20040908   

Nice

Alex considered fate at 16:10   |   Permalink   |   Post a Comment

I'm pretty psyched that I got you so pissed. Mainly because my ego desires stroking so badly that it interprets even a post entitled "fuck you" as a positive event, as long as it's communication directed at me. I love it that someone cares about what I do or say enough to reply to it. I know how weaksauce this is. Yet that desire continually burns my ass.

But let me apologize if I sounded preachy; certainly not my intention. This is just, like, my opinion, man. And thank you, for bringing up the tension that I feel is inherent in 'now' living.

Let me rephrase the point of your reply, and please correct me if I'm wrong.

Thinking about the past and future are extremely useful to me. And if you're so interested in the 'now' just go do it, and stop talking so much about it. You fucking ganoober.

That's it, dude - of course! For example, somewhere in undergrad I decided to start remembering peoples names. Knowing names is having power. It's my goal, still. I remember my students names, not out of trying to make them feel special and individually validated (though sometimes that is a byproduct), but because later I'll see them at a party, and have beer with them and/or ask them to get to my nether regions a little better. I'm not arguing your point. And, in fact, this is one of the primary tensions in my life right now. What do I invest in? This is what it comes down to. I have this machinery, memory, that allows me to invest in the past, if I want. I have simulation machinery that allows me to invest in the future, or as close as I can come to simulating it. And I have time. What to do with it?

And what is it I'm expecting from my investment? That's another fucking basic question. This year I have toyed with using laughter as currency, awe, contentment . . . it's still an open question.

So what's my point, and how does it relate to the present? Sometimes, I find that I am simulating the future to my own detriment. This past December, I noticed that I was thinking about the future a lot. What the fuck was I going to do to get through grad school? What the fuck was I going to do with my degree? Was I going to feel like a failure if I graduated without publications, a job offer, the opportunity to practice, as opposed to just doing research? These were my own issues. They weren't that useful. In fact, I wasn't doing any work cause I felt like shit all the time. Then I stopped. It was hard. I tried to believe in God. I tried to remind myself that I had no idea about what was coming in my life. And I made some new friends, and stopped bumming about being apart from old ones so much.

And I started thinking about shit like 'the present' a lot more. And I'm a lot happier than I was then. Frankly, I still don't work qualitatively more than I was working then. And the future still scares the shit out of me with relatively high frequency. But I'm fighting that, every day. Instead of fearing, doing shit that I want to do. Instead of being lazy, reading for my exams. For me, thinking (or dwelling) less about the future and past have been very healthy.

I get pissed at new-agers, too. That's wonderful that you're so content with your present. But you irritate me, and you are wasting my oxygen. Eckhart, in the book, says something like

Once you are able to live fully in the present without dwelling on the past or the future, you will be able live without committing any negativity towards yourself or anyone else in the world.

Tell that to the poor motherfucker that stitched your $27.17 Nike yoga wrap for 15 cents and hasn't had a decent meal in three weeks, you self-satisfied sack of shit.

> The future is as real to me as this computer in front of me - not the outcome,
> not the fate of it all, but the existence of it.

This is the only thing that you said that I totally disagree with. Sure, I'm not you, but I'm not so much of a relativist to let this go by uncommented. Bullshit, dude. Sometimes I get pleasure out of thinking about the funny shit I'm going to say during section, or how funny it was when I did it. But it's never as good as the real thing.

I'm a fraud for many reasons. Telling my students that there's genocide going on in Sudan as if I knew a fucking thing about it. Taking so much pride in being a good teacher when I don't put a fucking minute of prep. time in to many sections. But I don't think that my attempt to integrate more awareness of the present qualifies as phoniness. And, once again, these are just descriptives of my experience. If they're not appreciated here, or anywhere, I can respect that. I'll turn in my badge and gun the moment it's requested.

Incidentally, I fucked up my arm pretty good yesterday.



I was longboarding down the hill. The one that I was so psyched to get down a few weeks ago. Oops. Fucked the shit out of my cell phone, too. Oops. Looks substantially worse, today.