Do I Finally Look My Age?

Once in 5th grade, after a High School basketball game, I accidentally wondered into a High School dance, where I was asked if I was a freshman.

My High School offered two-years of Spanish. One day a sophomore, seeing me leave first-year Spanish, asked, "Bender, why are you taking first-year Spanish as a senior?" I replied, "I'm a junior." And he said, "Oh, really??"

Start of my senior year, not just students but faculty came up to me and asked, "Didn't you graduate last year?" I had to explain that I was not a super-senior, that I wasn't held back, that I was in fact only 17.

On my mission, only 19, some Puerto Ricans would ask if I had a wife and children back home and expressed incredulity that I was still a teenager.

The Chinese and the Mexicans would likewise express surprise to learn I was only in my lower-to-mid twenties.

Fresh out of college and working as a substitute teacher, the students would ask, "Mr. Bender, how old are you?" I'd ask back, "How old do I look?" And invariably the answer would vary from "35" to "40."

Yet as of late, when I'm asked the same question and I shoot back, "How old do I look?" the questioner will look at me thoughtfully and say, "26 or 27," which for once is spot on.

So when did I finally start looking my age?

2001 Chrysler Sebring Ignition Problems

I'd just walked out of Smith's the other day when what to my dismay the key no longer turned in the ignition--the key itself slid in just fine, and the dashboard made beeping noise when I opened the door while the key was in, indicating it recognized the key was there; nevertheless, it did not turn.

This caused me some degree of consternation. Forcing it only seemed to threaten to break my key. I walked back to my apt. (4 blocks away) and returned with the spare key--no dice.

When in doubt, read the instructions, I mused, so I looked up the owner's manual, figuring I must've somehow hit something that causes the ignition to lock. All it read was, "Turn key and wait three seconds for engine to start." Wow, did that old saying get worthless fast.

Next I looked up customer support--they only suggested 1) turning the steering wheel back and forth" (no dice again), and 2) calling a tow-truck to bring the car into the dealership. Not exactly swimming in money in the midst of this, the severest recession in 70 years, I declined.

Now mine frustration was reaching fever-pitch--this ignition was now worth the entire value of my car. I started a new job in West Jordan on Wednesday that I could now no longer reach. And without a job I couldn't afford a new car; and without a car I couldn't find another job; my entire future was here at stake. I refused to be so handily defeated.

I carried my meager groceries back to my apt, gathered my tools, then checked on our mutual friend the internet--Mr. Internet quickly revealed that stuck ignitions are quite common in 2001 Chrysler Sebrings. There are entire forums dedicated to this little design flaw. Go figure.

I made the trek to Smiths once more--I slid in my key. I lightly tapped on it with the handle of a screw-driver. The ingition turned, my engine roared to life. I may have released a cry of joy.

Three little taps, saving me untold hundreds, perhaps thousands of dollars. Good job, internet! We win.

Fare thee well, Dr. Laura

I love my Mom and I miss her daily, but I am also wary of over-romanticizing my childhood memories of her; and there is one memory I do not miss--Mom listening to Dr. Laura's radio show.

Mom would have it on when she picked me up from school, which always made me profoundly uncomfortable. There was just something about Dr. Laura I didn't like. I'd ask Mom discreetly if we could listen to music or the news or something. I couldn't quite put my finger on it as a child, but now that I'm a little older and a little more articulate, I know exactly what it is about her that bugged me:

Dr. Laura is a bully.

She is utterly devoid of empathy, compassion, and tact. She tears people down without building them back up. She kicks people while they're down; it's the sinner that most needs charity but she has none to give. She doesn't give people advise but rather bullies them into submission.

Desperate souls call into her program like the poor masochists they are, seeking some sort of validation or comfort or sympathetic ear, working up the courage to bare their souls on national radio, and then she just rips into their most vulnerable spots, mercilessly. In place of advice she gives verbal abuse; in place of sympathy she gives sneering disdain; and in place of understanding she tells you "quit playing the victim" and to "stop being so sensitive" and to "not marry outside your faith."

Like the sycophants on the playground, sad souls flock around her celebrity, begging the bully to beat them just so they can be around her, and she delivers it, repeatedly, with relish. She enjoys cutting others down. Dr. Laura didn't want callers, she wanted submissives; she was a sadist who enjoyed causing pain in others. She wanted to step all over others to feel taller herself.

Was anyone ever actually helped by Dr. Laura? Ever? I'm sure a great many people felt a vicarious moral superiority by listening to her, but I doubt a single soul who called in hung up a better person.

Paul wrote, "Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing" (1 Cor. 13:1-2).

Dr. Laura has no charity--nor for that matter does she have the tongue of angels. Her voice is a sounding brass and tinkling cymbal, full of sound and fury signifying nothing. She has not charity, she is nothing.

Hence it was with some gratification that Dr. Laura this last week was forced to end her program--she'd told an African-American caller to quit being so "hypersensitive" about the racial slurs of her white in-laws, demonstrating this nugget of wisdom by repeating the n-word repeatedly herself, and concluding with "don't marry outside your race." People protested, sponsors withdrew support, she announced on Larry King she was consequently leaving radio.

The bully was put in her place. She'd treated one caller too many with contempt.

For bullys are hypocrites; they demand from others what they will not expect from themselves. Hence it was utterly unsurprising when, after years of telling people not to b.s. her or play the victim or be irresponsible, she plays the victim and appears on Larry King, tearfully saying she's quitting radio to "reclaim my first amendment rights."

Bah! She repeatedly uses the most racially-charged epitaph in the American vernacular and is surprised when people suddenly stop supporting her show? You can say what you want but you can't choose your consequences, Dr. Laura, which I'm sure you've told some sad-sack before. Those sponsors were exercising their first amendment rights by withdrawing support, but apparently the constitution only applies to her--the classic double-standard of the bully.

You can't blame the victim for 15 years and then play the victim yourself, Dr. Laura.

I'm even willing to be more charitable myself, and say that perhaps she really was just ridiculously naive in using the n-word repeatedly; her on-air defense was that "black people call each other that all the time," failing to understand that black people use it as a term of endearment precisely because it's racially charged--they are trying to reclaim and neutralize an awful word that has been used to keep them in degrading subjugation for 400 years. A black person says that word to express solidarity with fellow comrades in oppression. I wonder how she would react if someone called her a "hooked-nose Jew," then told her not to be so "hypersensitive" about it.

But like I said, I'm willing to assume she was just fantastically naive, but no, Dr. Laura reveals her entire hand, she gives away the whole game, when she finishes her n-word tyrade with, "If you're hypersensitive about it, don't marry outside your race." Wow. Segregationist rhetoric. Thanks for repeating racist slogans from 1964, Dr. Laura, that's mighty classy of you.

Because that's what bullys do: they reinforce the dominant social order, to keep everyone else in their place and themselves on top. But what bullys consistently fail to realize is that they are on top only by common consent; bully enough people, and someone's bound to push back. They forget not everyone likes to be stepped on. And even those who do only do up to a point--the submissive is actually the one in control of the masochistic relationship, a fact she never realized.

So fare thee well, Dr. Laura. I hope you learn more from this experience than your callers learned from you, but somehow I doubt it.

In Which It Appears Not Everything Is Better Wrapped in Bacon

Last night I ate at Tucano's for the first time; I didn't mean to. It was for a friend's birthday. The facebook invite read "meet at Tucano's at 7" and it didn't even register to me that Tucano's is the Brazilian restaurant where they charge hefty buffet prices for a bunch of servers to constantly wonder past your table with skewers full of meats in all varieties. I assumed it was some Mexican place and I'd just get a burrito or something.

So, this being my first time, I made several mistakes.

First: I ate a late lunch. When you're paying that much for a buffet for functionally unlimited amounts of meat, you should be starving. You shouldn't eat at all that day, really.

Second: I should've been drinking water all that day in preparation--both to expand the walls of my stomach (as professional hot-dog eaters do) only to pee it all out later, and also to ensure that you are not too thirsty when you do eat all that meat. If you drink a lot of water while eating, the water will just take the place of where all that meat should go.

Third: I should've eaten the lunch buffet discount; on average 35-40% cheaper.

Fourth: I should've brought a tupper-ware container and hid it discreetly on my lap, to save that unholy amount of meat for later. As well as to justify that price tag.

Fifth: I shouldn't have said "yes" to every single skewer that came by; I should've held out for all the more sumptuously marinated meats, which danced on my taste buds much more agreeably than some of the other less remarkable slabs of meat which clogged up my plate.

For example, chicken wrapped in bacon sounds good in theory, but it is far less appetizing in person. It appears that, indeed, not everything is better wrapped in bacon.

All in all, it is now the day after Tucano's, and I've barely eaten breakfast, because I'm mostly sure I won't need to eat again for another day. I feel like Homer Simpson in the Treehouse of Horror episode where he's sent to hell for his gluttony, and thus is forced to eat nothing but donuts incessantly. I feel like I'm being punished for my sins.

Except that Homer still ate all the donuts.

Riches and Poverty

Some friends and I were discussing a news article we all saw about some rich couple that decided to cut down on personal possessions and live simply. We were all trying to localize what it was about the article that bothered us.

Part of it was that their focus on lack of material possessions was still a focus on materialism; they had but flipped the coin on the same problem they had when they owned more. Plus, I think being poor doesn't just mean owning less--being poor means enjoying a fundamental less amount of security. This rich couple, though they owned less, could still buy as much as they want if occasion arose--in other words, they could afford to own less. Anyone whose been in the homes of the poor will note how much stuff they own, because the less you have, the more desperately you cling to what's left.

A real poor person is constantly worried, is constantly insecure--that they can't pay the rent, pay for groceries, pay the health insurance, even support their family. No matter how few personal possessions this rich couple limit themselves to, they are still not actually poor, because they are still secure.

Of course, 2008 should've made abundantly clear that nothing is less secure than money; and really, I should be encouraging more rich people to be less materialistic, not more. I remember reading this columnist responding to folks who rail against the hypocrisy and condescending attitude of "limousine liberals," who claim to care for the poor while continuing in the most ostentatious displays of materialism and performing the most patronizing forms of charity-work.

But as this columnist said, "I worry less about 'limousine liberals' than I do 'limousine conservatives'", people who actively oppose unions, industry regulation, welfare, and any other number of protections for the poor. So, maybe this couple is being a little (and probably unconsciously) condescending to the actual poor who have real problems, but I still prefer that form of rich person to those who spend millions on their wardrobe while millions more starve.

It's like when someone inevitably lambasts the supposed hypocrisy of Ghandi for fighting violently in South Africa or denying modern medicine to his wife but not himself, or Mother Theresa for secretly being an atheist. To such people I can only say: Dude, at the end of the day, Ghandi liberated the entire Indian sub-continent from British oppression, and Mother Theresa dedicated her life to helping the poor of Calcutta--what have you done today? I'll take my fallable, human saints over their self-righteous detractors any day.

Likewise, I'll take any day my Warren Buffet and Bill Gates for dedicating 99% of their net worth to charitable non-profits, recognizing that they can still live more than comfortable on only 1% of their respective billions (and admittedly confessing that Bill Gates won me over a little when he released a swarm of mosquitoes into a conference center full of investors for eradicating malaria in Africa; it's the sort of insane thing I'd probably do to if I was an eccentric billionaire). All Steve Jobs is make iphones that drop receptions when you hold them normal, and suites of incompatible programs.

But then, on the same token, I can't help but remember Desmond Tutu's saying: "When I feed the poor they call me a saint; when I ask why the poor have no food they call me a communist." So, as much as I applaud, say, Warren Buffet and Bill Gates , I still must wonder why Buffet and Gates have so many billions in the first place, while billions of human beings live on less than $2 a day. As an MBA friend of mine said recently, "You can maybe become a millionaire without selling your soul, but not a billionaire."

Maybe the fundamental issue is that wealth cannot be based on riches themselves, for riches are not themselves secure; the D&C calls "eternal life the greatest of all gifts," because eternal life is "to triumph over all your enemies, even death." Get rid of as many or few material possessions as you desire; make as little or much money as you deem necessary; our focus on money is simply answering the wrong question, for the rich are those who are secure at last, in other words, the secure are those who gain eternal life.

The Cloud Also Rises

Once in China, I hiked up the famed Huang Shan, or Yellow Mountain, hoping to get a good view. But a cloud sat at the top and I could see only a cold, gray white out. I'd stand at this ledge at the end of the world and seemed to see nothing itself. I spent the night at a hostel, but the cloud was still there the next morning. Kinda frustrating. Kinda depressing.

I was about ready to admit defeat and go back to my apt., and get as far away from Huang Shan as possible. But my roommate, bless his soul, insisted we paid money to get up there, that we might as well explore the mountain for fun, for its own sake. That was the difference, I think, that we saw the mountain for its own sake, and not our own.

For a cold wind began to move and like a slow curtain rising the cloud began to lift; we began to discern shapes, depths, distances, even colors, as the curtain slowly retreated, arose, teased at us.

Finally our patience was rewarded; the cloud whole-sale lifted, and we beheld vibrant green bamboo forests rolling into the morning sky as far as the eye could see, surrounded by mountains, cliffs, crevices, and generally such beauty that I fell to my knees in awe, overwhelmed by the sublime that contained not only the valley, but myself and all else.

I think upon that trip to consider that the Post-Modernists (all due respect and love to Derrida) are wrong who proclaim with missionary zeal that what underlies behind the everything is the nothing; rather, I am forced to agree with the Chinese Taoists, that what fills the nothing is the everything, which is not a means to an end, but an end unto itself.

And I remember then to remember now that the cloud is not everything, nor is it nothing; but rather the cloud must also rise, and always rise, and we shall see at last.

Inception

Inception has already been called by some "The Matrix for a new generation." But what I appreciated most about Inception is how it was willing to go places where The Matrix was never willing, namely, how does Neo ever really know that he's out of the matrix? If his senses alone convey to him reality, and if the matrix has clearly demonstrated its ability to fool his senses, how does he know his senses aren't still being fooled, to lull him into a false sense of security? The Matrix is never willing to explore that.

Inception is. Because dreams do indeed feel real while we're in them. And sometimes we feel disconnected from reality, like we're still dreaming. Was it all a dream? Is life really but a dream? (I seem to remember a childhood song to that effect).

Perhaps that final image of a top spinning and starting to teeter isn't to leave ambiguous whether or not the whole movie was a dream; perhaps it was more a comment on the inherent epistemological un-knowability, as it should be.

Not to mention a great meta-moment; movies themselves are nothing more than dreams, aren't they?

Ulysses

Just finished reading Joyce's Ulysses. I found I authentically enjoyed it much more this time around; that was helped in part by the realization that the political oppressions of Ireland aren't the backdrop, not the canvas, but is the brunt of the novel itself--Joyce is writing like a Celt, not an Anglo, in the labyrinthine style of the reliefs on the Irish Book of Kells. In the words of William Carlos Williams, "It must have been his pleasure to 'unenglish' English," to demonstrate, at a time when the Irish were very much considered "white negroes" and a lower form of animal, how brilliant an Irishman could be at circumventing and containing the entire English and European literary tradition that attempted to contain him.

But none the less, the chapters that continued to vex me were "Sirens," "Oxen of the Sun" (though I at least understand that the latter is written in a medieval style that progresses through the centuries; in other words, I at least know why that chapter is so difficult), "Eumaeus," and of course, the grand finale "Penelope." Yet as much as I struggled through that chapter with only 3 punctuation marks, I must say, that final string of "yes I said yes I will Yes" is unusually touching, even if only as a nostalgia-tinged cry of regret and loss.

How To Teach Articles

Articles (in English: a, an, the) are present only among the Western European and Semitic languages; the rest of the world's languages have neither need for nor concept of articles. This makes it exceedingly difficult to teach articles to students from Asia especially. At the writing center, when an Eastern student asks why a word needs an article, we normally just say, "Because English is crazy and makes no sense; just trust me it needs a 'the.'"

But, I just figured it out the other day; I hope to publish the following shortly:

"When a noun is singular, but not a proper name (a person or place), then that noun requires an article.

"A proper name receives an article only if it is pluralized (e.g. the Koreas, the United States, the Jacobs)."

It took me two years to figure that out. I can't tell you how life affirming it is to realize that English, my native tongue and field of study, has made logical sense all along. You're welcome.

Dating Pt. 2: Zen and the Art of Motorcyle Maintenance

Yes, there is a sequel. Bear with.

I recently finished re-reading Robert Pirsig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance--a wonderful novel, by the way. It concerns Pirsig's attempts to reconcile what he calls "romantic" and "classical" modes of thought, the two modes being roughly analogous to artistic and scientific forms of engaging with reality. The "romantics," Pirsig claims, are concerned with surface level experience, while the "classicists" are concerned with underlying forms; the romantics claim the classicists are emotionless, cold, mechanical, and alienating, while the classicists claim the romantics are frivolous, empty, vapid, and shallow. He situates the debate in the context of a motorcycle trip with his son and friends--he enjoys the sheer thrill of the cycle ride across America on a "romantic" level, but he also maintains the nuts and bolts (literally) of his motorcycle on a "classical" level.

Pirsig had experience as both a chemist and a rhetorician, and thus was familiar with both modes of thought. He found that scientists are as reliant on inspiration as artists, and that systematic analysis is inadequate for explaining rhetoric. In fact, he found dialectic analysis in general inadequate, and therefore came to the conclusion that the problem is dialectic itself in the first place; he claims that dialectic, this need to divide and sub-divide into categories, to alienate the part from the whole, is a fundamental flaw in all Western thought dating back to Aristotle and Plato.

As such, the very divisions of "romantic" and "classical" are themselves false divisions. They are in fact parts of the same indivisible whole, which of course takes him to Eastern thought, especially to concepts such as the Tao and Zen Buddhism (hence the novel's title).

He describes being a rhetoric and composition instructor at U. Montana, when he finds that he can't define "Quality." He finds both romantic and classic modes lacking in providing a comprehensive, satisfying definition of Quality. Focusing all his dialectic energies as both a scientist and rhetorician onto this problem, he makes what he calls a "Copernical discovery," as when Copernicus realized the earth orbits the sun, not the sun the earth; he decides that Quality is not defined by romantic or classical modes, but rather that the romantic and classic modes are instead defined by Quality, that whatever work of technology or art that one engages in, the overriding impulse is to make that work conform to Quality, not contain it.

All the elements that make a motorcycle engine function or that make a novel entrancing are parts of the same Quality; both mechanics and artists must attain comprehensive knowledge of their respective fields, but in the end both are reliant on Quality, the pre-intellectual condition before conscious thought (one thinks of Malcolm Gladwel's Blink) to filter all the limitless possibilities for perceiving reality in order to provide inspiration to work. Quality therefore cannot be defined, but instead defines us.

Now to connect: My last silly "Dating" post involved attempts to explain why so many people marry later in a community where no one actually wants to marry later. I listed all the various explanations typically proffered: "hanging out," nefarious effects of rom-coms and porn, higher divorce rates, the 60s, maybe simply that we have too much choice (and therefore a corresponding and paralyzingly higher possibility for rejection), etc, etc, etc, etc, and I finished by expressing my feeling that while we have certainly identified plenty of symptoms, "we are all somehow collectively skirting the issue, and we're not even quite sure what the issue is."

Maybe Pirsig is influencing my mind a little much, but now I wonder if the issue is that we are attempting to localize the dilemma in the first place; the same dialectic that Pirsig identifies as being the fatal flaw of Western thought, that constant categorizing and sub-dividing and alienating the parts from the whole, is also what is alienating us from each other, and leading to these later marriage ages in spite of us.

Roll with me a sec: Pirsig also says that the way to gain access to the "Quality" is, that, "you have to care." Comparing it to motorcycle maintenance, he notes how often a cycle-owner will encounter a problem that cannot be resolved with the instruction manual, e.g. the manual says simply to "remove the screws to remove the panel," but one of the screws itself is stripped and won't come off. You cannot get to the engine to repair the engine because the panel won't come off because that screw is stuck. It's so aggravating it's almost funny. You consider throwing this cycle that mocks you off a bridge, says Pirsig.

What must now occur, says Pirsig, is that you must care, about the screw specifically, about the cycle in general. This isn't just a screw anymore--this screw is now equal the entire worth of the motorcycle. You begin to contemplate not the screw in isolation, but how it functions as part of the whole. In short, you are no longer concerned with the parts, you are concerned with the relationships between the parts that form the whole.

According to Pirsig, how he avoids feeling alienated from the mechanical work on his motorcycle is that he has a relationship with it; he understands the relationship between all the parts, including himself. He cares, and thus he is able to find solutions to tricky problems; often after much research, the solution comes while he's taking a break, eating a sandwich, going for a walk, laying down for a nap. I myself have come up with solutions to perplexing problems--how to fix an awkward line in a poem, write a conclusion to an essay, how to repair the ear-jack in my ipod, just yesterday I suddenly realized how to teach articles (a, an, the) to Asian students--at my most innocuous moments. Because you care, the solution comes to you.

So how does this apply to (bleh) dating? Perhaps in our fury to diagnose the problem, we've forgotten how to care--about the person we are pursuing, about the act of dating itself, even about ourselves. We wish to fix the parts without addressing the relationship as a whole; maybe we analyze dating in isolation so much that we forget that it can't be isolated, we've forgotten how to perceive it as part of the general whole.

Clearly Pirsig's concept of Quality is related to Zen or Tao (hence the title of the novel); it is also doctrinal--both Paul (1 Cor. 13) and Mormon (Moroni 7:45-48) make explicitly clear that without charity ye are nothing. That is, without love, without a desire to care about something for its own sake, without thought for ourselves, then all we do is ultimately futile--the corollary being that with it, we are everything.

I bring this up because Pirsig says after realizing the metaphysical nature of Quality, he better understood the mind-clearing meditations and devotional performance to menial labors that he encountered in Buddhist and Hindu monks. When you are always attempting to conform to ineffable Quality, he says, then your relationship with Quality itself is improved. In his own words: "The cycle you are really working on is yourself." If you are always performing Quality, then the motorcycle itself will naturally be maintained and be in best running shape, as with anything else in your life.

These are not new ideas; if you strive to be Quality yourself, then your dating will likewise naturally achieve Quality. When we are filled with charity, that "perfect love that casts out all fear," so that we are willing a la Nietzsche to not only gaze into the abyss of dating but to embrace it as part of the whole, refusing to alienate the very act of relationships from our other relationships, then perhaps will achieve Quality in our dating.

Identifying specific problems is itself the problem; the issue we are collectively skirting is ourselves.

Of course, certainly I'm one to talk; thoughts, anyone?

Bueller?