Paucity of Entries
Now Playing: Crosby, Stills, & Nash: 'Southern Cross'
Topic: Philosophy
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19:20 Tuesday, 31 January, 2006
Endwell, NY


I've been terrible about writing here this past year, and I feel bad about it. For the first half of the year, computer inaccessibility was an issue, but after that there's really not a solid reason for it. I lost a little of the charge within me to write about everything -- for some unknown reason -- and what was left of it was countered by this surprising concern for what people who read all this would think. I have a strong belief in the value of truth, so when I started writing here, I didn't care if I was revealing secret things about myself or whatever. I use pseudonyms to somewhat protect the identities of those I write about -- in case they are concerned about what others think -- and only use one for myself because I've had blogging friends who end up with stalkers they've never met, chasing them because of things they'd read on-line. But for the people who know me and start reading what I write, I never cared if they might read something surprising. I figured that there was a large enough scope of material here that even if they didn't like one particular thing, there would be enough good stuff to redeem myself in their eyes again, or something like that. At least that was the justification I gave myself when that part of me that does indeed care about appearances would pop its head out to speak. But that is a small part of me; for the most part, I don't care what other people think. I am who I am, take me or leave me. I'm not going to pretend to be something I'm not, just to impress you. I suppose it's flattering to you when someone will go out of his or her way just for you, but I don't like the idea of going out of my way to lie to you. In fact, I'm rather offended that other people do it for each other and for me.

Anyway, this is all to demonstrate that I thought I didn't care what other people think about me, and that here I could finally just be brutally honest. If they didn't like what they were reading, they could stop. I'm not going to apologize for the truth; only a lie needs an apology.


So that's how I thought I thought. But then, something strange happened. I sent out e-mails and Christmas cards telling everyone what I'd been up to and inviting them to read what I'd written over the past few years, and was very happy with the decision to invite them all to read. And I'm still happy with it. People that I hadn't heard from in years wrote and called, and people I see all the time told me they loved reading things I'd written, and it was all very flattering. I didn't expect such a response, I just thought people might be interested. So the strange thing was not that people told me they liked to read my ramblings (though it wasn't expected), but that I suddenly found myself becoming self-conscious. I guess I really shouldn't have been surprised about that, now that I think about it. I've actually been pretty self-conscious my entire life, just about different things than people would think of. For example, I wore nothing but sweat-pants or shorts through all of elementary school and middle school, because I found any stiffer pants to be uncomfortable, and felt there was no reason I should be uncomfortable just to appease others. Even when I was teased and bullied and beaten upon for it, I still stood my ground and kept wearing my stupid-looking sweats. I knew I was doing nothing wrong and that the bullies were, so even if being myself got me physically and emotionally hurt, I was still being true to myself and that's really what counts in life. I still think that's true, but I eventually found that a slight conformity wasn't all that bad, and helped relieve a lot of fear, so I switched to blue-jeans for all of high school. In college I turned to khaki pants, and that's what I've worn ever since, morphing only to cargo zip-off pants but sticking with the khaki motif. I don't care if cargo pants aren't appropriate for mildly dressed-up occasions, or if certain shirts I own don't match with khaki. I'm comfortable, and I'm being myself, and that's what's important.

This philosophy of doing what I want and letting others just deal with it if they don't like it is probably also why I get off track and ramble so much here; if you get bored with my lengthy explanations, I apologize, but I'm not going to edit it out. I'm not entirely off-point, I'm just trying to demonstrate the point I'm trying to make, though probably over-doing it. But whatever. I'm happy to not have an editor to have to face. :)


O.K., right, I was trying to make a point. In terms of pants, I basically don't care what others think, but in other ways I do. Music is a good example of that. I'm very rhythmically inclined (though whether this is natural or learned I've never been able to determine; I chose percussion in the 4th grade because it was different from what anyone else in my family played, and I chose different because I didn't want to be copying anybody), so the eventual, natural outcome of that inclination was for me to buy a drum set when I was in high school. I wasn't naturally gifted when it came to the coordination of playing an entire drum set, but I also wasn't bad; I just needed practice. But that practice became a very tricky thing for me. I found that, for whatever reason, I couldn't bear to make a mistake that anyone would hear. Since drums are so incredibly loud -- with no way of muting them without putting them in a sound-proof room -- that left me wanting never to play them when anyone was in the house (which they probably appreciated at first, anyway), and eventually to not wanting to play them when anybody might sneak in without me knowing it. After a few years, it became clear that I really wasn't getting our money's worth out of them, so I had my parents sell them to a family friend.

This shyness was also demonstrated when it came to auditions and solos and public speaking, none of which I could do. To this day, I would love to join a symphony and play music again (if I were living somewhere that had one) if only they wouldn't require an audition for me to get in. I'm just petrified of them. I slowly got out of my fear of public speaking the summer I worked as a kayak guide in Alaska, having to teach about nature and stuff in front of groups of up to 25 strangers. The first few weeks of teaching were nerve-wracking for me, and I was always happy to yield to someone else, but by the end of the summer I was much more comfortable with it, mistakes or not. That comfort has carried into my serving jobs, such that I have no hesitation at all if I have to address a large table of 20, 30, or 40 people, and in fact am incredibly comfortable with it. But I still don't know if I could give a speech or present a slide-show of my pictures or anything. Maybe, but I'm in no rush to try.


Alright, I'm still not getting to the point. What was it again? Man, it's way up there on the page, whatever it was. Oh, right, my reaction to people saying they'd been reading my journal. I thought I wouldn't care, and, basically, I do. Which is very frustrating. I don't want people *not* to read it. And I don't want people not to tell me that they are, because that would go against my whole stance of wanting the truth to be known at all times. So, then, what the heck am I supposed to do? If someone asked me that question about himself, I'd say that, ideally, he should just suck it up and write honestly anyway. Obviously that advice hasn't worked very well for me. Although, I do have some things that I've written over the past year that aren't posted yet, so maybe I do have a solution, though I still don't like it.

O.K., so, here's the scenario I've gone through which has caused me so much distress: let's say I have some sort of interaction with somebody during the course of a day, and think of something I want to say, but can't bring myself to say it to them in person right then. Instead, I write it on-line, which I think is a good thing to do. But then they read it that night and I have to see them the next day. Whether they say something about what I've written or not, I'm still aware of the fact that they may have read it, and that changes my perspective on what they may be thinking. I used to think I wouldn't care about that awareness, but it turns out I do, and the real problem is that it bothers me that I would be affected by this possibility. It all just sounds quite silly to me, now that I write it out.

So, one possible solution I've come to for dealing with this problem is to do what I've kinda already done. As I said, there are things I've written over the past year that I never got around to posting -- for one reason or another, and not all for the above-mentioned reason -- but if I post them after-the-fact, there's a much smaller chance of someone reading them right away, and therefore I can't really worry myself about it. So I can continue this pattern, of just posting things weeks or months after I've written them, as a way of protecting myself or something. It still doesn't really address the issue, of course, and this compromise will still nag at me until I find a better answer, but at least it will keep me from just not posting anything at all, which I feel is a greater mistake.

The end result of all this is that, if you care, you can expect to find things mysteriously inserted in places that you think you've already read, and I do apologize for that. They'll always be individual entries rather than additions to already-posted entries, but I'd be confused by this if I were the one reading the journal. If I were reading someone's journal, I'd systematically go back through the entries -- in order -- to guarantee to myself that I read them all, even if the reality is that I would possibly never read them all and would most likely miss some good ones while taking the time to read the bad ones just because they were in order. It's silly of me and I admit it, but it's how I've always been with anything, and with those things I've completed by this method, I've been very pleased with the final result, even if it took me two or three times as long as it needed to. It's not that my methods are inefficient, but that they're more thorough than is probably necessary. Anyway, so, if I were reading my journal and found out that entries would be materializing in the past, in groups I'd already determined I'd completed reading, I'd be a little frustrated. But if I were warned that this would happen, I would just start writing down which ones I'd read, and somehow determine not to lose that list. For most of you, this will probably be unnecessary and actually sound like an absurd suggestion, and I kinda agree with you, but I feel compelled to make it, so, since I've already typed it, I won't delete it.

Oh, yeah, one more thing. I know I just wrote about not liking how I've reacted to hearing that people have been reading here (even if what they've been saying has been good), and reading this would therefore naturally incline some people to pretend they haven't been reading. I guess that would be an inevitable outcome to what I'd just written, but I don't want it to happen. The basis of everything I've written -- today included -- is that honesty reigns above all, so if I thought people were starting to withhold the truth for fear that my reaction to their reaction would be negative, that would bother me worse than anything. So I'm suggesting you don't withhold the truth, even if that seems to be the logical conclusion to what you've just read.


My God, brains are complex organs.


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Homelessness
Now Playing: Genesis: Trespass
Topic: Philosophy
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02:39 Wednesday, 11 January, 2006
Endwell, NY


Maybe this is why I didn't feel ready to go to bed. I'd had a small snack at 11pm, freeing myself to go to bed, but for some reason I'd felt disinclined to do so. So I tinkered around on the computer some more, getting things done, and even went back for another snack at 01:00 before finally concluding -- at 01:50 -- that I really had no good reason to continue staying up, and really should get to bed, even though I felt like staying up but didn't know why. And now maybe I know why: after reading a chapter of the Bible as I do every night at home, I started praying, which I frequently forget to do. The prayers were broad this time, and after a few brief, personal steps, I reminded myself that there's so much more in the world that needs help, and thus thought of all of the homeless people I saw this weekend while staying in Manhattan.


For the past fifteen years, I've frequently thought of the homeless problem in the world, but -- and I'm glad for this -- I thought about it a lot more this weekend when I had to walk around it all day every day. I'd read an article or heard something just last week, a quote of Michael Jordan saying his take on the homeless situation was this: he won't give money to anyone on the street, because he doesn't want to encourage such behavior. He figures that if someone can stand on the street everyday and say 'You got a quarter?' to everyone he or she sees (hey, you know, you don't see too many female peddlers, come to think of it), he can just as easily have a job standing to say 'Welcome to Wal-Mart.' I really liked the sound of this solution, and I was really glad I'd come upon it just before going to the city. It had offered me a final rest to the always-present question of how to respond to a beggar. It doesn't solve the homeless problem, obviously, but it allowed me to not feel guilty not giving a dime to someone.

I got further insight into that feeling of not having to worry while riding the bus home from New York today. It has nothing to do with homelessness, but with not having to make a decision. While I was waiting for the bus to arrive in the station at the Port Authority, there was a mother watching her one-year-old daughter toddle around. Everyone waiting was amused by this, and the girl next to me was as amused as I was, which led us to make eye contact and smile at each other a few times. This made me wonder if I was supposed to strike up a conversation with her or something, especially considering that we'd both be on a bus for the next four hours. I began to take more notice of this girl: she looked like she was from India, and she was beautiful, but was wearing very normal and modest clothing, which is my favorite kind of beauty. If someone has to flaunt her notable qualities, I lose respect for her, or him. So I was even more drawn to the fact that she was beautiful but was wearing nothing to draw attention to that fact. Anyway, she got on the bus before I did, so I took the empty seat across from her, to at least give me the opportunity to say something, even if I still wasn't yet sure whether I should or could. So, as we got under way, she continued just staring out the window in front of her, and not engaging in any common time-consuming activity like listening to music, reading a book, or sleeping. So I obviously had an opportunity to talk, and wouldn't be interrupting her by introducing myself. But I was struggling so much with whether I should (and even if I should, whether I could bring myself to) say something, that I found myself quite relieved when I glanced up and noticed she'd drifted off to sleep in an upright position. The relief was immediate, and I was consciously aware of this sub-conscious reaction, and began to wonder at it. If I'd wanted to speak with her, I should have been disappointed at having lost the opportunity to, but since I was so nervous to say anything, I was relieved at not having to worry whether to or how to. I hadn't decided to have this reaction, I just did. And here's the point of this whole tangent: I think the same thing was true with myself in the case of the homeless. Every time I'd been presented with the opportunity to give money or something to a homeless person, I'd struggled over whether I should or should not, but could never answer the question. Even though I usually didn't give something, I wasn't sure that it was right that I didn't, and that's what I wanted, that certainty that what I was doing was right. So, finally, Michael Jordan had offered me that certainty. I shouldn't give money, because it only encourages them to sit on the street and continue begging, rather than getting a real job.


But, then, I get to New York, and within half a day I'm no longer convinced by Michael Jordan. First of all, there's no Wal-Mart in the City. This is a fact that had occurred to me after walking around for a while, and a fact for which I am quite grateful. I don't particularly like Wal-Mart, though I do occasionally take advantage of its convenience and fairly consistently low prices. However, it made me really happy to realize that there were still places in the world not ruled by Wal-Mart. There's no space in a down-town area for a huge, boxy store, and this is one town that certainly isn't going to give in and collapse under Wal-Mart's threats. However, it also means that these particular homeless people can't get jobs there. The second problem I had with Michael Jordan's solution is that it really doesn't solve the problem, or even address it very well. I'm not intending to disagree with him, and I wouldn't argue that he's wrong, I just know his answer didn't work for me when it really came down to it. And here's why: let's say we did give these homeless people jobs as greeters at Wal-Mart. We'll skip the process of getting the managers to trust them enough to hire them in the first place, and even give the homeless the benefit of the doubt and assume they actually are trustworthy people and really do just need to be given a chance. Even if a homeless man were given a job, how would he get to work? How would he present himself in the clean and orderly fashion that is required for the job, since he doesn't have anywhere clean to sleep, anywhere to store his clean clothes, or anywhere to shower? How much money would he actually end up taking "home" after feeding himself and clothing himself and getting himself to work? I think I now have a little insight into the debate over a livable minimum wage. The current, national minimum wage is $5.25 an hour. Let's give that wage to a grown man, starting from scratch, off of the street. We'll assume he has no family to support and no debts to pay, but also owns absolutely nothing. He'll probably fall into a very low tax-bracket, so we'll give him a generously-assumed-and-easy-to-calculate take-home pay of $5.00 an hour. If he's lucky enough to get a full-time position, that gives him $200 a week, $800 a month. With that money, he must pay for a place to live, water to bathe himself with (a requirement of the job but one that was not a life-or-death requirement for a homeless man), healthy food to eat, transportation to work, presentable clothing, and laundry. This doesn't include anything to sleep on at night or to sit on while eating, or anything we might consider "fun" (like staying up late philosophizing about the plights of others). So, I'm just not convinced.

I continued this train of thought, and remembered what I'd had to keep in mind while starting this whole idea as I was lying in bed: I'm not going to find a simple solution to such a complicated problem, which has pervaded the entire world and all of human history. But maybe I can help. How? Well, by working with one of these organizations dedicated to helping the homeless. And this brought me to another interesting thought: that the people who are worrying the most about helping the homeless are people who are underpaid or not paid at all. I'm not talking about the homeless themselves, but about the volunteers and employees of non-profit organizations, who have chosen to sacrifice themselves for those whom capitalism has sacrificed. It made me wonder if there was some underlying reason behind this fact, that those who are working the most to help the unemployed are themselves underemployed. It certainly fits into the theory I'd been working on for the past few years: that in order for people to live in excess of what's required to live, the same proportion of people have to live below what's required to live. So having people choose to live and work uncomfortably -- by volunteering or taking budget-cuts at their non-profit organizations -- is another piece of the below-average pie that is required to balance the lives of us who are living above the average. And it may be significant to this puzzle of mine, the fact that the only people who try to help the homeless are those who are dedicated enough to lower their standards of living.

...Of course, I could be wrong in that assumption. First, there are certainly rich-and-famous people helping the homeless. And second, people often volunteer to help the homeless because they feel guilty getting paid to help someone whom no-one will pay.


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Car Insurance Craziness
Now Playing: Elton John: 'Daniel'
Topic: Philosophy
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14:51 Friday, 18 February, 2005
Endwell, NY


Unmotivated, la-ti-da. Just got back from the DMV with Dad. It was all very convoluted. He co-signed on my car loan two years ago to lock in a better interest rate for me. Because of this, his name had to be on the title of the car. O.K., fine. Then it was cheaper for my car to be included under his insurance policy, so we did that. But I got my own insurance in December, and that could only have one name on it, so it's mine, of course. But then when we went to cancel my coverage on his plan, they said they couldn't do it without proof of insurance on the car. But the proof of insurance I was carrying was in *my* name, and they couldn't accept that, since the car was registered in both names. So if they canceled their coverage without us showing them proof of insurance, they were required to notify the DMV that the car was no longer covered, which means the police would try to arrest me for driving an un-insured car. Even though the car was insured. Right. O.K. Makes sense to me. Whatever, so, we had to go to the DMV and re-register the car, this time in my name only. This meant a new registration fee, and new license-plates to memorize. DDW-8362 or something. I think that's it. Whatever, it was just stupid. Red tape is ridiculous. I'm not saying it was a negative experience, I actually had fun. It's just stupid that it had to be this complicated.
Oh, and the irony of it ? I now have to change my insurance to reflect the new license plate number. It's an endless circle.


I need to get to that packing business.... Five days left! ‹excited; can't wait; nervous about being ready on time›


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$82,000,000,000
Now Playing: Genesis: 'Misunderstanding'
Topic: Philosophy
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14:04 Thursday, 17 February, 2005
Endwell, NY


Eighty-two billion dollars. George W. Bush ? our elected president ? is asking for an additional $82,000,000,000 for our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Additional. Because ? Lord knows ? we haven't wasted enough money and lives over there already. This is the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard of. Well, I take that back, there have been more ridiculous things in the history of the world, but this is still outrageous. I find absolutely no justification for this expense. All right, so, this is all under the guise of helping out oppressed people or something. O.K., sure. Even if that were the sole reason for creating these wars, why are these the only two places in the world where we're willing to waste so much time, money, resources, and human lives? This tsunami has created a good counter-example. It's obvious that people are suffering in Southeast Asia right now. If our government were so concerned about 'helping the rest of the world,' as we supposedly are in Iraq and Afghanistan (and I'm sure we'll be 'helping' in Iran and Korea soon), why is our tsunami help so limited? And that's just one instance of suffering which we could help with. The whole world is falling apart, yet the countries we choose to invade and kill people in ? in the name of altruism ? just happen to be ones our president bears a grudge against? Yeah, that makes sense.


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...about gift-giving...
Now Playing: The Who: 'Love Reign O'er Me'
Topic: Philosophy
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14:52 Wednesday, 16 February, 2005
Endwell, NY


Sleepless had written to me about gift-giving, so I e-mailed two responses.


At 01:25 Tuesday 02-15-2005, you wrote:
i was thinking, about [the time i ran into my brother at the store preparing for a fancy dinner with his girl-friend], that i should really get something for mom and [my sister], because valentines day is a big thing for them. i hate that there is an expectation of something, today, just because it's a holiday. and the more money you spend on someone, supposedly the more you care about them? yeah? right. most guys i've talked to are frustrated with the expectation of gifts (and the fact that they don't usually get anything). we shouldn't need a day to validate someone's love for us or our love for them. however, i know mom and [my sister] would feel bad if they didn't receive anything, today, so i decided to buy the family a gift and write them a short note, telling them that i appreciate them, and why. i bought a super soft blanket, for the living room couch, because there's never one there and people are always cold in our house. i think that's far enough removed from the traditional valentine's ordeal, to nearly justify it, as being a non-valentine's gift, but not letting mom and [my sister] down.
mom is frustrated with my "holiday issues"? do you think i'm being stupid about the christmas and valentines' thing?


At 01:57 Tuesday 02-15-2005, I wrote:
I think [the blanket is] a very good choice. It's something practical and needed, so it's not just junk or something. And someone eventually would have had to buy it, so you're just being nice by being the one to choose to pay for it. AND you had to have put thought into getting it, which shows love. So I think that's an excellent gift.

[And], well, I'm a bad one to ask [about holidays] since I have the same issues. Because, of course, I think it's everyone else who's being stupid. I mean, yeah, O.K., you don't want them to be let down or anything, but it's quite silly having a designated day for love. I think love should be shown every day in different ways, and if you want to make a day special, go for it, and who cares what that day is. But I'm sleepy, so I don't feel like going into it now. Sorry. If you want, you can ask me again and I'll probably ramble about it forever tomorrow. But I'm really quite sleepy. I'm not even gonna finish my diary. Guess I shoulda done that first.


At 14:03 Wednesday 02-16-2005, I wrote:
This was still in my inbox cause I was supposed to elaborate more on something.... Oh, yeah, the holiday gift-giving thing. That's right, you were to ask me more about it if you wanted to know more. But you're not going to feel like typing to ask, so I'll just tell you anyway.
Basically, I don't at all like the idea of someone having to stress himself or herself out trying to find a good gift for someone by a certain date. That stress alone is bad enough, but, even worse, it often results in people buying gifts they know the person isn't really going to like or need or anything, but at least it's a gift. This means wasted money and energy on the part of the buyer, and then lying and guilt on the part of the receiver. Since it was a gift, you can't just throw it away, but if you don't really want or need to use it, that means you have to just store it somewhere, and then pretend to take it out and play with it when that person comes around or something. It's all a wasteful sham. So I would rather do away with all the gift-giving holidays. Instead, if you see something that a person would like, any time of the year, buy it, and a make a special day of giving it to the person. Likewise, if you're thinking of the person and are inspired to make something for them, do it, and give it to them. I think everyone would feel more love over-all this way, and the givers and receivers would have to deal with less guilt and deceit.
So I've kinda implemented this myself, by giving gifts to people when I find them (often to their flattered surprise since people don't expect gifts at random times of the year) and by not getting gifts at birthdays or Christmas unless I had happened upon one in the month or two before the holiday. However, this has cause some problems, because it's kinda unfair for me to be receiving gifts at Christmas but not receiving many. And I've hurt people that way, too, since they were expecting something and didn't get anything. (Thus my idea to remove the expectation entirely.)
Then again, it's probably not possible to remove the expectations. When left to one's own memory or feelings or noticing something would be a good gift, some people would naturally be better at giving random gifts than others. And this would lead someone to feel unloved because the person whom he or she thinks is special isn't giving special-enough gifts. Actually, as I'm saying this, I see that it's already the case on holidays. How many boyfriends or husbands have forgotten anniversaries and birthdays? Or remembered, but gotten something that wasn't 'the right thing' or whatever? The fact will always remain that some people are better at gifts than others, but it doesn't reflect how much they love someone, but just how their minds work. So, yeah, that's what I think.


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