The Point…

Posted on June 30, 2014 by tessarnold2

So, I was thinking about work.

Wait a minute. Let’s go back a step.

First I was thinking about rest. Here’s what I thought:

If I don’t have at least one of the days, when I’m not working, to start my day off slow and easy, at whatever pace I feel like moving, then I don’t feel like I have had any real time off.

And that got me thinking about what I haven’t gotten done lately, and why.

My goal was to have the rough draft of a novel finished during this summer break from classes. I was 70,000 words in before the end of the semester. The semester ended in the first week of May. It is now one day away from July and I haven’t written a word. I’ve made notes, but no narrative has been put on paper yet.

And I wondered: Why is that?

Truth is, I’m fucking tired.

I’ve been tired for a long damn time.

Work and school will do that to you.

Now, writing energizes me the same way working out does.

So, why don’t I do it after a long day at work?

The answer: I work long days.

Sometimes those days are emotionally exhausting and I just don’t have anything left in my tank. All I can do is make dinner and mindlessly watch TV or surf the web.

This is a problem. and I don’t think it’s one I’m alone in struggling with.

My guess is, if you’re reading this, and not retired, you probably experience much the same thing. Work hard. Crash. Recover on the weekends (if you get the chance). Repeat.

That sounds like a fucked up cycle. It sounds fucked up because it is.

I don’t think human beings are wired, built, or capable of keeping up that kind of schedule and still having a meaningful and enjoyable life.

and I’m not alone in that belief. Other developed countries in the world agree and have shortened work weeks and increased vacation time.

But we couldn’t do that in America. Hell no. It sounds too much like laziness. And, maybe, communism.

But I don’t see how there is anything wrong with laziness, in its proper proportion.

Let’s face it, too much industriousness isn’t good for us. We need downtime.

We need downtime to process, have relationships, and generally just experience living.

Too often we work to survive.

But isn’t life supposed to be more than that?

Our ancestors foraged, hunted, and cultivated to survive, but they still managed to have time to produce art, and music, and stories.

And many of us just don’t have the energy or the time to do that anymore.

That leaves a big void inside us. A constant feeling of dissatisfaction and of dreams unfulfilled.

So, what do we do? We fill that void with meaningless consumerism and the pointless, endless pursuit of escapism. TV. Shopping. Arguing over stupid shit on the internet just so we can feel like we are important, and right, and valued for 30 out  of our 86,400 seconds in a day.

And where does it get us? Temporary moments of euphoria, and then the inevitable crash. Escapism is our drug and we appear to be hopeless addicts.

It is like a great many of us work just to survive. And if, like me, you’re not having children what is the point to mere survival? I’m not dragging my carcass along this life to pass on my genetics to the next generation that will probably do the same thing just to serve the biological imperative of the species.

I want something more than that.

I’d wager many of you do too.

So, what is the point?

(No, not to life. Everyone must figure that out for him/ herself. Sorry, not a guru and I don’t give those kinds of short cuts.)

The point is that we have engineered a culture, in America, that pays no heed to the necessities, physical, mental, and emotional, of being an actual living, thriving human being.

Clocks and schedules. Time keeping and bean counting. Racing to get ahead, or just struggling to keep our heads above water.

And we do it, day in and day out, and we’re not satisfied. We don’t feel whole or fulfilled. We can’t see the myriad possible joys in life, or where the real struggles are.

And we fill those holes with food, sex, drugs, and entertainment, and where has it gotten us?

Fat, broke, and unhappy – as a nation.

Sometimes it’s hard to see when a choice we have made – a choice that appears to work – is not good for us, or isn’t as good as another alternative.

It’s just the way we’re wired. There have been studies done. Go look them up.

So, how do we, as a culture, wake up and see this trap of endless work and pointless consumerism for what it really is? How do we learn to make a different choice?

Good question…

…And one you should think about; if you have any time or energy left.

Maybe on the weekend sometime, before you trundle off to do something that makes you feel alive again, if only for a moment.

Before you go see that movie, before you head to the bar or restaurant, before you clock time at the gym, or slouch through the mall one more time. Take a moment to ask yourself:

Why do I do this?

What for?

– And –

Does this feel like what life should really be like?

Are you satisfied with the way things are? With the way your life is?

and if not, why?

More importantly:

What are you going to do about it?

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In Praise of…

Posted on June 20, 2014 by tessarnold2

Update: 1/11/22.

I’ve been re-reading old posts. Some of them require small tweaks and updates, and some, regardless of how well-meaning I was when I first penned them, are just too cringy for me to be comfortable supporting in public. I keep all this stuff backed up, and as we all know the internet is forever, but this is one post I’m not going to be keeping up here. I made some good points about misogyny in the US, but on the whole they got lost in my weirdness. Yes, sometimes I even get too weird for me.

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Coversation Kills…

Posted on May 25, 2014 by tessarnold2

… Yeah, that’s a line from a song. Bonus points if you know it.

Sorry I’m a little late with this post, but I’m on something like a vacation and it can’t be helped.

Been a while since I posted any thoughts on civility in this country. What follows is the outgrowth of a rather spittle-flecked rant I posted on social media yesterday.

(Some other time I’ll ponder the wisdom of ranting on a social media site, but that will have to wait until later.)

This might require some background. So, here goes…

Often, especially in social media circles, people will use the medium to advocate for one cause or another. I myself have done it, albeit in my own peculiar manner.

This rant was not about advocacy. Rather it was about the way in which advocacy has been taking shape, as of late. It has become a recent fashion to try to guilt people, or shame people into action, or even into thinking or feeling a way different from the way they actually feel.

(This happens in regular conversation as well…)

And it is seriously fucking stupid.

Here’s the thing, posting pictures of cancer patients, or abused animals, or flag draped coffins is not going to persuade people whose minds are otherwise geared towards the subject matter. At best it will induce some modicum of guilt or shame without any guarantee that this guilt or shame will motivate people to action.

Take a second to look around at the world in which we live and tell me if you think guilt and/or shame seem to be doing very good jobs of motivating people.

Go ahead. I’ll wait…

…Yeah, I don’t see it either.

So what we have is someone who feels very strongly about a subject, who also wants you and me to feel as strongly about it, and quite possibly change our behavior/ thoughts/ feelings on said subject.

The object, essentially, is to persuade.

Take a second to look around the world inside of you and tell me if guilt and/or shame feel terribly persuasive when coming from an outside source…

…Nope, me neither.

And yet, these passive/ aggressive displays continue.

Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result…

…Well, you know how that goes.

So, what could a person do, if he/ she wanted to persuade someone to think/ feel/ act as he/ she would like them to?

This, it turns out, is pretty simple…

(I imagine that is why more people don’t do it this way.)

…To persuade people, one need only share one’s stories.

In sharing one’s experience, one connects with others. Connecting with others is the first step to persuading them and the only path to genuine communication.

Without connection we are just talking past one another. I think you already know how frustrating that is. I know I do.

Sharing one’s stories requires courage. It requires courage because to really share one’s experience, one must share one’s emotions. And that means one must allow one’s self to be vulnerable.

(I know, used the “V” word. I’ll wait until the heebie jeebies stop.)

Without vulnerability, there can be no connection.

Connection, like all good things, requires risk. In this case it is simply risking being rejected by another human being. (I say simply, but as most of us can attest, this is the most difficult thing in life. Some never manage it. Simple does not mean easy.)

File this under, “You catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.”

(If you don’t think honey is as dear as, say, the security of your ego, go ask the bees what they think. I’m certain it will be an interesting answer.)

That phrase, it’s a cliche, but cliches exist because they point to something that many of us find generally true in our experience. We just call it cliche because people say it so fucking much without connecting to its meaning anymore. More’s the pity.

To harangue people is easy. All you have to be is angry and uncaring of the subjective experience of others. (This is, sometimes, completely justified, by the way.) But haranguing people requires no connection, requires no courage. Most of all it requires no humanity.

Is that what we are looking for when we are trying to educate, illuminate, or motivate?

Somehow I don’t think so.

What do you think?

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An Observation About God…

Posted on May 18, 2014 by tessarnold2

Okay, so let me preface this by reiterating, I don’t particularly care what people believe. If it lifts you up, helps you live a better life, and doesn’t infringe on the rights or safety of another, I say go for it, and go for it without shame –  doesn’t really matter to me what it is…

… But there is this one particular train of thought, within the Abrahamic faiths, that itches at my brain:

“Everything is according to God’s plan.”

(This is sometimes also said as “God’s will”)

And neither of those sayings make sense to me.

You’ve heard them both, numerous times. People of faith will say it when things go wrong and they will say it when things go right.

(Disclaimer: I know, if used properly, this strange mantra can help people to let go, and I accept that as useful, in a personal/ individual arena. The problem is, I usually don’t hear it in a personal/ individual arena. I usually hear it being offered as a semantically null piece of advice.)

Given that, due to various circumstances which I will not go into, I have been hearing that statement a lot lately, it has made the old itch flare up like mutant poison ivy; on steroids.

So, here are my thoughts on the God’s plan/ God’s will matter…

…Utter bullshit.

Okay, I’ll elaborate with logic.

If everything is according to God’s will/ plan, then God, by whatever name you call him, is, and I go with Mark Twain on this: a Malign Thug.

How can anyone look at the many and various forms of intense suffering in the world and think that this is part of some divine plan?

Some religious folk like to talk about suffering as if it were some kind of punishment from God. You did something naughty and the man upstairs in teaching you a lesson.

Okay, but what about the hundreds of thousands of innocent people, many of them children, who die horribly and needlessly everyday? How is this part of some plan? And how can we dare to call it divine?

I have heard people say that the suffering of others, even the innocent, is meant to teach the rest of us something.

At best this makes absolutely no sense. At worst it is absolutely vile and self-centered rationalizing.

Firstly, it is an irredeemably egocentric point of view: someone else’s suffering is meant to better me. That is the least Godly thing I have heard from any religion save for Thelema and the Church of Satan.

(by the way, this notion is perfectly fine within these two belief systems, if you were looking to trade up…)

Secondly, the statement presupposes that some of “God’s Children” are ranked as more important than others.

Does that last one sound right to anyone?

Because that is what that fucked-up rationale about God’s will/ plan is saying. All of us are created in God’s image and likeness, but some are more important than others, so much so that the others are made to suffer for the benefit of the more favored children.

I hate to tell you this, but if you believe this ideology, that is the bullet you have to bite: that some of God’s children are more important than the others.

(Let’s leave aside the tribal notion of anyone calling themselves God’s Chosen people. Since every Abrahamic religion, and every denomination of every Abrahamic religion says that they are God’s Chosen, I think we can disregard that as having no real theological meaning whatsoever…)

At this point, let me take a moment to be thankful that I do not believe in God, any God, from any period in history.

Because if I did, and I took my religion seriously, I would have no other option but to be blindingly, insanely, burn-the-world-down-furious with the entity.

I mean, really people, if one looks at God from a rational lens, one would have to come to terms with the fact that God, as he is portrayed, deserves no amount of worship. None. In fact, if an entity of that nature did exist and did control and plan things, and this is the outcome of those plans and his control, I think we, as a species deeply interested in our own survival and happiness, would have to put all our efforts into doing away with the vicious bastard.

Forget going to the moon, or Mars, or growing the economy, or halting/ reversing climate change. Getting rid of God would have to be our primary goal if we ever wanted to have peace and health and happiness as a species.

Let’s face it, if God exists, (in the Abrahamic sense of God), then he seems to spend a great deal of his time trying to kill us.

I just wouldn’t feel comfortable with that kind of entity hanging around.

It’s like having a stalker that you can never see hiding in the bushes, or have arrested.

But, since there is no reasonable evidence to suggest such a creature actually exists, you and I can sleep peacefully at night knowing that there is no capricious, jealous, murderous, über powerful being lurking in the great unknown, waiting to cut us down to improve the conditions of whoever he seems to be favoring this generation.

It’s just random chance. There’s no credible evidence to suggest any other explanation. I, for one, am okay with random chance. At least in that case, there is always the possibility that things could get better. Not so much the case if this is all according to some plan.

I know logic and reason are not things that religiously minded people take a lot of stock in. More’s the pity. But come on people, if this God created you, and created you with these peculiar faculties, why would you set them aside?

I imagine the people who are okay with the idea that their God favors some of his children more than others – to the point of meaningless slaughter – will have no problem with this particular cognitive dissonance. But a dissonance it is and a dissonance it remains, nonetheless.

Frankly, if that’s the kind of crap you wish to believe, believe it.

You don’t need my permission or approval.

I don’t care.

But for fuck’s sake, will you keep it to your-mother-fucking-self please?!

Thank you.

Here endeth the rant.

 

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Writing Update

Posted on May 10, 2014 by tessarnold2

So, the semester is finally over and I am free for the summer.

This means two things: 1) I can work more hours at my job, (so much for that summer break shit.) – and – 2) I can get back to working on my writing projects.

Regarding my writing projects…

…I think I mentioned, way back when I started this blog, that if I did not have an agent by now, and if I had not had any interest from publishers, that I would start putting the first novel up on the site, perhaps a chapter at a time, for free.

Sorry to tell you, oh my faithful readers, that none of those things is the case just now.

Back in December, Angry Robot Books, the publishing company that published Lavie Tidhar’s (you can check out his blog here: http://lavietidhar.wordpress.com ) excellent series including “The Bookman” and “Camera Obscura”, had an open call for unagented and unsolicited manuscripts. There was no way I could pass that up. So, I sent in my proposal/ synopsis and the sample of my novel. Now, I still haven’t heard back from them, one way or the other yet, but I really don’t expect to until sometime in June.

By the way, it’d be a hell of a birthday present to get a full manuscript request. Just saying…

…Anyways, they get an exclusive look at it until they decide to reject it. Which is fine with me, but it means I haven’t been able to query any more agents, and I won’t be able to start posting chapters here, at least, not for a while yet.

I’m thinking, if I get a rejection from Angry Robot Books, that I’ll start sending out queries again, for couple of months anyway. After that, Drawn to Flame will probably start showing up here. That is, of course, if I haven’t saved up enough cash to hire a professional freelance editor. If I have, I’ll go that route, then probably work on self publishing in e-book format.

Either way, I’ll keep posting here so that any and all who may be interested can keep reading whatever crazed thing escapes from my head and infiltrates the digital domain.

I have found that, while school is in session, writing long form, novel length stuff is nigh on impossible with all the other things I have to concentrate on. But I keep writing short fiction.

Annnd that’s how you know you’re supposed to be a writer; if in the midst of writing something like 1-2 essays a week for college courses, you find yourself losing sleep, or missing out on time at the bar to camp out with a pad and pen and scribble out some new story, then well, you have to face the fact that you might just be a writer.

And that’s what happens to me. About the most energy I can devote to novel length stuff comes in the form of character sketches and notes, but short stories I bang out in anywhere from a 4-5 hours to a couple of days. Then I let them sit; basically forgetting about them. Then I give them the editing eye, which is about as ominous as it sounds.

To that end, I have a cache of short stories that I can post here. I’ve tried, without luck to sell most of them. So far, I’ve only received rejections, but they have been, for the most part, positive rejections, which means at least I caught someone’s attention and engaged some editors. My bank account wishes it was more than that, but hell, it is what it is.

These are good stories. I believe in them, and my first readers have enjoyed them all. It’s distinctly possible that what I write just isn’t what paying magazine editors are looking for.

(This would not surprise me as I have had terrible timing for the entirety of my life. I have long since learned to laugh at it, but it still seems to be the truth of my experience.)

So, I see it as a serious option to give those stories another polish – grammatical errors will always seem to slip past even the most conscientious reader – and put them up here, from time to time. Maybe I’ll see if there’s some kind of PayPal donation button I can rig up, in case anyone likes them enough to give me money.

Anyways, thoughts for the future and things I don’t quite have figured out yet.

And don’t worry, I’ll still be here, posting about other things and occasionally foaming at the mouth.

It was nice chatting with you again.

We should do this more often.

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In Memoriam: Earl

Posted on April 20, 2014 by tessarnold2

His name was Hollis Earl Pruitt.

It won’t surprise me if you don’t know it. His life wasn’t big by modern, media standards. He wasn’t a celebrity, didn’t have his own reality show, never graced the cover of a national magazine or made headline news…

…But for those of us that knew him, even briefly, he was as big as life itself.

I met Earl when I was nineteen years old.

I had written, sporadically, for most of my life. The only things I had ever finished were poems. There was this girl I was enamored with. She wrote poetry as well. I knew of a weekly poetry reading in Knoxville; the Wednesday night reading at The 11th Street Expresso House. By way of trying to get to know her, I made her a deal: Come to the reading and I will read a poem for each poem you read. In retrospect, I have no idea why that would be a way to get to know someone. But it seemed like a good idea at the time. We picked a week and both showed up to the reading. She read one, short poem. I read three. From then on, I went to the reading every week – like religion. She came maybe twice more in the next year.

Why did I stay?

Earl Pruitt.

Earl ran the weekly reading, and read his own poetry as well. And for the first time, since I was a child, I sat in rapt attention, listening to the words of another. Earl’s handle on the English language, his ear for phrasing, his grasp of cadence and rhythm were astounding, but if I had to tell you the one thing, the single thing that held me fast, it was Earl’s passion as he read. I think most everyone else who ever heard him read would say the same thing. Earl had passion. Passion when he wrote. Passion when he read.

There was a stable core of us poet-types at the weekly readings. Some people came and went on the fringes, but there were always six or seven of us that were there, every Wednesday night, without fail. And we were there because of Earl.

It was Earl’s passion, his joy in poetry that both inspired me and spurred me to become a better poet; a better writer. If anything I have ever written or will ever write achieves even half of the sheer wattage of any of Earl’s work, I will consider myself a success, and lucky.

It was at these poetry readings where I learned to appreciate poetry. It was there where I learned my own ear for phrasing and the sound of the language.

It was at those readings that the course of my life changed.

I was a very depressed and angry young man. Sometimes, I was hard to be around. But I was always welcomed at the readings, always welcomed to read my work, always brought into the many conversations that happened once poems had been read and various angels and demons had been exorcised. And there was Earl, at the center of it all. I was not one of the poets he mentored intensely, but many a time he would have a word of advice for me, about constructing a poem, about the sound of the language, even, once, about a girl.

Hard to be around as I sometimes was, Earl accepted me into this group of mad poets and fellow travelers. He even gave me a nickname. He gave all of the regular poets nicknames.

After some years, Earl and his family moved away. He got a job as professor at a college in Virginia. Thanks to social media and the occasional visit south, we kept in something like touch. Never as much as I would have liked, but that is on me.

Earl succumbed to cancer, earlier this week.

My one regret is that I did not get to see him in the flesh one last time. That I did not get to tell him how much he meant to me and how much his influence changed my life.

I am a published poet. In time I will be a published novelist. In no small part, that is due to the influence, inspiration, and kindness of Hollis Earl Pruitt.

That kind of thing always sounds too mushy, while both people are alive. Not so much after.

Earl left behind a wife and a daughter, and the multitudes of other lives that he touched and became, however briefly, his family – his tribe.

He wasn’t a celebrity. Many of you reading this will have never even heard his name. But if a man can be measured by how many lives he touched, by how many people remember him with fondness and admiration, then…

…His name was Hollis Earl Pruitt, and he was a great man.

 

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Distinction

Posted on March 9, 2014 by tessarnold2

Distinction is just doing the work to separate one idea from another. I do this a lot, in my own head. Comes in handy as we do a metric ass-load of it in philosophy.
So, I’m looking at pictures on the internet, trying to give my coffee time to turn me back into a human being, and – for some reason – the thought struck me: Not everybody is special.
I have this thought on occasion, and it has begun to make sense to me. Thought I’d share it with you and see what you think.
We had, for a couple of decades in America, this cultural fad of trying to make ourselves believe that everyone is special. I think this caused incalculable harm. It led people to think that they were somehow better, or superior to others. And that just leads to bad behavior.
I think the mistake was made, conscious or unconsciously, in conflating two distinct concepts. Uniqueness and being Special.
They’re not the same thing.
Yes, everybody – each and every one of you out there – is unique. There has never been, is not now, and will never be anyone who is or can be you. This is the very definition of uniqueness.
But because there has been, is now, and will only ever be one of you, does not make you special.
It just doesn’t.
Each grain of sand on a beach is unique. Someone want to argue how that makes them special?
No, didn’t think so.
Special means something different.
It means extraordinary. It means supererogatory, (that is, above and beyond the normal call of duty).
Special means doing something of merit and of value.
To be unique, you don’t have to do anything. Just be you and you’ve accomplished your goal.
To be special requires effort. It requires passion. It requires skill and hard work. It isn’t about the accidents of your birth, or your particular genetic gifts. It’s about what you do with them and beyond them.
That is what it means to be Special – to do something out of the ordinary, something of worth, something praiseworthy.
Just being yourself is good. Hell, it’s probably the best thing you can do to live a happier, more contented life.
But just being yourself doesn’t make you special.
I wish more people would think about that when they’re taking a yet another selfie.

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Putting the “Civil” Back in Civilization #1

Posted on February 1, 2014 by tessarnold2

So, this post is the first of what is going to be an ongoing series. They won’t all be consecutive. They’ll come up when I think of something, but they’ll all be under the heading, “Putting the Civil” Back in Civilization”.

Here’s a little about why, and a little about content:

Since the 1960s, in America at least, we have been shedding our cultural traditions. This has not been an altogether bad thing. But, in doing so, we have come adrift in knowing how to treat each other and how to respond, appropriately, to certain situations.

I’m hoping, in this post and the ones that follow, to illuminate some of the problems and to suggest solutions.

(I will try to keep them from turning into rants, but, no promises.)

And, so, these will be, over the course, some rules or guidelines – some old, but still useful, and some new – that might just keep us from killing each other, and maybe help us make some progress as a culture.

Without further ado, here’s the first:

“Agree to Disagree”

This is a phrase I hear, a lot. And if you think I’m going to advocate for its use,  you’ve fucking got another thing coming.

There is a time, when it is appropriate to use the phrase. Only one. And that is when the disagreement is about an opinion.

That’s it.

When the phrase is used to cool heads that have gotten heated over a matter of subjective perception, experience, or belief, then, by all means, use it.

But that’s the only time.

I’m serious. The. Only. Fucking. Time.

More often than not I hear this phrase used to halt a discussion when what is being discussed is not, in fact, perception, experience, or opinion. And this is wrong.

If you are having a discussion about empirically verifiable fact, then you cannot use, “well we’ll just have to agree to disagree.”

You can’t. Period.

When it comes to statements of fact, they are either true or false. There is no in between. Either a thing is so, or it isn’t. It isn’t about opinion.

Matters of empirically verifiable fact are as close as we get to being objective. Objective means, roughly, not dependent on one’s beliefs or opinions.

Water is H2o is an empirical fact.

The sun rises in the east is an empirical fact.

Some people are just fucking ignorant is an empirical fact.

Evolution is an empirical fact.

(the list goes on, but I think you’re beginning to see my point.)

There are a whole host of other things that are not.

(Whether or not Ghosts, Goblins, or Gods exist are not empirical facts. They are beliefs.)

If you want to say, “Well, we’ll just have to agree to disagree,” about an empirical fact, then you should just be counted as wrong, and probably a coward. Concede the point and go educate yourself further on the subject.

If, during a discussion, the parties to the discussion have differing ideas about an empirical fact, and there is no way to immediately discover the truth or falseness of that fact, then the parties should table the discussion until such time as they have done the research to discern that fact’s truth or falseness. Agree to disagree is pansy bullshit, and should be left to matters of belief, experience, and opinion.

This will make many conversations much easier. I promise.

Now, if you find yourself in a discussion, or even a disagreement, about non-empirical matters – matters of metaphysics or epistemology – the deciding factor on whether or not your point of view can be taken seriously is only how well you can argue, with logic, for your point. Learn to argue well and with logic, and you will convince more people than not, even if it doesn’t happen immediately.

I’ll repeat that, as it is fairly important:

If you are not talking about empirically verifiable facts, whether or not you are convincing depends solely on how well you argue.

So, learn to make a logical argument, especially if you think you’re right and others need to be convinced.

Also, learn to tell the difference between a discussion about empirical facts and discussions about points of philosophy.

I had a discussion, last night, with a co-worker. I won’t go into what it was about, but I realized, after, that we were having two different discussions. Or more to the point, I was discussing one thing, namely an empirically verifiable fact, and they were trying to make an argument about metaphysics.

They used the, “Well, we’ll just have to agree to disagree,” bullshit on me. We were at work, so I didn’t feel the need to push the subject. But it annoyed me.

And it occurred to me that this is one of the problems in our culture. We have forgotten how to judge subjects and how to discuss them with one another.

“We’ll have to agree to disagree,” is fine, if it keeps people from coming to blows over something subjective, but it’s useless and even counter-productive to whip out that phrase when what is being discussed is a matter of verifiable empirical fact.

So, please, learn to judge correctly what type of discussion you’re having. If it is about philosophy, then make the best argument you can. It still may not convince people, but it shows a commitment to progress. If you’re discussing verifiable, empirical facts, learn to recognize that, and go find the answer. There is one.

Remember, empirical facts are either true or false. Find out which and then construct your argument accordingly.

This will help, immensely.

Plus, it just might keep the person you’re having a discussion with from bursting that blood vessel that has been feeding the section of their brain that tells them it’s a bad idea to cave an unpleasant person’s head in with whatever happens to be handy, and heavy, at the moment.

And really, fewer violence inducing embolisms has nothing but the potential to make the world a better place.

Until next time…

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Oh the Humanity…

Posted on January 25, 2014 by tessarnold2

…Or lack thereof.

I know you’re used to post that are, at least, vaguely well formulated and thought out. This probably isn’t going to be one of those. Because, what I’ve been thinking about – among the multitudinous, swirling chaos that is my mind as of late – is about humanity and our culture. And that’s a complex subject that has threads in education, housing, exercise, health, work, and play.

There are probably more categories than that, but, like I said, multitudinous swirling chaos in here.

What’s been getting to me, more lately than in years past, is this seeming lack of humanity in our daily lives.

I know that sounds counter-intuitive to the point of being absurd on its face, but stick with me for a bit.

By lack of humanity, I am referring to how our institutions appear to not be engineered around some of the basic facts of being human. We sleep too little, work to damn much, rush from one project to the next without sufficient breaks, and generally try to conform to a system that is, in no way I can find, designed around the necessities and the vagaries of human existence.

Our public education system is designed around an industrial, assembly line model. Putting out children in batches, earmarked like replacement parts for the constantly glitching employment mega-machine. Our Higher education system isn’t much better. Most work places – not all of them, a fact which provokes my envy – are set up around a similar model. People as parts in the machinery. Cogs, they used to call us, when people were more familiar with how clocks and the original industrial machines actually worked. And who in the hell wants to be equated with a Cog? Also, what happens to cogs? when they malfunction, because they are such a basic part, they aren’t fixed. They’re thrown out and replaced with a newer one. Does that sound familiar? Does it sound like the way things ought to be?

And all of them are constructed around a basic idea that human beings can be treated like commodities; like resources.

(I’m sorry if you work in a Human resources Department, but the very name of your department is demeaning to human beings everywhere.)

Human Beings, are not resources. They are people. People who live, breathe, love, hurt, lose sleep, worry, and dream.

We want survival, but we also want fulfillment.

In sum, we want more.

We want to feel connected, and valuable – as if our contribution, if not our very existence, has meaning and is valued in our society. If you live in this world and work or go to school, then you’ve no doubt felt an absence of those things more than once this year, and this year is only 25 days into its existence.

I both work and go to school, and it’s fucking wearing on me.

I find it hilariously hideous that, for each of these paradigms, everyone I have to answer to thinks they have a monopoly on all of my time.

Teachers want you to spend all your time doing their work, and everyone of them acts as if their class is the only one I’m taking.

Bosses want you to stay over, work extra, not need or take breaks, come in on your fucking day off.

And none of them, not teachers, not bosses, sometimes not even your friends recognize that human beings aren’t supposed to, aren’t wired to, and can’t live that way.

We can’t.

Oh, some of us manage, for short periods of time, but the longer the period, the worse the crash after and the longer the recovery time required.

Now, I can understand if you’ve never experienced that kind of crunch on your time, and you don’t know what it feels like. I can see that, if that is actually the case.

But most, if not everybody aged adult or older, have felt it, have been bent half-double by it, and have had to spend an entire day on the couch watching tv and not thinking or engaging in any significant activity just to feel like a human being again enough to start the whole cycle over again. And the cycle always starts again.

It’s gets so that, instead of spending off time traveling, learning a new hobby, or engaging in social activities, we spend it trying to recover so we can do the whole meth-fueled merry-go-round again next week. Fuck fluoridation, I’m waiting for them to put Adderall in the water supply. And they’ll say they’re doing it to improve productivity…

…But I digress.

Maybe it’s just me. Maybe I’m doing too much.

But I can’t see how I have another option.

I’m in college, working towards my B.A. And I’m sufficiently in debt that to stop now is not an option as I neither have a job that will allow, nor do I look to get a job that will allow me to pay back my student loans without a degree. In my case, it’s going to have to be a higher degree than a B.A. So, I’ve got some more slog-time ahead of me.

For work, I have to take just about whatever job will work around my school schedule, and hopefully leave me some time to do my schoolwork.

I envy young people who have nothing to do except be a student. But I’m 35, nearly 36, and I can’t just be a student. I’ve looked into the options. There just aren’t enough grants, loans, or scholarships available for an older person, like me, to attend school and not have a job. There are not dorms for non-traditional students – as we are called. So, I have rent, and utilities and insurance. I have to buy food and stay warm and put gas in the car.

So, a job is a necessity.

Sorry, digressing again.

Back to something like my initial point…

…Personally, I am neck deep in the culture that is perfectly happy, if not gleefully and purposefully unaware, that I am a human being.

In fact, it looks more and more like our society and culture are trying to engineer human beings to be something other than what we are.

We are mushy, messy, complicated things. Living this life is a mushy, messy complicated affair.

And yet, our institutions seem to be geared only for rigidly structured, cold, efficient meat machines. And we are seeing, daily, the consequences of trying to jam something as amorphous as humanity into so rigid and cookie cutter of a mold.

It does bad things to the human psyche.

At least it does to mine.

I need to point out here, that I am not arguing for anything just now. I’ve been too busy to come up with a workable solution, other than, people: teachers and bosses need to unclench, tell the human resource and compliance people to piss off, and just let humans be humans.

Sometimes we need to slow down.

Sometimes we need to stop.

Sometimes all we need is more time to just be.

And if you’re in charge of anyone, ever, this is something you need to pay attention to.

Like I said, I don’t have answers right now. But that doesn’t mean the answers aren’t out there, even if we still need to discover them.

As a species, we have built the Great Wall, the Pyramids, the Interstate Highway System, and sent people to the fucking moon for christsakes. We can figure out how to live and work and be productive in a fashion that is not just in keeping with our humanity, but actually allows us to be, and live as our best selves.

Now, this is definitely not some, hippy-dippy, tune in, turn on, and drop out ideology.

I can’t stand most hippies, but that’s a rant about conforming to non-conformity that I’ll save for some other day.

I’m not saying, “burn it all down and start over” either.

I don’t think we’re there quite yet.

What I am saying is this; look at your life. Look at the lives of the people around you. Ask yourself if what you see is conducive to human flourishing, or if it is just the way it has always been?

Ask yourself if there is a better way.

There might be.

We may just be overlooking it in favor of adhering to tradition.

Then again, maybe it’s just me. But take some time to think about it, when you’re stuck in traffic, when you’re wolfing down your lunch, if you even get a 30 minute lunch break, when you’re missing sleep and socializing in order to work overtime, or finish school projects. When you’re missing out on your life trying to keep up with everything we have to keep up with in the modern era.

Take the time, if you can manage it, and ask yourself if this is the way you want to live?

Is it?

 

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The Whole of the Law

Posted on January 18, 2014 by tessarnold2

So many things I’ve been thinking about.

As a consequence, there are many things that have been pissing me off. Think I’ll just start with one of them…

….If you’re on the internet at all, you have no doubt seen the myriad of posts on news sites and social networks describing the 10,000 ways you should be. They’re all over the place; life hacker, the Huffington post, take your pick – this is not an exhaustive list.

I’m sure that some people get some good information from these sites.

(I mean, Hell, there has to be someone out there whose life is changed by “10 ways to be happy now”, or “why you should ditch store-bought shampoo”, or “what you need to do to get rich without really trying”. It’s fucking always something.)

And it’s getting on my goddamn nerves.

Isn’t there enough bullshit in the print and news media, and on television, telling you how bad your life sucks already?

To give them the benefit of the doubt, I tend to assume that the people/ companies that print, air, and post these articles and abstracts do so, not just to make money, but out of a desire to genuinely impart information that helps people.

I give them that much credit.

But it’s become too saturated. I don’t mean to sound like some pretentious, hipster, cocksucker. That’s not my bag. I’m saying that there is just too much shit out there telling us that we are not good enough as we are.

I can think of few things so detrimental to the general American psyche than that.

(There are some, but I’ll save that for another rant).

Here’s the thing, you used to have to go to a family reunion, or a local bar, to hear a drunk friend or relative tell you everything you’re doing wrong with your life and how you should fix it. And really, those are special occasions that don’t bombard the senses every time one logs on. Plus, you can avoid those situations with only a modicum of social liability.

Now we see them all-the-fucking-time.

note: If you get something helpful or life-changing out of one of these avenues, good for you. I’m not bagging on you for finding meaning, even if it’s in terrible places. Many of us know that terrible places are often the soil from which wisdom grows.

But I’m getting sick of the fucking trend.

Ancient gurus had the right idea; when people sincerely want help, they will go looking for it. It doesn’t have to be shoved down their throats. More than that, unasked-for advice is dramatically less-followed than advice that is actually sought. If you have it together, people will see that, and they will come to you. Then and only then will they be ready to make some sort of change.

But here’s my real point: I’m tired of everyone and their yoga teacher/ cross-fit trainer thinking they can and should be telling other people how to be.

It just isn’t fucking necessary.

Worse than being unnecessary, it’s condescending and judgmental.

These people/ companies, (many of whom have zero fucking credentials), whether they know it or not, are – by offering unasked-for advice – telling us that we are somehow wrong, but we could be better if only we followed their way.

But it’s their way. It works for them. It is the height of arrogance to believe just because some method or technique worked for you that it will work, or is applicable to anyone else.

We are not all alike. Our personalities and experiences are different, sometimes vastly so. The combination of whatever that works for one will not necessarily work for another. Maybe we can find something in it that we can use, but it won’t be the exact formula. It never is. By the very nature of our individual existences, it can’t be.

We can only be who we are.

(I will add that the posts about striving for authenticity piss me off for the same reason; stop telling us how to be. No one has the expertise to do that.)

Very rarely have I seen a post or article telling me that whoever I am is perfectly fine. They’re out there, but hard to find, and this isn’t one of them.

(I’m just bitching here. I’m not offering advice.)

Here’s the fact, (and I don’t need credentials for this because you can discover it for yourself), each of us is unique. No exception. It is up to each of us, individually, to discover and decide how we should live, or what a good life is for ourselves.

I’m not going to suggest you embark on this journey. It’s not my business what you do with your life, and when you want to, you will, without prompting from me or anyone else.

I’m not even going to suggest that you stop judging people. As Americans that is our right.

Do as you will.

(with respect to Aleister Crowley).

Be who you are.

I hope you find a way to be happy with it.

After all, you’re the only you there is, and this is the only life you’ve got.

Enjoy it or not, it’s your choice.

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