The Trials of an American Dilettante

Thursday, December 29, 2005

Interlude

Between what is told, known and studied and what is told, known and studied exists the interlude. Interludes exist for a number of reasons.

Sometimes the interlude is not interesting. Between Indiana Jones’ adventures, it can be assumed that he spent a massive amount of time studying language and culture. Being a professor, he must have graded papers and dealt with the bureaucracy of a university. Even in his adventurous travels, he must have spent countless days bored in transit. We are given a red line for a few seconds to represent what takes him hours or days to pass.

Sometimes the period is irrelevant to the issue at hand. The decline of Peter Venkman and Dana’s relationship between “Ghost Busters” and “Ghostbusters II” would certainly be an interesting to see, but it probably did not have much to do with busting ghosts. It probably also lacked the comic antics consistent with the two movies (I know, I know, you’re all thinking, what comic antics in Ghostbusters II?).

Finally, sometimes we are kept in the dark for a reason. The mystery and inconclusiveness of an unobserved event drives the plot. Additionally, the absence of information aids the author.

There is nothing written about Jesus from age 12 to 29. It is hard to believe that nothing interesting or relevant happened to him during that period. Did he learn from Persians, Indians or Tibetans? Did he stay in Palestine? Did he smoke up and attend orgies? Whatever happened, authors of New Testament felt that it was best that we not know. Maybe they wanted to create a more mystical Jesus. Maybe he did something that someone would not like.

Did Hamlet ever sleep with Ophelia? Was he a Protestant? Those looking for sex will find it and those looking for chastity will find it. Protestants and Catholics can both assume what they want about Hamlet and side with the protagonist.

Interludes are a necessity of life. We cut out and abridge our lives and our thoughts to live together. Sometimes not observing and not knowing makes things function better than when observed. Physicists actually have to not observe parts of certain experiments to make them function right (because of the effects of relativity and quantum mechanics on subatomic particles). Mothers in conservative families can suspend their disbelief and sleep at night when their twenty-something daughters have separate apartments from their boyfriends. Present love can blossom when both partners know not to ask about past love.

Even the boring interlude of one’s own life has a function. We all have situations where what we are doing seems irrelevant or uninteresting. Regardless of this, these pauses are necessary. They create mystery, they give us a rest and they allow reflection. Additionally, sometimes it can be best when we do not have the answers and we do not know where are lives are going. With all avenues open, unforeseen possibilities can enter our lives.

Thursday, December 22, 2005

Ceremony and the Fake Culture War

Anthropologists tell us that ceremonies have the function of binding people together. Not only do they bind us together presently, but they also attempt to bind us in the past and in the future. Ceremonies celebrate the passage of time and the unity of the tribe. They help people remember the past and establish “kinship” between people.

Now, there is a fake cultural war going on in America. Conservatives, losing and being incredibly wrong on real issues that actually affect people’s lives (i.e. the war, torture, domestic spying, Homeland Security), again attempt to shift the national debate to shit that makes no fucking difference. Same-sex marriage is now passé. So, now, in genuine “What’s the Matter With Kansas” form, conservative pundits are bringing up “Merry Christmas” versus “Happy Holidays.” People vastly prefer the former and by taking that position, Democrats are, by default, are somehow placed on the other (as they were with same-sex marriage).

Yes, some people prefer “Merry Christmas” because it was said in the past. Others prefer “Happy Holidays” because it involves greater unity. I prefer neither because they are both religious references. Call me a PC fascist pinko faggot, but I say “Peace on Earth.”

The “Merry Christmas” folks should understand that ceremony both includes and excludes people. If Christmas is a time for Christians to bind and remember, then do not expect a Jew to join you. If that is what they want to do, it is their prerogative, but establishing a “norm” contradicts the function of ceremony. Norms are all inclusive. So, expecting someone who prefers “Happy Holidays” to change is not realistic. They chose that term to be caught by a wider net or to catch others with a wider net. Why would they use a more specific term to exclude others or themselves? It like asking women to prefer the term “mankind” or expecting a non-racist business to put up a sign that says “no blacks allowed.” It is like hoping all your friends have a good time at a party that you were purposely not invited to.

“Happy Holidays” makes a little more sense as it attempts to be all-inclusive, thus “norm” would fit it better. But, as it turns out, “holiday” means “holy day,” thus one is excluding agnostics and atheists.

I say “Peace on Earth.” It is the most inclusive and gets to the heart of the season.

Yes, I’m excluding warmongers and terrorists, but fuck them.

Monday, December 19, 2005

Sir Richard Francis Burton

When I turned twenty-eight, I thought myself old. I’m sure everyone thinks this on their birthday. Your older friends laugh and call you young and your younger friends confirm that you are, indeed, old. Outside of that artificial day, I was well aware of the trend already. When I go to a party or a bar or stay in a hostel, I am sometimes the oldest one there. Friends of mine are engaged, married or have children. My muscles ache more and I cannot recover from alcohol as quickly. Perhaps most importantly, it is quite apparent that twenty-eight is nearly thirty and thirty is a very adult age.

So, I sit here today unmarried and unemployed feeling old yet I am required to restart my life anew. Rebooting, again. At twelve, I moved to Maryland. At eighteen, I went to college. At twenty-two, I went to Asia. At twenty-four, I came to DC for graduate school. At twenty-six, I began working for the government. At twenty-eight, I am forced to change again.

Being lost is something that is expected in a boy, but a man is supposed to be determined and directed. Isn’t he?

There was an Englishman named Burton who was expelled from university at twenty-one years of age. He joined the military and at thirty-two years of age decided to sneak into Medina and Mecca. Avoiding certain death if caught, he learned perfect Arabic, got circumcised and made the trip in disguise. At thirty-five he worked for the Royal Geographical Society, went to Africa and eventually found the source of Nile. At forty, he joined the British Foreign Service and went to Equatorial Guinea. At forty-two he founded the Anthropological Society of London. At sixty-five, he was knighted and died at sixty-nine. He also spent his time writing and translating and famously translated “A Thousand and One Arabian Nights” and the “Kama Sutra.” He wrote about travels to India, Africa, Brazil and even Utah.

Lord Derby, some British parliamentarian, said of Burton, “Before middle age, he compressed into his life more of study, more of hardship, and more of successful enterprise and adventurer, than would have sufficed to fill up the existence of half a dozen ordinary men.”

Burton’s adventures are certainly impressive, but his motivation is the thing that is surprising. He could have stopped after a single adventure. His fame and wealth would have been sufficient. He could have specialized as well. Instead, he went everywhere and tried to experience everything.

At no point did Burton give into his sloth or his age. If he can take on stuffy British academics, odd foreign lands and religious zealots, perhaps I can deal with the Man in DC.

Tuesday, December 13, 2005

Out of Context

It has certainly been an interesting 24 hours. Interesting in the same way as getting mauled by a wildebeest is interesting. Its painful, but the same time incredibly perplexing and shocking. It is all a reminder that life surprises people….well, it at least surprises me.

2:30 pm yesterday, I was called into my boss’ office. After 13 months, my background investigation had been completed and I failed receiving a Top Secret clearance. With no clearance, I can no longer do the job I have been doing from the past 13 months. I am not completely sure why I failed. The clearance folks months and months ago asked me a few question about living in China, but most of the interview time dealt with drugs. They asked me why my security form claimed I hadn’t done drugs other than weed while an old preliminary application to the FBI said I did. I explained that five years ago I took half a pill that someone said was E, but because I didn’t feel anything, I assumed it wasn’t. The FBI polygraphs so when filling out that form I used a stricter standard. I’m assuming that was the thing, but who knows. I’ll find out later on.

On the bright side, the United States of America is safer now that I’m not there. After all, I am clearly a huge security risk. Thank God they’re keeping out people who experimented with drugs in college. Everyone knows there is a high correlation between drug use in one’s early twenties and terrorism. Osama bin Laden loved tokin’ the bong. Mohammed Atta? Big raver. Killer with the glow sticks. In fact, 15 of the 19 hijackers on 9/11 were actually tripping on shrooms. They thought they were flying to the moon.

My friends and coworkers were speechless when I told them. There’s some sort of appeals process and I may have to get some lawyers. My boss says he knows some people and will do anything he can for me, but overall, the situation does not look good.

So, where does that leave me?

I was told “tagmeme” was my word of the day. A tagmeme is a linguistic unit. It has meaning based on position, class and context. It also symbiotically affects other tagmemes around it. In this sense, a tagmeme acts as both a particle and a wave. For instance, in the sentence “cup your hand”, “cup” has meaning by itself as a verb (particle), but it also affects the meaning of “hand” since a hand must be a noun and be able to be cupped for the sentence to make sense (wave).

So, what happens when a word is out of context? If I just say “cup”, we don’t know if the word refers to a verb, a drinking cup, an award or a thing to cover testicles. A lane of reality isn’t chosen for it. It sort of has meaning, but not really.

And so today I am jobless. There’s no professional context to judge me. I influence nothing professionally. I sort of have meaning, but not really. A lane of reality has not been chosen. For now, I’m just noise.

Friday, December 09, 2005

Meeting at Infinity

If you have ever met me or read anything by me, you probably know that I am agnostic. I am not agnostic in a fence-sitting sort of way nor am I agnostic in an undecided sort of way. I am agnostic because I recognize that questions dealing with life, death and the universe are paradoxical, meaningless and unable to be understood by the human mind.

The existence of God is a false dichotomy as existence versus non-existence is an element of this physical universe which God is necessarily outside of since he/He/she/She/it/It/f@$%face supposedly created it. Therefore, God is not necessarily subject to the bounds of existence or non-existence. God could sort of exist like the square root of negative one, the Social Security Trust Fund or the Inquisition.

But, this is old material.

So, I was watching “I Heart Huckabees” the other day. Dustin Hoffman introduced some interesting concepts. He claimed that all matter was the same. You, me, the Andromeda Galaxy, a danish, whatever are all the same thing. Hoffman’s arch nemesis in the movie, on the other hand, claimed that we are all nothing. Is either theory valid? Can we be everywhere or nowhere?

Well, as it turns out, we are everywhere, sort of, partially. You see, an atom is composed of protons, neutrons and electrons. Most the volume of our existence is really just the charge of atoms repelling each other. You don’t fall through your chair because of electron charges in your atoms repelling those in the chair. Electrons are tricky, though. They do not exist in any one place. They exist in approximate locations around the nucleus in clouds. There is a certain probability that they are close and certain probabilities that they are far. There is also a probability, albeit so small that I could never express its size with language, that one of your electrons is a mile away from one of your atoms and a probability that one of your electrons is across the universe. So, for every area of space, there is a certain probability that you exist and do not exist in that space. You are both ubiquitous and nowhere at once.

But there is more. All objects have a wave-particle duality. Observation collapses this duality. When you shoot light at two slits, light will pass through the slits, interfere with itself and produce a light-dark pattern on the wall. This displays its wave nature. This occurs even when you shoot a single photon (somehow it interferes with itself). Observing which slit the photon goes through collapses this duality and the pattern becomes all light. This displays its particle nature. Thus, observation affects existence and location. Now, say you die and are unable to observe yourself. Your nature and location are now indeterminate. You again are everywhere and nowhere all at once (though unobservable).

Dustin Hoffman at one point asks Jason Schwartzman, “Have you ever transcended space and time?”

Schwartzman responds, “Yes. No. Uh, time, not space... No, I don't know what you're talking about”

The joke is funny on a few levels, but one of them is that he is completely correct. We all transcend space and time, but also do not because we are space and time and also we are not space and time. We also do not understand this. How is this so?

Well, keep in mind that parallel lines meet at infinity, as do the ends of the universe. A line is but a circle with an infinite radius. The big bang began at the speed of light and perhaps will end at it as well, but at the speed of light, time stops and matter shrinks to an infinitesimal size.

Now, you understand why I think going to church is pointless. Of course, if you’ve ever seen the movie Event Horizon, you know that believing all points are connected does nothing except open a passageway to hell. Perhaps you religious folk are better off.

Monday, December 05, 2005

Life Lagged

The human being is an adaptable animal. When his surroundings change, he adjusts on a both a conscious and subconscious level to those surroundings. Introduce a new language to a human and he slowly begins being to able to speak it. Place him in an environment without romantic outlets and he begins finding them. Disable him and he finds ways to live handicapped.

Before this complete acculturation and acclimatization, though, there is a lag. Physically, these are very obvious. A lag in daylight shifts is called “jet lag” or “Seasonal Affect Disorder.” A lag in being accustomed to oxygen levels is “altitude sickness.” The lag in the adjustment to drugs being not in one’s system is called “withdrawal,” a “nic fit,” or “jonesing.” A lag in the adjustment of skin pigment results in “sun burn.” Your body has similar unnamed or obscurely named adjustments and lag periods regarding humidity levels, diet composition, calorie usage and a million other factors.

Emotionally we have lag periods as well. Having romantic companionship after being used to not having it results in an unstable euphoric “puppy love” period. Death of a loved one or a job loss can result in panic and feelings of hopelessness. Success and failure results in emotional reactions. Eventually, though, with any of these, the brain adjusts so the human can move on and live.

After returning from vacation, I almost didn’t mind sitting in my cube. I felt rested, entertained and content. Today, though, it is apparent that the lag of good feeling from vacation is wearing off even faster than my jet lag. Well, we can’t be high forever. The brain adjusts for some reason. It doesn’t let us remain content. We must always feel incomplete to drive us to do more. Otherwise, like opium-addicted sailors, we would lie around doing nothing.

So, this readjustment to the gloom of DC may in fact be necessary.