Bartender Geek

A month or two ago, I heard or read SOMETHING, I can't remember where or by who, which pointed out that Garrison Keillor's tagline on his five-minute daily program "Writer's Almanac" was a pretty good summary of how to maintain happiness in life.

At the end of each show, Keillor says, "Be well, do good work, and keep in touch.®" Yes, it's trademarked. It's also psychologically and philosophically profound.

"Be well.” If you’re sick, in pain, in danger, in dire need, you can’t maintain happiness. The first thing we need for happiness is some level of basic health and safety.

“Do good work.” We need to be active in something that is meaningful. If we’re fortunate, the thing that we do to make money may also be a thing that we find meaningful in a larger sense. If not, then we can use the money that we make to support us, and do our meaningful work outside of those hours.

That work could be raising a family, being a good neighbor, working for social justice, working for government, medicine, creating art -- music, books, jewelry, to name three of the forms of art represented on my friends list, building communities, running science fiction conventions or LARPs, inventing and engineering, working for environmental causes -- anything that you feel is meaningful, because it makes the world a better place, creates enjoyment for people, or is just plain worthwhile in and of itself.

“And keep in touch.” We are social animals. Some of us more so than others -- some of us need a lot of people around us at all times, some of us only need human contact in more limited, controlled doses. Some of us need face-to-face personal contact with people, some of us are happy interacting through telephone, or email, or LJ.

But very few of us need no human contact.

Whatever work we do is within the context of a society. And we need to be recognized, and appreciated, and praised for the work we do. There are some people who are okay with knowing that they’ve done good work without external validation. But most of us need to hear it from other people.

So, in general, if you’re finding yourself unhappy, and not sure why, that might be something to consider: which area is weak: “being well”, “doing good work”, or “keeping in touch”?

The Maharishi, the founder of the Transcendental Meditation movement, has died. He was somewhere around 91 years old.

I haven't done TM for over a decade, now, but it was a useful spiritual discipline which I grew up with. I did transcendental meditation from the time I was five, until, basically, I went to college, when I stopped. Yeah, I suppose it's more common to START doing TM when one goes to college, rather than STOP. . .

It was one of the things I was raised with, and was useful to me. And the TM movement has touched my life in, sometimes tangential ways, quite often.

At least one of my friends on my friendslist has been practicing TM since the Sixties. I THINK she's trained as an instructor, and she met several of her friends (such as Andy Kaufman) through it. The first ten years of Lis's employment history were at Lotus, a company founded by another TM instructor, Mitch Kapor.

So, the Maharishi has been a positive influence on my life, and I wish him well in his next incarnation, or as a bodhisattva or whatever it is he becomes next.

First, you have The Other -- that which is from the other world, eerie, eldrich, weird.

Then you have people who notice that the time is like that, and use it to let loose their own chaotic side.

Then society notices this time, and finds ways to tame it, and channel it -- to let the channeling of chaos be directed into less-destructive means -- perhaps there is destruction, but it is a lesser level of destruction.

Society keeps working to lessen and lessen that destruction, and it becomes ritualized.

And then it becomes commercialized.

What is Hallow'een? Why are all the costumes nowadays pre-made, and slutty? Why can you not give out homemade goodies for trick-or-treating? Why do you give them out at all? And why, in more and more neighborhoods, are there no trick-or-treaters, and what does "trick-or-treat" mean, anyway?

First, you have the night of the cross-quarter day when the veil between the worlds is thinnest -- a delicate day, a careful day. One where one must be very careful about what one says or does.

Or you have the night of the Winter Solstice -- the darkest night of the year -- a day full of threat, and yet also promise -- a day sacred to the deity in charge of Revenge for the Romans, celebrated with feasts. And celebrated as the birthday of the human manifestation of the Christian God, and celebrated as a birth-and-death day of many other gods, as well. Also a perilous time.

And people notice that day, and respond to it -- but you have a second response: instead of spending the day being careful, you spend the day being as careless as you can.

Somehow, teenage males always seem involved in this step. And alcohol. Alcohol and teenage boys. These days -- and nights -- of peril and danger become days and nights of mischief and revelry.

"Revelry", by the way, is far from a completely pleasant idea. The word "revel" comes from the same root as "rebel". These are nights of danger in the most physical, brick-to-the-back-of-the-skull manner, as much as from the spirits which also form a danger.

And yet -- there is benefit to them, as well. "Rebel" and "revel" come from the same root -- and it may be that having the one inoculates against the other. Besides, entirely quashing these things never works. So you channel it.

Sure, it may be that there is a riot, a rebellion. But what if you formalize that rebellion? Elect a King and Queen of Misrule? Instead of having the drunken mob break into the houses and steal your food and drink, they stand outside and yell for you to bring it out to them. Yell? Perhaps we can do better, and make them SING for their figgy pudding and wassail bowl. Or, perhaps, instead of simply destroying your property, they'll give you a fair chance -- they'll offer you a deal -- if you don't want them to play pranks, such as setting your fields on fire, or putting your wagon on your roof, they'll give you a chance to bribe them. They'll offer you the choice: trick, or treat.

And as they get more formalized, they get less dangerous. Less terrible. They become for younger children -- not the drunken mobs of teenagers, but elementary school children.

We decorate a tree. Because the children enjoy it -- and we tell them stories of a jolly fat man who brings toys. Oh, sure, I guess if he divides people into good and bad, I guess he makes judgments, too, but we don't think about that. EVERYONE must be good, right?

And we've ritualized it to the point that we all know what to expect. It's ritualized to the point of being standardized. And, if it's standardized, then can't it simply be bought, rather than made? It's more efficient that way.

Just as the Fair Folk are a proud and terrible race, not to be named less they notice you and take offense, and yet fairies are little more than butterflies with human faces. How can Titania and Tinkerbell be of the same race? But we control our ideas, shrink them, make them less terrible.

What is an angel? I saw a quote once: some person wrote a book in which they claimed that everyone has a guardian angel, but many times, we overlook them.

And the quote asked, how the HELL is it possible to overlook an angel? An angel is a Messenger of God -- the problem with an angel isn't in OVERLOOKING it -- it's in not having the composition of your soul blasted to nonexistence by the inherent power of the radiant Glory of the angel. Angels can just about tone their existence down to the point where exceptional humans can SURVIVE an encounter with one -- NOTICING them isn't usually an issue.

How do you get from there to the idea of a cherub that you could, y'know, MISS?

We take the frightening, awesome things, ideas, and times of our life. And we make them safe. Christmas is a time for family, and presents, and not a time for overthrowing the social order and slaughtering the right in their beds and stealing their things. New Year's Eve isn't for getting drunk in public -- it's for the wonderful First Night celebration, with artwork, puppet shows, and fireworks. Halloween is for children dressed up like goblins, and not the real ones. And not even dressed up as real goblins, but dressed up as Willem Dafoe dressed up as Norman Osborn dressed up as the Green Goblin. And they trick or treat during daylight hours, since our government has so kindly extended Daylight Saving Time to make sure that they don't even need to experience the night during All Hallows' Night.

But.

There is only so far we can go. And we've gone too far. And that's why this one is bursting at the seams.

All that which we have repressed, pushed back, turned our clocks against -- it's all still there. And these times of year still touch it. We in Boston are fortunate in that we won the World Series and therefore were able to spend October 30th screaming and dancing through the streets, drinking, and watching our heroes dance Irish-influenced jigs through the streets of Boston, to Dropkick Murphys' music. That helped us.

But not the rest of you.

Why are there no non-sexualized costumes for women?

And why are there starting to be sexualized costumes for GIRLS?

What are we repressing, and where is it oozing out through the seams?

The problem is that we have an entire government which is unfamiliar with the principles upon which that government was founded.

Our government exists to protect rights. Said rights are inherent to being human -- they're not given to us by our government; they are inherent to us. The Bill of Rights is intended to be a few examples of the sorts of rights they're talking about; it's not intended to be an exhaustive list (and, in fact, Alexander Hamilton opposed the Bill of Rights because he feared that people WOULD take it as an exhaustive list, and ignore other rights. The rest of the Founding Fathers felt that that was ridiculous, and that NOBODY could be THAT stupid).

It is not the government's responsibility to protect the privacy rights of foreigners. Because the government exists to protect the rights of the people for whom that government is set up.

However, that does not make it okay for the government to breach those rights.

Obviously, rights are not, in a sense, absolute. We have a right to property, but we still have taxation. We have a right to liberty, but we can be jailed. We have a right to privacy, but we can have our houses searched with a warrant.

The thing is, we have specific procedures and oversight for HOW those rights are limited, and in what circumstances.

So, the government can, with proper procedures, take actions which curtail our rights. However, the PRIMARY purpose of the government is to prevent OTHERS from curtailing those rights.

The government isn't responsible for making sure that the rights of people outside the country aren't curtailed. But it IS responsible for making sure that the rights of people INSIDE the country aren't curtailed, citizens or no. And it is not okay for the government to take actions which curtail ANYONE'S rights, citizen or no, inside or outside the United States, without proper procedures, oversight, and transparency.

Thesis
In the British Isles, "breakfast" is eggs, sausages, bacon, toast, coffee, juice . . .

Antithesis
In Continental Europe, "breakfast" is a croissant or other roll, and coffee.

Synthesis

Someone posted to weirdjews asking 1) if animals have souls, and 2) how wanting the body to decompose is compatible with a belief in bodily resurrection.

I think I've posted these theories before, but I can't remember. Oh, well -- if I have, that's what cut tags are for.
( Read more... )

People have been talking about that story in which world-class violinist Joshua Bell plays a world-class Stradivarius playing world-class music for forty-five minutes in a Washington Metro station and most people don't notice.

And I've been thinking about it, and it doesn't bother me as much as it bothers some other folks.

It was mentioned in the transcript of an online chat that the author did that similar things have been done with other artists in various locations around the world, with similar results.

To me, this means one major thing. Busking is a skill-set. Buskers don't just have to play good, or even world-class, music -- they need to do something else as well. What exactly that is, I'm not sure -- I've never really successfully busked. But there IS something else there -- virtuosity isn't enough; you need personal charisma, as well.

In a lot of ways, it's an example of this experiment, with the basketballs. You know this one, right? Watch it, and count how many passes the people make. Every time someone throws and catches the basketball, that is one pass. It can be bounced, or thrown, or whatever -- just count the number of passes.

Then, answer the following question, which is ROT-13: Qvq lbh frr gur tbevyyn?

I think it's the same thing. If you're concentrating on one thing, such as getting to work, or counting basketball passes, you miss other things, like violinists and gorillas. It's just how the brain works.

And the part of the brain which allows you to do that is the prefrontal lobes, which are not fully developed in children, which is why THEY notice the violinist.

And then, one final thought hit me. $32 is actually pretty damn good for a busker for 45 minutes. People actually DO recognize and reward quality.

So, over in another blog, Dwindling in Unbelief, the blogger is compiling a list of "How many folks did God kill, vs. how many folks did Satan kill, in the Bible?"

Obviously, Satan only even shows up in Job, so his total is 10. And God's is, of course, somewhere well in excess of two and a quarter million in enumerated deaths alone. Not counting "destroyed cities" and the like.

Far as I'm concerned, from how I understand Jewish theology, this really isn't much of a paradox -- nobody ever said God was nice.

To quote Sondheim:

You're so nice.
You're not good, you're not bad,
You're just nice.
I'm not good, I'm not nice,
I'm just right.

Also, from the way I understand Jewish theology, Job is one of those books, like Jonah and, arguably, Esther, that's really supposed to be a fairy tale more than something that you're supposed to take LITERALLY. So, really, Satan oughtn't get credit for even those ten. Which, again, is fine theology the way I see it -- Satan doesn't have the power to kill. And even in the book of Job, Satan is using God's power, not his own.

And, as can be expected, most of the comments to the thing are fairly moronic. I'm pretty sure that there's an inverse correlation between how fervently you hold your religious belief and how much theology you understand. So most theological arguments end up degenerating into competing camps of people yelling variations of "YOU'RE GOING TO HELL!!!!"

However, there are a couple interesting things there, and I responded to one of them.

Tom said...
That's quite paradoxical. As a human, our entire concept of cause and effect presuppose a time frame in which any given event takes place. Think about it...for you to claim that something 'caused' or 'created' something else, you have to have accepted the premise that the cause came before the effect.
So, in order for your Creator to live up to his name, time must have existed. Humans simply cannot fathom a "beginning of time", because the term 'beginning' implied that there was time BEFORE that event, in which that certain event never took place. Again, causation presupposes both existence and time. Either god is subject to the the constraints of time and therefore is not omnipotent or he does not exist at all.
( That was an interesting enough comment that I decided to follow up with this: )

2006 was an awful year for the world, and for many of my friends. Yet this wasn't a bad year for me personally.

As far as the world is concerned: we're still in Iraq, and causing great suffering there. And I personally feel deep, personal guilt about that. I'm an American, and I love my country. And I identify with my country -- being an American is part of my identity; it's part of who I am. And because of that, when my country acts shamefully and wrongly, I personally feel guilt and shame.

This year has given plenty of opportunity for that.

I also suspect that we slid past the point of no return on climate change.

And, in more local situations, our upstairs tenant, marquisedea's mother, died of the cancer that has been killing her for the past three years. marquisedea is still living upstairs, and is welcome to remain -- and, now that it's 2007, we need to work up a lease for her to sign. I'll deal with that after the weekend.

Lis's grandmother died over the summer. That's not tragic -- her grandmother had a long life, and had been in great pain for many years -- but it is still quite sad.

My grandmother's Alzheimer's's is getting worse. My other grandmother had a triple-bypass (although, frankly, she's doing amazingly well -- she didn't have everyone over to her house for Christmas this year, because she said she didn't have the energy to host it, but, frankly, I think she could have had she really wanted to. I think she was just using the open-heart surgery as an excuse.) One of my grandfathers caught a cold.

Um. That last thing doesn't sound that serious -- but it's the first time anyone can remember him EVER getting sick. He took a sick day and didn't come into work -- actually, he took TWO sick days. I guess there are a lot of folks in their mid-eighties who don't go to work every day, and so, I guess, looked at that way, the fact that he took two sick days off work doesn't look so bad -- but it's terrifying to me. As far as I know, my grandfathers are immortal towers of strength -- the idea of one of them getting sick is scary.

But . . . for me personally? I've been tending bar again. I'm teaching Hebrew school.

But most important for me: I've finally found an antidepressant that seems to work. And that is the biggest thing that you can possibly imagine.
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Sure, he had all the British English chauvinism that one would expect from a Victorian army officer. And all the, um. . . weirdnesses about bodily functions, and weirdnesses about sex (he deeply loved his wife, and got massive headaches if they slept in the same room) . . .

And he had all the virtues you'd expect of that kind of person -- honor, courage, self-reliance, bearing up under adversity -- and a number that you wouldn't, necessarily, expect.

There are many kinds of religion such as Roman Catholics, Protestants, Jews, Mohammedans, and so on, but the main point about them is that they all worship God, although in different ways. They are like an army which serves one king, though it is divided into different branches, such as cavalry, artillery, and infantry, and these wear different uniforms. So when you meet a boy of a different religion from your own, you should not be hostile to him, but recognize that he is like a soldier in your own army, though in a different uniform, and still serving the same king as you.

And, in his very first chapter, where he's explaining the idea of "scouting" as something that every boy can do to help his country, and his world -- explaining about how to live a life with basic decency, citizenship, and even heroism:

And there have been women scouts of the nation, too: such as Grace Darling, who risked her life to save a shipwrecked crew; Florence Nightingale, who nursed sick soldiers in the Crimean War; Miss Kingsley, the African explorer; Lady Lugard, in Africa and Alaska; and many devoted lady missionaries and nurses in all parts of our Empire.

For that matter, throughout his Scouting for Boys, as he's giving examples of how ordinary people have acted heroically and decisively to save lives (sometimes successfully, sometimes not, but always worthy of praise, whether or not they succeed), he makes sure to choose examples of women and girls acting heroically and nobly, as well as men and boys.