“Most of the luxuries, and many of the so called comforts of life, are not only not indispensable, but positive hindrances to the elevation of mankind.” –from Walden, by Henry David Thoreau, as are all italicized quotes throughout.
I once took one of those internet quizzes testing how high maintenance I was and got 0%. The quiz summary of that result began, “You seem to be a pretty boring person.” It is true- I am kind of boring. I don’t really enjoy small-talk or gossip and avoid drama. In fact, I get bored by others fussing over nonsense. I prefer for things to remain calm and serene. Simple things closely inspected are boring only when they are blatantly plagiarized or derivative; the rest is boring only to those who desire for things to be obvious. The feeling of boredom belongs to those lacking both imagination and drive; those complaining of being bored end up trying to entertain themselves with hackneyed imitation.
The majority in our society are addicted to external distraction. To fulfill that desire, we become obsessed with finding flaws, which are blamed for causing us stress, frustration and disappointment. Everybody wants to find the defect but nobody wants to be it, so taking responsibility without having a scapegoat is avoided. For every person who does something, there are a thousand proclaiming how it should have been done. People will do almost anything to not have to do almost anything- it boggles my mind that anyone would rather eat processed food than learn to cook. We remain inside our climate-regulated shelters, except for when we must quickly move to our climate-regulated vehicles to transport ourselves to another climate-regulated shelter, all the while discussing the weather with enthusiastic aplomb. When something goes awry with either shelter or transportation, we find another to fix it as quickly as possible, and complain about the expense. “The nation itself, with all its so-called internal improvements, which, by the way, are all external and superficial, is just such an unwieldy and overgrown establishment, cluttered with furniture and tripped up by its own traps, ruined by luxury and heedless expense, by want of calculation and a worthy aim, as the million households in the land; and the only cure for it, as for them, is in a rigid economy, a stern and more than Spartan simplicity of life and elevation of purpose.”
Our adeptness at being distracted causes us to accumulate a disproportionate number of aversions. We rile against absurdly mundane things like tall grass, weeds, displaced rocks, dirt patches, insects, rodents and dust. We act as if we would prefer to be sealed in a hyperbaric chamber were it not for the inability to fit our possessions into it. Symmetrical apples, matching plates and color-coordinated clothes are insisted upon while individuality, diversity and candor are ridiculed, condemned and shunned. “Our life is frittered away by detail.” The goal, it seems, is to keep the world as homogenous, regulated and saccharine as possible. Anything which catches our attention is considered offensive, and must be eliminated, with the implied goal that perhaps one day everything- and everyone- can be ignored. But that day will never come, simply because it would deny us the satisfaction of pointing at something and declaring, “That is why I suffer.”
Thoreau said, “My greatest skill has been to want but little.” He explored an alternative method for enabling us to have everything we want, which began by breaking things down to understand what we truly need and how those needs can be most efficiently procured. He then sought to fully appreciate the beauty in what those basic necessities provided, so that everything we could ever want could be found in having only what we need. ”I wanted to live deep and suck out the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that are not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life to a corner and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience, and to be able to give a true account of it in my next excursion.” Thoreau sussed out what was essential so that he could disregard the superfluous and explore that which was unencumbered, undiluted and undistracted in order to emulate and embody those traits. Instead of pursuing cosmetic blemishlessness, he aimed to do the right thing.
Mental or physical illness or disability, war and oppressive overlords inescapably complicate things by adding a variable to decisions that must be prioritized. A safe and healthy person, however, is free to choose from a vast number of options. The preferences of a healthy person are, too often, devoid of grounded intention and instead influenced by things like lethargy, mania, etiquette, custom or nostalgia. These whims are then presented so as to feign being the most logical choice. We look down upon those who fail to convincingly emulate and reflect the prevailing cultural customs while deriding all other customs as being ignorant and absurd. We distort the importance of tradition until it becomes more sacred than life itself.
We allow others to do not only our thinking but also our work for us, admiring our own cleverness in being able to reap the rewards of their labor without considering that we are robbing ourselves of opportunities to learn, improve and excel. We expect, depend upon and demand that there will always be someone around to help us, or that there will always be someone to work for and obey, because either way we have someone to blame for whatever fails to impress. While we could be spreading good deeds in private, we instead purchase extravagances that proclaim to all our ability to waste, because excess proves success. “Superfluous wealth can buy superfluities only.” We hope that others look upon our things with admiration while nervously trying to avoid their inevitable deterioration.
A dichotomy can be created between likes and dislikes so that we can see which outweighs the other.
Sometimes we like sleep more than we dislike being late. Sometimes we dislike doing dishes more than we like clean counters. Sometimes we dislike confrontation more than we like being honest. Sometimes we like surfing the internet more than we like reading or writing. Sometimes we dislike weeding more than we dislike weeds. Our values are revealed by our actions.
I, like most, find it much easier to complain than praise. To counter negativity, I endeavor to find one thing I can appreciate and then passionately learn about it, so that my focus remains on something constructive or positive. “To be a philosopher is not merely to have subtle thoughts, nor even to found a school, but so to love wisdom as to live according to its dictates, a life of simplicity, independence, magnanimity, and trust. It is to solve some of the problems of life, not only theoretically, but practically.” When you are truly dedicated to improving at a craft, you won’t let anything distract you from it; there are no excuses. Success and failure are equal parts of the process. It is not the thing but rather our chosen reaction to it that dictates how we feel. “The thrills of joy and thrills of pain are indistinguishable.” Our chosen reactions shape our habitual, instinctual, immediate ones, and if we can learn to control those, we have conquered ourselves and become the rulers of our own existence.
My whole approach to living has been extremely influenced by the writings of Thoreau, whom I first learned about in second or third grade through a children’s book called My Side of the Mountain, by Jean Craighead George, about a boy living alone in the wilderness. I have always been quite fond of being in nature. I highly value the ability to survive alone in the wild, and therefore appreciate anything relating to that task, including being independent, resourceful, durable, adaptable and long-suffering. These days, I get outdoors by playing a lot of disc golf, a sport in which players wander around in the woods and grass throwing over-engineered Frisbees around the trees. I like playing disc golf more than I dislike being tired, playing poorly or bugs. “Let us spend one day as deliberately as Nature, and not be thrown off the track by every nutshell and mosquito’s wing that falls on the rails.”
Happiness is not difficult to attain. I think a lot of people resist happiness because it’s, you know, boring. In America, we are taught that happiness is won through demonstrating dominance by acquiring assets, acceptance or obedience. Contentment and satisfaction are considered lazy. We want spectacle. We want war. We run through the forest, avoiding the trees, in hopes of finding the enchanted castle. What splendor, elegance, mystery or charm, pray tell, could any castle possibly have that surpasses that of a forest? The most opulent restaurant in the world cannot make food taste better than that which can be collected in the wild by a wandering nomad and cooked over an open fire pit. We are so well trained at wanting more that the concept of wanting nothing except to appreciate what we already have seems absurd. “Most of the stone a nation hammers goes toward its tomb only. It buries itself alive. As for the Pyramids, there is nothing to wonder at them so much as the fact that so many men could be found degraded enough to spend their lives constructing a tomb for some ambitious booby, whom it would have been wiser and manlier to drowned in the Nile, and then given his body to the dogs.”
Nobody on their death bed reminisces about the day a slow driver in front of them that made them late for work. A lot of things that really annoy us just aren’t important at all, and yet we give them our utmost energy and attention. When we are able to step back and take the time to consider what is really important, we find now, the present, unfolding from the future and disappearing into the past, staring back. Only after letting go of distractions, annoyances and imperfections can we go about living the life that is in front of us. “When he has obtained those things which are necessary to life, there is another alternative than to obtain the superfluities; and that is, to adventure on life now, his vacation from humbler toil having commenced.”
Showing posts with label authors. Show all posts
Showing posts with label authors. Show all posts
Friday, August 8, 2014
Thursday, June 5, 2014
Some Thoughts on the Real World by One Who Glimpsed It and Fled
Kenyon College Commencement, May 20, 1990
Speaker: Bill Watterson
I have a recurring dream about Kenyon. In it, I'm walking to the post office on the way to my first class at the start of the school year. Suddenly it occurs to me that I don't have my schedule memorized, and I'm not sure which classes I'm taking, or where exactly I'm supposed to be going. As I walk up the steps to the post office, I realize I don't have my box key, and in fact, I can't remember what my box number is. I'm certain that everyone I know has written me a letter, but I can't get them. I get more flustered and annoyed by the minute. I head back to Middle Path, racking my brains and asking myself, "How many more years until I graduate? Wait, didn't I graduate already? How old AM I?" Then I wake up.
Experience is food for the brain. And four years at Kenyon is a rich meal. I suppose it should be no surprise that your brains will probably burp up Kenyon for a long time. And I think the reason I keep having the dream is because its central image is a metaphor for a good part of life: that is, not knowing where you're going or what you're doing.
I graduated exactly ten years ago. That doesn't give me a great deal of experience to speak from, but I'm emboldened by the fact that I can't remember a bit of MY commencement, and I trust that in half an hour, you won't remember of yours either.
In the middle of my sophomore year at Kenyon, I decided to paint a copy of Michelangelo's "Creation of Adam" from the Sistine Chapel on the ceiling of my dorm room. By standing on a chair, I could reach the ceiling, and I taped off a section, made a grid, and started to copy the picture from my art history book. Working with your arm over your head is hard work, so a few of my more ingenious friends rigged up a scaffold for me by stacking two chairs on my bed, and laying the table from the hall lounge across the chairs and over to the top of my closet. By climbing up onto my bed and up the chairs, I could hoist myself onto the table, and lie in relative comfort two feet under my painting. My roommate would then hand up my paints, and I could work for several hours at a stretch. The picture took me months to do, and in fact, I didn't finish the work until very near the end of the school year. I wasn't much of a painter then, but what the work lacked in color sense and technical flourish, it gained in the incongruity of having a High Renaissance masterpiece in a college dorm that had the unmistakable odor of old beer cans and older laundry. The painting lent an air of cosmic grandeur to my room, and it seemed to put life into a larger perspective. Those boring, flowery English poets didn't seem quite so important, when right above my head God was transmitting the spark of life to man.
My friends and I liked the finished painting so much in fact, that we decided I should ask permission to do it. As you might expect, the housing director was curious to know why I wanted to paint this elaborate picture on my ceiling a few weeks before school let out. Well, you don't get to be a sophomore at Kenyon without learning how to fabricate ideas you never had, but I guess it was obvious that my idea was being proposed retroactively. It ended up that I was allowed to paint the picture, so long as I painted over it and returned the ceiling to normal at the end of the year. And that's what I did. Despite the futility of the whole episode, my fondest memories of college are times like these, where things were done out of some inexplicable inner imperative, rather than because the work was demanded. Clearly, I never spent as much time or work on any authorized art project, or any poli-sci paper, as I spent on this one act of vandalism.
It's surprising how hard we'll work when the work is done just for ourselves. And with all due respect to John Stuart Mill, maybe utilitarianism is overrated. If I've learned one thing from being a cartoonist, it's how important playing is to creativity and happiness. My job is essentially to come up with 365 ideas a year. If you ever want to find out just how uninteresting you really are, get a job where the quality and frequency of your thoughts determine your livelihood. I've found that the only way I can keep writing every day, year after year, is to let my mind wander into new territories. To do that, I've had to cultivate a kind of mental playfulness.
We're not really taught how to recreate constructively. We need to do more than find diversions; we need to restore and expand ourselves. Our idea of relaxing is all too often to plop down in front of the television set and let its pandering idiocy liquefy our brains. Shutting off the thought process is not rejuvenating; the mind is like a car battery- it recharges by running.
You may be surprised to find how quickly daily routine and the demands of “just getting by” absorb your waking hours. You may be surprised to find how quickly you start to see your politics and religion become matters of habit rather than thought and inquiry. You may be surprised to find how quickly you start to see your life in terms of other people's expectations rather than issues. You may be surprised to find out how quickly reading a good book sounds like a luxury.
At school, new ideas are thrust at you every day. Out in the world, you'll have to find the inner motivation to search for new ideas on your own. With any luck at all, you'll never need to take an idea and squeeze a punchline out of it, but as bright, creative people, you'll be called upon to generate ideas and solutions all your lives. Letting your mind play is the best way to solve problems. For me, it's been liberating to put myself in the mind of a fictitious six year-old each day, and rediscover my own curiosity. I've been amazed at how one ideas leads to others if I allow my mind to play and wander. I know a lot about dinosaurs now, and the information has helped me out of quite a few deadlines.
A playful mind is inquisitive, and learning is fun. If you indulge your natural curiosity and retain a sense of fun in new experience, I think you'll find it functions as a sort of shock absorber for the bumpy road ahead.
So, what's it like in the real world? Well, the food is better, but beyond that, I don't recommend it. I don't look back on my first few years out of school with much affection, and if I could have talked to you six months ago, I'd have encouraged you all to flunk some classes and postpone this moment as long as possible. But now it's too late. Unfortunately, that was all the advice I really had. When I was sitting where you are, I was one of the lucky few who had a cushy job waiting for me. I'd drawn political cartoons for the Collegian for four years, and the Cincinnati Post had hired me as an editorial cartoonist. All my friends were either dreading the infamous first year of law school, or despondent about their chances of convincing anyone that a history degree had any real application outside of academia.
Boy, was I smug.
As it turned out, my editor instantly regretted his decision to hire me. By the end of the summer, I'd been given notice; by the beginning of winter, I was in an unemployment line; and by the end of my first year away from Kenyon, I was broke and living with my parents again. You can imagine how upset my dad was when he learned that Kenyon doesn't give refunds.
Watching my career explode on the lauchpad caused some soul searching. I eventually admitted that I didn't have what it takes to be a good political cartoonist, that is, an interest in politics, and I returned to my firs love, comic strips. For years I got nothing but rejection letters, and I was forced to accept a real job. A REAL job is a job you hate. I designed car ads and grocery ads in the windowless basement of a convenience store, and I hated every single minute of the 4-1/2 million minutes I worked there. My fellow prisoners at work were basically concerned about how to punch the time clock at the perfect second where they would earn another 20 cents without doing any work for it. It was incredible: after every break, the entire staff would stand around in the garage where the time clock was, and wait for that last click. And after my used car needed the head gasket replaced twice, I waited in the garage too.
It's funny how at Kenyon, you take for granted that the people around you think about more than the last episode of Dynasty. I guess that's what it means to be in an ivory tower.
Anyway, after a few months at this job, I was starved for some life of the mind that, during my lunch break, I used to read those poli-sci books that I'd somehow never quite finished when I was here. Some of those books were actually kind of interesting. It was a rude shock to see just how empty and robotic life can be when you don't care about what you're doing, and the only reason you're there is to pay the bills. Thoreau said, "The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation." That's one of those dumb cocktail quotations that will strike fear in your heart as you get older. Actually, I was leading a life of loud desperation.
When it seemed I would be writing about "Midnite Madness Sale-abrations" for the rest of my life, a friend used to console me that cream always rises to the top. I used to think, so do people who throw themselves into the sea.
I tell you all this because it's worth recognizing that there is no such thing as an overnight success. You will do well to cultivate the resources in yourself that bring you happiness outside of success or failure. The truth is, most of us discover where we are headed when we arrive. At that time, we turn around and say, yes, this is obviously where I was going all along. It's a good idea to try to enjoy the scenery on the detours, because you'll probably take a few.
I still haven't drawn the strip as long as it took me to get the job. To endure five years of rejection to get a job requires either a faith in oneself that borders on delusion, or a love of the work. I loved the work.
Drawing comic strips for five years without pay drove home the point that the fun of cartooning wasn't in the money; it was in the work. This turned out to be an important realization when my break finally came.
Like many people, I found that what I was chasing wasn't what I caught. I've wanted to be a cartoonist since I was old enough to read cartoons, and I never really thought about cartoons as being a business. It never occurred to me that a comic strip I created would be at the mercy of a bloodsucking corporate parasite called a syndicate, and that I'd be faced with countless ethical decisions masquerading as simple business decisions. To make a business decision, you don't need much philosophy; all you need is greed, and maybe a little knowledge of how the game works.
As my comic strip became popular, the pressure to capitalize on that popularity increased to the point where I was spending almost as much time screaming at executives as drawing. Cartoon merchandising is a $12 billion dollar a year industry and the syndicate understandably wanted apiece of that pie. But the more I though about what they wanted to do with my creation, the more inconsistent it seemed with the reasons I draw cartoons. Selling out is usually more a matter of buying in. Sell out, and you're really buying into someone else's system of values, rules and rewards.
The so-called "opportunity" I faced would have meant giving up my individual voice for that of a money-grubbing corporation. It would have meant my purpose in writing was to sell things, not say things. My pride in craft would be sacrificed to the efficiency of mass production and the work of assistants. Authorship would become committee decision. Creativity would become work for pay. Art would turn into commerce. In short, money was supposed to supply all the meaning I'd need. What the syndicate wanted to do, in other words, was turn my comic strip into everything calculated, empty and robotic that I hated about my old job. They would turn my characters into television hucksters and T-shirt sloganeers and deprive me of characters that actually expressed my own thoughts. On those terms, I found the offer easy to refuse. Unfortunately, the syndicate also found my refusal easy to refuse, and we've been fighting for over three years now. Such is American business, I guess, where the desire for obscene profit mutes any discussion of conscience.
You will find your own ethical dilemmas in all parts of your lives, both personal and professional. We all have different desires and needs, but if we don't discover what we want from ourselves and what we stand for, we will live passively and unfulfilled. Sooner or later, we are all asked to compromise ourselves and the things we care about. We define ourselves by our actions. With each decision, we tell ourselves and the world who we are. Think about what you want out of this life, and recognize that there are many kinds of success.
Many of you will be going on to law school, business school, medical school, or other graduate work, and you can expect the kind of starting salary that, with luck, will allow you to pay off your own tuition debts within your own lifetime. But having an enviable career is one thing, and being a happy person is another.
Creating a life that reflects your values and satisfies your soul is a rare achievement. In a culture that relentlessly promotes avarice and excess as the good life, a person happy doing his own work is usually considered an eccentric, if not a subversive. Ambition is only understood if it's to rise to the top of some imaginary ladder of success. Someone who takes an undemanding job because it affords him the time to pursue other interests and activities is considered a flake. A person who abandons a career in order to stay home and raise children is considered not to be living up to his potential-as if a job title and salary are the sole measure of human worth. You'll be told in a hundred ways, some subtle and some not, to keep climbing, and never be satisfied with where you are, who you are, and what you're doing. There are a million ways to sell yourself out, and I guarantee you'll hear about them. To invent your own life's meaning is not easy, but it's still allowed, and I think you'll be happier for the trouble.
Reading those turgid philosophers here in these remote stone buildings may not get you a job, but if those books have forced you to ask yourself questions about what makes life truthful, purposeful, meaningful, and redeeming, you have the Swiss Army Knife of mental tools, and it's going to come in handy all the time. I think you'll find that Kenyon touched a deep part of you. These have been formative years. Chances are, at least of your roommates has taught you everything ugly about human nature you ever wanted to know. With luck, you've also had a class that transmitted a spark of insight or interest you'd never had before. Cultivate that interest, and you may find a deeper meaning in your life that feeds your soul and spirit. Your preparation for the real world is not in the answers you've learned, but in the questions you've learned how to ask yourself.
Graduating from Kenyon, I suspect you'll find yourselves quite well prepared indeed. I wish you all fulfillment and happiness. Congratulations on your achievement.
Speaker: Bill Watterson
I have a recurring dream about Kenyon. In it, I'm walking to the post office on the way to my first class at the start of the school year. Suddenly it occurs to me that I don't have my schedule memorized, and I'm not sure which classes I'm taking, or where exactly I'm supposed to be going. As I walk up the steps to the post office, I realize I don't have my box key, and in fact, I can't remember what my box number is. I'm certain that everyone I know has written me a letter, but I can't get them. I get more flustered and annoyed by the minute. I head back to Middle Path, racking my brains and asking myself, "How many more years until I graduate? Wait, didn't I graduate already? How old AM I?" Then I wake up.
Experience is food for the brain. And four years at Kenyon is a rich meal. I suppose it should be no surprise that your brains will probably burp up Kenyon for a long time. And I think the reason I keep having the dream is because its central image is a metaphor for a good part of life: that is, not knowing where you're going or what you're doing.
I graduated exactly ten years ago. That doesn't give me a great deal of experience to speak from, but I'm emboldened by the fact that I can't remember a bit of MY commencement, and I trust that in half an hour, you won't remember of yours either.
In the middle of my sophomore year at Kenyon, I decided to paint a copy of Michelangelo's "Creation of Adam" from the Sistine Chapel on the ceiling of my dorm room. By standing on a chair, I could reach the ceiling, and I taped off a section, made a grid, and started to copy the picture from my art history book. Working with your arm over your head is hard work, so a few of my more ingenious friends rigged up a scaffold for me by stacking two chairs on my bed, and laying the table from the hall lounge across the chairs and over to the top of my closet. By climbing up onto my bed and up the chairs, I could hoist myself onto the table, and lie in relative comfort two feet under my painting. My roommate would then hand up my paints, and I could work for several hours at a stretch. The picture took me months to do, and in fact, I didn't finish the work until very near the end of the school year. I wasn't much of a painter then, but what the work lacked in color sense and technical flourish, it gained in the incongruity of having a High Renaissance masterpiece in a college dorm that had the unmistakable odor of old beer cans and older laundry. The painting lent an air of cosmic grandeur to my room, and it seemed to put life into a larger perspective. Those boring, flowery English poets didn't seem quite so important, when right above my head God was transmitting the spark of life to man.
My friends and I liked the finished painting so much in fact, that we decided I should ask permission to do it. As you might expect, the housing director was curious to know why I wanted to paint this elaborate picture on my ceiling a few weeks before school let out. Well, you don't get to be a sophomore at Kenyon without learning how to fabricate ideas you never had, but I guess it was obvious that my idea was being proposed retroactively. It ended up that I was allowed to paint the picture, so long as I painted over it and returned the ceiling to normal at the end of the year. And that's what I did. Despite the futility of the whole episode, my fondest memories of college are times like these, where things were done out of some inexplicable inner imperative, rather than because the work was demanded. Clearly, I never spent as much time or work on any authorized art project, or any poli-sci paper, as I spent on this one act of vandalism.
It's surprising how hard we'll work when the work is done just for ourselves. And with all due respect to John Stuart Mill, maybe utilitarianism is overrated. If I've learned one thing from being a cartoonist, it's how important playing is to creativity and happiness. My job is essentially to come up with 365 ideas a year. If you ever want to find out just how uninteresting you really are, get a job where the quality and frequency of your thoughts determine your livelihood. I've found that the only way I can keep writing every day, year after year, is to let my mind wander into new territories. To do that, I've had to cultivate a kind of mental playfulness.
We're not really taught how to recreate constructively. We need to do more than find diversions; we need to restore and expand ourselves. Our idea of relaxing is all too often to plop down in front of the television set and let its pandering idiocy liquefy our brains. Shutting off the thought process is not rejuvenating; the mind is like a car battery- it recharges by running.
You may be surprised to find how quickly daily routine and the demands of “just getting by” absorb your waking hours. You may be surprised to find how quickly you start to see your politics and religion become matters of habit rather than thought and inquiry. You may be surprised to find how quickly you start to see your life in terms of other people's expectations rather than issues. You may be surprised to find out how quickly reading a good book sounds like a luxury.
At school, new ideas are thrust at you every day. Out in the world, you'll have to find the inner motivation to search for new ideas on your own. With any luck at all, you'll never need to take an idea and squeeze a punchline out of it, but as bright, creative people, you'll be called upon to generate ideas and solutions all your lives. Letting your mind play is the best way to solve problems. For me, it's been liberating to put myself in the mind of a fictitious six year-old each day, and rediscover my own curiosity. I've been amazed at how one ideas leads to others if I allow my mind to play and wander. I know a lot about dinosaurs now, and the information has helped me out of quite a few deadlines.
A playful mind is inquisitive, and learning is fun. If you indulge your natural curiosity and retain a sense of fun in new experience, I think you'll find it functions as a sort of shock absorber for the bumpy road ahead.
So, what's it like in the real world? Well, the food is better, but beyond that, I don't recommend it. I don't look back on my first few years out of school with much affection, and if I could have talked to you six months ago, I'd have encouraged you all to flunk some classes and postpone this moment as long as possible. But now it's too late. Unfortunately, that was all the advice I really had. When I was sitting where you are, I was one of the lucky few who had a cushy job waiting for me. I'd drawn political cartoons for the Collegian for four years, and the Cincinnati Post had hired me as an editorial cartoonist. All my friends were either dreading the infamous first year of law school, or despondent about their chances of convincing anyone that a history degree had any real application outside of academia.
Boy, was I smug.
As it turned out, my editor instantly regretted his decision to hire me. By the end of the summer, I'd been given notice; by the beginning of winter, I was in an unemployment line; and by the end of my first year away from Kenyon, I was broke and living with my parents again. You can imagine how upset my dad was when he learned that Kenyon doesn't give refunds.
Watching my career explode on the lauchpad caused some soul searching. I eventually admitted that I didn't have what it takes to be a good political cartoonist, that is, an interest in politics, and I returned to my firs love, comic strips. For years I got nothing but rejection letters, and I was forced to accept a real job. A REAL job is a job you hate. I designed car ads and grocery ads in the windowless basement of a convenience store, and I hated every single minute of the 4-1/2 million minutes I worked there. My fellow prisoners at work were basically concerned about how to punch the time clock at the perfect second where they would earn another 20 cents without doing any work for it. It was incredible: after every break, the entire staff would stand around in the garage where the time clock was, and wait for that last click. And after my used car needed the head gasket replaced twice, I waited in the garage too.
It's funny how at Kenyon, you take for granted that the people around you think about more than the last episode of Dynasty. I guess that's what it means to be in an ivory tower.
Anyway, after a few months at this job, I was starved for some life of the mind that, during my lunch break, I used to read those poli-sci books that I'd somehow never quite finished when I was here. Some of those books were actually kind of interesting. It was a rude shock to see just how empty and robotic life can be when you don't care about what you're doing, and the only reason you're there is to pay the bills. Thoreau said, "The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation." That's one of those dumb cocktail quotations that will strike fear in your heart as you get older. Actually, I was leading a life of loud desperation.
When it seemed I would be writing about "Midnite Madness Sale-abrations" for the rest of my life, a friend used to console me that cream always rises to the top. I used to think, so do people who throw themselves into the sea.
I tell you all this because it's worth recognizing that there is no such thing as an overnight success. You will do well to cultivate the resources in yourself that bring you happiness outside of success or failure. The truth is, most of us discover where we are headed when we arrive. At that time, we turn around and say, yes, this is obviously where I was going all along. It's a good idea to try to enjoy the scenery on the detours, because you'll probably take a few.
I still haven't drawn the strip as long as it took me to get the job. To endure five years of rejection to get a job requires either a faith in oneself that borders on delusion, or a love of the work. I loved the work.
Drawing comic strips for five years without pay drove home the point that the fun of cartooning wasn't in the money; it was in the work. This turned out to be an important realization when my break finally came.
Like many people, I found that what I was chasing wasn't what I caught. I've wanted to be a cartoonist since I was old enough to read cartoons, and I never really thought about cartoons as being a business. It never occurred to me that a comic strip I created would be at the mercy of a bloodsucking corporate parasite called a syndicate, and that I'd be faced with countless ethical decisions masquerading as simple business decisions. To make a business decision, you don't need much philosophy; all you need is greed, and maybe a little knowledge of how the game works.
As my comic strip became popular, the pressure to capitalize on that popularity increased to the point where I was spending almost as much time screaming at executives as drawing. Cartoon merchandising is a $12 billion dollar a year industry and the syndicate understandably wanted apiece of that pie. But the more I though about what they wanted to do with my creation, the more inconsistent it seemed with the reasons I draw cartoons. Selling out is usually more a matter of buying in. Sell out, and you're really buying into someone else's system of values, rules and rewards.
The so-called "opportunity" I faced would have meant giving up my individual voice for that of a money-grubbing corporation. It would have meant my purpose in writing was to sell things, not say things. My pride in craft would be sacrificed to the efficiency of mass production and the work of assistants. Authorship would become committee decision. Creativity would become work for pay. Art would turn into commerce. In short, money was supposed to supply all the meaning I'd need. What the syndicate wanted to do, in other words, was turn my comic strip into everything calculated, empty and robotic that I hated about my old job. They would turn my characters into television hucksters and T-shirt sloganeers and deprive me of characters that actually expressed my own thoughts. On those terms, I found the offer easy to refuse. Unfortunately, the syndicate also found my refusal easy to refuse, and we've been fighting for over three years now. Such is American business, I guess, where the desire for obscene profit mutes any discussion of conscience.
You will find your own ethical dilemmas in all parts of your lives, both personal and professional. We all have different desires and needs, but if we don't discover what we want from ourselves and what we stand for, we will live passively and unfulfilled. Sooner or later, we are all asked to compromise ourselves and the things we care about. We define ourselves by our actions. With each decision, we tell ourselves and the world who we are. Think about what you want out of this life, and recognize that there are many kinds of success.
Many of you will be going on to law school, business school, medical school, or other graduate work, and you can expect the kind of starting salary that, with luck, will allow you to pay off your own tuition debts within your own lifetime. But having an enviable career is one thing, and being a happy person is another.
Creating a life that reflects your values and satisfies your soul is a rare achievement. In a culture that relentlessly promotes avarice and excess as the good life, a person happy doing his own work is usually considered an eccentric, if not a subversive. Ambition is only understood if it's to rise to the top of some imaginary ladder of success. Someone who takes an undemanding job because it affords him the time to pursue other interests and activities is considered a flake. A person who abandons a career in order to stay home and raise children is considered not to be living up to his potential-as if a job title and salary are the sole measure of human worth. You'll be told in a hundred ways, some subtle and some not, to keep climbing, and never be satisfied with where you are, who you are, and what you're doing. There are a million ways to sell yourself out, and I guarantee you'll hear about them. To invent your own life's meaning is not easy, but it's still allowed, and I think you'll be happier for the trouble.
Reading those turgid philosophers here in these remote stone buildings may not get you a job, but if those books have forced you to ask yourself questions about what makes life truthful, purposeful, meaningful, and redeeming, you have the Swiss Army Knife of mental tools, and it's going to come in handy all the time. I think you'll find that Kenyon touched a deep part of you. These have been formative years. Chances are, at least of your roommates has taught you everything ugly about human nature you ever wanted to know. With luck, you've also had a class that transmitted a spark of insight or interest you'd never had before. Cultivate that interest, and you may find a deeper meaning in your life that feeds your soul and spirit. Your preparation for the real world is not in the answers you've learned, but in the questions you've learned how to ask yourself.
Graduating from Kenyon, I suspect you'll find yourselves quite well prepared indeed. I wish you all fulfillment and happiness. Congratulations on your achievement.
Tuesday, November 19, 2013
Jay, My Hero
I spent a significant portion of fourth through sixth grade, which spanned 1985-1988, reading Marvel comic books. My main source for reading material was my classmate JJ, who had two or three much older brothers, which meant he had a library of comics that covered some of the 60’s, mostly what was available as reprints, and all of the 70’s and 80’s. I read them as often as possible during class, keeping them hidden beneath my desk and ready to slip into the storage area under the hinged top in case of an emergency. It is difficult to convey how steeped I was in the Marvel Universe without inciting incredulity, but among the comics I read included: some Fantastic Four, Alpha Flight, Punisher, Captain America and Master of Kung Fu; a lot of Spider-Man, especially the Venom suit saga; the bulk of Thor, The Incredible Hulk and The (East Coast) Avengers (all of which were already long-running titles) and virtually the complete works of X-Men, both the “Classics” written by Stan Lee and the more familiar revamp mostly authored by Chris Claremont, Silver Surfer, Daredevil, West Coast Avengers, Iron Man, Moon Knight, The New Mutants, X-Factor, Excalibur and, of course, Wolverine. I asked the art teacher if she could teach me how to draw super heroes and she suggested I might be better suited at being a comic book writer. Chris Claremont was my favorite writer but it seemed obvious to me that the penciller had the superior job, and John Buscema and Frank Miller were my favorite artists. Bescema was a pioneer who had established the typical style of the time, but Miller did his own heavy, high-contrast inking that would set the tone for the future.
Something hard-wired into my nature, which would take me, oh, about 35 years to realize is not a trait ingrained in everyone, is a compulsion to be loyal. I am passionate, some would say to a fault, about the things and people I enjoy. I stand by my convictions, which fortunately prioritize the importance of conceding to logic and humility, and don’t do ambivalence well. Once I start on a course, I tend to see it through to its completion. I don’t jump ship and never make alternate plans. One thing that highly irritates me is when others start second-guessing or changing plans. I always try to keep my word, even when I know doing so will be detrimental to me, because from my perspective, my word is more important than myself. In my worldview, this is known as integrity, which, if I am to be frank, is a thing few others seem to understand.
Anyway, it should go without saying that I didn’t read DC comics… that is, until Frank Miller wrote and drew their Batman: The Dark Knight Returns saga. It was good; really good. This created not only a moral but practical dilemma, because the only person I knew who had DC comics was a junior high kid named Jay, whom I had never personally spoken to, although I often stood beside JJ while they quickly traded comics between backpacks. Jay had a quirk of being highly secretive about his comic book reading habits, which I found strange. Beyond that, discussing comics with him was complicated by the fact that I have always been and probably always will be uncomfortable engaging in conversations with people I don’t know well.
I went to a Kindergarten-12th grade school which had 100 students total, so we all ate lunch at the same time. One day during lunch, when I was in sixth grade, the cafeteria was disrupted by a kid in the table behind me loudly taunting another kid. The latter, I discovered when I turned around, was Jay. Suddenly, and without speaking a word, Jay slammed down his fist onto the other kid’s lunch tray and smashed the unopened milk carton with a loud pop that exploded white liquid all over everyone in the vicinity. Then, Jay stood up and walked straight into the principal’s office. This was a highly-unique and therefore memorable event. In other words, it was basically the coolest thing I had ever seen. Without ever knowing the full story, I egocentrically assumed Jay was being mocked for reading comic books and milk-smashing was his Marvel-esque way of defending his honor. I resolved to always defend my comic book-reading ways no matter how old I got.
I never did speak to Jay. After sixth grade we moved, and I found myself in a school where nobody read comics. I wouldn’t pick them up again until several years later, when I was 16 and armed with a driver’s license. There were three comic book shops in Des Moines, and I started a routine of driving from one to another, getting caught up on X-Men and Wolverine as well as discovering Frank Miller’s Sin City and Neil Gaiman’s Sandman. Along the way, I would also read the current issues of those same comics at Barnes & Noble. In this fashion, I could read 10-12 comics in a day while paying only for gasoline, although I did occasionally purchase Wolverine back-issues. I also began reading Shakespeare’s plays precisely because they had been a sub-plot in several Sandman issues. Even after college, Sandman and Frank Miller’s 300, as well as Howard Zinn, inspired an interest in world history that I had never had while in school.
When I moved to the San Francisco Bay Area in 2000, I got a part-time job as a barista at Borders Books and began reading Japanese manga while there. Eventually, I once again started hanging out in comic book stores to discover more manga and even got into playing sanctioned Yu-Gi-Oh tournaments until the cards got too expensive and I sold my two decks for a profit. I still read manga occasionally today, religiously refusing any edition that doesn’t read right to left. A couple weeks ago, I found myself correcting a random lady in a thrift shop calling it “anime.” I watch a lot of anime, too, but it should go without saying that graphic novels and television shows are vastly different mediums. One advantage of comics is the pace of the story’s development is dependent upon the reader. Instead of passively watching the characters, you move alongside them, discovering as they do. Another difference is instead of viewing a rectangle of a fixed size, comic panels can change size, shape and location at will. This can be used to great effect in keeping the reader actively engaged in both focus and mood. During a chaotic climax, for example, a reader can find himself feverishly attempting to decipher the order in which the panels unfold.
Even with the exploding popularity of conventions like Comic-Con, comic books themselves have mostly remained a niche consumed by introverts. One difference is many characters that began their lives there are now popular mainstream successes. To say I have mixed feelings about this would be a lie; I flat out hate it. I’d like to smash the milk carton of every jock in America who thinks he’s a big Thor fan but doesn’t even know who Jack Kirby is. You have to be pretty pathetic to be too lazy to read a picture book. I can’t really explain why I find it so annoying, but it has something to do with loyalty and integrity.
A couple years ago I was dating a talented poet who, presumably for lack of anything better to do, attended a Neil Gaiman lecture at the university where she was attending grad school. She had never heard of him before, so was very confused as to why hundreds of students had shown up to see him talk. “He read a few excerpts and they weren’t very good,” she declared. I shrugged and said, “Yeah, his work is pretty popular but maybe he’s not that great of a writer.” I am ashamed to admit I had forgotten about Jay. In part, I knew any attempt to defend Gaiman’s work to this person in particular would be futile. But, to be honest, the first thought to cross my mind was, Well, he does just write comics.
And Shakespeare just wrote skits.
Something hard-wired into my nature, which would take me, oh, about 35 years to realize is not a trait ingrained in everyone, is a compulsion to be loyal. I am passionate, some would say to a fault, about the things and people I enjoy. I stand by my convictions, which fortunately prioritize the importance of conceding to logic and humility, and don’t do ambivalence well. Once I start on a course, I tend to see it through to its completion. I don’t jump ship and never make alternate plans. One thing that highly irritates me is when others start second-guessing or changing plans. I always try to keep my word, even when I know doing so will be detrimental to me, because from my perspective, my word is more important than myself. In my worldview, this is known as integrity, which, if I am to be frank, is a thing few others seem to understand.
Anyway, it should go without saying that I didn’t read DC comics… that is, until Frank Miller wrote and drew their Batman: The Dark Knight Returns saga. It was good; really good. This created not only a moral but practical dilemma, because the only person I knew who had DC comics was a junior high kid named Jay, whom I had never personally spoken to, although I often stood beside JJ while they quickly traded comics between backpacks. Jay had a quirk of being highly secretive about his comic book reading habits, which I found strange. Beyond that, discussing comics with him was complicated by the fact that I have always been and probably always will be uncomfortable engaging in conversations with people I don’t know well.
I went to a Kindergarten-12th grade school which had 100 students total, so we all ate lunch at the same time. One day during lunch, when I was in sixth grade, the cafeteria was disrupted by a kid in the table behind me loudly taunting another kid. The latter, I discovered when I turned around, was Jay. Suddenly, and without speaking a word, Jay slammed down his fist onto the other kid’s lunch tray and smashed the unopened milk carton with a loud pop that exploded white liquid all over everyone in the vicinity. Then, Jay stood up and walked straight into the principal’s office. This was a highly-unique and therefore memorable event. In other words, it was basically the coolest thing I had ever seen. Without ever knowing the full story, I egocentrically assumed Jay was being mocked for reading comic books and milk-smashing was his Marvel-esque way of defending his honor. I resolved to always defend my comic book-reading ways no matter how old I got.
I never did speak to Jay. After sixth grade we moved, and I found myself in a school where nobody read comics. I wouldn’t pick them up again until several years later, when I was 16 and armed with a driver’s license. There were three comic book shops in Des Moines, and I started a routine of driving from one to another, getting caught up on X-Men and Wolverine as well as discovering Frank Miller’s Sin City and Neil Gaiman’s Sandman. Along the way, I would also read the current issues of those same comics at Barnes & Noble. In this fashion, I could read 10-12 comics in a day while paying only for gasoline, although I did occasionally purchase Wolverine back-issues. I also began reading Shakespeare’s plays precisely because they had been a sub-plot in several Sandman issues. Even after college, Sandman and Frank Miller’s 300, as well as Howard Zinn, inspired an interest in world history that I had never had while in school.
When I moved to the San Francisco Bay Area in 2000, I got a part-time job as a barista at Borders Books and began reading Japanese manga while there. Eventually, I once again started hanging out in comic book stores to discover more manga and even got into playing sanctioned Yu-Gi-Oh tournaments until the cards got too expensive and I sold my two decks for a profit. I still read manga occasionally today, religiously refusing any edition that doesn’t read right to left. A couple weeks ago, I found myself correcting a random lady in a thrift shop calling it “anime.” I watch a lot of anime, too, but it should go without saying that graphic novels and television shows are vastly different mediums. One advantage of comics is the pace of the story’s development is dependent upon the reader. Instead of passively watching the characters, you move alongside them, discovering as they do. Another difference is instead of viewing a rectangle of a fixed size, comic panels can change size, shape and location at will. This can be used to great effect in keeping the reader actively engaged in both focus and mood. During a chaotic climax, for example, a reader can find himself feverishly attempting to decipher the order in which the panels unfold.
Even with the exploding popularity of conventions like Comic-Con, comic books themselves have mostly remained a niche consumed by introverts. One difference is many characters that began their lives there are now popular mainstream successes. To say I have mixed feelings about this would be a lie; I flat out hate it. I’d like to smash the milk carton of every jock in America who thinks he’s a big Thor fan but doesn’t even know who Jack Kirby is. You have to be pretty pathetic to be too lazy to read a picture book. I can’t really explain why I find it so annoying, but it has something to do with loyalty and integrity.
A couple years ago I was dating a talented poet who, presumably for lack of anything better to do, attended a Neil Gaiman lecture at the university where she was attending grad school. She had never heard of him before, so was very confused as to why hundreds of students had shown up to see him talk. “He read a few excerpts and they weren’t very good,” she declared. I shrugged and said, “Yeah, his work is pretty popular but maybe he’s not that great of a writer.” I am ashamed to admit I had forgotten about Jay. In part, I knew any attempt to defend Gaiman’s work to this person in particular would be futile. But, to be honest, the first thought to cross my mind was, Well, he does just write comics.
And Shakespeare just wrote skits.
Wednesday, May 15, 2013
Life Without
I don’t have particularly strong feelings regarding grocery shopping- I look at it as a necessary task, like washing dishes or taking out the trash. These things approach miserable only when postponed for too long. What I don’t like doing is price-checking, keeping track of coupons or haggling. I tend to go through a process of taste-testing every brand of a particular product and then insisting on purchasing the one I like best. If it’s out of stock, I tend to not purchase anything rather than substitute a brand I’ve already tried and don’t like.
My girlfriend and I are both vegetarians, and I usually do the shopping for both of us. We exclusively make home-cooked meals. I am competent at cooking a few things and she is quite good at a wide range of dishes. Our bill for food, beverages and toiletries, which also includes food for a large dog and food and litter for two cats, averages $128/week or $18.25/day. She thinks that’s a lot, but it doesn’t seem overly luxurious to me.
For some reason, I always seem to come home from the store with one incorrect item; something similar to what I intended to purchase but with overlooked fine (but usually large and prominent) print. Actual examples include: Pomegranate red wine vinegar instead of red wine vinegar, instant oatmeal instead of oatmeal, sweet onions instead of yellow onions, diet juice and juice drink instead of juice, stewed tomatoes instead of roasted tomatoes, diced green chiles instead of whole green chiles… the list goes on but you get the idea. “In our most trivial walks, we are constantly, though unconsciously, steering like pilots by certain well-known beacons and headlands, and if we go beyond our usual course we still carry in our minds the bearing of some neighboring cape; and not till we are completely lost, or turned round, –for a man needs only to be turned round once with his eyes shut in this world to be lost, –do we appreciate the vastness and strangeness of Nature.” –Henry David Thoreau, Walden
I dislike wasting food, and nearly always eat leftovers up until I can see mold growing. Actually, if it’s bread or cheese, I’ve been known to keep eating it after cutting the moldy parts off. “Yet, for my part, I was never unusually squeamish; I could sometimes eat a fried rat with a good relish, if it were necessary.” –Ibid.
I lived from ages 4-12 on an acreage where we raised our own crops, chickens and pigs and fostered horses. We got free hot school lunches and sometimes waited in line for big bricks of American cheese. I recently saw one of the boxes that cheese came in at a thrift store and found it very nostalgic. We shopped for toiletries and other things we didn’t produce ourselves at a strange warehouse full of damaged boxes. If there was an unopened box of something you wanted you simply found a box-cutter and got it out. I had a nice childhood. I mostly pretended to be a super hero while running around the farm or driving on the lawn mower. We went to the library once a week. I got a lot of Star Wars and G.I. Joe figures each birthday and Christmas and saved my $1-2/week allowance to buy G.I. Joe vehicles and a Swiss Army knife. We went on a one-week vacation once a year and frequently camped on weekends. I guess that’s why I’ve never been bothered by being poor. “In short, I am convinced, both by faith and experience, that to maintain one’s self on this earth is not a hardship but a pastime, if we live simply and wisely.” –Ibid.
The other thing is; I feel the only ways to gain financial success are by working too much, getting lucky or being unethical. “The ways by which you may get money almost without exception lead downward.” –Thoreau, Life Without Principle
My parents taught me, by example, to value industriousness, dedication and self-sufficiency. I was also taught that conformity is a bad thing, which I’ve since discovered is rather unique. America reveres the rebel, the defining characteristic of which is a willingness to intentionally make mistakes, and Americans go to great lengths to attempt to emulate the non-conformist aesthetic. We even appreciate independent thinkers as long as they are venture capitalists. But having the integrity to not go along or agree with others is heavily frowned upon in our society. There’s this episode of South Park where Stan decides to rebel, and joins up with a group of Goth kids after they advise, “If you want to be one of the non-conformists, all you have to do is dress just like us and listen to the same music we do.” In Hollywood, the outcast invariably aspires to become popular. Why is their rebel always insecure? I suggest it’s because they are considered nothing more than consumers.
Last night I watched Into The Wild (2007) and absolutely loved it. I remember not wanting to watch it when it came out, whining, “Oh boy, another drama about a Trustafarian kid looking like James Dean who runs off into the woods to “discover” himself- how original.” Considering my favorite book around third grade was My Side of the Mountain, I didn’t feel like I needed to see it.
Even as a child, I understood that not jumping on bandwagons, thinking with clarity, knowing how to survive alone and, perhaps most importantly, not caring whether other people liked you or not, were all part of being a true individual. Anybody motivated to impress, whether by obstinacy, audacity or originality, is a bullshitter. The non-conformist’s beliefs and actions are completely independent of others, which sometimes means doing or enjoying something despite its popularity. Demonstrating empathy can, and should, also be part of that equation; indeed that discovery in itself requires individualism, considering how heavily lobbied we are to be selfish. “I would not have any one adopt my mode of living on any account; for beside that before he has fairly learned it I may have found out another for myself, I desire that there be as many different persons in the world as possible; but I would have each one be very careful to find out and pursue his own way, and not his father’s or his mother’s or his neighbor’s instead.” –Thoreau, Walden
An interesting choice is made in the movie that, because my favorite book is, in fact, Walden, stuck out to me like a sore thumb. The lead actor “paraphrases” (to quote the term he uses in the movie) Thoreau, and alludes to his line, “Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth,” but, in between love and money, he adds “faith.” WHAT? Are you fucking telling me you are going to misquote a tribute to truth? Oh, the irony. That occurrence profoundly illustrates the difficulty inherent to discovering truth- we are constantly compelled to twist it to conform to our desires. “Most with whom you endeavor to talk soon come to a stand against some institution in which they appear to hold stock, that is, some particular, not universal, way of viewing things.” –Thoreau, Life Without Principle
Perhaps the author or screenwriter intended to reflect that the main character did not realize truth without faith is unattainable, but surely that’s giving him or her too much credit and it was really just added to portray the character as an atheist and confusing atheism for nihilism. Either way, it instead portrays Thoreau as a bloviating fool. His works are already taken out of context enough as it is; afterall, his essay about economic living and enjoying simplicity within walking distance of a thriving metropolitan area is somehow taken as encouragement to run off into the wilderness and eat poison berries.
I recently spent a couple weeks unemployed. The only income I managed to gather came through selling some practically worthless items on ebay. As I had gotten rid of nearly every superfluous thing I own just over two years ago, I didn’t have much to sell. This made me contemplate the concept of needs versus wants, and how there is such a huge subjective gray area between them. It really irks me how loosely the phrase, “I have to have this!” is thrown around. I have, throughout the years, managed to scrape together the funds for indulgences such as three meals per day, hot running water, contact lenses, a used vehicle and gently used thrift store jeans. It’s been a long time since I’ve purchased a new outerwear item, but if underwear is any indication, it’s way over-priced. I think Levis are a bit of a rip-off at $5.38 and I only buy a pair or two per year.
Some things others might consider needs that I have seldom, if ever, been able to afford include doctor and dental check-ups, haircuts and television. I am fortunate to have been gifted the two computers I have owned. I can stretch a one-year contact prescription to three. I am very grateful that free public libraries exist. I long ago gave up purchasing superfluous items like hair conditioner and after-shave. I’ve never owned a vehicle with working air conditioning, and only seldom one that retained windshield washer fluid. I feel like these trivial sacrifices are pretty familiar ones to a lot of people, and yet, I feel like a lot of people are embarrassed by having to make them. That, to me, is the sad part. Shouldn’t those wastefully indulging in every little thing while lacking the capacity to imagine how they could survive without them be the ones who are ashamed? “No man ever stood the lower in my estimation for having a patch in his clothes; yet I am sure that there is greater anxiety, commonly, to have fashionable, or at least clean and unpatched clothes, than to have a sound conscience.” –Thoreau, Walden
Admittedly, a lot of these concessions have been made in order to save money for tattoos, which is ridiculous and shows how un-destitute I actually am. “If within the sophisticated man there is not an unsophisticated one, then he is but one of the devil’s angels.” –Thoreau, Life Without Principle
One fortuitous happenstance is that my unemployment coincided with my tax return, which I used to pay off the remainder of my debt. This had been incurred in December of 2009 due to plane ticket purchases coinciding with unanticipated vehicle repairs. I am very thankful I don’t have school loans, car loans or a mortgage to repay. I loathe indebtedness; it is a euphemism for indentured servitude. “Cold and hunger seem more friendly to my nature than those methods which men have adopted and advise to ward them off.” –Ibid.
Several years ago, struggling to make ends meet while living in Oakland, I walked to the mainstream grocery store across the street after work to get what I could to survive on until payday with the $20 I had left to my name. I usually got my food from the dented, damaged and expired store, but it was a bit out of the way. Among the few items I had decided to get was peanut butter, but the only brand this store sold that didn’t contain added sugar was a large jar that was over $6. I really do not care for sugar, but mulled over the options for several minutes pondering whether it was worth spending the extra money to avoid it. I decided to stand by my culinary laurels and splurge, and after receiving mere cents back from the clerk, I walked out of the store and down the sidewalk toward my car parked a few blocks away. Suddenly, I heard a crack, and looked down to see that jar of peanut butter spilling onto the sidewalk. My bag had ripped and the glass jar had shattered. I contemplated turning the jar upside-down and salvaging what I could, but quickly realized it was full of shards. The realization that I no longer had enough money to buy even the cheap, sugar-laden option hit me like bricks and I began to sob. I felt as if my entire existence was worth less than that broken jar. I thought about returning to the store and asking for a replacement, but it didn’t seem right to try and hold them responsible for my carelessness. I scooped what I could into a nearby trash can and went home.
Some months later, I moved to Portland, Oregon. I anticipated this would lead to new musical opportunities and had compiled a list of musicians to meet when I arrived, several of which were scheduled to perform at an event space a week after fitting all the belongings I could into my station wagon and driving ten hours to live with some guy I’d met on Craigslist who immediately scolded me for showing up while he was eating dinner. Traveling expenses, rent and deposit meant I would have no money at all while desperately looking for a job. Admission to this event space gig was $6, which I hoped would pay off in musician contacts possibly leading to gig bookings, etc. I still had an ash-tray full of coins in my Saturn reserved for paying parking meters in the Bay Area, and I fished $6 out of it, which ended up being mostly nickels and dimes, as any quarters that had been there had already served their purpose. I then apologetically dumped this pile of change onto the card-table at the entrance. The girl working the cash-box, I’d soon learn, was named Whitney. We would become friends and hang out often for the next several months until she moved to New York City, and is among the most genuine, generous, kind-hearted, non-judgmental and, as an aside, talented persons I have ever met.
I guess all this is to say I feel very grateful that I now have two jobs. I am lucky to be able to drive to a store and purchase food. We have a small garden that produces things like basil to make pesto with all summer. My girlfriend taught me how to make pretty phenomenal pesto. Perhaps most of all, I am glad that I don’t have to look very far to realize there are many things more important than recognition, money and the like. “The ways in which most men get their living, that is, live, are merely make-shifts, and a shirking of the real business of life- chiefly because they do not know, but partly because they do not mean, any better.” –Ibid.
My girlfriend and I are both vegetarians, and I usually do the shopping for both of us. We exclusively make home-cooked meals. I am competent at cooking a few things and she is quite good at a wide range of dishes. Our bill for food, beverages and toiletries, which also includes food for a large dog and food and litter for two cats, averages $128/week or $18.25/day. She thinks that’s a lot, but it doesn’t seem overly luxurious to me.
For some reason, I always seem to come home from the store with one incorrect item; something similar to what I intended to purchase but with overlooked fine (but usually large and prominent) print. Actual examples include: Pomegranate red wine vinegar instead of red wine vinegar, instant oatmeal instead of oatmeal, sweet onions instead of yellow onions, diet juice and juice drink instead of juice, stewed tomatoes instead of roasted tomatoes, diced green chiles instead of whole green chiles… the list goes on but you get the idea. “In our most trivial walks, we are constantly, though unconsciously, steering like pilots by certain well-known beacons and headlands, and if we go beyond our usual course we still carry in our minds the bearing of some neighboring cape; and not till we are completely lost, or turned round, –for a man needs only to be turned round once with his eyes shut in this world to be lost, –do we appreciate the vastness and strangeness of Nature.” –Henry David Thoreau, Walden
I dislike wasting food, and nearly always eat leftovers up until I can see mold growing. Actually, if it’s bread or cheese, I’ve been known to keep eating it after cutting the moldy parts off. “Yet, for my part, I was never unusually squeamish; I could sometimes eat a fried rat with a good relish, if it were necessary.” –Ibid.
I lived from ages 4-12 on an acreage where we raised our own crops, chickens and pigs and fostered horses. We got free hot school lunches and sometimes waited in line for big bricks of American cheese. I recently saw one of the boxes that cheese came in at a thrift store and found it very nostalgic. We shopped for toiletries and other things we didn’t produce ourselves at a strange warehouse full of damaged boxes. If there was an unopened box of something you wanted you simply found a box-cutter and got it out. I had a nice childhood. I mostly pretended to be a super hero while running around the farm or driving on the lawn mower. We went to the library once a week. I got a lot of Star Wars and G.I. Joe figures each birthday and Christmas and saved my $1-2/week allowance to buy G.I. Joe vehicles and a Swiss Army knife. We went on a one-week vacation once a year and frequently camped on weekends. I guess that’s why I’ve never been bothered by being poor. “In short, I am convinced, both by faith and experience, that to maintain one’s self on this earth is not a hardship but a pastime, if we live simply and wisely.” –Ibid.
The other thing is; I feel the only ways to gain financial success are by working too much, getting lucky or being unethical. “The ways by which you may get money almost without exception lead downward.” –Thoreau, Life Without Principle
My parents taught me, by example, to value industriousness, dedication and self-sufficiency. I was also taught that conformity is a bad thing, which I’ve since discovered is rather unique. America reveres the rebel, the defining characteristic of which is a willingness to intentionally make mistakes, and Americans go to great lengths to attempt to emulate the non-conformist aesthetic. We even appreciate independent thinkers as long as they are venture capitalists. But having the integrity to not go along or agree with others is heavily frowned upon in our society. There’s this episode of South Park where Stan decides to rebel, and joins up with a group of Goth kids after they advise, “If you want to be one of the non-conformists, all you have to do is dress just like us and listen to the same music we do.” In Hollywood, the outcast invariably aspires to become popular. Why is their rebel always insecure? I suggest it’s because they are considered nothing more than consumers.
Last night I watched Into The Wild (2007) and absolutely loved it. I remember not wanting to watch it when it came out, whining, “Oh boy, another drama about a Trustafarian kid looking like James Dean who runs off into the woods to “discover” himself- how original.” Considering my favorite book around third grade was My Side of the Mountain, I didn’t feel like I needed to see it.
Even as a child, I understood that not jumping on bandwagons, thinking with clarity, knowing how to survive alone and, perhaps most importantly, not caring whether other people liked you or not, were all part of being a true individual. Anybody motivated to impress, whether by obstinacy, audacity or originality, is a bullshitter. The non-conformist’s beliefs and actions are completely independent of others, which sometimes means doing or enjoying something despite its popularity. Demonstrating empathy can, and should, also be part of that equation; indeed that discovery in itself requires individualism, considering how heavily lobbied we are to be selfish. “I would not have any one adopt my mode of living on any account; for beside that before he has fairly learned it I may have found out another for myself, I desire that there be as many different persons in the world as possible; but I would have each one be very careful to find out and pursue his own way, and not his father’s or his mother’s or his neighbor’s instead.” –Thoreau, Walden
An interesting choice is made in the movie that, because my favorite book is, in fact, Walden, stuck out to me like a sore thumb. The lead actor “paraphrases” (to quote the term he uses in the movie) Thoreau, and alludes to his line, “Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth,” but, in between love and money, he adds “faith.” WHAT? Are you fucking telling me you are going to misquote a tribute to truth? Oh, the irony. That occurrence profoundly illustrates the difficulty inherent to discovering truth- we are constantly compelled to twist it to conform to our desires. “Most with whom you endeavor to talk soon come to a stand against some institution in which they appear to hold stock, that is, some particular, not universal, way of viewing things.” –Thoreau, Life Without Principle
Perhaps the author or screenwriter intended to reflect that the main character did not realize truth without faith is unattainable, but surely that’s giving him or her too much credit and it was really just added to portray the character as an atheist and confusing atheism for nihilism. Either way, it instead portrays Thoreau as a bloviating fool. His works are already taken out of context enough as it is; afterall, his essay about economic living and enjoying simplicity within walking distance of a thriving metropolitan area is somehow taken as encouragement to run off into the wilderness and eat poison berries.
I recently spent a couple weeks unemployed. The only income I managed to gather came through selling some practically worthless items on ebay. As I had gotten rid of nearly every superfluous thing I own just over two years ago, I didn’t have much to sell. This made me contemplate the concept of needs versus wants, and how there is such a huge subjective gray area between them. It really irks me how loosely the phrase, “I have to have this!” is thrown around. I have, throughout the years, managed to scrape together the funds for indulgences such as three meals per day, hot running water, contact lenses, a used vehicle and gently used thrift store jeans. It’s been a long time since I’ve purchased a new outerwear item, but if underwear is any indication, it’s way over-priced. I think Levis are a bit of a rip-off at $5.38 and I only buy a pair or two per year.
Some things others might consider needs that I have seldom, if ever, been able to afford include doctor and dental check-ups, haircuts and television. I am fortunate to have been gifted the two computers I have owned. I can stretch a one-year contact prescription to three. I am very grateful that free public libraries exist. I long ago gave up purchasing superfluous items like hair conditioner and after-shave. I’ve never owned a vehicle with working air conditioning, and only seldom one that retained windshield washer fluid. I feel like these trivial sacrifices are pretty familiar ones to a lot of people, and yet, I feel like a lot of people are embarrassed by having to make them. That, to me, is the sad part. Shouldn’t those wastefully indulging in every little thing while lacking the capacity to imagine how they could survive without them be the ones who are ashamed? “No man ever stood the lower in my estimation for having a patch in his clothes; yet I am sure that there is greater anxiety, commonly, to have fashionable, or at least clean and unpatched clothes, than to have a sound conscience.” –Thoreau, Walden
Admittedly, a lot of these concessions have been made in order to save money for tattoos, which is ridiculous and shows how un-destitute I actually am. “If within the sophisticated man there is not an unsophisticated one, then he is but one of the devil’s angels.” –Thoreau, Life Without Principle
One fortuitous happenstance is that my unemployment coincided with my tax return, which I used to pay off the remainder of my debt. This had been incurred in December of 2009 due to plane ticket purchases coinciding with unanticipated vehicle repairs. I am very thankful I don’t have school loans, car loans or a mortgage to repay. I loathe indebtedness; it is a euphemism for indentured servitude. “Cold and hunger seem more friendly to my nature than those methods which men have adopted and advise to ward them off.” –Ibid.
Several years ago, struggling to make ends meet while living in Oakland, I walked to the mainstream grocery store across the street after work to get what I could to survive on until payday with the $20 I had left to my name. I usually got my food from the dented, damaged and expired store, but it was a bit out of the way. Among the few items I had decided to get was peanut butter, but the only brand this store sold that didn’t contain added sugar was a large jar that was over $6. I really do not care for sugar, but mulled over the options for several minutes pondering whether it was worth spending the extra money to avoid it. I decided to stand by my culinary laurels and splurge, and after receiving mere cents back from the clerk, I walked out of the store and down the sidewalk toward my car parked a few blocks away. Suddenly, I heard a crack, and looked down to see that jar of peanut butter spilling onto the sidewalk. My bag had ripped and the glass jar had shattered. I contemplated turning the jar upside-down and salvaging what I could, but quickly realized it was full of shards. The realization that I no longer had enough money to buy even the cheap, sugar-laden option hit me like bricks and I began to sob. I felt as if my entire existence was worth less than that broken jar. I thought about returning to the store and asking for a replacement, but it didn’t seem right to try and hold them responsible for my carelessness. I scooped what I could into a nearby trash can and went home.
Some months later, I moved to Portland, Oregon. I anticipated this would lead to new musical opportunities and had compiled a list of musicians to meet when I arrived, several of which were scheduled to perform at an event space a week after fitting all the belongings I could into my station wagon and driving ten hours to live with some guy I’d met on Craigslist who immediately scolded me for showing up while he was eating dinner. Traveling expenses, rent and deposit meant I would have no money at all while desperately looking for a job. Admission to this event space gig was $6, which I hoped would pay off in musician contacts possibly leading to gig bookings, etc. I still had an ash-tray full of coins in my Saturn reserved for paying parking meters in the Bay Area, and I fished $6 out of it, which ended up being mostly nickels and dimes, as any quarters that had been there had already served their purpose. I then apologetically dumped this pile of change onto the card-table at the entrance. The girl working the cash-box, I’d soon learn, was named Whitney. We would become friends and hang out often for the next several months until she moved to New York City, and is among the most genuine, generous, kind-hearted, non-judgmental and, as an aside, talented persons I have ever met.
I guess all this is to say I feel very grateful that I now have two jobs. I am lucky to be able to drive to a store and purchase food. We have a small garden that produces things like basil to make pesto with all summer. My girlfriend taught me how to make pretty phenomenal pesto. Perhaps most of all, I am glad that I don’t have to look very far to realize there are many things more important than recognition, money and the like. “The ways in which most men get their living, that is, live, are merely make-shifts, and a shirking of the real business of life- chiefly because they do not know, but partly because they do not mean, any better.” –Ibid.
Saturday, March 6, 2010
Bogus Cocktail Books
Somebody recently asked me how to spot a lousy cocktail book. The Cocktail Handbook, by Maria Contantino is but one example of such a book, and I thought it might be amusing to make fun on it.
Since I’m no newcomer to cocktails, I typically skip past the first part of books that tell you what to buy and how to use it and delve straight into the recipes. This book, however, doesn’t use ounces to measure the cocktails- it just says 1 measure, etc. But she’s not strictly using ratios either, as she’ll then slip in a teaspoon of something. So I had to go back to the beginning part of the book to find out what she thinks a “measure” is. It turns out in Maria’s world, one measure=25ml. I have no idea what a ml is, but no problem- I have a computer handy. It turns on 25 ml is equal to 0.845350 fluid ounces. Wow, thanks. That’s REAL useful. Strangely, I don’t have anything that measures 0.845350 fluid ounces lying around. She goes onto suggest once you get as good as her you won’t need to measure at all. I see what’s going on- she has no idea what amounts she uses. Whatever, the measurements in recipes are always wrong anyway, so I’ll just figure them out myself.
While perusing the front section, I couldn’t help but notice she neglected to explain how to use a shaker.
The book is separated into sections with drinks using the same base spirit, and I much prefer this to wholly alphabetized cocktail books. The first section is gin, and the first cocktail is the Bennet. I know this one! (It’s not as good as a Pegu Club.) But wait, check this out- her recipe is 2 measures gin, 2/3 measure lime juice, 1/3 measure sugar syrup and 1 dash bitters. Okay, so what’s 1/3 of 0.845350 fluid ounces? I already know it’s supposed to be 1 tsp, so why the unnecessary complication (especially since she uses teaspoon elsewhere)? I’ll stop harping on it.
Her instructions throughout the book are to shake with ice cubes instead of cracked ice. She must be a vigorous shaker.
Her 26 gin drinks are extremely basic and boring. A lot of gin and citrus juice combinations. Also a lot of what I call “genre” drinks: Gin Collins, Gin Daisy, Gin Fizz, Gin Rickey, Gin Sling, Gin Swizzle…. For a book entitled the The Cocktail Handbook, these are sure a lot of drinks other than cocktails. Her martini is acceptable. There were three gin drinks mentioned that I hadn’t tried. The Pink Pussycat was stupid. The Grass Skirt called for the drink to be shaken and poured unstrained into an old-fashioned glass, which no self-respecting bartender would do (you put fresh ice cubes into the glass and strain out the mostly-melted cracked ones). The Honolulu looked interesting, so I started making it- only to realize she was asking for ¼ teaspoon of three juices instead of ¼ ounce which was obviously what was meant. So I ignored the book (also using 1.5 ounces of gin instead of 1.5 measures or 1.268025 ounces) and the drink turned out pretty good, if a little boring.
Not having any rum, I paid less attention to the rum recipes and started reading the short drink descriptions. Turns out, they aren’t descriptions at all; simply conjectures on the drink name’s origin and punny plays on their names. These could have all been written without having tried the drink. The most descriptive she gets is “orange-and-cinnamon flavored” for a drink containing rum, sweet vermouth, orange and cinnamon. She’s a damn poet.
In the vodka section I come across the third drink containing grapefruit juice, and the third time I’ve read something like “This is the best way to drink grapefruit juice!” She seems to be under the impression that grapefruit juice is extremely sour, which is odd. She also often writes, “Try it and see what you think.” I suspect this author is a teetotaler. She couldn’t think of a way to comment on the name Volga so she didn’t write anything.
The whisky section continues with the stupidity. She doesn’t know that all bourbon uses sour mash. Here’s the description for the Thunderclap, an appalling beverage: “Too many of these, and that’s what a pin dropping will sound like!” I want to punch this lady in the face. She continues with the genre beverages- the highball, the sour, the squirt….
There is a drink in the tequila section called the Doralto that is simply outstanding. This one recipe (which I altered only slightly) suddenly makes this book worth purchasing.
I also discovered a decent and heretofore unknown tequila-based drink in the Poker Face. (She fails to correctly describe how to build a highball, but my standards are so low at this point I almost didn’t mention it.) The author claims gold tequila has been aged 2-4 years, when in actuality it is un-aged (silver) tequila with yellow food coloring. (The intention of gold tequila is for gringos to mistake it for reposado tequila, which is aged from 2 to 11 months.) I also created a decent drink by changing the Icebreaker recipe completely.
I can barely go on- the ludicrous Tequila Moonrise is described as: “After the sun goes down, up comes the moon!” She is fond of exclamatory comments. The Operator is “A great ginger-wine flavor!” The ingredients? White wine, ginger ale, lime juice.
New gripe: Extremely similar cocktails in the same book. The Sidecar AND the Tantalus? The Negroni AND the Americano (even after she mentions the similarilty)? (I had already forgiven the Martini, Gibson, Kangaroo trilogy).
In the champagne section there suddenly pops out a drink that the author has actually tried: the Bamboo. Or at any rate she gives an opinion on it. Curiously, for this drink, she’s suddenly keen on pointing out that the mixing glass and cocktail glass should be chilled, which is true of ALL cocktails. I’d try it if I had sherry.
Mercifully, the book ends. With the Yellowjacket, a boring mocktail combination of fruit juices, described thusly: “A yellowjacket is a type of wasp, so be prepared for quite a sharp ‘sting’ of a drink!”
Since I’m no newcomer to cocktails, I typically skip past the first part of books that tell you what to buy and how to use it and delve straight into the recipes. This book, however, doesn’t use ounces to measure the cocktails- it just says 1 measure, etc. But she’s not strictly using ratios either, as she’ll then slip in a teaspoon of something. So I had to go back to the beginning part of the book to find out what she thinks a “measure” is. It turns out in Maria’s world, one measure=25ml. I have no idea what a ml is, but no problem- I have a computer handy. It turns on 25 ml is equal to 0.845350 fluid ounces. Wow, thanks. That’s REAL useful. Strangely, I don’t have anything that measures 0.845350 fluid ounces lying around. She goes onto suggest once you get as good as her you won’t need to measure at all. I see what’s going on- she has no idea what amounts she uses. Whatever, the measurements in recipes are always wrong anyway, so I’ll just figure them out myself.
While perusing the front section, I couldn’t help but notice she neglected to explain how to use a shaker.
The book is separated into sections with drinks using the same base spirit, and I much prefer this to wholly alphabetized cocktail books. The first section is gin, and the first cocktail is the Bennet. I know this one! (It’s not as good as a Pegu Club.) But wait, check this out- her recipe is 2 measures gin, 2/3 measure lime juice, 1/3 measure sugar syrup and 1 dash bitters. Okay, so what’s 1/3 of 0.845350 fluid ounces? I already know it’s supposed to be 1 tsp, so why the unnecessary complication (especially since she uses teaspoon elsewhere)? I’ll stop harping on it.
Her instructions throughout the book are to shake with ice cubes instead of cracked ice. She must be a vigorous shaker.
Her 26 gin drinks are extremely basic and boring. A lot of gin and citrus juice combinations. Also a lot of what I call “genre” drinks: Gin Collins, Gin Daisy, Gin Fizz, Gin Rickey, Gin Sling, Gin Swizzle…. For a book entitled the The Cocktail Handbook, these are sure a lot of drinks other than cocktails. Her martini is acceptable. There were three gin drinks mentioned that I hadn’t tried. The Pink Pussycat was stupid. The Grass Skirt called for the drink to be shaken and poured unstrained into an old-fashioned glass, which no self-respecting bartender would do (you put fresh ice cubes into the glass and strain out the mostly-melted cracked ones). The Honolulu looked interesting, so I started making it- only to realize she was asking for ¼ teaspoon of three juices instead of ¼ ounce which was obviously what was meant. So I ignored the book (also using 1.5 ounces of gin instead of 1.5 measures or 1.268025 ounces) and the drink turned out pretty good, if a little boring.
Not having any rum, I paid less attention to the rum recipes and started reading the short drink descriptions. Turns out, they aren’t descriptions at all; simply conjectures on the drink name’s origin and punny plays on their names. These could have all been written without having tried the drink. The most descriptive she gets is “orange-and-cinnamon flavored” for a drink containing rum, sweet vermouth, orange and cinnamon. She’s a damn poet.
In the vodka section I come across the third drink containing grapefruit juice, and the third time I’ve read something like “This is the best way to drink grapefruit juice!” She seems to be under the impression that grapefruit juice is extremely sour, which is odd. She also often writes, “Try it and see what you think.” I suspect this author is a teetotaler. She couldn’t think of a way to comment on the name Volga so she didn’t write anything.
The whisky section continues with the stupidity. She doesn’t know that all bourbon uses sour mash. Here’s the description for the Thunderclap, an appalling beverage: “Too many of these, and that’s what a pin dropping will sound like!” I want to punch this lady in the face. She continues with the genre beverages- the highball, the sour, the squirt….
There is a drink in the tequila section called the Doralto that is simply outstanding. This one recipe (which I altered only slightly) suddenly makes this book worth purchasing.
I also discovered a decent and heretofore unknown tequila-based drink in the Poker Face. (She fails to correctly describe how to build a highball, but my standards are so low at this point I almost didn’t mention it.) The author claims gold tequila has been aged 2-4 years, when in actuality it is un-aged (silver) tequila with yellow food coloring. (The intention of gold tequila is for gringos to mistake it for reposado tequila, which is aged from 2 to 11 months.) I also created a decent drink by changing the Icebreaker recipe completely.
I can barely go on- the ludicrous Tequila Moonrise is described as: “After the sun goes down, up comes the moon!” She is fond of exclamatory comments. The Operator is “A great ginger-wine flavor!” The ingredients? White wine, ginger ale, lime juice.
New gripe: Extremely similar cocktails in the same book. The Sidecar AND the Tantalus? The Negroni AND the Americano (even after she mentions the similarilty)? (I had already forgiven the Martini, Gibson, Kangaroo trilogy).
In the champagne section there suddenly pops out a drink that the author has actually tried: the Bamboo. Or at any rate she gives an opinion on it. Curiously, for this drink, she’s suddenly keen on pointing out that the mixing glass and cocktail glass should be chilled, which is true of ALL cocktails. I’d try it if I had sherry.
Mercifully, the book ends. With the Yellowjacket, a boring mocktail combination of fruit juices, described thusly: “A yellowjacket is a type of wasp, so be prepared for quite a sharp ‘sting’ of a drink!”
Sunday, November 1, 2009
Vanity
Let the writer take up surgery or bricklaying if he is interested in technique. There is no mechanical way to get the writing done, no shortcut. The young writer would be a fool to follow a theory. Teach yourself by your own mistakes; people learn only by error. The good artist believes that nobody is good enough to give him advice. He has supreme vanity. No matter how much he admires the old writer, he wants to beat him.
-William Faulkner
-William Faulkner
Sunday, July 5, 2009
Fight Club
Fight Club is one of my favorite movies. Yesterday, I bought the book at a garage sale for fifty cents. I read it today in about as much time as it takes to watch the movie. My advice: don't bother. It is poorly written with little cohesion or substance. The movie succeeds in taking the best parts of the book and imroving upon it immensely. If this best seller is indicative of what is being written and read today, it is unsurprising that nobody reads anymore.
Saturday, December 20, 2008
Persevere
I was not born with an intuitive sense of rhythm. I was, however, born with a stubborn streak a mile wide. When I decide I want to do something, I attempt it to the degree that luck and forces within my control allow. Like Antonio Salieri in Peter Shaffer’s Amadeus, when I see, hear, taste or feel something beautiful or profound, I search for the drawstring to the curtain so that I can pull it back and attempt to understand the mechanism behind the magic.
I am not a passive observer.
When I was a kid, my favorite book was called, My Side of the Mountain. It’s about a kid who runs away from home and lives alone in a cave with a falcon he finds wounded and nurses back to health. He gets discovered by a wandering literature teacher who dubs him “Thoreau.” Upon asking my mom who Thoreau was, she pulled a book called Walden and Other Writings off the bookshelf and handed it to me. Walden was too arcane and tedious for my eight-year-old self to get through, but determined to try, I read and re-read the first couple chapters of it many times. When my mom bought me a set of encyclopedias and dictionaries one at a time every visit to the grocery store, I never divulged that I really just wanted to know what “economy,” the title of Walden’s first chapter, meant. By the time I finally got through the book in junior high, it had already become a seminal influence on me.
Excerpts, in chronological order, from Economy, the first chapter of Walden, by Henry David Thoreau:
I should not talk so much about myself if there were any body else whom I knew as well. Unfortunately, I am confined to this theme by the narrowness of my experience. Moreover, I, on my side, require of every writer, first or last, a simple and sincere account of his own life, and not merely what he has heard of other men’s lives; some such account as he would send to his kindred from a distant land; for if he has lived sincerely, it must have been in a distant land to me.
Most men, even in this comparatively free country, through mere ignorance and mistake, are so occupied with the factitious cares and superfluously coarse labors of life that its finer fruits cannot be plucked by them. Their fingers, from excessive toil, are too clumsy and tremble too much for that. Actually the laboring man has not leisure for a true integrity day by day; he cannot afford to sustain the manliest relations to men; his labor would be depreciated in the market. He has no time to be anything but a machine. How can he remember well his ignorance- which his growth requires- who has so often to use his knowledge?
It is never too late to give up our prejudices. No way of thinking or doing, however ancient, can be trusted without proof. What every body echoes or in silence passes by as true today may turn out to be falsehood tomorrow, mere smoke and opinion, which some had trusted for a cloud that would sprinkle fertilizing rain on their fields. What old people say you cannot do you try and find that you can… Practically, the old have no very important advice to give the young, their own experience has been so partial, and their lives have been such miserable failures, for private reasons, as they must believe; and it may be that they have had faith left which belies that experience, and that they are only less young than they were.
Most of the luxuries, and many of the so-called comforts of life, are not only indispensable, but positive hindrances to the elevation of mankind.
…I am sure that there is greater anxiety, commonly, to have more fashionable, or at least clean and unpatched clothes, than to have a sound conscience.
In the long run men hit only what they aim at. Therefore, though they should fail immediately, they had better aim at something high.
Man was not made so large limbed and robust but that he must seek to narrow his world, and wall in a space such as fitted him.
Most men appear never to have considered what a house is, and are actually though needlessly poor all their lives because they think they must have such a one as their neighbors have.
I had three pieces of limestone on my desk, but I was terrified to find that they required to be dusted daily, when the furniture of my mind was all undusted still, and I threw them out the window in disgust.
It is difficult to begin without borrowing, but perhaps it is the most generous course thus to permit your fellow men to have an interest in your enterprise. The owner of the axe, as he released his hold on it, said that it was the apple of his eye; but I returned it sharper than I received it.
I never in all my walks came across a man engaged in so simple and natural an occupation as building his house. We belong to the community. It is not the tailor alone who is the ninth part of a man; it is as much the preacher, and the merchant, and the farmer. Where is this division of labor to end? And what object does it finally serve? No doubt another may also think for me; but it is not therefore desirable that he should do so to the exclusion of my thinking for myself.
The student who secures his coveted leisure and retirement by systematically shirking any labor necessary to man obtains but an ignoble and unprofitable leisure, defrauding himself of the experience which alone can make leisure fruitful. “But,” says one, “you do not mean that the students should go to work with their hands instead of their heads?” I do not mean that exactly, but I mean something which he might think a good deal like that; I mean that they should not play life, or study it merely, while the community supports them at this expensive game, but earnestly live it from beginning to end. How could youths better learn to live than by at once trying the experiment of living?
Which would have advanced the most at the end of a month,- the boy who had made his own jackknife from the ore which he had dug and smelted, reading as much as would be necessary for this,- or the boy who had attended the lectures on metallurgy at the Institution in the mean while, and had received a Rogers’ penknife from his father? Which would be most likely to cut his fingers? To my astonishment I was informed on leaving college that I had studied navigation!- why, if I had taken one turn down the harbor I should have known more about it.
A simple and independent mind does not toil at the bidding of any prince.
In short, I am convinced, both by faith and experience, that to maintain one’s self on this earth is not a hardship but a pastime, if we will live simply and wisely; as the pursuits of the simpler nations are still the sports of the more artificial.
I would not have any one adopt my mode of living on any account; for, beside that before he had fairly learned it I may have found out another for myself, I desire that there may be as many different persons in the world as possible; but I would have each one be very careful to find out and pursue his own way, and not his father’s or his mother’s or his neighbor’s instead. The youth may build or plant or sail, only let him not be hindered from doing that which he tells me he would like to do. It is by a mathematical point only that we are wise, as the sailor or the fugitive slave keeps the polestar in his eye; but that is sufficient guidance for all our life. We may not arrive at our port within a calculable period, but we would preserve the true course.
The only cooperation which is commonly possible is exceedingly partial and superficial; and what little true cooperation there is, is as if it were not, being a harmony inaudible to men. If a man has faith he will cooperate with equal faith everywhere; if he has not faith, he will continue to live like the rest of the world, whatever company he is joined to. To cooperate, in the highest as well as the lowest sense, means to get our living together…. Above all, as I have implied, the man who goes alone can start today; but he who travels with another must wait til the other is ready, and it may be a long time before they get off.
As for doing good, that is one of the professions which are full. Moreover, I have tried it fairly, and, strange as it may seem, am satisfied that it does not agree with my constitution. Probably I should not consciously and deliberately forsake my particular calling to do the good that society demands of me, to save the universe from annihilation; and I believe that a like but infinitely greater steadfastness elsewhere is all that now preserves it. But I would not stand between any man and his genius; and to him who does this work, which I decline, with his whole heart and soul and life, I would say, Persevere, even if the world call it doing evil, as it is most likely they will.
At doing something,- I will not engage that my neighbors shall pronounce it good,- I do not hesitate to say that I should be a capital fellow to hire; but what that is, it is for my employer to find out. What good I do, in the common sense of the word, must be aside from my main path, and for the most part wholly unintended. Men say, practically, “Begin where you are and such as you are, without aiming mainly to become of more worth, and with kindness aforethought go about doing good.” If I were to preach at all in this strain, I would say rather, “Set about being good.”
If I knew for a certainty that a man was coming to my house with the conscious design of doing me good, I should run for my life, as from that dry and parching wind of the African deserts called the simoom, which fills the mouth and nose and ears and eyes with dust till you are suffocated, for fear that I should get some of his good done to me,- some of its virus mingled into my blood. No,- in this case I would rather suffer evil the natural way.
Be sure that you give the poor the aid that they most need, though it be your example which leaves them far behind. If you give money, spend yourself with it, and do not merely abandon it to them. We make curious mistakes sometimes.
I never knew, and never shall know, a worse man than myself.
I am not a passive observer.
When I was a kid, my favorite book was called, My Side of the Mountain. It’s about a kid who runs away from home and lives alone in a cave with a falcon he finds wounded and nurses back to health. He gets discovered by a wandering literature teacher who dubs him “Thoreau.” Upon asking my mom who Thoreau was, she pulled a book called Walden and Other Writings off the bookshelf and handed it to me. Walden was too arcane and tedious for my eight-year-old self to get through, but determined to try, I read and re-read the first couple chapters of it many times. When my mom bought me a set of encyclopedias and dictionaries one at a time every visit to the grocery store, I never divulged that I really just wanted to know what “economy,” the title of Walden’s first chapter, meant. By the time I finally got through the book in junior high, it had already become a seminal influence on me.
Excerpts, in chronological order, from Economy, the first chapter of Walden, by Henry David Thoreau:
I should not talk so much about myself if there were any body else whom I knew as well. Unfortunately, I am confined to this theme by the narrowness of my experience. Moreover, I, on my side, require of every writer, first or last, a simple and sincere account of his own life, and not merely what he has heard of other men’s lives; some such account as he would send to his kindred from a distant land; for if he has lived sincerely, it must have been in a distant land to me.
Most men, even in this comparatively free country, through mere ignorance and mistake, are so occupied with the factitious cares and superfluously coarse labors of life that its finer fruits cannot be plucked by them. Their fingers, from excessive toil, are too clumsy and tremble too much for that. Actually the laboring man has not leisure for a true integrity day by day; he cannot afford to sustain the manliest relations to men; his labor would be depreciated in the market. He has no time to be anything but a machine. How can he remember well his ignorance- which his growth requires- who has so often to use his knowledge?
It is never too late to give up our prejudices. No way of thinking or doing, however ancient, can be trusted without proof. What every body echoes or in silence passes by as true today may turn out to be falsehood tomorrow, mere smoke and opinion, which some had trusted for a cloud that would sprinkle fertilizing rain on their fields. What old people say you cannot do you try and find that you can… Practically, the old have no very important advice to give the young, their own experience has been so partial, and their lives have been such miserable failures, for private reasons, as they must believe; and it may be that they have had faith left which belies that experience, and that they are only less young than they were.
Most of the luxuries, and many of the so-called comforts of life, are not only indispensable, but positive hindrances to the elevation of mankind.
…I am sure that there is greater anxiety, commonly, to have more fashionable, or at least clean and unpatched clothes, than to have a sound conscience.
In the long run men hit only what they aim at. Therefore, though they should fail immediately, they had better aim at something high.
Man was not made so large limbed and robust but that he must seek to narrow his world, and wall in a space such as fitted him.
Most men appear never to have considered what a house is, and are actually though needlessly poor all their lives because they think they must have such a one as their neighbors have.
I had three pieces of limestone on my desk, but I was terrified to find that they required to be dusted daily, when the furniture of my mind was all undusted still, and I threw them out the window in disgust.
It is difficult to begin without borrowing, but perhaps it is the most generous course thus to permit your fellow men to have an interest in your enterprise. The owner of the axe, as he released his hold on it, said that it was the apple of his eye; but I returned it sharper than I received it.
I never in all my walks came across a man engaged in so simple and natural an occupation as building his house. We belong to the community. It is not the tailor alone who is the ninth part of a man; it is as much the preacher, and the merchant, and the farmer. Where is this division of labor to end? And what object does it finally serve? No doubt another may also think for me; but it is not therefore desirable that he should do so to the exclusion of my thinking for myself.
The student who secures his coveted leisure and retirement by systematically shirking any labor necessary to man obtains but an ignoble and unprofitable leisure, defrauding himself of the experience which alone can make leisure fruitful. “But,” says one, “you do not mean that the students should go to work with their hands instead of their heads?” I do not mean that exactly, but I mean something which he might think a good deal like that; I mean that they should not play life, or study it merely, while the community supports them at this expensive game, but earnestly live it from beginning to end. How could youths better learn to live than by at once trying the experiment of living?
Which would have advanced the most at the end of a month,- the boy who had made his own jackknife from the ore which he had dug and smelted, reading as much as would be necessary for this,- or the boy who had attended the lectures on metallurgy at the Institution in the mean while, and had received a Rogers’ penknife from his father? Which would be most likely to cut his fingers? To my astonishment I was informed on leaving college that I had studied navigation!- why, if I had taken one turn down the harbor I should have known more about it.
A simple and independent mind does not toil at the bidding of any prince.
In short, I am convinced, both by faith and experience, that to maintain one’s self on this earth is not a hardship but a pastime, if we will live simply and wisely; as the pursuits of the simpler nations are still the sports of the more artificial.
I would not have any one adopt my mode of living on any account; for, beside that before he had fairly learned it I may have found out another for myself, I desire that there may be as many different persons in the world as possible; but I would have each one be very careful to find out and pursue his own way, and not his father’s or his mother’s or his neighbor’s instead. The youth may build or plant or sail, only let him not be hindered from doing that which he tells me he would like to do. It is by a mathematical point only that we are wise, as the sailor or the fugitive slave keeps the polestar in his eye; but that is sufficient guidance for all our life. We may not arrive at our port within a calculable period, but we would preserve the true course.
The only cooperation which is commonly possible is exceedingly partial and superficial; and what little true cooperation there is, is as if it were not, being a harmony inaudible to men. If a man has faith he will cooperate with equal faith everywhere; if he has not faith, he will continue to live like the rest of the world, whatever company he is joined to. To cooperate, in the highest as well as the lowest sense, means to get our living together…. Above all, as I have implied, the man who goes alone can start today; but he who travels with another must wait til the other is ready, and it may be a long time before they get off.
As for doing good, that is one of the professions which are full. Moreover, I have tried it fairly, and, strange as it may seem, am satisfied that it does not agree with my constitution. Probably I should not consciously and deliberately forsake my particular calling to do the good that society demands of me, to save the universe from annihilation; and I believe that a like but infinitely greater steadfastness elsewhere is all that now preserves it. But I would not stand between any man and his genius; and to him who does this work, which I decline, with his whole heart and soul and life, I would say, Persevere, even if the world call it doing evil, as it is most likely they will.
At doing something,- I will not engage that my neighbors shall pronounce it good,- I do not hesitate to say that I should be a capital fellow to hire; but what that is, it is for my employer to find out. What good I do, in the common sense of the word, must be aside from my main path, and for the most part wholly unintended. Men say, practically, “Begin where you are and such as you are, without aiming mainly to become of more worth, and with kindness aforethought go about doing good.” If I were to preach at all in this strain, I would say rather, “Set about being good.”
If I knew for a certainty that a man was coming to my house with the conscious design of doing me good, I should run for my life, as from that dry and parching wind of the African deserts called the simoom, which fills the mouth and nose and ears and eyes with dust till you are suffocated, for fear that I should get some of his good done to me,- some of its virus mingled into my blood. No,- in this case I would rather suffer evil the natural way.
Be sure that you give the poor the aid that they most need, though it be your example which leaves them far behind. If you give money, spend yourself with it, and do not merely abandon it to them. We make curious mistakes sometimes.
I never knew, and never shall know, a worse man than myself.
Thursday, December 18, 2008
Don Quixote
Don Quixote is a satire about a motivated ignoramus who thinks he’s acquired all there is to know about life by reading books. Specifically, Mr. Quixada has been inspired by books venerating the Christian Crusades. He is convinced the actions of the Christian military (the Knights) demonstrate all that is decent, true, right and good, and resolves to demonstrate moral excellence in his own life by unquestioningly and uncompromisingly following their example in every way.
Mr. Quixada retrieves his great-grandfather’s rusty armor and sword. The helmet he finds lacks the face-guard which is always associated with knights, so he crafts one out of papier mache and attaches it. He then swings his sword at it to test its strength and obliterates it. He fashions another one and decides it is superior to the first, although he refrains from testing it. This is our first glimpse of the major theme running throughout the book; Don Quixote lives primarily by faith, and not by works alone. He buys a horse, and, after agonizing for four days over what to name it, decides upon Rozinante; and liking that name so much, he decides to rename himself as well. After eight days of pondering, he settles upon Don Quixote de la Mancha. Finally, he decides he should have a lady for whom his services will be performed, and rather randomly chooses a prostitute from the next village he finds attractive named Aldonsa Lorenzo. They have never met and never do, but regardless he insists on changing her name, in his mind anyway, to Dulcinea del Toboso.
Don Quixote decides to follow the example of his heroes and the commandments of the Bible by traveling the world as a knight and impart upon it goodness, virtue, righteousness, etc. He quickly finds the real world wanting, however. He distresses over its mundanity, which he quickly solves by stubbornly insisting upon viewing his environment with the grandeur and idealism with which it is described in his precious books. It is important to recognize that through all of his subsequent travels, Don Quixote never roams more than a few days journey on horseback from his home, and much of that time is spent avoiding people. He refrains from engaging in the real world as much as possible.
When Don does meddle in the affairs of others, always in an attempt to prove his superior strength and moral code, the results are unwaveringly disastrous. One of the principle things Don Quixote has learned from his books is that evil often disguises itself as good, so he constantly chooses to see one as the other. Denouncing the inhumanity of keeping people in chains, he frees a convoy of criminals, who promptly beat him up, rob him and escape. Even when he prevents a master from beating a servant, it only results in the servant being beaten more after Don withdraws. I was impressed by the similarities of Don Quixote to George W. Bush.
Sancho Panza is Don Quixote’s poor and greedy neighbor who accompanies Don in hopes of getting rich, believing Don’s promise that he will give him an island to rule over at the end of their adventure. Don enjoys the fact that Sansho is so much a coward that he views Don as brave and so much a moron that he deems Don wise. Don frequently shows off to impress Sancho in the same manner that I used to entertain my younger sister as a kid. (One of my favorite childhood games was the one in which I wrestled an invisible monster out from under the bed and through it down the stairs while my sister nervously clutched her blankets.)
Don Quixote is not as virtuous as he pretends to be. When the innkeeper’s daughter trips and falls into his bed, he mistakes this as an advance and justifies that having sex with her would be the right thing to do. This theme that morality is best kept by having no opportunity to be immoral resurfaces later in the form of a story read while Don sleeps. By the halfway point of this long ass novel, even the author has gotten bored with it and begins segueing into several alternate stories. There are literally hundreds of pages in which Don Quixote never appears. The novel is divided into four books, and the second half of book two and almost all of book four are superfluous. Apparently this book was written before the invention of editing. Cervantes overtly assumes his audience is as dense as his main character, and insists upon beating this horse long after it is, if not dead, really, really tired.
I personally think the book should have ended after book three, chapter XII, at the brilliantly ironic moment when Don Quixote, inspired by a man he stumbles across in the mountain who has been driven mad over the betrayal of the woman he has secretly eloped with and his best friend who get publicly married behind his back, decides he will pretend to go crazy. He cites several knights who were driven mad by unrequited love. He sends Sancho to retrieve Dulcinea and brag of Don’s insanity, so that when her arrival cures him she will be overcome with joy and they will be married. Don wants to do some crazy things, especially run around naked, so that Sansho can vividly describe his condition to Dulcinea; but Sansho hilariously insists that he’ll be able to come up with sufficiently convincing stories of Don’s lunacy. At this point, Sansho could have gone home, fucked the hooker and died of AIDS; the end. If you don’t like my ending, try reading the book all the way through; I dare you.
Mr. Quixada retrieves his great-grandfather’s rusty armor and sword. The helmet he finds lacks the face-guard which is always associated with knights, so he crafts one out of papier mache and attaches it. He then swings his sword at it to test its strength and obliterates it. He fashions another one and decides it is superior to the first, although he refrains from testing it. This is our first glimpse of the major theme running throughout the book; Don Quixote lives primarily by faith, and not by works alone. He buys a horse, and, after agonizing for four days over what to name it, decides upon Rozinante; and liking that name so much, he decides to rename himself as well. After eight days of pondering, he settles upon Don Quixote de la Mancha. Finally, he decides he should have a lady for whom his services will be performed, and rather randomly chooses a prostitute from the next village he finds attractive named Aldonsa Lorenzo. They have never met and never do, but regardless he insists on changing her name, in his mind anyway, to Dulcinea del Toboso.
Don Quixote decides to follow the example of his heroes and the commandments of the Bible by traveling the world as a knight and impart upon it goodness, virtue, righteousness, etc. He quickly finds the real world wanting, however. He distresses over its mundanity, which he quickly solves by stubbornly insisting upon viewing his environment with the grandeur and idealism with which it is described in his precious books. It is important to recognize that through all of his subsequent travels, Don Quixote never roams more than a few days journey on horseback from his home, and much of that time is spent avoiding people. He refrains from engaging in the real world as much as possible.
When Don does meddle in the affairs of others, always in an attempt to prove his superior strength and moral code, the results are unwaveringly disastrous. One of the principle things Don Quixote has learned from his books is that evil often disguises itself as good, so he constantly chooses to see one as the other. Denouncing the inhumanity of keeping people in chains, he frees a convoy of criminals, who promptly beat him up, rob him and escape. Even when he prevents a master from beating a servant, it only results in the servant being beaten more after Don withdraws. I was impressed by the similarities of Don Quixote to George W. Bush.
Sancho Panza is Don Quixote’s poor and greedy neighbor who accompanies Don in hopes of getting rich, believing Don’s promise that he will give him an island to rule over at the end of their adventure. Don enjoys the fact that Sansho is so much a coward that he views Don as brave and so much a moron that he deems Don wise. Don frequently shows off to impress Sancho in the same manner that I used to entertain my younger sister as a kid. (One of my favorite childhood games was the one in which I wrestled an invisible monster out from under the bed and through it down the stairs while my sister nervously clutched her blankets.)
Don Quixote is not as virtuous as he pretends to be. When the innkeeper’s daughter trips and falls into his bed, he mistakes this as an advance and justifies that having sex with her would be the right thing to do. This theme that morality is best kept by having no opportunity to be immoral resurfaces later in the form of a story read while Don sleeps. By the halfway point of this long ass novel, even the author has gotten bored with it and begins segueing into several alternate stories. There are literally hundreds of pages in which Don Quixote never appears. The novel is divided into four books, and the second half of book two and almost all of book four are superfluous. Apparently this book was written before the invention of editing. Cervantes overtly assumes his audience is as dense as his main character, and insists upon beating this horse long after it is, if not dead, really, really tired.
I personally think the book should have ended after book three, chapter XII, at the brilliantly ironic moment when Don Quixote, inspired by a man he stumbles across in the mountain who has been driven mad over the betrayal of the woman he has secretly eloped with and his best friend who get publicly married behind his back, decides he will pretend to go crazy. He cites several knights who were driven mad by unrequited love. He sends Sancho to retrieve Dulcinea and brag of Don’s insanity, so that when her arrival cures him she will be overcome with joy and they will be married. Don wants to do some crazy things, especially run around naked, so that Sansho can vividly describe his condition to Dulcinea; but Sansho hilariously insists that he’ll be able to come up with sufficiently convincing stories of Don’s lunacy. At this point, Sansho could have gone home, fucked the hooker and died of AIDS; the end. If you don’t like my ending, try reading the book all the way through; I dare you.
Saturday, September 20, 2008
Desperation
When I was first confronted with Thoreau’s declaration that “The vast majority of men lead lives of quiet desperation,” I remember quietly, desperately hoping I wasn’t one of them. But Thoreau didn’t mean this statement as a criticism so much as a self-revelation. He made a point to separate himself from his assumptions and routines in order to discover unexplored ways in which he could find fulfillment, pleasure and contentment.
Not long after reading Walden for the second time, I went through my Kafka phase. Here was a man who lived a life of overt desperation. Realizing that the flaw with living could lie not in the desperation involved but in not voicing that desperation was a real epiphany for me. Reading Kafka might have led to my appreciation of the grunge music surrounding me at the time, although it’d probably be more accurate to credit fellow computer nerds Josh, Damon and Cory for that. Besides, Kafka was far less satirical than grunge. His The Castle is the greatest ode to frustration that I have ever encountered.
Walt Whitman was the one who most successfully relayed to me the possibility of desperately clinging to hope. Completely removed from Kafka’s despair, Whitman had no apprehensions toward self-contradiction, confusion or the unknown. His words: “I too am not a bit tamed. I too am untranslatable. I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world,” inspired me infinitely. At the same time, his extreme optimism weakens him for my cynical self, because it’s less impressive to think well of things if you assume they’re going to turn out great than to think well of things despite realizing it’s all going to shit.
Douglas Adams seemed to revel in the fact that everything’s going to shit. That was the beauty of it for him. He understood than when all is lost, there is nothing to lose. Life doesn’t come with an instruction manual; not one that’s of much use anyhow. The most you can do is keep a towel nearby and, above all else, don’t panic. And when that plan fails, turn on the Improbability Drive and hope things work themselves out.
I see myself as embracing a combination of Thoreau’s asceticism and curiosity, Kafka’s cynicism and frustration, Whitman’s tenacity and hedonistic ambition and Adam’s indomitable sense of humor. In my experience, all you can do in this life is try. Try desperately, but don’t panic. Typically, Yoda had it backwards: Try or try not, there is no do. Doing has a finality that can only be equated with death. In any other connotation, completion is illusory. Therefore, the idea of fulfillment is dubious. Our pursuits toward that which would seem to fulfill are worthwhile, but we cannot predict our enjoyment of something we have never experienced. Also, fulfillment is fleeting by its very nature. The more you have of something, the more mundane it becomes. Thoreau left Walden after two years, inevitably finding it wanting.
Not long after reading Walden for the second time, I went through my Kafka phase. Here was a man who lived a life of overt desperation. Realizing that the flaw with living could lie not in the desperation involved but in not voicing that desperation was a real epiphany for me. Reading Kafka might have led to my appreciation of the grunge music surrounding me at the time, although it’d probably be more accurate to credit fellow computer nerds Josh, Damon and Cory for that. Besides, Kafka was far less satirical than grunge. His The Castle is the greatest ode to frustration that I have ever encountered.
Walt Whitman was the one who most successfully relayed to me the possibility of desperately clinging to hope. Completely removed from Kafka’s despair, Whitman had no apprehensions toward self-contradiction, confusion or the unknown. His words: “I too am not a bit tamed. I too am untranslatable. I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world,” inspired me infinitely. At the same time, his extreme optimism weakens him for my cynical self, because it’s less impressive to think well of things if you assume they’re going to turn out great than to think well of things despite realizing it’s all going to shit.
Douglas Adams seemed to revel in the fact that everything’s going to shit. That was the beauty of it for him. He understood than when all is lost, there is nothing to lose. Life doesn’t come with an instruction manual; not one that’s of much use anyhow. The most you can do is keep a towel nearby and, above all else, don’t panic. And when that plan fails, turn on the Improbability Drive and hope things work themselves out.
I see myself as embracing a combination of Thoreau’s asceticism and curiosity, Kafka’s cynicism and frustration, Whitman’s tenacity and hedonistic ambition and Adam’s indomitable sense of humor. In my experience, all you can do in this life is try. Try desperately, but don’t panic. Typically, Yoda had it backwards: Try or try not, there is no do. Doing has a finality that can only be equated with death. In any other connotation, completion is illusory. Therefore, the idea of fulfillment is dubious. Our pursuits toward that which would seem to fulfill are worthwhile, but we cannot predict our enjoyment of something we have never experienced. Also, fulfillment is fleeting by its very nature. The more you have of something, the more mundane it becomes. Thoreau left Walden after two years, inevitably finding it wanting.
Monday, January 28, 2008
Saturday, September 8, 2007
Walden
Henry David Thoreau conducted a two year experiment on Walden Pond. The goal of the experiment was not to live in isolation, as most believe, but to attempt to determine the difference between the necessary and the desired, and how much he could get from how little. He wanted to whittle life down to its simplest form. He wanted to find out what he was and wasn’t capable of. He wanted to know how much material he could get for how little pay, how much beauty he could find in the most mundane, how much knowledge he could gain from the most trivial, how much enjoyment he could get from the most tedious.
Solitude was part of the experiment, and Thoreau found much wisdom and enjoyment in solitude. But Thoreau also found much in his fellow man. Thoreau did not live in isolation; he walked into town almost every day and had frequent visitors. He sought a balance between solitude and the company of others, and a comfortable distance between himself and the opinions of others.
Although I know the idea of actually reading a book instead of spewing your thoughts about it is pretty outlandish, for a much more thorough understanding of this topic I recommend reading Walden, by Henry David Thoreau.
Solitude was part of the experiment, and Thoreau found much wisdom and enjoyment in solitude. But Thoreau also found much in his fellow man. Thoreau did not live in isolation; he walked into town almost every day and had frequent visitors. He sought a balance between solitude and the company of others, and a comfortable distance between himself and the opinions of others.
Although I know the idea of actually reading a book instead of spewing your thoughts about it is pretty outlandish, for a much more thorough understanding of this topic I recommend reading Walden, by Henry David Thoreau.
Tuesday, August 21, 2007
Harry Potter
For all I know, the Harry Potter books are the greatest books ever written. If they are, it’ll be my loss, because I’m not gonna read them. Here’s why:
(1)I saw the first movie, and it sucked. Big Time. I know you can’t judge a book from the movie, but the general consensus is the people who liked the books also like the movies. I also read one and a half of those crappy books by Phillip Pullman, about a little brat with a soul manifested as her pet, which people compare to Harry Potter.
(2)I am highly skeptical of anything the masses enjoy. I have learned that my sense of aesthetic does not jive with the Average Joe. I assume the people who read these books are the same people who like crap like U2, Pink Floyd, Animal House, The Lord of the Rings, Wonder Bread, ketchup, Thomas Kinkade and People magazine. I also assume the people who read these books don’t know who James Joyce, Derek Bailey, Eric Dolphy, Charles Ives, Paul Klee or Andrei Tarkovsky are.
(3)There are about 50 books that I actually want to read. I am still trying to get through Don Quixote. The allegories are pertinent, perhaps especially in the George W. Bush era, and I think several chapters are a must-read for everyone, but I’ll admit it is a tedious read. I also haven’t read any Bukowski or Philip K. Dick, which I hope to remedy soon. Other books I really want to read include Finnegan’s Wake, Frannie and Zooey, Billy Budd, some Douglas Adams besides the Hitchhiker series and some more Ferlinghetti.
(1)I saw the first movie, and it sucked. Big Time. I know you can’t judge a book from the movie, but the general consensus is the people who liked the books also like the movies. I also read one and a half of those crappy books by Phillip Pullman, about a little brat with a soul manifested as her pet, which people compare to Harry Potter.
(2)I am highly skeptical of anything the masses enjoy. I have learned that my sense of aesthetic does not jive with the Average Joe. I assume the people who read these books are the same people who like crap like U2, Pink Floyd, Animal House, The Lord of the Rings, Wonder Bread, ketchup, Thomas Kinkade and People magazine. I also assume the people who read these books don’t know who James Joyce, Derek Bailey, Eric Dolphy, Charles Ives, Paul Klee or Andrei Tarkovsky are.
(3)There are about 50 books that I actually want to read. I am still trying to get through Don Quixote. The allegories are pertinent, perhaps especially in the George W. Bush era, and I think several chapters are a must-read for everyone, but I’ll admit it is a tedious read. I also haven’t read any Bukowski or Philip K. Dick, which I hope to remedy soon. Other books I really want to read include Finnegan’s Wake, Frannie and Zooey, Billy Budd, some Douglas Adams besides the Hitchhiker series and some more Ferlinghetti.
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