I hate doing this but I have to.
For the next two or three weeks, barring a miracle, I will be knee fucking deep in finishing my thesis. As it is, intelligencely, academically, personally, and time-wise, I'm spread micrometer thin. On the big List of Priorities, Graduating is number one. Everything else trails reeaaally far behind. To graduate, I need to finish writing my thesis. To finish writing my thesis, I need to concentrate on nothing else EVER, except writing my thesis.
This is how it plays out in my head: its a nighttime football game, flood lights on, fans are screaming, last quarter, the hometown team is down by three, they need to rush 40 yards in the last down to take home the State Championship (i know what you're thinking...whatever. I don't even want to know how I know how to say all that). And me? I'm the Roided-out coach, with his red polo stretched to the max over his insane pecs, screaming at his poor star quarterback:
Coach: "What kind of a man are you!? Did I raise a team of sissies?? GET THAT BALL IN THE END ZONE."
Quarterback: "Coach... we've been running the ball all quarter. We can't get through their defense... we just can't do it. We're exhausted. We need more time..."
Coach: "I don't give a shit!! I don't care what you do to get there! I don't care if you play dirty; if you stab their linebacker with a shiv to move the ball, I accept and encourage it! YOUR ONLY GOAL IN LIFE IS TO GET ME THOSE POINTS. NOTHING ELSE MATTERS."
I also picture him ending that tirade with "OR SO HELP ME GOD I WILL BREAK YOUR NECK WITH MY TERMINATOR THIGHS." but I'm not sure whether that makes my point come across better.
Ok, I know the above is full of crazy, but that's where my brain is at right now. I am an exhausted, sweaty quarterback, who just wants to go home and eat Mom's casserole and forget about his failure to take his team to the State Championship. But right now, it doesn't matter how much body mass I've lost in perspiration or how I think most of my groin muscles are ripped like silly putty from the bone. Or how much internal bleeding is going on. Right now, a homicidal Coach is screaming in my face to Get It Done or There Will Be Horrible Consequences. And unfortunately, there is no way out of this last 3:00 minutes of the game. I can't fast forward through it, or pass the responsibility on to someone else. The only course of action is to just forget about everything not in my tunnel vision, to suck it up, and make that play happen. And like Coach is saying, NOTHING ELSE MATTERS.
I mean look at this entry, seriously. I obviously don't even have time left to be sane, let alone to write comprehensive blog entries. So, for the next three weeks, I have to abandon this blog. Because this blog is Mom's meaty casserole and the big screen TV at home. And that shit is just NOT on my radar right now. It can't be. The only thing that is important is the endzone.
So while I feel like opting out of all the activities I like, the ones which make me feel human (writing... painting... responding to emails... speaking to my loved ones... showering...), until I see the receiver jump up and catch that beautiful, arcing, perfect pass, I just have to accept that I will be a shit head and sacrifice whatever needs to be sacrificed to make that happen. And apologize later.
See you at the after-party.
**Sorry this entry is full of football references. I... don't really know why. It must be an academic side effect, I don't know.**
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
Friday, February 15, 2008
something moves in me.
-----------------------
1.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ov7SmA0qIbw
Ingrid Michelson -- The Hat
2.
When you give me back to the world
and the world throws me over, I read Ovid’s
“Cures for Love”: one, love is better
than doing nothing; two, divert the mind
with farming; three, wine promotes sex.
For months I obsess over farm tools, then go to Italy.
But this is supposed to be a sad story,
remember, written in Finnish because
there is no future, there is no forever.
Here is your name crossed out. If you could
now go away from my heart. I’m in Rome
where the gods are lying around at Trevi,
and only the head of the fish on my plate
can look me in the eyes and stay there.
What would Ovid say about this?
The light inside the Pantheon makes me cry
inexplicably. The letter I imagine writing: it is blank.
We are stars as well as dust here. A man
throws fire, the doctor is cutting
my mother’s neck, I’ve lost my way.
Can there really not be any concrete
evidence of love? But this burning sky,
my hands like local relics. Someone
is coming near, someone is vanishing,
I can’t tell which I want
to be real. Now there are bells, now
there is singing, it’s forgiveness
we want. We want to press against
strangers & we want it to be rough.
How much would you pay for joy?
Grandma says nothing is worth
dying for, and in my dreams I can bring her
back to life anytime she decides to leave.
Love is that powerful. Just look at my eyes
saying reaper, spade, sickle. The wine in Rome
has never tasted so lovely. Even this table
you’re leaning on may not be there, someone says.
Even the Forum is all in ruins, and the people
are not sure if history has written them
out from under the rubble.
-- Cures For Love - Stacie Cassarino
3.
"Let me wear it in a locket over my heart," the proud father continued, pacing the room with his empty crystal goblet held in front of him, "and keep it forever, because I have never been so happy in my life, and will be perfectly content if I never experience half of this happiness again -- until the wedding of my other daughter, of course. Indeed," he said, hemming the laughter, "if there are to be no other moments for the rest of time, I would never once complain. Let this be the moment that never ends."
My grandfather squeezed the Gypsy girl's fingers [not his wife, for the record], as if to say, "It's not too late. There is still time. We could run, leave everything behind, never look back, save ourselves."
She squeezed his fingers, as if to say, "You are not forgiven."
Menachem continued, trying to hold back tears, "Please raise your empty glasses with me. To my daughter and new son, to the children they'll produce, and the children of those, to life!"
But before the father of the bride had taken his seat, before the glases had a chance to clink their reflected smiles against one another in hope, the house waws again swept with a haunting guest. The place cards were thrown into the air, and the centerpieces were again knocked over, this time spreading dirt over the white tablecloth and onto almost every lap.
The Gypsy women rushed to clean up the mess, and my grandfather whispered into Zosha's ear, which for him was the Gypsy girl's ear: "It will be OK."
The Gypsy girl, the REAL Gypsy girl, did slip my grandfather a note, although it fell out of his hand in the commotion, was kicked across the floor, by the nameless fishmonger -- to the far end of the table, where it came to rest under an overturned wine glass, which kept it safe until that night, when a Gypsy woman picked up the glass and swept the note (along with fallen food, dirt and piles of dust) into a large paper bag. This bag was put out in front of the house by a different Gypsy woman. The next morning, the paper bag was collected by the obsessive-compulsive garbage man Feigel B. The bag was then taken to a field on the other side of the river, and burned with dozens of other bags, reached into the sky, red and yellow fingers. The smoke spread like a canopy over the neighboring fields, making many a Wisps of Ardisht cough, because every kind of smoke is different and must be made familiar. Some of the ash that remained was incorporated into the soil. The rest was washed away by the next rain and swept into the Brod.
This is what the note said: Change.
-Everything is Illuminated -- Jonathan Safran Foer
1.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ov7SmA0qIbw
Ingrid Michelson -- The Hat
2.
When you give me back to the world
and the world throws me over, I read Ovid’s
“Cures for Love”: one, love is better
than doing nothing; two, divert the mind
with farming; three, wine promotes sex.
For months I obsess over farm tools, then go to Italy.
But this is supposed to be a sad story,
remember, written in Finnish because
there is no future, there is no forever.
Here is your name crossed out. If you could
now go away from my heart. I’m in Rome
where the gods are lying around at Trevi,
and only the head of the fish on my plate
can look me in the eyes and stay there.
What would Ovid say about this?
The light inside the Pantheon makes me cry
inexplicably. The letter I imagine writing: it is blank.
We are stars as well as dust here. A man
throws fire, the doctor is cutting
my mother’s neck, I’ve lost my way.
Can there really not be any concrete
evidence of love? But this burning sky,
my hands like local relics. Someone
is coming near, someone is vanishing,
I can’t tell which I want
to be real. Now there are bells, now
there is singing, it’s forgiveness
we want. We want to press against
strangers & we want it to be rough.
How much would you pay for joy?
Grandma says nothing is worth
dying for, and in my dreams I can bring her
back to life anytime she decides to leave.
Love is that powerful. Just look at my eyes
saying reaper, spade, sickle. The wine in Rome
has never tasted so lovely. Even this table
you’re leaning on may not be there, someone says.
Even the Forum is all in ruins, and the people
are not sure if history has written them
out from under the rubble.
-- Cures For Love - Stacie Cassarino
3.
"Let me wear it in a locket over my heart," the proud father continued, pacing the room with his empty crystal goblet held in front of him, "and keep it forever, because I have never been so happy in my life, and will be perfectly content if I never experience half of this happiness again -- until the wedding of my other daughter, of course. Indeed," he said, hemming the laughter, "if there are to be no other moments for the rest of time, I would never once complain. Let this be the moment that never ends."
My grandfather squeezed the Gypsy girl's fingers [not his wife, for the record], as if to say, "It's not too late. There is still time. We could run, leave everything behind, never look back, save ourselves."
She squeezed his fingers, as if to say, "You are not forgiven."
Menachem continued, trying to hold back tears, "Please raise your empty glasses with me. To my daughter and new son, to the children they'll produce, and the children of those, to life!"
But before the father of the bride had taken his seat, before the glases had a chance to clink their reflected smiles against one another in hope, the house waws again swept with a haunting guest. The place cards were thrown into the air, and the centerpieces were again knocked over, this time spreading dirt over the white tablecloth and onto almost every lap.
The Gypsy women rushed to clean up the mess, and my grandfather whispered into Zosha's ear, which for him was the Gypsy girl's ear: "It will be OK."
The Gypsy girl, the REAL Gypsy girl, did slip my grandfather a note, although it fell out of his hand in the commotion, was kicked across the floor, by the nameless fishmonger -- to the far end of the table, where it came to rest under an overturned wine glass, which kept it safe until that night, when a Gypsy woman picked up the glass and swept the note (along with fallen food, dirt and piles of dust) into a large paper bag. This bag was put out in front of the house by a different Gypsy woman. The next morning, the paper bag was collected by the obsessive-compulsive garbage man Feigel B. The bag was then taken to a field on the other side of the river, and burned with dozens of other bags, reached into the sky, red and yellow fingers. The smoke spread like a canopy over the neighboring fields, making many a Wisps of Ardisht cough, because every kind of smoke is different and must be made familiar. Some of the ash that remained was incorporated into the soil. The rest was washed away by the next rain and swept into the Brod.
This is what the note said: Change.
-Everything is Illuminated -- Jonathan Safran Foer
Saturday, February 9, 2008
it's the weight of the world, i know, as you were mine, and we will find: time will change; still the world remains the same.
.
Biofuels Deemed a Greenhouse Threat, and could worsen Global Warming, via the New York Times.
Just another wrench in that debate.
It's not like this is the first someone is crying "foul" on ethanol -- National Geographic had a bang-a-rang article a while back, on the most common bio-fuels and their energy capacity, vs. traditional fuels and their energy capacity, vs. alternative fuels and their energy capacity. (Definitely illuminating, even though I don't get any of the physics/math intricacies, because I slept through that year in high school.)
EDIT: I actually did one better and found the National Geographic interactive Biofuel website. Check out the energy balance of corn. Miracle fuel, that.
Then check out its corn's CO2 emissions and retail price as compared to sugarcane.
Not to get all Mulder Sculley conspiracy theory, but Hi!, yes, there's a definitive reason why ethanol has been pushed so hard in this country and abroad, and it doesn't have anything to do with corn burning so fresh, so clean. It does have a lot to do with corn-lobbyists being one of the strongest political lobbying parties in the country, and their ability to grease a few palms on both sides on the debate. Corn is vastly subsidized by the American government, which I'm sure doesn't hurt.
Eco-friendly vs. government interests. Like Stephen Hawking vs. The Rock.
Just in case anyone was listening like 5 months ago, Nature was already talking about the Evil Axis of Corn.
[Note: Ok, seriously, I tried to embed this video for almost half an hour. It really bordered on David and Goliath. Obviously I'm the biblical figure with the glandular disorder, cause here I am posting the link instead.]
King Of Corn -- Two friends, one acre of corn, and the subsidized crop which drives our fast-food nation.
Fair warning, don't watch this if you are currently eating corn. Cause you'll be freaked out.
Fair warning number 2, if you are currently eating anything, it probably already has corn in it.
Corn, and biofuels in general, aren't a silver-bullet. The pit we're in, environmentally and fuel-wise, is so damn deep because we keep wanting every option to be a magical solution. Why biofuels in the first place? They require the least change in our infrastructure -- cars run on liquid fuels, the plants that make the cars run on liquid fuels, etc, etc. The problem is persisting, perhaps, because no one wants to give up the ability to tow eight tractors and an elephant with their suped-up Dodge Ram. We don't want to sacrifice the lifestyle we already have, we want to keep it, and simeltaneously, solve the problem that our lifestyle causes.
There is a great, dark divide between what humans have the capacity to do, and what they should do. Yes, perhaps Ford could make an 25 person S.U.V. with a portable kitchen, plasma T.V.s, and the ability to tow a circus up Everest, but that doesn't neccesarily mean they should.
I'm not sure humanity's capacity for greatness lies in the length of our reach, so much as in the delicate discernment with which we use our grasp.
Biofuels Deemed a Greenhouse Threat, and could worsen Global Warming, via the New York Times.
Just another wrench in that debate.
It's not like this is the first someone is crying "foul" on ethanol -- National Geographic had a bang-a-rang article a while back, on the most common bio-fuels and their energy capacity, vs. traditional fuels and their energy capacity, vs. alternative fuels and their energy capacity. (Definitely illuminating, even though I don't get any of the physics/math intricacies, because I slept through that year in high school.)
EDIT: I actually did one better and found the National Geographic interactive Biofuel website. Check out the energy balance of corn. Miracle fuel, that.
Then check out its corn's CO2 emissions and retail price as compared to sugarcane.
Not to get all Mulder Sculley conspiracy theory, but Hi!, yes, there's a definitive reason why ethanol has been pushed so hard in this country and abroad, and it doesn't have anything to do with corn burning so fresh, so clean. It does have a lot to do with corn-lobbyists being one of the strongest political lobbying parties in the country, and their ability to grease a few palms on both sides on the debate. Corn is vastly subsidized by the American government, which I'm sure doesn't hurt.
Eco-friendly vs. government interests. Like Stephen Hawking vs. The Rock.
Just in case anyone was listening like 5 months ago, Nature was already talking about the Evil Axis of Corn.
[Note: Ok, seriously, I tried to embed this video for almost half an hour. It really bordered on David and Goliath. Obviously I'm the biblical figure with the glandular disorder, cause here I am posting the link instead.]
King Of Corn -- Two friends, one acre of corn, and the subsidized crop which drives our fast-food nation.
Fair warning, don't watch this if you are currently eating corn. Cause you'll be freaked out.
Fair warning number 2, if you are currently eating anything, it probably already has corn in it.
Corn, and biofuels in general, aren't a silver-bullet. The pit we're in, environmentally and fuel-wise, is so damn deep because we keep wanting every option to be a magical solution. Why biofuels in the first place? They require the least change in our infrastructure -- cars run on liquid fuels, the plants that make the cars run on liquid fuels, etc, etc. The problem is persisting, perhaps, because no one wants to give up the ability to tow eight tractors and an elephant with their suped-up Dodge Ram. We don't want to sacrifice the lifestyle we already have, we want to keep it, and simeltaneously, solve the problem that our lifestyle causes.
There is a great, dark divide between what humans have the capacity to do, and what they should do. Yes, perhaps Ford could make an 25 person S.U.V. with a portable kitchen, plasma T.V.s, and the ability to tow a circus up Everest, but that doesn't neccesarily mean they should.
I'm not sure humanity's capacity for greatness lies in the length of our reach, so much as in the delicate discernment with which we use our grasp.
Wednesday, February 6, 2008
at my golden age, to begin here | at the base of a twine knot at my back where she pinched, the gentle touch | and my need to cry and laugh and purge.
I've been in a rut, a writing rut, so much so that even typing this entry seemed like medieval torture.
This is not because I can't think of anything to say. It's actually the complete opposite... I know exactly what I want to say, and somehow I can't find the means to say it. My writing is totally illegible.
I've started to think that this writing-gangrene has somehow infected the rest of my body, from my eyes, to my mouth.
This is the way the disease progresses, in case anyone else has developed symptoms and wishes to self-diagnose.
Symptoms: You lose the ability to say what you really mean. You find yourself not only saying things you don't mean, but meaning things you don't say, and even saying things without meaning to. The worst manifestation of this starts as truncated thoughts, abbreviated conversations, and ends with full-blown silence.
Case study 1 --
Class at run-of-the-mill alternative, liberal, rural, undergraduate private college. Small setting; 15 or so students present. A conversation about the political primary is started by the professor. A question is posed: How much faith do we, as students, have in the electoral process? Do we believe that we can actually create change through capitalist government processes? Several students, whom identify as anarchists, claim that they will not vote, because the primary elections cannot be used as fuel to power a substantial political revolution. At this point, a female student (white) begins to tell a personal narrative as evidence to support her view (how unique and unprecedented) that voting can help create positive change. In telling the story, she relays how she traveled to Cambridge, MA., to vote with her hometown friend. They exited the polling place, received their "I voted!" stickers, and decided to grab a bite to eat. They caravaned to a nearby town to eat, (EDIT: from this point on these are HER descriptives, not mine.) where in a convenience store, she came across a woman she described as "an Indian lady, who didn't speak a word of English". The woman grabbed her sleeve, and pointed to the sticker on the girls jacket. (at this moment, the storyteller launched into an exaggerated "accent" which she considered "Indian". in regards to its accuracy, i choose to defer to any basic high school geography class.) The woman, pointing, and according to the storyteller, started yelling "You vote-ay! I vote-ay! Bring me vote-ay!" The girl asked the woman: "Are you a legal citizen?" and the woman said: "Of course! Yes, I have papers! Take me vote-ay!" The girl, feeling personally responsible for the "poor, lost woman", took her back to the same polling place she had voted at, and waited for the woman to finish voting. She ended the the story by saying: "And just looking at her, she was so happy just to be allowed to vote. It was really inspiring. She was obviously so empowered by it."
I found myself suddenly unable to speak. If I could have, I supposed I would have found myself without the means to express at that moment why/how I felt the anecdote was so patronizing and offensive (and smelling a lot like ... subtle racism?). In fact, I found myself unable to identify whether it was appropriate to call the speaker out.
This is not the only Case Study which has presented itself in this area. Its also not the only manifestation of this same inability to communicate effectively. Saying too little. Saying too much. Speaking one sentence when thinking another. Entire verses speaking through eyes instead of lips. Wires crossed. It seems to affect more than once facet of the body(ies).
Treatment: Doctors used to apply leeches when they believed the blood contained toxins which needed to be let. Priests perform exorcisms to rid penitents of the devil's playthings. Surgeons drill holes into the skulls on their operating tables to relieve the brain of fluid pressure.
The only treatment is to relieve the pressure, to exorcise, to let it. (Out.)
This will not be easy. First, a diagnosis, and then, figuring out which treatments are optimal, and which just exacerbate the problem. Migrating to a warmer climate? A plan of attack? Ignoring the problem? (The last option seems like the least likely solution.) And how do you feel a change? How does a doctor know when the patient has the tools to continue therapies on their own? Can we relearn, regain the ability to speak; did we never know how to in the first place? Is there a prescription for silence?
I say this hypothetically.
This is not because I can't think of anything to say. It's actually the complete opposite... I know exactly what I want to say, and somehow I can't find the means to say it. My writing is totally illegible.
I've started to think that this writing-gangrene has somehow infected the rest of my body, from my eyes, to my mouth.
This is the way the disease progresses, in case anyone else has developed symptoms and wishes to self-diagnose.
Symptoms: You lose the ability to say what you really mean. You find yourself not only saying things you don't mean, but meaning things you don't say, and even saying things without meaning to. The worst manifestation of this starts as truncated thoughts, abbreviated conversations, and ends with full-blown silence.
Case study 1 --
Class at run-of-the-mill alternative, liberal, rural, undergraduate private college. Small setting; 15 or so students present. A conversation about the political primary is started by the professor. A question is posed: How much faith do we, as students, have in the electoral process? Do we believe that we can actually create change through capitalist government processes? Several students, whom identify as anarchists, claim that they will not vote, because the primary elections cannot be used as fuel to power a substantial political revolution. At this point, a female student (white) begins to tell a personal narrative as evidence to support her view (how unique and unprecedented) that voting can help create positive change. In telling the story, she relays how she traveled to Cambridge, MA., to vote with her hometown friend. They exited the polling place, received their "I voted!" stickers, and decided to grab a bite to eat. They caravaned to a nearby town to eat, (EDIT: from this point on these are HER descriptives, not mine.) where in a convenience store, she came across a woman she described as "an Indian lady, who didn't speak a word of English". The woman grabbed her sleeve, and pointed to the sticker on the girls jacket. (at this moment, the storyteller launched into an exaggerated "accent" which she considered "Indian". in regards to its accuracy, i choose to defer to any basic high school geography class.) The woman, pointing, and according to the storyteller, started yelling "You vote-ay! I vote-ay! Bring me vote-ay!" The girl asked the woman: "Are you a legal citizen?" and the woman said: "Of course! Yes, I have papers! Take me vote-ay!" The girl, feeling personally responsible for the "poor, lost woman", took her back to the same polling place she had voted at, and waited for the woman to finish voting. She ended the the story by saying: "And just looking at her, she was so happy just to be allowed to vote. It was really inspiring. She was obviously so empowered by it."
I found myself suddenly unable to speak. If I could have, I supposed I would have found myself without the means to express at that moment why/how I felt the anecdote was so patronizing and offensive (and smelling a lot like ... subtle racism?). In fact, I found myself unable to identify whether it was appropriate to call the speaker out.
This is not the only Case Study which has presented itself in this area. Its also not the only manifestation of this same inability to communicate effectively. Saying too little. Saying too much. Speaking one sentence when thinking another. Entire verses speaking through eyes instead of lips. Wires crossed. It seems to affect more than once facet of the body(ies).
Treatment: Doctors used to apply leeches when they believed the blood contained toxins which needed to be let. Priests perform exorcisms to rid penitents of the devil's playthings. Surgeons drill holes into the skulls on their operating tables to relieve the brain of fluid pressure.
The only treatment is to relieve the pressure, to exorcise, to let it. (Out.)
This will not be easy. First, a diagnosis, and then, figuring out which treatments are optimal, and which just exacerbate the problem. Migrating to a warmer climate? A plan of attack? Ignoring the problem? (The last option seems like the least likely solution.) And how do you feel a change? How does a doctor know when the patient has the tools to continue therapies on their own? Can we relearn, regain the ability to speak; did we never know how to in the first place? Is there a prescription for silence?
I say this hypothetically.
Friday, January 25, 2008
I came packed in oils, the residue of Eden.
Some said that grief made me.
Some said it was the death of a child.
Or a passion so dense no light escaped.
Some said it was sin.
They told me stories to account for the disease.
Of heavy elements that kept me from rising.
Of the ribbed wings of angels.
Of cells that changed.
I trusted the world to be natural. The voice
Of disease was the white noise I slept by.
What happened to me happened to you.
I ate too much or too little, the water was unclean.
I saw the face of illness mature in the mirror.
Everything that had been outside me
Came to be inside me.
I was unequally well and unwell.
I was my own medicine.
And now the endless remedies
Became the white noise I slept by, deeply.
For such and so many are the body's afflictions,
That to live is to die.
-- Marvin Bell, "A Healthy Life"
Some said that grief made me.
Some said it was the death of a child.
Or a passion so dense no light escaped.
Some said it was sin.
They told me stories to account for the disease.
Of heavy elements that kept me from rising.
Of the ribbed wings of angels.
Of cells that changed.
I trusted the world to be natural. The voice
Of disease was the white noise I slept by.
What happened to me happened to you.
I ate too much or too little, the water was unclean.
I saw the face of illness mature in the mirror.
Everything that had been outside me
Came to be inside me.
I was unequally well and unwell.
I was my own medicine.
And now the endless remedies
Became the white noise I slept by, deeply.
For such and so many are the body's afflictions,
That to live is to die.
-- Marvin Bell, "A Healthy Life"
Monday, January 14, 2008
Please come here. Please come on over. There is no line that you can't step right over.
This morning I woke up, glanced out my window like I do every morning, and did a major double take, because there was 8 or so inches of snow on the ground. Maybe there's more, actually, but I didn't really go outside with a yardstick so I have no concrete number to report.
Got dressed, put on some snow boots, borrowed the ergonomic shovel from our neighbors, and began to dig out my car, which the plowman had so kindly packed into the snow like a little shitty red igloo. I've actually never been in Massachusetts for winter whilst also owning a car, so by some short-lived miracle, I've never had to un-burrow my own car. I did the best I could, getting most of the ice out from under the wheels. I turned on my car to warm it up while I went back into the house for my backpack and my coffee. I felt very strange, however... there was this latent but nagging feeling that something integral was missing from the picture. Like there was a step I was forgetting.
I went back outside and sat in the car to think:
I dug out the wheels.
I cleaned off the wipers.
I have the emergency brake on.
There's no snow on top of the car.
But that feeling was still there, and now it was compounded by me feeling really dizzy. And nauseous. I felt pretty sick in general.
I opened the door and put my head between my knees to breathe. Then it slowly dawned on me... I turned my head to look at the back of my car...
I never dug out the exhaust pipe.
I had neglected to un-bury the exhaust pipe, which was packed into ice and snow.
What happens when people try to kill themselves in the garage? They slowly asphyxiate to death, because the carbon monoxide filters back into their car. Which is almost what I accidentally did this morning.
I like to think that I'm not actually such a complete moron that I qualify for a Darwin Award by just trying to drive. But my mom did mention that my grandfather's childhood friend killed his entire family in a very similar manner.
And recently in the news, a man quite accidentally began to drive, passed out behind the wheel, and drove into incoming traffic. His tailpipe had been blocked off.
Why would I forget such a critical step of such a simple series of tasks? Doesn't our memories serve to protect us?
Yes and no. But not always.
From the November issue of National Geographic, an article discusses Harvard psychologist Daniel Schacter, who has developed a taxonomy for the types of forgetting with experience. He calls these the "sins of memory". Yet each sin, he believes, is also a blessing -- they are "a price we pay for processes and functions that serve us well in many respects". For each thing we forget, we remember something which our brains have prioritized as more important. Not that there's such a limited amount of room, but for our brains to work most efficiently, its easiest for us to forget extraneous details. The entire purpose of our brains are, after all, to be highly developed "prediction machines"; we touch, we taste, we talk and hear and move. From every outlet we have, we take in as much information about world as we can get. All that information could drown us; its part of the brain's job to throw away what's not important. Whats left in our memories, scientists theorize, are five types of memories:
- Short-memory, immediate. (sensory)
We hold these for fractions of a second; a street light down the block changing, a far off church bell, a whiff of the neighbor's dinner. These are also known as things subliminal -- most of the time we don't even realize that we are sensing these stimuli.
- Working, short-term memory. (recalled)
You can remember what this post is about. After dinner you remember what you ate. Tomorrow you'll know it snowed today. Simple immediate information.
- Long-Term Memory, Facts and Events. (declarative, aka, episodic and semantic)
When did Columbus sail? Who wrote Lolita? What was the name of your first dog? Where did your father trip and fall on the ice when you were 9? How many broken bones have you had?
These are things we consider as integral to who we are, our past, the books we've read, the wars we've seen, the names of all fifty states and our favorite sonnet. There is a spectrum of fact and event long-term memory; you might have known a line or two from the Talmud when you were studying world religions in 10th grade, but I doubt you remember it now. Yet on the other end of the long-term spectrum, there are Jewish scholars who memorized the Talmud so completely that it was passed down orally for generations.
- Long-Term Memory for Habits/Skills (procedural)
Things you do unconsciously, like how to make coffee, or paint, how to read, etc. "It's like riding a bike", literally.
- Long-Term Emotional Memory
Related specifically to fear (so we can react quickly to dangerous situations), but also other things: what happiness is. How you felt when you were accepted to college. These memories are linked to events, but also trigger uncontrollable physiological reactions. The smell of a perfume, for example, might cause you to feel suddenly nostalgic and sad. Interestingly, what we would consider "love", is often not found in this category.
Forgetting is a more complicated business than remembering. Remembering is so much more understood that forgetting seems to baffle scientists and doctors alike. In neurodegenerative memory disorders for example, contrary to what doctors would expect, there seems to be a strange order of which memories begin to disappear. In fact, in slow, cruel diseases like Alzheimer's and Multiple Sclerosis, strange memories remain where others disappear. The date, unknown, but a perfect random day from the 40s remains. Feelings of familiarity come and go. Some eventually forget how to feed themselves, but remember how to fix a watch. Some memories evaporate forever. Some return with no warning. What this means, although understood to relate to neuron degeneration, still seems to re-complicate all we know about memory.
When we forget things, however, it is dependent on what it is, it relates to a different part of the brain. I forgot (or maybe was never handed the Rule Book of How To Function In Snow) to dig out my tailpipe. I never had to dig out my car, so this information was stored in my Procedural Memory. I don't have fond memories of mommy and dad gathered around the exhaust, so it was stored in my emotional memory banks either. And I didn't memorize that Rule Book that I received, nor was snow-based carbon monoxide poisoning covered in my high school AP Biology class. So my forgetting didn't seem to be dire; my brain did not see the information as critical. But what if I hadn't remembered in time? Did my brain evacuate one memory for another? Some event that I want to remember -- what lyrics someone was singing to me in a car, or what my aunt made me for breakfast when I was eight, or how long it takes to bake chocolate chip cookies, instead of this information which turned out to be drastically important to my well-being and survival.
So if we could improve our memories by erasing old memories, would we? Would that mean we would have minds which remembered everything, but only with no emotional attachment? Or would we remember only highly selective events, like a newspaper edited by an OCD editor? What would we be willing to omit for the sake of ourselves?
Got dressed, put on some snow boots, borrowed the ergonomic shovel from our neighbors, and began to dig out my car, which the plowman had so kindly packed into the snow like a little shitty red igloo. I've actually never been in Massachusetts for winter whilst also owning a car, so by some short-lived miracle, I've never had to un-burrow my own car. I did the best I could, getting most of the ice out from under the wheels. I turned on my car to warm it up while I went back into the house for my backpack and my coffee. I felt very strange, however... there was this latent but nagging feeling that something integral was missing from the picture. Like there was a step I was forgetting.
I went back outside and sat in the car to think:
I dug out the wheels.
I cleaned off the wipers.
I have the emergency brake on.
There's no snow on top of the car.
But that feeling was still there, and now it was compounded by me feeling really dizzy. And nauseous. I felt pretty sick in general.
I opened the door and put my head between my knees to breathe. Then it slowly dawned on me... I turned my head to look at the back of my car...
I never dug out the exhaust pipe.
I had neglected to un-bury the exhaust pipe, which was packed into ice and snow.
What happens when people try to kill themselves in the garage? They slowly asphyxiate to death, because the carbon monoxide filters back into their car. Which is almost what I accidentally did this morning.
I like to think that I'm not actually such a complete moron that I qualify for a Darwin Award by just trying to drive. But my mom did mention that my grandfather's childhood friend killed his entire family in a very similar manner.
And recently in the news, a man quite accidentally began to drive, passed out behind the wheel, and drove into incoming traffic. His tailpipe had been blocked off.
Why would I forget such a critical step of such a simple series of tasks? Doesn't our memories serve to protect us?
Yes and no. But not always.
From the November issue of National Geographic, an article discusses Harvard psychologist Daniel Schacter, who has developed a taxonomy for the types of forgetting with experience. He calls these the "sins of memory". Yet each sin, he believes, is also a blessing -- they are "a price we pay for processes and functions that serve us well in many respects". For each thing we forget, we remember something which our brains have prioritized as more important. Not that there's such a limited amount of room, but for our brains to work most efficiently, its easiest for us to forget extraneous details. The entire purpose of our brains are, after all, to be highly developed "prediction machines"; we touch, we taste, we talk and hear and move. From every outlet we have, we take in as much information about world as we can get. All that information could drown us; its part of the brain's job to throw away what's not important. Whats left in our memories, scientists theorize, are five types of memories:
- Short-memory, immediate. (sensory)
We hold these for fractions of a second; a street light down the block changing, a far off church bell, a whiff of the neighbor's dinner. These are also known as things subliminal -- most of the time we don't even realize that we are sensing these stimuli.
- Working, short-term memory. (recalled)
You can remember what this post is about. After dinner you remember what you ate. Tomorrow you'll know it snowed today. Simple immediate information.
- Long-Term Memory, Facts and Events. (declarative, aka, episodic and semantic)
When did Columbus sail? Who wrote Lolita? What was the name of your first dog? Where did your father trip and fall on the ice when you were 9? How many broken bones have you had?
These are things we consider as integral to who we are, our past, the books we've read, the wars we've seen, the names of all fifty states and our favorite sonnet. There is a spectrum of fact and event long-term memory; you might have known a line or two from the Talmud when you were studying world religions in 10th grade, but I doubt you remember it now. Yet on the other end of the long-term spectrum, there are Jewish scholars who memorized the Talmud so completely that it was passed down orally for generations.
- Long-Term Memory for Habits/Skills (procedural)
Things you do unconsciously, like how to make coffee, or paint, how to read, etc. "It's like riding a bike", literally.
- Long-Term Emotional Memory
Related specifically to fear (so we can react quickly to dangerous situations), but also other things: what happiness is. How you felt when you were accepted to college. These memories are linked to events, but also trigger uncontrollable physiological reactions. The smell of a perfume, for example, might cause you to feel suddenly nostalgic and sad. Interestingly, what we would consider "love", is often not found in this category.
Forgetting is a more complicated business than remembering. Remembering is so much more understood that forgetting seems to baffle scientists and doctors alike. In neurodegenerative memory disorders for example, contrary to what doctors would expect, there seems to be a strange order of which memories begin to disappear. In fact, in slow, cruel diseases like Alzheimer's and Multiple Sclerosis, strange memories remain where others disappear. The date, unknown, but a perfect random day from the 40s remains. Feelings of familiarity come and go. Some eventually forget how to feed themselves, but remember how to fix a watch. Some memories evaporate forever. Some return with no warning. What this means, although understood to relate to neuron degeneration, still seems to re-complicate all we know about memory.
When we forget things, however, it is dependent on what it is, it relates to a different part of the brain. I forgot (or maybe was never handed the Rule Book of How To Function In Snow) to dig out my tailpipe. I never had to dig out my car, so this information was stored in my Procedural Memory. I don't have fond memories of mommy and dad gathered around the exhaust, so it was stored in my emotional memory banks either. And I didn't memorize that Rule Book that I received, nor was snow-based carbon monoxide poisoning covered in my high school AP Biology class. So my forgetting didn't seem to be dire; my brain did not see the information as critical. But what if I hadn't remembered in time? Did my brain evacuate one memory for another? Some event that I want to remember -- what lyrics someone was singing to me in a car, or what my aunt made me for breakfast when I was eight, or how long it takes to bake chocolate chip cookies, instead of this information which turned out to be drastically important to my well-being and survival.
So if we could improve our memories by erasing old memories, would we? Would that mean we would have minds which remembered everything, but only with no emotional attachment? Or would we remember only highly selective events, like a newspaper edited by an OCD editor? What would we be willing to omit for the sake of ourselves?
Tuesday, January 1, 2008
it's everything.
Although I feel guilty for not having written a post either vaguely academic, politically based, or anything otherwise social/science/theory oriented in a while, I will forewarn -- this post, too, will be on none of those topics. I will, eventually, get back to writing less serious, (or more serious depending on how you look at it), and less personal posts.
However. It is the New Year. I said on my birthday that my New Year was beginning then. It did, in ways. But there's something about the entire world looking forward at the same time which makes today feel undeniably like another new beginning.
A long time ago, I visited the Western Wall in Jerusalem. I hadn't ever been a religious person, didn't really consider myself spiritual. But standing in front of this towering wall, stuffed with tiny scrolls of rolled up paper; every corner was being touched, and every crack and seam was overflowing with people's written prayers. The feeling of standing in front of that wall... was like dry heat. It just set waves up from the rock, from the pavement. You could feel this sway... every single person there believing so strongly in one thing. Everything was slow motion and I felt like I was swimming in holy air.
That was this feeling I have today, in another way. Everyone believes, truly truly and truly believes, that THIS day will be a fresh start. This day means something. Everyone puts their hopes on it, that this year will be better.
Every end of the month, or end of the year, I always say: This has been a hard year.
But its always a hard year. There will never be a year without some difficulty; I embrace this. I love living, but I love all of living, and if you truly love something, ya gotta love all of it. Life, death, birth, joy, pain... (apparently new years day also makes me Deep and Thematic).
OK, yes, this is cliche. So is dressing up in red and green for Christmas or handing out valentines, or celebrating anniversaries, or Falling In Love, or giving birthday gifts, or really thinking about any of this. But... what else is there? I mean, other than These Things... these weird trappings and celebrations we have and create... other than this, what do we have? How do we define our lives? Shakespeare was on-point -- it's all Sound and Fury. But what certainties do we have after tomorrow? Or after the big final sleep? I think the only things we have are what we create. So we create reasons for reasons, and seasons, and holidays, and arbitrary-time-thingys, like New Years. Or Resolutions. Because that's how we give our lives meaning. Markers, definition... it's all we have.
It's like looking in your fridge for whatever ingredients you have for dinner. Here's what you have. Dinner will come and go, and you can make it or not. That's up to you. But here's what you have. What can we do with these? Let's do the best we can with what we have.
I'm not good at sticking to resolutions. I have a resolution-rebound-rate of about three hours. Honestly. I made one this morning and I already broke it. Twice. Ha ha.
Never-the-less, there are some things I am working on. Maybe "working" is too much of an action verb; some things I am seriously contemplating and maybe verging on strongly-considering-action.
I am trying to spend more time Thinking. Not worrying and agonizing, stressing, or if-BritneySpeares-falls-in-the-forrest-does-it-make-a-sound kind of thinking. Thinking. I'm talking about legitimate knowledge.
I'm already thinking about things the majority of my waking hours, and also several of my sleeping hours already. But to be truthful, most of this thinking is fruitless.
I want to think to the point of learning. And think to the point of changing. And creating. And moving. And living. So I guess that would be: Thinking to the point of Living. Maybe at least feeling, at the end of each day, that I've thought about something and come to understand something about it, or resolved something, or come to a meaningful question, even.
Second is ... to stop thinking about other things. Permanently. Some of the worst and most fruitless thinking I embark upon is Wondering. I wonder what would have happened if Things Had Been Different. If I had said other things, stayed longer, done other things... this is not to say I regret. But I wonder if I had spent more time Thinking and less time Reacting, if I would still be wondering.
... See, right there, I just did it.
I think about what would happen if I could go back, and appreciate, or apologize, or maybe just leave way sooner. Do you ever think about what you would say to people now, if this You that you are now could go back and be the You that you were then? (I know, very metaphysical-stoner, this train of thought.) Or... do you wonder, at weird times, how things would be different if you could open your eyes in a moment? Sometimes I think people are non-committal to their own stories, their own lives. Like we're speaking but we're not really there. We're waking up, but somehow still in a coma. We're out there walking back to our cars, but we could really be anywhere non-specifically walking anywhere. I think back to moments like that and I kind of want to shake my shoulders and yell in my own face: "Commit!". And then, perhaps, there won't be so many of those moments where I look back and wish I said what I meant, did what I meant, or just really BEEN there... etc. There are fewer of these as time goes by, but still. No one can say they have none of them. Earlier this month I had a particularly grisly one. The thing is, we change so much... and then we waste time thinking about all the places where things went awry, for whatever reasons. Its not much help, that. Things are what they are, though I wonder how much more living I could do if I let go of the wondering.
I won't do a cheesy "But all in all this year has been great...", because that's not what this post is about. Of course there have been wonderful, beautiful, silly moments. In one year so much changes. We re-meet ourselves, in a way. There have been amazing discoveries and insane parties and dancing and skin-to-skin and love and rain and all the good shit. Also, there has been gut-wrenching awful pain, and the worst in people, and anxiety and stress. There will always be both. This post is just part of a life examined, a year examined, examining the examination... etc.
Where am I going with this?
Huh.
Well... I guess that's the question of the hour, isn't it.
However. It is the New Year. I said on my birthday that my New Year was beginning then. It did, in ways. But there's something about the entire world looking forward at the same time which makes today feel undeniably like another new beginning.
A long time ago, I visited the Western Wall in Jerusalem. I hadn't ever been a religious person, didn't really consider myself spiritual. But standing in front of this towering wall, stuffed with tiny scrolls of rolled up paper; every corner was being touched, and every crack and seam was overflowing with people's written prayers. The feeling of standing in front of that wall... was like dry heat. It just set waves up from the rock, from the pavement. You could feel this sway... every single person there believing so strongly in one thing. Everything was slow motion and I felt like I was swimming in holy air.
That was this feeling I have today, in another way. Everyone believes, truly truly and truly believes, that THIS day will be a fresh start. This day means something. Everyone puts their hopes on it, that this year will be better.
Every end of the month, or end of the year, I always say: This has been a hard year.
But its always a hard year. There will never be a year without some difficulty; I embrace this. I love living, but I love all of living, and if you truly love something, ya gotta love all of it. Life, death, birth, joy, pain... (apparently new years day also makes me Deep and Thematic).
OK, yes, this is cliche. So is dressing up in red and green for Christmas or handing out valentines, or celebrating anniversaries, or Falling In Love, or giving birthday gifts, or really thinking about any of this. But... what else is there? I mean, other than These Things... these weird trappings and celebrations we have and create... other than this, what do we have? How do we define our lives? Shakespeare was on-point -- it's all Sound and Fury. But what certainties do we have after tomorrow? Or after the big final sleep? I think the only things we have are what we create. So we create reasons for reasons, and seasons, and holidays, and arbitrary-time-thingys, like New Years. Or Resolutions. Because that's how we give our lives meaning. Markers, definition... it's all we have.
It's like looking in your fridge for whatever ingredients you have for dinner. Here's what you have. Dinner will come and go, and you can make it or not. That's up to you. But here's what you have. What can we do with these? Let's do the best we can with what we have.
I'm not good at sticking to resolutions. I have a resolution-rebound-rate of about three hours. Honestly. I made one this morning and I already broke it. Twice. Ha ha.
Never-the-less, there are some things I am working on. Maybe "working" is too much of an action verb; some things I am seriously contemplating and maybe verging on strongly-considering-action.
I am trying to spend more time Thinking. Not worrying and agonizing, stressing, or if-BritneySpeares-falls-in-the-forrest-does-it-make-a-sound kind of thinking. Thinking. I'm talking about legitimate knowledge.
I'm already thinking about things the majority of my waking hours, and also several of my sleeping hours already. But to be truthful, most of this thinking is fruitless.
I want to think to the point of learning. And think to the point of changing. And creating. And moving. And living. So I guess that would be: Thinking to the point of Living. Maybe at least feeling, at the end of each day, that I've thought about something and come to understand something about it, or resolved something, or come to a meaningful question, even.
Second is ... to stop thinking about other things. Permanently. Some of the worst and most fruitless thinking I embark upon is Wondering. I wonder what would have happened if Things Had Been Different. If I had said other things, stayed longer, done other things... this is not to say I regret. But I wonder if I had spent more time Thinking and less time Reacting, if I would still be wondering.
... See, right there, I just did it.
I think about what would happen if I could go back, and appreciate, or apologize, or maybe just leave way sooner. Do you ever think about what you would say to people now, if this You that you are now could go back and be the You that you were then? (I know, very metaphysical-stoner, this train of thought.) Or... do you wonder, at weird times, how things would be different if you could open your eyes in a moment? Sometimes I think people are non-committal to their own stories, their own lives. Like we're speaking but we're not really there. We're waking up, but somehow still in a coma. We're out there walking back to our cars, but we could really be anywhere non-specifically walking anywhere. I think back to moments like that and I kind of want to shake my shoulders and yell in my own face: "Commit!". And then, perhaps, there won't be so many of those moments where I look back and wish I said what I meant, did what I meant, or just really BEEN there... etc. There are fewer of these as time goes by, but still. No one can say they have none of them. Earlier this month I had a particularly grisly one. The thing is, we change so much... and then we waste time thinking about all the places where things went awry, for whatever reasons. Its not much help, that. Things are what they are, though I wonder how much more living I could do if I let go of the wondering.
I won't do a cheesy "But all in all this year has been great...", because that's not what this post is about. Of course there have been wonderful, beautiful, silly moments. In one year so much changes. We re-meet ourselves, in a way. There have been amazing discoveries and insane parties and dancing and skin-to-skin and love and rain and all the good shit. Also, there has been gut-wrenching awful pain, and the worst in people, and anxiety and stress. There will always be both. This post is just part of a life examined, a year examined, examining the examination... etc.
Where am I going with this?
Huh.
Well... I guess that's the question of the hour, isn't it.
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