Tagged: philosophy
Thank You For Not Reading
According to the wordpress stats, New Sodom has not been widely read, and it has received zero likes. Way to go and thank you.
I’ve thought a lot about that post, about why I wrote it. I wrote it because my life has been pretty great. If we measure it against the timeline of humanity on planet earth, it’s been arguably the best life ever lived. Air conditioning, food, water, unconditional love–these have never come close to running out. Plenty of us could say the same thing. But for whatever reason, this has never been enough for me. Like most veterans, I didn’t have to join the military. But I had to know what war was like (still don’t really know, but know I don’t want to know first-hand anymore). Like other manual laborers, I didn’t have to work with my body. But I had to know what it was like. I had to do these things.
At night, when I’m not thinking about what to buy, first, with my $33 from book sales, I picture you. I picture a reader who has come to trust that I’m giving Captain’s Log my best, and it turns out pretty good most of the time. But I believe a post like New Sodom should be written every once in a while because in the same way that I had to join the military and head to the oil fields, I can’t let myself (or you) forget that there are other ways to live on this planet. There are ways of living which do not hold hope dear, which do not treasure truth, respect, and love. There are ways of living which would destroy all human dignity in favor of selfishness and pride.
The pilots in the Air Force (among other military specialties I’m sure) train to perfection. By this I mean that no matter how hard I tried, I could not get anyone to show me the wrong way to perform a maneuver. Where I wanted to just see what it felt like to gain and lose hundreds of feet of altitude so that I could know the difference between incorrect and correct flying, my instructors stayed the course and held me to the previously developed standards. And once I held the standards, they raised the standards. And so on and so forth. But sometimes, in pursuit of perfection, perspective can fall by the wayside. Tempers can flare when professionalism should. That’s why I wrote New Sodom. Me and you, together we’ll get there. It’s just that sometimes I need to remind myself what happens if people like us give up. Maybe you don’t need the reminder. I do.
Thanks again.
The only way to get there is together.
Correction to Friday’s Post
A mellow friend of mine informed me that Sam Smith is gay. The interwebs confirm this is true. So, in my last post about his song, I’ve gone back and edited three words. In the third paragraph, the word “girl” is now “guy” and “her” is now “him”, and then in the fourth paragraph “her” is now “him.”
Please accept my apologies for this error.
Vulnerable or Immature? A Review of Sam Smith’s Hit Single “Stay With Me”
We all know the feeling we get when we find out a singer isn’t black. It’s really quite humorous that we think we can tell people’s skin tone by the sound of their voice. And Sam Smith is the newest artist to shock the masses and sell a few more records along the way. I bet most of you didn’t know that I’m black. Just kidding.
Smith’s new single “Stay With Me” has been hogging air time for at least the last month. It’s catchy. It’s all heart. Men I’ve never heard sing have sung it. And that’s because it’s edgy. A simple three verse song, “Stay With Me” is a request for a groupie to not leave in the morning. I imagine most male listeners claim to identify with the feeling because they think women find Smith’s vulnerability appealing, and yet these guys still get to maintain their man-card because they could only identify with the song because they’ve had one-night stands themselves. If I’m right, everyone is mixed up. Here’s an attempt at order.
First, as a friend of mine’s dad once told him, “Be grateful for the sex you’re getting. It’s more than you deserve.” Second, while the brutal honesty the song portends is no small feat, I can’t help but wonder if it’s a valuable confession. It only works if it’s in response to the idea that guys who have one-night stands are supposed to kick the ol’ belt-notch to the curb at first light. Right? Smith is basically winning his version of a rap battle Eminem-style. Some real-large-type arse-hole picked on Sam for calling the guy back the next day. Instead of defending his action (which would be weak) he goes one further and admits that he never wanted him to leave in the first place (which is a fatal blow in these contests it seems). Good for him. But we can’t let uncommon vulnerability distract us from the truth. His actions which trigger the song demonstrate that he is not a man. He is a boy. And boys shouldn’t be listened to.
Men–real men–do not have one night stands. They don’t. How do I know? The same reason you know. Because it’s the way it is. Smith wonders why he’s so emotional the morning after, and then advises himself to gain self-control. Another good friend of mine would tell Smith he’s emotional because “the inner man isn’t one with the outer man.” You want to stop crying over him, Sam? Too late buddy. You’re crying because you just caused the two of you pain. And pain hurts. The good thing is that the pain wasn’t lethal. You can learn from it. We can learn from it. But learning is defined as a change in behavior caused by experience. A change. And no fellas that doesn’t mean that you learned if you don’t get weepy next time.
In the end, the world could use a whole lot more and a whole lot less Sam Smiths.
On Breeding
Everyone knows that Mormons and Muslims make babies with world domination as their goal. But what about the rest of us? Why do we end up breeding?
If magazines with the word “journal” in their title are to be trusted, then there is at least one well-documented theory. We breed because we’re dumb. That came out wrong. The data doesn’t show that breeding is dumb, it shows that the less educated and lower paid we are, the more children we have. Want the same sentiment in a more positive tone? Try “children are the wealth of the poor.” Aww.
If we put stock in casual conversation, middle-class couples have children because they bought a dog a couple years earlier.
Back on the research front, we know that foreigners who are new to this country breed like bunnies, but that only lasts a few generations. By the third generation (statistics show) they only want one or two children. And those little guys probably won’t talk funny anymore anyhow. Yawn.
But these sweeping generalizations are only scratching the surface. I want specifics. I want to know how individuals make the choice. More than that, I want to know why this topic seems taboo to me? If I tell you that my parents told me that I was “unplanned”, it feels like they wouldn’t be happy that I’d shared that information because it makes them look “bad”. (For the record, I’m pretty sure that my older sister was the reason for the wedding, my younger brother was unplanned, and that I am a gift from God.)
It seems that in the past people had a lot of children because children meant workers, which meant wealth. Adam Smith (of 1776’s Wealth of Nations fame) wrote that a widow with a bunch of kids was very attractive to men back then. Seems like that couldn’t be further from the truth these days. And then in the past babies died a lot, too. So there’s that to take into account. Today, with not so many youngsters passing while on the trail, couples just don’t seem motivated to risk pregnancy’s dangers as much. Or some such reasoning.
And we can’t forget birth control’s far reaching consequences. How many people wouldn’t be alive today if latex was self-lubricating?
I’m curious how many of you have ever asked individuals why they had children? I have. Well, I’ve asked men. (Where are you ladies hiding again?) It’s shocking to me. Tied for the number one reasons are “it felt too good to pull out” and “We(/I) were drunk.”
Never experiencing it myself, sadly, according to locker room tales I’ve heard that some women have an ability to really make mixing the baby batter together seem desirable as the last of the sweat forms. And I know a few fellas who have described their primal finish to be the same as how a shark’s eyes roll back when they go for the kill. Where do these men and women learn this behavior? Maybe it’s genetic?
It feels weak to admit that I want more children. I think that’s because if I admit it, and then don’t have anymore, it will be known that I have an unfulfilled desire in my life.
Why did I do my part to create H-, you ask? Because it was what married couples do. It was time. You know, the dog thing.
Why do I want more children? Because when we were camping the other night and alone in the tent I awoke to the sound of her giggling while in a dream. I just pictured her brain creating fantasy images of her stuffed Twilight Sparkle tumbling through the air; no on a rainbow! Yeah, Twilight Sparkle would likely be around a rainbow or two. Maybe Pingu was there too. And then, later that night, as I started shuffling around to see a man about a tree, H- wakes up and says, “Daddy, if you’re ever scared-” pause “-if you ever need anything, I’ll be there for you.” Good to know. And I hope so H-.
Mel Gibson was in a movie about depression called, “The Beaver”, a few years back. One of the previews on the DVD was for a movie centered around immigration whose title I can’t remember. But in the trailer there was a scene where a teenage son asked his father why he ever had him. The father said, “To give life meaning.” I’m with that dad. What else gives life meaning? Work? My passion? Writing? Spreading the gospel? No, when all is said and done, life is about people. That’s why we keep creating them.
Anna vs. Emma, A Joint Review of Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy and Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
Nothing motivates me to write better more than sentences like these.
“As if tears were the necessary lubricant without which the machine of mutual communication could not work successfully, the two sisters, after these tears, started talking, not about what preoccupied them, but about unrelated things, and yet they understood each other (Tolstoy 125).”
“It showed him the eternal error people make in imagining that happiness is the realization of desires (Tolstoy 465).”
“In order to undertake anything in family life, it is necessary that there be either complete discord between the spouses or loving harmony. But when the relations between spouses are uncertain and there is neither the one nor the other, nothing can be undertaken. Many families stay for years in the same old places, hateful to both spouses, only because there is neither full discord nor harmony (Tolstoy 739).”
“As it was almost empty she bent back to drink, her head thrown back, her lips pouting, her neck on the strain. She laughed at getting none of it, while with the tip of her tongue passing between her small teeth she licked drop by drop the bottom of the glass (Flaubert 24).”
“And he at once took down from the shelf Emma’s boots, all coated with mud, the mud of the rendezvous, that crumbled into powder beneath his fingers, and that he watched as it gently rose in a ray of sunlight (Flaubert 174).”
“Emma was like all his mistresses; and the charm of novelty, gradually falling away like a garment, laid bare the eternal monotony of passion, that has always the same forms and the same language (Flaubert 177).”
“We don’t speak on the first floor as on the fourth; and the wealthy woman seems to have, about her, to guard her virtue, all her bank-notes, like a cuirass, in the lining of her corset (Flaubert 215).”
“They knew one another too well for any of those surprises of possession that increase its joys a hundred-fold. She was as sick of him as he was weary of her. Emma found again in adultery all the platitudes of marriage (Flaubert 268).”
So here’s the scoop. Anna and Emma commit adultery. And when they discover this act didn’t end their unhappiness, they kill themselves. These novels are often classified under “realism”, which seeks to be just what you’d expect–realistic. (This, of course, comes in response to the unrealistic stories which rued the day up until writers like Tolstoy and Flaubert (can’t not mention Twain) couldn’t stomach any more of it.) And right up until the ending, I can’t find novels which more accurately describe the human scene. But the suicides struck me as unrealistic. Was I being too literal?
Maybe the suicide is a metaphor? Maybe women who commit adultery long to commit suicide, but lack the courage to do it? Is that what these guys were arguing?
Or are the stories warnings to women? Are they a kind of “cheat on me and you’ll probably want to kill yourself” thing? They are written by men after all.
Or maybe there is something more going on?
Always returning to Tolstoy’s wisdom, I’ve decided that these books’ adultery-leads-to-suicide motif is a warning to everyone. Tolstoy, especially, tips his hand in the quote about about happiness not being the realization of desires. That these books sit on so many shelves across the planet proves we recognize the truth they contain, whether we can verbalize it or not.
If Tolstoy and Flaubert were alive today they might have chosen to write about men ignoring their family in favor of email, or mothers working while strangers raise their children so that they can live in a house that would make the Jones’s proud. Or maybe they’d write about women who wear make-up and men who have hair plugs. But then, I wouldn’t believe men and women would kill themselves after finding their cosmetic choices didn’t bring them happiness. But a spouse watching his or her selfish action destroy a family? Yep, I could see how that might make someone want out of this life. And since it is Tolstoy’s Anna who chooses her lover even when her husband is ready to reunite with her, Anna Karenina wins the better lesson presentation battle. The lesson being happiness is. No fill in the blank, no requisite. Happiness just is.
****
Flaubert, Gustave, Chris Kraus, and Eleanor Marx Aveling. Madame Bovary. New York: Barnes & Noble Classics, 2005. Print.
Tolstoy, Leo. Anna Karenina. Toronto: Penguin, 2000. Print.
World Economy In Disarray After Oprah Endorses Everything
Chicago. In an unexpected–and unprecedented–move this past weekend, Oprah endorsed every product. The only African-American Billionaire, Miss Winfrey is making headlines around the world after her weekend decision, and doing so in every news category.
Simply put, people do not know what to do.
Since her rise to stardom, which began in 1984, Americans, and subsequently all humans, have looked to Oprah for guidance when undecided about how to spend their money. From books, to clothing, to boots, to coffee, to perfume, popcorn and more, consumers grew to love this new found ease of shopping in which they didn’t have to weigh the options themselves.
But now, in only the three hours since Captain’s Log learned of the story, virtual chaos has engulfed the world’s major cities. Every stock market has plunged, and some analysts are already predicting it will take more than twenty years to recover from this new great depression–if recovery is possible at all.
The Obama administration is the leading voice in the world’s governments call for people to remain calm. More difficult, however, has been these government’s task of asking their citizens to essentially think for themselves.
As for this American writer, the only hope is that Oprah’s thoughtless action has the unintended consequence of being the first cut in America’s citizens much needed Cesarean section. Stay tuned to Captain’s Log for further updates as this story develops.
Some Say It Was A Miracle
So there he was. Like the eleven preceding days, he woke up at 5:05am, drank some V8 and a protein shake, and ate a cup of oatmeal. Grabbing his salami sandwich, he headed from camp to the change shack where he put on a pair of coveralls, which even after washing strained the definition of clean. After a brief safety meeting he grabbed a pair of gloves and headed outside. Taking in one last moment of stillness, he rolled one ear plug at a time between his left forefinger and thumb and then placed them into his ears. Finally, he picked up a case of bottled water and began the climb up the three flights of stairs which led to the rig floor. It was his thirty-third birthday.
The day proceeded no differently from any other. That’s the beauty of the work. Suddenly, however, in an act which some might label a miracle, he looked down to the ground and saw a co-worker carrying three familiarly brown and orange cardboard pizza boxes. It seemed someone up above was smiling down on him.
The hot-n-ready’s made their way up to where he was, and he happily indulged in a slice the first moment he could. What the reader doesn’t know was that sitting on the same table, brought up to the rig floor only moments earlier, was a bag of McDoubles. Remember, now, that he had his salami sandwich waiting. So while everyone who knew him knew that the McDouble was his favorite fast food burger in the whole wide world, he had vowed that he’d stick with his sandwich that day. But now, on his birthday of all days, he was staring at his favorite burger and pizza–free for the taking. The packaging alone had him salivating like a French mastiff. And now that he had committed to the pizza, he said the hell with it. Though it remained seated fairly high on his bucket list despite its nominal price, he had never before eaten a slice of Little C’s followed by a McDouble. Unable to stand there and stare for forever, he quickly grabbed the burger and headed back outside. Within a minute he found himself gasping for air and wondering if he really was going to die choking on a McDouble. Lucky for all of us, he stayed calm, swallowed hard, and smiled a smile that rivaled the Pacific’s width. And to think he was getting paid.
Life In The Oil Fields Is No Movie
Well, that’s not entirely true. One movie came to mind on about day four as I was beginning to realize that a lot of family, not to mention my one friend, would want to know what exactly it was like to work on a rig. Maybe even you are curious to know. Here’s my best effort to convey understanding and feeling of the job, and why it appeals to me.
It’s a lot like Lord of the Rings. Like the quest to destroy the Precious, in which all participants agree that there is no value in attempting any action that does not assist in accomplishing that invaluable end, the oil fields have one goal. One. Every single activity supports that goal. In other words, the concept ‘efficiency’ has yet to be developed as there is no need to distinguish efficient action from inefficient action.
Also like LOTR, meals are on the go. And every once in a while a Legolas shows up with a food whose calorie content is such that “one small bite will fill the stomach of a grown man.” Naturally, the food is consumed with little regard for this fact. And in similar fashion to Samwise’s indefatigably loving disposition towards food, all conclude that it tastes great.
Moreover, there is a comedic relief at every turn, and something about the nature of being part of such a singular mission attracts people with fully-developed personalities. Put simply, characters abound.
Lastly, just as no one but Frodo can carry the ring to Mount Doom, in the oil fields there is no one else coming to do the work. If something heavy must be lifted, if something stuck must be unstuck, if something dirty must be cleaned, if someone clean must get dirty, that’s what must happen. Nothing stops the mission. Not the clock, not the weather, not the calendar. Not past performance, not best intentions, not relationships, not feelings. Nothing.
The ring must be destroyed.
It’s glorious.
Block Two
The preacher, the only one in the room wearing a suit, leaned forward, dramatically closing in on the microphone. His hands grasped each side of the worn, wooden pulpit, a relic which never failed to support his weight in moments like these. A professional, he drew energy from the room’s silence like Superman would the sun’s rays. Attendance had been dwindling, but this morning there were more people than he expected. He took that as a sign. During this pause, he made eye contact with nearly everyone, and as he scanned the room, he found one unfamiliar face, a young man. Unlike most past guests, the young man did not look away.
The preacher, at last, continued.
“To be able to forget,” he concluded. “Sometimes I just want to be able to forget,” he said, repeating his desire, this time without pausing for effect. “You know me well enough to know first-hand that I sin as much as you,” he said gravely. “I know me well enough to argue that I probably sin more,” he said, the corners of his mouth rising as he shook his head. A lone chuckle evidenced that he hadn’t lost his knack for timing.
Unlike recent Sundays, he had something to say this morning. And while he needed to transport the audience to a place where they felt the weight of the world, he also knew they needed slight relief every so often if they were to feel him lift it completely off at the end. Picking up the pace, the preacher proceeded.
“I want to be able to forget big things, sure. Like hate, meanness, selfishness. But that’s not all. I want to be able to forget specific things. I want to be able to forget when I was mean to my best friend. I want to be able to forget when I yelled, ‘I hate you!’ to my parents. I want to be able to forget the time that I didn’t share my ice cream with my son,” he claimed, feeling his heart pound like it always did right before he pulled it out for all to see. “More than that-” he stopped, and re-directed, “I can be honest here, right? Is that okay with you?” he asked. A majority of heads nodded in response, and a practiced, deep “preach it!” could be heard.
“More than that,” the preacher resumed, “I want to be able to forget that in each of those circumstances I wanted to do those things. Those actions were desirable to me. I wanted to be mean; I wanted to hate; I wanted to be selfish. If the Lord was standing here right now, and we all got to ask one question, mine would be, ‘Isn’t it enough that we do these things? Can’t you at least relieve us of our memory of them?'” he paused, nearly choked up. “But the Lord isn’t here right now,” he said, regaining his composure. “He isn’t going to intervene and answer my question. And why not? Is it because he doesn’t care? Is it because he doesn’t exist? No. It’s because he’s done everything necessary already. The onus is on us now. Remember?” he asked.
With a look that betrayed that he didn’t even realize that he had come down from the stage as he spoke, he turned his back on the crowd and walked up the two creaky stairs, returning to the pulpit. This signaled that he was near the end.
“Remember,” he said, the word somewhere between a command, a statement, and a question.
“Certainly everyone here is aware of the current stress put on living a balanced life. Eastern religions have the yin-yang concept. Likewise, when I think of all the things I want to forget, I can’t help but be grateful for one thing that we can’t ever forget–Jesus of Nazareth. He came. He spoke the truth. He gave us hope. But he also convicted us. So we killed him for it. Did it have to happen that way? I don’t know. I just don’t know. But it did. And if we ever forget that, I’m not sure we won’t forget hope altogether.”
Entitlement
I first heard the term “entitlement nation” somewhere between 2005 and 2008. I can picture some article hanging on the wall somewhere at work. Or maybe it was the back page of a magazine at work. In any case, entitlement was about–so I thought–the general public wanting something for nothing. As in, people wanting money for not working, people wanting healthcare without paying for it, people wanting to retire without saving for it. Little did I know how wrong I was. Perhaps it is more accurate to say little did I know how small a part of entitlement those big social programs were.
Want to know what entitlement is? Entitlement is driving too close to a semi-truck that kicks up a rock that chips your windshield and believing the semi-truck should pay for the damage. Entitlement is believing that you should only have to stand in line a certain amount of time at a store. Entitlement is believing that your food should come out in a timely manner at a precise temperature, and if it doesn’t, the restaurant should pay for the meal.
Learning is defined as a change in behavior based on experience. Insanity is doing the same thing and expecting different results.
By the time a person is old enough to drive he has heard stories of large trucks kicking up rocks which can chip windshields. Learning has not occurred when a person drives too close to a large truck. Learning has occurred when a 16-year old gives a large truck enough space for some other moron to drive too close to it.
By the time a person is old enough to be in a line at a store by himself he has to have seen the correlation between number of items and people and the length of the wait. Learning has not occurred when this person freaks out or allows his emotional state to change because he just can’t believe he has to wait so long. Learning has occurred when an impatient person stops shopping during the busiest time of the day.
By the time a person is old enough to be at a restaurant and pay their own way he has to have seen the occasional slip up by the staff. Learning has not occurred when this person demands their food be free and throws a temper-tantrum. Learning has occurred when this person pays their bill and never returns to the restaurant *or* returns but has lengthened the expected wait time and lowered the expected temperature of the food.
Learning is changing. Insanity is sameness. Entitlement is sameness. Entitlement is insanity.
Quit being insane people.
Captain’s Log 