tagged by mosup a long time ago

In the interest of writing *anything*, I have decided to do a meme. The rule is to say six weird things about yourself. I choose to ignore the rule about tagging six people to do the same, since I don't know any bloggers who are not already tagged or participating.

1. I seem to be shrinking. I started losing weight when I watched "Super Size Me" and stopped drinking sugar drinks, since I did not want to be a hummingbird. But that was a long time ago, and I continue to lose weight. I hope I don't have a tapeworm. More likely, my metabolism has changed, likely due to improved circumstances of life. I think that happiness is making me thin. (And yes, I know that males should never talk about weight loss.)

2. I almost never buy recorded music. I love music, and spend much of my life thinking about music. I enjoy listening to new music, especially obscure music, and I even write music. I subscribe to Rolling Stone. Yet I have bought more hymnals and sheet music than CDs. I sometimes request music as a gift, but people don't seem to know what to buy me. I probably come across as a snob. But truly, I am a cheap, ignorant musician (aside from what I can learn by reading).

3. I am not an insomniac, because I could sleep at almost any time. Naps work just fine when I try them. But I almost never go to bed when I should. I simply choose to stay up until I am absolutely exhausted.

4. I can change diapers really fast. Sometimes I time myself.

5. Certain rooms I keep messy as a barricade against visitors. I really want to keep these rooms to myself, so I make them unwelcoming. I started doing this long before I knew why I was doing it.

6. I like to end counted lists in the mode of The Count from Sesame Street. Six! Six weird things! Six! Ah! Ah! Ah!

My lunch today was two cheeseburgers made on our new but well-used gas grille. Perhaps one burger was too rare. Also, Diet Coke and many white round Tostito's corn chips. How many adjective does a chip really need?

el condor pasa

Anne Lamott, on page 187 of Bird by Bird, quotes Violet Weingarten's Intimations of Mortality to ask the burning question: "Is life too short to be taking shit, or is life to short to be minding it?"

This is an urgent question in my life. Family Systems Theory has taught me much about being differentiated, about having a clear sense of self. Assertiveness Experts remind me that standing your ground and clarity in the face of conflict is the only way to get what you want. And those who do not stand somewhere can accomplish nothing. To paraphrase e e cummings: There is some shit we should not eat.

But I also pride myself on my flexibility, on my ability to see the multifaceted beauty of any situation or position. I have been playing Devil's Advocate for so long that I don't always know which side I am on. And this has enriched my experience of life immeasurably by helping me to see a fuller picture of the world. When you can hold multiple contradictory positions in your mind at the same time, I feel like you are getting closer to the mind of God. Too many people are too caught up in their own agendas to ever experience what is actually going on around them. Sometimes you have to let things play.

So, in Lamott's terms, is it better to refuse to take shit, or to refuse to mind it? Life is full of things that are wrong, people who misunderstand, people who fail to appreciate or be generous, ideas that are misdirected. So do you hate the sin and love the sinner? Do you hate the sin and hate the sinner too? Do you find some (possibly sick) way to love the sinner and come to understand and love the sin, too, for its beautiful effitude?

I used to want to be a Buddhist. And Buddhist writings talk a lot about water--the ideal element, which does not take its own shape but always seeks the lowest place. Which assumes the shape of its container. Or the green reed which does not snap in the presence of wind, but bends to stay alive.

At the same time, I don't want to be a doormat for all the aggressive non-Buddhists out there. (And there are not many Buddhists in this country, despite Richard Gere's best efforts.)

So, to ask the question implied by my title: Would I rather be a hammer or a nail?

Tentative answer: I'd rather be clay. Molded by reality, shapable by the stresses of life. Pliable. Yet firm. Able to bear beauty for a while. But deliberately impermanent. Until the fire comes, at least.

What I did eat today: leftover fettuccine alfredo with broccoli and chicken from a can. A hamburger steak. A few bites of my son's Kraft Supermac and Cheese. Water.

verbosity and internal editors

I wish I could learn to lower my expectations for writing. I tend to write nothing, or far too much. I need a good editor, instead of the evil one who cuts off writings before I even start to type.

Maybe then I could avoid going a month without posting to my blog.

Grr.

For mid-morning snack I had a chocolate chip scone type thing from a glass jar on my desk that somebody gave me last week. It was rather crunchy but quite good. The person who gave it to me may have called it a biscotti. Which would match the bad Vanilla Biscotti flavored coffee I just managed to finish.

antidisestablishmentarianism

I used to think I was a radical. Those of you who know me may already be laughing. I am aware that I tend to come across as one of the gentlest, softest people on the planet.

But inside there were always this dissatisfaction with the world. My Myers-Briggs type suggests that I have the tendency to analyze everything, and the flexibility to chuck just about anything when a better solution presents itself. This description feels about right. I have always prided myself on my intellectual and emotional flexibility: being able to see things from a different point of view is one of my favorite attributes. It helps me to solve problems that may seem insurmountable, it helps me sympathize with people who others find irredeemable, and it helps me find interesting things in texts that others might find boring or obvious (though it also leads to congenital problems, like indecisiveness, wishy-washytude, and distractibility).

This flexibility leads me in radical directions. I consider lots of options, and I am frequently tempted to want to change things. Or to change everything. Or at least to push at the edges of things.

But as I get older, I become more and more convinced of two things that moderate my radical inclinations:
1. Nobody knows anything.
2. Civilization is one generation away from utter barbarism.

Number One suggests that contrived solutions or proposed changes often carry hidden costs and consequences that can upset all sorts of things. Number Two suggests that what we do as a society matters very much, because I (as a wimpy guy who likes electricity and words) prefer civilization to barbarism. I want civility and public works and healthy institutions to grow stronger, and this takes careful effort to make the culture and the society healthy, and to pass healthy habits along to our children.

Thus, I find myself a conservative radical. I still am dissatisfied with almost every institution I see, and I want to change them all, but only in small amounts. My younger self wanted to upset the whole apple cart and tear apart every institution. Presently I want to change absolutely everything in the world by about half a degree each.

I am coming to see my calling here on earth as one of preserving and encouraging what is healthy. I want to be a cultural gardener. Pruning and weeding out what is unhealthy, encouraging what works. And what little influence I have over people I can use to make tiny little changes of emphasis, concern, and degree. That is probably all we can hope to accomplish without permanently damaging things. But that is the best way to tend an organic, living thing like a culture or a family or a society or a person.

Radical changes are sometimes necessary, but radical surgery should be the last option. Careful, attentive tweaking is what I intend to do. Unfortunately, I tend to be lousy at long-term, ongoing maintenance.

I haven’t had lunch yet today. Breakfast was a couple of slices of jelly toast with butter, and half a slice of jelly toast (no butter) that was left over by my son. And coffee: freshly ground quite stale Folger’s Vanilla Biscotti beans. I’m going to throw away the rest of the bag.

still waters run deep

This morning I finished Russell Banks' novel Cloudsplitter, which I picked up after reading Gilead, by Marilynne Robinson. Both books deal with the "Kansas wars" of the pre-civil war era, with the figure of John Brown looming large.

As a recent immigrant to the Midwest, I had always underestimated this area. This is a place where the people are nice, sure, but not very interesting, right? And this is a place where not much has ever happened, as far as I had heard. The very definition of "flyover country" to jet-setters from the coasts.

Yet these books tell another story. While Gilead has characters who share this unsymphathetic view of the Midwest (a boring place to leave as quickly as possible), the total picture from the books is one of a region that formerly spilled over with violent struggle and moral courage. These were the first battlegrounds of the fight to free the slaves.

And today's solid, stubborn, self-denying residents of the region (the people that Garrison Keillor makes fun of all the time) turn out to be the descendents of moral heroes whose same traits were essential in changing this country. And people don't know the history of it. Not even the residents know their history.

In my previous home state, Texas, school children are required to study the history of the state, often in ugly self-serving anti-revisionist versions of history that celebrate the smug capitalist white folks who greedily broke the terms of their contracts to get better land deals, while demonizing or ignoring the native population, the people and government of Mexico (which was OUR history--just ask "Six Flags") and African-Americans.

Meanwhile, the people I asked about local history around here seemed to buy the consensus of the world that nothing much had ever happened here.

I had already come to respect the creativity, intelligence, and general kindness of the people here. But now, as I learn the historical significance for our country's greatest moral struggle in its history, I see just how interesting a place I have come to live.

Somebody pinch me. I never thought I would find this region interesting.

Today for lunch I had two KFC Snackers: one original (with great gobs of remarkably peppery and vinegary dressing) and one with cheese sauce. It was yummy, but I wish I had gotten a side instead of one of the sandwiches. I ate light because I had a late and huge breakfast, many snacks at work, and was anticipating an early supper. Not a bad lunch for $2.18.

I dare you to eat that

When I was a late pre-teen, I considered myself a troubled youth. I had all these questions about life and the universe that none of my peers seemed to have. I took all sorts of things more seriously than the people around me. So I decided I was probably crazy.

(If only Gnarls Barkley had been around then!)

So I asked my neighbor friend if I was crazy, and together we developed a test. We called it my crazy test. He would suggest things that you would have to be crazy to do, and I would see if I was willing to do them. For example, I jumped off the roof of the shed by his house. And stared at the sun. And other vaguely self-destructive benign things.

But my favorite challenges were the food challenges. We anticipated Survivor by years. I was frequently challenged to eat gross things. Dirt. Worms. Pillbugs. Dog and cat food. (Gaines burgers were my favorite, but Milk Bone biscuits would help clean my teeth.)

Our tests were never conclusive. I wouldn't find out definitively that I was crazy for years. It finally came as a bit of a relief.

But to this day, I am a bit of a daredevil. Only when it comes to ideas and food, though. I am a chicken when it comes to physical danger or amusement park rides or starting new projects. But I'll try almost anything to eat.

Once, shortly after I moved to this town, I went with some work colleagues to a Chinese buffet. They had prominent signs on the wall claiming that they had passed their health inspections, which is never a good sign. Apparently some time ago they had been shut down for numerous violations of the health code.

Anyway, the food seemed fine, and I was enjoying the variety of things on the buffet. But on the dessert line I noticed a bowl of strange little white globes floating in some sort of syrup. The balls were veined and resembled nothing more than little floating blind eyeballs. So when the waitress came to our table I asked what they were.

"Chinese Leech," she replied, with a concerned look.

Well, this meant that I had to try it. My table mates did not share my reaction. But I went and got a couple and popped them in my mouth. It was surprisingly sweet, with a nice crunchy texture, but a little slippery at the same time. Only after eating a couple did I realize that she meant to say "leeks." And then I wasn't nearly as interested.

So the other day when I heard about Frog's Eye Salad, I had to try it. Turns out to taste not much different from tapioca pudding, but crunchier. (I've always wanted to see what a tapioca tree looks like.) It's some sort of quasi-jello salad made with some small round pasta. The lady at my table claimed the recipe is on the box for Acine di'Pepe.

Anyway, food experimentation was a big part of my (limited) sense of cosmopolitanism. I used to feel proud that I had eaten Ethiopian food, Thai food, and plenty of local stuff wherever I visited. But these days I mostly cook and eat relatively tame stuff.

Today's lunch, for instance, was the perfectly pleasing but rather ordinary Ham and Cheese omelet from Perkins, with hash browns, coffee (lots of cream and sugar), and three pancakes. Also, three kinds of syrup--apricot, blueberry, and maple--one on each cake, but all layered together. This meal brings back great memories from my schooling in the Midwest.

non-judgment day

On my first post from February 23, I don't think I represented the movie "What Dreams May Come" very well. What I like about its imaginary world is the way it posits an afterlife that seems less judgmental than most.

Most of the movie takes place in an afterlife world--it's neither the traditional heaven or the traditional hell. For one thing, movement between the nice parts and the awful parts is possible. For another thing, God (or any sort of authority figure) seems almost as absent as in our own world.

But what is most interesting to me is how this movie about the afterlife sidesteps an issue that has always troubled me: God the perfect judge. How do you reconcile God's perfect justice with God's loving mercy and the fact (in most afterlife scenarios) that everybody has to be assigned some place that is definite, fixed, and eternal? Which categories supercede others? Does my past as a murderer mean that I go with all the murderers, despite all my charity work with kids? Is there some perfect solution for distributing every person to an appropriate assignment, even with a more subtle system than the binary heaven or hell?

Well, says this movie, the assignment is simply that you, basically, continue to be who you were. If you were fixated on visual impressions, you'll have a beautiful afterlife. If you were a dog, heaven will have a lot of smells. And more to the point, if you surrounded yourself with people, you'll find heaven well populated. If you cut yourself off from people in this world, the afterlife will be lonely. Whether this feels like punishment or a blessing is open to interpretation.

This seems to (partially) get God off the hook for being arbitrary in judgment. You simply are punished or blessed with who you have proven yourself to be. This also leaves open the room for further improvement. Maybe there will be further levels later once you have gotten over the baggage from this existence (like in "Defending Your Life" or Hinduism).

Ultimately, this movie shows a vision of the afterlife as an exaggerated version of this life. Which is why I think it has much more to say about life now than about the future. You are in hell now if you make it so. You are in heaven now if you are truly connected with what is eternal. So why say anything at all about what dreams may come?

Today's lunch continued the leftover extravaganza. More reheated pork roast with the vegetables it came with and saltines. Diet coke to drink, and a peanut butter chocolate chip granola bar for dessert.