I’m not one of them. But I am a fan. Even though I realize the downsides. Sometimes they’re loud to the point of obnoxiousness. A literally disgusting percentage of them are morbidly overweight. Not a single fucking one of them knows how to drive. And they’re never even a little bit shy about being Texans. Once upon a time in a bar in Dallas, some big corn-fed boy was standing on a table, talking about how great Texas was, how it was the only place to be, and how he was never EVER going to live anywhere else. I could tell he felt strongly about it. I asked him where else he had lived in his life. He ain’t never lived anywhere else, because Texas was great, it was the only place to be, and he was never EVER going to live anywhere else. I managed to avoid saying anything that would spark a bar-fight. But it was close.
Still, Texas really is a great place. Southern hospitality is a very real phenomenon, and Texas has it. People are more than just considerate; they are all the way POLITE. And they seem to actually mean it. Texas is one of very few places in the world where a woman traveling alone, car broken down on the side of the road, can accept a ride from a stranger, and not only be perfectly safe, but also have the Good Samaritan drive 20 minutes out of their way because they know a better auto-repair place than the nearest one, and can get them to cut her a deal on fixing that alternator. And not only that, but they would actually get her a better deal, instead of just collecting a kickback for bringing in the business.
Texas is also a place were personal initiative and hard work are held in extremely high regard. Small businesses abound. Pretty much everyone, besides having a regular day job, also has some personal hobby or interest that they could (or do) perform professionally If Things Were Different. (Auto repair, operating machinery, welding, radiological imaging, and that’s just my brother SW’s list while he lived there working full time as a chiropractor.) People are active. They are sometimes conservative and close minded, or racists, or anarchists, or whatever, but they are just people, after all. And generally speaking, I honestly think Texans are a good people. Maybe better than Americans, when compared across the board. Especially if you limit the comparison to people who are proud to be Texans. People who are proud of their culture and their State show it, by supporting their culture and their State, rather than being supported by it. Proud people don’t end up on welfare.
In any rate, the Governor of Texas recently made headlines by not immediately shooting down the idea that Texas might secede from the United States. They can, actually. In fact, they’ve already done it once, circa 1861. Texas thinks of itself as another country, because it was, in fact, another country. After it won its independence in 1836, but before it became a State of the Union in 1845, Texas was a republic. And it was a real, legitimate, functioning republic, unlike, for example, California, which had a puppet government set up following winning it’s ‘independence.’ But that was just a contrivance so the history books would not overtly state that the United States conquered California from Mexico. Texas had its very own functioning government that the citizens considered THEIR government, and it was only through political process and negotiation between nation-states that agreement was reached for Texas to become a State. Realistically speaking, there are only 14 states that have ever functioned as independent political entities: the original 13 colonies that declared independence from England, and Texas, which won its independence from Mexico.
When Texas joined the Union, its own Constitution was amended to include provisions for Texas to leave the Union. Texas’ Constitution has terms to secede, and those terms have been there for as long as Texas was a state. Joining the Union wasn’t a marriage for all time. It was a mere political alliance, subject to cancellation, should that become necessary. Texas children have it drilled into them, to one degree or another, that they are Texans, and every Texas high school kid knows that Texas is the only state that can withdraw from the Union. Texans implicitly know that their United States citizenship is potentially transitory. They consider themselves Texans first and foremost, although they are Americans as well. Fortunately, Texan interests and American interests almost always coincide.
But that might not always be the case, something that a great many Texans are beginning to consider. Texans pay billions in taxes to the American Federal government. They do receive a massive amount of work from the government and government-subsidized industries. Bell-Textron, which rakes in billions from military and other contracts, is there. The only American battle-tank plant outside of Michigan is in Texas. Rockwell International, primary contractor for space shuttle construction, is in Dallas. But really. How much does Texas need America? And what is that alliance going to cost? Texas is a state with lots of entrepreneurs and small businesses. Its gross state production is second only to California (and it’s a distant second), but unlike CA, it’s not shackled by energy and water concerns. Lots of go getters in Texas, and THEY VOTE. But the important part is that there are lots of people in the tax bracket that Barack is hitting up to pay for AFDC in places like Chicago, and to pay unemployment benefits to people in Detroit. How many Texas small businesses are going to get taxed under so welfare mothers in south Philly can afford their King Cobra? Or so Wall Street executives can have new vacation homes in the Hamptons on Federal bail-out money? Whether or not that’s the reality, that is the perception. Texans are not happy about the idea of dragging all of America along in the wake of their industry, and there is some truth in that idea that they are doing so. Being Texans, they’ll do it, do it with hard work, and take a lot of pride in having done it. They’ll never let anyone forget it either. But if it doesn’t work out, they won’t hesitate to cut the tow-cable when it becomes apparent that they’re about to be pulled down by the wreck they’re trying to salvage. Don’t kid yourself about unbreakable ties binding us together.
Which leads to all sorts of possible political problems. Legally, Texas does in fact have the power to leave the Union. Texas’ acknowledgment of United States authority and the United States’ Constitution is subject to a vote-of-no-confidence by its citizenry. Frankly speaking, the United States really does need Texas quite a bit more than Texas needs the United States. While not quite to the point of Colorado in Atlas Shrugged, I honestly think that Texas is the bright future of our economy. If you’re an investor, you’d be a hell of a lot better off looking for opportunities in Houston than looking for opportunities on Wall Street. If for not other reason than oil, the United States could simply not afford to let Texas get away. And what happens then? What usually happens when Nations try to compel responses from another nation?
As a brief historical interlude, tangentially on point: The Civil War was not actually about slavery. Slavery was simply the central practical issue of a political problem, which focused on the extent of the Federal government’s power. The Federalist North did not approve of the practice of slavery, and wanted it outlawed. But what brought the issue to war was not whether or not the Federal government wanted to outlaw slavery throughout the United States, but whether or not the Federal government could outlaw slavery throughout the United States. Specifically, could the Federal Government tell the States how the States were going to operate within their own borders. Did the power of the Federal Government supercede the power of the States? We (meaning most of us outside Texas) take for granted that we are Americans citizens first, and simply residents of whatever state we live in. We are okay with the idea that the States are largely just regional managers organizing local people, under the aegis of the United States. But that wasn’t always the prevailing view. When conflict was heating up between the Union and the Confederacy, General Robert E. Lee faced a dilemma: both nations asked him to command their forces. Lee ended up in command of the Army of Northern Virginia because he considered himself to be a Virginian first and an American second. A great many Texans still hold that mindset today.
Fast forward a hundred and fifty years. Can the Federal government exercise control over Texas, if Texas decides it no longer wants to be under Federal control? Should Texas decide to leave, and should the United States realize it cannot let Texas go, what happens? Will Texas be forced into war with the United States? How would that go? It would not be pretty. On one hand, the American military has power beyond anything this world has ever seen. But it is already fighting two wars at the moment. And there are a lot of Texans in the military who would have to decide where their loyalties lie. Robert E. Lee is not a bad precedent to follow in terms of honorable resolution of strong loyalties. And if it leads to open conflict? Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, around 1942, opined that it would be impossible to invade the continental United States, because there would be a gun behind every blade of grass. With 60 years having passed since then, his thoughts are probably no longer true with regard to the United States as a whole. We’ve become not necessarily soft, but certainly not as ambitiously hard as we once were. In much of the country, a firearm is a quirky, eccentric thing to own, rather than something that people just automatically accept is going to be in the house. But that’s not the case in Texas. Even today, it would be impossible for anyone to invade Texas, because there would, in fact, be a gun behind every blade of grass. Firearms and their use are still very much a part of people’s lifestyles. Not all that long ago, a Texan rancher woke in the middle of the night to someone stealing his pickup. He got his Remington 700 rifle and shot the guy behind the wheel of the truck as they were trying to escape down his quarter-mile driveway. A Texas jury acquitted the rancher of the murder charge. They approve of that sort of conduct in that part of the world. With that prevailing mindset, a war between Texas and the United States would be exceptionally brutal, to the point that it could destroy both republics.
It’s not happening. But the potential is there. The legal right to leave is there. And more and more Texans are going to start seriously wondering why their small businesses are closing down under tax burdens, so Wall Street can continue business as usual. New York is a long way from Dallas, after all.
I genuinely hope that Barack gets on top of the economic situation quickly, and that he doesn’t try to jam through any legislation that would sour that segment of the population (like a comprehensive firearms ban, for example). I’m really not worried about the United States’ potential for economic recovery. As it was in the 1920s, the problem is that so much of our economy has been functioning on credit that, without the (now defunct) credit market to sustain it, nothing is worth the amount that was paid for it. Your house is not worth what you paid for it. Nor is your car. Not because they are worth less, but just because the failure of the credit system means that prices no longer enjoy the extra cost padding that credit enabled us to pay. It’s really not that complicated. The collapse of the credit system has meant that more must be done on a cash-and-carry basis, which isn’t working because there isn’t enough actual cash in the system. There never had to be; everything was done on credit! But prices will settle down, the credit system will recover, and equilibrium will be reached. We will recover from this, given time. If nothing else, America still has the most productive agricultural system in the world. Barring an energy market collapse (which controls transportation costs) the American people are not going to starve. Which means that people will (hopefully) not become so panicked about survival that they start acting rash. They will keep working. So long as the populace remains fed, they are not going to revolt; they are going to find jobs, and work. So long as people can eat, they will rebuild, and almost always build something better than what was lost. Economic downtimes are unfortunate, especially for people used to lazy, comfortable lifestyles. But economic downtimes do not by themselves lead to the fall of nations.
But if some economic recovery is not seen soon, and if taxes keep rising without results being seen, more and more Texans are going to start wondering if being an American is really all that great a thing, and might Texas once again be better off by her lonesome. If the status quo degrades enough (or even persists long enough), Texas will secede. Which would be a catastrophe far beyond anything we might do to ourselves economically. American can recover from economic difficulty. That is not the sort of end that will bring down a Nation so powerful. But a civil war based on an internal division, and sparked by contention in a critical market (Texas oil) is EXACTLY the sort of end that would bring down a Nation so powerful.
The economy is what it is, and while there are a lot of things that might happen to make things worse, there are also a lot of things that might happen to make things better. As citizens, all we can really do is live our lives, live each day as best we can, and enjoy the time that we are given. In all probability, not a whole lot is going to change, except what changes we make for ourselves. Life is like that.
But if you ever start to hear serious rumblings of Texas secession, then you might want to consider where you’re going to want to be in event of a breakup and collapse of the United States as a whole. (Personally, I like the looks of Costa Rica.) In the meantime, think about this: if Texas seceded from the Union, even at this point, would you really think less of them? And if Texas seceded from the Union, which side of the border would you want to be on? I, for one, am not worried about the future of Texas. The rest of the nation… Well. We’ll see.
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
Monday, April 13, 2009
The Time Of Our Lives
Do you remember how, as a child, time seemed to pass so slowly? The ten minutes before the start of your favorite cartoon was more that enough time for a game with your siblings (but, strangely, that last hour before bed couldn’t possibly have lasted more than twenty minutes). A day’s class was an eternal, indescribable torture, and every one of them was different. Different lessons each day, some of them even interesting. Different classes each year, some better than others. The only thing longer than summer vacation was the school year that it took to get there.
It’s only as adults that days speed ever faster into the next. How an entire month can go by in a blink. Or an entire year. What happens to us that the days that used to last forever are replaced by years that never made a difference?
At least part of it is biological. It is indisputable truth that child minds work differently that adult minds, and that children learn faster and more easily than adults. Young brains are biologically more dynamic and flexible that older brains. Children are capable of recovering from brain injuries and aphasias that would be catastrophic to adults. Young brains simply form and reform neural connections faster and more dynamically than adult brains. And since learning is all about the formation of neural connections, young brains learn much faster and more dynamically than adult minds. Since what this means is that children’s minds effectively absorb and process details and events MUCH more deeply than adult minds, it’s natural that the brain experience related temporal anomalies. Take a brain that is absolutely primed to learn and expose it to a crowed city street for ten minutes. Take a brain that is a little more analytical, and little more structured in its tendencies, and put it on the same street for the same amount of time. Hell, even for the SAME period. The brain that is primed to receive input is going to notice and remember MUCH more of the little details. Every minute, if not every second, will be defined by something happening; each moment will be distinct and differentiable from the last.
The older brain, by comparison, is much more able to interpret and understand the goings-on on the street (by dint of the very structure and analysis that get in the way of pure observation), but simply does not absorb as many of the little details. The ten minutes fly by, and unless there’s something “notable” happening, the brain is not going to seize onto a great many things to give definition to each minute, or even (barring a car accident or drive-by) give much definition to the ten minute period as a whole.
So why does it seem odd that a young brain would count that 10 minute period as a definable, memorable period, whose passage was notable (either as very exciting or as excruciatingly boring), whereas an older brain would hardly notice the passage of that time at all? When your kids start complaining about how long it has been since you’ve done something, or about how long something has lasted, they’re not really exaggerating. For them, it really has been a long time.
Hell, look at ADD or (taken to the extreme) autism. Children whose brains are so fluid and dynamic in the neural connections that form and fire that the brain has problems focusing on anything in particular? A brain that is so busy noticing and calculating and absorbing information that it can’t bring itself to really do anything with that information. Is this not a predictable evolutionary hiccup? Children’s brains are expected to absorb not only all the skills and knowledge that their parents learned, but also all the skills and knowledge that have developed over their parents’ lifetimes. Culturally, genetically, and epigenetically, evolution is going to find a way to accommodate that requirement, and I suspect that such evolution will spring from traits that we today consider hindrances or handicaps in those that experience them.
What will be the evolutionary step once the quirks that are ADD and autism mature into some functional mutation? Imagine a brain that with that breadth of observation, that speed of calculation, that perception of each moment as separate and defined. But where without sacrificing all that, the brain is capable of effectively focusing on and making effective practical use of any of those observations, affairs, and perceptions. Imagine a brain that is capable of effectively focusing on and making use of ALL of those observations, affairs, and perceptions. What might such a mind accomplish? What sort of renaissance might such a next-step renaissance man spark? Imagine Leonardo DaVinci, except instead of considering and coming up with novel applications in art and anatomy, is theorizing on quantum physics or psychology? Those sorts of genetic/epigenetic quantum leaps in intelligence or cognitive ability are historically documented. Humanity has taken sudden leaps forward where a specific individual is born with a genetically superior brain function, to the point where they are demonstrably more capable than those without the genetic tag. Evolution has in the past and will again lead to sudden, drastic leaps in human cognitive ability. How vast indeed is our children’s potential.
But turning back to the issue of perception of time, there’s more to that change of perception than just maturation of neural pathways as we age. There’s also the lives that we lead. As a child, there are milestones. Every weekend has something happening: little league, swim lessons, whatever. Every day of school has different lessons. Every year has different classes and different teachers. People are telling you what you’ll be learning next year, and as odd and unreal as it seems, sure enough, you go on and learn it. When you’re in school, you’re climbing the ladder, and each step is important. K though 12. College. Maybe grad school. Discernable steps along a marked path (with frequent mile-markers) towards a defined goal.
But then, at one point or another, we leave that path. We leave or lose the clearly marked trail, as we reach, abandon, or are barred from the defined goal. Mile markers stop rolling by. Rather than moving on to the next grade, we get jobs. Those jobs become our lives. Maybe we get married, maybe we don’t, but we settle into some sort of status quo. One day bleeds into the next, into the next week, the next month, the next year. We settle in and become boring, knowing we’re not happy, but not really unhappy, and it really is too convenient and comfortable to make a lot of trouble about it. We’ve got intoxicants to get us through. And counselors, to try to explain the reasons we’re stagnant and unhappy in living stagnant unhappy lives. Mostly, they try to convince us it’s because we just don’t appreciate the things we have, and we should suck it up and try to be more gracious. Before we know it, we’ve been at a job we hate for five years, haven’t been on vacation for three years, and aren’t even managing to have much in the way of quality sex. How stagnant can life get, where not even orgasms get a rise out of us?
What does it take to break free from the status quo that sets around us like concrete? Often times, it takes – or will be precipitated by – a sudden infusion of life. A little break from the ordinary, maybe where you go on vacation, or have a rare good time with old friends. Share some stories and jokes and laughs, the way you did when you were young. To get past endless gray monotony, you need defining events (not necessarily spectacular events; just a series of events, each of which was memorable), and many of them. You need to spend some time where the time seems to pass slowly, because every moment is wonderful. Until you get shaken out of the rut of the status quo, you have nothing else to compare the status quo to. No reason to wonder just how much greater things Might Be. Certainly no reason to consider going after those things.
I got to thinking about all this for a few reasons. First of all, because I’ve lost at least three years to my current status quo. Not a whole lot happening, personally or professionally. A lot of good times, and a few halcyon moments, but for the most part just a status quo. It’s not really satisfying. It’s not what I want. But it has been really, REALLY comfortable. To he point where I have not a serious care in the world, and where my every aspiration for toys and tangible things either has been satisfied, or could be satisfied should I decide to indulge. It’s been really easy. I never even really noticed the passage of time until a friend asked me if I was happy about my life. I asked her to define the standard I should use. She asked me: if the next five years where just like the last five years, would you be okay with that? My immediate and overwhelming response: FUCK NO. While this status quo has been very comfortable, it has not been very satisfying. It turns out that material bounty (which I have in spades) is a poor substitute for intangible happiness.
Secondly, I’ve been thinking a lot about it because people have been coming to me with relationship issues. I’m currently rendering at least part time marriage or relationship advice to four people. I love all of them, and I’m glad to help all of them, but I can’t help laughing at the irony of married people (some married more than once) coming to a 32-year old bachelor for consultation. I suspect its because they want or need some rational insight, which I’m sometimes able to provide. Also, the lack of drama in my life means that they can count on me to actually listen to them, rather than just waiting for my turn to talk about my own woes.
In any rate, the trend that I’ve noticed in all my friends who are having relationship breakages is that the biggest problem seems to be the settling into an unsatisfying status quo. Either they have become people they don’t like, they are living a life they don’t like, or both. The practical manifestation of that status quo (whether based on legitimate gripe or on unreasonable expectation) is unacceptable to one member of the relationship. Whether it’s women who have gotten married only to find themselves living alone in strange places with absentee husbands, or husbands who are tired of their wives’ efforts to change them into someone neither of them will like. Or even just simple cases where The Spark has died in the relationship. They have spent some period immersed in a status quo that, for one reason or another, is untenable any longer. Too much time already lost, and they’re not willing to have the days to come pass the same as the ones gone by. They had some wonderful moments, know good times are out there, and the relationship is not going to come though with them. They want to be happy. And, strangely, are almost always apologetic about it. Go figure.
For my part (and despite overwhelming desire to spend more time saying what I think and feel about things), I try to keep rational when talking to people about their lives. I certainly am not qualified to opine about the interaction of married people, but I can out-rational pretty much anyone I know. And it’s both easy and true to point out that each person in each of these relationships is responsible for their own happiness. This is the only life they have. Whether their reasons and reasoning in making the change are sound or not, if they are trying to build a happier life outside the relationship than the one they had in the relationship, how can you possibly say they have done anything wrong? In all of it, the only thing that really upsets me is seeing my friends in more pain than they need to be in. Not because of the dissolution of the relationships, but because of all the grief that goes hand in hand with the dissolution.
Back to the issue of temporal perceptions, each of my friends, in separate directions, has been freed from the status quo, and is caught in the chaos that is the alternative. Time is passing slowly for them, but for the wrong reasons: Every day is difficult and painful as a result of their situation. They wonder if they’ve done everything they could have or should have in their relationships. They wonder if they’re fucking up their lives with the decisions they’re making, and wonder if they’re being unreasonable. They wonder if they should go back to the way things were, and wonder if they if could go back if they wanted to. They wonder how much they are going to regret what they’re doing. They hope that the good times they know will come again get here soon, because each day in the meantime is gonna be an eternity. Mix in the usual travails of professional, scholastic, and/or social interaction, and every day is distinctly NOT routine. Time is passing slowly.
We have all had wonderful days that seemed to last forever. But most of the time, the days that seem to last forever are the ones where everything that can go wrong, does. Where tragedy strikes. Where we are in pain. A minute of torture feels infinitely longer than a solid hour of gentle massage.
Take by contrast, the day-to-day routine. The comfort of the humdrum. While a solid, steady status quo is not always enjoyable, and is not notable or memorable, it is almost never painful. You know what you get, because it’s what you have. And while what you have might not be a whole lot, at least you DO have it. We settle into status quos, and allow our lives to fly by uneventfully, because doing so spares the risk of loss and pain. We feed our lives to mediocrity, because doing that is easier than any of the alternatives. And unless something happens that snaps us out of it, we don’t even realize just how long it’s been since anything has happened to define the passage of time.
But then something happens that makes you notice how staid the status quo is, and you decide to make changes in hopes of something brighter. Or else some defining event occurs, which suddenly creates a new status quo, itself unacceptable. Either way, a change becomes necessary. Which further muddles the status quo, as you and those around you must work out an inherently discordant process: reaching a status quo that at least one of you is not going to like as well as they liked the last. But that’s life. And it’s ours. If we do not live it, no one else shall.
The status quo must change sometimes; if it doesn’t, our lives pass by in uneventful mediocrity, even if (or perhaps, because) the process is painless and easy. So remember: it’s only the status quo. The only reason it exists is because it does, not because it must. You can change it, and don’t need to apologize for it. There is nothing to be ashamed of in wanting to live your life well. No need to apologize for wanting the fun times, the vacations, the attention, The Spark. No transgression in wanting your days to pass slowly, with each moment as spectacular as it can be.
Reaching the next mile marker means leaving the last maker behind, and just because you can’t see the next marker doesn’t mean it’s not there waiting for you. You just gotta decide to move forward, and pay whatever toll is imposed along the way. Ideally, the best things in your life will move forward with you. But sometimes, moving ahead means leaving things behind. That’s just life. It’s not that some things are not meant to be. It’s just that almost nothing is meant to be forever.
It’s only as adults that days speed ever faster into the next. How an entire month can go by in a blink. Or an entire year. What happens to us that the days that used to last forever are replaced by years that never made a difference?
At least part of it is biological. It is indisputable truth that child minds work differently that adult minds, and that children learn faster and more easily than adults. Young brains are biologically more dynamic and flexible that older brains. Children are capable of recovering from brain injuries and aphasias that would be catastrophic to adults. Young brains simply form and reform neural connections faster and more dynamically than adult brains. And since learning is all about the formation of neural connections, young brains learn much faster and more dynamically than adult minds. Since what this means is that children’s minds effectively absorb and process details and events MUCH more deeply than adult minds, it’s natural that the brain experience related temporal anomalies. Take a brain that is absolutely primed to learn and expose it to a crowed city street for ten minutes. Take a brain that is a little more analytical, and little more structured in its tendencies, and put it on the same street for the same amount of time. Hell, even for the SAME period. The brain that is primed to receive input is going to notice and remember MUCH more of the little details. Every minute, if not every second, will be defined by something happening; each moment will be distinct and differentiable from the last.
The older brain, by comparison, is much more able to interpret and understand the goings-on on the street (by dint of the very structure and analysis that get in the way of pure observation), but simply does not absorb as many of the little details. The ten minutes fly by, and unless there’s something “notable” happening, the brain is not going to seize onto a great many things to give definition to each minute, or even (barring a car accident or drive-by) give much definition to the ten minute period as a whole.
So why does it seem odd that a young brain would count that 10 minute period as a definable, memorable period, whose passage was notable (either as very exciting or as excruciatingly boring), whereas an older brain would hardly notice the passage of that time at all? When your kids start complaining about how long it has been since you’ve done something, or about how long something has lasted, they’re not really exaggerating. For them, it really has been a long time.
Hell, look at ADD or (taken to the extreme) autism. Children whose brains are so fluid and dynamic in the neural connections that form and fire that the brain has problems focusing on anything in particular? A brain that is so busy noticing and calculating and absorbing information that it can’t bring itself to really do anything with that information. Is this not a predictable evolutionary hiccup? Children’s brains are expected to absorb not only all the skills and knowledge that their parents learned, but also all the skills and knowledge that have developed over their parents’ lifetimes. Culturally, genetically, and epigenetically, evolution is going to find a way to accommodate that requirement, and I suspect that such evolution will spring from traits that we today consider hindrances or handicaps in those that experience them.
What will be the evolutionary step once the quirks that are ADD and autism mature into some functional mutation? Imagine a brain that with that breadth of observation, that speed of calculation, that perception of each moment as separate and defined. But where without sacrificing all that, the brain is capable of effectively focusing on and making effective practical use of any of those observations, affairs, and perceptions. Imagine a brain that is capable of effectively focusing on and making use of ALL of those observations, affairs, and perceptions. What might such a mind accomplish? What sort of renaissance might such a next-step renaissance man spark? Imagine Leonardo DaVinci, except instead of considering and coming up with novel applications in art and anatomy, is theorizing on quantum physics or psychology? Those sorts of genetic/epigenetic quantum leaps in intelligence or cognitive ability are historically documented. Humanity has taken sudden leaps forward where a specific individual is born with a genetically superior brain function, to the point where they are demonstrably more capable than those without the genetic tag. Evolution has in the past and will again lead to sudden, drastic leaps in human cognitive ability. How vast indeed is our children’s potential.
But turning back to the issue of perception of time, there’s more to that change of perception than just maturation of neural pathways as we age. There’s also the lives that we lead. As a child, there are milestones. Every weekend has something happening: little league, swim lessons, whatever. Every day of school has different lessons. Every year has different classes and different teachers. People are telling you what you’ll be learning next year, and as odd and unreal as it seems, sure enough, you go on and learn it. When you’re in school, you’re climbing the ladder, and each step is important. K though 12. College. Maybe grad school. Discernable steps along a marked path (with frequent mile-markers) towards a defined goal.
But then, at one point or another, we leave that path. We leave or lose the clearly marked trail, as we reach, abandon, or are barred from the defined goal. Mile markers stop rolling by. Rather than moving on to the next grade, we get jobs. Those jobs become our lives. Maybe we get married, maybe we don’t, but we settle into some sort of status quo. One day bleeds into the next, into the next week, the next month, the next year. We settle in and become boring, knowing we’re not happy, but not really unhappy, and it really is too convenient and comfortable to make a lot of trouble about it. We’ve got intoxicants to get us through. And counselors, to try to explain the reasons we’re stagnant and unhappy in living stagnant unhappy lives. Mostly, they try to convince us it’s because we just don’t appreciate the things we have, and we should suck it up and try to be more gracious. Before we know it, we’ve been at a job we hate for five years, haven’t been on vacation for three years, and aren’t even managing to have much in the way of quality sex. How stagnant can life get, where not even orgasms get a rise out of us?
What does it take to break free from the status quo that sets around us like concrete? Often times, it takes – or will be precipitated by – a sudden infusion of life. A little break from the ordinary, maybe where you go on vacation, or have a rare good time with old friends. Share some stories and jokes and laughs, the way you did when you were young. To get past endless gray monotony, you need defining events (not necessarily spectacular events; just a series of events, each of which was memorable), and many of them. You need to spend some time where the time seems to pass slowly, because every moment is wonderful. Until you get shaken out of the rut of the status quo, you have nothing else to compare the status quo to. No reason to wonder just how much greater things Might Be. Certainly no reason to consider going after those things.
I got to thinking about all this for a few reasons. First of all, because I’ve lost at least three years to my current status quo. Not a whole lot happening, personally or professionally. A lot of good times, and a few halcyon moments, but for the most part just a status quo. It’s not really satisfying. It’s not what I want. But it has been really, REALLY comfortable. To he point where I have not a serious care in the world, and where my every aspiration for toys and tangible things either has been satisfied, or could be satisfied should I decide to indulge. It’s been really easy. I never even really noticed the passage of time until a friend asked me if I was happy about my life. I asked her to define the standard I should use. She asked me: if the next five years where just like the last five years, would you be okay with that? My immediate and overwhelming response: FUCK NO. While this status quo has been very comfortable, it has not been very satisfying. It turns out that material bounty (which I have in spades) is a poor substitute for intangible happiness.
Secondly, I’ve been thinking a lot about it because people have been coming to me with relationship issues. I’m currently rendering at least part time marriage or relationship advice to four people. I love all of them, and I’m glad to help all of them, but I can’t help laughing at the irony of married people (some married more than once) coming to a 32-year old bachelor for consultation. I suspect its because they want or need some rational insight, which I’m sometimes able to provide. Also, the lack of drama in my life means that they can count on me to actually listen to them, rather than just waiting for my turn to talk about my own woes.
In any rate, the trend that I’ve noticed in all my friends who are having relationship breakages is that the biggest problem seems to be the settling into an unsatisfying status quo. Either they have become people they don’t like, they are living a life they don’t like, or both. The practical manifestation of that status quo (whether based on legitimate gripe or on unreasonable expectation) is unacceptable to one member of the relationship. Whether it’s women who have gotten married only to find themselves living alone in strange places with absentee husbands, or husbands who are tired of their wives’ efforts to change them into someone neither of them will like. Or even just simple cases where The Spark has died in the relationship. They have spent some period immersed in a status quo that, for one reason or another, is untenable any longer. Too much time already lost, and they’re not willing to have the days to come pass the same as the ones gone by. They had some wonderful moments, know good times are out there, and the relationship is not going to come though with them. They want to be happy. And, strangely, are almost always apologetic about it. Go figure.
For my part (and despite overwhelming desire to spend more time saying what I think and feel about things), I try to keep rational when talking to people about their lives. I certainly am not qualified to opine about the interaction of married people, but I can out-rational pretty much anyone I know. And it’s both easy and true to point out that each person in each of these relationships is responsible for their own happiness. This is the only life they have. Whether their reasons and reasoning in making the change are sound or not, if they are trying to build a happier life outside the relationship than the one they had in the relationship, how can you possibly say they have done anything wrong? In all of it, the only thing that really upsets me is seeing my friends in more pain than they need to be in. Not because of the dissolution of the relationships, but because of all the grief that goes hand in hand with the dissolution.
Back to the issue of temporal perceptions, each of my friends, in separate directions, has been freed from the status quo, and is caught in the chaos that is the alternative. Time is passing slowly for them, but for the wrong reasons: Every day is difficult and painful as a result of their situation. They wonder if they’ve done everything they could have or should have in their relationships. They wonder if they’re fucking up their lives with the decisions they’re making, and wonder if they’re being unreasonable. They wonder if they should go back to the way things were, and wonder if they if could go back if they wanted to. They wonder how much they are going to regret what they’re doing. They hope that the good times they know will come again get here soon, because each day in the meantime is gonna be an eternity. Mix in the usual travails of professional, scholastic, and/or social interaction, and every day is distinctly NOT routine. Time is passing slowly.
We have all had wonderful days that seemed to last forever. But most of the time, the days that seem to last forever are the ones where everything that can go wrong, does. Where tragedy strikes. Where we are in pain. A minute of torture feels infinitely longer than a solid hour of gentle massage.
Take by contrast, the day-to-day routine. The comfort of the humdrum. While a solid, steady status quo is not always enjoyable, and is not notable or memorable, it is almost never painful. You know what you get, because it’s what you have. And while what you have might not be a whole lot, at least you DO have it. We settle into status quos, and allow our lives to fly by uneventfully, because doing so spares the risk of loss and pain. We feed our lives to mediocrity, because doing that is easier than any of the alternatives. And unless something happens that snaps us out of it, we don’t even realize just how long it’s been since anything has happened to define the passage of time.
But then something happens that makes you notice how staid the status quo is, and you decide to make changes in hopes of something brighter. Or else some defining event occurs, which suddenly creates a new status quo, itself unacceptable. Either way, a change becomes necessary. Which further muddles the status quo, as you and those around you must work out an inherently discordant process: reaching a status quo that at least one of you is not going to like as well as they liked the last. But that’s life. And it’s ours. If we do not live it, no one else shall.
The status quo must change sometimes; if it doesn’t, our lives pass by in uneventful mediocrity, even if (or perhaps, because) the process is painless and easy. So remember: it’s only the status quo. The only reason it exists is because it does, not because it must. You can change it, and don’t need to apologize for it. There is nothing to be ashamed of in wanting to live your life well. No need to apologize for wanting the fun times, the vacations, the attention, The Spark. No transgression in wanting your days to pass slowly, with each moment as spectacular as it can be.
Reaching the next mile marker means leaving the last maker behind, and just because you can’t see the next marker doesn’t mean it’s not there waiting for you. You just gotta decide to move forward, and pay whatever toll is imposed along the way. Ideally, the best things in your life will move forward with you. But sometimes, moving ahead means leaving things behind. That’s just life. It’s not that some things are not meant to be. It’s just that almost nothing is meant to be forever.
Monday, March 30, 2009
The Zombie Uprising
No, the Zombie uprising is not really happening. Yet. Although those of you who are not planning and preparing should be. Here's an email from my brother, to get you into the spirit of things. (His codename is abbreviated herein as 'GL.' Yes, my brothers and I have codenames. Don't ask.) The three of us (including my other brother, 'SW,') were emailing about possibly buying expensive models of Zentraedi battle-cruisers. Again, don't ask. (But no; I'm not making this shit up.) In the exchange, GL got to talking about his weekend, and what he wrote made me laugh out loud. I'm reposting it here, without permission, partially for comedic value, but also as proof that there are other people in the world who have their share of family-based inherited/acquired mental nuances largely similar to mine.
The back-story is that GL, being Satan, arranged an airsoft weekend in the woods (people shooting each other with guns that fire plastic BBs), where the theme was people vs. zombies. 'Zombies' were unarmed, but must be shot in the head to be killed. If you are grabbed and "bitten" by a zombie, you drop your gun and become one yourself. Again being Satan, he managed to talk a few people into thinking this was a good idea, and got them to join in. Here is the after-action report her included in our email exchange. Not that the spelling and other errors are included from the original, without complaint. I have no respect for someone who can only spell a word one way.
GL: "Zombie Camping WASFUCKINGAWESOME!
"So we got a whole mix of people with about 4 guys and 5 girls, then while we were there drinking while Nory and I were getting the guns set up, our girls met this group of three hot co-eds and invited them over. They were college students visiting CA and camping down the coast. Drunk already of course. So that made our group 2 zombies, 2 guys and 8 screaming panicky have-no-idea-how-to-shoot-a gun girls.
"We set up two lanterns on picnic tables about 50 yeards from eachother with trees and an unlit toilet complex between them so you did't have direct site from one base to the other. And since there was no moon, unless you had your eyes adjusted you couldn't see shit except what was 10 feet from a lantern OR whatever your flashlight was shining on.
[HT COMMENTARY: Don't doubt that camping out on a moonless night was probably an intentional part of GL's planning for the weekend. That is EXACTLY the sort of factor that would be affirmatively considered.]
GL, continued: "We handed out the the 6 glock single action pistols and one mp5 and whoever was fast grabbed them up, each one had about 5-30 shots. Then Lisas borther and I proceaded to run through the woods around them trying to scare them and occasionally stumbling into the light to draw fire. Eventually they either ran out of ammo, or didn't want to be left alone so they tried to make it to the other light (where we had left more clips and the other 3 mp5s)
"Absolute madness ensued. Nory tackles josh, who then tackled lisa. I grabbed one of the new girls while she was stumbling in the dark screaming "guys?! where is everyone going... OH GOD NOO!!" and after that just mayhem. Sarah made it to an mp5 then realized she was the only one left at the 2nd lantern so she tried to go back to the other one, I growled at her from behind a tree and took off in a dead sprint howling after her and she bolted to the 1st lantern, where she suddenly stopped, calmly turned around and emptied about 50 pellets into me as I ran right by her screaming. Nory was chasing Elana, but tripped over one of the new girls that josh tagged and ate shit into the bushes. Eventually there was only one of the new girls left with a flashlight and a jammed glock. Her two friends, josh, lisa and I all surrounded her moaning "braaaaaiiiiiins" and she stumbled out into the dark and realized everywhere she shone her little $2 flashlight there was a zombie coming at her and she just FREAKED!!! her friends totally just tackled her and proceaded to drag her around in the grass as she screamed and giggled feverishly.
"Then we went back and did another round of tequila shots.
"We played three games in all, each one hilarious with little moments that made you think "why are we not doing this every weekend? mixed with God if I wasn't this drunk running into that tree really would have hurt" But in general is was very tame with the humans trying to form some semblance of a plan, but within 10 minutes it degraded into wild dashes of people with flashlights tripping over each other, ranbdom gunshots (and hits), punctuated by the occasional terror stricken scream.
"All in all fucking awesome, we should play when I come up next. And i am coming up to get something for the next high: Chainsaws!!!
[HT COMMENTARY: Things like this are always a part of the festivities when my brothers and I get together. Some variation of this scenario - including chainsaws - will be played out when next we're all in the same state at the same time.]
GL, continued: "I figure I can get one or two more zombie events out of people before it loses it's scare, thats when we change to Texas chainsaw Masacre:
"1 or 2 people with 2 stroke chainsaws with the chains removed walking around in the dark after the humans, they can take lots of hits and decide when enough is enough at which point they fall over and turn off the saw. Then after a minute or two, or after the humans leave the area they get back up and fire that bad boy back up. If they touch someone that person just becomes one of "the family" and runs with normal zombie rules replacing "braaaains" with "goddammit Boy! Go get the meat!!" and "I'm gonna get up in there all deaaap like...." or something.
"See if you can get some people together, need atleast 8, more girls the better. Tell Makayla to get her friends and have a sleep over! We have a surprise for them."
HT: Yup. That's my brother. Don't know where he gets these sorts of ideas from. Really, I don't. Although I think I was the one that pointed him to www.zombiehunters.org, so I might be partially to blame. Yeah. Probably a family thing. But note to readers: this sort of weekend WILL be happening again. Let me know if you're interested, because I'm thinking about flying to CA to participate in the next go-round.
The back-story is that GL, being Satan, arranged an airsoft weekend in the woods (people shooting each other with guns that fire plastic BBs), where the theme was people vs. zombies. 'Zombies' were unarmed, but must be shot in the head to be killed. If you are grabbed and "bitten" by a zombie, you drop your gun and become one yourself. Again being Satan, he managed to talk a few people into thinking this was a good idea, and got them to join in. Here is the after-action report her included in our email exchange. Not that the spelling and other errors are included from the original, without complaint. I have no respect for someone who can only spell a word one way.
GL: "Zombie Camping WASFUCKINGAWESOME!
"So we got a whole mix of people with about 4 guys and 5 girls, then while we were there drinking while Nory and I were getting the guns set up, our girls met this group of three hot co-eds and invited them over. They were college students visiting CA and camping down the coast. Drunk already of course. So that made our group 2 zombies, 2 guys and 8 screaming panicky have-no-idea-how-to-shoot-a gun girls.
"We set up two lanterns on picnic tables about 50 yeards from eachother with trees and an unlit toilet complex between them so you did't have direct site from one base to the other. And since there was no moon, unless you had your eyes adjusted you couldn't see shit except what was 10 feet from a lantern OR whatever your flashlight was shining on.
[HT COMMENTARY: Don't doubt that camping out on a moonless night was probably an intentional part of GL's planning for the weekend. That is EXACTLY the sort of factor that would be affirmatively considered.]
GL, continued: "We handed out the the 6 glock single action pistols and one mp5 and whoever was fast grabbed them up, each one had about 5-30 shots. Then Lisas borther and I proceaded to run through the woods around them trying to scare them and occasionally stumbling into the light to draw fire. Eventually they either ran out of ammo, or didn't want to be left alone so they tried to make it to the other light (where we had left more clips and the other 3 mp5s)
"Absolute madness ensued. Nory tackles josh, who then tackled lisa. I grabbed one of the new girls while she was stumbling in the dark screaming "guys?! where is everyone going... OH GOD NOO!!" and after that just mayhem. Sarah made it to an mp5 then realized she was the only one left at the 2nd lantern so she tried to go back to the other one, I growled at her from behind a tree and took off in a dead sprint howling after her and she bolted to the 1st lantern, where she suddenly stopped, calmly turned around and emptied about 50 pellets into me as I ran right by her screaming. Nory was chasing Elana, but tripped over one of the new girls that josh tagged and ate shit into the bushes. Eventually there was only one of the new girls left with a flashlight and a jammed glock. Her two friends, josh, lisa and I all surrounded her moaning "braaaaaiiiiiins" and she stumbled out into the dark and realized everywhere she shone her little $2 flashlight there was a zombie coming at her and she just FREAKED!!! her friends totally just tackled her and proceaded to drag her around in the grass as she screamed and giggled feverishly.
"Then we went back and did another round of tequila shots.
"We played three games in all, each one hilarious with little moments that made you think "why are we not doing this every weekend? mixed with God if I wasn't this drunk running into that tree really would have hurt" But in general is was very tame with the humans trying to form some semblance of a plan, but within 10 minutes it degraded into wild dashes of people with flashlights tripping over each other, ranbdom gunshots (and hits), punctuated by the occasional terror stricken scream.
"All in all fucking awesome, we should play when I come up next. And i am coming up to get something for the next high: Chainsaws!!!
[HT COMMENTARY: Things like this are always a part of the festivities when my brothers and I get together. Some variation of this scenario - including chainsaws - will be played out when next we're all in the same state at the same time.]
GL, continued: "I figure I can get one or two more zombie events out of people before it loses it's scare, thats when we change to Texas chainsaw Masacre:
"1 or 2 people with 2 stroke chainsaws with the chains removed walking around in the dark after the humans, they can take lots of hits and decide when enough is enough at which point they fall over and turn off the saw. Then after a minute or two, or after the humans leave the area they get back up and fire that bad boy back up. If they touch someone that person just becomes one of "the family" and runs with normal zombie rules replacing "braaaains" with "goddammit Boy! Go get the meat!!" and "I'm gonna get up in there all deaaap like...." or something.
"See if you can get some people together, need atleast 8, more girls the better. Tell Makayla to get her friends and have a sleep over! We have a surprise for them."
HT: Yup. That's my brother. Don't know where he gets these sorts of ideas from. Really, I don't. Although I think I was the one that pointed him to www.zombiehunters.org, so I might be partially to blame. Yeah. Probably a family thing. But note to readers: this sort of weekend WILL be happening again. Let me know if you're interested, because I'm thinking about flying to CA to participate in the next go-round.
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
Writers Block
As I hope is clear from my ongoing efforts here, and from my stated efforts in The Rules (and also in some shit that you don’t get to know about), I fancy myself a little bit of a writer. Not a writer of books or novels or anything like that; as I’ve stated here before, I think the best job in literature is not the novelist, it’s the columnist. Imagine a job where your required work product is three pages of good shit every week, and where - so long as you come up with those pages - you can work from anywhere there is an internet connection that you can email your work product in from. Yeah. That would be nice. Spend one week polishing a column on the history of the St. James Gate Brewery while AT the St. James Gate Brewery. Then head off to Cancun (or Paris, or Venice, or Fiji, or wherever) to write a column on The Perfect Margarita (or on European politics, Italian history, Pacific Inland culture, or whatever).
But even in small doses, as a blog, a hypothetical column, or a Rule and its Explanation, it turns out that writing is hard work. Not necessarily the physical act of writing. Once you spend a few years at it, you find that you can type about as fast as you can talk. The problem is not coming up with ideas, either. I have literally thousands of pages of shit where the ideas are already there. Where they don’t really need to be written, they just need to be written DOWN. In a world as fucked up as ours, subject matter is definitely there for anyone paying attention to opine on. So coming up with blog ideas is really not a problem either.
The problem is coming up with work that is an encapsulated whole, which a reader can digest in a single sitting. As you may have noticed, some of these blog postings are fairly short, and in print would only be a few pages. Other posts... not so much. For me, over-expression is sometimes a problem. I like to think that my tendency towards intricate posts and inclusion of tangential materials is a result of my mind naturally considering most intellectual issues as inter-related. But to be honest, I’d have to admit that my verbosity is more likely a result of the fact that I like the sound of my own voice. It would be nice to make a living at it, but even without that, this blog alone is concrete proof that I will write for no other reason than that I hope someone will read it, and enjoy it.
But coming up with something that people will enjoy almost always means coming up with some sort of encapsulated whole. Stream of consciousness will only get you so far before people will start expecting some sort of structured message. The difference between reality and writing is that writing needs to make sense. In short: you have to have a point, and ideally, it needs to be a point that people will enjoy and/or relate to.
The reason that I haven’t been posting much lately is that my mind has been too scattered to complete anything as an encapsulated whole. (It’s certainly not that I haven’t been writing.) Part of it is the ongoing thing where after spending all day at work, sitting at a computer and writing, I really don’t want to get home at the end of the day and spend more time sitting at a computer and writing. But most of it is that I keep on starting on some topic or other, then digress away from the topic to the point where I cannot tie any sort of acceptable conclusion back in to the originally intended topic or point of the work. This is not a new phenomenon, for me. I’ve been saying this since my days as a writing tutor, but the key to coming up with good ideas is digression. If you sit down and start writing, you will - sooner or later - come up with some idea that is absolutely brilliant. You will know it when you see it. Then all you have to do is restructure (or discard and completely redo) the work so it focuses on whatever that brilliant idea is. So long as ideas are flowing from your mind into the world (ideally, onto paper), you will eventually come up with good stuff. If nothing else, there’s the thing about an infinite number of monkeys endlessly pounding on typewriters re-creating the works of Bill Shakespeare. But there’s also the fact that so long as you keep thinking, you will eventually think of something interesting that perhaps HASN’T been written before. The problem with this strategy is that when you hang your hat on digression, it’s sometimes hard to stop digressing. That’s were writing starts being hard work: when the creativity stage is largely over. You have the ideas, and have a basic form of the work, and all you have to do is keep grinding away at them until the expression on the paper looks like a reasonable facsimile of the amorphous concepts in your head. Takes quite a bit of focus, discipline, and/or just the right level of intoxication.
I haven’t been able to focus very well lately. People have been asking me lately to post new stuff, but I’m having problems doing it. Even though the ideas are there (in spades), and even though the effort (at least some effort) to write is being made, nothing has been coming together, and I haven’t been working enough to MAKE things come together. Just been too distracted. Too much going on. And not just the job thing, or my playing/coaching with a semi-pro sports team. In fact, work and hockey are among the things I use to distract myself from the things that are really distracting me from writing.
In the last few months - which few months seem to have lasted a thousand years - I’ve rediscovered something that had been missing from my life. Missing for over a decade, in fact. Most or all of my readers will know what I’m talking about, and will also know why I really can’t/won’t go into the details right now. But I can’t believe how long it took me to notice what was missing, and how much different my life seems for having rediscovered it. But this is me we’re talking about, and we all know that things are NOT going to be simple.
What it really comes down to is that the status quo (both of my life and others’ lives) has recently been shattered in moderately spectacular fashion, and everyone involved is in the process of dealing with the chaos that ensues in the absence of a status quo. While there is no doubt that things will settle into some new status quo, that’s not happening quite yet, and will not be happening for several months at least. Angles need to be considered. Due diligence needs to be performed. As fun as it would be to simply abandon all the drama and flee to somewhere tropical, being an adult means recognizing that it is a much better choice to put off fleeing to tropical places until after angles are considered and after due diligence is completed. The tropical places will still be there, and you can actually get there with peace of mind intact, so long as you keep chipping away at the angles and diligence. That’s the goal. For people to reach a status quo where they can be right in their minds with that status quo. Hopefully, happiness for everyone can flow from there.
In the meantime, there’s really not a whole lot I can do to assist in the resolution of Things into an acceptable status quo. Honestly speaking, my status quo is not the one in upheaval. I’ve completed my consideration of angles and due diligence. As I won’t try to speed others towards the conclusion of their own due diligence, this leaves me at loose ends vis-a-vis intellectual consideration of the scenario, which means that the only thing I can do is spend a lot of time thinking about it. Wondering how things might go. Thinking about how great or terrible the end result might be. It is fairly possible that my life might undergo some fairly drastic changes in the not-too-distant future as things shake out. I’m positively giddy about where things might go, and at the same time aware (and afraid) that things might go nowhere at all, and that the net result will be me falling back into the status quo I’ve been in for the last few years. Much of that is simply beyond my control. I can see so many possibilities, but realization of those possibilities requires actions which are not mine to either undertake, or even mine to opine on the actions others should undertake. Timing has never been my strong point in general, and has always been a week point in the current context, so things are still in the process of either working out, or not working out.
Thus, my mind is abuzz. And I have a hard time focusing on anything for long. Too many wheels spinning too fast in too many directions, with the practical result that I have writers block. Not only do I not know where to go with my thoughts and diatribes, but I’m having problems focusing on any specific thought or diatribe for long enough to get anything coherent onto paper. Funny that, for me, writers block grows from overabundance of thoughts. But whatever; that’s where I’m at, and that’s why none of my many recent writings have found there way here.
As with everything else in life, this too shall pass. While I have hopes that Things might work out in such a way a to leave me on top of the world, I also have fears that Things might work out to leave me in an indefinite disappointed depression, and I also have the knowledge that the most likely result is something between those two. But either way, this too shall pass. Good times shall come again, and might be brighter than they have ever been before. Things will work out, one way or the other. If they work out the way I hope they will, I plan to spend quite a bit of time in a tropical place drinking and having a good time. If they work out the way I fear they might... I plan to spend quite a bit of time in a tropical place drinking and trying to have a good time.
But either way, a new status quo will form out of the chaos that has arisen in my life, and in the lives of those I love. This too shall pass. Events will resolve, become history, and thereby turn into some sort of encapsulated whole that I might or might not be able to write about. But until then, I’m not sure how much new material will be finding its way onto these pages.
But even in small doses, as a blog, a hypothetical column, or a Rule and its Explanation, it turns out that writing is hard work. Not necessarily the physical act of writing. Once you spend a few years at it, you find that you can type about as fast as you can talk. The problem is not coming up with ideas, either. I have literally thousands of pages of shit where the ideas are already there. Where they don’t really need to be written, they just need to be written DOWN. In a world as fucked up as ours, subject matter is definitely there for anyone paying attention to opine on. So coming up with blog ideas is really not a problem either.
The problem is coming up with work that is an encapsulated whole, which a reader can digest in a single sitting. As you may have noticed, some of these blog postings are fairly short, and in print would only be a few pages. Other posts... not so much. For me, over-expression is sometimes a problem. I like to think that my tendency towards intricate posts and inclusion of tangential materials is a result of my mind naturally considering most intellectual issues as inter-related. But to be honest, I’d have to admit that my verbosity is more likely a result of the fact that I like the sound of my own voice. It would be nice to make a living at it, but even without that, this blog alone is concrete proof that I will write for no other reason than that I hope someone will read it, and enjoy it.
But coming up with something that people will enjoy almost always means coming up with some sort of encapsulated whole. Stream of consciousness will only get you so far before people will start expecting some sort of structured message. The difference between reality and writing is that writing needs to make sense. In short: you have to have a point, and ideally, it needs to be a point that people will enjoy and/or relate to.
The reason that I haven’t been posting much lately is that my mind has been too scattered to complete anything as an encapsulated whole. (It’s certainly not that I haven’t been writing.) Part of it is the ongoing thing where after spending all day at work, sitting at a computer and writing, I really don’t want to get home at the end of the day and spend more time sitting at a computer and writing. But most of it is that I keep on starting on some topic or other, then digress away from the topic to the point where I cannot tie any sort of acceptable conclusion back in to the originally intended topic or point of the work. This is not a new phenomenon, for me. I’ve been saying this since my days as a writing tutor, but the key to coming up with good ideas is digression. If you sit down and start writing, you will - sooner or later - come up with some idea that is absolutely brilliant. You will know it when you see it. Then all you have to do is restructure (or discard and completely redo) the work so it focuses on whatever that brilliant idea is. So long as ideas are flowing from your mind into the world (ideally, onto paper), you will eventually come up with good stuff. If nothing else, there’s the thing about an infinite number of monkeys endlessly pounding on typewriters re-creating the works of Bill Shakespeare. But there’s also the fact that so long as you keep thinking, you will eventually think of something interesting that perhaps HASN’T been written before. The problem with this strategy is that when you hang your hat on digression, it’s sometimes hard to stop digressing. That’s were writing starts being hard work: when the creativity stage is largely over. You have the ideas, and have a basic form of the work, and all you have to do is keep grinding away at them until the expression on the paper looks like a reasonable facsimile of the amorphous concepts in your head. Takes quite a bit of focus, discipline, and/or just the right level of intoxication.
I haven’t been able to focus very well lately. People have been asking me lately to post new stuff, but I’m having problems doing it. Even though the ideas are there (in spades), and even though the effort (at least some effort) to write is being made, nothing has been coming together, and I haven’t been working enough to MAKE things come together. Just been too distracted. Too much going on. And not just the job thing, or my playing/coaching with a semi-pro sports team. In fact, work and hockey are among the things I use to distract myself from the things that are really distracting me from writing.
In the last few months - which few months seem to have lasted a thousand years - I’ve rediscovered something that had been missing from my life. Missing for over a decade, in fact. Most or all of my readers will know what I’m talking about, and will also know why I really can’t/won’t go into the details right now. But I can’t believe how long it took me to notice what was missing, and how much different my life seems for having rediscovered it. But this is me we’re talking about, and we all know that things are NOT going to be simple.
What it really comes down to is that the status quo (both of my life and others’ lives) has recently been shattered in moderately spectacular fashion, and everyone involved is in the process of dealing with the chaos that ensues in the absence of a status quo. While there is no doubt that things will settle into some new status quo, that’s not happening quite yet, and will not be happening for several months at least. Angles need to be considered. Due diligence needs to be performed. As fun as it would be to simply abandon all the drama and flee to somewhere tropical, being an adult means recognizing that it is a much better choice to put off fleeing to tropical places until after angles are considered and after due diligence is completed. The tropical places will still be there, and you can actually get there with peace of mind intact, so long as you keep chipping away at the angles and diligence. That’s the goal. For people to reach a status quo where they can be right in their minds with that status quo. Hopefully, happiness for everyone can flow from there.
In the meantime, there’s really not a whole lot I can do to assist in the resolution of Things into an acceptable status quo. Honestly speaking, my status quo is not the one in upheaval. I’ve completed my consideration of angles and due diligence. As I won’t try to speed others towards the conclusion of their own due diligence, this leaves me at loose ends vis-a-vis intellectual consideration of the scenario, which means that the only thing I can do is spend a lot of time thinking about it. Wondering how things might go. Thinking about how great or terrible the end result might be. It is fairly possible that my life might undergo some fairly drastic changes in the not-too-distant future as things shake out. I’m positively giddy about where things might go, and at the same time aware (and afraid) that things might go nowhere at all, and that the net result will be me falling back into the status quo I’ve been in for the last few years. Much of that is simply beyond my control. I can see so many possibilities, but realization of those possibilities requires actions which are not mine to either undertake, or even mine to opine on the actions others should undertake. Timing has never been my strong point in general, and has always been a week point in the current context, so things are still in the process of either working out, or not working out.
Thus, my mind is abuzz. And I have a hard time focusing on anything for long. Too many wheels spinning too fast in too many directions, with the practical result that I have writers block. Not only do I not know where to go with my thoughts and diatribes, but I’m having problems focusing on any specific thought or diatribe for long enough to get anything coherent onto paper. Funny that, for me, writers block grows from overabundance of thoughts. But whatever; that’s where I’m at, and that’s why none of my many recent writings have found there way here.
As with everything else in life, this too shall pass. While I have hopes that Things might work out in such a way a to leave me on top of the world, I also have fears that Things might work out to leave me in an indefinite disappointed depression, and I also have the knowledge that the most likely result is something between those two. But either way, this too shall pass. Good times shall come again, and might be brighter than they have ever been before. Things will work out, one way or the other. If they work out the way I hope they will, I plan to spend quite a bit of time in a tropical place drinking and having a good time. If they work out the way I fear they might... I plan to spend quite a bit of time in a tropical place drinking and trying to have a good time.
But either way, a new status quo will form out of the chaos that has arisen in my life, and in the lives of those I love. This too shall pass. Events will resolve, become history, and thereby turn into some sort of encapsulated whole that I might or might not be able to write about. But until then, I’m not sure how much new material will be finding its way onto these pages.
Saturday, January 31, 2009
In Response To Questions...
I have received a criticism lately, that I haven't been doing my part to keep my internet readership amused with recent posts. In response: I have been writing. In fact, I have written more in the last three weeks than I have in the three months before that put together. I just can't post what I've written here, for various reasons. Many of my regular readers know or suspect what I'm talking about, and I expect that Blake at least is moderately shocked that I've managed to contain myself to date. Maybe those things will see the light of day, someday. Maybe not.
In the meantime, to keep people amused, here is another excerpt from the Rules, which have also benefited greatly from my recent bouts of mental wheel-spinning. Might even be ready for me to start shopping for editors, so those of you who have full(est) editions - of which there are three authorized hard-copies, and even one autographed pirate copy - should get their comments and criticisms in. Here's today excerpt:
The Jeckle & Hyde Rule
Ladies want to be treated like whores. Whores want to be treated like ladies. Southern girls are usually ladies. Northern girls are usually whores. Western girls are usually psychos.
Explanation: The Jeckle & Hyde Rule
Your girl loves hearing “Baby, you look beautiful tonight.” But she still occasionally needs to hear “Bitch, that is fucking HOT. Come here!”
By dint of the same hormonal swings that result in psychotic and bitchy mood swings, women are many-spendored things. You may not believe this, but in every girl, there is princess, a slut, a lady, a whore, a rockstar, a groupie, and any other character label you can think of. The whole Breakfast Club is there. There are times when she wants to act and be treated like a lady. There are time when she wants to act and be treated like a whore. It’s just a matter of how she’s feeling, which means it’s a matter of which way her hormones are driving her, and how much success (if any) her mind is having keeping the hormones reigned in, or at least flowing in a consistent direction.
The point is that anything you could ever want from a woman, you can probably get from the woman you’re with. You just need to draw it out of her. I understand that you are the Star of the Show, but remember that she lost her copy of the script: she doesn’t know the lines she’s supposed to be reciting, and she’s CERTAINLY not following the stage directions.
If she’s with you, odds are that she’s probably willing to indulge you in whatever it is that you want. You might have to bribe her with some exchange or gift, but brief bargaining aside, she’s probably going to be game for whatever you might be in to. Just ask. Ask politely, but make your desires clear. If you want her to act like a lady, trust me, she can make that happen, in ways that might amaze you. If you want her to act like a whore, she can make that happen too, in ways that will probably amaze you even more. Yes, I’m talking about YOUR wife/girlfriend/whatever. You just need to learn how to get that part of her character to come out and play.
What you have to keep in mind is that she is under all sorts of societal and cultural influences that demand she act like an upstanding girl who doesn’t do anything improper – which refers to her acting above or below her station. Society frowns on that. So, if you want to take advantage of The Whore Inside, you generally have to find some way to coax her out. But don’t ever doubt that she’s in there.
The way to do this is simply to earn her trust. If you can get her to trust you, lots of barriers and inhibitions will go down. She will relax away from rigid cultural guidelines, and stop worrying that you’re going to think of her as a slut or a freak. Or at least, she'll get comfortable (and even turned on) by you thinking of her as a slut of a freak. This will snowball. She relaxes a little, has a good time, leading her to relax further. She probably won't be able to help feeling a bit ashamed about how she's acting, but she will be turned on as well. And so long as you don't go over the top in your enthusiasm, she will dig that you dig the things she is ashamed of, and - even more - she will dig that she can trust you with those parts of her character. BUT YOU WILL HAVE TO EARN IT. She needs to be able to trust you not to be a judgmental jackass AT ANY POINT. If you can manage that, you will get there. Although it’s going to take a while, it will be worth it. A woman who can be around you with no reservations or restrictions… let me tell you.
The alternative to spending a lot of time making her comfortable and setting her fears to rest is to create some scene or circumstance where she will relax away from cultural norms for other reasons. The best way to do that is to build a fantasy. Ever notice how girls consider Halloween as an opportunity to dress like hookers, either overtly or some other costume with strong hooker overtones? Ever notice how much freakier she is when you go away on vacation? Those occasions give her some distance from herself, and let her get away from her rigid day-to-day persona, and into whatever role she might really want to play at the time. This can work for you.
So earn her trust. Take her on a vacation. And let her know that you love the whore in her every bit as much as you love the lady. You will be AMAZED.
In the meantime, to keep people amused, here is another excerpt from the Rules, which have also benefited greatly from my recent bouts of mental wheel-spinning. Might even be ready for me to start shopping for editors, so those of you who have full(est) editions - of which there are three authorized hard-copies, and even one autographed pirate copy - should get their comments and criticisms in. Here's today excerpt:
The Jeckle & Hyde Rule
Ladies want to be treated like whores. Whores want to be treated like ladies. Southern girls are usually ladies. Northern girls are usually whores. Western girls are usually psychos.
Explanation: The Jeckle & Hyde Rule
Your girl loves hearing “Baby, you look beautiful tonight.” But she still occasionally needs to hear “Bitch, that is fucking HOT. Come here!”
By dint of the same hormonal swings that result in psychotic and bitchy mood swings, women are many-spendored things. You may not believe this, but in every girl, there is princess, a slut, a lady, a whore, a rockstar, a groupie, and any other character label you can think of. The whole Breakfast Club is there. There are times when she wants to act and be treated like a lady. There are time when she wants to act and be treated like a whore. It’s just a matter of how she’s feeling, which means it’s a matter of which way her hormones are driving her, and how much success (if any) her mind is having keeping the hormones reigned in, or at least flowing in a consistent direction.
The point is that anything you could ever want from a woman, you can probably get from the woman you’re with. You just need to draw it out of her. I understand that you are the Star of the Show, but remember that she lost her copy of the script: she doesn’t know the lines she’s supposed to be reciting, and she’s CERTAINLY not following the stage directions.
If she’s with you, odds are that she’s probably willing to indulge you in whatever it is that you want. You might have to bribe her with some exchange or gift, but brief bargaining aside, she’s probably going to be game for whatever you might be in to. Just ask. Ask politely, but make your desires clear. If you want her to act like a lady, trust me, she can make that happen, in ways that might amaze you. If you want her to act like a whore, she can make that happen too, in ways that will probably amaze you even more. Yes, I’m talking about YOUR wife/girlfriend/whatever. You just need to learn how to get that part of her character to come out and play.
What you have to keep in mind is that she is under all sorts of societal and cultural influences that demand she act like an upstanding girl who doesn’t do anything improper – which refers to her acting above or below her station. Society frowns on that. So, if you want to take advantage of The Whore Inside, you generally have to find some way to coax her out. But don’t ever doubt that she’s in there.
The way to do this is simply to earn her trust. If you can get her to trust you, lots of barriers and inhibitions will go down. She will relax away from rigid cultural guidelines, and stop worrying that you’re going to think of her as a slut or a freak. Or at least, she'll get comfortable (and even turned on) by you thinking of her as a slut of a freak. This will snowball. She relaxes a little, has a good time, leading her to relax further. She probably won't be able to help feeling a bit ashamed about how she's acting, but she will be turned on as well. And so long as you don't go over the top in your enthusiasm, she will dig that you dig the things she is ashamed of, and - even more - she will dig that she can trust you with those parts of her character. BUT YOU WILL HAVE TO EARN IT. She needs to be able to trust you not to be a judgmental jackass AT ANY POINT. If you can manage that, you will get there. Although it’s going to take a while, it will be worth it. A woman who can be around you with no reservations or restrictions… let me tell you.
The alternative to spending a lot of time making her comfortable and setting her fears to rest is to create some scene or circumstance where she will relax away from cultural norms for other reasons. The best way to do that is to build a fantasy. Ever notice how girls consider Halloween as an opportunity to dress like hookers, either overtly or some other costume with strong hooker overtones? Ever notice how much freakier she is when you go away on vacation? Those occasions give her some distance from herself, and let her get away from her rigid day-to-day persona, and into whatever role she might really want to play at the time. This can work for you.
So earn her trust. Take her on a vacation. And let her know that you love the whore in her every bit as much as you love the lady. You will be AMAZED.
Monday, January 19, 2009
Just A Little Announcement...
One of my best and oldest friends in the world, a girl that I love in ways that seem a bit odd and alien even to me (feelings? I don't have feelings! Hell, I hardly even have nerve endings!), is having a hard time lately. Personal drama, kind of thing. One of those messes of such magnitude that the biggest dilemma is not finding the best solution, but working up the stones to make the choice that sucks the least.
I don't like seeing my friends that way, so while there's really nothing I can do to help her out, I can take this opportunity to plug a little event that I'm involved in, which never fails to be an AMAZING time for everyone involved. So if any of you, my somewhat loyal readers, feel the need to take a little vacation to get away from things, or even if you don't feel the need for a vacation, but are willing to be talked into one, check this out:
The 10th Annual Thomas Jefferson School of Law Alumni Surf Society Beach Clean-Up and BBQ is happening on April 25. The associated festivities will begin on Thursday the 23rd, and continue through Monday the 27th. It is, without a doubt, the biggest and best party of the year for the law school. We always get more alumni turn-out than any Alumni Association event. We usually get more student turn-out than any student event. The funny part is that the Alumni Surf Society is only tangentially associated with the law school. The Clean-Up and BBQ is almost entirely funded privately, by four of us from the Class of '02 (yes, THAT class). Since we don't depend on law school/alumni association funds, and since our 'organization' exists outside their aegis, we are not subject to their rules or restrictions. Thus, we can do any goddamn thing we please, and don't even bother making pretenses about form or propriety. Turns out that, mostly as a result of the efforts that V puts in, nobody can touch the Beach Clean-up.
In fact, we (by which I mean mostly Erik) have had to fight off attempts by both the alumni association and various student organizations to try to take over the Beach Clean-Up. All of which efforts have been put down with varying degrees of savagery. Which is to be expected; three of us in the central group are career litigators, and the fourth is a patent prosecutor.
In any rate, this year's festivities will one again be based at Puesta del Sol in San Diego, right where Ocean Beach turns into Sunset Cliffs. Check it out. It's a great venue, and there is nothing like 11 am brunch on a sunny balcony overlooking the ocean after an extended evening of partying. There are also photos on the Surf Society myspace page, and the Surf Society Facebook page. Look for the photo of Brad standing next to the 'fridge. That was from last year. Last year was not atypical.
If you need some more details about what will be going on, I'm afraid that I can't provide many of them since - other than our customary Friday trip to Costco for supplies, and other than Saturday walking the beach - there really is no plan except "Good friends, good food, good booze, good times."
So. If you are looking for an excuse to have a good time (Blake), or if you have no excuse not to have a good time (Lisa), or if you just need need to have a good time to get over, around, and/or through all the shit you've been dealing with (Jen), come on down. I'd love to see you there.
I don't like seeing my friends that way, so while there's really nothing I can do to help her out, I can take this opportunity to plug a little event that I'm involved in, which never fails to be an AMAZING time for everyone involved. So if any of you, my somewhat loyal readers, feel the need to take a little vacation to get away from things, or even if you don't feel the need for a vacation, but are willing to be talked into one, check this out:
The 10th Annual Thomas Jefferson School of Law Alumni Surf Society Beach Clean-Up and BBQ is happening on April 25. The associated festivities will begin on Thursday the 23rd, and continue through Monday the 27th. It is, without a doubt, the biggest and best party of the year for the law school. We always get more alumni turn-out than any Alumni Association event. We usually get more student turn-out than any student event. The funny part is that the Alumni Surf Society is only tangentially associated with the law school. The Clean-Up and BBQ is almost entirely funded privately, by four of us from the Class of '02 (yes, THAT class). Since we don't depend on law school/alumni association funds, and since our 'organization' exists outside their aegis, we are not subject to their rules or restrictions. Thus, we can do any goddamn thing we please, and don't even bother making pretenses about form or propriety. Turns out that, mostly as a result of the efforts that V puts in, nobody can touch the Beach Clean-up.
In fact, we (by which I mean mostly Erik) have had to fight off attempts by both the alumni association and various student organizations to try to take over the Beach Clean-Up. All of which efforts have been put down with varying degrees of savagery. Which is to be expected; three of us in the central group are career litigators, and the fourth is a patent prosecutor.
In any rate, this year's festivities will one again be based at Puesta del Sol in San Diego, right where Ocean Beach turns into Sunset Cliffs. Check it out. It's a great venue, and there is nothing like 11 am brunch on a sunny balcony overlooking the ocean after an extended evening of partying. There are also photos on the Surf Society myspace page, and the Surf Society Facebook page. Look for the photo of Brad standing next to the 'fridge. That was from last year. Last year was not atypical.
If you need some more details about what will be going on, I'm afraid that I can't provide many of them since - other than our customary Friday trip to Costco for supplies, and other than Saturday walking the beach - there really is no plan except "Good friends, good food, good booze, good times."
So. If you are looking for an excuse to have a good time (Blake), or if you have no excuse not to have a good time (Lisa), or if you just need need to have a good time to get over, around, and/or through all the shit you've been dealing with (Jen), come on down. I'd love to see you there.
Monday, January 12, 2009
Guest Post: On Sluts.
This is re-posted with permission from my friend Blake, about whom any of my regular readers will have heard of, at the very least. Given my recent and ongoing association with bitches of truly world-class caliber (you know who you are), I thought it might be fun to throw in a little change up, and view things from somebody else's perspective. If nothing else, this shit is funny as hell. So, without further ado:
(*******************************************************)
Slut.
In my English classes we talk about ‘loaded words.’ Loaded words are words so pregnant with meaning that one must be careful in using them; do not confuse them with words you should or should not use when loaded. In English professor-speak, we would say these words are rich in both denotation and connotation. These are the words you use when you want to say a lot with a little.
Slut definitely qualifies as a loaded word. I’m certain that everyone has their own set of images and understandings for the word ‘slut.’ Maybe it’s the girl you knew back in college; the guy you met at the bars last night. Oh, be sure, slut is non-discriminatory. Boys and girls, men and women alike, all can be sluts, slutty, sluttish, in touch and touching their inner slut.
Setting aside the definitions, both denotative and connotative for just a moment, take a good, long look and listen at the word itself. Slut. It slides out of your mouth, doesn’t it? Or it starts too, with that mandatorily sibilant s… ssssssslut. The s slides to the l, giving brief pause before the mini-grunt of the u—uh—surprised –sounding, almost, and ending with that sharp flick of the tongue to make the t. Slut. You say it and smile; you say it and grin. You say it just to say it. Even said in anger, people still smile when they say it, when they hear it, when they know it.
But the true power in the word slut, what makes me love her so, is in her connotations, in that pregnancy of meaning we mentioned in passing earlier, in the images, acts, and imaginations which the term calls to mind.
I have known two kinds of sluts in my life, and while they were very, very different in nature, they both had one strong trait in common.
The first slut I ever met was a slut because she was looking for something. A searching slut, if you will. She had yet to define herself, wholly and completely, and in her sluttishness, she gave herself a certain kind of freedom for exploration and experimentation that the normal rules of society could never have allowed. She was, when I met her, still a little hesitant, still a little inhibited, but with little prompting from me, she turned tricks that would have made Cleopatra blush. She loved me and left me, moving on to other targets who, hopefully to her, had more to teach than I did. I’ve lost track of her, but I do pray that she found was she was looking for.
The second slut I ever met wasn’t looking for anything more than good time. She was done searching for meaning in life; she had found that she could get anything she needed between the sheets, or across the foot of the bed, or in the backseat, or, once, outside the bar in the alleyway. She fucked for the pure joy of fucking, and anything she happened to learn was simply a little extra frosting on her nipples, ready to be savored by the next up-and-comer.
But all the sweet, sweaty memories the word slut calls into my mind aren’t anything to do with why I love the word. While the connotations of slut run deep into the seedy underbelly of sex, seduction, wantonness, greed, lust, and (often) betrayal, those aren’t the connotations that carry the most power for the slutty at heart.
Sluts are free. They’re clear in their desires and communications. Sluts don’t have hidden agendas, they don’t play mind games, they don’t concern themselves with subtleties of language.
The reasons I love the word slut are the same reasons I dislike the word tease, used in the same context. I have a few scars from my varied encounters with sluts. Only two have taken stitches, and they’ve all healed inside a month. My encounters with so-called moral women, the apparently upstanding girls, the women with ‘nothing to hide’ that have left me drunk, cowering, crying, requiring therapy and vowing never to date again.
I love slut for the same reasons I love clarity, simplicity and elegance. For as rude and unabashed as sluts behave, in all the delightful ways they behave so badly, they’re clear about their intents and purpose. It’s a lovely, lovely contradiction. So honest and so forthright about something that people shouldn’t discuss outside trusted friends and relationships.
It’s little wonder that the rings of slut have grown to include less offensive offenses. I saw a t-shirt that said “Snuggleslut” on it. Please, children. Sluts rarely snuggle. Rarely. I’ve been called a bookslut by those aware of my penchants for hardcover tomes. I’ve known people who’ve referred to themselves as foodsluts, sleepsluts, gamesluts, and puppysluts. I dislike all of these terms. I dislike this watering down of the proud term slut.
Sluts are sexy, sweaty boys and girls who want nothing more than to go someplace where the chances of interruption are as limited as possible, and work you over generally in delightful fashion, leaving you weak, sticky and smiling. People who focus more on the cuddling after the fact simply cannot qualify as sluts. Granted, I love a good cuddle, but I love being exhausted into a good cuddle even more. And, much as I love my books, they’ve never, never done for me anything near what a true slut has done.
I think if we all had a little more slut in us… Wait. I think we’ve all got the potential to be a bit sluttier. I think if we all loosen up the reigns a bit, if we all got a little more in touch with our inner slut… if at times we all took off our dignity and restrictions with our clothing and simply did our sluttish best… I think we’d all be a little happier. Sluts; we should all be so lucky.
(*******************************************************)
Slut.
In my English classes we talk about ‘loaded words.’ Loaded words are words so pregnant with meaning that one must be careful in using them; do not confuse them with words you should or should not use when loaded. In English professor-speak, we would say these words are rich in both denotation and connotation. These are the words you use when you want to say a lot with a little.
Slut definitely qualifies as a loaded word. I’m certain that everyone has their own set of images and understandings for the word ‘slut.’ Maybe it’s the girl you knew back in college; the guy you met at the bars last night. Oh, be sure, slut is non-discriminatory. Boys and girls, men and women alike, all can be sluts, slutty, sluttish, in touch and touching their inner slut.
Setting aside the definitions, both denotative and connotative for just a moment, take a good, long look and listen at the word itself. Slut. It slides out of your mouth, doesn’t it? Or it starts too, with that mandatorily sibilant s… ssssssslut. The s slides to the l, giving brief pause before the mini-grunt of the u—uh—surprised –sounding, almost, and ending with that sharp flick of the tongue to make the t. Slut. You say it and smile; you say it and grin. You say it just to say it. Even said in anger, people still smile when they say it, when they hear it, when they know it.
But the true power in the word slut, what makes me love her so, is in her connotations, in that pregnancy of meaning we mentioned in passing earlier, in the images, acts, and imaginations which the term calls to mind.
I have known two kinds of sluts in my life, and while they were very, very different in nature, they both had one strong trait in common.
The first slut I ever met was a slut because she was looking for something. A searching slut, if you will. She had yet to define herself, wholly and completely, and in her sluttishness, she gave herself a certain kind of freedom for exploration and experimentation that the normal rules of society could never have allowed. She was, when I met her, still a little hesitant, still a little inhibited, but with little prompting from me, she turned tricks that would have made Cleopatra blush. She loved me and left me, moving on to other targets who, hopefully to her, had more to teach than I did. I’ve lost track of her, but I do pray that she found was she was looking for.
The second slut I ever met wasn’t looking for anything more than good time. She was done searching for meaning in life; she had found that she could get anything she needed between the sheets, or across the foot of the bed, or in the backseat, or, once, outside the bar in the alleyway. She fucked for the pure joy of fucking, and anything she happened to learn was simply a little extra frosting on her nipples, ready to be savored by the next up-and-comer.
But all the sweet, sweaty memories the word slut calls into my mind aren’t anything to do with why I love the word. While the connotations of slut run deep into the seedy underbelly of sex, seduction, wantonness, greed, lust, and (often) betrayal, those aren’t the connotations that carry the most power for the slutty at heart.
Sluts are free. They’re clear in their desires and communications. Sluts don’t have hidden agendas, they don’t play mind games, they don’t concern themselves with subtleties of language.
The reasons I love the word slut are the same reasons I dislike the word tease, used in the same context. I have a few scars from my varied encounters with sluts. Only two have taken stitches, and they’ve all healed inside a month. My encounters with so-called moral women, the apparently upstanding girls, the women with ‘nothing to hide’ that have left me drunk, cowering, crying, requiring therapy and vowing never to date again.
I love slut for the same reasons I love clarity, simplicity and elegance. For as rude and unabashed as sluts behave, in all the delightful ways they behave so badly, they’re clear about their intents and purpose. It’s a lovely, lovely contradiction. So honest and so forthright about something that people shouldn’t discuss outside trusted friends and relationships.
It’s little wonder that the rings of slut have grown to include less offensive offenses. I saw a t-shirt that said “Snuggleslut” on it. Please, children. Sluts rarely snuggle. Rarely. I’ve been called a bookslut by those aware of my penchants for hardcover tomes. I’ve known people who’ve referred to themselves as foodsluts, sleepsluts, gamesluts, and puppysluts. I dislike all of these terms. I dislike this watering down of the proud term slut.
Sluts are sexy, sweaty boys and girls who want nothing more than to go someplace where the chances of interruption are as limited as possible, and work you over generally in delightful fashion, leaving you weak, sticky and smiling. People who focus more on the cuddling after the fact simply cannot qualify as sluts. Granted, I love a good cuddle, but I love being exhausted into a good cuddle even more. And, much as I love my books, they’ve never, never done for me anything near what a true slut has done.
I think if we all had a little more slut in us… Wait. I think we’ve all got the potential to be a bit sluttier. I think if we all loosen up the reigns a bit, if we all got a little more in touch with our inner slut… if at times we all took off our dignity and restrictions with our clothing and simply did our sluttish best… I think we’d all be a little happier. Sluts; we should all be so lucky.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)