WonderBlog

Psuedo Patrician Non-Humanitarians

I've been really mulling this one over for a while.

Things have come to a pass. I have questions about why certain political choices are being made,and the voices I am hearing from media outlets are almost exclusive liberal voices.

I am trying to follow the tangled thread. Here are some of the things that concern me:

Health Care
Cost of Living
Whether jobs will be available
How much stuff costs
Being fair to everyone
Taking good care of natural resources

These seem really basic to life enjoyment. I have to live, I have to pay for stuff, I have to have a job to pay for said stuff. I think that we have to be fair to everyone, because it's the right thing to do. Plus, if we aren't fair, they will exact revenge.

And we have to take care of natural resources, like the EARTH for a big example, because I have to look at it when I am not working or shopping for stuff. And I like the earth. It's where I keep my stuff (okay, that's a quote from The Tick).

If we take care of the stuff that keeps my list of concerns taken care of, we're doing okay.

Alright. So who pays for Health care to keep me living? In the USA, insurance companies do. That's really really convoluted. I mean, at one point in history, Doctors used to take their knowledge and think of a way to cure the person, and then they would take money or some trade item from the person they were treating. That was the end of that.

Now, getting your tonsils out takes huge statistical charts and indexes to pay for. Whoa. That's strange and weird. But that's really what we are living with.

The people that pay the insurance companies to pay the bills for our medical needs are:
the employers, i.e. Large Corporations

Mostly, that's true. Some individuals can pay the premiums themselves, if they want. The governmentactsd as a safety net, that picks up the slack sometimes for those who don't have an employer to pay.

That's how we do it in the US. In Europe, the government picks up the tab for the whole bill. It's called socialized medicine. And socialized medicine has a whole host of problems, such as lowered quality of care and restaints on compensation for the professionals who are therefore unmotivated to innovate and invent such needed things as new cures.
Socialized medicine is not the best way to do it. But neither is our way. Both of us are figuring out what to do next.

But things being the way they are, Large corporations are the biggest customers of the health insurance companies who control the health care in america.

So, when you are dealing with health care, it's really a lot about large corporate interests.

Large corporate interests = the Republican party

right? well, maybe.

But the democrats are the ones who are always bringing up health care concerns. And they are full of speeches about how new programs can be funded by new taxes that will be paid for by big business or 'the rich.'

But, if the democrats expect to milk the corporate cow, it would seem to require checking that the cow is well fed. If we learned nothing from the stock crash of 2000 it's that businesses are quite apt to fail.

Interestingly, the democrats are for 'equality' too. That is what they seem to talk about a lot. I hear a lot about people being underpriviliged. Or people being minorities or poor. Sometimes, they even talk about people being oppressed.

These are pretty big words. The conservatives tend to say things like "Idiots" and "Morons" about the liberals. Not very helpful, just to oversimplify into name-calling.

But the liberals voices seem to forget where their bread is buttered. I have listened for a long time, and I can see that their basic idea is to take money from rich people and from big business in the form of taxes and redistribute it (through government branches) to 'the less fortunate'.

That bothers me. This country has a high regard for independence, and we seem to be setting up a structure whereby people become dependent on the government, that thing that NO ONE, conservative or liberal, trusts.

It seems to be better to take obtacles out of people's way and let them do what they feel like doing.

I like the idea of compassion that the democrats supposedly espouse. I'd like to be a democrat and help out where help is needed.

But this constant talk of 'the less fortunate' seems to place those speaking on a superior plane than the others. Sure, they may be speaking about compassion, but there are ways of giving help without stripping the recipients of their dignity. But the speechers raise themselves by referring to others in a one-down position. It's as if they are attempting to become patrician by designating all others as plebian. But it is smoke and mirror. We do hold to the truth that all people are created equal.

It is non-humanitarian to create a system of whereby people become dependent for their basic needs. That's infanticizing the 'less fortunate.'

So, I have a bad taste in my mouth for these psuedo patrician non-humanitarian democrats. I know there may be plenty of truly compassionate charitable people who work hard to help the less fortunate, but the loudest voices in the democratic party (at least those around me in liberal LA) are terrible examples.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 08:55 PM | Permalink

Do or Do not. There is no try

When I was about 14, I fell in love with satin pajamas. Actually, I fell in love with the idea of satin pajamas.

I didn't see them anywhere, I just thought about how pretty and nice they would be.

Buying them was not within my reach. You have to understand, we did not place the purchasing of new clothing from stores within our grasp. It was part of how we dealt with being poorl; just don't even entertain the idea of wanting something you can't have. Buying new clothes was outside of what we could do, so why think about it?

This was before I was able to make my own money, so I didn't even think about finding out what it would cost new. If we wanted clothing that didn't appear in the hand-me-down closet that our church kept, we would have to make it.

I found the satin on sale, a beautiful champagne color, and then I found the pattern. I worked hard on it. I'd never made a shirt with a yoke, and many other things.

It took a long time, but time was the only thing I had too much of. In the middle of it, I was talking to an excellent seamstress from our church about the double french seams I was trying to do.

"Don't you think that satin is a very difficult fabric to work with?"

The idea had never once passed through my mind. Difficult? This was the only way to get the pretty pajamas that I wanted. It was not a matter of difficult. It was a matter of possible.

I am very binary that way. Can it be done? Yes or No? Difficult is not on the map. Not for me. And not for most of my family, come to think of it.

Consequently, I tend to bite off a lot. Then drive myself into the ground trying to do it.

Then again, I also manage to do some amazing things.

I am staggering right now under the difficulty of writing the book that I am trying to write. Sure, when I first thought of it, I just thought of the whole. I thought of the finished product, some vague notion of this story.

Now, I am in the details of it. I am staggered with the enormity of the subject. I tell everyone "It's a book contrasting the religious tyranny in America with the political tyranny of Russia, and it tracks how the main character comes away from her tyrannical religious upbringing at the same time that Russia is trying to come out from it's political tyranny."

Honestly, I think even Shakespeare would have been a bit staggered with that subject matter. YES, it's true. It really happened. No way could I write this if I hadn't lived it. It is too big to make up. I believe that it would be a very good book to have in the world, to show up how that kind of thing happens, and that it happens to all of us.

But wow. This is a huge project. And ME, I have to make it the first book I write. No baby steps for me. I have to start with Mt. Everest.

Man on man.

Well, some day, somehow, it will be done. I kind of feel like I am halfway up this mountain, and it's too late to turn back now. But I just realized how hard it is, and that I might not be up to the task.

But someway or another it will have to get done.

HOOO boy

Posted by Murphy Horner at 08:51 PM | Permalink

Apostate to his own intelligence

Apostate:
One who has abandoned one's religious faith, a political party, one's principles, or a cause.

A couple years ago I observed a sort of behavioral tendency in one individual, and it's amazing how the same pattern carries through in many different people I've met.

I call it being apostate to your own intelligence.
Apostate is a word with religious implications, and since I come from a very religious background it seems natural to me. I understand it to mean someone who deliberately turns away from God, knowing and understanding that God is God and still turning away from Him.

Of course the same principle applies to other things. For example, a person could knowingly and with full understanding turn away from the smart thing to do.

Here's where I first saw it:

I met this man , let's call him Joe, through a friend. When I met Joe, he was cleaning carpets to feed his wife and children.

My friend said, "Joe has a degree in industrial engineering."

"Good heavens! Why would he want to be a carpet cleaner if he could be an engineer? What happened?"

A few years prior, there had been an infestation of Multi-level marketing in the area. Ponzi's dream lives on, and it became the dream of Joe. He bought into the product line, bought into the pre-packaged marketing material. He contacted all his friends and spent time trying to recruit them beneath his level on the Ponzi pyramid.

As is easy to guess, this diligent effort did not result in the millions, or at least hundreds of thousands, that the marketing materials implied.

Here comes the point of decision. Joe started this endeavor to make money. He wasn't making money. Logic would indicate that he abandon this method of making money and find a different method that produced the desired result-money.

But Joe did not choose to do this. He decided that there was a reason he wasn't making money. It must be because he had not comitted to the plan. He needed to quit his job and do this new job full-time.

He chose to continue on with his original choice, affirming the first decision with a second one.

Now, he's stepped away from logic and begun to act on faith. Why would he, an engineer, a man of science, choose to act against his own logic? Let's follow him further.

Joe quit his job as an industrial engineer. He began to sell the MLM products full time, on the belief that the products and the system were reliable and the problem lay in his dedication to them. He fully believed that he would be able to support his family on the money he would be certain to recieve with his new commitment to the plan.

It wasn't long before his new plan had consequences. His wife and kids had to leave their home and live with her mother because there was no money to pay the bills.

And here came the second point of decision. Should Joe give up his MLM dreams and go back to work as an engineer? There were definitely jobs available. Or should he pursue his MLM career further?

Yep, ol' Joe believed. He chose to find a supplemental job, one that wouldn't get in the way of his real job, selling the MLM product.

He took up a franchise to start cleaning carpets. It didn't pay enough for his family to leave Grandma's house. As a matter of fact, Joe had to live with friends to get back on his feet.

This is a true story. This man was a fool. He consistenly chose the same stupid decision.

What the hell was he thinking? He must have thought that something other than reason or logic (also known as reality) was more important to him.

What could be more important than reality? And what sorts of things fall outside the boundaries of logic and reality?

I have two answers:
1. Self Image
2. Being percieved as being right

Maybe they are just two aspects of the same thing. When Joe chose to join the MLM program, he had a certain image of himself. Rich, successful, prosperous, admired, whatever. That was who he was going to be.

When he came to his first point of decision, he could abandon that first image and admit that he was wrong. This course of action would have made it possible to find another way to gain the rewards he was looking for.

But he didn't want to admit he was wrong. He didn't want to crack the image he had of himself, the one he thought he was portraying to others, that was so attractive.

He affirmed his first decision, and chose to act against logic. This was only the first real time he acted against logic. It might have worked, that scheme. But once he tried it, he could empirically know that it didn't work.

He chose to ignore the reality of the situation, and embrace his inner vision of himself, and shore up the image he assumed he projected to others. That he was a guy that knew what he was doing.

He didn't see that others were not impressed with him. That he looked a fool.

Just because he had found a way to superimpose his self-image over reality did not mean that anyone else was fooled. It only showed up his foolishness more starkly.

Now, I have seen a number of people decide that they have a story about themselves, they have an image, that is more important than reality. They can take the weight of their supposed position or importance and try to flatten the reality of the situation.

This only shows up the contrast between the truth of the situation and the ridiculous story they are putting forth.

True importance, such that would make a person worth of respect, comes from acting and speaking in accordance with reality.

Which is to say, respect is earned not owed.

And to turn away from Truth towards self-gratification (also known as fear) will only hasten what you fear.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 12:38 AM | Permalink

Bobo the Clown

I spent this Christmas in the Inland Empire. I've spent a lot of time there, because Chris's mom lives in Upland. Most of the time I've spent there, the entertainment options have pretty much been going to malls.

But isn't that what L.A. is supposed to be about? Not the best feature in my opinion, but when in Rome...

In the spirit of the season, on the 26th, I woke up early and bought a paper so we could scope the ads and see what was on sale. I knew we would go shopping because Chris's family tradition is to return most of the presents recieved the day before.

But I saw the Book Review section, so I had to look. On the last page there was a review: Bohemian Manifesto by Laren Stover. The reviewer tells us, "She wore a 'yellow thrift-ship hat and a fuchsia jacket I found in a trash can on Christopher Street" to her first job interview."
It goes on," 'Bohmians...create new work and change paradigms.' When Starbucks and the Gap move into the neighborhood, 'Bohemians move out.'"

Oh, yeah. Thrift store shopping and treasures from the trash. That's my background. I write a lot about growing up in Alaska, because Alaska is so weird. But the truth is, we were wierd even for Alaskans. It finally clicked for me. That's why this guy at work jokes about me being engulfed in clouds of Patchouli (a scent I enjoy, but do not own). It's the idea of patchouli that surrounds my way of life. Mom and Dad were definitely Bohemians.

I talked this over with Chris. He said, "What does Bohemian mean anyway?"

It's a way of life. It's being dedicated to the meaning of things, of ideas as more important than the moment. That the idea, of art, of social activism, or something, is more important than living the life of a philistine.

In fact, avoiding the life of the cushy bourgeouis philistine type of life is quite possibly the idea that a boho is trying to follow. Being open-minded and ready for new experiences that life has to offer...That's basic bohemianism.

Chris; "What's wrong with a middle class life?"

Me; "Chris, I've told you this before. It's exactly that kind of question that almost make me leave you when we were first getting to know each other."

Chris walked into my life, with his wonderbread dedication to name brand foods-it must be Coke, it must be Nabisco, it must be Kraft, or it is unacceptable.

He loves Disney.
He loves beef.

He will not eat at a Thai food restaurant, an Indian restaurant or any other type of ethnic food. When we eat out, it's three choices: Italian, Mexican, or American cuisine.

All of which are basically American foods.

He wanted to go to Hawaii, not Europe.

These are against the grain of my bohemian lifestyle, my upbringing. My father and I used to peruse the foreign food section at the grocery store, marvelling at all the interesting foods and languages written on the packages.

I have never aspired to go to Hawaii. Hawaii is not old enough.

"Don't you want to see architecture and art and history in Europe? I've never wanted to go to Hawaii."

He answered: "But it's pretty. You will like the flowers."

And you know what? he was right. It was pretty.

But having to buy BRAND NAMES for him still rubs me the wrong way. Corporate clones! I don't want to have anything to do with that!

It was a huge struggle. I seriously considered that we might have nothing in common. If our very philosophical basis was opposed, then we were doomed.

He challenged me: "Why are we so different?"

Saying that he liked Kraft and Nabisco seemed not enough of a reason.

I wrestled. Would I be giving up my ideals to be with this man? What kind of open minded student of life would I be if I were tied to bourgeous boychik?

My ideals. I had to be open minded.

And that was the point. I had to be open-minded. Was I really living my philosophy if I was judging Chris based on outward appearances and not on his heart?

Chris liked Coke because much of his grandmother's retirement fund was Coke stock. He always thought of his grandfather and his grandmother when he bought the 24-pack of Coke.

And he loves his family, and he loves me. He doesn't worry so much about my philosophy (which is admittedly a little vague), he is deeply concerned with whether or not I am happy.

True, he does not enjoy my open mike poetry readings. He doesn't want to go to the parties with my artsy friends. But he meets me when I come back with a kiss, and often makes me a cup of tea while I tell him all about it.

No, he is not open-minded about trying the new sushi bar. But he was more open-minded about my hippy-dippy ways than I was being about his white-bread background.

And, as it happens, he makes me very happy. So...Different cultures, even when they live next door to each other, have things to teach one another.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 02:19 PM | Permalink

"In the Beginning was the Word, and the Word was God"

Great quote for writers to remember, huh? Gives us delusions of grandeur.

But there is great power in words-even in just one work. In his book Creativity, author Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi talks about how just asking the question is incredibly useful. HitchHiker's Guide taught us that. "Are you sure you're asking the right question?" Finding a new way of looking at a problem can get you a lot closer to solving it.

And this morning I found a word I'd been looking for:
Tyranny

This is a twisted and long thread of thought. Bear with me.

Funny I didn't think of it earlier. This is the presidential election season, after all. Kerry is busy talking about how he has a plan, and President Bush is talking about how people in the Middle East are now free and not under tyranny.

Tyranny is a nicely flexible word. It can refer to a whole country, or it can refer to just one person.

You know, my professor of classical literature told us that the original meaning for tyranny was just a King. It is a Greek word, and it was the real name for Oedipus Rex (Rex being pushed in later, because Tyrant had a bad name). I've written about Oedipus before, actually. This just adds to the soup of what I've been thinking about.

The Founding Fathers, those instigators, knew that Tyranny was a cooperative endeavor. 'Tax our tea, will ya? I don't THINK so...'
Over the side it goes, and those new world colonists showed they were not going to cooperate with the percieved tyranny of England's taxes. The American Revolutionaries pulled in their powers and refused to cooperate with tyranny.

It's kind of funny, because the things they were complaining about seem so insignificant when we take a look around at the sorts of tyranny we've become used to now. Too much taxes! Give me a break! How does that even get on the same page as getting stoned to death on the streets for flashing an elbow?

And yet, these things start small.

That's the problem. They start small. Some leader, some person given the power to rule over people, makes a small move that's not right, and people accomodate.

Cooperate.

They go along to get along. I mean really, you can't argue over everything. What's a little tax? What's a little religious zealousness? It's for the greater good.

Until it takes over. And then you have tyranny.

The founding fathers were big readers. They were into the whole enlightenment, Thomas Paine, Plato's Republic, humanism and all that.

They came to an understanding of how politics work. They were attuned to it, so that they weren't letting the ol' monarch get away with anything. Nope, not even a little tax. And they thought and conversed and read and argued and came up with a GENIUS bunch of documents that were meant to protect our freedom.

And the big basis of this protection was that the power was distributed. They wanted people to be able to hold on to their power and not be compelled to cooperate with tyranny. The message was, 'if you fall into tyranny, it's your own fault! The keys to your freedom are in your own hands.'

And this is so much a part of who americans are, that we don't even think about it. We have had this policy, don't get involved in other people's business. Other countries can hold a revolution if they want change. We did. The keys to their freedom are in their own hands.

Sometimes we get impatience, and the CIA plays dirty. They 'assist' the revolutionaries of a country with overthrowing a government they don't like. But we do believe that it's up to the people to take the reins for their own government.

That's why we like democratic governments. Democracy for everyone!

But not everyone comes to democracy from the same angle.

Let's go back to a more recent revolution. The Russian one, less than one hundred years ago, had a whole different philosophy. Communism, which I've also written about before.

The communists, of whom the US of A became terrified , had a desire for democracy and a very strong emphasis on being 'for the people'. But they took it another way.

There were a set of smarty-pants, well-read, rich, idealistic and politically active men who started the whole thing and foisted it upon everyone else. Just like America so far.

But they really clung to the ideology. It was all about the ideology. This particular political philosophy happened after the advent of psychology. It was kind of an organized "power of positive thinking" in some ways.

Their idea was that if they could just educate the masses in the principles of this great ideology of equality and wonderfulness.

And maybe that's where it went wrong. It got kind of messy when people tried to guide...FORCE...other people into actions for their own good.

The 20th century was a lot about that. A lot about ideological movements. There was the Russian revolution. Early in the 20th century. That happened during world war 1, which had it's own sets of ideological movements on all sides. I have been thinking about that one a lot, too.

Then world war 2 happened. There was the National Socialist movement...Also known as the Nazis...Boy, they were a set of idealists. Scary scary. And ever after, we use them as examples of the ultimate bad dudes. But it was ideas that gave them power. All those people in the concentration camps were there because of a large cooperation of tyranny. The force of all the collective people going along to get along, going along because of the greater good was crushing.

Did the word holocaust exists before world war two? Maybe it had a meaning like Tyrant had during Oedipus's time. No real meaning. The Nazis filled out the word like no one else.

Alright. But the Nazis burned out, basically. After world war 2, we were left with only the communists to fear. The communists, starting their political will to power in Russia...Which oozed over into places that had not been Russia...The Ukraine, Belarus, Estonia, Roumania. They were not Russia, but they were assimilated into the blank sweep of map known as the USSR.

And the communists were not done. There was Eastern Europe. They began licking their lips and swallowing chunks of Europe like cake. Germany, Poland, Chekoslovakia.

It was scary scary. I could go on with all kinds of examples, but history is not my forte, and I'll probably be inaccurate.

The thing I am remembering, thinking about now is Milan Kundera. He wrote the Unbearable Lightness of Being, which I've talked about before.

I just recently finished another of his books, The Book of Laughter and Forgetting. This blows me up, just like the last one.

He's talking about how his country was taken over by the Communists. He's talkign about Czechoslovakia, and what people choose to remember. How political powers, whichever one was in power, would revise the history, erase people from photos and memories.

I remember another book that was about American revisionist history. I don't know if anyone else would see it that way, but I did. It deals with America's bugaboos, race, slavery and class status. And all the people in the story seem to remember things differently. The hero is left trying to sort out what 'really' happened.

What the heck happened? That's the question Kundera was dealing with. What the heck happened to my beautiful ideas? what the heck happened to my beautiful country? When did this tyranny take over? How did we allow it?

And wasn't Oedipus also thinking this? What the heck happened? How did this horror come to pass?

We never meant for this. And at last we get to the heart of this:

I also walk with my head in my hands. What the heck happened here?

I am trying to write a memoir. It is the story of how my life was when I was 18 and 19. It is a story of

Tyranny

Religious tyranny. It's a story of how certain people were given power and control, and how other people cooperated. It's a story of how I struggled to break free.

It's also a story of how I went to Russia, landing in Yakutsk, on the same day that the Soviet Union dissolved.

So, these are two parallel stories. Me, breaking free of American religious tyranny, and Russia, breaking free of Communist Soviet tyranny.

Now that I have the word, tyranny, I feel like I can better express the story.

I understand Kundera, with his grief and his confusion, 'What happened?' He struggled with his country, he struggled with the fate of his country. I struggle too. I have spent my life wondering 'What happened? How did my family, my church, come to this?'

It is not simple. It is not normal. Tyranny is not a phase of life. There were things that happened that should not have happened. And I, as a teenager, was left grasping at straws and struggling with the why.

I looked high and low for something to explain what happened. Why did my parents make the choices they did? Why did the pastor do the things he did?

How did my brother come to the conclusion that he was could no longer make his own decisions, but always had to go to the pastor for direction in everything?

What was that about?

My first word for it was "spiritual abuse" This made sense.

But it was bigger than that. I kept looking. After time I found another word:
Mind Control

More and more, the behaviors I had seen were coming into focus. And researching mind control led directly into a new field:
Cults

And that word, cult, has satisfied me for a very long time. As I thought about it, sifting through my experiences and memories, it fits.

And as I gained courage to talk more about it with others, I began to see that these methods, these patterns, were far more universal than I thought.

And eventually, I looked over to my right and saw some nasty methods and patterns coming from the man I was married to.

It's not that uncommon, I guess. I hate to think of myself as a victim demographic, but it's common for abuse to go on and not be identified by the person recieving it.

It's little things. 'He couldn't have meant to do that.' But nothing wins an argument like slamming your opponent against the wall. And he probably felt a lot more in control, a lot smarter when he told me that I didn't know anything.

It wasn't until I began to understand how spiritual abuse, mind control and cults work that I could at last recognize what was happening at home, and be empowered to leave. Boy, it was not easy, let me tell you that!

But those three words didn't cover what was happening in my home. They call it wife beating, emotional abuse. But it was so much of a piece with all the others.

And none of those words covered what was happening in Russia, under the communists. I thought of Totalitarianism. Yeah...

And then came the taliban, who chilled my bones. That's back to spiritual abuse and totalitarianism.

Until today, when I finally found the word, the oldest word of them all.

Tyranny. That covers all the bases. It even covers things not in my listed experiences. It doesn't take two to do this tango. There are ways that one person can be a tyrant to themself.

We already know that tyranny requires cooperation.

I do not have many answers. I'm thrilled today, just to have a question. Here's the question:
What does it take to resist tyranny? How do we not cooperate with the forces of evil (cue George W. here) or the forces of misguided good intentions that push us into the arms of tyranny?

I don't know exactly how. I think that having a strong sense of right and wrong, and an attitude of mercy is the only place I know to start.

Tyranny is bad anywhere you find it. It must be resisted.

And I still don't have full answers. But I have to keep trying.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 04:45 AM | Permalink

So, I am thinking about this attitude I am seeing among the political parties. Republicans are the traditionally conservatives. Democrats are the compassionate liberals.

So they say.

I feel compassionate. I feel liberal. But why don't I feel very much affinity for the Democrats? I feel like I should like them more than I do.

Democrats are against war, right? So am I. But I still feel there are times when it is necessary. Those times should be determined with careful consideration. I think force is justified in certain thoughtful circumstances. Yet, I am not hearing as much thought from the anti-war protestors as I need to be intellectually satisfied.

And even more than war, which is a once in a while activity, I am concerned about people who are oppressed. People who may not have had the opportunities that everyone deserves. The litany: women, minorities, etc.

And the democrats are the ones supposedly for the underdog. The party for women, the party for the minorities, that's what they think they are.

And yet, something about it is sounding funny to me. It's a little too canned. Political correctness is getting stale. Affirmative action, women's rights, all those things may or may not be sincere. The question is, are they working?

This is feeling wrong to me. Is the goal truly to have an equal playing field or not? What is the exit strategy to the war on civil rights? Is there a reason why we want to have a set of underpriviledged people to help?

Okay. It's hard for me to understand. I just don't get it. Where I grew up...I don't know. Maybe everyone was underpriviledged. It just felt very equal.

So here's the thing that gets me thinking. I look around at the neighborhoods here in Los Angeles. I started thing when I wanted to become a home owner. Which areas have good schools? Which ones will keep their value?

Chris grew up in Claremont. Claremont is one of the snootiest ordinary places I have ever seen. These people have a sense of how superior they are. I didn't get it. They talk about the surrounding areas, Laverne and San Dimas and Upland and Rancho Cucamunga and Pomona.

The voice changes. When they talk about the different cities. But it's not just the people from Claremont. Everyone who is from LA talks about cities with different tones of voice. And the tone of voice depends on the person talking. Baldwin Park is not a scary place to a brown person. And Long Beach and Inglewood is comfortable to an African American.

But to a jewish friend, Silver Lake can be scary, depending on where you get out of the car. But then, maybe she worries too much.

I find this confusing, and I am not really sure what to thing of these different tones of voices. What are all these people talking about? Are they just being prejudiced?

I found a website talks about it. What are we really talking about, when the tone of voice changes? Bottom line is crime.

Chris grew up in Claremont. In 2002, Claremont had no homicides. Next door, the city over, San Dimas, had 0 homicides. One city over from there, Pomona, had 18 people killed.

What the hell just happened here? Why does Pomona kill people? Why does San Dimas live peacefully and Pomona not?

Chris told me that there were a lot of Hispanic gangs in Pomona. THe houses are a lot cheaper in Pomona. Pomona had 448 incidents of robberies and 805 incidents of aggravated assaults. What is going on?

I do not think that Hispanic people are more inclined to violence and killing. I think that people do the things that make sense to them.

Somehow, San Dimas and Claremont have a society where killing people does not make sense. Why does killing people make sense to the people in Pomona?

Have the police come to expect that assault and robbery and murder happen in Pomona and not in San Dimas? What the heck are the police doing over there?

And Pomona is not the worst. Long Beach had 67 homicides, and Compton had 52. What the heck are the police doing?

Why is this an accepted thing? Why does Compton kill people? Why does Pomona kill people?

I can't tell you. I don't know. But I do not believe it has anything to do with a person's ethnicity. I know it has to do with what those residents believe, the story they tell themselves about what is necessary to get through life.

And what story are the liberal types telling?
"You're going to need help. You're pathetic."

I reject that condescion. I don't believe in liberality that disempowers.

You know what I think? I think that this whole thing is a lot more about economics than almost anything else. Having money is having independence, it's having choices.

But money comes from hard work. Protestant work ethic, "he who shall not work shall not eat."

Handing out money for disempowered people does not empower them. Getting anything for free does not make a person better on the inside. Hard work and challenges are what make people grow, you grow to meet the challenges you face.

So, I am not impressed with the flavor of compassion I am hearing from liberals. If a helping hand is required, and I do not reject the idea of a helping hand, let's give one that allows for decency. Let's find ways of letting people exercise their own power, their own dignity growing.

THe problem is large, but so are most that are worth solving. I can't help thinking, what does San Dimas know that Pomona doesn't?

Posted by Murphy Horner at 03:36 AM | Permalink

"Equal Pay for Equal Work"

Listening to the debates tonight, I heard Kerry say, "women are earning 76 cents on the dollar compared to men." This is shocking! I wasn't sure it was true.

Wireless to the rescue. I looked it up. I don't see women so much in that role. Unless the guys were making way more money than I thought, I figured it was not quite the story.

But I looked it up. It seems to have some figures behind it. Man, I was hoping that we'd gotten a little further than that.

But this story puts a little thought into the figures. According to her, when you take some important factors into consideration, the wage gap is more like 98%.

Whoo hoo! and Ms. McElroy makes some very good points. I've thought about this, in these terms, for quite some time. Leaving aside the prejudicial and sexism stereotypes, what is the major difference between a man and a woman? A woman is the one who bears the children. It takes nine months for gestation. And it takes some time to get over the process of shoving this little person out of your body.

After that, mothers may want to take time out of their career to spend time with the child. A choice that she can make. That is, the lucky ones who have the economic room to not work, or work less for a while. Many women make the choice to have less responsibilities in their career, so that they can be available to pay attention to their child.

This does not diminish a woman's capacity to perform any of the duties her career may have demanded. The fact is, a choice like that, one that takes a woman out of the running, off the rat race and into the baby track, has wage consequences.

If a man took several months or years out of the prime career growth time of his life to do another project, it is fully expected that he would not be able to walk away with no ground lost. It doesn't work like that.

And a women should not expect that she can hit pause and step right back in where she left off. That wouldn't be fair.

If we were to embrace the capacity that women bring to the table, it would be wise to find ways to change the culture of the workplace. Why do we have to work 24-7? Geez.

It would be good to have a jobs that allow for a balance and a challenge. We need that, so that the children don't get left behind.

But it seems like women are not being left behind so much anymore, and for that I rejoice.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 11:32 PM | Permalink

..to love my own words so very much...?

I am thoroughly enjoying my own parade of the best of the wonderblog. And I haven't even gotten up to 2006 yet.

As I look through these entries, I am discovering that I actually have a style. I have worked very hard to "find my voice" with my other writing, the stuff that doesn't get posted here. Yes, there is a lot of that. My poems, my book, etc. have gotten MUCH editing and re-working to get the tone I'm looking for.

I love this blog, and I am really glad I've had it. But for the most part, I've considered it a scratch pad. just for scribbles.

The internet has it's own taste.

It loves smut, celebrity gossip and the like. Politics, oh yeah. People can read about the news and that forever.

And the internet loves nerdiness and GADGETS.

none of which is me.

I guess I'm underground even for the internet. I have a style, now that I stop to look at it. Perhaps I should spend a little time trying to craft it and see if I can find an audience now that I've got my groove...

but, as anyone that's ever gone out dancing with me knows, my groove needs no audience. It's good to groove, even if you are the only one on the dance floor.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 07:46 PM | Permalink

From Earth to the MOon

So, I got to watch some TV this weekend. THey were showing this miniseries about how we got to the moon.

It was eerie. All these suited men with glasses going, "I don't know if this is possible. It might not be possible...But we have to do it."

And they proceeded to screw it up for the rest of us forever.

HOW many times have I faced that same dillemma in my IT jobs?

Management "we want this"
Me "I don't think we can do that. I dont' think it's possible."
Managment "Have it ready by next tuesday"

Impossible doesn't mean impossible anymore. Not for americans.

Of course, we wouldn't have all these cool toys and stuff to have the jobs we do if it weren't for NASA. I, of course, worked at NASA for a year intership to learn to do what I do.

So I should be grateful.

But man...we just can't give no for an answer anymore. Not since we've sent a person to the moon.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 01:30 PM | Permalink

fools!

How many fools does it take to screw in a lightbulb?

Fools always travel in ships.

There are the fools of Gotham.
There are Shakesperean fools.

There are people who are surrounded by fools.
Imbeciles.
Idiots.
Nincompoops.
Morons.
Incompetents.

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.

Foolishness!

Today, I have the phrase for me:

I am a sad fool.

I cannot escape my own ignorance. I can choose many actions, and all of them seem foolish to me. No choice appears to be a wise one. There are times when this is so, situations when you cannot come out like a hero.

Not everyone is the hero. The rest of us are Rosencrantz and Gildenstern, bit parts, left confused and out of the major action.

I love that play, "Rosencrantz and Gildenstern are dead." It brings up all kind of questions about what the HECK we are trying to accomplish in this big wide world that has big important things happening that WE CANNOT AFFECT very much.

Then there's Billy Joel's song "We didn't Start the Fire." We are left with the result of a history which, through hindsight, we would not have chosen.

And it doesn't matter. Remember the Jeff Goldblum character in Jurrasic Park? Chaos theory...Just one drop of water can move across a person's skin in different ways, moved by invisible, imperceptible pulls and tugs.

Choice is so powerful! That's what Tony Robbins says! That's what Viktor Frankl says.

And it is still not quite powerful enough. It is certainly not all-powerful.

So I, like King Lear, can rage against the storm and affirm the choices I have made. But that doesn't mean they were right. And it doesn't mean they affect as much as I want them to.

But that doesn't excuse me from trying and trying. And trying and trying.

And that is what makes me a sad fool. Sad, as in pathetic. What hope, what importance have I, in the scheme of human history?

Just as much as anyone else. Maybe. And that isn't very much.

But at the same time, it's everything.

Every day is the day to get up, in spite of what seems to be futility. That drop of water might be affected by my striving, by my will.

And yet, it's good for me to know that my choices are not that powerful. That I should be humble, knowing that I am a pathetic slob trying to make something of myself and leave a little scratch on the planet that makes it better, not worse.

And it's good for me to know that I am a fool, so I can laugh at my foolishness, and have patience with the pitiful effects of my scratching.

For we know, from the beginning, what good does pride do anyone? never has. So, I'll be the hopelessly hopeful. I'll be the optimistic pessimist. And I'll laugh and my sad foolishness, and in laughing, I'll find the strength to keep on.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 11:28 AM | Permalink

children of the firm

I'm beat. Work made me work really hard, and I spent the week away from home. I am done now, and I am even taking monday off.

It took three trips to this location to finish. The first time, I stayed with friends. The second, I picked the cheaper hotel, and I rejected it. Too much graffitti nearby. It was a barely revitalized motel.

This time, third time, I got to stay with the top dogs in the nice hotel. I even snuck out to the hot tub at the end of the day, and it was wonderful. I sat there in luxury, staring at the beautiful stars. I was a little bit grateful to the firm for giving me a chance to stay at this pretty hotel. I would never have paid that much on my own.

And then I thought about how i had rejected the other motel. It was more expensive than I would have chosen to pay, too. I wondered if the top dogs would have stayed at the motel. They might have found it objectionable. We find a lot of reasons to complain about what our firms provide for us.

If I don't have to pay for it, I might as well insist on the best. It costs me nothing.

I wondered if the top dogs would have chosen less luxurious surroundings. I thought, maybe not. They do make more money than me. I wondered if they also felt that they could insist on the best from the firm, and if they also felt like it costs them nothing.

Because it does cost everybody something. The money to pay the bill comes from somewhere. It just seems so removed and far away that it feels free. At least it does to me.

But for the top dogs, the partners, they have a share in what happens. They own the firm. It's their money going away to put an expensive pillow under my head. Do they realize that? Or do they also feel very removed from the costs of doing business?

The movie "The Corporation" talked about corporations making the businesses that we do gets to be further and further away from consequences. That leads to irresponsibility.

And that made me think that all of us, all of the people from our firm were maybe, behaving like children. Someone else, we don't know who, would get the consequences of our choices and actions.

Someone else will handle the bill.

That can't be good for business.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 07:24 PM | Permalink

Write On

I've been working steadily on writing a book. It is not a novel, which is what everyone assumes. It is a memoir. I'm trying to write about what it was like to be with my family and go over to Russia to teach English in a private school with a Christian curriculum in 1991-1993.

I started out, and in January, I had about 100 pages written. THen I realized that I had to stop TELLING the story and I had to start writing the experiences. What I had been doing with the first 100 pages was being my current self, the ironic cosmopolitan with PERSPECTIVE on what happened back then.

Absolutely NOT the way to tell a real story. If I distance myself from my own story, how can I expect to draw in a reader? But the fact is, I didn't want to dive in. To call these memories painful would only be the tip of the iceberg. Nothing is just as simple as pain. Pain is such a flat word. I needed to dive right back in to THEN and write what it was like to live it.

It is not easy to do that. I've now re-written to the point of having 140 pages.

AND WE STILL HAVEN'T GOTTEN ON THE PLANE.

My mind panics when I think about (think about writing about) going to Russia. And that is exactly how I felt during the time I was getting ready to go. That is the time I am writing about, that getting-ready period.

Right now, I am filled with those feelings I had then. And I am missing those people I knew then. I am SO missing them.

I had to do a little cyber-stalking. God bless Google. What's Dean up to? What about Alex? Tommy Piper?

They say you can never go home again. I say, you can never go anywhere again. Some things never change, but I am not some things. It's very sad to me, to realize that I can't ever recapture the closeness of a friendship. Or realize the closeness that I once wanted.

People change. I change. It makes me sad.

Not that I would have it any other way. You couldn't pay me enough to stay the way I was back then.

Anyway, I am surprised at how real these people are to me. It is like they just walked out of the room. I've had to struggle to remember their personalities and their speech patterns. I have to try to create dialogue with them...I say create...But it is more like remembering...And I remember up scraps of things I've done and said with them...And there they are. Like I could reach out and touch them. Like I could give them one more hug goodbye.

And I wish I could.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 01:16 PM | Permalink

Some people just stay there

I met with a colleague who works across the street from me. It's hard to find people who do what we do, so it's pretty exciting when we can meet.

How funny is that? Don't all multi-national companies do conferencing? Video conferencing is part of a lot of businesses. But we still don't get noticed. None of the job sites have "Video Conference Adiministrator" as a possible job category.

Stealth Career.

So one of the things my neighbor wanted to talk about was how to get Mo' Money. An extremely worthy topic. He wanted to triangulate, find out what we video people are worth. He has a certificate...I've been thinking about getting one. And we chatted about possibilities.

He kept saying, "don't get the wrong idea..." when I was being very honest about my strong desire to make as much money as possible.

I am making less than I have, that's for sure. What do I come to work for, if not to make as much money as I can with my time? Sure, the free coffee is nice, but it's really about the paycheck. Let's not kid ourselves.

Dude had been working at that same firm for 10 years.

TEN YEARS. Holy Crap. That's crazy. My dream is to keep a car for ten years. Not to work in the same compeny.

He was surprised to hear that I had moved around in my career as video guru. I told him, that is the only way to get the big pay increase.

TEN YEARS.

I'm a little too restless. I have "grass is greener" syndrome. And it's not just the money, although money is very important. It is also the challenges. I want new projects, I have to have stimulation. Repetitive think injuries can happen. Do the same thought process, with no changes, you atrophy.

Or in my case, get cranky.

That being said, staying in one company has a few advantages. Companies have figured out that it's cheaper to underpay people for years and years.

Dude had 5 weeks vacation. WOW! I would love that.

And I bet he didn't worry about being let go.

I don't ever trust an employer. I've participated in too many layoffs. why not me? It's a possibility.

So I'm always on the lookout.

But some people just stay. I hardly know what to think about that.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 09:03 AM | Permalink

The american dream

About a million years ago, I took a few martial arts classes. It was fun; I wouldn't mind doing it again. I just have to find the time...

Anyway, one time, the teacher, while dismissing us, brought one new guy forward. Turns out he wasn't new:

"Jeff...Come up here jeff! I need to take a moment. Everyone, you should congratulate Jeff. You used to be a lot bigger...How much weight have you lost?"

Jeff was a little shy. "About Sixty Pounds." He was proud, though.

"THis is an accomplishment!" the Teacher praised him. "This is a big deal! I had to take some time and give you kudos."

At that time, I was in sore need of some weight loss myself. I was amazed at the big deal made over this guy. 60 pounds, that is an accomplishment.

How much time do we spend thinking about losing weight? here in america, I think it is always on our minds. The American Dream. Just to lose that 10..15...50...150 pounds we need to lose.

My older brother Mark has been on a diet. He's inspiring. I don't know how much weight he's lost exactly, but he came down from looking sort of substantial to looking how I always remember him.

He'd always been fairly slim. I think it was because he had been a perpetual student for so long. One of his remarkable achievements was living off a 25 pound bag of dried pinto beans for a year.

He'd been given the bag from my oldest brother. Like a great number of people, Bryan had been attracted to foodstores. For emergencies...the end of the world that was supposed to happen on y2k, or some natural disaster or the tribulation that comes right before the second coming of Christ...You have to be prepared!

Except he also had to move. And all those food stores didn't fit neatly into the Uhaul. Which is how Mark got the sack, and was able to afford the fulfillment of another american dream: a college education.

My brother Bryan is not alone in his gut need for self-sufficiency. All those bags of beans...where they really belong is in a cabin in the woods, you know?

Chris took me to see Hearst Castle this friday. As I was driving with Chris up the highway one, through all these lovely remote places, I was seized with a desire for a cabin in the woods.

"Chris, wouldn't you like a little cabin somewhere? A getaway sort of place?"

"Like at Whitney Portal?"

He and I like hiking in mountainey places. So we dreamed a bit.

"Wouldn't you like to build a log cabin? If we bought a piece of land without any building on it, it would be cheap!"

"What about electricity?"

"Psh! We dont' need electricity! We can get a generator! Solar power!"

He kept driving. I thought about all the things we can get away without.

"Except we HAVE to have water. That's important." I knew someone who built a whole gorgeous house on a patch of land that didn't have a well. Water is key. "Maybe we should get it on a lake, or a river or something."

That's another American Dream. Your own land. Self-suffieciently. The shotgun and the "NO TRESPASSING" sign.

Well, maybe not the sign. I would like a cozy place where people would not be easily able to find it. Needley trees cushioning the space around small walls.

Mark, newly skinny, was telling us more about his self-evaluations. He was working the Color your Parachute book. He was trying to find the right sort of career for his talents.

Another dream-the career dream. Chris is an entrepenuer. Just enough to make me freak out. Work for the man? Get a pension? Not for my man.

I am nervous to be self-sufficient in that way. But Chris makes it happen. God bless him. His American Dream is his own business.

Folks at work here are constantly making pools for Lotto. Buy 100 dollars worth of tickets and split it if any of them win.

I ask them, "What would you do if you won?"

They seldom get past the first month...A big party, a big trip.

But what then? Life is long...How do you fill the hours without a dream? And if you make your dream come true too soon, where are you?

Mostly, they say, "If I won, you wouldn't see me around HERE anymore."

I remember there were people who won the dot com lottery. 20 something millionaires. And they showed up to work. What else would they do with their time? They liked their jobs. Some of them, anyway...

Hmm...I wonder. I know for sure what I would do with a lottery windfall. Go back to school. But you know, that might only be the first few years. What would the dream be then?

William Hearst had the windfall. Well, theoretically, he worked very hard for it. He had a lot of businesses. But he had all the money anyone would want.

He spend his free time shopping. And throwing parties.

The American Dream. Is that what we're about?

Posted by Murphy Horner at 09:01 AM | Permalink

independence and intimacy

So Chris and I have been together for coming up on Five Years. It is time to take this whole thing seriously. So we're going to take it to the next level.

RELATIONSHIPS!

None of us would be such relationship chickens if we hadn't have those bad experiences. Now that I'm "taking it to the next level" that fire alarm that was comfortably damped...You know that alarm bell? The one that starts ringing DANGER! DANGER! DANGER! when you allow another person to become too important to you?

There are trip wires over certain parts of the heart that set the alarm off. When that certain cologne sets the back of your neck prickling. When you lean in. When your knees buckle thinking about him the next day.

The risk of wanting. The risk of denial.

But I had damped that alarm. It's been practically five years, I had lulled it. Comfortable, known. When I lean in, he meets me there. He doesn't let me fall.

But now I'm Leaning Further. More is at risk. Maybe I'm too heavy for him to catch. Maybe he's not willing to lean in too.

DRDRDRDRDRDRDRDRDRDRDRDRDR!!!!

Take a deep breath. Those years count for something. I think they do. I hope they do. If they don't count, nothing does.

So I take a look and see where there might be weak spots in our RELATIONSHIP.

I don't particularly like talking about relationships. Actually, I like talking about The Relationship too much. I feel like if we just have a good hour or two of conversation then we can settle everything....And I know I'm wrong about that. Having endless talks about The Relationship does not make as much of a difference as I feel like it does. Basically, we can talk about how we do things, but if we don't get out and do them, we don't have a chance to make the little improvements that would change the situation.

So, talking about it is not as helpful as I feel like it should be...It only feels good if the talks are basically insincere. It only feels good if he tells me what I want to hear.

Chris is very much a sincere person, so he won't play that game.

I went to the library and got some books on communication. The ideas of power in a relationship are very important.

I weigh myself every day. I weigh my power relationsips every day. I can feel a very slight tip. I don't always know what to do about it, but I know when I'm giving too much.

I was raised on very traditional female roles, so i always felt like I was required to give more. Because women were supposed to be subservient, that the man was supposed to support mom & kids (I don't have kids, but that was supposed to change) and mom was supposed to do everything else. Including put up with the Man.

I tried to recreate that. When I was married, and I started to support my husband in school, I felt that this was an aberration. This is not how things were supposed to be. He was supposed to support me. He was going to graduate and then support me.

But that didn't work out. He flunked out. So then we left college behind, and I got the first job I could, and started working very hard. He spent a lot of time trying to find the Perfect Job.

I ripped through three imperfect jobs, and then he finally found his perfect job.

Well! Thank god! I could now relax into the pose of subservient. I quit, because I wanted a break.

But I should have just taken a two week vacation. It was deep blackness, man, I don't like not working.

But then I found a less important job than the Husband. I was a little intern. He was the important one. So I could maintain the right position.

I was very sad, without his company. I liked being with him. At least I remembered liking being with him. I wanted to spend time with him, but he always came home very late. It seemed like he did it on purpose! why would he stay away from me?

Finally, after weeks of crying at home and waiting for him, yelling at him when he came home because I was waiting so long, I said, No More.

If he wasn't going to be there in the evenings, I would find someone else to play with. If I was crying at home, it was my responsibility to fix it. I thought I would just go out.

I told him, "i want to do this." He thought it was a great idea, he told me I shouldn't be lonely, I should go out and have fun. Go out with your girlfriends!

But then...I said, "This will change us. We won't be as close anymore."

He didn't get it.

But I watched it happen.

I went out, I played with other people. Other people who thought I was interesting and smart and funny. Who didn't play games and shelf me, and ignore me and break promises and let me down.

These other people listened to me. They TALKED with me. I thougth I was going to explode with happiness, to think that I had people listen to me.

And I gained independence. I knew who I was.

But I lost intimacy. That man, who I had been so desperately in love with, who I thought I would die without, had to go. It was a choice between me and him. He left no options.

There was the subservient role he offered, and then there was me.

I couldnt' even fit in the role anymore. It was like pants that were too tight.
If I had tried, it would have resulted in escalating violence. I was scared of him

no more. I couldn't go back. But I didn't know where forward led.

More independence.

Yes, that particular choice was very obvious. My independence led me away from intimacy.

But then I started thinking....

How many women refuse to know things, because it will lead away from intimacy? It's a standard thing (I hear) for girls to not do TOO well on their grades because they don't want to be separated from their peers in high school.

I work in a highly technical field. I get lonely, because very few people know enough about what i do to talk about it. My independence made me give up the intimacy.

I bet that the women who work at beauty salons have a lot of things to talk about and share with each other.

I have felt like it's a sacrifice, to learn things. Yes, it's a benefit too, but it's a sacrifice.

Intimacy is so important to me. That's what Chris gives in abundance. He is always there for me.

And yet, he never gets in my way. That's what helps me to feel comfortable with him. I HATE it when someone gets in my way.

And yet, I really wish I could be closer to people. Its a constant tug.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 08:52 AM | Permalink

Then and Now

There's a new movie coming out, Vanity Fair, based on the book. It inspired me to read the book, which I started long ago and didn't quite finish.

One of the things that is so interesting about Victorian novels, and which makes them so enduring for today's readers is the struggle for POSITION. These girls who are trying to marry a man with money, so blatantly struggling to bag a husband with 5 thousand a year, or 80 thousand a year, or with a hundred a year and a title, they are struggling so hard to attain status in their "society."

The victorian era was all about the rise of the middle class. The Middle class, the newly rich capitalists, rich off trade and business rather than inherited estates were struggling in their world to be what they felt they had a right to be. They wanted into the higher eschelons of "society" and it was a constant struggle to fit in.

The Victorian prudery and extreme care for the chastity and reputation of the ladies was a huge part of that. The lower classes were the only ones that were supposed to engage in imorality. Or, I should say, the lower class WOMEN were the only ones supposed to engage in immorality.

A new standard for women had been introduced, that the unmarried women had to be pure as the driven snow or she could be rejected by that man of X thousand a year.

Why? Because women did not have earning power. They did not have economic rights to the same degree as men did, so their earning power was their marriageability, for the most part.

But that's really a side note.

What struck me in this novel was again, as I have seen so many times in other novels, was the the focus on CREDIT. Apparently, a young man of nice clothes could ring up bills and bills and bills and no one thought anything of it.

This is so completely contemporary that it makes me wonder.

We've got all kinds of new formality in place, that allows a much more egalitarian debt system. You don't have to "cut a fine figure" as those novelists say. You just have to fill out a mean form.

Bill collectors coming after you? Like they did to Captain Crawley and Rebecca (the Heros of my novel)? Rebecca was praised for her ability to persuade them away.

The 21st century way of dealing with it was to consolidate the debt, transfer some funds and get back on the road.

Here's the next snapshot in my train of thought:

I saw another ad for a different movie. This one is called "The Corporation"

It's a documentary. I really want to see it.

I've previously complained about my life in elevators. That's one way I describe the life of a corporate corpse. But I also admit that it can be exciting to work in a large structure.

I get to point at my corporate logo, and the corporate logo on the many tall buildings and in the marble lobbies with the huge expensive flower arrangments and say, "I am a part of this. This is the glory I contribute to."

And I get to build a little home from the blue paychecks.

Do you remember the story of Babel? The tower of babel? They wanted to build a tower to the heavens. They said, 'We don't need God anymore! We will climb to heaven ourselves!"

And God looked down from heaven to the people he had created and said, 'oh shit! They can do it, too!" okay, he actually said, ""If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them."

Then he made all the humans who were working together on this tower speak different languages from one another. Suddenly, they couldn't work together any more. The tower faltered, and was abandoned.

What's happened since then? A couple more towers have sprung up. A few more very tall buildings have come into existence. Is this a deferred dream we are realizing or a nightmare once averted and now awakened?

The documentary about Corporations seems to be showing how corporations are bad, and how insidious they are to our culture. Granted, take everything I say with a grain of salt because I haven't seen the movie.

BUT, i've seen some other things. I've heard the cries for "back to the land!"

You know that commercial where the alternative-hippie-looking kids are hitchiking and talking about majoring in ceramics? But they they see a cool SUV and decide to minor in ceramics so they can afford this shiny car?

THAT"S what I'm talking about. Yes, we know about our desire to be close to the land and the rhythms of the earth. To have our hands in up to the elbows in the act of creation and the practicing of our art.

And we..the american culture...still want the SUV. Which is it?

I wonder. Which half of that equation is the most hypocritical? The pat answer is the side that wants the SUV. I'm not so sure.

I am not in love with corporations. But let us assess.

Did you know that during the victorian period, that marvelous rising of the middle class, there was a huge "back to the earth" movement too? Back to nature?

Only then it was THEIR version of nostalgia. It was for peasant hood (Carlyle is who I am thinking of). 'Go back to being a peasant! You wil wake with the sun and grow your own food, and live life in the ebb of the earth's seasonal pageantry! Give up this pursuit of life in the city and ...

CAPITALISM

oh yeah...capitalism...That famous economic tome"Das Kapital" by Karl Marx is from the Victorian age. The Communist manifesto came out of that time too. Remember?

...Communism vs. Capitalism...

The words are still used today. Even though communism is widely described as dead, and capitalism has changed so much that Marx's theories no longer apply.

What are we up to? We want all the good things, we want all we can get. Then as now. Vanity Fair was the description of London society. Couldn't it just as well be a description of New York society? Or Beverly Hills?

We have built some pretty big towers. And if we didn't want them, why did we bother?

What it all a big misunderstanding? Did we really want to live close to the ground, but the architect looked at the plans sideways? Did we have a meeting and someone scrawled the minutes so they build a 105 stories instead of 105 foot garden?

Maybe we don't recognize this world because after the vision came the revisions.

Did we all get caught in the close at hand and forget the future results? Did our parents and grandparents look only at that weekly paycheck and not know what would happen when all their toil piled up into accomplishments?

I can't believe that we didn't know. I think many many of us learned to put aside our different ways of talking and worked together very very hard to get the world that we live in now.

But this final version, this present version of life2004 (brought to you by Microsoft~!) or Reality or however you want to see it contains ALL.
The conversions, reversions, subversions and perversions are all a part of the final version.

This version keeps all that. no pebble turns without reshaping the universe.

Maybe we are amazed at our small selves affecting so much change.

The monuments we've constructed changed the warp of gravity. We've altered the universe slightly and our environment mightily. We are what we have worked diligently to become.

And that bring it all back to Hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy..."Are you sure you asked the right question?"

Are we sure we worked toward the right goal?

Let us deal with what is here and now. You cannot begin your journey in a different place than the one you are in.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 08:46 AM | Permalink

'Do you work outside the home?"

That's what the guy in the shuttle to the airport asked me. It was sort of stunning. He OBVIOUSLY worked outside the home, because he was there in his briefcase, starched white shirt and tie.

And I was there in my corporate casual, with my laptop bag embroidered with the corporate logo.

When he asked me that question, a big ol' whiff of Promise Keepers came out of his mouth. Now, I realize that SOME women, those that do work inside the home with children and things, might find it consoling to hear that question. They would appreciate that he did not assume that the only work that counts is the kind that you have to drive to.

But to me, it sounded a lot like "You should be at home, but you're not. So why are you here? Account for yourself."

In support of this impression, as soon as I told him I managed the conferencing services for a global company he lost interest in talking to me and began to call people on his cell phone.

Now, since his expectations of females seemed to be the barefoot-and-pregnant variety, he may have found a reason not to talk to this inferior human (me!) anyway.

But the other guys in the shuttle were quite interesting and talkative.

I still feel the slight from Mr. "Traditional Roles"

I personally have learned not to assume that people work outside the home. But it has nothing to do with gender. Most of the people I know who work at home do so because they have found a way of generating income in their own home. I SO wish I could do that too.

At the same time, I have respect for mothers (and fathers) who work on family and home things without generating income. They have found a way to team with their partners and keep their lives in balance with what they think is most important.

But I don't ask that condescending 80's question. I say, "What do you do with your time?"

A radio host, from the show "What do you know?' asks "what do you do in life?" That's a good one too.

Come on now, dude! Try not to let your stereotypes spill out all ugly like that.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 08:40 AM | Permalink

Thoughts on Candide and the workplace

I read Candide by Voltaire long ago. I thought it was incredibly funny, and it was hard to believe it was meant to be philosophy. It was so funny! All these crazy things happening to these people. One good thing then all of a sudden all these bad things.

It was for a class, of course. We were trying to figure out what made this philosophical. The teacher said, "Someone suggested that the actual number of bad things that happen to the characters is exactly equal to the number of good things...I havne't counted, though."

And that makes me think. Still makes me think. How many good things does it take to be equal to a bad thing? Really...Equivalency is what I'm talking about.

If someone says, "You have a nice smile"
is that an equivalent counter-balance to someone else saying, "Your breath really stinks"

Those are kind of equivalent, maybe. Depending on who says it and when.

But how many, "you did a good job"s does it take to make up for "We're very disappointed in you"

It may depend on the person.

Here's another one. People who do customer service get this all the time. Teachers too. When you have that customer, that person you are assisting, or student go ballistic on you. When they threaten to call your manager, tell you exactly how you are failing them, accuse you of some mishandling of a task....

And you have to stand there, take it, and speak in a calm voice explaining the situation and getting some necessary response/information from them until you are at last released from their tractor beam of displeasure

you are released. You kept your cool, you handled the crisis.

How long does it take to recover?

It takes me a while. It leaves me shaky and vulnerable.

It makes it harder to help that person. Why go back to the source of pain?

How many good nights sleep does it take to get over the adrenaline rush of someone's accusation?

What's the equivalent?

i try to find satisfaction in a job well done. My reward is in recognizing that I did a damn good job.

I'd rather not take the bullets. I'm tired of being the target practice.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 08:34 AM | Permalink

Social circles

This weekend was really busy. I had a birthday party on Saturday night, but that afternoon I had to go shopping for a function later in the month.

Then I had my writing group, which met on Sunday, and a coffee shop thing in the evening.

Busy busy.

Which is QUITE unusual for me. I have been here a year and a half, a littl more even, and I have been having trouble making friends. THis is not new. I am understanding the rhythm of friend-making after a move.

You know, friends are a tricky business. I think army brats, the ones that have to move every two to four years understand this. When you go to a new place, you have to find a way to connect with the people there.

Data, on Next Generation Star Trek, once had a line that said something to the effect that Frienship had much more to do with just being around each other than emotion.

I think there is a lot of truth to that. And I think that sometimes people you spend a lot of time with, such as co-workers or bar friends, can feel like friends when in actuality, they are merely co-existing in the same space.

A friend is someone who will make an effort to come see you or have you see them. Because they want to. That means taking time to talk on the phone or go do an activity or something. Something that is personally for you.

That personally bit is the part I've been missing. I haven't done very many one-on-one things since I've been here. Very, very few.

I have book club, I have writing group, I have movie club. I have church, I have open mic night at the coffee shop. I have work, and I have my sweet boyfriend.

I am actually very busy and very seldom completely alone. And yet...I haven't had the personal time with a friend very often.

It's a tough leap, that from being a member of a group to being an individual personal friend. How do you really manage it? How do you know it's okay to make a move.

I find it much more difficult than a date. Maybe I'm pretty good at dating. But just getting someone to go out and play...

I admit, I'm kind of shy. If someone is not willing to email me, it's hard. Phones are a little scary to me. I don't know exactly why. I get shy about calling someone on the phone.

So that's probably a handicap on my part.

And then, I get very tired after work. I just want to sleep. So that makes me not want to get up and do things with friends that I feel nervous about calling.

But to make friends with someone, you have to be around them a certain amount of time. You have to make contact, and keep up the contact for a period of time so that you get to know each other's lives. If you don't do that, it falls flat.

It's a little complicated.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 08:31 AM | Permalink

Decisions

Valentine's day and President's day are very close to one another.

Chris was saying, "I wish they had left the President's days separate."

"You don't like it being so generic? You mean we should not celebrate all Presidents?"

"Well! It doesn't seem fair that the guy who caught the flu on his inauguration day and died two weeks in office should be celebrated as much as the other presidents"

Being president is something Americans are all supposed to be able to aspire to. How many American babies are cooed over in their cribs, and hear the pronouncement, "maybe this one will grow up to be president."

Yes, This is america, the place where you can carve your own destiny. ANYONE can grow up to be president.

I wonder how many presidents aspired to the office? If they are like most people I know, the choice of becoming president was not really their own. They may have started along a political path and just sort of pushed, bumped, promoted along until they got to the White House.

Huge life decisions are not made that way. Decisions are made before you know you've made them. Swerve one way or the other, and your feet have changed paths.

The decision comes later. When it comes, it is less of a "will I go?" question, and more of a "Will I stop going?" question.

I think love is the same way. The small decisions are often unseen. Will you be my valentine? How often is that question asked when the answer is not known?

I think most decisions come after the fact. The momentous changes in direction are never recognized until they are past.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 10:05 AM | Permalink

February rode in on an ambulance
I've been sick all week. Actually, I've been sick even last week.
I was feeling woozy, and extra tired. The bus ride made me especially ill, and then it seemed to last all day. Friday, I was feeling motion sick all day long. By the time I was ready to go home, I began to think, "something is not right. There is something wrong going on."
I almost asked Chris to pick my up from work. But I hate to do that. Then i almost took a cab home.
Then I thought, "Maybe I'm jsut really hungry."
So I ate something, and that made me feel better enough to take the bus home.
But saturday, I was supposed to go to Palm Springs. I just didn't feel up to it. I felt like lying around and resting.
Sunday, I took myself to the doctor and got a prescription for antibiotics to cure a supposed sinus infection that was messing with my sense of equilibrium, and hence making me feel woozy, motion sick, all the time. I called in sick for Monday.l
But Monday, I dreamed that I had collapsed at the bus stop. I woke, and had to throw up. But while crawling to the toilet, I realized that I had no sense of balance whatsoever and that i was completely sick. The world would NOT stop spinning., The walls reached out and smacked me when I tried to move, because i didn't know how to stay upright, even while crawling.
The sweat poured off me as I retched intot the toilet. I had to do something. This was bad. I needed help. But I couldn't move! How would I get help?
I concentrated as hard as I knew how on believing that te world was not spinning. I closed my eyes and breathed very hard, pressing my head against something solid and immobile. "You are STILL, STILL, you are STILL"
Finally, I could gather my thoughts enough...i needed to get someone to help me. But I couldnn't move at all without vomiting...
I made my plan. I would launch myself back to my bed, where my cordless phone was, and on the way I would grab the trash can to barf into. I would either call Chris or 911.

But I really wanted Chris. I would call Chris. He would help me.
I made it, with my eyes shut to keep the room from spinning. After throwing up for a while, I contemplated how to dial the phone with my eyes shut. I didn't figure out a way, So I had to open them for a few moments.
I got Chris's answering machine, like I knew I would. "Chris! Chris! Help! I need you help!"
He picked up right away. "Murphy!"
"Chris! I need you! Come help me!"
"I'll be right there!"
"okay"
and then I sat there, dripping sweat and vomiting some more. But I was thinking. I had put the chain lock in place. Would chris be able to get in without my help? Is there a way to unlock a chain from the outside?
I decided that i had to go unlock it.
February rode in on an ambulance- CONTINUED
sorry everyone...I am having to tell this story in pieces, because I am remarkably weak still.
So I gathered all the strength I had, and propelled myself to the front door, dragging my trashcan behind me. I thought I was going straight down the hallways, but the wall came right at me again. I used all my strength to get to the door and flip out the chain lock.
Then I sat in spinning, sweat-soaking misery until Chris arrived. I was getting cold because I was so wet.
It wasn't very long, but every moment took a lot of concentration. When I heard chris turning the lock I called out, "Watch out, I'm right here."
I didn't want him to hit me with the door. I needed to maitain my sense of space in order not to spin out again.
He stopped entirely. "It's okay," I said. "Just don't hit me with the door."
He came in carefully and leaned down over me. I tried to open my eyes. I really wanted to see his face; but the room started spinning again and i had to shut them again.
"What's wrong?" he asked. He had no idea.
"Everything is spinning! It's spinning and it won't stop. It's making me sick."
"What do you want me to do?"
"Umm..." It was hard for me to think. "I need to see a doctor. I need your help."
"Yes, you need to see a doctor."
I was shaking from cold and sickness at this point. He looked at me and said, "You need to get to bed."
"I have to go to the bathroom." It was true. I had had to go since I first woke up. But it didn't seem possible. At the different stations of the apartment i had ended up in, I had contemplated this situation among the other dilemmas before me. How could I possibly take care of this? While vomiting, it's hard to remain in control of my bodily functions. I contemplated going in my pants, but thought I should save that for a last resort.
Good thing. Chris helped me to the bathroom. He got me on my feet. At first I lurched way over to the side, but he got a firm hold on me, and helped me to the toilet. I pulled my pants down, sat down and vomited into my faithful trash can some more.
There is a lot of vomit in this story. I am sure it is not that much fun to read about but it was less fun to be the protagonist.
You can, in fact, relieve yourself and vomit at the same time. I gave myself fully over to being sick, but the other just sort of took care of itself. Then I breathed for a while. Breathing was a very deliberate activity.
Wiping myself seemed impossible. But I thought about it, and decided that I must. I could move my hand and feet slowly without disturbing the stillness. But my head couldn't be moved. Raising myself up to complete this task took some courage. But in the end I leaned into the can again and simultaneously took care of my needs.
But puling my pants up again was realy beyond. As soon as I could talk, when the sickness subsided, I called for Chris. He helped me to my bed, although I collapsed half in and half out. I was shivering, and he immediately covered my with an extra blanket.
That bed felt so good, but I was cold. Chris was trying to call Kaiser, and was on hold for quite a while. He said I had to get under the blankets in bed, because I had to get warm. He helped push me in.
Even while I was being sick, the bed felt so good I never wanted to move again. The pillow was heaven, the blankets felt so good and warm. Still on hold, Chris stuck a thermometer in my mouth. "that can't be right...."
He took my temp again..."94.7..This must be malfunctioning..."
I said, "I'm cold."
He could see I was shivering.
He finally got through to the doctor. "Baby?" he said. "I've got an appointment for 45 minutes from now. Do you think you can make it if I drive you to the doctor's in my car?"
There was a challenge. I didn't know. This pillow felt very nice."I don't know."
"What should I do baby?"
"I don't know." I thought some more. Maybe..."Go get the car ready, and I will see."
I concentrated very hard. I had made it to the phone because I had to. I'd gotten to the chain lock because i had to. What would this involve? I would simply be sick the whole way. Could I throw up for the 15 mintes it would take to drive there? But what about in the waiting room? Doctors always made you wait. Did they give precedence to vomiting patients? i suspected not. How long would they make me wait?
Oh this pillow felt good.
I envisioned the path to the car. I would have to ride in the elevator. How would I do that? If I had to concentrate so hard on keeping a still room from moving, how would I do in a room that actually was moving?
It seemed unlikely that I would actually be able to do this.
Chris came back. He saw me with my eyes screwed shut, shaking with chills. "I don't think you can make it in the car."
"I think you're right."
"I'm gonna call 911. After all, they did say that I should do that if this was an emergency."
He went into the other room to call 911. I lay there and imagined being magically whisked off to someplace that would make me feel better. I pictured a helicopter, with me being strapped into a bed and swaying at the end of a rope.
Swaying made me start to feel spinny again, so I concentrated on feeling still. No, there would not be a helicopter. There would be an ambulance, and a gurney. They would lift me onto the gurney.
Oooh...Moving. That would be bad. Riding in a car. Maybe they would give me morphine or something. What did they do, anyway?
Just breathe. THink of peace. Peace. Still. Still.
I heard the sirens. "Hear that baby? They are coming for you." Chris was taking good care of me.
They were coming.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 10:03 AM | Permalink

love talk

Chris came by to see me yesterday. I was having a rough day, and he was worried about me.

It wasn't particularly difficult, I had just lost my sense of humor. You HAVE to have a sense of humor over here, or you grind out.

So, he helped me feel better, just by being there. As I was getting sleepy, we had this conversation:

"I have to be up very early in the morning. Tell me something."

"What do you want me to tell you?"

"Sleepy things. Tell me a story."

"I don't know any stories."

"Well, tell me what happened in the world today."

"Let's see....Do you know about Skull and Bones?"

"...other than their literal meaning, I couldn't tell you. What are Skull and Bones?"

"I was listening to the radio today, and this talk show guy was talking about Skull and Bones. They are a secret society at Yale; this guy claimed they controlled everything."

"Oh yeah...I remember hearing about them. They control everything?"

"That's what this guy said..."

"If they control everything, I want to talk with them. There are a few things that need some improvement. How do we get a hold of these people?"

"This guy was claiming that they orchestrated the Kennedy assasination, and the Mars landing."

"We need to find these guys and put them to better use. If there is somebody controlling everything, I say good. Too many things are out of control."

Pause

"Chris..You're going to become that guy, aren't you?"

"what guy?"

"That guy who works from his home and listens to talk radio all day and turns weird."

"I do NOT listen to talk radio all day! I only listen to it in my car."

"WHATever. Next thing you know, you'll be staying up late listening to that one talk guy."

"Oh...Yeah...that guy...But he's not on anymore. You mean Art Bell. They have another guy doing his show now. He only comes on for special occasions."

"See? This is what I'm talking about. You already know all this stuff. You are gonna be that weird extremist right-wing guy."

"I am not. What about you? you listen to NPR all day. Are you gonna be a left-wing extremist?"

"NPR is not extremist anything. They are all about the money. Do you know they play different songs depending on how the market is doing?"

"They do?"

"Yeah. If the market is up they play, 'da da dedada'."

"'We're in the money'..."

"Yeah. I don't remember what song they play if it's down. I don't pay attention to stocks."

"Yes, you put your money into your condo."

"Right. But that just shows how NPR is all about the money. Whenever they do bring up some social cause, it's so far away you could never do anything about it, so you don't have to be distracted from worrying about your stocks."

"Well...What's the left-wing equivalent of the talk shows?"

"Pacifica radio. They are the ones who incite the peace marchers."

"oh yeah. They're weird."

"I don't listen to them very often."

-----

I had a very good night's sleep

Posted by Murphy Horner at 06:54 PM | Permalink

Reaching Out

Those of you, and I am so grateful for you, who read my blog on a regular basis would be aware that I haven't written very regularly this month.

Perhaps I have been extraordinarily busy with work.

But also, at the beginning of the month, I had my piano tuned. It's needed it for some time. I just hadn't gotten around to it. I was feeling a vague sense of guilt that I never play it, and then I realized that I didn't like the way it sounded, all out of tune. So, I had it tuned.

I've been playing it madly ever since. I pass it, on the way to get something from the kitchen, and I can't resist playing some tricky part of a song, some trilly part that's hard to get right.

And I'm learning to play new songs. I was getting tired of all the old ones I knew. I have been trying to learn some old irish ballads, and some old jazz songs.

Ballads are so pretty; they tear my heart out. I will often cry as I play and sing them.

But jazz is another animal entirely. They seem so simple when you hear them, and somehow, they slip away. You try to sing them, and then find you can't remember the words. What was that again? It just slips out of your mind.

It was surprising to me to realize that most of them were just two or three very simple verses. Why is that so hard to remember?

So when I sit down to play these simple songs, I also find they are not so simple to play. I learned to play piano by teaching myself. I learned to play melodies on my own, and then I pestered other people and read things until I got an understanding of how music works. For any song, there is a structure, a musical structure. It's like a grid that you can place down over any song, and know how you can place the parts of the song in relation to itself and in relation to music as a concept.

Jazz does not fit the grid very well.

If you read about jazz, read what they said about it at the time, the people were freaking out at how innovative and weird and NEW it was. "Jungle music" they called it, among other things. Some people couldn't get enough of it.

Since I've been so fascinated with my newly tuned piano, music has been on my mind, I found my harmonica, and I was trying to play some of the same songs on it as I was walking to the bus stop.

"Danny Boy" worked pretty well, but "Pennies from Heaven" was hopeless. I realized that the harmonica does not have all the notes that a piano has. There simply was nowhere to go, nowhere to reach for the notes I needed.

And it clicked with me. That is why Jazz was so exciting to these people when it was new. They had their minds in the grid. And when the jazz musicians reached out for a note that wasn't in the grid, it was practicially like reaching into a fourth dimension. It was blowing their minds!

I am thinking of the novel by Sinclair Lewis, Flatland. New things are so hard for us to come to terms with.

So why does the piano keep me from writing? I don't know. My mother raised me on theories of right-brain and left-brain functions. I will say that when I play the piano, my mind does not think in words very well. I don't know why, but even the words in songs do not interrupt the flow of concentration created by my hands on the keys of the black and whites.

I am disappointed, because I do not play as well as I used to.

But even when I was as I used to be, I was not as good as I wanted to be. I feel a push to do more than I can, more than I even know how to do.

I am not writing as well as I wish, or as much as I wish. And I am not playing as well as I want.

I have been feeling a hunger for a sewing machine, lately. I want to make something, create something that has not been done before.

I haunt the craft shop, and I tell myself, "you can't find the time to write, you can't find the time to practice your piano enough, how are you going to have time to sew?"

But I can't leave.

I feel the urge to reach out in a direction that has not been traveled before, or even discovered. And I fight myself all the time about it. I don't know the way to start, or to find what I am looking for. What use would it be if I did? What would it matter? Who would care? How could I possibly succeed? What would good would it do if I even did?

But still I am haunting the craft stores, feeling the materials, and fantasizing about vagues shapes and colors and textures.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 02:50 PM | Permalink

WORK

You know, I've been re-evaluating my life somewhat. I don't know why I call it RE-evaluating. I seem to do it without pause, really.

I am increasingly tired of what I do to make money. I feel like I have a lot of other things I would prefer to spend my time on. For example, I recently got my piano tuned. I am really enjoying learning new songs, and playing old ones.

What is this job thing for, anyway? Yes, I have to have food, shelter and clothing. And don't forget the mathoms, all the pretty little useless items that catch my fancy, that I just have to have.

or maybe I don't. Maybe I can get along with a heck of a lot less than I think. I went out to a restaurant last night, because I was too tired to cook and I didn't have much in the fridge anyway.

If I hadn't been to busy to shop or too tired to cook, I could have saved a lot of money.

Maybe.

As I was driving back with Chris from Marie Callendar's, he asked me about Christmas music. "What kinds of music means Christmas to you?" He was thinking of buying Christmas CDs.

Thinking about it, my family did not buy Christmas CDs. But every Christmas had music! We just made it ourselves. Either we had an instrument to accompany us or we didn't, but we always sang together.

What a beautiful thing! Think about music, just for a minute, as a beautiful thing to collect. It doesn't take up space, it doesnt' cost money. All you have to do is remember to sing.

And it lasts! It's not something you regret, like a too-rich dessert. But it makes you feel good for longer than it takes just to sing.

What else is like that? Maybe playing a game, and I mean a real game that you make up, like peekaboo, with a child or a friend. Doesn't cost a thing, doesn't take up space or clutter your life.

Spending some time giving love...kisses and hugs, the best things in life, really, are just the same.

I wonder if I could tip the balance, make my life full of the non-cluttery things, so full that I don't have time or space for the physical things. That might eliminate the necessity for this daily pay for daily work stuff.

Maybe.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 04:47 AM | Permalink

I Drather

It is getting dark, and I am still at work.

I woke up this morning to the sound of my cell phone ringing in the wee morning. Someone in a different time zone needed my help. I sprang out of bed to answer it, heading out of the bedroom and into more cell-friendly areas of the house.

But I immediately hit my head on the door.

I didn't know I'd closed it.

And the man in Uraguay is telling me that he can't make a connection because no one is there, and I am trying to ask him how he knows that no one is there if he hasn't made the connection.

And I can't seem to figure out how to open the door. Is it locked? I lock and unlock it several times before I realize that I can't open it because I'm leaning against it.

But at that point, the cell reception fades entirely and the phone connection is lost.

I sit down on the couch and call the other person whose time zone it is and tell him what he needs to do to take care of Uruguay's problem. Problem solved.

And I'm awake. And my head hurts a little. Might as well get over to the office.

I've got to find a better way to make a living.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 04:44 AM | Permalink

creative

I am feeling the urge to spend most of my life energy on being creative. Most of my life energy right now is spent on my job, which is no longer creative.

I know that I should be practical, but I would rather be doing those things that burn in my breast. I am not excited by anything I do at work anymore. Challenged, just a little. It's good to use the ol' brain muscle every once in a while.

But there is a better use of my head than what these attorneys are using it for. I have my own ideas of how to use my head.

There are a number of creative types here. We all share that look-down-at-the-floor-and-raise-your-eyebrows-while-you-sigh realization that the bills come every month regardless of the burning in your bosom.

One guy is an actor, really with parts in things and stuff. He works early mornings and weekends. He has a SHIFT and does not have to stay beyond it.

One other guy is a musician. He was working and working so hard he finally put his foot down. He said, "I cannot work these hours. Change it or I'm leaving."

He left.

But they negotiated, and he came back, part-time and paid hourly. But the hours are more and more not-so-part-time.

I am thinking of something like that too. Yes, lucky me, I am paid hourly. At least I am paid for every minute this job takes me away from myself.

But the hours are getting too long for doing something I don't care about. 50+ hours a week. And with the bus strike, I am having to DRIVE to work. There is not enough head space to let my creativity reach critical mass and release itself.

It seems like I am gonna have to start getting creative about finding a way to get creative.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 02:41 PM | Permalink

day two AWOL

So, there's this new guy. He was hired a couple weeks ago and seems nice enough.

But he didn't come in last friday. And he didn't call to say why. And he's not here today either and he hasn't called.

Here's a situation. What should we do?

It happens the boss was out last friday. He's in today, and I'm the one that called attention to the absence. Boss knew nothing about it.

He starts asking everyone if they had heard anything.

Here's the funny bit: The guys all start backpedalling and trying to cover for the new guy..."Oh he said he might not come in on friday"

funny. So the boss calls the home number.
"Oh, this is not really where he lives, I will try to find out a better number for you."

wow. This is new.

Now, I hope nothing is wrong. I suspect nothing is wrong.

But if nothing indeed is wrong, then what's up with all this helping the guy cover up?

My upbringing was NEVER lie, NEVER try to get away with anything, and NEVER help anyone who was doing the above.

Good little Christian school children are taught that if they do anything, even the SMALLEST thing wrong they are sinning and deserve to go to hell, in fact they WILL go to hell if they don't repent and have Jesus in their heart.

And if you cover up for your friend, you are not being a true friend because you are just helping them GO TO HELL!

So pretty much, there was a mad dash to tell on anyone that did anything wrong.

This is yet another example of how Christian schools do not prepare you for the real world.

In this real world that I now inhabit, it seems that there is an unspoken understanding that you cover for the guy. I didn't know that you could get people to cover for you under these kinds of circumstances. This means that I can be a lot more cavalier about my duties, should I ever decide to be cavalier.

But I wonder why people cover for other people? is it in the hope that they will in turn be covered?

I guess. You never know when you will screw up or slack off somehow and need people to help you out. I screw unintentionally sometimes, no way around it. But to intentionally screw up. Wow.

I have never trusted people to help me out. I always assumed there would be the mad dash to tell on me.

That's what I was raised with.

Interesting.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 02:38 PM | Permalink

Ideology and fires

You know, way back when Darwin first came up with the idea of survival of the fittest, he categorized humans as an animal like all the other animals. Bears, pigs, monkeys and humans. We all eat, breathe, sleep, defecate and scratch where we itch.

The idea was hugely controversial. The church of the time wanted to believe that man was only a little lower than the angels, that animals were completely different from us altogether.

Now, we say that man is an animal without thinking about it. Yes: primate, vertebrate, whatever you call it, that is us.

And this classification brings us into greater relationship with our surroundings, our environment. Like cows, we eat grain. Like tigers, we eat meat. At least some of us do. And we grow grain and meat, using our environment to create food and do all the things we do.

As the smoke builds up in my city, we are saddened by the destruction of our environment. For some people, it is their whole environment, their home, that is destroyed. For some, like me, it is the beautiful outdoors, the natural environment that has been destroyed.

The fire was set by human means, there was arson which involved matches, and also a flare set by a lost hunter.

But the reason the fire became so huge is because of some bark beetles that killed the trees. They were standing timber, just waiting to be ignited. And we knew about this, we knew this would happen when the beetles first infected the trees.

This fire was inevitable. Perhaps the vast destruction was not inevitable, but a fire had to happen. Nature was doing what it does.

And we as humans, were decided what we wanted to do about that nature. Mostly, the idea that we should leave it entirely alone was the prevailing ideology.

For many years, most of which are in living memory, America with it's democratic capitalism fought a war of ideology with Communist Russia. This war was called the Cold War, but it was only cold inside the two countries. It was hot as hellfire in some places.

Because we were using our ideologies to justify various actions in different parts of the world. Like one side or the other would prove themselves more RIGHT by having more little countries pick their ideology to govern with.

Lots of countries got caught in the middle. Remember Vietnam? Cuba? Zimbabwe? Tanzania?

Well, not all Americans are capitalists. There were and are a lot of lefty-type americans who were rooting for the communists, or at least socialism abroad. They, and socialists from other countries, were happy to see the so-called 3rd world countries embrace socialism.

Alright. I would now like to present Tanzania. Tanzania tried socialism. It tried it really hard. Socialism didn't work in Tanzania. Nyerere, the president of Tanzania, and seemingly a very nice guy, admitted that it did not work and that Tanzania was pretty much impoverished by the experiment.

Tanzania was trying something out. It didn't work, so maybe they ought to try something different.

Russia, the motherland of communism, is also trying this 'something different' themselves. Smart. If it's broken, fix it.

NOW,
back to the fires in Los Angeles.

These fires, as I said, were naturally ocurring. We kinda knew they were coming. Fires come every year.

There is an ideology of conservationism that says, "Don't touch it! We have to pretend like we don't exist! Humans should not touch nature, we'll screw it up!"

Alright, I think the experiment of pretending that we are angels who float above the surface of the planet and don't make any marks has come to a failed conclusion.

If we are indeed part of the ecological system that we inhabit, it is impossible not to interact with it. Denial is more than a river in Egypt. The time has come for the conservationists to realize that we should direct our interaction with the planet in a useful way.

Let's use this human intelligence to choose wisely. Let's cut down and use controlled fires to protect the environment, WHICH INCLUDES OURSELVES, from these kinds of uncontrolled acts of nature.

Let's be wise and careful, and let's use our smarts to protect the environment. This whole "Don't touch it!" ideology has hurt my state.

It also hurt my home state Alaska, with people who want to treat the beautiful interior of Alaska as some kind of pinned-down insect. It's not a dead, static thing. It's a living place, and getting some people up there to get the oil out and spend a little attention on preservation will do a lot more to help the area than leaving it alone.

It's time to change when we've been proven wrong. Don't cling to outmoded ideas.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 02:35 PM | Permalink

I wish we'd all been ready

My new hometown in the middle of Los Angeles looks like a scene from the apocalypse today. We've had our troubles with grocery store strikes; we've had the buses come to a halt for a mechanic's strike.

It is extremely hot, unseasonably hot-reaching the 100s. And the Santa Ana winds, the ones Raymond Chandler blames for murders have begun to wake up.

The heat, the wind and I believe the discontent have resulted in many fires in our surprisingly brambly metropolis. One in particular is out of control.

45 miles away, where I work and breathe, white ash flecks were raining down. I walked through the grand opening of disney hall, with red carpet and velvet ropes mutely broadcasting BY INVITATION ONLY. And just in case you didn't get it, there were cadres of police security to remind you that YOU were NOT invited.

The cloned waitstaff lined the street in a military at-ease position, their red-vested backs to us, the unininvited. The huge metallic hall, more modern than the day after tomorrow is blurred by the thick air.

The commuters walk in lines to their cars, and the cars file in lines to the freeways, which are far from free at this time of day.

Some self-employed commuters in unwashed clothing hold cardboard signs for the cars driving by: "Hungry. Homeless. Need Help. Need Food. God Bless."

At my space in the wavy asphalt, my sedan gathered small drifts of white ash.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 02:30 PM | Permalink

*I've since been to Canter's, Hollywood Bowl, but not Pink's or the Beach yet.
------------------------------------------------
So I've been here more than a year now. I still feel like I have no idea what's going on. But the truth is, I 've seen through a glass darkly what it is I have no idea about. I know more about what I don't know about.

As I was walking to work today (yes, you read that right. SATURDAY. This is why I haven't had time to explore my new city..bloody attorneys), I saw a "Best of 03" publication in the LA Weekly newpaper dispenser. I snagged it.

Thing's the size of a phone book! Holey Moley! I'm keeping it, it is giving me all kinds of ideas of things to check out.

And it's inspiring me to make my own list of random stuff. Here goes:

BEST HYPED PLACES IN LA THAT EVERYBODY HAS BEEN TO BUT ME:

Pink's Hot Dogs
Canter's Deli
The Beach (aka Surfing)
Hollywood Bowl

BEST HYPED PLACES THAT EVERYONE TALKS ABOUT BUT DOESN'T ACTUALLY GO TO, THAT I HAVE BEEN TO:

Getty Museum
Free Shakespeare in the Park
Norton Simon Museum
Central Library
The Symphony (including the new Disney Hall)
Swing Dance lessons at the Derby
Museum of Contemporary Art (Twice!)
a bus
A night class at UCLA

BEST COOL THINGS THAT EVERYBODY DOES THAT I'VE DONE TOO:
Farmer's Market
Concerts at the Greek Theater
had an extensive conversation with a dicey used merchandise store owner about said merchandise
the Soda Pop Fountain (mulholland fountain on Los Feliz Blvd by the 5)
Bought FOR PROMOTIONAL USE ONLY cd's and movies from used cd stores
Bought vintage and obscure designer clothes from vintage and obscure shops
joined a book club
Celebrity sightings
done open mike performances
Had highly abstract conversations with just-met strangers about pursuing creativity and staying centered
Seen a Laker's Game (Go Fisher!)

BEST STUFF I STILL WANT TO DO

see original live theater ( oh wait, I did that...so do it MORE)
Drive to Mexico
go to hear authors and artists talk about their stuff
Drive to Vegas
Go to a dance club on Sunset Strip
Go the the H.O.B. Gospel Breakfast
Take a Yoga class

Just for starters.

I guess I 've done a lot of activities that have a hushed-voice environment...the museums, the symphony...That's due in part to the fact that my honey likes calm, contemplative places of beauty. He doesn't feel like doing the loud and crazy stuff. I do that with other people.

There's a ton of stuff I still want to do here. I suspect that there is no danger of running out of kick-ass fun stuff to do in Los Angeles. One of the biggest differences between LA and everywhere else I've lived is the willingness of the people in LA to do stuff.

The difficulty I've had in trying to start a group to do almost ANYTHING...Lord...Everyone seemed to just want to talk about doing cool stuff, but not actually start it.

HERE, I meet tons of ambitious motivated people who are willing to show up and do it. Maybe this place is the place where people come to make their dreams come true. They arrive with their sleeves already rolled up.

Maybe. I don't know. What I do know is that I LOVE that about this city. You say, "Want to start a writing group?'
YES! and they do it.
"Want to work on a project with me?"
YES!

I love that kind of YES.

So I say YES to this city too. YES, let's go do it!

Posted by Murphy Horner at 02:23 PM | Permalink

You've come a long way, Baby

I'm on a business trip right now. LONG days here at the sattelite office. Last night I was having a rather late dinner, relaxing in the hotel restaurant and enjoying my meal.

Yes, I was alone. I have read older books, references in outdated magazines to a stigma attached to a woman eating alone in a restaurant. Some women used to feel uncomfortable and pathetic to eat alone. Some restaurants would not welcome solitary females.

But I can find a lot of pleasure in a good meal eaten alone. Especially when the meal is really worth savoring, conversation is not missed because I can focus on how delicious the food is.

Last night i had a lovely soup and salad, with interesting textures and flavors. I was delighting in my meal. I took my hair down and rubbed my head a little.

"I like your hair down." The man from a nearby table leaned away from his other companions to tell me this tidbit.

I smiled and said thanks. I was interested in my meal.

Later, he felt the need to call over to me again.

I answered, somewhat amused. Until he said, in reference to his companions, "These guys have no idea, but you and I know what's going to happen later."

I said, "Well, you're going to think whatever is in your head, and I'm going to go to bed."

"That's what I mean," he said with a leer.

When I used to explore the streets in Russia, I remember I had a rule of thumb. I was worried about the safety of walking around, an American in this foreign city. I took note and realized that there were three levels. When I walked in the company of a male, any male, I was invisible. I was safe and no one paid me any attention. If I walked in the company of one other female, I got a little attention. Lots of stares, a few loud comments.

But when I walked alone, it was as if I was the property of everyone. All the men would stare, and anyone that felt like saying anything to me just when right out and said it. "Devushka..Hey girl, where are you going?"

It's true here in America too. One male person, no matter how physically insignificant or bland, stopped all potential harrassment. It was like it never even existed.

I started to call them magic amulets. If me and some girls were gonna go out somewhere, I would ask them "Should we invite a guy to be our amulet?"

It depended on how much hassle we were willing to put up with that evening.

So, I was remembering that with the guy in the restaurant. I hadn't thought about my harrassment formula for a while.

But my god! This was the Four Seasons, not some back-alley Russian construction site. You would think that up-scale establishments would have a clientele with a greater degree of enlightenment.

The men at that table had been talking about how much money they made earlier. It was somewhere around the million-dollar-a-year mark. At least that is what they were telling each other.

In between my delicious bites, I wondered about having that much money. I wondered if they were enjoying their meals more than I did mine. Or if they enjoyed their lives more than I did mine.

I thought about what their wives might be like. As I unerstand, men who make scads of money usually have a stay-at-home wife. It's an agreement, just like the old days: Man makes money, women gives man anything he wants.

That how it had to be, before. Before women had equal (or mostly equal) access to employment and could pay for their own homes and sustenance.

And restaurant meals.

But I can afford my own home, and I have a job that supports me. The job even sends me out on trips and picks up the tab at a nice restaurant for me.

But my troglodyte neighbor hadn't seemed to move into the new feminist reality, a reality that says women belong to themselves. We now have made way for women to live with dignity, and not have to tolerate male rudeness and lewdness to make their way ahead.

Jackass millionaire man had said loudly to his buddies at the table: "Look at that! There is nothing more delightful than watching this young woman here butter her cracker and take a bite with absolute enjoyment."

Perhaps he didn't understand that the bite I took was for MY enjoyment, not his.

I had no need of him. He started out as amusing and moved to annoying.

Feminism had meant the whole world shifted. Women no longer find men necessary.

What does this mean? I remember my mother discussing the Equal Rights amendment when I was a teenager. It was up for vote in our state, whether we would ratify it or not.

She said one important argument against it was that it would give women the same wages as men and then women would no longer be interested in being good wives and mothers. THey would abandon their families.

I told her that the argument in favor of it was that it was fair and made sense.

"It's very complicated, " she replied.

As it happens, she may have been right. How has family fared since the advent of economic feminism? How are marriages and children doing?

We have a high divorce rate. Higher than the 60s. How are children? That's tough to say, but it is true that there are a lot of single parent households.

What does this mean? Should we go Taliban and turn back the clock? I don't think that two wrongs make a right, but we still have a problem here.

How do we keep a relationship intact when niether party needs the other? When they are equally able to survive without the other? It would seem that a lot more effort and desire to make it work is necessary.

That is a huge challenge to our moral character. What kind of determination and will can we bring to the table in a relationship? And also, no matter how much you try, there is always the factor of how much the other one is putting out.

Things are changing. According to Ronald B. Mincy, Columbia U professor of Social Work Policy, there are a couple areas to look at:

... There are three broad factors that are affecting marriage trends: the increasing independence of women and the deterioration in the economic status of men. Women are increasing in terms of their educational attainment. They're increasing in terms of their occupational status and their earnings.

Men, on the other hand, are reducing their college graduation rates. They're also reducing their earnings. The only men who've experienced increases in their earnings since the 1970s are basically men who have gone to graduate school. So you put together improving economic conditions for women, deteriorating economic conditions for men, and then the removal of this moral imperative for marriage, and I don't think that we should be surprised that marriage rates are falling. ...

So what is the imperative? One of my dearest friends said to me:
What about a public commitment of love to one another?

Hmm..In our cynical and self-reliant world, we want to bring up love?

Maybe all we need is love. Maybe that's the whole point. If we take away the "have to" side of it, and focus on the "want to" we are left with love.

I think that may be one of the greatest legacies of feminism. We have yet to realize it. But we have made some progress.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 10:20 AM | Permalink

This one is for Telissa, expecting Tres

What's your name?

You know that club of girls on the cartoon "Recess"? all of them are named "Ashley"?

That is so true! That happens all the time, when somehow a name gets mysteriously popular with EVERYONE for a year or so.

The government has a site about it. Alas, it only goes up to 1990, so those of us over the age of 13 will have to look elsewhere for our birth year.

My (nick) name Murphy does not hit the charts. My REAL name, Elizabeth, is WILDLY and enduringly popular.

No wonder I don't use it.

But something else struck me. The most popular girls names have less incidences (girls named that name) than the most popular boys names. So, there are vastly more, like more than 10 THOUSAND more boys named the most popular boys name of the year than there are girls named the most popular girls name of the year.

The girls names are also substantially weirder. Did any of us see "Madison" becoming the rage? Suddently, it was everywhere.

But for males, Christopher, Michael and Joshua are inescapable. John has dropped off the top ten in the last decade, thank god. But not the top 20.

Anyway, I find it intriguing that males have far more name conformity than females, and their names are far more conservative, less risky. They don't seem to get tricky or different names.

I wonder what implications this has. I wonder what it says about parents' expectations for the roles that their male children and their female children will fill as they grow older.

I thumbed through the top 50 boys names, being struck by how vastly status quo all the names were. That is until I saw 2002 bringing in a new contender:
Angel

at number 46 in popularity.

You think that Buffy had something to do with it?

Posted by Murphy Horner at 09:08 AM | Permalink

Can I get a witness

My new bus route is a little scarier than the old one. It starts out in a nice area (the area where I live..Imagine! me in a nice area!) but then heads off into the hinterlands of silverlake and echo park.

There are more interesting specimens of humanity on this route. Last week, there was a pungent gentleman with a huge growth on his thigh. I'm sorry, but it made me ill. I couldn't even look at him. The thing was, though, he was yakking up a storm with the driver. Hard to ignore.

Yesterday, on the way home, the bus was really full. People were getting on and off, and sometimes people had to stand. There was a beautiful older Asian woman holding onto the rail at one point. I thought, Maybe I should stand up and let her have my seat. But then I realized that the seat next to me was empty anyway. She could sit if she wanted to.

And then she did. She sat right next to me. And she turned to me, trying very hard with all the small bit of English she could muster, asking if I knew Jesus.

I stifled a spasm of laughter, and told her yes, I did.

"Are you go to Heaven when you die?"

"I hope so," I told her.

That was chink enough in my armor! She plunged in with her evangelical message. God Bless her, she was extremely earnest, if rather unintelligible.

Don't you love that evangelical certitude that they are hell-proof? 100% inspected, guaranteed brimstone- and hellfire-free, just sign on the dotted line. Extra credit and jewels in your celestial crown if you can shed a tear or two.

I remember beginning those witnessing classes when I was 14. Evangelism courses at the church on weekday nights, teaching us to be brave and uninhibited about butting in on people. They had pre-fab answers for ALL the possible excuses people gave for not asking Jesus into their hearts.

Each excuse had a folded tract explaining and dismissing it. Things like, "What about all the pygmies in Africa who haven't heard about Jesus? Are they going to hell?" Of course! and here's a tract about it.

Most of the questions in the set of tracts were ones I'd never thought of. I was a little worried about them, for a minute or two. But then I had much bigger things to be worried about-I actually had to approach strangers and wrangle them into saying the Jesus prayer.

Years later, I would run into these "Are you going to Heaven?" roadblocks. I thought I should give them a little thrill. Ever hear of a secret shopper? The random customer that goes to the stores and checks out the customer service? I was the secret sinner!

I'd give these evangelical wannabees a line they shouldn't be able to refuse, "So, if I wanted to become a Christian, what would I have to do?"

They would wig out. "Umm...Um...You should read this..!"

"Well, okay, but can't you just tell me?"

"You should come to our meetings, they could explain it a lot better."

Both these things went along with the same training I'd recieved: push out literature, and get them to come to church. But I was disappointed, why didn't they try to move in for the kill? It was humiliating to know that I was probably as inept a missionary as they were.

I had actually realized this at the time. In the middle of trying to evangelize my hometown, I figured out that this was not the way to do it. Mostly, my efforts were rebuffed, and the very few times I managed to "lead someone to the Lord," we would smile blissfully at one another for a moment afterwards and never see them again. "Hey it was nice to meet ya! See you in Heaven!"

It was so not fair! How did they get off so easy? I had to go to church and give up worldly things all the time. THEY just got off scot free. Happy on their merry way.

I had my doubts about that being all there was. Did it count, if you just said a prayer once, and then lived your life no different?

Besides, it seemed wrong to just walk up to strangers. Shouldn't we be friends with people? Show them love and be involved in their lives? Why should they listen to a total stranger? We lacked credibility, I thought.

The evangelism class instructors admitted that "friendship evangelism" was the most effective kind. But that put me in a bind-I wasn't allowed to know anybody that wasn't a Christian.

Back to the mall with my wallet of tracts. That is, until I gave up on the whole idea as flawed. Tracts weren't in the bible! Knocking on the doors of people's home and staying completely uninvolved with their lives was wrong.

That still didn't mean I was allowed to make friends with them. Because they would drag me down into their sinful ways. One bad apple makes all the rest rotten! Despite my protestations, I was defenseless before the evil lure of the world.

It's been a while since I've been witenessed to. I almost thought it had gone out of style. I asked the woman on the bus where she was from.

"Korea!" she said.

"Where do you go to church?" I asked.

"Presbyterian."

"Which presbyterian?"

It took a while for her to understand what I meant. She at last told me it was a presbyterian church on Wilshire.

After a moment more of her discussing the perils of sin and death, I tried to let her off the hook. I told her I'd known about Jesus for a long time, ever since I was a child.

"You go to church?"

"yes!" I said.

"Presbyterian or Baptist?"

I wonder why she picked those two denominations in particular? I told her Orthodox, which did not satisfy her. She gave me a japanime-looking cartoon tract which spelled out exactly what I needed to do to go to heaven. She had a selection of several languages.

I read it as she sat next to me silently. It was hard not to laugh out loud. The girl and the boy and the talking dog were pretty funny. The dog really was rooting for the boy to go to hell. And the girl wouldn't get "involved" with the boy until he got saved.

I finished it before she got off, and I was thinking I should maybe hand it back to her. But I thought she might be offended.

She handed the bus driver another one as she got off.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 10:06 PM | Permalink

Oedipus's eyes

I like Dr. Phil. He's not as judgemental as Dr. Laura, but they both have this get-it-done attitude. They both say, Why you do what you do may be interesting and important, but How to do what you wish you would do is way more important. So if you can skip the 'why' and go straight to the 'how', you should.

I remember Dr. Phil was giving this one woman advice, I forget about what, but he handed her what I assume to be a well-worn platitude:
You did the best that you knew how to do. When you know better, you do better. Now you know better.

I think he was right. I think the woman was trying to do the right thing.

But at the same time...
"best" is a squishy word. How do you know if you've done your best?

Doing your best...That would be when you stop and carefully think about something, judiciously decide on the correct course of action, and then put forth strong and consistent effort to take that course of action.

Boy, that sure would be doing your best. Gosh, i wish I did that every time I had a goal to accomplish.

But what if you did that--did your best--and you were wrong?

There are all kinds of ways that can happen.

Like, what if you did your best to keep your car in good shape. You noticed that the brakes were soft, you took it in to be checked. The mechanics looked at it, and said it was fixed. What if you drove that car, the brakes failed, and a child died in a car accident?

You did your best!
And the child remains dead.

What if
You choose to become involved in a relationship with someone, and because of what you know of that person, fall in love and get married. You tie your life and your future to that person.
What if that person had lied to you about who they were and misrepresented thier life?
You would remain tied to them.

What about this?
What if you looked at the world around you, saw suffering, injustice and poverty and decided you had to step in and help. What if you thought long and hard, and discussed with your friends, the wisest ones you could find, and read and studied books to find a solution. What if you came upon a plan to stop that suffering injustice and poverty, and you worked hard to put into place that plan. What if you were able to do it?

And then...
What if you were completely wrong? What if your cherished, well-thought-out plan did not end poverty, suffering and injustice? What if, instead, it brought on an inhumane system that was far worse than the previous situation? What if those same wise friends you talked with were persecuted, tortured, and killed? What if discussion were outlawed, and poverty increased?

And your plan, the one you worked hard for, had been the cause of this tragedy.

This is what the character in The Unbearable Lightness of Being contemplates. He is caught in the middle of the communist revolution in Czechoslovakia, as an intellectual, and he sees what was done in the name of communism.

He is shredded by what has happened in his country; and he remembers the story of Oedipus.

I hated the story of Oedipus when I first read it. He killed his father and married his mother. In a nutshell.

But the gripping drama is not in a nutshell. It doesn't tell the story.

The story tells that Oedipus did everything he knew how to do. He really did his best. He didn't want to kill his father; he ran away so that he wouldn't.

but he did kill his father.

And do you remember his response? His wife and mother hung herself. Jocaste figured it out a split second before he did.

Oedipus put his eyes out.

And when I was a teenager, I was so upset by this! What else could he have done? He did the best he could! There was no way out for him, he tried his best.

But the consequences of his actions remained.

And what about the communist activists in Czechoslovakia? They were, perhaps, doing the best they could.

But the consequences remain.

Here is my story:
A married couple, tired of the middle class stifling morality and hypocrisy of suburbia go looking for sincerity and being REAL. They try the usual 60s things, talking, reading and thinking about new ideas. This path eventually takes them to becoming involved in community. They want to help build community in a church. They really join in.
They stop being around their old friends, and some family members. Those folks drink, and the church members don't do that.
The woman gives up her feminist magazines. Church women aren't feminists.
They dive in, work for the church even.
Then, the pastor of that church wants to move on. "God is calling me to leave the pastorate"
So a new pastor comes in. He's dicey, because he is hyper-opinionated and has been insensitive to other people's needs in previous situations.
But the couple wants to preserve the community. They think, we should be a loving and accepting community. Let's work with this new pastor; we want our community to be healthy and intact.
And so they tolerate some things; it's a transition period.
This dicey pastor moves in. He demands respect for his God-given opinion. And they aquiesce.

as time goes by, more and more toleration occurs. This man twists words, and pietizes all his actions. As time goes by, they learn to consult him in any major and many minor decisions, since he claims to have the special ordainment of God.

Their youngest child looks at them and says "Who are you? What do you really think? What is YOUR opinion?"
And her father says: "I sincerely believe what the pastor tells me."

As time goes by, the pastor is not satisfied with his control. He decides to flex futher power. The youngest son, upon reaching adulthood, is instructed to shun his oldest brother. "Your brother is the enemy of Christ" the man says.
and the son says: "my heart is black with sin. I cannot trust my own judgement. I must always consult the pastor before I make a decision."

The family is sick and wounded. The community is betrayed and sincerity is a word without meaning.

But the couple did the best they could.

Thomas, in Unbearable Lightness, was angry with the communist revolutionaries. He wanted them to understand that they had done something wrong.

Like Oedipus.

They were busy crying "We are innocent! In our hearts, we know we did the best we could!"

And what about the consequences? The consequences, the pain caused by their innocent best--what about them?

What about that poor dead child from the bad brake job?
What about that spouse, lied to?
What about the family, the church, the children that were part of the community?

Actions have consequences.

Bad things can come from good motives.

The greeks knew that. LONG ago. We know that still, even though it makes us profoundly uncomfortable.

"The Human Condition"

I heard a guy tell me once, and who knows? He was always spouting crap...
But he said he had done a study of lots of religions, and the difference between Christianity and the rest of them was that Christianity offered forgiveness.

Forgiveness.

Jesus said it: "All have sinned and come short of the glory of God."

Like I said before, I don't always do my best.

But sometimes, even when I do, even when everybody does their best, the consequences accuse.

THomas said, "You are responsible, you czech revolutionaries! This did not come out of nowhere! What intentions you had, good, bad, rose-colored from the past, these heinous consequences remain."

What shall they, what shall we, what shall _I_ do with these consequences?

Oedipus put his eyes out.

I believe that Oedipus was a better human being than I am.

But what shall we do?

That is what haunts me, that is what made me pace up and down when I read The Unbearable Lightness of Being.

Tomas did not want the communists to put their eyes out. He wanted acknowledgement.

Because how do you move on, unless you acknowledge where you are?

I could stand and accuse. I could point my finger. The dicey pastor taught me that.

Or maybe I learned it before.

Or maybe I was born with it.

Or maybe it doesn't make a damn bit of difference when I learned it. Maybe it is important to move on.

To open the hand, and give a hand out to others to move on.

Like Dr. Phil, who says it doesn't matter why, only how to get to where you need to go.

I don't think that covering up pain has to be part of the forgiveness.

Shame, judgement, accusations--guilt or innocence--these are not relevant.

We all have tried and we have all had the best of intentions. And we have all had not so good intentions at times.

That just doesn't matter.

What if we could make forgiveness so much a part of life, that it is a given, just the way that we get by?

Just help each other move on, keep going and keep trying to do better.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 12:30 PM | Permalink

random navel gazing

Maybe I should read books twice. Maybe that would be the thing...Take notes and stuff. Nafisi, the professor in Reading Lolita in Tehran rad books again and again, making notes.

She's a professor. One of those people who get to tell others instead of being told.

Well, maybe she has the right idea.

The thing about books is that they have a beginning a middle and an end. They are contained. They are a system, a closed system.

And a closed system is one that can be experimented on. You know what's there, you can work within the system, and it remains.

Once, a long time ago, I closed a book because I was working too much within a system. I had been a very very very religious [in the meaning of unfalteringly regular, as well as the other meaning] Bible reader.

And I had done this for years. For several reasons, all of which someone or other will fault me, I stopped.

The reason I told myself at the time, and I still believe that it is the main reason, is that if the Bible is true, and I choose to believe that it is, it is a system that is fully integrated with the universe.

And if it is fully integrated with the universe, any understanding I have about ANYTHING [because anything and everything is part of the universe] will enhance my ability to understand and interpret the Bible.

I could feel in my bones, like a draft of wind or a change in air pressure, that I was not interpreting the Bible right.

And I knew without a doubt that I knew less than nothing about the world around me. I was 21. I consider this precocious of me.

So I thought, I need to work on the one part and get back to the other. Because I had a feeling that I was propping up a failing system.

And since I believe that the failing system could not be the Bible's system, the system that was failing was my understanding/intrpretation of it.

So I needed to work on my understanding.

NOW, this is only an anecdote to illustrate my point about books. The Bible is a book, after all.

so, do I need to dig deeper into the books? OR back off the books?

This begs a question. What purpose are the books?

If the books are part of my lifelong quest for enlightenment, then they are important. That takes me back to the conclusion that I need to maximize my reading and the quantity/quality conundrum I mentioned before [previous post].

If the books are just for my amusement, though, then all this is nonsense. I should just read the books in whatever way I like.

If, however, the books are purely for my amusement, I am become a hedonistic pleasure-monster.

Which doesn't make sense, because I seem to only enjoy books that challenge me.

And this leads to ontological and epistomological tail chasing.

It's a moot point. We don't know.

Which could lead back to that book I put aside when I was 21.

Some people do this. They choose a religion, accept it as a closed system, and devote their lives to it. Inside a hermitage or not.

"This" they say "is the source of the answers. I will bend myself to the answers this system provides."

This seems like a good idea. It has the appearance of truth. Perhaps in many many cases it is the truth.

Except it is dangerous. I believe, as I did when I was 21 and even earlier, that true religion cannot be a closed system.

Because, who would be closing it? WHo would say, 'We understand everything now, no more!'

It would have to be people. People who came to the conclusion that they understood everything.

That would be impossible. It's not that I believe everything cannot be understood, I just cannot concieve of a human mind being able to do it.

Therefore, closing the system will result in it's falsehood.

I love truth too much to do that. I will risk a lie, risk being wrong, in an open system. I feel like there is a chance in the open system. But the closed system is a lie from the beginning.

All this, because I am thinking about my reading habits.

I think too much.

Scratch me, and I bleed philosophy. I never stop.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 10:00 PM | Permalink

Spring

It is warm, and the breeze blows fresh sunshine-smells over my face. I dance across the campus pathway, my first college spring at home in Northest America. I hum a spontaneous melody, so full of newness and joy:
Do you ever feel like singing
Right out loud to the sky above?
Is it the same spring? I am feeling that joy in spring.

It is spring, and the seeds of the past are coming back. Those wishes, fears and hopes that fall from me in actions, thoughts, and sacrifices do not cease to be with my forgetting. With seasons come change. I change every year and every day.

The detritus of a squished population surrounds me. There are scraps of clothing, boards and machinery. Buildings need a coat of paint; the melting snow runs tracks through the grime of the old and peeling surface. Water pools in ruts on the ground, forming long ponds across the passageways. No municipal services are left in Yakutia after the death of communism. Pedestrians, and we are all pedestrians, lay long, thin boards over the seasonal moats. We become brave balancing acrobats to get to school and work. It is up to us to find a way through. Look, what is that flattened thing? The freeze-dried carcass of a cat, fatal participant in the sub-arctic changes of season.
Is it that spring? The warning to build my own path is the same.

But the seasons remain the same. I sing the song I began at the beginning. Its refrain returns in the spring of my step and drops with my footfalls. Beginning and end, life and death—spring brings to life and feeds on death.

In a beautiful mansion donated by a man passed on, different people take turns to stand on their feet and read. Such a collection of interesting noses! They read in their own languages of an empty tomb. It is past midnight, the first time I have heard this kind of service. Christos voskres! Christos Anesti! El Messieh kahm! Christ is risen! He has conquered death by death! Joyful faces tell of a stone rolled away and new life brought from dying. The priest, the leader of the church welcomes me to the pre-dawn table. We eat, and he tells me of his faith, drinking wine. I have never seen a pastor drunk before.
Is it the spring once more? The story is the same.

The melted snow water is being soaked into the wakened tree-roots that make up the Alaskan forest of my memory. Barren branches have waited all winter for the sun-sweet nectar to reach them. Hard buds swell and surge into sticky chartreuse baby-wrinkled leaves. They grow a shocking green, almost painful to the eye when the slanted Northern sun shines right through them. After months of landscape in black and white, eyes must grow accustomed. If I forget to look for just one day, I would think it was an explosion. I do not forget to look. I know it happens quickly, but it is still a progression.
Is it spring again? I feel the expectation.

My will-volition swells with the season. I strain against the hull of old boundaries. Tight-packed growth against well-known walls. I am quivering for my freedom.

Quivering with fear. New life means new death. Chances and risks taken are the straightest path to disappointment. Is not my life now entwined, rooted and fed in the sweat, sorrow and tears of all that came before?

Put another ring around this tree. Either die now or die later. It is spring again, every spring that ever was or will be. I am here to take my place in the season. I am the Resurrection and the Life.

Version 3.2 Copyright © 2001-2005 Six Apart. All Rights Reserved.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 09:15 AM | Permalink

this one's for me

As a kid, nothing seemed out of my reach.

There weren't any challenges.
Well, there was one. I wanted to be able to run 5 miles. My legs didn't carry me that far. But I wished they did.

Everything else was not a matter of "Am I able?" but a matter of "Am I allowed?"

So little was allowed. Music was suspect, Movies were suspect. Books were kind of suspect. Education, friends, people I might meet, life goals, all these things were suspect.

They might get in the way of "God's will for my life."

God didn't want me to learn at a secular school. God didn't want me to watch movies that Jesus wouldn't watch. God's will was not for me to saturate myself with "worldly" music or expose myself to the influence of non-christian friends.

Eating, talking on the phone, what clothes i wore and where I visited were all to be weighed in the scale of "What would be the Christian thing to do?"

The christian thing to do seemed to be to always be telling my non-christian friends to become christian.

But, as it happened, I wasn't supposed to have non-christian friends.

This situation left me with a lot of time on my hands.

I read a lot. I had no guidance, really, so I just galloped after whatever caught my interest. Lots of austen, dickens. The entire shelf labeled "Young Adult" at the library. I discovered I liked those best.

But I had no one to talk to about what I read.

There was no challenge, really.

When I moved to Russia, I knew nothing. NO one expected me to know anything. I learned Russian when I was there, but that was the extent of the challenge.

THe trip was an exercise in gathering impressions.

It wasn't until I moved back to the states, and got married that I started to really try to challenge myself.

I finally ran 5 miles. It wasn't that hard. I just kept at it.

Then we moved to California. The bay area.

HERE, at last, the bar was raised.

People knew things. There was a challenge in the air. People my age had jobs, and careers. they had interests and specialties. Intellectual pursuits.

whoa. What the heck is this? I felt incredibly inadequate. My little bits of stuff, my little interests and areas of knowledge were pathetic!

it took me quite a while to rise to the challenge. I felt so frustrated, because I knew that i was capable, I just hadn't actually DONE any of these things yet.

My self-evaluation left me really lacking. I had to compensate.

I started to. I got some stuff happening. I wasn't at the top, but I got in the game. I got some self-respect, I got going.

By the time I left, I felt pretty good about myself. I felt like I was making progress. I had something to show.

Now i live in LA.
I feel back at the bottom. Whoa. There is so much going on here. I have so much I want to be doing, want to have DONE already. There is a rushing torrent of creativity going through this town, I want to be swimming in the middle of it.

I am not there yet. The bar just took a big jump.

I want to be part of it. But I don't want to lose myself, either.

I have to take it slow, but I have some serious ground to cover.

I guess I just have to keep at it. A little every day.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 04:16 PM | Permalink

This morning was the season of my discontent

This morning I was cranky.

And for no good reason.

It was the kind of mood where I would think, "I wish I were listening to my favorite CD right now."

Then I would realize that I already was.

Sometimes I drive myself crazy.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 04:04 PM | Permalink

I have a job, and I am pleased that I have a job.

But there are times in any job that are less than pleasant. Times when you are faced on all sides with a Catch 22.

So today, I had a lot of those.

But the thing that took the cake...My Own Personal Point of Pride...Yesterday, a local deity asked me to write some instructions.

I lay aside the fact that to create these instructions is to create and distribute a sharp pointy stick than is meant for poking me.

It had to be done, and I understood why. A global deity needed appeasement, and it took this sharp pointy stick distribution plan.

Fine.

BUT! When I carefully WROTE the instructions, the local deity carefully took the beautiful succinct clear phrases and instructions and made them longer, more confusing and ugly...hoh..

it is one thing to write something badly, and never get around to finishing making the writing better.

I do that practically every day on this blog.

but to take pretty, crafted words and MAKE THEM WORSE ON PURPOSE!

it wounds me.

It wounds me more that I must send them out as if they were my own. It's like wearing a sign that says "i'm stoopid"

SIGH

Posted by Murphy Horner at 04:01 PM | Permalink

HIGH-PUR-BUH-LEE

Hyperbole:
"A figure of speech in which exaggeration is used for emphasis or effect, as in I could sleep for a year or This book weighs a ton.
"

I finally figured out what's wrong with L.A.

I've been here six months, and I've been having a little trouble making friends. I have gone out and systematically met with people. I take advantage of the opportunities that are out there.

But somehow, it's been falling flat. A lot of people don't really want to get together again, and I'm not that disappointed.

I haven't really met anyone that I made a connection with.

I went swing dancing a few weeks ago for the first time at a place called the Derby. I was worried about going alone, I thought people wouldn't be friendly.

I couldn't have been more wrong! Lots of people were there, lots of nice men asked me to dance. Some people even sat and talked with me.

But I came away feeling a little flat. At the time I was thinking, "L.A. boys are too nice."

Boy that is not something I would imagine myself thinking. I'm not the "bad boy" type. I really enjoy respectful, intelligent well-dressed men.

Something was wrong.

My brother Chris came to visit me yesterday. He just got back from a world tour of Orthodox monasteries.

I was really worried that our conversation would be really heavy.

I did not want to spend the evening being very serious.

So I made a point of poking fun. There is a hell of a lot that is funny about monasteries, once you stop and look at it.

And my brother has a great sense of humor! There were times when I had him cracking up. And he made me laugh, too.

I woke up this morning, and I figured it out.

NO ONE IN L.A. HAS A SENSE OF HUMOR.

That's the "too nice" I've been running up against.

I love to laugh and make fun of things. The aforementioned "Hyperbole" is one of my favorites...To exaggerate something to show how ridiculous it is..I toss those little hyperboles off all the time.

And I've been met with blank stares and nods.

"No! It's funny! I didn't mean it literally!"

You can't explain a joke. Everyone knows that. I couldn't defend myself.

Things that are bust-my-gut funny are taken totally seriously by everyone I've met.

It's starting to make me feel like a crazy person. Stupid little jokes at work, like "Boy, this coffee is so strong I think it just walked out the room and asked the boss for a promotion" don't even illicit a groan or an eye-roll.

When you say outrageous things, and laugh uproariously ALONE, you look imbalanced.

But I suppose it's not a surprise. Being funny is a career in Los Angeles.

Anyone that can crack a half-funny joke is locked in some dungeon somewhere churning out one-liners for That 70s Show or The Simpsons

All we are left with here in the main populace are incredibly earnest and serious peace activists, vegan animal rights people, weight lifters, motivational coaches, yoga instructors and failed actors.

Anyone that wants to laugh has to watch reruns.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 03:59 PM | Permalink

Humans are social animals -pt 1

Humans are social animals, so they say.

I am a very social animal, I think. I like having lots of people around me. That's one of the things I like about California. There are simply more people to be around.

Being a teenager is a time when you are especially concerned with the social aspects of life. Boy, I sure was. I was like a throbbing antenna, aware of every shift in social winds.

When I was forced against my will to be homeschooled, I knew my social status would plummet and never recover. My parents, excited about how great teaching me at home would be, didn't believe me. "You'll be fine!" Mom said.

Thus began my four years of jockeying for a position in the tight cliquey circle of teenagers from the small private school I had left. Any position. I had to make sure not to lag too far behind when the group was lining up to file into rows of chairs at events or in church. I felt humliation and self-loathing as I pushed my way forward in the line so that I did not get stuck on the end of the row. You could not hear anything or be included when you were on the end.

Teenagers can smell self-loathing like wolves smell fear. My insecure position did not go unnoticed.

Since my days were long and empty, the catty comments and cold-shouldering doled out by my "friends" were constantly on my mind. Which were intentional? What did they really think of me? How could I win back favor and be respected?

Once, after a few years of this wore on, an occasion arose. We were going in to a church event. I say "we"; in reality, my group of friends were already lined up with a few new people to make things lively. For some reason, I had been left behind the group. I stood at the door of the auditorium and looked at the girls lined up in the pew. They were already sitting down. I was filled with shame at the thought of squeezing in, unwanted, to be tagged on at the end. I would inevitably spend the time looking at the back of some more fashionable shirt as its wearer turned away from me to talk with the rest of group.

I hated feeling this way. I wanted nothing more than to be included. But experience had taught me that I could only expect humiliation.

Suddenly, I was mad! Those girls had no right to treat me this way. I might not be able to be included in the conversation, but as least I could be excluded with dignity:

I COULD SIT ALONE.

The idea was as revolutionary as the apple falling on Newton's head. Fear and excitement shot through me--my heart was pounding. Did I really dare to be alone? If I sat alone, would the girls then be so relieved to be rid of me that they would forever more exclude me?

But the idea gave me so much more self-respect. I did not have to walk in and take the blows to my feelings. NO! I could be alone.

I marched down the aisle, past the group and sat alone near the front. I felt my back prickle, sure that they were all staring at me. I stayed for the service. I watched everything, finally able to notice what was going on. Once the absorbing distraction of my friends was gone, I realized that a lot of other things were happening.

I felt somewhat exposed, as if I were naked. Like a hermit crab rushing from one discarded shell to a new larger home. At the end of the service, I felt renewed. I learned that there was the option of being alone.

Humans are social animals -pt 2

In November 2000, I had a chance to visit Manhattan. It was for work, and no one else wanted to go. I was thrilled at the chance to spend what amounted to a week in New York City, on the company tab. They put me up in a Madison Avenue hotel, right below Rockefeller Square. While I was there, all the Christmas decorations were put up. The streets were bustling and beautiful.

But I was alone.

I got off the airplane in JFK and made it to the taxi line alone. Me and the cab driver talked as we drove to the hotel, and I checked in alone. My beautiful hotel room was filled with only me.

I found dinner alone, and I walked to the office building where I would be working. The dark streets were lit and the tall mirrored building waited for me.

It's easy to work fast when you work alone. After I did my day's work, I went alone through the subways and stopped to hear the street musicians play. I could stay and listen as long as I wanted.

I went alone to the empire state building and looked out at all those millions of light across the sky.

I went to the U.N. just to see. I went to Central park, and bought a knish, and later a hot dog.

I loved Manhattan. The kinetic thought-energy was electrifying. It helped that I knew my time was limited, and I had so much I wanted to see.

But it was very strange to be so alone in this huge mass of people. I wanted to strike up conversations with strangers, just to hear the sounds of my own voice, and to know that I was still there.

People were streaming all around me; passing on sidewalks, sitting on the subway--people seemed to be piled up on one another like iguanas in a pet shop. I breathed the air that millions exhaled, and walked through the space their forms had blocked milliseconds before.

New York is a big city.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 08:49 AM | Permalink

REFLECTIONS OF MYSELF

Looking for something else, I stumbled upon a notebook musing from a few years ago:

I like best to see my face reflected in a window at night. The outline is clear, but the details are less distinct. It's such an accomplished [self-contained] pleasure, admiring my own reflection.

I once asked a man, at the beginning of a new romance, when we were first shyly revealing the traits we found marvelous and fascinating in each other, "Don't you think I see you differently than you see yourself?"

He considered and replied, "It's only natural. I know myself better than you do."

It was so easy for me to admire and cherish him. But he to himself and me to myself--it's not as easy. We know the blemishes.

When I look into a mirror--a clear flat, distinct and well-lit reflection--my eyes seek our all the imperfections. I put my face right close and examine all the planes and crevices. I wonder what I'm looking for? Don't I know my face already? I don't linger over the good features, but I move straight to mottles in my skin, or to my crooked teeth. Are my eyebrows incorrect? And which standard should I choose?

I want to believe I am beautiful. I want it so very badly. Because if I am beautiful, I will be loved. And if I am loved, then I will live in the sunshine and nothing can be wrong.

I don't undersatnd this trap, a slippery slop to never-fulfillment. What if I am loved, but am not beautiful? What if it rains on me and the ones who love me? It must be a flaw in me. When hard times come, it must be because I am not loved enough. But who could love me enough? I am not beautiful enough for that kind of love.

When I see myself in the night-window reflection, I am less distinct. I don't have to see the confusing minutia of my appearance. I can be pleased with the outline. I can love myself, forgive the imperfections. I can have what I so crave and not be indebted to someone else.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 08:34 AM | Permalink

EVIL AMBITION

It's monday, and I stayed up late last night catching up on all my house chores.

So I am very groggy this morning.

I am considering whether or not ambition is evil.

One of the reasons I am thinking aobut this is because an old friend of mine recently started working at an Indian Casino.
Times are hard; he is a uber computer geek, but he can't find work. So he got what he could.
He said, "it's amazing to think about. I don't want to be here any longer than I have to, but many of the workers here are completely pleased to have the job, and say things about how stable it is, and how great it is."

It occurred to me that Indian culture is not expansionist. They are not like McDonald's and Starbucks, they don't necessisarily feel the need for more more bigger bigger all the time.
You might call that lack of ambition.
Or you might call it enjoying what life has to offer.
Food, clothing, the ability to appreciate your family and friends-that's really something.

What does ambition get you?
More money, less time to spend it.
Maybe not even more money. Depends on your ambition. I've known enough start-ups to know it doesn't always bring more money.

The angel of light (aka Lucifer) had ambition. Didn't do him much good.

Don't get me wrong. My ambition to do more and learn more has served me well, it's brought me a lot of good things.

But when is enough enough?
How much do I need? When should I stop?

In the Garden of Eden, what use was ambition? Maybe Adam and Eve spend a hard day working on the hedges...So that they could appreciate them the next day? That means they took the next day off.

It is easy on a monday to think that having to get up and work all day is evil.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 08:29 AM | Permalink

MIDDLES (excerpt)

I wonder why we like to be safely sad about love songs? the Beatles' "Yesterday" is supposed to be wildly popular. I played it for the diners, and I thought again about how sad it is.

Perhaps we believe we are more noble if our hearts are broken.

If your heart is broken, it is easier. You know the end of the story. But if you HAVE love, and are happy, it's much more complicated. You have to keep the love. You have to work on it, and deal with problems or doubt.

Or worse. You have to decide when the love is done, but done in a not-beautiful way.

ending, or beginnings, are so satisfying. But middles...They are not so popular.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 08:22 AM | Permalink

creativity

I’ve blogged before about creativity; I consider creative thought and expression to be of high value and usefulness. It is something I want to foster with my life and habits, and to encourage those I know to pursue their own creative endeavors.

I’ve described creativity very loosely, as any type of artistic expression. Drawing, Music, writing, sewing, dance—all these are easily identifiable as creative expression.

But as I thought about it, I realize that those ART categories are not the only way people are creative. I have known a lot of folks who considered their computer programs as a creative expression, and I can agree with them. Computer science, Mathematics, chemistry, and other sciences can be a framework to express creative minds.

In fact, many of these sciences rely on the creativity of their practitioners to directly improve the products and services used every day.

So, maybe creativity is not what I really mean.

If I use a pattern from Butterick, and create a poodle skirt for a Halloween costume, that is being creative. But I didn’t really create anything new.

And if I play a popular song on my piano, I haven’t really created anything new.

Not really. A little bit, I guess. Because I took an old favorite and made it my own. But I didn’t add much.

But if I sat at my piano and wrote a whole new song, that would be quite creative. That would be original.

I think that originality is the highest pursuit of creativity.

It is SO exciting to come upon an original idea. I know that one of the things I love so much about going to school was encountering new ideas. Even when they are not original, they are new to ME.

I never learned to play it cool in the classroom..I am the girl sitting in the front row that raises her hand and makes the point the teacher was just about to make before he can make it.

The teacher is droning …”And so, this leads to the 2nd law of thermodynamics, which says…”

Me: “You mean everything in the universe is tending towards entropy?”

Pause

Teacher: “Why yes, thank you…”

Sometimes, I would connect the dots long before the teacher got to them. I would have figured out what he was about to teach, maybe a week in advance. I would be all excited, thinking I had understood something in a new way that no one had ever seen before.

But then we would get to that part of the chapter, and I would discover that my incredible new theory about the universe was already fully articulated by the ancient Greeks.

It sort of let the air out of the balloon. I was thinking I was brilliant and original, possibly a hidden genius for my great idea! But everyone else in the world already knew it.

What can you do?

I would often go to talk to my teachers about some idea I had, and they would always say, “Have you read this particular book? The author talks about that theory you are discussing.”

It makes me wonder if I have any original ideas at all. Apparently, all the licenses on original thought are sold.

But it also doesn’t take very much originality to go very very far. If one person comes up with a new idea, a TON of people are right there to copy it in a million different ways.

I mean, look at fashion. The fashions always seem to be regurgitations of the previous fashions from a respectful distance in the past.

Some major designer comes out with his or her expensivoso designs, based on older designs by some previous expensivoso. Then those are instantly snapped up by all the knock-off designers who make clothes for Target and Wal-Mart and K-Mart and all the other places.

There maybe have been, like, 5 grams of creativity in the entire fall clothing lines of the entire United States of America. Do you see what I mean? A little creativity goes a long way.

Also, creativity doesn’t usually happen in large amounts. I don’t know why, maybe it just doesn’t work like that. But most original ideas are simply a rearrangement of ideas already lying around.

The printing press, that boost-us-out-of-the-dark-ages device, was really thrown together out of ideas that had been used for the whole darn dark ages anyway.

But it did open people’s minds. Rearranging what has been there all along, and juxtapositioning things that had never been together before is enlightening.

Kind of like the fashion of the 70’s, which we seem to be reliving…free your mind:
Red and Pink CAN go together!
NOW ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE!

Baby steps, my friends…Our minds open slowly.

Very slowly. We don’t move even incrementally towards new ideas. I think it’s more like fractions of increments towards new ideas.

Some though, have minds set to be open. The really creative ones, they have their minds ajar, as it were.

That’s how I would like to be. Always open to new ideas.

At the same time, there is the fear, a real fear…At what point does the mind’s door become unhinged?

It’s well known that genius is close kin to madness.

Daily life rewards routine and patterns. Step outside of the pattern, and people will be bothered by the asymmetry.

But maybe some, maybe just enough, would be delighted.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 07:55 PM | Permalink

Once, while on a visit to a zoo, I saw a jaguar. This shiny black animal was pacing back and forth in front of his cage, eyes intent on the direction he was headed, muscles rippling with the potential of all the things muscles can do.

I could not stop watching this pent up animal. He was caged, yes, but he also seemed pent inside himself. I wanted to catch his eye to see what he was feeling. Of course, he never looked at me. He was single-minded in his purposeful prowl.

I could not help remembering that magnificent beast when I saw Alanis Morrisette explode onto the stage at the Greek Theatre last Saturday. Her skin-tight black leather pants helped the illusion, but she had the same barely contained pacing that the jaguar had. She loped across the stage in strides that were far longer than most people would take. She stretched her legs, and her voice and her heart out as far as she could.

Her songs have always hit me like a Mack truck. When she sings about love and faith and pain she takes the lid off the things I’ve “kept bubbling under,” and makes me feel the need to move, to act, or to speak.

Her songs, no matter which one, express her spirit. She is not comfortable, she is not complacent. When I saw her relentless pacing onstage, I was not surprised. I feel like pacing too, when I hear her songs.

I am grateful to her, because she grapples with ideas and issues that many people grapple with. Most people, however, give up in exhaustion, willing to believe that answers or even questions are beyond their capacity. Alanis does not give up on them. After seeing her perform in person, I can see that she cannot. The person she is finds it physically impossible to back off.

She engages her experiences and her questions as if in battle. She finds a way to express them, and behind every single song is a harmonic drone, like a bagpipe, of “Why?” She dares to take it on.

And I, along with many others, am very much the richer for it. She’s given a voice to many of us, because she was able to express herself, She did not hold back and say, “that’s too personal, I’d better just be quiet about that.” It’s in the personal, in the subjective, that the universal human experience can be understood.

I appreciate her bravery, and I am so glad I saw her in concert. I really need to buy her latest album.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 11:07 PM | Permalink

SOFT MONEY AND SOFT LIES

All of these horrible occurances with the executives and accounting firms at Enron and WorldCom and Xerox, and I forget who else, have been on the news.

Some people say, We need better government protection!

Well, that a good idea to have. But the problem was not that what these folks did was legal. It was clearly illegal. So we already have government protection. There are all kinds of laws on the books about not lying and not stealing.

But it someone decides to lie and steal, they choose to ignore those laws.

I am concerned about the moral fiber of the people in charge of large corporations.

Isn't it funny that we are so concerned with their dishonesty?

I guess it makes sense, because we have moved away from the system of pensions for retirement to a system of personal investments. 401Ks and investment portfolios are supposed to take the burden of responsibility off the companies and put it on the backs of individual workers.

Well, when that happened, there was a a tremendous explosion of money in the stock market. That's what you DO when you invest, right? That's what all the experts tell you to do anyway.

Well, now that a lot of money is in the hands of a lot of people with very little knowledge, it is easy for the execs to fudge the books. Who's gonna know, right? And they are just trying to build up the stock...

I happened to be reading the Communist manifesto today. Just as a refresher, Marx and Engels defined the Bourgeoisie as those who employ the laborers. Sounds like Enron, WorldCom, etc.

So here are some of his earlier statements:

The bourgeoisie, wherever it has got the upper hand, has...left remaining no other nexus between man and man than naked self-interest, than callous 'cash payment'...It has resolved personal worth into exchange value and in indefeasible chartered freedoms, has set up that single, unconscionable freedom--free trade. In one word...it has substituted naked, shameless, direct, brutal exploitation.

It has converted the physician, the lawyer, the priest, the poet, the man of science, into its paid laborers.

I just had to look it up...indefeasible means "cannot be undone."

Well, I find this remarkably current. Aren't we all complaining about the way the medical system is becoming more commercialized and less concerned with healing sick people? I remember something that that Chris Rock said:

They ain't never gonna find a cure for AIDS! There's no money in a cure. They'll give you a treatment. That's how drug dealers work, they get you on the come back.

Hmm...Yeah.

Well, when Enron, WorldCom and ESPECIALLY arthur anderson took a look at their balance sheets and their desires for profit, all the people who were affected by their deceitful schemes were merely numbers on a page. I suspect that the numbers on the page were more real to them than any person.

Nothing left between man and man than cash payment.

Personal worth reduced to exchange value.

I don't know that much about communism. I decided to read the Communist Manifesto, because I realized that the history of the 20th century has been incredibly affected by communism and I am woefully ignorant about it.

It's not very long, and I haven't gotten very far into it. I may have more to say about it later.

But..My initial response to this is that we ought to give more value to non-tangible commodities. "Soft Money" as they sometimes call it.

I had the same problem when I was working in video conferencing. How do you measure the return on investment for quick communication? Everyone looked at how much it cost to upgrade communications equipment, but few people would believe that if you made it easier to talk and have meetings, that the company would be more efficient and more profitable.

It seems simple.

It also seems simple that relationships between people are of value. That honesty and diligence and dedication result in greater profitability seems basic.

I wonder if Arthur Anderson had an algorithm to track the value of the company's honesty assets?

Posted by Murphy Horner at 10:59 PM | Permalink

That's how I feel today: cheerful.

Could this possibly have to do with the fact that I bought a They Might Be Giants best-of CD at Amoeba? Not ruling it out.

It feels marvelous to feel cheerful. It's been a while.

I'm so glad to be at home, and have Chris at home with me too. I'm also not traveling for work right this second, so that feels good.

good is good.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 10:54 AM | Permalink

the steamroller

Today, i was thinking about how much I don't like not having work. This is hardly new. I have a long-standing fear of the bottom dropping out. That I will be completely destitute. It has not happened yet. I've never been truly hungry or homeless. But I have been very close. I used to think of it as a steamroller coming up on to me, threatening to outdistance me and flatten me.

I do not cherish helplessness. I like being able to do for myself. And a steamroller coming up and flattening me would have the effect of NOT allowing me to take care of myself.

I had quite elaborate images in my head about the nature of the steamroller, and exactly how it would come up and come closer. I felt like I had to have a certain distance between me and disaster, a buffer. I knew that if I didn't have a sufficient head start on the flattener that the smallest stumble would mean the end.

I was young and newly married. With the deadly serious naivete of youth, I felt that a single mistake would be the ruin of my entire future. Besides, i had no resources but my own. My family was not in the country. All of my friends had literally and arbitrarily shown me the door. And while I had an overweening sense of the guillotine-like permanence of any error, my husband seemed to think his life was carved every day anew on an etch-a-sketch: "I care not for the morrow!" Nor did he care for ephemeral things such as paychecks and rent.

So the steamroller was ever-present in my mind.

It occurs to me now to wonder why it was a steamroller.

Now, I think of it as a wolf. The wolf nipping at my heels.

This idea became very realized today. I was thinking about that wolf, I was staring him down in my mind. I thought, well, wolf. I don't have a job, and you are waiting with bared fangs for the moment you can overpower me. But I have fangs of my own now.

And it is true. This time, I have weapons to fight back against destitution and abandonment. I have cunning and a quiver full of skills that I did not have when I was 22, and it was a steamroller I was dealing with. A wolf, you can fight and grapple with. A wolf can injure you, but it does not always kill you. A streamroller, however, is a different story.

A steamroller is a broad impersonal sweep. It has nothing to appeal to. It will flatten inevitably, the only question is whether it will flatten ME.

When I was 22, the forces that granted me employment or a working car seemed unfathomable and decidedly impersonal. I knew nothing about what I had to offer the world. Anything granted me was undeserved largess.

But I have since learned (In only 7 years! Imagine how much I will learn in the next seven!) that the worker is worthy of her hire. I discovered the rules of economics, that my labor and my abilities were a tradable commodity.

I had worth!

I really love feeling that in a job. I love knowing that what I do matters, in a very tangible way showing up on my paycheck. This is perhaps another reason why I find unemployment so decidedly uncomfortable--I long for the affirmation of another to prove my value.

But I also have seen the faces of those who assign worth. I know they are cheaters and liars, quite often.

Perhaps that it why I have left the steamroller back in history and think of disaster as a wolf.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 08:33 AM | Permalink

MEL RAMOS AND THE MEANING OF CORPORATE ART

Although the wonderblog is supposed to be “musings about art and the meaning of life,” I’ve been a little short on the art portion of that. At least, I have never really done a critique of a piece of art yet.

Today, that will change. And I invite comment, please. Isn’t good art supposed to evoke a response?

That’s what they say.

Art should challenge you. Art should change your perspective. Art should make you uncomfortable sometimes.

Right.

But the major patrons of art in the 21st century are corporations. Art for the foyer. Decorative sculpture for the drive up to the main office. Ah yes.

Should lobby art make you uncomfortable? Perhaps the “challenge” of corporate art should have it’s base in challenging the workers (dare I say proletariat?) to do their best work for the company.

My company has been going through some renovations, which included my floor. It was several weeks before the renovation process got around to the part where they hang up pictures. There is a poster by Georgia O’Keefe in the mailroom now. Not her best work—I can say this, since I’ve been to her gallery in Santa Fe—but it is an interesting perspective of the trunk of a tree and some of it’s branches. I appreciate it. There is another work by the elevator; I call it the crayon tree. It’s a sort of white abstract tree trunk on a black background, with brightly colored marks or dabs along the sides. It looks like it’s raining crayons, as I wait for my elevator to arrive. Not sure about that one’s merit, but whatever. It’s cheery.

The one by my buddy’s cube is a sort of college-dorm poster. It’s a poster of a stretch of road going off into the distance, and an enormous moon hangs over it in the twilight blue sky. I think that a college freshman with a desire to travel and/or own a motorcycle would really dig it.

My buddy hates it.

These pictures are all of a bland nature. They are there, they give your eyes a place to rest on, but they are mostly non-intrusive.

The piece that really stopped me was on a different floor. It is a piece called “Candy Bar” by Mel Ramos.

Let me see if I can describe it accurately. It is mostly made out of cardboard, and it looks like a Baby Ruth wrapper. There is an edge of the cardboard with what seems to be instructions posted in the upper left corner. I don’t remember what it says exactly, but it starts out saying, “Cut along the lines.” The candy bar wrapper looks partly opened, and the cardboard cutout of a young blonde 70’s-style knockout is inserted into the wrapper. The edges of the wrapper come right to the right spot on her chest, all you see is a bit of cleavage. But the whole thing is mounted on a mirror, so when you come up to get a closer look, or to read the instructions, you can see that her entire backside is naked. You can even see her tan line, a pale stripe running across her back and another blunt triangle across her naked bottom.

This one is hanging up across from a popular video room, so I get to pass by it a lot. The first time I saw it, I was flabbergasted and I had to take a better look. The idea of a woman being in a candy wrapper was so obviously sexist that it seemed to be almost anti-sexist. And when I got closer, I saw that it was mounted on a mirror, and I saw her little tan lines.

The whole thing is only about a foot tall. Probably not even that. She’s not much bigger than a Barbie.

An apt comparison.

But since I have to pass by this candy bar frequently, I am becoming more and more disturbed. Yes, it is a blatant portrayal of women as consumables for male palates. Or even female. It broadly states the objectification of women, and the role women are expected to play in society. How much the artist is aware of this is unknown. Maybe he is portraying his own attitudes, and they coincidentally are widespread.

It’s witty. It is an exaggerated perspective of an often unspoken reality. In the right mood, it might be profound.

I’m trying to be objective and open about it.

But I don’t think it is the sort of thing that belongs in a company hallway. Yes, women are commonly objectified. But they should not be experiencing that kind of treatment at work! So why should this piece of art (and I think it is more artistic than the crayon tree or the dorm poster) be displayed here?

I don’t think that Japanese Americans would like to have artistic photographs of War scenes from WWII posted in the hallways.

I don’t think African Americans would appreciate having scenes of slavery posted in public rooms.

Corporate art has to be more subtle. More bland, maybe.

Art is not art is not art. That is to say, there is a time and a place for different kinds of art. And some of the most profound and life-changing or life-enriching art must be handled carefully. Like a volatile substance.

I have in the past, a long time ago, made snide comments about the meaninglessness of corporate art. Those strange abstract geometric shapes made out of steel or concrete and rise up tall in the parking lot—“What does that MEAN?” I would say. “That’s not art. It’s just a way to fulfill the government’s requirement to spend x percentage of new construction on ‘art’.”

That was before I started going to work in those buildings.

But here is my dilemma now:

Do I swallow it? Do I just ignore Ms. Candy Bar?

Or do I try to get it removed?

Posted by Murphy Horner at 08:26 AM | Permalink

People, it's April 2007.

In April 2002, right as I was graduating from college, I began this blog.

FIVE YEARS! That makes me a veteran, if unknown, blogger.

To celebrate, I am going to do some re-runs. I'm going to re-post some of my favorite posts from the past.

Enjoy! And thanks for reading.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 08:16 AM | Permalink

Our German friends wanted to get some vinyl yesterday, so we took them to Amoeba Records on Haight.

AND we found a parking space.

As I was getting ready to put in the quarters, the meter flashed at me "Free"

I shouted "Free love and parking!"

and a tall sluffy man turned around as he walked by and said, "Amen sister!"

I flashed him a big-ol'-smile because SOMEONE needed to say that in the hippie-Haight-time-warp.

Later, tall sluffy man came up to me in the record store and asked me where I was from, because of my accent.

[Me thinking he is trying a *super-lame-pick-up-line* and flash another smile---i enjoy lame-o pick up lines, even though they never have the desired effect for the deliverer, because they are very funny]

I answer "Around here..."

He looked honestly confused, "Oh, I wouldn't have thought so..."

now I think though...I have been running a joke that amuses me (maybe no one else) that I have an accent that no one can understand...since so often my qups fly far over the heads of others....

BUT ALSO MY REGULAR CONVERSATION! what...what is so hard to hear? I don't know...

maybe I'm developing an accent of my very own....

*NO ONE UNDERSTANDS ME*----*I'M BEFORE MY TIME*

Posted by Murphy Horner at 09:35 AM | Permalink

I made it. This is the day that I've been waiting to arrive at for the last two weeks.

It's been one thing piled on top of the other and they all must get done. But I knew that Sunday would be the day that it would stop.

Or at least pause.

I just took a shower, so I am clean. I am very pleased with the outcomes of all the piled things.

ahhhh

I'm in San Francisco right now, with Chris. He is not the devotee of the city that I am. But in about an hour, we're going to take some dear German friends who've never been to america before, down to Ameoba records. They want some Johnny Cash, and who knows what else?

It will be fun and nice. I will wear comfortable shoes.....and leave all the stress behind.

Posted by Murphy Horner at 08:37 AM | Permalink