The final question

“Answer this, Ellimist: Did I…did I make a difference? My life, and my…my death…was it worth it? Did my life really matter?”

“Yes,” he said. “You were brave. You were strong. You were good. You mattered.”

“Yeah. Okay, then. Okay, then.”
-Rachel and the Ellimist (K. A. Applegate’s The Beginning)

And so the first excerpt from my collection of profondities appears. I feel kind of cheap using this now after catching the end of the American Film Institute's 100 Years, 100 Cheers: America's Most Inspiring Movies and seeing It's Wonderful Life. The sentiment of that movie and this passage from the series that consumed me for some 4, 5 years are basically the same, and I feel so dirty having chosen it when the same idea is validated by some huge organization, especially one that lacked the taste to recognize neither Fight Club nor The Princess Bride in its 100 Greatest Films or 100 Greatest Movie Quotes.

Well, now that that rant is over, I still like the end to the Animorphs. Simple, yeah, but, really, that's the question I want to ask (minus the whole Ellimist bit) and what I want to hear. If that's how it ends, that will have made it all worth it.

Describe yourself

Here comes another scholarship essay, but one that actually worked. I was one of the finalists for an insane scholarship at Ithaca College. Full tuition, full room and board, living expenses and a one-time $2,500 computer stipend could have been mine if I hadn't screwed up the in-person stage of the whole thing. Whatever though. I am more than happy with my college of choice (which I remain vaguely apprehensive about revealing despite the likely fact that everyone who reads knows I go there). This essay developed from one I wrote in eighth grade. It's funny looking back on this now. My distaste for dances continued throughout high school, the only two I ever spent the whole evening at being my junior and senior proms because post-prom was so cool, but now I'm ready to take on a Dance minor. It's funny where life goes.

My four summers at the Minnesota Institute for Talented Youth (MITY) were among the most influential of my life. While there, I was separated from everything familiar to me, surrounded by diverse backgrounds and cultures, and learned a great deal about myself.

One especially memorable event occurred in my third summer. Art, the head counselor, revealed that a dance would be held that evening, and widespread approval greeted his announcement. I, however, felt apathy. In my hometown, I avoided dances. Those who enjoyed dances were a group I wasn’t comfortable with. They watched an unhealthy amount of MTV and used the word “hottie” on a regular basis.

When the announcements were finished, I went straight to the lounge and played card games with my friend Thu. After an hour of Slapjack, he left to read, and I wandered outside, hoping to find anyone else not at the dance.

Some friends caught me walking past the dance and urged me to come in, but I hurried past, mumbling a pathetic excuse. I was disgusted with myself for brushing them off. MITY was not Baudette, and my friends at MITY weren’t the people at home. Even knowing this, I couldn’t make myself turn and join them.

Eventually, I found an isolated bench overlooking a soccer field where college students were playing a game of shirts and skins. I stared at them, trying to understand how they could enjoy their game while I was tormented by my decision. For some players, sports obviously weren’t the first choice of entertainment, but they enjoyed themselves even as they missed shot after shot.

I decided then to go to the dance. It wasn’t my first choice, but, like the soccer players, I would give it a chance. The dance was moving full swing when I arrived and swept me up.

That summer, I did something new by going to the dance. I didn’t like the blaring music or flashing lights, but I did enjoy every second spent there with my friends, wonderful people I saw for two, short weeks. It was there that I learned to appreciate time spent with good friends and, even though the dance wasn’t that fun, to try new experiences. These lessons still guide my actions and will continue to do so for years to come.

On the job

I don't like to use 'Spice of Life' to talk about my personal life. It's a place for my ideas and thoughts, that's all. However, what happened today is something that deserves to be written on. It's the first time I can remember yelling out in anger and frustration for a long time.

After finishing some work on the fishing pier at the state park, I drove past a dark spot just off the road. Until my mind caught up with what I had seen, I thought it was a torn garbage bag. Then I realized what it was. I got out of the truck and walked over. It was a painted turtle. It wouldn't have been so bad if it had been pasted by whatever had hit it. Then there would have been no suffering. The turtle had been clipped on the back right part of its shell. There was a huge bloody crack in the shell, but it still tried to scramble away when I got close. The other three legs were fine but, because the other was utterly useless, all the turtle could do was spin slowly to its left. I should have ended it then. There was no way that turtle would heal. All it was good for now was food for whatever scavenger happened upon it. Instead, I stopped my manager before he drove back to the office, took him to see the turtle and passed the decision off on him. He said to get it out of sight, into the woods a few feet, and that's what I did. The grass I put it in was thick, but I don't know if they eat grass. If it's still alive when I work again on Tuesday, I'm finishing it off. All it has to look forward to is that fox I saw earlier eating it, and I doubt it'll have the mercy to kill the turtle first. It was pathetic.

Advice, empathy, validation, I accept it all.

Seven Wonderful Things

Let's start off this whole Chris' past essays off small, in this case, a work that failed to get me a fairly decent scholarship at Marquette. I actually liked it a lot and was surprised to hear that I didn't advance. Perhaps it was too out there, having not hit upon the classics like family and love, or the applicant pool was just that insane? Or I just came across as arrogant, which is so easy with these things, or shallow. Come on, I said Dance Dance Revolution and Mystery Science Theater 3000 were some of the greatest things ever. Still, I really don't think this list would change too much if I had to write it afresh today. I maintain a great respect for all elements listed here.

Mystery Science Theater 3000. Cold. Dance Dance Revolution. The Princess Bride. The northern lights. The United Nations. Religion. These compose the greatest aspects of nature and humankind.

Mystery Science Theater 3000 is one of the funniest and most original television shows ever created. The concept of turning unbearably bad movies into a television show by mocking everything about them is inspired. Unlike many modern shows, Mystery Science Theater did not insult the viewer’s intelligence by pandering to the lowest common denominator. Its frequent allusions required cultural literacy of the highest degree.

Beyond the laughs, though, existed a strong sense of humility, which truly made the show special. Every riff and verbal jab was directed at movies that thought too much of themselves and tried to capitalize on the success of more popular films. At the same time, Mystery Science Theater mocked its own budget limitations by casting its writers in acting positions and building its sets and puppets from spare parts.

My admiration of cold is born of necessity. If you can’t take the cold, you can’t live in Baudette, especially when one considers that the most northern point of the contiguous United States is only an hour from my house. Cold is the antipode of American culture, where life is frantic and delays are unacceptable. In the depths of winter, I have taken walks in the state park. When I stop, I feel a sense of utter stillness, as though the world were made of glass. It seems that a sharp sound would cause that moment, frozen in time, to shatter. It is at that moment I feel peace and calm, and the cold enables it.

Step on the arrows in time with the beat. It’s utterly simple. Then again, the greatest games are based on the simplest ideas, and Dance Dance Revolution is no exception, for it is the ultimate video game. For the uninitiated, it’s easy to get into. For veterans, it’s challenging. It’s both competitive and cooperative. Neither does it grow stale or forgotten when new games are released because its premise is simple and enduring. All of this and Dance Dance Revolution does not take over lives because it is nearly impossible to play for over an hour at a reasonable difficulty.

Never have I underestimated something as much as I underestimated The Princess Bride. When my sister first brought it home, I accused her of getting a chick flick. Still, I watched it with her and was rocked when I saw the greatest of modern fairy tales. The humor, action, and romance were wonderful, but what raised this movie to the highest echelons of excellence was the characters. I felt sympathy for them, and, by the end of the movie, they had earned their happily ever after.

The northern lights are the most beautiful of nature’s displays. In the television show Touched by an Angel, heaven was once described as the ultimate reality. Describing it would be like trying to tell a person who lived their entire life inside a closet about the outside world using only crayon drawings. The aurora borealis is the nearest we get to seeing heaven on earth. The beauty of its vibrant, pulsating colors cannot begin to be described to one who has never experienced them.

What is the United Nations? It is one of modern civilizations noblest goals; a cooperative organization whose mission is to create a world where human rights are guaranteed to all and peace reigns. Through negotiations and mediations hosted by the United Nations, conflicts can be and are solved. Despite the recent scandal and criticism directed towards it for not supporting the United States in its invasion of Iraq, the United Nations deserves our complete backing for its mission is worthy and cannot be completed by a single nation.

Religion is one of the most ancient institutions in human society. The various modern faiths have outlasted the civilizations that originally spawned them, and they will continue for centuries to come. Why? Religion is the improver of individuals. It sets down our moral codes, be they the Eightfold Path, Ten Commandments, or Five Pillars. Terrible atrocities have been committed in the name of religion, but great charity has been committed for the same reason.

I now look upon this list, having never laid down my seven greatest things in this world before, for the first time. I consider what I would learn about another person if this list were theirs. In this list, I would see a poet writing about the cold and northern lights. I would learn of a romantic digging beneath the surface of Mystery Science Theater and The Princess Bride to a deeper meaning. I would discover an athlete in the player of Dance Dance Revolution, a stalwart supporter of the United Nations, and a faithful Catholic devoted to religion. In short, an individual with diverse interests and passions.

Thank you for considering my application for the Raynor Scholarship. Have a good day.

100th? post

If you'll allow me, I would like now to draw a comparison from 'Spice of Life' to a far superior (at least in its earlier seasons. season 8 was the last really good one.) work, The Simpsons. For the chalkboard gag at the beginning of "Sweet Seymour Skinner's Baddasssss Song," the series' 100th episode, Bart write something along the lines of "I will not celebrate meaningless milestones." And really what is there to celebrate at my arrival to this arbitrary number whose celebrated position is dependent upon the fact that we have 10 fingers? Well, it means that I've lasted for a while. It took me a little over a year to get this far, so there's certainly some dedication to 'Spice of Life.' And that's pretty cool.

So, what can we look forward to in upcoming posts? How will 'Spice of Life' be kept bold and refreshing, avant-garde but maintaining its respect for the past? For one, I plan on working harder on my posts, taking more time with them and actually rereading them before putting them on the site. If nothing else, you should see a higher quality in the grammar department. Also, I plan on starting two new styles of posts. First, call it laziness or that nod to the past, I plan on putting up some stuff I wrote in high school, scholarship and college essays, stuff that was supposed to reveal the real me. Some of them are kind of funny. Secondly, I have started what I call a 'Humanity' collection. Composed of lines and passages taken from all manner of sources (literature, poetry, song, comic, manga, movie), they are what I have found to be some of the most profound and meaningful things I have come across. So, I'll post those as I desire and write a little on what makes them click with me. I've also been working on a short story. As soon as that is at a good point, I plan on making that available here for open reviewing. Something to look forward to, I guess.

In all truth, I'm not even sure if this is the 100th post. Blogger, says that this is my 103rd post, but I'm fairly certain that I wrote two post drafts, which I never put up but may have counted towards the post total. And that's only what I remember. It's more than possible I wrote other drafts that never came up, so it's possible that a few posts back was the true milestone.

Habit, Routine, and Doing Things Over and Over

Well, it's summer now, as in school's out. Actually, it's been a month since my first year of college left, and I returned to my hometown. Work has replaced classes and free time has taken over the hours I spent on homework. So, to avoid wallowing in vice and shallow entertainment, I try and cultivate some positive habits and stuff to fill, at least in part, all of the free time I have found myself gifted with. Some writing, some exercising, some reading, some thinking, some learning. That's how I try and spend my time. A general mish-mash of things, all leading towards that ultimate goal of my becoming a decent person.

Now, as happens so often, I seek to justify these actions that I try to devote some of my day to. I'd like to meet the person that hasn't heard, "Practice makes perfect," and that cliche is the source of my discomfort and this post. I understand (seeing as how I've never fully partaken of either activity) that basketball players and hunters practice shooting over and over again in order to turn it into a reflex. When the pressure's on and there's no time to think, they're able to pull it off; drain the desperation shot or bring down a bolting deer. For some parts of my routine, this isn't a big deal, but I worry how my daily writings influence the works that actually matter. I've said it before, I don't even reread what I write here. I write my ideas as they come to me and decide on a whim, "This looks good," and publish the post. That is not the way to approach newspaper articles or anything that I would turn in at school (with the exception of Literature II journals which became a practice in seeing how fast I could write). If I remember right, in The Screwtape Letters (which I recommend in the strongest of terms to everyone) Screwtape tells his nephew that praying isn't such a big deal as long as it's turned into a meaningless, repetitive action. Praying as part of a routine does nothing to protect Wormwood's charge from Hell. There needs to be meaning and effort in the act and not a a vision that focuses solely upon the end, in this case, attaining Heaven.

Well, after putting some thought into it, this isn't such a big worry, not in my writing and not in my other habits. As long as I keep my perspective on what's important and what isn't and remain aware of my writing and whatever else, this is of no matter. Besides, writing here gives me the opportunity to try out new styles for their sake alone, for no reason other than to see how I like them (how often I actually do this is up to dispute. probably not that much. my posts don't vary that much in style). Simple awareness and a vivacious perspective that brings meaning to an action beyond the goal that lays beyond it the counters to the apathy that comes from repetition.

Pretty cool. It's not that exciting of a post, but I came to some manner of conclusion and feel better at the end of it. Unlike that whole 'What can I be sure of knowing?' post. Freak.

Steal this Book

'Steal this Book,' a piece of counterculture literature written from jail that suggests any number of ways for its readers to join Abbie Hoffman in there, was suggested to me by a friend mid- April. Somewhere, I wrote down that I should check it sometime but made no effort to do so. It was actually random chance that I came upon it online here. Appropriately, the text was copied from a copy stolen from the Library of Congress.

So I skimmed over it, reading up on the best ways to perform petty thievery, grow marijuana, streetfight and start my own pirate radio station or underground newspaper. Well besides, the fact that so much of the information and advice is outdate with the advent of the Internet and all where anyone can write and record and broadcast whatever they want and various security measures have been improved. A lot of contact information concerning various communes and sympathetic legal counsel is almost certainly obsolete. What does that leave worth reading? Well, I guess it captures the zeitgeist (such a great, pretentious vocabulary! on a purely aesthetic level, it's not too bad either!) of a more radical form of counterculture, one that asserts violence against the system as one of its tenets.

I'm not such a fan of capitalism and the consumerism which follows it, but I simply do not like Hoffman's philosophy. It's the same problem I had with Rent actually. They merely seem to espouse counterculture for the sake of counterculture. There is no consideration of what the decent and positive elements of the prevailing culture are. Everything is rejected. Hoffman's counterculture has no values of its own. It's wholly defined againt the system its under. Were that culture to disappear so would the counterculture. It's lazy.

If you want to see some unadulterated hatred and observe another mindset, it's worth a look. I just don't think very much of it.

Doubt

The motto of my graduating class was "Give me a place to stand, and I will move the earth." Archimedes supposedly said it, though I remember something about a lever long enough being necessary. Not the greatest quote but better than "Hakuna Matata" by any number of Olympic class discus throws. Most of this is beside the point. I was just trying to be clever and original.

My concern is what that "place to stand" is. Is it economic security? A great thing to have but hardly something a high school diploma can guarantee you and not an ideal position to move the earth from. Discontentment is what breeds a desire to change the world.

No, I believe my place to stand is my convictions, those things I believe in so strongly that I wholly subordinate myself to their propagation. Spice of Life is, in part, an attempt to discover what these things are as I work them over, consider them and present my thoughts to others in a public forum. But how sure can I be about any of these things. Descartes worried about some demon or malevolent being obscuring the truth from him. I worry that I am too limited to realize it. I'm not perfect, and I've been wrong and screwed things up before. It's certainly not unlikely that what little reasoning I apply to my thoughts here is flawed. What reassurance do I have that the convictions I hold now aren't wrong? I can't even be sure of the effects of even my most minor actions and what their repercussions may be (stupid muderous butterflies in China and all).

This lack of certainty disturbs me. As much as I'd like to move the world, it be nice to merely exist with some level of confidence in what I do and believe in. Where can I find it?

Fighting

So, I leave college and see friends I haven't seen in months. What's one of the first things we start doing? Fighting. With our fists and even a sword. Well, with only one friend actually, and it's entirely mutual. It started a few weeks into the spring semester. We were instant messaging one another, and he was telling me about the Tae Kwon Do class he had enrolled in. I followed that up with a report on my kendo classes (you can check out my post on kendo in the April 2006 archives). At some point, I jokingly suggested that we match our respective martial arts against each other, which really is a moronic idea seeing as how Tae Kwon Do is unarmed while kendo utilizes a long sword. Anyway, for whatever reason, we eventually did do it. We were at his house, and I brought along my short hardwood sword. We went back maybe a quarter mile into the sandpit next to his house and went at it. It quickly became apparent that the sword was a mistake. Though it kept my friend at a respectful distance, I was completely unwilling to actually use it and risk hurting him too bad. Once I put my bokken away, it was on, if by "on" you mean a lot of grappling, which sucks when you're on top of a mud track. Anyway, after a half hour, we were done. Last night, we had our second fight, this time in my backyard where there is a merciful lack of mud though more dangerous obstacles like a firepit and low clothesline.

How did I ever turn out this way? It was only a three months ago that I advised an acquaintance, after he informed me that he was working out to prepare for fights in the summer, to instead spend that time making friends with them and to "Think of the fun you could have frolicking together rather than trading blows." What changed? Well, there are two things I can pinpoint and another that may have an indirect influence on this new past time. The first is kendo. I realized that one can fight merely for the sake of fighting. There doesn't need to be pent-up frustration and rage and a desire to hurt another. All there really needs to be is a desire to see who can best the other in this particular form of physical contest.

The second major reason is Fight Club. Watch enough of that, and it warps your mind. Even once is enough. Fought a friend at college after she saw it for the first time. Really, really didn't want to hurt her though, so that was rather silly. I think it ended up with me tossing her to the ground seven times. Some friends who were watching said it looked like I was raping her. Wow! Look at that digression go! but it's over now. Fight Club just gets into your mind with its eminently quotable little lines like "How much can you know about yourself, you've never been in a fight? I don't wanna die without any scars," or "I want you to hit me as hard as you can." Like, I said, it just gets into your head, and you want to try it out. So far, it's worked out. No permanent damage, and I haven't lost control and gone off in a violent rage on my friend.

Then we come to the possible reason, Battle Angel Alita, a hyper-, ultra-, mega-, uber-, ura-, violent manga by Yukito Kishiro. Worth a look. At the very least, the art is beautiful, and I've pulled off a few Knowledge Bowl answers from it. I call it possible because I hadn't read it in months before my first fight, but I went through my collection a few weeks ago and came to realize how much some of it applied to my present situation. One line, in particular, sticks out. It's delivered by Jashugan, the greatest motorball fighter ever, while he's beating the snot out of Alita during their second fight, one that exists completely in her mind as it occurs while she is enthralled by the mind control program of the mad karma scientist Desty Nova. How could you not want to check this series out after a situation like that? Anyway, it goes something like this. “I have not begun to attain the ultimate levels! All I have done is come to grips with my own limits, and the purpose of battle is to attain the greatest heights within your own limits! Doubt! Wonder! That is where you find your path!” After hearing this, Alita gains the tricky, mad skills, defeats Jashugan in her next move and never loses another fight. Hasn't achieved the same effect with me, but the sentiment resonates with me.

And that is why I fight.

Who wins between the two of us? Well, we don't follow any scoring systems or anything, but I'm the only the one who has ever called "Stop" because my friend has actually practiced grappling and knows how to make a headlock really hurt. But that's not the point.

Maturity

Great. I had a real horrorshow post planned for today, but then I see a comment on a friend's LiveJournal that deals with the maturity of males and finish Anthony Burgess' A Clockwork Orange, which deals with maturity alongside evil and language. So, I decided to take this whole idea of maturity on while allowing my other idea to ferment a while longer.

There are a number of arbitrary ages at which maturity is assumed to be reached. In the United States, you can vote and buy cigarettes and pornography at eighteen and legally drink alochol at twenty-one. In Minnesota, you can get your driver's license at sixteen. In the Roman Catholic tradition, the sacrament of confirmation is witheld until one reaches the 'age of discretion or reason,' an age which I didn't find a set age for but believe to be around twelve. To round off this brief list, Jews celebrate the maturation of their children at thirteen (Bar Mitzvah) and twelve (Bat Mitzvah). With little effort, one could come up with a multitude of arbitrary ages in a variety of traditions and systems that denote when one has become 'mature,' but this list suffices in serving my purpose of demonstrating the disparity in when groups recognize that maturity has been reached.

As I've been asking so many variations of lately, what does 'mature' mean? Part of it has to do with age, as we can see in my list. Few would suggest that a five year old was mature, even ten is stretching it. There are other quantitative measures of maturity, like killing your first moose, but many use age for at least one good reason. Puberty. Things get kooky at that point and typically take a long while for people to sort out afterwards.

Of course, closely associated with age is experience. Were a person to grow up in a controlled environment, reading all there is to know about good and evil, and be released into the wide world at thirty, even, could we call them mature? Of course, they're no more mature than a person who learned a language solely from a book could be considered fluent. One must know suffering and joy, satiation and hunger, victory and defeat and whole bunch of other dialectics. But what do once we know these opposing forces? Do we abandon ourselves to the idea that the universe is composed of naught but a single side? No, we accept that they both exist and then try to bring about the better side as much as possible.

Maturity is coming to grips with who we are and what we can be, things that cannot be wholly known until that crucial period where we gain the ability and desire to pass on our genetic material, and what the world outside us is and what it can be.

Women and men

In my younger years, I never put any real thought into the issues of sex and gender. They were of no consequence to me. My parents and teachers and Sesame Street had taught me that boys and girls are equal, and I accepted it. As I understood it, the feminist revolution was something that had succeeded long ago when women were granted the vote in the United States. Like issues of race, I thought gender and sex had been solved. The deepest my thoughts or actions ever strayed on this topic were to place the scores of the girls' team before the boys in my track articles and to reason that, since girls wanted to be equal with boys, they couldn't claim, "You can't hit me because I'm a girl." (Boy does that make me sound like a jerk.)

Now (if you've been following my blog long enough I imagine you can anticipate what is coming up) college has once again forced me to reconsider my beliefs on this topic. First of all, I have Literature I where the war between the sexes lay at the heart of every work we read,from The Odyssey to Paradise Lost, and Colloquium where we were spent a couple of weeks discussing identity and stereotypes and such associated with the sexes. Then, in second semester, we have Literature II and the notion of 'gendered writing,' that how men and women use language is of a diametrically different nature (might have this idea wrong since I have yet to read Alicia Ostriker who is, apparently, a major proponent of this).

Well, after having all of this happen in my classes, I began to take more notice of it in the rest of my life, in many mediums, from many sources. In Dr. Zhivago, the good doctor realizes that Tanya has become a woman and something has fundamentally changed between him and her. In When Harry Met Sally, it's asked if men and women can simply be friends. Crud, now I'm going to go and prove how much of a nerd I am. In Neon Genesis Evangelion, Kaji says that the Japanese kanji for 'she' is 'a woman far away' and suggests that the two sexes will always be separated, unable to be together.

I certainly won't suggest that I have answer for this like I did when I considered the masses (seeing how well that worked out from the comments I received), but there are some things I'd like to work out for myself and vent on. First of all, this whole 'gendered writing' thing bugs me. I must confess, I know only what I've heard and actually haven't read anything about it, so it's more than likely I'm misconstruing and misunderstanding more than a few points. Anyway, one of its components, as I understand it, is that men write to gain mastery over their surroundings, and women are merely observing or something like that. Since I haven't read the writings that promote this style of analysis, I can't attack any arguments, but I will say that the whole concept seems unnecessary, merely a grandiose, unifying statement and way to reinforce the idea that there is an inherent and uncrossable division of the sexes, something I don't agree with. Yes, there are biological differences, but we still face the same hungers and thirsts and victories and losses in our lives. How can one say that the two can never come together by ignoring or marginalizing the similarities and drawing out the very obvious differences too far? Are a few fundamental differences enough to overwhelm as many fundamental similarities?

I guess these issues go even farther. Though we all have common experiences, our perception of them and their sum total are different for all of us. Can we never connect with others because of this? Is any bond we feel with others merely built on a shallow foundation? Is empathy a big lie?

I don't believe so, but this is a fair bit deeper than I intended to go with this post. Mostly I wanted to complain about gendered writing and gender roles and wasn't prepared to talk about these things. I'll be sure, though, to give them more thought and come back to them soon.

Video games

Well, know that I'm out of college for the summer and living with my parents, I have the time and desire to actually play video games again. The most recent culmination of this rediscovered amusement was my completion of Hideo Kojima's excellent Metal Gear Solid. The game is simply amazing. The story, considering how much I already I knew about it from friends and the webcomic The Last Days of Foxhound, was still fun, the characters were memorable and, most importantly, the game was straight up fun to play, even if it was ridiculous how impossible to kill Liquid Snake was. So, what do I do after that? I post to my blog about video games.

Video games are an entertainment medium, no different from most movies, music and books. The two important differences, and the reasons I believe that video games receive so much attention as a corrupter of society, are that its the newest of these and it requires so much of a person's attention. When I watch TV or listen to music, I'm often doing homework or practicing juggling or (like right now when I'm doing both) posting to my blog, but these actions are impossible while playing a game. One must wholly devote themselves when playing a video game if they are to get the same enjoyment out of it as someone who has some music on in the background. As to video games being new, it's atypical for people and society to not fear what is new because they are not sure yets of its effects. While its hard to say that video games are new, seeing as how they've been popular since the 70's, their rapid evolution in terms of everything can easily keep people afraid of them.

Coming back to Metal Gear Solid, I believe part of the reason that it captured my attention so forcibly was that it was so cinematic in presentation. There were more than a few hours of dialogue via Codec, basically a video phone conversation, and cut scenes where the player didn't participate at all. Though the action was unique and the play almost resembled a puzzle game when players had to figure out the best tool or method to avoid enemies when all out violence didn't work, the story and characters were truly at the heart of this game. Which is interesting when compared to the big games of today. Grand Theft Auto, Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games like World of Warcraft and even The Sims are all about giving the player choice. Do whatever you want. They're open ended to a degree that comes close to real life. There's hardly even a definitive goal to pursue in these games. To me, these games I just listed are truly games. They offer an experience that other forms of entertainment can't touch. A movie may bear some resemblance to a video game, but it cannot provide the same level of interactivity. Comparing these to Metal Gear Solid, I think is fascinating. While video game inspired movies and recently become popular with the studios and so many of them have tanked (I understand that there are plans for both Grand Theft Auto and World of Warcraft movies) Metal Gear Solid will never become a movie because it isn't necessary. There's nothing to add. The game is already a movie, albeit an interactive one.

Some thoughts, perhaps less interesting than normal because of their less universal topic.

The masses

In mass media and communication theory, two fields which I enjoy studying and such on my own time(come on, I'm a journalism major, what can you expect?), the idea of the masses comes up all of the time, yet I don't believe that there is a good, commonly accepted definition of this term. It's simply one that these otherwise decent theorists, researchers and thinkers seem to understand as, "Not me." I guess it's up to me to define it, in fifteen minutes or less since I'm predicting that's all I have the patience for.

First of all , does anyone ever consider theirself a member of the masses? After reading Thus Spoke Zarathustra, does anyone who agrees with Nietzsche's philosophy say, "I'm no overman?" Or, since the term philosophy may drive some away from that particular work, let's consider George Orwell's second, shorter high school staple, Animal Farm. Has anyone who read it ever say, "That's me, a sheep?" Perhaps the right question here is, "Does anyone want to be a part of the masses?" Considering the American predilection towards individuality, I'm guessing not in this country. Not that these rhetorical questions do anything for my investigation. Just because you don't believe you're a certain way, doesn't mean you aren't.

Okay, so I have another rhetorical question, the difference being that the answer to this one actually applies to the larger question. Does partaking in mass media make one a part of the masses or is there more to it? Two people go to the latest multi-million dollar blockbuster, one to heckle and the other to enjoy it. Are they both part of the masses? I imagine the studios prefer the ones who enjoy the movie for what is, so they fit more of the mold the studios are looking for, but let's take a look at it from another angle. Now two people watch Plan 9 From Outer Space, one of the most famous bad movies of all time. Again, one heckles and the other goes to appreciate a distinct piece of movie history. This time, the hecklers make up the majority of that movie's viewing population. Is that person a part of the masses now since they are part of the majority? Furthermore, releases of Plan 9 From Outer Space are targeted towards this demographic of movie watchers, and hecklers now fit their marketing mold. I think I'll hold on to these questions until the next paragraph, a cliffhanger of sorts. Of course, I imagine it's near impossible to find an American who is completely oblivious to mass media. I really think it's impossible to completely avoid it in Western countries.

Personally, I believe being a member of the masses relates closely to one's level of self-awareness. If one participates in mass media while being conscious of the originators intentions and act and think on their own volition after considering all choices, they are not part of the masses. For me, mass membership is closely tied to mob mentality (and not only because they're both alliterative). When one ceases to think and consider before acting, they have become part of a larger entity. So, with this loose definition, both people in both examples could be part of the masses. It all depends upon one's level of awareness.

Writing a blog

Crud I write about this blog and writing a lot, and this post will be no different! I will continue to plumb this particular subject until I feel as though my footing is firm. Anyway, a friend decided to shut down his LiveJournal a few days ago. I read his reasons a few days ago. Among these reason was, what I understood as, a general loss of faith in writing. When he was posting to his blog, he wasn't doing other things, better, more useful things. Wow, looks like an opportunity to consider his position with relation to myself.

What, then, am I doing posting here? All the time I spend thinking of posts and later writing them is time not spent considering how I could be helping others. To be honest, I have to say I probably would not be thinking about those things, but, by maintaining Spice of Life, I choosing to devote time and thought in a manner that prevents it from being spent on other things. So, I most think there is some value to posting here, and I think the value of my blog can be traced to two sources.

The first relates to an earlier post, 'Posting to 'Spice of Life'' (put up in April if you care that much). In it I expressed my fear that posting was becoming an end in itself rather than the means to something more. Well, I actually confronted the example that post contained. I spoke to the teacher about her anecdote. She reassured me that she personally would always go for the cat rather than the picture but justified the character's decision to save the picture because it is art that allows us to find meaning in our lives. Well, that's reason number one for my continued upkeep of Spice of Life. My postings are attempts, sometimes successful and sometimes not, to find meaning in my actions and life.

My preference for absolutism, which I alluded to in an earlier post, is the second reason for this blog. If I believe that there is definitely something right and something wrong, I need to figure out which is which. Writing here is an opportunity to consider whatever issue or decision has enveloped my thoughts.

What do you know? A fairly firm position and post that doesn't end with some variation on "I'll have to think about it some more." Cool. Either I'm maturing or becoming more certain and arrogant.

Also, I'm sorry to see him stop posting to LiveJournal. His thoughts were interesting.

When am I most myself?

It has been my experience that very rarely do people always act the same. I'm not merely talking about how they may act in front of a superior and then towards an inferior. Even more than that, you're with a friend within a group and then everyone else takes off except the two of you, and they're different. When they're with others, they're bombastic, eager to jump into any conversation, but then, when they're just with you, they're more subdued. The change may be more subtly, but one has still occurred. This change used to disgust me. I thought that one must be constant and true to their essential personality. Now, for some reason that I can't quite pinpoint (perhaps a less certain belief in an essential personality), I have decided to consider it further.

For some time, it has seemed to me as though people gravitate towards roles when they're in the group. So often, you can pick out 'the cynical one' or 'the funny one' or whatever. Whether these roles are imposed by the group or chosen by the individual is certainly up for debate, but I believe they exist, to varying degrees of nuance. The important question here is, "Are the roles we take ones that match us?" If they are, that's great, but I have a hard time believing that personality can be so simplified.

Then I look towards the one-on-one. Does our true personailty come out in this situation? I used to think so but doubt it now. I find that I get along with people so much better when it's just the other and I, and believe that is so because we try and please each other. If that's the case, then our true personality isn't really coming out.

You can't really be yourself when you're by yourself either because such a large part of our personality is dependent upon how we interact with others. Possibly this blog here is my true personality, seeing as how it includes both a public and private aspect, but I still censor myself so I'm not wholly open in this case.

So, is there such a thing as a constant, unalterable identity that always exists? I'm thinking no. Certainly not in the long term as we are always changing. I guess I could always fall back on believing in performative identity. I'll think on it some more.

Confronting evil

This particular issue has been bothering me for some time. I like to consider myself a moral person, one who believes that there is good and evil and that we must choose to pursue the good. Additionally, my morals are more on the absolute side of the fence than the relative or circumstantial. An action is good or it is evil. The circumstances and consequences are of little matter. I readily admit that this is not a perfect system, that there are plenty ready to tear into me for this and that I do cheat on it, but these matters are not the subject of this post.

Rather, I would like to take this time to consider what I ought to do when those around me engage in acts I consider immoral. Were I to be following my moral code to its fullest, I probably should be voicing a strong objection, jumping on that person's back, whatever I can to stop them. Mix in a belief in heaven and hell, and there is all the impetus I need to take necessary actions to stop a person from doing anything I find evil.

But I don't. Perhaps its because I believe trying to impose my will on a person would be a good way to wreck whatever relationship we have. Perhaps living my entire life, barring a few vacations to Canada and Europe, in the United States has driven the undeniable primacy of individuality deep and irrevocalby rooted it into my skull. Could be simple cowardice too. Or what if I'm wrong? What if what I believe is right and wrong doesn't really matter? that they're simply arbitrary distinctions that mean nothing? That's not a mistake I want to be making.

It's an issue that's bothering me something fierce. Certainly deserves further thought.

Writing in books

Due to any number of reasons (among them my desire for everything to be clean, neat and organized and my belief that the written and published word ss borderline sacred and seeing my literature professor confused by his own markings and emphases years after making them), I have never been one to write or mark up any books in my possession, temporary or otherwise. In the future, my views and perceptions will undoubtedly change, and I fear that marking up my book now will cement me in a position I'm not willing or able to stay in (or I'll simply have no bleeding idea what I meant). Marking books is like littering for me. I simply can't take up a pencil or highlighter and go start emphasizing certain words and phrases. Every mark that appears on the page makes me shudder as the book grows farther and farther from its original, new appearance, even if I bought it used. Considering what I like to think I know of my personality, this is bleeding strange seeing as how much I love to customize and personalize everything else I own to some insane degree, my laptop and mp3 player for two.

Anyway, this really wasn't such a big deal in high school. In those few classes where we were actually encouraged to mark our books to aid in studying, I never did so because I felt that my memory was enough to pull me through most any test. Know what? I was right. Besides the readings were never all that difficult. Neither did many of my classmates use highlighters, so I never really considered it before. Like most elements of my life thus far, college has made me reconsider this notion. Now, considering the length, difficulty and sheer density of our readings, taking notes on the page is very near necessary. Besides, marking up your book makes finding the passage you want to discuss in class that much easier. Still, I refused to degrade my books as much as I possibly could. The bit that tore this whole thing with me and prompted this tardy post was seeing my friends writing in the books they read for pleasure.

I think I have done an adequate (though hardly admirable) job of explaining my reasons for abstaining from the marking of my books, and I readily accept that there are many good reasons to write in the margins to aid in your own understanding of the material. I'm certainly not going to be jumping around, snatching pens from the hands of my friends before they make some comment they can never take back.

Not really all that exciting of a post, so I guess I'll have to spice it up (it's a pun (kind of)! because the title is 'Spice of Life!' maybe I could become some cooking host on the Food Network with a great line like that?). There are certain passages of literature and poems that contain such profundity and meaning and humor that I never want to lose them. I believe, instead of picking them out with a highlighter as they appear in whatever source I find them, I will simply start a collection in a Word document on my computer, like a more organized version of my high school binder or permanent collection of the quotes I throw up on Facebook. Yeah, that would be so cool.

Summer reading list

Now that I'm out of college, I plan on milking the opportunity to read for fun for all that its worth. No more death marches through The Odyssey or Dorothy Wordsworth's freaking Grasmere Journals. It is wholly up to me now. This summer, I don't really plan on reading much new material. Likely some Jane Austen, seeing as how so many friends at college are familiar with her, and probably some Tom Wolfe and Hunter S. Thompson too to see what they're all about. Maybe even some poetry, freely available on-line, like Charles Baudelaire and Khalil Gibran. Otherwise, I plan on doing a great deal of rereading. I already returned to The Once and Future King and have started The Picture of Dorian Gray for the second time. Other novels I plan on coming back to include Catch-22, The Mists of Avalon (just can't get enough of those Arthurian legends), Watership Down, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, A Brave New World and A Clockwork Orange. I'm curious to see what my reaction will be to these years after my innocent, initial reading. Suggestions are always welcome.

Driving

Coming back from college, where everywhere I wanted to go was within an easy walking or biking distance, and starting my job at the park where I have to drive a half hour each way makes me realize just how much I abhor driving. I truly find it to be one of the stupidest and most boring things in the world. It takes little skill, any moron can learn to drive (the thirty hours of class time are more than excessive), but demands so much of your attention that it's nigh impossible to form some decent thoughts lest you become distracted and wreck a rather expensive investment or yourself. If you prefer, I can spell this little progression out Yoda, Episode I style. Driving leads to boredom. Boredom leads to thinking. Thinking leads to distraction. Distraction leads to destruction. Obviously, we need to nip this one in the bud and stop the path to destruction early on, so we're stuck at boredom. Also, considering the collision between my natural cheapness and the price of gas, there is really nothing positive to say about driving. I don't dispute the current necessity of driving (I'm still hoping for the instant matter transportation machine), but boy do I ever hate it, if that point hasn't been made obvious yet.

Prelude to a journal

Today, I start a daily journal. Why? For a couple of reasons. Most prominently, it’s a complement to my blog. There, I write my thoughts and musings, which, though based on what’s going on in my life, never really go into it. This will contain my reflections on the events of the day, a more narrative approach than the scattershot on Spice of Life. The necessity of this became apparent to me when I started on my short story, Home. Not much of it has been written, but it bears an unhealthy resemblance to a blog post, not something I want my fiction to look like. So, part of the reason for this journal is to give a chance to write something with a different style.

The second reason is that I no longer trust my memory. At the fundamental level, it’s strong. I pick up on facts and such easily enough and never had to really study for tests in high school, but, for important things like what happens between me and others, I no longer trust myself to be able to look back even a few days later and be able to recapture my initial feelings and such without recasting the event. Sure, I’ll be writing this in the evenings and will already be shifting my perception of what happens, but this journal will be something.

For awhile, I considered making this journal public by posting on LiveJournal, but then I realized I would have to omit names and would certainly not discuss somethings on it were anyone able to access it. Thus, it will remain private on my computer.

Here I go.

On writing here

As is my wont, my thoughts turn to my actual writing and posting to Spice of Life. My writing here is spontaneous. An idea comes into my head or won’t get out of it, and I release it here, writing as fast as I can. In all truth, I rarely even re-read what I put down before hitting the ‘Publish Post’ button. This blog is my opportunity to just write, caring little for what comes out. No one is going to grade it, and I’m not trying to sell it. Punctuation and coherent, reasoned-out arguments be cast into the Great Pit of Karkoon where they will be fed to the almighty Sarlaac and condemned to eternal suffering!

Then I consider writing here against those pieces which actually are graded or I want to sell, like the short story I’m working on now. Are my posts to Spice of Life beneficial to these writings that actually mean something? To a large extent, I believe that any writing at all is valuable to the rest of your writing. It gets you in the right mindset, and writing becomes more familiar to you. I worry, though, that this blog may cause bad habits. Writing with little thought is prone to clichés, something to otherwise be avoided. As I get used to not even looking over my work a second time, I may grow restless at the thought of having to do so four times or more when the writing is important. Of course, the blog may just as well become a simple distraction, no different from TV as I opt to write here for fun rather than grind through the difficult portions of something else. It’ll be something to monitor and be aware of in these coming weeks and months, and you, my faithful readers, will be kept up-to-date of my findings.

Montana

When it takes you over a full day of driving to get through a freaking state, it tends to get on your mind and the only way to exorcise that obsession is to write about it, put down everything possible so there’s nothing left to mull over. I guess I like Montana. It’s a very pretty state, made even more so by the fact that my hometown is own the edge of the prairie and any significant elevation change is enough to excite me. On the western edge, you get some very impressive mountains, snow covered on top and with evergreens running all along the sides. The broken rocks that just jut out? Simply magnificent. Then you travel east and get into the badlands where the rocks are so old and worn down that they look like they’re a blanket covering some sleeping giant, and the layered coloration is simply amazing. One of the advantages of going back by car, rather than train, you drive by day and can actually see all of these sights, while a train is going through the mountains while it’s still dark and somehow manages to bypass the badlands and go straight into the freaking prairie.

So, yeah, I like it. Montana is beautiful, but there is something that bugs me. And that something is the lack of water. It’s so bleeding dry out here. The clouds in the sky are sparse and every time we take a break at a rest stop, I know the air is taking a little bit of the freshness out of the water I pour before it comes to my mouth. Gone are the lush, almost violent greens, of Washington, traded in for the year-round tan of the grass and constant dust. Yuck. Nice place to visit, not one I’d like to live in.

On thinking about yourself

To an extent, I think that people have a problem when they try and figure themselves out and put themselves into some role. They tell themselves, “I’m this way. I always do this.” “I’m a good person. I always do charity work.” “I’m clingy. I always need to attach myself to someone.” They explain their actions from this context.

Like I said earlier, I think this is a bad idea, especially in college. Freak, things change there. Good luck trying to know yourself in the middle of all that flux, flux I add that will always be present in your life and make wholly describing yourself for very long more than a bit difficult. You’ll condemn yourself to a good deal of frustration as you try and figure out who you are.

As I prefer it, we define ourselves by our ideals, what we want to become. Everyday, we seek to come closer to this ideal in our being and actions and relationships. When we don’t turn from it and fail to meet the ideal, we evaluate ourselves and consider how we will do better next time, what needs to be done to keep us on track towards that ideal.

You know, this is a way better life philosophy than my whole “Life is a game whose rules we need to break all over the place” thing. Not incompatible though.

Revisions

For those who wish to do so, they can thank a Baudelaire scholar whose name escapes me at the moment for this post. I was reading her analysis of his “L’Albatros,” in Understanding ‘Les Fleurs du Mal’ and came across her evidence that the third stanza of that poem was added long after he initially wrote it. I found the section I needed and didn’t bother reading the entire essay, but the gist of it, as I understood it, was that she turned what seemed like a relatively simple poem about the Poet being unable to live on Earth into a look into aging and ‘mimesis,’ whate’er that may be. That’s not the point though, at least as far as this post is concerned. The point is Baudelaire revised his poem after years and that got me thinking.

I doubt that there are many who would argue against the necessity of revision to any creative work. A person needs time to fully develop their ideas and experiment to find the best way to present them. I guess one could argue that the creator’s intent is lost and distorted when others offer their advice, but I don’t buy it. We’re too close to our creations to see their weaknesses. The input of others is vital to their fruition. But this suggestion that Baudelaire played with one of his poems years after first writing it bugs me. I understand David Hume went put his Enquiry into Human Understanding through something like ten revisions, ending only with his death, but that was a philosophical work. That’s okay because arguments need to be shored up in the face of criticism. Art does not. What if William Butler Yeats had gone back and taken a second shot at "Easter 1916" in a later phase or T.S. Eliot came back to "The Waste Land" after converting to Christianity and taking his second wife? These are some heavy hitters of the English language, and, if their authors had come back after changing so much, their place in history may be much more precarious. I guess the questions for me are, “When are we done? When is a work complete and untouchable? Should we impose some arbitrary time limit on how long we can interfere with our works?” I think we ought to. Eventually, a work is done. It captures us at a moment in our lives, and we should be able to look back on it and appreciate it for that, even if we no longer like our past selves. That is what we were, good or bad. Let’s recognize it for what it is and plan our trajectory from there. Let’s not screw with it.

Coming back to Baudelaire, the scholar did say that his publisher requested a new stanza, and, considering the man’s money problems, I doubt he had much say in the matter if he wanted to eat.

Crushes

Someone once told me this was beautiful. Mostly, I made it up on the spot and think that she was flattering me, but hey, she said what she did. Here it is.

At some level, we all know who the person is we want to spend our life with, the person we want to marry. We know their mannerisms and how they will treat us. Then that fantasy runs into reality, and it seems like a dream that is impossible to realize. We falter as we come to believe that the person who we created in our minds may not exist. Then someone matches them perfectly, in some little way; their walk, their laugh, and we begin to believe that they may be the fantasy we have been searching for, and they become our crush.

I don’t even like the word ‘crush’ much. It’s what people giggled about and played at in middle school. Seeing as how a more appropriate word does not come to me, I’ll stick with it.

The Last Two Matrix Movies

I really enjoyed the original The Matrix. My parents didn’t want me seeing ‘R’ movies when it came out so I didn’t see it until maybe four years after its release and its style was already popping up in other movies, but it still amazed me. The cinematography, the dialogue, the action, the music, the freaking EVERYTHING. It was such an amazingly well put together movie, and then I discovered the philosophy people came up with it and I fell in love with it all over again, devouring the papers like nothing. The only things that keep it from being my favorite is that I think it’s almost cliché to rank it so and The Princess Bride and Fight Club just resonate with me on a more personal level.

So, like quite a few other people, I awaited the sequels with great anticipation and met their eventual release with similar disappointment. Where did the magic go? How did the ball get dropped so hard-core? I’m sure any number of people would be more than willing to give you their take. Well, I’m one of them and here’s mine. More than anything else, the last two Matrices lost me on their fights. Sure, the dialogue lacked the luster it did in the original and there was that bizarre orgy scene in Zion, but the fights were the hardest swinging hammer on that coffin. It took me a while to put my finger on this too. The choreography was still as impressive and melee weapons were even introduced. What was the bleeding problem? And there was the answer. There was no blood, no result to the fighting. Neo fights the Merovingian’s death squad with swords, sai, maces and a whole pile of other cutting weapons, and nothing happened. The warriors just kind of fell down. It was even more apparent in the first fight between Neo and Agent Smith’s horde in Reloaded. Neo is getting pummeled and then turns around and beats the Smiths with a sign post that still has concrete on its base. One guy gets his sunglasses broken! They’re hardly even dirty at the end of that foray! They all just watch Neo fly off at the end and mill about, nary a scratch or bruise or broken pair of sunglasses. Even the one Twin (the two of them being the one of the movies’ few highlights) whose arm is turned into a bloody mash by Trinity simply regenerates it by reverting to his ghost form. In the original we had people getting tired, dirty and bloody. In Reloaded and Revolutions we had nothing.

I realize that this is very stylized fighting, but come on. The fights need to actually cause something to happen.

Communication

I would like to credit my friend Emmet, the operator of Compos Mentis, for precipitating this particular post in his capitulation to instant messenger. My sister also bears some blame as she recently opened a Facebook account of her own.

In high school, I held out against instant messengers. In classes, I felt like I miss something important when people would talk about their instant messenger conversations that followed phone calls to the same people. Why didn’t you just stay on the phone with them if you had something to say? I ended up giving in shortly before taking for college. I had no cell phone and the opportunity to keep in touch with my friends for free was too much to pass up. So, I picked up an MSN Messenger account, the instant messenger of choice for most of my friends. And it was good.

Then I come to college and am introduced to two new ways to keep in touch, AIM (AOL’s own instant messenger) and Facebook. For those who are unaware of the addiction that is Facebook, here’s a quickie description. More than anything else, it’s a friend finder. You can list your hobbies, interests and favorite music, movies and television shows and put up pictures and stuff. Everything you post to your profile on Facebook is linked to an insane degree. With a few clicks, you can find everyone else in your school who enjoys rock climbing or Broadway musicals and pictures of them. On top of this, Facebook also offers some messaging capabilities in the form of a publicly viewable Wall and private mail system. I end up getting accounts with both, AIM because it’s the instant messenger of choice of about everyone who didn’t attend my high school and Facebook because it sounded fun.

Now I ponder the point of them. Why message someone far away when a phone call is so much more personal? What could possibly be meaningful said in the two lines that often compose a Facebook Wall post? I think I have to an answer. As one friend said in paraphrase after pushing a mutual friend to get on to Facebook, “It’s a matter of intimacy. I don’t know her well enough to give her a call or knock on her door.” Facebook is the mid-ground between tight friends and casual acquaintances. Messenger has the same benefits and, like I wrote before, it’s a free way to keep in touch that enables a higher degree of response than e-mail.

There we go. My justification for partaking in the sorts of hideously popular things I eschew.

Good byes

To say that I hate saying “Good-bye” would be to oversimplify and obfuscate the whole thing. I like my social relationships clear. If we were randomly paired to be partners on some project, I want that to be out in the open. If we are merely co-workers, I hope we both realize it. If we are friends, I need to know, so I have an idea of what is appropriate and what is not. Can I give you a call out of the blue, for no purpose? The nature of our relationship needs to be clear otherwise something as simple as this drives me insane.

In the same way, I want the same clearness to be present in my time with others. I need to know when we are saying “Hey” just in passing and when it is meant to lead to further discussion or whatever (which is where my hatred for the phrase “What’s up?” comes from). The same goes for “Good-bye.” When one says “Good-bye,” they are released from the other person or group. The conversation and time together is over. Most of the time, this really is not a big deal, like when you see the person frequently, but it can get so much more difficult when it is a big deal “Good-bye.” These are not the “I’ll see you soon” “Good –byes,” these are the “I’ll see you in a few months” “Good-byes.” The kind you say before taking off for college or before going on summer break. When you say one of those, you are prepared to not see the person again for a long bleeding time. If I deliver one of those and then see the person again before one of us takes off, it just puts me into a tizzy. What am I supposed to say? Did not we just say everything that needed to be said a little while ago? So, more-often-than-not, I end up not saying “Good-bye” until I am literally walking to the car, plane, train, whatever, and I inevitably miss people in the process. Bummer and sorry to everyone who has ever been slighted by me like this.

It’s not that I hate “Good-bye.” “Good-bye” merely signifies a change, be it good or be it bad. It’s just complicated.

Geez, I stress a lot over something that ought to be so much more simple.

The End of Freshman Year

My grandparents came to pick me up from college a few days ago. Awfully decent of them when you consider that they made the 1500 mile trip in 20 hours of driving over two days. When they finally made it to campus on Monday afternoon, I was all over them as soon they got out of their car, hugging them, glad to see them. My parents had called two days earlier and suggested rather strongly that I take them walking all over the place, so they could stretch out a little and release their cramps. I was more than happy to comply. The first night, I gave them the walking tour of campus and took them to the off-campus gym where I practice kendo. The second night, we went downtown to eat and checked out the waterfall from all angles at multiple points along its path.

When I wasn’t with them or enjoying my last nights with my friends, I was thinking, reflecting. My first year of college was coming to an end. It was finals week and my grandparents weren’t there to hang out but to take me back to my hometown. Except for a few brief stretches, mostly around the time of Ann’s death, if you had asked me how I was enjoying college, as more than a few people did, I would answer that I was ‘mildly euphoric.’ In no way did I regret my choice in colleges. The people, the classes, the area; I enjoyed them all. Playing “Madden” and later “Fight Night” with my suitemates, roof hopping in winter, conversations that went until two in the morning, asking a girl out for the first time; there are so many memories that I never want to slip away.

Sure, there are things I wish hadn’t happened and things I’m disappointed didn’t happen, but I can still live with myself and know that I am capable of feeling feelings that I thought I had killed off.

Were I motivated solely by self-interest, I don’t see how my year at college could be seen as less than a success. I am a better person now than I was coming into it all. I am more comfortable in social situations and have learned to think better as I came against viewpoints that weren’t my own. I have been pushed like I ne’er was before in my classes and feel that, if I didn’t succeed, I certainly didn’t fall apart. At the beginning of the year, I was worried about how I’d deal with being away from my parents and their influence, but I think that I proved to myself that I can do better than muddle through without them. College has been a developmental time too.

Something else to consider too. My grandparents arriving on campus mark an intrusion of sorts, an intrusion into my college life. Not that is was such a big intrusion. They weren’t on campus long and didn’t have the opportunity to speak much with my friends. To a certain point, I expect most people experience this duality of lives between college and family. In my case, it’s a bit more clear, something that arises when you choose to go to a college so far from where you were raised. My friends at college and my friends from high school do not know each other. Except for a single instant messenger conversation, no one in one of these groups knows the members of the other. If I talk about my experiences with one to the other, they have to depend entirely on me. They lack the interaction to add their own thoughts in at all. My hometown and college lives are entirely separate. I don’t think I’m different in them, but the problem remains that they don’t connect. It kind of depresses me. It was my decision, though, and I’ll have to deal with it.

But it’s over now. I’m with my grandparents, driving back. People would ask me if I’m sad to be going back to my hometown. I answer, “It’s what happens. There are things I’m looking forward to and things I’ll miss.” The important thing it seems to me as I sit here is that I never let my experiences go. They happened to me and have meaning. They must never be lost.

Two days of driving

This is what happens when you spend over twenty hours in the backseat of your grandparents’ Jetta on the way back home after college gets out for the summer. Mounds and pounds and loads and piles and bunches of writing. Expect, for the next few days, nothing but posts composed during the long drive back.

Swearing, Cursing, Cussing, Naughty Words

You know what? On LiveJournal, my friends write their thoughts on the end of our first year at college. Events they never want to forget, how they have grown and matured and become better people. Whatever. Here, on Blogger, I write my thoughts on swearing. Actually, I'll undoubtedly end up posting my on reflection. I just need to sort out my ideas a little more first. On to swearing!

Just like drinking, I don't swear. Even in the fifth and sixth grades, when swearing and cursing were acts of petty rebellion, I never used certain words, or I did until I learned that they were curses. Then I stopped saying them. Back then, it was like littering to me. I simply could not force myself to say a number of four-letter words. Perhaps it was the result of being terribly afraid of what my parents would do if they heard me swear, though I heard them do so on more than one occasion. For whatever reason though, the point remains that I didn't swear. Instead, I picked up a number of proxies. Among them were such gems as 'darn,' 'heck,' 'geez' and 'freak.' After watching Monty Python and the Holy Grail, 'bugger' and 'bloody' were added to my repetoire, even after being informed that they were considered curses by our friends across the pond. They just sounded funny to me.

Even now, in college, I still don't swear, though this statement requires a bit of clarification as my own understanding and perception of language has changed. First of all, when you read the classics like Dante's Inferno and Milton Paradise Lost, you learn to say certain words, mostly 'damn' and 'hell,' if you do not want to be thought of as the greatest prude ever. Great, so there are now I few words commonly considered curses that I can now say. The story gets better.

Well, I happen to have a passing interest in linguistics and communications and came across this whole theory of semiotics and the whole separation of things into 'signifier' and 'signified' and the primacy of context in understanding most anything at some point.' This caused me to reconsider my views on swearing. Why are 'damn' and 'hell' considered curses? Because they are, respectively, the worst thing thing we could wish upon a person and the worst place in existence. Do you really wish these things when you use them towards friends? No, their use towards people you are close to typically is sarcasm and exaggeration. As long as everyone is clear on the intent and use, there is no harm. On the other hand, when we are in a passion and sincerely wish these things upon a person, even if we use some proxy word, our intent is radically different. How can 'darn' in the context of a yelling match not be considered a curse when the intent is there?

Just my thoughts, though I still refrain from using most curses. I figure my intent will be very clear when I end up using them in earnest.

Project Gutenberg

Everyone get up out of their seats and applaud for the latest addition to 'must see,' Project Gutenberg. It is an awesome site that provides classic works whose copyrights have run out for free, as in no fee for downloading. It's beautiful. Scoff at those chain bookstores that try and get you to pay for your copy of The Communist Manifesto. Fight capitalism! If you happen to disagree with me on this point and believe that buying into our current economic system is a good idea, you can still appreciate the stellar variety of titles and authors on Project Gutenberg. Just checking the Top 100 EBooks Yesterday, and I'm finding everything from Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice to the Kamasutra to Les Miserables. All of this and the site is very easy to navigate, lacking the hordes of advertisements that so many other sites that offer free things prefer.

As with all seemingly beautiful things, there are negative aspects present as well. First of all, you'll likely have to do more than a little formatting yourself. Many texts are available solely in plain text format which is a pain to look at. I guess this could turn into a positive though as you can make the text size and font perfectly suited for your own predilections. Just takes a little effort. Also, as much as I'm a fan of not paying for things, it's still hard to read things on a computer screen. Where's the romance in cuddling up on your sofa on a winter weekend with your computer? Also, the collection is far from complete and some foreign texts lack an English translation so this is not something to put your complete faith in if you are some struggling college student. There are enough heavy hitters, though, to satisfy anyone looking to prove how erudite they are on a shoestring.

Check it out and enjoy.

Favorite films

Tell me, how do you reconcile it when your two favorite movies are The Princess Bride and Fight Club? On the one hand, I have "Not just your basic, average, everyday, ordinary, run-of-the-mill, ho-hum fairy tale" and in the other am maintaining a firm grip on "Mischief. Mayhem. Soap." a wonderful family movie and a movie that contains two of the most disturbing, intense scenes in cinematic history. Sounds like a challenge, to figure out what can make me appreciate them both at the same time. Also, I would like to point out that for a long time, I considered The Girl Next Door my third favorite movie. After considering for a while, I have come to the decision that, though it is a fine movie, a great deal of my appreciation for it comes from the fact I had about zero hope that I would like it. Thus, it is further down on my list of all-time great and no longer deserves to be considered against these other movies. Would have made the mix all the more interesting though.

As far as common threads go, I can only see two. The frequent use of humor, darker, of course, in Fight Club, and the self-awareness these movies demonstrate. Over and over again, they blatantly demonstrate that they know that they are movies, The Princess Bride through the grandson's interruptions and in a multitude of ways in Fight Club, the 'cigarette burns,' the porn splices and the 'flashback humor' line among others. At all times, these movies hold their viewers at arm's length, constantly reminding them that these are movies, the stories of a few people, not the world. If you find the values they extol worthy, adopt them as your own. Otherwise, do not.

As I think about it more, I think I find a third thread, one that appeals to my sense of idealism. The characters in these movies, as cool as they are, are cariactures, exaggerations. They are ideals. The most beautiful woman, the greatest swordsman, the strongest man, an insane, successful revolutionary group. It is impossible for us to achieve these levels, but trying, even though failure is almost a given, to become them makes me happy all over. These are not movies about life. They are movies about the way life could be.

There it is then. Once and for all, I have resolved how I can hold both of these movies in such high esteem at the same time.

Protests

In high school, I guess I could be considered pretty liberal. It's not that I really did anything different like follow Buddhism or become a vegetarian, but I guess my ideas were fairly out there for small town Minnesota. I didn't really care about getting my driver's license and didn't go hunting and supported communism for the longest time. Anyway, I developed some sort of complex as a result of all this, one that made me reject most all ideas that I saw mainstream. I wanted to go around protesting, if I could have found anyone to come with me or if I could think of anything worth protesting. Vive la revolution. That was me, in thought if not in action.

Then I go to college and things change. Things resembling protests and civil disobedience go on around me, and I don't participate. I'm sure there are other reasons I don't join in (things I'd rather do and such), but I've thought about protests more now that they're actually present. This is the philosophy that has arisen from my contemplation. There is an essential problem with protests. You are admitting that you have no power to affect a change yourself and are asking others to do it. Screw that. If you want to make a change, you take responsibility and do it yourself. You don't ask for permission first. If that particular action is illegal, you get yourself into a position to make it legal.

Like most all of my philosophies, this one has problems. What if you want to stop something that is wrong and occurs outside of your being? Say racism or sweatshop labor? Fine, you can respect your fellows based on their virtue and treat everyone who works for you fairly, but that is not helping in other situations. What do you do then? The best I can come up with is use reason and engage in dialogue. Hopefully those who engage in these practices will come to understand what is wrong and stop of their own accord.

Family and lineage

My family sent me a number of e-mails today, all about family; deceased relatives being a certain age today and the recent internment of a great aunt. They asked me to post about them, so here it goes. I guess some context is required here. The only relatives I regularly visit are my paternal grandparents, who maybe seven miles from my home in Baudette. Otherwise, I have family in California, Ohio, North Carolina and just across the border from New York. I have aunts and uncles who I can count the number of times I can remember having visited in the single digits. Still, meeting family is something I look forward to, not something I regard with disgust. Anyway...

A few winters back, my mom's project was a needlepoint family tree. A cousin of hers sent her information and everything and she made it out to something like four generations back. For a while there, she wanted my sister and me to memorize them all. Neither us of did. I'm not really sure why, but I suspect it is because I saw no point to it. I knew nothing about most of these people, and, when your culture's obsessed with stories about heirs-to-the-throne trying to escape their inherited destiny and Romeo and Juliet where family is the cause of tragedy, you tend to treat things beyond your control with more than a little caution. We are urged to find ourselves outside of those things we are a part of. I guess I use to ascribe to this fierce individualism, but the truth is we and our identities are not formed in a vacuum. We become according to what we identify with and what we are set against. Family and lineage is another one of those things. If we see things to be proud of in our heritage, we adopt them into our being. If the things we see are not so great, we avoid them.

More important though, family is a community, one of the strongest that exists because it is the first and the one that cannot be escaped from. No matter what we do, we will always be a Heinrich or Rodriguez or whatever. Before we are an American or member of the NRA, we learn about responsibility and obligation from our families. It is the family that allows us to form greater communities, and, as we consider it, so we consider all other communities.

Besides, thinking back on that family tree, for which my mom won the grand prize at the county fair, now, it is more than a bit awe inspiring to think that I am the result of all these relationships. If they did nothing else, which I doubt rather strongly, they participated in the creation of me, and I ought to commemorate that by being the best person I can.

My LiveJournal post

So I compared the Blogger and LiveJournal that existed in my mind a few posts back. Well now I am thowing myself fully into one of those stereotypical LiveJournal posts that so irritate me. Expect emo and such. Perhaps it's one of those cries for attention. Please don't hate me for this.

Do you ever feel as though you are the only person in the world who is the least bit content or happy with their life? There are times that I feel that way as though the pieces of my life are falling into place. Then, I find out about problems my friends are dealing with and then I think about the problems of people I hear about on in the news, sweatshop laborers and refugees. Am I wrong to be happy while others suffer? Do I shelter myself from what's going on around me to protect my own happiness? I tell myself and believe that I should be willing to subordinate my own pleasure for that of others, but then I see myself now and know that either that philosophy is wrong or that I am failing at it. Neither is that pleasing to consider. One, the way I want to live my life is impossible. The other, I am not good enough.

A second problem arises from this, though. I want people to be happy and content, but what am I willing to sacrifice for that? I am not even talking about myself here but my ideals. If it made a person happy to cut themselves, would I do nothing? Would I not have the strength to make them stop and just hope that someone better than me would come along to fix things? If a person were to do something I thought wrong, to the very core of my being, would I not step in because of endangering whatever relationship we had? I worry.

Language

As many of my friends can tell you, I have some problems with verbal English or, at least, the direction its moving in. Particular favorite sources of hate are unnecessary acronyms, RBF for rootbeer flota and WTF are particularly vexing in that they aren't even shorter than the words which they're shortening, WTF actually having more syllables than the phrase it replaces, and using business names as general nouns and verbs, Kleenex and Google spring to mind in these occasions. In the case of acronyms, I believe the source of my rage is clear though not everyone may agree with it. I simply dislike unnecessary things. Strip life and language down to the essentials. Remove the clutter. As far as business names becoming a part of the vernacular my problem lies in seeing business become such a large part of our culture that begins to permeate our everyday speech. Mostly a knee jerk reaction against business I guess. Not that there's much I can do about it on a broad scale. Language is simply too large an element of culture for a single person to change it. George Bernard Shaw tried and failed, and I think he had more than a few things going for him that I don't.

I realize this isn't that great of a post seeing as how it lacks any deep insights or decisive philosophies, but I do hope that it causes you to think and be a bit more aware of something we engage in everyday, speech. Life and all its elements must not be taken for granted.

Blogger vs. LiveJournal (a fight for the aeon!)

Recently, some friends of mine, users of LiveJournal, have petitioned me to open an account with their blogging/ journaling site of choice and begin posting there. Personally, I have no compelling technical reason to leave Blogger or join LiveJournal. Though Blogger does undergo a fair amount of maintenance and lost one of my posts, an earlier version of 'Posting to 'Spice of Life'' actually, it continues to serve my needs without irritating me too much. I guess I could do a lot more with design and everything, if I wanted to, but I do not and I do not believe I would suddenly become inspired if I were to move to Live Journal. In favor of moving to LiveJournal is the ability to view the limited access sites of my friends who do not want to make their thougths and feelings too public.

There's other stuff going on too with my decision, mostly the connotations associated with each. As I see it, blogging is much more mature and respectable. Blogs and their writers get book contracts and paying jobs. When a person writes to a blog, it is well thought out and fascinating to all. My perception of LiveJournal, on the other hand, is that it is a chance for people to throw their emotions out to the masses. People do not think when they make LiveJournal posts, they simply record their emotions. People who use LiveJournal are high schoolers looking for sympathy. I think this webcomic is pretty much the source of all these uncharitable thoughts on LiveJournal.

Before anyone jumps all over me for attacking their favorite form of communication, I would like to point out that I often treat my blog like a LiveJournal and my friends use LiveJournal like I want 'Spice of Life' to turn out. It really comes down to the user.

Perhaps I'll open a LiveJournal and simply post reviews of movies and music and literature there. I'll have to think about it some more.

Posting to 'Spice of Life'

I am starting to get worried about posting to 'Spice of Life.' This feeling arose around the time I posted, 'Art and Life.' In that post, I called the opportunity to freely express my feelings 'cathartic,' but, like I opened this post, I am starting to experience a little angst about all of this. I started this blog for a number of reasons; to actually get me writing regularly, to offer an opportunity to organize and develop the thoughts that run through my mind on a daily basis. Catharsis was certainly amongst the reasons, though I do not believe I was familiar with the term last May, but now I am reconsidering that.

To a large extent, I find catharsis healthy. I find the expression of one's deep feelings and complexes a good thing, to the extent that it allows one to get on with their life and stop obsessing over them. My problem is that I do not believe that 'Spice of Life' is the healthiest place for this to take place. That's not to deny there are benefits, there are simply supremely better methods. Communication is stilted when one comments upon the blog. The passion one felt at the time of posting may have gone when a pertinent comment comes up, and nothing comes from it.

Coming back to the source of my problem, the 'Art and Life' post symbolizes it more than anything else. In it, I expressed my distaste for my former professor's choice to save a picture of a cat over a living cat. At most, I should have used that post to organize my thoughts before bringing them before my former professor. Instead, I just let the matter die . Short of her being a reader here, which I find bleeding unlikely, nothing will come of it. As Erich Fromm, one of my new favorite people, discusses in The Art of Being, we must distinguish between those things in our lives that are lively, inspire action within ourselves, and those that are dead and do nothing to make us better people. I enjoy writing here, but I must become more careful with what I do here and be aware of the ends I seek to attain. So, please, if something I post on gets your blood up, do not stop at a comment, bring it up to me in person. Let us make something of it.

Posting on my Blog

Concerns relating to my posts on this blog have arisen, particularly after my 'Art and Life' post. In it, I called the opportunity to express my disagreement in regard to the professor's decision to take the picture over the cat cathartic. The problem is that I have never brought these beliefs before the professor. There are some decent reason for this, I not being sure of her office hours and finding little free time, but, short of her being a reader of this blog, which I do not find bleeding likely, no dialogue or discussion, the two greatest results, will never take place. This distresses me a great deal. Could 'Spice of Life' become a dead end?

Originally, I intended, among others, for my blog to be an opportunity to organize my thoughts. To take the time to put down and organize whatever was going through my mind, so I could better discuss them with others. The 'Art and Life' post, though, causes consternation in that it was the end. It was static and uncreative and led no further than 'Spice of Life.' I cannot allow that to happen, my blog must be a means.

Thus, I recommit myself to opening discussion and invite others to do the same. First up, my professor.

Why I Don't Drink

It was bound to come up sooner or later. I am attending university now, and I am very aware that more than a few of my classmates in high school drank regularly. Alcohol has long permeated the cultures which I live in. Still, it is something I do not partake in, though I have wondered what I would be like were I drunk. I always assumed that I would end up depressed in some corner. Tonight, I feel like putting those reasons down.

Pre-eminently, I do not enjoy the taste. My grandfather brews his own beer, and I am fairly certain that he was offering me drinks of his latest batch before I was in kindergarten. I guess beer has one of those acquired tastes, and, as a child, I never had any desire to acquire it. As I have grown older, I have tried his beer on multiple occasions, I have tasted schnaps and had some wine and champagne, and none of their tastes appeal to me.

I do believe that this is something I could overcome were it not for the second reason. I am deathly afraid of giving up my self-control, something I have heard that alcohol mitigates. This particular fear goes back to elementary school. I did stupid, cruel, unnecessary things then. I freely admit that I do not so much like the person I was, so I changed. I cultivated a will that would hold these impulses that I was ashamed of in check. That is something I am simply unwilling to throw away.

Concerning self-control and will power, it is a theory of mine (take as much heed of it as you want to seeing as intoxication is something that has never happened to me) that people drink to give up responsibility. They want an excuse to do certain things, and alcohol provides that excuse, a way to deal with otherwise inconvenient inhibitions. Personally, I believe that inhibitions are normally in place for a good reason, and, if not, then it is far healthier in the long run to deal with them in sobriety than to get drunk.

There you have it then. The preaching of some jerk college student.

A Crude Life Philosophy

I was planning on opening this post with a little theorizing on the necessity of a life philosophy, then I realized that there was enough in that idea to merit a post devoted to it alone. So, I start instead with a disclaimer of sorts. What follows is just a little idea of mine. If it deserves modification, please provide. If it requires anhilation, inform me so. To live by an incorrect philosophy is something terrible, and, if someone believes this to be wrong, tell me so. Now, to follow all that, like my title says, this is a very crude philosophy. I know it needs to be refined. This is the beginning.

I don't know when it was that I started to believe this, maybe two years ago, but it's a philosophy that, though not in my mind at all moments, is one I come back to again and again. I figured it was time to actually lay it out and develop it.

Life is a game. There are rules, which we know through biology, economics and such, that exist and that you cannot refute. They simply are. Animals obey them. They seek to maximize their own utility and insure the survival of their genetic material, the closest they can get to immortality. Life, pursued in this manner, is far from ideal. It is lonely and selfish. Humans, though, are far more than mere animals. They have imagination and can envision a better world. Even more than that, humans have the ability to make this better world a reality. They can choose to deny their own pleasure and security in the interests of others. Humans can make this a life of compassion.

One of many critical questions at this point (but it is the only one I believe I have an answer for at this point) is 'Why do we need to break these rules? What is so wrong about them?' My answer, humans are complementary creatures. They need one another merely to survive. Besides the fact that humanity does not reproduce asexually, they are not great enough to survive on their own, much less create. Take a newborn baby and toss it into the woods. See how long it survives. That is hyperbolic, but, still, take a young, healthy human specimen and outfit them with all the greatest survival training and equipment, which already requires the direct involvement of other humans. Toss them out into the woods and see how long they live. I don't doubt that they will survive, but what of their lives, when every moment is spent simply trying to live longer. What type of life is that, one spent completely upon oneself and that leaves no legacy? That is why we must live for each other.

Life is simply one long struggle in order to break the rules that govern the lives of animals.

Are there problems with this philosophy? Goodness, yes! There is no good reason for this whole philosophy to have arisen, and I imagine that it is very possible to argue that this entire philosophy is an extension of the will to survive and increase personal utility. Even if the foundations of this thing turn out to be solid, the specifics of the philosophy itself need help. The rules that govern animal life are hinted at only in the vaguest terms, and there is no explanation for when we will know we have reached the end. I harbor no doubts that I have not touched on all of this philosophy's weaknesses.

Still, it is a start.