I think it's time we said "Enough, already" with the sports in this country. I think that because, as if there weren't enough parallels between this country and the decadent and declining Roman Empire, they have brought back the gladiators. The American Gladiators. Now, we had the American Gladiators when I was a kid -- Nitro was my favorite; that guy's one bad muthuh-shut-yo-mouth -- but twenty years ago* sports had a different place in our culture. Twenty years ago we were just being introduced to Michael Jordan and Iron Mike Tyson, we had not yet had an American Dream Team, and while we did, of course, have Darryl Strawberry's cocaine-and-hooker habit, we had not yet seen O.J.'s bloody gloves.
*A note on why growing older is so much better than people say: since I hit 30, I've been able to say, "Twenty years ago . . ." and not sound like a dork. This is a beautiful thing.
I don't mean to go off on criminals in sports -- that's well-tilled ground and always has been -- and I may have to do another column about things that are TOTALLY EXTREME!!!, including bloodsports. The focus here is simply the consideration of a simple question: is the American fascination with sports a good thing or a bad thing? Is it healthy for us, or are we doing ourselves harm? To quote my students: My essay is going to be about the two sides of this isue. wat do you think? Well i think that sports are a bad thing! Know i am going to tell you why.
Sorry. That will never happen again.
Begin with the largest participant demographic: the observer, the fan. Sports are fun to watch, as is shown by the massive numbers of people who do so, who have the multiple-ESPN satellite package, who go to games, who vote to give millions of tax dollars to build new stadiums, who play fantasy football and such online, who spend billions gambling on sports. Sports have action, excitement, violence, drama, disappointment, tragedy, recovery, rebirth. Sports have grandeur. Secondly, even for those who are not regular viewers of sports events, sports give people something to talk about; the two most hackneyed conversation starters are, "Some weather we've been having, huh?" and "How about them Dodgers?" There is a lovely scene in Cityslickers when Daniel Stern's character, when asked by the lone female on the cowboy trip why men are so fascinated by sports, explains how sports gave him and his father something to talk about. When they couldn't talk about anything else, he remembers fondly, "we could still talk about baseball." Sports bring people together, unite them into a single group; I was not living in Boston during the Red Sox World Series victory in 2004, but having been there when they lost in 1986, I can imagine how the entire New England area was united in their fervor as they watched their team Reverse the Curse.
But this is a shallow unity, a tenuous and crystalline connection -- far too weak to bear any real emotional weight, and thus not actually a useful or beneficial bridge between people. Millions of Red Sox fans (including myself, I should note -- David Ortiz and Curt Schilling are a pair of bad muthuh-shut-yo-mouth's) were filled with joy and camaraderie in October of 2004, but by Christmas? Did anyone remember? People in a Red Sox cap may have gotten a free drink in October, but I bet they got shoved out of the way at the mall on Black Friday, just like everybody else. Alliances based on shallow and superficial connections do not last. But more than shallow, the connection created by shared sports enthusiasms are easy. We wear our allegiance on our backs and on our foreheads; all it takes is a few words to forge a temporary alliance between two people who watch the same sport. Even disagreement over allegiance can offer the beginning of a connection, because if I'm a Celtics fan and you're a Lakers fan, at least we both follow basketball instead of some weird foreign sport like jai alai or soccer. As sweet as it is that Daniel Stern's character and his father could talk about baseball, it does not change the fact that they could not talk about love and life, about career and family and home, about duty and honor and respect, about fun, laughter, friendship. It should be noted that the character is not a well-adjusted and happy man.
But because sports connections are easy to make, we don't feel the need to make another, stronger bond. If that fictional father and son, which I'm sure are reiterated all over the country, had not had baseball to talk about, perhaps they could have brought their actual cares and concerns into their conversation, and maybe they could have overcome their alienation. Perhaps not, perhaps they would have become totally estranged without baseball, but since they had baseball, they never needed to try to find some other way to communicate. As long as we can make friends right now through the wearing of a cap and jersey, we don't feel the need to look for truer companions, because even if this temporary sports buddy is gone tomorrow, I can find another one just as easy, and still put out less effort, and reveal far less vulnerability, than I would if I tried to find a real friend. And I and today's buddy can watch the game together, and talk about statistics and history and stuff like that. It will be fun. Certainly more fun than talking about politics -- though the more we talk about political campaigns as a race to the finish line, the more like sports they become.
Speaking of politics: as much fun as sports may be to watch, is it what we should be watching? Do sports serve as gladiator games did in Rome, as a distraction for the people so that we don't pay as much attention to the state of the union? Have sports become the opiate of the masses? Here's an easy test. Count how many people will vote in this year's Presidential election in November, traditionally the political event with the least voter apathy.
Then compare that number to the number of people who watch this year's Superbowl.
But sports aren't just for the watchin', they cry -- they're for the playin'! Sports give people exercise and fresh air, they teach people teamwork and good sportsmanship. Right?
Sports can be good exercise, that's true. At least, there are millions of kids who play sports, and many of them are in better shape than they would be if they did not play sports. But as with the friendships that can be built through sports, is this the best way for these kids, and for the adults they become, to get in shape, to stay in shape? And what about the millions more who do not play sports? The simple truth is that participation in sports is not fun for everybody, it is fun for those with the physical gifts that make them good at sports. Sports are, by definition, competitive, and thus there are winners and losers. Nobody wants to be a loser, and so as we push sports as the best possible way to get our kids to exercise and get out into the fresh air, we lose millions of kids to the lure of video games and computers and television, to the call of the couch and the Chee-to.
As for teamwork and sportsmanship, they are no longer part of our sports education, not after a certain point. (A brief aside: I was just thinking about my own sports experiences, and I am amazed at the bitterness welling up in me. I still have quite a depth of feeling here, and this is twenty years after the last time I put my hand into a huddle and yelled some permutation of "Go team!" [A secondary aside: see how well that "twenty years" thing works? Ten years is okay, but twenty! That's good stuff.]) We teach our youth that sports are a path to success, but the steps along that path must be taken alone, and often at the expense of one's teammates; to improve at sports, one must get playing time, which means one must be better than the other players at one's position. To get a scholarship, to earn a tryout, to get into the draft, one must outperform the rest, one must reach the proper statistical accomplishments, and these are things that are often done better when the team does worse. A good football running back, for instance, will earn more yards if the quarterback of the team does not throw well, because the running back will have more calls and thus better statistics -- but a team with a good quarterback and a good running back will win more games. This does not promote good teamwork, nor does it promote good sportsmanship.
Just look at the professional role models in sports: are kids supposed to learn teamwork from Kobe Bryant? From Stephon Marbury? From Terrell Owens? Are they supposed to learn good sportsmanship from Barry Bonds and Michael Vick? The path to sports success is not a healthy one: to be the best, you must now practice and train to the exclusion of all else (see Lebron James, or any of a dozen top-shelf hockey players), which as often as not leaves you as a semi-literate emotional cripple (see Shawn Kemp or any of a dozen top-shelf hockey players), and, as the last year has shown, you probably need to take steroids as well. But rest assured, as soon as you become a professional athlete, no crime will prevent you from earning millions of dollars. All you need to do is wait a few years and maybe change cities, like Latrell Sprewell. If you're big enough, you won't even have to go to trial -- right, Mr. Bryant? The most famous athletes now are not the ones on winning teams; they are the athletes who make the most money, who have the most impressive individual statistics, who make the most commercials and date the hottest women. This means that sports today teach people to look out for yourself, so that you can get good enough to buy yourself whatever you want. Sports are no longer an honorable pursuit; now it is, as the draft day language clearly states, a lottery.
But apart from the examples of teamwork and sportsmanship that come to us from the pros, look at the amateurs. I would talk about Olympians here, but the Olympians aren't looking all that different from the pros -- and in a growing number of cases, the one is the other. See how well that has worked with basketball? I just have to say that the original Dream Team's ability to dominate, as well as its great diplomatic appeal, was unique, and due entirely to the makeup of the team, and not to their status as professionals and all-stars. There will never be another team like that. Part of the reason, by the way, is because that generation grew up with role models that were examples of good sportsmanship, that showed that the path to success was through teamwork and the sublimation of individual glory; cf. Russell vs. Chamberlain in the 1960's. Now the professional players grew up wanting to be Like Mike, and so there are too many who care only about themselves and not their teams. And these are the role models for future generations, and thus is the Dream Team lost. At any rate, amateur sports are far more than the Olympics (and because the Olympics are international, they are not the subject here -- this is American sports); we are talking here about youth sports, Little League and PeeWee football, school athletics and summer camps.
I played youth soccer. I played tee ball, the kindergarten version of baseball (You hit the ball off a tee; there is no pitching.). I went to a sports camp, and another summer camp that was a horrible attempt to combine sports and music (Terrible idea -- you ended up with a whole bunch of band geeks getting their butts kicked by other summer camps that played sports exclusively. But at least the food sucked.). I should be able to serve as an example of the efficacy of sports as a teacher of sportsmanship and teamwork, right? Particularly since I am not physically gifted with speed, strength, or coordination to speak of, but I do have a fierce competitive drive and a willingness to sacrifice for the good of the group. I should be the teamwork poster child!
Here's what I remember from youth sports. My first experience was on a youth soccer team when I was 6; I dropped off of the team after a few practices because the other kids made fun of my name, Dusty being too great a temptation for first graders. I played tee ball the following year. I played deep right field, the Bermuda Triangle of baseball, so that my poor play would not hurt the team's chances of winning -- and allow me to note that this team beat one rival by a score of 25-10, and lost to the same rival 30-2 a few weeks later (scores approximate -- this was almost thirty years ago); suffice it to say the team's record did not depend on my play. My next sports experience was the summer camps, about which the less said the better; I ended my athletic career with four years in another youth soccer league, covering the ages of 9-12. The first three years were actually good ones; I had fun, made some friends, and we lost almost every game we played. The fourth year, however, I was picked to be on a different team (the teams were set mainly by the kids' geographic proximity to each other, and I have no idea what vagary of Youth Soccer gerrymandering got me onto a team five miles away from my neighborhood), and that was the year we almost went to the finals in our division. That was the year I watched our coach scream in his own son's face because his son was hurt and didn't want to keep playing. That was the year I was told, along with two other less-athletic kids, that we were the losers (Coach's word) who were holding the team back. That was the year I had to listen to my coach gripe about the Youth Soccer rule that every kid on the team had to play two quarters in every game, right before he sent me in. That was the last year I played youth soccer.
As I said earlier, I am sure my bitterness exceeds what my experiences with sports warrant. But I am also sure that whatever I do know about teamwork, about good sportsmanship, about healthy competition, I owe to activities, to role models, and to people that had nothing whatsoever to do with sports. It is to sports that I owe my animosity to jocks, my unwillingness to jump in and try new things with unfamiliar people, and my still-virulent hatred of Coach DeLuca. So while sports may, indeed, teach some people teamwork and good sportsmanship, perhaps it is neither the only way nor the best way for people to learn those values. And when I get my time machine, I'm going to go back to Newton, Massachusetts in 1986 and kick that jerk in the shins. With cleats on. And then I'll tell the little me to remember that people that win soccer games are not always winners, just like people who lose soccer games are not always losers. I wouldn't want to stop myself from playing that year, because that was when I figured that out -- but it took me several years to formulate the thought, and it might have helped me to keep it in mind as I went through high school.
I know I have gone on for far too long this week, but before I close I would like to suggest an alternate activity for today's youth, that I think will accomplish the same goals that sports are purported to accomplish but do not: walking. I think I have made it clear that I never liked sports and that I never spent a lot of time playing them, yet I am not, and never have been, fat and out of shape (let me note that the rise in sports watching has almost certainly contributed to the increased girth and decreased activity level of our people). It is because I walk, and always have walked, when I haven't been riding a bike. Walking a few miles every day is better physical conditioning than the short bursts of hard labor that characterize sports participation; in all the years I have walked, I have never torn my ACL nor broken my collarbone. Walking gives me a chance to think quietly, to breathe fresh air and enjoy my surroundings, including what little nature is left to me in this town that is rapidly becoming one large, unoccupied development (Forthcoming column on that, I think). It lets me see, and greet, my neighbors and fellow townsmen; it lets me observe the way people live, it gives me inspiration and a quiet sense of contentment. It lets me feel closer to my fellow men, and it lets me feel that I am doing something to help them, by refusing to drive my car, by picking up trash when I see it, by giving good directions when asked because I have learned more about the place where I live than I ever would have by driving. And despite the fact that my students think I'm a freak for owning a functional car and not driving it every single chance that I get -- or perhaps because of that fact -- I think that walking has made me a good role model. I have no idea what influence I'm actually having on my students with it, nor how good a role this is to model, but I know one thing for sure.
It has to be a better one than Kobe Bryant.
Sunday, January 27, 2008
Sunday, January 20, 2008
Good, But Not Cheap
No time machine needed this week, because this one is appropriate right now. Stop throwing things away.
That's the best advice I can give. It needs to be said to everyone in this society, including myself. Stop throwing things away.
Because whenever we throw something away and head on down to Wal*Mart to buy a new one, we encourage the culture of consumption that has been gradually built in this country since the 1950's, and perhaps even earlier -- though the scrap metal drives and paper drives and rubber drives and string drives of the WWII era, and the sheer desperation of the Depression before it, lead me to believe that it was indeed the 1950's, still seen by Republicans across the country as the pinnacle of America, that started us down this road.
We should be able to make things that last, and we don't do it. And the only reason we don't do it is because we, as a people, would rather buy something cheap that will only last a short time, and then when it breaks, throw it away and buy a new one. Paper plates, for instance, and paper napkins and Starbucks cups. The only reason we use paper plates is because we can't be bothered to wash the real ones; ditto paper napkins. Oh -- and they're cheaper. But look at what's happened: when was the last time you saw cloth napkins outside of a fine restaurant? Does anyone have cloth napkins any more? Where would you even buy them? Maybe I'm just not paying attention, and cloth napkins abound in the linen aisles which I don't often frequent (Word geek moment: often frequent. That's a fun phrase. Sorry -- back to what I was saying), but I do know that there are a dozen stores that I do frequent, and often (hee hee!), that carry paper napkins. They are the stores I'm in every day, so they are the stores that shape most of my daily purchasing. If they carry paper napkins, chances are good that I'm just going to get paper napkins, and not think about it. And paper plates. And sugar in little paper packets, instead of a bowl. So it goes.
We as a society shape what's in the stores, and then what's in the stores shapes us as a society; it's a kind of biofeedback on a grand scale. When we are given a choice between, say, a $100 toaster that will last for twenty years, and a $30 toaster that will last for two, most of us buy the cheaper toaster, for two reasons: we don't think that far ahead -- the cheap toaster will make toast when I get it home today, and that's as a far as I'm planning -- and we are not willing to wait and save up the $100, or wait and go without the other things we would buy now with the $70 difference. Anyone who can buy the $30 toaster can save up to buy the $100 toaster, but in the interim, there will be no toast -- and we can't abide that. So we buy the cheap toaster, and then when it breaks in two years, we go back out and face the same choice -- and come to the same conclusion: this one will make toast now, and I won't have to wait to spend money elsewhere.
End result? Over twenty years, we spend $300 on toasters, rather than $100. And the landfills are nine toasters closer to overflowing. And the stores stop stocking the $100 toaster, because it doesn't sell, and after twenty years when we lose our patience and just decide to drop the money on a toaster that lasts, we can't find one, and we bewail the fact that nobody builds things that last any longer. Oh, yeah: and the toaster repair shop is out of business, because nobody is going to spend the money to fix a $30 toaster (they would to fix a $100 model) and Wal*Mart has built 3,000 new stores and half of the US's GNP is in Chinese bank accounts.
All right, it's time to stop beating around the bush and confess. This is not an arbitrary topic, culled from the massive crop of ideas neatly filed in a drawer in my home. This is really about coffee.
My coffeepot doesn't work. There's something wrong with the water intake, so when you turn it on it makes that gurgling noise that signals the last sips of water being sucked up, even though there is a full reservoir of water in the machine, waiting to be run through and turned into liquid gold. It's probably hard water deposits, somewhere inside the tube, because it can be fixed by running vinegar through the Cleaning cycle -- it has a cleaning cycle, which I think just makes it go slowly and maybe a little hotter than normal so as to melt away any dirt or coffee oil residue. This happened for the first time last week, and then again today.
The coffee machine is six weeks old.
Now, I admit to drinking a lot of coffee. No, scratch that; I drink an inhuman amount of coffee. It is no mistake that my online handle, for years, has been "Coffeesaint" or some permutation thereof. I invented, and celebrate, Coffee Day (February 11 -- join the fun!). I drink something like 6 pints of coffee a day -- that would be around 20 cups if I used a normal sized mug, the kind they serve coffee in at Denny's or IHOP -- and on days when I'm tired or crabby, I can hit the gallon mark. I started drinking coffee regularly when I was 18, and for the last 15 years, not one day has gone by that I have not had coffee. So as you can imagine, my coffee maker gets quite a lot of use, since my wife also drinks what most people would consider a lot of coffee on top of what gets poured down my own bottomless coffee-hole. I can understand that my coffee maker will break down sooner than it would in other people's households.
But six weeks?
We have gone through three coffeepots in the last year, five in the last five years. The last four pots have all come from Wal* Mart, mainly because that is the only large retail store in town, but also because of the monetary impatience I described above. I really don't want to wait to get a new coffeepot. I don't want to do without coffee, and I like my morning routine of waking up, turning on the coffeepot (I grind beans and pour water the night before, so all I have to do is hit the button) and then getting in the shower, coming out to fresh coffee. I don't want to boil water and pour it into a French press or something like that, some low-tech version of a coffeepot that would last many more years without breaking, but would take twice the time and thrice the effort to make my morning coffee. I hate that idea. I just want a coffeepot that will last for more than six weeks, or six months, or two years. I want one that will last, with some maintenance and maybe a trip to a repair shop, for twenty years. But I can't find one. At least, I can't find one at a price that will override the momentary temptation of a $29.99 price tag and coffee right now. So I do the same thing everyone else does: I buy that $30 coffee pot and complain.
But here's an interesting thing. Like most people, I hate being a hypocrite. I hate telling people to do one thing and then doing something different myself. When I assign an essay to my English class, for instance, I often write the essay myself. Even though I don't want my dog to eat too many salty snacks, if I get out the box of Cheez-its, I give him one -- because I shouldn't be eating them either, so if I can ignore my health for the sake of a happy belly, why can't he? So now that I have written this little chunk of handy advice, I'm going to have to take it myself. See, I realize that our society is the way it is because we make it so. As I said, there are no decent coffeepots because we don't buy them, because we're not willing to do without, or to make do with some less efficient or easy system. We are willing, even eager, to use shoddy goods and throw them away so long as it spares us some effort, so long as it saves us time. And that's why the goods we buy -- everything from our clothes to our computers to our cars to our food -- are poorly made, overly disposable, and cheap.
My father told me a maxim many years ago, and it's amazed me ever since with how many applications it has in daily life (and he'd love that, because he loves aphorisms -- I think he's always wanted to be Ben Franklin. Or maybe Jesus.). I'm positive that it will come up several times in future columns, and I'm not surprised in the least that it has come up in the first five. The maxim is this: "There are three qualities you can have in any thing you pay for: cheap, fast, and good. You can only have two of them at once. If it's cheap and fast it ain't good, if it's cheap and good it ain't fast, and if it's fast and good it ain't cheap." He told me this in reference to hiring workers, plumbers and electricians and the like, and I've found it to be unfailingly true; in fact, sometimes you can only have one of the three. But you certainly never get more than two. Look at my coffee makers: on the whole, machines are faster than percolators and French presses, so I'm always getting fast as one of my qualities; the only question is whether I want a good machine, or a cheap one. For the last five years, I've consistently made the same choice.
This is a truth that we as a society need to remember. We have spent long enough buying fast and cheap. We need to go back to good, because good things do not get thrown away, and so they do not use up our resources and they do not fill up our countryside with garbage. Of all the things we can do to improve our world, I think this is the easiest, because honestly, it would make us happier if we owned nice things, good things that worked well and didn't need to be replaced while we still have the original receipt stuffed in the checkbook.
So my first piece of advice is this: buy good products. If it means you have to save up for the good products, then save the money; make do for a little while now, and then buy something that will actually make your life easier, and save you money, in the long run instead of just saving you money out of this paycheck and simplifying things right now. And my second piece of advice is this: if you, like me, do some things that you know you shouldn't do, and you let yourself get away with it because it's easier to ignore the issue than fix the problem, then start giving people advice. It's like a nicotine patch for hypocrisy.
Now I have to buy a freaking French press.
That's the best advice I can give. It needs to be said to everyone in this society, including myself. Stop throwing things away.
Because whenever we throw something away and head on down to Wal*Mart to buy a new one, we encourage the culture of consumption that has been gradually built in this country since the 1950's, and perhaps even earlier -- though the scrap metal drives and paper drives and rubber drives and string drives of the WWII era, and the sheer desperation of the Depression before it, lead me to believe that it was indeed the 1950's, still seen by Republicans across the country as the pinnacle of America, that started us down this road.
We should be able to make things that last, and we don't do it. And the only reason we don't do it is because we, as a people, would rather buy something cheap that will only last a short time, and then when it breaks, throw it away and buy a new one. Paper plates, for instance, and paper napkins and Starbucks cups. The only reason we use paper plates is because we can't be bothered to wash the real ones; ditto paper napkins. Oh -- and they're cheaper. But look at what's happened: when was the last time you saw cloth napkins outside of a fine restaurant? Does anyone have cloth napkins any more? Where would you even buy them? Maybe I'm just not paying attention, and cloth napkins abound in the linen aisles which I don't often frequent (Word geek moment: often frequent. That's a fun phrase. Sorry -- back to what I was saying), but I do know that there are a dozen stores that I do frequent, and often (hee hee!), that carry paper napkins. They are the stores I'm in every day, so they are the stores that shape most of my daily purchasing. If they carry paper napkins, chances are good that I'm just going to get paper napkins, and not think about it. And paper plates. And sugar in little paper packets, instead of a bowl. So it goes.
We as a society shape what's in the stores, and then what's in the stores shapes us as a society; it's a kind of biofeedback on a grand scale. When we are given a choice between, say, a $100 toaster that will last for twenty years, and a $30 toaster that will last for two, most of us buy the cheaper toaster, for two reasons: we don't think that far ahead -- the cheap toaster will make toast when I get it home today, and that's as a far as I'm planning -- and we are not willing to wait and save up the $100, or wait and go without the other things we would buy now with the $70 difference. Anyone who can buy the $30 toaster can save up to buy the $100 toaster, but in the interim, there will be no toast -- and we can't abide that. So we buy the cheap toaster, and then when it breaks in two years, we go back out and face the same choice -- and come to the same conclusion: this one will make toast now, and I won't have to wait to spend money elsewhere.
End result? Over twenty years, we spend $300 on toasters, rather than $100. And the landfills are nine toasters closer to overflowing. And the stores stop stocking the $100 toaster, because it doesn't sell, and after twenty years when we lose our patience and just decide to drop the money on a toaster that lasts, we can't find one, and we bewail the fact that nobody builds things that last any longer. Oh, yeah: and the toaster repair shop is out of business, because nobody is going to spend the money to fix a $30 toaster (they would to fix a $100 model) and Wal*Mart has built 3,000 new stores and half of the US's GNP is in Chinese bank accounts.
All right, it's time to stop beating around the bush and confess. This is not an arbitrary topic, culled from the massive crop of ideas neatly filed in a drawer in my home. This is really about coffee.
My coffeepot doesn't work. There's something wrong with the water intake, so when you turn it on it makes that gurgling noise that signals the last sips of water being sucked up, even though there is a full reservoir of water in the machine, waiting to be run through and turned into liquid gold. It's probably hard water deposits, somewhere inside the tube, because it can be fixed by running vinegar through the Cleaning cycle -- it has a cleaning cycle, which I think just makes it go slowly and maybe a little hotter than normal so as to melt away any dirt or coffee oil residue. This happened for the first time last week, and then again today.
The coffee machine is six weeks old.
Now, I admit to drinking a lot of coffee. No, scratch that; I drink an inhuman amount of coffee. It is no mistake that my online handle, for years, has been "Coffeesaint" or some permutation thereof. I invented, and celebrate, Coffee Day (February 11 -- join the fun!). I drink something like 6 pints of coffee a day -- that would be around 20 cups if I used a normal sized mug, the kind they serve coffee in at Denny's or IHOP -- and on days when I'm tired or crabby, I can hit the gallon mark. I started drinking coffee regularly when I was 18, and for the last 15 years, not one day has gone by that I have not had coffee. So as you can imagine, my coffee maker gets quite a lot of use, since my wife also drinks what most people would consider a lot of coffee on top of what gets poured down my own bottomless coffee-hole. I can understand that my coffee maker will break down sooner than it would in other people's households.
But six weeks?
We have gone through three coffeepots in the last year, five in the last five years. The last four pots have all come from Wal* Mart, mainly because that is the only large retail store in town, but also because of the monetary impatience I described above. I really don't want to wait to get a new coffeepot. I don't want to do without coffee, and I like my morning routine of waking up, turning on the coffeepot (I grind beans and pour water the night before, so all I have to do is hit the button) and then getting in the shower, coming out to fresh coffee. I don't want to boil water and pour it into a French press or something like that, some low-tech version of a coffeepot that would last many more years without breaking, but would take twice the time and thrice the effort to make my morning coffee. I hate that idea. I just want a coffeepot that will last for more than six weeks, or six months, or two years. I want one that will last, with some maintenance and maybe a trip to a repair shop, for twenty years. But I can't find one. At least, I can't find one at a price that will override the momentary temptation of a $29.99 price tag and coffee right now. So I do the same thing everyone else does: I buy that $30 coffee pot and complain.
But here's an interesting thing. Like most people, I hate being a hypocrite. I hate telling people to do one thing and then doing something different myself. When I assign an essay to my English class, for instance, I often write the essay myself. Even though I don't want my dog to eat too many salty snacks, if I get out the box of Cheez-its, I give him one -- because I shouldn't be eating them either, so if I can ignore my health for the sake of a happy belly, why can't he? So now that I have written this little chunk of handy advice, I'm going to have to take it myself. See, I realize that our society is the way it is because we make it so. As I said, there are no decent coffeepots because we don't buy them, because we're not willing to do without, or to make do with some less efficient or easy system. We are willing, even eager, to use shoddy goods and throw them away so long as it spares us some effort, so long as it saves us time. And that's why the goods we buy -- everything from our clothes to our computers to our cars to our food -- are poorly made, overly disposable, and cheap.
My father told me a maxim many years ago, and it's amazed me ever since with how many applications it has in daily life (and he'd love that, because he loves aphorisms -- I think he's always wanted to be Ben Franklin. Or maybe Jesus.). I'm positive that it will come up several times in future columns, and I'm not surprised in the least that it has come up in the first five. The maxim is this: "There are three qualities you can have in any thing you pay for: cheap, fast, and good. You can only have two of them at once. If it's cheap and fast it ain't good, if it's cheap and good it ain't fast, and if it's fast and good it ain't cheap." He told me this in reference to hiring workers, plumbers and electricians and the like, and I've found it to be unfailingly true; in fact, sometimes you can only have one of the three. But you certainly never get more than two. Look at my coffee makers: on the whole, machines are faster than percolators and French presses, so I'm always getting fast as one of my qualities; the only question is whether I want a good machine, or a cheap one. For the last five years, I've consistently made the same choice.
This is a truth that we as a society need to remember. We have spent long enough buying fast and cheap. We need to go back to good, because good things do not get thrown away, and so they do not use up our resources and they do not fill up our countryside with garbage. Of all the things we can do to improve our world, I think this is the easiest, because honestly, it would make us happier if we owned nice things, good things that worked well and didn't need to be replaced while we still have the original receipt stuffed in the checkbook.
So my first piece of advice is this: buy good products. If it means you have to save up for the good products, then save the money; make do for a little while now, and then buy something that will actually make your life easier, and save you money, in the long run instead of just saving you money out of this paycheck and simplifying things right now. And my second piece of advice is this: if you, like me, do some things that you know you shouldn't do, and you let yourself get away with it because it's easier to ignore the issue than fix the problem, then start giving people advice. It's like a nicotine patch for hypocrisy.
Now I have to buy a freaking French press.
Monday, January 14, 2008
Shotgun!
There's something I'd like to do sometimes with this little serial, which I'm calling shotgun advice. I'm just going to throw a few dozen pellets out there, without taking careful aim, and hope that a couple of them hit something vital.
To kids today: your slang is stupid. Don't feel bad; my slang was stupid when I was your age, and my parents' slang was stupid, as well. Everybody's is, I think (Though I wonder if kids in the Middle Ages had slang. "Thou sucketh?"). When I was young, the word of choice was "mint," meaning cool -- though not necessarily also meaning "refreshing and tangy," for some reason. I don't know which York Peppermint Patty fanatic slipped that one into the language, but we used it anyway. At my high school, one of the more common and inexplicable words was "mush" (pronounced like "push"). The term was used in place of "dude" or "guy" or "man," as in the following exchange:
"Mush!"
"What's up, mush?"
"Mush, where are you going for lunch?"
"I don't know, mush."
There were subtleties of usage, of course; not everybody was a mush, though if you were a mush, you called everybody mush. Except for the one guy who called everybody "chooch." The term did not often apply to girls, but when it did, it was often changed to "mushette" or "mush-chick."
This is stupid slang. But no less stupid than that of today. So listen up, kids: "dank" is not a positive word; it means moldy, damp, cold and uncomfortable. "Pimp" is also not a positive term, despite the admirable propaganda work of Jay-Z and P. Diddy. A pimp is a man that turns people into slaves, selling their bodies for his profit and enforcing his will with violence. It is not a good thing to be. Among the nerd set, "noob" has seen its day come and go; it has been pwned.
I beg of you. Be better than my generation, than the generations of the past. Choose slang words that actually make sense, that offer a subtle shade of meaning that is not available with more common words. And if you can't think of any of those, just say "cool" and call it good.
To those who own the marquee signs along Highway 30, between St. Helens and Scappoose: learn spelling and grammar. "Blizzard" has two z's. It's "wrestling," not "wreslting." "In your beginning put God" is too mystifying to even hazard a correction. And puns are not your friends.
To whoever ding-dong-ditched my house on Halloween night last year: get a hobby. Or at least some eggs. Your weapon of chaos and rebellion is my doorbell? That's just sad.
To McDonald's: stop trying to invent new food to sell. There is no new meat, so any new product that you create is highly suspicious; if you combine meats in one product any more than you already have, you are selling a heart attack on a sesame seed bun. Oh, and you are not a gourmet coffee store. Look, you sell hamburgers and French fries. If you want more customers, lower your prices or improve your quality.
To the City of St. Helens: as long as your riverfront downtown area is dominated visually by the mill and its chainlinked scrub-brushed vacant lot, and as long as it smells of spoiled Brussels sprouts, it will never be a booming retail district. Stop trying to create new festivals to bring in tourists and deal with the issue.
To my dog: stop rolling your eyes open while you are twitching in the depths of some doggy dream of slow squirrels and mounds of table scraps. Especially when you are lying in the bed with your head right next to mine. You look possessed. It's disturbing. Seriously.
To the City of St. Helens again: the fact that you won an award in 1958 is no longer impressive, but rather depressing, because it hasn't happened again in the fifty years since then. Take that sign along Highway 30 down before there's a pileup caused by people pointing and laughing.
To people who advertise their religious affiliation through bumperstickers, t-shirts, baseball caps and Jesus fish: have some dignity. Your religious beliefs are a part of your own identity, and thus something that should be of your own concern, not the concern of people facing you or behind your car. If you gain pride from those beliefs, make it the quiet pride that comes closest to the virtue of humility, prized by every major religion above almost any other quality a person could have. You are never going to convert or inspire anyone with that decal reading "Jesus Died For Your Sins," and my eyes are tired from all the rolling.
To the men of this area: it is possible to have hair longer than a quarter of an inch and still function. It can even be attractive. You really don't need to wear a baseball cap every single day of your life. But if you do, when the cap gets torn or dirty, get a new one. And if you are a teenaged boy, don't wear your hat with the bill cocked to the side. It's one of the stupidest fashion trends that has ever existed, and I'm including mullets, powdered wigs, and bustles when I say that.
To the women of this area: if you're going to have long hair, you don't always have to pull it back into a ponytail so tight that your eyes migrate to the sides of your head. If you want to keep your hair out of your face, why not cut it short? Try something new. Oh, and if your hair is not naturally straight, ironing it does not make it look good. It looks plastic, unnatural -- carved, rather than styled. It's a mistake. There's nothing wrong with curly hair.
To parents and grandparents: make the kids work for their expensive possessions. If the kid wants an X-Box, make him earn the money for it. Encourage him by buying him games. If your kid wants a cellphone, make him or her buy it -- or you buy it, but have the kid pay the bill. Ditto with a car. Nobody is better off when kids are spoiled. You want to feel good because you spent money? Donate to charity, buy a hybrid car, shop locally instead of buying shoddy goods from Wal-Mart. Spoil your kids by making the world a better place.
To myself: clean out your damn car. It's been months. And try not to be so judgmental.
To kids today: your slang is stupid. Don't feel bad; my slang was stupid when I was your age, and my parents' slang was stupid, as well. Everybody's is, I think (Though I wonder if kids in the Middle Ages had slang. "Thou sucketh?"). When I was young, the word of choice was "mint," meaning cool -- though not necessarily also meaning "refreshing and tangy," for some reason. I don't know which York Peppermint Patty fanatic slipped that one into the language, but we used it anyway. At my high school, one of the more common and inexplicable words was "mush" (pronounced like "push"). The term was used in place of "dude" or "guy" or "man," as in the following exchange:
"Mush!"
"What's up, mush?"
"Mush, where are you going for lunch?"
"I don't know, mush."
There were subtleties of usage, of course; not everybody was a mush, though if you were a mush, you called everybody mush. Except for the one guy who called everybody "chooch." The term did not often apply to girls, but when it did, it was often changed to "mushette" or "mush-chick."
This is stupid slang. But no less stupid than that of today. So listen up, kids: "dank" is not a positive word; it means moldy, damp, cold and uncomfortable. "Pimp" is also not a positive term, despite the admirable propaganda work of Jay-Z and P. Diddy. A pimp is a man that turns people into slaves, selling their bodies for his profit and enforcing his will with violence. It is not a good thing to be. Among the nerd set, "noob" has seen its day come and go; it has been pwned.
I beg of you. Be better than my generation, than the generations of the past. Choose slang words that actually make sense, that offer a subtle shade of meaning that is not available with more common words. And if you can't think of any of those, just say "cool" and call it good.
To those who own the marquee signs along Highway 30, between St. Helens and Scappoose: learn spelling and grammar. "Blizzard" has two z's. It's "wrestling," not "wreslting." "In your beginning put God" is too mystifying to even hazard a correction. And puns are not your friends.
To whoever ding-dong-ditched my house on Halloween night last year: get a hobby. Or at least some eggs. Your weapon of chaos and rebellion is my doorbell? That's just sad.
To McDonald's: stop trying to invent new food to sell. There is no new meat, so any new product that you create is highly suspicious; if you combine meats in one product any more than you already have, you are selling a heart attack on a sesame seed bun. Oh, and you are not a gourmet coffee store. Look, you sell hamburgers and French fries. If you want more customers, lower your prices or improve your quality.
To the City of St. Helens: as long as your riverfront downtown area is dominated visually by the mill and its chainlinked scrub-brushed vacant lot, and as long as it smells of spoiled Brussels sprouts, it will never be a booming retail district. Stop trying to create new festivals to bring in tourists and deal with the issue.
To my dog: stop rolling your eyes open while you are twitching in the depths of some doggy dream of slow squirrels and mounds of table scraps. Especially when you are lying in the bed with your head right next to mine. You look possessed. It's disturbing. Seriously.
To the City of St. Helens again: the fact that you won an award in 1958 is no longer impressive, but rather depressing, because it hasn't happened again in the fifty years since then. Take that sign along Highway 30 down before there's a pileup caused by people pointing and laughing.
To people who advertise their religious affiliation through bumperstickers, t-shirts, baseball caps and Jesus fish: have some dignity. Your religious beliefs are a part of your own identity, and thus something that should be of your own concern, not the concern of people facing you or behind your car. If you gain pride from those beliefs, make it the quiet pride that comes closest to the virtue of humility, prized by every major religion above almost any other quality a person could have. You are never going to convert or inspire anyone with that decal reading "Jesus Died For Your Sins," and my eyes are tired from all the rolling.
To the men of this area: it is possible to have hair longer than a quarter of an inch and still function. It can even be attractive. You really don't need to wear a baseball cap every single day of your life. But if you do, when the cap gets torn or dirty, get a new one. And if you are a teenaged boy, don't wear your hat with the bill cocked to the side. It's one of the stupidest fashion trends that has ever existed, and I'm including mullets, powdered wigs, and bustles when I say that.
To the women of this area: if you're going to have long hair, you don't always have to pull it back into a ponytail so tight that your eyes migrate to the sides of your head. If you want to keep your hair out of your face, why not cut it short? Try something new. Oh, and if your hair is not naturally straight, ironing it does not make it look good. It looks plastic, unnatural -- carved, rather than styled. It's a mistake. There's nothing wrong with curly hair.
To parents and grandparents: make the kids work for their expensive possessions. If the kid wants an X-Box, make him earn the money for it. Encourage him by buying him games. If your kid wants a cellphone, make him or her buy it -- or you buy it, but have the kid pay the bill. Ditto with a car. Nobody is better off when kids are spoiled. You want to feel good because you spent money? Donate to charity, buy a hybrid car, shop locally instead of buying shoddy goods from Wal-Mart. Spoil your kids by making the world a better place.
To myself: clean out your damn car. It's been months. And try not to be so judgmental.
Tuesday, January 8, 2008
The Ravings of a Mad Optimist
I woke up this morning and I was scared. Maybe I had a bad dream, I don't know; I don't ever remember my dreams. Except the one about a stuffed penguin riding a two-horned unicorn (Hey, do your dreams always make sense?) down the wall of the Grand Canyon before diving into the river, which, instead of water, was made of Tang. That one I remember. But that's neither here nor there; whether it was a dream or not, I woke up scared. As usual.
I am normally a fairly optimistic person; I believe that every year is going to be better than the year before, that every day, if not better, at least won't be much worse -- or if it is, the next day will be better again. Perhaps because of this, I have led a fairly happy life, without any serious illness or injury or mishap; I say "because of this" not because I believe in the power of positive thinking to improve one's fortunes, but because a half-full-glass viewpoint tends to make me shrug at misfortunes that might have other people wailing and ripping out their hair.
But despite my optimism -- or again, perhaps because of it; maybe my positive outlook is really only a thin veneer over a seething mass of anxiety, which I suppress in order to keep looking at the bright side, but which comes out when I'm asleep, when my subconscious is in charge -- I wake up nervous a lot of the time. Mornings are when I worry about work, about money, about my family. The biggest part of the problem is that I wake up too early; it's hard to look on the bright side when the clock reads 5:00 am. And when I do wake up early, I try to go back to sleep (which never works) and so I end up lying in the dark, trying to be still, while imaginings of unfortunate events creep back into my skull despite all I can do to distract myself. This morning, for instance, I suddenly became worried about suffering an accident -- being hit by a car on my morning walk to work, to be specific -- and not being able to work. I'm the sole financial support for my family, and while my employer would pay disability insurance, it doesn't start until one has been off of work for -- I couldn't remember if it was 60 or 90 days, or if my accumulated sick leave would cover it. I worried about losing the house, having to declare bankruptcy; I also worried a little about having to go back to work in a wheelchair, which I could do, but would just add to the already maddening frustration level of my job.
Now: why was I worried about this? I'm very careful on my walk to work, and I am only walking on the street for a few hundred yards here and there; most of my route goes through parks and parking lots, and down safe, wide sidewalks. People don't drive that fast or that dangerously down neighborhood streets at 7:45 in the morning, and the chances of me being disabled by an accident are actually quite slim. I drive as safely as I walk, and far less frequently, and I have no dangerous hobbies -- barring a severe mauling at the hands of a book. Maybe I'll fall asleep while reading a hardbound edition of the Complete Works of Shakespeare (Yeah, right -- try JK Rowling or Jim Butcher) and it will break my head, or suffocate me and cause brain damage.
But realistically, I'm pretty safe. That never stops those early morning worries, of course, because no matter how safe I am in my habits, bad things can always happen. I know this, so I couldn't talk myself out of fretting about this. And I thought, if I had that time machine, I'd go back to my own past and tell myself: everything's okay. And I'd keep doing that, every ten years or so; just popping up on my past self's doorstep to say, "Everything's okay. Don't worry." I wouldn't want to know the specifics of my future, when loved ones will die, when I will die, how successful I will be, or won't be; I wouldn't want to become obsessed with trying to escape my future doom, nor would I want to wait impatiently for my future happiness. I've read plenty of stories about people who make one of those two mistakes -- either work to change their future, or sit back and wait for the good life -- and messed everything up, either by bringing about the fate they wished to avoid, or destroying any chance of present happiness through fixation on the future. So I wouldn't want to know what's going to come. But I would like to hear that everything's going to be okay.
Here's what happens when I wake up and worry: I lay in bed and try to change the pattern of my thoughts for a while, pretending that I might go back to sleep, until the clock tells me it's a reasonable time to get up -- generally between 5:30 and 6:00, in my case. Then I get up, and somewhere between getting in the shower and getting my coffee, I stop worrying. Either I manage to think about something else, something both more tangible and happier than vague worries about possible future turmoil; or I realize how foolish my worries are, and end up laughing at myself. Which I hear is very healthy. Though I wonder why laughing at one's self is good for us when the laughter of others is so harmful to our self-esteem. Is there that much difference between being humble and being humbled?
Anyway, this morning I realized how foolish my worries were. I pointed out to myself, more strongly now that there was light and caffeine and no clock shining red-numbered early morning hours in my peripheral vision, that I have no cause to worry about becoming disabled, and I could certainly find money to tide my family over until disability insurance kicked in or I could go back to work (More likely, my wife would find money by working; this most reasonable scenario was axed in the darkness this morning by the thought, "But she'd need to stay home and take care of me," as the disabling car injury in my imagination apparently turned into the artillery shell that got Johnny in Johnny Got His Gun [a.k.a. "One" by Metallica].). Then, because I like to pound the nail home when I talk myself out of my worries, I thought, more realistically than 5:00 am allows, about the worst case scenario that I had been imagining. What if I were disabled? And what if we did lose the house? What if we did have to declare bankruptcy? What exactly would happen?
Because we have family, we would have a place to go; because we have college educations and a willingness to work, we would be able to find jobs, even if it were menial work on the order of Make $4000 a week stuffing envelopes!!! or "Do you want fries with that?" If we lost the house I wouldn't have to pay the mortgage or insurance or property tax, and I wouldn't have a never-ending list of chores and improvement projects staring me in the face every weekend and every vacation. I would have more free time -- more freedom -- than I will ever have as a homeowner. If we declared bankruptcy we'd lose all chance of getting credit for the next several years -- but that also means we'd be able to stay out of debt, because we would never be able to live beyond our means. It would make us less material, less able to acquire things and thus less concerned with how much we have acquired and how much we have not. We would be able to serve as examples that our society's standard of conspicuous consumption is not healthy: mentally, physically, emotionally, or spiritually. We'd be better people, living a better life and making a better world. No matter how disabled I may become, I would still be able to read, and still be able to write, and that's really all I want to do for a living. Everything would be fine.
Hey, I told you I was an optimist.
And then I realized. I can always do that. No matter how bad the outcome may be, I can always point out the positive aspect of it. If one of my loved ones dies, I will still have the others, I will still have my own life; I will be able to remember the one I lost, to honor them and live how they would have wanted me to live. If I lose all of my loved ones, there would be others out there who would love me, if I wanted them to; otherwise I could live with my memories. And if my suffering got so bad that I couldn't bear to live with it, then death would be a blessing, wouldn't it? As long as there is something positive in life then it is worth living, and can be enjoyed; if there is nothing left to live for, death is nothing to fear.
So what it comes down to is this. I don't need the time machine. I don't need ten-year updates from my future self. I already know: everything's going to be okay.
I am normally a fairly optimistic person; I believe that every year is going to be better than the year before, that every day, if not better, at least won't be much worse -- or if it is, the next day will be better again. Perhaps because of this, I have led a fairly happy life, without any serious illness or injury or mishap; I say "because of this" not because I believe in the power of positive thinking to improve one's fortunes, but because a half-full-glass viewpoint tends to make me shrug at misfortunes that might have other people wailing and ripping out their hair.
But despite my optimism -- or again, perhaps because of it; maybe my positive outlook is really only a thin veneer over a seething mass of anxiety, which I suppress in order to keep looking at the bright side, but which comes out when I'm asleep, when my subconscious is in charge -- I wake up nervous a lot of the time. Mornings are when I worry about work, about money, about my family. The biggest part of the problem is that I wake up too early; it's hard to look on the bright side when the clock reads 5:00 am. And when I do wake up early, I try to go back to sleep (which never works) and so I end up lying in the dark, trying to be still, while imaginings of unfortunate events creep back into my skull despite all I can do to distract myself. This morning, for instance, I suddenly became worried about suffering an accident -- being hit by a car on my morning walk to work, to be specific -- and not being able to work. I'm the sole financial support for my family, and while my employer would pay disability insurance, it doesn't start until one has been off of work for -- I couldn't remember if it was 60 or 90 days, or if my accumulated sick leave would cover it. I worried about losing the house, having to declare bankruptcy; I also worried a little about having to go back to work in a wheelchair, which I could do, but would just add to the already maddening frustration level of my job.
Now: why was I worried about this? I'm very careful on my walk to work, and I am only walking on the street for a few hundred yards here and there; most of my route goes through parks and parking lots, and down safe, wide sidewalks. People don't drive that fast or that dangerously down neighborhood streets at 7:45 in the morning, and the chances of me being disabled by an accident are actually quite slim. I drive as safely as I walk, and far less frequently, and I have no dangerous hobbies -- barring a severe mauling at the hands of a book. Maybe I'll fall asleep while reading a hardbound edition of the Complete Works of Shakespeare (Yeah, right -- try JK Rowling or Jim Butcher) and it will break my head, or suffocate me and cause brain damage.
But realistically, I'm pretty safe. That never stops those early morning worries, of course, because no matter how safe I am in my habits, bad things can always happen. I know this, so I couldn't talk myself out of fretting about this. And I thought, if I had that time machine, I'd go back to my own past and tell myself: everything's okay. And I'd keep doing that, every ten years or so; just popping up on my past self's doorstep to say, "Everything's okay. Don't worry." I wouldn't want to know the specifics of my future, when loved ones will die, when I will die, how successful I will be, or won't be; I wouldn't want to become obsessed with trying to escape my future doom, nor would I want to wait impatiently for my future happiness. I've read plenty of stories about people who make one of those two mistakes -- either work to change their future, or sit back and wait for the good life -- and messed everything up, either by bringing about the fate they wished to avoid, or destroying any chance of present happiness through fixation on the future. So I wouldn't want to know what's going to come. But I would like to hear that everything's going to be okay.
Here's what happens when I wake up and worry: I lay in bed and try to change the pattern of my thoughts for a while, pretending that I might go back to sleep, until the clock tells me it's a reasonable time to get up -- generally between 5:30 and 6:00, in my case. Then I get up, and somewhere between getting in the shower and getting my coffee, I stop worrying. Either I manage to think about something else, something both more tangible and happier than vague worries about possible future turmoil; or I realize how foolish my worries are, and end up laughing at myself. Which I hear is very healthy. Though I wonder why laughing at one's self is good for us when the laughter of others is so harmful to our self-esteem. Is there that much difference between being humble and being humbled?
Anyway, this morning I realized how foolish my worries were. I pointed out to myself, more strongly now that there was light and caffeine and no clock shining red-numbered early morning hours in my peripheral vision, that I have no cause to worry about becoming disabled, and I could certainly find money to tide my family over until disability insurance kicked in or I could go back to work (More likely, my wife would find money by working; this most reasonable scenario was axed in the darkness this morning by the thought, "But she'd need to stay home and take care of me," as the disabling car injury in my imagination apparently turned into the artillery shell that got Johnny in Johnny Got His Gun [a.k.a. "One" by Metallica].). Then, because I like to pound the nail home when I talk myself out of my worries, I thought, more realistically than 5:00 am allows, about the worst case scenario that I had been imagining. What if I were disabled? And what if we did lose the house? What if we did have to declare bankruptcy? What exactly would happen?
Because we have family, we would have a place to go; because we have college educations and a willingness to work, we would be able to find jobs, even if it were menial work on the order of Make $4000 a week stuffing envelopes!!! or "Do you want fries with that?" If we lost the house I wouldn't have to pay the mortgage or insurance or property tax, and I wouldn't have a never-ending list of chores and improvement projects staring me in the face every weekend and every vacation. I would have more free time -- more freedom -- than I will ever have as a homeowner. If we declared bankruptcy we'd lose all chance of getting credit for the next several years -- but that also means we'd be able to stay out of debt, because we would never be able to live beyond our means. It would make us less material, less able to acquire things and thus less concerned with how much we have acquired and how much we have not. We would be able to serve as examples that our society's standard of conspicuous consumption is not healthy: mentally, physically, emotionally, or spiritually. We'd be better people, living a better life and making a better world. No matter how disabled I may become, I would still be able to read, and still be able to write, and that's really all I want to do for a living. Everything would be fine.
Hey, I told you I was an optimist.
And then I realized. I can always do that. No matter how bad the outcome may be, I can always point out the positive aspect of it. If one of my loved ones dies, I will still have the others, I will still have my own life; I will be able to remember the one I lost, to honor them and live how they would have wanted me to live. If I lose all of my loved ones, there would be others out there who would love me, if I wanted them to; otherwise I could live with my memories. And if my suffering got so bad that I couldn't bear to live with it, then death would be a blessing, wouldn't it? As long as there is something positive in life then it is worth living, and can be enjoyed; if there is nothing left to live for, death is nothing to fear.
So what it comes down to is this. I don't need the time machine. I don't need ten-year updates from my future self. I already know: everything's going to be okay.
Sunday, January 6, 2008
Resolved
Happy new year! Tak a cup o'kindness, fer the sake of auld lang syne. Gather round and watch the Bowl Games. Drink champagne, watch the ball drop, kiss someone you love at midnight.
I hope that everyone got a chance to do any or all of those things on the last night of 2007, and the first day of 2008. But I also hope that nobody made a New Year's Resolution. In fact, that will be my first use of the time machine: I will flirt with paradox and play footsie with the space-time continuum (How cool is it that there are words that have two u's together? Continuum! Vacuum!) by going back to the same day, over and over and over again, doubling and trebling and quadrupling myself in order to catch everyone I can on New Year's Eve, so that I can try to convince everyone: don't.
Don't promise to lose weight. Don't swear off alcohol or cigarettes or chocolate. Don't make that champagne-infused oath to be a nicer person, to be a meaner person, to work harder, to work less, to find a lover or to lose a dozen. That is, make any, all of those promises -- just don't do it on December 31.
The New Year is one of the more artificial demarcations there is -- right up there with Leap Year and Daylight Savings Time. The old year vanishes, and there is a clean slate! We start fresh! Yeah, right: you go to sleep under a cloudy/rainy/snowy/sleety sky, and wake up under the same. The nights are still long, the days are still short; the air is still cold. Public school students are (generally speaking) returning to school still in the first semester, or halfway through the second trimester; university students are only halfway through their winter break. If you were 38 when 2007 ended, you are 38 when 2008 begins (Unless January 1 is your birthday, but that puts you into a different category. So siddown, nitpicker.). Tell me, please, other than your calendar (16-month calendars are hereby discounted -- vile heresies they are.), what changes between December 31 and January 1?
When you make a life-changing resolution, when you decide that things are going to be different, it needs to feel like it. You need to feel as though things really are different, as though you have changed and now you are seeing the world through different eyes: now you are a non-smoker! An exerciser! A teetotaler! Things should not feel just as they did the night before -- and a January 1 champagne hangover is not enough of a shift in perception. If you make a change in your basic daily routine, then the day after you make that change needs to be a new day -- otherwise you will not feel the change, and as countless diet industry millionaires can attest, if you do not feel the change, you will not change. You may change for a little while, but slowly you will shift back into your former routine.
Life is a rut in the road. Most of the time, we run along in our little ruts, moving forward, pretty much content, occasionally jumping up to get a glimpse of what is outside the rut. Sometimes, when we decide we no longer enjoy this particular rut, we can try to jump out of the rut; this is what a resolution is, a rut jump. But if all you do is jump to the top of the rut and keep running along the edge of the same old rut, sooner or later you're going to ooze right back in, and be right back where you started -- probably just in time for New Year's Eve, 2008, and a brand new, though equally futile, champagne-fueled guilt-charged rut jump. To get out of your rut and stay out, you have to find a new rut.
What this means is just that you have to change yourself before you can change your habits, and to change yourself takes real willpower. You have to want to be different, because if you don't really want to be different, you're not going to change. It seems so obvious, but vast self-improvement industries have been built on resolution recidivism, the tendency to change one's life without really changing one's self, an attempt that is almost always doomed to be repeated, over and over again, at great personal and financial cost.
If you want to change, then don't wait for a new calendar. Change when the time feels right to you. Listen to your own will, your own heart and mind. Take that day, whatever day it is that you wake up feeling like a new person, and count from there; that is the beginning of your New Year, of your year as the person you want to be. The day that you choose, for yourself, is always more meaningful than the one that is chosen for you. Want proof? Think of the difference between Valentine's Day, the artificially chosen Day To Prove Your Love (also known as Hallmark Day, also known as Day the Catholic Church Wanted to Take Away From Pagans Who Had Yet Another Fertility Festival That Week [cf. Roman feast of Lupercal], also known as Day To Be Jealous Of All the Kids With More Cards In Their Construction Paper Letter Box Than You, Those Jerkfaces) and your anniversary. Which day seems more precious? Which has more thought behind it, the heart-shaped box of chocolates or the anniversary gift? When do you feel a greater difference in your world view, on February 15 -- or the day after your wedding night?
If you are one of those people who actually feel a difference between December 31 of one year and January 1 of the next, then please: ignore what I have said. Hold up a hand for silence, and point me back to my time machine: a New Year's Resolution is perfectly valid for you. If your birthday falls on the first day of the New Year, then perhaps you, like millions of others, feel a real difference on the morning when your age officially rolls over to the next number; you, too, are free to resolve to change with the coming of the new year of your life. But for the rest of you, forget the New Year. Celebrate it, sure; reminisce about the old year, look forward to the new year. But don't expect to change yourself as easily as you change the calendar. Pick your own first day, and look forward to your own chosen anniversary.
And by the way: if you picked February 14 as your wedding day, you need to get a life.
I hope that everyone got a chance to do any or all of those things on the last night of 2007, and the first day of 2008. But I also hope that nobody made a New Year's Resolution. In fact, that will be my first use of the time machine: I will flirt with paradox and play footsie with the space-time continuum (How cool is it that there are words that have two u's together? Continuum! Vacuum!) by going back to the same day, over and over and over again, doubling and trebling and quadrupling myself in order to catch everyone I can on New Year's Eve, so that I can try to convince everyone: don't.
Don't promise to lose weight. Don't swear off alcohol or cigarettes or chocolate. Don't make that champagne-infused oath to be a nicer person, to be a meaner person, to work harder, to work less, to find a lover or to lose a dozen. That is, make any, all of those promises -- just don't do it on December 31.
The New Year is one of the more artificial demarcations there is -- right up there with Leap Year and Daylight Savings Time. The old year vanishes, and there is a clean slate! We start fresh! Yeah, right: you go to sleep under a cloudy/rainy/snowy/sleety sky, and wake up under the same. The nights are still long, the days are still short; the air is still cold. Public school students are (generally speaking) returning to school still in the first semester, or halfway through the second trimester; university students are only halfway through their winter break. If you were 38 when 2007 ended, you are 38 when 2008 begins (Unless January 1 is your birthday, but that puts you into a different category. So siddown, nitpicker.). Tell me, please, other than your calendar (16-month calendars are hereby discounted -- vile heresies they are.), what changes between December 31 and January 1?
When you make a life-changing resolution, when you decide that things are going to be different, it needs to feel like it. You need to feel as though things really are different, as though you have changed and now you are seeing the world through different eyes: now you are a non-smoker! An exerciser! A teetotaler! Things should not feel just as they did the night before -- and a January 1 champagne hangover is not enough of a shift in perception. If you make a change in your basic daily routine, then the day after you make that change needs to be a new day -- otherwise you will not feel the change, and as countless diet industry millionaires can attest, if you do not feel the change, you will not change. You may change for a little while, but slowly you will shift back into your former routine.
Life is a rut in the road. Most of the time, we run along in our little ruts, moving forward, pretty much content, occasionally jumping up to get a glimpse of what is outside the rut. Sometimes, when we decide we no longer enjoy this particular rut, we can try to jump out of the rut; this is what a resolution is, a rut jump. But if all you do is jump to the top of the rut and keep running along the edge of the same old rut, sooner or later you're going to ooze right back in, and be right back where you started -- probably just in time for New Year's Eve, 2008, and a brand new, though equally futile, champagne-fueled guilt-charged rut jump. To get out of your rut and stay out, you have to find a new rut.
What this means is just that you have to change yourself before you can change your habits, and to change yourself takes real willpower. You have to want to be different, because if you don't really want to be different, you're not going to change. It seems so obvious, but vast self-improvement industries have been built on resolution recidivism, the tendency to change one's life without really changing one's self, an attempt that is almost always doomed to be repeated, over and over again, at great personal and financial cost.
If you want to change, then don't wait for a new calendar. Change when the time feels right to you. Listen to your own will, your own heart and mind. Take that day, whatever day it is that you wake up feeling like a new person, and count from there; that is the beginning of your New Year, of your year as the person you want to be. The day that you choose, for yourself, is always more meaningful than the one that is chosen for you. Want proof? Think of the difference between Valentine's Day, the artificially chosen Day To Prove Your Love (also known as Hallmark Day, also known as Day the Catholic Church Wanted to Take Away From Pagans Who Had Yet Another Fertility Festival That Week [cf. Roman feast of Lupercal], also known as Day To Be Jealous Of All the Kids With More Cards In Their Construction Paper Letter Box Than You, Those Jerkfaces) and your anniversary. Which day seems more precious? Which has more thought behind it, the heart-shaped box of chocolates or the anniversary gift? When do you feel a greater difference in your world view, on February 15 -- or the day after your wedding night?
If you are one of those people who actually feel a difference between December 31 of one year and January 1 of the next, then please: ignore what I have said. Hold up a hand for silence, and point me back to my time machine: a New Year's Resolution is perfectly valid for you. If your birthday falls on the first day of the New Year, then perhaps you, like millions of others, feel a real difference on the morning when your age officially rolls over to the next number; you, too, are free to resolve to change with the coming of the new year of your life. But for the rest of you, forget the New Year. Celebrate it, sure; reminisce about the old year, look forward to the new year. But don't expect to change yourself as easily as you change the calendar. Pick your own first day, and look forward to your own chosen anniversary.
And by the way: if you picked February 14 as your wedding day, you need to get a life.
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