition from the first type of person to these second. Behavioral modification isn't that easy. If we really want it, we have to pattern it, over and over, and re-train our minds. That means we'll have to be very, very, uncomfortable for some time into the future. But, like learning a language, what at first is a tongue twister slowly reveals itself to be natural, even thunk organically, and the only difference between the two, I think, is repetition, and a willingness to keep on trying.
Tuesday, August 23, 2011
They're spraying pesticide in the streets.
Something about west nile virus and close your windows, ladies and gents, and there's a small man with a toupee and a wire in one hand, and old fashioned bulbous nose and a styrofoam raincoat that figures to be the same color as the wall, and he's got the penthouse, and I'm in the basement, but I swear he's looking right at me, right over the hump that is the middle of his face, and he's telling me to smile, and frowning upon my reluctance, and he's switching and buckling his shoes and there's a chair with thick red upholstery, fan blades made of something hi-test, whirligigs and raindrops, plain as black tea.
Parent's Really Don't Matter That Much
I'm listening to the latest freakonomics podcast, the Economist's Guide to Parenting, and it is worth checking out, especially if you think that, as a parent, you need to micromanage everything about your child's environment to foreclose the possibility of mental maladjustment. It just isn't true.
Monday, August 22, 2011
Authority. What You Really Need.
We all have preferences. And we all want to satisfy those preferences the best we can. So we decide we want some thing, let's say a guitar or a pair of shoes, and we and we decide it based on a set of criteria. And we go out into the world and we buy something or acquire something we think satisfies our criteria.
What we don't like very much when some party, say a friend, or a casual acquaintance, tells us, without us first asking, what could or would satisfy our preference better than what we decided independently would do so. We especially don't like it when a friend tells us that our methodology for ascertaining what would best satisfy our preferences is wrong or could be improved. To carry the analogy forward: if we're in the market for running shoes and our friend tells us that adidas is a better brand than nike, and that they'd be better for us, because of arch support, or some other reason, our friend has in a sense co-opted our ability to decipher what is best for us. The second example is more pernicious. In it, our friend tells us that we are wrong about our desire to buy sneakers because we should go biking instead, and should buy a bike, or the friend cuts deeper: running and exercise is a waste a time and what you really need is . . .
Which is all to say that the friend or relative asserts some level of authority over you when he or she suggests a different pair of shoes or a different mode of obtaining enjoyment generally. And that, I think, it is the balance between sharing this reasoning process with others that provides the basis for friendship or animosity. In other words, whether we share this process with others, open up to them as it were, and how deeply we do it, and importantly, how fast it happens, and what the market is that guides our ultimate decisions--what range of possibilities are for our criteria--will ultimatley determine who we associate with.
A few notable items. There are a fair amount of instances when our friend will be right and we'll be wrong. For example, when he or she has more information about the subject at hand, or more experience (or both). A lot of times deciding whether to accept or reject advice is much more about style: how was it received? After all, if the friend is in a better position to make a decision, you, by definition, cannot adjudicate between the advice and your own decision making process/outputs. Not until you get more experience or knowledge, that is.
Second, to survive and exist, we can't just go around listening to everyone. We need to have some filter for ascertaining who will be better than we are ourselves at certain problems that we'll nontheless face. We need to be able to find indicia that gives us some knowledge of someone else's superior knowledge.
Third, even if someone can give us better answers for specific problems, how those answers fit into our lives is still something we need our own judgment for. After all, the advice we seek isn't always product related, it is behavioral. How should we act? How should we respond? There's a tremendous amount of stress that's associated with ambiguity, and a consequent pressure to find certainty. That pressure definitely cuts both ways.
What we don't like very much when some party, say a friend, or a casual acquaintance, tells us, without us first asking, what could or would satisfy our preference better than what we decided independently would do so. We especially don't like it when a friend tells us that our methodology for ascertaining what would best satisfy our preferences is wrong or could be improved. To carry the analogy forward: if we're in the market for running shoes and our friend tells us that adidas is a better brand than nike, and that they'd be better for us, because of arch support, or some other reason, our friend has in a sense co-opted our ability to decipher what is best for us. The second example is more pernicious. In it, our friend tells us that we are wrong about our desire to buy sneakers because we should go biking instead, and should buy a bike, or the friend cuts deeper: running and exercise is a waste a time and what you really need is . . .
Which is all to say that the friend or relative asserts some level of authority over you when he or she suggests a different pair of shoes or a different mode of obtaining enjoyment generally. And that, I think, it is the balance between sharing this reasoning process with others that provides the basis for friendship or animosity. In other words, whether we share this process with others, open up to them as it were, and how deeply we do it, and importantly, how fast it happens, and what the market is that guides our ultimate decisions--what range of possibilities are for our criteria--will ultimatley determine who we associate with.
A few notable items. There are a fair amount of instances when our friend will be right and we'll be wrong. For example, when he or she has more information about the subject at hand, or more experience (or both). A lot of times deciding whether to accept or reject advice is much more about style: how was it received? After all, if the friend is in a better position to make a decision, you, by definition, cannot adjudicate between the advice and your own decision making process/outputs. Not until you get more experience or knowledge, that is.
Second, to survive and exist, we can't just go around listening to everyone. We need to have some filter for ascertaining who will be better than we are ourselves at certain problems that we'll nontheless face. We need to be able to find indicia that gives us some knowledge of someone else's superior knowledge.
Third, even if someone can give us better answers for specific problems, how those answers fit into our lives is still something we need our own judgment for. After all, the advice we seek isn't always product related, it is behavioral. How should we act? How should we respond? There's a tremendous amount of stress that's associated with ambiguity, and a consequent pressure to find certainty. That pressure definitely cuts both ways.
Wednesday, August 17, 2011
Sewage in NYC redux--Can this possibly be true?
So, I recently read this article in the wall street jounral, Deluge Overloads City Sewers, wherein Phillip Musegaas, the Hudson River program director for Riverkeeper is quoted as saying that the city's sewage city absorbs approximately 27 billion gallons of sewage a year. So what does this work out to, per person, per day? As in, if you are a denizen or tourist of NYC, how much average sewage do you produce?
Well, let's do some simple math. 27 billion is 27,000,000,000. Now, the population of NYC is about 8 million, or 8,000,000, and the yearly tourist population of nyc is 50 million, or 50,000,000. And then there's a whole bunch of commuters. So let's start by getting the total sewage produced in a particular day in nyc:
27,000,000,000/365 = 73,972,603. Okay, so 73 million gallons produced in a day.
Now, there's 8 million people. On any given day, let's say 1 million are gone, out traveling, but in-flows for commuters should be accounted for too. We need a rough estimate here. So let's say there are 18 million people in the Metropolitan Statistical area, so 10 million outside of NYC proper, and half of them commute on given day. So, 8 million plus 5 million is roughly 13 million on a given day, though the 5 million are confined to, let's say, 8 hours day of shitting or pissing time (and let's not take into account, or worry too greatly, about the shit and piss they exude on the trains in or out of the city. I don't want to figure out where that stuff is emptied out. Okay, for tourists we've got a 50,000,000/365 = 136,986 a day figure. Total now at 13,136,986 people and a total of 73,972,603 gallons of sewage.
12,136,986 (13,136,986-1 million outflow) /73,972,603 = 6.09 gallons of sewage produced per person.
Rough estimate, I know.
Well, let's do some simple math. 27 billion is 27,000,000,000. Now, the population of NYC is about 8 million, or 8,000,000, and the yearly tourist population of nyc is 50 million, or 50,000,000. And then there's a whole bunch of commuters. So let's start by getting the total sewage produced in a particular day in nyc:
27,000,000,000/365 = 73,972,603. Okay, so 73 million gallons produced in a day.
Now, there's 8 million people. On any given day, let's say 1 million are gone, out traveling, but in-flows for commuters should be accounted for too. We need a rough estimate here. So let's say there are 18 million people in the Metropolitan Statistical area, so 10 million outside of NYC proper, and half of them commute on given day. So, 8 million plus 5 million is roughly 13 million on a given day, though the 5 million are confined to, let's say, 8 hours day of shitting or pissing time (and let's not take into account, or worry too greatly, about the shit and piss they exude on the trains in or out of the city. I don't want to figure out where that stuff is emptied out. Okay, for tourists we've got a 50,000,000/365 = 136,986 a day figure. Total now at 13,136,986 people and a total of 73,972,603 gallons of sewage.
12,136,986 (13,136,986-1 million outflow) /73,972,603 = 6.09 gallons of sewage produced per person.
Rough estimate, I know.
Monday, August 15, 2011
Uniquely Yourself.
Lots of thoughts going on in my head this weekend, and obviously none have made it out to these electronic pages, mostly because I don't have internet at home. This provided me a net increase in efficiency doing other things, mostly writing and then, yesterday, spending about five hours staring at a spreadsheet for work that even now lurks below this page. Which is to say that, while internet is a nice convenience, it sure does distract, despite the best intentions. I did manage to sync up a new mp3 player a bit with some music, so now have Joni Mitchell to accompany me at work.
Anyway, no real time right now. Here's what I wanted to mention. Folks who have the courage to be uniquely themselves, I think, have more satisfying lives, or are more honest about it, and even more importantly, have interactions with others that aren't full of unncessary claustrophobia or social panic, and eventually find their own voice--even if, that voice isn't unique or exceptional. I say that because I'm reading Raymond Chandler's "The Long Goodbye" right now, and think he is uniquely himself in so many ways, and sure, he can't help but drag along a host of stereotypes and cliche. That's okay. The point of life isn't so much to find purity or religion. It is to be okay with yourself, take a breath, and not take everything so seriously all the time, if at all possible. After all, soon we'll all be dead anyway.
And here I have a two tea bag cup of tea that's almost black. I don't have coffee. I will abstain, after two days of indulgence. What's the point? I don't have to have one. I can just do what I like for now. In this limited scope. (Imagine the contrary, wherein I couldn't pick my breakfast beverage of choice!). Which is to say, I don't have to justify to myself my own decisions as if I was a different person but still within the same skin. I will not respond to the little voice inside that's tugging on my shirt right now, trying to argue something inchoately, trying to find a way to help me skate along a lake of doubt that's no more frozen and solid than the Hudson right now.
Anyway, no real time right now. Here's what I wanted to mention. Folks who have the courage to be uniquely themselves, I think, have more satisfying lives, or are more honest about it, and even more importantly, have interactions with others that aren't full of unncessary claustrophobia or social panic, and eventually find their own voice--even if, that voice isn't unique or exceptional. I say that because I'm reading Raymond Chandler's "The Long Goodbye" right now, and think he is uniquely himself in so many ways, and sure, he can't help but drag along a host of stereotypes and cliche. That's okay. The point of life isn't so much to find purity or religion. It is to be okay with yourself, take a breath, and not take everything so seriously all the time, if at all possible. After all, soon we'll all be dead anyway.
And here I have a two tea bag cup of tea that's almost black. I don't have coffee. I will abstain, after two days of indulgence. What's the point? I don't have to have one. I can just do what I like for now. In this limited scope. (Imagine the contrary, wherein I couldn't pick my breakfast beverage of choice!). Which is to say, I don't have to justify to myself my own decisions as if I was a different person but still within the same skin. I will not respond to the little voice inside that's tugging on my shirt right now, trying to argue something inchoately, trying to find a way to help me skate along a lake of doubt that's no more frozen and solid than the Hudson right now.
Friday, August 12, 2011
College is Useless, at least for formal education.
Most of what college does is select people into groups. That grouping, and learning the ins and outs of how one behaves in that group, is what matters, and what college teaches us, even if we don't end up going at all.
That's of course, because I studied liberal arts type stuff. If I had studied physics or engineering, or even psychology (like I originally wanted, but didn't because both of my parents already did that and I wanted to be different (which was stupid, since, ya know, they might have been able to actually help me)), which was a science at my school, or math, or biology, or computer science, I might have learned something.
See, now I do believe that we actually have to have substance and knowledge in our heads before we can be critical of that substance and knowledge. And it turns out that it takes many, many years to get substance and knowledge. Which is to say that specializing is good, and necessary, and that having too many options isn't that good. I know, I know, if you are forced down one path, it might not be valued in the same way, but it is my opinion that we've extended adolescence into adulthood far too long,.
Which is to say that freedom of speech is over-rated and we should worry less about how unique we are and just understand that we're really small and that we understand very little, and that even with extraordinary effort and huge amounts of time, we still only understand another sliver of a very small piece of the pie of understanding.
That's of course, because I studied liberal arts type stuff. If I had studied physics or engineering, or even psychology (like I originally wanted, but didn't because both of my parents already did that and I wanted to be different (which was stupid, since, ya know, they might have been able to actually help me)), which was a science at my school, or math, or biology, or computer science, I might have learned something.
See, now I do believe that we actually have to have substance and knowledge in our heads before we can be critical of that substance and knowledge. And it turns out that it takes many, many years to get substance and knowledge. Which is to say that specializing is good, and necessary, and that having too many options isn't that good. I know, I know, if you are forced down one path, it might not be valued in the same way, but it is my opinion that we've extended adolescence into adulthood far too long,.
Which is to say that freedom of speech is over-rated and we should worry less about how unique we are and just understand that we're really small and that we understand very little, and that even with extraordinary effort and huge amounts of time, we still only understand another sliver of a very small piece of the pie of understanding.
Focus. Focus.
I'm aware that I need to focus, the close the loop on this blog, and actually, ya know, thematize it, brand it, make it my own. I'm not yet sure how to do that. Not having internet access at home doesn't help. I suppose this could be a good time to insert a bit about how my life is also directionless, and how I haven't really settled into any particular theme or brand regarding myself, but that would probably be a little too self-pitying for nine in the morning. Anyway, I feel particularly blank and unconnected right now, and should probably go do something else. My subjective nausea doesn't even rise to a level of specificity that allows me to communicate it in words. Sorry.
Wednesday, August 10, 2011
Money Makes Us Rude.
When we have interactions that involve an exchange of money, we don't have to take into account the person with whom we interact in any way outside of the money. They are compensated for their service, and that [the money] is all we owe them. We put on a false veneer of niceness, of empathy, but we don't care. We care about the object of our desire, the object we receive for the money.
At the same time, we pay for service workers to be nice to us when we consume the goods they provide. [Coffee shop is good example of this.] We don't have to take seriously their overtures, because we know they're being paid (partially by our funds) to be nice to us. We can chose to be nice or not to be nice. More often than not, giving money exhausts our moral altruistic reserves, and we can be neutral, or even mean and demanding, depending on how we view the service.
Contrast this with an exchange of food or drink in someone's home when we're not paying [directly]. There, we make a point of bringing unnecessary items (like bottles of wine or flowers) to show our pre-gratitude, and we never mention money at all. In fact, friendship might be defined as mutual reciprocity without funding. Because when we monetize our emotions, we don't have to feel them anymore. The money has done it for us.
What the implications are for this in a consumer/service driven society aren't totally clear, except that the class of people who are used to being served to and paying for it don't see anything wrong with the fact that another class of people literally serves them. But I bet if you asked the servers themselves, the story wouldn't be as clear as "well they pay me money so I serve them"--i think it would be "I have to do this to make money and live, so I do what I must to get by." And that's a very different attitude.
Which is why I also think that when you hang out with people who have or are used to having money (and especially sons and daughters of inherited wealth who might not have to work if they didn't want to) you see a funny thing: nobody talks directly about money (sure, it is discussed on a macro level). Revealing how much money you have, or how much you paid, in these circles, is sacrilegious. Yet, the same people will gladly accept that others should serve them coffee, tea, bread, bagels, omelets, tuna sandwiches, and salmon, all because they're paying.
At the fanciest of restaurants, perhaps prices are omitted from the menu, though, so we can all just enjoy the food for once.
At the same time, we pay for service workers to be nice to us when we consume the goods they provide. [Coffee shop is good example of this.] We don't have to take seriously their overtures, because we know they're being paid (partially by our funds) to be nice to us. We can chose to be nice or not to be nice. More often than not, giving money exhausts our moral altruistic reserves, and we can be neutral, or even mean and demanding, depending on how we view the service.
Contrast this with an exchange of food or drink in someone's home when we're not paying [directly]. There, we make a point of bringing unnecessary items (like bottles of wine or flowers) to show our pre-gratitude, and we never mention money at all. In fact, friendship might be defined as mutual reciprocity without funding. Because when we monetize our emotions, we don't have to feel them anymore. The money has done it for us.
What the implications are for this in a consumer/service driven society aren't totally clear, except that the class of people who are used to being served to and paying for it don't see anything wrong with the fact that another class of people literally serves them. But I bet if you asked the servers themselves, the story wouldn't be as clear as "well they pay me money so I serve them"--i think it would be "I have to do this to make money and live, so I do what I must to get by." And that's a very different attitude.
Which is why I also think that when you hang out with people who have or are used to having money (and especially sons and daughters of inherited wealth who might not have to work if they didn't want to) you see a funny thing: nobody talks directly about money (sure, it is discussed on a macro level). Revealing how much money you have, or how much you paid, in these circles, is sacrilegious. Yet, the same people will gladly accept that others should serve them coffee, tea, bread, bagels, omelets, tuna sandwiches, and salmon, all because they're paying.
At the fanciest of restaurants, perhaps prices are omitted from the menu, though, so we can all just enjoy the food for once.
Tuesday, August 9, 2011
Lacking Dreams
Dream #1: Snow, heavy and wet, deep. Open field. Walking through snow. Dark jeans, damp, full of water. Not cold. The material of the snow holds an artificial almost papery quality. I see objective reality and am not disabused of my subjective state that the snow is completely fake, arbitrary. That it could be summer. Easily. And that I cold be driving through tunnel of trees. Across the field, I begin to talk; everything was spelled out perfectly in my mind. I vomit.
Dream #2. Underwater, maybe 20 feet. Surface of water looks silver, liquid, terminator skin stretched out until I'm on the inside. My hair is pulled by giant hand. Suction motion ensues. The top of my scalp comes off. I look down and have no body. My legs are running through sharp saplings with thorns and the juice of wild berries cuts across my cheeks. They taste tart, like strong yogurt strained down and without sugar.
Dream #3. I ride back and forth in a merry-go-round of sorts, various different animals make their way from the forest to entreat me outward. I work up the courage and find a thin sheet of plastic wrap on the outside of the carousel. There are projectors stationed everywhere. They shoot thick gel light onto the shrink wrap. Large fingers come in with dirty nails, touch me where I cannot stop them. Select me, reveal me, birth me, eat me. I am consumed. I am food.
Dream #2. Underwater, maybe 20 feet. Surface of water looks silver, liquid, terminator skin stretched out until I'm on the inside. My hair is pulled by giant hand. Suction motion ensues. The top of my scalp comes off. I look down and have no body. My legs are running through sharp saplings with thorns and the juice of wild berries cuts across my cheeks. They taste tart, like strong yogurt strained down and without sugar.
Dream #3. I ride back and forth in a merry-go-round of sorts, various different animals make their way from the forest to entreat me outward. I work up the courage and find a thin sheet of plastic wrap on the outside of the carousel. There are projectors stationed everywhere. They shoot thick gel light onto the shrink wrap. Large fingers come in with dirty nails, touch me where I cannot stop them. Select me, reveal me, birth me, eat me. I am consumed. I am food.
Monday, August 8, 2011
Happiness equals Laziness?
Happiness begets laziness. You don't think so? Think about happy activities, when you're satisfied? What are you doing during those times? Well, most of us, on average, are consuming something, and we're generally sitting to do it.
Well, I don't always buy it either. But from an evolutionary sense, we shouldn't stay too happy for too long, or we won't get up and do other stuff, and we won't survive. And if this is the case, finding some permanent static ideal happiness is as ephemeral, as well, the time it takes to adapt to something new. That is, diminishing returns on chocolate consumption, for instance, make sense. If I personally kept getting the same pleasure from every piece of chocolate that I got from the first piece, I know I wouldn't do much else besides eat chocolate.
Which is all to say that it is hard to trick our brain's reward circuitry. Some even posit that anti-depressants that serve to increase serotonin are recognized by the brain, and you (or me) actually adjust to their presence--that is, your brain adjusts serotonin production down.
Which is also all to say that a lot of hard emotions are wired in at a pre-determined level. So we can't change that them much. What we should do to stay the happiest is to change up the happiness getting game often, make those changes slowly (right at the moment we've become accustomed to the first stimuli) and restrict ourselves. That is, not be happy most of the time so that we maximize our happiness when we do get it. There's an zero-sum game of happiness out there. Don't fuck with it.
Well, I don't always buy it either. But from an evolutionary sense, we shouldn't stay too happy for too long, or we won't get up and do other stuff, and we won't survive. And if this is the case, finding some permanent static ideal happiness is as ephemeral, as well, the time it takes to adapt to something new. That is, diminishing returns on chocolate consumption, for instance, make sense. If I personally kept getting the same pleasure from every piece of chocolate that I got from the first piece, I know I wouldn't do much else besides eat chocolate.
Which is all to say that it is hard to trick our brain's reward circuitry. Some even posit that anti-depressants that serve to increase serotonin are recognized by the brain, and you (or me) actually adjust to their presence--that is, your brain adjusts serotonin production down.
Which is also all to say that a lot of hard emotions are wired in at a pre-determined level. So we can't change that them much. What we should do to stay the happiest is to change up the happiness getting game often, make those changes slowly (right at the moment we've become accustomed to the first stimuli) and restrict ourselves. That is, not be happy most of the time so that we maximize our happiness when we do get it. There's an zero-sum game of happiness out there. Don't fuck with it.
Sunday, August 7, 2011
Smoking
It seems obvious to me, as I watch other people smoke, and thinking about my own smoking in the past, that smoking allows fantasy. It connects us with a perception of ourselves that is higher, different, exotic, and better, in some way. It is fundamentally and squarely within the pleasure of now, of exuding image. It goes without saying that smoking is highly addictive chemically. Anyway, I wanted to connect this capacity for consumption and the ability to transport ourselves mentally. I wonder why it is such a severe instinct, to distinguish ourselves to ourselves. I think we're delusional half the time we're walking around, half the time we desire objects like this, consumptive objects. I know that I can be compulsively delusional in this respect, and cigarettes are just the beginning. Anyway, these habits, these little asides, mini-dreams, can provide us with the fodder, the hope, to work hard, I think, but this type of motivation is limited, and has the potential to convolute our other objectives.
Friday, August 5, 2011
The Way Self-Doubt Works
First, you have an interaction with someone. There's the surface of the conversation, and there's also a cave underneath, a secret bit of excavation that isn't done quite deliberately. Nevertheless, after the interchange--and mind you the interchange itself is likewise prosaic, as ordinary as it comes--you let yourself slip into this cave, put on a different prescription, and you re-evaluate the very same words, often multiple times and in exceeding permuations based on the cusp of tone that your memory isn't totally solid about, though it begins to grow into a damning certainty over the course of several minutes or hours, until you've found yourself totally flattened, submerged, and unable to breathe. You find yourself isolated. The conversation was a perfect conclusion to a perfectly meaningless life.
At this point there are two ways to go.
1) Doubt your submerged self's instincts and force a rosy picture onto the situation (or at least a neutral view)
2) Allow the doubts to take root and grow fast and strong, and let them burst them damning restraints of the cave that you've dug yourself in glorious fireworks of indignation, anger, and wrath. Hold a grudge against this person, and know who "they" are deep down.
I think when we choose option (2) we do a great disservice to our relationships. Of course option (1) is a bit damning as well. Niether are ideal. Both happen I think more than the middle road of balance. Option (1) is harder to spot.
At this point there are two ways to go.
1) Doubt your submerged self's instincts and force a rosy picture onto the situation (or at least a neutral view)
2) Allow the doubts to take root and grow fast and strong, and let them burst them damning restraints of the cave that you've dug yourself in glorious fireworks of indignation, anger, and wrath. Hold a grudge against this person, and know who "they" are deep down.
I think when we choose option (2) we do a great disservice to our relationships. Of course option (1) is a bit damning as well. Niether are ideal. Both happen I think more than the middle road of balance. Option (1) is harder to spot.
Our Eyes (and Brains) are Limited.
Note for the day. Our eyes can only see a small amoutn of detail at once. They actually scan the area around us, something called saccades, to create the visual field that we know and love in all its continuity. When we get very drunk, these saccades slow down, and the visual world is not continuously detailed, or stitched together. It is how we would really see it if our eyes didn't jump around to fill in the blanks. Hence the blurriness.
Wednesday, August 3, 2011
Love.
What is love? A simple question, with complex overtones (oak barrels and hints of coffee!). It is not finding perfection in the sense that we'll never have to work again, either to better ourselves or to accomplish some external goal. It is not the ability to know that you've found the one person that you can share your life with to the exclusion of all others. It definitely is not found in the most exquisite restaurants, or in the fanciest cars, and it isn't owning a home or finding a smooth quality in your vowels when you speak about a certain person. It isn't lust. And it isn't the first year or so of any relationship, no matter how intense, or what anyone says. No, love emerges, I think, over time, when two people actually change their own personalities in subtle ways to make room for another personality within their own subjective evaluation of the world. It is an inter-subjectivity that is at once consonant and dissonant, and it is constantly moving, too. It fights. It bites. It brushes teeth, and farts, and it feels secure. It feels almost infinitely secure, with only the hint of loss that could come from experience, and the knowledge that longevity and spontaneity can successfully mate.
Intense Pressure Yields Mistakes?
Today I had what I felt was some intense pressure to accomplish a goal. I wasn't sure where to turn. The pressure resulted from a time limit on my activities to produce. The task was simple. Yet, I couldn't do it. I couldn't think clearly at all. Instead, I jumped from one place to another (one data set to another) and dug myself little meaningless holes for about an hour, until I was yelled at by my boss. Then, for whatever reason, I completed the task within ten minutes. The issue was that the data set I was first using was dug up (pulled from a larger data set) by someone else, and wasn't current. I had to sort of back into some numbers to figure out what was correct, but I did it. And I did it really fast. And efficiently, if you don't count the first hour of frenetic bullshit. My question is: how to freeze out the first hour and just act.
Tuesday, August 2, 2011
Life is All We've Got. That, and Whole Foods.
I know, it isn't an easy conclusion. Or maybe too simple? But it is the truth, with a capitalized, lower-case "t" that strives to be blend into the splash of coffee drool I planted down next to it. Life, it's what we've got, like Pork, and the other white meat. You know? We have to take care of ourselves. It makes sense that we care about living, and that we get all up in arms when there are threats, even though we're kind of bad at evaluating their intensity.
In other words, if this is it, and there's no great cosmic gig in the sky, then how we live matters. Not because we'll be judged on it one day. But because it matters, literally. We fuck up now, and that's it. There are no birthday cakes in heaven. There are no great grandfathers to proclaim value, inherent and intrinsic and intractable. There is only the legs under our butts, and the feet under there, and yes, we can survive and even thrive after some hard accidents, no doubt. Let's just not proclaim that there's some place to go where we either get paid off for the next 1000 years or we become coal for someone else's simmery oil glazed honey dew vegatable shish.
And speaking of food, whole foods carries some pure shit, and expensive too, and they've successfully not only fetishized but almost birthed an industry that caters the organic, inflexibly non-polluted or messed with, i.e. non-dirty, food, that all those non-religious highly secular monied liberals love to love like someone else we know intimately from a big book of fables. Except the consumption of pure food is beyond religion, because it isn't told in religious terms. Or maybe that puts it squre in the middle, I don't know. Either way, there's something serious going on over there, and tasty too. And primal, in its own little controlled way. Just like us. Which is probably why we love it and hate simultaneously. Grilled to perfection, and ready for purchase. Fresh. Neat. Organized. Birthed. Sacrified. Worshipped. Shat. Out.
And one more time, here we go dosey doe.
In other words, if this is it, and there's no great cosmic gig in the sky, then how we live matters. Not because we'll be judged on it one day. But because it matters, literally. We fuck up now, and that's it. There are no birthday cakes in heaven. There are no great grandfathers to proclaim value, inherent and intrinsic and intractable. There is only the legs under our butts, and the feet under there, and yes, we can survive and even thrive after some hard accidents, no doubt. Let's just not proclaim that there's some place to go where we either get paid off for the next 1000 years or we become coal for someone else's simmery oil glazed honey dew vegatable shish.
And speaking of food, whole foods carries some pure shit, and expensive too, and they've successfully not only fetishized but almost birthed an industry that caters the organic, inflexibly non-polluted or messed with, i.e. non-dirty, food, that all those non-religious highly secular monied liberals love to love like someone else we know intimately from a big book of fables. Except the consumption of pure food is beyond religion, because it isn't told in religious terms. Or maybe that puts it squre in the middle, I don't know. Either way, there's something serious going on over there, and tasty too. And primal, in its own little controlled way. Just like us. Which is probably why we love it and hate simultaneously. Grilled to perfection, and ready for purchase. Fresh. Neat. Organized. Birthed. Sacrified. Worshipped. Shat. Out.
And one more time, here we go dosey doe.
Wrapping Your Head Around A Theme..Specificity
I'm not sure if other people are like this, but I feel a lot of emotions in a very abstract way. But they are thick heavy emotions that can take control over me, manifest themselves physically at times, and generally change the very color of the world around me. It has always been the case with me, and I've always thought that other people have this too. I might be wrong. I don't know. The point is only this: if I hope to have any peace with myself, I must describe how it is I feel, how I perceive things, as accurately as possible, with enough specificity to make those things full and honest and real, and with enough concreteness to keep them grounded. In short, I have to push myself to seek not just accuracy, or details, but that "something" more that I've always felt, and always struggled trying to communicate. Once I can get a handle on that admittedly abstract thing, I know I'll feel better, a little more sane. And of course, I'll want to get a handle on more of it, to keep going. That's the funny thing about completing any such project. It keeps going in new forms. It can never really settle.
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