Comfortable Grey.

Today is day for those things that can always be relied upon, the pleasure of a full stomach, the comfort of blankets, the distraction of a good book. The sky is low and leaden, and a wet wind blows. As a child I was fond of long walks in solitude, and the blustery conditions kept the Texans away.

The essence of days like this I always think of as a time I stood upon the summit of an iron age hill fort, the unbelievably lush grass bending beneath the force of an Atlantic gale. My anorak played a tattoo with raindrops, while I remained warm and musty in a sweater. There was no-one in sight and I felt so perfectly right, a full sense of belonging, time not passing and myself a thousand years old.

I have antipathy for people today, and I strongly suspect that people have antipathy for myself, not just now, but in general. A bed, a bath, a book and a blanket, all can be relied upon but people will always disappoint. People will also amaze, amuse and astonish, but they also always disappoint.

I have a whimsy of building with my own hands a tiny one room cottage of field stone and turf roof, out in the damp depths of nowhere. It is just a whimsy, I flutter from one mood to the next, but this mood is about hiding, and such a place seems a fitting place to hide.

Plan B.

1. Get a check for disposable income. Don't ask for anything that would require a lawyer but get some money. You can't live without it.
2. Purchase a used 9mm semi-automatic and a number of rounds of ammunition. In Houston this should be relatively cheap and will be much harder to get when you are poor and filthy-looking.
3. Get the Subaru included and don't take the dog.
4. Camping equipment. Costs will be dramatically decreased by sleeping in the back of the Subaru. I see no downside here.
5. Don't pick a destination. Trying for a future is what you got you here. Blow all your money. Shoot at people. Have sex with anyone. Why not?
6. Remember who your friends are. This may be tricky, but you can do it. There has to be one of them, right?
7. See what happens.
8. Remember 2.
   

The "Nearly There" Lethargy

I am a lazy person. But a practical lazy person. This means that while I strongly dislike doing things, I understand that things have to be done. Furthermore, often if you don't do something you will have to do more later. As a result I tend to get to things done quite quickly, I don't like the weight of things undone hanging around. I'd much rather be lying around, free as a bird. One of the modifiers on this is my mood. Since my mood changes quite a lot, or more accurately my energy level changes, there are times when I really don't want to do anything at all, and other times when I am extremely productive. I tend to do a weeks' worth of projects in a day.

The other modifier to this principle is when there is a sustained project, something that takes months or years, just when the end is in sight all motivation evaporates. This happens at the point where I become certain that I can fulfill the final tasks. Once the final portion of a long and difficult task becomes something which provides little challenge it becomes extraordinarily difficult for me to get over the finish line. I tend to waffle, prevaricate, procrastinate and avoid the last little bit. Well, the end of our Annus Difficilis is at hand and all that was needed was the collection of about twenty pieces of paper. Ten days went by with me wandering and waffling, but yesterday I spent a full eight hour day of mad scrambling to finish everything. Before closing on our house I need to send one e-mail and then wait for three weeks before the ridiculous signing event.

The "Nearly there lethargy" is a fascinating thing about myself that I don't really understand. I also don't really understand whether I like having things about myself that I don't understand, or not.

Dreams.

This week has been characterized for me by a series of extremely vivid dreams. Usually I awake with little or no memory of any dreams. This week I have had a number of dreams that I have remembered. Last night I remembered two dreams, the first with me in the role of a young boy who had joined the Liverpool Football Team. There was distance and distrust from the established stars of the team, but I felt confident in my abilities.

The second dream from last night seemed to be my own brain mocking my tendency for existentialist angst. In the role of a James Bond like spy I attempted to suavely wander through a series of high end back-drops (including the Grand Canal in Venice). As I attempted to flee from mysterious characters, who were going to find me out as a fraud, ridiculous problems would stop this. Traffic stopped me from crossing a street, the welds on a metal ladder would pop open one after the other, my beautiful white tuxedo was constantly being soaked in one way or other. But the entire feeling of the dream, which I think is really the essence of dreaming, was one of a slapstick comedy.

Earlier on in the week was the really good dream. This started off with myself and my friend Dade needing to get back to his apartment in an industrial area because I had left two sandwiches in the oven to warm. I became separated from him in attempting to get there and found myself running to try and get to the apartment, and then up through multiple security doors in a barren and depressing urban setting.
Once in the apartment there was a sudden change in which I was arrested because of mistaken identity, and then at the same time I assumed the persona of Michael Hasselhof within a film. With a large, black guard as my accomplice Hasselhof was transferred to a different section of the jail under the less than watchful eyes of a female guard. Changing into military fatigues he slides down a chute and out into the snow-draped industrial area in which ROTC students are marching. Assuming his best faux military posture he marches past them until he sees a group of school children on a field trip. One of the children sees him, the child who accused him of pedophilia, the child gives a wicked smile and goes to tell the teacher something. The dream ends with The Hoff desperately scrambling over the remains of a decrepit shed, fleeing in horror from the child.

A $2,500 Semi-Bluff

I think for my darling wife and myself the last year is not going to be remembered as a calendar year but from the point this time last year to this moment. Last year at this time Christina's work gave her the stark choice, lose your job at the beginning of what was then predicted to be the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression or move to suburban Houston, Texas. We took the full time possible to make that choice and the process had everything from anger to depression, worry about our marriage, worry about simply living.

The year is now over with the acceptance of our offer for a house in Houston. The end of this process is finally in sight, a home of our own with our planning requiring simply enough effort for Christina to remain employed and for myself to ensure that we are fed, clothed, sheltered and happy. We have agreed to not even think about further planning for another year. We're just going to move into this place and gently vegetate in the sunshine. You know those all-inclusive resorts with a pool, cocktails and island music? We're going to go with the approach of a year long resort.

In the last year there's been a lot to do. I have never sold a house before, and that, with multiple contractors and painters and documents was an enormous stress. Christina and I spent several weeks apart for the first time in our relationship, I drove 3000 miles with a "Check engine" light on. We both have had bouts of depression, times of anger. We had to buy a car and rent a house in two days in an unfamiliar city. I've been bitten by a snake, seen the Grand Canyon, felt the disappointment of a nearly-failed vacation (Puerto Vallarta) when a vacation was really necessarily. I've said goodbye to too many people, and hello to not nearly enough. Our dog Larry is recovering from his second surgery this year. I've spent time with family in enormously different circumstances and experienced everything from being swamped in social interaction to feeling utterly alone in the world. It's been a tough year for me, and there are billions of people in the world who would love to have a year like mine. I am a lucky man. My marriage is as strong as ever after having been tested, the sun is shining, and I have enough money in my pocket to celebrate with a nice beer.

The title of this post comes from the circumstances of the negotiations today. The house was listed at $189,500, we offered $180,000. This afternoon we learned that there was a counter-offer at $182,500. In the scheme of things that $2.500 was not really going to change our minds about buying the house. It was a very clever counter-offer in that it was small enough that it could be reasonably expected that someone who wanted to buy the house wouldn't balk at it. But Christina and myself decided that we thought no-one else had an offer on the table. With such a small difference in the counter-offer it seemed very likely that he would take the original offer but was just trying to get a little extra cash out of it. We thought we were in the stronger position and stuck to our offer,which was accepted. A semi-bluff worth an hour of thought, and a little nervousness. I've never made a gamble like that before with that amount of money, looking at the odds and making a read on a person's position and taking a risk. $2500 wasn't worth not getting the house, but we have the house and the money. I feel like a proper grown-up.

Home.

Oh My Fucking Lord!

Excuse my french, but it's nothing you haven't heard before. The following is to a link about happiness, and apparently I am happier than all of the wise who opined upon the subject.

Hello Everybody.

I hope that if you are here for interesting insight into philosophical matters you will scroll down. I particularly recommend the Death vs. Cheney post, I feel it has been under-appreciated.

This one is just a little insight into the wonderful world of me. I got up today at 6:45 am after going to bed about 11pm. Generally I need about 9 hours of sleep. It is now 1:45am in the morning, and I can feel my brain racing like a dedicated marathon runner trying to break through the wall.

I have debated religion and philosophy for several hours. I am so clever right now that my tomorrow self would simply admit defeat. That's not a joke.

You know when in movies they show the montage to explain a series of activities (good Ween song by the way)? That's me in regular time right now. It's lucky I don't have the access or desire for cocaine.

We Are The Music Makers, And We Are The Dreamers Of The Dreams

"Snozberries? Who ever heard of a snozberry?"
"We are the music makers and we are the dreamers of the dreams"

This is probably the only instance of a line from a film that I have consistently remembered through my life. It is from the great Willy Wonka, a film that also was part of the reason for one of the great moves in my life, out to Portland. While visiting Portland I saw this at the Bagdad Theatre with home crafted beer and pizza on a flawless April day. I felt that Portland was a place of music makers and dreamers of dreams, and Michigan (my home at the time) was a place of toilers and doers.

This dichotomy is exactly what the words are about, in the face of doubt and suspicion Willy Wonka responds with the core of his character, that because something isn't, it does not mean that it can't be. The words are actually from an ode by Arthur O'Shaughnessy which makes the point more clearly with each ensuing line.

I have been meaning to write a post based on this line over the last few weeks as it has reappeared to me over and over again. While walking in bright sunshine in the shadow of a volcano, while playing croquet on an English lawn, while walking maniacally under the shadow of enormous boulders. Socrates said an unexamined life is not worth living, but I think this is not true. I think for most people their character is such that acting from reflex, doing what is expected, doing your work and loving your family is indeed a worthwhile life. In truth, without such people nothing would ever get done, famine would ensue, buildings would collapse. These are the watchers of sit-coms, the ones who listen to pop music, the ones who sneer at thinking.

Those who do not need to examine their lives are in the majority, and seem to dominate life. The unthinking hordes who can hold George Bush up as the most and least popular president in history as a result of madmen committing mass-murder rather than anything he did. I remember my teenage years as a grey, oppressive time in which dull and serious people tried to force the necessary information into me so that I could become productive. The methods they used were fear and a lack of alternatives. Listen to the first third of Pink Floyd's The Wall to get the basic idea.

In this sort of situation the statement that "We are the music makers, and we are the dreamers of the dreams" is an enormous comfort. The most important word of the phrase is "We." Gene Wilder plays it perfectly in the film, a tiny little whispered message to all the children with dreams and the knowledge of magic that they are not alone. In fact, there is a great chain throughout history that you can feel a part of from Homer to Tim Burton. There have been thousands of great geniuses, and millions of lesser lights, throughout every culture in all times. All these people have been told to cut out their strange ideas, to do something productive, to stop wasting their lives.

This is essentially a childish way of being. The emphasis is on exploring, finding out, inventing, playing. The antithesis of being a dreamer is to settle down and start acting your age. But the whole origin of humanity as a unique species is down to the extension of childhood, neoteny. I am indeed quite childish, a typical teenager with my angst and my anger, my dreams and my fairytales, my railing against the oppression that others think is nothing. I think that's just the way I am, a bright, middle-aged child.

I am a part of a special group, without whom life would be a drab and pointless activity. Without those who understand what I am talking about, whose essential nature is to think what might be rather than what is, to create something new, and that a thought or dream isn't just a dream, humanity would be just beasts digging in the dirt. While I am not a particularly special part of this group, no star or leading light, I am indisputably a member of this group. This gives me great comfort when being stared at with horror and incomprehension because I am mad (and at those times I am probably mad.) When I rant about the emotion that pours from a song to someone who's just not into that sort of music I can feel part of a long history. When I feel my skin crawl with the need to do, to experience, to feel, it is a comfort to know I am not alone. When I feel the tears come to my eyes at something deeply sad, but still marvel in the pure beauty of the sadness, I can know that I am not the only one who has felt such things.

It is not better to be part of this group, just different. But I know for sure that I am one of the music makers, one of the dreamers of the dream.

Electric Society - Why All The Negativity?

Much of my interaction with people now is through the internet, particularly on forums. The most surprising thing to me about this format is how well it does at providing the necessary social interaction to feel pretty good. Before the internet I have had a couple of periods in which I had a similar number of friends as I do now that I could actually meet and talk to, that is none. During those times it was extremely lonely for me, which seemed a bit strange because two of my favorite activities have always been walking alone and reading a book, entirely solitary activities. However, while I feel the absence of something most people think is vital to a happy life, a group of friends to meet and talk to, this doesn't bear down on me in the way it has in the past.

Apparently typing to someone and getting a response, even if you don't know their real name, or even gender, fulfills something in the human psyche. I don't think it matters actually what the topic of conversation consists of, just that there is an interaction. Making a blog post doesn't have the same effect, because it is a one way process. It's interesting that playing music is similarly interactive, I can play the same thing by myself in a room or in front of a crowd, and it is the applause that really is the most enjoyable thing.

The forums that I visit are mostly sports forums. This is a result of the 2004 US Presidential elections. Before that point I was mostly interested in discussing the things that really matter, politics and philosophy and what we should do with the world. Upon the re-election of President Bush I found that all too depressing, the gulf between what we should be doing and what was actually happening was too vast, and immersed myself in the completely trivial world of sport.

One of the interesting things about the internet is what it tells you about people. For example, the major use of the internet is for pornography, this pornography is more popular in politically conservative areas than politically liberal areas, and that the rate of rapes decreases noticeably in areas that receive high speed internet. What this tells us is that basically everybody is really interested in sex, that this sex interest cannot be altered one bit by culture or religion, that denying this just makes the situation worse, and that when given a safe, private option people will take it over the dangerous, public option. In other words the best way to deal with sex is to give people all the legal access to it they want in a private place. The same is almost certainly true for drugs. I'm sure it's true for religion.

Second to pornography on the internet is the sport of arguing with people, and arguing with people about sport is probably close to the top of this area of interest. Don't believe me? At this Portland TrailBlazer Forum there have been about 625,000 topic postings in its' history, which is about ten years. That's 170 topic postings a day about one basketball team, and these are just the topic starters, without the replies. So, at this one site there has been an average of something like 1,000 opinions posted a day. NBA basketball has an eight month season, that's four months without any basketball played, and there are only games every three days during the season. I know of four other forums dedicated solely to this one team. If I had to guess I would say that there are 10,000 posted opinions per game on the internet. This is clearly a preposterous number of opinions about a basketball game.

Looking at the postings what you find is that it is precisely the arguing that makes up most of the posting. The level of viciousness that goes on is only matched by the level of arrogant stupidity that also take place. People who have never played an officiated game of basketball will consistently claim that the coach of the team, a person who has played professionally for more than a decade, coached multiple teams at the highest level, and been selected for a key management position in a several hundred million dollar operation by successful business people, is an idiot in some way with regards to his job. This a preposterous position to take, but I would say it is the largest single category of opinion expressed.

The overwhelming number of posts are in fact negative. This has been extremely interesting to me as the Portland Trailblazers have risen from being a bad team to a good team, and yet the proportion of negativity has not changed. It seems to me that the posting on the internet has almost nothing to do with the purported subject matter, but is actually an expression of personality. Just like hardcore pornography relieving the sexual tensions of people regardless of culture and religion and therefore cutting down on the rape numbers, I think online, anonymous arguing regardless of the subject is fulfilling a need for people.

One of the things to realize is that on these forums the overwhelming majority are men. Men communicate in order to solve problems. One of the basic function of men, what they have evolved to be, are solvers of problems. Without having an opinion on a problem, being able to express that opinion, men are shadows of themselves. This is why men are so much more pompous than women. But so much of modern life is about sublimating these opinions and conforming. At work if you are a low ranking employee your opinion doesn't matter. I'm sure we've all had the experience where we know how to improve a working situation but simply don't get listened to because of our job title. At church you are told what to think. At home the pressure is there not to upset your loved ones. Men just want to say what they really think sometimes, and the internet is an almost consequence free way of doing that.

The result is a deeply uncivil conversation with those of a differing point of view. It makes much of the discussion on the internet distasteful, but I think it is serving a purpose. Internet forums give people an outlet that has enough if a social stimulation to ward off loneliness, to feel more important, and to express their opinions, but also no-one really gets hurt as a result. Just like we'd all prefer weird uncle Tommy to be jacking off in a vinyl suit to disgusting pornography to him raping young women in the park, we'd actually all prefer ignorant, opinionated blowhards yelling on the internet to yelling at their loved ones.