Every essay that I have ever written is a first draft. This isn't to say that I don't make changes to my writing. I'm no Mozart. But when I write, it is a constantly evolving thing. I revise as I write more, and I revise what I plan to write in my head before I actually write it. It moves organically from one phase to another. There is never a point where I stop and say "OK, this is the first draft." When a teacher demands drafts as a proof of progress, I can't really do it. I have to take a single frame of the film that is my paper. It is the point that I am at currently, but I always have changes planned, or new ideas to work in. Everything I write is in a constant state of revision, even if I've "finished" it. I can look back at every essay I've ever written and every blog post I've ever written (OK, maybe not EVERY one...) and remember how I wanted to keep going with it, but just stopped because I needed to hand it in, or because I simply didn't feel like writing any more (though I still had ideas). I suppose that this is nothing new; I always hear writers say that nothing they write is ever completed. But my main point is that asking for first drafts is bullshit, and I hate having to do it. I hate having to end the growth of my creation prematurely, then continue it later on just to make it look like I added on to my draft.
But is that true? Can you really say that "no essay is ever truly finished"? I mean, I always feel that I have more connections to make, more avenues of thought to explore. But don't the connections have to become circular eventually? Don't the avenues have to dead-end somewhere? It seems obvious that they have to. There is a limit to one's experience, and one can only write about what one has experienced. So perhaps the only truly completed essay is one that embodies the whole individual. If one were to write all of their experiences and all of their commentary on their experiences (i.e. the thoughts they have about their experiences), that would be a complete essay.
The idea of commentary is an interesting one. It seems obvious that everything that one writes must be either a record of an experience they've had, or a commentary on something they've experienced. (I use "experience" in a very broad sense: something that happens to you, something you read, something you hear, etc.) But is it even possible to record the experiences that one has without somehow commenting on them? If you read a book, then try to record the experience, the only way to do so without giving some sort of commentary is to copy the book verbatim. Paraphrasing consitutes a commentary, because you have to interpret the text, and in paraphrasing, you are putting your own interpretation (commentary) into writing.
The same idea can be applied to other types of experiences besides reading, and the same principle remains. You cannot talk about your experiences without commenting on them somehow. And of course this raises all sorts of questions about reality being interpreted, since the only way we can express what we've experienced is with commentary. So is there an objective reality? Something that exists without commentary? Without being interpreted? I have to stop here, because I lack the training in philosophy to be able to explore that issue as well as it deserves.
In fact, I think I'm just going to stop here completely. Sleep calls. This post is far from done, of course, but I have to leave it as it is.
(Oh, and to just in case you can't think of any halloween costumes, here are some suggestions...)
What Am I?
I am not intimidated by anything. I am utterly confident in any situation. I am saying exactly the right thing. I am devoid of nervousness. I am the life of the party. The world revolves around me. I am radiant. I am catching the looks of all the girls. Everyone wants to say 'hi' to me. I am tripping the light fantastic. I am sweeping across the dance floor. I am bumping and grinding with the beautiful girls. I am everywhere. I am able to have any girl at the party. I am not even worrying about the little crush that was dead before it started. I am saying all the right things. People want to listen to me. I am the man with the plan. I have the hook-up. I am the man for my place and time. I am perfect. I am... drunk.
Adventures in the Blogosphere
Over the past few days, I've been wading through the mass of inflamatory political rhetoric, teen angst, poor spelling, terrible HTML, and occasional genius that is the blogosphere. Using the "next blog" button on the blogger bar, I've been reading random blogs in my free time. It has been an interesting experience. I'm not done with my adventure yet, but I have been through enough blogs to make a few general remarks about bloggers and blogs.
The most immediately apparent unexpected fact is that a great many people blog in foreign (i.e. non-English) languages. This really shouldn't be a surprise to me, as the majority of the population of the earth don't speak English as their native language, but it's not really something I ever thought about. Probably because I've never lived in a non-English speaking country. Or because I'm uncultured American swine. A gaijin, if you're feeling Japanese.
Speaking of Asians, most of them who do blog in English are virtually unreadable because they misspell words so badly, and because they find it necessary to capitalize every other letter. And because they use templates that are terrible. Most people (not just Asians) who design their own templates have no clue what they're doing. I particularly hate the ones that pop up the javascript boxes to tell me that I'm "entering the dream" of some 14 year-old who can barely spell, much less write an interesting post. Or even a post that doesn't involve the person with whom they're "in love." But I won't even get in to that.
Really, there aren't (proportionally) that many interesting blogs on the web. Over the past 3 days or so, I've been through hundreds of blogs, and I've only found 10 that were worth keeping bookmarks for. There were others that may have deserved it too, but they all had at least one recent post that irritated me enough to disqualify them from the distinction of being in my bookmark list.
One of the most annoying things was false modesty. The vast majority of blogs (like 99.5% of what I've seen) are self-deprecating to one degree or another. They call themselves "uninteresting" or "random ramblings" or the like. I must admit that I'm guilty of this too, but some of these people take it to an extreme, and it's still obviously contrived even with the ones who use it moderately.
The best I can figure is that people do this to keep readers' expectations lower, then they hope that people will read their posts and think that they're brilliant. The author tries to convince the reader (and even his or herself) that they aren't anything special, while at the same time desperately hoping that someone will think they're smart. It's a gimick, and it's stupid.
Which brings me to my main point for this post: from now on, I won't apologize for anything I post. No more "if this makes any sense to anyone but me" or "of course, I don't know anything" or "but who am I to speak?" or any other stuff like that. I was even thinking about declaring myself a genius (like Dali did), but I decided that losing modesty is one thing; being pretentious is another entirely.
Which brings up another key point: false immodesty is also just as stupid as false modesty. Being arrogant or pretentious about the quality of your blog is either going to be false modesty in disguise (see above), or (if it is real arrogance) just stupidity. There are people who almost pull it off, but so far I haven't found anyone who is immodest about their blog and has a right to be.
So I suppose the best way to avoid all of that trouble is to simply write posts that aren't self-referential. That way you don't have to worry about being arrogant or falsely modest, because you simply don't talk about the quality of your work. So that's what I'll do. No more talking about how good or bad my posts are.
Meanwhile, my adventure through the blogosphere will continue. I think that I'm going to start posting comments soon. I'll call bullshit where I see it, commend people for well-written posts, and offer insightful thoughts on posts that make me think. I'll be a defender of all things good in the blogosphere. So much for not being pretentious.
The most immediately apparent unexpected fact is that a great many people blog in foreign (i.e. non-English) languages. This really shouldn't be a surprise to me, as the majority of the population of the earth don't speak English as their native language, but it's not really something I ever thought about. Probably because I've never lived in a non-English speaking country. Or because I'm uncultured American swine. A gaijin, if you're feeling Japanese.
Speaking of Asians, most of them who do blog in English are virtually unreadable because they misspell words so badly, and because they find it necessary to capitalize every other letter. And because they use templates that are terrible. Most people (not just Asians) who design their own templates have no clue what they're doing. I particularly hate the ones that pop up the javascript boxes to tell me that I'm "entering the dream" of some 14 year-old who can barely spell, much less write an interesting post. Or even a post that doesn't involve the person with whom they're "in love." But I won't even get in to that.
Really, there aren't (proportionally) that many interesting blogs on the web. Over the past 3 days or so, I've been through hundreds of blogs, and I've only found 10 that were worth keeping bookmarks for. There were others that may have deserved it too, but they all had at least one recent post that irritated me enough to disqualify them from the distinction of being in my bookmark list.
One of the most annoying things was false modesty. The vast majority of blogs (like 99.5% of what I've seen) are self-deprecating to one degree or another. They call themselves "uninteresting" or "random ramblings" or the like. I must admit that I'm guilty of this too, but some of these people take it to an extreme, and it's still obviously contrived even with the ones who use it moderately.
The best I can figure is that people do this to keep readers' expectations lower, then they hope that people will read their posts and think that they're brilliant. The author tries to convince the reader (and even his or herself) that they aren't anything special, while at the same time desperately hoping that someone will think they're smart. It's a gimick, and it's stupid.
Which brings me to my main point for this post: from now on, I won't apologize for anything I post. No more "if this makes any sense to anyone but me" or "of course, I don't know anything" or "but who am I to speak?" or any other stuff like that. I was even thinking about declaring myself a genius (like Dali did), but I decided that losing modesty is one thing; being pretentious is another entirely.
Which brings up another key point: false immodesty is also just as stupid as false modesty. Being arrogant or pretentious about the quality of your blog is either going to be false modesty in disguise (see above), or (if it is real arrogance) just stupidity. There are people who almost pull it off, but so far I haven't found anyone who is immodest about their blog and has a right to be.
So I suppose the best way to avoid all of that trouble is to simply write posts that aren't self-referential. That way you don't have to worry about being arrogant or falsely modest, because you simply don't talk about the quality of your work. So that's what I'll do. No more talking about how good or bad my posts are.
Meanwhile, my adventure through the blogosphere will continue. I think that I'm going to start posting comments soon. I'll call bullshit where I see it, commend people for well-written posts, and offer insightful thoughts on posts that make me think. I'll be a defender of all things good in the blogosphere. So much for not being pretentious.
Let's Talk About Music
Underrated/underexposed artists to whom everyone should give at least a quick listen:
Belle & Sebastian (start with Expectations or Like Dylan In the Movies)
The Beta Band (start with Dry the Rain or She's the One)
Skillet (start with The Thirst Is Taking Over)
Keller Williams (start with It's A Plant)
Leo Kottke (start with Airproofing)
The Bad Plus (start with Dirty Blonde)
California Guitar Trio (start with Beethoven's 9th)
Col. Les Claypool's Fearless Flying Frog Brigade (start with Up On the Roof)
Dizzee Rascal (start with I Luv U)
G. Love and the Special Sauce (start with Free At Last)
Jesse Cook (start with Brio)
Some of these are... weird. Or just different. Or they take time to develope a taste for. But I enjoy them, so I figured I'd give them a plug. Try them out. Especially Belle & Sebastian and the Beta Band.
Belle & Sebastian (start with Expectations or Like Dylan In the Movies)
The Beta Band (start with Dry the Rain or She's the One)
Skillet (start with The Thirst Is Taking Over)
Keller Williams (start with It's A Plant)
Leo Kottke (start with Airproofing)
The Bad Plus (start with Dirty Blonde)
California Guitar Trio (start with Beethoven's 9th)
Col. Les Claypool's Fearless Flying Frog Brigade (start with Up On the Roof)
Dizzee Rascal (start with I Luv U)
G. Love and the Special Sauce (start with Free At Last)
Jesse Cook (start with Brio)
Some of these are... weird. Or just different. Or they take time to develope a taste for. But I enjoy them, so I figured I'd give them a plug. Try them out. Especially Belle & Sebastian and the Beta Band.
Acting, Empathy, and Hive Mind
I appoligize for the length of this post. The words just kept flowing. If you want to get the gist, read the last paragraph. If you want to wade through it all, good luck. With that word of warning, I present Acting, Empathy, and Hive Mind, or, Ill-Formed Thoughts on Individuality and Lies:
Acting is an interesting phenomenon. Or maybe not acting is actually more interesting. We all act all the time. We pretend to be happy when we're not, or upset when we're not. We pretend to be things that we're not, or we hide things that we feel. Even if you intend for people to know that it is acting (for comic effect or whatever reason), you're still behaving in a way that is contrary to how you feel.
Is this a good thing? I used to think that the world would be a better place if everyone were completely honest about everything. Where everyone always told the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, all the time, and expected the same from everyone else. Now I'm not so sure. Maybe it would be a good thing, but really it's impossible to prove or disprove that it would be better or worse, because such a world is not only impossible to achieve, but (for me) it's impossible to imagine. If I were to tell people exactly what I thought of them, and they knew that I wasn't lying, I have no idea how they would react. I suppose that's by nature of being different people. And I suppose that that lack of knowledge about them is what makes me not want to reveal everything.
So there is a certain gap between every person, and because of that very gap, we are afraid to totally reveal ourselves. And possibly lessen the gap? I think that revealing how we feel or think to people would lessen the gap between people, the gap that is our inability to empathize completely, the inability to feel and think like the another person. Are we afraid of becoming more like other people? Perhaps we need our individuality. Empathy is all well and good, but maybe total empathy with another person would present all sorts of problems. Studying Milton's Paradise Lost, we are shown that it isn't the opposites who become enemies. It's the individuals who become too like each other. One tries to imitate the other, and does it too well, and is thrown to hell because of it. So we need our individuality. So that we don't get thrown to hell.
No, no... So that we don't fight the one who begins to steal our identity, the one with whom we empathize. For a while at the beginning of the semester, there was a kid who looked kind of like me (before I got my hair cut). At first, it was interesting to see people's confusion. But after a while, it got annoying when people started asking why I hadn't replied to them when they said 'hi' on the way to dinner. It was frustrating. How much worse would it be if someone empathized with me, understood me enough that when someone said 'hi', he could reply, and have a conversation, with the other person not realizing it wasn't me. I would lose out on a conversation that should have been mine. I would want my 'self' back.
But what if I could empathize with this person, too, and regain that experience? If everyone did this, it would be a hive mind. Without the ability to withhold some of the truth, to exagerate the truth, or to simply lie (in short: to 'act') humanity would be a hive mind. So when I said that I couldn't conceive of a society where no one acted, I lied. I simply hadn't thought it through.
So is a hive mind better than the sorry state of mankind as it is? I don't think so. Maybe we would do away with fighting, and everything anyone ever did would be for the benefit of all. But even such a prize would be too small for the cost of individuality. For the cost of me. Ha! See, it's human nature, and it's a self-perpetuating state of being. There is no way out of this mess that we've gotten ourselves into. A hive mind only works if everyone joins, and good luck convincing everyone to agree to give up their identity, even if there is no conflict. You'd need to do it by force. Like the Borg. And we all (or at least those who watched Star Trek) know how scary they are.
But there is one situation where total empathy should (ideally) exist. And the two shall become one flesh... Marriage is essentially the joining of two people into one. So there is supposed to be no acting between spouses. At least, not when there is a serious conversation. Don't hold back any of the truth, don't add to the truth, and certainly don't lie. But human nature again comes into play, and it becomes all but impossible for this to happen. But then again, they will become one flesh... But not one mind. So maybe lying to your spouse is OK? I don't know, and I don't feel like going there. Maybe another time.
I don't know if I've proven anything, or done any sort of good at all, but for what it's worth, I've clarified some things in my own mind. And to me, that counts for something. The Aesopian lesson to keep from all of this is that it's OK to act (in the "pretending" sense of the word). It's OK to not be yourself all the time. And it's OK to lie sometimes. Smite me now, I think I've just rebuked both popular culture, and fundamentalist Christianity. Where shall I turn?
Acting is an interesting phenomenon. Or maybe not acting is actually more interesting. We all act all the time. We pretend to be happy when we're not, or upset when we're not. We pretend to be things that we're not, or we hide things that we feel. Even if you intend for people to know that it is acting (for comic effect or whatever reason), you're still behaving in a way that is contrary to how you feel.
Is this a good thing? I used to think that the world would be a better place if everyone were completely honest about everything. Where everyone always told the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, all the time, and expected the same from everyone else. Now I'm not so sure. Maybe it would be a good thing, but really it's impossible to prove or disprove that it would be better or worse, because such a world is not only impossible to achieve, but (for me) it's impossible to imagine. If I were to tell people exactly what I thought of them, and they knew that I wasn't lying, I have no idea how they would react. I suppose that's by nature of being different people. And I suppose that that lack of knowledge about them is what makes me not want to reveal everything.
So there is a certain gap between every person, and because of that very gap, we are afraid to totally reveal ourselves. And possibly lessen the gap? I think that revealing how we feel or think to people would lessen the gap between people, the gap that is our inability to empathize completely, the inability to feel and think like the another person. Are we afraid of becoming more like other people? Perhaps we need our individuality. Empathy is all well and good, but maybe total empathy with another person would present all sorts of problems. Studying Milton's Paradise Lost, we are shown that it isn't the opposites who become enemies. It's the individuals who become too like each other. One tries to imitate the other, and does it too well, and is thrown to hell because of it. So we need our individuality. So that we don't get thrown to hell.
No, no... So that we don't fight the one who begins to steal our identity, the one with whom we empathize. For a while at the beginning of the semester, there was a kid who looked kind of like me (before I got my hair cut). At first, it was interesting to see people's confusion. But after a while, it got annoying when people started asking why I hadn't replied to them when they said 'hi' on the way to dinner. It was frustrating. How much worse would it be if someone empathized with me, understood me enough that when someone said 'hi', he could reply, and have a conversation, with the other person not realizing it wasn't me. I would lose out on a conversation that should have been mine. I would want my 'self' back.
But what if I could empathize with this person, too, and regain that experience? If everyone did this, it would be a hive mind. Without the ability to withhold some of the truth, to exagerate the truth, or to simply lie (in short: to 'act') humanity would be a hive mind. So when I said that I couldn't conceive of a society where no one acted, I lied. I simply hadn't thought it through.
So is a hive mind better than the sorry state of mankind as it is? I don't think so. Maybe we would do away with fighting, and everything anyone ever did would be for the benefit of all. But even such a prize would be too small for the cost of individuality. For the cost of me. Ha! See, it's human nature, and it's a self-perpetuating state of being. There is no way out of this mess that we've gotten ourselves into. A hive mind only works if everyone joins, and good luck convincing everyone to agree to give up their identity, even if there is no conflict. You'd need to do it by force. Like the Borg. And we all (or at least those who watched Star Trek) know how scary they are.
But there is one situation where total empathy should (ideally) exist. And the two shall become one flesh... Marriage is essentially the joining of two people into one. So there is supposed to be no acting between spouses. At least, not when there is a serious conversation. Don't hold back any of the truth, don't add to the truth, and certainly don't lie. But human nature again comes into play, and it becomes all but impossible for this to happen. But then again, they will become one flesh... But not one mind. So maybe lying to your spouse is OK? I don't know, and I don't feel like going there. Maybe another time.
I don't know if I've proven anything, or done any sort of good at all, but for what it's worth, I've clarified some things in my own mind. And to me, that counts for something. The Aesopian lesson to keep from all of this is that it's OK to act (in the "pretending" sense of the word). It's OK to not be yourself all the time. And it's OK to lie sometimes. Smite me now, I think I've just rebuked both popular culture, and fundamentalist Christianity. Where shall I turn?