.

About twice a year a group of anti-abortion protesters will come to my schools campus. Each time I have received an email along these lines:

The presence of an anti-abortion group with photographs is expected to be on Red Square today (Tuesday November 10, 2009) from approximately 1:30 pm until 4:00 pm. The images may invoke painful feelings in members of our campus. The Counseling Center staff will be available today in the Counseling Center and Professional staff in the Housing Office will be available throughout the afternoon, if you wish to speak with someone.

Identity

One thing I miss about being religious is the sense I could have existed under different conditions than I actually do. For example, had it been 'my time' I could have been born in the middle ages, or in China, or as the world's youngest Taco Bell manager, managing a Taco Bell from the day I was born, and that even though I would have had different genes and parents somehow I would have still been 'me'. Despite the different physical circumstances, because my soul or essence would be within that body, it could still be considered 'me'.

As I believe now, the only conditions under which I could exist, are those within which I do. Meaning, had that particular sperm of my father's which happened to connect with my mother's egg at that particular moment not happened, then I would not exist. To say that I could have been born 500 years ago becomes a meaningless concept. Without something like a soul, in what sense could that individual born at that time be me? Even if through amazing chance he were exactly like me in every way except being a china man from way back, it would not mean anything to say that individual was 'me', anymore than saying any other individual was me.(because we are all made of the universe)

For me to have been born at some other time, my parents would have also had to have lived at that time. and their parents would have had to have lived just before them, and theirs before them and back and back to the beginning of life. Every direct ancestor conceiving their offspring at the moment they did. Had any of that, at any point happened any differently than it did, I would not be be.

I suppose it is a funny thing to miss, this feeling that I could have existed under different circumstances. It isn't that I miss not feeling as if my identity were arbitrary, because even when I was deeply religious I felt an individuals identity was arbitrary even if your particular station during this life were not (your soul happened to have certain characteristic because it happened to be created that way or by chance, or it had always existed and was always that way. Arbitrary).

One reason I think I miss it, is that I often like imagining what I would be like if I had been born in Rome during it's peak, or ancient Japan, or ancient Africa, or a variety of other things, and believing that such a thing is not even theoretically possible(aside from time travel), makes it a little less fun to imagine.



Which isn't to say I entirely do not believe in a soul or an after life. I like the idea of it. Often I pretend to myself I do believe these things because it is comforting and familiar. I frequently pray and feel it benefits me even though I don't really believe it is something more than a psychological phenomenon. There are even rare moments when I genuinely do believe, but mostly, despite how much I may want to, I do not. There are other things I miss. Some things I do not. Maybe I will make a list.

House husband

Lately I have been living my dream of living the house husband lifestyle. Marissa's schedule is much more full than mine, so I have taken upon myself the responsibility of cleaning and cooking. I really enjoy this. Having lived on my own for many years this is nothing new, but now getting to do it for another person as well is very enjoyable.
This isn't too suggest that Marissa does not also help with household things, but she works in a funny restaurant where she is on her feet most of the day, while I do things draw pictures of birds. This allows me the time and energy to take care of the house. I have always liked the idea of being a house husband, but wasn't sure if I would actually enjoy it. Turns out I do.

Bossy

I normally take classes where we discuss abstract concepts, but recently I have been taking classes where we learn technical skills such as how to use a letterpress or mix ceramic glazes (I am now in a ceramic sculpture class and we have been learning how to mix glazes).
Being in classes like these where a lot of task doing goes on leads to a lot of people making little mistakes here and there. Being in an environment like this has reminded me how much people love telling others what to do. Very often, as soon as someone is noticed doing something differently than it was demonstrated to us by the teacher another person will immediately point it out. While I'm sure this is sometimes done out of genuine concern for the other person, wanting to help them get their work done as efficiently as possible, much more often it seems to be done as a way for the corrector to seem knowledgeable.
Ever since I wrote about the role serotonin plays in terms of our perceived status among those around us, I've been thinking about it often. It seems to help explain so much of human life. When people tell others they are doing something the wrong way, it then raises their perceived status relative to that person, which then raises their serotonin levels. Considering this it is no wonder that whenever my teacher spells something wrong on the board the students jump to correct him even though we all know what the word is he is trying to write and it doesn't matter if the e is supposed to be an I based on an entirely arbitrary rule. When they correct the teacher's spelling, their perceived status relative to him goes up, raising serotonin levels.
However, like so much of life, these attempts at raising their status often have the reverse effect and make the person seem unpleasant and insecure.

Google news

I have been experimenting with using Google News as a way to check the news, which has led me to reading news sites that I had otherwise only vaguely heard of, such as the New York Daily News.
I don't know a lot about this paper. It all seemed to be gossipy and boring, but I was amazed to see that their number 3 most read news item was:

"Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie take twins, Vivienne and Knox, out for ice cream"

This is news? That people find interesting?!?!?!

Recession

Yesterday, as I was driving back from Trader Joe's with a bag full of foods much fancier than I normally eat, such as Champagne, Creme Brule and pasta that is kept in the refridgerator rather than the shelf, all this because it was the one year anniversary of Marissa and I becoming 'official' in our coupledom, I began thinking back to what I had written about the economy. I had written about how having a less than ideal economy may actually be beneficial for individuals. While thinking about it yesterday, I felt some misgivings, realizing I had probably been mistaken. Then this morning I come across this from Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
(not that I read Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, but I read Discover, which includes highlights from various journals):

Researchers found that when the economy takes a turn for the worse, public health actually improves. Mortality rates fell during the Great Depression, the study found, possibly because people couldn’t afford to smoke and drink as much, and because the unemployed have more time to sleep and less chance of dying in industrial or traffic accidents.

While this isn't exactly the same as what I had written about, it was similar and reversed my previous misgivings and gave me new misgivings about yesterdays misgivings.

Life.

Sometimes I like to imagine that the way I choose to live my life, the counter-culture, interested in things like art and philosophy and nature and trying to to sincere in what and why I do things. Trying to do things for the 'right' reasons, rather than because of societal expectations. All of these things and others that go along with them. Sometimes I imagine that this sort of living is somehow better than others. That in some real, objective way it matters if people live this way, or if people live their more ordinary lives of suburbs, television, celebrity culture, chain stores, cliched speaking and catch phrases. That their way of living is somehow a lesser than mine.

But in reality, I imagine it is probably just a matter of taste. And that these tastes are based on our disposition. Because our tastes and dispositions lean a certain way, we then develop reasons to justify and explain why these ways are better or more 'meaningful'.
But when it comes down to it, it seems more of an aesthetic choice. Something entirely subjective. Even seemingly noble traits like sincerity or fortitude are just aesthetic preferences. And if they are just aesthetic preferences it would mean that for me to feel as if me and my friends or people who are like me are superior for being holding these particular interests is no different than feeling that same way because someone doesn't like a certain song I like. Or a certain food I like.

Ultimately, isn't that what rules so much of our lives? Taste? Suppose we could be happy, completely totally fulfilled happy if we took a drug and sat alone in an empty room for the rest of our lives. Most people don't like the idea of that and I suppose I don't either. But what if the end results could be the same, what would be the difference between that and achieving complete totally fulfilled happiness through having lived a fulfilling life with hard work and family? The difference is merely aesthetic. Of course, on a practical level, at this point in time, we do need certain behaviors to achieve certain mental states. But what if we didn't? If something seems like it took hard work to achieve, we admire the results, but if those same results were achieved through fortune or laziness, then we don't. I imagine that we admire hard work because we evolved in an environment where hard work was necessary for survival. People who were lazy would have made our lives more difficult, brought the tribe down and us in the process. Because of this, we would have evolved a negative feeling towards that type of behavior so as not to reward it. And this feeling manifests itself as an aesthetic preference, which becomes a value.

I guess what I am trying to say is that more and more I am coming to realize that much of what I value, while it may have some practical value, is largely based on an emotional pull in the same way aesthetic or food preferences are. And it is the rational explanations which comes later. In many ways, the overall idea of the life I would like to live and the person I would like to be is mostly just based on an aesthetic preference rather than something objective. It can sometimes be a disheartening thought to feel like the primary driving force of my and our lives is nothing more than aesthetic taste. For some reason, I like the idea of their being some way to live that is objectively better than others. Probably because of my Mormon upbringing I am conditioned with a desire for their to be an ideal way to live that is based on some objective measure. Which isn't to say their are not things which will not improve the quality of our lives and things that will not. But as I talked about above, an optimum state of well-being is not something people value above all else. If that were the case, people would feel no discomfort with the idea of us all taking a pill which would make us happy for the rest of our lives while sitting in a blank room alone, even if it were guaranteed to work.
I have several more thoughts on this. and more specific examples to explain the idea more clearly. Maybe I will end up writing those additional thoughts and examples. Maybe not. Hopefully I will.

Honesty to myself.

I have found there is a certain peace that seems to come along with being honest with myself.

For example:

A couple months ago in a class someone told a riddle and in trying to solve it I asked a question which I didn't really think about before it came out of my mouth and when it actually did come out of my mouth it turned out to be a very dumb question.

After I asked the dumb question the teacher made a joke about it and one of my nerdier classmates responded with an annoyed 'no! jeez!'. (it had been a 'yes or no' question)

After this moment I find myself stewing over it a little bit, coming up with a variety of reasons why the question may have seemed dumb but was actually very smart and that it was my classmates who were at fault for laughing at the question. I felt a feeling of frustration and resentment that seemed to linger for a while as I kept thinking about it, thinking of more elaborate explanations of why the seemingly unintelligent question was actually clever.

After a while I finally realized what I was doing and I acknowledged to myself that the question had in fact been stupid and I would have laughed as well if I heard it asked by someone else. The truth was, I had been embarrassed because I felt it made me look dumb, so in an attempt to defend a certain image of myself in my mind I was trying to think of explanations which allowed me to maintain that image. Once I acknowledged this to myself the frustration and resentment that I felt while trying to defend myself in my mind was released and became replaced by a sense of calm acceptance.

It was a simple realization, one I am sure many people have at various points in their lives. One I have probably had before and will probably have again.
But since that moment it has been something I have thought about often and in moments when I am feel frustration towards another person or thing, I try and think if my frustration is actually a defense, if it is me trying to rationalize something to myself in order to protect my ego or the image I have of myself. When I am able to recognize and acknowledge that I have been doing this, I have found that I will immediately feel sense of relief and release. That moment of recognizing and letting go of your defenses can be such a freeing experience.


I took a picture of myself while moving my eyes back and forth as fast as I could and this is the result. Doesn't it look creepy?

Racism.

I feel as if those, (such as Jimmy Carter and most everyone on Npr) who claim that Joe Wilson yelling 'you lie' at Obama was an act of latent racism diminishes the significance of obvious and verifiable acts of racism.
Of course it is possible that J Wilson's comments were spurred by racism, but suppose his comments were not, how would they have appeared then? Probably just the same. How then, are we supposed to distinguish between angry disagreements inspired by racism, and angry disagreements inspired by being angry and disagreeing in and of itself?

When people attribute racism to areas where there are no obvious or clear reasons why it is racist other than that a black man was involved, then obvious acts of racism become diminished. It places genuine and serious acts of discrimination that actually cause harm to people in the same category as ordinary human interaction, in effect cheapening the claim of racism. If people continually hear acts that may possible be racist but may just as easily not be racist labeled as racist the charge of racism begins to lose meaning. If people become desensitized to the charge of racism because of it being used too freely, then it may lessen people's attention to it in times when necessary.

Because racism can be so harmful and destructive in subtle ways, I understand why people may feel extra vigilant about looking for it to reveal itself in concealed ways, but there is a fine line that when crossed dilutes the its meaningfulness.

Babies

There has been a lot of talk on the Left lately on radio shows I listen to and websites I read about the growing incivility of political discourse. To me it seems like the Left are being babies. When Bush was president I heard equally harsh, if not more harsh criticisms and protests against him.
A big deal is being made about people who have been comparing Obama to Hitler. Bush was compared to Hitler on a regular basis and I didn't hear this sort of lamenting over the loss of civility then. It seems their issue is less that people are making over the top exagerated criticisms, and more that a person they support is being criticized and so now they take issue with the way those criticisms are being done, even though they seemed to have no problem with similarly carried out criticisms against someone they didn't like. All of a sudden people on the left are talking about 'respecting the office of the presidency' which before I only heard from the right.

Aging

I'm beginning to recognize in myself the less positive aspects of aging. I'm finding that it takes me longer to learn physical tasks. I recently learned how to use a letter press and noticed how much longer it took me to grasp than it would have once before. I notice I have become less creative. I used to have new ideas constantly, so much so that I felt overwhelmed by them because I couldn't bring them all to realization. Now the ideas come more slowly. And are more similar to other ideas i've had.
But I have also experienced positive aspects of aging. The ideas I do have, I spend more time on and think them through more clearly. I feel much more stable and content than when I was younger. I know myself better and know better what actually makes me happy versus what things I just like the idea of and wish would make me happy. At the same time I can be less inclined to experiment or try new things. I day dream a bit less. I feel less compelled to be understood. It seems young people want so strongly for people to understand them and 'get them', which i know I felt as well, but I no longer feel that in the way I may have before.
I listen to way less music than I ever have before. Overall I prefer being older.

Cat Burglar

At some point during the night last night I woke up hearing a foreign noise that I later decided was probably our next door neighbors having sex.
But when I woke up, perhaps because of the sound, the dream I had been having, and confused sleepiness, I was suddenly stricken with fear that someone might break into our apartment.
I wasn't worried that the sound was of someone breaking into our apartment, but that someone might, in a few, moments break in.
This is not something I normally worry about. Rarely do I even lock doors. In the house I lived in before I didn't even own a key.
The feeling of fear and concern was so strong that I felt as if it was a spiritual impression telling me I needed to lock the door.
I generally don't think in those terms and now that it is morning I feel somewhat amused by it.
But I lay there for a few moments, unable to think of anything besides someone opening our unlocked front door.
Since Marissa and I don't have a bed yet, we sleep on the futon in our living room.
It would have been a strange and scary experience to be laying in bed(futon) watching a stranger open your front door. I imagine it would be uncomfortable for the burglar as well since he or she would have been expecting us to be upstairs in our room.
Instead, we would make eye contact, since I was looking at the front door. For a moment neither of us would know what to do, and ideally the cat burglar would just back out and close the door behind him or herself.
After a little while of laying in bed full of fear I got up and locked the front and back door, somehow knocking a painting off the wall in the process.