When I’m walking down a well-lit, semi-populated street, striding purposefully and as unthreateningly as one can without crawling, and someone I pass eyes me warily and gives me an unnecessarily wide berth, sometimes I feel like going up to that person and thrusting my elbow straight into his face. You know, a back-sweeping blow, with absolute and inexplicable malice, trying to break the nose or something.
I never do it, of course, continuing to walk purposefully and giving no outward indication of the impulse. I may even feel somewhat guilty about the unwarranted animosity as I continue on my way before the thought completely passes and my mind moves on to contemplate something that’s probably equally unfit for admitting to people on a website.
I suppose the motivation, on some unconscious, testosterone-inspired level, stems from the sense that this person’s paranoia is practically begging for something threatening to occur; animals can smell fear and apparently so can I. The world has so conditioned my unwitting pseudo-prey to operate as though everything is out to get him that it’s almost as though doing nothing is letting him down. I mean, if the Bush administration’s insistence that “America is safer” has not put him at ease, I am sure that making eye contact and smiling innocently wouldn’t have much effect on his outlook. However, I bet justifying his distrust of strangers would, on some level, provide a sort of satisfaction; it wasn’t all for nothing that he comported himself as he did.
Undoubtedly the irritation I feel also springs from the impression that, despite all of my subtle efforts to seem at least not untrustworthy, I have been lumped in with those scoundrels who flaunt their machismo in their gait, presumably wishing to instill such fear. I suppose I could revel in such glowing success in the absence of any effort whatsoever, but really, as this essay reveals, I’m plenty capable of being off-putting when you get to know me; I don’t need the uninformed paranoia of strangers helping me there.
The irony (let’s overuse that term), of course, comes from the fact I’ve never been in a real fistfight my entire life, and anyone who has even so much as seen an episode of a sitcom where the protagonist attends a beginning self-defense class could almost certainly take me down without wrinkling his clothes. Perhaps that sub-conscious realization on my part, when combined with the perception of being threatening, elicits in me a reaction that’s akin to one dog sensing submission in another. (Hmm. On second thought, anyone who knows dogs knows what one dog tries to do to another dog in that scenario, and that would not only get me arrested but force me to hire Michael Jackson’s lawyers, so please try to appreciate the metaphor without dwelling on the practical application thereof.)
I am civilized enough that it never manifests in action; I am intelligent enough to grasp that unlike the thugs who have forethought and get away with their violence, I would be not only be arrested but, not being a celebrity, would get the maximum sentence; I am considerate enough that I wouldn’t do that just on principle; I am lazy enough that it’s simply too much trouble to bother; I am pusillanimous enough to worry the person has seen that sitcom episode.
“Deeds of violence in our society are performed largely by those trying to establish their self-esteem, to defend their self-image, and to demonstrate that they, too, are significant. …Violence arises not out of superfluity of power but out of powerlessness.”
– Rollo May (identified by the editor of The Great Thoughts as an “existential therapist”), 1972
"Elbow?" I know enough about my fighting prowess not to attempt to use a fist, and that the elbow can both deliver and withstand more punishment.
"Him?" Go with it. Admittedly, more of the incidents of this scenario involve women I pass, but I’m not so stupid as to be oblivious about the fact the pronoun “her” would give the whole thing a connotation I don’t intend, and would pretty much destroy what little humor there might be.
~~~
Unrelated quote:
“I’ve only this morning learned of blogs, and my first reaction was, ‘Why would anyone care?’”
– Rosario Dawson, in a public diary feature for Black Book magazine, Feb/Mar 2005 issue.
Tuesday, April 05, 2005
Friday, March 04, 2005
Thursday, March 03, 2005
Old habits die surprisingly easily
Happy A-Month-Or-So-After-Groundhog Day, everybody.
There was a time when I sent out Dougression-type emails to commemorate the lesser holidays like that. There was a time when I thought I had a reason to, I suppose. I was inspired by some vague pleasure associated with acknowledging the little guy, celebration-wise. It wasn’t so much that I did anything to actually celebrate the days in question; it wasn’t accurate to say I was really “in tune” with the origins of the celebrations (although I could do modest research on the internet to approximate some understanding thereof); it wasn’t as though I gained anything from alerting people to the trivial aspects of the days other than some minor satisfaction from having sent out something.
It was easy fodder for subject matter; that much is easy to admit. Making it interesting for my “audience” was pretty simple, given I wasn’t blathering on about myself. It ensured I’d get at least a few messages read by a fair number of people each year; for some reason that must have appealed to me. Ultimately it all boiled down to: Finding some sense of community in this big crazy world. (It’s only over-analysis of the situation that renders that conclusion, but that’s what I do.) I aspired to keep some modicum of contact with those people who had expressed some interest in hearing from me; there’s only so many folks with whom I can hope to get along well, so I can’t let them get too far away (metaphorically speaking). Sending out messages is, frankly, how I maintain some of my friendships (in some cases it’s the entirety of the relationship), so it’s how I get some sense of connecting with these people without having to make an effort to, say, see them face to face on any sort of regular basis. But I digress. We were discussing the commemoration of events like the quaint notion that a rodent predicting the severity of winter for the next three fortnights.
Why would anything like that catch on? More important, why would it continue to be celebrated in this day and age? It gets back to the community thing. We like excuses to get out from the doldrums of our everyday existence, yes, but we also want to get out amongst others who are of a mind to celebrate something just for the heck of it; it makes us part of a group of ostensibly like‑minded individuals, if only for one day in February. (It’s also probably the only time that town in Pennsylvania gets mentioned in the national news, and must do wonders for its local economy with the temporary boom in tourism, or at least in reporters staying in town to cover the morning’s festivities.) However, my messages commented more on that delightful absurdity than about the importance of whether it would be snowy through March (growing up in Southern California that’s never been of particular concern); it intrigued me that people went to such efforts to maintain a tradition that had long since lost its intended significance. (Well, that presupposes that everyone appreciates the day in some ironic context; it’s entirely possible that Punxsutawney Phil can foretell the weather and it’s unfair to dismiss it as a long-standing publicity stunt. All I can state definitively is my intention with the messages I sent, and only somewhat so at that.) Something about that appealed to me, and I figured it would appeal to others (based on the fact it still gets mentioned on calendars and the news, etc.), and those people are worth keeping in contact with.
Or at least they used to be, before some implicit novelty wore off. Or perhaps I've succumbed to a hibernation-like routine. Every so often I emerge from my hole, see my shadow, and then... six more weeks of curmudgeon-ness.
And pretending that "curmudgeon-ness" is a word is a sure sign I need more human contact. Or maybe I just need to be feted by Pennsylvanians.
There was a time when I sent out Dougression-type emails to commemorate the lesser holidays like that. There was a time when I thought I had a reason to, I suppose. I was inspired by some vague pleasure associated with acknowledging the little guy, celebration-wise. It wasn’t so much that I did anything to actually celebrate the days in question; it wasn’t accurate to say I was really “in tune” with the origins of the celebrations (although I could do modest research on the internet to approximate some understanding thereof); it wasn’t as though I gained anything from alerting people to the trivial aspects of the days other than some minor satisfaction from having sent out something.
It was easy fodder for subject matter; that much is easy to admit. Making it interesting for my “audience” was pretty simple, given I wasn’t blathering on about myself. It ensured I’d get at least a few messages read by a fair number of people each year; for some reason that must have appealed to me. Ultimately it all boiled down to: Finding some sense of community in this big crazy world. (It’s only over-analysis of the situation that renders that conclusion, but that’s what I do.) I aspired to keep some modicum of contact with those people who had expressed some interest in hearing from me; there’s only so many folks with whom I can hope to get along well, so I can’t let them get too far away (metaphorically speaking). Sending out messages is, frankly, how I maintain some of my friendships (in some cases it’s the entirety of the relationship), so it’s how I get some sense of connecting with these people without having to make an effort to, say, see them face to face on any sort of regular basis. But I digress. We were discussing the commemoration of events like the quaint notion that a rodent predicting the severity of winter for the next three fortnights.
Why would anything like that catch on? More important, why would it continue to be celebrated in this day and age? It gets back to the community thing. We like excuses to get out from the doldrums of our everyday existence, yes, but we also want to get out amongst others who are of a mind to celebrate something just for the heck of it; it makes us part of a group of ostensibly like‑minded individuals, if only for one day in February. (It’s also probably the only time that town in Pennsylvania gets mentioned in the national news, and must do wonders for its local economy with the temporary boom in tourism, or at least in reporters staying in town to cover the morning’s festivities.) However, my messages commented more on that delightful absurdity than about the importance of whether it would be snowy through March (growing up in Southern California that’s never been of particular concern); it intrigued me that people went to such efforts to maintain a tradition that had long since lost its intended significance. (Well, that presupposes that everyone appreciates the day in some ironic context; it’s entirely possible that Punxsutawney Phil can foretell the weather and it’s unfair to dismiss it as a long-standing publicity stunt. All I can state definitively is my intention with the messages I sent, and only somewhat so at that.) Something about that appealed to me, and I figured it would appeal to others (based on the fact it still gets mentioned on calendars and the news, etc.), and those people are worth keeping in contact with.
Or at least they used to be, before some implicit novelty wore off. Or perhaps I've succumbed to a hibernation-like routine. Every so often I emerge from my hole, see my shadow, and then... six more weeks of curmudgeon-ness.
And pretending that "curmudgeon-ness" is a word is a sure sign I need more human contact. Or maybe I just need to be feted by Pennsylvanians.
Monday, February 14, 2005
Yesterday's future today
Although from the frequency of posts here it seems like I rarely write, the reality (or some delusion commonly agreed upon) is I don't often write on a computer outside of work (where I spend far more time behind a keyboard than humans were even meant to). On the train ride to and from the office, I jot down thoughts on a pad of paper with alarming regularity, sometimes composing several handwritten pages of drivel a day. (That I consider my journal, something I have been keeping on and off since 1988.) To the extent any of that is worthy of being shared with others, when I get home each night I tend to be too tired, undisciplined, unmotivated, and distracted by television to transcribe the barely legible text and transform it into as close to a coherent essay as I bother to achieve here.
A short time ago I borrowed a laptop from work to test using it during the commute. What follows is what I wrote one morning on that machine (a rumination on what it might be like to switch from using paper and pen to using a computer), without revision. You have been warned.
The biggest loss, to the extent that applies, to switching to composing on a machine like this would be the lack of false starts. That is, when I’m writing on a pad with a pen and I decide I don’t like the word choice or I decide to change the direction of the sentence or I misspell a word and have to re-write it to get it right (or as close to right as my brain allows at that moment), there’s lingering evidence of it: the lines scratching out the “deleted” text. Often I make them so heavy it would take forensics to make out what was there originally, but there’s no way to hide that I either goofed or reconsidered. On the computer, of course, if I backspace over a mistyped character or if the automatic spell check kicks in and the guesswork is taken from the scenario, all that is left is the end result—which may still be flawed from the standpoint of how well I composed whatever theme I pretended to be exploring, but would show no evidence of the process by which it was achieved (be it worthwhile or not).
I suppose there’s something about the process that I find enjoyable, and hence the slight dismay over the alteration to the way that would work by changing the methodology. No, let’s call it what it is: arrogance and egotism. Like anyone who puts even the slightest artistic effort into a task (go with it—remember, arrogance and egotism), I harbor some delusion that the process grants some delightful insight into my person and my personality, and should it prove to be something that is regarded as genuinely artistic, some scholar might choose to analyze it thoroughly someday (presumably after I’m dead but perhaps sooner), and the scratched out passages could be seen as some kind of Rosetta Stone to the enigma that is Doug.
Arrogance and egotism. I make no proverbial bones about it. Not that I’m sure what making a bone of something means from an etymological standpoint, but nonetheless the expression has made its way into my vernacular. (See, that’s the sort of detail the scholars would eat up. That frightens me somewhat, to be frank.)
On second thought, there may be something to be said for having the evidence of my mistakes be lost to history. More than being combed over by scholars it would just be used to tear down what little I may have achieved. Well, that’s not so much an issue; given the way I try to reveal my shortcomings in these essays, what might be learned in a journal entry that would be that damning is somewhat hard to imagine.
Really, it’s probably my own inadequacies that aren’t exploited by writing on a pad of paper with a pen that I like about that method. With electronic words in an easily transferable format like this, I have little excuse to not go back and revise, to hone it to something that is ready to be shared (if the thought is even remotely worthwhile); with immutable scratches of ink on a piece of wood pulp, there’s no opportunity to go back and re-work it. It can be re-written, yes, but that’s essentially starting over, just with a good outline; it’s not merely tweaking a word here and there, not just adding or subtracting a line to improve the argument. It’s much more laborious, and hence the ideal excuse to not bother with even starting (unless great inspiration strikes)
Yes, procuring a laptop of my own (that is as small enough to be used it on the train, harnessing the nigh ten hours a week I’m already accustomed to being semi-productive) is certainly a first step to overcoming my shortcomings, and perhaps getting to the point where scholars would decide that the world needs no greater insight into the enigma of Doug than concluding he’s not much of an enigma.
[I am presently stymied by the decision of what kind of laptop to get, with what bells and whistles, etc. Ah, the joys of a neurotic bent to one's personality.]
A short time ago I borrowed a laptop from work to test using it during the commute. What follows is what I wrote one morning on that machine (a rumination on what it might be like to switch from using paper and pen to using a computer), without revision. You have been warned.
The biggest loss, to the extent that applies, to switching to composing on a machine like this would be the lack of false starts. That is, when I’m writing on a pad with a pen and I decide I don’t like the word choice or I decide to change the direction of the sentence or I misspell a word and have to re-write it to get it right (or as close to right as my brain allows at that moment), there’s lingering evidence of it: the lines scratching out the “deleted” text. Often I make them so heavy it would take forensics to make out what was there originally, but there’s no way to hide that I either goofed or reconsidered. On the computer, of course, if I backspace over a mistyped character or if the automatic spell check kicks in and the guesswork is taken from the scenario, all that is left is the end result—which may still be flawed from the standpoint of how well I composed whatever theme I pretended to be exploring, but would show no evidence of the process by which it was achieved (be it worthwhile or not).
I suppose there’s something about the process that I find enjoyable, and hence the slight dismay over the alteration to the way that would work by changing the methodology. No, let’s call it what it is: arrogance and egotism. Like anyone who puts even the slightest artistic effort into a task (go with it—remember, arrogance and egotism), I harbor some delusion that the process grants some delightful insight into my person and my personality, and should it prove to be something that is regarded as genuinely artistic, some scholar might choose to analyze it thoroughly someday (presumably after I’m dead but perhaps sooner), and the scratched out passages could be seen as some kind of Rosetta Stone to the enigma that is Doug.
Arrogance and egotism. I make no proverbial bones about it. Not that I’m sure what making a bone of something means from an etymological standpoint, but nonetheless the expression has made its way into my vernacular. (See, that’s the sort of detail the scholars would eat up. That frightens me somewhat, to be frank.)
On second thought, there may be something to be said for having the evidence of my mistakes be lost to history. More than being combed over by scholars it would just be used to tear down what little I may have achieved. Well, that’s not so much an issue; given the way I try to reveal my shortcomings in these essays, what might be learned in a journal entry that would be that damning is somewhat hard to imagine.
Really, it’s probably my own inadequacies that aren’t exploited by writing on a pad of paper with a pen that I like about that method. With electronic words in an easily transferable format like this, I have little excuse to not go back and revise, to hone it to something that is ready to be shared (if the thought is even remotely worthwhile); with immutable scratches of ink on a piece of wood pulp, there’s no opportunity to go back and re-work it. It can be re-written, yes, but that’s essentially starting over, just with a good outline; it’s not merely tweaking a word here and there, not just adding or subtracting a line to improve the argument. It’s much more laborious, and hence the ideal excuse to not bother with even starting (unless great inspiration strikes)
Yes, procuring a laptop of my own (that is as small enough to be used it on the train, harnessing the nigh ten hours a week I’m already accustomed to being semi-productive) is certainly a first step to overcoming my shortcomings, and perhaps getting to the point where scholars would decide that the world needs no greater insight into the enigma of Doug than concluding he’s not much of an enigma.
[I am presently stymied by the decision of what kind of laptop to get, with what bells and whistles, etc. Ah, the joys of a neurotic bent to one's personality.]
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