Posted 2 years, 7 months ago in the early evening by oso
A chicken and an egg are lying in bed. The chicken is leaning against the headboard smoking a cigarette, with a satisfied smile on its face. The egg, looking a bit pissed off, grabs the sheet, rolls over, and says “Well, I guess we finally answered that question”.
I felt a small surge of accomplishment when I finally got all my boxes of all my nonsense from the old place to the new place. But then I looked around and realized … wait a minute, I don’t want any of this. Who will come and take it away?
The good news is that I have told myself that I will never buy anything besides food and drink ever again. Which, if I remember correctly, is what I told myself the last time I moved and the time before that.
So, in other words, there are two words to describe moving: rectum sucking. (that’ll give us google love) Surveying the awkward layout of my new, cramped room cluttered with boxes of papers and thrift store threads, I was thinking to myself just how much rectum it sucked when I noticed the corner of a blue sheet of paper sticking out of one of the boxes.
A blue book. These things were legendary in college. I still remember sprinting to the campus bookstore three minutes before a final exam, fumbling around in my backpack for the 54 cents that they charged for three of them. I remember scribbling for two hours straight until my hands cramped up so bad that my fingers were permanently stuck together in that Italian gesture of “Ima gonna sticka my hand up your asshole Luigi!”
But I couldn’t, not for the life of me, remember what I actually wrote in any of those little blue books. So I opened it up and started to read.
In London, 1903 Leon Trotsky, leader of the Mensheviks, put forth his theory of substitutionism. The theory was a critique of Lenin’s political philosophy, which Trotsky said started with all of Russian society in which the working class was most important. Of the working class, Lenin only wanted what he called “true revolutionaries” which he would represent as supreme dictator. Trotsky called this perilous substituting a recipe for disaster and warned that Lenin’s “democratic centralism” would not allow for political factions to form or any sense of plurality and therefore would not truly represent the people’s will.
Say what!? I kept reading on, in awe, that these words were written by … me. What in the hell was I trying to say? Or was this just complete bullshit … did I have no clue what I was talking about? Even for BS, it was still bad.
On the inside cover, in red: “97% A.” It was only slightly comforting to know that my T.A.’s were as oblivious as I was. But what really frightened me was that, just five years later, I had no recollection of anything I had written. Not Trotsky’s substitutionism, not Kornhauser’s “mass society,” not Lenin’s New Economic Policy, nor Stalin’s liquidation of the Kulaks.
And so, my folded blue book in hand, useless shit scattered all over my room, I couldn’t help thinking, what the hell is the point of all this? Not just the paycheck after paycheck spent on Levis and overpriced CD’s, but also all the classes, all the books, all the recycled New York Times.
I asked Dave - now a scientist at a biotech company - how much of his college education he actually uses at his work. His answer: “anywhere from 1 to 5%”
How interesting that you bring up blue books in this stage in our lives. After my iBook bit the dust, I drove to BookPeople to fetch a blank book I can layout a hand-made calendar. In searching for them, I bumped into a series of blue books and brought back of a lot of memories of high school. You see, back in H-skool, I was drilled everyday with “timed-essays,” about some issue or the other. It grueling then, but I have to say, I miss it now.
For a moment I thought of buying some to replace TextEdit on my laptop. But I have my journal. And I’m liking what I’m seeing there.
***
I’ll say you probably don’t remember what you wrote because it’s all regurgitation. You weren’t writing freely, expressing yourself, but you were merely mirroring what you had researched. A person can research their heart out and they’ll never be able to articulate what they are doing, unless they actually put their heart into it.
I’m lucky to say that I use about 45% of my college education at my job. I use a lot of writing, editing, and brainstorming. I teach techy workshops on software and design techniques, etc. It’s the things I learned how to do in my creative writing and my graphic design classes. But I get paid minutely for my skills.
Even then, I wished I’d get paid to write only creatively. I’d probably get paid less for that. I highly doubt that’ll ever happen.
But there’s something crucial in what you’re writing in this post.
And this point is the way we read blogs, websites, news bites, etc. It’s superextrafast information that’s force-fed to us, whether you seek it,such as blogs, or not. You’re never going to recall or relish the ideas and thoughts you love the way you would a book, or a newspaper. We absorb the information, but it somehow seeps out of brains. What’s the cause of this?
We speed read, we skim. Even when we’re really enraptured by the content, our minds are elsewhere. Where am I going to click next? Oh, I haven’t visited this website in a long time. Or I need to check my bank account online. You get the picture.
Technology is both such a incredible thing for those who read and write, but it’s also shaping it in such a mutated form, that those who love to read and write, are forced to change their own way they learned to think and read. Those who don’t have the formal training in writing or reading, now do so, but learn this mutated form, and may hardly pick up a book and read it in it’s entirety. Even I have a difficult time with that. Shit, and that’s starting to worry me. What are losing here? What is technology stripping away?
***
No offense, but that type of mentality sounds like the beginnings of living in a sheltered bubble of suburbia/hipster/upper-middle class way of thinking. “This doesn’t concern me, so why should I worry about:”
people dying
the hungry
the poor
the uneducated
the illegal immigration
Insert anything at all.
I see this everyday in Austin. It’s this pseudo-lifestyle where only certain things matter. No wonder Austin saw very few marches and walk-outs regarding the immigration law. Austin is a city only concerned with it’s self. If it’s about the war (where hippies and neo hippies can rise up and smoke pot) or if it’s gay rights—then half of the city will be up-in arms.
Yet, half of these people don’t care about the people that picked their organic fruits and vegetables at Whole Foods or Central Market. It doesn’t concern them how the food got to their table. I have better things to do like go to euro style coffee shop.
This insert any issue has no concern to me at all.
I’m scared of this mentality.
I’m scared of the folks who think: There’s really no meaning to anything, why should it matter? Because they’re not using their hearts and their minds together.
And thinking with one half is as worse as thinking with nothing at all.
there is no point in learning anything if you will never use it at a party to impress people with glasses and sportsjackets. i use 5% of my college education at my work, and thats the time i spent writing bullshit essays for history class. i do a lot of writing at my work so im glad i got practice writing in college, thats about it tho. i was a history major, what do you expect. the name trostsky does ring a bell.
i once wore a sportsjacket. what’s interesting is that i was at the time contemplating the third international’s role in catapulting trotsky to the role of menshevik figurehead, a maneuver which left him inevitably susceptible to criticisms of abandoning the class struggle as a means to species-being consciousness, and utlimately, his banishment and tragic death. it was in this instant that i realized what i had long since feared: it was the sportsjacket that was wearing me!
Words and ideologies change the shape of your mental filter. your perspective, and therefore how you act later is the effect, whether you realize it or not.
Hmm Cesar, you’re comparing the poor dying, illegal immigration, the hungry and the uneducated to a proposal to merge some elementary school with some middle school?
We all have a limited amount of mental energy and time, perhaps it would be better spent by proactively thinking about the real issues that do affect us (even in the grander betterment of the world sort of way) such as those you listed, rather than whatever the barrage of information that we are subjected to all day happens to be raining down on us at any particular moment.
Or else we might find ourselves solving the world changing issue of whether kids do better going to school in clumps of 6+2+3+2 years or 8+3+2 years, instead of whether kids are better off having one meal a day or starving to death.
the older i’ve gotten (and it’s so way older than you, youngster), the less i like owning ‘things’. it’s weird … i just don’t like having stuff to always have to deal with … be responsible for … perhaps it’s also due to the repeated moves i have done as well. moving is, after all, a horrible experience. i’d be happy with a few jeans and khackis .. a few shirts and sandals … my dog .. and those electronics i’m admittadly addicted to (linux laptop, ipod, other such things) ..
my niece was asking me a while back why i never really seemed to care about cars … as in having bigger, better, more expensive ones .. i replied “if i have grandkids one day, i’d much rather show them pictures of me standing every place from the grand canyon to the outback of australia rather than in my driveway in front of each successive car i was paying for” .. i suppose that may be most meaningless, though, as i’m very unlikely to ever procreate.
PS — I think I’m gonna require some Oso assistance with some WP plugins.
Who came first? lol
Oso,
I didn’t immediately comment because I like sulking in the words man; but one thought came to mind instantly: “That last paragraph sure summerized the pessimism”, and then you changed the title to “Pessimism”.
In response to:“Then, a few days later, I was walking with the ladyfriend to some Euro-chic bar in Pacific Beach (who knew!) and she’s telling me how enraptured she was by an NPR segment on the proposal to combine elementary schools with middle schools. Until it dawned on her that the issue had absolutely no bearing on her life at all and there was no reason for her to even listen to it. She couldn’t figure out why she was so interested, why she cared at all.”
I’d have to say that I struggle daily with my own intellectual heirarchy. “What shall I spend my time on today”, i ask. Lately it’s French protests and bird flu, because i’m intrigued; 50 million dollar push to eradicate Downtown Los Angeles’ homeless epidemic because I’m an Angeleno and I feel it’s my duty to know; Immigration reform, but thats self-explanatory; and futbol from across the globe…oh you bet i’m checking out blogs, reports, stats, all that.
I think it’s a product of the 24 hour news-”up to the minute coverage”-what causes cancer todayworld we live in. Basically, we find ourselves perusing through every major news source to see what intrigues us. I think it’s consequential that we pick and choose what we’ll read straight through, give half ass skims, or simply move on all together. I know I pay particular attention to subjects I recognize are parallel to my intellectual progression.
Anyway, I love the intro to this post. But i’ve always wanted to change the story of the chicken and the egg, to the platypus and the egg. haha…oh it’s late…ciao tio.
© Citoyen du Monde Inc. 2006™
i’ve purged and repurged my material possessions. it always feels so much better afterwards. i’ve also tried to become more discriminating of the items i bring home. material possessions can become such a ball and chain. i encourage you to go through your items and just ask, “whats the worst that can happen if i get rid of this?”
ok, i opened the window three days ago to post and it’s been sitting open since then. I figure before camino decides to crash on me, I should go ahead and post.
first of all, where are you moving again? you just got back here! as a true pack rat, moving is one of the few things i abhor wih a passion. I know there’s a big movement to purge and all but I love my stuff, especially my books, my diaries, my albums, and I am not getting rid of them. my mom threw out a bunch of my books when i was six and i still yearn for them, many of which are irreplacable.but seriously, where are you moving?
as far as remembering, i am always amazed at the stuff that comes out of my brain at random times. when i think back to my college years and all the classes i took, i always feel depressed and wish I could do them over again with the knowledge and brain i have today. i feel like i’d learn and retain so much more. however, sometimes when you think you’re not remebering/digesting something, it actually settles in the back of your mind (consciousness) and comes up at random times. at least it does for me. when people ask for my feedback on something, as i talk, thoughts i never knew were there come out and enlighten my along with the person i am talking to. i guess what i am trying to say is that you may not remember the actual words you wrote, but the ideas and the core of the thoughts are always in you somewhere, IMHO
since i studies something relatively practical, i do use a lot of my college education at work as well. maybe not the actual languages i learned to code in, but the practices of programming and database knowledge i have now took root at school.
that euro-chic restaurant has relatively good food actually, jake and i went there on our anniversary last year with david and we all watched the sun set. quite nice and reminded me of nyc. as for listening to something that doesnt have bearing on your life, i have mixed feelings on that. part of me feels like cesar in that everything around you matters. but even on a more practical note, many of these proposals take a really long time to go into effect and have longlasting consequences. if your lady friend is planning on having children some day, any day, these things do matter to her. if she won’t have kids but her sibligns will (assuming she has any) they still matter. it may not matter to her life his very moment, but it is still important to listen to,especially if she feels interested. i think general knowledge about the world around us and these specific discussions about matters that may seem not-useful are part of what form our characher and make us the adults we become. i didn’t know much about the public education system in the US until I taught and now i am so glad, because i think years later, it will make me a better mother and allow me to make better choices for my son. or maybe i am talking out of my ass, who knows.
you may or may not remember the actual events with the Kurds and the Turks but I am confident you will remember some of the lessons and morals. you internalized more of it than you think. and there’s nothing wrong with watching soaps or reading romance, if that’s what makes you happy. because i think life is about trying to stay more happy than sad (or pessimistic).
life is good, oso, especially yours. and mine
haha, the good ol’ blue book. I never understood why I didn’t buy them in bulk if I knew I was going to need them. Instead, much like you, I would run to the student store minutes before class!
Anyhow, I think Patri stated it best:
“Words and ideologies change the shape of your mental filter. your perspective, and therefore how you act later is the effect, whether you realize it or not.”
César,
So right you are:
I hate to admit this … me, the ultra-evangelist of weblogs … but the moment of the day that I consistently enjoy the most is when I sit down with a cup of joe and feel the texture of the newspaper or softback book between my thumb and forefinger. It’s me and the eyes, ears, and ideas of whoever is writing to me. That should be how reading online is as well, but it never is. As soon as I open my laptop I have dozens of emails from people asking me to do this and that, literally thousands of rss items waiting to be read, a to-do list that grows and grows and a calendar that just gets busier every week. Reading online doesn’t feel like reading, it feels like fighting back … fighting back against the onslaught of information that demands to be read.
Moreno,
You’ve stumbled across the other problem: no one invites me to parties. That and my friends still wear baggy khakis from high school.
Patri,
Absolutely. That’s probably the same thing I woulda said had I read rather than written this. The thing is … you know that feeling … maybe it’s just a particular expression or the way someone words a though … and you’re like, wow, I had never really thought about before. Well, those moments don’t seem to happen so much any more and I miss them.
Shimonkey,
I think that 6+2+3+2 is overkill. You obviously haven’t thought about this long enough.
Myke,
I couldn’t agree with you more. I say the ownership society is for dummies. I’m trying to sell just about everything right now.
Yolanda,
I knew you’d get it.
Alejandro,
It’s funny, somehow I’ve never really thought about what I “invest my brain time” in until you and Shimonkey brought it up. But you’re right, there is only so much time each day that our brains are willing to be active for us (and lately my brain has been getting very stingy). I guess that lately all my brain time has been going into Global Voices, which is why I haven’t been writing much on here … and which is probably why it took me weeks to finish a book that would usually only take a couple days.
Irasali,
Yeah, I’m in the midst of purging right now. Purging and digitalizing. A lot of what I’ve held onto are photographs and old journals - they take up a few boxes as they are, but if I’d just scan and transcribe them, it would probably amount to just a few DVD’s.
Karen,
I also think that general knowledge tends to bring about a lot of empathy. Whenever we read about things that don’t seem to have anything to do with our own lives, we tend to look for some hidden link, some relevant connection somewhere. And that’s probably not a bad thing. Yes, life is good; so good that the only complaint I can dream up is that I have too much liesure time to read and not enough brain to keep it all in.
I take it back, if I read rather than wrote this, I’d leave a comment telling the author to shut the hell up and work on a farm.
Gustavo,
I was explaining what a blue book was the other day and I said the exact same thing - why in the hell didn’t I just buy 30 at the beginning of the quarter instead of rushing before every single exam to buy just a couple. Then again, I also fill up only half a tank of gas for no apparent reason whatsoever.
Don’t forget to do the meme Oso (Link) - Tambien en Español (Link).
LMFAO @ Rectum sucking!You trip me out! How many hits so far?
The things that have stayed with me throughout my life were learned free of charge. It’s the most important lessons that you take with you in your personality, character, and person that are worth learning. . .but you usually don’t realize these things until later in life.