Grandiose Self-Absorption

There's nothing quite so masturbatory as re-reading one's own blog entries...except for masturbation. Masturbation is really masturbatory too.

There's nothing quite so liberating as realizing that you don't want to be anybody but yourself. The past four years have been the most difficult and interesting of my life. Somewhere in the midst of the chaos, I loosed myself from the desire for some kind of guru. I abandoned a sense of deference to the elders and the learned. And I came to see myself as a citizen of this great nation who is fully entitled to be as weird and as hairy as I so choose.

I have faults and weaknesses, but there's nobody I'd rather be than me.

So, while I harbor respect for all good citizens who live their lives and pursue their work with honor and dignity, I will demand the same respect from all people, even my betters (of which there are many).

My path to self-approval, which still needs a good hacking from the machete once in a while, had to pass through an acceptance of my mortality and non-messiah-ness. I am not a great man, and I will not save the world, and I will not always do the right thing. But, knowing my limits, I will be better able to live within myself and, with dignity, do the best I can.

financial anxiety

I can't sleep. The fact that I have been living on borrowed money for the last year and a half is starting to sink in. That, and the fact that my expenses will actually be increasing when I move this summer, which is definitely the wrong direction for my expenses to be heading.

This anxiety is silly. If I can't pay my rent at some point in the future, the worst that could happen is that I would get evicted, right? Which, obviously, is bad, but I know enough people who harbor some misplaced affection for me that I could surely find some temporary shelter.

Most people who entered grad school with me are now searching for full-time jobs. I, on the other hand, am two classes behind and will not be finishing school until next December. Which means that I need to find gainful employment this summer, unless I want to ad to my already hefty student loan debt (about 40k so far), which I do not. I really want to get some kind of paid internship, but failing that, I just need to get some kind of pay.

The annoying part is that my lease is up in July. So, not only do I have to worry about possibly paying double rent, since I may end up working out of town, but I will also have to worry about getting back here to move.

Once I make it through the summer, I should be home free. I can get another loan installment next fall while I finish my two remaining classes and look for a grown-up job. Finally, after 20 years of school, I will have my reward....a 25-40 k/year job in the public sector. Oh, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing! Oh, lower middle class, welcome home your prodigal son! Oh, credit card debt, trim your wick, for my arrival is imminent!

some stuff I know, and all the stuff I don't but should

I know it's been a while since I've posted anything. It's only because, until this very moment, my mind has dwelt on a single thought...Bigbird Bozo Beans. I believe that I have discovered the intricacies of this thought completely. I venture to say that I have exhausted the potentiatlities of this thought, and though the potency inchoate in Bigbird Bozo Beans (the concecpt, not the reality) is formidable, I dare not disrobe it to you and rob you of the chance to coax forth its charms for yourself.

The preceeding was nonsense.

Doing some hard core reminiscing tonight with a longtime friend. Both of us are trying hard to remember if we actually learned anything in high school. We think not very much. We tend to believe that we could learn everything I learned in high school in about a month. At least anything related to science or social studies. I really can't tell you one concrete fact that I learned about history, economics, chemistry, or physics.

Here's what I learned in high school. 1) how to type 2) how to write 3) algebra 4) some stuff about how the government works 5) some spanish

that's it...in four years. Then again, what the hell did I learn in college? Nothing I can really remember. A few ideas from philosophy....some religous stuff that I no longer care about....and I read some books.

What the hell have I been doing for 20 years? It seems like I should have command of some facts by now, you know?

Here are some things I know, most of which I learned in some form in elementary school:
Insects have 6 legs
the universe is big
the universe is old
Mick Foley wrestled as mankind, dude love, and cactus jack. He is married to Collete and likes Christmas.
Energy makes things go (I don't, however, know what energy is)
Lightbulbs have something to do with electricity
Things are made from atoms, which have protons, neutrons, and electrons.
Shakespeare wrote in iambic pentameter and was from Stratford
The Bible was written by hundreds of different people over thousands of years
Headstart is good
Living things have cells and catch diseases
Living things come from DNA
Living things die
Someday the sun will explode
It is logically impossible for there to be an external world that in anyway resembles anything we can imagine.
sound is from energy that travels to my ear on waves in the air
(a lot of facts about actors and movies and tv shows)
The earth used to be a big ball of molten rock that hardened.
Things used to be fish
Sometimes doing the right thing means maximizing the good; sometimes it means sticking to principle; sometimes it means not being a douchebag.
Multiplication and addition are commutative
Before Kierkegaard died, he said "sweep me up"
The categorical imperative says that an action is right if one can will the maxim underlying one's action to become a universal law of human behavior.
Socrates liked to fuck boys
Nonprofits are regulated primarily by the tax code (the IRS) and occasionally by the FEC.
Edgar Allen Poe wrote the Raven

Smartness

I've been thinking about being smart and its relative importance in one's material, moral, social, and pscyhological success.

"Smart" is a pretty generic word that can refer to a variety of mental abilities (or to the fact that something hurts in a stinging, acute way, or to the fact that an article of clothing is flattering to one's form or visage). I would divide the first kind of smartness into the following categories:

1. The ability to remember things accurately.
2. The ability to manipulate information mentally.
3. The ability to construct and deconstruct logical arguments.
4. The ability to navigate physical space (have a good sense of direction)
5. Possessing a facility with language
6. Possessing a wide breadth of knowledge about things (i.e., being educated).
7. The ability to create new things and ideas

Ok, I'm fairly satisfied with that. I'm sure their is a whole academic field devoted to this that has come up with much more thoroughly researched categories, but we'll have to live with this taxonomy from my own head.

My Dad had one of the world's great memories...he could recall arcane facts like nobody's business. In his prime, he would have given ol' Ken Jennings a run for his money. He was also well-read and educated. Thus, he was a deadly combination of #1 and #6. He also had an incredible vocabulary...he put me to shame when I was studying for the GRE. So, really, he was was very gifted in categories 1, 5, and 6. He was only pretty good (better than average, but not spectacular) at the other stuff. He was a good Chess player, so obviously, he could do some mental manipulations and spacial navigation, but he was never very good at math. He wasn't particularly creative, either, although he did write some great poems before he passed away. Overall, my dad was a very smart man, perhaps approaching genius level in some areas (seriously, the man had access to a mind-boggling store of words and facts).

I'm lucky to have received some, and only some, of my Dad's mental abilities, but I am certainly no genius. I think I am just smart enough to understand that genius is a qualitatively different thing than just being pretty smart. I have some above-average mental abilities, but I essentially think like most other people think. Einsteins and Beethovens and Bobby Fishers have a totally different thing going on, I think. (film allusion: "Why would a reviewer make the point of saying someone's not a genius? Do you especially think I'm not a genius? . . . You didn't even have to think about it, did you?" Eli Cash from The Royal Tennenbaums).

Any smart person would tell you that being smart is nowhere close to being the most important thing in the world. Sometimes, in can be flat-out destructive! Here are some things that I think are more useful to having success in your work, your relationships, and your general happiness:

1. The ability to work hard (putting a lot of time and effort into your job/school).
2. Self-control (not giving into destructive impulses)
3. Being generous and kind
4. Being Funny
5. Being Brave
6. Being Creative (I know I put this under smartness, but it's kind of its own thing too).
7. Being easily entertained/not getting easily bored
8. Being comfortable around others

Being smart, without at least some of these other assets, is not really that useful.