Random thoughts and poetry

Headline:

2005-12-14T00:14:00.000-05:00

"God to Destroy Earth, Women and Minorities Hardest Hit"

Okay, it's an old joke about media bias, etc., but I just read this story and couldn't believe the headline, which doesn't relate to the story as much as you might think.

Neal Boortz made a comment similar to this one to try and prove a point. He cited a study which shows that people with tattoos are far more likely to commit violent crimes than people without tattoos. This was an actual study, and really, the reverse is probably closer to the truth, that people who are likely to commit violent crimes are far more likely than the average person to have tattoos. Sound more reasonable?

Anyway...read the story, and tell me if you think it sounds backwards and/or absurd.

My first post in ages...

2005-12-09T14:54:00.000-05:00

...and it will be both short and unoriginal. At the peril of ruining my "no-talking" day, I went to the library to pick up Billy Collins' new book, The Trouble With Poetry. My "no-talking" day remains intact, and I just wanted to pass along a quote by Henry James that Collins uses to open his book:

"My idea of paradise is a perfect automobile going thirty miles an hour on a smooth road to a twelfth-century cathedral."

Sounds pretty good to me, too.

Minor milestones...

2005-06-17T17:26:00.000-05:00

I've been doing carpentry/woodworking for approximately four years now. It began as a day of boredom in the garage with a pocket knife and a 2X4. Since then, I've created bookshelves, speaker stands, display boxes, music boxes, picture frames, poster frames, lamps, sleds, jigs, a desk, and a lot of scrapwood and sawdust. I have what most people would call an impressive array of tools with impressive-sounding names and uses. I know most of the terminology of woodworking, and, given enough time and materials, I can make just about anything.

Until today, however, I never really considered myself a very good carpenter/woodworker. I couldn't explain why, exactly, but in my mind, I've always been a weekender, a dabbler, a hobbyist.

But today, I joined two pieces of wood together using dovetail joinery. Dovetails are one of the strongest, most beautiful joints there are, and as of today, I've used them. I don't know why, but there is within me now a tremendous feeling of accomplishment, achievement, and skill.

I still have my limitations; there are still things that I can't do yet, but I leapt forward today, and it feels...

...good.

It just occurred to me...

2005-04-22T23:42:00.000-05:00

...since GSU is in downtown Atlanta, I officially go to an "inner-city" school.

I'm not quite sure how I feel about that.

A proverb and a little Latin...

2005-04-19T23:00:00.000-05:00

Loosely paraphrased from scripture and proverb:

"He who lives by the sword dies by the sword."

In the Latinate metaphysical sense:

Cogito ergo sum; cogito ergo abeo.

Perhaps My Favorite Quote Ever...

2005-04-03T23:57:00.000-05:00

No really...ever. It says so much so simply:

"...a pro does as well as he can within what he has set out to do, and a madman does exceptionally well at what he can't help doing." - Charles Bukowski

I think most of the great writers/artists/musicians have had a certain madness in them: Edgar Allan Poe, Ernest Hemingway, Jackson Pollack, Vincent van Gogh, Mozart, etc. It's almost a pre-requisite for greatness in any of the arts. There's eccentricity and there's quirkiness, but I think most people recognize madness when they see it, although usually after the fact.

The only drawback that I can see in possible inclusion on the above list is that each of them died either very tragically, very young or both.

Update: Faith in Action

2005-03-17T13:30:00.000-05:00

First of all, if you haven't read the post just before this one, read it and then come back to this one. It was prompted in part by the weblog of the Drs. Witt. It's a great blog, and they are easily two of the smartest people I've ever met/known. (I mention this because there is often a misconception that faith and intelligence are mutally exclusive. Mr. Dr. Witt and Mrs. Dr. Witt are proof against that maxim. Anyway...) They post about/link to lots of 'intelligent design' theory stuff, which led me to my last post regarding "God in Nature" vs. "God in Self" which, in turn, leads me to this: it's funny how, when we sometimes question God, he stands up and thumps us on the nose...

A drama group called "Faith in Action" from Lubbock Christian University was on its Spring Break tour and came through Atlanta on Tuesday and Wednesday. Now this visit had been arranged and discussed since last Fall, so it was no shock that they were coming. Since the unofficial "leader" of the group is the little brother of one of my best friends, I was their contact in Atlanta, and the seven touring members of the group were welcome in our house while they were here.

I had made contact with the youth minister from our church to set up an FIA performance for the youth group on Tuesday night. Phone numbers and e-mail addresses were exchanged, but somehow, none of FIA's planning/scheduling reached our youth minister, who had, by Tuesday, made other arrangements and was, in fact, in Washington, D.C., so when I called to confirm the performance time, etc., he basically said, "Sorry. It's a no-go."

Potentially, this could have been a little upsetting.

Because the youth group at church is fairly small, we weren't expecting a very big turnout--maybe twenty or thirty kids--but still, it was a disappointment. After I told FIA that the show at our church had been cancelled, I told them I'd talk to some people and make a few calls and see if I could put together something "last-minute".

Now Heather, who teaches drama at Greater Atlanta Christian Schools, proposed the idea that Faith in Action come and perform for her drama class on Wednesday morning. The class has around 25 students in it, so this would have been about the same showing as from the youth group at our church. I called FIA back and ran the idea by them and they said, "sounds great...a show is a show, right?"

Okay, to make a long story short(er), Heather went to school on Wednesday morning and got things set up for a 9am performance for her class. FIA loaded up and we all went down to GACS. In the meantime, Heather mentioned the show to a couple of other teachers and sent out a few e-mails, so when the time for the show came, there were around 75 kids and several teachers waiting to see it. Needless to say, we were greatly pleased.

If the story ended there, it would still be a pretty good story, but it doesn't.

At the end of the performance, some of the teachers came to thank the young people of Faith in Action, and one of them asked, "how long can you stay?" Eyes lit up, plans were feverishly made, and word spread to other parts of the school. By the time Faith in Action left Atlanta that afternoon, they had done three shows for a total of at least three-hundred junior high and high school kids.

I may have had trouble seeing God working in people's lives on Tuesday, but by Wednesday afternoon, my vision had cleared up considerably. How's your vision?

A quote and a question.

2005-03-13T01:38:00.000-05:00

"Which way I fly is hell; myself am hell." - Paradise Lost

Why, sometimes, is it so easy to see God in the universe, but not in our lives?

(For those of you who are perpetually worried about my mental/emotional state, it's a perfectly valid question, so worry about your own state.)

Cheesy internet survey blatantly stolen from Michael Duff

2005-03-12T14:01:00.000-05:00

GENERAL QUESTIONS
* Flown on a plane: Many planes, many times
* Missed school because it was raining: Nope.
* Told a guy/girl that you liked them?: Many girls, many times.
* Put a body part on fire for amusement: Maybe….
* Had a crush on a friends girlfriend/boyfriend: Many girls, many times.
* Been hurt emotionally: Chicks, man.
* Had an imaginary friend: I’ve always been my own best company.
* Wanted to hook up with a friend: Strangely enough, no. Wait, yeah.
* Been on stage: Quite a bit, actually.
* Cut your hair: Gotta have hair to cut, first.
* Had crush on a teacher?: Nope.
* Fav. Shampoo: See hair-cutting question above.
* Fav Color: Clear.
* Day/Night: Depends on what I’m doing. It’s like the whole “glass half-full/half-empty thing. I’ve always said it depends on how thirsty you are.
* Summer/Winter: Summer. I hate having to “bundle up.”
* Lace or Satin: Satin.
* Fav. Cartoon Character: Cronk, from “Emperor’s New Groove”. Three words: “squeak-squeaker-squeaken.”
* Fav Food: One Guy from Italy’s Calzones.
* Fav Advertisement: It’s a life/annuities company whose name I can’t remember, but the commercial is basically a bunch of kids sitting around a camp-fire telling ghost stories, and then it pans around to an older three-piece-suit-banker-type guy who says, “one time, there was a woman who had no 401k, no life insurance, and no annuities”. the kids look at him for a second until one asks, “that the best you got?”, to which he replies, “It gets scarier as you get older.” That, in itself, isn’t bad, but after the company spiel, they show this amazingly cute little black boy, about six years old, with a horrified look on his face who turns in his sleeping back to look at his friend and says, “do you think that story was real?” Good clean advertising.
* Fav Drink: Madagascar Vanilla Black Tea from Aroma’s Coffee House.
* Fav sport: Tennis.
* Fav Car: I love my truck, and I loved my saturn, but I’m quite fond of the new Mazda RX8s

RIGHT NOW
* Wearing: Tan Corduroy and a blue button-up. (I’m at work.)
*Drinking: water
* Thinking about: not being here.
* Listening to: a light mix of contemporary jazz. gotta love retail-music

IN THE LAST 24 HRS
* Cried: nope.
* Worn jeans: duh.
* Met someone new online: nope.
* Done laundry: actually, yes.
* Drove a car: yup
* talked on the phone: yup.
* Said "I love you": yup.

FRIENDS AND LIFE
* Do you ever wish you had another name? Rarely.
* Do you like anyone? No. Not anyone. Ever.
* Which one of your friends acts the most like you? None of them. That’s why we’re friends.
* Who have you known the longest of your friends: It’s a tie between Mike and Rusty. Met them at the same time.
* Are you close to any family members?: Pretty much all of them. A little moreso with my brother.
* Who's the weirdest?: There are so many ways to define “weird”.
* Who do you hang out with the most? Myself.
* What's the best feeling in the world: No clue.
* Worst Feeling: Regret.
* What time is it now? 1:46pm, Saturday, March 12, 2005

HAVE YOU EVER
1. Kissed your cousin: not on the lips.
2. Ran away: from what?
3. Pictured your crush naked: um, duh.
4. Skipped school: yup
5. Broken someone's heart: yup6. Been in love: yup
7. Cried when someone died: yup
8. Wanted someone you knew you couldn't have: yup
9. Done something embarrassing: does filling out this survey count?
10. Cried in school: yup; direct relevance to question #7

WHICH IS BETTER:
11. Coke or Pepsi: Coke
12. Sprite or 7UP: 7UP
13. Girls or Guys: “Better for what?”
14. Blondes or Brunettes: Brunettes.
15. Bitchy or Slutty: um, neither.
16. Tall or Short: gotta go with short.
17. Pants or Shorts: depends on the season and the activity
18. Night or Day: so we’re back to this again.WITH THE OPPOSITE SEX
19. What do you notice first: eyes
20. Last person you slow danced with: if I could remember the last time I slow-danced, I’d tell you.
THE LAST TIME YOU...
21. Showered: last night
22. Stepped outside: ‘bout an hour ago.
23. Had Sex: I’ve been on vacation, so …no comment.

WHO...WHAT?
24. Your Good Luck Charm: coins
25. Person You Hate Most: a couple of names popped into my head, but man, that’s been so long I’ve really gotta just let it go.
26. Best Thing That Has Happened: well, spring’s coming…
27. On your desk: various computer paraphernalia; speakers (on shop-built stands); pens; paper. okay, really, who keeps important stuff on their desk?
28. Picture on your desktop: one of my favorite cathedrals.

Racism

2005-02-26T10:36:00.000-05:00

This is a touchy subject, so I'll try and tread lightly. I began writing this post as a comment on this post by my good friend Michael Duff.

I'm as guilty as anyone for noting (never out loud) the difference between black people and n*ggers. I never verbalize it because I just don't like the word. But that's the thing: there is a difference, and no where is it more apparent than in the metro-Atlanta area.

I am very tolerant with people, but I am decidedly not tolerant with stereotypes of any race or ethnicity. My prejudices are against people who are willfully ignorant or just plain stupid. (Obviously, race is a non-issue in these criteria.) One of the professors I work with has an Ayn Rand quote on his office window: "The smallest minority on earth is the individual." I deal with everyone I encounter on an individual basis, be they black, white, or somewhere in between.

And while we're on the subject, here's one of my pet peeves: I'm tired of white people catching all the flak for racism. I guarantee that Chris Rock has used the words "whitey" and "honkey" more than I've used the words "negro" or "n*gger". I agree that it's okay to make fun of a group of which you are a part, but it's been my experience that black people get a lot more lee-way when they use derogatory terms to refer to white people than the reverse.

Alright, one more quick point: I realize that there was a time when we needed civil rights laws to help with discrimination and racial intolerance, but I think that time has long passed. All that the hate-crimes laws and workplace quota laws do now is to make the divisions or the distinctions between races more acute. I think I'm stealing this next line, but I can't think where from (although it sounds West Wing-ish): America needs to focus more on what unites us, not on what divides us.

Today's Quote

2005-02-22T18:09:00.000-05:00

In my neverending efforts for my words to some day be seen in Reader's Digest's "Quotable Quotes", here's an original:

Nothing kills a good idea like a long commute.
- Matt Byars

I've tried...

2005-02-17T02:00:00.000-05:00

...to stay away from the political stuff lately. I really have. But this one got me a little irritated. Howard Dean, the new head of the DNC, at a speech to the Congressional Black Caucus, said "You think the Republican National Committee could get this many people of color in a single room? Only if they had the hotel staff in here!"

If a Republican had said that, he would have been booed from the stage and then lambasted by the liberal media. As it is, the CBC laughed, and Dean went on. They laughed.

Just so you know, you won't find this story on CNN. They're still raving about how miraculous it is that Howard Dean has "gone from laughingstock to party leader".

This kind of behavior from the "party of tolerance" makes me feel proud not to be a member. On the bright side, this does reinforce, in my mind, just how far out of touch with America the Democratic Party really is.

New Species Discovered

2005-02-04T10:34:00.000-05:00

Upon first glancing at the title, you might think, "yeah...so..?" And on a planet that's two-thirds ocean, you might think it'd be a species of fish, but it's not. You might also think, "okay, so it's some new insect species; they're small and easy to overlook," and you'd be right about them being small, etc., but no.

British biologist Rob Wallace has discovered, in the Madidi rain forest of the Bolivian Andes region, a new species of monkey. The article goes into much greater detail, but to sum up (for the lazy among you): these monkeys are small and orangish in color, they travel in pairs or small family units because they mate for life, and it seems that they communicate in what Wallace calls "dueting as a pair". Wallace has already had his find verified as a new species by a team of his scientific peers.

Having already given this discovery no small amount thought, and being completely unable to sum it all up for you, I will leave you to your own intellectual or philosophical conclusions regarding the enormity of this occurrence. But let me just say: wow.

Ah...sweet irony

2005-02-02T13:13:00.000-05:00

The following, I believe, is one of the coolest bits of information I've heard in a long, long time. Hopefully, the implications and poetic justice of it need no exposition:

Due to the fact that he has yet to be convicted and is therefore a citizen with no criminal record, Saddam Hussein was eligible to vote in this week's Iraqi elections. Sadly, he was unable to make it to a polling place.

A thought on poetry...

2005-02-01T23:52:00.000-05:00

Since the title of my blog is "Random thoughts and poetry" (and since I haven't yet said too much about poetry), I thought I'd combine the two, if for no other reason than that I found a good quote which, ya know, combines the two.

"[Poetry] compels us to feel that which we perceive, and to imagine that which we know." -- Percy Shelley

As always, thoughts and/or brief critical essays are appreciated.

Funny, and yet slightly disturbing

2005-01-27T23:11:00.000-05:00

"They keep talking about drafting a constitution for Iraq. Why don't we just give them ours? It was written by a lot of really smart guys, it's worked for over 200 years, and we're not using it anymore." - Unknown source

Quote of the (insert time period here)

2005-01-26T02:54:00.000-05:00

I don't know why I bothered calling them "quotes of the day", and I almost called this one "quote of the week", but I think even that is asking a bit much.

That said, here's a quote for you, and I'll get to the next one when I get to the next one. Enjoy.

"To fight and conquer in all our battles is not supreme excellence. Supreme excellence consists of breaking the enemy's resistance without fighting."
- Sun Tzu

Irony

2005-01-09T00:08:00.000-05:00

I'm sure this has been thoroughly covered by countless millions, but does it seem ironic to anyone else that the names of Wilson-Philips' first two hits (and only two, as far as I know) were, respectively, "Release Me" and "Hold On"?

It could just be me.

First Daily Quote for the New Year!

2005-01-01T11:03:00.000-05:00

Since now is the time when we make resolutions, many of which have to do with self-improvement and/or getting things done, I felt that this quote was particularly appropriate. Give it some thought, and have a Happy New Year!!

“It is not enough to be busy; so are the ants. The question is: What are we busy about?” - Henry David Thoreau

The importance of paying attention...

2004-12-27T12:47:00.000-05:00

Sometimes, a quote can sound completely innocuous if taken by itself, which is another way to prove that context is crucial for any understanding of a given set of words.

That said, and without launching into a diatribe about Derrida, Foucault, new criticism, deconstruction, et. al. ad nauseum, I came across some great quotes on Neal Boortz' website that are great not on their own, but because they are paired with similar quotes from (in some cases) sources that are either greatly disimilar or frighteningly similar.

The first pair of quotes are from sources that should be relatively familiar:

"Comrades! We must abolish the cult of the individual decisively, once and for all." [Nikita Khrushchev , February 25, 1956 20th Congress of the Communist Party]
"The smallest minority on earth is the individual. Those who deny individual rights cannot claim to be defenders of minorities." [Ayn Rand]

These two quotes seem to demonstrate the key differences between the Communist and the "American" political systems. Communism was founded on the equality of the masses; American democracy began as a reaction to the oppression of individual freedoms. When I read these quotes, I thought to myself: isn't it great to live in America, where individual rights are so cherished that our government protects us from such abuses as are endured under other, lesser, governments. Then I came across these two quotes:

"We can't be so fixated on our desire to preserve the rights of ordinary Americans (to legitimately own handguns and rifles)" parenthesis added [President Bill Clinton, 'USA Today' March 11, 1993: Page 2A]
"We must stop thinking of the individual and start thinking about what is best for society." [Hillary Clinton, 1993]

In the wake of the 2004 election, when we're all tired of "who said what" and "who did (or didn't do) what else", it may be tempting to many of us to lean back, take a breather, and relax a while. As for me, I'll be thinking about 2008.

Accidents and Miracles

2004-12-17T16:20:00.000-05:00

If you've read my profile, you know that I enjoy woodwork. I've collected quite an assortment of tools and have thus got quite a nice shop in my garage where I have built and plan to build various things.

I've had my share of cuts and scrapes in the process of my woodworking, but yesterday, I had my first semi-serious shop injury. I was pushing a narrow piece of wood through my table saw when it caught on the edge of the blade-plate. In my attempt to angle the wood up slightly and get it unstuck, I accidently fed my left thumb knuckle into the 10" blade which was spinning at roughly 10,000 rpm's.

If you've read my post regarding the Bernard Pivot questionnaire, you can guess the first word that issued from my lips. After a brief surge of adrenaline, I cupped my right hand under my bloody thumb and went to the bathroom to clean and dress my wound.

Now, I'm not entirely sure how deep the cut went, but I can say with some certainty that it is the deepest cut I've ever had until this point in my life. As there is not much skin on the top of the thumb, I worried for quite a while if the cut had reached the bone, and if so, whether I had done any damage to it. My next concern was whether or not I would need stitches.

After a couple of phone calls to a couple of friends, I found an experienced nurse and described the wound to her and was told a few basic procedures for further cleaning, dressing, and care of my cut. (Brief aside: in my calls to various people who could provide some sort of medical assistance, it never occured to me to call my sister, who is a surgical nurse with approximately twenty years of experience. Yeah, I'm kinda clueless sometimes.)

Anyway, I was told to push the edges of the cut together as best I could, preferrably with butterfly bandages (which I didn't have), and then put gauze (which I didnt' have) on the cut and tape it up (with tape that I also didn't have). I had to work yesterday afternoon, so I decided to stop off at the nearest pharmacy on my way to work to pick up the necessary wound-dressing supplies.
The nearest pharmacy turned out to be Eckerd's, less than three miles from my house, so I pulled in and went back to the pharmacy to find the bandages, etc. I thought it might be nice to actually show it to a medical-type person, so I waited for the pharmacist to return and showed the cut to him. He said he was "pretty sure" it wouldn't need stitches, but to watch for swelling and other signs of infection, which I have been doing since yesterday.

After this brief consultation, I went to the front counter to pay for my supplies. I was second in line behind a woman with two small children, and there seemed to be some problem with her purchase, because there were two women at the register waiting on her. When a third person stepped in line behind me, the second woman at the register moved over to another lane and asked for the next person in line, which was I.

When I looked up at her, there was a spark of recognition from me, followed by the tentative question: "what's your name?" She squinted a bit, as though trying to make a memory fit my face as she said, "I'm Tally." As soon as it was confirmed, I told her who I was, and she gave a brief squeal of delight as we leaned over the counter for a quick hug.

Tally was my friend James' first wife. She was (and is) a wonderfully charming woman with whom I and our other friends spent lots of time swimming, watching movies, and generally hanging out, and I haven't seen her in seven or eight years since she moved back to Georgia from Lubbock, Texas, when she and James somewhat messily divorced.

When I moved to Georgia, I knew she lived here again, but I had no way to contact her, as we had all lost touch with her over the intervening years.

In a metropolitan area populated by over four million people, I managed to find a dear friend whom I hadn't seen in at least seven years because I cut my thumb on my table saw. As I recounted this story to my friends, specifically to those who I knew would be excited about finding Tally again, it dawned on me how many minor occurences had to come together perfectly to coordinate such a seemingly random event.

It was great to see Tally again, and we talked briefly and exchanged numbers, so I'm sure we'll have more time to catch up later on. I've still got this thumb problem to deal with, and I'm not terribly happy about that, but let's look at this for a minute:

If my in-laws hadn't moved to Georgia, then we probably wouldn't have moved to Georgia, and if I hadn't moved to Georgia (and then from our Lawrenceville house to our Sugar Hill house), and if I weren't a woodworker, and if I didn't play golf with my former manager at Circuit City who is the current manager of my part-time job at Thomasville Furniture, and if I hadn't cut my thumb on my table saw, and if I hadn't needed gauze and tape, and if Tally hadn't been working that day (or me either, for that matter), and if there hadn't been someone in line ahead of me, I probably wouldn't have found Tally again in a city of 4+ million people. It's possible to go alot further back with all the "ifs" and "thens", but I think you get the idea.

You can go ahead and call it a random coincidence if you want, but if you do, then I'll go ahead and call you a moron.

The Government Made Me Late for Work

2004-12-13T16:21:00.000-05:00

It's true. The government made me late for work.

I hit the button to close my garage door this morning and it lowered about an inch, then went back up. This happened the next few times I hit the button and I finally spent twenty minutes stripping wires (after finding my wire-stripping tool) and reattaching the wires to their correct terminals. It still is not completely fixed, just fixed enough for now.

How is the government involved, you ask? Well, government regulations state that all automatic garage door openers be equipped with a non-contact invisible beam system which is tripped if anything interrupts the beam, thus reversing the direction of the door, sending it back to the open position.

My garage door opener is equipped with just such a device, and the wires that connect the beam mechanism to the motor's circuit board have some issues. Regardless, when I attempted to close my garage door this morning, my government-mandated safety feature malfunctioned, necessitating twenty minutes spent rigging my garage door so that it would close, at least once, thus allowing me to go to work. If I were to disable the device completely, I could face a hefty fine or possible jail-time.

Now, if the government were not so intrusive as to require the beam-device on my garage door opener, then I would not have been late for work this morning. Not only that, my older and fairly noisy opener could be replaced at a lower cost than I am currently facing.

The down-side of not having such a safety feature on my opener is that my non-existent children might get their non-existent heads crushed by my non-existent safety-featureless garage door opener.

Did I mention that most (if not all) new garage door openers within the last five to ten years are also equipped with a resistance trigger that reverses the direction of the door if it meets any resistance on the way down?

So what I'm actually dealing with here is aggravation caused by a faulty government-mandated redundant safety precaution to protect children that I don't have.

I can't afford health insurance, but by all means, let's protect me from the ever-present danger of being crushed by a garage door.

Catharsis is the new reality

2004-12-06T12:57:00.000-05:00

Catharsis used to be a great thing. People could go to a public performance of some kind and experience the disconnection of catharsis, stepping outside their own problems and feeling a range of emotions that could be left at the theater as soon as the performance was over.

In this way, a man could experience a range of genuine emotions without being relationally connected to them. For the Greeks, catharsis had two possible avenues of significance: medical and religious. According to C. Hugh Holman and William Harmon,

"[i]n medical terms catharsis referred to the discharge from the body of the excess of elements produced by a state of sickness and thus the return to bodily health."

From this perspective, the theatrical experience of catharsis is the means by which people feel, in a "safe" environment, those emotions which would otherwise be distressing or extremely unpleasant. The religious aspect is similar, as Holman and Harmon state:

In religious terms, as expressed several places by Plato, catharsis is the process of purification by which the soul collects its elements, brings itself together from all parts of the body, and can exist "alone by itself, freed from the body as from fetters."

Not terribly dissimilar from the medical perspective. My problem, and thus the instigation of this post (and probably some scholarly study later on), is that, as with many things in "modern life", mankind has taken catharsis to an unhealthy extreme.

(Disclaimer: this is where I start my diatribe against television and movies, both of which I watch with great, albeit declining, frequency.)

With the advent of movies and television, entertainers (and executives) learned to visually tap into mankind's basic needs for joy, despair, happiness, sadness, laughter, anger, and regret on a scale exponentially greater than live performance or television's precursor: radio. In this way, humans began to distance themselves from themselves by living vicariously through various characters rather than experience any genuine emotion of their own, either for themselves or for anyone with whom they have a personal relationship.

The significance of this trend is horrific because its effects are lose-lose. By this, I mean that one of two things is likely to occur as a consequence of "modern catharsis": Either A) People will disconnect from emotion in general, thus feeling and experiencing few (if any) genuine and genuinely relevant emotions, which in turn produces a bland, desensitized version of humanity; or B) People will experience, through catharsis, a heightening of specific emotions that they would otherwise not be able to experience in the course of "normal" humanity. (I put normal in quotes merely to signify that, while it is fairly subjective, most people have a standard against which they measure aberrance.) The consequence of this heightening is a vein of "emotion junkies" running through American society. This is where we get our thrill-seekers and adrenaline addicts.

I blame a lot of our modern psychological problems on this phenomenon as well. I think that most of the ADD, ADHD, depression, anxiety, and neuroses can be attributed to a fundamental misunderstanding of the emotional needs of the human brain. True, depression and other disorders are chemical in nature, but our emotions are directly linked to chemical outputs in the brain. When you're happy, your brain releases endorphins (among other things), just like when you exercise or do a significant amount of physical labor.

And I just noticed this: has it occurred to anyone reading this that hard work and happiness elicit the same chemical reactions from the human brain? With regard to happiness, it could be the other way around. Rather than happiness leading to endorphin output, it could be that endorphin output leads to a state which could be signified as happiness, but either way the happiness/endorphin equation works, the result is the same: hard work/exercise produces a chemical state similar (if not identical) to happiness. For those of us that are relatively sedentary, this is a frightening thought.

Quote(s) of the Day

2004-11-19T13:00:00.000-05:00

In my ever-fervent efforts to spark even the most meager philosophic or intellectual discussion, I have a pair of quotes today on a subject near and dear to us all. So even if the dialogue that follows from this post is only of an inner nature, please take a moment to ponder.

"Life is beautiful. Life is sad."
-- Vladimir Nabokov

"Life always matters very much, doesn't it?"
-- Shelley Winters, "The Poseidon Adventure"

Quote of the Day

2004-11-18T17:42:00.000-05:00

"What we choose to say about our past...becomes our past." -- Stephen Dunn

Answer to survey...

2004-11-17T11:55:00.000-05:00

Well, Brad, looks like it's just you and me, and I really liked your answer. That is certainly a pivotal point in the relationship. The realization that you are willing to give up your own time to share time with someone else is something that often goes unnoticed. Not unexperienced, just unnoticed.

My thoughts follow along the same lines: giving up something to take part in something greater.

In a world where first through third bases have ceased to be milestones so much as stepping-stones, the key point (to me, at least) in a relationship is the first kiss.

Not the first passionate, slurpy, tongue-thrusting kiss, but the first simple eyes-closed, breath-held, lips-together kiss that signifies three things:

Trust - how many other people do you trust to be that close to you while your eyes are closed?

Culmination - how long did you wait (or how long should you have waited) for that moment, letting the anticipation build along the way?

Chasteness - or what I like to call the "simplest passion." That first small kiss is the essence of intimacy, the beginning of all future passion. If you didn't start there, you've missed a critical step.

Every relationship should have a first kiss that is intimate, longed-for, and pure. Anyone can go wild and get physical with someone, but to truly care enough to take one's time, to share the experience of every small step on the road to a lasting (some longer than others) joy, and to make the most of each of those steps, is to know that something good is happening...something so good that you want to invest your time, effort, and self in order to see it through to its destined end.

Blogger Survey...

2004-11-14T13:03:00.000-05:00

I'm interested to hear the opinions of my (meager) readership, so I'm conducting a small survey. It consists of one question to which I've already come up with an answer, but, as mentioned, I'm curious to hear outside viewpoints.

The question is this: In any fledgeling relationship, what is the most important point; that is, when do you know that the relationship is destined to move forward, whether temporarily or indefinitely, because, due to the thought, statement, or act that has just occurred, you know that the relationship is a "good" thing?

Please comment with your answers and I will give you my conclusion in a day or two.

Bernard Pivot Questionnaire

2004-11-12T08:11:00.000-05:00

In preparation for my inevitable appearance on "Inside the Actor's Studio", I've taken the liberty of answering the questionnaire developed by Bernard Pivot, host of the popular French series "Bouillon de Culture", and made famous by James Lipton, host of ITAS. (Really, the setup was unnecessary. I just wanted to use the words "Bouillon de Culture".)

What is your favorite word?

Parallel.

What is your least favorite word?

Regret.

What turns you on creatively, spiritually, or emotionally?

The perfect combination of truth and simplicity.

What turns you off?

Pseudo-intellectualism.

What is your favorite curse word?

Shit.

What sound or noise do you love?

Thunder.

What sound or noise do you hate?

Glasses clinking together.

What profession, other than your own, would you like to attempt?

Pianist.

What profession would you not like to do?

Pharmacist.

If Heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the Pearly Gates?

What kept you?

The Day After Tomorrow

2004-11-07T03:43:00.000-05:00

Just finished watching The Day After Tomorrow. There were two thoughts that kept going through my mind during the movie:

A) I haven't been skiing in a while, and
B) Yet another in a long list of reasons to never move north of the 35th Parallel.

Switching Gears

2004-11-04T13:09:00.000-05:00

I hope no one has gotten the wrong idea of me from my previous posts. I'm not a political zealot, but I do have strong opinions, and in the face of mainstream media bias, I felt the need to voice my concerns about a few issues.

Now that the election is over, I'd like to switch gears a little bit. First of all, my thanks to Michael Duff and Brad Denton for linking me and getting me some additional exposure. Thanks to them, my readership has more than doubled (going from one to three readers).

As a little added information for those of you who can't be bothered to read my profile, I consider myself not only a poet but a student of poetry. The difficulty, where poetry and blogging intersect, is that I plan on publishing my poetry someday, which places me in an awkward position.

If I go round putting up my poems on my weblog, then what's the point of publishing? Who would ever buy my books of poetry? And let's not even get into the issues of copyrights, plagiarism, and intellectual thievery.

Mr. Duff suggested that I post the poems that I don't plan on publishing. The problems with this idea should be readily noticeable. I would like to increase my poetic exposure to the public, but if I'm only posting the unpublishable poems, what kind of image does that create? And besides, just because a poem is currently unpublishable does not mean that it cannot be salvaged. If the pen is the poet's sword, then revision is his shield.

With that in mind, I've decided to compromise a bit. I would like for my blog to become something of a forum, not just for poetry, but for the ideas that can be gleaned from good poetry. When a line strikes me as particularly poignant or significant, I'll throw it in a post and leave it open for discussion, interpretation, and analysis. I may even post some of the lines that inspire my own poems, the lines that I scribble down on napkins and such when I don't have sufficient time or motivation to write a full poem.

Most of the time, I will try and post lines or ideas that are universally debateable. You don't have to know anything about rhyme or meter; you don't have to have read Shakespeare or Chaucer; you just have to be willing to contribute to the discussion. This is your invitation, whoever you are. I read all my comments and do my best to respond to them when called for. I hope you're up for the challenge.

I wonder...

2004-11-03T13:36:00.000-05:00

In the wake of the 2000 election when Al Gore won the popular vote, but lost the electoral, there was a wave of criticism of the Electoral College, and the left-leaning media led the charge against Bush's legitimacy as President.

Now that Bush has handily won the popular vote, but the Democrats are clinging to the unrealistic hope that Kerry could still win the electoral, I wonder how vocal the Dems or the media will be about the validity of the Electoral College.

I think the results of the election have accurately portrayed Kerry as the opportunistic politician that he is. He can't stand the thought of leaving the limelight and is grasping at imaginary straws to prolong his fifteen minutes of fame. I was tempted, while watching the coverage last night, to get upset with Kerry and his campaign for their handling of the outcome of the election, but then I realized that every minute he drags this out, the more people grow weary and frustrated with the Democratic party for their continued sniveling and ineffectual tactics to hold on to their waning power.

Don't give up, Kerry. You still lost, but the longer you draw this out, the more Republicans you create.

Kerry "Misspoke" (again)

2004-10-26T15:45:00.000-05:00

I was going to point this out yesterday, but apparently, the Bush campaign has already jumped on it. I'm glad they did, because I'm pretty sure they get more press than I do. Anyway, as it turns out, Kerry lied about his meetings with the U.N. Security Council before the Senate vote to authorize the war in Iraq.

Matt's First Political Post

2004-10-25T12:41:00.000-05:00

As I've been surfing the internet and listening to talk radio today, a couple of things have jumped out at me. The first of these things is that the upcoming election is far more important than most voters realize. ABC News (and others, I'm sure) reported that Chief Justice William Rehnquist has been hospitalized with thyroid cancer and recently underwent a tracheotomy to deal with the illness.

Justice Rehnquist is 80 years old, Justice Stevens is a remarkable 84 years old, and Justices O'Connor and Ginsburg are both in their early seventies and have both been treated for different bouts with cancer earlier in their lives. The last appointment was in 1994 under Pres. Clinton, and the ten years between then and now is the longest stint without an appointment since the 11-year drought from 1811-1823. I'm trying to stress exactly how big a deal this is.

It's been ten years since an appointment and with the advanced ages and poor health histories of no less than four of the justices, the next president will be in charge of appointing up to four Supreme Court Justices. I was thinking of staying relatively non-partisan in this post, but I can't help it. Can you imagine who "the most liberal Senator" would nominate to the Supreme Court? The bench is, according to most legal experts, already split at a ratio of 5:4 as far as conservative and liberal, respectively, are concerned. Just think about it.

I've gotta go for now. Stay tuned for point number two.

Introduction to Me (or, Matt101)

2004-10-21T14:02:00.000-05:00

Since this will be my first "real" post on my own blog, I thought it might be handy to provide a brief, yet insightful, impression of my general personality. I am indebted to Brad Denton for the idea of a moderately objective analysis of my handwriting:

"Matthew has a healthy imagination and displays a fair amount of trust. He uses his imagination to understand new ideas, things, and people."

"Matthew is sarcastic. These sarcastic remarks can be very funny. They can also be harsh, bitter, and caustic at the same time."

"Matthew is a practical person whose goals are planned, practical, and down to earth. This is typical of people with normal healthy self-esteem. He needs to visualize the end of a project before he starts. He finds joy in anticipation and planning. He feels he has the ability to achieve anything he sets his mind to. Although there is room for improvement in the confidence category, his self-perception is better than average.

"In reference to Matthew's mental abilities, he has a very investigating and creating mind. He investigates projects rapidly because he is curious about many things. He gets involved in many projects that seem good at the beginning, but he soon must slow down and look at all the angles. He probably gets too many things going at once. When Matthew slows down, then he becomes more creative than before. Since it takes time to be creative, he must slow down to do it. He has the best of both two kinds of minds. One is the quick investigating mind. The other is the creative mind. His mind thinks quick and rapidly in the investigative mode. He can learn more quickly, investigate more, and think faster. Matthew can then switch into his low gear. When he is in the slower mode, he can be creative, remember longer, and stack facts in a logical manner. He is more logical this way and can climb mental mountains with a much better grip.

"Matthew will be candid and direct when expressing his opinion. He will tell people them what he thinks if they ask for it, whether they like it or not. So, if they don't really want his opinion, don't ask for it!

"Matthew will demand respect and will expect others to treat him with honor and dignity. Matthew believes in his ideas and will expect other people to also respect them. He has a lot of pride.

"Matthew is moderately outgoing. His emotions are stirred by sympathy and heart-rendering stories. In fact, he can be kind, friendly, affectionate, and considerate of others. He has the ability to put himself into another person's shoes. Matthew will be somewhat moody, with highs and lows. Sometimes he will be happy, the next day he might be sad. He has the unique ability to get along equally well with what psychology calls introverts and extroverts. This is because he is in between. Psychology calls Matthew an ambivert. He understands the needs of both types. Matthew is an expressive person.

Well, that's me in a nutshell (flashback to Austin Powers: "Help, help, I'm in a nutshell! Where did this bloody big nutshell come from?" Sorry; couldn't help it). Check back for more later on.

-Matt