darkly dreaming

I think the world would benefit from titles. I have a master’s degree, I think ‘master’ or ‘lord’ would be beneficial. Not just to humor myself, but to really help everyone understand the varying levels of education and experience we all have. I’m not suggesting a formal system wherein everything is impersonal, I prefer to be called Dave in most circumstances. But it’s something to think about, having an easy and accepted way to introduce ourselves.

Teachers often incur my wrath simply because I have so many negative experiences in education and partly because I choose to work with students who are going through exactly what I have. I sat in an IEP the other day and it drug up so many old issues for me to think about. But this thought also occurred to me as well, but it wasn’t really brought to a head until I started helping a student review for a final.

It’s not simple, but I do have to point out that at the University level not returning a test, or withholding previously graded work that will affect the final test is unacceptable in every class I’ve ever taken. And at University is where cheating really matters. These are the institutions that will stake their reputation behind your degree. So why are they able to cope with this apparently pervasive issue and High School teachers are not? Why is it High Schools that seem to take draconian measures to ensure test security and not the colleges?

My opinion is quite simple, I think that many teachers think much higher of themselves than they ought. I know I used to. Being called Mr. Arney be adults twenty or thirty years my senior setup too large a power differential. Especially when some of them were far better educated and filled with more experience than I could even imagine. I love Pauline epistles for the very reason they make great allusions. The Romans were warned of this problem, and Paul suggested that they ought to think of themselves as to have sound judgment.

So why titles? Well, I want one mostly, but also because then Mr. and Mrs. stop setting teachers apart. Plus I deserve to be respected for my area of expertise. I’ll always give deference to someone with more experience and education because it only makes sense. Unless they prove themselves incompetent, I am inclined to listen to them above my own opinions first. I’m not sure when it started, but this unsound image teachers seem to hold of themselves only leads to things I would consider ludicrous. I can’t imagine a college professor being coy about what will be covered on a final. The hardest classes always had very clear revision guidelines. It wasn’t even uncommon for the professor to provide a series of essay topic and then select only a few for the actual exam. And not receiving the results of quizzes and previous tests that were also to be included on the final exam never happened to me, both B.A. and M.A.

So yes, Master Arney or Lord Arney would make me smile, but it would also keep the constant contest I find myself in with some teachers from occurring. I almost try not to interact with teachers at this point because I’m tired of the pissing match that usually ensues. It’s funny because they use the Mr. and Mrs. so authoritatively at times, but then can feel so vulnerable at the same time. Basically, I want everyone to be honest about what their expertise is and not try to be more than they are. Teachers should be proud of the fact that they convey basic information in the general studies in such a manner that teenagers become competent. They shouldn’t have to be experts in learning styles, or visionaries in modifications. That’s what I’m good at, and I like doing it.

Why should we be fighting, pissing, or whatever else ends up happening? You’re Mr. and I’m Master, and we can each do what we do. It shouldn’t be this hard. And you shouldn’t worry so much. Cheating is going to happen no matter what. It doesn’t hurt you, and it always comes back to bite the student’s ass in the end. Chill and just concentrate on being excellent. Then let those of us who find it exciting to diagnose and modify do our thing. I gave up the classroom because it wasn’t my passion. Let me have my passion and my title, dammit!

I have fought the movement toward plaid in my own passive aggressive way; I just didn’t buy them, no matter how many models, actors, or cool guys did. It’s not my fault though. I had a horrible incident in childhood where once Christmas was entirely plaid, I mean mountain man wearing my mother’s bras plaid. A few thousand jokes later and the idea of having anything but a kilt on when I wore plaid again was as close as I could bear to be to the design. And now, I’ve snapped.

It seemed time to give up my senseless resistance and attempt to find things that were non-offensive to my childhood trauma. Hence green. It got me thinking about fashion in a philosophical sense, and I’ve been designing clothes for the characters in my books, for which the male characters present much difficulty mainly in the lack of books and shows for them. Here is my little attempt to talk about the subject without the words garment or references to denim and chiffon.

Hips — This is surprising the key differences between the gross anatomy of men and women. There are more obvious features to our eyes, and yet as far as actual structural differences and size of areas in question, the hips win every time. I think it’s essential to start there, and was the reason for my turn toward plaid. It’s not just the color but the better approach those shorts tend to take for the male hips. They are almost vertical and produce a short indentation in our frame, the perfect place to hang shorts and pants from. Obviously I’m not about sagging in the slightest.

Aside from practicality, there is something to be said for playing to our strengths. Upper bodies are interesting but overdone in a way. Additionally, the size is entirely dependent on how big of a gym life you have time and money to develop. However, with diet you can mostly control the tone of your hips, and it’s an even denominator. They don’t change in size except when your growing. For adults, they will be the same until we break them when old. It evens the field between all rivals. Therefore, choosing the appropriate rise of the shorts/jeans and the length of shirt is important for bringing out this area.

It was a recent discovery, but one I should have thought of much earlier. My upper body is incredibly short in comparison to my overall height. My legs are so long that I usually have to by jeans that come up to my belly button to get the appropriate length. Hence, for me a lower rise will make them sit much better, despite my lack of toned and uncovered abdominal muscles. Discover your body proportions and then work with them. Exposing genital hair and arch certainly have their place, but well framed hips that allow that short segment where bone meets skin to be exposed above the shorts/jeans will probably offer the most attractive visage.

Abs — It’s not necessarily about the six-pack when it comes to non-beach/nudist wear. If the shirt lets the hips become a tease, it is my opinion that the upper abdominals are better left for the later period of getting to know each other where alcohol and anxiety can distract your companion. Most everyone has strong muscles right at the waist because ever motion we make comes from this area. You can’t twist, squat or sit without activating them. Again, using the natural strengths of this isolated area can maximize your impact while at the same time creating a level field with those annoyingly sculpted men.

Choosing the shirt should be just as important as the shorts/jeans, and I see a great number of men and boys going with undershirts. I know it’s a look, but consider that even a tight undershirt of the wrong length will miss it’s opportunity. Also, they come in colors. For minimum financial impact you can have a rainbow to choose from, white isn’t right for everyone. Get the right length to suit your upper body. As I stated, my upper body is very short, and when I was at better weights, it became apparent that most shirts where incredibly long on me. This doesn’t mean you should select crop tops; if you’re that impressive, don’t wear a shirt. What I suggest is that teasing length where movement will expose the hips and yet you can walk most anywhere and not feel under dressed. Learn from women, teasing is almost more important that the goods themselves.

Minimalism — This is more my taste I suppose, but again, consider that clothes are really an optional choice in warmer climates. They are like paint in a way, and you don’t want to deface a great building with too much decoration. Layers are important when it gets colder, but there are still ways to assist your frame and therefore your appeal while doing so. Even though I opposed zipper sweatshirts in the past, the modern incarnations have made a lot of progress away from the bulky, itchy things I knew. They also allow for warmth of the extremities while allowing your previously mentioned choices to shine through from below. But always think about what the added element will do to the overall approach. Not on the day, but when you purchase the clothes. That’s another part of my philosophy, aside from ensuring that you don’t wear red and green together unless your in a camp Christmas musical, more than forty-five seconds of thought about a shirt is too much.

Interesting shirts should probably be covered by simple, single colored zippered sweatshirts or jackets. If you wear a pull over sweatshirt, then wear one of those nice cheap, colored undershirts and save the pretty ones for another day. I’ll allow that those more creative than me can link up over and under shirts to create some sort of artistic statement. If that’s the case, design some dumb options for the rest of us to buy because you’ve got skills and should be paid for them. I prefer to think that only one element should draw the eye at one time. Skin is always the first thing humans see. Next is something shiny, and after that contrasting colors and interesting shapes. This can lead to some interesting ideas.

Instead of awesomely bejeweled jeans, and I saw some the other day that could only be described as masculine dazzle, go for a belt that is yellow or white. Both of which have been slowly trickling down into everyday fashion for a year or so. Not to belabor the point, but the belt will help to draw attention to the hips, and it offers something new for those checking you out. Belt buckles are becoming cool again, and not just in square dancing contests. Even cool ripped jeans can benefit from an interesting belt. The studs thing is interesting, but I have a feeling bold colors may be the next thing plus they fit my minimalist philosophy.

In short, don’t overdo. Cool shirts go with boring jeans, and a bold belt. Tight buckles go with boring everything. Hoodies from Guiness, my birthday present, go with everything. Shoes are their own thing, or even if they should be worn. I’m fixated on converse for the moment, but allow that sandals and other choices make find additions. I personally don’t understand sandals and jeans, but I hate pants in general and try to wear them as little as possible. So to free your feet while constricting your legs seems stupid, and cold. Beside the fact that sandals really go with shorts, they complete the freed leg and show others that you spend your time with little to no clothes on most of the time. Or that you are a weekend slacker, but still, they know you a little better that way. Pale feet in the winter tell me you like frostbite, and tanned feet in the summer make me think you’ve been kidnapped and brain washed into wearing jeans. But that’s probably way over thinking it, and that’s against my philosophy.

Last, don’t wear colors that make you look stupid. My dad is slightly orange when considered in the appropriate light. When he puts on anything close to that color he becomes bright orange. I look best in greens and earth tones, though I sneak blue in because it’s on of my favorite colors. Pink can go with most people, but that horrible bright magenta thing should be banned from existence. Pale is probably better for our eyes anyway. Black will is good, but it creates a lot of contrast. If you’re still waiting for the public pool to open it’s doors, or the house to empty for the weekend and the neighbors to turn a blinded eye; it may not be the best option head to toe. Though I appreciate those who can use chains and face paint to make it all come together. Industrial is something I won’t pretend to comment knowledgeably about. When it’s good, it’s amazing. When it’s bad, you wonder when they showered last. An okay rule is match your eyes when possible. Especially your shirt; it’s why superman has a blue costume. But if you start to resemble the shirt color, change and never look back.

Above all, don’t obsess. Once you open your mouth, the clothes will dissapear, and depending on how wide you open your mouth, well, clothing should introduce you not speak louder and be more interesting than you are.

It’s odd, but watching a documentary about the Westboro Baptist Church, (who own the God Hates America website among other credits), got me thinking about the role of hatred and resistance in my life. Normally I watch things like that, and have this gut wrenching hatred and anger that swells up at the harm that they are causing, not only to themselves, but to the unnamed population of kids and adults who don’t fit the straight christian lifestyle. It only gets worse when they throw in the word ‘fag’, one of a few slurs that make my body cringe every time they’re used. But I sat there, sometimes with my eyes closed because it was too hard to look at the main guy’s face, and it wasn’t making me angry. Rather, I was feeling compassion toward these people. Something that was incredibly odd to begin with, but especially of people that I view as abusing and twisting religion to suit their own selfish desires.

Thus, I took a moment to study what was happening to me, and this one incident began to place some other things in perspective. I found out recently about another in a longer chain of backstabbing abuses commited by some former colleagues of mine. I left my position as Sales Manager because I wasn’t able to mix with these two people, and at the time was very angry at having to do so. I wanted to blame them for all of it, of course. But as time went on, I began to first not care, and then to work through what had happened, and try to glean from it what I could; to grow in whatever areas I had been deficient. Still, to discover that even after I had quit, they persisted in maligning my character was too much at first. I kind of went numb all over. Afterward, as I began to face what I was feeling, I realized I wanted so badly to hate them. I wanted so badly to revile them, but I couldn’t.

In truth, I felt bad for them, and not in a superior way. Both of them had to make a very similar choice to the one I made a year ago; to leave the company and seek employment somewhere better suited for them. One of them has children to feed and cloth, and the other a long history of sorrow and pain. So in the midst of my simple desire to hate them, I instead found myself feeling almost love for them. If I had to name it, then compassion, universal human compassion. Suddenly the Buddhist teachings made so much more sense to me. In my desire to be angry I found instead the realization that I couldn’t hate, I had to love them. Not to make me sound wonderful, just that I actually tried, and failed in my task of hatred.

At some point in the weekend the idea of peaceful resistance came and went through my mind. It was the contradiction in the words themselves that caught my attention. I grew up Mennonite, and therefore still have very strong aversion to violence; yet I do not deny it’s place in the normal operation of society and the world. My ability to publish this is wholly dependent on the violent efforts of my ancestors, and even the contemporary efforts of my peers. But, the notion of resisting without violence had always been a nice idea, something to balance the need for the other. As the news of my maltreatment lingered, this was the belief that somehow came to be challenged. The link still escapes me, but I followed the thread to see where it would go.

Nowhere. At least, not initially. I don’t even remember being able to make anymore sense of it until I sat down to the program today and the numbness didn’t’ come. The anger wasn’t there, and this compassion that I thought was singular, seemed to have become more universal all of the sudden. I can’t cry, that ability seems to have left my emotional reach. But I do tear up just slightly on a few occasions. When someone sacrifices themselves for another, fictional or otherwise, especially if it’s a soldier; but also during these kinds of documentaries. I just feel so overpowered by the injustice of it, by the horribly monstrous attempts to vilify and invalidate another human beings existence. Those are angry tears, and they didn’t come.

This was it; the final piece in the burgeoning puzzle created by my uncharacteristic reactions. As I watched them protest all sorts of odd and honestly perplexing things, I wondered how I might ‘get back’ at them. Nothing. In fact, there is only acceptance and peace. Not acceptance as in turning away and ignoring it; the secular definition useful for the peaceable co-existence of conflicting viewpoints. This is an inclusive, supportive, acceptance that finds not a viewpoint, but a human being; and in finding that human being, loves them without condition. There was nothing to be done, not in resistance to them. I had to simply let my heart go and seek out the individual beyond the hate filled words and angry masks.

I suppose then, on a larger scale, this leads me to rethink a lot of those peaceful ideas I had clung to in childhood. Resisting is violent, it’s against the flow of things. I discovered a certain pleasure and success in doing so this weekend as well. As a kind of counter-weight to the path I’ve just explained, I also had some problems with a friend and finally just plainly addressed it, not exactly confrontationally, but very much direct; definitely not in the water flowing downhill way that I normally use. Also for a job that wasn’t getting back to me, I sent a direct and strongly worded email, getting an almost immediate response. Thus these two conflicting things were floating around my head at the same time.

I’ve not reached some amazing realization about all of it yet, but I do see some interesting things that I had ignored or failed to see before. Where I had assumed that these horrors wrought by religion required resistance, I find instead that they require compassion and acceptance. Yet, there is this piece to action that requires violent resistance, even in my own life. And all the while I hate doing it. My very being rejects the idea of it. But my being can’t eat if I don’t get a job. Hence the conflict between ideas and hungry reality. Where I had viewed myself as being peaceful, it was really just passive. Even going all the way back to my job, it wasn’t a peaceful existence that I responded with, it was passive. Realizing that I would have to move into an aggressive, violent role in order to renegotiate my work environment, I quit. It wasn’t a line that I was willing to cross into. But it wasn’t peaceful, it wasn’t the water way; at least not on it’s own.

Things are reversed at the moment. It’s a little odd, and definitely unbalanced for the time being. Yet peace seems to come out of it. I’ve released the violence where it was needed, and at the same time removed the need or desire to unleash it in other places. I’m sure some master ought to slap me with a stick about now. I do feel good; like something important has begun to emerge in my mind. In this moment, as I write, I am able to understand the master and his stick for the first time. How a purveyor of peace could use violent means to enlighten. I probably won’t take such a path myself, but the paradigm shifts of the weekend have at least given me some different ways to view my water metaphor.

Books are made to be sold, in that they are produced as consumable items and marketed as leisure activities for the masses. But the great books, the ones that linger beyond trends and fads are not necessarily deep, penetrating works of philosophy or sophistry; they are unique because they have that something, that extra polish which grabs hold and won’t let go, long after you’ve put the book down. They have a voice, all their own. This above all is the thing we have beaten out of many students and aspiring authors. In our zeal to accomplish homogeneity of language and culture, we have expressed an unwillingness to allow exploration that might step outside these carefully approved areas. Whether we find fault or simply cause, it is the industry itself which contributes to the synchronization of ideas and elements, so that movie writers are so starved for ideas that they must turn outside of themselves completely, looking to things like comics; a place where unique vision and telling is prized above blockbuster aspirations.

This isn’t some polemic about the loss of anything in particular. Actually, I just want to express some basic ideas I’ve found helpful in working toward some measure of individuality in what I do. Think the tipping point came when I read the fourth or fifth article in a row that practically forbade me to write unless I had read hundreds of books in my genre. This is of course not unlike the literature review for the dissertation I never started. It’s hazing. Yes, it has some measure of validity, but it is still hazing. Pay homage and tremble at all who came before you. In academics, I see the point of making language and ideas work readily together. Kuhn should be consulted, as he expresses my own view of the nature of scientific progress, but not in this small setting. In literature, it is so dangerous to assume that you cannot begin to write lest you have read everything.

The secret I learned for myself is that it’s all been done before. It’s all been told and retold in so many ways, sometimes much more creatively than I could imagine myself. So yes, I have read, and continue to read in the areas that interest me, but I gave up the idea of truly being unique in plot or story, and instead set myself on a different path, one that really starts and ends inside of me. What I learned from reading in my genre were some basic ideas of the language that teen readers have come to expect in what they read. But I did not see this as a barrier, more an opening. And rather than looking at how one author does or does not offer didactic platitudes to uninterested adolescents; I just started looking at myself, at what was happening within me as I read.

It felt fake. Most of all of this felt just a little less than stick figures. Now there are exceptional instances where I was tied to the characters as though I knew them myself. And it was this, more than subject matter, or reading level that caught me. I stumbled across a book called Breathing Life Into Your Characters, and found it helpful for refocusing myself. Of course it bandies about that you shouldn’t make the characters a projection of yourself; and I find this to be only helpful to a point. When I write, I have to feel as the characters do, and if I’m intuned, then they do become alive, and often lead me along as we go. But if I didn’t have a piece of me in every one of them, there would be no connection, no element for me to focus on. When the character is dirty or injured, I have to feel that too. And when I’m writing the angst, the turmoil, I have to feel the pressure in my own chest, my anxiety peaking as the situation hangs unresolved. The joy, sorrow, pain, and ecstasy all have to grounded somewhere inside of me first.

There is no formula, no method. I’ve looked, and tried. I enjoyed The Writer’s Journey, because it confirmed that since man began telling each other of exploits, there has been a formula to it. Even in biography, we expect some arc of development, and those able to find it make truly wonderful historians. But it has, most definitely, been done before. Forget the desire to create something unique; lose it to the mists of unfulfilled desires and then rest. Beside, you don’t really desire this, you desire a connection with people, one that you think will be brought on by that flare of new and different. This is not what makes that. It is you, you creeping around the pages of what you wrote that does this. If you are true and able, the soul of your creation will speak to those people, and they will love you. It will seem new and different because no one looks at the story in simple terms unless you force them too. A bad movie is easily summarized as a pale imitation of something greater because there is nothing to interrupt the comparisons. No character to stand up for you and shout at those detractors to take head and listen.

What is different, is you. Abraham has sacrificed his son countless times, and Cain has been slaying Able for millenia. Yet when you tell it, you put a piece of your own soul in there; that is why it is different. How then do you do this? First look long and hard at you. Find the messy bits and poke them, play with them until they ooze and swirl; possibly in pain, but sometimes in joy. That’s what everyone else ignores in themselves, and pretends doesn’t exist. And it’s also what they love to see in everyone else. Be your own gossip rag, and find the juicy bits dangling out the side of your baggage. Know thyself, artist; then shall you know everyone.

I began Forgotten in the third person, imitative of Rowling. It’s called a limited omnipotent narrator. It’s not the main character, but it’s someone just behind them. They can’t travel far, but often see things a little less gilded than whom they speak of. It’s a really great tool, and it absolutely destroyed my voice. My angel, my editor asked me why I was writing a first person narrative in the third person. My feeble defense of market research and expected genre fell upon the table and gasped for a final breath before dying in rotted stink over another round of beer. Painfully, I rewrote thirteen chapters into the first person, and found that what had been a good story became alive with a spark that seemed impossible, even to me. More than that, it freed the story to grow around the cave which had for so long terrified my dreams.

Your voice will change, it must. It will find the character where she waits, and if you stay out of the way, it will follow and develop her through all the familiar pieces of heroic quests; except no one has ever seen it like she has. A cave is not just a cave when it plays upon the fearful, troubled by years of confined dwelling in the face of near death and suffering. The dragon looks not like a beast, but a tender soul trapped by language and bigotry. Unless you try to force it. Then you will have something that might be timely, and popular; but it has cost you something in return. Some unexpressed bit of you that now withers in the cold.

It will be messy, and scary, and you will feel like they all see you naked and scared, scampering from recto to verso in a mad tirade of suppressed glee. And it’s all true. It is you, in all your scary glory laid bare. They stare and poke and tease. They call you names, and look down their noses, comparing size and color. You are humiliated and broken; but then a laugh. A single joyous note that breaks the spectacle and you see them not looking at you, but enjoying the lives you breathed your soul into. In the end, you are saved, whisked away by your hero and your villain, while the supporting cast distracts them all. Then from the side stage, hidden by the curtain you watch it all unfold. And share in the joy and tears, until the curtain falls and they call “Author”.

Look inside and breath. Take what you find and then start to sketch. Draw if you have to, but I just write out little bits and pieces of scenes and dialog that come to my mind. At one point, I was so stuck I had to write the same scene from all three characters perspectives, until I could understand each of their dynamics. Then when I wrote again, it was they who acted, and I just recorded their dialog, and did my best to observe their faces for signs of hidden meaning or suppressed emotion. It won’t be good, not yet. Because what you’re really doing is expressing all that you desire for them, getting it all out and then letting yourself be empty. An expectant author is like an overprotective father who fails to teach his child to ride for fear that she will fall. Your characters need to fail horribly, to be miserable and to commit murder. They need to disappoint and anger you. You need to chuck the pages into the wall in a rage at the incompetence they offer you. But you must love them anyway. You must hold them and coo softly in their ears until the moment is passed.

I refused to keep writing Forgotten once Xanatos got to his point of departure from what I knew he could be. As he fell in on himself, I couldn’t do it any longer. It was six or seven weeks before I was able to make my way back. I worked on other books in the series, even created an entirely new set of characters for later exploration. I hated the things he was doing, and the state he was in. I knew he was better, grander. I saw him at his peak, his strongest and most illustrious. But I hadn’t the patience to walk him through the wasteland. It sucked. And then we met, and though we could not stand each other, we got down to it. And he surprised me. He created the most tender and visceral moment possible in the midst of what I had intended to be only death. And he looked at me, and nodded. You will know the part when you read it. He is my son, my prodigal, my bane, and my love.

Love yourself. Do not seek to write because you want to; do it because you must. I didn’t understand this, and it was why I could not write until recent years. Because if I don’t, I die. I crumble and fall into agony. Let it be your compulsion, but be honest in it. If nothing is coming, walk away. I don’t believe you must write everyday simply to write. Read Zen in the Art of Writing. You will not see a formula but a sickness that drive Bradbury to create a new story every week. For me to do the same would only sicken me. I circle my prey like a vulture, waiting for the stink to rise into the heavens. And then I slowly consume the rotten flesh until it fills me with vile, putrid disgust. Then, I wait.

They told me I couldn’t write. I believed them. Don’t do the same. When I watch my friend play her violin, I see the pressure in her chest that must escape lest she burst and spill her guts upon the floor. When I write, I feel sick and wretched, and then I feel complete and whole. The blank page used to scare the fuck out of me. It was clean and pristine, and too easily sullied by my ineptitudes. Like a goddess she shamed me and my inexpert technique. And like a shaved Labrador I spit and huffed upon her golden flesh; not even sure this was enjoyable. Certain that she would merely laugh at the lack of stamina and marvel at my blind groping. And then I would collapse in spasms and writhe about in my own bile. She is not a goddess. She is a whore. Tender and careful. When I moved beyond the illusion I found a muse; someone to guide my movements, to whisper slow instruction as I tried to burst forth.

You are the most interesting person in the world when you put pen to paper. That was how I did it. I took up a pen and let it splutter and spurt upon the page until was gross and disgusting. Then I could see it for what it was. Cheap makeup and plastic heals. The allure, the grandeur was gone. But in that filth, I found myself. A voice arose, and I let it speak. I could always tell when I had gone astray, because that voice, that charm was gone. It was a chore to work, and the paper seemed flat. I don’t know what will incite you; I just know it won’t be found on the shelves in a bookstore. Go there and find interesting trinkets. Carry them if you must; every witch doctor does what he must. Eventually you have to take off your clothes and start grubbing in the muck. Nothing compares to the sensual ecstasy of being filthy in the light of day.

Love yourself, be yourself. Lose yourself and let yourself go. Fall, die, turn over in your grave. But hold your characters, the pieces of your soul so tightly that all you have left is them. They are your breathe, your organ, your heart. Bend them over the earth and drink in their bitter taste. Then write, and never forget what they feel like on the inside, as they run across your skin and plunge themselves back into you. Then write.

I love Sartre right now. Let’s start with him here.

Everything takes place, in fact, as if our essential and immediate behavior with respect to anguish is flight. Psychological determinism, before being a theoretical conception, is first an attitude of excuse, or if you prefer, the basis of all attitudes of excuse. It is reflective conduct with respect to anguish; it asserts that there are within us antagonistic forces whose type of existence is comparable to that of things. It attempts to fill the void which encircles us, to re-establish the links between past and present, between present and future. It provides us with a nature productive of our acts, and these very acts it makes transcendent; it assigns to them a foundation in something other than themselves by endowing them with an inertia and externality eminently reassuring because they constitute a permanent game of excuses.

I’m having some existential dilemmas when it comes to integration right now, and I got to thinking about the helpfulness of psychology toward authenticity.

Sartre captures the very problem that I am having with psychology, or I should say therapeutic advice, in my present circumstance. It’s the creation of an independent self, an entity that has actions of its own, and therefore controls our freedom. Sartre is right there to smack it down, and it’s the same thing that Zen talks about. It jazzed me up when I first read that excerpt the other day, and sparked a new campaign of writing, however, today it became even more clear to me realistically.

The presentation of reality to us causes fear and our natural reaction flight. That kind of encounter with existence is easy to keep away from by distraction and denial. I love doing those things, but now I find myself tired of it. I feel like I have to stop all the distractions and sit down for a while, and face it. I hate emotions, and I hate being emotional. My latest crisis is how to do what I feel to be authentic when there is no one around to do it with. This is where I really need Sartre, or some Zen master, to sit down with for like five minutes.

That’s more of a side rant to the bigger issue, and that is where do I find truth in the milieu I exist in? I’ve told my friends that coping is okay, that it’s natural to do it. But I also believe that at some point that coping has to come to account. I am an existentialist in my psychology, and I know that eventually all of these things will only keep you away from the root issue for a time. I think that it’s imperative to meet that root issue, and that it’s okay to have it destroy you at times. When you are secure enough to start recognizing your coping, you are secure enough to start working past the coping.

And that’s where I think that I’m having my current conflict. I get sage advice from friends about dealing with life, finding ways to be happy. And then one friend asked me, what makes you truly happy? It was rhetorical in context, but I chose not to take it that way. What makes me happy is not all the distracting coping mechanisms. Those aren’t real, and as soon as I know that, they are more hinderance than help. But what is the path to follow?

In a cognitive behavioral sense, we would just identify the behavior, and consciously change it to something that we want. I see this as trading one thing for another. It doesn’t really do anything about the basic level of whether we live for ourselves, or for our fear. What part of psychology is actually moving us toward authenticity? It seems that anything which strengths the idea of an independent self is really a move toward bad faith and away from enlightenment. ‘Do not mistake your finger for the moon.’ I may be an existential hedonist, that we should undergo as much pain as it takes to obtain the ultimate pleasure. It annoys me when people will not.

I suppose it annoys me more when people tell me not to do what I’m doing. Because I trust them, but I don’t think they’re right. I think they might be falling prey to bad faith themselves. ‘Don’t think, just go out and do.’ But even Zen recognizes that you have to ponder the idea of not thinking. You have to let the mind settle as it will. For me, part of the settling is recognizing all that which clouds my root issue. It’s like a simple exercise of noticing and letting go. I notice these things, these coping things, and then I let them go. (At least that’s what I really want to end up doing.)

It seems that ultimately, all actions that merely affirm the self as an independent entity, one that Sartre would see as the root of all excuses, and one that gives to the self our freedom, would be a move toward bad faith, inauthenticity. Yet, I know that I have received psychological comfort from the teachings of psychology, and given some in return. I suppose that is why they call it an existential crisis. Dilemma may be more appropriate in my case, ironic sense that is the root of the problem from Zen’s perspective, and perhaps this is my duality which must be transcended. But it looks like not today. I am puzzled as ever, but feeling deeply on account of it. Perhaps when I meet my zen master, she will rap me on the head and I won’t think so much.

I’m on a kick, I can’t seem to help it. I have this new obsession with understanding love more, or better, or perhaps offensively, more better. That’s half the problem, and I know it. You can’t understand something that is feeling. You can approximate it, or represent it with word pictures. But you can’t really ever understand it, I suppose. There’s a couple things that have me hung up right now, and they are the words we use for people that we love.

So I have family, and I’m allowed to love them. In fact, I’m expected to love them. Then I have friends, and I love them, but in this kind of amorphous way that if you say it wrong, or to the wrong person then you’re weird and psycho. Chemistry is a word I’ve been using lately because it seems half way between love: I want to jump your bones, and love: Yeah, I’d bail you out of jail. But there’s the catch isn’t it. We can’t love without being in love, but then again we can.

I always think back to the Greek when english gets hairy. (I’m pretty sure that’s the wrong spelling, but I like the word anyway, it makes me think of gorillas picking fleas out of each other’s fur and eating them.) In Greek there were three words for Love. And it’s a preachers favorite thing to take them and make them this all powerful triad of meaning. But still, it is kind of nice having more options. Philos, as in love of knowledge, but also gives its root the english friend. Except it could also mean lover. And the Greeks had their share of friends with benefits. There was Eros of course, the dirty book isle. And the beloved Agape of christians. So their meanings were far more gray than preachers would like, but still three different options would be cool.

The reason I’m on the meaning kick in the first place is due to this great article in a book I’m too lazy to get down right now. It’s about language and narrative in cognitive science. One of the authors, Allen I hope, talks about how things like evolution can never be understood, because they can’t be narrated. First of all, that’s huge to me; it makes my belief in the power of metaphors take root. Then it’s kind of scary too. Especially since the one consensus I get is that you can’t describe love. Anything that I can’t understand scares the shit out of me. So I begin this wandering wonder, hoping that somewhere a grasp will appear.

Now I move over to Zen, (yes it pops up everywhere I am,) which talks about universal human compasion, which is I’m pretty sure a very english translation of love. Love of everyone, unrestricted, just because they are. We are okay with this in general though, usually. I love humanity, I love my friends. I love this friend in particular, ah there’s the rub. Every time I hear friends with benefits, I get this internal giggle. We have no way to describe people that don’t fit into the dichotomous categories of our language. I wonder if the church is responsible for that development in western language? It does seem like a church thing, you’re either married or celebate. So it’s okay to love everyone in a particular category, (’The Gays’ as my friend Wendy, and Kathy Griffin would say,) but loving one person in that group causes such a confusion.

So, being the wonderful linguists that we are, we came up with ‘in love’ to describe that change of state from the one thing we can’t explain to the other thing that we can’t explain, all so that we don’t get freaked out every time someone says ‘I love you.’ Where’s the line? Not there in most cases, hence friends with benefits. Too little attachement to be in love, but too much to be ‘just friends.’ But, you say, what about the white elephant, sex?

You could turn everything around and look at it as dealing and refering to sex. Friends niether have sex, nor want to have sex with each other. (Fantasizing about it is on a case by case basis.) Friends with benefits have sex, but aren’t magically in love with each other. Or more acurately accept that it’s nice when you can get it, but you’re not fussed about being the only one. Then you have the ‘couple’ or ‘partners’ that are in love. Meaning they have sex, exclusively (for the most part), and are totally jazzed about that. I have to ask then, what about our new division between having sex, and making love?

Yes, we talk about seperating love and sex. So we can hookup without any emotional attachment what so ever, and that’s slightly different than friends with benefits because at least they care about each other to a degree, and are willing to talk to each other with the lights on, and use more words than ‘oh’ and ‘god.’ So now we have ‘in love’, and we have ‘making love.’ I suppose it would be people in love make love. But it’s pretty arogant to say that you can make something you don’t understand and can’t explain. Maybe it’s a nice way of saying banging my wife, or maybe it’s really a seperate meaning. I’ll have to refer this matter to couples who are ‘in love’ and ‘make love’ to try and sort out.

It seems a conclusion ought to be coming soon, I apologize for the pun, but I can’t help myself. What I know is that I love a few people, and that love is strong and grows quickly. If I had to define love it would be: I will do anything you need at three o’clock in the morning, no questions asked. I see this as covering a lot of things, from my dog just died I need a hug, to my dog just died and for some reason it made me horny. The problem is that I don’t know what ‘in love’ is in that context, and it seems to get me into trouble. I hate the ‘I like you’ precursor to will you go out/hookup/date me question. We could be honest and say, ‘I think I could love you forever in a romantic physical way, want to hang out and see?’ Wouldn’t that be easier than wondering around linguistic wastelands trying to decypher a text message that turned out to be a typo. ‘I like you, as a friend,’ ‘I like that shirt on you,’ ‘I like that shirt off of you.’ But it’s not so, we just can’t stand that word, love.

I’ve never seen any word cause more stir than love. I think I could drop the word ‘cunt’ around a group of women and recieve less suprise and shock than spring the word love on one of them unexpectedly. (I hate the word ‘cunt’ with a passion, in case you needed to know.) That sad look in their eyes, the oh, poor boy, you are deluded but I don’t want to say it that way. The ‘L’ word seems to divide us so quickly, even though we’re okay with it in other circumstances. I could ramble and rant for much longer, but I’ll wrap up instead. We are afraid of love, and we are afraid of what it means to love. We’ve lost our way. When there are thousands of ways to qualify what I mean when I say love, there’s something wrong with our understanding of it. It seems to me that if you can’t define love, you don’t get to decide when it’s used improprerly. What if we all just talked openly about it instead of hiding behind different phrases designed to cloud the message?

You can see why I’ll most likely grow old with cats, but maybe I’ll feel okay about that once erectile dysfunction settles in.

I have been journaling lately about the whole speed of light barrier to travel and Einstein relativity issue. I like to dabble with physics and find the philosophy of science to be fascinating. Or rather the epistemology of it. So here’s the basic problem that I have been wrestling with. To every observer, no matter how fast they are traveling, the speed of light is a constant 300,000 km/h. It is also impossible for one to accelerate to the speed of light, because doing so would require an infinite amount of energy, hence the impossibility. The hitch comes from the fact that no matter how fast I am going, the speed of light will always be 300,000 km/h faster.
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On Friday, I got onto I-5 south from Lake Forest, taking my usual ten minute drive to work. I always get off on La Paz, the exit before my store (technically), because the freeway always backs up right there. I get off an exit early and take a very nice leisurely drive down Cabot. It doesn’t get me there as quickly if the freeway is clear, but I like it all the same. It’s less stressful, and certainly more enjoyable. There is something rather ugly about the next exit at Oso parkway. Like most Friday’s the freeway started to backup closer to noon. Just before the jam, I slipped into the exit lane, and happily sped by those poor fools that would wait another ten minutes at least just to go a mile. In another hour from that point, three small children would be killed when a tractor-trailer full of heavy goods, slams into their car going almost sixty miles per hour.

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