I think I'm still in that phase where swearing is a novelty.
Which is odd, considering a do a fair amount of it. I think the trick there is to hang around people who will probably be offended by it, then try your best not to do it around them. That way, it feels naughtier when you do...hence, the novelty.
Speaking of offensive...I'd like to get gross for a minute. In my last entry, Ryan Cook (brilliant writer, at c-change.blogspot.com) asked why peeing on a campfire is an act of aggression. Well...it just so happens...
An acquaintence of mine challenged me to do something very bizarre yesterday...he challenged me to pee in public. It wasn't some sick exhibitionist thing, as far as I know...and if it was, I can't wait for justinpeesonatree.com to go public...it was a response to this issue of male aggression. If you're missing the connection there, you're remarkably close to being me 15 hours ago. We got to talking about aggression (seems to be the topic de mode this week) and how I'm beginning to think that it's generally oppressed in an unhealthy way in most modern American males. So we got into it, and I told him that it seems wrong to me to show aggression in public, regardless of how morally "OK" I feel like natural male aggression is. I told him it just seems socially wrong...I don't want to be that guy. So, he challenged me to pee in public. He said that he thinks that peeing is an aggressive action (hence, he suggested, terms like "pissed off" and "piss on you"), and that if I didn't feel comfortable starting a fight with someone, that I should try peeing in public. You know, like on a tree, or a curb, or a building, or a schnauzer who is peeing on a car tire (just for the poetic justice). He said it would be an aggressive action. I said it would be public indecency. He said take a risk, do it in the dark, go in my backyard if I'm afraid of going somewhere else. I told him that I don't care for him much anymore. He said it would be freeing.
As I left my acquaintence's place, I really started pondering on this ridiculous idea. Then, on the way out, I very seriously considered peeing on his Honda. Then, in a gracious blessing of social suppression, I decided not to. But I did decide two things:
1. I need to make better acquaintances.
2. I need to think about this more...there might be something to this.
Have you ever read Alexander Pope? Jonathan Swift? These guys seemed to be obsessed with peeing...I wonder if it could be a...umm...something? I dunno...that's why they won't let me shrink heads.
Gotta run.
Peace,
Justin
Friday, October 22, 2004
Wednesday, October 20, 2004
Is it possible that the males of our species were built to be aggressive?
I know, I know, the term aggressive brings to mind some nasty images of overbearing, in-your-face, testosterone-driven muscleheads with necks like tree trunks and IQ's like...well...tree trunks. But the agression that I'm referring to is not so mean-spirited...in fact, it's not mean-spirited at all...it's just energy. It's tension; kinetic strain. It's the reason your shoulders never droop in complete relaxation while you're in a crowded bar; it's the reason you suck in your chest when you're opening the door for your wife or girlfriend, and it's the reason that they put mirrors behind bars...it's the sense that it's somehow your job to keep things safe and protected for those you care about. I wonder if it's innate...built into guys from the beginning, by an Author who actually made men and women different for a reason, and who knew what He was doing when He gave women the abillity to produce food from their bodies and men the ability to lift heavy stuff and fight without self-preservation instinct when loved ones are threatened.
I hate to sound like a traditionalist here, but I wonder if there's a reason why men are built to have bigger, stronger upper bodies, broader shoulders and larger forearms. Could it be because we are meant to lift, press, pivot and grip things...like stones, bundles of wood and even the arms or throats of our attackers?
Here's where I'm going with this...
I wonder if our effort to civilize and, in many senses, androgenize both men and women in our quest for fairness and equality has repressed some very good, healthy and natural aggression instincts in men. I'm certainly not the first person to have this thought...there have been books written about the topic...but I'm the first person who had this thought that also knew the password to my blog, so it ends up here. I wonder what would happen if men had healthy outlets for their agression, and if such agression were not stigmatized as being brutish, uncivilized and shallow. What if we really had clubs where guys could go to beat each other up, without any personal agenda or fear of lawsuits...what if boxing were taught in gym classes...what if there were rooms in every office building that were just full of garage-sale items that you could break against other garage-sale items? Yelling at your spouse, chewing out your co-workers and beating your kids is NOT healthy aggression...what if we sanctioned healthy aggression for guys in the workplace, in the home...perhaps even in the classroom?
OK, I'm done playing social theorist...let's face it, I'm just not that good at it. But I am good at growling deeply, which I am going to do for the next ten minutes, followed by a round of belching and a good pee on a campfire.
Peace,
Justin
P.S. - See: "Fight Club" See: "Wild At Heart" --> (The book, not the Lynch movie)
I know, I know, the term aggressive brings to mind some nasty images of overbearing, in-your-face, testosterone-driven muscleheads with necks like tree trunks and IQ's like...well...tree trunks. But the agression that I'm referring to is not so mean-spirited...in fact, it's not mean-spirited at all...it's just energy. It's tension; kinetic strain. It's the reason your shoulders never droop in complete relaxation while you're in a crowded bar; it's the reason you suck in your chest when you're opening the door for your wife or girlfriend, and it's the reason that they put mirrors behind bars...it's the sense that it's somehow your job to keep things safe and protected for those you care about. I wonder if it's innate...built into guys from the beginning, by an Author who actually made men and women different for a reason, and who knew what He was doing when He gave women the abillity to produce food from their bodies and men the ability to lift heavy stuff and fight without self-preservation instinct when loved ones are threatened.
I hate to sound like a traditionalist here, but I wonder if there's a reason why men are built to have bigger, stronger upper bodies, broader shoulders and larger forearms. Could it be because we are meant to lift, press, pivot and grip things...like stones, bundles of wood and even the arms or throats of our attackers?
Here's where I'm going with this...
I wonder if our effort to civilize and, in many senses, androgenize both men and women in our quest for fairness and equality has repressed some very good, healthy and natural aggression instincts in men. I'm certainly not the first person to have this thought...there have been books written about the topic...but I'm the first person who had this thought that also knew the password to my blog, so it ends up here. I wonder what would happen if men had healthy outlets for their agression, and if such agression were not stigmatized as being brutish, uncivilized and shallow. What if we really had clubs where guys could go to beat each other up, without any personal agenda or fear of lawsuits...what if boxing were taught in gym classes...what if there were rooms in every office building that were just full of garage-sale items that you could break against other garage-sale items? Yelling at your spouse, chewing out your co-workers and beating your kids is NOT healthy aggression...what if we sanctioned healthy aggression for guys in the workplace, in the home...perhaps even in the classroom?
OK, I'm done playing social theorist...let's face it, I'm just not that good at it. But I am good at growling deeply, which I am going to do for the next ten minutes, followed by a round of belching and a good pee on a campfire.
Peace,
Justin
P.S. - See: "Fight Club" See: "Wild At Heart" --> (The book, not the Lynch movie)
Friday, October 08, 2004
What would you write if you knew no one was going to read it?
(This isn't a Buddhist meditation question or a Tim McGraw song...it's not even rhetorical...try it).
I don't mean nobody like "put it on the web, but nobody ever reads my blog anyway" nobody...I mean like, sit down with a piece of paper, a book of matches and a decent metal trashcan and write knowing that you are going to tear up the pieces and burn them as soon as the ink is dry. You would have to COMMIT to doing so...it's not a matter of, "if I write something I don't like," or "if I write something secretive"...regardless of how great it is, how profound it is, and whether or not it contains the first working formula for perputual motion powered by a renewable energy source...you HAVE to burn it.
When I was in college, Miami University had their liberal arts requirements grouped into an all-student mandate known as the "Miami Plan" (a beast which I am told is now extinct at MU), which demanded that, before graduation, all students must take a certain outrageous number of hours of classes outside any of their major or minor classes. It was because of this Miami Plan that I took a class called, "Indian Art and Contexts," taught by a very smart little man who looked not entirely unlike what I imagine your uncle the accountant looks like. In this class, we were taught about the process of producing so-called "Sand Mandalas," which are basically incredibly complex and beautiful circular designs created from tiny bits of colored sand on a clay tray. The monks who created these mandalas would place each piece of sand, one by one, into place on these designs, beginning with the end in mind, and often spending more than a year on one design.
Here's the cool part...
When the design was complete...when every piece of sand had been placed correctly and this perfect design was finally done...the monks would blow on the design. Yup, just inhale-exhale-destroymandala. They didn't show it to anyone, they didn't take a picture of it, they didn't record its beauty and they sure as heck didn't schlak the thing and hang it on the fridge. They stared at it for a second, and then blew it away. Then, they started over.
This, my friends is the definition of futility, no? (See: Ecclesiastes). All that time, all that care...all that effort, for what?
I am tremendously inspired by this concept. How much of what I do is meant to be showcased? How much of my internal motivation is based on the social system of rewards of praise and punishments of scorn? What would my life, my writing, my work, my words look like if I knew no one else would ever be able to see them?
I sat down and wrote this way not long ago. It was two in the morning, and I couldn't sleep...and worse, I couldn't sleep because my brain was filled with so many different thoughts that I feared rupture if I didn't get something out. So, I sat down to write...and I planned to destroy it immediately after. My plan was: write until I had expelled all of this stuff (which felt toxic, to be honest), then click "close" and, when it asked me to save, click "no." Just lose it into cyberspace. No record, no backup, no nuthin'.
I will not tell you what I wrote. I mean...I guess that's kinda the point. But I highly recommend, if you find writing to be purgative or cathartic, to try this.
Peace,
Justin
(This isn't a Buddhist meditation question or a Tim McGraw song...it's not even rhetorical...try it).
I don't mean nobody like "put it on the web, but nobody ever reads my blog anyway" nobody...I mean like, sit down with a piece of paper, a book of matches and a decent metal trashcan and write knowing that you are going to tear up the pieces and burn them as soon as the ink is dry. You would have to COMMIT to doing so...it's not a matter of, "if I write something I don't like," or "if I write something secretive"...regardless of how great it is, how profound it is, and whether or not it contains the first working formula for perputual motion powered by a renewable energy source...you HAVE to burn it.
When I was in college, Miami University had their liberal arts requirements grouped into an all-student mandate known as the "Miami Plan" (a beast which I am told is now extinct at MU), which demanded that, before graduation, all students must take a certain outrageous number of hours of classes outside any of their major or minor classes. It was because of this Miami Plan that I took a class called, "Indian Art and Contexts," taught by a very smart little man who looked not entirely unlike what I imagine your uncle the accountant looks like. In this class, we were taught about the process of producing so-called "Sand Mandalas," which are basically incredibly complex and beautiful circular designs created from tiny bits of colored sand on a clay tray. The monks who created these mandalas would place each piece of sand, one by one, into place on these designs, beginning with the end in mind, and often spending more than a year on one design.
Here's the cool part...
When the design was complete...when every piece of sand had been placed correctly and this perfect design was finally done...the monks would blow on the design. Yup, just inhale-exhale-destroymandala. They didn't show it to anyone, they didn't take a picture of it, they didn't record its beauty and they sure as heck didn't schlak the thing and hang it on the fridge. They stared at it for a second, and then blew it away. Then, they started over.
This, my friends is the definition of futility, no? (See: Ecclesiastes). All that time, all that care...all that effort, for what?
I am tremendously inspired by this concept. How much of what I do is meant to be showcased? How much of my internal motivation is based on the social system of rewards of praise and punishments of scorn? What would my life, my writing, my work, my words look like if I knew no one else would ever be able to see them?
I sat down and wrote this way not long ago. It was two in the morning, and I couldn't sleep...and worse, I couldn't sleep because my brain was filled with so many different thoughts that I feared rupture if I didn't get something out. So, I sat down to write...and I planned to destroy it immediately after. My plan was: write until I had expelled all of this stuff (which felt toxic, to be honest), then click "close" and, when it asked me to save, click "no." Just lose it into cyberspace. No record, no backup, no nuthin'.
I will not tell you what I wrote. I mean...I guess that's kinda the point. But I highly recommend, if you find writing to be purgative or cathartic, to try this.
Peace,
Justin
Wednesday, October 06, 2004
Here are three poems I wrote yesterday, during an interminable Information Technologies meeting...I scrawled 'em on a notepad...
...this is what I do in lieu of paying attention.
An Ode to VineNet (our new web-based info database)
A database enhancement
On the bit-parity road
A cybernet enchantment
In HTML code
A binary bonanza
(I owe…I owe…I owe)
A churchwide expedition
(Though this training’s rather slow).
Untitled IT Training Poem
(spoken to the rhythm of “The Raven”)
Once upon a Tuesday’s training
(The sky was gray, but not quite raining)
I sat in silence, almost profaning
Due to lack of stimuli.
The projector sat, its fan a humming
My mouth was open, my nose was running
Each long instruction was mind-numbing
An anesthetic diatribe.
A Love Memo to Copy Girl
(It should be noted that there is no "copy girl;" I just got inspired by the lighting and the concept of a "love memo")
You look different in the sunshine
The overhead fluorescents
Blanch your skin to office white
A copy-paper countenance
Facisimilied, facsimilied.
What’s left recalls your essence
In toner pointillism
Peace,
Justin
...this is what I do in lieu of paying attention.
An Ode to VineNet (our new web-based info database)
A database enhancement
On the bit-parity road
A cybernet enchantment
In HTML code
A binary bonanza
(I owe…I owe…I owe)
A churchwide expedition
(Though this training’s rather slow).
Untitled IT Training Poem
(spoken to the rhythm of “The Raven”)
Once upon a Tuesday’s training
(The sky was gray, but not quite raining)
I sat in silence, almost profaning
Due to lack of stimuli.
The projector sat, its fan a humming
My mouth was open, my nose was running
Each long instruction was mind-numbing
An anesthetic diatribe.
A Love Memo to Copy Girl
(It should be noted that there is no "copy girl;" I just got inspired by the lighting and the concept of a "love memo")
You look different in the sunshine
The overhead fluorescents
Blanch your skin to office white
A copy-paper countenance
Facisimilied, facsimilied.
What’s left recalls your essence
In toner pointillism
Peace,
Justin
Tuesday, October 05, 2004
The following is a story without a moral...
Yesterday, I tried to set up the "Sky Chair" that Stacy bought at the Renaisannce Fair. For those of you not famliar with the latest in sitting technology (you didn't get this month's copy of Sit Mag?), the Sky Chair is basically a bunch of vinyl strung between heavy nylon cords, and separated by big wooden dowels meant to give your butt a place to go. For more info, see http://www.skychair.com/chair.htm and you too will be amazed by the ingenuity of this product, and by how daggone much it can cost to buy a bunch of nylon rope and vinyl strung together.
The Sky Chair comes complete with an eyebolt with a good eight inches of threading, and the girth of a sewer pipe, meant for hanging in your favorite eaves or tree. It occured to me that I'd love to hang it on the front porch. Wait...let me rephrase that...it occured to Stacy that I'd love to hang it on the front porch. Unfortunately, our front porch eaves are concealed by white aluminum siding, which gives me no indication of where the support joists are. So, being the responsible and protective husband that I am, I took a random guess at where it MIGHT be, drilled a hole, screwed in the eyebolt, hung the chair...and invited Stacy out for a sit. It took about eight seconds for the weight of a human in the chair to rip the plywood out of the roof, pull the nails out of the nearby support joist, and to send the aluminum siding and the chair (complete with passenger) to the concrete floor of my porch. Besides being horribly suprising to Stacy, it was the funniest thing I've seen in weeks. (No worries, we only hung the chair a few inches from the ground, in case such an event would occur...and the siding is very light, being made of aluminum and all). Eight seconds after I had hung our ideal sitting solution for the modern home, I now had an sizeable restoration project on my hands, and a wife with a sore coxyx. (Say it out loud, it's fun).
I managed to hammer the support plywood back in, attach it to the joist, bend the aluminum back into place and...after a couple of guesses, drilled a hole right into the support joist, where the chair now hangs. Stacy, in an act of courage and a symbolic middle finger to classical conditioning, got back in the chair to test it. It held her...and it held me...and that's a feat.
We now have a teriffic sky chair which, assuming nobody steals it this afternoon, will provide hours of floating sittiness for me later today. And, we have some extra ventilation in our porch roof.
This concludes a story without a moral.
Peace,
Justin
Yesterday, I tried to set up the "Sky Chair" that Stacy bought at the Renaisannce Fair. For those of you not famliar with the latest in sitting technology (you didn't get this month's copy of Sit Mag?), the Sky Chair is basically a bunch of vinyl strung between heavy nylon cords, and separated by big wooden dowels meant to give your butt a place to go. For more info, see http://www.skychair.com/chair.htm and you too will be amazed by the ingenuity of this product, and by how daggone much it can cost to buy a bunch of nylon rope and vinyl strung together.
The Sky Chair comes complete with an eyebolt with a good eight inches of threading, and the girth of a sewer pipe, meant for hanging in your favorite eaves or tree. It occured to me that I'd love to hang it on the front porch. Wait...let me rephrase that...it occured to Stacy that I'd love to hang it on the front porch. Unfortunately, our front porch eaves are concealed by white aluminum siding, which gives me no indication of where the support joists are. So, being the responsible and protective husband that I am, I took a random guess at where it MIGHT be, drilled a hole, screwed in the eyebolt, hung the chair...and invited Stacy out for a sit. It took about eight seconds for the weight of a human in the chair to rip the plywood out of the roof, pull the nails out of the nearby support joist, and to send the aluminum siding and the chair (complete with passenger) to the concrete floor of my porch. Besides being horribly suprising to Stacy, it was the funniest thing I've seen in weeks. (No worries, we only hung the chair a few inches from the ground, in case such an event would occur...and the siding is very light, being made of aluminum and all). Eight seconds after I had hung our ideal sitting solution for the modern home, I now had an sizeable restoration project on my hands, and a wife with a sore coxyx. (Say it out loud, it's fun).
I managed to hammer the support plywood back in, attach it to the joist, bend the aluminum back into place and...after a couple of guesses, drilled a hole right into the support joist, where the chair now hangs. Stacy, in an act of courage and a symbolic middle finger to classical conditioning, got back in the chair to test it. It held her...and it held me...and that's a feat.
We now have a teriffic sky chair which, assuming nobody steals it this afternoon, will provide hours of floating sittiness for me later today. And, we have some extra ventilation in our porch roof.
This concludes a story without a moral.
Peace,
Justin
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