The Easy Life vs. The Valuable Life

There are a lot of rebel-nonconformist-cynics out there who shun anything and everything that has any kind of popularity or weight with the masses.  They think themselves hip and unique.  They think themselves bold, exciting, and superior.  They see themselves as going against the grain, maybe even as fighting the system, but it's really not hard to do that.  Our society is freedom-based; you're allowed to shun everything without any real repercussion.  Millions do so every day.  So to think yourself better than most simply by taking easy advantage of a value already set up and enforced by the very system against which you thrash-- this is a fabulous blunder.

It's easy to be a hater.  It's also easy to blindly do everything that's expected of you.  You can go to the schools you're told to, take the jobs you're told to, marry the person you're told to, have the kids you're told to, buy the house you're told to, and never really think at all.  You can meet all the surface measures of American success.  But how much will it mean to you?

No, friends, the truly difficult thing to do in life is to find something to believe in and to commit to it.  It's easy to have no ideals, to be good one day, bad another, and mediocre the next; you can operate on whims alone.  But what's hard is to back a person/project/ideal/organization/value wholeheartedly despite its flaws, despite your flaws.  It's hard to stand up for something.  It's hard to not betray, not once.  It's hard to betray, then ask forgiveness, then continue to believe/support/commit.  It's hard to care.  But it's necessary.

Good rebels don't just shun the system.  They raise up an alternative solution.  Instead of simply rejecting that which they dislike, they take active steps to change the world into a place they do like.  Their lives are struggles, slow day-by-day struggles aimed at something bigger than themselves.  Their lives have value.  Struggle.  Motivation.  Victories.  Defeats.  Caring.  Belief.  Attempts to have real, constructive interractions with the world.  These are the signs of a life that has value.

Talking to Children

Ask kids questions they know the answers to, for children delight in knowledge, and they will love you for giving them the chance to put theirs to use.

How to Fix America's Budget Issues

It seems to me that America finds itself perpetually in a budget crisis.  Popular remedies involve cutting back on domestic services like AmeriCorps and the entire education system.  Those who make the money decisions don't eliminate these programs entirely; they only render them less potent, less able to serve their purpose.  And yet the money used on these programs, while it does add up to quite a sum, is spread very thin.   It is all being used, and in countless ways.  So if you're trying to save money without ruining these programs entirely, you're not going to be able to get enough out of them to solve anything.

No, here's the real solution-- the real sinkhole out of which billions of dollars can be fished:  Cut the military.  Sure a military (which don't forget is, when simplified unfairly, a kill squad, and when simplified optimistically, a protective force) is a necessary evil.  But we're (at least ostensibly) only at war in a few countries.  And we, ourselves, are only one country.  So why the fuck do we need 750 military bases in 63 different countries? 

Is it necessary?  Are we trying to protect the whole world or control it?  Can either be done?  And if we're trying to do it, if we've got guns at the ready in every part of the world, ready to be called into action on a moment's notice-- if the message our military sends is "Don't fuck with us, or you're done," are we the heroes or the bad guys?  Is all of that necessary for us to feel safe?  Is us being more comfortable worth the spending of billions upon billions?  Is it worth putting lives in danger?  Is it worth the arms buildup which, if the Cold War was any indication, will result in an eventual surplus of weaponry which after enough shady deals go down will probably end up in the hands of the very types of forces we're fighting against?  And while we're at it, is it worth making war for an entire country when you're only after a select group within it?  Might that be a better job for a smaller, more covert, more precise, and less destructive task force?  Where is the cutoff?  How many lives is it okay to end with a bomb as long as one of those lives happens to be a terrorist leader?  You can't put out a fire with a flamethrower.  It might make you feel more powerful and safer that you can make a fire even bigger than the other guy's fire, but the overall fire, once your hand comes away from the trigger, will either stay the exact same size or it will get bigger, and it will only stop if it runs out of things to burn.

Cut the military.  Cut it big.

Fight Entitlement

Americans have this view of themselves as powerful, as winners, as good people in a good country.  They've come to expect opportunity to come at them.  Our constitution gurantees us certain rights.  Our celebrity culture generates a want to be worshipped.  Our labor unions generate job security.  There are all these systems set up that enable people to feel great, honorable, worthy, and entitled without necessarily doing anything to earn it. 

Rights are meant to protect us from unjust suffering.  They aren't meant to make us think we can do (or not do) anything we want and be rewarded for it.  You are not special because you're an American.  You are simply lucky.  You are certainly not a better person by being American, nor by being wealthy or famous.  The only true way to deserve what you have is to earn it.

All people should have the rights to respect, courtesy, safety, freedom.  But even these can be taken away or witheld.  Even these must sometimes be earned.

But most "rights" should always be earned.  You do not have the right to a job, education, reward, or opinion if you have done nothing to earn it.  You do not have a right to your job if you aren't doing it well.  I don't care what that job is, whether you pick up trash, teach children, put out fires, grow food, or run a country-- if you suck at your job, you don't have a right to keep it. 

If you enter a competition and lose, you don't get a trophy.  If you haven't contributed anything valuable to society, you shouldn't be famous.  If you spend two dollars on a random lottery ticket, you don't deserve 50 million dollars for it.  If you aren't actively trying to learn, no one will want to teach you.  If all you do is tear others down, you shouldn't speak.  If all you do is take and not give, what do you really deserve?  Who wants to spend their time on someone who will take that time and waste it?

There is nothing about you- not your wealth, your intelligence, your job, your social status, your friend count on Facebook, your awards, your parents, your country, your fame, your ideals, your advantages, your disadvantages-- nothing that makes you a better person than anyone else, nothing except your actions.  What will you do to benefit others?  What will you do to contribute to the betterment of your little part of the world? 

You deserve less than you think, and you will be given even less than that.  So don't expect someone else to save you, heal you, teach you, make you, or love you if you aren't going to go out there and do the same for them.  Engage the world.  Prove your worth.  You are not entitled.  

Stairway to Heaven

The stairway to Heaven
Is built on sacrifice.
I'll say that twice;
The stairway to Heaven
Is built on sacrifice.

Fatalities

The second time I died was a collision—

Head on, no escape, as on a bridge—

An undesirable fate foreseeable

Which I approached, full steam ahead,

Despite my 20/20 vision.

She was the chocolate to my hound’s yap.

She was the low-budget horror flick.

The flame to my moth.

The pornographic image.

If you saw Independence Day, she was the giant, city-sized explosion, and I was the chubby guy in the car saying, “Oh crap.”

Fatalities are personal; they happen inside—

For the lucky: every few years,

For the stupid: much more frequently—

As a small piece of the soul shrivels

Or scars or warps or, amputated, altogether subsides.

Maybe she’d pick me over that other guy;

I was hoping in spite of myself, hoping,

Longing, deep beneath my innards,

But when I leaned in, and she turned her face out—

That was the second time I died.

Or maybe it was the fifth?

Or the twelfth—

I can’t be sure,

But I do remember the first.

It was much less poetic.

Noise and Noise

"Today the world goes back
To the way it was--
No real reason.
Just because.

Back to struggle,
Back to life--
Two eternal synonyms."

"Lovers and cellmates."

"PAIN PAIN PAIN pleasure."

"PAIN pleasure PAIN PAIN."

"PAIN PAIN pleasure PAIN."

"pleasure PAIN PAIN PAIN."

"But that's rather negative, no?"
"You're damn right it is!"
"It's honest too!"
"Gains are modest!"
"I can't forgive it!"
"Let's go get drunk!"
"I'm not moving!"
"Let's go to bed!"
"I'm not moving!"
"Fuck-a-you!"
"Fuck you too!"

"It's all for nothing!"

"It's all for nothing!"

"It's all for nothing!"

"It's all for nothing;
Life is what you make it--
Perception's in the mind,
And minds can be controlled.

You can look at something
And see good
Or see evil;
There is a choice involved."

"Unless you're blind--
Then you can't look at anything."
"You can't look,
But maybe you still see!"

"People talk a lot."

"They do!"
"They scream!"
"They cry!"
"They laugh, whisper, and implore!"
"They hum and they buzz."
"No real reason--
Just because."

Why You Should Read Books part 1

Edgar Allen Poe praised the form of the short story for its ability to produce what he called a singleness of effect.  Short enough to be read in one sitting, a a whole short story (beginning, middle, and end) can be kept in a reader's mind all at once and can therefore be understood, felt, and contemplated more accurately in terms of the whole.

And that all sounds very nice.  But it doesn't work for everyone, say for instance... me.  Don't get me wrong; I can get plenty out of a good short story, but when push comes to shove I'll choose a longer work any day of the week and twice on Sunday.

The simplest reason for this is that a book, be it a novel or anything else, gives you MORE.  More characters, more plot, more description, etc.  There is an entire new world in which you can immerse yourself.  And it lasts you longer.  And even if one part doesn't strike you, another part might.  There are so many devices, subjects, styles, and pieces of information found in just one book-- most people are bound to be able to relate to something, and most people are also bound to learn something they didn't know.  These longer works are complex, like life, and this gives them value.

Short stories on the other hand, are as simple (and also as potentially powerful in their messages) as the firing of a gun.  But like the firing of a gun, they are also hit or miss.    

To Love is to Be Extreme

When you love, you are committing an extreme act.  You are saying, "There is something in my life that is more important to me than everything else in my life."  And people who say this are willing to go do some extraordinary and drastic things (both good and bad) to preserve this love.  People will change any other aspect of their life if it means improving that one all-important aspect.  They will even sacrifice entire areas of their life if necessary.  And it does become necessary; all great things require both risk and sacrifice.  So to not love-- this can lead to its own sort of success.  You might make it through life without having to make any real sacrifice, without having any major challenges.  You can definitely focus better on any given task without being distracted by all the unstable variables that love brings into the equation.  But nothing that comes of that focus-- nothing will ever quite match the elation and despair that come from loving.

A Cautionary Tale Against Caution

The longer he lived and the more he talked, the more difficult it became to say anything.  He got caught up too easily in the trappings and niceties of society.  Too many topics became off-limits; he did not speak of them lest he offend someone.  He began speaking like an army cadet reporting to his senior officer.  No nonsense, only the obvious questions and the obvious answers.  This went on for years, him talking and talking and holding back more than he ever meant to. 

            Then the coughing started.  It began like a mild flu.  Then it escalated to the point that he could only speak in a quiet gravelly voice without going into a fit of coughing.  And the more he talked like this the worse he got.  Something was lodged deep in his throat where no one could see: maybe a year’s worth of feelings held back, or ideas not spoken, or wants not met.  Eventually he could no longer talk at all, and the coughing subsided for just one week.  Then it came back and it remained, even when he was silent.  And sure enough a discernible bulge formed and swelled in his throat.  It started the size of a golf ball.  In a month it was the size of a grapefruit.  In two more months, it was as big as a soccer ball and he was admitted to the hospital against his will.  And the last thing he ever heard was a doctor asking him why he hadn’t come in sooner.  His response, if he still had his powers of speech, might have been that he didn’t want to burden anyone.  Or maybe he would have said he was afraid.  Or that he hated and mistrusted doctors.  Or that he secretly wanted to die.  Or that no one loved him enough to make him come in.  Instead his eyes just got really wide, his mouth opened wider, and a big vein in his neck pulsated, snake-like.  Then with a sound like a thousand dying frogs or maybe a handful of dreams betrayed, his neck exploded right there in the hospital room.  

Why Relationships Fall Apart

There are certain qualities we look for in sexual partners, and other things that we look for in romantic partners, and still other things that we look for in friendships.  And the person you love should be a romantic partner, a sexual partner, and a good friend all rolled into one.  But if our expectations for these three roles are drastically different, it seems unfair to ask one person to try and act like three.  This is part of why there is so much infidelity, unhappiness, divorce, and lonliness.  We have unrealistic expectations.  We expect societal ideals that can't plausibly coexist in the same person. 

For instance, a man might look for exciting, adventurous sexual partners-- women who challenge and stimulate him, women who won't be tied down.  Then when he marries one, he starts expecting her to suddenly become a conservative housewife.  Not gonna happen.  You can try and force it for a while, and on the surface it might seem to work, but it will be soul-killing, and eventually the relationship will end. 

Or say a woman seeks out strong, confident, assertive men, men who show no fear, who are who they are with no apologies.  They attract her.  They make her feel wanted.  They are men of action.  But then the woman starts wanting this same man to be a sensitive guy for her, to talk about feelings, to gossip about so-and-so.  That's just not who he is though; if he cares enough he'll give it a go, but she's trying to make him be two people at once for her.  He'll either fail outright, or succeed for a while and then snap.

To avoid conflicting expectations, I think it best to have certain valued qualities that are at the root of all your relationships.  What do you care about?  No, do not count the qualities that would be nice.  Do not include the qualties you think you want.  Scrap all that.  Scraps the minute details. Scraps wants.  What do you NEED?  What values are essential to you?  What universally qualifies a person as worthwhile in your book?  Use those qualifiers and let the other expectations go.  If you rely only on these qualifiers (which should be relatively simple and few in number), then you'll know when you like a person that he or she is a candidate as a friend and a romantic partner and a sexual partner-- because you use the same standard of measurement for each.

Example of a universal qualifier:  Respect.  Every type of relationship is enhanced and deepened by the presence of respect.  If you don't respect someone, you really shouldn't date them.  It's not gonna end pretty.

No one is perfect.  It is impossible for even your soulmate, your life's true love, to be "your everything."  No single person can be everything for you because that would involve possessing opposing qualities that cannot coexist in one person.  Example:  Let's say you like to gossip, but you also have secrets you'd like kept.  It is unfair to expect your spouse, significant other, or any one person to be both a gossip buddy and a secret keeper. 

It is important to have realistic expectations of people, to know what they're good at and what they're not.  It is also important to have a variety of people in your life to fulfill your different needs.  The people you get closest to will be able to satisfy several of your needs, many more than those more distant.  But no one can satisfy them all. 

What Does Heaven Look Like?

To most, it seems, it exists

Only as a dream—

An unhappy utopia

Where white clouds cushion

Handsome harp-playing heroes and harlequins

Whose hearts haven’t held hate

The way it’s lodged in my left ventricle—

Where boisterous laughter is a sin

(As are lazy eyes, uneven breasts, bad jokes,

And the tendency to seek divergence).

A growing population favors the other end—

When our bodies rot,

Riddled with worms and mushrooms,

So too do our souls,

Our essences, which get drunk

Up through the roots of, say, an oak,

And we are no longer Zach or Tom or Melissa,

But rather oak or birch or evergreen,

Until fire or time wears down once more—

That goodbye is the last thing we ever say.

But maybe it’s a virtual reality

DVD controlled by us, the deceased—

A decathlon of memories best

Where we might say,

“Let me love her one more time”—

Masterstroke of an omniscient statistician,

His remote in our hands

So that we might re-experience,

Might achieve life’s failed goals.

Then again maybe heaven’s a lot like here—

Minus all the assholes.

Good Intentions with Bad Results < Bad Intentions with Good Results

People get focused on the wrong parts of the Bible, on how we are sinners, and they start talking about repentance and judgment and unworthiness.

Acknowledgment of sin is important; it keeps us honest, reminds us to be humble, and helps us think twice before judging others.  But at least as important is faith in Christ as the redeemer of our sins.  If we have that faith, then there is no need to waste all our time worrying about what vile creatures we are; we are forgiven for that.  Do you think God really wants to hear his creations constantly bemoaning how ugly they are?  I think he'd rather us try, while remaining humbled by our imperfections, try to show him how beautiful we can be.

Don't fixate on the Old Testament.  It gives history for the sake of understanding (it is not an extended allegory), and it serves as a pretty good guide for what not to do. 

The guide for how to live comes in the New Testament, comes with Christ.

The number one tenet of Christianity: Love your neighbor as your love yourself; love God above all else in heart and soul and mind and strength.  Never forget this.

Intelligent Living

One major factor in living well is seeking to know/discover as much as possible while also mastering the art of selective caring.  You cannot care about everything; you don't have the time to devote to all of it, and your body cannot deal with being constantly and intensely emotionally aroused for an extended period of time.  So for an intellectual, emotional individual to be happy, the trick is to learn and experience as much as possibly and care as intensely and about as much as possible without becoming crazy-- which is to say without worrying incessantly about every negative thing in the world because there are a lot of them, and you can't handle being hurt by that many things.  But you can choose certain things to care about more, and these things are allowed to hurt you, and that is healthy because these things also bring joy, and even when you're hurting, it's almost in a good way because of the beauty of the intimacy that gives that hurt meaning.

Dis-Inspiration

I wake up
Or part of me does,
The gut-check, knee-jerk reaction part
That comes alive when I drink
Too much; it happens
These days when, whilst pressed for time,
I seek release
From both rhythm and rhyme,
My best friends
On whom others staple masks
Of evil, deceitful boredom--
The type that induces
That age
Old question:
"What else?  What else?"
Which is followed by twenty-seven
Text messages
That accomplish nothing;
The only evidence of something
Transpired are the bloodied,
Murdered minutes
Which we cannot see, though
Our bodies feel them down
Deep where the giant squids lurk
Along with our childhood enemies
And last year's birthday cards--
The messages more brief
Than those of the previous year's,
Which were read in transit
On the way to a copy of a copy
Of a copy of another night's drunken binge.

Advice for Music Snobs

1)  Variety is the spice of life.  If you can't respect a wide variety of things, your relationships will all be limited and redundant.

2)  To speak in absolutes is to ignore the complexities of truth.

3)  Classic rock does not necessarily equal good rock.

4)  To say a band has sold out when it goes from little known to popular- this is ludicrous.  You can't blame someone for being successful.

5)  On the same level, you can't get upset when a band changes its sound.  Can you imagine how boring it would be to never try anything new?  To play the same sounds year after year?  If you listened to only one band for the rest of your life, you'd go crazy.  Well the same goes for the people in the band; they don't want to play the same songs the same way for the rest of their lives.  People change.  When those people are in a band together, that means the band must change too, and if it's not flexible enough to do so, it breaks up instead.

Business Ventures and Other Such Eccentricities to Be Perpetuated if Ever I End Up with a Large Sum of Money

A)  I would start a video rental service with no aim at profit.  I will have money enough to not have to worry about making money.  Instead, this business will be more about sending a message.  We will rent out movies, but only good ones.  We will not distribute shitty movies no matter how popular they are or how good So-n-So says they're supposed to be. Only movies I approve will be allowed in my store.  If I don't have something you think should be included, you can petition for it.  If I watch it and like it, then you win a prize for bestowing goodness upon me and opening my eyes.  But if I watch a piece of shit for you then I charge you a penalty for wasting my time.

Rentals will be cheap, a dollar a day.  None of that goofy stuff Blockbuster pulls.  Our country spends far too much on entertainment.  I might even make the place more like a video library than a rental store.

The store will will be divided into a few sections: one for great movies of high quality on a number of levels, and another for quirkier/not for everyone movies that have some aspect that makes them worth at least one watch.  If other people manage the store for me, each manager as well as I will have a section of our top picks.

B) I'd also like to have a cafe called The Sleepy Walrus where there would be a number of comfy chairs and couches in addition to hardback chairs with tables and counters with stools.  Actually, scratch that last one; no isolation is allowed.  People will commune in my cafe, which will also have a fireplace.

C)  I'd walk around with five grand in my pocket at all times so that whenever I see someone go out of their way to be nice to someone else, I could reward them extravagantly and anonymously for being a good person.

D)  I'd like to get my own NBA team, possibly one which I'd name the Cincinnati Yak Fighters.  Then whenever I'm watching sports I can literally have my own team to root for.

E)  And because I'm not a saint, I would use my money to impress and seduce women.  I would have money to spare for things that are worthless in the most direct of senses to me, but that women seem drawn to.

F)  I may or may not get a bar/club called A Moment of Indiscretion.

G)  A concert venue would be a must.  I'd use it to attract the bands that I want to hear.  It would be a moderately small indoor venue with mostly (if not all) standing room.

There are a great many things one can do with a large sum of money.  Many people just think of what they would buy, what they could GET, but that is too small-minded.  Money is meant to be USED, not spent, and definately not wasted.  It's about what you can do with it, what you can accomplish.  It is a means, not an end.

A lot of people forget that about money, that it, by itself sitting in a great pile, is worthless.  The value lies in the possibilities that are opened up AFTER you've used it and it's gone.  That's why I never understand rich criminals, white collar crime.  What's the difference, really, between having ten million dollars and a hundred million?  If you invested one million dollars, you could live comfortably off the interest alone.

I guess once you get a taste of something good, you just want more.  Maybe money is like heroine and you just get hooked- or like how once you've seen one women naked it becomes important to try and see the rest of them naked as well.

Let's!

Let's do a crossword puzzle together
Because together we're twice as good.
I'll take a clue and you'll take a clue,
Or you start a word and I'll finish it.
In a world where all is black and white,
Let us add meaning,
Meaning through words and subtexts and alternatives,
Synonyms and elaborations and riddles and details
(There is magic in the details).
Let's make mistakes - in ink - and not even worry.
Answers are coming.
Let's have our solutions intertwine,
Yours easier to find because of mine.
And regardless of whether or not we attain completion,
Can claim rightness, can demonstrate mastery,
Regardless of all this,
We'll have added something
Where before there was only white space.

Sad Things My Students Say

"What's the point of paying attention if I don't get it?"

"You teachers is ignorant!"

After 2 straight weeks of working with nothing but fractions: how to find common denominators, how to simplify, how to add and subtract them:  "What's a fraction?"

"Is this one mines?"

"I.D.K:  I don't care."

"I don't feel like reading the question... I'll just guess!"

"I can't tell you what I was doing out so late; I'd be embarassed..."

"I'm sorry for being me."

"Why does my writing have to make sense?"

To Not Be Alone,

People will drink substances they find intolerable.  They will go out with people they don’t even like.  They will call phone sex hotlines.  They will join fanatical organizations.  They will agree to suicide pacts.  They will stay with husbands who beat them.  They will profess religions they do not practice.  They will fork out boatloads of cash for counseling sessions.  They will slander, backstab, butcher, and destroy.  They will root for a team full of strangers in a sport they don’t care about in a city they don’t understand.  They will send information into the limitless expanse of the internet hoping that someone else will catch hold and respond.  They will tell stories over and over, revising and re-telling, trying to get it right, hoping that one day they will reach someone.  Someone who gets it.