Past Shadows Dark and Deep

[1] I’m not big on resolutions.

Even though I like the idea of having a clean slate and a fresh start, I never really have one (what with the shackles of language and measurable time), so I’m always defeated before I begin.

I’d love to write more, to get in better shape, to start a new career, to learn to read Russian and get better at German, to move to London, but I’m not going to do any of those things just for the sake of the Gregorian calendar.

I’ve changed a lot in the past two years, and I like to think I’ve learned a few things during that time.

One of the most important things I’ve learned is to never, ever apologize for who I am. I’m still guilty of doing this at times, but I’ve made a conscious decision to never change myself or be someone I’m not for anyone or anything. I genuinely like myself. I’ve already done far too much compromising in my life, and it’s never led me anywhere good.

My resolution, of sorts, last year was to laugh more and to learn to let go. I’ve gotten better at letting go. I did a massive cleaning out of my apartment this summer, and I got rid of so many things I was clinging to. I thought if I let go of these things and the memories trapped inside them, then the hope of returning to a time in my life where things were better would be impossible. It took me realizing I didn’t want to return to that time, that things were different then but not better, for me to find the solace in release.

I’m still in the process of changing. Something has been happening to me the past few months, and I don’t know what it is, but I know I’m different than I used to be.

One of the biggest things that holds me back is thinking I need to find something to live for, that I need to feel some sort of purpose, that I need to have very sure goals, and that I need direction. The problem is that I think (and I really and truly believe) that life is pointless and meaningless as we float along in a completely indifferent universe.

I can’t force meaning.

I can’t just adopt some fabricated life goal that I don’t feel any passion for achieving.

I can’t fake things in myself that aren’t there.

I’m tired of trying to force myself to see the world differently, because when I do that, it makes me mistrust everything I do see and what I actually do believe (which, admittedly, isn’t much).

We’re all hypocrites in some fashion (and I’m certainly no different), but I’m going to make a conscious effort to live in accordance with what I believe and not fight it when there’s nothing there.

I don’t see the world the way most people do. I don’t take pleasure where most people seem to derive it. I don’t build the same type of relationships that most people have. The longer I live and the more people I meet, the more I realize this to be true.

I’m just saying, it’s all fine. I’m not deficient because I’m detached. I’ll either find meaning in something or I won’t. For me, it’s just more likely that I won’t.

And I must be what I must be and face tomorrow.

But I’m no longer going to pretend.

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[1]Title (and last lines) allude to “Flowers Never Bend with the Rainfall” by Paul Simon (performed by Simon & Garfunkel).

Being an idiot does not preclude you being a politician.

Earlier today, New York Democratic Rep. Anthony Weiner confessed that he did, in fact, tweet pictures of his underwear-clad bulge to a woman. He also confessed to more “inappropriate” internet exchanges with other women, though he never met any of these women, he didn’t know their names, he hasn’t had sex with anyone outside of his marriage, etc.

If I were his wife, I’d probably be pretty angry that my husband was tweeting such pictures to strangers on the internet and then lied about it, but as a U.S. citizen, I don’t care. I’ve blogged about this before, I just don’t want to know about any of this. Weiner is not my representative, but even if he were, I can’t see why this matters. I’m pretty sure that lewd tweeting doesn’t violate any part of the job description of being in Congress.

Our representatives and senators are all civil servants. Their job is to represent the views of their constituents when making laws. They might have their hands in the pockets of lobbyists and big business, and there may be way too much partisanship in politics for our government to actually function this way, but that’s what their job is – to represent the voters’ views on political issues.

They aren’t supposed to be moral figures, and even if they were, the American public has weird ideas about what constitutes a moral violation anyway. We sit back while they sling mud, lie for votes, take bribes, spend excessively, grow over-inflated egos and spew self-righteousness, but the only thing that ever stops them is “sex scandals.” (Case in point.) I have already seen blogs popping up about whether or not Rep. Weiner will be re-elected, if his career is over, etc.

Of course, this is also a media issue. Sex sells and “scandal” sells and so that’s what we are inundated with in the headlines, having to dig deeper to read stories about actual issues that affect us lowly citizens.

Yes, when you are in the public eye, it is dumb to tweet semi-naked pictures of yourself to strangers, but if we’re going to condemn public figures for their immorality, shouldn’t we also condemn them for greed? Or misanthropy? Or, dare I say, vanity?

Re-election campaign photo?

Just Another Trick

The state should abolish marriage.

Let me clarify. I think states should issue licenses for civil unions for all couples of legal age wishing to be legally bonded. Churches could still perform marriage rites for those who wanted it, of course, but the “marriage license” should be a thing of the past. Why? Because marriage is recognized both by the state and/or by a religious authority and there is a clear conflict of interest there as well as a conflation of the civil with the religious.

The history of marriage varies depending on culture. Generally speaking, though, marriage was often seen as a transfer of property (the wife), but it should be noted that marriages did not always have to be registered with the state. It was John Calvin who changed things with the Marriage Ordinance of Geneva which claimed that marriage should be constituted by “the dual requirements of state registration and church consecration.”

Marriage in the U.S. today is formalized in a ceremony by a government official or a religious official. It’s a dual act in the latter of these cases, a civil act and a religious act. The majority of arguments I’ve heard against same-sex marriage have been religious arguments (predominantly Christian and Islamic).[1] The flaw with this reasoning is that religious marriage is incorrectly seen as the same thing as a civil marriage. That said, I’ve also heard people argue that when put to popular vote, no state has voted to expand marriage beyond a heterosexual couple.[2]

Neither of these arguments work, because they both point to flaws in our particular brand of democracy for which the Bill of Rights was attempting to reconcile.

Civil rights laws exist in order to protect the minority. Thomas Jefferson, a “founding father,” put it best when he said that: “the rights of the minority should never be voted on by the majority.”

Furthermore, there is supposed to be a separation of church and state in this country, because the Bill of Rights affords all citizens freedom of religion. If church officials do not want to perform marriages for same-sex couples, that is perfectly within their rights. But a Christian (or any other religious) marriage shouldn’t be conflated with a state recognized union for any couple, because it’s not the same thing. The legal benefits of being married should apply instead to all civil unions. The spiritual benefits of a religious marriage shouldn’t have anything to do with insurance benefits or taxes or next-of-kin rights. This is the domain of the secular state.

Arguments to the contrary don’t work, because same-sex marriage is a civil rights issue. It doesn’t matter what the majority says about an issue of civil rights.

“The very purpose of a Bill of Rights was to withdraw certain subjects from the vicissitudes of political controversy, to place them beyond the reach of majorities and officials and to establish them as legal principles to be applied by the courts. One’s right to life, liberty, and property, to free speech, a free press, freedom of worship and assembly, and other fundamental rights may not be submitted to vote; they depend on the outcome of no elections.” -Supreme Court Justice Robert H. Jackson, in W. Va. State Bd. of Education v. Barnette (1943)

A person who opposes same-sex marriage on religious grounds can refuse to recognize the marriage if they choose, but the State cannot refuse to grant civil unions to any citizen without violating the supposed rights of that citizen.

To me, the only solution is a clean break between marriage and civil union. Leave marriage (and its disturbing paternalistic heritage) in the domain of the religious, and give all the legal benefits and responsibilities to civil unions.

Is it just convention that keeps us from this? Or am I missing something?

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[1]Of course, some churches do recognize same-sex marriage. The people who argue against same-sex marriage just tend to be religious.

[2]I’m lazy and haven’t double-checked this.

People Kill People

Names have been cropped.

Much as it pains me to admit because I think the woman is the exact opposite of what is truly needed in a government official, I don’t think Sarah Palin really had much to do with the shooting in Tuscon this weekend. Even with the awful map that she promptly took down from her website.

There’s nothing the news media loves more than a tragedy. It’s a time when anchorpeople can try out their “solemn voices” and they can interview people who went to elementary school with the cousin of a victim and pretend that they have anything to say other than what is obvious: when people die from the gunfire of a mentally unstable person, it’s awful.

And it shouldn’t happen.

The worst part of the media coverage is all the speculation about “why?” and “how?”.

It’s times like these that I want to start passing out Hume tracts. Let me sum up: According to Scottish philosopher and empiricist David Hume, there is no such thing as causation. It’s not real. We don’t experience it. There is only constant conjunction, and we human beings try to explain things by causation because it’s easier for us than to admit that there’s really no infallible way of understanding or predicting any of this.

The alleged gunman (Jared Loughner, 22) in this weekend’s attack on Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords was known for having bizarre, nonsensical outbursts in classes at his community college. He smoked marijuana and salvia. He was a stickler for grammar. He found skulls aesthetically pleasing. He liked conspiracy theories. He was known to be mentally unstable and possibly an undiagnosed schizophrenic.[1] He had access to guns.

The media likes to lump all of these things together as causes, playing into the stereotype that being a little morbid or skeptical of reality makes you a violent lunatic capable of murder. That he had access to guns I would say we can reasonably call a cause, even with the Humean stipulation, because any idiot will tell you that getting shot can kill you. That he was prone to crazy outbursts and threatened to kill people I think we can reasonably consider a warning sign, though having schizophrenia (or whatever label you want to stamp on him) does not necessarily entail violence. That he smoked marijuana has a lot less bearing on the matter, unless a) he was smoking something that was a bit more potent than marijuana, or b) that he had smoked enough marijuana in his short lifespan that he suffered severe brain damage.

But the media doesn’t distinguish and stamps a big “cause” sign on all of these things.

It doesn’t work that way.

We’ll never know all the contributing factors. We can never really identify a true series of causes because we aren’t omniscient, but it worries me that we don’t even separate between reasonable conjunctions and completely contingent correlations. The fact that the obvious contributing factor – access to a 9mm semi-automatic pistol and extended clips[2] – is being lumped with a fondness for conspiracy theories really troubles me.

If we were truly interested in preventing things like this from happening, we’d at least be logical about this. Nearly 12 years ago Marilyn Manson’s name got unfairly lumped in with the Columbine High School massacre, when the fact that the highly constant conjunction that gunfire kills people is never dealt with in legislation. I can only conclude that lawmakers don’t actually want to prevent people, including children, from being shot to death.

You tell me why.

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[1]I don’t know how accurate that bit of speculation is, and I think perhaps the discourse of “mental illness” needs to be re-examined.

[2]I should probably note that I’m not opposed to gun ownership for hunting, but I live in a city where errant gunfire is a legitimate risk, and I don’t think civilians need to own handguns. I find it troubling that people who cling to the 2^nd Amendment refuse to treat the Constitution as a living document, thus missing the original point of it entirely. (I’m looking at you Justice Scalia.)

Let’s Hope It’s A Good One Without Any Fear

[1] The thing is, no one knows. When it comes down to it, no one knows anything and everything that points to the contrary is all a ruse.

I read this fantasy series – The Wheel of Time – and ever since I started reading it as a teenager, I’ve found myself wanting to be in that world. It’s probably more a tribute to likable characters than anything else, but the fact that I would rather be in a situation where the end of the world is immanent than here surely says something about me. When faced with the fate of the world, none of the characters gives up. Sometimes they make stupid choices, but they never choose not to act.

They never really stagnate.

I think maybe this is why I read fiction. When you read a good story, you get absorbed in the world; more specifically, you get absorbed in a world already full of meaning. You don’t have to make it for yourself. Meaning is already included, told to you by the author, and in a good piece of fiction, you accept it.

I used to think that the appeal of fantasy to me was the character traits exhibited by people faced with a world gone mad – courage, honor, pride – things that seem to be lacking in the world today.

But it’s the meaning, I think, that I am lacking.

I don’t know if most people just accept the meaning they find in this world. I don’t know if they simply don’t see it as a burden or if everyone feels the pressure of carving out a life. One life. The only life you’re ever going to get. I’ve had conversations with my dad the past week about the limitations of human knowledge. Human beings are capable of knowing what they don’t know, and for some reason, I take this on as a heavy burden. It weighs on me. These limitations frustrate me more than I let on and there’s nothing I can do about it, nothing I can do about it at all, but let it go.

Let it all go.

The only things that make my life worth living, I think, are tears and laughter. I’m good at the tears. Tears come in solitude and solitude I have. It’s laughter that my life is lacking. Real laughter. The kind that comes from the absurdity of living in this place. The kind that comes from engaging in a world with others.

If you know me at all, you know I laugh a lot when I’m around other people, and I like making people laugh. My sense of humor is probably my most valuable possession, but I waste it by trying to navigate what can’t be navigated.

As another year ends and another begins, and many people make resolutions.

I only have two – to laugh and to let go.

Nothing else, really, is all that important.

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[1]Title taken from “Happy Christmas (War Is Over)” by John Lennon.

A Mother’s Love

I found out this morning that an acquaintance’s mother died last night. I know he’s devastated, and I can feel that devastation. Call me crazy, if you like, but I believe there’s something to the idea of a collective unconscious (actually, I’m more sympathetic to the idea of a collective consciousness, in a stronger sense than Durkheim’s). I believe that when it comes down to it, we’re all just energy, and I honestly think sometimes I can feel the energy of everything around me.

I turned on my television this morning to distract myself after I heard this news, to try settle into my morning routine. I usually try to catch Al Roker and the weather report before I check my work email. Well, this morning was the wedding day for the “Today Throws a Wedding” winners. In a nutshell, Today Show viewers choose the couple and the details of their wedding, and then the couple weds on live television. Today, the show’s hosts were talking in great detail about gowns, table settings and the goat cheese tarts being served at the reception.

I’ve never been interested in any of this stuff, but seeing it this morning, knowing that someone I know’s entire life is irrevocably altered and shattered, just made me so angry.

Bad things happen every day – to me, to people I know, to the people being exploited on the10 o’clock news, to total strangers.

I understand that we shouldn’t let bad things paralyze us and prevent us from living our lives, but I can’t allow myself to think even for a split second that goat cheese tarts are important.

At all.

There is a difference between living and living so entrenched in frivolity that you are nothing more than a series of statistics used in market research.

I don’t mean to sound pretentious or snobbish, because what I’m really just trying to say is that Jean-Paul Sartre was right. We are what ‘they’ tell us we are. Our identities are serial. This starts from birth. It’s part of being a social creature. It’s part of being human. We are directed by pre-existing conditions that have been perpetuated and maintained by humans past.

This doesn’t mean we can’t redirect the seriality, does it?

Can we not perpetuate things that don’t promote elitism, bigotry and false entitlement?

Can’t we at least live our lives really knowing and understanding that there are more important things in the world than goat cheese tarts?

Proust Questionnaire

Marcel Proust made these questionnaires famous. On the back page of Vanity Fair, there’s often an adapted “Proust Questionnaire” given to some famous person. I’m never going to be Marcel Proust or on the back page of Vanity Fair, so here’s mine. (The questions that Vanity Fair uses vary, so I’ve taken a sampling.)

1. What is your idea of perfect happiness?
Finally being able to relax. I’m convinced it’s impossible.

2. What is your greatest fear?
Death. Dying with a lot of regret.

3. What is the trait you most deplore in yourself?
My ability to procrastinate and not actually live my life.

4. What is the trait you most deplore in others?
Unreliability.

5. What do you consider your greatest achievement?
Dropping out of law school.

6. Which living person do you most admire?
Bob Dylan.

7. Which living person do you most despise?
The greediest one.

8. Which historical figure do you most identify with?
Gilles Deleuze.

9. What is your greatest extravagance?
I’m poor, so I guess my rent.

10. What is your current state of mind?
Very disconnected.

11. What do you consider the most overrated virtue?
Humility.

12. On what occasion do you lie?
To protect other people from themselves.

13. What is the quality you most like in a man?
Empathy and Silence.

14. What is the quality you most like in a woman?
Unbridled intelligence.

15. Which words or phrases do you most overuse?
‘I don’t know.’

16. What or who is the greatest love of your life?
Dark Chocolate. It has never, on any occasion, ever done me wrong.

17. When and where were you happiest?
The summer after I graduated from high school back in Indiana.

18. Which talent would you most like to have?
Musical talent.

19. What is your most treasured possession?
Probably my computer, sadly. Or, rather, the hard drive.

20. What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery?
Giving up when you don’t want to but can’t stop it.

21. What is your favorite occupation?
Of occupations I’ve had? Starbucks Barista.

22. What is your most marked characteristic?
I’ve been told I’m ‘weird’ more than anything else.

23. What do you most value in your friends?
Their conversation.

24. Who is your favorite hero of fiction?
Holden Caulfield. Tyler Durden. Jeffrey ‘The Dude’ Lebowski.

25. Who are your heroes in real life?
True artists.

26. What is it that you most dislike?
When we forget to laugh at all of this.

27. What is your greatest regret?
Not asking for help when I have needed it.

28. If not yourself, who would you be?
A drag queen.

29. How would you like to die?
Exactly how and when I choose to.

30. What is your motto?
“Just keep swimming. Just keep swimming.”

Where the Neon Madmen Climb

Today is Bob Dylan’s 69th birthday.

I wish I could write some sort of tribute in honor of this man, on this day, because I’m grateful he exists. But, it’d be like writing Shakespeare a sonnet. So, I’ll let him do it for me (with a little help from Johnny Cash).

Inside Your Showroom Doors

I had the unfortunate occurrence of seeing Rihanna’s “Rude Boy” video while at the gym the other day. I’d post a clip of it, but I can’t bring myself to.

The chorus of this “song” is as follows:
“Come here, rude boy, boy, can you get it up?
Come here, rude boy, boy, is you big enough?
Take it, take it, baby, baby, take it, take it, love me, love me”

It gets more blatant.

Now, I have no problem with vulgarity, that’s not my issue with this lyrical atrocity. My problem is that it’s just not artful. It doesn’t challenge the listener. It doesn’t evoke any type of feeling, except maybe for the delusional souls who think they have a chance at sleeping with Rihanna. Not to mention it’s not musically redeeming, either.

Now, I’m not saying that any of the songs I am going to mention are wonderful examples of brilliant songwriting,[1] but I’m just saying that at least there is some attempt at metaphor. Not to mention melody.

“You got the peaches I got the cream
Sweet to taste saccharine”
~ “Pour Some Sugar on Me” by Def Leppard

“Rubbin’ sticks and stones together makes the sparks ignite”
~ “Afternoon Delight” by Starland Vocal Band

And, in the slightly more subtle department:

“If she’s put together fine
And she’s readin’ my mind
I can’t stop, I can’t stop myself
Lightning is striking again”
~ “Lightning Strikes” by Lou Christie

Peter Gabriel’s “Sledgehammer” is possibly the most innuendo laden song I’ve ever heard:

“I want to be your sledgehammer
Why don’t you call my name
Oh let me be your sledgehammer
This will be my testimony
Show me round your fruitcage
Cause I will be your honey bee
Open up your fruitcage
Where the fruit is as sweet as can be”

And then, there’s Led Zeppelin. Led Zeppelin’s entire discography is about sex. Really, if it’s not about LOTR,[2] it’s about sex. Here’s the tip of the iceberg in “Trampled Underfoot”:

“Trouble-free transmission, helps your oil’s flow
Mama, let me pump your gas, mama, let me do it all

Dig that heavy metal, underneath your hood
Baby, I could work all night, believe I’ve got the perfect tools”[3]

On second thought, maybe bad metaphor isn’t really any better than no metaphor.

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[1]Peter Gabriel being the obvious exception.
[2]That’s Lord of the Rings, for you unenlightened folks.
[3]Also, the song from which this entry title comes.

When This You See

Disclaimer: I assume this is going to be controversial, because it involves me discussing 9/11. This also contains major spoilers for the movie Remember Me.

I saw Remember Me last weekend. Yesterday, I was curious, so I began to check out the reviews it received. I found one review that said Remember Me was slow, offensive, and manipulated the viewer. This seems a bit harsh.

I like slow movies, so I cannot really respond to the first.

Regarding the manipulation, though, I thought movies were supposed to manipulate the viewer in some way. If you don’t get pulled into the story and taken for a ride, what’s the point? I think the reviewer was responding to the surprise ending, which wasn’t actually a surprise at all, because you knew right from the start that the movie took place in New York City in 2001.

However, it seems like a great majority of reviews I have seen and read repeat this sentiment, accusing the movie of being manipulative and breaking the viewer’s trust. I assume this is because it is not promoted as a 9/11 movie. The thing is, it’s not really a “9/11 movie.” It’s a movie about tragedy and how people cope with it. It could have been any tragedy, at any time and any place, and that’s the point.

What would have been offensive would be if, given the setting and time period, they didn’t include the events of 9/11 in some way.

People died in the attack on the World Trade Center – people with their own personal histories, families, back stories, joys and tragedies. Is it exploitation to create fictional characters who were affected by 9/11? I just don’t think so. Historical fiction as a genre does this all the time. It is the emotional portrayal that makes historical fiction universally appealing. The problem, really, is what is the statute of limitations on something being considered historical? Is it just too soon to view 9/11 as a historical event?

The movie is touted as a romance, but it isn’t really.[1] It’s a film about loss and acceptance. People react differently to tragedies, which the movie thoroughly demonstrates, but ultimately, I think the purpose is to show that even after the most horrible of circumstances, people can continue living and breathing all the while continuing to remember.[2] Acceptance is one of the most difficult things for human beings to accomplish emotionally, and the end of the movie gives the viewer hope in that direction.

The last few scenes of the movie are supposed to reveal the way that Tyler had left his fingerprints on the lives of the people who loved him. I don’t care what the reviewers say, continuing to live and not crumble in the aftermath of loss is an important theme for a film to portray.

Note: Not all reviews/reactions have been bad. I agree with what is expressed here.  Oh, and I don’t know a darn thing about acting, so I’m not going to comment on that aspect of the reviews. Personally, I thought Robert Pattinson wasn’t perfect but gave Tyler’s character some depth, and never for a moment did I think I was watching Edward Cullen.

 

I know this, because Tyler knows this.

 

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[1]That’s the fault of the studio, not the film itself.
[2]And, what do you know? That’s the title of the movie. Funny how that works.