Uncouth PerspectivesNot on the rug, man.

Editor’s Note: I wrote this back in February and guess I never posted it. I just found it and thought I’d go ahead and still post it.

So here is something I have -never- understood about dating: what’s up with all the ignorin’?

Imagine a scenario like this:

Young Jimmy is a bright, decently attractive young man. He sees Susy, a smart, decently attractive young woman. Perhaps they talk. Perhaps they are in the same class. In this day and age, maybe it is on a dating site or he reads her blog. Jimmy gets infatuated with Susy and decides to ask her out. Perhaps he calls her. Or maybe he emails her. If he calls, there is no answer, so he leaves a voice mail. With his email, he just has to wait. And he does. He waits. And waits. And Waits. And Susy never responds, clearly not interested. Or is it so clear…?

I can not decide which person is weaker: the person who would rather ignore someone who is interested or the person who is interested who cannot take the rejection. You see, I think that there is decades of cultural weight and a lot of crazy people who are to thank for this. I think that one of the reasons this happens lies somewhere between a person who either feels bad or does not want to face someone and tell them no and a person who can not handle or take the rejection.

Maybe I have a different attitude, but I would rather know someone is not attracted to me (and maybe even why) than to be ignored. I can easily take someone saying, “Hey, not interested.” I know that I’m a pretty unique person and I think that really limits who might be interested. I can even take someone saying “Hey, I don’t think you are attractive.” Yeah, it doesn’t make me want to jump up and down and celebrate, but it’s the truth and that is important. Especially because I am not Brad Pitt… hey, I’m not even Ron Perlman. But knowing is important. I’m also not one who will get angry, or weepy, or cunningly master a guilt trip.

I don’t know if I understand why people do the ignoring part, I can only guess. Most of this is, well because in my vast history of getting ignored I’ve never had a chance to find out why… because I’ve been ignored. See the vicious circle here? But enough about me. Does anyone understand this better? I mean, is it because someone doesn’t want another person to feel bad? Or because he/she cannot face turning someone down? Or is it because it is just easier? Or maybe people just get more offers than I am naively aware of and one cannot expect him/her to have the time?

Community. It is a pretty powerful word–a pretty powerful idea. I have to admit that it is also somewhat foreign to me. I am ever in contact with the idea because of my study of religion–in fact, one of the “not-definitions” of religion is community. But, when it comes down to it, I do not feel like I have much community.

I have some good friends who are very important to me and who I definitely do not spend enough time with. When I talk about community, I do not talk about individual friendships or groups of friends and associates. I am talking about being a part of something bigger than oneself–about having a network of people to invest in, to lean on, and to support. I’ve tried to find groups who share passions that I do: atheists, hockey fans/players, readers, etc… While I’ve met good people and even found groups to be a part of, I’ve never felt like I belong.

Some of that I attribute to my childhood. Until I got into the middle of my freshman year of high school, I moved every year or two–three times I moved states. Each time, I had to give up everything I knew–everyone I knew–and start over. I look at pride with being able to be self-sufficient and to find the strength I need to get through in myself, but I often wonder what it would be like to feel part of something bigger.

The other side of the coin, though, is that community often includes necessary exclusion–by definition, there are outsiders. Sometimes this is nominal and sometimes it is highly marginalizing. I have joked about this before, but I really do feel marginalized sometimes. A big issue is religion–not believing in God (and the lack of belief being important to me) makes me quite a pariah–and not being militant about it makes me feel distant from many, if not most, atheists.

There is something about atheism which breeds militancy. Someone very important to me recently said, on an unrelated but similar topic, “I don’t want to spend my life on the defensive.” I think that feeling plays into it–what better defense than an offense? I know I went through a period of militancy, but I just felt empty and hollow–I don’t hate religion, I don’t hate people who believe in God. I do hate ignorant group-think. I do hate blind thinking and perception. I do hate intolerance. But none of these are unique to religion or adherents.

Intolerance is something which can come along with community, especially community with boundaries of righteousness. And the greatest irony is that the stronger the walls that a community builds, the more they are at risk from isolating themselves from society, which in turns causes inward focus on the community, which in turn builds stronger walls…

One of the areas of religion I have studied is cults and one of the characteristics which people first identity as “cultish” is strong isolation. Give up your family, your friends, your past–they are tainted, we have the answer. That sort of stuff. But people are too heavy handed with their use of the word cult. It is, important I think, to understand how any strong community risks breeding this sentiment, especially from outsiders. The challenge is finding a way to balance community and interaction with the greater society.

I know I want to feel a part of a greater community–like I belong. But the honest truth is that I will never, ever give up my ability or interest in judging a person on his/her individual merit for a sense of belonging. I would rather be entirely alone and honest with myself and my relationships with others. I will never be a part of something which draws lines and says “you are in or you are out.” Those of you who know me or have been reading my writing for long enough know that among the top of my frustrations is either/or ideas. If my options are “all or nothing” then there is a serious problem with my options.

I’ve often said that I am firm believer in the individual or communal religious experience. I do not think I’ve made strong efforts to qualify what that means. One of the defining aspects of an institutional religion is the codification of practices into laws, rituals, acceptable practices, etc. For me, this is one of the great turns offs of organized religion. When you try to codify an ideal or the divine or whatever, it often fails to translate. Laws can become burdensome, legalistic (hard to understand), or, even worse, serve as the antithesis of their spirit.

But I have to wonder–is there something acceptably human in the failure of the attempt to codify the divine ideal? Take the line of thinking: Humans are fallible (let’s assume some kind of personal, divine intention for this), God reveals truth to humans, humans attempt to interpret that truth, the interpretation becomes codified laws, those laws are not perfect–that seems to make some sense to me. Unless of course you choose to believe that divine inspiration is divinely perfect, and then you’re just screwed in explaining how things go wrong and why that is okay.

And how does individual interpretation of revelation factor in? Does the institution have divine inspiration and therefore represent the full and actual culmination of God’s will and desire? If the church is seem something as man made, and therefore fallible, I find my level of acceptance for problems in law and practice much higher. But, again, if the codified laws are divinely inspired, no way. Can the individual decide for him or herself what is right and wrong? How does human fallibility play a role in that interpretation?

Besides the fact that I believe the codified laws found in organized religion can simply be wrong, I also believe that at some point the religion becomes more about the worship of the law than about any kind of relationship with divinity. That, to me, is an ultimate tragedy. I find beauty, wonder, and grace in the world around me. If I were theistic, I would probably try to find divinity in the world, in my relationships with people, in life here and now. I’m sure it is a generalization and highly biased, but I feel like there is so much stagnation when the doctrine of law becomes more important than the doctrine of spirit.

And so, the children of the revolution were faced with the age-old problem: it wasn’t that you had the wrong kind of government, which was obvious, but that you had the wrong kind of people.

Night Watch, Terry Pratchett

I joined a group dedicated to exchanging goods for free.

Here is the basic premise: I have something which I no longer want, but is not actually garbage; I just don’t want it. Instead of throwing it away, I offer it for free. Perhaps, down the road, someone offers something else up I might I need.

Pretty neat idea. A lot of things which are thrown away could go to good use somewhere else. I whole-heartedly believe in this idea and I want to do more to support the reduction of waste and the reuse of goods, especially things like furniture.

However, I am constantly aware of the greed in the hearts of people. In this particular group, there is a third option, which, in and of itself, is not problematic. You can also put up notices of things you want. Let’s say you’re trying to put together a small children’s library in your house: hey, anyone have some kid’s books laying around anymore which you don’t need? Yeah, I support that.

But what about just blatant gimme gimmes? I have not been a member of the group long and already I have seen some absurd requests, such as a car, an air conditioner, a go-kart, a washer or dryer, a beach cruiser, a ping-pong table, a queen sized bed, bmx gear, or even a drum kit… and more.

I’m honestly torn on this. It should be okay for members of a community like this to ask for things they need, even if it is totally selfish, but reading these… it just come across as dirty. Maybe I’m reading my own biases into it, but I feel that there is a blatant disregard for the idea. I’m not making a scientific effort out of it to see if people who are asking for things are also giving them up and I’ve certainly not been a member of the group long enough to make that determination, but from the tone of some of the requests, I just cannot believe it.

And that’s what it is really about. Children’s books versus a drum kit. I suppose people have these things laying around and a little prodding never hurts, but you think that being part of a community where people give things away freely–they’d probably be giving them away already.

I guess I was just taken by surprise because I expected to find a community of sharing, of giving, not a community of taking.

I wanted to talk a little about what I am reading.

I saw this idea over at Mind on Fire. Basically it’s about taking an excerpt out of a near book and sharing it.

For the record, I do not know what a meme is, I do not care what a meme is, and, in fact, I dislike the word on principle alone. That being said, let us continue.

1. Pick up the nearest book of 123 pages or more. No cheating!
2. Find page 123
3. Find the first 5 sentences
4. Post the next 3 sentences
5. Tag 5 people

I am not going to do #5, because I refuse to send unsolicited message, chain-style letters to -anyone-. I thought this was interesting enough to do myself, but do not even think that I am going to attempt to perpetuate it to other people who are not interested.

I had two books on top of each other so I shall share both:

The first is The Electric Church, a book which I am borrowing and combines many favorites: a dystopian and sci-fi future, religion, and hired killers. Not a very interesting blurb.

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“Hover displacement!” I shouted over my shoulder. “Distant, but coming.”

She didn’t say anything.

The second is The Godless Constitution: A Moral Defense of the Secular State, one of my many books dealing with the intersection of politics and religion. Much more interesting excerpt.

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The battle over Sunday mail began in the small market town of Washing, Pennsylvania, in 1809, the year Jefferson’s presidency ended. Its postmaster, Hugh Wyle, followed the widespread, though unofficial, practice of sorting the mail as well as keeping his post office open on Sundays to allow churchgoers from neighboring villages to pick up mail after church. The problem was that Wylie was also an elder in Washington’s Presbyterian church, and in 1809 the Pittsburgh synod of the church ruled that for such as egregious violation of the Sabbath Wylie was to be excluded from communion.

And because I know you are dying to see what my bedside pile of books looks like, here you are:

Wanted to let you know about my invited post on the most excellent Mind on Fire.  It is part of the “Leaving the Garden” series.

http://www.mindonfire.com/2008/02/22/leaving-the-garden-isaacs-journey/ 

From the site:

“Leaving the Garden” is a weekly series in which we ask someone to reflect on their encounters with religion and uncertainty. Religion is filled with stories of faith; here we will collect narratives of unbelief. If you’d like to share your story of doubt, please leave a comment indicating your interest and I will contact you with guidelines.

 Pump It Up

That is all.

(Sorry about the stock photo.  I’ll wait and see if any I can get any pictures of the party.)

I like giving gifts.

I do not like giving them on prescribed days.

At least, I do not like giving them on prescribed days for the sheer sake of the day. There is the obvious reason–the gross commercialism. Do I really need to rehash that obvious and tired (though not any less true) argument? There’s also something kind of dirty about the expectation. It is one thing for a person to know they are getting a gift and being excited. But it’s an entirely different thing when someone assumes, if not demands, a gift for no good reason but tradition says to do it–and it goes from dirty to disgusting if they get mad when you do not give them something.

But, now, giving a gift because you want to give a gift. That’s awesome. Or giving a gift because someone has done something and you want to tell them thanks, or how much you appreciate it, or whatever, that is cool. Or telling someone you’ve gotten them a gift and watching them squirm with anticipation… priceless.

I have talked about this before, but one of the things I do not understand is the idea that if someone gives you a gift, you must reciprocate. There is this kind of spiral of guilt that can begin with a single gift. In my EVER so humble opinion, real gifts do not require reciprocation. If the receiver wants to reciprocate, have a blast. But, again, it’s the expectation where things become problematic.

Although, I can imagine that if I wanted to create waves of havoc, I could start a gift reciprocation circle of DOOM. Here’s how it works. I give three or four people small trinkets. They respond with something better because, obviously, if you’re going to reciprocate, you must also better the person (nothing like a competition when giving gifts). Then I take the gifts I get back and give them to the other people. Maybe find three or four other people to give small gifts too. Then I just keep swapping back and forth until someone gives me a private island with a lemur and a turtle on it.

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy defines the marketing division of the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation as ‘a bunch of mindless jerks who’ll be the first against the wall when the revolution comes’
Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

In what will be a surprise only to those who are simply not paying attention, Starbucks is losing business. Bad. Not only do they face stiff competition from upstarts like McDonalds and Dunkin’ Donuts, the economy, a bad rep on the environment (and labor, and relations with impoverished countries, and…), strong arm business tactics, or the fact most of the customers are obnoxious prats, but as far as I am concerned their products are simply awful.

I never got back to sleep yesterday, so I got breakfast at a local diner and wasted time by thumbing through a copy of the local newspaper. As I was reading a story about Starbucks caught my eye:

Starbucks Tests $2.50 Premium Coffee to Boost Sales

Here is everything you need to know about the story:

Starbucks Corp. is experimenting with a $2.50 cup of coffee that would add a new, premium product to help fight the first drop in U.S. customer visits in its 37- year history.

That’s it? That’s the grand plan? Charge more? Brilliant!

It would by silly to suggest that this is all they are trying to do, but the reality is that I do not really care what they are trying to do because I simply do not care about the company. But I cannot contain the incredulous feeling I had when I read this story. Starbucks has been on an obnoxious run, overcharging for horrid beverages and finding new ways to torture people with unwanted and probably undesirable concoctions. And when things go bad, one of the options they turn to is .. charging more?

Okay, so I lied, there is a little more to this story. Apparently, this absurdly priced “cup” of coffee is supposed to taste better. I can not tell if this is an admission that their coffee is horrid, but this quote from some random financial analyst sure makes me think so:

“If they can create a better-tasting product and if they can get people to pay more for it, then you’d have the missing ingredient, which is pricing power,” said Larry Miller…

Perhaps the missing ingredient is a decent product at a reasonable price from a company with business practices that did not make you sick to think you are supporting? Or is the sheer weight of the monolithic pseudo-monopoly simply too much to sustain or produce something of true value?

I woke up in the middle of the night tonight for no good reason that I can tell. I was just minding my own business, pleasantly lost in the caress of a dream which I barely got to know, let alone remember, when it dawned on me with a cruel and slowly conscious understanding: I am not asleep anymore. To my chagrin, my first thought was:

“Perhaps I am still asleep and this is some horrible dream where I think I am awake, but I’m really deeply asleep. If I am not careful, I will enter a cycle of fantasy life, endlessly confused, caught in a whirlwind of abnormality, desperately seeking an unknown goal which would, of course, be waking up to normalcy.”

Of course, as my eyes unwillingly opened, I had somewhat of a shocking epiphany–this was normalcy. Not that I have any problem with normalcy… except when it’s most present as my alarm clock glaring in the early hours, feeling as intruded upon to be gazed at by anyone at such an awful hour as I did to be doing any kind of gazing. My next thought was to be angry:

“Damn you cruel world! I nestled in twilight’s bosom for protection, comfort, and slumber, and I am tossed away like an orphaned child, crying into the night!”

Okay, perhaps that is a bit of an embellishment. I was definitely cranky, though. I rarely wake up in the middle of the night but every time I do (especially if I cannot find good cause), I feel betrayed by something between my body and my brain.

My brain, cunning creature that it is, took a long hard look at my body. This whole sleeping and waking thing, it seems so biological… that just reeks of the body being at fault.

Thoughts, my body counters, You woke up thinking.

In the end, I take the logical choice that it is a grand conspiracy between the two and I will never know the truth, but my yet-to-be-born great-grand children will once they’ve unsealed the documents and deciphered the lies within.

Here’s to a glass of something warm and yummy for my tummy and another attempt slumber.

Good night and I hope you have slept better than me tonight!