A Parable for the Waiting

I came across thisparable told by Buddha the other day:

A man traveling across a field encountered a tiger. He fled, the tiger after him. Coming to a precipice, he caught hold of the root of a wild vine and swung himself down over the edge. The tiger sniffed at him from above. Trembling, the man looked down to where, far below, another tiger was waiting to eat him. Only the vine sustained him.

Two mice, one white and one black, little by little started to gnaw away the vine. The man saw a luscious strawberry near him. Grasping the vine with one hand, he plucked the strawberry with the other. How sweet it tasted!

I have been thinking alot about that parable in the past day or two to help ease some nervousness I’ve got. The nervousness springs from an immensely personal gift I gave to this girl. It’s the sort of thing where if it’s taken well some form of thanks or "how sweet" statement would normally be forthcoming... but it hasn’t. This doesn’t mean it was taken poorly, I hope, she does have a tendency to be distracted in the middle of things. I would say it is more like LIFO consciousness as opposed to ADHD, heh heh.

What I’ve been taking away from this parable is also in the light of my recent thoughts on fate and chance, but specifically in the corollary issue of choice. When confronted with the tiger, the man does what he can... he runs. When confronted with a dire situation he has no control over, the man does what he can... he enjoys what can be enjoyed. So I sit here, trapped between the tigers of unknowing, trying to ignore the mice of worry and self-doubt. I’m going to try, probably with only minimal success, to enjoy the strawberry of the weekend and new fallen snow.

That’s Alot of Dishes

I stayed at a buddy's place this past Saturday night. This weekend I realized how I need more people like him in my life, and in the world in general. He is a very smart guy, but has managed to hide it behind a mild speech impediment and a complete and utter lack of guile. I'd like to relate a story of something that transpired this past Sunday.

He, his fiancee, and I were sitting around in the kitchen when she got up and drew some water in the sink to start doing the dishes. I believe there were approximately 3 clean dishes at the start of the endeavor, most of them having been dirtied when company came over the night before for an impromptu dinner party and drinks. In fact, they had done all the dishes just two days earlier. The only indication of his fiancee's intentions, aside from filling up the sink, was her instruction that "she will need some help drying when she gets to the glasses." And without another word she has begun submerging the first round of a stack of dirty dishes nearly as tall as her. It is about a half hour later and the first thing my friend says once he finds out that it's time grab a towel and help out is, "Wow, Babe. I thought that was going to take you all afternoon."

There are alot of things that one would expect that sentence to mean. It could mean that his opinion of her was low enough that she was able to surprise him with her merely by completing the dishes quickly. It could mean that he was disappointed that his time hanging out with his buddy (me) was cut short by annoying domestic work. It could mean any number of demeaning things... but it didn't. It meant that he was happy she was almost done and happy that he was now able to help get the chore out of the way sooner so they could both go back to doing what they would rather be doing.

It didn't even occur to me until afterwards that what he said could possibly be considered offensive. It is one of the most perfect examples I have encountered of the awesome power of utter guilelessness. The ability dismiss ill will by sheer lack of ill intention is definitely not a skill be underestimated.

Fate and Chance: of Movies and Life

Think about these things as you read this.
1) Fractals
2) Classical vs Quantum Mechanics
3) Psychological Priming

Recently I've been wondering at the subtle beauty of psychological priming and how I have little revelations from having something already on my mind and then exposing myself to some new unknown stimuli. It's the principle of sleeping on it, keep it in the back of your mind and the world around you will give you ways of interacting with other issues that you haven't tried applying to the current issue, often with great success. In retrospect it is an activity I use on alot of my issues. I am a big 'stew'-er in so far as when I am confronted with an important decision, even if I am already mostly sure of my response... I still want a day to stew on it. I want time to leave this framework and allow the universe to engage me in other frameworks that might shed new light on the situation. I prime myself with the issue... in fact I think it would be hard not to be primed when confronted with a big decision, and then just live my life normally and see what comes to me.

This relates to fate in a particular way that occurred to me after watching No Country For Old Men yesterday. Early in the movie one character is trying to describe the captive bolt pistol that the bad guy uses (as shown in the previews), to no avail. Somewhat later, Tommy Lee Jones is talking about something else entirely and comments about how the process of animal slaughter has changed since he was a young man and, in effect, describes how a captive bolt pistol is used to do so. Whether he makes the connection is not revealed. But this is an excellent example of priming, where there is a situational backdrop and the events in the foreground reveal new mysteries, that were before unseen.

There is another part of No Country that ties in and I find very interesting. It is best expressed in a scene where the bad guy tells someone, quite creepily, to call a coin toss. The implication being that if they get it wrong, he will kill them. He is having this scene play out with a man and tells the man the story of the quarter, made 20+ years prior and gone through a thousand hands to come here and decide if he will live or die. The paradox here is that it is the fate of this quarter to decide by chance whether this man shall live or die. That is a very interesting idea. I interpret it much along the lines of fate setting the board and placing the pieces, but still it being chance that determines the outcome. As per my intro thoughts, this reminds me of physics. Everything behaves according to Classical Mechanics, except where all the action is happening. If you throw a ball up, you can know it's path and the time it takes to complete that path... but that is the 10,000 foot view. What is really happening when you look at that ball and the air on an atomic level? Is the air actually going around the ball or through? Is the ball all it's own the whole time or is there some flux born entity made up of air and ball? Fate is the path that cannot be undone, but what the real story is the chance that all lines up to make it happen...or not happen.

"As above, so below" is a paraphrasing of part of the message on The Emerald Tablet", written by Hermes Trismegistus and considered the source of magic and alchemy. But it gets me thinking, and already primed by concepts of fate, lack of a unified physics, and a recent blog entry... just how deep is the rabbit hole? Is it the nature of all things that they can be understood at a macro level but at some point become unknowable? Maybe everyone does meet their soul-mate, and all you can hope to do is not be hung up on your last fling when it happens? Perhaps we have a system where right now there is fate and that is (to some omniscient being) knowable, but when the next fated encounter occurs all is thrown to chance and we zoom in one level on our Mandelbrot Set of Fate, where everything looks basically like it did before, but just so slightly different. Life will go on if you make a bad impression on your soul-mate and never end up dating, just like it has for everyone else that did the same, the only thing that will have changed is that you might not become a believer in soul-mates and the future now has very very slightly more green eyed people and less blue eyed people because of it.

A Pleasant Relief

I went to Cleveland this weekend for my fraternity's reunion celebration. It was a pretty good time, on the whole, but there was one thing that really sticks in my mind. Allow me a little back story before I get into the meat of it.

I consider myself a storyteller, it's how I remember things and how I relate things. Facts, for me, are irrelevant unless they are somehow connected to some plot or some greater whole. It has been like this ever since I can remember. When I was a kid, at dinner, my dad would tell stories and we, the kids, would be encouraged to make one up and tell it to the family as well. It was, and still is, not a problem to hear the same story for the 20th time... it might have some new fact and the act of exchanging the story is often more important than the story itself. My first girl friend in college was quite of the other mind, and had a big effect on my story telling habits... insofar as reminding me early into a story that I'd already told her that one. With the people I work with, I have (as I perceive it) a bad reputation around storytelling. I have a reputation for telling stories that are anticlimactic or end disjointedly. The disjointed ones are a more recent addition, of my own reaction to facial feedback to a story already started. Keeping a story inside me can be really difficult, if it is a story I was in, although if it's a story someone else told me then it's no problem keeping it quiet. It is like there is some weird storyteller's covenant or something.

One other important aspect of background information is that I don't identify myself with very much. For example, I 'went salsa dancing' for over a year before I considered myself 'a salsa dancer.' I was in my fraternity, as opposed to being a member of it. So the list of things that comprise my identity is not as long as one might suspect, which means that when I when I get a continual stream of negative feedback about a part of my identity... I don't have as much to fall back on.

So, I was relaying some story or another to some of my buddies at a bar on friday night and in the middle of it one of them interrupts me to tell me how I am a very "captivating storyteller." Now, it is critical here to understand that the line between deadpan sarcasm and legitimate compliments for this guy is usually distinguishable only by diction. So my first reaction is to be a little stunned, not being used to being insulted so upfront, directly, and personally. My opinion of my storytelling skills already being questionable only made the whole thing worse. So I kind of stammered out, "Are... are you serious?" "Yeah, dude. You're really captivating." It was the word 'captivating' that had triggered the sarcasm-o-meter in the first place and it is registering again. So I re-stammered, "Nah, man. Are you for real?" "Yeah. Take a look at Donkey [the nickname of the guy sitting next to me], here. No one listens when he tries to tell a story, but everyone here is looking at you. You tell good stories." "Oh. ... Oh, Thanks, man."

That's the best compliment I've gotten in a long time, and a much needed one at that. I hadn't realized how weak my opinion of my storytelling had become, but when I was put back in familiar territory with a need for stories of substance and quality I didn't miss a step. And now, as I think of it, someone has got to be emotionally involved in a story in order to be disappointed by the ending. If there is no belief in the rising action, then the falling action, equally, has no meaning. So thanks, Hammad. Thanks for an antidote to a poison that hadn't even registered yet.

On a somewhat related note... I think I've gotten funnier lately or something. Maybe I really did level up in Chicago or something, but I've been told how funny I am in the past week or two. Which is not a comment I'm used to hearing. A friend told me today, "God! Why don't I hang out with you more often? I'm crying here." (Crying out of funniness, mind you). I had a momentary sarcasm meter reaction, before realizing he was serious. Which makes that one the second best compliment I've gotten in a long time.

Begin with the Antithesis

I like words. I like long words, short words, funny words, and hard words. I like the way they feel when I say them. My favorite word to say to myself right now is "smag" ... the name of a dance company in Dayton... it just sounds so dirty and I can 'sit on' the 'A.' The Structuring (my dept) Word of The Day (which we've only ever had one of, as proclaimed by me) a few weeks ago was "pleonasm." That's a fun one, too. I was reading an article about some statements the FERC Chairman, Joseph Kelliher made and I found myself thinking, "Damn, this is a smart man. He really has his stuff together." This is as weird a reaction to a press conference for me as it is for you... so I began to wonder why I thought this dude was so cool, when it hit me. He had used the word "inchoate" in referring to arguments for electric re-regulation. The truth is that I just eat that shit up.

Being a lover of words, it is important that I use them either correctly or wrong on purpose. So, this morning I looked up the definition of "antithetical" to make sure I was using it right. Reading the definitions, I come across the words that will be guiding most of my spare time for the rest of the workday "Hegelian Dialectic." I encourage you to check the Wikipedia article on it, there is alot of good stuff in there. I'm going to move on to my own interpretations and conclusions about it, rather than sum it all up.

The part that got me, the part that really made it all sink in, was the 'criticism of dialectic' section. Specifically Karl Popper's critique that a dialectic will 'put up with contradictions.' Suddenly the spiral, negation of negation, my hang-up on doublethink, my issues with the concepts of good and evil, and my belief that nothing will teach you nothing all came together in a massive mental whirlwind leaving me the storm polished stone that I have a dialectic soul. Anyone that has had much in the way of serious conversations has discovered (often to their vexation) that I will happily stand on both sides of an argument. I also firmly believe that a significant amount of goodness is introduced into the world once a person's truths are in logical alignment. (I thought I had blogged about that recently, but maybe I only got half done and axed it). The most important part about my newfound understanding of a dialectic is that the goal is not to determine who is right... cause we both are and we both aren't. Lets line our truths up and shake out our falsities and make something better than either of us had to begin with.

I think almost all of the women that have danced with me have at one point or another heard my salsa catch-phrase. "No worries. What are we going to do? Win? At salsa?" It is an attitude that, like alot of realizations, has come with me off the dance floor. The shift from right/wrong to better/worse has profound repercussions. Taking a position of firmness and flexibility, as opposed to rigidity, has a tendency to encourage productive discussion... which is always a good thing.

The pursuit of truth, outside of the constructs of right and wrong, is the sole goal of any conversation

Small Poem

This is a poem I jotted down in on recent road trip. If you believe you were with me on this particular road trip, this was only inspired by the situation... I don't actually feel this way about the trip.

Road Trip (January 6, 2008)

Sitting in silence and the car
We let the radio do the talking
I won't find out who you are
And there is no chance of stopping

And so we go and miles chew away
The only thing said is complaint of cold
Warmth has been lacking all day
Some words are more than what is told

Miles and miles in a single direction
It's enough to make a lonely man cry
Because I have more connection
To the people in other cars going by

The Word That Can Be Done Without

May I submit, for your appraisal, a word that I think should be at the top of the list of "Words That Should Be Removed From The English Language In The Name Of General Happiness"

The word I'd like to submit is 'no'

Perhaps it is because I am an optimist, or maybe it is because of some other wiring I've picked up... but I'd like to submit that, and not just me, most people are acutely aware of the things they cannot do. I am incredibly aware, at this moment, of the multitudinous collection of shit that can't be done. For example, I can't make it a weekend. I can't see any of my extended family tonight. I can't be elected president this year. I can't forget things, I can't remember things, I can't stop things, I can't do things. I cannot live my life being defined by things I cannot do, and even more critically I absolutely cannot sit idly by when someone wants to add to the list of things I cannot do.

So I propose we throw out the word 'no.' Because 'no' is final and has no conditions. 'Only,' 'Maybe,' 'Potentially,' and 'If.' These are words that have open doors. These are words that have hope and show a path... they are also words to live by. These are words that can make dreams come true. To say that you can't win the lottery is ludicrous, because the potentiality is irrefutable. It is only highly improbable that you win, because you win "only if" your number is called out of millions. Even if it was not foreseeably possible that you could win... or that it is not foreseeably possible that I own a house on Mars before I die. It is still potentially possible, however outside that chance may be.

Up From The Bowels of my Lungs

Monday, Monday, you just can't trust that day. It all started with a tickle behind my sternum, which would prompt light and lazy coughs. The sort of coughs that normal coughs teased back in elementary school.... and still do now. It was so slight an inconvenience, I thought it was because I hadn't turned on my humidifier the night before. So Monday night came, and I made sure to turn on the soothing, white noise generating, humidifier, and passed out. Tuesday came and went without much noticeable change in condition, as did Wednesday. However, I did talk with someone on Wednesday that mentioned they'd been having the same sort of experience. So I thought even less of the situation, now written off as no more than a meteorological phenomenon.

On Thursday, a small sniffle was added to the mix. Not to the point of necessary nose blowing, just that delicious sounding inhale was needed to keep all my juices inside, and even that probably only 2 or 3 times during the day. Ah, but Thursday night, everything changed. Apparently it took from Monday to Thursday evening for the Mongolian horde to ride around the wall. I woke up in the middle of the night to the incredible clamor of my body fighting a strategic retreat, apparently the only safe ground left was my toes. Luckily the forces fortified there and let the swarming masses of infection dash themselves against the walls of justice and antibodies.

Friday at work it was bad news, we could close a real big deal on Monday and I can't really miss... plus I generally don't regain consciousness until I log into my computer at work (the whole walk to I make in a groggy zen-like haze). I think I went through a solid half box of kleenex, and that is using each kleenex multiple times, as well. At this point, though, it seemed like the villainous infections were happy enough to play in my sinuses. It was though they were vikings entranced by a coastal village as yet unpillaged. Friday evening, though, the honeymooning was over and it was all business.

Since going to bed on friday night, I was out of it for 3 hours yesterday and so far an hour today. I have been employing the "steam them out" strategy of getting under as many covers as possible and sleeping fitfully. With a trusty 64oz Pepperidge Farm Goldfish box near my bed, in case the filthy bastards breached my stomach, (what? I don't keep extra trash cans for this sort of stuff, sorry.) I took on the offensive. It appears to be working. 33 of 37 hours in bed later, I am no longer consistently hacking and gagging... just the occasional hack. AND, I have only blown my nose twice in the past hour... although admittedly there has been some wiping. I'm going to give this "awake" thing a try for a little longer this afternoon, then maybe warm up some ol' chicken noodle soup and re-hit the sack. mmm mmmm, maybe I'll just warm some up right now, since I'm already thinking about it :)

In Lieu Of 'Poor Me'

I've been blogging a fair bit lately, or at least comparatively. Even more than I have actually been blogging, I have at least 4-5 entries backed up. However... none of them have moved me to put fingers to keyboard, which is why they are backed up. The thing that is moving me to write now is to preempt a 'Poor Me' blog in the near future.

I think I'm moving into a swing where I get all mopey and feel like changing my tag line back to "How come everyone that is weird like me is on drugs?" among other things. A quick look at my biorhythm (Mark the birth month as 'February') says that I'm peak emotional today and basically shitty everything else. That doesn't feel too far off. Hah. I just used the verb "feel" on a day when I'm supposed to be very emotional. Funny.

I was walking to work today and noticed a few fire hydrants had been opened up and were pumping water out into the street. It seemed odd, but there was a water truck pulling up, so I assumed that it was about to be closed up. However when I got to work, co-workers clued me in toa water main leak that apparently had the Columbus Convention Center flooded with 2ft of water. So thinking back to my walk in, I tried to figure out what that would have to do with the hydrants being open... if anything. My guess is that they were trying to reduce the pressure on the main that had broken and were letting water out through other outlets that wouldn't run into the Convention Center... this could have occurred before or after they shut off the water to the area. It was around the right time, I get to work at 8am.

There is also a conversational device I use when I am uncomfortable with situations. I will ask about asking a question. For example, "Would you be mad at me if I asked if you had cheated on me while I was on vacation?" or, more frequently, "Would you think I was weird if I asked you if you could be any digit, 0-9, what digit would you be?" People will generally respond in one of two ways... they will either get mad and think I am weird or they will tell me the answer to my question.

What do broken water mains and meta-questions have to do with my sense of alienation perhaps growing more acute? They're metaphors, and somewhat self-referencing metaphors. Allowing me let off some pressure by talking about what I could potentially be talking about without actually talking about. (Because no one likes mopey blogs.)

Here are some questions that I have been tussling with:
Does progress in my quest for consciousness, self-awareness, and understanding of the relationship between myself and the universe come at the expense of my quest for a soulmate?
Am I using dancing as a form of escapism? Can useful results negate escapism and/or is all escapism inherently bad?
What habits of mine are perpetuated solely by habit and what habits have solid arguments for their continuation?
Why is everyone that is weird like me on drugs?

Distilling the Argument

I was reading about this Huckabee guy that stormed the Republican caucus in Iowa and the article I was reading quoted him extensively before addressing his issues. Note, here, that I am not very political, so I didn't know what any of his stances might be... or even really what particular stances would matter this time.

So I was reading along and thinking, this guy seems real nice. Seems like he's pretty level headed and interested more in getting stuff done than pulling strings to make things happen. Then I got to some of his stances and blanched.

Here is the link to his issues, if you'd like to look:
http://www.mikehuckabee.com/?FuseAction=Issues.Home

I find more and more I am socially liberal. The one that gets me is the constitutional amendment defining marriage as one man and one woman. The issue of same sex marriages can be simplified, without fear of oversimplification, to a single question.

Do you support love or would you deny love?

Perhaps your stance is not that there should be no binding between same sex couples, but there should be some other institution because such things might impugn the sanctity of marriage. Are you so unsure of your own capacity to love and remain true that two people you have never met will somehow break your will? Will you be ashamed of yourself when they read 1 Corinthians 13:4-7 at your wedding and say that "Love is not jealous" but you felt there somehow wasn't enough to go around that you might share it with same sex couples?

Perhaps your argument doesn't attempt to hide religious underpinnings and you simply attest that homosexuality is an abomination in the eyes of god, and why would you be allowed the privilege of marriage when last night you spit in god's face? I'll take from the same passage and say that "there are three things that last forever: faith, hope, and love; but the greatest of them all is love."

What now? In the very instruction manual to salvation you are directed to abandon faith in the name of love. Or maybe you will just have a different reading at your ceremony and forget this whole inconvenient little blog