A moment of Serenity

Arvo Pärt / Magnificat - Robert Shaw, Robert Shaw Festival Singers

Grimformation

When you read a horrible story, or see it on the news, you think... "What a shame." Then you sort of file it for future discussion, or reference. It's very different when it happens to someone you know. 

One of the professors at my school has had the most horrible thing I could ever possibly imagine, happen to him. It's been all over the newspapers, the television news was interviewing him, and it seemed very difficult for me to put those film clips together with the humorous, lively gentleman that I see all the time. Everyone that works in the department, looks so sad. He was the biological sciences chair. He has subbed in classes that I have taken, and helped me when I had questions or problems. He is a very nice guy, and highly respected on campus. 

It's been bothering me ever since, and I am pretty sure he called a radio show today and asked for advice. 

His wife, killed his 17 month old child. He has another child, three, and his stepson, who is fifteen. I cannot even imagine what it would be like to go through losing a child, and not only that, but basically seeing his family dissolve before his eyes. How do the other children put their mind around that as they grow towards adulthood? 

Having the spouse you loved and trusted, kill your child. He came home from class that night, and his entire life was shattered into tiny bits. During the TV interview, they asked if he has seen his wife, since she had been taken away. He just very calmly said, "I am sure there will be opportunities to see her in the future." 

This whole event has been haunting me since it happened. I cannot walk past his office without looking to see if there are new notices on the door.  I wanted to drop a sympathy card in the envelope that the other professors put there, but I am thinking that just is not going to come close to helping this situation. What can you say or do that would help? All I can do is send good thoughts, or pray... but it's not going to change anything, or help him. 

He has taken an indefinite leave of absence. I hope he will survive all of this. 

This note is dedicated with the utmost devotion to Tim, who is kind and thoughtful, and always reminds me to strive to work harder at math.

So, last week I am reading Keat's Ode on a Grecian Urn.This is because I am turning 50-2 next week, and I was thinking about the lines: 

“When old age shall this generation waste, 
Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe 
Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say'st
"Beauty is truth, truth beauty," - that is all 
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.”

So, I just finished a paper on Plato's The Republic, that basically outlines that same subject matter, in a slightly different fashion. He maintains in his analogy of the sun (Book 6, 508-509), that the sun is the light of truth, and that darkness is confusion. Earlier in the text, he states that truth cannot be “akin to what is disproportionate” (486 b10). Given this, Plato and Keats seem to be of the same mind. 

Edna St. Vincent Millay wrote: 

Euclid alone has looked on Beauty bare.
Let all who prate of Beauty hold their peace,
And lay them prone upon the earth and cease
To ponder on themselves, the while they stare
At nothing, intricately drawn nowhere
In shapes of shifting lineage; let geese
Gabble and hiss, but heroes seek release
From dusty bondage into luminous air.
O blinding hour, O holy, terrible day,
When first the shaft into his vision shone
Of light anatomized! Euclid alone
Has looked on Beauty bare. Fortunate they
Who, though once only and then but far away,
Have heard her massive sandal set on stone. 

Now, follow my thinking here... if beauty is truth, and truth is actually beauty as stated... Is math beautiful and truthful? 

If it is, it's a shame I am so bad at math. Because if this holds true... I will never experience true beauty or truth.

Do you ever wonder...

I was just wondering if anyone else ever awakens some days and questions their entire purpose in life.

I am generally a pretty focused person, intent on my goals. I know what I want to do and I do what I have to do to make sure that it gets done. I try to see that my family is doing well and is happy. I take time to do a few things that I like to do. This would seem like the way to do things, right?

But even getting up every day and knowing what I want and that I am doing what I need to do to get it, I sometimes wake up and wonder, what the heck I am doing. Frankly, I am not sure why, and I don't really know if anyone is having this problem.

So, I got a piercing. Don't know why, I just wanted to. I just wanted to do something to express my weirduality. It's still a bit red, two days later, but coming along nicely.

We will see if this changes my view in anyway. If not, it still looks rather interesting.

When All Else Fails, Lower Your Expectations

I have been going through a really rough patch since the August of last year. Things had just not been working out, or had seemed not to be, what I envisioned my life to be. I had made plans with my significant other, when he ditched me, presumably because I am so maddening, I don't really know why. We had made a few plans and then he sort of just vanished into the air somewhere. There was a lot of weirdness happening then. I had this creeping feeling that I whatever it was, I was just somehow, not quite enough of whatever.

As a result of this, I had been under the impression for some time that I was being cheated of happiness, due to whatever I had done and was not really sure what it was. Now mind you, I am the first person to criticize myself for things, I always hold myself to a much higher standard than anyone else has. I love to torture myself, I admit it freely. Oh, I am I am really good at it. No need to be humble about that. I excel at self castigation.

Sure, I have long range goals, for my career and education... and there is nothing wrong with staying focused on that, right? However, the fact remained that my expectations for myself as a person might be slightly unrealistic. I was wallowing in discontent. I have no idea how my friends could bear it. Yikes, I am nominating them all for sainthood tomorrow.

Then a few weeks ago, I had a revelation. What happened to the woman that just, lived life to the fullest every day and why did I even bother to imagine my life in a particular way, to begin with? I had put myself on hold somehow, and not really sure how or where that shift happened. I started looking inward and was not really pleased with what I saw. I was beginning to slip back into my pre-extensive-therapy mode of living up to what I perceived as being what others expected of me.

So, where does that walk begin?

First, I spent a weekend doing nothing for a change. I did not study, or go anywhere. I sat around in my jammies and ate things that were very bad for me. I just had a good time all by myself. I discovered that I am pretty good company for myself. I am never bored when I am alone, so why was I working so hard to avoid being alone?

Then I did it. I lowered my expectations. First for myself. I don't have to be the perfect student. I will never be the perfect mom. I can relax and let go for a while. I don't need to be the best at everything all the time. I conscientiously avoid being competitive with others, but I realized, I compete against myself in every thing I do. Every paper I write does not need to be the new standard in academic composition. I do not have to get 100% on every test. There is no one competing for my own praise like I am. It's depraved when you think about it.

I then decided that I needed to spend more time just having a good time and if I could not find anyone to do it with, hell, I could do it myself. I am pretty tough, I can go places alone if I carry pepper spray and a shiv. I don't need a date. Not that I had been dating much, since I find it so incredibly annoying.

So, I am sitting here totally contented. It's still a bizarre feeling after all that time spent in the mire. I suppose that if I can learn something from being a complete wreck, it may just be worth the time spent doing it.

On Integrity

in·teg·ri·ty

1. Steadfast adherence to a strict moral or ethical code.
2. The state of being unimpaired; soundness.
3. The quality or condition of being whole or undivided; completeness.

I have been doing a lot of thinking about this as of late. I did what I do when I am pondering, I looked it up. After an incident this week, I thought it might be philosophically a rather important concept.

The word itself is a bit puzzling. It can be used in such a variety of ways, there is more than one kind of integrity. Personal, moral, professional, artistic and even intellectual integrity. The one I am thinking about now, specifically relates more to the character of a person. Of the dictionary definitions, I like number three the very best, although at times it can be harder to quantify.

Sure integrity as it relates to your moral code is an easy one to judge from most viewpoints. If you steal and you say stealing is wrong, then you are surely off the mark. I cannot tell my children not to steal if I do it, then I am not just a person of dubious integrity, I also earn the label of hypocrite.

It's hard to always walk your talk, not everything we are called upon to do in each day, is an easy moral choice. Where does the rubber hit the road at that time? If we don't want to lie, are we showing kindness when our friend asks us if those pants make her ass look fat? Should we be kind, or should we be truthful? Which shows our true character and intentions?

I think integrity is an amalgamation of the whole package. Sure, moral standards are important, but showing courtesy and consideration to others is equally as important. Can these two be balanced effectively? I think perhaps that is the bigger task at hand to package these two and still live within ourselves and feel good about what we are doing, knowing we have done the best we can and trying to fix it if we did not. It is a conscious integration of the whole.

In my life I have done things I am not particularly proud of but they have always taught me something worthwhile about myself. I can count these things on one hand. The things I did specifically hurt people, and have caused me shame and regret. I have tried to examine the lessons they have presented, and they have always led to a change in my way of doing things. In most cases I have tried hard to make amends if it was at all possible to do so. Sometimes those that who hurt are not interested in your feelings of repentance.

I have lied in the past to people. People I loved. When I was a kid, I lied to my parents all the time. I have lied to boys when I was a teenager. I did not consider it to be a heinous thing. But when I matured and had someone important to me, lie to me, I found that it was not a very admirable thing. So I stopped. I made a conscious effort not to lie intentionally to anyone again. I find I do not like to lie very much, but I like hurting the feelings of those I care about, even less. I will evade the ass fat question if at all possible. It's a trap!

I am finding at my now advanced age, that not all people live by the same code that I do. They lie without thought, to avoid consequences and confrontations. They are obsessed with taking the easy way out of every situation. I admit that I am stubborn, but I always take the hard way. I can't see any purpose in letting things build up.

Does that make me a person of integrity? Gosh, I hope so, or I will have expended enormous effort for naught.

Basically, I am spending a lot of time, pondering a idea that is quickly becoming out of fashion. It seems to be a pattern with me.

"The Nice Guy"

I have formulated a theory about "The Nice Guy." I am in no way insinuating that this is all males, by any means. This may also apply to the men who like "bad girls." Those who know me, know me well enough to know I genuinely love and respect men, but try always to observe human behavior in a pragmatic fashion. I am not into generalizations, but I am always willing to observe a pattern when I see it. And oh baby, am I seeing a pattern.

I am proposing we look at in an entirely new way. Your typical "Nice Guy" discussion goes something like this:

Men who think they are nice, but really mistake "nice" for "spineless coward" or "scared to do and say what they really think and feel," love to go on and on about how women only want bad boys, and ignore said nice men for bad boys who treat them poorly or indifferently. In this way they seek to reinforce or rationalize their behavior. Women then insist, no, we want the "nice guy." Then the aforementioned nice guys begin to get overly defensive, exposing their not nice side, showing bitterness and innate disrespect for women. Then we get to see who is really nice, and who is not.

I wish to add a whole new perspective on this.

Women may just prefer bad boys... But it is not for the reason that men think. It's not the excitement, or the danger. It's self preservation, pure and simple.

When you are dating a bad boy, you can always hope they will change, even though you know they won't... but realistically, you know what to expect from the bad boy. You know he won't call, or might cheat, and therefore, you are safe in not putting all of your emotional eggs in one basket. In other words, while you might love them, you do not love them beyond all reason, but you have the upper hand from an emotional/romantic perspective. You do not have to extend your entire intimate self, because you know it's doomed to fail. This is a way you avoid pain. There may be an underlying reason for this.

When you date a nice guy, and realize that he is really a genuinely nice guy, you think of yourself as being the luckiest woman in the world. You are happy to invest all of your love, trust, intimacy, and future with this man. People enjoy seeing you two together. Your friends are envious, people think you are perfect for one another and everything seems to be running smoothly and suddenly the bottom drops from under you.

Everyone is human, sure. But very often when the man you think was nice, becomes not so nice, it's a real shocker. And when the nice guy goes bad, he usually first exposes his yellow underbelly. You get to see him either lash out or act out, you get to see first hand his bitterness and desperation. You see he was only being nice because he was insecure, non emotive, or passive aggressive. That he was in fact, only pretending to be nice.

This is a total betrayal of our hopes, our dreams, our bodies, our minds. This is a gut wrenching, horrifying pain, more intense because we had faith in them. This is a bona fide trauma to our psyche. This is a crushing blow.

Most humans will do anything to avoid pain and be safe. They do not invest their entire selves to avoid it. They cease to risk because of it. If you don't put out your silver platter with your goodies on it, no one is going to throw up on it and hand it back to you.

I don't want to hear how you are a "nice guy." You can argue all day for it, and it's a totally invalid concept. We are all humans here. Nice or bad is relative. We are all black and white with shades of gray.

What I want the gentle reader to do here, is look inward, and see if this is perhaps true for them or someone they know and if they are willing to look at it for what it is. If they agree or disagree, I would like to know why and for what reason. I am wondering if when you realize you may be doing this, do you think it is an attractive, worthwhile or emotionally healthy trait? Is an unconscious desire for this sort of self preservation really another kind of cowardice in disguise? I would also like to know if you think this instinct for self preservation overall tears men and women apart? Is it contributing to the mounting difficulty in finding a healthy, loving and satisfying relationship for everyone, not just for you specifically.