Human Composition: More than chemical, I say

If all we are is chemicals that have combined randomly to form these bodies in which we live, where do our deepest desires come from? Why do we ask why? Why do we ponder our own existence? Why do we seek knowledge, betterment of self, happiness and love? Why do we have dreams and follow them? Why do we feel emotions and not just physical sensations? Why are we not just simple animals? I say there must be a soul in us humans. Given all our dreams and feelings and passions and philosophical thoughts, I say there must be something that lives on when our hearts have ceased to beat.

Terms of Endearment

These are equally as interesting as nicknames. Where do they come from? "Honey" and "sweetie" make sense, as both things are sweet and sweet things are pleasant to the palate. Still, it's funny how we base terms of endearment on sugar and the physical sensation of taste. Sure, we taste each other when we kiss, but if that were the only criterion on which we based our little pet names, we'd call each other "orange juice" and "hamburger" and "beer breath," too, wouldn't we? I mean, we don't always taste like honey or other sweet things. Where the hell did "pumpkin" come from? I mean, it's cute, but still, what's it mean? "I love you, pumpkin." Translation: "I love you, round orange vegetable" ? Not exactly number 1 on the list of most flattering things to be called. Now "pumpkin pie" tastes good, but we don't call each other that, do we? We call each other "cutie-pie," though. How is a pie cute? If it's small. So, basically, a nice way of saying "small-pie," or a delicious treat that won't make you gain too much weight. As opposed to "large pie" or "heavy pie" or "thick pie," all of which are tasty but you may regret eating a whole one. So where the hell does pumpkin come from? Why not apple? It's smaller, which is almost always something women want to be, it's sweeter than a pumpkin and it also makes a delicious pie! It's generally been my experience that apple pie is actually more popular than pumpkin. But I have never heard "apple" used as a term of endearment. I believe a celebrity whose name escapes me named his/her daughter "apple," but that's another story.

Nicknames

What's the deal with nicknames? They're funny, aren't they? Especially certain ones. How did "Chazz" become a nickname for Charles? How did "Chuck" become a nickname for Charles? Charley's the only real nickname I understand for Charles. Is it because Chazz rhymes with jazz and jazz is seen as smooth and cool? Maybe. Chuck I just don't get. Why would someone nickname someone else after a type of beef? I mean, I have a friend we call "Beef" but that's because it comes directly from his last name. But Chuck? Sure, it sounds manly, but is that only because of Chuck Norris? If not for him, would people laugh at the name Chuck as being silly? I doubt anyone would dare tell Chuck Norris it's silly, for fear of being fatally roundhouse-kicked in the cranium. I guess he's the protector of that nickname. What about "Hank" for Henry? Really? How did that one spring up? I mean, the two things that come to mind when I hear "Hank" are "yank" and "hankie" (short for handkerchief). Neither of these is anything I would want to be associated with, especially a hankie, which is a nice name for "mucus collector that you shove in your pocket for repeated use."

Restroom Noise

What is the deal with people breathing heavily and grunting in the stall next to mine in restrooms? I mean, c'mon! Is that really necessary? I try to be considerate of others by remaining quiet so as not to draw my neighbor's attention to the fact that there is another person relieving himself right next door. We try not to think about that. Or at least I do! But some people make that very difficult! I mean, have you no shame, people? It's not your own bathroom. Do what you will in the privacy of your own home, but try to be quiet and courteous when you're in the presence of others. No one wants to know you're there, sitting on the toilet, doing your business! And I can assure you, no one wants to know that you're having trouble with it! That is the last thing I want to know. I hope some of you read this. You know who you are.

"Obsessive-compulsive" behaviors

I wonder when a behavior qualifies as "obsessive-compulsive." At what point does it stop being normal and become a disorder? According to readings I've done in my psychology classes, a behavior is not defined as being obsessive-compulsive unless it interferes with one's daily life. So it must be the type of thing somebody has to do a great number of times each day, because if it's only a few times, it really can't be said to be impairing one's functioning. My friend, for example, is convinced she has a little bit of OCD because she "has" to check the knobs on her gas stove at least three times every night before going to sleep. Even if they're clearly turned to the "off" position, she still has to touch them and make sure they're really off. What's more is that if anyone touches them after her, she has to touch them again--even if the knobs are still obviously in the off position. I tested this one night before leaving her house. She went through her routine, checking each of the four knobs three times. I then touched one, without turning it. She immediately complained, "Stop! Now I have to do it all over again." And she proceeded to check each one again. I touched the knob again. This time, she hit me, then checked and touched each knob again. It was pretty funny, because I know she doesn't have OCD. It doesn't significantly affect her life. She doesn't waste more than a few seconds a night on her paranoia that her eyes are deceiving her, the knobs are actually "on," and the house will soon blow up. I think if her behavior qualified as OCD, a lot more people would have this disorder. I myself engage in somewhat compulsive behaviors sometimes. I check the lock on the door to my house usually about three times a night, turning the deadbolt and trying to pull the door open with the latch (it's an old door and thus knobless) to make sure it's secure. But I wouldn't call this OCD. Because I don't spend much time doing it, unless you added up all the seconds, in which case over the course of a hundred years I might lose a day. Okay, I just calculated it. Four days over a hundred years. Approximately. If I spend ten extra seconds a night checking the door. It's worth it to me to feel safe, in today's world. Please feel free to comment and share your "compulsive" behaviors with me!

Yet More Strange People

This has quickly become a favorite topic of mine. They just keep on coming! And this time, I wasn’t even in NYC, which is where you expect to see some oddballs. I was in Connecticut, not ten minutes from my house. I had stopped to get gas in the morning on my way to work. As I was walking in the door to the “Mart” to pay before pumping, I saw an older gentleman behind me, so I held the door for him. He looked at me happily and said, “Thanks! I’ll call ya tomorrow!”
I just smiled, wondering what this guy was talking about, and let him in the door. I couldn’t tell whether he was joking or serious. Maybe he thought I was someone else. It almost sounded as though he were finishing a conversation with someone else—except that there was no one else around him and he was looking right at me (and he didn’t have a bluetooth in, either). Anyway, we went in, and I decided I would let this guy go ahead of me in line (I try to stay out of the way of the oddballs), but he insisted on letting me go first. “Go ahead, I’ll let my grandmother serve you first,” he said. The cashier, to whom he was presumably referring (but who knows?), was definitely a good ten years younger than him, at least. She glanced at him and the look on her face said, “Oh, great. He’s back.” And I still couldn’t tell whether he was just a jokester or was legitimately confused about the circumstances of his location and the people around him. My first impression was that he was joking, but what an odd thing to say, even as a joke. Usually a jokester isn’t quite so random. But he was funny, I’ll give him that.
I think I attract these people. I think I have a sign that is invisible to me but clearly visible to them, saying, “Calling all weirdos! Dispense your ramblings here!” For some reason or other, they feel they can trust me, or relate to me, or that I’m one of them. I’ve got my quirks, don’t get me wrong, but I’m not quite in that league yet.

I know I’m not the only one to whom this happens. My former college roommate told me a story while we were living together. He was in the dining hall eating lunch and trying to read his engineering textbook. He was a very busy young man, being an engineer as well as an R.O.T.C. officer, so his time was very valuable to him. So there he was, sitting in the dining hall, engrossed in his text, when who should sit down across from him but a total stranger. “Hi, I’m a freshman; I’m trying to meet people.”
He stared at her in disbelief, looking around at all the empty tables in the area. There were a hundred other places she could have sat down. He had not anticipated this.
“Well, that’s nice, but I’m trying to read,” he said, attempting to be polite.
“What are you reading?” she asked.
“Engineering.”
“What’s the topic?”
He hastily spat out some words.
“Oh, that’s interesting. Tell me more.”
“Look, do you really understand any of this?” he asked. “Is it really going to benefit you to hear me talk about it?”
“Well, no, I’m just trying to meet people.” She introduced herself and extended her hand. He shook it reluctantly and introduced himself.
She stayed at the table and talked to him until she had finished her lunch. He got no reading done.
Back at the room, after he had related the story to me, he said angrily, as though speaking to her, “How dare you presume to think you have the right to steal my time! That’s bullshit!”
Then he asked me rhetorically, “Do I just attract these people? Do I give off something that says, ‘Come talk to me! I’m looking to chat’?”
I was laughing so hard I was crying. Personally, I rather enjoy talking to strangers and observing their idiosyncrasies, but I think if I had been trying to squeeze some reading into a packed-solid schedule, and someone came up to me wanting to meet new people and wouldn’t take the hint and leave, I’d probably be a little irritated, too.

Interesting Sign

I saw an interesting sign today in--where else?--New york City. I love that place, I really do. It's never dull there, ever. Anyway, there was this guy standing on the sidewalk holding a cardboard sign (as many do in NYC)--but his sign did not bear the usual "Homeless and hungry" message; instead, he had written, in big black letters: "NEED MONEY FOR BEER, DRUGS AND HOOKER. AT LEAST I'M NOT BULLSHITTIN' YOU." I kid you not, this is what the sign said. Now let's analyze this. First off, I'd like to start by saying I appreciate his honesty. It's refreshing to see some truthfulness (not that there aren't more honest homeless people. I know some are truly hungry and just want a meal, don't get me wrong). But what the hell does he expect to get from anyone? Is anybody really going to give that man money so he can further wreck his life?
When I told my mom about the incident, she brought up a point I had overlooked: It could all be a set-up. Think of all the times you've seen something like this on television--"Candid Camera" being the most popular example, probably. He was most likely observing other people's powers of observation: Do they really look at people and signs before they donate their dollar or do they just drop it in the cup without making eye contact? What a great idea this man had, I now realize. This guy I thought was a mere honest idiot could really be quite clever. And come to think of it, looking back, he really didn't look all that dirty or down-and-out. Not that you can always tell just from a person's appearance, but all I'm saying is I could believe him as a man with a home and enough money to get by who wanted to make a point-and a few dollars doing it. Look before you give your dollar away, people. See where it's going.

Fighters

I was watching "60 minutes"--or some show like it--recently and they were interviewing this Spanish bullfighter, who couldn't have been older than his early thirties. He got his liver gored by a bull during a fight. Most people, I would guess, don't live through that. But he did. And you know what he said afterwards? He will fight again next year. Is he nuts?! I figure he MUST have a death wish. I mean, if that happened to me and I lived, I would take that as a sign from God: "Hey, stupid! I'm giving you another chance. Don't screw this one up." But he says being so close to death makes him feel more alive. His friend got gored in the leg, severing his femoral artery and he lived too! Amazing. He may never walk again, though. If he does, he'll probably fight again, if he can move well enough to avoid getting gored again. What an insane sport. And a cruel one, too. They're killing bulls for the sport. Kill or be killed. What the hell? The bull didn't ask to be there. The bull is fighting for its life, and unless it gores the matador, it doesn't have a chance. Even if it does gore the matador, it probably still gets killed. It just seems so senseless and mean and barbaric. It's the most primitive of activities. The interviewer was marveling at the paradox that Spain has such an advanced society and yet a primitive sport like bullfighting is one of the main attractions and cultural elements.
Then there are those people who run with the bulls. There's an intelligent idea. I think I'd like to run with hundreds of other people down a narrow street with several sharp-horned, thousand-pound animals chasing me. Sounds awesome. Do people really need to do such things to feel alive? I wonder if any of these people have ever been in love. I don't see bullfighters as the 'family man' type. I don't see how that would work. "Bye, kids. Have a good day in school. I'll see you when you get home--if I live." Who would marry a bullfighter? Can you imagine being the wife of one? The anxiety, the stress? Every time he goes out into the arena, wondering if that's the last time you'll see him alive? Crazy. I think bullfighters are the bachelor-for-life types. They can probably get laid pretty easily. They all seem suave and cool and have sex appeal, so I bet women really go for them. But only as a lay, not as a steady boyfriend and definitely not, I would wager, as a husband. I wouldn't marry a bullfighter, I'll tell you that. It's one thing to marry a soldier, someone who's serving his country and fighting to protect your rights. He's fighting because somebody has to. But nobody has to be a bullfighter. it's completely gratuitous. It's sport. So why would you enter into a committed relationship with someone who's putting himself at a high, unnecessary risk for death over and over again? Why would you want to experience the anxiety and the pain if he were injured or killed? I really want to know if there are any married or engaged bullfighters out there.
Ultimate fighters are a similar story, though obviously not as extreme and not as cruel. The risk of death is lower (no one is guaranteed death, as the bull is)--but by how much? One good punch or kick to the temple can kill you. Probably not in most cases, but it can. So imagine being hit multiple times in the head and vital organs by a muscle-bound martial artist. I can't see that as being too good for longevity. I'd be nervous and anxious and stressed as hell if I were married to an ultimate fighter. I know one--a great guy--and he just got married and his wife's pregnant. He also just got over a severe concussion from punches to the head. He's in his mid-forties. I'd be scared if I were his wife. Scared about the well-being of my husband and our child if, God forbid, something should happen to him. But it makes people feel more alive, and there are those who thrive off fighting. I wonder what it is about fighters that draws them to the sport. What is it they all have in common? Where does it come from, this thirst for blood, this love of danger and enjoyment of pain? Is it genetic at all? Purely environmental? Is it just a macho thing or is there more to it than that? Do they want to feel like they can protect themselves and their families (if they have families)? I'd love to examine the brain of a fighter and compare it to a non-fighter's. I'm a martial artist, but I have no desire to be a fighter. A friend of mine who used to be a boxer once told me, "You don't want to be a fighter. Fighting's for people who don't have anything else." (He was talking primarily about people who fight for a living. The guy I know doesn't--he's got a real job). Thankfully, I have so much else. But some kids in the inner cities don't. Fighting's all they have, or at least that's what they believe. I don't know if it's true. I think there's always an alternative. I don't think anyone has to go that route. But I'd have to be an inner-city kid or at least live there for a while to know for sure. I'd much rather be an artist than a fighter, that's something I do know.

More Strange People

I saw a funny guy in New York City the other day. He was a rather large African-American man in camouflage pants and headphones. Out of the blue, he yells, to no one in particular, "It's like they say sometimes--Who cares if they go to town?" It's like who says? Who actually ever says that? These were a couple of the questions that his outburst spawned.
I'm not the only one who encounters odd human beings in my travels. A friend of mine told me about a homeless man he saw fishing on the sidewalk. For what, you may ask? I don't know. Well, probably fish. Maybe he thought he was in a boat in the ocean or a lake. Not sure. You'd have to ask him. If you did, he'd probably look at you funny and say, "Of course I'm in an ocean--what are you, an idiot?!"
I tried to give food to a homeless man once and he turned it down. I was like, really? Here I had some tasty chicken breast and an apple I had carried quite a distance all for him--I carried it all the way across my college campus or nearly so--and he said, "No, thank you. This will bring the rats right up to my neck." Well, then, does that mean he just avoids greasy foods? I didn't think homeless people were that selective about what they ate. I figured he'd be setting traps for the rats so he had breakfast, but that's just me.

All the things you could possibly worry about in one sitting

What is the deal with everything causing cancer today? Cell phones are said to cause brain cancer in some cases if used often enough. Eating red meat is said to cause cancer. The sun which warms us and enables our crops to grow to provide food for us and keep us alive by warming the earth—gives people cancer. It’s just ludicrous. If it’s not cancer, it’s something else. Salmonella can be got from chickens and now from tomatoes?! Give me a break! Mosquitos can cause our brains to fill with fluid (encephalitis) and can also give us West Nile—I have no idea what that is but I know it’s pretty terrible. It just seems that there is no way we can prevent all these illnesses if the sources surround us like they do. Sure, we can take measures to prevent illness. We can wear sunscreen—but then if we forget to reapply it we can get burned and our skin can get cancer anyway! We can cook our chicken until it’s black and cut tomatoes out of our diets—but then we can eat ground beef infected with Mad Cow or Hoof-in-Mouth Disease that can’t be killed by any amount of cooking! What the hell are we supposed to do? I was reading recently about this other infection, and this one is really bad, let me tell ya. It comes from sweat. Can you believe that? Yes, sweat. A high-school football player came down with this infection after practice one day and a couple days later he was in the hospital on his deathbed! Apparently, swapping sweat with his fellow teammates on the football field had given him this horrible bacterial infection that ate at his insides and made his lungs look like swiss cheese. He lost a prodigious amount of weight and his family came into his room, preparing to say goodbye to him. Thank God the doctors were able to save him, but it was more than a close call. The doctors say now you’ve got to wash your clothes immediately after any physical activity with others to prevent this infection. Sure, most of us do wash our clothes after sweating. I don’t want you to think I think it’s weird to do that. But I do martial arts and before hearing about this, when I would go twice a week to karate class, I wouldn’t always wash my gi (uniform) in between classes. I would go to class on Tuesday and sweat, let it dry and wear it again on Wednesday or Thursday. What would be the point of washing it only to have to wash it again a day or two later? Surviving, that’s the point. Preventing this crazy disease from invading my body and riddling my lungs with holes and killing me in two days. Unbelievable. You can die just from failing to wash your clothes promptly after a martial arts workout or a friendly basketball game. Thankfully, this particular illness is easy to avoid if you remember to be anal about washing your clothes after every workout, which I do now. But lots of other illnesses are not so easy to avoid. Like Mad Cow or Hoof-in-Mouth. What the hell is Mad Cow? Does it make somebody get down on all fours, mooing and grazing psychotically and screaming in pain because one’s imaginary utters are not getting milked, until whatever it is infecting his brain eventually kills him? What in God’s name is Hoof-in-Mouth? Will it make someone sit down and stuff his foot in his mouth, which is probably a great way to get a whole lot of other diseases, like silverfish and whatnot. I mean, who the hell discovered and named these diseases? Where do they come from? What causes them? And it’s not even just food we have to worry about anymore. There’s still the issue of lead paint. What the hell? I thought the lead paint scare was over, like the asbestos one. I thought we didn’t have to worry anymore about kids eating lead paint and winding up mentally retarded, unless they happened to live in a very old house—like I do. I didn’t eat lead paint and thankfully am not retarded, but I digress. The point is, I have a little baby nephew right now, and he’s cute as can be. But now, before we can buy him toys, we have to check the bottom or the back or the whole damn thing to find that little label that hopefully tells us where the hell the damn toy was made and make sure it wasn’t in China. Because CHINA makes toys for kids that contain lead paint. What the hell, China? You're one of the world's leaders in math and science, and your people can’t make toys that aren’t life-threatening to children? Children put toys in their mouths. Children put lots of things in their mouths. Don’t make toys with friggin’ lead paint in them! Is that so much to ask? I mean, we have enough to worry about with friggin’ Mad Cow and Hoof-in-Mouth and cancer and ebola and West Nile and Encephalitis and God-knows-how-many other diseases including that one you get from sweat that eats away at your insides. Do we really need to be worrying about children’s toys? No, we don’t. Then on top of all these diseases we have to worry about, there’s the world around us, which I think we will all agree is in a pretty dangerous state. In the middle east, we’ve got people being bred to hate and kill us for some inexplicable reason that dates back way before George W. Bush was even on America’s radar screen. We can’t even walk into an airport anymore without sweating because of what happened on 9/11 and because of subsequent attempts to repeat the same kind of attacks on other targets, like the attempt in London which was fortunately foiled by their exemplary security system which has something like eight cameras for every ten people. Has our world really come to this? Are we really living in a time when it takes Big Brother watching us do everything from have sex to go to the bathroom just to keep us safe? I remember reading George Orwell’s 1984 and thinking how terrifying it would be if our world really came to that, if Big Brother was watching over us every minute and now I realize that we’re actually not too far off from that after all. The government has such power over us that it’s scary. But we have to ask ourselves what’s scarier: terrorists who would kill us without hesitation and have proven so by doing it, or our own government? I’m going to have to go with terrorists being scarier. At least our own government won’t kill us senselessly. Sure, the meaning of the word privacy has changed, but necessarily so. It’s getting to the point where I would feel better if America adopted the British system and got eight cameras for every ten people in the country, because then I would feel more confident in our ability to defend ourselves from another ghastly and senseless attack. People complain about procedures that invade our privacy, but I say I’d much rather have my privacy invaded than be killed because somebody else’s privacy wasn’t invaded and that somebody else turned out to be a senseless murderer who hated me simply because I live in the United States. Don't get me wrong: this doesn't mean I think America should try to act as the world's police, because clearly that has gotten us into trouble. But we need to safeguard against future attacks like 9/11. I live in small town America, and I used to think I was safe here. Then, several towns over from me, in another small town which is not quite as small but still not that large, a family was savagely murdered. The wife and daughter were raped and killed and the house was set afire. The father was the only survivor of the whole ordeal. Imagine being that father now. That woke me up in the way Capote’s In Cold Blood woke up the generation before me to the dangers of life in small-town America. You don’t have to be in the inner-city or the ghetto to be killed or terrorized or mutilated. It can happen anywhere. We constantly have to be on alert. I used to walk my girlfriend out to her car whenever she would come over and eventually I started saying, it’s only fifty feet to the car from my door. What could possibly happen in my small town over that short distance on a quiet night? Now I don’t ask that question anymore because the possible answers are too terrifying. Instead, I walk her out now, every time, and I look all around me for potential threats to our safety. Especially hers. I’m not paranoid—I’m aware. Obviously, we can’t live our lives in constant fear of being killed by Mad Cow or cancer or friggin’ tomatoes or terrorists or murderers, but we can’t be lulled into a false sense of safety. All I need is one horrifying event like that in small-town U.S.A. to be my wake up call. And thank God it wasn’t my family. Because that poor family didn’t get a wake up call. They got killed. This is one of the reasons I practice martial arts. I want to be ready if and when people like that come for me. I want to be ready for the bastard who invades my home and tries to hurt my wife or family. I'm going to put a hurtin' on him. He'll feel lucky just to be alive afterward, and he will never forget what happened to him the time he tried to hurt my family. I am not a violent person but I can become one if need be. And it makes me feel safer. Unfortunately, I cannot use karate on salmonella, Mad Cow, cancer or any of those diseases, but by staying healthy and in-shape and watching what I eat, I can at least hope to lessen the likelihood of these things happening to me. Go on and live your lives, but don’t take safety and health for granted.

Writing and life

I feel I put a lot of pressure on myself. I put pressure on myself to write a great screenplay and get it sold and made into a movie and skyrocket my career into the stratosphere. But why? Why not just write for the sake of writing? It’s an end in itself. If I never make it big as a writer or as an actor, who cares? As long as I get to continue doing what I love, what does it matter? I want to be successful as an actor because those who make it big get the best roles. But getting the best roles is not the most important thing. The most important thing is expressing yourself, exercising your freedom and your love of art and touching other people with your performance. Feeling it and making others feel it. The same with writing. Feel what you’re writing and make others feel it, too. Don’t worry about success and failure. Don’t worry about putting all this insane pressure on yourself and you will do better. This is what I have to tell myself. I do want to be successful, I am ambitious, I know this. But when I think about how short life is, and when I think about God watching from up above, I do have to laugh a little at myself. Enjoy life, that's what matters. If success is meant to happen, it will. I still don’t know exactly what I believe in terms of free will and fate, but I think that we have free will but God knows ahead of time what we’re going to choose. He doesn’t determine it, but he has the power of foresight. I like to think we have control over our lives. But there are so many more important things than being individually successful. Like having close friends you care about, to help you enjoy the good times and help you get through the tough times. Like having a loving family, first and foremost, to support you, care for you, advise you and love you. Making someone’s life better. The life of a parent, a sibling, a child, a friend. Developing your soul. My grandfather thinks this is the chief end of life, to develop the soul, and I agree. We have souls, human beings. And we can choose to develop them or not. We don’t develop our souls by being individually wealthy or successful or ambitious; we do it by making sacrifices, by pursuing and gaining knowledge, by helping others and bettering their lives. Life is so much more simple than we make it, and it’s downright laughable the ways in which we complicate it with so many trivialities. Explore, enjoy, express yourself, and learn and grow. Seek out challenges, but keep life simple. As I’m writing this, I’m laughing at myself on the inside because I know that I overly complicate my life in so many ways and I wish I didn’t, but I think I’m going to have to grow older before I truly understand this. Right now, I’m concerned with finding a steady, stable job that will also allow me to pursue my dreams. But there’s no reason to be overly concerned. I have so many people helping me and watching over me, and most importantly, I have God looking out for me, so how can I go wrong? I may go astray, yes, but not entirely. I will find my way back, with the help of my supporters and my guardians.
So often, I dread the task of writing. It seems so daunting. I look at the work of other authors and am downright intimidated by its genius. I want to do the same thing, achieve the same greatness, but why put that kind of pressure on myself? Did they? I don’t know. I doubt it. I bet they were just writing what they felt, doing the best they could, and I bet many of them were surprised when they became as great as they did. Just write what you feel and don’t worry about writing anything else, because nothing else is worth writing. There’s really no need to dread the process. If you dread it, it’s tough to enjoy it, and if you don’t enjoy it, what the hell is the point of doing it? Work hard and do your best, but do not dread what you love to do. That’s what I try to tell myself. It’s funny because I’ve heard another writer admit to having this same problem. She was talking to my class, and saying that she sits in front of her computer and furiously writes a scene, then looks for something—anything—to distract herself. She goes surfing on the internet, reads a news article, goes into the kitchen for a snack, sits back down, and that voice inside her head goes off. Write another scene, it says. She debates in her mind whether to comply. Finally, she agrees. Write another scene and then you can read another article. So she furiously bangs out another scene. She dreads the process, but loves it at the same time. She’s the executive producer of "Grey's Anatomy." Doesn’t it make you feel so good when others are going through the same thing you are? It really does. Knowing that someone so successful experiences the same dread when writing as I, an amateur, do, gives me so much confidence in my own ability. It lets me know, hey, this is normal, it’s part of the process. At the same time, I try not to feel it, and I think it’s best not to, but it still helps to know that other people further along than me are still struggling with it. It lets me know, it’s okay if several years down the road you’re still struggling. Life is about struggling. Working hard, trying, succeeding, failing. But it’s also about enjoying. One must not be struggling so much that there is no time for enjoyment.

Books and Memories

I think books are an amazing thing. Every time you read a book, it’s fresh and new, like it’s coming alive for the first time. I’m reading a book now that was originally written something like fifty years ago. The writer died seven years ago and wrote things after this book, but this is the book I’m reading now. A Separate Peace. I remember the book well and I loved it when I read it eight years ago (wow!) as a freshman in high school. It’s an American classic and the writer’s crowning achievement. It just seems amazing to me that a book written so long ago, sitting somewhere on a shelf in a library, can just come alive as though it’s being written as I read it. I love that feeling. It’s the same with Shakespeare or any great piece of literature. It can be as old as papyrus, but when you’re reading it, the characters are living, breathing human beings (or animals, depending on the story) who are living this adventure as you read it. Every time you put the book down, you imagine that the characters stop, waiting for you to pick the book back up so they can go on with their lives. Yet, when you’re reading it, you get the impression that they’re not waiting for you, that they have more life than you are reading in the book. They have a past and a future, and, unless the book is written essentially in real-time, which is rare, they have many moments and minutes and hours and sometimes days or years in between passages in the book. In great literature, we get the impression that the characters extend beyond the scope of the story. Teenagers were born, waddled their way around the kitchen table, became toddlers, went to kindergarten, played with the blocks, tried sports a few times, learned to read, went to middle school and felt the cruelty and immaturity of other kids but also the joy of having essentially no responsibilities, went to high school and began to really find themselves, began preparing for their future, will go to college and plan for a career, continue to find themselves, learn what it’s like to live with people who aren’t your family but can become like family, graduate college and emerge into the real world in a career. Will have families of their own. Any part of that may or may not be in the story you read, but we can imagine the life of any character as extending beyond the scope of the narrative. Maybe they don’t go to school—maybe they’re too poor or a delinquent or whatever—but we can still imagine what they were like before page 1 and what they are like after the last page. It’s really an amazing thing. These characters aren’t real, so why should we care about them so much? Because the writers have made them real, have made them feel and look and talk and think real, the way we do, so they are relatable. We forget so easily that they are fictional when we root for, love and revile them. We get so emotional when reading stories, because it truly feels as though these people whose adventures we are following are real people. Literature provides an escape from our own lives, but it can also hold up a mirror and remind us of things in ourselves and teach us about things in ourselves that we may not understand. The book I’m reading now is one I’ve read before and I know what happens, but the fact that I haven’t reached the fateful turning point of the novel makes it seem almost possible that it will be different. Maybe Gene won’t take the action that forever changes his life and Finny’s. I know it will happen, because I’ve read it, but it’s been so long and the narrative seems so fresh and new and happening right now that it almost seems possible that it will turn out differently this time. Literature endures, beyond the life of its author, forever. As long as people continue to read it, it never dies. It’s always there, at your fingertips, waiting to be grasped. Waiting to be devoured, interpreted, understood, debated, enjoyed, felt. It may be something that’s been read a million times before by others, but it’s still new to you who are reading it for the first time. This book in particular is so powerful because it is about the loss of innocence. It begins with two teenage boys at a private school in New Hampshire. I’ve never gone to private school, but I still can identify with these boys, because every school has these character types. An introverted intellectual and a daring, confident athlete. A shy, rule-abiding fellow and a charismatic rebel who shows him the joys of rebelling against the system and turns him into a rebel himself. No matter where you went to school, you had these two types of people. I know I did at my school. This book reminds me of my own upbringing in a northern American town, when I was in high school, learning about myself and others, playing soccer on dew-drenched fields, the sun glinting through a summer haze. Working hard and making fun of each other and laughing about stupid stuff and just having the time of our lives, not worried about growing up and getting jobs and surviving. Just being in the moment and enjoying our innocence. There’s something so powerful in that. And the whole idea of going back to a place you’ve been long ago and noticing the changes. Noticing how the buildings look smaller, the staircases look shorter, the ceilings look lower and the teachers look older and maybe smaller, too, now that you’ve grown. There’s a little more rust on the soccer goals, a little more wear and tear on the grass, which has more brown patches now. The pavement in the parking lot has a few more cracks and maybe there’s some grass and weeds sprouting up from between them. It’s always kind of a surreal experience revisiting a place of your youth. We always tend to imagine things staying the same, that when we go back to the school of our youth it will be just as we left it, not having aged a day, even though we know this isn’t possible. When we go back, we realize that nothing is immune to change. Everything ages, wears, crumbles, and eventually falls. It may take hundreds of years, but it will eventually fall. The narrator of the story explains how he saw the Devon school as coming into existence the first day he set foot in it and burning out like a candle the day he left. Especially when we’re young, we think of things as existing only in relation to us and ceasing to be when they are no longer a part of our lives. We have this notion that somehow we’ve created these things by seeing them and being a part of them, that they only really exist in our minds, and certainly, some people will claim they do. I don’t think that’s true, though, because you read about things happening in your absence, and when you go back, things have changed. Maybe it’s just the changes in you, though. I think maybe I’m getting a little too deep for my own good here. My point is that there’s something powerful about going back to one’s roots and saying, “This is where it happened. This is where my foot stepped a thousand times—no, more than that—on my way up the stairs to class. This is where I sat and ate lunch with my friends, where we made stupid jokes and laughed for hours about them. This is the field where I played soccer with my friends. This is the ground where I sweated, where I fell and got back up, this is the dirt that mixed with my skin and my sweat when I was working my tail off in the hot sun. This is the trail where I kissed my girlfriend for the first time, my first kiss, and all the awkwardness that went along with it. Where I made the decision to take that step, where I decided, enough is enough, I’m going to do this, and where I was changed forever because of it. That person I was five years ago is still inside me, still there, though I’ve grown and changed. That person I was is still as real as the stairs he walked on which are still here in their original form.
That kid my parents loved with all their heart from the moment he was born is still inside me. The kid my mom baked cookies for—peanut butter and snickerdoodles, two of his favorites—on his first day of school each year, up through high school, is still inside me. I can still taste them--they were delicious and just the thing I needed to take the first-day jitters away. The kid my family supported all through high school and college, coming to soccer games, seeing him in plays, driving him endless hours to and from school, is still inside me. That scared little kid whose father had a heart attack, scared but at the same time too young to fully understand the import of what was happening--he's still inside me, too. Looking back and realizing how close I came to losing him at the age of seven, I thank God for looking out for him and continuing to look out for us all. That little kid who looked up to the father he almost lost and said, "I want to be like him when I grow up." He's still there inside me.
Someone once said the true chapters of life don't begin until age thirty. Everything before then is preface. I don't know if I agree with that, but I do believe I have many exciting, educational and soul-defining years to come.

Time

Consider the idea that time is an illusion. In the novel Siddhartha, by Herman Hesse, the protagonist explains that he has realized that time does not exist, that past, present and future all exist simultaneously, that our childhood, our present life and our future are one and the same. All things are unified and the same. How does this work? I understand that the child we once were still lives in us and the old man or woman that we will one day be already lives in us. The child is still part of us; I retain much of my childhood character, but have become more sensible, more reasonable, more mature and understanding. I will be even more sensible and reasonable and understanding as an old man, but the young man I am now will still be a part of me then. I understand that character traits don’t change much over a lifetime. But still, how can time be an illusion? Does that mean change is an illusion? It can’t. We certainly change as people. We go from seekers to receivers, ambitious youngsters to patient elders. At least, many of us do. I suppose some people never stop seeking, never cease to be ambitious. But most of us change. How can we change unless we change over time? How else are we to organize the events of our lives? It’s just something I can’t totally get my head around. If we did away with clocks and sundials and calendars, wouldn’t time still exist? Maybe not. Maybe only change would. In fact, I think this is true. Only change would exist. What is time, anyway? A measurement of what? Before anyone had thought of time, what was life like? It was the same, without the thought of time. There would have been no consciousness about it, no sense of urgency, no scheduling, no worry about doing this and this before this set time. Life would have been very different, indeed. We always worry about life being so short, and fear that we will not have enough time to do everything we want to do. There it is again, that word time. It’s hard to talk about time without using the word time. I’m having difficulty with that. How do you define time? Webster’s Dictionary defines time as “the measured or measurable period during which an action, process, or condition exists or continues.” But why is it important to measure that period? It is only important to do so if we want to do a certain number of things in a given period. If all we have to do is one thing, then time is not important. Time only becomes important when we talk about the relationship of one event to another, when one event has to succeed another. For ambitious people, then, who want to accomplish certain events in a certain order, time is important. The duration of each event must be managed accordingly so that all events can be accomplished. But if we have no goals, time is not important at all. Only life is important, however long it lasts. Time was devised for people who are seekers, for goal-oriented people, which describes most of us in this world, whatever the goal may be. For monks, though, and holy men like Siddhartha in the aforementioned novel, time is of zero importance, because they seek to accomplish nothing. They have emptied their minds and are completely receptive to nature. They are eternally patient, waiting for whatever learning comes to them. There is no rush. They have nothing else to do but meditate and listen. How could time be important to them? But for me, time is very important, because I have many things I need to do. Time is important for people who need to make money to support themselves. Time is important because one needs to know how long the food he has will last. Therefore, time is important to everyone, even these monks. But they don’t think of it in the same way. For them, they think, I am hungry, I will eat until I am no longer hungry. They don’t think, I need to go to the store and get this much food for the week (a measurement of time). Everything is immediate for them, there is no planning. So time does not really exist, then, except in our minds. But does anything really exist, then, except in our minds? How do we know?
8/13/08

Strange People

It’s funny how strange people are. Often, you don’t realize somebody’s really out there until you talk to them for a little while. I was at bingo one night with my girlfriend and her friend. There was a staff member working there who was probably in his early to mid-thirties. He came around and was joking with us, probably not so much because of me as because of the two pretty girls in my company. It began innocently enough. He told us he loved to see young people like us win money at bingo, because it pisses off the old people. See, for the oldies, bingo is more a way of life than a Monday night activity. We just go occasionally. So we’re just laughing along with him; after all, we like it when we win, too. Periodically (and by that I mean every few minutes), he came around and talked to us, making jokes about this or that. Eventually, we learn that he’s been working here since he was nineteen. That seems entirely too long to be working here. We immediately feel sorry for him, but we don’t say that. However, I don’t think he would have minded if we had said it, because he didn’t seem to enjoy working there much. In any case, he starts telling us about how some of the old ladies in “the lounge,” or backroom of the place, are rude. He tells us they’ve threatened him before. We’re all laughing heartily at this. Once, he said, he had to go back there to break up a fistfight between two old ladies. That was hilarious. At this point, we’re really starting to enjoy this guy’s stories. Then, it gets a little strange. He says, “One time, this old man threatened me. I kept telling him he didn’t have bingo, but he refused to believe it. He told me he’d whip my ass with his cane.” We laugh. “You think I’m kidding. People have threatened to beat me up and call the cops. I’m like, good, I’ll kill ya then. You know, I’m not gettin raped.” Wondering where that came from? So were we. Up until he said “I’ll kill ya,” we were genuinely laughing, even though this guy was starting to get a little annoying. At “I’ll kill ya,” the laughter turned into that forced laughter that we all do when we’re uncomfortable, and at “I’m not gettin raped” we didn’t know what to do. My girlfriend’s friend said, “Yeah,” as though she knew what he was talking about. Thank God he turned and walked to another table at that point, because she and I both burst out laughing. We didn’t know what else to do.


Another time, I was at my aunt’s wedding. I was about thirteen at the time and I was hanging out with my cousin, who is two years younger. We were riding the elevators up and down, just because it was fun and we knew we weren’t supposed to be doing it. So, at one point, the elevator opens and there’s this frumpy, sassy woman standing there with her little son, who was probably six years old or so. We both recognize her as the unwanted bridesmaid who forced her way into our aunt’s wedding. Nobody wanted her there. My soon-to-be uncle, who was getting married to my aunt, was ready to strangle this woman. So here we stand in the elevator and there she stands outside. She’s holding a box in her arms. Her little son gets on the elevator and as she starts to get on, she says, “Hold the elevator, please.” She’s struggling with the box a little. The elevator doors begin to close. Her little son is closest to the button, but he doesn’t do anything. Maybe he doesn’t know which one to push. My cousin and I don’t have the time or the drive to show him, so we just stand there. There really wasn’t time, though. The elevator was already closing on her. It was too late. Nothing we could do. The doors squish her against the side of the elevator. She lets out a screech and wiggles her way on. The doors close. She looks at us and says, “When somebody says ‘hold the elevator,’ you should hold the elevator. It’s only the polite thing to do.” She turns away. “Watch out,” she continues. “I know kickboxing.” Are you kidding? Are you really threatening two young adolescent kids? We were glad she got stuck in the elevator doors. What a weirdo. I know kickboxing? Really?

Awkwardness in Starbuck's

I was sitting in Starbuck’s recently, killing time before a meeting in New York City. Why is it that I am always so anally paranoid about being late for meetings that I arrive two hours early and then find myself searching for something to do and trying unsuccessfully to stop sweating like a fat man jumping rope in his attic in mid-July? I don’t know. But I do. I’ve still got about a half hour before I head over to the meeting. That will give me fifteen minutes to get there. Well, actually, I should leave in about twenty minutes, because although it’s less than a five minute walk, who knows what could happen? A riot could start in the streets, forcing me to take a detour of fifteen minutes, which, by the time I get in the door, will make me late. You just can’t be too careful. I’ve been in Starbuck’s eight minutes and I’ve already made a social blunder. I sat down at a table larger than all the rest, thinking, Oh, a group study table for students or writers like myself. Then, I see the bright blue sign on the corner of the table: “Please offer this table to our customers with disabilities.” I then look at my fellow Starbucks-drinker and see that he has a hearing aid. I’ve already asked him if I may sit down and he very politely moved his things to make room for me. But now I”ve seen the sign. Everyone—including him, secretly—is now going to think I’m an asshole for sitting at a table reserved for handicapped persons. Politely, and awkwardly, I rise and tell him, with a smile, “Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t see the sign.” He gives me a puzzled look, I remember the hearing aid and I indicate the sign by pointing. He kind of shrugs, I smile and move to the next table over, where another guy about my age who’s seen the whole thing sits. I ask him if I may sit down and he says, “uh, sure, that chair’s fine, this one’s taken,” indicating the third chair at the table. Great, I think, now I’m intruding on a guy and his friend. A couple minutes later, a girl walks over to the table. Even better, I think. A guy and his girlfriend. Well, probably, anyway. She doesn’t even sit down. He looks at her and says, “ You wanna get outta here?” She nods, he rises, and they leave. Fantastic, I think. Now I”ve driven out two customers by trying to third-wheel it on their date. Maybe it wasn’t that. Maybe they left because they thought I was rude to leave the handicapped patron at the table where I initially sat down. Come to think of it, the handicapped patron probably thinks the same thing. I bet he thinks I’m some prejudiced jerk! But I was only trying to be polite and courteous to the next handicapped patron, who could be denied a suitable seat by my own obtuseness, or at the very least, would have to ask me to move, which could be difficult, depending on the patron’s handicap. What the hell did they want me to do, this guy and this girl? Put yourself in my position, I want to say. Jeez. Why does a hard-of-hearing person need a bigger table, anyway? Does it make him hear better? The big table should be for people who have trouble moving and need more space. Try that next time, Starbucks.