Out of Sorts

Last week, I had mentioned I was struggling a little. I woke up feeling out of sorts and couldn’t point to any reason. I was coming to terms with that uncomfortable feeling and feeling like I was turning it around when I found out Harris died. That sent me into a sort of tailspin. I saw so much of myself in his personality that it terrified me when he didn’t make it. It’s not like he was my exact clone. He was way more clever, and funnier, and I disagreed with plenty of the things he said. But there was still a recognition of myself in him. For people who don’t listen to conversational/comedy podcasts it’s hard to explain the relationship you have to the hosts and guests. You eventually learn almost more about them than you know about your friends. I actually remember Paul F. Tompkins saying he finds out things about friends he’s had for years when he listens to them on a podcast. Mostly because they usually drift into very serious topics that aren’t always appropriate in casual conversation. I don’t want to talk about my depression when hanging out with people, but on a podcast, heavy topics like that pop up from time to time. And they get to explore every aspect of them without judgment. Even on comedy based podcasts like Comedy Bang Bang. They tell stories, they joke, they share ideas, they philosophize. Sometimes it’s as stupid and silly as college freshmen waxing poetic after getting high, but other times it’s illuminating. And when you spend hours and hours listening to someone talk about heavy, important things, you feel like you know them. And when you connect with so many thoughts you feel a kinship. Kindred spirit perhaps. I felt the same way about Stephen Fry. His thoughts about depression were especially meaningful to me. I agreed with how he approached it. Then he tried to kill himself. I had to rethink everything.

Death sucks for a million reasons but one reason that’s not often talked about is when it destroys your philosophies. It’s not only taking a person, it’s taking ideas. I’m sad for all the normal reasons people are sad one someone dies. I’m sad that other person won’t get to experience anything else, ever again. I’m sad for all that we lost. The mind that we lost. The love. The humor. All the potential that comes with life. I’m sad that all that is gone. But I’m also facing myself. I’ve lost ideas that took years to build.

When I watch someone I closely identify with lose his/her battle with life, it really makes me nervous. Not only does the world have one less person who could understand me, it has taken part of my mind.

I’m still very sad.

Unrelated Rant

I’ve been doing some personal writing lately. Not personal in a “dear diary” way, but writing down ideas and areas to explore further while never completely anything worth posting. In the middle of all these links and scraps is a short rant.

It’s probably the result of thinking of yourself the way I think of myself. Not that I diminish myself or think little of my abilities, but I think we all like to have a strong sense of who we are inside. Something I talk about a lot, and something I see other people write and talk about. And it’s something I lack. Not only lack, but don’t think exists. I have come to see the belief of a true self as a cover for mistakes and a safety blanket for tragedy. When someone fails a test and comforts his/herself by saying “I know I’m smart…” to feel okay about the grade. Or when someone lies and says, “But really, deep down, I’m an honest person.” I think that person is in fact a failure and a liar (but plenty more at the same time). Resorting to the “deep down” core self is a way to not be a liar or a failure even if you lie and fail. And only see our better traits as our true traits. Sort of like the “no true Scotsman” fallacy turned on ourselves. I don’t know if it’s that we simply want to see ourselves as good people even when we aren’t or if it’s because it’s easier to think about ourselves in that way rather than the much more complex reality that we are all contradictions. As Whitman said, “I contain multitudes,” but it’s very hard to keep track of those multitudes compared to a handful of “true” characteristics. Or maybe it’s both. Or neither, and I’m an idiot.

So the following is from the middle of all my notes and not well thought out or well written.

A lot of ideas are shots to my ego. I’m not 100% decided on much (which is another shot to the ego) and I think that’s why it’s so difficult at the moment. Once I become comfortable with the implications of the thoughts I’m pursuing then I might feel a little better. The concept of a self may not seem to important. And I mean, maybe egos are terrible. Maybe they make us spend too much time thinking about our own lives. Maybe they focus our attention on us too much instead of the world at large. I think that may be true, but almost without fail, we all have egos. Removing a block from that pile is like erasing a bit of the story of you. What I appear to be moving toward is deleting the story completely. Trashing it and emptying my mental “recycle bin” so that it’s not even a question anymore. I’ve read that some people have been able to not think about themselves as a self, but as a bundle or result of incalculable complexity. Maybe I’ll get there some day. But right now I’m tearing down what I used, and many people use, to build myself up.

If I don’t think there is a core “me” then what am I? Where is my security? When things get rough where do I turn for comfort and reassurance? Many of us turn to the idea that we know, deep down, who we are and what we are made of. But I reject the idea that any of that exists. So what do I have?

Fate and Beauty in Numbers

Chance is usually a boring word. Simply there to express the impossibility of predicting the outcome. Luck is often used the same way. Bad luck, good luck. Just the complexity of life making the future unknown no matter how well you plan or how informed your decision. Simply the likelihood of outside influences encroaching on your best-laid plans.

On the other hand, people romanticize fate a lot. It’s not used to mean chance, as it can mean. Someone may say, “take comfort, it was meant to be this way.” or the even worse “everything happens for a reason.” How terrible would that be? Talk about nihilism. Fate, used in this way, is the idea that everything will work out. And while that sounds nice on the surface, once you dig just a tiny bit you see how depressing the consequences of that truly are. Fate implies nothing you do matters. You can’t have “everything happens for a reason” and exclude things from “everything.” So whether I give up on life or work hard, it was meant to be. Fate doesn’t just mean no free will, it means there is not even an illusion of choice. Some bleak philosophies appear to validate giving up and retreating to a sad dark room to wait for life to pass by. But with fate it isn’t even a choice, it just is. It was your destiny. So your resignation isn’t your decision. Lay in bed. It’s fate. Your mistakes aren’t your fault. Learning from them is not up to you. In fact, nothing you do is good or bad and your accomplishments aren’t yours. “You got a PhD? Who cares? It was your fate. You had no say in the matter. You’re just a little pawn in some oddly detailed cosmic story written long before you existed.”

To me, there is nothing appealing in fate.

Chance, however, is wonderful but often relegated to being a throw away explanation. “Oh well, bad luck I guess.” But in reality it emphasizes how lucky, in terms of statistics, you are without diminishing your effort. Because chance can play a role but not completely determine the outcome. The chance of something falling on you out of nowhere is almost nonexistent. But if you are trying, something good might fall in line for you. For instance, you may have stumbled upon a brilliant idea while studying something else, but you still need to work to get to that point. To find that fossil, you had to dig somewhere. It’ll be an educated guess as to where to dig, but you never know if you’ll uncover anything. Luck was involved, but you had to put yourself in a position to understand or take advantage of it when it showed up. You had to leave the petri dish out.

Or think about love, which people tend to enjoy more than scientific discoveries (for some strange reason)! It might be, according to some people, that your partner was always meant to find you, which makes it inevitable and unremarkable. This person was meant for you. Your relationship requires no effort or work in order for the two of you to grow together. You are meant for each other and nothing will change that. OR there were innumerable tiny decisions in your life led to your meeting. And any one different decision, turning left instead of right, would have resulted in you never meeting your love. How special does that make it? The indiscriminate luck of life, the good and the bad, put you in the place to fall in love, and you two did the rest. But it’s not merely logistical decisions. It’s incalculable. You had to be in a specific place mentally, as well. Everything had to line up and it could have NOT happened. What if you didn’t have your heart broken the year before? Or you didn’t think much of that idea you two eventually clicked over. You never read that book or took that class. Looking back, planning all these events is impossible. And any subtle alteration could have destroyed it all. And rather than being fated to this person, every day you make the conscious decision to be with him or her. Many of us can imagine our parents choosing our partner for us and being appalled by our limited autonomy. Yet, if we simply ascribe the decision to some mysterious force, still out of our hands, it becomes beautiful. I think it’s better still if we choose to love on our own. If something is “meant to be” why does that sound especially romantic? Why would a scripted life be more beautiful than the chaos and complexity of chance?

 

Maybe it’s no big deal
To live through the ordeal
It’s all an accident
Whether we die or live
What if the night that we met
You look right
I look left
We never hit it off outside the bar
What if we look back and laugh
When it’s all in the past
Will we be standing there
Thinking to ourselves

Our luck is in the in-between

Where Are The Artists?

Does it feel like fame is different to anyone else? This may be the benefit of hindsight, but artists in the past seemed way more… curious. They were interested in finding some sort of truth or justice, like John Lennon, or angry with how the world works, like Bukowski. So many seemed to have some sort of vision, some goal. Something they were railing against or driving toward. You can think of all the beat writers. They were all trying to reach some sort of truth. Whether they went about it a smart way or not, it was a worthwhile exploration. I can think of plenty of artists with causes nowadays, but none as genuinely strange as John Lennon’s Bed-In for Peace. I guess when you’re in the middle of it, it’s impossible to see what will last. But my searches are coming up empty. Justin Beiber and One Direction are just the new Backstreet Boys. And I’m not knocking them if that’s your thing, but not many people would argue that the Backstreet Boys had anything really important to say. Who’s the John Lennon of right now? Bono? I hope not. He’s a fine person, I’m sure, but where’s that weirdness? Who are the people that are saying truly fascinating things? Or are angry!

I love plenty of music and books from the 2000’s on, so I’m not saying there is a lack of good art. I’m just wondering if we lost those “out there” spokespeople since all media is so fractured and oddly consumed now. Are the people who said “we should definitely drop acid because it’ll show us the true way to live” gone now? Is there no more acid trip? Which machine kills fascists today!?

I’m sure many exist and I simply can’t think of them off the top of my head. So feel free to leave a comment pointing me in the direction of those people as angry (and right) as Bukowski.

 

“And what hurts is the steadily diminishing humanity of those fighting to hold jobs they don’t want but fear the alternative worse. People simply empty out. They are bodies with fearful and obedient minds. The color leaves the eye. The voice becomes ugly. And the body. The hair. The fingernails. The shoes. Everything does.

As a young man I could not believe that people could give their lives over to those conditions. As an old man, I still can’t believe it. What do they do it for? Sex? TV? An automobile on monthly payments? Or children? Children who are just going to do the same things that they did?

[…]

They never pay the slaves enough so they can get free, just enough so they can stay alive and come back to work. I could see all this. Why couldn’t they? I figured the park bench was just as good or being a barfly was just as good. Why not get there first before they put me there? Why wait?

I just wrote in disgust against it all, it was a relief to get the shit out of my system.”
Charles Bukowski

Fun Coincidence

It’s a lovely coincidence that I finally got around to finishing that post about sadness and I feel a bit of malaise creeping over me. I’m not depressed – or particularly sad – just a tad disappointed and maybe nervous about the unknowable future. And I should be. I don’t like the feeling, but I should feel it. I’m not doing all I can to move forward in the direction I hope to go. This is partially by design. I want to give myself a little space right now to explore some ideas that I need to work out. I want an idea of what I want to pursue before I make the decision to pursue it fully. So for a little under a year, I’ve been reading like crazy and writing down a hundred ideas a day, eliminating 99.5 of them and seeing where that takes me. By design I’m holding still in terms of actual, noticeable progress in order to, not find myself, but prepare. That doesn’t change that it’s uncomfortable. The “smart” thing to do would be to get a nice lab job for grad school applications. Build some little networks and grab on to something someone is studying. But instead I’m trying to start on my own. Get some ideas on the move and then convince other people they should listen. I have no idea how it’ll go. It’s possible I’ll end up with nothing, a complete blank. Then a good deal of time of my life will be hard to explain to other people. While I don’t mind so much, telling a parent, a relative, a friend, or a family friend that you’re reading a lot doesn’t sound impressive. I’m about 10,000 words into a direction. So around 50 solid ideas to work with and explore. There are 20 more sources I have yet to read, with unknown consequences. I may add more ideas or I may have to throw out some of my favorites. Crumple up a section and build again.

There’s just not much tangible at the moment. And that’s scary. Sure, there are some scribbles on a word document and too many links to organize and remember, but in terms of definable movement, I’m lacking. It’s frustrating to feel like I’m not moving. Which means I need to work harder, try to rethink how I execute my plans, or abandon my current way of doing things. I’m not sure which is correct at the moment, so maybe I’ll try a few out and see where they go.

ADVENTURE!

Teenagers

Everyone wants kids to get out more but we all forget how annoying those kids are when met in public.

 

 

I’m working on a post about happiness (go figure) and one on fate. They’re taking longer than expected, but I hope to wrap up one by tomorrow (Tuesday) or think of something easier to write about. Maybe I’ll start a Taco Tuesday instead. I’m on my way to alliterating every day of the week. Thoughtless Theory Thursday is coming soon (not really). Speculative Saturday. I don’t know. I’m losing it.

I think I’m just talkative at the moment with no one to talk to. The perils of late, late night. These are the times cats come in handy until they wake up and walk away. I’m left here thinking about life… what else is there to do?

Stop Being Certain

“Consider any significant decision you’ve ever taken that you subsequently came to regret: a relationship you entered despite being dimly aware that it wasn’t for you, or a job you accepted even though, looking back, it’s clear that it was mismatched to your interests or abilities. If it felt like a difficult decision at the time, then it’s likely that, prior to taking it, you felt the gut-knotting ache of uncertainty; afterwards, having made a decision, did those feelings subside? If so, this points to the troubling possibility that your primary motivation in taking the decision wasn’t any rational consideration of its rightness for you, but simply the urgent need to get rid of your feelings of uncertainty.”
Oliver Burkeman

I’m hardly a scientist so I don’t mind writing a bit of speculative nonsense here. I find myself reading a ton of advice on wordpress, maybe you can relate. And there are an unbelievable number of posts about being happy, not letting any negative thoughts invade your mind, and the power of positive thinking (a couple nice take-downs here and here). Uncertainty and fear and doubt and worry seem to really scare people. Maybe for good reasons. Those things can be dangerous but they also can be necessary and, in the end, improve things. I don’t know why we’re so scared. I’m writing a short post about it so I’ll leave it here for now.

NIGHT!

Migraine?

There’s a little man in my head but he’s not observing
There’s no theatre in there or infinite regress
He’s not worried about philosophy or logical fallacies
He’s angry. He wants to destroy and that’s that.
He’s taking a machete to my neurons
Severing one after another
Shutting down my body, a connection at a time.
Vision blurs. Objects lose their clarity.
Acuity ripped out from the inside
Critical thought stops, followed by all other thoughts.
Neither food nor sex could rouse me from my position on the floor
Maybe if I move my head a degree to the left the pain will go away for a split second
Maybe if I close my eyes
Maybe if I open them
Maybe if I focus on the space inbetween
Or maybe if I concentrate on a task
Maybe I can drown this tiny man in water
Maybe I can poison him with Advil or Excedrin or something a bit stronger
Maybe I can forget he’s there
Maybe a few blankets will boil him
Maybe an ice pack will freeze him

I’m losing out
He’s made the universe shrink down to a single point.
A singularity in the center of my brain
Nothing can escape
Nothing exists beyond this point.
Time is impossible to imagine.
I know this, like all things, will pass
But the present moment is all I can consider
It feels like right now will stretch off to infinity

Engage?

I just read a fairly offensive blog about homosexuality. There was a lot of talk about god and mental illness and the choice, etc. Needless to say, I disagreed with what the blogger on all fronts. I sat on it for a second and thought about responding vs ignoring and blocking. My hesitation is two-fold, at least. First of all, I would have to spend a fair bit of time breaking down and explaining the errors in the bloggers thinking with no guarantee he/she will read or respond. I would actually have to do research and have sources, because I’m not comfortable throwing out words without reason for anyone to take them seriously. Second, on the evidence, the blogger wasn’t much of a critical thinker or open minded, so there was a strong chance I’d be wasting my time. When a post doesn’t rely on any form of logic, how do you have a conversation?

This is sort of a bigger problem I see in people. I’m not better in any way, but I had critical thinking drilled into my head through years of science courses. Most scientists will tell you one of the best things that happened to them was when one of their pet theories was crushed. That is exactly the opposite of what most people naturally enjoy. Imagine one of your most closely held beliefs or ideas being destroyed, dismantled and disregarded. How okay would you be with that? And it’s not that scientists aren’t human. They don’t like it either but it’s a good lesson to learn. No idea is off limits. Just because you’ve grown accustomed to it or because you’re fond of it, it doesn’t make it true. You have to be willing to leave anything behind if it proves to be wrong.

Aside:
Whenever I talk about needing evidence to believe in something, someone brings up love. “It’s not tangible. You have to just trust that your partner loves you.” But that’s nonsense. Unless you married someone the moment you met them, you built that love on evidence. Years of interactions. Example after example of caring, love, and support. And example after example of manageable arguments.

Back on topic.
You’ll find in some of your friendly debates a bias known as the backfire effect. That is, when confronted with contradictory evidence, opinions or beliefs do not change and, in fact, get stronger. We have plenty of other cognitive biases that help shut our minds down to outside opinions but this one is especially unfortunate. It makes penetrating and eliminating a faulty belief nearly impossible at times. So when you come across a hard-headed friend with some strange ideas on race, for instance, no matter how much evidence you present, your friend end will up more sure of his racism. If I’m not sure of how willing someone is to have an actual conversation, I don’t like to jump in.

Ultimately, a lot of people seem to be convinced that their opinions count as proof. Fine, if you don’t want to have a conversation, if you want to close yourself off from alternate possibilities, go right ahead. And that’s why I decide to ignore posts that clearly display the author’s mindset. I am more than happy to talk to anyone about anything. If I thought, for a second, that articles and logic would break through, or even be entertained, then I would have written a 2000 word response with links to sources. I still doubt it would convince anyone – opinions are hard to change, especially with a brief conversation – but as long as it’s an honest interaction, I think it’s worth it.

 

Fallibility of Memory

It’s uncomfortable how unreliable our memories are. Memories are commonly thought to work like a computer. You open up a folder, bring up the specific file, and read the memory like data. But memories are fluid. Every time we remember something we rebuild the moment from scratch. Any tiny detail can worm its way in and convince us its original because narrative memory and historical memory look exactly the same in our brains. We need both, but the realization that memory is so riddled with holes is troubling when thinking back on anything that’s happened to you in your life. The truth is, whether something happened or not doesn’t matter when you remember it. How many times have you and a friend had completely different recollections of a past experience? You’re certain you remember it the way it really was, but so is your friend. The actual events are lost forever, but that doesn’t change how you feel. The details of all the important parts of your life might have never happened. At least not how you remember them. But you shape them and make them fit your narrative. The story of you.

The next time you argue with a friend and you shout, “I told you I was going to be here at 3!” and she says, “You never said that. You were supposed to text me when you left!” Both of you should pause for a second. Unless there’s physical evidence one way or the other, it’s unlikely either of you will be convinced by asserting how confident you are that your memory is the correct version. No matter how many family member’s graves you swear on, that information is beyond both of you. Perhaps, you should pause, acknowledge that our minds aren’t too ready to switch beliefs at the word of someone else, and move on.

I sometimes sit alone in my room (okay, I do that frequently) and think about random topics – like memory and innate behaviors. Then I imagine how I would broach the subject with a friend the next time we hang out. I play out a few different abbreviated versions of the interaction in my head. A few days later, I’ll find myself at lunch with the aforementioned friend and unable to remember if I actually had the conversation earlier in the day or just the imagined versions. On occasion, I can’t, no matter how hard I try, remember. And I have to say, “Did I tell you about..?” before proceeding.

This would be absolutely terrifying if I didn’t know it was common. Ever heard a story so many times you could tell it yourself, but your unaware friend bristles with excitement at the thought of telling you about her crazy uncle’s arrest?

But even knowing it’s common doesn’t stop how scary the implications are. Sure, a conversation or a little story are no big deal. But it goes much further. This fallibility applies to all of our memories. Do I really remember the joy of going to the fair when I was little or did my family tell the story of my happiness so many times that it’s formed its own unique, but false, memory inside my head? Did I really have frequent, long conversations about World War II with my grandpa before he died, or was there just one or two and I’m imagining others because it makes narrative sense that we would talk about it?

I honestly don’t know how much I cried at my grandma’s funeral. I can remember feeling awful. I can remember it hurt. I also remember walking outside and sitting on the curb, looking out at the city covered in fog, and crying.

Did I make up that story?