SCENE: ED'S CAR
ED and his lovely wife ERIN are driving to church on a beautiful autumn Sunday morning. Through the windows they are greeted by the bright, dew-dappled streets of Saint Paul. A flowing, multi-hued tapestry of leaves -- stunning reds, startling yellows, shit-your-pants oranges -- wafts gently through the air and then settles on the earth like a heroin addict passing peacefully into a coma.
ED drives happily, occasionally stealing an admiring glance toward the love of his life. The wonder and beauty of their marital bliss inspires them both to spontaneously break into song.
ED and ERIN (singing): Hey! Hey! Things are great! We can't complain, and that is great. Hey! Hey! Things are fine. We feel like drinkin' beer and wine. (Or something cheerful like that.)
ED (no longer singing): Well, beloved wife, how wonderful are our lives, exactly?
ERIN: Fuckin' aces, motherfucker. Better than a fuckin' cocksucker eatin' pussy on a Triscuit. (I apologize for the profanity -- that's just how she talks.)
ED: I heartily concur. I cannot fathom the possibility of any event or happenstance infringing upon the general bonhomie with which our lives are proceeding.
ERIN: Fuckin' A, you shit-fuckin' cockface.
ED smiles lovingly at his beatific bride and turns the corner onto Snelling Ave.
There appears to be a vaguely ominous hubbub ahead of them on Summit.
ED: There appears to be a vaguely ominous hubbub ahead of us on Summit.
ERIN: Ass-munchin' cuntbags! You don't think ...
The sky suddenly turns INKY BLACK. Lightning shocks the frame. Music swells: DUM DUM DUM!!!!! DUM DUM!!! AND MORE DUM!!!!!
ED: It's the MARATHON!!!!!
ERIN lets loose a blood-curdling scream from the depths of her soul. They swerve to avoid the dead-eyed zombies in bright shorts plodding pointlessly down the street. ED and ERIN then hit a building, their car explodes, and they die horribly.
Ladies and gentlemen, the little scene you just enjoyed depicts a real event in my life, one that I am only now able to come to terms with. It was I who was driving to church, fully intending to spend the day worshipping our Lord Jesus Christ, volunteering for charities, tending to the sick, healing the wounded, torturing heretics, flagellating myself with barbed wire, and so forth, when my day was ruined by the Twin Cities marathon.
The Twin Cities marathon goes straight through the heart of St. Paul, completely closing down the city. There is no way to get through, not a single street that allows traffic to pass. Basically, if you want to get somewhere in this city of several hundred thousand, you're shit outta luck.
On this particular marathon day, we tried our hardest to find an opening, but eventually had to just stop short of our destination and search for about a half an hour for street parking. It's usually plentiful around this area, but this day the streets were clogged with the cars of the braindead gawkers whose idea of fun was to sit on the side of the road and watch some masochists run by slowly.
Then we had to walk several miles to actually get to church. We would have given up entirely, but there was the first meeting of an environmental action committee that I really wanted to attend. At the meeting I ended up resolving that global warming was A-OK with me, as long as it gave all marathon runners heat stroke.
Why exactly are marathons permitted to grind whole cities to a halt? Marathon running is a hobby, and like any other, it's a matter of personal taste. Obviously, it's not my taste -- I'm more of a sit-and-write-insanely-angry-diatribes kind of guy. But you don't see guys like me and Ted Kaczynski bringing whole cities to a standstill so we can sit hunched over desks. (Well, maybe Ted did, in a way. Bad example.)
It would be a little more acceptable if this particular marathon was raising money for some worthy cause. But there was none. It existed only so some people could run slowly in a straight line for a while, and other people could watch them do this thrilling feat.
Maybe it's great exercise. So is a treadmill, and you can run on that all day without making such a to-do. Maybe there's something wonderful about doing it outside, with a bunch of other people. So go run somewhere where no one lives, like Iowa. Maybe it's a great test of personal endurance and stamina. So is seeing how many times you can hit yourself in the head with a beer bottle before you pass out. I don't see why any of this necessitates closing down a city, or why I should be impressed with these people.
But there's more to my annoyance than just rage over the city-strangling nature of marathons. I think if it were, say, a really long snake preventing me from getting around, I wouldn't be half as irritated. But with marathons, there seems to be an implication that I'm supposed to be congratulating the runners, as if they're doing something wonderfully noble. Of course, they're not, at least not in this particular marathon, but you wouldn't know it from the throngs of people who cheer them on through their pointless quest. Meanwhile, you don't see anyone sitting near my computer cheering me on as I type. Not that I deserve it, but neither do the runners.
To me, actually, there's a very strong pointlessness to it all. I'm always wary of any task that's extremely difficult but doesn't really seem to help anyone or accomplish much of anything worthwhile. It's sort of like those people who climb really huge mountains. You risk you life and limb, spend years training, expend tremendous energy and time, and in the payoff you get ... a nice view. How exactly was that worth it? Isn't there something more constructive you could be doing? "Because it's there" is not a reason. I could punch you in the face "because it's there."
Sadly, I end up encountering marathon runners a lot, none of whom I can punch in the face -- see, the social circles I run in are basically yuppies who don't have any kids or money, and they tend to fill the gaping holes in their lives inexpensively by running marathons. I always have to act impressed when they tell me they're training for a marathon, but secretly I'm thinking that it's just a very self-indulgent hobby for people who enjoy pain and are not bored easily.
Perhaps that's true of all hobbies, when you come down to it. But the crucial difference, and I can't stress this enough, is that stamp collecting and breakdancing and poking yourself in the eye with a stick are all hobbies that DO NOT SHUT DOWN CITIES. Marathon runners of the world, go circle your living rooms 3000 times and leave the rest of us out of it.
Saturday, December 1, 2007
Saturday, November 17, 2007
No More Naked!
At this writing, there's the Naked Cowboy, the Naked Chef, the Naked Archaeologist, the Naked Economist, etc., et al., ad infinitum, ad nauseam, ad hoc, semper fidelis, caveat emptor. The first one is a guy who walks around Times Square in a diaper strumming a guitar; the rest are all real shows, no fooling.
The chief problem with all of these people is that they're all men! Who needs that? Naked women are what this country hungers for -- naked men are a dime a dozen. There was a comedienne who said she never understood the concept of Playgirl because if you want a naked man, all you have to do is ask one. Boom, naked man. Same strategy doesn't work on women; I know, I've tried.
But how come you don't see a rash of men on the street disrobing at the drop of a hat? Because no one wants to see that. Granted, most women, and some men, seem to be physically attracted to men on some level. But it's more of a emotional / spiritual / deep-seated whatever-the-fuck than the brand of clinical, dumbfounded simplicity that characterizes attraction for women. That is, when you're attracted to men, you want to see a particular brand of confident swagger that matches a certain effortless overall look, all of which is defined differently by different people at different times ... meanwhile, when you're attracted to women, you want to see boobs. Lots of 'em.
And the reasons are obvious. The female body, as Elaine from Seinfeld once said, is a work of art. The male body is utilitarian. The female body is all sensual smooth curves comprising an aesthetically balanced whole, with each individual body displaying its own unique cohesive beauty. The male body is a machine straight off an assembly line, all straight, dull lines, except, of course, for the knobby, gnarled protrusion in the middle. That's why women always laugh when they see a naked man for the first time: because it's funny. Totally absurd -- you get nothing but a lot of predictable blandness and then, out of nowhere, this messy blob of freak parts that looks less like an implement of love and more like a deformed snail clinging to a walnut.
Anyway, I've said all this before. Point is, I'm sure a show in which a hot naked woman discusses fiscal policy or explores Mayan ruins would be wonderful. But it would still a bit incongruous.
Why exactly you would want your archaeologist or economist to be naked is beyond my comprehension. With the archaeologist, it seems like you'd have to spend a lot of time getting dust that breathes the lives of the ancients out of embarrassing orifices. And that dust might be valuable. Maybe there should be a second archaeologist who takes a little chisel and broom and excavates the naked archaeologist after he rolls around in some ruins.
The Naked Economist is perhaps even stranger. Now I'm sure there are plenty of sexy economists in the world. But as far as I've gleaned in my years of observation, the sexy professions for men are typically the ones that involve being outdoors and using your muscles: cowboy, construction worker, policeman, biker, Indian chief, that kind of thing. Not so much some pasty guy who sits naked in an office chair hunched over government data.
And I'd rather not even think about the hygienic issues associated with the naked chef. I would hope he at least wears a hairnet. Several.
Anyway, all of this is besides the point. None of these naked professionals actually does anything remotely naked. The naked cowboy is at least wearing nothing but a diaper and cowboy hat -- for the rest it's all bait-and-switch. Not that anyone has ever complained; I'm sure people were actually relieved when the Naked Archaeologist turned out to be fully clothed.
Again, the difference between the sexes is illuminating: Can you imagine the uproar if you advertised a show called "The Naked Aviatrix," got the whole heterosexual male world to watch, and then just showed a fully clothed female pilot talking about rudders and altitude gauges? There would be a worldwide riot, cities would burn to the ground, Satan would rise forth and claim his new empire, and everyone would be forced to watch "The Naked Soil & Water Conservation District Commissioner" 24/7.
Perhaps I'm being too literal. Perhaps the titles of these shows are just meant to make their particular brands of archaeology and economics and chef-ing seem fun and exciting. But there are better ways to do that. How about "Xtreme Archaeology"? How about "Russell Simmons' Def Economic Theory Jam"? How about "The Chef that Kicks Fuckin' ASS, MOTHERFUCKER!!!!!"
So clearly, guys, there's no reason to resort to the cheap (and disgusting) (and ineffective) strategy of jazzing up your show by calling it naked. Take it from me; I know all about naked. In fact, I'm naked right now! Eh, ladies, heh heh heh? Eh? No? Oh. Sorry. Never mind.
The chief problem with all of these people is that they're all men! Who needs that? Naked women are what this country hungers for -- naked men are a dime a dozen. There was a comedienne who said she never understood the concept of Playgirl because if you want a naked man, all you have to do is ask one. Boom, naked man. Same strategy doesn't work on women; I know, I've tried.
But how come you don't see a rash of men on the street disrobing at the drop of a hat? Because no one wants to see that. Granted, most women, and some men, seem to be physically attracted to men on some level. But it's more of a emotional / spiritual / deep-seated whatever-the-fuck than the brand of clinical, dumbfounded simplicity that characterizes attraction for women. That is, when you're attracted to men, you want to see a particular brand of confident swagger that matches a certain effortless overall look, all of which is defined differently by different people at different times ... meanwhile, when you're attracted to women, you want to see boobs. Lots of 'em.
And the reasons are obvious. The female body, as Elaine from Seinfeld once said, is a work of art. The male body is utilitarian. The female body is all sensual smooth curves comprising an aesthetically balanced whole, with each individual body displaying its own unique cohesive beauty. The male body is a machine straight off an assembly line, all straight, dull lines, except, of course, for the knobby, gnarled protrusion in the middle. That's why women always laugh when they see a naked man for the first time: because it's funny. Totally absurd -- you get nothing but a lot of predictable blandness and then, out of nowhere, this messy blob of freak parts that looks less like an implement of love and more like a deformed snail clinging to a walnut.
Anyway, I've said all this before. Point is, I'm sure a show in which a hot naked woman discusses fiscal policy or explores Mayan ruins would be wonderful. But it would still a bit incongruous.
Why exactly you would want your archaeologist or economist to be naked is beyond my comprehension. With the archaeologist, it seems like you'd have to spend a lot of time getting dust that breathes the lives of the ancients out of embarrassing orifices. And that dust might be valuable. Maybe there should be a second archaeologist who takes a little chisel and broom and excavates the naked archaeologist after he rolls around in some ruins.
The Naked Economist is perhaps even stranger. Now I'm sure there are plenty of sexy economists in the world. But as far as I've gleaned in my years of observation, the sexy professions for men are typically the ones that involve being outdoors and using your muscles: cowboy, construction worker, policeman, biker, Indian chief, that kind of thing. Not so much some pasty guy who sits naked in an office chair hunched over government data.
And I'd rather not even think about the hygienic issues associated with the naked chef. I would hope he at least wears a hairnet. Several.
Anyway, all of this is besides the point. None of these naked professionals actually does anything remotely naked. The naked cowboy is at least wearing nothing but a diaper and cowboy hat -- for the rest it's all bait-and-switch. Not that anyone has ever complained; I'm sure people were actually relieved when the Naked Archaeologist turned out to be fully clothed.
Again, the difference between the sexes is illuminating: Can you imagine the uproar if you advertised a show called "The Naked Aviatrix," got the whole heterosexual male world to watch, and then just showed a fully clothed female pilot talking about rudders and altitude gauges? There would be a worldwide riot, cities would burn to the ground, Satan would rise forth and claim his new empire, and everyone would be forced to watch "The Naked Soil & Water Conservation District Commissioner" 24/7.
Perhaps I'm being too literal. Perhaps the titles of these shows are just meant to make their particular brands of archaeology and economics and chef-ing seem fun and exciting. But there are better ways to do that. How about "Xtreme Archaeology"? How about "Russell Simmons' Def Economic Theory Jam"? How about "The Chef that Kicks Fuckin' ASS, MOTHERFUCKER!!!!!"
So clearly, guys, there's no reason to resort to the cheap (and disgusting) (and ineffective) strategy of jazzing up your show by calling it naked. Take it from me; I know all about naked. In fact, I'm naked right now! Eh, ladies, heh heh heh? Eh? No? Oh. Sorry. Never mind.
Sunday, November 11, 2007
Another Myth That Even Smart People Believe
In a previous post, I mentioned one of my favorite myths that even smart people believe. These are not true urban myths, which usually involve someone stealing your organs or a deadly spider in your hairdo or a murderer who is CALLING FROM INSIDE THE HOUSE! I don't think anyone with half a brain really believes those kind of urban myths any more, especially since it's become so popular to debunk them.
I'm talking about the little factoids that people repeat to justify some prosaic little life lesson. In the last exciting episode, we (meaning I) talked about the myth that you only use a small percentage of your brain. Which is supposed to prove that you are a genius / ESP master waiting to explode. Too bad it isn't true, and that you're already using all you got.
This time, I'd like to shoot for one of my favorites, that "human beings are the only animals that kill their own species." Aww man, ain't that the truth. We're so evil compared to the animal kingdom, who live in peaceful harmony all the time, holding hands and sucking rainbow-colored lollipops as they belt out John Denver tunes.
Except that it isn't true at all. Animals are selfish little beasties, just like us. They protect the animals whose genetic material they share, such as immediate relatives, particularly children. The rest they don't give a crap about.
It depends on the animal, of course. Some are adorable, like ducks, who mate for life. Others less so, like lions, who often kill other lions' babies. Say a male lion (let's call him Leo) gets a new mate. Say that the lioness already has a bunch of cubs by some other poor sucker (let's call him Lucky). Leo will not hesitate to kill off Lucky's and the lioness' little lads and lassies. Why? Because he has to clear the way for him and his kids, of course. Make Room for Daddy!
In fact, infanticide is a pretty normal part of life for a lot of animals. Dolphins, who typically win awards for cutest animals EVAH, will sometimes take young ones and drown them. No one knows why. Seriously -- I wouldn't make that up. (Well, OK, I might, but this time I'm not, I swear.)
So where does this myth come from? It's clearly an attempt to to take humans down a peg. I'm usually in favor of that kind of thing. But you gotta use some better facts. Like destoying the planet for the sake of driving preposterously large cars -- that kind of thing.
And on the face of it, it sounds reasonable, doesn't it. It seems like animals have to do whatever they can to survive as a species, while we have the luxury of killing each other off and not really batting an eye, species-survival-wise. But evolution doesn't work that way, unfortunately. Each animals seeks to ensure its survival and that of immediate relatives. There's an inborn need to see your genetic material survive, but not necessarily those of mere species-mates.
Not that the example of these animals should be a justification for our behavior. That would be falling into what psychologists call the "naturalistic fallacy," which is the assumption that anything "natural" is inherently good. You see this on products everywhere -- look , these have natural ingredients! So you know they're good! Of course, cyanide is a natural ingredient. Not necessarily good, at least for humans.
So I'm not saying we should feel OK about killing each other because animals do. And I'm not saying that we should feel bad for killing each other because animals don't (in part because they do). I'm thinking that maybe we shouldn't compare ourselves to animals at all. It's kind of a different thing. A different ANIMAL, even! HA HA HA HA! HA ha ha ... ha ha ... ha ... (sigh).
I'm talking about the little factoids that people repeat to justify some prosaic little life lesson. In the last exciting episode, we (meaning I) talked about the myth that you only use a small percentage of your brain. Which is supposed to prove that you are a genius / ESP master waiting to explode. Too bad it isn't true, and that you're already using all you got.
This time, I'd like to shoot for one of my favorites, that "human beings are the only animals that kill their own species." Aww man, ain't that the truth. We're so evil compared to the animal kingdom, who live in peaceful harmony all the time, holding hands and sucking rainbow-colored lollipops as they belt out John Denver tunes.
Except that it isn't true at all. Animals are selfish little beasties, just like us. They protect the animals whose genetic material they share, such as immediate relatives, particularly children. The rest they don't give a crap about.
It depends on the animal, of course. Some are adorable, like ducks, who mate for life. Others less so, like lions, who often kill other lions' babies. Say a male lion (let's call him Leo) gets a new mate. Say that the lioness already has a bunch of cubs by some other poor sucker (let's call him Lucky). Leo will not hesitate to kill off Lucky's and the lioness' little lads and lassies. Why? Because he has to clear the way for him and his kids, of course. Make Room for Daddy!
In fact, infanticide is a pretty normal part of life for a lot of animals. Dolphins, who typically win awards for cutest animals EVAH, will sometimes take young ones and drown them. No one knows why. Seriously -- I wouldn't make that up. (Well, OK, I might, but this time I'm not, I swear.)
So where does this myth come from? It's clearly an attempt to to take humans down a peg. I'm usually in favor of that kind of thing. But you gotta use some better facts. Like destoying the planet for the sake of driving preposterously large cars -- that kind of thing.
And on the face of it, it sounds reasonable, doesn't it. It seems like animals have to do whatever they can to survive as a species, while we have the luxury of killing each other off and not really batting an eye, species-survival-wise. But evolution doesn't work that way, unfortunately. Each animals seeks to ensure its survival and that of immediate relatives. There's an inborn need to see your genetic material survive, but not necessarily those of mere species-mates.
Not that the example of these animals should be a justification for our behavior. That would be falling into what psychologists call the "naturalistic fallacy," which is the assumption that anything "natural" is inherently good. You see this on products everywhere -- look , these have natural ingredients! So you know they're good! Of course, cyanide is a natural ingredient. Not necessarily good, at least for humans.
So I'm not saying we should feel OK about killing each other because animals do. And I'm not saying that we should feel bad for killing each other because animals don't (in part because they do). I'm thinking that maybe we shouldn't compare ourselves to animals at all. It's kind of a different thing. A different ANIMAL, even! HA HA HA HA! HA ha ha ... ha ha ... ha ... (sigh).
Saturday, November 3, 2007
Things I Hate: Needlessly Misspelled Names
Names are always a good conversation topic. Doesn't matter who you're talking to -- you can always eat up about half an hour talking about names. But lately, I've noticed that the typical conversation pattern of "I like this name, I don't like this name" has given way to "I know this one woman who has the stupidest name ..."
It's an epidemic, America. It's an epidemic wrapped in crisis and smothered with panic sauce. You are getting worse and worse at naming your children.
There are many ways you can go with stupid names. You can choose a trendy name like Madison or Jordan or Colby or Chase or Dakota. That's annoying, but you can hardly get too upset about that -- partially because it's not exactly considered acceptable to scream at poorly named 3-year-olds in the mall, but mostly because you have to save your precious anger energy for the true affront to all that is good and holy: the needlessly misspelled name.
According to my exhaustive studies, the problem with needlessly misspelled names began about 30 years ago or so. I've now met two 30-ish people where I work (let's call it FLaw), both with needlessly misspelled names.
Actually, I've seen many others since then, but these two were especially outstanding. See, most of the time, the needlessly mispelled names take the form of a "Jordin" instead of "Jordan," a "Chrystyne" instead of "Christine," a "DjawsufffffFFFF" instead of "Joseph." They're annoying, lame attempts to be different, to be sure, but at least you can sort of tell what name they were trying to go for.
Not so for my FLaw co-worker Jacque. Looks normal enough, right? Except that it's pronounced "Jackie," and it's a woman. Sigh. What the hell's the point of that? Presumably, her full name is Jacqueline. Why would you abbreviate that into a different name entirely, but pronounce it like the conventional nickname for Jacqueline? If that's the way it works, fine, then I'm going to call my kid "Andrew" and then "And" for short. It's pronounced "Andy," but spelled "And." Meet my kid And.
This kind of thing accomplishes nothing, besides a lifetime off frustration for the name-holder. Jacque seems like a very nice person, and I'm sure she's sick to death of having the same conversation about her name every time she meets someone now. "Yes, I know it looks like I'm a French guy. But it's pronounced 'Jackie.' Yes, I know my parents were idiots."
That one's baffling, but I'm not sure it's extremely pretentious. I usually have a pretty finely tuned pretenti-o-meter, and Jacque's name scores a little bit of pretension just because it sounds French (anything French is a little bit pretentious by definition), but it's mostly just confusing.
The next one, though, blows Jacque out of the water as far as pretentio-goodness. When I heard this one, my pretent-o-meter started spinning around and smoking. It's pretentious with a capital P, plus a capital R, capital E, capital T, and so forth.
There was this woman at FLaw who spelled her name "Kristen." So people, perhaps foolishly, figured her name was "Kristen." But she was always very quick to correct us -- "It's actually pronounced 'Shisteen.'" Say what?
"Shisteen" out of "Kristen"? You're shisting me. No, it's true. And when I heard that she adopted that pronunciation in college (the time when most insufferably pretentious things occur), because she felt it was more accurate as far as how they pronounce it in Norway or Denmark or Tajikistan or Ohio or wherever her family comes from originally -- wow. That takes big brass balls of glistening pretension.
Now, I'm all for being proud of your heritage. But not if it means punishing everyone you meet in the process with a needlessly difficult name. You see, Shisteen, in America we have this system by which certain words and letters correspond with certain sounds. It's efficient, it's well-accepted, and it generally keeps the wheels of commerce turning. We don't really have a good reason to change it. The fact that your ancestors had a different system doesn't exactly cut it.
I guess I feel especially strong about this because my last name is so difficult. But I didn't choose it; I just have to live with it. I have to take ten minutes spelling it out very carefully to every customer-service rep I meet. If I could just be a nice, anonymous "Smith" I probably could've saved hundreds of hours per year. I then could have used those hours to write a book called "The Secret to Happiness: Simple Names" and already become fabulously wealthy. But no -- instead I'm doomed to spend my days yelling to people over the phone "No, 'E' as in egg! Egg!"
And then to see someone who had a normal name and then gave it up for a difficult one -- it's like living your life with only one eye and then meeting someone who intentionally gouged their eye out. "What the hell are you doing?" I would say. "You were living the dream and you chose the nightmare!"
Maybe she actually enjoys those long conversations where you have to correct people about the pronunciation of your name. Maybe she savors the words "No, it's actually pronounced ..." as they come tripping off her tongue.
Whether she did it for fun or not, when she changed the pronunciation of her name, she made a strong, binding, lifelong commitment to being a pretentious smart-ass. Some people adopt a pretentious accent, or wear a pretentious wardrobe, or work hard to cultivate an attitude of intellectual superiority. Those people look like amateurs compared to our friend Kristen/Shisteen. Putting pretension is your very name -- you don't get any more committed than that.
Who knows, maybe I doth protest too much. Perhaps I'm just jealous of people like Shisteen who are able to commit themselves to a lifelong mission. Maybe I should change my name to "Bob" and then tell people "it's actually pronounced 'OO-arr-WACK-Zeeble-boo!'" It's the traditional Latvian pronunciation, idiot. Geez.
It's an epidemic, America. It's an epidemic wrapped in crisis and smothered with panic sauce. You are getting worse and worse at naming your children.
There are many ways you can go with stupid names. You can choose a trendy name like Madison or Jordan or Colby or Chase or Dakota. That's annoying, but you can hardly get too upset about that -- partially because it's not exactly considered acceptable to scream at poorly named 3-year-olds in the mall, but mostly because you have to save your precious anger energy for the true affront to all that is good and holy: the needlessly misspelled name.
According to my exhaustive studies, the problem with needlessly misspelled names began about 30 years ago or so. I've now met two 30-ish people where I work (let's call it FLaw), both with needlessly misspelled names.
Actually, I've seen many others since then, but these two were especially outstanding. See, most of the time, the needlessly mispelled names take the form of a "Jordin" instead of "Jordan," a "Chrystyne" instead of "Christine," a "DjawsufffffFFFF" instead of "Joseph." They're annoying, lame attempts to be different, to be sure, but at least you can sort of tell what name they were trying to go for.
Not so for my FLaw co-worker Jacque. Looks normal enough, right? Except that it's pronounced "Jackie," and it's a woman. Sigh. What the hell's the point of that? Presumably, her full name is Jacqueline. Why would you abbreviate that into a different name entirely, but pronounce it like the conventional nickname for Jacqueline? If that's the way it works, fine, then I'm going to call my kid "Andrew" and then "And" for short. It's pronounced "Andy," but spelled "And." Meet my kid And.
This kind of thing accomplishes nothing, besides a lifetime off frustration for the name-holder. Jacque seems like a very nice person, and I'm sure she's sick to death of having the same conversation about her name every time she meets someone now. "Yes, I know it looks like I'm a French guy. But it's pronounced 'Jackie.' Yes, I know my parents were idiots."
That one's baffling, but I'm not sure it's extremely pretentious. I usually have a pretty finely tuned pretenti-o-meter, and Jacque's name scores a little bit of pretension just because it sounds French (anything French is a little bit pretentious by definition), but it's mostly just confusing.
The next one, though, blows Jacque out of the water as far as pretentio-goodness. When I heard this one, my pretent-o-meter started spinning around and smoking. It's pretentious with a capital P, plus a capital R, capital E, capital T, and so forth.
There was this woman at FLaw who spelled her name "Kristen." So people, perhaps foolishly, figured her name was "Kristen." But she was always very quick to correct us -- "It's actually pronounced 'Shisteen.'" Say what?
"Shisteen" out of "Kristen"? You're shisting me. No, it's true. And when I heard that she adopted that pronunciation in college (the time when most insufferably pretentious things occur), because she felt it was more accurate as far as how they pronounce it in Norway or Denmark or Tajikistan or Ohio or wherever her family comes from originally -- wow. That takes big brass balls of glistening pretension.
Now, I'm all for being proud of your heritage. But not if it means punishing everyone you meet in the process with a needlessly difficult name. You see, Shisteen, in America we have this system by which certain words and letters correspond with certain sounds. It's efficient, it's well-accepted, and it generally keeps the wheels of commerce turning. We don't really have a good reason to change it. The fact that your ancestors had a different system doesn't exactly cut it.
I guess I feel especially strong about this because my last name is so difficult. But I didn't choose it; I just have to live with it. I have to take ten minutes spelling it out very carefully to every customer-service rep I meet. If I could just be a nice, anonymous "Smith" I probably could've saved hundreds of hours per year. I then could have used those hours to write a book called "The Secret to Happiness: Simple Names" and already become fabulously wealthy. But no -- instead I'm doomed to spend my days yelling to people over the phone "No, 'E' as in egg! Egg!"
And then to see someone who had a normal name and then gave it up for a difficult one -- it's like living your life with only one eye and then meeting someone who intentionally gouged their eye out. "What the hell are you doing?" I would say. "You were living the dream and you chose the nightmare!"
Maybe she actually enjoys those long conversations where you have to correct people about the pronunciation of your name. Maybe she savors the words "No, it's actually pronounced ..." as they come tripping off her tongue.
Whether she did it for fun or not, when she changed the pronunciation of her name, she made a strong, binding, lifelong commitment to being a pretentious smart-ass. Some people adopt a pretentious accent, or wear a pretentious wardrobe, or work hard to cultivate an attitude of intellectual superiority. Those people look like amateurs compared to our friend Kristen/Shisteen. Putting pretension is your very name -- you don't get any more committed than that.
Who knows, maybe I doth protest too much. Perhaps I'm just jealous of people like Shisteen who are able to commit themselves to a lifelong mission. Maybe I should change my name to "Bob" and then tell people "it's actually pronounced 'OO-arr-WACK-Zeeble-boo!'" It's the traditional Latvian pronunciation, idiot. Geez.
Saturday, October 27, 2007
Things to Like About America
It's well-known that us Americans don't like to acknowledge that other countries exist, unless, of course, we need to bomb them. The thing is, looking at other countires can be depressing (especially the bombed ones). Some are much worse off than us, starving and dying and such, and that makes us feel bad. One mention of Darfur on the radio and you almost feel guilty for speeding your Hummer down to the Consume-o-mart to buy your hundredth pair of shoes made by Chinese child laborers. Almost.
And fellow developed countries don't help. They may not be as rich or powerful as us, but somehow, without even letting us know, they sneakily end up solving a lot of the problems that still plague us. No one in England is worrying too much about the abortion issue. There's no health-care crisis in France. And Finland is so wealthy, successful and crime-free that the Finnish have nothing to be sad about at all, which apparently makes them very depressed. Poor guys.
But there are a few things that should make any American's chest swell and heart pump blood colored red, white and blue. There are a few things that make even liberal America-hating baby-eaters like myself shed a joyful tear in the shape of an eagle. Yes, Virginia, there are a few things that the good ol' U.S. of A. does better than all the Finlands and Belgiums and Central African Republics combined. And they are:
1. BATHROOM AMENITIES: OK, apparently Japan does these well. But every other foreign country I've been to had shit for bathrooms. Literally -- every single one had toilets, sinks, and showers made entirely out of shit. When you had to do your business, you'd do it and then carefully mold it so that it fit into the other furnishings. Word to the wise foreign traveler: Always bring lots of plastic gloves. And a kiln wouldn't hurt.
Actually, what you typically get in foreign countries is no hot water. And showers aren't showers so much as they're detachable spigots connected to a tub by a hose about two feet long. So if you like your showers lying down, in cold water, you my friend, are in for a treat.
Toilets aren't much better. Overseas you get a lot of the "eternal flush" thing where the toilet slowly fills up with water for days. How does it keep filling up, but never get full, you wonder? (And then your mind EXPLODES.) There's something quietly sinister and otherworldly about the eternal flush. It's like an axe murderer who's coming at you so slowly that even if you're staring at him you can't see him move. Or maybe not.
2) TELEVISION: If you're lucky enough to get cable in a European country, you know how many channels you get? Twelve! Wow! That's enough to fill, five, maybe ten minutes per day! Meanwhile, in America, even homeless people have digital cable boxes with 5,000 channels each. I'm no math whiz, but I'm pretty sure than 5,000 is about a million times larger than 12.
Now I hear you literati already. "More TV is a good thing?!?" you scoff, nearly spilling your cabernet all over your Harold Pinter fan club T-shirt. "Hasn't television already destroyed American discourse?" To that I say, "No, and you know why? Because you are a poophead. Heh, heh, heh. Heh, heh, heh. Poop."
Seriously, though, have you checked out TV recently? It's not wall-to-wall "Three's Company" reruns like in the old days. My cable has two, count 'em two, PBSes. I also have the Discovery Channel, Discovery Health, Discovery Times, Discovery Science, Discovery Philology, Discovery Kazakh Poetry, and a whole channel devoted to nothing but video footage of Bunsen burners. There is a wonderful network called History International, which is just like the History Channel except it has 2,300% fewer shows about World War II. (They still have some.)
Sure, 80% of TV is crap. But 80% of everything is crap. Ever been to a bookstore? Yeah, you can still find Dostoyevsky, but you have to go past several acres of books about how to lose weight while continuing to eat like the disgusting slob you are.
And you know what else? You can't blame television for dumbing down America, because America was always as stupid as it is now. You might not remember clearly, because your memories are sugar-coated, but there was no time in history when discourse was actually elevated. Life in the '50s was not all Edward R. Murrow slowly and gray-ly discussing foreign policy with Adlai Stevenson. Most people switched away from that and watched boxers beat the shit out of each other for fun.
But then, as now, there were pockets of smarties smart-ing it up, and God bless 'em. They're always there to work and strive and harangue and sometimes their messages break through to the dummies watching boxing or Ultimate Fighting or what have you. Then the world changes, usually for the better. TV is simply the messenger letting the sheltered smarties know how the rest of America lives. Don't shoot it.
Man, I've gone far afield of my point. My point was that America does TV great and big and bold, and we should be proud of that. And, uh, we got the bathroom thing going for us too. We don't do endings of Web log posts well though. At least, I don't.
And fellow developed countries don't help. They may not be as rich or powerful as us, but somehow, without even letting us know, they sneakily end up solving a lot of the problems that still plague us. No one in England is worrying too much about the abortion issue. There's no health-care crisis in France. And Finland is so wealthy, successful and crime-free that the Finnish have nothing to be sad about at all, which apparently makes them very depressed. Poor guys.
But there are a few things that should make any American's chest swell and heart pump blood colored red, white and blue. There are a few things that make even liberal America-hating baby-eaters like myself shed a joyful tear in the shape of an eagle. Yes, Virginia, there are a few things that the good ol' U.S. of A. does better than all the Finlands and Belgiums and Central African Republics combined. And they are:
1. BATHROOM AMENITIES: OK, apparently Japan does these well. But every other foreign country I've been to had shit for bathrooms. Literally -- every single one had toilets, sinks, and showers made entirely out of shit. When you had to do your business, you'd do it and then carefully mold it so that it fit into the other furnishings. Word to the wise foreign traveler: Always bring lots of plastic gloves. And a kiln wouldn't hurt.
Actually, what you typically get in foreign countries is no hot water. And showers aren't showers so much as they're detachable spigots connected to a tub by a hose about two feet long. So if you like your showers lying down, in cold water, you my friend, are in for a treat.
Toilets aren't much better. Overseas you get a lot of the "eternal flush" thing where the toilet slowly fills up with water for days. How does it keep filling up, but never get full, you wonder? (And then your mind EXPLODES.) There's something quietly sinister and otherworldly about the eternal flush. It's like an axe murderer who's coming at you so slowly that even if you're staring at him you can't see him move. Or maybe not.
2) TELEVISION: If you're lucky enough to get cable in a European country, you know how many channels you get? Twelve! Wow! That's enough to fill, five, maybe ten minutes per day! Meanwhile, in America, even homeless people have digital cable boxes with 5,000 channels each. I'm no math whiz, but I'm pretty sure than 5,000 is about a million times larger than 12.
Now I hear you literati already. "More TV is a good thing?!?" you scoff, nearly spilling your cabernet all over your Harold Pinter fan club T-shirt. "Hasn't television already destroyed American discourse?" To that I say, "No, and you know why? Because you are a poophead. Heh, heh, heh. Heh, heh, heh. Poop."
Seriously, though, have you checked out TV recently? It's not wall-to-wall "Three's Company" reruns like in the old days. My cable has two, count 'em two, PBSes. I also have the Discovery Channel, Discovery Health, Discovery Times, Discovery Science, Discovery Philology, Discovery Kazakh Poetry, and a whole channel devoted to nothing but video footage of Bunsen burners. There is a wonderful network called History International, which is just like the History Channel except it has 2,300% fewer shows about World War II. (They still have some.)
Sure, 80% of TV is crap. But 80% of everything is crap. Ever been to a bookstore? Yeah, you can still find Dostoyevsky, but you have to go past several acres of books about how to lose weight while continuing to eat like the disgusting slob you are.
And you know what else? You can't blame television for dumbing down America, because America was always as stupid as it is now. You might not remember clearly, because your memories are sugar-coated, but there was no time in history when discourse was actually elevated. Life in the '50s was not all Edward R. Murrow slowly and gray-ly discussing foreign policy with Adlai Stevenson. Most people switched away from that and watched boxers beat the shit out of each other for fun.
But then, as now, there were pockets of smarties smart-ing it up, and God bless 'em. They're always there to work and strive and harangue and sometimes their messages break through to the dummies watching boxing or Ultimate Fighting or what have you. Then the world changes, usually for the better. TV is simply the messenger letting the sheltered smarties know how the rest of America lives. Don't shoot it.
Man, I've gone far afield of my point. My point was that America does TV great and big and bold, and we should be proud of that. And, uh, we got the bathroom thing going for us too. We don't do endings of Web log posts well though. At least, I don't.
Friday, October 19, 2007
What the World Needs Now Is Plague, Sweet Plague
The real problem with the world today is that there are too many damn people. The human population is increasing exponentially, and I’m not sure how long the planet can sustain us. A good plague would solve that. Maybe it could kill off a few billion people and get us to a more manageable level.
But I wouldn’t want it to affect anyone I know. Or any countries that I like. Maybe it should happen in Bangladesh. I’ve never been there, I don’t know much about it, and I know it’s crazy overcrowded. I certainly have nothing against Bangladesh, but you gotta start somewhere.
But that won’t work, will it. Wiping out Bangladesh wouldn’t be nearly enough, because the way the human population is expanding, we would replace the Bangladeshianians within a matter of years.
Hm, maybe it would be better just to make a whole bunch of people infertile. That would work better. And no one who’s alive would have to die, so it would be a lot less cruel, too. Sure, it would be very sad for people who always wanted to have kids but can’t, but you can’t make an omelet without breaking a few dreams.
Why am I talking this crazy talk, you ask? Well, it’s all a load of crap, to be sure, but it does get at something I’m seriously concerned about. I am perpetually frightened for our species. Eventually, one way or another, there will just be too damn many of us for this planet to handle. We’re going to outstrip our environment somehow. Any species growing as fast as we are is trouble, and that’s trouble with a capital T and that rhymes with C and that stands for “catastrophe.”
My worries are based in well-accepted science, thank you very much. See, the world is made up hundred zillion little ecosystem cycles in the natural world, all carefully balanced, all interacting with each other. Having one species come out of nowhere and dominate can ruin everything. A wolf that becomes too good at killing deer will eventually eat up all the deer and then have no more food source.
The point is that too much success can ruin a species, and while we may be one hell of a smart species, we’re subject to the same rules. In the history of the natural world, extinction is common, and we’re not immune from it. This is seriously how I look at things. I am lots of fun to be around, let me tell you.
But I honestly don’t think it’s that crazy of a perspective. Like it or not, we do depend on natural cycles for survival. Granted, the wolf example isn’t a great one, because we're probably not going to run out of food for ourselves too soon. We have sorta made our own little ecosystems that are under our control, through agriculture and animal husbandry. So in one sense, we solved the problem. But now the greenhouse gases that we pump into the atmosphere are fucking things up. So we’re back to threatening ourselves with our own success.
Sometimes I look at global warming this way: Think of the world as an organism (this perspective, by the way, is known as the Gaia hypothesis). All large organisms have other little organisms inside them. Humans have tons of little amoebae and paramecia and who the hell knows what else inside us, swimming around and not really affecting us one way or another. Most are harmless, but occasionally you get a nasty one, and then you get a disease.
Humans, and indeed all other species, are microbes within this Earth organism. All other species, so far, have not affected the Earth one way or another. But now the human species is becoming a virulent little mofo. We’re expanding rapidly and taking over the Earth, much the way a virus expands rapidly within a host and takes over. The Earth responds by raising its surface temperature, much the way we get fevers. The point of a fever is to make the place inhospitable for the bug, to essentially kill it off.
That’s what global warming is for, to kill us off. It’s the Earth’s own self-regulating mechanism for doing what I was talking about before, getting our species to a more manageable, sustainable level.
Normally, plagues are good for this sort of thing, as I mentioned above. They’re the Earth’s white blood cells, keeping a population down before it can go past a tipping point into becoming dangerous. But we keep evolving these resistances to these plagues, through modern medicine. So the Earth’s only recourse is to turn up the heat and see what happens.
Of course, we’re talking in terms of geological time here. In geological time, our switch from harmlessness to virulence has been unbelievably fast, within the last 100 years or so. So the killing-off process will be similarly fast by geological time standards, but slow by our standards. Maybe temperatures will get hotter and hotter, and more and more parts of the world will become too hot to live in. Then those people will have to move somewhere, so they’ll crowd to the North.
Frankly, there’s plenty of open space in Canada and Russia, so we maybe actually have room for these folks. But like ecosystems, economies also work best when there’s a measure of stability. Think what crazy flux everything will be in if people have to abandon Texas en masse and move to Canada. Do you think the Canadians want about bunch of Texans around? Canadians are nice, but not that nice.
That’s a facile example, but you get the idea. We don’t know what kind of chaos that global warming is going to cause. It’s such a fundamental change that it will affect every aspect of our lives and our societies.
All this is why the environment is my number-one issue, and always has been. I’m not saying that what we’re doing to the planet will necessarily destroy it, but there’s the threat there of such widespread, cataclysmic change that will have ripple effects everywhere else, and that frightens the shit out of me. And frankly, it trumps everything else.
Take the Iraq War, for example. It’s very serious and very tragic, no doubt. But the human species has weathered serious, tragic wars before. I’m confident we can do it again, albeit with more scars and probably more wars to follow.
Meanwhile, our species has never faced something like global warming before, and I’m not so sure how well we’ll do. I’m sure we’ll survive in some form, but not the way we are now if we don’t make some serious changes fast. That’s scary. That could mean famines, economic collapses – who knows what.
This is why I’m a strident environmentalist – it’s totally self-interest. Or more precisely, interest in humanity. I don’t really give a crap about the planet per se. I give a crap about it because the species I love, human beings, depends on it for survival. It’s sort of like the fact that I care about the chair I’m sitting on. This chair doesn’t do much for me in itself, but if it were suddenly taken away, I’d fall and break my tailbone. I don’t want humanity to fall and break its collective tailbone. (OK, I took that too far.)
I’m not even that big on nature, exactly. It can look quite nice in small doses, but I find it looks best through the window of a comfortable hotel room. I’m not outdoorsy – I’m indoorsy. I can find my way around the indoors amazingly well, surviving only on the food and water I can forage together from refrigerators and food courts.
So yeah, I’ve been made soft by the comforts of modern life. I like them and I sure don’t want to give them up through some kind of man-made catastrophe that returns us to the Stone Age. So if we can make small changes now to stave off the big changes we might suffer down the road, I’m all for it. More solar panels and wind farms? Sure. Fuel-efficient cars? You betcha. Change to fluorescent bulbs? I’m on it. Maybe it’s a pain to make these adjustments, but it’s much better than the alternative. Granted, I don’t know what that alternative will be, but the odds are it won’t be pleasant.
But I wouldn’t want it to affect anyone I know. Or any countries that I like. Maybe it should happen in Bangladesh. I’ve never been there, I don’t know much about it, and I know it’s crazy overcrowded. I certainly have nothing against Bangladesh, but you gotta start somewhere.
But that won’t work, will it. Wiping out Bangladesh wouldn’t be nearly enough, because the way the human population is expanding, we would replace the Bangladeshianians within a matter of years.
Hm, maybe it would be better just to make a whole bunch of people infertile. That would work better. And no one who’s alive would have to die, so it would be a lot less cruel, too. Sure, it would be very sad for people who always wanted to have kids but can’t, but you can’t make an omelet without breaking a few dreams.
Why am I talking this crazy talk, you ask? Well, it’s all a load of crap, to be sure, but it does get at something I’m seriously concerned about. I am perpetually frightened for our species. Eventually, one way or another, there will just be too damn many of us for this planet to handle. We’re going to outstrip our environment somehow. Any species growing as fast as we are is trouble, and that’s trouble with a capital T and that rhymes with C and that stands for “catastrophe.”
My worries are based in well-accepted science, thank you very much. See, the world is made up hundred zillion little ecosystem cycles in the natural world, all carefully balanced, all interacting with each other. Having one species come out of nowhere and dominate can ruin everything. A wolf that becomes too good at killing deer will eventually eat up all the deer and then have no more food source.
The point is that too much success can ruin a species, and while we may be one hell of a smart species, we’re subject to the same rules. In the history of the natural world, extinction is common, and we’re not immune from it. This is seriously how I look at things. I am lots of fun to be around, let me tell you.
But I honestly don’t think it’s that crazy of a perspective. Like it or not, we do depend on natural cycles for survival. Granted, the wolf example isn’t a great one, because we're probably not going to run out of food for ourselves too soon. We have sorta made our own little ecosystems that are under our control, through agriculture and animal husbandry. So in one sense, we solved the problem. But now the greenhouse gases that we pump into the atmosphere are fucking things up. So we’re back to threatening ourselves with our own success.
Sometimes I look at global warming this way: Think of the world as an organism (this perspective, by the way, is known as the Gaia hypothesis). All large organisms have other little organisms inside them. Humans have tons of little amoebae and paramecia and who the hell knows what else inside us, swimming around and not really affecting us one way or another. Most are harmless, but occasionally you get a nasty one, and then you get a disease.
Humans, and indeed all other species, are microbes within this Earth organism. All other species, so far, have not affected the Earth one way or another. But now the human species is becoming a virulent little mofo. We’re expanding rapidly and taking over the Earth, much the way a virus expands rapidly within a host and takes over. The Earth responds by raising its surface temperature, much the way we get fevers. The point of a fever is to make the place inhospitable for the bug, to essentially kill it off.
That’s what global warming is for, to kill us off. It’s the Earth’s own self-regulating mechanism for doing what I was talking about before, getting our species to a more manageable, sustainable level.
Normally, plagues are good for this sort of thing, as I mentioned above. They’re the Earth’s white blood cells, keeping a population down before it can go past a tipping point into becoming dangerous. But we keep evolving these resistances to these plagues, through modern medicine. So the Earth’s only recourse is to turn up the heat and see what happens.
Of course, we’re talking in terms of geological time here. In geological time, our switch from harmlessness to virulence has been unbelievably fast, within the last 100 years or so. So the killing-off process will be similarly fast by geological time standards, but slow by our standards. Maybe temperatures will get hotter and hotter, and more and more parts of the world will become too hot to live in. Then those people will have to move somewhere, so they’ll crowd to the North.
Frankly, there’s plenty of open space in Canada and Russia, so we maybe actually have room for these folks. But like ecosystems, economies also work best when there’s a measure of stability. Think what crazy flux everything will be in if people have to abandon Texas en masse and move to Canada. Do you think the Canadians want about bunch of Texans around? Canadians are nice, but not that nice.
That’s a facile example, but you get the idea. We don’t know what kind of chaos that global warming is going to cause. It’s such a fundamental change that it will affect every aspect of our lives and our societies.
All this is why the environment is my number-one issue, and always has been. I’m not saying that what we’re doing to the planet will necessarily destroy it, but there’s the threat there of such widespread, cataclysmic change that will have ripple effects everywhere else, and that frightens the shit out of me. And frankly, it trumps everything else.
Take the Iraq War, for example. It’s very serious and very tragic, no doubt. But the human species has weathered serious, tragic wars before. I’m confident we can do it again, albeit with more scars and probably more wars to follow.
Meanwhile, our species has never faced something like global warming before, and I’m not so sure how well we’ll do. I’m sure we’ll survive in some form, but not the way we are now if we don’t make some serious changes fast. That’s scary. That could mean famines, economic collapses – who knows what.
This is why I’m a strident environmentalist – it’s totally self-interest. Or more precisely, interest in humanity. I don’t really give a crap about the planet per se. I give a crap about it because the species I love, human beings, depends on it for survival. It’s sort of like the fact that I care about the chair I’m sitting on. This chair doesn’t do much for me in itself, but if it were suddenly taken away, I’d fall and break my tailbone. I don’t want humanity to fall and break its collective tailbone. (OK, I took that too far.)
I’m not even that big on nature, exactly. It can look quite nice in small doses, but I find it looks best through the window of a comfortable hotel room. I’m not outdoorsy – I’m indoorsy. I can find my way around the indoors amazingly well, surviving only on the food and water I can forage together from refrigerators and food courts.
So yeah, I’ve been made soft by the comforts of modern life. I like them and I sure don’t want to give them up through some kind of man-made catastrophe that returns us to the Stone Age. So if we can make small changes now to stave off the big changes we might suffer down the road, I’m all for it. More solar panels and wind farms? Sure. Fuel-efficient cars? You betcha. Change to fluorescent bulbs? I’m on it. Maybe it’s a pain to make these adjustments, but it’s much better than the alternative. Granted, I don’t know what that alternative will be, but the odds are it won’t be pleasant.
Tuesday, October 16, 2007
Things I Hate: Vegas
I was approached by my boss yesterday and asked if I wanted to go on a trip. "Sure!" I said, thinking he was referring to one our typical trips, which involves meeting with a client in Poughkeepsie or Bridgeport or Gary, Indiana and having day-long meetings about their new site. That I'd enjoy. But then he revealed that he was actually talking about a mid-week conference in Vegas. "I'll pass," I said.
I hate Vegas. I hate everything about it. I had a bad experience there, but it wasn't the type you think. I didn't get rip-roaring drunk and pass out on the street or get crabs from a two-dollar hooker or anything. What happened was that I was surrounded the whole time by the hollow artificiality that is Vegas.
Everything I saw was fake in one way or another, often a bald-faced copy something great somewhere else. It's a whole city "faux," cheapness (often cheapness that cost a lot money, paradoxically), that is badly masquerading as elegance. And not in a kitschy fun way. It's fake in a calculated, focus-grouped sort way. When I was there, I felt manipulated just walking down the street.
And the streets I've walked were the newer Disneyland-for-adults part -- maybe if I had been in the legendary grungy old part I wouldn't have felt this way. Instead, I would probably felt sad and disgusted. I guess that's not a lot better.
I'm sure there are parts Vegas that I could enjoy. It's a big place, after all. But I know I wouldn't see those parts if I went on this junket. See, I would apparently be going with a nice, well-meaning coworker mine who would be the only person I know there. He would want to hit the strip after the meetings, and being a nice person (no, really, I swear), I would probably feel obligated to go. I would walk around and feel uncomfortable everywhere. We would hit the big, touristy bars, spend way too much, feel like yokels, and meet no one. Whee.
Perhaps I'd meet a few people at these conferences and maybe go out with them -- but that would mean lots forced, strained small talk. Or, more likely, they'd turn out to be obnoxious drunks and I would spend the whole time being irritated and wanting to escape.
Obviously, I'm not that wild about being drunk in public. Or, moreover, being around drunks in public. Young drunk people are the worst people in the . In a place like Vegas, young people get full license to let their true selves let loose, which means acting like the insufferable pricks they truly are. A whole city full them does not sound like a good time to me.
But I'm also not wild about gambling. I've gone to a few casinos and occasionally had a good time. But the problem is that the costs are not worth the benefits for me. When I win some money, I'm sorta like, "Hey, that's not bad. Now I can afford one those horribly overpriced cocktails." If I lose the same amount money, I'm more like "Jesus, what's wrong with me! I blew that money on nothing! Fuck!" Maybe I have a bit a bias towards negativity.
And there are other issues at work here. There's the conference itself, which sounds like several days nonstop awkward mingling. I don't know if you've ever been to an "industry event," but it's awful. It's like a party where you can't have fun. You can't be yourself; you have to be your work persona. You have to "network," which is a term that is appropriately soulless and mechanical-sounding for what happens. You have to pretend like you actually give a shit about what you do for a living, carefully hiding the fact that you really just go through the motions and then collect a check.
And then there's the simple fact that Vegas is unbelievably expensive. That's been my experience, anyway. Long gone are the days when you got a free shrimp buffet just for setting foot in a casino. Maybe those places are still out there, but I really don't want to sift through the rest it to find them.
And there's also my contrarian nature at work here. The assumption is that everyone loves Vegas. In fact, the site for this conference says so explicitly: "Everyone loves Vegas!" That's the kind thing that invariably makes me want to say, "Well, I hate Vegas. And I want you to hate it too, now." Any time it's expressed as a universal given that something is fun, I have the need to pop that balloon. I don't know why.
Maybe it's the programming that I feel everyone has succumbed to, the whole mythology that the Vegas marketing whizzes have created. I find all that bullshit very grating: Not only does everyone love Vegas, but it's the place to go crazy! Woo! What happens here, stays here! Like when the hooker you bring to your hotel room ODs on coke and pukes blood! Uh-oh! Well, what happens here, stays here!
And I don't think it's because I'm a prude -- I believe people should have the right to gamble and get drunk on the streets and snort coke with a hooker who then bleeds through her nose if they damn well please. I just happen to know that that I don't damn well please. I would rather go to Poughkeepsie for day-long meetings. Cuz what happens in Poughkeepsie, stays in Poughkeepsie!
I hate Vegas. I hate everything about it. I had a bad experience there, but it wasn't the type you think. I didn't get rip-roaring drunk and pass out on the street or get crabs from a two-dollar hooker or anything. What happened was that I was surrounded the whole time by the hollow artificiality that is Vegas.
Everything I saw was fake in one way or another, often a bald-faced copy something great somewhere else. It's a whole city "faux," cheapness (often cheapness that cost a lot money, paradoxically), that is badly masquerading as elegance. And not in a kitschy fun way. It's fake in a calculated, focus-grouped sort way. When I was there, I felt manipulated just walking down the street.
And the streets I've walked were the newer Disneyland-for-adults part -- maybe if I had been in the legendary grungy old part I wouldn't have felt this way. Instead, I would probably felt sad and disgusted. I guess that's not a lot better.
I'm sure there are parts Vegas that I could enjoy. It's a big place, after all. But I know I wouldn't see those parts if I went on this junket. See, I would apparently be going with a nice, well-meaning coworker mine who would be the only person I know there. He would want to hit the strip after the meetings, and being a nice person (no, really, I swear), I would probably feel obligated to go. I would walk around and feel uncomfortable everywhere. We would hit the big, touristy bars, spend way too much, feel like yokels, and meet no one. Whee.
Perhaps I'd meet a few people at these conferences and maybe go out with them -- but that would mean lots forced, strained small talk. Or, more likely, they'd turn out to be obnoxious drunks and I would spend the whole time being irritated and wanting to escape.
Obviously, I'm not that wild about being drunk in public. Or, moreover, being around drunks in public. Young drunk people are the worst people in the . In a place like Vegas, young people get full license to let their true selves let loose, which means acting like the insufferable pricks they truly are. A whole city full them does not sound like a good time to me.
But I'm also not wild about gambling. I've gone to a few casinos and occasionally had a good time. But the problem is that the costs are not worth the benefits for me. When I win some money, I'm sorta like, "Hey, that's not bad. Now I can afford one those horribly overpriced cocktails." If I lose the same amount money, I'm more like "Jesus, what's wrong with me! I blew that money on nothing! Fuck!" Maybe I have a bit a bias towards negativity.
And there are other issues at work here. There's the conference itself, which sounds like several days nonstop awkward mingling. I don't know if you've ever been to an "industry event," but it's awful. It's like a party where you can't have fun. You can't be yourself; you have to be your work persona. You have to "network," which is a term that is appropriately soulless and mechanical-sounding for what happens. You have to pretend like you actually give a shit about what you do for a living, carefully hiding the fact that you really just go through the motions and then collect a check.
And then there's the simple fact that Vegas is unbelievably expensive. That's been my experience, anyway. Long gone are the days when you got a free shrimp buffet just for setting foot in a casino. Maybe those places are still out there, but I really don't want to sift through the rest it to find them.
And there's also my contrarian nature at work here. The assumption is that everyone loves Vegas. In fact, the site for this conference says so explicitly: "Everyone loves Vegas!" That's the kind thing that invariably makes me want to say, "Well, I hate Vegas. And I want you to hate it too, now." Any time it's expressed as a universal given that something is fun, I have the need to pop that balloon. I don't know why.
Maybe it's the programming that I feel everyone has succumbed to, the whole mythology that the Vegas marketing whizzes have created. I find all that bullshit very grating: Not only does everyone love Vegas, but it's the place to go crazy! Woo! What happens here, stays here! Like when the hooker you bring to your hotel room ODs on coke and pukes blood! Uh-oh! Well, what happens here, stays here!
And I don't think it's because I'm a prude -- I believe people should have the right to gamble and get drunk on the streets and snort coke with a hooker who then bleeds through her nose if they damn well please. I just happen to know that that I don't damn well please. I would rather go to Poughkeepsie for day-long meetings. Cuz what happens in Poughkeepsie, stays in Poughkeepsie!
Wednesday, October 10, 2007
Things I Hate: Dane Cook
Every year, the baseball playoffs give me an amazing opportunity to get really, really sick of a few commercials. The entire playoffs are apparently only allowed two or three commercials, played over and over and over and over until your head starts to bleed. This year, the pain reaches a new, exciting level with heaping helpings of Dane Cook. He stars in a bunch of ads showing during the playoffs that try to get you excited about watching the playoffs. (Aren't the playoffs themselves supposed to do that? And moreover, isn't that sort of like McDonald's putting ads inside their own hamburgers? We don't really need to be told to buy the product, guys -- we already bought it.)
Basically, the ads feature him shouting a bunch of cliches about how "Dude, there is only one October!" and gesticulating frantically as clips from previous years play around him. Even if I weren't already watching the playoffs, Dane Cook is not exactly inspiring me to do so. Vince Lombardi he ain't. His demeanor is more one of a frat buddy trying to get you "psyched" to go to a kegger across town. Maybe I'm pretentious, but I like to think of the baseball playoffs as more than a chance to get blitzed and shout "woo!"
Of course, they got Dane Cook because he's popular with the young men. Let's be clear here: Young men do not, and have not ever, known what the hell they're talking about. Dane Cook is not funny and never has been. He's a spazzy frat boy at best. He's the "Don't tase me, bro!" guy without the self-righteousness. (Which doesn't leave much.) I've seen his stand-up -- it's a lot of "Dude, you know when you get really hammered and take home a really ugly girl? We've all been there, right?" No, Mr. Cook, I actually haven't been there. But thanks for bringing up the fact that even what you would find regrettable and beneath your standards would have been a dream come true for me when I was a sad, lovelorn college student.
But anyway, he doesn't do stand-up in the ads, so I suppose I should be thankful for that. But still, it's only going to get more and more grating as the playoffs progress. Last year's most-repeated ad was heaven by comparison -- it was the ad for Chevy (or Ford, or GM, I can never tell the difference) which featured John Cougar Mellencamp singing "Generic John Cougar Mellencamp Song #67578565," which I can only assume was created by loading all of his previous songs on a computer, shaking it vigorously, and then pouring the result onto a tape recorder. You know the one; Ford (or Chevy or GM) still plays it at every opportunity. "The dream is great, and so is America ... We lift dirty things into trucks all day, workin' dumb and hard ... Let the voice of freedom shine out of our big, fat, overfed mouths ... this is our country! (And by "our" I mean GM/Ford/Chevy and other massive multinational conglomerates!) From the East Coast! To the West Coast! To Indiana, where I'm from, cuz I'm just an ordinary hard-workin' American, just like me and you .. see, look, I'm wearin' jeans and everything, and talkin' all down-home ..."
Anyway. The point is that advertisers are shitting bricks over Tivo's ad-skipping capabilities -- well, they deserve it for making crappy ads like this and playing them ad nauseam. (Is that really the point? Well, yes it is, as of now.) And the other point is that Dane Cook needs to die horribly. Maybe he could be tased to death.
Basically, the ads feature him shouting a bunch of cliches about how "Dude, there is only one October!" and gesticulating frantically as clips from previous years play around him. Even if I weren't already watching the playoffs, Dane Cook is not exactly inspiring me to do so. Vince Lombardi he ain't. His demeanor is more one of a frat buddy trying to get you "psyched" to go to a kegger across town. Maybe I'm pretentious, but I like to think of the baseball playoffs as more than a chance to get blitzed and shout "woo!"
Of course, they got Dane Cook because he's popular with the young men. Let's be clear here: Young men do not, and have not ever, known what the hell they're talking about. Dane Cook is not funny and never has been. He's a spazzy frat boy at best. He's the "Don't tase me, bro!" guy without the self-righteousness. (Which doesn't leave much.) I've seen his stand-up -- it's a lot of "Dude, you know when you get really hammered and take home a really ugly girl? We've all been there, right?" No, Mr. Cook, I actually haven't been there. But thanks for bringing up the fact that even what you would find regrettable and beneath your standards would have been a dream come true for me when I was a sad, lovelorn college student.
But anyway, he doesn't do stand-up in the ads, so I suppose I should be thankful for that. But still, it's only going to get more and more grating as the playoffs progress. Last year's most-repeated ad was heaven by comparison -- it was the ad for Chevy (or Ford, or GM, I can never tell the difference) which featured John Cougar Mellencamp singing "Generic John Cougar Mellencamp Song #67578565," which I can only assume was created by loading all of his previous songs on a computer, shaking it vigorously, and then pouring the result onto a tape recorder. You know the one; Ford (or Chevy or GM) still plays it at every opportunity. "The dream is great, and so is America ... We lift dirty things into trucks all day, workin' dumb and hard ... Let the voice of freedom shine out of our big, fat, overfed mouths ... this is our country! (And by "our" I mean GM/Ford/Chevy and other massive multinational conglomerates!) From the East Coast! To the West Coast! To Indiana, where I'm from, cuz I'm just an ordinary hard-workin' American, just like me and you .. see, look, I'm wearin' jeans and everything, and talkin' all down-home ..."
Anyway. The point is that advertisers are shitting bricks over Tivo's ad-skipping capabilities -- well, they deserve it for making crappy ads like this and playing them ad nauseam. (Is that really the point? Well, yes it is, as of now.) And the other point is that Dane Cook needs to die horribly. Maybe he could be tased to death.
Friday, October 5, 2007
Excitement!
AND NOW for the exciting conclusion of ... Baseball, Woo!
HOST: So far, we've gotten to know one of the two records that were broken at the end of the 2007 baseball season. One has yet to be revealed. Reader(s) received hints as to the identity of the our winner, but no one has known for sure until today. Now for the moment we've all been waiting for ... (Make a sudden cut, reality-show-conclusion-style, to a shot of Ed looking nervous. BUM-BUM! Cut to a baseball. BUM-BUM! Cut to a computer screen. BUM-BUM! Cut to Jimmy Rollins. He waves cheerfully. BUM-BUM! Cut back to Ed, looking annoyed. BUM-BUM! Cut to a shot of the cameraman's feet. BUM-BUM! Cut to a shot of Ernest Borgnine in "Marty." BUM-BUM! Cut back to Ed, asleep. BUM-BA-DA-BA-DA-BA-DAAAAA-BUM!
ED (waking up): Yeah, uh, it's Jimmy Rollins. He broke the record for at-bats in a season. He had 716, while only three players ever even managed 700 before. Willie Wilson had 705 in 1980 and was the previous record holder. So Jimmy cleared it by a pretty large margin. Pretty cool. Well, I thought it was, anyway. So, yeah.
DA-DA-DA -DA-DAAAAAAAA!!! (Confetti and balloons fall from the ceiling. Jimmy Rollins jumps up and down ecstatically. People in the audience go apeshit. The camera swoops around pointlessly.)
HOST: THANK YOU EVERYONE so much for this wonderful experience! We've all had the time of our lives, and we want to thank you, the reader (i.e., Joe), for making it all possible! We love you!!! Good-bye!!!
BA-BA-BAAAA-BA-BA! BAAA! BAAAAAAAAAAAAA! Explosion! Fireworks! Planes zooming by! Machine guns being shot in the air! Ululations! Kangaroos doing backflips! Other things denoting excitement!
CUT TO CREDITS
HOST: So far, we've gotten to know one of the two records that were broken at the end of the 2007 baseball season. One has yet to be revealed. Reader(s) received hints as to the identity of the our winner, but no one has known for sure until today. Now for the moment we've all been waiting for ... (Make a sudden cut, reality-show-conclusion-style, to a shot of Ed looking nervous. BUM-BUM! Cut to a baseball. BUM-BUM! Cut to a computer screen. BUM-BUM! Cut to Jimmy Rollins. He waves cheerfully. BUM-BUM! Cut back to Ed, looking annoyed. BUM-BUM! Cut to a shot of the cameraman's feet. BUM-BUM! Cut to a shot of Ernest Borgnine in "Marty." BUM-BUM! Cut back to Ed, asleep. BUM-BA-DA-BA-DA-BA-DAAAAA-BUM!
ED (waking up): Yeah, uh, it's Jimmy Rollins. He broke the record for at-bats in a season. He had 716, while only three players ever even managed 700 before. Willie Wilson had 705 in 1980 and was the previous record holder. So Jimmy cleared it by a pretty large margin. Pretty cool. Well, I thought it was, anyway. So, yeah.
DA-DA-DA -DA-DAAAAAAAA!!! (Confetti and balloons fall from the ceiling. Jimmy Rollins jumps up and down ecstatically. People in the audience go apeshit. The camera swoops around pointlessly.)
HOST: THANK YOU EVERYONE so much for this wonderful experience! We've all had the time of our lives, and we want to thank you, the reader (i.e., Joe), for making it all possible! We love you!!! Good-bye!!!
BA-BA-BAAAA-BA-BA! BAAA! BAAAAAAAAAAAAA! Explosion! Fireworks! Planes zooming by! Machine guns being shot in the air! Ululations! Kangaroos doing backflips! Other things denoting excitement!
CUT TO CREDITS
Monday, October 1, 2007
End of the Season! Woo!
This one is for Joe, who I'm pretty sure is one of two people who actually reads this. (Hey Joe! Hey Lynn -- sorry this won't be more interesting for you.) I felt inspired this morning to write about the end of the baseball season. So here I go:
The End of the Baseball Season
I've actually been a bit negligent of the baseball season this year, because I have a non-baseball-fan wife and both my teams (the Cardinals and Twins) stink. So this morning I gave the latest news a good thorough look and felt a bit bad about all that I had missed.
Of course, there were lots of upsets and ... uh ... downsets(?) this year. The long-suffering Phillies overtook the occasionally-suffering Mets on the last day of the season. Meanwhile, Joe right now is no doubt mentally (and perhaps spiritually, physically, and molecularly -- I don't really know what he goes through) preparing for the Padres' one-game playoff with the Rockies, which will determine the fate of their season. And of course, the Cubs won, the Cubs won ....
But that's not even what I'm really talking about. Pennant races are nice and all, but what got me going this morning were a few matters of stark, lifeless accounting. I'm talkin' stats. Cuz I've always loved the games, but I've always loved the stats even more, if that's possible.
Two records that I've come to know and love and cherish and stroke lovingly and perhaps slightly inappropriately both changed hands this season. I was a bit surprised to see them go, and yes, a bit cheated to realize I didn't know about them earlier.
One was the record for strikeouts in a season. I had actually seen about a week ago that Ryan Howard was on the cusp of breaking this long-standing record that stretches all the way back to the summer of 2004. I remember 2004 well; it was a crazy time. Perhaps we'll never see the like again. George W. Bush was president, and he had led us into an intractable local conflict with no clear strategy for securing the peace. The country was abuzz over the misadventures of young chanteuse Britney Spears. Everyone, everywhere, was eating bagels and enjoying them.
2004 may seem like another lifetime, but there was a similar feeling in the air, since a major-league baseball player struck out more often in a season than any other player ever had. In that year, Adam Dunn unapologetically broke Bobby Bonds' 34-year old record for strikeouts in a season. "Unapologetically" is key, because several players had come close before, only to spin around, run away, and hide like pit bulls frightened of their own shadows.
It was worse than that feeble analogy, even, because these players had shown such a singular, epochal ability to strike out, and yet when they were on the brink of immortality, they sat out. It was like watching Picasso fake a hand injury so he could sit and watch TV instead of paint. Yes, I'm talking to you, Preston Wilson and Jose Hernandez. You know you could have broken the record and you sat out at the end of the season to avoid doing so. For shame!
But not Adam Dunn. He kept swingin' and missin', swingin' and missin', even long after the games were meaningless. And now Ryan Howard eclipsed even his mighty mark, coming oh-so-close to starting a brand-new one-person club (namely, the 200-SO club), by logging 199 strikeouts.
That's a lot of strikeouts, ladies and ... well, just Joe, I suppose. That's a lot of strikeouts, Joe. As my friend Joe likes to say, if you laid all those strikeouts end to end, they would reach to the moon and back a full 199 times! (Strikeouts are very tall.)
But there was another record that fell this year, and I had no prior warning, no memos, no APBs -- no idea that it was in even in danger. It had been held for 27 years, and had a unreachable height for leadoff hitters who play a lot and don't walk much.
What was that record? Who set it? Do you give a shit? Find out on the next edition of the World Wide Web Log of Pointless Ramblings, coming to your computer screen ... whenever I get around to it!
The End of the Baseball Season
I've actually been a bit negligent of the baseball season this year, because I have a non-baseball-fan wife and both my teams (the Cardinals and Twins) stink. So this morning I gave the latest news a good thorough look and felt a bit bad about all that I had missed.
Of course, there were lots of upsets and ... uh ... downsets(?) this year. The long-suffering Phillies overtook the occasionally-suffering Mets on the last day of the season. Meanwhile, Joe right now is no doubt mentally (and perhaps spiritually, physically, and molecularly -- I don't really know what he goes through) preparing for the Padres' one-game playoff with the Rockies, which will determine the fate of their season. And of course, the Cubs won, the Cubs won ....
But that's not even what I'm really talking about. Pennant races are nice and all, but what got me going this morning were a few matters of stark, lifeless accounting. I'm talkin' stats. Cuz I've always loved the games, but I've always loved the stats even more, if that's possible.
Two records that I've come to know and love and cherish and stroke lovingly and perhaps slightly inappropriately both changed hands this season. I was a bit surprised to see them go, and yes, a bit cheated to realize I didn't know about them earlier.
One was the record for strikeouts in a season. I had actually seen about a week ago that Ryan Howard was on the cusp of breaking this long-standing record that stretches all the way back to the summer of 2004. I remember 2004 well; it was a crazy time. Perhaps we'll never see the like again. George W. Bush was president, and he had led us into an intractable local conflict with no clear strategy for securing the peace. The country was abuzz over the misadventures of young chanteuse Britney Spears. Everyone, everywhere, was eating bagels and enjoying them.
2004 may seem like another lifetime, but there was a similar feeling in the air, since a major-league baseball player struck out more often in a season than any other player ever had. In that year, Adam Dunn unapologetically broke Bobby Bonds' 34-year old record for strikeouts in a season. "Unapologetically" is key, because several players had come close before, only to spin around, run away, and hide like pit bulls frightened of their own shadows.
It was worse than that feeble analogy, even, because these players had shown such a singular, epochal ability to strike out, and yet when they were on the brink of immortality, they sat out. It was like watching Picasso fake a hand injury so he could sit and watch TV instead of paint. Yes, I'm talking to you, Preston Wilson and Jose Hernandez. You know you could have broken the record and you sat out at the end of the season to avoid doing so. For shame!
But not Adam Dunn. He kept swingin' and missin', swingin' and missin', even long after the games were meaningless. And now Ryan Howard eclipsed even his mighty mark, coming oh-so-close to starting a brand-new one-person club (namely, the 200-SO club), by logging 199 strikeouts.
That's a lot of strikeouts, ladies and ... well, just Joe, I suppose. That's a lot of strikeouts, Joe. As my friend Joe likes to say, if you laid all those strikeouts end to end, they would reach to the moon and back a full 199 times! (Strikeouts are very tall.)
But there was another record that fell this year, and I had no prior warning, no memos, no APBs -- no idea that it was in even in danger. It had been held for 27 years, and had a unreachable height for leadoff hitters who play a lot and don't walk much.
What was that record? Who set it? Do you give a shit? Find out on the next edition of the World Wide Web Log of Pointless Ramblings, coming to your computer screen ... whenever I get around to it!
Thursday, September 27, 2007
Emails Rool, Phones Drool
I hate the phone. I really do. I never really liked it, but now that email has arrived, I use the phone very little. I might be of a minority on this issue.
Of course, normal people live for their phones nowadays. Most people need little else in life, because their phones also take pictures and send text messages and open cans and cut down trees and sautee mushrooms and compliment your outfit and then thank you for the pleasure. I finally broke down about a year ago and got my first real cell phone. It does none of those things, as far as I know. It might do backflips, for all I know, but I'm not really interested.
Email is a about a thousand times better as a method of communication. I express myself better in written form than verbally, so that's probably a large part of my bias.
But you can't argue with the convenience of email. You can email someone any time, day or night, whenever it strikes you that you should. With the phone, you can't call earlier than a certain time in the morning or later than a certain time at night. You shouldn't really call during meal hours because people usually don't want to be interrupted then. People with jobs really don't have the time to talk to you during the work day. In the end, you're left with a window of about an hour or so each day when you can actually reach someone. You can always leave a message those other times, but then you're locked in a long, tedious game of phone tag.
But most of the time, when I want to communicate something, I don't need an actual conversation anyway. I just need to impart some information. I don't need to go through the whole rigamarole of regular conversation. "Hi." "Hey, how's it going?" "Good, how are you doing?" "I'm good, how's the wife?" "The wife is good." "Hey I really enjoyed ..." and then you're off track.
Maybe in the midst of all this, you can actually squeeze in what you wanted to impart, but then even when you try to end the conversation, there's often another unecessarily laborious exchange. "OK, well, I should get going; I gotta ... um ... melt the cat." "OK, have a good time melting your cat!" "Will do." "And say hi to the wife." "OK, and you say hi to ... your momma, I guess." "Will do!", etc. etc. I guess what I'm saying here is that I don't like talking to people.
So even at work, I email instead of calling or going to someone's desk. It probably saves me a full work day of pointless chatter every week. But old people are horrified at this practice. They seem to think it's rude to email when you could call. "Just pick up the phone!" they say, exasperated. To which I wittily rejoinder, "Fuck you." I don't want to pick up the phone. Who determined that calling is more polite anyway? When you're calling someone, you're interrupting them. They can get and read your email whenever they're ready to. I think email is much more polite.
So there. And, fuck you.
Of course, normal people live for their phones nowadays. Most people need little else in life, because their phones also take pictures and send text messages and open cans and cut down trees and sautee mushrooms and compliment your outfit and then thank you for the pleasure. I finally broke down about a year ago and got my first real cell phone. It does none of those things, as far as I know. It might do backflips, for all I know, but I'm not really interested.
Email is a about a thousand times better as a method of communication. I express myself better in written form than verbally, so that's probably a large part of my bias.
But you can't argue with the convenience of email. You can email someone any time, day or night, whenever it strikes you that you should. With the phone, you can't call earlier than a certain time in the morning or later than a certain time at night. You shouldn't really call during meal hours because people usually don't want to be interrupted then. People with jobs really don't have the time to talk to you during the work day. In the end, you're left with a window of about an hour or so each day when you can actually reach someone. You can always leave a message those other times, but then you're locked in a long, tedious game of phone tag.
But most of the time, when I want to communicate something, I don't need an actual conversation anyway. I just need to impart some information. I don't need to go through the whole rigamarole of regular conversation. "Hi." "Hey, how's it going?" "Good, how are you doing?" "I'm good, how's the wife?" "The wife is good." "Hey I really enjoyed ..." and then you're off track.
Maybe in the midst of all this, you can actually squeeze in what you wanted to impart, but then even when you try to end the conversation, there's often another unecessarily laborious exchange. "OK, well, I should get going; I gotta ... um ... melt the cat." "OK, have a good time melting your cat!" "Will do." "And say hi to the wife." "OK, and you say hi to ... your momma, I guess." "Will do!", etc. etc. I guess what I'm saying here is that I don't like talking to people.
So even at work, I email instead of calling or going to someone's desk. It probably saves me a full work day of pointless chatter every week. But old people are horrified at this practice. They seem to think it's rude to email when you could call. "Just pick up the phone!" they say, exasperated. To which I wittily rejoinder, "Fuck you." I don't want to pick up the phone. Who determined that calling is more polite anyway? When you're calling someone, you're interrupting them. They can get and read your email whenever they're ready to. I think email is much more polite.
So there. And, fuck you.
Tuesday, September 25, 2007
Urban Myths that Even Smart People Believe
For the most part, urban myths are believed only by stupid people. These conventional urban myths are typically stories with tragic endings and some sort of implicit lesson about not trusting people or not following fads or what have you. They're not only pervasive in themselves -- it's also become so prevalent lately to debunk them that they're really not that interesting.
I'm more interested in the little factoids that everyone thinks are true and passes around as givens -- except that they are completely wrong. I'm invariably suprised to learn that these aren't true -- and then I'm invariably pleased that they aren't. These factoids tend to be used as justifications for some sort of prosaic little life lesson, and it's saisfying to see these little lessons exploded. An example is in order:
"You only use 3% of your brain." Sometimes they say you only use 10% of you brain, sometimes more, sometimes less. It's all dead wrong. You use your entire brain. If there was a part that you didn't use, it would waste away -- the brain works according to a "use it or lose it" rule. Evolution would eventually take care of any large useless thing -- it would simply be wasteful to keep feeding oxygen to something that is never used.
The whole idea is founded on a mistaken understanding of the brain. It seems to suggest that the brain has many distinct departments that work independently. In fact, there are some areas that are more active during certain tasks, but for the most part an entire network of neurons throughout the entire brain work together on any given task.
I've heard several different versions for how the "3% idea" came about. The one I like best postulated that it came from an early brain researcher who discovered that a very important part of a major motor task was accomplished by a relatively small part of the brain. It turned out he was wrong, that the task took much more of the brain than he thought. But regardless, he used this result, extrapolated out for all the brain tasks he could think of, and then found there was lots of brain space left over.
But the "3%" idea really gained prevalence with Uri Geller, who repeated it a lot. He was a "mentalist" who would bend spoons, etc., supposedly with just the power of his mind. Of course, he was actually just a magician who used typical magician tricks to do these things -- but he wanted people to believe that they were also capable of telekinesis, and that they had vast stories of untapped brain potential for accomplishing these things.
Nowadays the "3%" idea is used to justify all sorts of things. It gives people hope that they have tremendous abilities that they are not using. Well, I'm happy to say that they're wrong. Whatever you're able to do right now -- that's about it. And over time, even those abilities will decay. You're welcome.
I'm more interested in the little factoids that everyone thinks are true and passes around as givens -- except that they are completely wrong. I'm invariably suprised to learn that these aren't true -- and then I'm invariably pleased that they aren't. These factoids tend to be used as justifications for some sort of prosaic little life lesson, and it's saisfying to see these little lessons exploded. An example is in order:
"You only use 3% of your brain." Sometimes they say you only use 10% of you brain, sometimes more, sometimes less. It's all dead wrong. You use your entire brain. If there was a part that you didn't use, it would waste away -- the brain works according to a "use it or lose it" rule. Evolution would eventually take care of any large useless thing -- it would simply be wasteful to keep feeding oxygen to something that is never used.
The whole idea is founded on a mistaken understanding of the brain. It seems to suggest that the brain has many distinct departments that work independently. In fact, there are some areas that are more active during certain tasks, but for the most part an entire network of neurons throughout the entire brain work together on any given task.
I've heard several different versions for how the "3% idea" came about. The one I like best postulated that it came from an early brain researcher who discovered that a very important part of a major motor task was accomplished by a relatively small part of the brain. It turned out he was wrong, that the task took much more of the brain than he thought. But regardless, he used this result, extrapolated out for all the brain tasks he could think of, and then found there was lots of brain space left over.
But the "3%" idea really gained prevalence with Uri Geller, who repeated it a lot. He was a "mentalist" who would bend spoons, etc., supposedly with just the power of his mind. Of course, he was actually just a magician who used typical magician tricks to do these things -- but he wanted people to believe that they were also capable of telekinesis, and that they had vast stories of untapped brain potential for accomplishing these things.
Nowadays the "3%" idea is used to justify all sorts of things. It gives people hope that they have tremendous abilities that they are not using. Well, I'm happy to say that they're wrong. Whatever you're able to do right now -- that's about it. And over time, even those abilities will decay. You're welcome.
Monday, September 24, 2007
Bullshit Job Titles
I have a bullshit job title. I am a "search engine marketing consultant." Whenever anyone asks me what I do, I prepare myself for one of two possible outcomes:
1. About 15 minutes of trying to explain what the hell that means
2. Complete disinterest from the other person, followed by awkward attempt to change subjects
If I were on the other side of these conversation, I would always opt for number 2. Even more than bullshitty, "search engine marketing consultant" is such a "Golgafrinchan B Ark"-sounding name. I should explain that -- in the Douglas Adams book "Restaurant at the End of the Universe," there's a story about a planet that suddenly was facing disaster and told its population that they all needed to move to a different planet. They divided the population into three arks: the people who led and made decisions went in the A Ark, the people made things and did things went into the C Ark, and the B Ark was reserved for "everyone else." This was mainly hairdressers and middle managers. The B Ark went first. The C and A Ark people then celebrated getting rid of a useless third of their population by making up the whole disaster story out of whole cloth.
It's not fun to have a B-Ark sort of job title. But I have a feeling that more and more people have job titles like this now. Part of the problem is that new jobs are being invented all the time. There's no existing word for what I do, so apparently someone had to make one up.
1. About 15 minutes of trying to explain what the hell that means
2. Complete disinterest from the other person, followed by awkward attempt to change subjects
If I were on the other side of these conversation, I would always opt for number 2. Even more than bullshitty, "search engine marketing consultant" is such a "Golgafrinchan B Ark"-sounding name. I should explain that -- in the Douglas Adams book "Restaurant at the End of the Universe," there's a story about a planet that suddenly was facing disaster and told its population that they all needed to move to a different planet. They divided the population into three arks: the people who led and made decisions went in the A Ark, the people made things and did things went into the C Ark, and the B Ark was reserved for "everyone else." This was mainly hairdressers and middle managers. The B Ark went first. The C and A Ark people then celebrated getting rid of a useless third of their population by making up the whole disaster story out of whole cloth.
It's not fun to have a B-Ark sort of job title. But I have a feeling that more and more people have job titles like this now. Part of the problem is that new jobs are being invented all the time. There's no existing word for what I do, so apparently someone had to make one up.
But we could definitely do better than "search engine marketing consultant." That's a long, boring description, not a job name. Perhaps people thought that this work because it sort of explains the job in the title. But it doesn't, really -- as I just mentioned, no one understands what this is. This becomes especially true since no one who works here actually says "search engine marketing consultant" every time. It's too long -- you always call it "SEM." And no one upon no one outside this industry can possibly know what that means. You might as well just call me a "flooger," because it would be just as illuminating.
"Search engine marketing consultant" isn't going anywhere though, because it's perfect with the corporate world, where you have to use the most bloodless, lifeless words available for everything you say. If a sufficiently bloodless word doesn't exist, you make one up. You can't say "fire," because that sounds too exciting -- you have to say "downsize." You can't say "brainstorm," because it apparently makes it sound too interesting -- you have to make up the word "ideate."
I also think part of the problem is that people expect their job titles to be perfect descriptions of everything they do. For example, where I work, the sales reps don't want to be called "sales representatives" any more -- they are now "client consultants." Their reasoning is that they not only make sales, but they help clients with their Web sites. And "client consultant" apparently allows their souls to become freed from the stifling shackles of the term "sales representatives."
The problem is that "client consultant" is so vague that it is completely useless as a term. It could mean anything. Everyone who works with clients is a client consultant, because they all consult with clients. It's like me telling someone that I work as an employee.
Since when do job title have to be perfect descriptions of what people do? Doctors don't "doct." There's nothing in the word "doctor" that says anything about sickness, health, etc. We've just learned over time that what doctors do is help people who are sick. If doctors were invented today, we'd be called "client health care consultants." Then they'd be called "CHCCs" for short. No one would ever remember that, and then no one would get health care, and then everyone would die. Is that what you want?
It's not like it's impossible to make up good names nowadays and have them stick. Look at the Internet -- they're always making up odd little terms that work and work well. Crappy email you don't want is called "spam." Everyone knows what that is, even though there's really no relation between the Hormel product and crappy emails. Regardless, it now captures the concept perfectly, without having to resort to something like "unwanted email solicitations" (or UESs for short).
But I work in both corporate America and the Internet world, so apparently corporate America trumps the Internet and gives me a corporate-bullshit-sounding job title. Sigh.
Friday, September 21, 2007
Nerd v. Geek v. Dork
Among us nerds (and geeks and dorks), there’s always considerable discussion about nomenclature. Specifically, what are the difference between nerds, geeks, and dorks? Everyone has their own take on the subject, and they’re all wrong except me.
Nerds, geeks and dorks all have the same origin: the fringes of high school life. They were all rejects in high school – not invited to parties, no dates, etc. Sometimes, a high school can be so large that the nerds/geeks/dorks can manage to form their own little hierarchy, but they don’t tend to be good at that sort of thing. Jocks have an inborn ability to form a pack, full of alpha males and omega males and etc. Nerds/geeks/dorks, being all omega males, tend to be a bit more disorganized.
Anyway, as you move into real life, divisions start to show. Nerds are on the top of the heap. Nerds are nice, smart, quiet folks who have basic social skills but would often rather sit at home and watch a documentary than go to a wild party. They’re not the sci-fi crowd – they’re the type who really enjoyed school and continues on a lifelong journey of the mind and yadda yadda. They read literature and go to museums and when often say about themselves with a smile, “ah, I’m such a nerd!”
Nerds can often be quite charming and accomplished. They know how to comport themselves and work with people – the only traits that really mark them as nerds is their intelligence, quiet tendencies and uncool, bookish tastes.
Geeks are not so socially adept. These are the sci-fi fans and Renaissance Fair enthusiasts. These are the people that “just have something odd about them” and make regular folks slightly uneasy. They may be very smart, but their general oddness tends to keep them on the fringes of society.
Geeks are not only a bit socially unaware – they’re also not very self-aware. They don’t actually realize how lame it is to fill your cubicle with unopened action figures. They can’t seem to tell that most of what the Sci-Fi channel shows really, really sucks. They are unable to comprehend how the average person can’t reformat a hard drive. Nerds may have such tendencies but would be a bit bashful about them – geeks have no shame.
I’ve argued with people about this distinction between geeks and nerds with people who say that I have the groups right, but backwards. Geeks are the nice folks, they say; nerds are the ones who give us all a bad name. I stand by my take, though, because of the origins of the words. Originally, the word “geek” referred to a circus performer who bit the heads off of chickens. No joke. The word “nerd” has a more unknown origin. To me, that means geeks are a bit further outside the norm.
So what of the dork? The poor, unloved dork? Well, it’s not good news. They’re neither socially aware nor smart. Dorks are at the bottom of the hierarchy, left to menial jobs and lives of quiet desperation. I’d rather not talk about dorks any more – it’s too sad.
As you might be able to tell, I consider myself a nerd. And not a geek, thank you very much. There is a lot of resentment among us nerds about geeks whose outlandish, unapologetic lameness tarnishes the reputations of all of us. But really, we shouldn’t fight. We need to band together to protect the dorks. The jocks may have lost power since high school, but they’re still out there -- running hardware stores, manning middle management positions -- and we must maintain a united front. I'm sorry. Truce.
Nerds, geeks and dorks all have the same origin: the fringes of high school life. They were all rejects in high school – not invited to parties, no dates, etc. Sometimes, a high school can be so large that the nerds/geeks/dorks can manage to form their own little hierarchy, but they don’t tend to be good at that sort of thing. Jocks have an inborn ability to form a pack, full of alpha males and omega males and etc. Nerds/geeks/dorks, being all omega males, tend to be a bit more disorganized.
Anyway, as you move into real life, divisions start to show. Nerds are on the top of the heap. Nerds are nice, smart, quiet folks who have basic social skills but would often rather sit at home and watch a documentary than go to a wild party. They’re not the sci-fi crowd – they’re the type who really enjoyed school and continues on a lifelong journey of the mind and yadda yadda. They read literature and go to museums and when often say about themselves with a smile, “ah, I’m such a nerd!”
Nerds can often be quite charming and accomplished. They know how to comport themselves and work with people – the only traits that really mark them as nerds is their intelligence, quiet tendencies and uncool, bookish tastes.
Geeks are not so socially adept. These are the sci-fi fans and Renaissance Fair enthusiasts. These are the people that “just have something odd about them” and make regular folks slightly uneasy. They may be very smart, but their general oddness tends to keep them on the fringes of society.
Geeks are not only a bit socially unaware – they’re also not very self-aware. They don’t actually realize how lame it is to fill your cubicle with unopened action figures. They can’t seem to tell that most of what the Sci-Fi channel shows really, really sucks. They are unable to comprehend how the average person can’t reformat a hard drive. Nerds may have such tendencies but would be a bit bashful about them – geeks have no shame.
I’ve argued with people about this distinction between geeks and nerds with people who say that I have the groups right, but backwards. Geeks are the nice folks, they say; nerds are the ones who give us all a bad name. I stand by my take, though, because of the origins of the words. Originally, the word “geek” referred to a circus performer who bit the heads off of chickens. No joke. The word “nerd” has a more unknown origin. To me, that means geeks are a bit further outside the norm.
So what of the dork? The poor, unloved dork? Well, it’s not good news. They’re neither socially aware nor smart. Dorks are at the bottom of the hierarchy, left to menial jobs and lives of quiet desperation. I’d rather not talk about dorks any more – it’s too sad.
As you might be able to tell, I consider myself a nerd. And not a geek, thank you very much. There is a lot of resentment among us nerds about geeks whose outlandish, unapologetic lameness tarnishes the reputations of all of us. But really, we shouldn’t fight. We need to band together to protect the dorks. The jocks may have lost power since high school, but they’re still out there -- running hardware stores, manning middle management positions -- and we must maintain a united front. I'm sorry. Truce.
Wednesday, September 19, 2007
The Trouble with Concerts
Hip people, who listen to hip music, often tell us we should see more live music. I know because they sometimes have bumper stickers saying “SEE MORE LIVE MUSIC,” as if there’s some kind of national crisis in that respect. I wish I could tell them that I would, if it weren’t so painful, expensive, and/or irritating to do so.
Let me explain. I went to see the Flaming Lips recently. They are a wonderful band who put on a wonderful show, filled with balloons, confetti, laser lights, and of course most importantly, songs that I love. They were filled with energy and fun. It certainly wasn’t their fault that the experience was difficult for my wife and me. It was the fault of live music.
See, the Flaming Lips show, as is the case with any relatively hip band, played in a place without seats. This is conventional, but insane. Quite literally, as we left, I could barely walk, because my knees and heels were in so much pain. I know, I know, I’m an old, sad man. I’m 31, and I don’t exercise (because, by the way, exercise is for the weak. True strength involves the struggle to survive while in shitty condition), but I remember having the same problem when I was 20 and beautiful.
Where else, outside of perhaps a really bad day at the DMV, are we expected to stand in one place for four hours? At least at the DMV you get to move forward every so often. At a concert you have to militantly protect the tiny patch of floor you’re on so that no jackass moves in front of you.
Which brings me to the second problem with concerts: other people. Sure, it’s great to have a crowd roar in appreciation for something you also enjoy. But the same crowd will also stand behind you and scream “Play something dirty!” to the Flaming Lips and then laugh like hyenas. The same crowd will be really tall and then unexpectedly move right front of you just as the Lips come on stage. Then they’ll chainsmoke and cause your beloved and asthmatic wife to have to reach for her inhaler.
Of course, there are plenty of concerts that allow you to sit down. Those are old people concerts, and clearly, I’ll have to restrict myself to those. But the problem is that old people music still isn’t the kind I like best. I don’t like classical or opera. I’m not wild about the Rolling Stones, and I certainly don’t want to pay ten zillion dollars to sit a mile away from them in the ConHugeCo MegaDome.
To be clear, I love music, and there are few times in the day when I’m not listening to some (and those times are usually when the TV is on). I certainly wish concerts could be the ecstatic experience they’re supposed to be. But I have to wonder if there's something I'm missing. Perhaps the actual songs are secondary to the rite of hero worship. Maybe it’s not as much just listening to songs with others as it is visiting a shrine and watching your god perform a ceremony. Not that there's anything wrong with that -- but I seem to be unable to jibe with that somehow. Oh well.
Let me explain. I went to see the Flaming Lips recently. They are a wonderful band who put on a wonderful show, filled with balloons, confetti, laser lights, and of course most importantly, songs that I love. They were filled with energy and fun. It certainly wasn’t their fault that the experience was difficult for my wife and me. It was the fault of live music.
See, the Flaming Lips show, as is the case with any relatively hip band, played in a place without seats. This is conventional, but insane. Quite literally, as we left, I could barely walk, because my knees and heels were in so much pain. I know, I know, I’m an old, sad man. I’m 31, and I don’t exercise (because, by the way, exercise is for the weak. True strength involves the struggle to survive while in shitty condition), but I remember having the same problem when I was 20 and beautiful.
Where else, outside of perhaps a really bad day at the DMV, are we expected to stand in one place for four hours? At least at the DMV you get to move forward every so often. At a concert you have to militantly protect the tiny patch of floor you’re on so that no jackass moves in front of you.
Which brings me to the second problem with concerts: other people. Sure, it’s great to have a crowd roar in appreciation for something you also enjoy. But the same crowd will also stand behind you and scream “Play something dirty!” to the Flaming Lips and then laugh like hyenas. The same crowd will be really tall and then unexpectedly move right front of you just as the Lips come on stage. Then they’ll chainsmoke and cause your beloved and asthmatic wife to have to reach for her inhaler.
Of course, there are plenty of concerts that allow you to sit down. Those are old people concerts, and clearly, I’ll have to restrict myself to those. But the problem is that old people music still isn’t the kind I like best. I don’t like classical or opera. I’m not wild about the Rolling Stones, and I certainly don’t want to pay ten zillion dollars to sit a mile away from them in the ConHugeCo MegaDome.
To be clear, I love music, and there are few times in the day when I’m not listening to some (and those times are usually when the TV is on). I certainly wish concerts could be the ecstatic experience they’re supposed to be. But I have to wonder if there's something I'm missing. Perhaps the actual songs are secondary to the rite of hero worship. Maybe it’s not as much just listening to songs with others as it is visiting a shrine and watching your god perform a ceremony. Not that there's anything wrong with that -- but I seem to be unable to jibe with that somehow. Oh well.
Saturday, September 15, 2007
Success Sucks
Any really successful person will tell you that the secret to success is perseverance. Never give up, they say. Always hold on to your dreams, no matter what happens. They typically say this as they accept an Oscar or Hall of Fame plaque. I think it’s a load of crap.
Granted, it obviously worked for them. But they’re not a representative sample for the overall effectiveness of this approach. You’d need not only to ask them, but also ask the millions of baseball players who languished in the minors and got nowhere. And then ask all the waiters and waitresses in New York and L.A.who waited to get discovered and never did. I’m sure they had the same “never say die” philosophy, and all it got them was a lot of struggle for nothing.
“At least they tried,” you could say. But time is your most precious resource in life -- what if trying means wasting 20 years of your young life on a pig in a poke? You could have been building a stable career, starting a family, making friends, exploring other interests, immersing yourself in a community – but instead you were getting rejection after rejection at auditions.
And many of the failures probably had the talent, but there just weren’t enough job openings. Everyone wants to be a baseball player or movie star. No one dreams of being an insurance adjuster. But there is a hell of a lot more need for insurance adjusters than baseball players or movie stars. Not everyone can follow their dreams – society just can’t support all those dreams.
But I’m probably blowing in the wind here. I think a lot of this really doesn’t have to do with whatever arguments I can make for and against perseverance. Some people are born with an unholy drive, and some aren’t. Some will ride that drive to either success or failure. The rest of us will just sit out and wonder.
I’m taking myself as an example. I was always told I could do anything, be anything, because I was a smart little kid. Part of me still feels like I should, that I’m wasting my potential by just being a cubicle jockey. But the truth is I never actually had the potential, because success is more about drive than raw smarts. And I’ve always been too laid back to do much striving. I like a quiet, contemplative life. I can’t deal with much stress or many demands. I don’t think I’m lazy, exactly, but I’m definitely not a workaholic.
See, there's a general assumption in this country that anyone can (and should, goddammit) work really hard, but I don't think that's true. "Work hard" is easy for some people to say -- for those people, working really hard is a heady experience, expending their surplus of energy. For others of us, working really hard spells a miserable, empty existence, for ends of questionable worth.
I’m not even convinced that success would make me happy. Wouldn’t it just mean even more work? Maybe a little bit more money and adulation – but would all that make up for the added stress? Maybe for some, but not for me.
Probably the big reward of success would be the feeling of accomplishment, of victory. I could see that being pretty good. I guess I’m hoping that instead I’ll get my snatches of pure happiness in a less predictable way. See, I think we’re all searching for moments of pure happiness. You could probably reach those by setting a big goal and then making it. But it’s not like those moments would last forever, because afterwards you just have even more work maintainting that spot.
My approach is to live a quiet life, do what you need to do, surround yourself with friends and family, and let those moments of pure happiness come on their own. I think you get struck with them now and again when you lead a satisfying, balanced life.
It gets back to that other old saw: “Find one thing that you really love and do it for the rest of your life.” I always hated that singular approach. It’s a recipe for a nervous breakdown. I think you have to find lots of things you love and pursue them in a gradual, mellow way. Otherwise, you’re just setting yourself up for the possibility that that one special thing will collapse or not end up being fulfilling. Then you’ve blown your whole life in a dead end. It’s like investing – you got to diversify.
Well, I think I’ve done enough convincing of myself for a while.
Granted, it obviously worked for them. But they’re not a representative sample for the overall effectiveness of this approach. You’d need not only to ask them, but also ask the millions of baseball players who languished in the minors and got nowhere. And then ask all the waiters and waitresses in New York and L.A.who waited to get discovered and never did. I’m sure they had the same “never say die” philosophy, and all it got them was a lot of struggle for nothing.
“At least they tried,” you could say. But time is your most precious resource in life -- what if trying means wasting 20 years of your young life on a pig in a poke? You could have been building a stable career, starting a family, making friends, exploring other interests, immersing yourself in a community – but instead you were getting rejection after rejection at auditions.
And many of the failures probably had the talent, but there just weren’t enough job openings. Everyone wants to be a baseball player or movie star. No one dreams of being an insurance adjuster. But there is a hell of a lot more need for insurance adjusters than baseball players or movie stars. Not everyone can follow their dreams – society just can’t support all those dreams.
But I’m probably blowing in the wind here. I think a lot of this really doesn’t have to do with whatever arguments I can make for and against perseverance. Some people are born with an unholy drive, and some aren’t. Some will ride that drive to either success or failure. The rest of us will just sit out and wonder.
I’m taking myself as an example. I was always told I could do anything, be anything, because I was a smart little kid. Part of me still feels like I should, that I’m wasting my potential by just being a cubicle jockey. But the truth is I never actually had the potential, because success is more about drive than raw smarts. And I’ve always been too laid back to do much striving. I like a quiet, contemplative life. I can’t deal with much stress or many demands. I don’t think I’m lazy, exactly, but I’m definitely not a workaholic.
See, there's a general assumption in this country that anyone can (and should, goddammit) work really hard, but I don't think that's true. "Work hard" is easy for some people to say -- for those people, working really hard is a heady experience, expending their surplus of energy. For others of us, working really hard spells a miserable, empty existence, for ends of questionable worth.
I’m not even convinced that success would make me happy. Wouldn’t it just mean even more work? Maybe a little bit more money and adulation – but would all that make up for the added stress? Maybe for some, but not for me.
Probably the big reward of success would be the feeling of accomplishment, of victory. I could see that being pretty good. I guess I’m hoping that instead I’ll get my snatches of pure happiness in a less predictable way. See, I think we’re all searching for moments of pure happiness. You could probably reach those by setting a big goal and then making it. But it’s not like those moments would last forever, because afterwards you just have even more work maintainting that spot.
My approach is to live a quiet life, do what you need to do, surround yourself with friends and family, and let those moments of pure happiness come on their own. I think you get struck with them now and again when you lead a satisfying, balanced life.
It gets back to that other old saw: “Find one thing that you really love and do it for the rest of your life.” I always hated that singular approach. It’s a recipe for a nervous breakdown. I think you have to find lots of things you love and pursue them in a gradual, mellow way. Otherwise, you’re just setting yourself up for the possibility that that one special thing will collapse or not end up being fulfilling. Then you’ve blown your whole life in a dead end. It’s like investing – you got to diversify.
Well, I think I’ve done enough convincing of myself for a while.
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