Backward Musings of Foreword Thinkers

The Road to Marathon

2011-06-30T01:31:00.000-07:00

It seems to be a mainstay in any lifelong checklist of the dream ladened would-be adventurer: Run a marathon. I'm not exactly sure how many people say this and of those, actually complete it. But I have to say, it is enticing. So, I'm in.

I started training for the Chicago Marathon a few months ago. I looked up strategies on the web, workout schedules, movies about marathons, songs to listen to while running - the whole shebang. Well, the shebang that didn't cost anything. Anywho, it was a slew of information. This site was invaluable. Not being a runner of any kind, I needed to start slow. There was a 10 week schedule that had as the only requirement "Must be able to run for 30 minutes." 30 minutes? Yeah, I think I could do that. I strapped on some old beat up cross trainers and trotted out the door. To disastrous effect. I think it might have been the trotting that did me in. I couldn't run for more than 10 minutes without wheezing. Sad.

Now don't get the wrong idea. I am by no means a sedentary couch surfer who guzzles mountain dew and snacks incessantly on hot pockets. Any more. I, despite my lack of running stamina, am a very healthy active person:

I bike to work 7 miles every day and 7 miles home.
I quit smoking a year ago and haven't cheated once.
I eat a vegetarian diet fairly regularly.
I drink plenty of water.
I'm well within my weight.

These should be the mark of a person that can run for 30 minutes. They are not. Apparently, running is a -completely- different beast and one that shouldn't be taken lightly, lest it rip your calves off. So, instead of the 10 week training, I went for the 26 week. And then some. I figure, I'll take my time and work my way into it slowly. The number one cause of injury in running is taking on too much too soon. Not gonna happen.

I started walking in the freezing January mornings where the temperature was sitting at a balmy 15 degrees, and told myself that this was the temperature of commitment. Being a winter cyclist, it didn't bother me too much, and I remember looking at the dead and barren trees and being excited that I was going to see them blossom while I trained.

I walked for 40 minutes, 4 days a week, for 3 weeks. While it sounds slow, it made me realize how little I actually used these muscles. Biking is not the same. Then it morphed into run/walks then short runs that lasted 20 minutes. As I built up to non stop runs, I could feel myself changing. my knees started hurting less, my legs felt lighter, yet denser. I started walking straighter.

The day I was able to run for 30 minutes was a small but important milestone, one that I wasn't going to overlook.

And all the while, leaves started showing on the trees.

I started the full training a couple of weeks ago. I run for 4 days a week with the longest run on Saturdays. This past Saturday, I ran 5 miles. While some may consider this a basic run, this is the farthest I've ever run. In my life.

From here on out, every Saturday is a new challenge that I've never even attempted before. It'll keep getting tougher, and I think I'll keep getting tougher too.

This coming Saturday will be 6 miles. Then 8. And on until I get to 26.2.

Frequencies, Rhythm, and New Agey Hooha

2011-04-30T02:44:00.000-07:00

I was lost in thought on the idea of frequency and rhythm and how important they may actually be. Rhythm is everywhere. It's the rate of our heart beat. It's the speed that we walk. We find it the way that we speak and the thoughts that we think. Rhythm is everywhere. It's possible that we might be able to identify ourselves to these particular rhythms that we hold, that it becomes a frequency of behavior, an undulating frequency of personality.

I feel that these frequencies aren't, or can't be, static, that they change as we come into contact with other frequencies and rhythms around us. The music that I listen to makes my foot tap, the steps I take make my head bob. That girl on the train makes my heart race. We're operating on variable frequencies that are subject to change.

What happens if the frequencies or rhythms that we operate on are off, or dissonant to the frequencies around us. Would that make us uncomfortable? Could we sense if someone else is off? Is it possible to actively tune ourselves to specific frequencies? Is there an overarching frequency, one that is the base of all others?

How wonderful that would be, yeah? What if the big puzzle of the universe is all about finding the right tune? What if meditation is just tuning yourself in the morning to keep the same tune all day? What if good things happen to bad people just because they've found a frequency that works, that it's not a moral thing but just good timing? What if bad things happen to good people because one bad thing happened and they just couldn't get back in step? What if nothing changes for some people because they're never exposed to any new rhythms? What if they refuse to change their own rhythm, regardless of how bad things are, just because they're used to it? What if they can't dance?

The secret to someone's life may be hidden in the rhythm that they keep. How can we find this rhythm? How can we keep a rhythm? Can we tune to other people? Are other people tuning to me? Can I disrupt the rhythm of those around me? Am I doing that already? Can we get a group of people in the same rhythm without their knowing? Or are we always aware of our rhythm on some level? Can I tune other people?

Can I find my own rhythm? Can I distinguish it from other rhythms? Can I describe my rhythm? How to go about this? What to listen for?

There's a story here. I'll look into this.

The once and future Car.

2011-02-27T17:31:00.000-08:00

The electric car is back. Hopefully here to stay as major car manufacturers are increasingly pushing the idea of the electric car on a public made wary of their efficacy, ironically by the those same manufacturers. Now with the Chevy Volt, Nissan LEAF and the All electric ford focus hitting the consumer market, major corporations are teaming up with Cisco to provide a method of controlling the household meter from spiraling out of control.

While I'm a huge proponent of the electric car, I think only aiming at the consumer market at this time is trying to fit an older paradigm to a shifting world view. The partnering with Cisco is symptomatic of a lack of infrastructure on which the electric car can sustain itself. By pointing only at private car owners the burden of allowing the electric car to succeed or fail rests solely on the shoulders of first adopters.

What to do, then? Municipal vehicles. Set up a single city on a fleet of electric vehicles, buses, cop cars, city workers, even subsidize cabs to switch over as a part of city works. By going the public route, the major car manufacturers can pipe R&D money into the infrastructure of having charging stations set up around the city, experiment with new technologies in the public sector and try to involve not just the municipal government in paying for it, but the electric company, community investors, and even federal money, all in the vane of infrastructure.

Set up the infrastructure, then open it up to the clamoring public that knows it works and the chance for making money on this is limitless. Charging stations at every parking meter. Charging lanes on the highway using short range broadcast power like WiTricity. Just ID every vehicle using RF chips that passively bills consumers as they use. A monthly bill from the city or electric company would make it easy.

Whether this comes to pass or not, the electric car needs to be the future. Let's just hope they don't drive them into the desert again to tear it all down.

Indentity leads to action, not the other way around.

2010-12-29T20:31:00.000-08:00

The new year is always the time that I, like most, look back on the last twelve months with a critical eye and look forward to the coming year with hope. This could be a post where I try to analyze where I went wrong and what I did right in 2010 but I think it's best to just let sleeping dogs lie. What I need to do is come up general sketch of what I want 2011 to look like and see how close my predictions come. I believe they calls these 'resolutions' in the parlance of the times, but I'm wary of these things as they always seem to fire a little too loud but sound flat as they echoes bounce off the following days.

T made a great point today, that resolutions usually fail because they mostly point to things that people want, and those wants change or become diluted by circumstances. We want to lose weight, stop smoking, focus, exercise more, etc. But these are feats of will, and as I've been told, cannot be sustained. A better method, one that I'm going to try to subscribe to, is to define these things as identity. You're not trying to lose weight and exercise more, you're an athletic person. You're not trying to stop smoking, you're a non-smoker. By clearly defining the person I want to be I hope to have an easier time making decisions that are more in line with that identity.

So. The question becomes not 'what are my new years resolutions' but rather 'who am I resolved to be?'

Of Success and Failure

2010-09-22T22:23:00.000-07:00

Success and Failure are relative terms, a negotiation of an internal mind with an external reality. It would seem that because of their relative nature, they are meaningless, but are they? If by one set of standards you could be considered a success, say from those that would like to be in a similar position, and from another perspective a failure as from those that pity or loathe the same condition, does that make you any less a success or failure? In other words, does it help the man in the pan that the man in the fire envies him?

Can success and failure even exist without an external judgment?

God must think my misery is hilarious

2010-09-22T00:41:00.000-07:00

I hate my life.

Not really, but sometimes I get the feeling that something is out to make things just that much more difficult for me. I think about the idea of self sabotage, of self fulfilling prophesy and negative attitudes and creating my own reality. I even came up with a scientific version that translates it into probability fields that we generate based on quantum mechanics and the observed reality in relation to the observer, we being probability generators that change the substance of reality by holding beliefs that limit a parameter of possible outcomes and in essence being responsible and accountable for the end results. But sometimes shit just don't work.

I seriously just spent a good couple of hours trying to fix something and going through all the steps that I knew to fix it, and when that didn't work I set aside pride and looked up instructions that I followed to a tee. When that didn't work, I asked a co worker to walk me through it and I listened patiently as he described the same steps that I had taken. When that didn't work, I asked someone else to do it while I watched. And I watched the same steps. I saw the same thinking. I observed the same patterns of behavior and watched as a different outcome presented itself.

It was fixed. I was thankful that it was fixed. I didn't care that it was me that fixed it.

Really.

Then I turned it off, took it from the work bench and put back where it belonged, maybe twenty feet away, turned it back on, and it was broken. Again.

I quashed the rising frustration and set to fixing it. I ran through the steps patiently, did everything I had just seen, just watched, thinking that I must've missed something the first time I tried and now, with it fresh in my mind, I could fix it.

Still nothing.

The person that had fixed it came over, glanced at it, plugged it back in and it worked just fine.

If insanity is repeating the same steps over and over again and expecting different results, then this is crazy. And if this is crazy, what the hell am I?

Clean start to a new year

2010-09-17T01:40:00.000-07:00

So I just got back from my buddy's birthday party. I had made plans to get out of work a couple of hours early so I could head down there and be social for a spell, not too many chances of that these days, and I was really looking forward to it. Things didn't quite work out as planned and I got swamped at the job leaving late rather than early. I show up just as things are winding down, and everybody is in the slow haze of a good evening just past, the drunken conversations not making as much sense as they did earlier but a helluva lot funnier. I have a beer as a few more people filter out and even the birthday boy calls it quits while people are still packing it up. Stuff is everywhere and the few of us left start a meandering pick up but interest quickly peters out.

Eventually I find myself alone, surrounded by the aftermath of a party that I essentially missed.

I didn't mind though. I kept picking up and it reminded me of the holidays and the times I wanted to do something nice for my Mom but couldn't afford anything fancy. So I would clean the house while she was asleep, she being a very tidy and fastidious kind of lady. She loved that kind of thing. It meant a lot to her that I did that, and she would gush about what a nice job I had done. I think my friend is the kind of person that would also appreciate that kind of thing.

While I was reminiscing, picking up this and that, bringing things inside, tidying up here and there, I found that I had completely cleaned his kitchen. I'm not sure if he's gonna be weirded out or not, I'm not sure if I'd be weirded out, but I'm not sure if it matters.

Hair apparent

2010-09-15T23:33:00.000-07:00

I got a haircut the other day. While seemingly mundane, this is a big deal for me. I hate hair cuts. I don't like thinking about my hair, what it looks like, what it looks like to other people, or what's fashionable or stylish, or god forbid, what the difference is between the two. Not to say that these topics are of no interest to me, it's that I end up not liking the resulting thoughts that follow. I would love to have a good haircut, be stylish -and- fashionable, and look good to others and myself.

This is not how I feel. Usually, I feel cheated.

Not only do I feel ridiculous with a haircut that is too short/too floppy/uneven/unflattering, but I have to shell out some cash to have it look that way. I've resorted recently to cutting my own hair, with an electric razor, a mirror, some bravado and a little whiskey. I am not trained in such things, so my results vary. At least I don't have to pay for the surprise, and you gotta love hats.

So, the other day I got a haircut. By a friend of my roommate, who -is- trained in such things, who is gay, and who is a drag queen. While a strange list of accolades, they usually spell out good chances when it comes to cosmotology. He did it for a little bit of weed, some beer, and leftovers and got to work with his really expensive set of scissors and some flare.

I hate it.

I usually wait about three days to pass judgement on things like this, but it seriously looks like he got bored after finishing the right side of my head and then just made snipping sounds with his scissors next to my left ear for a little while. Just a tip: when finishing something of this nature, so personal and semi-permanent, do -not- describe the look as "fun." That just sounds like you're not even trying.

It looks like I'm going to finish it off myself and get my hat ready. Oh, well. At least I didn't pay for it.

Dreams of my father

2010-09-15T10:46:00.000-07:00

I had this weird dream where I was sitting with my dad outside of this cave that had a fire burning inside of it. I was telling him how I had created a replica of a rodent's nest from the kindling and how it had turned out so well. We were laughing and he asked me about adventures and fun things. The wind was blowing a great amount of smoke away and it was swirling and billowing in front of us and he kept jumping up and laughing and making as though he were chasing the smoke away with this silly roar. It was funny. Then he said it was time to go and he got up and started walking towards a house in the distance, silhouetted by the fading light of a sunset already below the horizon. I got up to follow him but turned to look at the fire in the cave which was still hot and I was afraid it might be dangerous. He said "C'mon" and waved in the quick short way that made things funny, "It's okay, it'll burn out, Let's go." And we walked across a field, under a tree and towards the house together. It was getting dark and I was having trouble seeing him in front of me. I woke up missing my Dad very much.

He's still alive, just talked to him, and working on erradicating corruption in the Philippines. The man is amazing.

Poems at the bottom of my shoe

2010-09-14T23:34:00.000-07:00

I found this tucked away in my shoe one day:

Starlings in Winter
by Mary Oliver

Chunky and noise,
but with stars in their black feathers,
they spring from the telephone wire and instantly

they are acrobats
in the freezing wind.
And now, in the theater of air,
they swing over buildings,

dipping and rising;
they float like one stippled star
that opens,
becomes for a moment fragmented,

then closes again;
and you watch
and you try
but you simply can't imagine

how they do it
with no articulated instruction, no pause,
only the silent confirmation
that they are this notable thing,

this wheel of many parts, that can rise and spin
over and over again,
full of gorgeous life.
Ah, world, what lessons you prepare for us,

even in the leafless winter,
even in the ashy city.
I am thinking now
of grief, and of getting past it;

I feel my boots
trying to leave the ground,
I feel my heart
pumping hard, I want

to think again of dangerous and noble things.
I want to be light and frolicsome.
I want to be improbable, beautiful and afraid of nothing,
as though I had wings.

*****

Thanks Tri. I needed that.

The turning of leaves and vows

2010-09-14T00:12:00.000-07:00

My brother is getting a divorce. It's a tough thing to go through, at least I would imagine it would be having never been a divorcee myself, holding only a magnification of my knowledge of breakups and that being nothing short of excruciating. But he sounded okay, if a little drunk, on the phone. It seemed more an intellectual affair with an emotional wake than any sort of maelstrom of rage and sorrow that I'd probably have it be. She's figuring herself out, he supports that and is somewhat relieved of the burden of her depression, the two having gone through a major move, a miscarriage, a success and a lingering failure. It was neither surprising nor suspected, but rather a natural consequence of the nature of relationships, that they either last forever or end.

We're complicated creatures that's for sure. I got hints of sadness but excitement, an unexpected future born of a surprising conclusion to an assumed past. I felt like I was tasting his trauma like a wine, searching for a nutty flavor or a touch of oak, or maybe a sense of desperation under a layer of currant. It had a strong bouquet, but over all it tasted weak. I got a feeling of rehearsal and a tinge of fraudulence. He's not sure how he feels about it, but I suspect that he's been feeling like leaving too, which would explain the civility between them, a sort of understanding of motive, complicit even in the act of sabotage.

I don't feel sad about this turn of events, which isn't to say I feel any gladness for it either. They seem fine, or at least not a danger, and that's really the best you could hope for in a situation like this. She's working on a novel, the first such inspiration she's had in a long time, which I imagine is exciting for her and a star she'd be willing to follow to the ends of the earth now that she's spotted it in a sky she fears too close to dawn. I think he's tired of denying her lamenting and self deprecation, he has a thirsty ambition that I think he's been holding back. But they may find that the driving force for the negative may be the thing that sparks the dreams they end up chasing. His creativity and ambition, her selflessness and compassion. From another, older and more tired, perspective those can be turned into self-centeredness and weakness respectively. But who's to say what judgements our minds will pass when the summer leaves for a cold and bitter winter?

I wouldn't dare to assume.

Jazz turns my brain off.

2010-04-02T12:53:00.001-07:00

I've been concerned for sometime with expanding the capabilities of the brain to focus it's energies on relevant topics that I'm interested in. Staying on task, not getting bored, exploring new things that are related to already interesting topics, etc. It's been based on the idea that if we could broaden the neural pathways that we use on a day to day basis to include novel paths to accomplish the same tasks, we could increase the creative capacity of the brain. But what if you want to turn parts of the brain off?

I read a study recently that used a special keyboard, an MRI, and some jazz musicians to identify what parts of the brain are activated when the jazz musicians improvise. The results? Turns out that when they play music that's strictly riffed, the players shut down parts of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, the parts of the brain that have been identified with self-censorship. “What we think is happening is when you’re telling your own musical
story, you’re shutting down impulses that might impede the flow of novel
ideas," says Dr. Charles Limb of John Hopkins. Makes sense, though, doesn't it? Coming up with creative ideas is all about spontaneity, letting the connections from individual experiences form and be expressed in ways that only an individual can uniquely filter. If we self-criticize, where would we be getting the standards to match our ideas to? How would we apply these standards? How does one determine wheather something is 'good' or 'bad' if not by learned rubrics? Essentially, to create something new, we cannot constantly hold it to something old.

So that brings me back to my original question. If I want to be more creative, how do I turn off the part of my brain that judges what I do? If I think about the neural pathway idea, that we can create new and novel pathways to existing behaviors, it might be possible to reroute my behavior patterns to avoid self judging. But that's always the question, yeah? How do I do something I don't know how to do? Out with the old and in with the new. I'll keep you updated.

Flock that.

2010-01-24T17:49:00.001-08:00

So after some time toying around with Flock, I've come back to good ol' Firefox. I really liked the way that Flock emphasized the social media angle and got me all kinds of excitedto get back to this here blog and try to update more frequently on Facebook. I'm terrible at social networks. Don't ask why, cause I'm not really sure myself. I'm finding more and more that this is an overarching character flaw and Flock was a means to remedy this. But, as it turns out, you can do all the same things with Firefox and some handy plugins, while being able to keep it a little more customizable.

The major flaw to Flock was the way it handled Google Reader. This was the main head turning, scratch on the record, fart in the elevato for me. Seriously? Like I said before, maybe it was something that I was doing, but it shouldn't be that hard to figure out. So instead, I found Yoono. Amazing little extension, some of which is still in beta, that allows you to add Google Reader, Digg, Facebook, Gmail, Hotmail, Twitter, and many others to the Firefox sidebar. Wait. Isn't that what Flock pretty much did? Yup. And to be honest, I like the layout of Yoono better. It also has this pretty handy Search capability that puts several search engines on top of each other and runs te same search through them simultaneously. For example, I'll search for 'Let them eat cake' and I'll get the Wikipedia entry about Marie Antionette (it wasn't her), some videos about it, a couple of products about cake and some disturbing photos of a cartoon vagina. Uh. So, yeah, pretty wide spread- the search capability, I mean!

A plus for flock was the blogging capability that I wrote the last post in. I think having a ready board to sound off on will allow me an easier time to get these thoughts out. Or at least fewer excuses. But since I started down the 'back to firefox' road I found ScribeFire. It's a much more robust solution that's full of function and works really well integrated with the browser, with drag and drop links and images, Blog this Page menu addon and multiple blog platform support. Sweet. I'm liking it. Fa'real. Another project from this guy is TwitterBar, to, well, you know.

The last big thing I found that *needs* to be mentioned is the return of Google Notebook. Not in any official capacity, unfortunately, since Google stopped development on it a while back (I think to drop that code base into Wave. Theories abound.) but there's an extension out there that loads up the same little notebook in the bottom right. I know, Evernote. But sometimes I just want something simpler and organized. It doesn't have to read my thoughts and convert it to text, I just need to jot some things down. So I'm glad it's back. (If you're wondering, newer accounts to google can't use Notebook, and the old extension just kept spinning it;s wheels and never loading. Sad)

Well, I'm sure I'll stumble accross other things of note and I'll try to keep this thing updated. Cheers!

What the Flock

2010-01-23T14:21:00.001-08:00

In an attempt to stay on top of the explosion of social media sites as well as my own reluctance to update my personal blog (ahem) I've installed Flock, a browser designed with the social medialite in mind. Just running through the bevy of settings and personalizations is a daunting task. Luckily I've got little to do, and backed by the hopes of increasing my productivity (ironically) taking the time clicking on buttons in what appears to be a souped up version of Mozilla's Firefox, is right up my alley. So far it's pretty neat. I've linked up my Gmail, Facebook, Blogger, Google reader, and myspace accounts to it, though I do wish I could sync up my calendar. Maybe there's a way, but in the half hour I've spent tinkering with this (I seriouly feel like I've been lightingly banging away at this app with a digital hammer) I haven't seen a way to do it. New favorite perhaps? In the settings? drag and drop? We'll see I guess. But at least I'm not bored. Yet.

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Don't Just Do Something! Sit There!

2009-11-19T08:34:00.000-08:00

So I have returned to the world of sensory objects after a 10 day meditation retreat held in the sprawling cornfields of Northern Illinois. 10 days. That's right. 10. Days. For 12 hours a day, not counting meals or breaks, we sat and contemplated the reality of the universe on an experiential level, and neither moved nor spoke, plumbing the depths of our minds in the hopes of alleviating Misery. For those not good at math, that's 120 hours of meditation, and if you think about people who go to some meditation class twice a week for an hour a shot, I just crammed in over a years worth of sitting after having previously *no* experience with anything of this sort. My first thought? What the Hell am I doing.

My buddy R. suggested this. He's also the clever chap that came up with the title of this post. Huge thanks for both. I have to admit, I'm glad I went. When I first got there, they told us 'No touching. Of anyone. At anytime. Ever.' And I immediately looked around myself and thought either a) there have been problems in the past with creepily inappropriate groping or weird handshakes or b) Cult tactic. Then they said 'After registration, there will be no talking. With anyone. About anything.' Noble Silence they called it, and my mind raced straight to b) Cult Tactic. I scanned the room full of people and saw a general pattern of people with looks of strained optimism, the look of a fervent hope that's scarred with the pox marks of previous disappointments. I saw these people, and imagined them all in matching jumpsuits.

Now, to be fair, they weren't all like this. There were a few people in the room wearing looks of quiet skepticism, as I imagined I was, and were probably steeling their minds to the possible onslaught of brain-washing techniques that might be filtering in through a hidden speaker somewhere, or mentally protecting their brain from frequencies oscillating in the florescent lights overhead. Just as I was doing. I've seen the 60 minutes reports. I've read the stories. I began making a list in my head of all the red flags they tell you to look out for: attempts to isolate people from one another, an unquestionable leader in white, suggestions to accept pain or discomfort, ethos lacking individuality or framing individuality as the cause of pain, offers to solve one's personal problems, the trading of pain for purification, etc. Knowing all of this, I prepared myself. You can't hypnotize the unwilling, you can't brain-wash a resistant mind. And anyway, 60 minutes sent in a mole to check out what was going on in those cases and she came out just fine. I figure I can do the same thing. Just look at the whole thing with a scientific perspective and judge it not on the basis of some unquantifiable spiritual philosophy but on solid experimentation and logical conclusions, if such a thing were even possible. I was ready.

RA RA RIOT at subterranean!

2008-09-11T22:27:00.001-07:00

Walte Meego at subterranean!

2008-09-11T20:24:00.001-07:00

Camping in Wausaukee: Transit

2008-08-28T13:26:00.000-07:00

We four intrepid adventurers are finally making our way. We look forward to hitting the Harley Fest in Milwaukee, should be hilarious :)

Camping trip to Wausakee: Packing

2008-08-28T13:09:00.000-07:00

We prepped all kinds of foodstuff for our exploration into the great north: wine, some baggettes, good cheese, and pickled green beans. Very bougie, but I think it will be geatly appreciated as I laze under a tree or in a field. Sweet.

What's a Douchebag?

2008-08-26T15:09:00.000-07:00

It seems a lot of people wondered about this too, if google is any measure. I've used this word a lot when referring to people I see wandering the streets of Chicago, but it's always at an almost instinctual level. You know a douchebag when you see a douchebag. Hell, -I- could be a douchebag. How would I know? I needed a definition, a solid foundation of knowledge to assure myself that I am not a total 'bag, and that my subsequent mockery is indeed righteous. But I've always hated when definitions a) use the word you're trying to define in the actual definition, and b) use nothing but examples to define said word. Both are bullshit cop outs. And that's pretty much what I've found out in the great spaces of the inter-web. That and an actual medical definition of a hygiene product. But we both know that's not what we're talking about. So, in an attempt to quell the maelstrom of doubt and frustration building inside me, I offer this:

Douchebag: (doosh'bag) n. a self-absorbed socialite whose narrow-minded attempt at seeming "cool" results in aberrant behavior open to public mockery and which ultimately misses the intended mark of being socially acceptable.

The defining characteristics of this persona vary widely, but show a general pattern of disingenuous attempts at mimicking particular styles of dress, speech, or thought, and mixing that style with their own deeply ingrained sense of poor taste.

The overall feeling when faced with someone of this ilk is one of fraudulence and extreme dislike.

Homemade answers are the best answers. For an in depth study of this subject with diagrams and descriptions, go here.

Chillin' in the park

2008-08-17T09:19:00.000-07:00

Lying in the grass while my girl plays russian folk songs on her mandolin. If this isn't nice, I don't know what is... :)

Radiohead! Lollapalooza

2008-08-01T18:46:00.000-07:00

King Kahn!

2008-07-20T14:14:00.001-07:00

Jarvis Cocker!

2008-07-19T18:14:00.001-07:00

!!!

2008-07-19T16:10:00.001-07:00

Elf Power!

2008-07-19T15:39:00.001-07:00

Fleet Foxes!

2008-07-19T13:21:00.001-07:00

Firedancers?! Shut. Your. Face!

2008-07-17T20:28:00.001-07:00

Poor picture quality, fantastic time! Appearently this is a full moon ritual held every month. How cool is that?

More Pitchfork!

2008-07-17T19:08:00.001-07:00

N. on the way to the pitchfork preview

2008-07-17T17:20:00.003-07:00

A tall white man on a short asian man's bike. Awesome.

Pitchfork preview!

2008-07-17T17:20:00.001-07:00

Surprise on a city river...

2008-07-17T13:44:00.003-07:00

Even though the smell of the North Branch Sewage Pumping Station as it pumped waste water into the slurry that surrounded us was a bit much, this waterfall totally made up for it. A good time was had by all...

The sky that covers my porch sometimes...

2008-07-17T13:44:00.001-07:00

Geek out to boardgames!

2008-07-17T13:13:00.001-07:00

Settlers of Catan is probably the coolest boardgame I'll ever be made fun of for playing. :)

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Catface

2008-07-17T12:48:00.001-07:00

Ribfest!

2008-07-17T12:34:00.001-07:00

Perfect weather, award winning ribs from all over the midwest (note the table of trophies. A table for every stand!), carnival rides, a midway, and, that's right, a frickin' mechanical bull. Dopeness. Naperville dosen't mess around when it comes to the ribness. Word.

Time Lapse - Los Angeles to New York City | Lacquer - Behind

2008-07-09T14:56:00.001-07:00

Ah travel...

Human Abstractions

2008-05-19T11:01:00.000-07:00

Someone brought up the question of what it means to be human. While I normally find her responses insightful, this one seemed like a whole mess of bat-shit crazy, ad hoc, hippy ravings. The idea that the what makes us human is our obligated answer to social responsibility is like an unwanted Cleveland Steamer.

Awkward and somewhat insulting.

Maybe I've just got an aversion to anyone telling me what to do, but it's a slippery slope to start defining what it is to be human by a definition of what social and environmental responsibility means. Who gets to determine what those responsibilities are? Me? You? Government? And if someone disagrees with that definition, are they less than human for their opinion, and thereby easier to disregard?

I like that she vehemently believes that being human is being 'good,' but unfortunately that isn't always the case. Is being afraid of social situations, embarrassment, or incarceration basic animal instincts? When these fears determine our response to adverse conditions, causing us to make admittedly poor decisions, does that make us less human? One could say that animals share some of these fears, if on a simpler level, and that's true. Their ideas of their social standings are there, albeit less complex. Technically, what makes us human, what separates us from animals, is our greater and more complex level of abstraction.

As we grow from spitting, mewling, infants, we do the same thing as all animals: we try to come to terms with our surroundings. We try to figure out on the simplest levels, what is me and what is not. This process continues through our lives as we form, shift, destroy and recreate our identities. Where we diverge from the rest of the animal kingdom is the level in which we abstract that identity, what it is we include in our idea of what is 'me.' Family, neighborhood, city, state, country, planet, even our solar system, can be added to our identity.

An animal may consider itself part of a pack, but for the most part, that's as far as it goes for them.

We can fall in love with someone across the internet because of what they IM us at night, and we can consider new friends as close as family, sometimes more so, because their belief system is so close to our own. We can see the planet as an intrinsic piece to our existence and hold faith that we can affect change for its betterment, even in the face of its degradation despite our efforts.

This is human. We abstract our identity to include those things which speak to our ideologies, something no animal can do.

Conversely, being human also lies in our ability to make a complicated abstraction of what is not 'me' or of 'the other.' It's unfortunate that we can look at a map and point to a country with a social system we consider in direct opposition to our own, and hate them for it. It may not even be something they said, but rather something that we were told they said, and want to wipe them from the face of the planet. We may never have even met anyone from there. No animal has claim upon ideological hatred. Only humans. Racism, Fascism, Homophobia, Fundamental extremism, these are all human creations.

It is our ability to think upon things that don't exist, ideas of things, that defines human nature. Our penchant for systems of illusions is what drives us through this world, trying to understand it and define it, even when its overwhelming complexity begs to be beyond definition. But we keep trying, cause that is the way of our people. We don't have to be 'right' or 'good' to be human. We just have to wonder if we are.

To wit: the very question of our humanity is the very best example of it.

I love these commercials...

2008-05-10T15:55:00.001-07:00

This seriously had me laughing for a good 10 minutes. Sabertooth Beaver. Nuff said.

The Story of A.

2008-05-07T07:57:00.000-07:00

I saw A. at pool league night, and as always it ended up leaving me a little shaken. I was in good spirits when I got there, but seeing her just wore me down as the night went on. I'm not sure what I even want to say about all this.

I got her some presents a while back and I've been trying to get them to her; each time I offered to drop them by, I was met with some excuse as to why she wouldn't be there. I'm not sure if the excuses were real or not, but the overwhelming feeling was that she didn't want me to come over. I mean, they're presents for God's sake. You only balk at receiving presents from people you're uncomfortable with. Like bums on the bus. Not too excited if a hobo reaches into a dirty sack and pulls out a package marked for me. Awkward. So, it looks like I'm that hobo. Anyway, the only time I see her anymore is at pool night, and even then it's awkward and odd, for me at least. I guess the only reason it's weird for me is that I just can't stop thinking about her.

There it is. Now it's out.

She said something to me not too long ago, with tears forming in her eyes, that the reason she's so bent out of shape with her ex-boyfriend (yeah, seriously, she talked about that guy *a lot*) was that it felt like something that meant so much to her ended up meaning so little to him, that their relationship changed her in big ways, changed who she was, how she thought, and when it was over he just moved on like it was a minor stop.

I'm paraphrasing, of course. We were drinking when she said this. But now, I find myself in that same position.

When I met her, I was doing well. I had a good job, my first real job in Chicago, making decent money using my degree, I had a healthy attitude about relationships and sex and people. I was confident and sure of myself and who I was. Not that everything was peaches and cream. I found out that the girl I was dating at the time was married (yeah, that hit me like a brick to the groin) and I was ramping up to call it quits. Which was fine, really, since I was justified in ending it and, honestly, I understood where she was coming from. There were no real hard feelings and we still talk here and there.

Then I meet A.

She was rude, and brash, and loud, and funny, and smart, and cute. She had enough of a punk sensibility to disregard punk. Individualistic but surprisingly caring and thoughtful. Everything I found out about her surprised me; everything she said made me laugh. We talked one night in late January, over a game of pool, about literature and politics and people and we became friends. She saw me juggle and felt the need to kiss me, and I fell in love with her. And I fell far. I drove her home that night and we made out in the car like I was dropping her off at her parents' house, pawing at each other's winter coats with a desperation that was less about sex and more about staying in those private confines where this thing was exciting and real and comfortable. I remember driving home later through a cold rain thinking the street lights as they reflected off the the wet asphalt looked like stars.

Our first date was on Valentines Day, which is normally a bad omen, and it's somewhat comforting to know that omens aren't fake and should be noted. I picked her up holding a bouquet of flowers and a pair of tickets to a live radio show that she's been dying to go to, and she made reservations at a restaurant knowing my deep and abiding love of Cuban food and how much I missed it since I moved to the city. We talked excitedly in the car as we drove to dinner about the little things that mattered only to us, laughing and noticing how good it was. Four blocks from the restaurant, the flashing red and blues of the CPD lit us up from behind. I remember thinking that they just wanted to pass us when I pulled over. The officer walked up to my window and told me that one of my tail lights was out and that I should get it fixed as soon as possible, and A. and I smiled at each other as he took my driver's license to write up some quick paper work. We continued to talk as he did his thing, stopping only when he came back and asked me to step out of the car to speak to me. Honestly, I had no idea anything was really wrong until he shut the police car door with me in the back seat. Even when he was frisking me I thought it was standard procedure for his safety. Seriously. I'm kind of naive like that. The officer's partner hops into my car and drives it off towards the impound lot and as the squad car pulls away I see A. standing ankle deep in the snow talking on the phone with her hand on her forehead. I find out later that she's talking to her mother who called to find out how the date was going that she's been looking forward to. Awesome.

So, I'm in the back of the cop car and I start laughing. Not maniacally, as you'd probably imagine, but sincerely because, well, it's pretty funny. Officer Alvarez, a nice man, really, short with a traditional cop mustache, asks me what I'm laughing at. So I tell him the whole story, from meeting to moment, and he immediately apologizes.

"I'm really sorry I had to do this. But after this date, she's *gone*, man."

I thought about it for a second, and realized that I wasn't worried at all. "I don't know, man," I said, "I think it'll be okay." Just then my phone, which he let me keep (I wasn't even cuffed), buzzes with a text message.

A.: I'm on my way to get you.
Me: Thank you so much. You kick ass.
A: I know. see you soon!

Officer Alvarez and I got to the station, and knowing that I'm not much of a trouble maker, he let me walk in still uncuffed. I say hello to all the officers milling about as we make our way to the back where paperwork waited for us. It was all very amiable. At one point, after finding out that I work with computers, he asks me some technical questions and I end up fixing one of the laptops in the station. He tells me about all the honest mechanics I can bring my car to. When his partner Officer Santiano, a stocky brusque woman in her late thirties, gets there, he tells her my story. She starts laughing.

"She's totally gone, man!"
"He says she's on her way."
"Wow, she sounds like a keeper."
"Yeah," I agree, "she does indeed."

Like something out of a movie, the station chief storms into the little cubicle and starts bitching them both out for "shoddy paperwork" and storms back out. Seriously.

"What's up his ass?" I ask quietly.
"He just likes to be an asshole," Officer Santiano whispers and Alvarez grins, going back to his paperwork. We all chuckle conspiratorially and Santiano and I make small talk while Alvarez finishes up.

"You want some cookies, honey? You must be hungry. Someone brought them in for Valentines Day."

"Sure, thanks." She disappears and comes back with a small stack and I smile thinking about the irony of a cop giving me cookies while another one books me. Would've been better if she offered me donuts, but the cookies turn out to be more appropriate.

I munch down a couple of cookies while we talk, and soon the station chief calls out my name yelling out that someone is here for me. Alvarez and Santiano look at me, and I grin as I wrap up the last cookie in a napkin. We head up to the front desk and A. is just finishing up paying my bail. She turns around and I notice how beautiful she looks even with the worried expression on her face. I look at her with a sheepish smile and hold out the cookie to her.

"Happy Valentines Day, honey."

She takes one look at the heart shaped sugar cookie with silly red sprinkles all over it and starts to laugh. She throws her arms around me and gives me a kiss.

This is the single most memorable moment of my life to date.

If you're wondering what I was actually arrested for, it turns out that my license was suspended from unpaid parking tickets that I had gotten several years earlier, before I even lived in the city, when I was just passing through visiting friends. Alvarez told me they had suspended my license only a week before and that my insurance card expired two days ago, which is why they had to impound the car.

After we left the station, A. and I grabbed a cab and a bottle of Sambuca and went back to my place. We drank heavily, and she told me what she had been up to while I was hanging out with the local PD. Apparently, she has had the worst luck on Valentines Day historically. She called her roommates and told them what happened and met them at a nearby bar while she waited for me to finish up my paperwork. She walked in and was greeted with a round of applause by all of her friends that rushed over there to meet her, proclaiming this Valentines Day has topped all others, which was met with another round of cheers. She had a quick drink, went and got some money and then bailed her date out of jail. We laughed.

Despite all this, we had a great night. We talked and drank; she almost choked on her shot when she found out I was a Republican, and we made out after having a heated debate on Capital Punishment. It was fantastically strange. At one point my door buzzer went off, and A. and I looked at each other wondering who it could be. It was Officer Santiano returning my car keys. I met her halfway down the stairs as she made her way up.

"Is she still here?" she whispered.
I nodded and she shook her head. "Wow. That girl's a keeper."
"She is indeed." She gave me the thumbs up and I waved good bye. I went back upstairs and shut the door.

*********************************

We broke up two weeks before the next Valentines Day. Almost made it a year. I feel like I lost someone that I've known my whole life, and we didn't even make it a year. If you're wondering about our relationship, it was just that. A relationship. It had it's ups and downs, we both have our issues, and I'm not going to psychoanalyze either one of us to try and find an answer, at least not here, cause I've been doing that for the past couple of months and I've come up with more questions than answers. This past winter hit us both pretty hard and we were both going through a lot, she was switching jobs and her parents moved away, and I was dealing with my Mom getting ill and them moving away. We just grew apart, I guess. After awhile there was this weird tension between us, and it went unspoken. Instead of looking to me for comfort, she withdrew, and instead of being understanding, I got offended. I can't say it was anyone's fault; I may have been the one to break up with her, but she left me a while before that happened.

The presents that I finally gave to her were long overdue and, honestly, I just wanted to give her something. I thought they might be a little dumb (I've never really been good at giving gifts) but she was so excited when she saw them. She jumped up and down and gave me a big hug and told me how much she loved them. And seeing her that happy made me happy, but a little sad too. It made me think of the night we were coming back from detroit after possibly the worst party either one of us has ever been to. Before our car spun out into a snow drift, we were in the back seat and my friends were in the front, and she was resting with her head in my lap. I looked down at her and stroked her hair and thought to myself that I wouldn't mind spending the rest of my life with this girl. I looked up at the passing street lights on the way into Chicago and thought about that first night.

There were a lot of things that I wanted to tell her that last night at pool that I never really got a chance or the nerve to say. I wanted to tell her that, despite everything that's happened, I still loved her, that our relationship meant the world to me, and that she still means so much to me. I wanted to let her know how much I regret that things didn't work out, and that I was glad that she was doing okay. I wanted her to know how much I sorely missed her and that because of that, we couldn't be friends anymore, that it was too hard for me to see her. I wanted to tell her goodbye.

All I could say before I left was a quick 'take care of yourself' and I walked out. Better to play it cool than sappy, right? I feel like now I'm in that position she was in with her ex. When I see her act so casually towards me, It's almost as though it *didn't* mean that much to her. And, seriously, why would it? Wasn't even a year. Maybe it's better that I didn't spill my guts, and this is all in my head, and when I get over this we can be friends again. I don't know. When I walked to the train station that night, though, I looked up at the street lights as they floated overhead and, honestly, they just looked like street lights.

Kerouac The Fat (aka CatFace)

2008-05-05T14:49:00.001-07:00

I'm a sucker for this furry bastard. Seriously, look at 'em.

I guess this means I'm an ass.

2008-05-05T14:34:00.001-07:00

Seriously, though, I still can't tell if this mobile blogging is a good or bad thing. Neat? Oh. Fo. Sho. But good? I have no idea. Is this kind of instant sharing wherever whenever the point? Or just a bastardization of it? I guess we'll find out...

Cyber-crapping on the move...

2008-05-05T14:12:00.001-07:00

Just set this up... Mobile blogging. Next thing you know I'll be dragging my cyber friends to a virtual toilet while I crap in real-time. Word.

My Great Failure

2008-05-05T09:23:00.000-07:00

So, it's been a while since I've posted anything, mostly because, well, I've had little to say. It's not that things haven't been happening, life continues to move forward with an almost imperceptible tempo, but I just haven't been compelled to commentary, I guess. But that changes here. My father suggested that I continue to write and post something, anything, if only to make an effort to mark my days, and as always, it's good advice. He and my mother just recently moved to the Philippines, half way across the globe on a small island paradise. My mother is ill, and with the mounting medical bills and the ever looming recession creeping into the American economic system, it was the right move. They can stretch their social security money there and afford to have some in home help so my dad didn't have to bear the sole responsibility of my mom's care, which I can only imagine was difficult at best, heartbreaking at worse. There they are, just retired and looking to enjoy the much deserved relaxation they've been working their entire lives for and, boom. A mysterious, debilitating disease hits my mom and my dad has to watch the woman he loves slowly deteriorate in front of him. He's a strong man, and he took the responsibility in a stride that can only come from a deep and abiding faith in knowing what's right and good and decent. He has his flaws, but when I think about what he's going through and the pain and stress he has to carry everyday, it breaks my heart. I'm proud of my dad. He's the type of man I hope to become someday, but with what's happening, I can't help but note the stark differences. I didn't call much while they were still in the states. I didn't visit as often as I could have. I couldn't. While he sees her everyday and compares his 36 years of marriage behind them to the few years ahead of them, I could barely handle hearing her weak and quiet voice on the phone without being overwhelmed. I distanced myself from their suffering knowing I was abandoning them, leaving them to do this without me because it was too much for me. It's terrible. I failed. And I continue to do so.

Death threats and readership: two great tastes.

2007-03-30T10:04:00.000-07:00

Just recently, a blogger of some standing was singled out and defamed on the internet. Yeah, I know, that really narrows it down. But, still, it has garnered a lot of attention, attention I believe better spent discussing things that actually matter. What frightens me here are not the death threats that were rattled off, or the possibility that I could be next (gasp! No, probably not.), but rather the reaction of the 'victim' and the way that people are rallying to her cause. These small and seemingly insignificant events could easily lead down paths of much more dangerous efficacy. Here is a comment I left on drumsnwhistles. That's right. I'm that lazy:

Roark said:
March 30th, 2007 at 10:06 am
The irony of the situation is chokingly delicious. I don’t think I could take another bite. If Kathy Sierra had remained anonymous, the same anonymity she and many others in the blogosphere are railing against, it would be difficult to target her, her family, her image, or her gender for such, admittedly frightening, comment. Of course, if the nature of the job lends to a certain amount of celebrity status that is beyond your control, then unfortunately these types of comments are an unavoidable consequence of the choice in career. If so, you are again faced with a choice: accept these consequences or change careers. If the belief spreads that instead of taking responsibility for these choices we must force the population to behave in a way that we find suitable, we will find ourselves on a slippery slope of unappetizing ends. I understand that the behavior on meankids.org is reprehensible, that’s why I don’t go there or any of the other websites that promote an agenda that is morally contrary to my own: KKK sites, Kiddie Porn, FOX news, etc. But they have a right to exist. If a law has been broken, alert the website and other authorities to try to ban or isolate the offending party. This has been done. If a tirade on the subject is warranted, about hurt feelings and the way it has affected the lives of those involved, have at it. But, please, let’s not make this into a widespread regulatory discussion. We need to take personal responsibility of our actions AND reactions. The bit about our children being at risk of falling in with a bad crowd of questionable moral judgements has existed well before the internet, and it is STILL the job of the parent to guide them through those pitfalls. Not mine nor anyone else’s out in cyberland. How can we “create communities?” By monitoring our own actions and beliefs. Unless you want to go the route of tyranny. Be careful what you ask for.

On the vast expanse that is the wired, there is only anonymity and celebrity, and very little, if any, gray. Choose wisely.

PS. Kudos to anyone that has profited from this affair! I wish I could, but that’s not my style.

Individual Virtues (or Happy Retorts)

2007-03-26T08:56:00.000-07:00

It's possible that in my last post I may have misunderstood what Aristotle meant by happiness and man's relation to it, that my assertion of happiness being the ultimate goal as an impossibility is the foolish notion of a child that wanders into the middle of a movie. It's possible that I'm out of my element. Possible, but probably not. I'll try not to make this as dry as possible, but just in case grab a glass a milk if you have trouble choking this down.

Yes, it's true, we all want to be happy. Happiness is preferable to misery hands down and this pepsi challenge doesn't need a blind taste test to the note the difference between taffy and vomit. But as the Ultimate End? Aristotle described happiness in two distinct ways. What it is to be happy he references in a conversation between Solon and Croesus the king of Lydia, where C. tries to eke out a fished compliment that he, king, is the happiest man alive. Sucker.

'Croesus', replied the other, 'I see that You are wonderfully rich and are the lord of many nations, but as for your question, I have no answer to give until I hear that you have closed your life happily. For assuredly he who possesses great store of riches is no nearer happiness than he who has enough for his daily needs. For many of the wealthiest men have been unfavoured of fortune, and many whose means were moderate have had excellent luck. The wealthy man, it is true, is better able to content his desires, and bear up against sudden calamity. The man of moderate means has less ability to withstand these evils, from which, however, his good luck may keep him clear. If so, he enjoys all these following blessings: he is whole of limb, a stranger to disease, free from misfortune, happy in his children, and comely to look upon. If in addition to all this, he ends his life well, he is truly the man who may rightly be termed happy. Call him, however, until he die, not happy but fortunate.'

He had to see that shit coming. Never fish for compliments from wise men. They live to knock people down a peg. But the point is driven home: You can't be considered happy until you're dead. Happiness is the ultimate goal because for Aristotle it's the introspective reflection of one's entire life. He even goes so far to say at one point that children cannot be happy 'cause they haven't lived long enough. Old man logic at it's finest. This was my contention: that's bullshit.

He is happy who lives in accordance with complete virtue and is sufficiently equipped with external goods, not for some chance period but throughout a complete life...But we must add 'in a complete life.' For one swallow does not make a summer, nor does one day; and so too one day, or a short time, does not make a man blessed and happy.

Um, no. It's completely possible for an individual to experience moments of happiness, to feel the swell in ones chest, like a sugar high, when the girl you love touches your face, or when chaos ensues and you smile because you know exactly what needs to be done, or when the silence of sunlight makes you think of nothing but the warmth on your face. You don't need to be dead to be happy because it's an emotion that is inspired, not a goal to be reached. Yes, you should be happy when you think back upon your life, but only because you think back upon times of happiness that have already happened. To accept happiness as an end goal, a goal that is truly self-sufficient, is to be as good as dead, without ambition, without any further goals. Conversely, by this line of thought, to be alive, to have goals, is to never be happy.

But this begs the question: How does one become happy? This is the more interesting point, and the reason I loved the Ethics: his ideas of virtue and the volition of man.

Aristotle describes happiness a second way, the way of becoming happy as opposed to his crappy way of being happy. By denying his way of being it would seem that happiness is on a sliding scale and that it's different for each person, that it's not solid and therefore unknowable to reason. Not so, friend, not so. His way of becoming speaks of a manner of living, of following the path of complete virtue, and acting in accordance of virtue.

Again, we feel anger and fear without choice, but the virtues are modes of choice or involve choice.

For these reasons also they are not faculties; for we are neither called good nor bad, nor praised nor blamed, for the simple capacity of feeling the passions; again, we have the faculties by nature, but we are not made good or bad by nature; we have spoken of this before. If, then, the virtues are neither passions nor faculties, all that remains is that they should be states of character.
Virtue, then, is a state of character concerned with choice, lying in a mean, i.e. the mean relative to us, this being determined by a rational principle, and by that principle by which the man of practical wisdom would determine it.

It's here that he gets down to the nitty gritty of human nature: it is choice that defines us. We as humans spend our entire lives trying to figure out who we are, how we relate to where we are, and what the fuck is going on. We identify. It is this process of identification that consumes our lives as we make choice after choice trying to assert ourselves into the world and evaluate if that choice is the right one for us.

He gets it wrong by making the leap that we choose virtues for the sake of happiness, and not that happiness may be a byproduct of being virtuous. Byproduct. What is honor, pleasure, reason? What is virtue if not the things we as individuals determine to be honorable, pleasing and reasonable. Our end goal is to define these things, these virtues, by defining our choices in relation to the world around us. Our ultimate goal is to define ourselves. I can die a happy man if I can look back upon my life and know that I lived to the best of my ability to hold to the standards of my individual nature. The same holds true while I'm still living and looking back. This is the equalizer of kings and common: individuality.

I loved the ethics on this point because his description of virtue was spot on. The idea of happiness as an end goal was such a small point of contention and seemed more as a setup for his views of virtue and individual accountability. The happiness thing was just a lead in to end the Ethics with "Philosophers are the happiest people alive by definition and should be kings. Period." Which is hilarious, but wrong.

Now he who exercises his reason and cultivates it seems to be both in the best state of mind and most dear to the gods. For if the gods have any care for human affairs, as they are thought to have, it would be reasonable both that they should delight in that which was best and most akin to them (i.e. reason) and that they should reward those who love and honour this most, as caring for the things that are dear to them and acting both rightly and nobly. And that all these attributes belong most of all to the philosopher is manifest. He, therefore, is the dearest to the gods. And he who is that will presumably be also the happiest; so that in this way too the philosopher will more than any other be happy.

So funny. Gotta love it. But seriously, the best way to be happy, today, tomorrow, and the last day, is to know yourself. Happiness will follow. With every action, every choice, we learn more about ourselves to refine those choices to ultimately point to the idea that there is no greater goal than self-discovery. Now, how one goes about that is another question.

Let us make a beginning of our discussion.

Aristotilian Backwash

2007-03-07T10:59:00.000-08:00

A. and I were talking the other day about our collegiate failures and successes and how pissed we were at the overall apathy to our education. Such classic phrases as "If I knew then what I know now," and "I just didn't apply myself," were uttered with sheepish reluctance. When I was in college, I really didn't care about the grade. I was an arrogant, self-centered, happy-go-lucky idealist that really believed the only thing that mattered was the information that I wanted. I wasn't there for a degree, I was there for self-actualization. Really. I took the classes I was interested in and only spoke to an advisor twice, at the beginning and at the end, during my nine years at University. That's right. Nine. I loved college life that much. And why not? I slept late, I learned interesting things every day, I drank, I smoked, I surrounded myself with smart people, people that were involved in the same environment as I was, if not for the same reasons, and I loved every minute of it. College rocked. And with nine years of schmoozing comes knowing a lot of people. I was the anonymous celebrity that you didn't know but saw everywhere. Classes, functions, offices, bars, clubs, secluded smoking areas, tops of buildings, private basements. I don't know how or why, but I got around. Someone once recognized me in the middle of a swamp. Honestly. But I digress.

My grades were terrible. Actually, that's not true. Terrible I could take, but my grades were mediocre. I never turned in any assignments, I was always late on papers, I skipped a lot of classes, but I aced almost every exam. It balanced itself out but paints a very washed out picture of my potential, not that I cared. But why didn't I? In my premature journey for self-actualization, I questioned the motive of human ambition. In doing so I agreed, then, with Aristotle that said the ultimate goal of human ambition is happiness. Seemed reasonable enough, and heartwarming to boot. Our actions and choices are bent to the sole, if somewhat convoluted, goal of being happy. Example: I went to school so I could learn, so I could get a good job, so I could be financial comfortable, so I could relax and be happy. I went to school to be happy. So to speak. But being the arrogant, self-centered, happy-go-lucky idealist that I was, I wanted to skip the hoopla and go straight to the point. I was already happy. I loved school, loved learning, and the job thing didn't interest me much. I was happy because I went to school. The glaring hole in this philosophy didn't hit me until year eight. I'm extremely intelligent, but I'm still dumber than a bag of hammers.

So the question becomes: is happiness an appropriate end for human ambition? Does it even qualify? If we assume yes, what happens during the attainment of this goal. To walk down the street to reach the corner store is only necessary if your at home. If you're already there, the very statement "I want to go to the corner store," is absurd. So one could say that the nature of wanting is not having, or that the nature of becoming is not being. So if we say that happiness is an appropriate goal for human ambition, it assumes that we are not happy at the start. And will never be throughout the journey. At worst, we will move through life miserable, driven by our ambition for true happiness and die unfulfilled. At best we will find happiness and give up our ambitions and goals. Neither sit very well with me.

I don't think it's a valid goal. I think happiness is not something sought after but something realized. We cannot chase happiness because I don't think that it's something external. While that may seem like an obvious statement, the argument between existence and essence is time honored. Is there a great thing that encompasses and defines all happiness through which all things can share? That should every object cease to exist, that thing, that Happiness, would continue on? Is it external? Or is it a label by which we define ourselves in reference to our surroundings, and thereby internal? I would stand by the latter.

We cannot have happiness as our end goal. It is a state of being. To say happiness is an end is likened to saying I just want to exist. While true, it is ultimately useless. Goals are temporary, materialistic things. Houses, investments, bank accounts, travel. Happiness, on the other hand, is a state of mind that we can be or not be. There is no "on the way" to happiness, regardless of what the commercials say. We can find ourselves at the worst place possible and still find happiness, and, conversely, at the most beautiful places and feel nothing. It is a perspective we strive to keep in mind, but seems less about working toward, and more about allowing.

I made the genius error when I was in college of knowing all of this, but not understanding. I skipped to the ultimate end of having happiness as a goal, and found a strange sense of nihilistic apathy to my ambitions. In the, hopefully, long journey we have in front of us that is our lives, happiness is not, and should not be, the final destination.

It's more like a backpack.

Philosophy of arrogance.

2007-02-26T13:00:00.000-08:00

Someone once asked me who my favourite philosopher was over a game of pool. While usually quick witted, I was a bit taken aback at my uncharacteristic lack of a response. Though I uttered something foolish (not uncharacteristic) like Aristotle, I've come to the point where I need to set the record straight.

I am my own favourite philosopher.

Arrogant, sure, but honestly, can it be any other way? I remember being taken aback by the sheer simplicity of the question and the complicated answers it entailed: well, so and so was good on this point, but lack this and this, this guy was competent at this business, but an idiot on that, etc. And so as I weighed my response, I came up with the first name that I had the least problems with that I could think of at that moment. I missed, though, the idea that I, myself, choose bits and pieces of the philosophical smorgasbord of my experiences to create some semblance of a philosophy that I must base my decisions upon and weigh my existence against. While it may not be a perfect system, full of omissions and falacies due to my god given ignorance, it is a working system. A system in progress.

It kinda of bothers me the name dropping that invariably happens in philosophic discussions with those initiated in the arcane realm of Philosophy. "Blah blah blah Schopenhauer, Nietzsche blah. Blah Husserl blah Ponty blah blah." I don't really give a good god damn who said what, only if it has some personal significance and relevance to the discussion at hand. And while I love philosophy, for it's efficacy and it's dream of delving into the human condition and find what that really is, I hate - hate - the intellectual pissing contest it more often than not becomes.

What I do love is finding people that express their own views of their experiences and involve philosophic notions to explore the meaning or significance of that experience. It's rare, but it's out there. While that may sound like some touchy feely hippy crap, in my opinion, that's all philosophy is. We all have to come to terms with our own lives, and the philosophy of others will always fall short of our needs. We must come up with meaning for our existence so that we can continue to exist, and move forward. And though I give big props to those that came before that helped me become who I am, much love indeed, the ultimate end is a selfish one.

As it should be for us all.

I am the architect of my own best working philosophy.

Commuters and Conspiracies

2007-02-21T09:47:00.000-08:00

Today is the 21st of February, and I slept on the train taking me to work. Usually I look out the window and search for amazement in the buildings that pass by, holding the territory they've claimed a helluva lot longer than I've been here. Thanks for having me! Today though, I wasn't interested in stationary turf wars, tired from sleeping too much. It was too good, sleeping that much, and I wanted more. My eyes were shut lightly, trying to recapture the feeling I had before drive time radio turned my dreams weird and public, while people shuffled in and out of the train car, unexcited by their capitulation to common goals and destinations. It's odd, really, that my love of sleep is so great that I'll share it with the random passengers that board the train. Seems such a private thing, and the question of my comfort was small voice behind my ear. But here I was snoozing away like a tired wino on a hard mobile futon, while a girl sitting next to me grades essays of indeterminate subjects, as though we were estranged lovers in bed trying to pretend the other doesn't exist. It was sweet, and I hoped she would leave first.

I like giving consipratorial nods to people I pass on the street, like we were comrades that shared a secret knowledge of shadowy pacts, confirming and denying that knowledge in a simple gesture. It's somewhat silly, but for the most part people nod back as though they're in on it too, slightly grinning, and that makes me smile. It really is a win win situation, if they don't nod, it's as though they're too deep under cover to draw attention to themselves, and that makes me smile too. Today I saw this little kid, probably about a year and a half, maybe two, at the bus stop. His stroller was precariously perched at the edge of the curb by a somewhat inattentive mother, and while that gave me the heebies, he seemed not to notice. I looked him square in the eye and gave him a slight nod. Surprisingly, he looked at me and nodded back! Now this kid is two at best, and let me tell you, this was not the nod of a two year old. He seemed fully in on the joke and smiled at my expression, and I, in mild, though controlled, shock smiled back. I gestured my eyes at his mother, and he shrugged, acquiescent to the role he was playing, and smiled big, seeming relieved to be able to finally have a normal, if silent, conversation with someone. I chuckled and shook my head, and he laughed. Then his stroller started slowly rolling backward into traffic. I jumped up and jammed my foot behind one of the wheels, as his mother spun around at my movement. "I got it, I got it!" she said indignantly as she put her hand on the stroller arm. I looked her in the eye and she looked away, "thanks." I turned away from her as the bus pulled up, a small nod to my short friend as I pulled out my bus pass. He nodded back.