Mass Shooting and The Supreme Gentlemen

My Facebook news feed has been full of reactions to the recent shooting in Santa Barbara, CA. The kid, Elliot Rogers, was exacting his revenge on girls who "left him to rot in loneliness," which really isn't any different from other school shooters, except that this kid documented and articulated his (self-)isolation and the logic his mind concocted to deal with it.

It was this digital trail he left behind that sparked the reactions in my news feed. I'm not going to re-post or paraphrase the kid's misogynistic mental contortions, but they ignited first a feminist response followed by a, I guess you might say, masculinist one. It was somewhat surprising how quickly the conversation started talking past the kid and his troubles yet using his content to support the deep, and long standing rhetoric between the sexes.

I have to admit that the first blog posts and news-y articles I came across were so poorly argued that I had the knee-jerk, polarized reaction to them. One concluded that he felt entitled to women's bodies. Others were better and ultimately led me to the #YesAllWomen tweets. They were nothing I didn't already know and support, but, at the same time, they altogether showed me the perspective from which these arguments arise, and for that I'm... grateful.

What I saw in all those stories, though, and what I want to discuss is the pain behind it all... on both sides... because we have to have sides, I guess. And I need to be careful with my words, so I want to approach this slowly.

First, the hypocrisies and double standards are, without question, wrong. That rapists don't often face punishment, that girls have to "cover up," that they have to guard their drink, that a "no" is not respected, that there's a glass ceiling, and that teaching self-defense is somehow preferred to teaching self-control ...all make me weep for humanity. And if we unpack the unequal pay statistic, I could probably get behind parts of it, too. But those are the easy ones.

The more difficult one is summed up by the Louis C.K. bit making its way around that woman having to date men is like men having to date a half bear, half lion. It's extremely dangerous but necessary for the species. And that's the perspective with which I now empathize. From there, I see how every advance, every cat-call, every unsympathetic authority figure, all the stalking, the Internet in general, or even eye contact is a threat. It's frightening. And I can only imagine what's needed to persist through that reality on a daily basis.

As I read some of these stories, though, I also sympathize with the fear and pain some of these boys (I do mean boys) probably felt as a result of their own embarrassing actions, and that seems to be lost on girls given that they recount these stories in this context, which is understandable. I'd be hard-pressed to consider the vulnerabilities of a half-bear, half-lion, too. Yet it's this misunderstanding that I want to focus on.

To be clear, as I hope the discussion so far as demonstrated, I am carving out and focusing on a fraction of these stories, specifically ones that follow a particular pattern where a guy makes some stupid move, grope, or advance, gets rejected, and then acts out in response. I know this scenario butts up against rape and force, but I'm carving a line between the two because I see some distance between fools and criminals. And I only want to talk about the fools. I know women can't tell the difference in the moment, so that erring on the side of caution is warranted and justified. I need, however, a little slack between them in this discussion.

One of the hypocrisies mentioned is a general assumption that "boys will be boys," so that the burden is all on girls to accommodate whatever boys will do, which is bullshit. We do need to teach boys to control themselves better, but what's missed is an education in charm or in the mating ritual. No structure has been given as to what to do instead... or rather who a boy should aspire to be instead.

I, for one, actually got the "control yourself" message when I was young. Probably like a lot of guys and all of these boys, I grew up with it. Though, it actually came across as "be ashamed of your attraction to girls" and "wait for girls to give you a green light," which are less nuanced directives. It's an important difference. That the first idea induces shame drives a fear of our own attraction to women, and that fear clouds attempts to flirt, charm, or converse; it saps guys of their confidence; and buries their emotions and desires, which have to work their way out in crazier ways. Couple that with a lack of any knowledge about women, how to approach them, how to make small talk, how to flirt, and the results are these creepy, tentative attempts at a move, stalking, or other quiet obsessions. The second idea is problematic in only so much that many guys receive it, as I did, as "you don't have permission to flirt with her unless she gives you the go ahead." In other words, it gets applied to even the first moment he sees a girl and wants to approach her, not the kiss good night. It's further compounded when you heap on some shame, too. And there are these really geeky guys growing up all waiting for some sign from a girl that it's okay to move forward that never comes. They're accommodating what they think their mom's are telling them in a way that makes the most emotional sense to them.

Moreover, they don't even ping girls' romantic radar until some creepy event happens, so that the set of guys and experiences that girls reason about include all the guys I'm not discussing here, these creepy events, and the ones they'd wish would talk to them. So that this group feels ignored or marginalized, quintessentially living in quiet desperation.

(I'm not, however, trying to justify a leap from isolated desperation to criminal actions. If higher brain functions don't kick in... wtf.)

It was really hard to grow out of that (not even sure if I'll ever get all the way out). Most boys never do.

The interesting dynamic is how both sides feed each other's fears. The insecure, creepy behavior fuels mistrust and sparks fears of possible force, rape, and death. Girls retreat from ever showing any interest. And guys get more isolated, more desperate. Both sides retreat to their corners and talk past each other from their safe spaces. It's disheartening.

Anyone willing to meet me in the middle?

It's About The Ride

I bought a motorcycle about a year ago. It's a 2006 Suzuki Boulevard M50, and it's awesome.

I had to take in for inspection a few days ago, but there's no cycle mechanics actually in the city of Pittsburgh (at least none that I know of... if you've got a hook up, let me know!), so I took the scenic route out to Tarentum, which turned out to be a pretty awesome ride. It took me through Verona, what seemed like an awesome little town whose (bumpy as hell) red-brick main street lines the Allegheny with a boardwalk on one side and a line of shops, bars, and diners on the other. I was looking forward to a similar return trip, but as fate would have it, I would need to get back to a computer quickly since it was just coming to light that I had broken Sulia's mobile site the day before.

I'm not all that comfortable doing 70mph on the bike yet, and the ride back Route 28 was my second opportunity to face my discomfort. The first opportunity happened mid-spring when I pulled it out of winter storage. And I'll admit it was bit of a wide-eyed, white-knuckled, short-breath experience. This second one, however, afforded me a little more mental acuity.

The air resistance is the first thing I notice. It starts to pound harder on my chest. Every turn of my head to check a blind spot or mirror brings the force on from a different direction, for which I have to compensate. The wind finds its way through every seam between pieces of clothing. The road goes by too fast for me to identify and avoid smaller obstacles. I feel and am more attentive of every bump and imperfection in the road, wondering about and observing the bike's reaction to each. And I recognize the trust I'm putting into whoever last worked on this surface, into whoever built the machine between my legs, and into whoever made the rules that essentially keep my path clear.

It's somewhere half way back to Pittsburgh that, watching these cars go by at 75 or 80mph, I realize how much of this is taken for granted driving one. The glass separates us from the environment, as if we're just watching it all on yet another screen. The comfort of plush seating, air conditioning, noise reduction, and more capable shock absorbers veils us from the complex set of forces at play and a certain harshness of reality. We relinquish touch with it all without ever having fully come to experience and understand reality in the first place. People like me put these systems in place to make our lives easier and more convenient. But, as I see drivers pass devoting a minimal amount of attention to their primary task and with no knowledge of the experience I'm having, I see how we (system developers) are disconnecting them, offering a more manageable experience that asks for little effort, requires few skills, and provides a context that whispers, "you're fine the way you are. Notice the command you've got on it all."

We've recently watched these systems crumble a bit. And many seem to be waiting for the shoe to drop, expecting each election, court decision, or entitlement program (e.g. a system enhancement) to be the final nail in the coffin, fueled by some latent paranoia of a sinister plot growing under and behind these complex structures that will cause the first in a long series of dominos to drop.

I wonder how we're able to consider these structures objectively. Never having an experience without them and with little understanding of the world without them, are we able to rationally consider them. It seems hypocritical to rail on about one while completely consumed by, dependent upon, and oblivious to another.

The engine whines as the bike turns uphill, and my hand rolls on the throttle a little more.... I have no cruise control. A certain superiority creeps into my mind as it wraps its understanding around my situation and I begin to appreciate the complexity with which I'm dealing. It's followed quickly by the knowledge that my ego is trying to claim this newfound territory for its own, and I smile at myself. I don't have a solution here....I sink into the joy of the ride and something tells me I'm going to make it back to Pittsburgh.

To New York and Back

Since I haven't posted in a long time, let me fill you in on recent developments. I spent the last few months in New York at a summer internship with a small tech startup, Sulia. It was my first extended departure from Pittsburgh since I started my Ph.D. at Pitt, and I'll admit that was part of the appeal of the opportunity.

But I'm back in the 'burgh now.

The city impressed me in a lot of ways. I could've found a group of people interested in just about anything there... which, for my limited time there, amounted to coding, yoga, flirting, and a little drinking. Having such a huge market in a small area also lends itself to a bunch of businesses, websites, and apps, a result of shear ease in viral and word-of-mouth marketing and the ability to address specific needs of the NYC lifestyle yet still impact a large number of people. Quite a few New Yorkers are there offering their talent and creativity hoping others will find value in it. I didn't have time to explore them all, but I was impressed by the range of endeavors being pursued, even in the hopeless romance of street performance.

And so here's the downside of NYC. It's really hot and humid in the summer, and all the concrete doesn't help. I mean, it's like Chimera's breath hot, which surprised me given the latitude. Also, the city has only enough infrastructure to support its 9 million people or whatever as long as their interests remain diversified. As soon as everyone wants to be at the same place, there's not enough space, tickets, or whatever to accommodate them at all. And, of course, this happens in Pittsburgh too, except the result in the burgh is bit of discomfort and a poor vantage point whereas in NYC the result is severe discomfort, anger, no vantage point at all, and what is probably a serious threat to public safety.

Also, while I would have to give credit to the city for amount of support it gives to its infrastructure—e.g. their public transit is significantly expanding where Pittsburgh's is in constant decline—there are so many laws governing it. There were posted signs prohibiting the disposal of your garbage in a public garbage can... which left me to imagine people dropping their garbage bags next to public cans in order to avoid some removal fee at their apartment. I once overheard a guy at the gym extol Berlin as "New York without the dirt," and it brought me back to that sign and the general lack of perceived ownership for public space and infrastructure, not exclusive to NYC yet so acute expressed there. If it's the world's greatest city at the moment, its people don't want the responsibility that comes with that. Contrast that with Paris, a city that's collectively held a common vision for it's beauty, design, architecture, and lifestyle for centuries.

Lastly, for all the people pursuing some creative or entrepreneurial endeavor, there are 100,000 of them who are wastes of space... in your way when you're trying to get... anywhere, annoyed by your presence too, seemingly cynical, and trying to remain unaffected by it all. Moreover, despite the diversity, I still found a health pursuit of conformity and pop culture, which wasn't surprising and isn't much to complain about. But perhaps my secret hope in moving there for a few months was that, if anywhere, I'd find a girl or two there at least aware of or transcendent of the social forces acting upon her. ...Maybe I just needed more time in that, though.

...

So, as I reread this, I had hoped I would give equal verbiage to the positive and negative, but I seemed to have failed in that... the consequence of training my mind to spot and solve problems for going on eight years now.

In all, I still had a blast there, and I came away with a bittersweet mix of emotions. Three months was nowhere near enough time to really explore the city and its depth (Pittsburgh only takes like six months to get to know). I'd say the hype is a little exaggerated, but there's something about the town that, despite the dirt, the anger, ... and the rent, pulled in a little piece of me. Whether I'll go back at some point.... I don't know. But for now, I can say I'm glad to come back to Pittsburgh.

Boys Today

I watched this TED talk recently, Philip Zimbardo: The demise of guys? | Video on TED.com, where some stats are presented showing how guys are falling behind girls in academia and developing a new fear of intimacy and an increasing social awkwardness, so much so that girls don't really want to date these guys, which feeds back into the problem. Zimbardo blames this on excessive use of the Internet, gaming, and porn. And I'm going to combine that idea with one in another TED talk, Tony Porter: A call to men | Video on TED.com, where Porter basically states that contemporary society implores a emotional repression except for the expression of anger, through which all our emotional energy is then channeled such that sexual violence is a result.

There's definitely a problem with guys today. However, video games and porn are a symtom of that problem, not a cause. And, where I agree that emotional health and awareness would go a long way to towards resolving a lot of these issues, including excessive gaming and watching porn, it doesn't get to the root of the problem.

I'm going to suggest that the problem and the solution is this:

The Maasai people of western Africa once required their boys to face and kill this when they hit puberty.... alone.

And the question I pose to you is, what would that do to a boy... knowing that this was in his future? What goes through his mind as he grows up. Does he decide to spend his time playing video games and furiously masterbating or does he watch men who've gone through the process themselves. Does he focus on understanding his joy, his fear, his anger or does he have to get beyond all that to keep his senses about him.

The thing about rites of passage like these is their symbolic nature. The lion is the possibility... that which the universe could throw at us, the situations for which we must prepare... because, above all, if the time comes, the responsibility falls on us (for the feminists, I'm not saying women don't have a responsibility too). And it's that responsibility that men have to be ready and willing to take up.

Natural and sexual selection have engineered men for this, and it's this recognition of our responsibility that women still find attractive. As guys continue their decline, women are just going become more and more frustrated with dating.

We've spend centuries separating our lives from threats, though. In the last century, since WWII, we filled our live with so much convenience and asked so little of our men that they've had no reason to leave here:

And that's how we get leaders like:

I'm not claiming that we need to reintroduce risk into society or that we need to start sending our adolescents our to kill predators. It's not necessarily the act of killing a lion that matters. It's the psychological and physical preparation, the impetus to shed the mind's selfish concern for its own well-being and its possessions, and the ability to express that preparation in action that we need to once again instill in our boys.

We need them to become men.

No Parking

You may have heard that our wonderful new governor decided that state funded higher education was so inessential that it could do without 50 percent of what it's been getting. I'll let Pitt make the argument for what it needs that money and why everyone benefits from it. To me, it's part of a bigger problem that so nicely summed up by this photo.

A few of these signs have been going up around the convenience store situated in the quiet, little neighborhood in which I live despite the genuine hassle of trying to find a parking spot between the hours of 4-10pm every weekday.

Signs like this recognize a few things: first, that there's a problem; second, someone decided this space can be used to solve that problem; and, third, the person that owns that space said, "fuck you and your problem." The parking problem is bigger than that one landowner. He or she can't solve it on his or her own, and, instead of participating in some sort of assembly (government) to address this larger difficult problem, she posts a sign and has the tow truck on speed dial because it's the local action she can take.... but it does nothing but piss us all off and make the problem worse.

Make no mistake, I'm not pointing the finger at the landowner and saying he or she is the source of the problem, nor am I pointing the finger at our new governor (who, despite this budget, might be insane, though). I'm pointing the finger at myself, at us. We're the ones posting the sign saying, "fuck you and your problem."

Until we start participating and contributing—if not with our time and effort, then with our tax dollars—I could really care less about the governor's budget.

I'm here ready to start (re)building something... and I'm going to call it civilization. When you're ready to join me, you'll know where I am. Until then, save me your lobbying efforts, your campaigns, your press conferences, and leave me alone. How's that for no parking....

End of My Bulking Phase

I've been actively gaining weight since November. The idea is to consume more calories (focusing on protein) than I need in order to encourage muscle growth. Unfortunately, a side effect is an increase in body fat too. I had been consuming around 2400 calories a day, and I have to say I somewhat enjoyed the extra dietary freedom. Tomorrow, though, it's back to about 1800 a day.

What I noticed was that, prior to starting the phase, I had become accustom to 1600 calories a day. I felt full when I reached it everyday. And, at the beginning of the phase, I felt bloated. As time went on, I then started getting used to the extra calories, craving food until I reached my new typical intake. It was also during that transitional period, before I got used to the regiment, that I really added weight to my lifting workouts.... but Christmas and New Years kind of disrupted the routine, so that I'm not sure if I would have continued increasing weight.

Nevertheless, I'm curious to try a sort of "diet confusion," which, like muscle confusion, is never letting my body get used to a routine. It'd be shorter periods of increases and decreases in my calorie intake to coincide with the plateaus of my body's adaption, which has a very Zen like quality in the amount of self-awareness I would need to maintain.

But, first, I have to burn off like ten pounds.

Cutting Cable

I've been debating one of my roommates about discontinuing our cable service with Comcast. I'd like to get rid of it. She'd like to find a cheaper alternative. Right now, the three of us—her, our other roommate, and I—pay over $90 a month for extended basic cable, HBO, and HD service, so roughly $30 a month for each of us.

My viewing habits pertain almost exclusively to HBO and FOX on Sunday nights with the occasional 60 minutes or the History channel thrown in there. To the best of my knowledge, my roommate watches a few shows on USA with any regularity and gets into Shark week on Discovery. ...Then of course there's the Steelers, which no Pittsburgher can really do without.

I'm excluding from this the casual watching behavior—the times when the TV goes on because we've just come back from our day and have no other pressing task. Of the three of us and like probably all guys in the industrialized world, I'm probably the one who engages in this behavior the most. This is time I really seek to reclaim. I don't enjoy being the passive consumer. I'd much rather create something: a Ph.D. thesis, a blog post, some software, a good idea, an argument (the good kind), an actual meal, a custom home automation system, etc. ...Or, as a much more likely scenario, I'd rather sit and be present.

This, however, doesn't make a compelling argument to my roommates who can generally avoid the enticing, empty void that is TV's escape (men love "the nothing").

Unfortunately, the monetary argument doesn't work on my roommate either. With any service or purchase, the basic question is "Is it worth the price"? In the case of cable TV, is the few shows that the three of us watch really worth $90/month, $1100/year. Do those shows provide that much joy, laughter, or insight. My answer is absolutely not. The Comcast COO, when asked about this situation and whether an a la carte selection scheme would be possible, smugly replied that the current situation is a "good business model." To that, I'd like to respond with two words in addition to cutting out cable altogether, and they begin with the letters F and Y.

This brings me to Apple and Google TV, which are the new wave of devices with the promise of extending the very-much-needed giant middle finger to the cavalcade of dicks that are the service providers in the U.S., Verizon, Comcast, AT&T, Time Warner Cable, Cablevision, etc. I have had a PC connected to my TV for the better part of a decade now. In that time, we've slowly gained the ability to access a good deal of content over the Internet directly from the broadcasting networks, either from iTunes or the appropriate websites. This has done little to persuade my roommate to cut our cable. She isn't the most technical of people and has yet to really exploit all that the living room PC has to offer (something for which I can't really fault anyone). My hope was that the simpler, easier user interface that the new Apple or Google services may offer in accessing all the potential web content would appeal to my roommate(s).

But I am once again thwarted because, of these two services at the moment, FOX and ABC are going with Apple and Time Warner (for HBO) is going with Google. That's all we really know so far. So, for my roommate, no word on USA or Discovery. And yet, it's the Steelers that give my roommate concern as well. Where trying to explain the concept of local, free-air broadcast transmissions (what happened before cable) in their shiny new digital format that will carry the Steelers into our home long after cable leaves it, seems to confuse her a bit as well.

Yet the potential is there. These services could provide an alternative to the broadcast networks for major league sports. Where's the Apple TV Steelers NFL package for my roommate. The NFL: Want the NFL? go to the N... err... go to CBS... who has a multi-year multibillion dollar contract with them, leaving my roommate without the one single web-enabled device to access it all.

It's hard for me to really take the perspective of those who might be confused or even a little frightened by all the technology around them. I'm not necessarily grouping my roommate in with them, but, as these different methods of accessing the all same content mount up, I can understand that it gets more and more difficult to really ask (1) for some trust in disrupting our lifestyle and (2) to get up the learning curve on some new technology. It's easier to just stick with a business model that works. I get that.

For now, I'm stuck paying for a service I don't want from a company I'd rather piss on... voting with the dollar seems more effective than voting in November these days.

The Girl

I haven't posted anything to this blog for a long time. I've been stuck on this one concept: what do I want in a girl.

The Illusion

I've come realize that to define the traits, qualities, and behaviors I desire in her is essentially an exercise solely in understanding myself. In Truth, an ideal girl is an illusion. She is a construction of my mind to whom I compare and evaluate dates, a process which neither honors nor cherishes a girl as an equal human being. The ideal illusion becomes a lens through which my experience of a girl becomes warped and filtered. It ultimately separates me from reality. Conscious of this, I undertake this construction with the knowledge that it's really a reflection of my own ego, a window into me more so than anyone who I might meet.

In One Word

The one word I would have to use to describe her is Enlightened. Any other description I might give her follows from a realization of that-which-has-no-description. While I am probably not the voice to point you towards what I'm suggesting here, we must nonetheless first agree upon a set of concepts/ideas through which this description can be communicated. So here we go...

The Voice in Her Head

As far as I know, most of us experience our thoughts as language in our heads. Something is speaking to something else.

(Stop reading and observe it for a moment)

This condition implies two entities: one speaking and one listening. Let's call the speaking entity the mind. It's the total of our mental capacities: our ability to reason, produce and comprehend language, interpret the five senses, and generate emotion. The listening entity is perception or consciousness: a silent, peaceful witness to all that happens (and possibly just another function of the mind). It is the act of becoming aware of this situation in our heads, the act of creating a separation between our minds and something else in us that points at... whatever you want to call it.

Being unaware of that dichotomy, we tend to wrap ourselves in our thoughts, our emotions, and our drives to a fault.

Her sense of "Me"

By taking a little space, we gain perspective on our mind and an ability to examine its process, which is to say that we consciously separate all these thoughts and emotions from our sense of identity. This is to become aware of something larger than the individual mental landscape, and the relative importance of all the mental chatter diminishes. By extension, our own concept of an "I" also becomes less important.

The girl I'm after can perceive this.

I think we're at a mutual understanding now that we can go on with a description of her.

Her Quality

Gaining perspective on and, consequently, diminishing her own sense of self, could engender any number of specific behavior traits (I imagine), but there are several I find particularly attractive.

Detachment

The sense of self demands a definition. Most girls I've met define themselves by some condition, physical possession, behavior, or personality trait. They are valuable people because they love their job, because they have access to some exclusive events, because they're gorgeous, because they sit with their friends over brunch on a Sunday morning a la Sex and the City, because they travel, because of the guy next to them, because they do this and not that, because of the clothes they wear, because of their apartment.... I could go on.

In and of themselves, any of these are innocuous. But, as her mind conglomerates these into a definition of herself, she must expend an considerable amount of energy and, under most circumstances, cause some amount of misery in the world (relationship) to maintain and defend that definition.

By becoming truly undefined, she taps a deeper feminine energy and potential. She loses the self-obsession and becomes who she really should be.

Faced Death

I don't quite know what this means to women (if the genders have different perspectives towards it). Death is the last topic you want to talk to a girl about. But there are two concepts here that I find attractive.

The first is that death takes the diminishing sense of self to its extreme. It's a haunting reminder that all the defining characteristics of herself are flawed. We are stripped of everything we hold dear at some point. Clinging and perserving are futile. Everything changes, evolves, cycles. Rather than resist it, as our minds tend to do, she's learned to flow with it. People and circumstances come and go.

Everything is brief.

In accepting the inevitable, her world becomes something wondrous and beautiful. This moment, the only one she has, becomes something precious in and of itself. Content is irrelevant. This space in time is valuable regardless of how its spent. It doesn't have to contribute to a grand, epic life story full of drama and action because no peak experience really differs from the mundane. All things are equally important. Life just moves.

The second concept is that coming to terms with her own demise makes her comfortable with men and her sexuality. Death is the first source of fear and underlines the nagging anxiety omnipresent in women today. Lacking an awareness of it and an acceptance of it, her primary concern is safety... avoiding emotional pain. Men, then, have to obey rules, act predictably, and minimize risk in her relationships.

I don't do well with someone else's rules or expectations.

To really understand attraction is really to bare full witness to the unknown, and death is the ultimate unknown. The sexes are microcosms of that. Men are unknown entities: mysterious, powerful, magnetic... psychologically unmanageable. The pull towards us, the surrender to us (to the unknown), is not something from which she distances herself. Quite the opposite, she relishes it, indulges in it... without fear and with the knowledge that there's nothing she can really lose.

(Side Note: I acknowledge that men, of course, have a complimentary responsibility here that most of us tend to divest or ignore in the same way.)

Her Behavior

I'm not going to pretend to be an expert on how the qualities I've outlined above express themselves in a girl's behavior. I doubt there's a template. In fact, if one existed, it could be faked. As I continue here, then, I'm outlining below a set of traits that I find attractive.

Focused

Without really defining how, I'm simply going to suggest that a diminished identity and a perspective on the inevitable aligns her with some very deep purpose. No longer necessarily the purpose her mind constructed, but some larger one to which she wants to contribute. This purpose commands her attention, focus, and dedication such that she's not distracted by minutiae, drama, or difficulties. She can get messy, sweaty, and dirty.

Sexy

A detachment from her physical appearance gives her an amazing command over it. Beauty and sexuality are gifts she can honor in ways that tease, entice, and get noticed. Megan Fox (and her team) does this perfectly. Add to it a bit of Eva Mendez's detached, humorous perspective, and you'll know what I'm talking about.

Aware

I'm going to notice the attention she gives to the little things. While it may have no cosmic significance, the degree to which she honors and tends to the world around her, including the stuff in it, makes an impression on me.

Emotional Balance

Women probably have a different relationship to emotion than men; one I probably can't understand. However, in recognizing that her mind produces them in attempts to perserve her sense of self, emotions lose their gravity.

A Contradiction

She harbors at least one logical contradiction and knows it.

Accepts Unfairness

Where she has the opportunity to extend generosity or kindness, where she is offering her contribution to the world, she can give others an opportunity to take advantage of that kindness, generosity, or contribution. She's kind and generous in spite of it.

Many girls meet these situations with righteous indignation. They judge those who would take advantage. They feel superior. And it ultimately inflates their own sense of self.

To accept unfairness is to accept people at their worst, without condemnation.

Movies

I enjoy watching movies. It'd be nice if she was a fan.

Technology Literate

My profession gives me an intimate understanding of technology. In reality, I don't expect most people to have my kind of expertise and enjoyment with technology. However, since I'm constructing an ideal girl here, she at least has an affinity for new technologies such that she'd have fun interacting with me through them. She's able to learn, use, and contribute suggestions towards whatever crazy system of computers I might build for our use. And she understands Net Neutrality and the horrible path our Intellectual Property laws are taking.

A Couple of Doesn't's

While I may not know all the traits my ideal girl would display, I can probably safely list a few traits that likely rule her out:

• Owning and carrying around a dog in her purse
• Ever using the meme FML
• Using sex as a bargaining chip
• Dreaming about NY or LA
• Using "because I'm mad at you" as justification for anything (Holding and acting on a grudge).

That was fun. Now onward with reality...

Fasting: End

It was an interesting week.

Class on Tuesday was a bad idea. Trying to sleep after that was impossible. My entire chest pounded with my heart all night. My body had nothing with which to repair the damaged muscle; so it just ached. And, as I tossed and turned, my stomach felt like it was ulcering on whatever side was down. But, with any agony, our mental resistance to it makes it worse. I couldn't or didn't want to change the situation, and, in truth, this was what I set out to experience, which brought a sense of joy into it.... believe it or not. I'm not going to pretend that it helped me sleep, but accepting the discomfort alleviates the anguish of it. It reminded me of that which was unaffected.

I "woke up" on Wednesday, and the discomfort left as I started moving around. By this point in the week, getting out bed every morning requires some deep breathing first. I wondered how I could possibly recover from Tuesday's workout without some calories. But, while the more extreme exhaustion lasted through most of Wednesday, by Thursday I was feeling... almost good; so much so that I considered going to class again.... I didn't. Yet, with the ease with which I made it though Friday, I kinda wished I had gone just so I could say I really suffered in the last few days. The goal was, after all, to explore a limitation. Instead, I coped pretty well, and it amazed me.

Hunger, it turns out, feels more like exhaustion and thirst. In fact, I may confuse being hungry and being thirsty, eating when I'm actually just in need of some water. I'm not sure.

Also, Despite poorly sleeping and being exhausted, part of me knew that I still had something in reserve. If the shit hit the fan, I'd still be able to pull it all together and do what I needed to, an experience I had through most of class... with each pause, the energy would collapse back into me, and then just be there again when I needed it.

It was amazing to witness resilience I didn't know I had, and I'm grateful for the experience.

Fasting: Day 2

I woke up this morning feeling pretty good (surprisingly), but it didn't take too long for me to crash from that. The rest of the morning was bad, but I picked up around noon and was actually functional. I made it through the day without really feeling hungry, but it interesting how my mind will snap to an image of me eating food. Where I would usually indulge that desire without thinking about it, I now have to consciously recognize it.

I felt good enough to go to karate class. I made it through most of it before stopping. I kept thinking that I'm not going to be able to replenish whatever energy I expend until Friday. I stopped fearing that I'd burn out before then.

It amazes me how functional I actually am. Despite the fatigue, I feel like I can make it to Friday without too much trouble.

Fasting

I'm reading a side-article titled In Defense of Hunger in the latest issue of GQ (June 2009), which claims I've never felt actual hunger. Instead, my stomach has gotten used to receiving food at certain times in the day, and, when I miss a meal, it complains.

That piqued my curiosity. What does hunger feel like?

If that wasn't enough, the other interesting point from the article: "a hungry mind is a focused mind," which makes sense from an evolutionary perspective. If they partly evolved as survival tools, our minds should be active and focused when they need to find a scarce necessity. The author, Mark Adams, fasted for a few days and found that his memory and focus improved... after he started eating again.

I heard some maxim somewhere that the body can last 3 seconds without blood, 3 minutes without oxygen, 3 days without water, and 3 weeks without food. Gandhi apparently pushed the three week limit... on two occasions. I'm not that ambitious.

60 minutes also ran a segment this week about a 'survival' gene that gets activated when we go on extreme diets. The gene purportedly fights heart disease, diabetes, cancer, and slows aging (are you kidding me?). And, of course, a drug company is testing a new one that tricks the body into activating the gene. ...where's the merit or discipline in that?

The Goal: consume only water and a daily vitamin for 5 days.

Workouts are going to be a bit of an issue. It kind of has me wondering if these people extolling the health benefits of fasting do any kind of strenuous physical activity.... ever. But the idea here is to push a boundary; so I'm still going to attempt a workout or two and see what I'm capable of.

I don't want to die only ever having played it safe.

This will be fun...

Is it worth the fight?

The other day, while watching TV with my roommates, I came across Fight Club on HBO. My three roommates, all female, hadn't seen the movie and were having a fairly unfavorable reaction to Edward Norton's character beating the crap out of himself. And sitting there watching the shards of glass embedded in his wrist as he dragged himself over to his boss, I found myself unable to describe the context in which the scene illustrates an enlightened male in contemporary society. Their focus transfixed on the graphic imagery, they got disgusted and lost interest. I couldn't give them the sentence they needed... because it's only a sound bite that people want anymore in order to make up their minds. Some things just take awhile to explain, though.

Fast forward to my friend, M, making the case to me last night at Oktoberfest at the Penn Brewery that now, more than ever, do we need motivated, ambitious, and committed people to solve the problems we're facing in the world instead of complacent, happy-with-what-they-get, "enlightened" citizens. The evidence is another friend of ours who, after coming across The Power of Now and/or A New Earth seemingly lost his drives and ambitions, one of which was financial independence. If the whole population becomes like that, nothing will get solved, nothing will change... we'll continue to destroy the environment, we'll keep fighting wars we can't pay for, we'll continue destroying the financial system, we'll keep socializing everything, we'll get fewer and fewer individual choices, and we'll ultimately lose our freedom.

Instead, it's time for action. It's time to get something done.

But what action. Why fight these fights? Do they really matter?

The illusive question here is who are we?

We think we know the answer..... We are the loans we took from Freddie Mac, Fannie May, AIG, and The Lehman Brothers. We are struggling tax payers. We are the declining wealth of the nation. We are military victors. We are our government entitlements. We are not them (whoever we want to make "them" out to be today).

When I say that, I mean that we are attached to and have become dependent upon finances, wars, and government working the way we think they should. We take them for granted and make our plans for the future assuming they can't go wrong. Then we freak out when something happens that's "not part of the plan" ...to quote the Joker from The Dark Knight. This usually results in an overreaction... trying to fit everything back into the plan, trying to save the plan but really trying to save who we think we are.

Fight Club is about a guy who had put all his ego, who he was, into his job, his condo, his clothing, his collection of IKEA furniture, etc. We then watch as it all slowly decays and gets destroyed... everything... including his mind and body. He resists it through the whole movie, only to discover that he's really responsible for it all. And in the midst of everything crashing down around him and inside him, everything falling apart, when we'd assume there's nothing left, he finds that he's still there. He's alive. He still exists. He still has choices. He can still do what needs to be done.

That's enlightened.

We could save the mortgage companies, then the auto industry, then the oil companies (when the oil runs out). We could keep giving up freedom to make us feel safer. We could monitor everything to make sure it always stays in place as part of the plan. We can give control of our lives over to big brother.

Or we can let it all go and find out who we really are.

When all that does not matter dies away, what's left... is just us.

Then we can do anything.... and maybe finally the right thing.

Defining Characteristics of a Douchebag

I don't generally write or talk about something negative (at least not seriously), but some friends and I were discussing the topic a few weeks ago, and, after last Friday, I thought it to be blog worthy. But let me preface this by saying it's a pretty asshole thing to do to label, call names, and judge my fellow man. Yet here we go...

Friday was X-Bar night at Krobar. The general idea is to hire a bunch of hot girls to get half naked or body painted and have them dance, sell shots, or participate in other random activities (I felt bad for the one they made stay in two inches of pink water selling jello-shots). Advertising this inevitably attracts a lot of guys who, by just looking at them, you kind of think to yourself.... douchebag. And it reminded me of my friends' and mine conversation.

Two characteristics define a douchebag. The first is a general blindness toward reality. Rather than consciously choosing to disregard how others might feel, he seems oblivious to it entirely. The second characteristic is an overinflated sense of self-worth and/or entitlement. He goes after what he feels he deserves despite obvious personal flaws or attention to the environment. If not for the flaw of the first characteristic, this would be a great trait to have. But, with the first, his drive seems misdirected and scattered towards illusions and superficialities.

As such, he could follow fashion but have no style. He might have the haircut that looks like he puts his face in front of a leaf blower every morning (think My New Haircut Guy). He might be the one wearing a polo shirt and shorts, both of which aren't the right size for him. He could also have an assortment of tatoos, piercings, jewelry, or physical fitness but only to blindly follow a trend, not carefully chosen out of some sense of style. All of this, though, seems to be used as though he thinks it alone will interest and attract a girl. It defines who he is to himself.

The funniest of it on Friday was to watch them go up to the shot girls and dancers in groups to hit on them. The girl is paid to be nice to them (and they're good at pretending), which the guys mistake for actual interest, and they almost seemed like they were going to gang rape her right there. Then, later, one will walk up behind her with a grin on his face and grab her ass thinking it's a good thing. He doesn't seem to have the balls to do it when she might actually enjoy it. So, in that respect, the girl standing in the tub actually had some protection. haha.

Ultimately, though, in even acknowledging any of this, spending my time to write about it, I'm no better than any of those guys. To say anything different is to conjure some sense of identity that makes me feel superior to them, and it would be just as artificial of an attachment to "Who I am" as an Affliction t-shirt or the feigning interest a shot girl gives.

Who those guys really are lies beneath all their bullshit even if they can't see it themselves, who those girls are lies beneath their looks, lingerie, and some well timed giggles, just as who I am is something other than my third person analysis of some set of bullshit.

If we only pay attention to the surface, we really miss what's important; we put up barriers where we could be making a connection.

Social Drinking

For a long time, I wondered where drinking started in society and why. Of any activity to do when hanging out with friends... why did mankind pick drinking?

...because it's fun. ...done. ..ha.

There are a lot of fun activities, though. Many activities feel just as good. My question was always that, of all of those activities, we picked drinking?

It's definitely not new or confined our culture. Alcohol's been here since the beginning. The Egyptians first brewed beer. The Greeks loved wine so much that they devoted a God to it. Since the advent of our modern mind, we've been finding ways to alter it.

And therein lies the answer. Our minds are bullshit! haha. We can't stand them. Most of the time, we don't notice that the voice in our heads is talking, let alone what it's actually saying or emoting. We think that this voice is who we are, but really it's the mind trying to keep the attention of some other part of us... implying there's something to a person beyond his or her mind...(consider that)

Alcohol suppresses our thinking. It shuts up that voice in our heads. We stop analyzing the situation, comparing it to past events, and generating emotions to motivate our actions for continued survival (the subconscious is busy). Fear and anger fade... we stop worrying... and we're left with the present moment, whatever part of us is outside our thoughts, and the people we have around. ...And a certain joy comes out of that.

It's that joy we're really after. We think it comes from the alcohol, but really it's always in us. It just needs to be let out. And I've come to realize that we don't need drinking to do that. That voice can stop on its own (with practice), and what's left feels like a really good conversation or a hard set at the gym.

Vow: Day 40

I never said that I would end this at 40 days; so I'm going to keep going inasmuch as it won't end on my own accord. While I won't feel bad if it ends from this point on, I'm committed to continuing.

So, I'm now accepting applications for the ender, by which of course I mean..... bring.... it... on!! Break my will power if you can. No one has got me thus far.