The Ghost in the Shell

It seems lately I keep getting into discussions about why Halloween is so appealing - specifically why it's so appealing for members of the fairer sex to dress in far more revealing clothes than normal. It seems as though we're still wearing the costumes of our youth, only updated for adults. Alice in Wonderland becomes Slutty Alice in Wonderland. Indian Princess becomes Slutty Indian Princess. Ronald Reagan mask is replaced by Slutty Ronald Reagan mask. You get the picture.

The appeal seems obvious to me - it's the generic appeal for everyone on Halloween. It's a night to get a free pass.

It's a night where we are specifically instructed not to be ourselves. Now, I won't get into how silly it is to have a socially sanctioned night to go against social sanctions, but for the most part, we're supposed to act differently. We are supposed to let loose and be someone else, live for one night as a vampire, a mummy, an abstract concept. Our behavior changes along with our outfit.

Today is a day of release. It's a day where mischievous behavior is acceptable and even expected. It's a day where all of the sins committed are not even written down or recorded. A day with no authority figure.

So why do some girls dress like Disney-themed prostitutes on this night? Because they're allowed to. Like we're all allowed to play a part - because humans need to not be themselves every once in a while. And we're such pack animals that we only feel safe stepping outside that boundary when the rest of our society says it's alright too.

I remember when I put on my pink polo, popped the collar and borrowed Taylor's Croakies and sunglasses to go to Target. I wanted to experience life differently. I wanted to have people judge me differently based on my appearance. When I dressed in Hunter's clothes for Christmas Dinner - it was a similar situation.

So my question has never been why people dress radically but why they need permission to do it. Why do we insist on only stepping outside our norms when its socially acceptable? Doesn't that sort of negate the entire thing? We cannot really step outside ourselves unless its marginally unsafe. Halloween offers a safe environment for experimentation. But the experimentation is limited by it. To really toy around with being someone else, you have to do it without the net. In order to be seen differently by people - to experience what it's like when you dress a different way or act a different way - their reactions can't be watered down by the social acceptability of it all.

Go trick-or-treating on May 4th, and you'll see what I mean.

The day that we're allowed to dress like freaks is arbitrary anyway. It could have been any day. It could still be any day. Fifty years from now, we might be celebrating a different holiday on a different day that celebrates wearing masks and playing dress up. We should be challenging - or at least playing around with - these human constructs. Talk to people you've never met. Introduce yourself in the elevator. Don't blend into the background of people who are awaiting permission to act oddly. Live your life based on whims. Wear a mask next week. Experience life through the eyes of someone else - real or imaginary. Be homeless for a week. Take a road trip without telling anyone. Paint a picture. Go build a house. The world is not set in stone. It's been defined, but it can be erased and redefined and redefined again.

What does this have to do with dressing appropriately inappropriate? I'm not sure. But I think it's telling that when given permission to go crazy, we usually do.

The Tiger or the Tiger?

The only moral questions are the difficult ones. If the answer is obvious, it probably has little to do with ethics. After all, ethics is not designed to be exact - its meant to question your sensibilities.

You can learn some fascinating things about propaganda if you know where to look. The word gets a bad connotation, but it spreads from advertising to everyday conversation to mass-population mind control with ease. This also makes it difficult to pinpoint when its being used. And of course there are dozens of successful techniques to veer the human mind in the direction you'd like it to go.

One of my favorite stories about advertising propaganda involves Tylenol who branded a catchphrase - "Nothing is stronger than Tylenol". This, of course, is completely true because nothing is stronger than Tylenol. Nothing is weaker than Tylenol either. Since Tylenol is acetaminophen and nothing more, and since several other brand name pain relievers use the same base, everything is just about equal. But by creating a brand image of strength, people still think that Tylenol is a better pain reliever than another brand when they exactly identical products. It's not a lie. It's just misleading.

Which leads to the question of the moral compass. Let's say it's 1939, and the Nazis are rounding up Jews to send to death camps. You're hiding several in your basement, and when the Gestapo makes a pit stop at your house, they ask if you're hiding anyone. Answering 'no' is a lie. Answering 'yes' would get several people killed.

I doubt seriously that anyone sees any moral qualm with lying in this circumstance. This is an easy one - not a true moral question. Res Ipsa Loquitor (right, Hunter?).

Now, let's say that you're working at a store selling stereos and the owner wants you to pitch them by exclaiming that no other stereo brand has more decibel output. Imagine that this is not a lie, but is misleading in the same way that Tylenol is misleading. Let's say the stereos you're selling are decent, but your pitch makes them sound stronger than things that they are equal to. Let's say there's commission involved.

Is there a moral problem with knowingly misleading a stranger for personal gain? What if your manager wanted you to lie about the quality outright? Is it a small enough transgression that it won't matter?

Of course, the famous example of moral effrontery comes from Socrates' story of Gyges' Ring. The ring is an object that allows its wearer to be invisible (Tolkein mirrors this concept in The Lord of the Rings. Invisibility grants incredible power). In Socrates' myth, a shepherd finds the ring and uses it to seduce the Queen of the land and murder/dethrone the king - becoming ruler himself. The question of the ring (or of invisibility) is what you would do with it. Petty theft? Rise to power? Help humanity?

How would you act if you could walk around undetected?

This speaks again to the intangible feeling, the intrinsic value of doing the right thing. The corrupt man will strive for worldly gains and feel empty for doing it so deceptively while the virtuous man will shun immoral uses of the ring in exchange for personal well-being and a state of peace.

And what happens when the virtuous man is confronted with making a choice between two immoral actions? A moral question finally arises. What if the two actions are equitable, what if the ignoble act is as major as the positive outcome it might elicit? What if there is no right path? Once again, our society has flattened these situations into aphorism - being stuck between a rock and a hard place, choosing the lesser of two evils.

But how often do we really think, truly sacrifice to find that third road that might be a bit more narrow but worth the trek?

A Step Toward the Plank

When you do a basic task with the opposite hand that you're used to, it creates new neuro-pathways in your brain. You get more wrinkles. For example, try brushing your teeth with your left hand for a while, and you'll get quantitatively smarter.

I'm wondering if the same thing can't be done for your soul.

In a religious context, I'm wondering if you can make your soul glow brighter by doing things in a different way - figuring out new ways to love people, to respect them, searching in different places for God, finding yourself in uncommon waters.

I guess I'd like to look at it like a 9 to 5 job. At the end of the day, I know I'm not made for this type of work. No matter how much I enjoy doing the things that I do in the office, the monotony of coming into work in the morning and leaving in the evening, the schedule of it all, the repetition - it gets to me. I love my job, but I dislike the format.

Think about your spiritual life that way - what if even if you enjoy to the fullest every aspect of it, you feel refreshed by it, you relish in it, the fact that you have a pattern frustrated you? Isn't that sometimes the case? Even if you're meeting dynamic people and having great discussions, don't those discussions tend to flow in patterns? Doesn't it feel like you've had the same conversation before? Reliving the same moments with different people?

What fascinates me about Christian theodicy is that its an ethos that accepts (although many seem to struggle with that acceptance) of striving for a goal that is out of reach. Being Christ-like, living with a pure heart - these are things that a follower should look toward, but knows he or she will never, ever achieve.

In Genesis, and this may just be a Hebraic reading of it, God lays down laws for mankind. But throughout the Torah (and continuing into the Nevi'im and Kethubim) God's laws are like an arrow that he's shot into the distance - it only gives direction. God points off somewhere and commands to head toward it. This view contradicts the narrow alternative that God gives strict commandments. When seen as a moral homily, the story of creation and redemption really becomes about moving in the right direction, not necessarily about taking the "right path".

But it's a direction you'll walk your entire lives without reaching the arrow. I'm wondering if along the way, some experimentation on pacing, the path, and method of travel might be done to shake off the cobwebs of faith and give new perspective. I assume God wouldn't care if you did cartwheels as long as you were headed in the right direction.

What are some things that you can do differently in your spiritual life that might bring greater joy to you and your loved ones? Could it be as simple as using your left hand? And that raises another question - if we have more than one hand, and we tend to utilize one far more than the other, is there a correlative to the soul? If the soul has many faculties, isn't it possible that we only lean on one most of the time?

If this is the case, how can we stretch those other faculties and get ready for the big game?

I hope you'll appreciate that I've used over 4 different analogies to express the same basic idea. I couldn't have planned it better.

Mother Theresa be Damned

There's a story of an old woman who lived alone until the day she died. Friends came and went as they pleased and she was close with her family, but she had never married, so after they left, the house was empty. She lived a full life, experiencing incredible things and going to incredible places. When she was only 18, she made the decision not to get married because the love of her life was taken away from her to die in World War II occupied France. She never went back on that promise to herself.

There's something noble about inflexibility, but it also makes me wonder how viable it is. Can you imagine sticking to a plan your made when you were 18? Can you even remember the plans and promises you made when you were 18?

Noble choices often have no extrinsic value. In fact, they usually hinder our opportunity for potential gain. Making the "right" choice is usually one of sacrifice. Of course, it seems the only times we see these decisions being made are during movies and in books. A chivalrous hero upholding some arbitrary code of existence that has fallen out of practice in exchange for the base ways of the day. So then, nobility seems to be strict adherence to an outmoded moral code, a truth that has gone out of fashion.

But is what the woman did really that noble? She's preserving the memory of the man she loved, but is there any inherent worth in the way she's going about it? Perhaps its the importance we place on finding a partner in life that frustrates the situation. Perhaps we cannot see ourselves doing the same thing - ending a quest for love because you've already found it and lost it. If her love had just moved away or decided to break up with her. Would we still consider her decision to stop looking for love once she found it noble?

The underlying question is one of why we give. Noble acts are defined by giving something up in exchange for an intangible - when a city worker found a sack with $65,000 in it last week, it made the news because she returned it (it had fallen off a bank truck) without even thinking about keeping it. It was the right thing to do. She traded monetary gain for something. But what is that something? Karma? A good feeling? The frustrating thing for most when dealing with the noble act, is that the gain is something intrinsic. It is something that that woman will never be able to put into words for another human being. She can't wear it or drive it or live in it or flaunt it, but she has it, and she knows what it is.

I think lately, I've been dying to know what it is.

Off the Grid

Last night I got to listen to my outgoing voice mail message for the first time ever. I didn't even realize I had one, because a few year's ago I switched to the robotic voice blithely spouting out my number and informing listeners to record something sweet and meaningful after the tone. I was under the impression that I'd never recorded a new one.

However, after making fun of a friend of mine for sounding like he sold out - a punk rocker with the most polite message you've ever heard - he turned the comment back around on me.

So I listened to it.

I sound like a tool.

So one of many goals that we've made for each other this week is to change our voice mail message. I'm not sure that it has to be a radical change, but it needs to be one that moves away from sounding so tool-ish. Some of my friends would say that's impossible for me. I'm open to suggestions.

At the core of it is a need to change something very small, something very basic that is also a cornerstone in my life. Think about how many people hear that message a day - how many people from friends to strangers that have heard that voice and made a decision based on it. It is something small, but it's also a way that we represent ourselves - putting our best electronic foot forward. For the time being, I have what would be considered a very good message, calm, polite, professional sounding - but this is not who I want to be. I want to be myself, even for a small moment in time that is replayed over and over again during the day.

I remember noting the change to adult-hood with many of my friends as the days when their phone messages changed. The excuses were simple - awaiting calls from med schools, from Law programs, from potential clients, from colleagues now in the work force, from an interview with a major company.

Whatever the case, "Do what the lady says" followed by that ever-present electronic female informing me that in order to leave a voice mail, I needed to press 1 - was replaced by "Hi. You've reached James. I'm not here to answer your call, but if you leave a message, I'd be happy to get back to you as soon as possible."

And what's worse - we all have the same basic message. You've reached us. I'm unavailable. I can't get to my phone right now. I'm away from my phone. Please leave a detailed message. Leave your name and phone number. I'd be glad to get back to you. I'll get back to you as soon as I can. Have a great day. Hope you're doing well. Take care.

With so much monotony, is there any reason to have a message in the first place?

There's Something about Mary

This is a revolution of the mind.

The two sides are pretty easy to describe: Naturalists believe that there are only natural things in existence. They seek to explain all of life's mysteries, using only what is in the physical world. Non-naturalists believe that the world's mysteries can only be explained through non-natural entities, supernatural entities like God, parallel universes, Forms, Universals, etc. They believe in things outside the system.

The two main problems are easy to describe: Naturalists have trouble explaining things using only natural entities. Non-naturalists have explained these things, but now must explain the supernatural entities, which is another huge problem.

I'm revisiting a thesis I wrote concerning a brilliant philosopher named Frank Jackson and a troubling scenario that he puts forth. I say troubling, because it causes further difficult for the Naturalists. And it's brilliant.

(A quick sidenote: Jackson is arguing against physicalism - a system that claims there are no kinds of things other than physical things.)

"Mary is confined to a black and white room, is educated through black and white books and through lectures relayed on black and white television. In this way she learns everything there is to know about the physical nature of the world. She knows all the physical facts about us and our environment, in a wide sense of 'physical' which includes everything in completed physics, chemistry and neurophysiology, and all there is to know about the causal and relational facts consequent upon all this, including of course functional roles." (Jackson 291)

Mary knows ALL physical facts about the universe. Yet she's only seen in black and white.

One day, Mary is released from her room and set free to walk down a garden path outside. For the first time in her life, she sees color. She sees a red flower - taking in for the first time the concept of Red.

Now, if physicalism is true, then Mary knew everything there is to know inside the room. But when she's let out, she learns something. There must be some knowledge beyond physical facts.

Knowing how the eye perceives light and how the brain translates this as a color is not the same as knowing what it's like to see Red.

After gaining total physical knowledge, there's still something else to learn.

This is a major problem for Naturalism.

The problem, simply stated is this:

Mary knows all physical facts.
Mary learns something new.
There must be facts that are non-physical.

Don't think too hard over the weekend.

Don't Forget your Towel

If a train were out of control, speeding down the track toward five people stuck on it, and you had a lever that could send the train down another set of tracks at a junction, would you pull it?

This is the opening question of a series of questions meant to baffle our moral sensibilities. I heard it a couple of weeks ago from one of the students at the forum who was taking a medical ethics class. I've never been a huge fan of ethics - it so often devolves into the unprovable. What's more, the philosophers involved usually write with such an air of stubborn correctness that it's almost laughable that they might truly believe there was no other way to think about the issue of what Good is.

The "correct" answer for the first question is, yes. There are some hypotheticals that could draw that into question, but answering yes leads you to the next question.

What if there was a person stuck on the other set of tracks? Pulling the lever would kill that one person. So, do you leave it and let it kill five or pull it and let it kill one?

This is a bit trickier because our mind is flustered by the prospect of losing human life - albeit imaginary people. We don't want to lose anyone, especially having to make the choice on who lives and dies. Most people, I would wager, answer that they would still pull the lever because saving five is better than saving one.

Now, the last question, and whoever came up with this must have thought themselves fairly clever -

What if the situation was in a hospital? You're a doctor with five patients who need transplants or they will die. A patient comes in with compatible organs. Do you let him die to save the others?

Supposedly, this should make you rethink your answer to the second question - is going purely on numbers correct? It doesn't seem ethical to allow that person in the hospital to die to save others, why would it be ethical on the train track?

The answer is, because the hypothetical situation is a bad one.

The best hypothetical situations are simple. That's what makes the game Would You Rather so perfect. There's little room for error. A decision must be made - it can be debated forever because the premise is so airtight. The author of this particular problem, did not receive that memo. It's long. And the worst part about it, is that it sets up a false correlation.

I assume the author would argue that it doesn't, having probably tricked plenty of students into thinking with it, and I imagine no one from the medial ethics class even noted the problem since the student that re-vocalized it seemed so enthusiastic.

(On a side note, the other reason I hate stuff like this is because it's almost always said with a wink, as if the professor or whoever is delighting in tricking you. There seems to be a definite "gotcha!" moment involved that seems a little more self-serving than to be genuine. Essentially, it seems to highlight the teller more than the story. Plus, it's just intellectually lazy.)

The problem with the correlation between the train tracks and the hospital is that one is an active choice and the other is passive. In the train scenario, death is headed for both groups, but it can only hit one. In the hospital, death is only headed for one group - the group of five - the single person coming in might not die, and in fact, if certain death was facing that person, there would be no moral quandary. You'd simply do your best to save him, knowing that he'll die, and then use his organs. But, since the guy could just have a simple, treatable illness, you would have to make an active choice to kill him to get his organs.

In one, the train is the killer - you just have the terrible power of passively manipulating it. In the other, you're the killer. You have to make an active choice to sacrifice someone for others.

So it's a bad analogy. I'm not sure why stuff like that bothers me - probably because people continue to pass it down as knowledge without realizing how silly it is. In the end, it isn't even a good enough situation to cause critical thought.

In a diner at the end of the universe, however, there's a great question. From the Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy series, Doug Adams created an incredibly great ethical question.

A vegetarian - choosing not to eat meat because of ethical objections - is eating at a diner at the end of the universe. The special for the day is pork, a very special kind of special, because its made from pigs that were biologically created to want nothing more in life than to be eaten. These pigs are born with the goal of being eaten and would desire nothing less. Since the pig wants to be eaten, the diner would be fulfilling its wishes, so the ethical qualm of eating meat is completely sidestepped.

"The Pig that Wants to be Eaten" is a great question because of its simplicity. Without set up, you could ask, 'is it alright to eat an animal that wants to be eaten?'

It's a good question.

A Transitive Property

Another change of perspective.

I'm a huge fan of shifting focus in order to gain insight. Taking a different side to see if its worth taking. I think that's why I don't get up in arms when I meet someone that disagrees with me. For most people, at least people militant in their beliefs, the main question upon meeting a dissenter is how someone could possibly feel differently. As if people don't have different life experiences or biases that lead them to certain, differing opinions. That it's so unfathomable that someone would see things in a different light. Once you get over the fact that people think in different modes, things get a lot easier.

In Hollywood, there's a sage piece of advice that gets thrown around to those fortunate enough to hear it. With an environment of chaos and competition, Hollywood sells a dream of fulfilling your passion while shoving its boot into your throat. Yes, it's that bad. Sometimes.

The key to it is sheer numbers. Millions move out there specifically for one job market. Cities like this exist - Midland/Odessa, TX for oil, DC for politics, but they are slowly evaporating - perhaps even Hollywood is. The point is that not only does everyone not make it out there, the vast majority don't. It's a lottery system. A few get it all while the masses get nothing.

The advice I was so lucky to receive involves purpose. People go to LA with a purpose - to write, produce, direct, act, design art, design costumes, create musical scores, etc. Unfortunately, since no one is handed the key to the city and pointed in the direction of the nearest studio where they can claim their dream job upon moving in, people end working at Starbucks, restaurants, delivery services, as costumed heroes and princesses on Hollywood Blvd. outside Graumann's Theatre, etc. These jobs are pointless - they keep you in LA, but no where closer to your goal.

The real key is to get a job that's tangential to your ultimate goal. The golden example of entry level work for almost anyone (except actors) is as a production assistant. Long hours (12-16), low pay (free - 125 per day), and you're at the bottom of the totem pole, constantly told what to do. You aren't allowed to sit because it looks bad. You have to constantly be ready to work at a moment's notice. And you better hustle, but, like a friend of mine once said, "At least you're on the totem pole."

Here's the advice: When you have a plan A and a plan B, you should make your Plan B, your Plan A.

Switch perspectives.

If you came out to Los Angeles to write and ended up being a production assistant, you should stop making writing the focus and start making your assistant job the focus. Counter-intuitive? Perhaps. But most great advice is.

People usually get nowhere just focusing on their art. You have to be incredibly talented, tenacious and after all that, have to rely on someone else being able to recognize those traits and take a chance on you. As a low-level assistant, there is nothing to lose. After I started focusing more on my assistant work, I got more jobs, made more connections and eventually became a production coordinator. Then, I was telling assistants what to do on set. What's even more - the connections I made started becoming interested in me - why was I out there? What did I want to do? People realize that being a production assistant isn't the dream, so they ask you what yours is.

Now, after making my Plan B my Plan A, I have a few great friendships with some incredible people out in Los Angeles. Had I stayed out there, I would working just about as steadily as one can and well on my way to climbing toward my goal. See, most people don't know how to head toward their goal because they don't know how to take the first step. Exchanging for your Plan B for your Plan A is that first step.

I bring this up because someone reminded me of it yesterday and I've been thinking about whether it can be applied to relationships or other goals. I wonder this, because I claimed it could.

Let's say for instance that your Plan A is to get a girl to like you, to become her boyfriend. Would Hollywood's advice work here? Could you focus on something other than making her your girlfriend in order to make her your girlfriend? Perhaps becoming her friend or just getting to know her better?

What if your plan was to make a friend? Learn how to change a tire? Become a diplomat? Start a co-op? Become healthier?

I understand that this advice is not universal, but I'm starting to question how far flung it can go. I know it's not for everything, but I'm sure it can't just be for Hollywood. What are some situations where switching your focus could help you attain your goal in the longer run?

Also, I couldn't help but think that if B.A. Baracus of TV's "The A Team" followed this advice, he'd become A. B. Abrbcus of TV's "The B Team".

I'm really sorry.

The Road Back from Canterbury

Back to Anselm.

So we left off with St. Anselm proving God's existence by showing that if God is the greatest of all things, and it's greater to exist in reality than just in the mind, then God must exist in reality outside of the mind.

It's flawless, which is probably why it's so absolutely wrong. There are scores of reasons that people come up with for why this doesn't work. I've come up with a few that I'm sure are written down somewhere by smarter men and women than I. Hopefully, you thought of a couple yourself, although there's something funny about Christians trying to prove why an argument for God is bad.

1) Man does not preempt God. This argument seems to weigh heavily on man's ability to imagine a being greater than all others. While this is possible, man's mind should not be the catalyst for the existence of God. This seems to be a fundamental flaw in trying to prove God's existence through logic in the first place. One cannot simply wish something into existence.

2) The imagination of a perfect being is not necessarily possible. Anselm believes that man can easily imagine a perfect being - yet what does this look like? To ask 100 people what a perfect being would be would garner 100 different answers. Anselm points to our ability to imagine perfection as a reason for proving God, yet it is more so the case that we know what "good" is and can therefore think in degrees of goodness. If we can imagine good, we can imagine better than good, and the best good.

3) Anselm is correct, but not about God. I actually agree with the entirety of the argument. I think the frustrating thing about it is that it's so clean that people have trouble finding flaws with it. I see no flaws for what it is - if we replace the word God with X. Anselm has proven that X exists - a being that is greater than all other beings. Most of you don't really know what I believe in or the dynamics of my belief, but they fall in line perfectly with Anselm's argument of a higher power. In the simplest terms, I'm a monist - I believe that the universe is made up of one object that is constantly reacting with itself along the lines of existing natural laws. Things unfold as the should because they must. You could also call me a pantheist - God living inside nature (not nature as in the trees and lakes, but nature as in all things). As a monist, if God exists, and there is only one object in existence, then God is that object and we are as well.

Anselm proves that there exists a thing greater than all others. But isn't that obvious? Isn't it clear that if there is a good, that there must be an exemplar of that Good? The best? The greatest? Even if it is obvious, Anselm does a great service in logically pointing out why it should be so - sometimes the most obvious things are the hardest to prove logically.

He certainly does it with a religious tilt, but his argument can be used to bolster pretty much any religion or no religion at all. At the root, it confirms that there is something in the natural world (or supernatural for Anselm) that exists that is greater than all other things. When read to the nth degree, it becomes an argument for a creative being that started the whole mess. So, perhaps the greatest flaw in Anselm's thinking is his projection of his own faith onto reason.

In your face, 11th century Archbishop and founder of scholasticism!

What a World. What a World.

Sometimes I just can't figure out this thing.

It took someone asking me how my weekend was for me to realize that it was bizarre and fleeting. It was intense, and the range of emotive responses that I undertook are surprising considering that they barely crossed my mind at the time. Perhaps I blocked the weekend out because it was too much to deal with.

On Friday, I escaped work and couldn't get a hold of anyone to do anything with so I settled for an evening walk and a $50 meal at a cafe on Lincoln Park. Four-spice duck and a pan-seared white truffle followed by the best tiramisu I've ever had. It was calming, and it was the first time I'd ever spent that much without caring. I just let go. I went from a three star restaurant, clinking forks and knives against plates with lawyers and business executives all made out of ticky-tacky, to watching Knocked Up. It was a decidedly, bi-class night.

Saturday, I had lunch with Emily which was really eye-opening and fun. We ate, walked around the harbor talking and I tried to figure out how to break into really nice looking older buildings. I got home to find my friend Marco wanted to meet up with me, so I walked the mile to the metro so I could talk to Kimsey - always excellent - and four seconds after hanging out with her, some young kids ran past me. Another came on a bike and dropped it right at the metro. Another scrambled onto it and took off. Then the cop cars showed up. I was riding the escalator down when a bike-cop had a teenager on the ground putting him in handcuffs. I have no idea why.

Taking the metro to the capitol, Marco decided he wanted to eat so we walked back to, you guessed it, Eastern Market and rolled into this nice cuban place that did Ropa Vieja nearly perfectly. Marco lived in a commune at Stanford where there was a lot of comfortable nudity and socialism. Our conversation was quite different than the ones I had with Emily or Kimsey. I adapted. We then went from calm dinner, to deciding we'd start a band together, to going to a house warming party that was part suave sophisticates and part fridge-full-of-beer. I ducked out after a few free beers and headed home, finally getting to talk to my friend Dave whom I've been missing lately.

Sunday morning, I had a soccer game that turned really ugly. The ref was frantic, barely knew what she was doing, and it resulted in a lot of bad calls. Two or our players got yellow cards. We had to restrain one guy from talking to her. She exhibited that nervous stature of someone whose authority only derives from authority. The yellow cards in her back pocket and whistle were not enough to prove that she could judge a match, and it showed. I also went from cloud nine when assisting a goal to almost dying of dehydration on the field. We won - and what should have been celebratory was tarnished by anger and bitterness.

I meant to get a lot done yesterday, but instead I crashed when I got home. I woke up disoriented in the evening, decided to get groceries and spent from 10 - 11pm there. There is nothing more satisfying that getting groceries. Having a full kitchen is an incredibly relaxing feeling, and I was able to go to sleep around 2am feeling really relaxed.

This ended at 5:30am when I got a call from my ex-girlfriend informing me that her dog had broken her other front leg, and the vet is suggesting that she be put to sleep.

I'm still trying to process this.

I've been first class, low class, pleasantly surprised, exhausted, liberated, responsible, irresponsible, victorious, angry, calm, and heart broken.

While I was writing this, a coworker asked how my weekend was, and I just said, "Fine."

I'm afraid this was more journal-like than usual, but I feel like there's a lesson in here somewhere, one that doesn't need to be drawn out. One that I don't have to go into much detail beyond what's there in the history books. One that reminds me that I'm never quite going to get the hang of this thing.

Antediluvian

95% of all the media you see comes from Los Angeles.

That figure is probably a complete fabrication, but it might as well be true. It's probably fairly close. Most people don't even think about the amount of media that enters their brain everyday. We're bombarded by it, but it's become so common, that we just pass by without a second glance. A typical morning for me consists of hopping in a car to drive to the metro (listening to the radio = songs, commercials, live content; or a CD = music), walking to the metro past the signs for gas stations, CVS, etc., getting on the metro (walking past advertisements, grabbing a newspaper, listening to a recording telling me the doors are closing), exiting to Farragut (past signs, more advertisements, store fronts with placards and posters) and getting to work. I don't even have a working TV set.

The thing about media is that it's not just advertisements. That voice telling me the doors are closing on the metro - someone recorded that. It's someone's voice. An actual person somewhere with hopes and dreams and thoughts and fears. This dynamic human being stood in a recording booth and repeated "Stand back the doors are closing" until they got it just right. Now her voice is heard thousands of times a day by strangers. A copy of her is out there everyday. I wonder if she ever rides the metro.

Chuck Pahlaniuk (who you'll find I refer to a lot because he makes me think) notes a fascinating phenomenon in his book Fight Club when he mentions the laugh tracks for television shows during the 1940s and 50s. Those same laugh tracks that you hear today were recorded back then. There's been little need to update them because collective laughter all sounds the same. So, get this, when you hear an audience crack up at the latest wacky thing that the lovable sitcom star does, you're listening to the laughter of dead people.

At least a decent percentage of the people who had their laughter recorded for shows back then are now deceased, and their recorded ghost lives on.

Media has a way of flattening its subject matter. The image or sound has to serve a singular purpose. Sometimes it can serve two, but anything more than that, and the simple message of the advertisement or the mass-produced signal is lost. It becomes muddled, and large groups of people can't handle that sort of exposure. The message has to be dynamic - and that means, one message, direct, loud, clear.

Today on CNN.com there is an icon for a story on the bra turning 100. A century's worth of the invention. The icon above the story is a small picture of a woman's bust in a red bra, framing her shoulders down to her xiphoid process, and nothing more. No face. No name. Just a bra.

And yet someone posed for that photo. A human being somewhere could look at that website today, point to that picture and say, "that's me". A living, breathing human being reduced to a single message, a flattened image. She's most likely a model, but she might not be. She might be a nursing student who was helping a friend build a photography portfolio, and when the image ended up on an open source market, CNN bought the rights to it for almost zero dollars and are now using it. I wonder what that woman's like. We don't often think about the people behind the images. Movie stars are not real people in our mind. They are a blank canvas for us to project our desires onto. Girls want to be swept into Brad Pitt's arms because he's attractive, and because of this, they imagine he's also a great person. Guys fantasize about being with most actresses without knowing thing one about them.

We are now becoming those celebrities. Not in the same stature, but in the same concept. For the first time ever, a girl I've never met randomly messaged me on Facebook to tell me that she dug my musical taste. She has access to what I've posted, my pictures, but I'm flat. I'm anything she wants me to be. I'm a bulletin point of a human being. My likes and dislikes are spelled out short order, my photos do little to paint a picture of my humanity, and a few short quips from strangers does nothing to explain who I am. Yet we do this every day to people - marginalize them. We read magazines, watch television, listen to the radio - never thinking about the human behind the image or the motion or the voice.

A guy putting himself through grad school for computer science smiling in a tooth paste advertisement, a young guy from Missouri who dreams of owning his own business acts as a human clothing rack for khakis in a Sears catalogue, a girl who fears that she'll end like her mother, loves horseback riding, and crossed her fingers that this will lead to something big steps up to a microphone and says, "Thank you for shopping at Walmart. This week, you'll find incredible savings on..."

I have nothing against consumer culture. In fact, I find it fascinating. It does, however, naturally rob the people involved of their humanity, turning them into a singular statement or a blank canvas. There's nothing really harmful in this - the person is still walking around being as dynamic as ever while their image floats around attracting the eye and convincing or not convincing in a split second a person to buy a particular brand of soda. There's nothing deep or tragic or joyous going on here. Just a fun exercise in humanity. The next time you see an image of someone else, wonder who they are, ask what they might be like, question their background and their hopes and dreams and desires. Remember they are real, someone with a life as interesting as yours walking around somewhere out there.

Or next time you hear a laugh track on television, remember that who you're hearing is no longer with us.

The Road to Canterbury

Let's imagine, for a moment, that God doesn't exist.

It's not that difficult - just close your eyes and imagine a world a complete existence without a creative-higher power. With nothing outside what you see in your mind or (if you open your eyes) in your room. Take everything at face value. You're a grand biological specimen placed in a complex environment shaped not by a creator, but by unfolding natural laws that flow along a path.

I assume you all have the capacity for this imagination.

St. Anselm lived during a really dark time. The medieval period is one not of science or religion, but of power. For the most part, people were Neanderthals when it came to medicine, astronomy, biology, ecology, and almost every other science. They also practiced a faith dictated by political power which, as we all know, isn't really faith. People were catholic because of what state they were born in, not because they felt incredibly inclined toward that particular expression of religion.

It is a time completely foreign to us. One we have trouble even relating to. At 1,000 years ago, the era is more fiction than history for us. We relate to it as being so long ago that the people in it might as well have been characters in a story book. This is due in large part to our own ignorance of the time, the lack of prolific writing during the period, and the abundance of fictional tales of kinds and knights. When I say that Anselm became Bishop of Canterbury under King William II, I might as well say that Batman was on the throne at the time.

Isn't it interesting to think that they were closer (chronologically) to Christ? If this time was so long ago that it appears cartoonish to us, unimaginable as a reality, can you even begin to comprehend 0 AD?

But Anselm had a fascinating life - raised religiously, he was steered away from the monestary life by his tyrant of a father until he fled his home and joined the ranks of the Bec Abbey where he was soon made Prior. Traveling to England, he became a successor for Lanfranc, the Arch Bishop of Canterbury. This position is the spiritual leader of all of England. Imagine waking up in the morning and putting on your vestments to lead an entire country toward salvation.

Anselm's not necessarily famous for his life as the Archbishop, although he did some interesting things (he was one of very few who opposed the crusades). He is famous for his argument. That's right. He has his own argument named after him - the Ontological Argument for God's Existence.

Imagine, for a moment, that God doesn't exist.

But what is God? By definition (widely accepted), God is a being that nothing greater can be conceived. In short - perfection.
And, can't we imagine that? Can't we imagine a being that is the greatest being? So God exists within the imagination, within the mind.
I'll reiterate that we're assuming God does not exist in reality.
But can't we imagine God existing in reality? Can't we imagine a world in which a being greater than all others exists?
Now, if an entity exists in reality and in human understanding, isn't that being greater than one that solely exists in the mind?
Thus, an entity can be imagined that is greater than God - a logical contradiction to God's definition.
Therefore, by showing a contradiction, our original claim that God does not exist must be false.

Basically, If God is the greatest of all things, and if it is greater to exist than to only be imaginable, then God exists.

That wasn't so hard. And God's existence is proven. Why are people still fighting over this one? Still not believing?

Well, it's been a fan favorite in philosophy courses for a long time. The interesting thing about it is that the argument itself is so simple, that it's difficult to refute. There's not much to it, so there's not much to attack. But something does feel wrong about it. Call it a gut instinct, but there's just something off about it.

Think about what's wrong with Anselm's argument. Can man prove God by reasoning? By logic?

Can we prove anything by pure logic?

Alright, you can go back to believing God exists. Or whatever you believe. I imagine there will be more on Anselm later - he's been on my mind lately. Pretty impressive feat for guy who's been dead for almost 10 centuries.

Brave New World

Merry Columbus Day.

On this very auspicious occasion, I don't have work, so I'm sending this from the comforts of home. But that's not where I should be today. In the spirit of discovery and the man we celebrate on this date, I wonder what great discoveries are yet to be made. Who will make them? And why am I lyng in bed instead of out there risking my life on the brink of finding a new world?

I'll see you guys out there.

How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bush Presidency

In 1964, Stanley Kubrick released upon the world a masterpiece of cinema known as Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb. This was a monumental feat considering the genius of the work itself and the climate in which it was released.

For those who haven't seen it (go see it immediately), the story picks up after a Brigadier General calls for a nuclear strike against Russia after going completely insane with Red Fever. The President and his top brass have to stop an entire bombing group from bombing targets as their actions would set off a vast nuclear war with Russia, but would trigger and automatic Doomsday device set to destroy all human life.

It's hilarious.

In the Cold War era that it was released, it's probably surprising considering the current political climate that something of this caliber would make such an impact. It's a brilliantly written and directed film starring some of the greatest acting talents (including Peter Sellers and George C. Scott). But at the core of the movie, it is an indictment of the government's flippancy and arrogance. It is a black comedy making fun of the hubris that could eventually get us all killed. It was also a statement on the attitudes toward our enemies, displaying the leaders of the country as little more than schoolboys impressed by the levels of power they'd achieved.

It makes me wonder if this type of movie could be released today. So far, nothing has - and maybe that's something that will take time. Certainly the 1960s are regarded as a hotbed of political activism and activity in general. A tense time where domestic issues (racial, etc.) were dwarfed by international relations.

Where is the satire of our current political state?

I feel like that's a necessity. To laugh at the state one is in. There has been so much vitriolic sentiment between the people and their government, the president and his party, our country and the world, both political parties, etc. that it seems like we all need to sit down and have a good laugh about it. That's what Dr. Strangelove did for the 1960s.

Of course the subject matter was a bit more momentous. The concept of mutually assured destruction - of wiping out all human life for a political point - is fairly easy to satirize. What exactly would we be making fun of if we made fun of the climate today?

It's too easy during times like these to make a piece of art and infuse it with bitterness. Instead of Stranglove - a work of inspiration by the best of the day - we have Michael Moore making fauxcumenteries with little more than tongue and cheek idiocy. Isn't there someone out there that can make a funny movie? If war has evolved, why hasn't the war-comedy?

I feel like it's our duty to constantly examine ourselves and to laugh at our situation. Indeed, if we truly examine ourselves, the correct response should usually be laughter.

Are we too afraid to look at ourselves to find humor? Too afraid of being the butt of a joke?

Or maybe the joke is just too big. At this point, I'm not sure, but I get the feeling that Dr. Strangelove would be.

The Haunting Proposition

Where do we go from here?

I found out a few weeks ago that, at work, several interns working in our program were not given an exit interview upon the end of said program. That surprised me, because that interview is the only way of evaluating the program to improve it or to send the interns off with a culminating wisdom to shove into their pockets for back home.

I thought about writing on this topic last week, before the NSL Forum, but it almost seems more apt, now. The question, of course, is whether we're at where we need to be. Are we at least at where we said we would be?

A couple of years ago, there was a piece in The Rope (the Baylor satire newspaper) poking fun at the concept of weekend (or weeklong) bible camps and the concept of getting fired up for God. The cliche (which is more often true than not) is that individuals bask in the ultra-violet glow of religious fervor during camp. Everyone there is there for the same reason. The leaders are charismatic (maybe even some of you have played this role?) and the other kids seem really in tune to what's going on. The result is an explosive, intense, short term effect. Kids usually return home to settle back into their daily lives - as if the weekend had never even happened. The piece came out right after Spring Break - "On Fire for Secularism" - and gave the fake-news story of how Baylor students were returning back to campus from a secular retreat that had them totally on fire for bikinis, beer and all things secular (except, of course, those that were totally faking it.) Baylor religious leaders weren't worried though, because they recognized the pattern, and soon students would be backsliding in their secular-ness, returning to the pews to continue their Godly lives as if the retreat had never happened.

I'm going to try to do this without belittling the subject matter.

On their television show, Penn and Teller sent out a woman to a Greenpeace protest to gather signatures banning Dihydrogen Monoxide. They didn't lie - they mentioned that it was found in pesticides, that it stayed on food even after it was washed, that its rampant in our homes, a corrosive chemical. They got tons of signatures. Of course Dihydrogen Monoxide is water, h2o, and of course the point of the social experiment was that people like signing up for things, they like joining, belonging. It mattered less what the cause was and more that there was a group of people to identify with.

Now, I believe that philosophy and theology are about a million times more important than one's choice to join the green movement. The culminating ethos of life is not something to compare to a movement of people just wanting to join up. But, sometimes, isn't it? I speak from personal experience when I say that if not careful, people can join a religion for the people instead of the ethos, instead of the God they are worshiping. In fact, even Jesus can be a false idol if viewed the wrong way. You start worshiping the man instead of his teachings, instead of the initiator of those teachings. To worship Christianity instead of Christ.

The same could be true about any ethos. Why are you what you are? Is it because you firmly and passionately believe a certain way or is it because you haven't had exposure to anything else, that your friends were doing it, your parents?

It's easier to live life than it is to think about living life.

Examining takes time. Takes effort. We have to sit down and really contemplate ourselves and our motivations - our goals and successes, where we've failed. Living is easy. You just go through the motions. (Think of the commercial with all the people kicking trees and the one guy in the Wendy's red wig. [Why they kickin' trees, dog?? Why they kickin' trees?] ) They've got it made. Ignorance is bliss. Tree kicking is easier than questioning why trees exist in the first place, what our ultimate purpose is.

So in the whirlwind of this summer, of this weekend, of all the new beginnings we're embarking on, are we where we want to be - have we grown from our experiences or have we left all the good lessons of the recent past behind us? How well have you kept up with the people you loved this summer? The people you said you'd call and write to?

I know I have a lot of room for improvement. How about you?

Your Star on the Walk

I spent far too long in Blockbuster last night. For some reason, my mind could not wrap around the fact that they didn't have a copy of Saving Private Ryan, so I spent the next 20 minutes wandering aimlessly around until I grabbed Dr. Strangelove and headed home.

Somewhere during that aimless wandering, I came upon a DVD copy of Dane Cook's Tourgasm - a semi-documentary about Dane Cook and three other comedians touring college campuses. The four aren't friends, really, but they develop an odd working relationship. From the episodes I saw on television, I can tell you that one comedian is singled out as sort of a loser. A wimp. Sort of a tool.

In the crazy, no-holds-barred life of Dane Cook, rock star comedian, this other guy looks like a pansy. He complains almost constantly, dramatizes the smallest of differences that he has with the other men, and succeeds in outcasting himself to become the butt of several jokes.

It got me wondering, much like in the "bad guys" thought I had a while back, what this guy thinks of the documentary version of himself.

I've seen this before in reality television. The best programs create a narrative with their footage. Often times, they will take the two or three people that make it to the end and create a rivalry between them stretching back to the first episodes. It's the fiction of reality. The art of creating lies with truth. While the footage is real, the way its edited creates a false sense of what's going on. It might tell nothing but the truth, but it's far from the whole truth.

I remember seeing this program on (probably) Channel One in middle school about documentaries. It showed two versions of a girl's life. In one version, she got up fairly early, ate a decent breakfast, behaved herself on the bus and made it to school on time to be greeted by a smiling teacher. In the second version, they used footage of her getting up late, having to skip breakfast, being loud and unruly on the bus, and trudging up the steps reluctantly to school. The point being? We can paint anyone in almost any light.

But - if we saw a documentary on ourselves, would we like what we see? Would we be the hero of our own story? Could we handle watching it? And at the end of it all, what would the final judgment be? We could try to dismiss it - afterall, anything can be said about anyone else. Like the comedian touring with Dane Cook, maybe he was just painted in a highly negative light to create drama for the show. Maybe it was even staged. But if it wasn't, even taking into consideration the editing process, he still said those things that he said. Still acted fairly lame on several occasions. If we were in his shoes, would we try to change or rationalize the footage?

I've always said that the worst thing you can do to a person is tell them what they are. It defines them. And the only freedom we have is to define who we are. But a documentary does that for us. It defines us by reflecting back our actions and words. Perhaps if we were strong enough for it, we'd want to watch all of our actions replayed to us. To give ourselves an honest critique. To work on what we didn't like seeing. If we were even braver, we'd watch with those close to us, the trusted core of people that can be harsh and cruel and honest with us. Their feedback would be even plainer. Harder to swallow, but if we truly believed in them, their advice would be right.

It's just never that easy to take, let alone do something with. We want to believe that we're perfect, that we're already done. In adolescence facilitates growth easily. We just soak up our surroundings. Growing is the norm, so we roll with it, get excited by it, get scared by it, but keep doing it. Growth seems to slow down or halt completely for adults. But it's our job to keep fighting uphill. It's more difficult to keep moving upward, but life cannot get better if we camp out on the side of the hill.

Are we brave enough to watch the movie of ourselves in order to do that?

The Chemical and Physical

I've decided to make a list of my addictions.

I'm sure it must be a healthy thing to do, to point out the things in life that I cannot do without, that I feel empty without. I'm not sure what the common consensus is, but I would define an addiction as a dependence (chemical, emotional or otherwise) on an exterior force. With that in mind, here is a short list (I'm sure I'll be thinking more and adding later) with the hope that you, too, will create a similar set of bullet-points. Admitting you have a problem is the first step, after all.

1) People. The rush of endorphins I get by being around the right people is astonishing. I noticed this last night when I stayed out far later than a responsible human would simply because of the people I was with. I've also been known to stay awake indefinitely as long as I have someone to talk to. I am very rarely the person to end a conversation. I'm coming to see this as an apparent weakness, especially with the opposite sex. I've always admired the guy or girl who can have an engaging conversation and then express a cool need (with appropriate reason) to end the conversation. In the rules of attraction, as in most things in life, you should always leave someone wanting more. I feel I lack that ability. I would rather go without sleep or food than end a great conversation.

2) Writing. I've tried to not write. There have been periods in my life that I've cut it out for other things, but inevitably I keep coming back to it. It clears my demons. As a result, I've written some beautifully tragic, sometimes off-putting, things ranging in topics from the familiar to the graphic. I have an odd mix of standardized humor and gallows humor that keeps me entertaining at Thanksgiving dinner with the family and appropriately shocking around friends alike. I feel physically ill, though, without writing. When I haven't in a couple days, I can feel it. I get lethargic, cross, cynical.

3) Love. I'm an idiot. As such, my stupidity usually manifests itself in the opposite gender. I seem to have no grey period on infatuation. I dive in head over heels first into the deep end of a person and refuse to surface despite the warnings of drowning from the life guard. This ties into an addiction with people, but it's more localized. It's focused. And it's even stronger. In taking stock of my stupidity - I've moved cross-country for a girl, pick up on small nuances and play them out, spent countless amounts of money in an effort to make a relationship more romantic, read the most out of the least, failed to eat, to sleep, renounced responsibilities in order to spend more time with a girl, ad nauseum.

4) My status as an outsider. Even more than being right, I relish this status. I enjoy being the black sheep. I like being unique. My biggest fear in life is to be labeled average. To be considered just one of the norm, to be easily categorized even. To be told what you are is the worst thing that can happen to you. To have someone figure you out. Most of the people I'm drawn to, I can't figure out 100%. I'm a solid judge of the internal workings of people, but the people (like you on this list) that I like the most are somehow beyond definition. I crave disagreeing with people (usually in a calm way) to figure out where they are coming from. I've been labeled a contrarian, and I'm alright with that. That's why I also like shock value, jolting people's systems, jarring the way they normally think. Making them question how someone can think differently than they do. This is the only reason, so far, that I can come up that explains my love for hanging around Christians other than that the right types are usually incredible, dynamic, lovable people.

This list will continue to grow. I'm not sure if addiction in any sense is healthy, but we all have them.

When you get a craving for a certain type of food - say, potato chips - it's because you're body is telling you that you need something in that food - say, salt. Your body is smart. It knows what it needs. On top of our usually nourishment, we feed ourselves chemicals - our brain puts out amazing chemicals when its programmed to - when we write, spend time with people, spend time or think about someone we have romantic feelings for, or experience something that bolsters our ego. These chemicals - dangerous or not - are with us.

I'm swimming in them.

I'm Not There

The thing about Bob Dylan is that he's more a poet than a singer. Any average music fan can tell you that. The great thing about Dylan, and the thing I just realized yesterday, is that his particular style of music is filled with what I might call (if you'll let me) melancholic joy. His words and guitar lines possess such emotional range that they can facilitate almost any feeling a person has. The same song can be used to bolster the good feelings of a road trip to the beach, to relax someone after a long day at work, to spark nostalgic stories after the funeral of a friend lost too soon, to cause a married couple to dance in public for the first time in years.

Because his music covers both major emotional bases at the same time, his songs are the perfect backdrop for nearly every occasion. You probably won't be spinning Blonde on Blonde at a rave, but for times alone and times with friends, its flawless.

Most of you know that I go through phases of listening to only one band. I listened to Ted Leo for three weeks, watched Ben Folds Five's Sessions at 34th Street DVD every morning before I went to school my senior year of high school, and listened to John Neunswander almost religiously this entire summer. I usually hop around an entire catalogue, but for some reason I've been focused solely on Dylan's version of Catch the Wind. It's about someone longing to celebrate the joy of life and be comforted during the pain of it by someone else. This dream, however, is futile.

The duality theme is present in most of the song (originally written by this Scot named Donovan). Celebration and comfort are one thing. The singed fluctuates between praising his love and admitting its impossibility - with each stanza, no matter what task he sets out of his love, ending in the inevitable, "Ah, but I may as well try and catch the wind". Love replaces something undesirable for something longed for - the "chilly hours and minutes of uncertainty" are cast away by "the warm hold of your loving mind"; the lover's smile takes the place of the sun after it sets; when "rain [hangs] the leaves with tears" the presence of his love casts aside the depression.

Maybe there are a few things in my life that I feel that way about. The thing about Dylan is, it's hard to figure out why you're listening to him - is it because you're reinforcing the blues, need something to slyly draw a grin on your face or need a backdrop for taking that deep breath of life that applauds your humanity? Maybe (wait for it) it's all three?

With a dual nature and an incredible capacity for emotional depth, I wonder if it's not such a bad thing to aspire to be a Bob Dylan tune. To be a friend that's wanted when good times are being shared or when losses are being mourned or when the day only requires a porch swing and a glass of sweet tea to be a holiday. To be a friend for all seasons. To be called upon when someone wants to go bowling or needs to cry on a shoulder. To get hammered with or discuss life's mystery with (although both can happen at the same time). To need advice and to give it. To give joy and to take it. If a Dylan song is the perfect accompaniment to any occasion, the perfect background sound for times happy or sad, shouldn't we try to be the best possible foreground?

The last message, I think, is that even while hopeless, the singer takes pleasure in his love. He revels in it. Even if what we want is constantly flying off down the road with the wind, we should still try to catch it. Strive to do the impossible. The wind may be faster, but sometimes its the chase that matters.

I'll let you know when I catch it.

The Carpet Baggers

I'm not a fan of disappointing the nice lady on the telephone.

What's more, I'm realizing that a lot of my definition of myself comes from not letting people down. I can think of little I hate more than having to apologize - not for a mistake or indiscretion - but for not being able to come through on something that I've promised I could. Letting people down. I think most of us hate doing it. It means you've come up short on something, failed, and even though people are understanding, you can tell they're displaced by your faults.

What's worse is when it's something that's owed to them, and you're just the messenger.

I'm currently juggling between a very nice woman (who is trying to appease her boss) and my boss. The details are meaningless, but the overall picture is one of me trying to stay afloat while apologizing sincerely for something that isn't my fault. It's no one's fault really, unless you mean ours. And yet the people that will pay the price are the kind-sounding woman on the other end of the phone and her boss. In the end, I'm hoping to reach a compromise that will be agreeable to everyone, but that means little for the initial damage. Whether I like it or not, I've let these people down. I've shown a tragic vulnerability.

How many times have you failed at a promise? Not refusing to do it, not going back on it, not breaking it. Simply being unable to do what you thought you could? Being shown your limitations through the lens of a spotlight shining on you alone on a stage with an entire audience of yourself packed into the auditorium? Those glaring moments of inequity.

I hope they are rare. Few and far between. But still, they're unavoidable. When the time comes for you to fail, the key is to take it on the chin. Be true to yourself and stay humble. Realize your limitations for what they really are - just another sign that you're alive and doing fine. That you're human.