To Know The Joke

To Know The Joke or Inside/Outside

To defeat the cold, go cold, go without heat.

To go cold, be outside. 

Outside, it is cold. 

And find that cold is defeated, 

therefore it's no longer cold. QED?

I don't get your Facebook status
It confuses me

THAT'S IT!

huh?

The joke is bad logic
that I could end the cold
with axioms
An ontological joke
But also it's cold

I have no idea what you just said...

Exactly!

I am so confused right now.
I feel really dumb.
I don't know what ontological means,
nor do I understand
the stopping the cold 

with axioms thing.

You're not dumb.
But I am a philosophy major
with a strange sense of humor

Your humor isn't strange
I just don't understand philosophy jokes 

at all
I avoided philosophy classes like the plague

Well the joke was a mix of popular cliches
and a parody of the ontological 

argument
it just is

I still don't know what ontological means

Ehh, never should have said anything
the logic of the joke 

was the joke
or rather, the lack of logic was the joke

this is going to sound horrible
but you're one of the few people
who can make me feel stupid in conversations
and it's something I often enjoy
because it almost always leads 

to me

learning new things

and it's the best

Ehh, I make people 

of many intelligence levels

befuddled

and a lot of that 

is on me

I like it, though
Many people think
I'm a walking encyclopedia
and treat me as such
and it's nice
that you, well,
don't.

Healing Together, Walking Together

[Ed. note: After I wrote the essay Falling Down, I authored the update below. Please read Falling Down first, if you have time. Thanks!:]

While my wound is healing, it still hurts when I walk or put pressure on my left leg. I did see a doctor, even though it cost me a $25 copay, and I had to pay $15 for the supplies to treat my wounds. That's okay - I know that I have to stay in good health, and can't get an infection.

Speaking of old wounds, I have been feeling some anxiety about my social situation lately, although I suspect my fears are overblown. It's just difficult for me to avoid my apprehensions even when I have good reasons to suspect they're ill-advised.

I can recognize that many of my friends and the groups where I associate are trending in different directions than I am. Once again, tonight I am going on a date instead of spending time at an outing with some of my closest friends. Almost every time, I feel stupid afterward for missing good times with my friends in exchange for an at-best-mediocre date.

So why do I keep making this trade? There are a few reasons: I do feel lonely sometimes, and I very much want a relationship. Also, while I know my friends are close to me now and I cherish them, I feel vulnerable relying so much on the same people for so long. I want to expand the circle of people I know, especially people that I can keep close to me.

Sometimes I worry that my interactions with my friends and people I meet are two one-sided, too focused on myself and my needs. I want to be a better listener, a more generous and more supportive person. I feel inadequate in that effort in part because I realize that I'm not inclined to take initiative. I'm not always a demonstrative person, and I don't tend to go out of my way to connect with people. I have an inkling that I may want to change this feature, but I'm not sold yet, let alone wise enough to decide how to change.

I just feel like I don't know enough about myself, or about other people yet. This sense of ignorance feeds my insecurities, too...and already, we've returned to a focus on *my* issues - when I'm trying to think about others.

Cutting myself some slack, though, part of the reason I have focused more on my own reactions than those of other people, lies in good intentions. There have been times in the past when I've tried to connect with people in counter-productive ways and seen my outreach backfire badly. That is a major influence on my current instincts of deferring to other people or focusing primarily on my own perspective.

Focusing on myself has long felt like the safer and more courteous option. I am tortured by worst-case scenarios; I can't escape the fears I have of repeating the debilitating mistakes I have made in the past.

As Neil DeGrasse Tyson says, every day you can ask yourself two things to become a better person: 1) what have I learned today? 2) what have I done to help other people? Considered through this prism, I feel positively overall about the strides I have made to be a better person towards my fellow human beings.

I want to focus on the positive lessons I have learned, not on the dread or shame of past mistakes. I want to have the comfort level to take risks, and the discretion to take smart risks. That goes back to why I am going on a date tonight instead of spending all my time with the friends I already have: I know I could take the safer option, but how is my life going to improve if I always fall back on what feels safe?

Sometimes, I fall. Sometimes, I fall because I've done something rather stupid. I have wounds that have healed, and wounds that are still mending. Sometimes, old pains flare again, and it takes all my strength just to walk on my own. Yet - sometimes - putting one foot in front of the other makes me feel more powerful, wiser, and bolder with each towering step.

Watching those who are attempting the same journey, I wonder how I can do my best to help others. What does that promise mean? How do I fulfill this commitment? I have no idea. But first I'm going to get up, and I won't be going alone.

Emptiness

My mother once told me that she sees the world much like I do, only that she can't imagine that there isn't "something out there".

A friend of mine told me yesterday that his life lately has been reverberating between depression caused by loneliness and a feeling of emptiness. During a conversation with the same friend, we agreed that individuals are often the product of their friends and their experiences. The interactions I have with my friends form a critical part of my personality, my values, and my character.

If I am without friends, then I am without scaffolding.

A former professor once gave my class an analogy: Alexander Calder was a famous sculptor, known for his mobiles. In a mobile, one object hangs at the top. A number of other options are attached one-by-one in a succession of linkages. The analogy to philosophy is that the object at the top in a mobile is the like the first premise of an argument or the first assumption in an ideology. Each premise or assumption in a philosophical idea is connected to its original ancestor, and a student of philosophy can't properly understand an idea without understanding its structure.

Perhaps one common thread from these experiences is the idea that society is a structure of people, and each individual person is somewhat responsible for developing his or her own structure of important people in their lives. So, a tempting question to ask is, what kind of structures is our society building?

In some ways, people are detached from each other more than ever. There are more alternatives for choosing parts of an identity or community, but the options available tend to be more superficial and less meaningful in terms of in-person relationships.

What does it mean to have a structure in life anymore? What does it mean to have a community? Besides my parents, I have little extended family that I can call very close. Even some of my close friendships seem to have a tenuous footing, and I have no other relationships. I live in a large city, surrounded by strangers. I have some powerful but alien-feeling tools at my disposal, but I'm not sure how I can bridge the gap.

The Internet is a great blessing to me. I can research different interests and try to find individuals or groups of people who enjoy some of the things that make me happy. Yet, many things I enjoy tend to be individual pursuits which are not readily experienced as a community. (Here, I note that the types of things that bring me pleasure are also expressions of the structures of my society.)

There is "something" out there, even if that something doesn't exist in the way my mother intended. There's a whole horde of people similar to my temperament and interests who could enjoy my company, but I will never meet most of them. I have given up belief in fate, but probability is a stranger master. It is humbling but perhaps self-indulgent to think this way.

When I was talking to my friend the other day who was complaining of loneliness and depression, he sought advice on how to develop a deeper friendship once he meets people. For that, I cannot help much. All I could tell him was that his chance of meeting people increased if he did things he loved. So that is what I will do. I will continue doing the things I love, and at least find a way to be happy through that.

So often, I think about my limitations and the limitations of my life, what I don't have, what I want to do yet haven't done. I need to staunch this overly negative apprehension before it dissolves my patience. I have some amazing blessings in my life (if someone like me can use a word like blessings, and I don't see why not), and I have a lot to give and create.

I am not yet empty, though I am emptying and filling again. Whether I seek nature, writing, or laughter -- the cycle of isolation followed by joy is my constant guide. Life, like the telling of a joke, doesn't contain its satisfaction in the punchline, but spreads its infectious ironies through every set up and every staggering contradiction. Emptiness can be its own scaffolding.

Improv and Sex: Best Thing Ever

I've always suspected that people who have the skills to be very good at improv also share the skills required to be very good at sex.

First, what is improv, and how will developing improv skills improve your sex life?

Improv is the creation of organic scenes between different actors who have no previous ideas about where their interactions will take them.

While creating improv, it's foolhardy to think of a singular idea for a scene and then rule out any other ideas before you begin, because your relationship with the other character(s) will always determine the scene for you. Sticking to a preconceived plan in improv is almost always a bad idea.

In improv, listening to the other people in your scene and leaving yourself ready for adjustments is critical. The first and most important rule of improv is "always accept". You can't accept the ideas of other people if you aren't actively listening.

The best and most fun scenes in improv usually happen when the performers use their characters' relationships to riff off of each others' actions and collaboratively build adventures greater than the words or deeds that any individual performer could compose.

The best improv is sensitive to the needs of other people, completely unpredictable, and functions best as a collaborative exercise between equally and actively invested parties who give their full effort and consent to their scenes. Sound familiar?

Sex and improv are not very different. If you're not ready to agree with me that improv will help you markedly improve the quality of your sex life, at least you can agree that improv is one of the most fun things you can ever do with your pants on.

To demonstrate once and for all that improv and sex are fantastic bedfellows, let's bring this analogy to another level (even, to a climax): really awful sex can be quite similar to very bad improv.

When people talk over each other and none of the characters are able to agree on what direction their scene should travel...it's like two people who can't communicate effectively having bad to mediocre sex, with neither person getting what he or she really wants.

When one character makes all the decisions and takes all the initiative -- robbing the scene of any intrigue or comedic possibility whatsoever, because there's no elaboration in the relationships of the characters...it's like one-dimensional sex that may feel mechanical when at least one of the people having sex has no reason for enthusiasm or attachment.

When performers aren't willing to accept their instincts and overthink their interactions, denying the vitality and flexibility inherent to improv...it's like people who aren't willing to explore their sexual boundaries, and therefore keep doing the same things over and over again, and refuse to consider spicing up their sex life -- to the detriment of their partner and to their own satisfaction. (I should add here that respecting the appropriate boundaries of other people is also vital in improv - and listening to and observing the other people in your scene is the best way to know and respect those boundaries. Learning improv is an excellent way to discover how to safely explore your boundaries with people who will respect your decisions. The parallel to sex proclaims itself here.)

Practicing improv is a tremendous way to gain skills that also apply quite well to sex. Listening, consent, communication, flexibility, collaboration...improv will help you improv(e) each of those abilities dramatically, and developing all of those traits will help you gain more confidence and will make you a better, more caring partner...not only during sex, but in all phases of your life.

By the way, have I mentioned that I've been performing improv for over three years?

Atheist Meditation: Grace Like Rain

I love being outside, and feeling a sudden tinge of excitement as I sniff the air and survey the clouds, and I realize that there will be a rainstorm soon. It's a visceral feeling for me: somehow, the atmosphere has had enough - there's so much tension and pressure, yet everything is quiet - the stillness and its promise of disruption fills me with delight.

When I reflect on this foreboding, I think of my adolescent time at church camp. The rain was never stressful. I can't recall feeling that the storms were an interruption. The rain was a pause. The storm was part of the flow of life at church camp. I loved listening to the rain bounce from the eaves of buildings and cabins.

I was promised, again and again, that I wouldn't remember this. At least, my counselors promised me that my memories were conditional. If I failed to keep thoughts of Jesus, redemption, sin, and divine forgiveness close to my heart -- every other experience that I wanted to keep in my thoughts would lose its meaning and value. Everything would slip away, like pebbles on the trails we walked that had eroded over time.

I have not forgotten. My memory lingers. I still feel warmth and happiness when I contemplate the times I spent at church camp. I no longer pray, but I feel the stillness of a forest and then I remember walking to chapel in reverent silence. I no longer sing hymns, but I feel the joy of companionship when I lose my sense of self and drunkenly sing "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" with my friends. I no longer believe in eternal life, but I have memories that I will never relinquish while I live.

Most fondly, I remember when everyone was together. I remember our campfire sessions, late at night before each cabin and its group would leave for devotions and then go to sleep. We sang tenderly. We told stories. We laughed, we cried, we shouted, and we danced. I know what it's like when people love one another. I've heard that it's God's grace.

Where is this grace? It is abundant, and it is everywhere, but I can't tell you that it involves a god, a scripture, or a savior. I see it in my Jewish friend who left to teach underprivileged children for two years with Teach for America. I see it in my Muslim friend, one-time leader of the Muslim Students Association, who just left to spend two years in Kenya serving with the Peace Corps. I see it in one of my Christian friends, a former Buddhist who exemplifies conscience and compassion while working tirelessly to oppose suffering in many areas of her life. When I was at church camp, we used to sing a song about a Bible verse, 1 John 4:7-8 -- "beloved, let us love one another..." -- my friends may not have heard it, but they live its message every day.

Growing up in the Christian faith and settling into adulthood as an atheist and humanist, I have learned that love and compassion are values for every creed. I have learned that anywhere there are people who support each other without hesitation, you can find a love worth remembering. I think of the rain again. Often, the rain is so ordinary and common place for those who already witness it, that we cannot know what it's like to live an arid and parched life. We are fortunate. The rain replenishes and nourishes us. The rain surrounds us, yet it does not belong to any of us. There are so many who don't have it, or don't have enough of it. We don't need to quarrel about who really has the rain, we just need to ensure that we all have some of it. This rain, and this grace, is worth the effort to remember -- and no one can remove those memories from us, or prevent us from bringing their spirit into our lives again.

Frustrations Of an Old Soul: The Internet

I'm a product of the Internet Age, yet I am still not used to living in an Internet-centric world, one which provides me a constant stream of information. I haven't fully accepted the immensity of knowledge I can access on my own, nor have I realized the implications of my access to such staggering data.

Numerous times in the past few weeks, I have asked some of my friends to send me advice, only to find my efforts redirected to Google or other corners of the Internet. This derailing upsets me. Yes, I am fully aware that I can find the information I want on my own. Is it unacceptable that I still consider human input more valuable? 

Maybe I'm upset because it's how I was raised. My father is a reference librarian. He's a member of a seemingly antiquated profession, one which still holds that actual human beings can help one another in their quest to more effectively find information. 

The Internet is so vast and impersonal. Is it wrong that I trust my friends to help me discover answers that are more meaningful and more personally relevant? Further, I'm annoyed that the social default among my friends is to trust the Internet for all queries. Even if using the Internet is more efficient, does relying so much on technology degrade friendships and relationships with contemporaries? I have believed in the past that the Internet has potential to bring people together - are we instead increasing the isolation between us?

*****

For my second Internet-related complaint of the day, I'd like to disembowel (or, more helpfully, disemvowel) one of the most particularly aggravating instances of Internet-speak. 

I keep hearing the phrase "I'm jelly" or "Are you mad jelly?". People say "jelly" instead of "jealous". As a writer, a poet, and a lover of words -- I am greatly offended by the vulgarity and inelegance of this usage. Consider the sound of "jelly" and its connotations:

1) It sounds weak, lame, juvenile, petty

2) It makes me think of actual jelly (as in, what goes well with peanut butter): soggy, sticky, gloppy -- saying "jealous" this way takes all the power out of the word - consider again:

JEALOUS

ZEALOUS

RIGHTEOUS

^These are all undeniably powerful, awe-some (in the original sense) words. "Jelly" renders "jealous" as a shell of its former self, and mashes a thumping, spirited, aggressive word down to a mushy pulp that's barely recognizable and hardly worth the same meaning. 

What would it sound like if we used the same pattern for zealous and righteous that Internet dwellers favor for jealous?

Imagine reading about the apostle of Jesus, Simon the Zelly. Imagine Samuel L. Jackson in "Pulp Fiction" -- remember that badass speech he gives before he shoots someone? Try to imagine Samuel L. Jackson furiously, feverishly intoning the "righty" wrath of his god. Doesn't sound so fearsome, does it? 

The sound and meaning of words are important. Now, I'm acutely aware that language and its usage evolves over time. I'm mocked Samuel Johnson for decrying the use of "chicken" as a singular noun in the English language. In this instance, though, when we consider the advantages and disadvantages of using "jelly" or "jealous", I hope I've convinced you that "jealous" is the clearly superior option.