Heidegger Was Right

Well, not about everything, the Nazi s***head, but in his assertion that the world--that Life--is big and inscrutable and amorphous and chaotic and unpredictable and that we, humanity, just can't function in such a place--that we find it overwhelming and horrifying and dizzying to the point of nausea. Who am I? Why am I here? What do I mean by "here"? (Most people don't know, but the inner monologue of the falling whale in Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is actually a neat little joke on the concept of Heideggerian thrown-ness--no, really, it is! Remember, the English system of education is much, much better than ours, which is why the Pythons could do jokes about Latin conjugation/declension in Life of Brian and assume that their audience would 'get it.')

So, like that sweet, doomed whale, we create means of orientation. Points in space, time, and self about which we can say "That is There, I am Here, and This is How I Relate To It." Why else do you think so much of our language hinges on prepositions--words that exist only to articulate relations between things: "at," "from," "of," "to" and so on? Because in order to get our head straight, we have to put the rest of our world in order. Why else is moving homes so disturbing and stressful? Because it's a change of a lynchpin in how we organize the world--we think spatially--think about how every place in the world is, in ways distinct and vague, organized around the basic principle of 'where it is in relation to your home'--and not just in terms of geography. Our emotional lives are essentially matters of spatial orientation as well. Which--thank Christ--brings me to my point.

After traumatic losses, we lose our minds because we can't function without the presence of, say, our loved one--who that person was, what that person meant--that makes up too much of how we think about our lives as being ordered. Pause and consider, dear reader--don't you have someone who is, so to speak, your conscience--the eprson you consult whenever you're at a loss? Your dangerous side--the person you know you can go to for fun of the 'heh heh' variety? Your sense of humor--the person who 'gets' you and laughs at the same things in the same way and who you have to share every new joke immediately? Your something close and dear and meaningful--your sense of self in some embodied, beloved way? Bet you do. Bet you got a lot of them. I know I do. I have, for instance, one friend who is more of an achor to me than he'd ever be comfortable knowing--but he's the one I know I can go to when the s*** hits the fan (and it has, often, and he's always been there)--and I live my life a little more securely knowing that he's 'placed' in it. Such people occupy such large and orienting places in our lives--they're our maps as we navigate the feelings and thoughts created by experience--the people who occupy our time and focus and who let us know where and who we are.

And when such a person leaves our lives, we lose our sense of orientation--our sense of selves--grief is so often experienced as a sense of "What do I do now? Where do I go from here? How do I live--day to day--without this person?" And mostly, I think, we learn to function afterwards by living lives defined by absence. We leave that place in our lives--that orienting point--as empty, and function as best with can by projecting memories of that person into the empty space. Thinking about what the person would have said, would have done, what you would have felt, or thought, or done--because Having That Person There is How The World Is Supposed To Be. It's unpleasant, to be sure, but we can grow numb and make it through the day because even though our lives are defined by absence, they're still defined, which is better than chaos, right?

But of course by keeping a gap in our lives exactly the size and shape of the person means that, duh-huh!--no one and nothing can ever replace it. That our lives will forever be defined by absence. Which, as I say, is at best a numbly functional existence.

But letting go of that absent person is so goddamned scary. Because who are you without that person? How do you feel? What do you do? You'll be lost, won't you? Lost. Not good, that. And the more central the person, the more lost you'll be--the more of you there won't be, if you can follow.

But unless you can let that absence go--unless you can let the shape and space go fuzzy and let someone or something else in there--and let them be themselves, and not an awkward, forced, and ultimately doomed attempt to recreate the lost (Kim Novak falls off the bell-tower both times in Vertigo, remember)--then you'll never heal.

But it's a lot to give up--who you were, what you loved and cared for.

I have been living a life defined by absence.

But lately...less. It's good. Scary, and I keep running back every so often to check the place of the absence. But less and less often. And more and more--there are other places, one in particular, that have begun to feel like home to me. It's new. It's strange. It's exciting and uncertain and becoming less so. It's good. It's very, very good.

Enjoy The Silence

(Yes, I know, I used a Depeche Mode song as the title for this post. So string me up by my thumbs.)

I've been internet-less for the better part of a week; a visit to parental digs for the duration of the holiday season came at a price: SoCal weather in exchange for a working connection. Strange to say--given my ability to jack myself in (yes, in, smartass) for hours on hours on unproductive hours on end--I've not missed it much. Nor the television. Here there's been a cessation of the noise of net and media and it's been quite...oddly...pleasant.

I normally enjoy the distraction from the voices in my head as much as the next self-accusatory neurotic, but there's something to be said for quiet. Or for the quiet of lengthy musical compositions, sustained reading, a movie watched with others from beginning to end, and discussions--no, conversations afterwards. I've grown inclined to morbidity of late--paying attention to the news and those who report and comment on it, I can't help but realize that we're living in an ugly, angry, dangerous and bullying time, when the insecure masses have realized that it's easier to be mean and thoughtless than patient and reflective. Screaming has replaced discourse, and that's OK, because it's all we have the attention-span for. It's too easy to blame single people--Bush, Rove, Clinton (if you're a liberal)--or single entities--FOX News and its pantheon of empty-headed thugs, or the New York Times and its smug confidence in its ex cathedra authority--but these are all just symptoms of a world addicted to noise. Louder, faster, more intense--we need to punched in the head to feel anything anymore.

I'm just as guilty of it as the next fellow--more so. I snap and snarl and toss off brilliantly facile remarks that give the impression of encapsulating substance and are, in fact, just an empty execution of grammar and vocabulary. I like making noise--and I like hearing it. A lot of it. Because otherwise--well, otherwise, I'd have to think. And if I thought--well, imagine what I'd have to think about. Failed marriage? Isolation? Professional stagnation? A life given over to indolence, mental and physical? Dude, who the hell needs that? Crank it now and crank it loud.

But Life's been unwilling to let me chase that dragon. The quiet of the Midwest--the kindness of the people and the gentle tones in which they speak--that's been an adjustment. Life is quiet there in the snow, under the cool white of the skies. And in the quiet, there's been thought. Pain, yes--pain I should have felt a long time ago, but pain that needed to be felt--pain that I'd been drowning out with the noise.

And here--even here--without the internet (which, obviously, I now have back, but which I view with greater distaste than I would've imagined), without television--the quiet follows me. And the thinking. And I'm beginning to remember the pleasures of silence. We'll see where this leads...

Rejection of Enforced Politeness

An observation of Midwestern behavior:

People here do not stop, while driving, for crosswalks. (Unless they're stop-sign/red light based--these people aren't anarchists, for God's sake.) But the 'middle of the street'-'wildebeast-like-migratory-pattern-student" crosswalks? They whip right through them like they're not even there--though they're clearly marked. F*** you, pedestrian--I've gotta a car, and you've got a sack of meat and bones--that means I got the right of way. I swear, I think the most dangerous job out here must be Crossing Guard.

So, what? Are these people just selfish and insensitive? I think not. Because, here's the thing: when there's no crosswalk? When you just want to flagrantly jaywalk your lazy butt across the road instead of hauling it to the intersection? They stop. Every time. They stop, and wave you past. And if a line of cars forms as a result of this, no one honks. Hey, the man's walkin' here! Let him pass; he's got places to be! That old niceness comes back with an eerie vengeance.

So what the hell? Why 'f*** you' with the crosswalk and 'pass, friend' without one? Here's my theory. These people are patient, salt-of-the-earth types, and at the same time, they're independent-minded, and resent being told to be polite and kind and 'yield-to-pedestrian'-y. I think they don't stop at crosswalks for the same reason that you would lightly kidney punch someone who tells you, as you sit down to dinner, to mind your manners. F*** you, I was going to mind my manners--I was going to be polite and nice--but you know what? Since you clearly feel that I have to be told to be polite--since you clearly feel that I'm incapable of being anything other than an oblivious pr*ck on my own, why, it would be rude of me to prove you wrong! So excuse me while I plunk my elbows on the table, use my soup spoon to scratch my ass, and blow my nose in a crepe. F***. You.

But take that same guy and put him at a table when no one's there to belittle his maturity and inherent kindness, and he'll sit up straight, use the right flatware in the right order, speak in a modulated voice about inoffensive matters, treat the staff with respect, and leave a hefty tip. In short, he'll be a gentleman. Or she a lady.

There comes a point when, if you've been raised right, you don't have to be told to act like a decent human being. And when that point comes, being told to act like one is offensive. So folks around here engage in a mild form of civil disobedience (F*** you, crosswalk Nazis), and then compensate by behaving with kindness and patience in unsupervised circumstances (Well, I was kind of rushing my wife to the hospital for a complicated delivery--but you go ahead and take your time, sir!)

I like this place.

A gap between postings is nothing new for me, and one should expect more in the future. In this instance, I at least have an excuse: the end of the semester, and the truck-load of grading, office hour meetings, and last-minute scrambling to file various reports and assessments that it involves. So I've not had much in the way of a chance to poke my nose about and perceive any of the cultural disparities on which I'm trying to base this blog.

Although the other day--not to get too specific and thus reveal my location, though since the only readers of this blog are presumably people who know me, and so who gives a s***, but still--there was a local bit of unpleasantness in which 3 people were killed and several more seriously injured. Unpleasant, as I say, and yet my oh my was there what seemed to me to be a severe overreaction to the event. Don't get me wrong--3 people dead and many injured is no good thing--but the words "disaster" and "tragedy" and "catastrophe" were being thrown around in banner headlines and 'special reports.' And this from a major U.S. city, mind you. Perhaps it's just my jaded, post-9/11, post-Katrina attitude, but it seems to me that is your city isn't smouldering with the remains of burning bodies or drowned beneath flood-waters, perhaps "disaster" is not the right word to use. "Mishap" is a bit too light, perhaps, but it's closer to the mark. I mean, in a city of the size in question, the deaths of three people probably doesn't create much of a bump in the county-wide death toll for the day, much less the week.

And yet, "disaster" it was. Is this self-aggrandizement? The attempt to make the relatively minor seem tragic in order to reinforce a sense of self-importance? Or are such occurrences so rare that even so small a thing appears, to these people, nothing short of calamitous? I can't say for sure. But I suspect, ruefully, that it's the former. We're not an insulated world anymore. Even in the Midwest--even in flyover country--we probably have a perspective of the world that rivals the breadth and sophistication of the coasts (hint to the occupants of those coasts--stop sneering at these people--they're every bit as well-informed as you)--and so I think that they simply succumbed to the need to make their suffering more substantial in order to make themselves seem more important. Which is understandable, but tacky. Ah well. So it's not a land of saints. Just means I'll fit in better here than I initially thought.

Eleven

OK, I promise to stop bitching/remarking on the weather soon, but this is a good anecdote, so bear with me.

Alarm went off this morning, and radio was playing Loverboy, so I did the only sensible thing--I put a pillow over my head and tried to smother myself into the relatively sweet embrace of death. Didn't work, and when I pulled the pillow away, the DJ said, breezily, "It's eleven, and we'll be right back after this."

Eleven?! Oh f***! Oh s***! I overslept! How did this happen?! It's 11:00 a.m. and I'm late for...Wait. Looked around. It was still dark. Grabbed my glasses, put them on, looked at the clock. Five past 7:00. What the hell was she--

Eleven.

Oh.

Oh my.

Oh my, no.

No, no, no.

Yes. Eleven. Degrees. I think I actually crystallized on my walk from the car to class...It's so very, very cold. Make it stop. Please. Please--my heart beats faster the second I'm outdoors in a vain attempt to keep my extremities circulated enough not to fall off. It's so...COLD.

Eleven.

Eleven.

I think I'm in trouble.

Altruism

My across-the-street neighbor's name is Rick S. (I will preserve his anonymity for the sake of, well--respect for privacy, even in doling out praise, is just good manners, isn't it?) How do I know this, you ask? Glad you did. I know this because, when I decided that it might be a good idea, after yesterday's blizzard (that's the National Weather Services word for it, not just my self-aggrandizing hyperbole), to see if I could get my car out of the driveway through the drifts that surrounded it, I could not. I dug, with shovel and hand, and I scraped, and the damn thing was still stuck. Wheel-spinning, you-can-gun-it-as-much-as-you-want-to-a**shole-but-we-ain't-goin'-nowhere stuck. I didn't say the words my parents taught me over vicious card-games out loud, but oh, I thought them. Hard enough to make telepaths in a 50 mile radius bleed out the ears.

Then I looked, and the gentleman I referred to yesterday--the one with the snow-blower--the one I was kind of snarky about? Yeah, I saw him coming over, ice in his beard, face red from his own exertions and the chill--which was just...remarkable, the kind that hurts to inhale--and he was grinning.

"Couldn't help noticing the California plates," he said, not unkindly. "This your first Wisconsin winter?"

I admitted as much, shame-facedly.

"Well," he said, "first you gotta know how to get a car unstuck." And he showed me the Drive-and-Reverse rocking technique. "Now," he said, "you think you could move it forward if I push?" He was offering to push my car...because...because he saw that I needed help, and immediately, unhesitatingly, moved to give it.

What the f*** is this place???

So I let him, embarassed at my own helplessness and the fact that, if the situation were reversed, I might've sat back in the warmth of my living room and laughed a little. He pushed--hard--and the car rocked forward out of the rut.

"OK," he said, "now let's get you out of the driveway." And he let fly with the snowblower and in ten minutes, it was done. I was free to go. (I didn't have the heart to tell him that all I wanted was to pull out and drive around--that I didn't have any place to be...I guiltily made a trip to a local fast-food place, just so I could be gone long enough to justify the effort on his part. Maybe the bag looked like one from a pharmacy. Prescription refills--always a good reason to have to go out.)

"You all set?" he asked. I was. I pulled my glove off and he pulled his off, and we shook hands. I gave him my name and he gave me his, and let me know that if I ever needed any help...well, you can guess the rest.

And I think--I hope--that if he ever needs any help, he'll call on me, and I'll do it--or better yet, that I'll see him needing it, and offer without being asked. It might be grudging at first--I'm Selfish Boy from Selfish Land--but I think it'll be less so over time.

This place may make me a better person. I like that.

Plus I can drive to the strip clubs now.

Pros and Cons

On Blizzards:

Pro--today I woke up and the idiotic DJs, bless them, were discussing school closures. (To be fair, I'd been prepped for this by a voice-mail at work, testing the 'emergency' system of announcing just such an eventuality. Plus there'd been those pesky weather reports predicting that God was going to open a trap-door right over our heads.) And they started mentioning colleges...Hmmm...I slithered out of bed to the computer and lo and behold, on my school's website: an announcement of closure. Complete. Total. And when I looked outside...yyyyyeah, yeah, today is not an 'outdoors' day. At all. White is a beautiful non-color, but...too much of it...and more of it coming down in alarming amounts. So, no school today, and instead I'm home in my bathrobe sipping coffee after sleeping in. Jealous? You know you are. (Neurotic that I am, by the way, I also checked my e-mail AND my voicemail, both of which confirmed the banner announcement. Only then did I fully relax and believe that I wasn't going to be missing work for no reason. I'm a sad little monkey.)

Con--It's one thing to look outside and see snow. It's another to look outside and think "Donner Party." Which I did. This is a LOT of snow. A LOT. As in, it's a goddamned good thing I overstocked on frozen foods the last time I went shopping, or I'd be eyeing the cats and seeing visions of turkeys and pot roasts replacing their image. There's something a little scary about a world that transforms completely overnight, and isolates you so effectively. (Though I've seen someone out with a snowblower--mid-blizzard, mind you, which strikes me as the equivalent of someone towelling off while still in the shower. But whatever, maybe he knows something I don't.) So the con is that I'm STUCK here, and likely for the weekend. And if I owned, rather than rented...wow, I'd have to dig out. And that, too, would suck.

Pro and Con. You decide which wins. I'm going to download a bunch of TV shows I've missed and distract myself from the winter I-wonder-if-I'll-ever-get-out land that this place has becoming.

Still dealing, though.