30

Sing we now in praises of big round numbers:

Because I'm now as old as the Beatles when they broke up;

Because 10 years ago this morning, I was mixing cement in a barrio in Puerto Rico;

Because I finally look younger than I am;

Because I'm now older than my Mom when she had me;

Because memorizing discussions on my mission now dates me;

Because so does seeing the twin towers in New York but not visiting them, while I still could;

Because I'm visiting Italy next week, while I still can;

Because last week, a middle-aged student told me that she and her husband had many such travel plans for some unnamed future, until he suddenly passed away last Christmas;

Because, strictly speaking, my Mom was already past middle-age when she was my age, wasn't she;

Because, strictly speaking, none of us know when we're already middle-aged, do we;

Because I opened an IRA last week;

Because I should've been killed in that car crash in Puerto Rico, but was miraculously preserved;

Because my older students assure me that the 30s are better than the 20s, as the 20s are better than the teens;

Because 19 welcomes 20, while 29 eyes 30 suspiciously;

Because in my 20s I loved and was loved, traveled abroad, wrote and published, learned the guitar, that is, all the things I feared I would never do while a teen;

Because in my 20s, I was also often heart-broken, broke, exploited, depressed, and caught in blizzards and hurricanes;

Because of the capriciousness of crushes, the months and years that can course through your veins, as your biochemistry betrays you, as you want to be rid of her, all the hers, but also don't want to--your own self turns against you;

Because we played touch-football in the shadow of El Mooro in Viejo San Juan;

Because I white-washed Fajardo;

Because I didn't know what a beach was supposed to feel like til I baptized in the Caribbean;

Because I've lost track of who's still active;

Because everything before my mission feels like a distant haze from another life, whereas I can still connect a direct sequence of events from the day I got home to today; 

Because the Mississippi really does freeze over in the winter--not a miracle, but a common fact;

Because Nauvoo once rivaled Chicago, but today, save for the Temple, could blow away in a stiff breeze;

Because there's still a plate and five screws on my right tibula;

Because my one semester in Provo strangely yielded longer-lasting friendships than every place I've lived since;

Because usually we're all just satellites that pass in and out of each others' orbits;

Because the commute to Island Park was amazing, even though the pay most assuredly was not;

Because my prayer each morning, before we ascended each roof, was simply, "Father in Heaven, please don't let us die today";

Because everything great about Rexburg is outside of it;

Because the Great Wall was the easiest to visit first, surprisingly;

Because the fog lifted from Yellow Mountain;

Because at Chinese intersections, cars, bikes, and people all interweave in, through, and around each other, flowing with the unconscious awareness of the Tao, and none are hurt, or even afraid;

Because you haven't lived till you've heard Chinese middle-schoolers belt out John Denver's "Country Roads" at the top of their lungs;

Because those middle-schoolers are all adults now, aren't they;

Because I've dated girls younger than the 6th-graders I was a camp counselor to in High School, haven't I;

Because I'm already starting to lose track of how many divorced girls I've gone out with lately;

Because the great epiphanal moment in every young man's maturity is the sudden realization that women are winging it just as much as men;

Because I learned twice that my beard comes in patchy and my hair curls when it's long;

Because American retirees in western Mexico still want their dead-tree newspaper but refuse to learn Spanish;

Because downtown Guadalajara gives Old San Juan a run for its money;

Because the Day of the Dead faces the awful mystery directly;

Porque "nada vale la vida, la vida no vale nada/empieza en llorando, y en llorando se acaba";

Because I slept under a bench on a beach in Sayulita under the full moon, and regretted having no one to share this with;

Because Great Expectations once resonated far too much;

Because I then ran a half-marathon, all alone, along the country back-roads of Washington, to vision-quest and clear my head;

Because my IT band is killing me now;

Because installing security systems in Denver was both the mid-point and low-point of my 20s;

Because Summer Salesmen are all closet-Protestants in the worst way (see Sunstone Vol. 170, March 2013);

Because it turned out the Lord really was watching out for me all along, and I drove to Salt Lake with unbridled hope and awe;

Because after the Pharisiacal fundamentalism of the Y, the U was a revelation;

Because I suffered on average one existential crisis a week throughout my MA;

Because Grad School was a humbling and humiliating and therefore exalting experience;

Because everything I learned in Grad School I first learned from Calvin and Hobbes;

Because Mom's piano was the unbearable heaviness of being;

Because I was willing to teach at 7am;

Because I'm still young, irresponsible, and free;

Because Spain just feels like a more expensive Mexico at first;

Because I got to see Guernica just before the lights went out in the Reina Sophia;

Because you really did, like that Spanish song from your mission, ride the train to Madrid, all those sleepless nights;

Because southern France looks like Iowa;

Because you begin to fear that Paris can't possibly live up to its near-mythic stature, that you can only be disappointed; nevertheless, out of an Iowa, the French really have carved out the world's most beautiful city;

Because the Mona Lisa is a masterpiece, which fact I had never before considered;

Because the best view of Paris is not from the Eiffel Tower but the Arc de Triomphe;

Because after French food, I finally broke up with Wendys;

Because I once lost a toe-nail tramping across Zions;

Because at Navajo Falls, I learned once and for all that if all my friends jumped off a cliff, I would too;

Because London just feels like a more expensive Seattle at first;

Because the wrecks of former empires clutter the British Museum, itself the remnant of a former empire;

Because Stonehenge makes London feel young again;

Because Shakespeare just wanted to go home;

Because I haven't been from Port Angeles or Centralia for the longest time;

Because my parents haven't been from Arizona and Wyoming for an even longer time;

Because I'm still from Washington;

Because I am large, I contain multitudes;

Because I've now outlived James Dean, Jim Morrison, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jeff Buckley, John Keats, Ian Curtis, Kurt Cobain, Bradley Nowell, Buddy Holly, Robert Johnson, Tupac, Christopher Marlowe, Joan of Arc, Amy Winehouse, Percy Shelley;

Because there are still too many more places to go, books to read, people to meet, things to do;

Because what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away;

Because all flesh is as grass, and all glory of man as the flower of grass;

Because the time passed away with us, and also our lives passed away like as it were unto us a dream;

Because all is as only one day unto God, and time is measured only unto man;

Because today is my Birthday.

From Faulkner's "The Wild Palms"

"There is no place in the world for it, not even in Utah. We have eliminated it. It took us a long time, but...we have got rid of love at last just as we have got rid of Christ. We have radio in the place of God's voice and instead of having to save emotional currency for months and years to deserve one chance to spend it all we now spread it thin into coppers and titillate ourselves at any newsstand...If Jesus returned today we would have to crucify him quick in our own defense, to justify and preserve the civilization we have worked and suffered and died shrieking and cursing in rage and impotence a terror for two thousand years to create and perfect in man's own image; if Venus returned she would be a soiled man in a subway lavatory with a palm full of French post-cards." (pg. 115)

This quote expresses what I think Nietzsche actually meant by, "God is dead! God is dead! And we have killed him!" Not so much that there is no God (though Nietzsche did believe that), but rather that we have formed our society such that God and love and redemption and meaning are excluded. Even in Utah.

Why I'm In English

Occasionally a student asks me why I'm in English.  There are multiple good responses, viz:  the ability to read carefully, write clearly, and think critically are necessary skills in almost every profession; fiction stimulates the imagination and therefore can foster creativity and innovation; literature exercises the Werneke's area (the region of the brain responsible for textual comprehension), which expands the mind; to go the Orwell route, beautiful language, large vocabularies, and complex ideas are politically subversive, and therefore literature is indicative of a free society; and sometimes, quite simply, you don't pick your major, your major picks you.

But while I sincerely believe in and subscribe to all the above, there's an even more basic reason why. Let me explain.

Once, while an undergrad, I took an Autumn off to teach English in China.  Wonderful, mind-altering experience, I loved it.  I brought 2 books with me: my scriptures, and the unabridged Don Quixote.  The latter is a solid 1,000+ pages, which I figured would be enough to last my entire stay.

I finished it in 6 weeks.

At first, this wasn't a big deal, for I was still reading my scriptures daily and dutifully, and besides, I was busy exploring China!

But then, around December, something odd happened; in retrospect, I think I had the symptoms of Seasonal Affective Disorder (about as accurate an acronym as there ever was), though I'd never had SAD before.  I felt disconnected, isolated, cut-off from everything and everyone around me.  I was inexplicably sad, depressed, empty, for no apparent good reason (China was as interesting and the people as hospitable as they ever were).  I acted happy in front of others, but it was just that, an act, and it bothered me that I even had to act.  I resented this depression, which was really cramping my Chinese experience.

It's times like these that really reveal how idiotic, trite, and nonsensical are all those admonitions to "choose to be happy!"  That's like telling a cancer patient to choose to be healthy, or an armless person to punch your arms till they grow back.  There is just something missing.

As near as I can tell, all that was missing was I didn't have a book to read.

My mood improved slightly upon my return to America for Christmas, but only slightly; and as I drove back to Rexburg, I couldn't shake the feeling that the whole world felt like a prison to me.  It wasn't just China.  It was giving me the heebie-jeebies, truth be told.

Now, Rexburg in the dead of winter will hardly improve anyone's SAD, but the heavy course-load and constant reading of my senior year at least distracted my mind for the time being. 

Then I read 2 books that changed my life.

One day, my Spanish professor, out of the blue, recommended me Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, a book I hadn't even heard of till that morning.  Less than 2 hours later, a classmate in an English class, again apropos of nothing, made the same recommendation.  Taking these two disconnected suggestions as a sign, I checked Zen out.  I meant to fit it in during downtime at work, perhaps over the course of a month.

I finished it in less than a week.  I'd never encountered a page-turner like it.

Later that Spring, I was assigned Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man for an English class.  My mind still hasn't recovered from the shock: I didn't know you could write like that!  Somehow the one-two punch of Zen and Portrait shook me from my doldrums, woke me up, opened my eyes to the stunning beauty of the universe, reconnected me to everything and everyone, enlarged my mind and expanded my soul.

Since then, I haven't chanced it: I read high literature constantly.  Non-stop.  One after another.  I haven't had SAD since.  It's been cheaper and more effective than drugs and therapy.  Literature for me is not a luxury but a necessity.  English, quite simply, keeps me sane.

My Windows 8 Rant

My laptop went belly-up last week, and so I got a nice new one at a steep discount yesterday.   "I can give you this discount," said the Office Max sales rep, "Cause it's pre-owned; the guy who bought it returned it after only 2 days, claiming he found Windows 8 too confusing." Pshaw! I thought, Ridiculous old Luddite fossil scared of new technology!  His inflexibility is my gain.

Within a couple hours, my thoughts towards the prior owner were much more charitable.  Windows 8 is insane, combining the worst elements of Apple and tablets into an OS that never needed either.

Why, Microsoft, why?  You have over 70% market share, why fix what ain't broke?  Why did you have to ruin your OS, your money-maker, your most reliable workhorse, your golden-goose?  Why would you even want to make a laptop OS behave like a friggin' tablet, anyways?  What is even the reasoning behind that?!  If I'd wanted a tablet then I would've bought a tablet.  If I'd wanted an Apple then I would've sold a kidney and bought an Apple.  But I don't need a tablet or a Mac, Microsoft, no, right now I need a useful computer!  And Windows 8 is getting in the way of that.

I had even come around to you Microsoft!  I still remember the "Evil Empire" days of the '90s; but then Apple became the sad triumph of marketing and style over functionality; then Bill Gates released that swarm of mosquitoes into a room full of wealthy donors to prove the plight of the Malaria-ravaged in Africa (if I was a billionaire, that's totally the sort of stunt I would pull too, I loved it!).  No, Microsoft wasn't the Evil Empire; it was the totally misunderstood Sydney-Carton-type, the one was the real hero all along.

But then you had to blow that goodwill with Windows 8.  Please tell me this was just a lapse in judgment Microsoft, some misbegotten attempt to fit in with "the cool kids" at Apple, instead of remembering that you already rule the world.

Now to be clear, I'm already navigating Windows 8 far more successfully than the prior owner.  I'm getting used to it.  But Microsoft, you can get used to Malaria and disease and death too; "getting used to it" hardly recommends Windows 8.  Stop it.

Zero Dark Thirty and Andy Dwyer

Kathryn Bigelow's Zero Dark Thirty is a long, dark, brooding meditation upon the high-cost--morally, ethically, personally, financially, on our reputation, our infrastructure, our humanity--of America's decade-long and uncathartic, unredemptive manhunt for Osama bin Ladin, a point underscored by the almost off-hand, anticlimactic manner in which bin Ladin is assassinated, while the expensive, state-of-the-art helicopter that was downed during the operation is exploded dramatically on-screen; that is, this utter waste of American resources receives more screen-time than the murder this entire film has ostensibly been building towards.  The juxtaposition is jarring.

And you know what else is jarring?  That awkward moment when you realize that the SEAL Team Six commander is Andy Dwyer from "Parks and Recreation." 

Seriously, Bigelow expects me to accept that this goofball:

Is also this guy:

Slow cap, Ms. Bigelow, slow clap!

I Really Don't Want to Like Grouplove...

...and let's be clear, I don't love them, or even really like them that much.  I don't know their names, don't anxiously await their next record, and wouldn't go see them if they played in town.  For all I know or care, they've already broken up.  Nevertheless, they had this minor hit last year in "TongueTied," which, despite the cringe-worthy title and hackneyed girl's solo at the bridge ("like Peter Pan up in the sky"?  Really?  Kids these days...), nonetheless tickled me just right, and I ended up downloading their one album.

Which I quickly regretted.  The whole record felt like watered-down Arcade Fire wannabes, stacked back-to-back with every Indie-rock cliche of the past 10 years, with lyrics that quickly gave them away as inexperienced, privileged white children sans real problems ("lobster and white label"? c'mon kids...); immature youth who still find some transgressive thrill in singing about speeding and skinny-dipping; yet another in-crowd masquerading as an out-crowd; self-indulgent in that way only teenagers can be.

And...that's kinda why I like them.  For whatever reason, I put them on while I was grading papers this morning, and they just sorta hit the spot; there was just this un-selfaware, youthful earnestness about it, sung with the genuine joy of late-adolescents who haven't yet realized that every new idea is already old, kids who know angst but still have yet to experience a truly devestating heart-break.

For when I was only a little younger, I still insisted that heart-break was an essential part of the human tragedy, that anyone who hasn't ever been rejected or shot-down still hadn't truly experienced life, did not have real knowledge, was not yet a fully fleshed-out human being.  And to a certain extent I still believe that...

And yet...

Some of these heart-breaks, they're just so soul-searing, so torturous, that one starts to wonder if maybe the knowledge gained from 'em is even worth it.  I used to jealously disdain the handsome men and gorgeous women who'd never been broken, who didn't understand, or couldn't empathize.  But now, I say just let the babies have their bottle.  If they haven't experienced the pain, then let them be, don't be a sadist, just pat them on the head and leave them on their way.

It's like the one time a student wrote me a paper on Australia, and she noted at one point how everyone Down Under has access to health care, and she casually wondered aloud what it would be like if America had universal healthcare; and I just sat there, gaping in awe, at how this girl had somehow blissfully avoided one of the most hotly-argued debates of her time.  I skipped right over disdain at her political ignorance to envy--how had she stayed in her bubble, and how could I get in?

To be perfectly clear: I am strenuously opposed to political ignorance, and I think everyone needs to experience true heartbreak at least once in their life.  But sweet mercy, don't be in such a hurry to inflict such knowledge on anyone!  God knew that Adam and Eve would partake of the fruit themselves, in good time, without him having to force it on them.

The folks in Grouplove still haven't tasted it, and at this point, I'm content to let them be.  Besides, I suspect that their naivety is strictly temporary, that they'll all learn soon enough, anyways.  No need to rush them.  Let being "Tongue-Tied" remain the extent of their angst for now.