A jug of popcorn oil and an empty shoebox

What's in the trunk of my car? or at the back of my desk drawer? or on my list of abandoned blog posts?

What is a blog, after all, but a "useful pot for putting things in" (credit to Winnie the Pooh). If all you have is a burst red balloon (with sympathy to Piglet) then you'll be pleased with an empty honey pot to put it in. And take it out of. And put it in again.

Here's a bit of blog about blurred vision. Once upon a time, before there was such a thing as lens replacement surgery, I had profoundly blurry vision. If you were to twist your camera lens as far out of focus as possible, until even the colors swim together and the shapes are all but lost, you'd have some idea of just how blurry. Every once in awhile, I miss that blur of color, the complete relaxation of vision that cannot bring anything into focus. Of resting with my eyes wide open. If I'm sleepy enough, and I've been playing a circle or star popping computer game long enough, I can persuade my new eyes to let go of focus until the colors swim together. I like that metaphor so much I refuse to assign a meaning to it.

I could write a dozen posts a week about media and moral panics, and more than half of those could be about Facebook.

I wanted to write about the ache of watching a student who loves to read The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn "light out for the [war] Territory" and try to help "sivilize" Afghanistan. I say to him, Don't forget how to write. And he sends me stories. And I forget to write him back.

I like to blog in defense of young people and especially in defense of college students. It is easy to blame college students for not being something: for not being motivated, for not being interested in truly learning, for not caring about the world but only about making money, for not knowing how to write well. And indeed it is easier to pass blame than to pass a writing course. Colleges blame high schools who accuse grade schools who point fingers at parents who blame their college professors. Except not really. Because lots of students do want to learn, and do write well, and care no more nor less for making money than the rest of the world. And most of their critics are mostly complaining that young people are not more like them, when young people are like themselves. But anyway. College students do not need me to defend them. They can take care of themselves.

I am sometimes reminded of how drastically different one mind can be from another mind. This structure has been around a few years but it is new to me. The artist calls it "Fifty Books I have Read More than Once" and I can stare at this a long time without in the least comprehending how someone might view their mind as a series of lines and 45 degree angles defined by specific books written by someone else. But if keep on staring, pretty soon the lines and angles begin to blur together and I "see" a comfortable blob of blur with some scribbled pages wafting here and there. Much better.

"There was no possibility of taking a walk that day. We had been wandering, indeed, in the leafless shrubbery an hour in the morning; but since dinner . . . the cold winter wind had brought with it clouds so sombre, and a rain so penetrating, that further out-door exercise was now out of the question. I was glad of it." Jane retreats from the cold and hides with a book full of strange pictures. A wild seascape. A frozen moon. A graveyard. "Each picture told a story; mysterious often to my undeveloped understanding and imperfect feelings, yet ever profoundly interesting."

"I feared nothing but interruption, and that came too soon."

There is a wisdom that is woe; but there is a woe that is madness. --Melville

I've been reading Melville, and I've been reading Dostoevsky, and I've been stretching my mind on its tiptoes trying to grasp some fragments of their wisdom. The exercise is exhausting, but in a good way. It is humbling, but in a vital way. It is thinking that does not come, like every novel must, to a finis. It's more like Infinites--a journey limited only by my intellectual scope and mental endurance. Please understand: I like this kind of thing the way some people claim to like running marathons.

Okay, so. It goes something like this. I read a passage that catches me by the collar and insists I read it again, and then a few more agains, because I know there's something there that I want. For example, consider Ishmael's contemplations in final 3-4 paragraphs of chapter 96 of Moby-Dick, "The Try-Works." (I'll mix it up while I write about it, so go check Melville for the original.)

There is a wisdom that is woe; but there is a woe that is madness. And there is a Catskill eagle in some souls that can alike dive down into the blackest gorges, and soar out of them again and become invisible in the sunny spaces. And even if he for ever flies within the gorge, that gorge is in the mountains; so that even in his lowest swoop the mountain eagle is still higher than other birds upon the plain, even though they soar.

Wisdom is too hard to come by for it to be popular. And if Melville's Ishmael is right that wisdom dwells with woe, albeit not to the extreme, that's an even more serious blow against it. And if it is also true that wisdom comes with age and experience, then there's no market for it at all in large segments of the population. Most of us do not want to work hard, let alone suffer, for something so nebulous as wisdom, nor do we want to reflect too much upon the sorrows in our world, nor do we want to either (a) learn patiently as wisdom unfolds for us, or (b) even acknowledge we are aging at all. I fuss over signs of age much more than I contemplate what I have learned of life, and as I write this I discover that I almost never anticipate what stores of wisdom may be in my future. Let me put aside the wrinkle cream and contemplate more of Melville:

Look not too long in the face of the fire, . . . believe not the artificial fire, when its redness makes all things look ghastly. To-morrow, in the natural sun, the skies will be bright; those who glared like devils in the forking flames, the morn will show in far other, at least gentler, relief; the glorious, golden, glad sun, the only true lamp - all others but liars!

Here we find some cheerfulness in the form of conventional wisdom: ghastliness is illusory, almost an hallucination brought on by staring into hell, and when the "true lamp" (as opposed to the "artificial fire") brings light, things won't look so bad after all. Silver linings! Light at the end of tunnels! Calm after storms! Very good. Except that conventional wisdom is incomplete. Ishmael won't rest on the comforting thought:

Nevertheless the sun hides not the millions of miles of deserts and of griefs beneath the moon. The sun hides not the ocean, which is the dark side of this earth, and which is two thirds of this earth. So, therefore, that mortal man who hath more of joy than sorrow in him, that mortal man cannot be true - not true, or undeveloped.

Setting aside fantastical fears and horrors, and considering the world from a well-lighted place, the truth is that sorrow outweighs joy. If I don't accept and understand that, I am either deluding myself or simply haven't grown up enough. To take Melville's math literally, we still have one part joy to two parts sorrow. "There is a wisdom that is woe; but there is a woe that is madness." To see nothing but the woe, that way madness lies. But read again: "Millions of miles of deserts and of griefs beneath the moon." A beautiful sentence. Beauty itself wherever we find it, simply because it is, balances some of the pain. At least for me it does.

I see here two paths of error, and I have tested out the sunny one quite thoroughly, and the shady one just a bit. One is to walk always on the bright side of the street, shielding myself from painful realities with some one of the fixes readily available in the marketplace of easy ideas. I could be, in Ishmael's words, "he who dodges hospitals and jails, and walks fast crossing grave-yards, and would rather talk of operas than hell." But then, I think, it is almost as easy to veer off into the dark alleyways, convinced that pain is the beginning, middle, and end of life, that joy is the illusion, suffering the reality, cynicism the opiate. There, instead of being falsely optimistic, you can be falsely pessimistic. Cornel West has said that Optimism and Pessimism are two sides of the same coin, and that the whole coin should be rejected, and replaced with Hope. I frowned when I first read that, being mostly inclined to optimism, but then the wisdom of it struck me.

Ishmael says, as with people, so with books: "The truest of all men was the Man of Sorrows, and the truest of all books is Solomon's, and Ecclesiastes is the fine hammered steel of woe. 'All is vanity'. ALL." A book with more joy than sorrow is not a true book, or so Ishmael says. And yet, it follows from his argument, a book that is all sorrow is not a true book either.

Now I wonder. Is all this wrestling with ideas about woe and joy a luxury for the privileged? For people like me, with a good education, a minimum of suffering, a good job, leisure to read, think, and write? What if, instead, you're trapped in the darkness of intense woe and physical suffering? What happens then to the life of the mind?

And at this point in my questions I find Dostoevsky, living in a grim reality between imminent execution and years of exile. At the last moment, his death sentence was commuted to "four years of hard labor, and after that to serve as a private." The same day, he wrote a letter to his brother that conveys his sorrow at being separated from family and friends, his affirmation of life, and his grief and fear of being deprived of the means to write: "Can it indeed be that I shall never take a pen into my hands? If I am not allowed to write, I shall perish. Better fifteen years of prison with a pen in my hands!" But here is someone with "a Catskill eagle" in his soul, one who can "alike dive down into the blackest gorges, and soar out of them again and become invisible in the sunny spaces." Even at his "lowest swoop," a soul like his is still "higher than other birds upon the plain, even though they soar." There is a person who is fitted, Ishmael would say, "to sit down on tomb-stones, and break the green damp mould with unfathomably wondrous Solomon."

"Do remember," Dostoevsky urges his brother, "that hope has not deserted me":

I have not become downhearted or low-spirited. Life is everywhere life, life in ourselves, not in what is outside us. . . . Not to be downhearted or to fall in whatever misfortunes may befall me--this is life; this is the task of life. . . . The head which was creating, living with the highest life of art, which had realized and grown used to the highest needs of the spirit, that head has already been cut off from my shoulders. . . . But there remains in me my heart, and the same flesh and blood which can also love, and suffer, and desire, and remember, and this, after all, is life.

I could learn all sorts of things about wisdom by reading, and by thinking, and by writing things down, because looking at my own words always helps me understand myself and my ideas better. But unless that awareness moves from intellectual appreciation to lived experience, I am no wiser than I began. Ishmael's meditation on wisdom and woe was triggered by his alarm at discovering he was looking backwards and in imminent danger of steering the ship into disaster. Best not look backwards too much.

Okay. So it goes something like that. I've left out lots, like thoughts about the etymologies of "wisdom" and of "woe." Like a web browsing session to discover whether the concept of "wisdom" even appears in the daily news. (I found no politicians running a wisdom platform, and the closest reference was to "pearls of wisdom" dispensed by Barbara Billingsley in the character of June Cleaver.) Like a re-reading of "the fine hammered steel of woe [Ecclesiastes]." Like a Google search for "Wisdom for Dummies" (which turned up a good article from the Utne Reader that said much of what I started to say myself but ended up leaving out altogether.) After my brain has gotten some rest, off I go again. The word "hope," echoing here and there, has grabbed me by the collar and demands further attention.

That is my view from where I now stand, at end of the blog and the threshold of whatever comes next.

A Blog of Depression

Today would have been my father’s 80^th birthday.

He’s been dead for 20 years.

My mother would have turned 80 in mid-November. She’s been officially gone 10 years, but the deterioration of her brain took her from awareness of life 10 years before that.

Yeah. Pretty much at the same time, 20 years ago, I lost my father and my mother. I have no model for how to be 80, or 70, or even 60 for that matter.

So here I am, and it’s shortly my turn to become 50. If I die or lose my mind at roughly the age my parents did, I have only a decade left. I have no reason to suspect that will happen, but then neither did my father or my mother. It could be that 50, for me, will be only the half way point. That I have a long, long road still to walk. Someday I will know, and whatever it is will be fine.

It is a strange thing to think about. I don’t know what it’s supposed to feel like to be 50, but I have to remind myself fairly often that I’m not 40. It seems to me that I’m 40. It seems as though I’ve lost a decade in there somewhere, and it’s unlikely I’ll get it back. There’s a Facebook joke going around: “Inside every old person is a young person wondering what the fuck happened.” Exactly.

What happened to my 40s?

Depression happened. Or now it appears it was not depression exactly but something else, bi-polar lite or just an inability to get stuff done or find the energy I had for life all my 4 decades before that. In spite of that, I worked my way to career stability. I like my job and would not trade it for any other one. I live in a beautiful place. I raised my daughters from 14, 10, and 4 up to 24, 20, and 14. And my children are incredibly wonderful young women. My marriage grew smoothly and happily towards its 25^th anniversary. Other than the constant nag and drag of emotional struggle, I am healthy. There is no reason for me to be sad.

So let’s pretend there’s only 10 years left to go. What would that mean?

On the one hand, just for my own personal self, it would be fine. Sad though it may be for a healthy nearly-50 year old, I am often worn out. There’s no big life goals waiting for me to accomplish them and be proud. At least today it feels that way. I cannot think of any.

On the other hand, I enjoy my job and am not near retirement; I love my family, and I want to be with grandchildren that might arrive. I don't want anyone to have to grieve for me. Also, there are times I do not feel dreadful. Moments that I enjoy life for its own sake.

When you’re depressed like this, you have to remind yourself that it won’t always be this way. You have to remember that it comes and goes. But then again, after all, it will always return to this phase. It’s pushing that famous rock up the hill, then having it roll right over you on its way back down. There are days you just don’t want to push it up there again, and at that point it feels like quitting time. Just lie there bruised and watch it fall down the hill without you. Sleep as much as you possibly can. If at all possible, with the comforting weight of a cat resting against your body. Robert Frost had a warm pony with bells instead: "The woods are lovely, dark, and deep / but I have promises to keep / and miles to go before I sleep / and miles to go before I sleep." Yes. Exactly. Exactly so. This also says it perfectly: "I have been one acquainted with the night. / I have walked out in rain, and back in rain. / I have outwalked the furthest city light."

But the whole thing. Read the whole thing. Then I won’t have to try to explain any longer.

I have been one acquainted with the night.

I have walked out in rain --and back in rain.

I have outwalked the furthest city light.

I have looked down the saddest city lane.

I have passed by the watchman on his beat

And dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain.

I have stood still and stopped the sound of feet

When far away an interrupted cry

Came over houses from another street,

But not to call me back or say good-bye;

And further still at an unearthly height

One luminary clock against the sky

Proclaimed the time was neither wrong nor right.

I have been one acquainted with the night.

If my mother and my father were alive, I wonder what counsel they would have for me. Both of them suffered far more than I have ever suffered. My father was haunted by severe bi-polar all his life. My mother struggled from the stress of single-handedly raising three children. Both of them cared, and people who care keep an eye out for you like the watchman on his beat, even when you can’t explain. Even when you slip away from them into an even darker place.

That’s what my parents would do, if they were still within talking distance – Dad would say, “I love you,” and Mom would say, “I love you.” And I would feel a little bit better.

(What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love And Understanding?

September 21
International Day of Peace

I'm trying to write about "Peace, Love, and Understanding."

I could be cynical and score cleverness points by mocking the faded peace signs and wilted flowers of latter-day hippies. I could be patronizing toward peace groups that hold sparsely-attended rallies on street corners or fruitlessly wave signs in front of capitol buildings. I could satirize politicians who insist that war is the best way to get peace. I could stop cold in despair at the unrelenting loss of life in war zones. Or I could just dodge the subject by explaining that none of that world stuff matters so long as I am safe and prosperous and have no loved ones in the military.

I could simply give up on the subject, delete this blog post, and write instead about something beautiful or delightful like dark chocolate truffles or the autumnal equinox or Don Quixote. Personally, I find peace in chocolate, love in nature, and understanding in great novels. That works for me because I have such a good life to start with. But when I study the news, from local to international, "I ask myself, is all hope lost?" It's difficult to pursue inner peace when you're struggling with "pain and hatred, and misery." If you care enough about the world's problems to search for "light in the darkness of insanity," your spirit will feel "downhearted, sometimes." If not lots of times.

But it is the International Day of Peace. It's a good day to give credit to people who find nothing funny about working for world peace. And there are lots and lots and lots of them. All over the world."Where are the strong? and who are the trusted? And where is the harmony?" The measure of their success is not in absolutes. If we are waiting to see when "War is over!" and "Poverty is no more!" and "Justice has overcome injustice!" then no wonder we sit down and hide our faces. No wonder we escape to the woods with frosted brownies and a good book. No wonder we think it's a joke to even try for "world peace," and instead buy cynical bumper stickers advocating "whirled peas." But our success is measured in footsteps, while world history evolves by generations and takes shape over centuries. We simply have no way of knowing what our little dab on the canvas will look like someday. But without the peace workers--be they activists or artists or any of the rest of us--conditions would surely be even worse. That is my view.

Elvis Costello keeps on singing that song, keeps on asking those questions, year after year, to crowd after crowd, and though his hair thins and he no longer stands on the sides of his red shoes, the intensity in his eyes doesn't falter.

To anyone who confronts the hardest questions unflinching, working without knowing whether or not it makes any difference, may International Peace Day bring you a moment of hope.

What's so funny 'bout peace, love, and understanding? Nothing. Not one single thing.


By Nick Lowe. Originally recorded 1978 by Elvis Costello and the Attractions.
And as performed on the David Letterman Show, 2007.

Fantasies of Safety

If you decide to give up your worldly comforts and go to Afghanistan to provide health care for people who have none, is it your fault if you get shot? If you do not wear a seat belt and are ejected from a car during a crash, is it your fault if you are injured? If you fall down the stairs because you tripped over junk you left in the hallway, is it your fault your broke your arm? And most of all why do we care so much about fault? Many people think of a smoker as guilty of lung cancer while a non-smoker is a more innocent victim. Someone who exercises regularly and suffers a heart attack is more to be pitied than another who is overweight and inactive.

I suspect that if we can convince ourselves that accidents and illnesses can be blamed on someone, then we believe we can prevent bad things from happening to ourselves.

Somebody rationalized the death of aid workers in Afghanistan like this: since they went somewhere dangerous instead of abiding by the principle of "charity begins at home," their death is their own fault. Never mind that some of them had been in Afghanistan for years and years. But they were helping Muslims, when they could have been helping needy Americans. Blame assigned. Compassion withheld. The illusion of personal safety enhanced.

Last week, a huge gas explosion in San Bruno, California killed four people. Within hours of the disaster, news outlets across the country began asking the question "Could it happen here?" Suddenly we are informed of possible risks of gas explosion in our neighborhoods. Reports of gas leaks, most of them groundless, increase exponentially and absorb resources that might be better spent on more immediate local concerns.

A bridge collapse in Minneapolis in 2007 killed thirteen people, and by the next day we were reading stories about aging and dangerous bridges everywhere. Anxious drivers tried to choose their routes based on bridges. And although only a few bridges have been repaired as a result of the scrutiny following the tragedy in Minnesota, I suspect most people have forgotten to worry about bridges.

Of course it's important to investigate the causes of disasters and accidents and, if possible, prevent them from happening again. Of course those responsible should be held liable. Of course we should learn from mistakes and act accordingly. No one would argue with that.

What I want to argue about is fear and irrational thinking. Might it be hazardous to our well being to choose our safety preoccupations based on the rapid news cycles covering the most recent horrible events? Almost before we can feel concern for the losses suffered by others, we are wondering whether we ourselves are also at risk. And we are afraid. We are also distracted from any number of other hazards that almost certainly pose a much greater personal risk than the one we are panicking about right now.

We have a similar pattern with health dangers. An outbreak of a disease, especially if it is an unusual one, throws our attention immediately to that particular illness, and we are suddenly more anxious about that germ than about ailments that we have equal or greater probability of contracting. The length of our focus on a certain virus or poison or bacteria is controlled by how long media attention lasts. Whatever happened to anthrax? or SARS? When did you last open an envelope with trepidation, worried that white powder might fall out, or wear a breathing mask to the grocery store? (I take that back. You may have done so during the recent H1N1 season, and perhaps wisely so.) Are you more concerned with Asian Bird Flu or salmonella? killer bees or Lyme disease? flesh eating bacteria or brown spiders? tainted Tylenol capsules or mad cow? spinach from California or eggs from Iowa? I am not diminishing the importance of any of these problems, but in my view it makes no sense to let my fears be selected and inflamed by what the media thinks I should worry most about at any given time. Or really, to be frank about it, what the media thinks I will be most interested in worrying about. When the news value of any given problem wanes, a new fear will be fueled.

The issue is proportion. Reasonableness. And a healthy attitude toward safety. That is my view.

Here is the reality: we are not safe. And no amount of fussing will change that.

Heretical Musings

I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ. --Mohandas Gandhi

Today I can barely stand to think of myself as "Christian." I'm almost ready to quit.

Throughout history, "Christians" have, in the name of religion, pressured, forced, manipulated, coerced, bribed, threatened, tricked, or otherwise attempted to control people. Let's just be clear that we have no Gospel-based justification for such behavior. (And let's also be clear that throughout history and yes, even today, many "Christians" have scorned to use underhanded or aggressive strategies in the name of God.)

But many "Christians" who get media attention showered upon them are like [name deleted] who is famous for picketing all over the country in the name of the doctrine that "God hates [derogatory term deleted]." Or like [name of deceased deleted] who blamed the ravages of Hurricane Katrina on "HOmoSEXuals" or [name also deleted] who saw the earthquake in Haiti as a "blessing" and the result of a Haitian pact with the Devil.

Or, to bring this catalog of infamy current, like [name deleted] who is staging a "Burn a Koran Day" on September 11. [Same name deleted] will be responsible for God knows how many additional surges of fury and distrust on a global scale. Pictures of his event are sure to be used in recruiting by terrorist groups. I can't stand it. I'm ready to quit except, that would be like letting the bad guys win, right?

What does it mean that hatred grabs our attention and sells advertising while boring old caring-for-others is relegated to dependent clauses and submerged paragraphs? That the guy who hates has a full-color picture announcing his ugly message to the entire Associated Press world? That his answering machine is backed up with requests for interviews? That his mailbox is full of Qur'ans destined for the flames?

Indeed, here I am myself, devoting a blot, I mean a blog, to the haters instead of to the caring ones.

I was raised United Methodist, flirted with conservative Baptist theology as an undergraduate, then came to my senses and joined a Mennonite congregation that emphasized working for social justice and participating in a community of mutual care. (Of course I know many other groups espouse the same approach.) Anyone who reads the Gospels with an open mind must acknowledge that Jesus lived according to those values. He was persecuted because he spoke for outcasts and challenged religious authority. For the most part, he taught the people who came to hear him, or to challenge him, or who were milling about the Jewish temple. He sometimes started a conversation and invited people to join him, but he never chased them down or yelled at them or called them ugly names if they declined. No. He let people go their own way.*

He let people go their own way.

Tell me, am I so angry and ashamed by the behavior of some "Christians" that I'm in danger of becoming one who hates? I can't stand it that so many "Christians" believe they have the right, and not just the right but a holy mandate, to seize political power and use it to subjugate our country to a certain version of "Christianity." It enrages me. I can't stand to let them go their own way. I want to stop them, or at the very least, I want to distance myself from them as much as I possibly can.

The religious power brokers of Jesus's time may not have succeeded in killing him without the support of the people. And the support of the people was won in large part when Jesus failed to bring about the political revolution they expected. It has not changed. Most people, including "Christians," want power, including political power, and they want it now and are willing to use whatever means necessary to get it.

Including ignoring the example of Jesus himself.

*Disclaimer: Note the title of this post. Also note that while I feel strongly about the issues I discuss here, I do not present myself as a model "Christian" or, indeed, a model anything. These are simply my views.

Comedy, Tragedy, Rage, and Joy

Forget your personal tragedy. We are all bitched from the start and you especially have to be hurt like hell before you can write seriously. -- Ernest Hemingway

It looks like you can write a minimalist piece without much bleeding. And you can. But not a good one. -- David Foster Wallace

This gold image is called: "The Three Faces of Life: Comedy, Tragedy, and Rage." I am accustomed to seeing the masks of Comedy and Tragedy on playbills, theater programs, and drama anthologies. Usually the faces point this way and that rather than right at the viewer, but I keep staring at this one with its hybrid face of rage staring right back at me. The Comedy mask includes the smile, and the Tragedy mask provides the frown, but the center mask for rage leaves the actor's mouth exposed. An eye from comedy, and eye from tragedy, and blankness where the human mouth must be screaming in rage. Yes. But is that the point? I keep gazing at Rage because I am not sure. Maybe comedy and tragedy are not art so much as artifice, and primal rage is truth. But on the other hand, maybe the face of Rage is the artist, who glares at life with one eye focused through comedy and the other through tragedy. The mouth has no expression at all, perhaps, except as presented through tragic or comic art, or more simply, through language. Rage itself has no voice but what the artist can provide.

I wonder if this vision approximates how some writers approach their work, writers who are sometimes described as Tortured Artists. I recently tuned into an argument being carried on another Blogger channel, Universal Acid. In "This Page is My War Zone," Ryan Amfahr Longhorn collars Sean Platt of Collective Inkwell and berates him for his sneering treatment of "The Tortured Writer." Sean explains that he was so alarmed about the agony purportedly experienced by writers that his fear "kept me from spilling ink at least two decades too long." But now, he notes happily, "I never allow the sun to set without the jotted thoughts of my day, for the best moments of each earthly orbit should never be abandoned." Sean is the smiley face of contemporary writing; he has neither a comic nor a tragic vision, but is practical and commercial. That's fine for Sean, but I am puzzled at his hostility. Why not consider the possibility that different writers experience their lives in different ways? Just because Sean finds writing fun and profitable and suffers angst only when the cash flow runs thin (see the comment stream following his post), it does not follow that authors who pursue their art with gut wrenching passion and intensity are phony, self indulgent masochists. Art, did I say? Sean does not use that word.


Ryan could not be a stronger contrast to sunny Sean. For one thing, Ryan keeps handing out free advice -- I've even seen him offer to read an unknown correspondent's fiction, whereas Sean would ask that aspiring writer for up to $750, depending on word count. No wonder Sean does not want young writers discouraged by accounts of discomfort at the keyboard. When you sell a product, you want a maximum number of potential consumers.


Of course there are poseurs who wear the tragic mask but never actually dive into the wreck, but Sean doesn't introduce us to any. Nor does he directly mock Sylvia Plath or Ernest Hemingway or David Foster Wallace or Virginia Woolf -- extraordinary artists who lost their lives to depression.

Sean says he is talking to "the classic inebriated writer, wasting away as they eek through insurmountable emotional agony and too many adverbs. Sure writing is difficult, but so is driving a car or walking a dog… when you’re drunk." Is that so? I will NOT, I promise I WILL not, stoop to grammar sniping here by pointing out the error in his sentence. But I WILL fault Sean for failing to make an argument that goes past scatter shot insult and conceited assumptions: his blog drips in scorn but is dry of evidence. Where we might expect examples, we get self promotion.

But Ryan offers himself as an example. He says, yeah, I'm one of those arrogant tortured writers Sean complains about: "I think the level of endured psychological torture varies from writer to writer, I'll concede that. But, for someone to even identify as a writer there has to be a certain imbalance in there somewhere." Sean says that if writing is not fun it may not be for you. Ryan says:

Once, writing was fun. Then, I went way down deep and saw the hell burning at the core of my being and I cannot do anything else that comes close to satisfying the self-actualizing urge to reveal, over the course of whatever ends up being my lifetime, exactly what I saw and felt and smelled and tasted and heard down there.

There's the rage, see it? There's the tortured writer right there. And here's another who blogs under the name of Annie Mac:

this. is. necessary.

i am writing this which, i promise, is shit, so that i might not take out my extra-ordinary McRage on parties who shall remain unnamed. My Daddy is sick again; he is - was? i don't know if he still is in the hospital or not because i'm so disconnected from - never mind. . . . despite what's been "diagnosed" thus far, you never know what's to come with him, what's hiding, and i don't trust the sources providing my long-distance clues. this is my blog; my writing; my words; my goddamn truth.

the truth.

And from another of Annie's pieces, "The Glamorous Life of a Writer!":

Honestly, I'm tired. That's the stupidest thing I have ever said. No, that is. But "I'm tired" is one of the greatest understatements of my life. This waking up at 5 am, writing until 2 or 3 pm, drinking mad quantities of coffee throughout the hours - then the exhaustion, like a...it's like some purple-black F5 tornado-tidal-wave of sleepless 3 am and that makes no sense - I know - but that's what it is - comes up over the back of the couch in the middle of the afternoon and just wallops me, bashes me over the head and it's...it's fucking ausgespielt, is what it is. I'm out. But I can't sleep. Can't nap, rest (I know - lay off the coffee, dumbass), but you'd think with that kind of fatigue, a wink or two wouldn't be too difficult to catch. You'd be wrong. . . . No matter how much I eat, The Muse works it off.

How could Sean possibly understand either Annie or Ryan? For Sean, "Creativity is a garden that only grows with nutrients in the soil and sunlight in the sky." It's okay that Sean has a different view, of course it is. But I cannot help but wonder how much better a writer he could be if he dug into the dirt of his garden and sat out in a couple of thunderstorms. At the very least, he would have a better chance of understanding why some writers take their work so seriously:

I want my words to matter to someone. I want them to mean something. I want my electric guitar machine gun in the hands of every starving child—for whom the gun will shoot food. I want it in the hands of the abused girlfriend who clings to that bastard because she doesn’t feel like she has anything else—for whom the gun will provide courage. I want it in the hands of the bastard, too—for whom it will provide salvation. And I want my loved ones and my friends to have it so they can know who I am and what I stand for without me ever having to say it. That’s why I write, at the core. The other stuff just feels good but this part is about love.

Ryan, "Have You Ever Shot a Guitar"

The triple gold mask places rage in the center of comedy and tragedy, but if I could have an artist craft that mask for me, it would have a fourth face. Rage is not the only raw emotion, and the image is incomplete unless there is a mask on the reverse side, also borrowing from both comedy and tragedy, one that expresses primal joy. If rage stares with eyes of comedy and tragedy, so does joy. And it surely hurts just as much to write from joy, to write from a gut-deep love, as it does to write from rage. That is my view.


Am I a tortured writer or just an apologist? I'm not sure. I'm digging in the garden to see what's what. I've got some joy, and some rage, and some confusion. I've got fatigue. This is the second night I've worked on this blog until 2:30 a.m. I threw out a third of yesterday's work but I'm not sure I've improved it. I still don't think I've managed to say what I wanted to say, maybe because when I'm immersed in the writing of others, their voices get busy and my own is harder to hear. Do I need to add a disclaimer? I do not think a great writer must be miserable, and I certainly do not think that because a writer is anguished that writer is destined for greatness. Just because someone is misunderstood doesn't make that person a genius. But why am I working so hard on something only a few people will read unless I'm a sucker for punishment? I don't know for sure. Ask me tomorrow but not today.

In which I take myself to task and high-five Fred

I have begun several blog entries that remain in the embryonic stage, and I may leave them in the incubator lest they turn into mindless rants. Indeed, I should perhaps just delete them, because in my blog here, I sign everything I write, and I make some effort not to embarrass myself.

But I sometimes go slumming in the world of anonymous discussion, and while I aim to exercise self control even there, I do not always resist the urge to punch someone right in their anonymous nose. I remember some jerk smirking, when California's Proposition 8 was declared unconstitutional, "if I want to marry my right hand, is that okay?" I fired back, "Absolutely. I'll send the Superglue." Or to some guy who says President Obama is pandering to Muslims: "How the hell is a mosque a shrine to mass murderers? I don't know whose backside you're kissing, but whoever it is is blocking your view of reality." I'm not always crude, though. Sometimes I am self-righteous instead, presenting myself as a better American than someone who hates immigrants or as a more enlightened Christian than someone who anonymously consigns other anonymi to the flames of hell.

Now see, one reason I started blogging was to encourage myself to make sense instead of adding to nonsense. It's early weeks yet, too soon to give up.

I also have another mode of anonymous personality: klkt


Instead of being an angry smart ass, klkt + a picture of books sometimes tries to engage people in actual conversations, and it is cool when it works. One common gripe about President Obama's conduct of war is that he "shackles" the military with nonsensical rules, making it impossible for them to go ahead and win a war. I think the "nonsensical rules" have to do with silly things like human rights and limiting civilian casualties, but I could be wrong. So I pushed this very question to "Fred," who said he missed Bush because Obama shackles the military. What exactly has Obama done differently? klkt wanted to know. Well, Fred clarified, maybe not Obama so much as Congress. But again, klkt pushed, what has Congress done exactly? I don't understand the specifics. Fred, to his great credit, replied that "I'll be honest with you, I'll have to reseach that further to give an accurate answer. But I would like to disuss this then. Thx for the intelligent and unemotional conversation." Now that, my dear blog readers, was a real triumph of online discussion and I am proud of myself and of Fred for managing a civil interchange in the midst of the usual mud wrestling.

I might have responded to Fred's initial "i miss bush" by saying, "then throw the other shoe," but that would have been too easy. I wonder if Fred will find any credible information on the subject of the shackled US military? But I should go look it up myself so that if we bump into each other again I will be able to explain my view.

Hell's Handbasket: The decline of the English language, young person's digital division

This post is the first in the "Hell's Handbasket" series. Hell's Handbasket entries will weigh the merits, according to my own apocalyptic vision and no one else's, of alarmist reports as to the Decline of Civilization As We Know It. Right now I have several alerts on the Hell's Handbasket short list: The Constitution is Burning and ______ Set it on Fire; Social Justice Christians are Ruining the Country for Antisocial Unjust Christians; Harry Potter is Funneling Readers Away from the Important Stuff (A Sequel to the 1851 "Hell's Handbasket by Hawthorne" entry titled Damned Mobs of Scribbling Women Steal Readers from The Scarlet Letter); and, Today's College Students are Even Worse than Yesterday's College Students.

For now, I let these subjects hang fire a bit longer, and turn my attention to the English language itself, which is, according to many self-authorized sources close to that language, in fast decline. If we don't save the language, after all, then how will I write the next charmingly literate entry in my Hell's Handbasket Series? So, first things first. The language is burning. And it is being roasted by such suspect youthful practices as emailing, texting, and twittering. [Don't make me pause to reassure you that yes, I am well aware that people of all ages email, text, and twitter. But the fact is that digi-text is essentially a young person's language, like Rock and Roll was originally a young person's music. Right Mick? Right Keith?] For an excellent model of anti-young-people's-language tirade, amuse yourself with my favorite Crabby Old Dude's rant.

I will spare you a litany of Historical Hysteria, of times when the English language was spotted going straight to the devil but somehow re-emerged, or never got there in the first place, or was heading to a different destination altogether. But now as in earlier generations, what alarmists and other crabby dudes call illiteracy among young people is probably just different literacy. In my view, the rapidly evolving world of digital communication is not ruining English. On the contrary, it demonstrates the utter awesomeness of our language.You know that an unwritten law for the progress of civilization is that Young People develop slang or other offenses to grown-ups' language to show their defiance of authority, to develop more private ways of expression, to establish personal and group identities, and so on and so forth. It's just that before technology, the slang and other linguistic creativity demonstrated by Young People was primarily an oral tradition. Passing notes in class is horribly primitive by comparison.

Now, you see, most American Young People have constant access to technology whereby they create and distribute a written language. Who needs a press? who needs paper? who needs ink? Many a printer these days gathers dust. This new language delights me even though I am an outsider of the dialect. I'm fascinated by just how visual it is. You cannot translate most digi-speak to conventional writing, let alone speaking, without losing most of the message. Here are some examples that I harvested from my teenage daughter's Facebook page. At first glance they are easy to read, but look more closely at the details and uncertainty emerges.

Sleepover with brittany andd mariamm.((:

Emoticons have become standard practice in digi-speak, but what does the double smile mean here? Is Devin extra happy about this sleepover? Also, I thought the smiley faces usually pointed the other way (as in the next example). Here, Devin did not use an exclamation point, but maybe the double smile serves the same purpose. Then again, maybe something is meant that I know nothing of. Teens are like that, you know. My daughter, be it noted, writes excellent standard English as well as clever digi-speak.

Happyyyy birthdayyy Devin!! :):)

Now, I have a Facebook page, and lots of people wished ME happy birthday, too, but almost all of my messages were written in standard English, perhaps with a simple abbreviation here and there. Here we see a different version of the double smiley face, with eyes as well as smile duplicated. And we have multiple "y"s, four on Happy and three on Birthday.

I have asked Devin how she knows when to tack on extra letters and, true to her native speaker status, she could not tell me. You just do it, Mom, you know, whatever. [Accompanied by quizzical "Why ARE you bothering with this?" look and obligatory eye roll.] Extra letters may simply be a form of emphasis, and sometimes the extra letters are internal to a word, though typically they are repeated final letters. On the other hand, it may be extra letters are stylistic flourishes comparable to the curly-cues I used to add to my in-class notes.

These extra letters appear on texts as well as on Facebook, where they require several different key punches and even, on more primitive phones, pauses between punches. So they must be important to the impact of the communication. Further than that, I am not confident in speculating.

Devin:) ima call yu in a bit, so yu betta answer! I dont care if yu have to repeat yurself a million times because of my mentally challenged phone, we will talkk.;)

I happen to know that this correspondent of Devin's writes with standard English clarity when she so desires, and holds a perfect, or nearly perfect, grade point average.

[initial comment] babe, yur haircut is hotttttt.(;;; iloveyouu♥

[answer] awhh thankyouu boo(: i think its a little short but its okayy(;
&& i love you too♥ (:

Notice how much more is going on here than a simple exchange consisting of "I like your new haircut" and "Thank you." They would not add all those other symbols if they did not mean something.

Here's the obligatory disclaimer: Students must learn Standard English so that they can grow up to change it. They must learn to switch their language from the digi-world of texting or twittering to conventional writing and speech. Over time, whatever innovations may have lasting value to the language will be incorporated into standard practices, and whatever is of ephemeral usefulness--think "groovy"--will be sifted out or dissolved. Much slang does not even survive one four-year high school generation which is why older people (here meaning, anyone over 22) use it at their risk. So be at peace.

And as for Literature! Fear not for literature. Every generation has its incredibly talented authors and they will not be confused, let alone defeated, by alternative uses of language. And what do incredibly talented authors do anyway but create with the language? Excellent literature is a more advanced and complex form of the playfulness of teen-speak.

at least thatt is myy viewww!!!!!! :) ;)

An Appeal to Grammar Snipers

Call me English Teacher.* Some years ago - never mind how long precisely - having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me after graduation, I thought I would teach first year composition a little and see the educational world from the other side of the desk. Since making that first voyage, I have never ceased to teach writing in addition to whatever else I am doing. Year upon year I have devoted myself to improving other people's writing skills, to helping them express themselves better or achieve greater success in the classroom and in the workforce. From the front of the room, I declare that people will judge others by the quality of their writing. Oft have I repeated that to reluctant ears. It is a way I have of driving off the spleen and regulating the circulation.

Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before a grammar handbook, and ringing up the errors on every paper I read or write; and especially whenever my compulsive editing gets such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the hallway, and methodically knocking people's hats off - then, I account it high time to re-think my priorities.

People do judge you, as a person, by the quality of your writing, but should they? Whenever I catch someone putting random vowels or double letters in the middle of "sep_rate" or writing "being that" instead of "because," or misusing homonyms such that "peace of mind" becomes "piece of mine," am I justified in discounting that person's intelligence, work ethic, and vital principles of being? Well, sure I am. But does it follow that I am not obliged to consider what (if anything) that person is trying to say? May I ignore ideas when they appear in clashing plaid, or when they wear socks with sandals or baggy jeans sliding down their backside? I pause in the act of knocking off yet another hat and say to myself, you may not! If you, KKT, are to live up to your lofty ideal of respecting persons because they are people and not because they are people educated to write and think and dress like you, you must pay attention to what they say as well as how they say it. That is my view.

Dear reader-of-my-blog, you need not remind me that quality of expression is closely tied to quality of thought, or that unclear writing usually muffles foggy thinking. I know this as well as any English teacher of uncertain years does. But when we read we strive to understand. That's what reading is. If we are committed to open and honest dialogue, we should pay attention to badly written ideas as well as to fluently expressed ones. Bad writers may have voices we should listen to. Go ahead and score off writers on account of their grammar, usage, and mechanics--I know I will not be able to resist--but when you're done with that, note what it was they were trying to say before you decide how and whether to respond.

Sail only a little ways into the restless Internet sea of blogs, discussions, comments, and viewpoints and you will discover that behind every wave floats a grim grammar patrol, taking aim at hapless souls who dare to offer their ideas, rants, dreams, or despair in leaky boats. This sniping often substitutes for the pistol and ball of honest argument. Attacking someone through the gaps in their writing defenses becomes a gleeful game. Almost anyone, regardless of their own level of skill with language, can sometimes identify the errors of others, and whack away at the knuckles of the unwary. Indeed, there is an error in this blog entry, which I leave in place to see who will pick it out and harpoon it.

With a philosophical flourish Ahab throws himself after his spear; I quietly take to blogging. There is nothing surprising in this. If they but knew it, almost all men and women in their degree, some time or other, cherish very nearly the same feelings towards the unexplored ocean of their own minds.


*This post is written in honor of Herman Melville, a writer of stunning talent and originality who, through his fiction writing, gave voice to many less literate than he.

On Religion and Same Sex Marriage

Disclaimer: This entry talks about the Bible, including Jesus, and about faith-based support for same-sex marriage. However, it does not preach on behalf of Christianity but instead presents an argument based on close reading of Biblical texts. The life and teachings of Jesus provide strong reasons for supporting same-sex marriage. If you're interested in hearing this argument, read on. If religion-talk makes you jumpy, give this one a pass.

All Christian-based Biblical interpretation should begin and end with Jesus' unambiguous answer to the question "which commandment in the law is the greatest?": "'You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.' And a second is like it: 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets." (emphasis added, from Matthew 22). It follows that any interpretation of scripture that conflicts with these two commandments, to love God and to love one's neighbors, is suspect. Certainly, any interpretation of any part of the Bible that justifies hatred of others is flat-out wrong. You cannot deny that without rejecting the keystone of Jesus' teachings. That is the first point.

The next step is to examine Jesus' own words and actions for a model of how to interpret "the law and the prophets" in light of the keystone teaching. The paradigm is clear: when Jesus broke laws, it was always in deference to the high commandments. Jesus was a radical and rebel and he defied authority again and again, though it is easy to forget this when so many noisy Christians have wrapped him in an American flag and sent him off to the polls to vote the straight GOP ticket. But that's a topic for another day. For now, note that Jesus was a rebel with a cause, and that rebellion was justified by appeal to the higher authority of the first two commandments. For example, he was busted for working on the Sabbath, both because his disciples plucked some grain to eat and because he was healing the disabled. His response: wouldn't you save your only sheep if it had fallen into a pit on the Sabbath? A human is of much higher value than a sheep. Therefore, "It is lawful to do good on the Sabbath" (from Matthew 12).

"How much more valuable is a human being than a sheep?" And not just valuable in the abstract, but valuable in an everyday way. Quality of life mattered, health mattered, comfort mattered, or why would you heal someone or feed someone? Why not tell them to endure, because suffering is good for you? Or that suffering is how God shows us he loves us? Or why not tell them it is un-spiritual to worry about health and well-being when our minds should always be turned toward heaven? Why not? Well, for a Christian the answer would be, because that's not how Jesus lived. And that is point two. Quality of human life matters.

You may now see where this argument is going. Humans are domestic and social creatures. Most of us seek our deepest fulfillment through the closest human relationships. And there is no closer bond than marriage. Speaking from the experience of a 25-year old marriage, I cannot imagine having been forced to go through life alone because society refused to sanction my marriage, or support our home and the raising of our children. If I were not straight, I would be expected by most churches to bypass the rich experiences, both painful and joyful, that come from nowhere except the most intimate bond with another human being. Many Christians would tell me that being born gay meant God wanted me to be celibate. (Never mind that Protestant churches have never hailed the celibate life as anything special.) Other Christians would tell me I was diseased and Jesus would cure me, and still others that I had chosen my own perversion in utter defiance of the most sacred laws of God and Nature and would deserve the punishment that was surely waiting for me (accompanied by gleeful wriggling in anticipation of my eternal misery).

Living without marriage, without a committed relationship around which to build a home, to raise children, to grow in every possible way -- personally, spiritually, professionally -- my life would be so very much less than it is now, I myself would be so much less. [I do not mean to say I think every person should get married and have a family. I am speaking on behalf of people who DO want that, with no disrespect to single people, or people who freely choose celibacy.] The churches have always taught and reinforced the essential role of marriage, family, and home. Why should that stop now? The church can be the most valuable support network for couples and families navigating the tricky waters of life. Many churches are already welcoming congregations and that progress is sure to continue. The church has never been wrong when it came down on the side of human rights.

That would be because that's where Jesus always stood. Let me reinforce the sheep metaphor and I shall be done on this topic for now. Why should I be forced to choose between my husband and my church? Without my family, I would be like unto the lost sheep in the ravine desperate for a hand to reach out to me. And see, my quality of life matters. Jesus said so, and acted accordingly. "It is lawful to do good" -- on the Sabbath, and every other day as well.

That is my view.