Going For a Swim With a Hollow Holiday Untopic

I heard that today is some holiday, but I don’t have time for that sort of thing. Dressing up in macabre costumes has always seemed like an open invitation for closet exhibitionists and voyeurs to be spontaneous (ironically through formalized activities), while being prompted by their need to conform and be accepted by society… but then it is also fun for the kids. It’s a very confusing holiday. I don’t think holidays were meant to be this confusing. Nah, I’m not going to talk about ghouls and goblins. But I do want to address overcoming our demons — which is no more than our own selves. When someone comes to trick-or-treat at the door of your soul, it's you.

Historically, I’ve motivated myself through goals, then by having people there to catch me if/when I fall, winding me back up again and pointing me in the right direction, reminding me how to keep chugging away. Keeping my sights on the target, even if I happen to still be far from it, allows me to focus on the fact that the work I’m doing will come to fruition and be worth it all.

Let’s go back circa August 2008, and you can interpolate from the photo (superimposed to show the swimmers right next to each other) that Michael Phelps (left) won the 100m butterfly final in Beijing in part because he had the right form. He kept his body lined up and kept churning away. He trusted the process, honed it, and made it work for him. It works the same whether you’re ahead or trying to catch up. There are no substitutes for a full effort. Shortcuts for these things don't exist.

Watching the race, you can’t come away from it thinking that Phelps could have tried any harder than he did. He put forth a total effort. He had to. Anything less, and it would have been silver. Every little bit makes a difference in our lives. Phelps and Serbian swimmer Milorad Cavic were 1/100th of a second apart. Phelps was merely a bent finger away from not getting those 8 gold medals. Go ahead, bend your finger and see how easy that is to do. Now project that on a race where you’re moving all parts of your body continuously for 50 seconds, and you’ve just swung your arms over the top of your head, with adrenaline going full speed. There was no room for error in this race. One twitch anywhere and Michael Phelps would have lost. In fact, he was trailing in the race up until about the last .02 seconds of it. Look at all the ground Phelps had to make up when Cavic was less than 2 feet from the finish. How was it possible? Why did he even keep trying?

But Phelps didn’t panic. He just stayed with the plan. Observe the next frame below. His arms are still straight, his legs still aerodynamic, and he still hasn't started coasting. His face is down, and he’s not looking for the wall. Instead, he trusts that it will be there, and he’s not slowing down until he goes through it, not just to it. He didn’t give up merely because it looked impossible. Everything is impossible until it isn’t. Notice in this shot that Cavic is only about 4 inches from the end, while Phelps has about 2 feet to go.

With all this in mind, it's important to note that at no point was Phelps intimidated. He met the challenge head on, knocked it down, and beat the living tar out of it. He was unflappable.

I watch that race over and over, and I can’t figure out how Michael Phelps managed to win it. Cavic didn’t exactly slow down, and even though he had to reach at the end, it’s not unusual. Cavic ran a nearly perfect race. But Phelps did run the perfect race. Coming down the stretch, you can see Phelps gaining, yet the nearer they get to the end, it seems like Phelps just doesn’t have enough time to make up for the deficit.

Even when the race was over, it didn’t look like Phelps had won. It was an optical illusion. There’s no way someone could move their arms over their head from three feet away before someone else could swim six inches. The eyes can’t process an event like that and believe it in real-time. So everybody was ready to say that it was a valiant effort that came up just short. And then his name was flashed at the top of the scoreboard, his mom’s knees collapsed up in the stands in disbelief, and everyone was covering their heads, overcome by what they’d just seen… believing but not believing. The announcers were incredulous, trying to convince themselves it was true. That ‘1’ in Phelps’ lane apparently just couldn’t be willed away. It belonged to him. He owned it.

Michael Phelps would've made Winston Churchill proud, who once said in a speech, "Never give in — never, never, never, never, in nothing great or small, large or petty. "

To be inspired by others like this, who do their best and overcome obstacles to come out on top, is what it’s all about. We’ve all had some Michael Phelpses in our lives who show us how it’s done, and may be a source of encouragement for us to try harder. If they can do it, so can we, because there really are gold medals in all of us. It might not be in the 100m butterfly while the whole world is watching. It might be in the back yard playing with a 3-year-old and making them feel loved, or coming to terms with your own weaknesses, or smiling when you don’t feel like it, or expanding your mind to new possibilities, or being there for someone who’s having problems in the race. In large part, we get to create our own venues for where our races are run. We can’t do everything, but we can many times pick and choose those areas we deem most important, and then tell the starter that we’re ready to compete.

We also have to remember that although life is like a race, when it comes down to it we’re just racing against ourselves. We don’t really have to beat anyone else. When we’re in those lanes, it’s a bunch of other of our own selves — no Cavics to try to overtake. We’re striving for our best self. It’s true that all of our selves could take the easy route and just coast in, eventually finishing the race and making it look respectable. Or we could even appear to be trying hard but hold a lot of our energy in reserve since it requires so much. Or just maybe... we could reach deep down inside and give that extra effort that only we know whether we’re giving or not. That is what we’re competing against.

Is your life going to represent a gold medal effort, or something else? In life’s Olympics, we can all end up on the top step of that podium because anyone who wants to can be up there. Don’t be satisfied with anything less than gold. Awake your inner Olympian. This is your mission, Mr. Phelps, should you decide to accept it…
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Video of the ending

(in this view, Phelps is on the far end and Cavic is closer to the camera)

Lost Towns

Being fond of atypical things myself, the humble town of Unalaska recently caught my eye. I came across it a few months ago while browsing the world, gazing up toward the frozen north. You never know what you’re going to find if you just look around to see what’s out there. It’s a place in Alaska, so I’m thinking what… the two cancel each other out? The postal address would say “Unalaska, Alaska”, which is kind of like saying “Negative, Positive,” “Backward, Forward,” “Undo, Redo,” like two opposing forces. But maybe on second thought it’s all about yin and yang. Perhaps Unalaska covers that other end of the spectrum that Alaska doesn’t, and they're a complement to one another.

The whole persona of Unalaska struck me as unusually unabashed in its scope. You’ve got to be pretty confident to call yourself Un-anything. I did find out later that I was mispronouncing the name. It’s actually a long ‘u’ sound, which is too bad, because anything with ‘un’ ought to be like the UnCola or Alice in Wonderland’s Unbirthday. (By the way, a very happy unbirthday to all of you out there who weren’t born on this day) Also, the second ‘a’ is the short sound, as in ‘ash’. But that makes sense, because ‘banana’ is the same way.


Unalaska is more than just a blip on the map — it’s a highly interesting blip. It’s very isolated from the world due to its unique circumstances. It surrounds itself in a group of small islands in Alaska’s archipelago, which I like to say any chance I get since it’s such a fun word. The archipelago is known as the Aleutian Islands, which consists of over 300 separate land masses, protruding 1,200 miles from the Alaskan Peninsula. So Unalaska could be misperceived as an Aleutian, but the further you discover about it, it becomes evident that it’s more real than any place on earth.

Unalaska is a port town, so ships come calling there often. Unalaska is so friendly that ocean craft of all types just gravitate toward it. It’s true that Unalaska is the 11th largest city in Alaska, however at an unassuming 3,800 people, it makes Palin’s Wasilla look like a noisy metropolis. There are only three cities in Alaska with more than 10,000 people, and I’m sure Juneau all of them.


From where I live in Oregon all the way to Unalaska, it's 3,696 miles, taking 3 days and 23 hours of traveling time to get there. And this is already starting from the west coast. That almost seems like a lifetime away, as if it’s a whole other surreal existence. The part of the trek just going through British Columbia and the Yukon Territory in Canada is 1,800 miles alone. After you get into Alaska and go past Anchorage, there are still ferry rides of 606 miles, 105 miles and 197 miles before finally reaching Unalaska.

So in order to get to Unalaska, you have to really want to go there, otherwise you could be easily distracted on the way. In short, nobody shows up there by accident. Everybody who’s there is there because that’s where their karma took them. There aren’t too many stragglers coming in on the ice floes.

It’s also interesting to note that going from Oregon to New York is shorter than going to Unalaska — by about 700 miles. But then anybody can go to New York. Where’s the adventure in that?

What would you do if you lived in Unalaska? The island is only 10 miles across, so there’s nowhere to speak of to drive. You could travel by boat to the neighboring islands, but there’s not much on them. Maybe you’d spend more time on the finer things in life instead of frivolous pursuits. You’d probably have a lot of good friends. For the heck of it, I’m thinking someday it would be fun to end up in Unalaska. There’s something pure about the whiteness of that region, and I have a feeling it would serve to cleanse the soul.

It’s just amazing to me that people live their lives in a locale such as this. They carry on in anonymity, the rest of the world oblivious to its majesty. And it’s comforting to know that there are completely out-of-the-way places like this where people can thrive. It gives one a sense of global community, and a tender sharing of Mother Earth.


Unalaska’s official website: http://unalaska-ak.us/
Wikipedia article on Unalaska: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unalaska

Kids' Sayings

Below is a collection of things our older kids said when they were younger. Their approximate ages at the time are in parentheses.
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Amanda (4): “Can we have gorilla cheese sandwiches?”
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Amanda (3): “Daddy, can you come play with me?”
Daddy: “I can’t right now, because I have a headache.”
(ten minutes later)
Amanda: “Daddy, are you done with your headache yet?”
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Daniel (4), explaining the physics of lightning: “The sky had a crack in it!”
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Daniel (4), describing the family drug policy “We don’t eat pills . . . but just apple pills.”
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Rusty (talking to a boy): “What’s your name, little boy?”
Daniel (4): “His mommy calls him Jonathan, so that’s probably his name.”
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Rusty: “Whose hair is this?” (holding up an 8-inch strand)
Daniel (4): “Daddy, it’s yours.”
Rusty: “My hair isn’t that long. See?”
Daniel: “But it was inside your head.”
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Daddy: “The air is cooler over at Aunt Renee’s, because they live next to the ocean.”
Daniel (4): “Yeah. But we live where the sun is.”
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Daddy: “Someday, you’ll be as tall as me, when you’re a grown-up.”
Daniel (4): “And I can eat some food whenever I want, huh?”
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Daniel (4) (to Daddy): “Draw our family. And draw the computer too, ‘cause it’s in our family.”
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Daddy (reading a Bible story): “And they preached to the robbers, and those who repented were set free, but those who did not repent were condemned and punished according to the law.”
Amanda (6): “And I’ll bet they were fired, too.”
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Amanda (6) had lost her third tooth recently, and we were at the dinner table. Uncle Ray asked her, “What are you going to eat with, Amanda?” and she promptly held up her fork.
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Kelvin (2) (holding up some glue stick): “Daddy, what’s this?”
Daddy: “That’s glue.”
Kelvin: “Goo? To paint your mouth?”
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Uncle Ray was wrestling around with Kelvin, and had him pinned on the floor—
Ray: “Who’s bigger?”
Kelvin (2): “Daddy.”
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Daniel (4): “Daddy, now when you have a birthday, you have big friends instead of little friends.”
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When told it was bedtime, Kelvin (2) got up on the kitchen table where he could reach the clock and pointed to one of the hands, and declared, “Two minutes to go to bed.”
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Daddy: “Do you want me to read a story about Jesus?”
Kelvin (2): “No, I want to read story ‘bout catapillas.”
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Amanda (7): "Daddy, how do you spell 'Corvette'?"
Rusty: "C-O-R-V-E-T-T-E."
Amanda: "Hmm... Mrs. Ira spelled it right."
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Kelvin (2): "The wind is blowing, so I'm gonna blow it back. Like this, with my lips."
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Amanda (7), using a calculator: "Daddy, how do I do a backspace?"
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When Audrey and I were leaving the kids with a babysitter so we could go to the Portland Temple . . .
Kelvin (2): "Are you and Mommy gonna get married?"
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Kelvin (2): "When the sun comes in my eyes, I hold up my jacket in front."
Rusty: "You hold it up in front of your face?"
Kelvin: "No, in front of the sun."
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Rusty: "To throw the paper airplane, you hold it right here."
Kelvin (2): (giving it a try) "But you let go..."
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Rusty: "How come ants and flies can walk on the wall?"
Amanda (7): "Because they don't weigh as much as we do."
Rusty: "But if you dropped them, they would still fall."
Amanda: "Flies wouldn't fall."
Daniel (5): "If you smack 'em, then they fall."
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Kelvin (2): "Your bones are inside of you so you can stand up. If you didn't, then you'd get squishy."
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The kids were doing computer puzzles . . .
Rusty: "Don't help Kelvin."
Daniel (5): "I'll just give him a hint."
Kelvin (2): "No, I'll give myself a hint."
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Rusty and Kelvin got in the car and were about to drive off.
Rusty: "Is everybody ready?"
Kelvin (4): "It's not everybody — it's just one buddy."
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Kelvin (4): "Zach's mom has a waterbed. If you take off the sheets you can see the water. The pillows don't sink, though, so it's just pretend water"
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Daniel (6) (explaining to Kelvin that he could be a football referee for Halloween): "You can be the one who blows a whistle if someone falls over."
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Daddy: "Daniel, I'm fixing your dinner."
Daniel (6): (smiling) "Why, does it have anything wrong with it?"
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Kelvin (4): "Rolly-pollies can roll up like a ball, and take turns using themselves as a basketball."
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Rusty told the kids about one time on his birthday when he was young, he went to the swimming pool, and got stung two times. Daniel (6) then said without hesitation, "I bet you didn't have a happy b-day."
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Daniel (6): "Here's the bee Mommy trapped in the window. It's not hurt or anything, but it's still dead."

Mood Appraisals, Pt. II

Originally I was going to write about verklempt next in this series of articles on moods, but instead I want to tackle melancholy, since it can fit the season so well.

Melancholy is one of the more underrated moods, suspended gracefully between positive and negative, faced toward the good while occasionally looking over its shoulder at impending doom, lending it an ambiguous air of muted exhiliration. This emotion has been gathering bad vibes through its association with darkened clouds, and consequently is perceived as gloomy, which is an unfortunate set of circumstances. The melancholy state can be quite cleansing in its pure form, often the result of being confused or having been stultified, only to grace the surface and break free from the foreshadowing clutches.

In its early stages, melancholy brings depth to the melee so that it is less elusive, and thereby manageable — a self-imposed life raft. From there it can develop into a myriad of substrata. Through the melancholy state, one may get the sense of drifting, and bumping off things without noticing them much, all the while uncertain what the next move should be, or even if one has such control. It’s a temporary loss of focus, yet if left unencumbered it can also produce its own gentle fog to calm the fears while the shore is being reached.

In the conventional sense, melancholy can bring down empires. Or even worse, it can produce writer’s blog, as we have all too clearly seen here in the past week. It can inadvertently fill the void with marinated esperanza. And it can serve papers to the winsome that Rastafari is in town. Basically, it can really mess up your mojo. But…

In the process, as melancholy takes one over jarring, fitful, meandering paths that rankle the delicate soul, in due course for the intrepid heart ultimately it leads to serendipitous respite, making it in conclusion worth its perilous journey.

I had once written a poem that captures the mood well for me, and it seems to fit now. Sometimes one writes poems for reasons unknown, only later to find a secure place for them. This one takes us through the early stages, leaving all to wonder the fate of nations.

The Wet of Water

A whisper in my imagination comes the damp wind of a life lived best on rainy days. With purpose, the campy sky descends and hovers in an embrace of terrain. Reluctant at first, a willow leads the trees to weep, all now tearfully content. Curiously, a lost dog dim in my sight, skipping around in and out of view. He loves the rain but tries to leave it. Every time, the dryness of shelter captures his interest only briefly; he must go back out and feel the drops. He'll swim and he'll drown, and he'll get dry again. I lose sight of him once more. He's gone. Vanished into the mist, though not escaped. More of the incessant pitter-patter, drip-drip. In lockstep with moods and regrets, the pouring cacophony persists. Dancing droplets spreading in distorted mirrored puddles revealing available light in short supply. Reflections of shiny promises that bounce up and meet the eye, inviting to join in a newness of strength. The rain reaches all objectives and begins to soak her helpless mother earth. The softness of the drenched landscape calms the senses, an utter wetness as its own emotion. Stark clouds are messengers of hope, delivering tales of ruin and renovation. With no glaring sun to intrude, the undefiled light resonates reality to a parched valley of murky fears. The eager pup seen again running through a glistening meadow, running away or running toward — perhaps both. He turns around to chase his tail, then continues across the horizon, still running. The clouds jostle and collide. Never tasting the downfall and out of its reach, I flinch at the sudden sounds. New streams created, running on contact with the soil. Rivulets flowing down, heading for unknown destinations, taking in deliberate form the lowest path. The surroundings covered in a dense fog; a hazy bubble in its own world, seeing nothing past the immediate. The afternoon sky threatens into dusk. The day is shorter, the light departs sooner. Radiance never before noticeable stands out in torrential dreariness. A darkened glow of relative significance. Contrasts are made clearer. The coolness of the air permeates all that it touches, causing haste and portending of a soggy field begging fumigation. Then the downpour overtakes in sheets and distorts the view. Off in the distance, the dog returns in a fit of urgent despondent shoulder shrugging to his post, as the rightful veritable melancholy one, and he barks silently while the rain camouflages his tears. Is his smell gone, I wonder. He knew the way without the rain, but with the rain he wanders — disoriented, out of touch, absent. His pitiful stare tells he is waiting for more clues, as he has turned to the left and the right, back and forth, and they all bring him back to the center of ultimate moisture. He is a drizzled captive, subject to precipitating mercy found in this enclosed existence. He waits on, as his only known option. He waits on... in the rain.

Life's Etiquette

When people hold a drink container, be it a glass, can, mug, stein, what have you (Why do we say “what have you”? That’s really odd to say something that way. First of all, who are we asking what they have, and secondly, proper use of the King’s English would be to place the transitive verb after the subject. So we’d say “colanders, flasks, bottles… what you have.” Then at least we’d know that whatever this mysterious person has would be included on the list.) ... where was I? ... oh, yeah. Isn’t it interesting how some people will hold the container with only the thumb and three fingers, while poking their pinky up in the air?

Does this bother anyone else like it does me? Some things are just wrong. It takes extra effort to point the pinky like that, and there’s no real utility to doing it, other than possibly to try to annoy someone. And it’s doing a very good job of it.

OK, I can understand if it's a cup, and the handle is too small to accommodate all your digits. And a shot glass isn't big enough (so I've heard!). But a pop can? That's sacrilegious.

The pinky in the air is the international symbol for “Not only am I better than you, but I’m also better at drinking things, and you smell.” And then they’re trying to show off that they can lift their oh-so-heavy beverage without having to use all of their fingers. That action suggests also that they’re waiting for us to applaud this superhuman talent they possess.

It would be bad enough if they just took their pinky slightly away from the container in question, but no, they have to make a writhing spectacle of it. If you can’t bend it, put a cast on that puppy. Let us sign it and give out dedications — go all out. None of this pinky-winky stuff.

The pinky salute grates on me even more than fingernails scraping on a chalkboard, and only somewhat less than when people on the phone say “mmm-bye.” Luckily for me, no one in our household carries any of these recessively mutative traits, or I’d have to wear eye patches and earplugs all day long.

I’m wondering if some people do it in an effort to balance their hand. (yeah, that’s really going to help as a counterweight) Do they have a bullet fragment in their pinky that is magnetically repelled by something? Is their pinky acting rebelliously and not wanting to hang out with the other fingers? The dreaded pinky rebel. They have a cure for that now.

Do any of you (all three of you) have any idiosyncratic things you notice in others that rub you the wrong way? (Sometimes they’re referred to as pet peeves, but I believe that only works if you have just a couple. After all, who’s going to have a whole bunch of things they think of as pets? The whole idea of having something as a pet is that you’ve reserved it for special consideration. It's your highly exclusive group of special peeves. Having lots of special things is an oxymoron, not to mention a misnomer and a malapropism. I reject the notion of multitudinous pet peeves. After the second or third one, they’re just regular peeves.)

So, any tendencies that bug you? When you’re walking toward someone and they look off to the side instead of making eye contact... Does that get under your skin? How about when someone puts so much milk in their cereal bowl that it drowns everything? Does that upset your mojo? Or when people hold their hands up in front of them in slicing motion while they're talking, as if they're about to break out into a karate demonstration... Does that weird anybody out? Or maybe false eyebrows. Do those give you the willies? (Maybe the 'willies' is too strong. But what would the difference be between the willies, the creeps, and the heebie-jeebies?)

Conversations With Myself

R1: It’s good to be here.
R2: It’s good to be anywhere. And at any time. It’s good to 'be'.
R1: But I digress.
R2: I’m with you.
R1: The funny thing about life is that we have nothing to compare it to. It is what it is. Things are so obvious to us that we can’t wrap our minds around them. Everything is a reflection of itself.
R2: It’s as if we’re on some eternal quest for an objective reference point.
R1: And is secularism like chasing our tails? Are we just going to be disappointed through that process?
R2: Well said. I’ve wondered what good is a certificate of authenticity if there’s nothing to authenticate the authenticity of the certificate itself.
R1: Yeah, the certificate could be fake.
R2: And that’s the whole point. So I would then ask you: do you think of yourself as happy?
R1: But that’s a loaded question. As opposed to what? Do we really know what happy is? I’m reluctant to attempt a definitive response. Can that be better rephrased somehow?
R2: Are you pleased with your existence?
R1: I suppose that’s a little better, but it still exposes the inherent flaw in the inquiry. Isn’t this ultimately a cyclical thought? What do I have to compare my existence with? It’s like when people ask someone who’s recently been married how they like being married. How can they answer that? They have only one spouse to measure it by, so how would they know if they like marriage or not when there’s no control group? What’s really being asked is whether they like being married to the person they’re married to. When parsed that way, it becomes a specific question instead of a general one as originally posed.
R2: And a dangerous one to answer.
R1: Quite so.
R2: At any rate, you’re boggling our mind here.
R1: I’m sorry. I don’t know what came over me. Thanks for reining me in.
R2: It’s my job.
R1: And you do it very well, I might add.
R2: You’re all too kind. I sound like that guy who Underdog gives a shoeshine to.
R1: Hey, if I don’t say it, who will?
R2: This is true. So are you happy?
R1: You don’t give up, do you? Hmm… If I’m alive, I suppose that’s a good indication that I’m fairly pleased with the whole situation.
R2: But there are sad people who are still alive.
R1: Yes, but they’re at least satisfied enough to want to go on living.
R2: It would seem that’s too complex an idea to not break down. I’m not so sure we can be that simplistic about it. People can give up in various ways instead of just cashing it all in. They may turn into zombies for all intents and purposes.
R1: I suppose you’re right. I’d say I’m happy in most states. I’m happy when I’m not thinking about whether I’m happy or not. I’m happy dreaming.
R2: While asleep or awake?
R1: Both, actually. I’ve heard a dream is the mind’s way of answering questions it hasn’t yet figured out how to ask.
R2: I like that. I need to write that down. So many things we think we know about ourselves, but language is so inadequate to bring it all into focus. And yet so many of us lean on clinical terms as if they could or should define existence.
R1: So the answer to your question is “I don’t know how to answer that question.” I’m sure I must be happy, but I can’t prove it. I’m divested of all culpability here.
R2: What does divest mean?
R1: You don’t know? Didn’t you read the same books as me, and get the same education?
R2: I can’t be responsible for all of that. We’re in different hemispheres, you know. I honestly don’t know where I was at the time. Probably saving your behind while you were cogitating over the expanse the universe. So then what does divest mean? I think you’re just trying to use big words to be impressive.
R1: It’s the kind of word that’s hard to put into words.
R2: You’re making even more sense now. Here, do you need some more rope? Would you like to buy a vowel?
R1: I know what it means, but I can’t really convey to somebody else what it means. It’s like that stromboli we had in Pasadena back in ’93. We can’t describe it. You have to experience stromboli.
R2: Ah, so true.
R1: Isn’t it amazing how a simple culinary incident can stay with you all these years?
R2: What gets me is how we’re weaving memories right now, yet not cognizant of the relative significance of each of the moments in our life as they’re occurring. Something might happen this week that you’ll remember for the rest of your life. Or what happens this month may just fade from your memory. It’s hard to predict.
R1: Do you think that might be why people take long trips, in an effort to force a lasting memory and thereby render their life more significant? If they feel they’re not sowing memories, their life seems worthless to them.
R2: That’s an interesting theory. It could have wings, I don’t know. I always thought that vacations were an otherwise futile attempt to escape reality.
R1: That could be too. Although they can rejuvenate the mind and soul. Maybe we’re both right.
R2: What if everybody in the world is simultaneously right about everything?
R1: I think that would be the most wonderful joke ever played on mankind. And here we all are trying to one up each other.
R2: Right, it could all be relative, so what does it prove? I can’t compare myself to someone else. There are too many unknown variables to have any degree of accuracy at all.
R1: Good point.
R2: But it also makes me wonder, when is it not possible for two ideas to be true?
R1: When they contradict.
R2: What is a contradiction, though?
R1: It’s a mutually exclusive condition that cancels out one or the other.
R2: In theory, I can see what you’re saying, though I’m having a difficult time applying that to our situation.
R1: I think when it comes to absolute truths, competing ideas can’t be simultaneously true. The only problem is that, as a civilization, we’re not objective judges on such conditions. But in the natural world, two seemingly competing ideas could often both be correct.
R2: Maybe there’s that distinction. I think you’re probably on the right track. It’s at least a good recognition.
R1: This also raises the question: how well can we know anyone?
R2: How well do we even know ourselves? We experience our own consciousness, but does that entail some right to familiarity?
R1: It’s kind of ironic that the most we can learn about human thought processes is through self-observation. No amount of external experimentation can provide us with more vital data.
R2: One of the many poetic paradoxes of life.
R1: But when talking about truths cancelling other possibilities out, I’ve often wondered if opposites even exist at all in the natural world. It could just be an illusion we’ve constructed to try to make sense of our existence. Are black and white really opposites? Even dark and light. They seem instead to be variations along the same scale. And darkness is merely the absence of light, but that doesn’t make it the opposite. If I’m absent from a meeting, that doesn’t make me opposite from that meeting.
R2: But would your presence be the opposite of your absence?
R1: Not really. My absence is the state of not being there. However, I could be anywhere else. If I’m on the subway instead of at the meeting, that has an entirely different set of connotations than if I were on the surface of Jupiter and not at the meeting.
R2: How about up and down?
R1: Up is based on reference to a plane, so there is no definitive 'up'. There is no such thing in the real world as a precisely level plane, nor any perfectly perpendicular projectile, which is what 'up' would be. As a result, up can't be a property, and so there also isn't an actual down either. And before you ask about dry and wet, those are degrees of moisture, so they’re not diametrically opposed. And I reject any purely mathematical attempts, because that’s a tautology. Whether positives and negatives exist at all is something we’re trying to determine, so we can’t use that as part of the premise. The interesting thing about the natural world is that there are no negative values of anything.
R2: And this all leads into perfection. Baseball announcers say that a guy who’s singled every time up in that game is having a perfect night, but a perfect night would be all home runs, wouldn’t it? And a real perfect game would be a pitcher striking out all 27 batters on three straight strikes each.
R1: Exactly. Perfection is a just a buzzword to mean whatever we want it to. In most everything in life, it’s a misnomer. Perfection is an ideal, not a finite state we can encompass.
R2: Not in this life, anyway.
R1: Precisely. I’m glad you see it my way. The distinction between finiteness and infiniteness must be made. Otherwise, people are just speaking in circles. It all depends on the context.
R2: And so this would be why it’s so hard to imagine the properties of a perfect being outside of the religious context. Perfect beings never do and never would do anything imperfect. That’s the whole essence of being perfect in the first place.
R1: Yeah, the supposed philosophical conundrums are just mental calisthenics that demonstrate nothing substantive.
R2: Ah, the entanglements we weave for ourselves!
R1: We’re our own worst enemy in many respects.
R2: I have a question for you: What are some of the inconsequential things that puzzle you most?
R1: I look at the body structure of children, with their proportionally larger heads and shorter arms and legs, and I wonder at what point can you finally tell if they’re not going to be a midget? Because when they’re all young, you can’t tell.
R2: That’s a good one. What gets me is how much effort goes into ensuring that toothbrushes don’t slip out of someone’s hands and scrub our teeth just the right way. The expended technology is astounding. We give more attention to designing toothbrushes than we do to protecting society from harmful entities. Our priorities seem a little skewed. Is there really a concern that people are going to not be able to properly grip a toothbrush? Is there an epidemic of toothbrushes falling out of people’s hands?
R1: All right, here’s one. If we have a responsibility to tolerate others, then what responsibility do others have to us?
R2: Hmm… I guess the kneejerk response to that would be that those of us who have more of a grasp on life and have figured things out have a duty to wait for others to catch up and reach out a hand to them.
R1: But what defines who is who? What if I want to go over and join the crowd that hasn’t figured it out yet — does that thereby absolve me of all responsibility? Can a person self-inflict into another state?
R2: And would that be out of pure convenience?
R1: Yeah, a sort of moral welfare state. Just don’t try enough, and you won’t be expected to contribute any longer.
R2: Paint yourself as a victim, meaning the world must therefore come to you.
R1: Wow, that’s a little dangerous, isn’t it?
R2: I wonder if that could be the underlying factor in the breakdown of society throughout human history. Wanting to pretend like you’re someone who should be attended to when you’re capable of attending to others. It also makes it harder for us to find those who really do need help in various areas.
R1: Kind of like how people park in the handicapped spots without a permit or a need to do so.
R2: Yeah, that’s the general idea.
R1: And we might be able to tie this back on the relativists during the awakening who couldn’t decide if we’re even responsible for anything we do.
R2: I think their free will rebuffs are pointless. The vicissitudes of life can’t be quantified with any precision. We can no more identify a point of fate than to say why someone rolled all sixes in Yahtzee.
R1: Or that it necessarily had to be all sixes.
R2: Yeah, especially when I still need my large straight.
R1: A person’s actual existence is a testament to free will, so if anything, the skeptic is going against the very notion he or she is trying to dispute.
R2: Philosophers are a strange lot.
R1: But we need them for entertainment, I suppose.
R2: I’ve had problems with the whole apples and oranges debate.
R1: In what way?
R2: It’s like a license someone carries if they don’t want to substantiate their point. They just say that it’s like trying to compare apples and oranges. But apples and oranges can be easily compared. One’s red, and the other’s orange.
R1: Maybe they’re referring to the constitution of them.
R2: Doesn’t matter. They have more in common than they do in things that are unshared. They are similar in size. They’re both fruits. You can juice both of them. They contain fructose. Besides, what’s the utility in comparing oranges with themselves anyway? They’re the same thing. We’re supposed to compare things that are at least somewhat different. That’s what comparisons are for. Next time I’m just going to say “That’s like comparing oranges to oranges.”
R2: You make a lot of sense. So, what should we do for lunch?
R1: How about a simple nothing sandwich. I’m not picky.
R2: While hearkening back to the days of the stromboli.
R1: Right you are.

What I Love About Fall

The season that energizes in so many ways, causing among other things one to be introspective and uplifted. While spring is nice too, there's something extra special about autumn. The crispness of the air has a quality all its own that speaks to the soul. There's something brutally honest about the bare trees and a cold, stark atmosphere. This is reality personified. Everything pauses and becomes silent for a moment in time. Listen to the absence of sound, how it pierces the inner being. What does the unheard speak of? All the world is unhinged for a season.

Much more elegant to come in from the cold to feel cozy than to be hot in the summer and turn on coldness. Nothing against the summer, though, because it merely prepares us for wondrous fall.

Winter, spring, summer or fall
All you got to do is call
And I'll be there...
You've got a friend

It all culminates with the fall. James knows the pattern well.

George Eliot knew it too. "Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking the successive autumns."

The leaves take on a metamorphosis, altering their panoply of colors, before mercifully fluttering downward to return to mother earth, leaving tree branches empty and waiting for a new beginning.

Perhaps if we had the fall all year round, we wouldn't realize its splendor as much. We need to see what fall isn't like so that we can appreciate what it is like. What does that tell you about life? Can you make it from one autumn to the next?

Stanley Horowitz may have best captured the essence of the build-up of seasons...
"Winter is an etching, spring a watercolor, summer an oil painting and autumn a mosaic of them all."

What a sublime thought... It all comes together in the fall. A welcome resolution to the long year's journey.

The poets and authors are the dreamers who mold life best, knowing the majestic in the air...

"No spring nor summer beauty hath such grace, As I have seen in one autumnal face." Rave on, John Donne, rave on.

My sorrow, when she's here with me,

Thinks these dark days of autumn rain

Are beautiful as days can be;

She loves the bare, the withered tree,
She walks the sodden pasture lane.

—Robert Frost

And Frost intones that fall is apropos for assuaging the melancholy heart as well, a deep backdrop to bring the stolid monochrome back into its glory, yet ever so slowly at a thoughtful autumn pace.

There is a harmony in autumn, and a lustre in its sky, Which through the summer is not heard or seen, As if it could not be, as if it had not been!
—Percy Bysshe Shelley

Shelley speaks of harmony and luster, those almost indescribable qualities that must be experienced to be understood. The qualities other seasons know nothing of.

And so let us collectively inhale the magnificence of this autumnal period we now have before us, a blessing from the skies, a delicate feast for the ears and eyes. Let it fill your nostrils with newness of life. Let it seep in, let its beauty transform you.

Autumn, the year's last, loveliest smile.

—William Cullen Bryant

How do I love thee, o fall? I shall count the ways all the day long...

Bored-Um

Jodie Foster one time said she’s the most boring person in the world, but I believe I could give her a run for her money. If we had an out-bore duel, I could pull off the deadpan with aplomb, while her acting reflexes would force her to do something responsive, like maybe some dramatic twitch that’s a remnant of Taxi Driver or Silence of the Lambs. Surely there’s some latent simulated fear of hers that could be drawn out after those episodic ventures. But if I didn’t have to make money, I’m confident I could win human statue contests — even against Jodie Foster. And I could be very dull about it too.

Maybe patience is just the degree to which you tolerate boredom. I’d like to think I’m relatively patient. If I don’t get through the light before it turns red, I can happily wait for the next cycle. I’ve been to the other side of town, and there’s no finish line over there. Time is a renewable resource, and it doesn’t go away, even though it may seem like it’s moving. What goes away are opportunities, so if we focused less on time and more on opportunities, we’d probably be happier with our situations.

Have you ever wondered why they call it a rat race? Why are we racing each other in the first place? In a perfect world, it would be more of a rat stroll. Just a casual jaunt through town, a bunch of hip rats with sunglasses, gallivanting down main street, meandering about aimlessly while following Chuck Berry’s credo of having “no particular place to go.” That’s a much more pleasant visual. We make it too hard on ourselves, all in the name of being titillated. Don’t alarm the rats.

When people say things like “there’s nothing to do in this town,” that kind of sentiment doesn’t resonate with me. I don’t mind being bored, so then I guess that means it’s not boring to me. I say it matters less where you are than who you are or who you’re with. Life isn’t about places or even events, but more about people and feelings and attitudes. The Garden of Eden was more of a condition than it was a well-kept nursery.

And besides, I don’t really need to “do” anything to keep myself interested. When youthful folk say “there’s nothing to do,” ask them why it is that they would need something to do. Where is that written in the book of life? Is there an entitlement clause in there somewhere that I overlooked? Let’s see… There’s the part here about early mornings being the bane of our existence… yadda, yadda, yadda… death and taxes… it says there’s no fairness doctrine… and no free lunch… it says there will be peaks as well as valleys… it says you can’t draw blood from a turnip, though it would ruin your salad anyway… it says the only constant is change… oh, this is interesting… it says term life insurance is the best policy, not honesty as previously thought… it says don’t kill the golden goose… let sleeping dogs lie, but it’s OK to wake the cats… necessity is the mother of invention… greed is the father of invention… narcissism is the second cousin of invention… let’s see, what else? … Rome was built in 2 days… didn’t realize that… the proof is in the pudding, which makes for a rather messy thesis… and then fast and steady actually wins the race… hmm, no mention of life always providing something to do. Very curious indeed.

People who are always looking for something to do should sometimes just trying “being” instead of doing. Thinking is actually doing something anyway, it’s just that the movement is internal. It really is possible for the body to be at rest and still be conscious. You won’t sink to the bottom of the ocean, trust me.

It’s said that only boring people get bored. Whenever I hear kids say “I’m bored,” I would just respond with, “Boy, I wish [I had so little to do that] I could be bored too. You’re lucky,” letting them read between the lines and catch the dripping subtlety themselves. Then they correctly realize that the sympathy has shifted from shining on them to me. It’s very cumbersome to complain to someone who is in worse condition than you are. Really messes up the whole equation.

I think being bored can actually be good for you. It’s one of those dratted character builders. How do you deal with down time? If you’re stuck at a bus station for an hour with nothing to read, what do you do? Do you have to text somebody or go shopping for something? Or do you enjoy the time alone with yourself?

Are you ever listening to a speech that after about ten minutes starts sounding like the grown-ups in Charlie Brown? And you’re thinking to yourself, “What is it they’re saying?” You recognize the words all right, but you start to wonder if they know some mysterious sentence structures that you don’t, or vice versa, and so the message is simply falling to the floor before it reaches you, like a ton of bricks in July. This can be agonizing for some. But it doesn’t have to be.

Make a game out of it. Play catchphrase bingo. (paradigm, synergy, empower, hubris, egalitarian, cowabunga, etc.) Or try to guess the next adjective they’re going to use. Think of a less-common three-letter word, and see how long it takes them to say it. Count how many “uh’s” they say per sentence. Or if you’re bored with them, look around the room. See which people are dressed color coordinated with one another. In a large auditorium, particularly with stadium seating, it’s fun to see how many people bring their hands up to their faces. Among a few thousand people, it’s happening constantly. A lot of scratching, rubbing and wiping going on. Like one giant centipede lying on its back. Listen for all the coughs, and time the duration between them. Play dot-to-dot with all the blondes’ heads, and see what shape it forms. See which person looks like the best candidate for falling asleep next. Pass a paper around the room asking to take roll, and see if everybody signs it. And ask them to also include some other obscure bit of data like their favorite toothpaste, with no explanation. And at the bottom, indicate to turn it in to some person who will be very confused when they get the list.

In more formal settings, some of these things may not be feasible, however you can always use your imagination. That’s your own domain. Dress everybody up in togas. Or gladiator garb. Or pretend it’s the 1700s, and you’re all part of a large spy operation to seize Western Europe. It gets much more interesting when the stakes are raised like that. Just be sure you know when to break out of your self-induced hypnotic state, otherwise there is the slight possibility you could be taken into psychiatric care. Well, yeah, there are downsides to everything.

Our friend television gives the mistaken impression that every moment should be filled with excitement or drama and entertain you non-stop, and that you don’t have to provide any of it yourself, but that it will be bequeathed to you as a birthright. Television careens into our living rooms, being so explosive and violent. And I’m just talking about the commercials. They’ll change frames about every half second, which can be a little unnerving when you’re trying to sit down to a calm cup of simmering beverage. I think they’re trying to get us to blink more often, and it’s working. Their sponsors are Visine and Claritin, so I’m just a tad suspicious.

The rapid-fire images are there for effect. They show us something and then quickly take it away. They keep moving from one thing to the next, as if there is some urgency to act in furious haste. Don’t dress it up. Just dress it down and show it like it is. Radio ad voice-overs are the same way. The narrator’s own voice interrupts himself before he can finish the last syllable of a sentence. It’s an attention grabber, or at least it was the first 4000 times they did it, but do they really need to try to fit 150 unintelligible words in a 30-second time slot? Is quantity to be revered above quality? Remember: less is more. I think that was on page 28 of the book of life.

Take time to stop and smell the roses. If you’re always rushing from one thing to the next, always looking to be entertained, then you’ll need to keep turning it up another notch just to stay satisfied. The key to satisfaction is not merely in keeping your expectations low — which is a nice trick in its own right — but in letting the little things in life keep you happy. How does the saying go… He who is rich is not he who has much, but he who appreciates what he already has. If you gather, you’ll always want more. If you properly utilize what you have, often you won’t have need for more.

We all have a pause button, but we seem to forget that we have one. Meditation — it’s a self-inflicted timeout, and a well-deserved one. You can live your life in running time for most of the day, but you can also hit the pause button and put life on hold. Try it. It’s very liberating. The “ohm” chant is optional. And the world will still be there when you’re done. Amazing, isn’t it?

So my advice today is slow down, be bored, and if you start to get overly disinterested, then just make it into a game. Boredom can be very invigorating if you let it.

The Day the World Forgot to Blog

It had to be on a chilly November morning in the not too distant future, sometime within the deep clutches of autumn. The trees were barren, steam was rising up from the gutters, the sun was starting to peek over the cold horizon, and a very curious incident was unfolding. The erstwhile expert armchair force of blogorama around the globe was about to go atypical. Instead of ingratiating themselves in front of their laptops or other sundry hardware of choice, the collective took on this rather unusual turn of events.

Marlene of Freiburg, Germany walked into her study to put in writing some of the insights she’d gained attending a business seminar over the weekend, and as she attempted to do so, her hands mysteriously froze right above the keyboard. She sat looking at them as if waiting to see what they’d do next. She couldn’t move. After an extended moment of awkwardness, she had to step away from her machinery. She checked herself into the hospital and was treated for zombie blogaritis.

In Osaka, Japan, Akinori was going to update his recent hang gliding exploits, but as he turned his computer on, an error message came up which translates to “Insufficient memory. Do I know you?” He rebooted only to see the same message again. He would have to get reacquainted with his computer before he could blog again.

Bradley, a 6th grader in Auckland, New Zealand was perched atop a tree waiting to access his site on astronomy. Though he generally typed only eleven words a minute, it didn’t prevent him from sharing his thoughts on the stars. On this day, however, even 80 words a minute wouldn’t have mattered. Suddenly he couldn’t spell. Three-letter words like ‘the’ and ‘you’ and ‘get’ became too complex. He couldn’t hit the right keys to save his life. So after a spat of entering gwl ev fio eer ykyh dlr wel doxy wjer zunthc v prwim dn qf icxf jby, Bradley astutely gave up.

Nobody could seem to blog. As hard as they tried, it wasn’t working. Even those plugged in from phones, handhelds or implanted microchips could not access the ports to upload their vaunted commentary. Each thought it was just them, but little did they know it was an epidemic.

Dave Barry’s personal assistant, Penelope, was loading his latest essay but didn’t realize that all the words were getting juxtaposed. When readers went to Dave’s blog, all they saw was “Messing Mind With Are Mutant My Porcupines,” and the article itself was completely illegible, as opposed to how it was usually only somewhat illegible. Fans flooded his e-mail box with complaints, calling him awful things like “dupe” and “miscreant.” Dave instructed Penelope to hold all his calls and sought exile in the foothills.

Sue from Utah had a flash of brilliance that morning as she usually does at 4:00 a.m., and she jumped sprightly out of bed and put on her pink bunny slippers to post once more. As she was sipping her caffeine-free candy apple mocha lite with coconut marshmallows and a twist of fermented lemon, she logged on and noticed to her astonishment that her blog provider had inadvertently failed to pay its power bill that month (the one that says powered by Zapotech — that kind of power), and so the site was down for the count. She pounded her fist into the mocha, creating a cacophony of liquidous sounds that are suitable only for mature audiences and some species of crustaceans.

This was developing into the worst disaster in the history of blogdom. Mothers were taking their kids off the streets. Wall Street was in disarray. Wolf Blitzer was stuttering uncontrollably. But it only got worse.

Over in Alberta, Canada, a becoming something mom named Natasha was about to reveal an exclusive to the world that she had discovered a natural remedy for all chronic conditions through a mixture of non-alcoholic moonshine and pomegranates, and she was all prepared to tie it into a story involving unsuspecting citizens she encountered and vagrant animals that came onto her property. However, as fate would have it that morning, she accidentally grabbed the epoxy to apply eyelash, and before she knew it, her eyelids got stuck shut. Like any dedicated blogger, Natasha still faithfully tried to type out her decree to the world. I can type by touch, she thought. But no such luck. The spell checker was having a field day zinging her every offering, and nothing was coherent. She had her kids look up a remedy for diffusing skin, reasoning that eyelids might be expendable. The closest they could find was embalming fluid, which unfortunately they had run out of the day before. And since the combined age of the kids was still under the driving age, the blog would have to wait.

Dominic, a businessman in Italy, had an emergency appendectomy and didn't make it to his blog. Stephanie contracted 24-hour malaria, and was bedridden all day, postponing her posting. Alphonse got amnesia and started acting like a petunia. Yvonne temporarily turned into a tree sloth, losing her opposable thumbs.

Alice from New Jersey thought it was just another normal day. Her house phone and cell phone were ringing simultaneously, her dog had just produced a puddle in the entryway, and her hard-boiled eggs turned out to be overboiled when she negligently left them on for an hour and all the water went away. With smoke everywhere, she slipped while reaching for the dog, the first person hung up, and the second heard her scream as her feet were going out from under her. It was her literary agent, and they needed a little more promotional material, figuring her latest local publicity could spur more subscribers, if she would just post something today. She grimaced with the pain in her foot, and then consented just to get them off the phone, now realizing that she had twisted her ankle, and was still sitting in the present her little Fifi gave. The doorbell rang, the smoke alarm went off, she opened the door, the dog ran down the street, and a man in a blue suit wanted her to sign for a package. Looking up from the floor while holding onto the doorknob for stability, she muttered, “You can keep your lousy package.” And she slammed the door on the world, and just lay there, wallowing in her circumstance.

Jed wrote daily from the snug confines of his darkened Manhattan studio. His electric bills were low since he eschewed light bulbs. He even took the one out of the fridge to keep the food from getting perky. Jed wrote of the seamier side of life, and had a penchant for the vernacular. Jed was a basket case. As he was about to write his blog, Jed's computer started talking to him. It said, "Welcome to your worst nightmare. Would you like to play a game, Jed? Keep typing for the curse." Each time he dared enter another character, it would audibly count down. He thought it was a prank until the computer started carrying on a conversation with him and reading his mind. He ran out of the building like a lunatic, and was later admitted as one, with mouse still clutched in hand. Jed's blog didn't go out that day.

Maria mistakenly pressed "Reformat Hard Drive" instead of "Submit" when her blog was ready, so that minor technicality kept her from being published that day. Gustav was hallucinating and thought his keyboard was a calzone, and he ate it. Hortens had a nervous breakdown and couldn’t restart. Cornelius spontaneously combusted. Frank lost his Internet connection when a boa constrictor got inside the utility panel and chewed up all the wiring. And this phenomenon perpetuated around the Internet.

All these people who were used to writing their blogs were suddenly unable to do so. Their readers didn't know what to do. At first, they just went looking for the next blog on their reading list, but after several unsuccessful attempts at finding fresh entries, they soon realized that it wasn’t going to happen, and they panicked. Their worst suspicions were realized: the blogosphere had been compromised. All was not well in Xeon.

Off in the distance, the faint echoing of a wistful dog bark could be heard. The streets were motionless. For a delicate moment in time, the world stood still. All awaited the next move. Hidden near a park bench somewhere in downtown suburbia, another leaf broke away and fluttered gently to the ground, anonymous to the masses.

You Say Potato, I Say Chips

The theoretical realist improperly assumes that the most homeocentric or perceived static entity is necessarily the default concept. Take for instance our Earth. When our predecessors saw the sun moving around us, they took it to mean that our Earth was the ultimate reference point, and they trusted our senses to tell them that the sun was moving and the Earth was stable. It wouldn’t have made sense anyway, because spinning at 1000 miles an hour while rotating around the sun through space at 60,000 miles an hour, yet only seeing 30 mph winds as a result would be hard to fathom. Not only that, but how am I supposed to feel secure about any real estate holdings under such conditions? Homeocentric is a little more reassuring, and a much better marketing tool. But eventually, Galileo blew the top off the real estate industry, and domicile prices plummeted. Galileo had proposed that a free-falling body would descend with uniform acceleration having negligible resistance, and for the time being he was close enough.

As far as default concepts go, take this example. I put a key in a lock. It does not fit. Rather straightforward, right? Not so simple. The default cause of it not fitting seems to be that it was the wrong key. But that is not a good assumption to make, because it's not necessarily the case. It could be instead that it was the wrong lock. Maybe the key is right. Why do we assume that when the two do not match, that it's the key that must be at fault? We somehow say "the key doesn't fit," but we don't ever say "the lock doesn't fit." But why should the lock necessarily define the relationship? It shouldn't. The lock has no intrinsic authority. The only authority it has is whatever we assign to it. Thus, it's an arbitrary designation to assume that it would always take precedence as the default entity.

Since a lock is not as ambulatory as a key, we tend to lend more credibility to locks than we do to keys. It’s the unwritten law of precedence. It can appear in all sorts of manifestations. If two entities are approaching one another, the faster of the two is expected to move out of the way, because they can remove themselves from the path more quickly and easily, or because the slower of the two is the sympathetic figure to which more respect is given. This is innately understood, and we’re not even aware that we understand it. If a pedestrian and a bicyclist are converging on a pathway, it doesn’t work as well for the pedestrian to make the first move to the left or the right. If attempting to do this, the pedestrian may not properly anticipate the cyclist’s moves, and end up in the same alternate path. A pedestrian’s maneuverability is often about 25% of the cyclist’s, which means that starting to walk in another direction can take four times as long to reach a certain spot for the pedestrian. A pedestrian could be halfway through this maneuver only to find that the cyclist has just started in the same direction, with the cyclist beginning later and ending sooner in the new trajectory. That’s why it’s best to defer to the faster entity. Let them make the first move.

This would not apply to territorial concerns. A car has the assumed right of passage in its well-defined street lanes. Even on unmarked streets, the car is to maintain a position on the right side just to the right of an imaginary center line. But all else being equal, if a car were coming down a path toward a cyclist, the car is the one that should move out of the way. The fact that cars can’t usually take alternate routes or go onto the sidewalk is an ancillary matter not affecting this premise. Taking the faster vehicle hypothesis, a speeding car shouldn’t expect a car already going 70 mph to get out of the way for them. A lot of times they don’t even realize that you have no room to pull over into the next lane, and in order to accommodate them, you’d have to increase your speed by 5 mph to be able to get up into an empty pocket. But I’ve noticed something peculiar about civilian vehicles. They don’t have the capability of giving you a ticket, so I don’t lend them as much credence as I would a radar-toting, ticket-ready officer of the law. In any event, it all comes down to our reference points. Take a look at them and you may find that some of the objective ones turn out to be more subjective.

And then there’s the holiday conundrum. New Year’s Day, as an institution, is confusing to me. But I guess if you don’t think about it, it doesn’t have to be confusing. Alas, it’s too late for me now, and anybody else who’s reading this, so we can’t very well stop at this point. The basic idea is that we’re celebrating the new year. Think about that — we’re celebrating something we haven’t experienced yet. What if it turns out to be a really lousy year? We should wait to see how it materializes before we make such a big deal out of it. It should be conditional on how good it was. Have a pre-nup with the coming year so that we can have a sort of safety net.

But even beyond all that, why are we celebrating another year coming? Because we’re happy we’re getting older? Maybe it’s the impending tax returns we’re anticipating. I can’t think of what else it could be. I hereby propose instead a salute of Old Year’s Day. If 2008 ends up being a decent year (as Ed Grimley must say), let’s have a party in its honor, rather than shoving it out the door at the stroke of midnight on New Year’s Eve. Reverse engineering is the key. Or maybe it’s the lock, I can’t remember. Either way, stay in school and don’t do drugs, that’s the bottom line.

For literal theorists, logic is always that default concept which trumps all else. To them, everything revolves around logic, because it appears so static. They never consider that logic could be subject to some other set of laws. So when they see a contradiction, they never think that it may actually be the logical structure itself that is faulty (meaning human interpretation of logic). Curiously, we have various versions of what entails being a realist, which answers fewer questions than it asks. What is the alternative to being a traditional realist? If you’re not living in the real world, are you therefore a fantasist? If you shun reality, what kind of psychiatric slew of denials is that? Sure, I’m willing to face up to all my fears, but as long as I can carry on my operations in Tomorrowland, and watch as the frightful fears go by before my face.

In the end, some say humans discovered logic. Others say humans invented it. If we discovered logic, that would presume that it exists apart from us and does not require thinking agents in order for it to be. If instead we invented it, then that would mean it has limitations just like we do, which would place us right back at square one.

It’s like in the song… I can’t remember the words or who sang it, but it goes right along with this whole principle.

So the message is don’t take things at face value. When they tell you that an obscure burger is back at Wendy’s, question it. Ask why it ever left in the first place. Ask where it went. Ask if it’s going to do the same thing again later and be one of those deadbeat for-a-limited-time-only entrées. They say “limited time only” as if that’s a good thing, but it’s a very, very bad thing. It means they’re dangling it in front of you to grab at, and then when you just start to get comfortable with it, they’re going to yank it away, leaving you on your own in a veritable fast food wasteland. Those are not pretty sights, by the way. That’s what marketing is all about. Keep the consumer wanting more. That’s why Disney magically pulls movies out of its vault, as if done only through pixie dust. But the fact of the matter is that it was three overweight sweaty guys in a boardroom calculating marginal returns on the company’s investments. They took Tinkerbell and locked her in the drawer. And what we’re finding is that it always comes back to a key (and the lock in the background).

Not succumbing to the aforementioned assumptions is called thinking outside of the box, and that's what philosophical skepticism does. So then what can we learn from all this? Actually, it’s more like de-learning, when we realize that we know less than we thought we did. We’re more informed, now knowing that we’re less informed than previously suspected. That’s logic turned on itself, right?

Mood Appraisals, Part I

This is part 1 in a series of explorations into the various moods we feel. Each time, I will highlight either a high, low, or mid-tone. Over time, readers may wish to contrast the various entries for their respective advantages and disadvantages.

Content
When you're feeling content, you may tend to have a sense of closure. However, closure can also be followed up by unfulfillment, which then requires further subsequent closure, leading to the dastardly vicious contentment cycle. For this reason, you should try to avoid contentment whenever possible.

Contentment can be an agonizingly nondescript sensation, though it works fine when you're not concentrating or paying attention. It won't require a lot of thought, so it's a serviceable mood in those situations where you're too tired for cheerful or giddy. An old adage goes that ignorance is bliss, but a more accurate statement would be to say that ignorance is contentment. Bliss will be discussed in a future segment, but sufficeth to say here that contentment is much different than bliss. When you're content, you're settling for the current state of affairs and not necessarily thrilled about them.

People erroneously think that the alternative to being content is to be a malcontent, though the two are not necessarily mirror images. Malcontentment is negatively aggressive, while contentment is only passively positive, putting it closer to neutrality than malcontentment.

Examples of being content would be how you feel when no catastrophes have happened recently, or the in-between feeling the day after a dentist appointment but having nothing to do, the typical non-euphoric malaise of 2:00 p.m., no news being good news, avoiding the radar, or being licked by a dog.

People who are generally content: Julia Roberts, Judge Ito, Bill Murray, Larry King, Buck Henry, John Kruk, Gordon Jump, Father Mulcahy, Larry Bird, the audience at a Jewel concert, Ford Escort drivers, podiatrists, badminton fans, people wearing slippers.

Animals that are generally content: Koalas, goldfish, daddy long legs, cows, seals, dead snakes, most marsupials, Kermit the Frog, pigs and ducks.

Other things that are content: Elevator music, operating manuals, mashed potatoes, bologna, sandals, fettucini, bowling, pork rinds, the color gray, middle class incomes, wax paper, the letter H, Sweden, ruts, habits, margarine, the status quo, conventionalism, and lint.

If you notice yourself getting content, here are a few things you can try:
• Do a pushup. This may help you raise awareness of your circumstances.
• Say to yourself, "I am more than just content. I am extra-content." Anything 'extra' is a motivating tool.
• Eat a peach. The pectin may awaken the endorphins within you, and contentment is the enemy of endorphins.
• Stay away from other content people. Contentment can spread through osmosis.
• Watch a new TV show called "Shut the Stupid Thing Off."
• Do something different with your daily routine. Have breakfast in the evening. Get dressed before you take a shower. Drive another route to work. Let a child pick out your clothes.

Next installment: Verklempt

Reporting From the Intemperate Zone

Here's the image: A TV reporter and camera crew are sent into a hurricane zone to eventually show the devastation first-hand. It's all rather theatrical. Looking over the reporter's shoulder, you see harsh rain, trees swaying, waves crashing, cows flying through the air, muppets on fire, sharks swallowing Buicks, etc. In other words, just another day at the beach.

The reporter, in a poncho with hood up, may have trouble speaking normally, needing to cover his or her face. It doesn’t matter that they sound like the Swedish Chef, as long as you can take in the atmosphere. They keep trying to look at the camera, but it's difficult to do while maintaining that aura of objectivity. Yet they soldier on. Does the station want us to be in awe of their ability to find the eye of the storm, to marvel at how their station has the unique GPS technology to track down severe weather patterns… or do they realize they’re looked at as exhibiting mass lunacy?

One time I saw a woman reporter who kept getting blown off balance, and the wind was blowing in her face so much that it prevented her from speaking for any length of time. She was getting rained on, and she had to keep closing her eyes and putting her head down. I'm sitting there at home, feeling sorry for the reporter, waiting for the telethon donation requests to follow that I would gladly contribute to if only to get her out of there, then feeling angry at the TV station, and not even able to focus on the real story. I’m throwing jujubes at my TV screen to try to get them to move, but to no avail. They’ve in essence made part of the story about themselves. Not content at being on the sidelines, they must get right in the middle of it all. The narrator has jumped into the narrative.

A few thoughts arise. Even assuming the reporter is not in grave danger (which is not always a given), why even subject them to the inclement weather? Do we need to see a view of the weather complete with a breathing homo sapien in the shot in order to understand that it's harsh weather? I would think the cameramen could get their shots from more secure locations than while looking the beast in the mouth. Reporters used as tokens… film at 11. It’s a little chilling to see windbreakers worn with the station’s logo on them, when combined with the whole idea.

Of course, the reporters are subject to the commands of their employer, so refusal to comply could adversely affect one’s job status, which means they are not necessarily willing participants. How much are people willing to do for money? That appears to be the spectacle we’re all tuning in to find out.

Sure, the news agency wants the best possible, most realistic, story. But are they compromising the integrity of their employees, unnecessarily subjecting them to harsh conditions? Will it take a reporter finally buying the farm before stations stop subjecting them to conditions like these? That’s the way society seems to work. Keep doing it until it produces a disaster, then change course to prevent that disaster from repeating, and then move on to other disasters.

One wonders what the psychology is behind intentionally placing yourself or your representative in a difficult situation that could otherwise be easily be averted. Isn’t it kind of like scaring ourselves on a rollercoaster ride that we consciously chose to get on? They want the dramatic shot, and they want us to ooh and aah, but we have to willingly suspend our disbelief, pretending we don’t know that they’re only in dire straits because they put themselves in dire straits. Is it brave or even advisable to put oneself in danger when that danger isn’t necessary?

One part of me thinks it's cruel and dehumanizing on the part of the stations to subject their employees to these conditions for no other reason but to stand in front of the camera and talk about the weather. Reporter becomes guinea pig. It produces no apparent direct utility that could not be attained in a different manner. Another part of me says it’s a competition between the reporters, as each tries to show off how daring they can be to all of the others. “Woo, Ralph went right up against the shore when the waves were crashing. Did you see that?” (shakes head) “He’s gooood.” Meanwhile, Ralph’s wife is watching at home. “Ralph, get your heiny away from those waves, you imbecile! You are so fired when you get home. Make me worry like this… And if you drown, don’t expect me to cook your dinner for you tonight either.”

Knowing the motives of the media makes it all the worse. They're trying to sensationalize the story, giving it that dramatic edge. They want it to look like the reporter just happened to be there when all of a sudden things got rough. (surprise!) In fact, one senses that they’re secretly hoping that it does get rougher to add to the melodrama — make it all look natural. If you stand in a place long enough and wait for something “natural” to happen, is that a scoop? In reality, they put them there for the strict intent of being in the midst of rough conditions. That was their ideal. But then they act like it’s an unforeseen circumstance. See the disconnect there? 3-year-olds will often repeat something even when it hurts, and then continue to complain as if they’ve been victimized. Adults playing with their camera toys haven’t seemed to graduate from this concept. A storm is nothing more than an excuse for grown-ups to bring out all their equipment that they’ve been waiting to play with.

In principle, reporters should stay removed from their subject. They should not interact with it. The news is not Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom. The media wants to make its coverage to look so natural, but in fact it's all carefully contrived, and therefore disingenuous. It smacks of grandstanding, and prevents it from being a genuine product or something that can be relied on as an accurate portrayal of the situation. Just one more manifestation that there’s more than a modicum of entertainment mixed in with the news.

In considering the inanity of much of modern society’s arrayed spectacle, I like to imagine whether there was any historical precedent for such things. “We’re standing here on the Ararat coastline with Noah’s Ark in the background, waiting to see if Hurricane Jehosephat is going to take it away or not. All the animals have been evacuated, but there are still some stragglers on the beach who refuse to leave. Forecasters say it’s probably going to amount to no more than a drizzle. Bathsheba, back to you.”

The rational person watching at home says, "Get the heck out of there and get in the truck, you dupe!" Stop sacrificing yourself to give us the better angle. Some things aren’t worth it. Plus, now I’ve got jujubes all over my TV. They’re the only worthwhile thing on my screen, by the way.

What does this all mean? Am I going to petition against news stations? Nah. Will this start a revolution? Nyet. Will it make me look smarter? Not possible.* (*-that statement could be taken two different ways, but I prefer the ambiguity) Are there royalties involved? Hardly. It just fills the blog and makes us aware of the status quo, in lieu of doing anything about it. I get to place more of my typed characters on the worldwide web, and it causes me a sense of contribution to the overall alphabet cybersoup. Does anyone care that I lined up the letters in a certain way? Hard to tell. People will keep doing what they’re doing until they reach a dead end, and then they’ll just look for a way around the dead end. But while they’re doing it, at least we can sit here watching them and throw multi-colored soft candies at them to make us feel better.

No Gift Like the Present

Maybe you don’t cogitate over things like this, but since I do, I figured I’d drag you through it with me. What’s the deal with gift cards, anyway? Are they any good? They’re decorative, plastic, and fit in a wallet. But then you can say the same about gum. And it doesn’t conceal the fact that they don’t do anything worthwhile, from what I can tell. Gift cards, in essence, are the perfect way to say “I was too indifferent and lazy to put any thought into a present, and you can’t be trusted with money, so here’s the next best thing. Happy birthday.” On such a momentous occasion, one can only be touched by these sentiments. Just give them a ten, and maybe draw a mustache on Hamilton’s face and be done with it. Don’t pretend that you care by dressing it all up to be more than it is. “Here’s some colorful money I got for you, but you can’t use it here, here, here, here or here. Only here. Have a nice day shopping at the one place I’m forcing you to. If you want to get your present, I’m making you go to that store to get it, since I know you wouldn’t if I gave you cash.”

And then when we get a gift card, we act like it transcends money, because when you’re receiving gifts you have to be complimentary about everything so you can get repeat customers to future birthday parties. “Oh, you got me a piece of string for my birthday? It’s what I always wanted! How did you know? It’s perfect...” I always wondered just how low you could go on the gift scale and still get that same sort of response from the person you gave it to. “Hey, this is a cool bag of trash. For the man who has everything, eh? I like it. It says hope your day is special like nothing else does.” “What? A box full of maggots? You shouldn’t have. No— you really shouldn’t have...”

And then there are the birthday greeting cards. (cue the dastardly organ music, please) The funny ones are good for a joke and they have their place, though I haven’t quite latched onto the sentimental cards. A sentimental thought is supposed to be personal. So you buy a card written by a greeting company that distributed the same one to thousands of stores, and they’ve never met the person you’re giving the card to, but somehow they’re supposed to capture your particular sentiments toward that person. What happens is they end up speaking in generic terms. “You’re the person I always thought if I’d love a person for being who they are it would be you for the way you are what you are like nobody else can, and that’s what makes me love you.” Basically, this is paint-by-numbers sentimentality. All you can really take credit for is finding the card in the store, getting the gender and age right, and then either paying for it or stealing it. You did all that successfully, but is that an accomplishment? What’s pre-printed on the card is no more you than the daily horoscope, except that you got to pick your own sign.

(Note: If any of you have given me gift cards or pre-printed greeting cards, I appreciated them tremendously, and I'll appreciate them in the future. I'm just projecting here. My analyst says it's good therapy.)

* * * * * * * * * *

I used to go to breakfasts at this lovely diner in the basement of the county courthouse near where I work. This place is run by two sisters who have been going at it for over 20 years, and they always have a lot of helpful insight to give, being great conversationalists. I had been frequenting there until the summer of 2006 two years ago when I went on extended sick leave and then had to watch my diet more closely in the interim. So just this week, I went back there for the first time since then, and note that I’ve never talked to them for more than ten minutes at a time and they don’t know my family or vice versa. We just used to talk in passing. So anyway, what happens when I go back? Not only did they remember my name, they also remembered that I like my toast to be sour dough, and my eggs to be over easy, and that we had been talking about me planting trees when we had spoken before. That’s amazing to me that they just picked up right where they left off from two years before. And eggs and toast is only one of the many orders I used to make, so it’s not like I had a usual that they got accustomed to. They also remembered that I’d bought a house back at that time. Completely floored me. You never know how well people are taking notes on you. You figure it happens somewhere from time to time, but you don’t figure you’re the one that anybody’s keeping tabs on. Kind of a little spooky, but in a good way. Maybe they slipped, and I’m in the Truman Show. (looking around for cameras now)

So going back there turned out being a rather surreal experience. It kind of brought everything from the last couple years full circle, into an unexpected form of closure. I remember the first thing they said when they saw me was, “We were wondering if you had died or something.” It’s nice to be missed like that. I replied that I was wondering the same thing.

Tower of Psychobabble

You've got to admire Radio Shack’s marketing chutzpah. Their new slogan has got to be one of the all-time classics: “Do Stuff.” That's it. Somehow... it just doesn’t evoke all that much enthusiasm in me. What if that were the advice your high school teachers gave you? “Whatever happens in life, students, ... do stuff.” Not all that inspiring, is it? But then Radio Shack has been sure to get the slogan trademarked, just in case another company wants to also tell us to “Do stuff” and we inadvertantly don’t attribute it to Radio Shack for coming up with that wonderful nugget of wisdom. “Hey, we told them to do stuff first! We deserve the credit...” “No, it was us! We're the ones who thought of doing stuff'!”

I’m imagining the board meeting where this slogan was brought up. “OK, it looks like so far we’ve got... ‘Your Witness,’ ‘Gooba Gooba,’ 'Yo-Yo Ma,' and ‘Bite Me.' So, any favorites here?” Then some bespectacled pencil nose with an advanced degree in Geekology intones, “Not vague enough. How about ‘Do Stuff’, dude?” And then another chimes in. “Yeah, that just sort of does it for me. It’s quixotically non-committal with a sort of post-modernistic appeal to it, and stuff.” To which everyone else in the room voices their rousing approval, and then the rest is history. So come to our store, do stuff, pay us money, and then go home again. But don’t forget to do stuff during that time. It’s crucial that stuff is done. If stuff is left undone, no telling what might happen. If you don't do anything else in your day, be sure that it's stuff. Don't settle for imitations.

What a marketing strategy, eh? I'm putting my stocks in Radio Shack right away. I want to catch this rising star, boy. Forgive me if I trip over you in my excitement while rushing to the nearest outlet. That was the missing ingredient in my day, and I just couldn't put a finger on it. Now I finally have direction in my life, and I can retire in the Poconos. All over the world now, people are hitting themselves in the forehead, exclaiming, "Why didn't I think of that?" Thank you, Radio Shack, for bringing meaning to my existence. I don't think it's too early to say there could be Pulitzer in their future. Don't want to spoil anyone's surprise, but I'm just sayin'.

* * * * * * * * * *

Recently, I've found that I like to live more than one day at a time. Up front, that may sound peculiar or even trite, but there is some substance to it. It becomes too hard for me to focus on just one day, and 24 hours is merely an arbitrary time period anyway. Well, it is a cycle that your mind/body responds to and has adapted to, though it could just as well be shorter or longer if the earth's rotation were different. Chess masters can think dozens of moves in advance, which can provide a facsimile for this discussion. In a sense, they're playing the game in the present and in the future. So I'm of the opinion that focus is overrated and largely undefined anyway. I think I can focus on two days at the same time as if they were one day.

While we may commonly think ahead to later in the week or next week, we don't tend to group these futures with the current time. This nuance might not matter to many of you, but to anyone for whom it does, it's important to make the distinction. We tend to categorize the nowness of our experience with the patterns of light and dark. Once we're deep into the night, the old now concludes and makes way for a new now. Indeed, the light period itself is referred to as "day", even though a day includes the nighttime. In this sense, the word "day" is ambiguous. It carries two meanings in very similar areas. When we say, "What a day," we're not excluding the evening hours from the equation. The day starts at midnight and ends at midnight, at least by the calendar. It would seem to make more sense to have the day start at sunrise instead of midnight the night before. Plus, New Year's Eve parties would be a lot more interesting that way. The ancient Egyptians actually measured days from sunrise to sunrise, and I think they had it right.

When making our immediate plans (for the "day"), out of convenience we typically set aside tomorrow's agenda for safe keeping to use only after we get to the end of the current day. If someone gets too deep into discussion about tomorrow while today is still going strong, they're likely to be encouraged not to "get ahead of themselves." This would suggest an attention timespan of no more than till the next sleep.

Is it just a psychological block, though? Why is it acceptable to be thinking of tonight's plans at 7 a.m., but not quite as acceptable to be thinking of tomorrow's plans at 3 p.m.? Why are we wont to discourage people from thinking past their next sleeping pattern (unless it's right before bedtime and the current day is "done")?

So then what is the utility of considering such ramifications as these? Stretch the mind, give it some elasticity. There's a lot more room for thinking outside the box. Aristotle would approve.

* * * * * * * * * *

Psychologists have said that no two people can tell whether they are seeing a color the same way, because we can't see what they're seeing through their eyes. And it has nothing to do with color blindness or not, but just speaks to the relative aspect of a property of color. There is no single correct perception of red. We can pretty much all agree on what represents red to us collectively, yet we don't know if we're seeing it the just the same way as the next person, or which version would be "right". Why would consensus determine a physical property anyway?

Which is the true red? Or is there a true red? (each of the boxes is different)

Red (or redness) can be represented as a reading on the color scale, but is mostly an approximation measured in wavelengths of light between 625-740 nanometers, with a frequency of 480-405 Terahertz. But this still doesn't tell us how various non-colorblind people may view it. Your red may be a slightly different shade from my red. It's kind of neat, if you think about it, because we each get to invent our own colors and make our own uniquely authoritative palette. Yeah, that is kind of neat, actually. Let's run with it.

(Ed. - I just realized the definition of blog is: Things you thought of in passing but ran out of time to make any sense of. Gotta love it.)