Empathy for Sartre

Listening to- Dropkick the Punks by The Faint (Check it out on the playlist at the bottom of this page)
Eating- Raw Spinach with Plain Yoghurt
Much to my perpetual chagrin, the philosophy class I’m taking has tickled my brain. Currently, this brain stimulation has taken the form of a strange sort of empathy for Sartre, in addition to incomprehensible vehement (and indubitably obnoxious) rants about how Bertrand Russell is irrevocably wrong. These rants are fueled by so much righteous indignation that even thinking about his theories about language pisses me off. Anyways, on to Sartre. We were watching this video about him on Youtube in class, and the narrator was discussing this metaphor Sartre had for his relationships with other humans. (Keep in mind that the quote, “Hell is other people,” is attributed to this angsty Frenchman.) Someone is pressed against a keyhole, mesmerized by whatever is happening inside the room. The watcher is totally absorbed in the scene to the point where they are unaware of their own existence (and their own capabilities with regards to interacting with others), until someone comes up the stairway behind them. Caught in the act, they are suddenly acutely self-conscious and ashamed of the impropriety of their actions. This metaphor succinctly encapsulates my issues with interacting with others- left to my own devices, I would love to press my eye to the keyhole and watch in privacy; however, as soon as someone comes up the stairs (or opens the door) I clam up, totally at a loss as to how to interact. It’s just so much more interesting to watch and produce pseudo-insightful thoughts about those in the room actively participating in life.
Since the aforestated metaphor was possibly less meaningful to everyone else, I’ll endeavor to explain the Bertrand Russell (aided by Joe Klein) vs. Lynn argument. The sentence, “The golden mountain does not exist,” is as good a jumping off point as any. Russell believes that there are only true and false statements; however, the above sentence is neither true nor false- it’s meaningless. In order to garner meaning, Russell breaks the sentence down in to three parts.
1. There is at least one thing that is a golden mountain.
2. There is at most one thing that is a golden mountain.
(These first statements compose the uniqueness clause, which basically means that there is only one thing being referred to)
3. The thing that is a golden mountain does not exist.
Russell claims that this statement breakdown is true if and only if every part is true- since the uniqueness clause is false, the entire statement is false.
Clearly, I wouldn’t be mentioning this if I didn’t disagree, so here’s my counter argument.
The above statement is only partially false, since the phrase “there is” is synonymous to the phrase “there exists” and Russell neglects to specify which meaning of existence he is attempting to disprove. Gold exists, as do mountains, and one can easily add these two concepts mentally, proving that the above statement still doesn’t really mean anything; however, the golden mountain can exist conceptually but not physically.
The second sentence Russell manipulates to attempt to convince unsuspecting women of the superior size of his… well, anyways, goes as follows, “The present king of France is bald.” The phrase “the present king of France” doesn’t refer to anything in the physical realm of our world, so Russell again claims that the sentence is meaningless unless it is subjected to his numbered breakdown and proven false. Russell, aided by Joe Klein, claims that the aforementioned addition of true concepts is delving in to Plato’s Universal Realm of Ideas, which Russell (and most other people) don’t believe.
Fair enough; however, what are numbers but referents to concepts? The statement, “Two plus three plus six equals nine,” is analogous to the aforementioned bald king statement- both sentences rely on the addition of concepts to refer to anything, even if the ultimate outcome is false.
Russell’s response, supposedly, would go something like this. “Math is the exception.”
Cop-out.

Having A Literary Laugh

Listening to: Gasoline by The Airborne Toxic Event 

Reading: Slapstick By Kurt Vonnegut

For those of you who are familiar with Don DeLillo's White Noise and the aforementioned Vonnegut book, there appears to be an interesting coincidental correlation between the band's name and the subject of the book. Random, probably mathematically viable "coincidences" aside, Slapstick is cracking me up, not to mention making me think a great deal. I'm only on page 96, so I have no idea what my ultimate conclusion about the book will be, but so far it's been... interesting. Why is it that it's easier to be a dumb aberration than a smart one? Why do looks judged to be ugly by the average opinion of the masses-society detract from the viability of some one's opinions? Why is the idea of New York, that icon of high-speed high-rise neon glass steel and designer leather, rotting and crumbling slowly in to the ocean so attractive? Why does the ugly, abhorrent narrator live on Manhattan Island, intellectually and emotionally alone, in this subtly anarchical manner- scrounging and co-existing with the remains of glittering, unsustainable America?

Leftovers

(A Thought-Provoking Book, Not a Gastric Adventure)

A Brief Synopsis- The book Leftovers , by Laura Wiess, is essentially a coming-of-age story about two girls in radically different situations who learn things the hard way and then take matters in to their own hands with mixed results. In other words, this book isn’t very unique; however, the novel is written in second person point-of-view (you go, you think, ect.). This manner of exposition invites the reader to picture him/herself in the story, which lends an unusual amount of poignancy to the plot.

Literary babblings aside, this book reminded me of my last summer at home in New Mexico, in particular this one time, rather unpleasant, when I over indulged more than usual and experienced a truly unusual emotion, one evoked continually throughout this book.  “This bubble you’ve agreed to climb into has sealed shut and will never pop open because it wasn’t born of whimsy, soap, and water, but sculpted with intent as durable as glossy polymer varnish. And it hardened while you weren’t looking, shrunk into a carapace, as seamless, custom-designed, full-body cast from which there is no escape.” (P.191) Obviously that’s a somewhat dramatic example, but the emotion I’m referring to is present- the feeling of being trapped in a hell of your own design, a sudden, lightning-yellow epiphany illuminating the future as the present stands- teenagers, smoking and scaring the kids, who just want to turn cartwheels and who will, in turn, become the teenagers on the steps… a never-ending cycle in the summers stretching back to the creation of “cool” parents and cigarettes and porch steps and apartments…

The Churro Incident

(Or Why My Faith in Humanity Has Been Restored)

I was perusing the concessions area in Costco on Wednesday, anxiously clutching my usual assortment of small change waiting in line for a soda, (20 oz for $0.59, but it’s super carbonated.), when I noticed a display case full of delicious looking churros. Normally all of the food that Costco regularly purveys is gone by 7:30 pm, which is when I’m there, so there aren’t any samples or anything, but on this particular Wednesday churros languidly basked under glowing hot lights on gentle crinkly beds of industrial grade wax paper, turning slowly for the appreciation of all. I was entranced, and began ranting somewhat incoherently to my friend, who was also waiting to garner the absurdly cheep soda. Previous to my love affair with the churros (who, alas, knew not of my infatuation….) a middle-aged woman in front of me mistook me for her husband. The aforesaid information is important, even if it doesn’t seem to be right now. The middle-aged woman made her purchases, two slices of pizza, then, turned, change in hand, and gave my friend and I enough money to buy churros. I was in awe. I honestly didn’t think that people legitimately did random acts of kindness. Munching on my churro, I made my way to some of my fellow housemates, shared the goodness of the idiosyncratic concoction of twisted dough and cinnamon sugar, and related the tale. 

Thinking about it even now I’m still shocked. I thought that to most people I seem, at worst a gender-confused delinquent, and at best, certainly not worthy of a stranger’s kindness. Self-deprecation aside, the churro was delicious, and I would like to thank that woman once again for improving my night and making me think twice.

Picture Source

The Apocalypse

It seems like humanity has a collective, doubtlessly evolutionarily based, obsession with the ensuing apocalypse and end of the world as we know it. After perusing much of the literature regarding the Mayan prophecy (2012, ect.) and being stunned by the sheer volume of books on that subject in the book store, I’ve come to the conclusion, however hackneyed, that humanity, whether we know it or not, is poised on the edge of certain doom and oblivion. Whether or not the Mayan prophecy is correct is a whole other bag of beans, so to speak, but from my own pessimistic outlook… well, call me crazy (or overly optimistic in a twisted way…) but it does seem likely that at some point humanity will be forced to collectively and cathartically pay dues for the extraordinary damage we have done to our world. Right now I’m picturing some crazy hippy rapture in which people that bike or drive hybrids or subscribe to the vegan diet get to go to a Whole Foods Heaven and eat nothing but tofu crackers for the rest of eternity, but the aforestated idea is in jest. 

Or maybe the zombie apocalypse will be the way the world ends, not with a bang or even a whisper but with a moan gurgling out of a rotten esophagus… Or, perhaps more chilling, maybe we’re all zombies but convinced of our own humanity, the true humans being the Neanderthals… 

(Picture Source)

The Monkey Wrench Gang

A Quote and my Ensuing Thoughts

“All this fantastic effort- giant machines, road networks, strop mines, conveyor belt, pipelines, slurry lines, loading towers, railway and electric train, hundred-million-dollar coal-burning power plant; ten thousand miles of high tension towers and high-voltage power lined; the devastation of the landscape, the destruction of Indian homes and Indian grazing lands, Indian shrines and Indian burial grounds; the poisoning of the last big clean-air reservoir in the forty-eight contiguous United States, the exhaustion of precious water supplies- all that ball-breaking labor and all that back-breaking expense and all that heart breaking insult to land and sky and human heart, for what? All that for what? Why, to light the lamps of Phoenix suburbs not yet built, to run the air conditioners of San Diego and Los Angeles, to illuminate shopping-center parking lots at two in the morning, to power aluminum plants, magnesium plants, vinyl-chloride factories and copper smelters, to charge the neon tubing that makes the meaning (all the meaning there is) of Las Vegas, Albuquerque, Tucson, Salt Lake City, the amalgamated metropolis of southern California, to keep alive that phosphorescent putrefying glory (all the glory there is left) called Down Town, Night Time, Wonderville, U.S.A.” (Abbey, Edward. The Monkey Wrench Gang. (1975) p. 173)

            Do you ever think about how big the world is? Sometimes I’m overwhelmed by the vastness, the seeming infinity of a million, a billion- the ships and hands and faces and personalities and thoughts responsible for my pen, my water bottle, my computer, and the vast sea of ideas and concepts needed to facilitate the miraculous assembly of anything. The people working at the factory, their families, the people loading the merchandise on to trucks then boats or maybe planes and then more trucks, all of which run on gas which came from more people and more families- the planes and trucks themselves- assembled and manufactured independently of their cargo and the think-tank dudes who sat around and said things like, “Imagine if we made something…round! Yes, round! And stuck this round thing on a platform and moved things with it…” and a couple centuries later, “Let’s stick wings on the things with wheels and maybe we can fly.” It completely baffles me, and subsequently causes me to dislike places where money is exchanged for material items. I once heard that someone figured out that money is a measure of the amount of work done to produce an item- if so, it seems like everyone’s in debt to their own feckless desires and to the faceless masses lost in the innumerable billions.

Empowered?

I had a vastly entertaining conversation today about why males appear to be dominant in society. Unfortunately, this discussion occurred in a car, so the topic degenerated in to... eating disorders and damsels in distress and how capitalism seems to be ruining everything. But first, a quote I recently received in an email. (Let's not dwell on the fact that I'm a subscriber to Runner's World's weekly emails...)

You don't need a reason - you need a road. Believe in the run.

Now I want to go running, but I'm still sick. (now, possibly, with an intestinal parasite). The aforestated quote is mostly included so that I'll remember it. On with my rant!

My hypochondria was finally sated today after a visit to the doctor for various diagnostic procedures that took 2 hours. (Alright, most of that time was spent attempting to... manufacture... a urine sample.) My favorite part, aside from asking the nurse what the measurements she was talking meant (blood pressure, ect.), peeing perfectly in a cup (all of those UA's finally came in handy), and talking about my myriad of symptoms for a good 20 minutes, was the explanation of exactly how to procure a stool sample. Succinctly, it involves a very miniature spork, a tongue depressor, and a basin. As morning approaches I'm feeling decidedly more and more grateful for flush toilets and a healthy avoidance of all fecal matter. (though evidently something went wrong in that department...)

Well, this has been an adventure. I'm exhausted and therefore decidedly more apparently ADHD than usual.

(Image byrobert-kim-karen at http://robert-kim-karen.deviantart.com/art/Power-Pole-Silhouette-117081430)