Cognitive Dissonence

It is important, before delving into this post, that I convey the mental state from which it came. This will help with context, not only for those of you “outside” myself who may have no idea what the hell I’m talking about, but also for myself reading this in the future. I don’t know if any of you have a problem with this, but I frequently have difficulties believing myself based on the frame of mind in which I do certain things. I feel a compelling need to be open and honest with myself in evaluating the things I will discuss. Many of you know my cynicism, which has basically become a way of life. Occasionally, for whatever reason, I will have a moment of insight or a triggering of a different thought pattern. Perhaps it is from a good night’s sleep or a good meal (or an undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese…) or just the product of statistical probability of specific dendrites firing through glial cells. Whatever the cause, this frame of mind is often correlated with an unflinching view of what I am doing and how it needs to change to make my situation better. I am not happy, and have not been for some time now. It’s difficult to say precisely when I began to feel so disenfranchised and unfairly saddened, but if I had to narrow it down to a single event I would choose a time when I was seven. My family and I were living in Orem and I was in third grade (the placement of my birthday seems to give the illusion that I was ahead by a year, though this was not the case). I remember myself as a silly and rather happy child, though a bit scrawny (that’s right, scrawny). I wouldn’t say I was popular, but I had a good group of friends which I recall covered most of my class. The principal (whose name I can’t remember) was an attractive younger woman from Hawaii whose constant message was one of love and the Aloha spirit (this may be difficult to understand if you don’t know much about Hawaiian culture). I had just learned that my family was moving to Lindon, something far out of my control. I recall my best friend at the time, David, took the news particularly hard. He was wearing these awful looking grey moon boots (it was November in the 80’s) and we were standing near one of the large Poplars that used to line the fence of Sharon Elementary. I remember he didn’t want to hang out with me much after that. I didn’t have much time to fret over it because it wasn’t long and I was attending a new school, Aspen Elementary. I can only vaguely recall the first day there in Mrs. Glazier’s third grade class room, but the details I do remember were entirely hostile. It was then and there that I met some of the children that would bully me through Elementary, Jr. High and High school, during a time when my young mind was shaping into its adult form. Ben, Clayton, Austin, Isaac (for whom I have kindled a wildfire of special hatred), and later Seth and Bobby were among the most prevalent offenders. These are people who if I were to meet them today, my first instinct would be to soundly hit them in the throat with the blade of my palm. This is one reason I still dislike going to the grocery store in my old neighborhood (after all, who wants a trip to the store to end up in an arrest on assault charges?). In a few short months, it felt to me as though I had gone from the top of the social ladder to the very bottom, and all through events over which I had no control. Skip forward to today. The experiences I had growing up helped shape me as an adult (no surprise there). I learned how to grow a thick skin, and more importantly how to wear masks to cover my feelings and thoughts. I’ve gotten pretty good at this, and I had to. It was/is a survival tactic. Showing weakness only seemed to provoke more attacks. Adults didn’t seem to care about the underlying emotional problems you were facing, they just wanted you to shut up and listen to what THEY had to say (a condition I have found myself in now that I am a father, and something I try to be conscious of and sensitive to against my nature). This mask wearing proved to be invaluable as an adult. One of the many side effects of my childhood was that I became a rather pronounced introvert. If you’re not familiar with all of the ways in which introversion manifests, I suggest you spend some time looking into it (at the very least it will give you some insights on why some people thrive in different environments while others wilt). A common characteristic of introverts is this mask wearing, or “faking it” when in specific situations. It’s normally not a problem, until you find one day that you’re wearing so many masks that you don’t know who you are anymore. You cannot identify which mask represents the real you. And that’s the problem, there is more “not you” than there is of the “actual you”. I believe this is where I am today. I have spent so much of my time being someone I am not, that I don’t know who I am anymore. However, ask me to put one of the masks on and I can flip it like a light switch (sometimes this is done so fast and so seamlessly that it’s even difficult for me to identify). It’s only a problem when you break the fourth wall and understand that there is a real you somewhere out there pulling the levers and going through the motions, meanwhile dying of atrophy. It has taken a lot of introspection, a lot of research, a small amount of counseling, and also a fair amount of just time for me to get to this point (and the counseling proved to be bit of a waste of time and money, as there was nothing discovered there that I couldn’t/haven’t found on my own for free, and besides it means more when it comes from the inside). Much like Pandora’s Box, once opened it cannot be closed. Now I just need to figure out what to do about the situation I find myself in. I recognize I am not happy with the life I live today. I can be honest inside my own head and pinpoint contributing factors, but when asked to externalize them (even by those whom I’m close to) I cannot resist the urge to put the masks back on, to filter my responses, to preserve the status quo. After all, by comparison my life is pretty good and I should be grateful for what I have. I am not convinced that airing my frustrations will improve circumstances, and it has a high probability of worsening them. Also, having not thoroughly explored what I want/need to be happy, I am likely to say something foolish that I haven’t thought through. No, every time I think about it I end up talking myself out of it. Even confiding in myself bears risk. This is a major reason I don’t keep a journal, it’s too risky. Someone, somewhere will find it, they’ll read it, and they’ll use the information against me. Even (especially) those closest to me (seems irrational, and yet is not unprecedented). So the façade continues, driving me mad inside, undermining my health, propagating the lie. I recognize this is an unsustainable course. Eventually, I will lose my sanity (among my greatest fears), lose my patience (and probably perform some terrible act in the process), or lose my life (squander it meeting the expectations of others and not living a moment for myself). I do not yet know how to proceed. It seems that, for now at least, I must do this alone. Sadly, I cannot focus solely on this process (as I must still be a father, husband, employee, coach and teacher). I suppose this is pretty close to a midlife crisis, although sort of a retarded one. I don’t want the usual expressions of youth characterized in the stereotype, but rather I just want to find a way to be happy again. I want to be like the 7 year old me again, who looks at the future with hope and promise instead of bitterness and cynicism.

Disillusionment

Over the years I have slowly moved from being a bright eyed child full of fantastic dreams, to a slightly less enthused adolescent beginning to see the true scale of the obstacles in my way, to a jaded young man losing sight of his dreams because what he thought were the obstacles in his adolescence were just the tip of the ice berg, to a chronically cynical adult who has let go of his dreams in favor of far more “realistic” (read “mediocre”) pursuits. My general overt negativity is nothing new to those that know me, so I will not discuss it further here. I was listening this morning to a report on a psychological study recently performed on political predisposition. Most of the report was somewhat uninteresting, though there was one segment that caught my attention. Having determined the participants political standing, either democratic republican or true independent (though this turned out to be a much smaller group than what was stated by the participants themselves), they were then asked to comment on their state of agreement with a bunch of various legislative bills proposed either by democrats or republicans. As most people declare that they don’t care where a bill comes from (indicating an ability to “reach across the aisle”) it would have been expected that even if the party sponsorship of the bill were switched from one to the other, the answers would remain the same. Overwhelmingly, the participants switched views on the bill based solely on the party producing it. This troubles me, and more than a little. It shows that loyalty to a political party has become more important than the policies produced and the effects they have on the people. It makes me wonder what (if anything) it would take to get someone to question their loyalty to a political party. Certainly things couldn’t escalate to the point of a second holocaust… or could they? At what point do you say enough is enough, and if that point is so late in the game that dissent is accompanied by significant personal risk or even death (as it was with many Nazi’s) what would you do? The news is filled with examples of how our current leaders are unable to compromise. The result has been stalemate as no one can agree, but no one has the power to pass and maintain legislation on their own. Even if they have the advantage of passing something during their party’s domination, it is immediately threatened with significant modification, removal of funds or enforcement, or even complete repeal. These circumstances exist only in a climate where ideas are valued not based on their content and results, but rather on the source of their creation. Partisanship seems to be the name of the game, and I’m not willing to play. I find myself in the position of liking certain specific bits of both parties’ platforms, but disliking the vast majority of both as well. As the ideas are not valued by our culture, there is no mechanism to separate the few good islands of thought from the sea of bad ideas with unacceptable consequences. I think of it a bit like a sugar coated pill. The good parts are the sweet coating designed to help it go down easier and ensure it gets swallowed while the active ingredients are bitter, don’t work properly, and have side effects worse than the original symptoms. This is to say nothing of the candidates themselves. Choosing one or the other seems to mean little when nothing good can come from either. For me personally, it doesn’t matter though. In Utah (a “winner take all” state) the electoral votes go to the republican candidate… period. This has the effect of rendering every independent and democratic vote meaningless in this state. It’s tempting to push for an “every vote counts” system in which the popular consensus gets the win. However, this has the unexpected consequence of REDUCING Utah’s voting power based on low voter turnout. That’s right, we’d go from meaningless (as we don’t contribute in any meaningful way to the overall election process) to nonexistent as Utah’s population can’t compare to the coastal states. The bottom line is, if you’re an independent or a democrat in Utah there’s no point in voting. The same is essentially true if you’re a republican, based on the rule of large numbers. Get huffy, talk ‘til you’re blue in the face about how it’s a sacred duty and all, and that one person can make a difference. The fact is that in this state YOU CANNOT make a difference. So my personal vote means nothing, neither candidate will be able to get anything done (if they do it’ll be blocked, stopped, de-clawed or outright repealed), neither platform is wholly worthwhile, and the only part of the whole thing that actually means anything isn’t valued. Tell me again how I’m supposed to “get excited” to participate? Reiterate one more time why I should be wasting my time with anything these deluded fools have to say. In short, it’s difficult to care how tall the various piles of shit are that run the country when your head is on fire.

It's different when they're yours

Okay, so the twitter thing isn’t really working for me. First of all, I’m too damn long winded for the 144 character limit (or whatever it is). Second, I can’t stand all the garbage on there. It seems to only exist to link your crappy under-viewed opinions to the crappy under-viewed opinions of others. Sort of like “well no one cares what you say, but LOOK AT LADY GAGA’s PAGE!!”. So I’ve decided to raise the old blog from the dead. The main topic for today is babies. When I was in early high school, one of my main sources of money during the summers was babysitting. Yea, doesn’t seem right does it. Anyway, my sister and I would watch the children of a lady my mother worked with. I suspect the motivation was twofold, as it gave the older kids (my sister and I) something to keep us busy and out of trouble, while giving the smaller kids competent supervision at a cheap rate. Although it was a decent arrangement (lasting about 2 years), this experience made me realize that I don’t care for children. The older I got, the more I disliked them. I didn’t want to actively cause harm to them, quite the contrary. I didn’t want anything to do with them. It seems easy to speculate that some traumatic incident caused me to dislike them, but that’s not the case. The children were averagely (is that a word) behaved, it was more just the general idea and implementation that I didn’t like. I hated the noise, the mess, the stickiness, the temperament, the smell, the constant vigilance required, the occasionally combative attitudes, the restrictions, and the overall sense of “I can’t do what I want because of them”. Sounds like I’ll make a great father, huh? Fast forward a few years, and I’m now graduated from high school, working and married. Consensus was that we’d wait a while before seriously considering children, though they were sort of an “expected” product of the stage of life we were entering (young married adulthood). After about 5 years like this, the discussions of children became more frequent, the poking and prodding from potential grandparents became impossible to ignore, and the timing was bearing down on us. Basically, we wanted to play in our early marriage without the restrictions of children, and yet we wanted them to be out of the house before we turned 50. That pretty much means we need to be done having children by 30 or so. The number of children had remained sort of nebulous, wandering from 1 to as many as 4 (at least I think I remember talking about that many at one point). As we discussed it more and more, 4 became too many and 1 was too few based on readings on social interactions of single children. So the number kind of dwelled at 2 or 3. So rather than get all obsessive about it, when the time came to start “trying” we just sort of stopped preventing and figured we’d see what happened. Now, the history of these things in my family is one of “If there is any possible way… it’ll happen”. Essentially, the men in my family seem to carry super sperm which WILL accomplish their mission if even remotely possible. True to form, the first ovulation resulted in pregnancy. So here we go. It’s officially too late to change our minds (without raising other murky ethical questions anyway) and we’re going to have a child. Interestingly, my wife and I discovered this on Father’s day 2007. We disclosed this to the now soon-to-be grandparents and they could hardly contain themselves. Meanwhile, I’m quietly concerned about these feelings I harbor about children in general. I have read a great deal about being a father and the general consensus seems to be that “it’s different when they’re yours”. Although this may be a trend, it’s not a rule, so I remain reserved. Fast forward about 8.5 months and I’m having a bit of a freak out. My wife, who was going in for a normal ultrasound for some minor thing I can’t even recall, calls me and informs me that she’s being admitted to the hospital and labor will be induced. Excited, nervous and genuinely scared to death, I head to the hospital for what would turn into a very long, sleepless and uneventful night. However, as morning approaches things begin to unfold rapidly. 16 hours into labor, and things are primed for the main event. Epidural in place, full dilation, doctor in office, we’re at the moment of truth. I’ve read many stories about fathers creating this incredible bond right at the moment of birth. I’ve seen a fair number of animal births, and frankly this scene is far too familiar. I am naturally concerned that something will happen, and that the child or mommy will be injured. With all of the hospital staff there commanding in their respective realms, I am all but absent in the proceedings. Basically what I’m trying to say is with various animals there is a chance you may be required to step in and provide material assistance with the birthing process should something go wrong, whereas here I get yelled at if I so much as watch the epidural insertion. I feel useless and unappreciated, but I’m there for morale support I guess. Well the moment arrives, and the baby comes sliding out (again, looking all too familiar) and I’m waiting to see if it’s alive and well or if we’ll be dragged through a neonatal intensive care situation. After some suctioning and toweling, baby’s chest swells with a jolt and the screams begin. All the checks and balances are being performed and I’m trying to stay out of the way, satisfy my curiosity, and of course sensitively capture the moment on digital “film”. The rest of the morning is a haze. I recall being told not to touch anything and yet pay exquisite attention to every detail of the nursing staff. There are a lot of pictures and trying to look happy (although inside I just want baby to sleep, wife to sleep, family to go home so that I can sleep). In the days following, a whole series of new patterns emerge in terms of feeding, rest, cleaning, sleeping, working, etc. This turns out to be my worst semester in college (grades wise anyway), and in general life feels pretty disrupted. Troubling me slightly is the fact that this new family addition seems to just be a “thing” that we need to take care of. It doesn’t yet feel like “mine” or like anything I am or should be emotionally invested in. Yet intellectually I realize that this is something society says I should be willing to give my life for. This disconnect between what I think I SHOULD feel and what I ACTUALLY feel keeps me concerned for months to come. As the child grows, she becomes louder, more needy, begins interacting with her environment, starts crawling and walking and my interactions with her become more complex and varied. Finally, as she begins to speak I recognize that I care for her a bit. It’s not the life completing, all encompassing, unconditional and eternal love I hear other people describe. It’s something though, and it has me feeling a little more at ease. As she grows, these feelings do too. She shows an early aptitude for things in general and I try to stimulate her curiosity and feed it as much as I can without overwhelming her. As these feelings grow, I am also aware of how much this little girl has complicated our lives. Basically a complete restructuring of priorities, some of which can’t be changed (school for instance). Although I do find myself somewhat emotionally invested, I am seriously rethinking the whole “single-children-have-social-problems” idea I’d read about years before. I figure if one is this disruptive, a second will likely be twice as much or even more. More reading and discussion pushes me in the direction of having a second child but the possibility of 3 is no longer an option and I begin to make plans to prevent it from happening accidentally. Once again, we decide that we should just go off the birth control and see what happens, and once again my little Super Swimmers get the job done in an all too quick and efficient manner (though the fact that we’re both healthy likely has something to do with it). A few weeks in and we discover it’s going to be a boy, which is perfect because now my decision to stop at 2 will have less resistance from the grandparents and possibly the wife. As the due date gets closer, I am almost dreading the birth. Fortunately, I don’t have a whole lot of time to dwell on it because this is my final semester in college and there is some concern over whether baby will wait until after finals to make an appearance. In the end, baby did end up waiting just long enough for me to graduate. A few days later and Nikki’s had a rough night with some significant discomfort in the “baby region”. So we head to the hospital as things are getting pretty painful and more frequent. She gets settled in and I head to forage for some food. No 16 hour labor here, I get a call while grabbing some breakfast informing me that I need to be somewhere else and quickly. The ball starts rolling and I find myself about to go through the whole baby thing again. Once more I feel useless, like a piece of fake furniture in a home that’s for sale (I’m just there to make other people feel better, but serve no function at all). Two or three quick pushes, slosh, suction, towels, screeeeaaaaaaaming, scale, pictures and then off again to have the nursing staff talk to me as though I’m incompetent (which I HATE!). Once again, life gets thrown into the industrial strength blender of childbirth but we have a better idea of what’s happening and things settle a bit faster. And once again I find myself not particularly emotionally invested in this new noisy thing, although by this time I have become really quite attached to its predecessor. The days start turning into weeks, which in turn morph into months. I find there are just enough distractions to keep me sane, though far fewer than I’d prefer and they’re somewhat spoiled by feelings of guilt over Nikki not getting sufficient reprieve from all the same crap I’m going through. Much frustration is had by all, tongues get bit, walls get punched, babysitters get hired when possible, events get passed over or canceled when babysitters can’t be hired, and the family cart generally trundles on through life. As the time goes by this little boy starts crawling, interacting, walking, and generally being an inquisitive little human. Slowly, with more patience than I thought I was capable of, feelings begin to grow again. So here we are now, the middle of 2012. My little girl is a feisty little 4 year old fire cracker of intelligent attitude and my little boy is an arm’s out almost running stair conquering melon loving 1 year old ball of sticky smiles. “When they’re yours, it’s different”. Yea, because you can’t walk away. You stay there and put up with it, pushing yourself to new limits of patience, anger suppression and delayed/canceled aspirations. The alternatives (namely deadbeat dad syndrome and infanticide) are worse. Things are better now than they have been in a long while, but there’s still a lot of room for improvement. I look forward to being able to DO stuff with the kids, instead of just providing for them. I look forward to rekindling some of my more time consuming hobbies, which have been on hiatus for about 5 years now. And I look forward to renewing connections with people I shouldn’t have let myself drift from. Ugh, listen to me. You’d think I was becoming an optimist…

A Weekend of Interactions

So over the labor day weekend, our home town did their annual celebration. This offers an opportunity to get out and see some of the people you live around and how they interact in social settings. For me, this offers an opportunity to confirm all the biases I have against people in general, and offers up a plethora of observations which make me question how/why our species has persisted this long, meanwhile speculating on just how much longer we will thrive.

The fun started Friday night when we had a to babysitter watch the chillins, and we went up to the top of Snowbird Ski resort to look at celestial objects through some nifty telescopes. The 1 hour introduction to astronomy was a little dry, but once we got to the top of the mountain things got pretty cool. There were probably 100 people in all that went up, but the wind was blowing a bit bringing the temperature down to around 40 or so. Half of them spent most of the time in the “warming hut” and went down early. There were only 25 or so there until the end. Most of the telescopes were 8-12” reflectors, though there was one automated scope that was pretty nice. Obviously we looked at the moon, which was almost blinding. Additionally, we looked at a few binary stars, the dumbbell and ring nebulas, the owl constellation, and a globular cluster. It was pretty neat, even though there was a fair amount of light pollution. I was glad that more than half of the attendants crapped out, it made the lines much shorter. There were only a few people taking pictures or using flashlights, so although annoying, it was minor. Then we headed down the mountain and got some dessert before spending the night at my in-laws.

On Saturday we went swimming at the pool. I don’t care for swimming in public pools for a number of reasons. Suffice it to say that I’d rather drink lake water that nasty warm salty soggy swim diaper kiddie pool water. Nevertheless, it was close to home, we had free tickets, and my daughter really wanted to go. We went with my sister, her husband, and their kids, and everyone seemed to have a generally good time. I know lifeguards are there to keep everyone “safe” but to be honest I’m pretty sure their job is to identify anyone who might be having fun, and proceed to stop it immediately. This did not happen to me, but to many around us. Want to have someone throw you in the air, so you can come crashing into the water? NEVER! Want to go underwater and grab someone’s legs, then lift them out of the water or pull them under? FORGET IT! Want to splash your friends from a few feet away? DAS IST VERBOTEN! Care to poop in the pool… go ahead, but everyone is going to have to get out now. Yea, that was how our swimming day ended. I think worse than knowing the fact that you were swimming in the pool where some kid had done the number two, was watching them scoop it out and then realizing the water was not to be refreshed before people were allowed back in. That is pretty gross if you ask me. Later that night we took Adria on a monster truck ride which she kind of enjoyed, but I think it also scared her a little bit. Then she got her face painted as a green kitty, and spent the rest of the night meowing adorably.

Sunday, Nikki took the kids to church while I cleaned the house a bit and worked on laundry… so THAT was some big fun. After church we went to a fish fry to consume the striped bass we’d caught at Lake Powell earlier in the year. The fish was great, and I was apparently designated the jungle gym for all the kiddies. We had a ball playing “tackle me” only it kind of turned into a game of pile-the-kids-up-and-sit-on- them. Only one got hurt, and it was Adria while I was swinging her around and a dog ran through my swinging space. The two collided and she bruised her leg pretty good. We went home and played on the swing out back with some glow sticks.

Monday was to be the big day for Adria. We started the day with a parade. I don’t care much for parades. There are too many people and they bother me. Additionally, people had been setting chairs out for at least 5 days, so you know there were going to be some EXTREME parade goers here. I had joked with Nikki about going out the night before the parade and swapping everyone’s chairs to the other side of the road, but we were pretty tired and it would have taken a lot of effort to move 2000+ chairs with the kind of precision I had in mind. So anyway, we found a nice spot on the grass near the ball field and I set up Ryker’s stroller in a comfy position so he could continue sleeping. Nikki had to stay home to work on some homework. Adria immediately took off her sandals and threw them on the grass. We were only there a few minutes before the parade began and oh how exciting it was (you know, floats and all… I’m being sarcastic). We were sitting back a bit from the road, so the little bit of candy being thrown wasn’t making it near us. I decided to take chuppa up closer next time someone was throwing our candy, so she could get a few pieces. It didn’t take maybe 3 minutes and she had a small handful, just enough to keep her satiated for a while. So we turned around to head back to our spot, only our spot was gone. Someone had set up a blanket right next to the stroller, and right on top of Adria’s shoes. As I walked back to get the stroller, I told Adria quite loudly that we’d have to move because someone had stolen our spot. She looked really sad which I thought was perfect. Then the lady that had set their blanket down says to me “oh, did we crowd you out?” to which I replied angrily, “yea, and you’re going to have to move your blanket so I can get my daughters shoes.”. She looked surprised and lifted up the blanket, I snatched the shoes and she said she was sorry as I walked away. We found a new spot before long and finished the parade. The most exciting thing was the monster truck they were giving rides in popped its front driveline right in front of us, stopping the parade for a few minutes. The thing really was a piece of crap in terms of workmanship, but it was a big deal for a 3 year old. I was glad to see this year that not a single politician was advertising in the parade (probably because it’s not an election year. Last year it was pretty bad. Every 4th or 5th car was “ FOR CITY ” and they’d run around frantically trying to shake people’s hands and have a “meaningful” 2 second conversation, usually about the fact that they were running for office (as if we hadn’t noticed).

Later that day we went to the carnival. I just have to say that I think there are only two main reasons that these carnivals use tickets instead of paying at the ride. (1) So that the operators don’t have to worry about making change. (2) So that the true cost of each ride is less visible to people. After all, who goes around back calculating the conversion ratio of dollars to tickets per ride (I mean other than myself)? It’s really a racket, and all the little kiddies will pay up because they can only ride once a year. So, chuppa had fun on the rides. Some were a little scary at first, but by the end she always had a big grin on her face. She was throwing her hands in the air on the ferris wheel and having a ball. While we were waiting between rides (right after the ferris wheel) I felt a rather large wet thing hit my hand. The skies were looking pretty dark and cloudy, so I figured it was about to start raining. Then I noticed that if the drop was that big, there should be a lot more of them. At that point I looked at my hand and saw what was obviously someone’s spit. I looked up sharply only to see a small head disappear quickly behind car number 3 on the ferris wheel. So I walked up to the operator and asked if I could have a word with the kids in car 3 because one of them had just spit on me. He was more than happy to comply, and I could see the look of terror on the kids face when as the car came around it slowed to a stop with me standing on the exit platform. I came right out and asked which one of them had spit on me, and they both flatly denied it. One of them kept glancing at the other in short rapid movements, so I asked him in a very loud and angry voice if he thought it was funny to spit on people. I could tell the operator was both enjoying the confrontation, but at the same time wasn’t sure what I was going to do to the kid. The kid finally admitted that he had spit, but that he had done it backwards over the wheel, not forwards. I told him that I thought that was a lie, and that I’d like an apology. I thought seriously about breaking his little nose, but the one thing that stopped me was just how serious a charge “assault of a minor” is and settled for having scared him (besides, they’d crucify me in the news). He apologized, almost on the verge of tears, and I said “alright now it’s up to the operator to let you finish the ride or not”. The operator told them to get off and not come back. It kind of felt good, but at the same time I wanted more than just an apology. I think in hindsight I should have asked for the remainder of their tickets and let Adria go on a few more rides. I’m not sure if it reveals anything that I didn’t already know about myself that I would have flat out punched a kid if it hadn’t been for all the witnesses and legal consequences. Maybe if a few more children were punched by people they thoroughly pissed off, they would piss off less people.

On the whole, between the kid spitting on me, the idiotic lady at the parade stealing my spot, the lady smoking within a few feet of the kids playground, kids that poop in the pool, the dozen or so that nearly walked into me because they were texting while walking and not paying attention to their surroundings, the fat disgusting lady making her grandson go beg for strawberries on her funnel cake because she didn’t give him enough money in the first place, the people that put crap under your windshield wipers while you’re at an event, the moron that flooded the toilet in the men’s bathroom, all the people who leave their chairs out for a week in expectation of a parade, and the people selling “survival bracelets”, I have just about had it with “people” for now. It would be nice to think that this was some kind of fluke, and I just happened to run into a few morons this weekend, but I think the truth is that this was a fairly representative sample of what we as a species are becoming. None of it was new, nor was any of it particularly harmful, just discourteous, thoughtless and insensitive. I know I always say this, but perhaps I should stop being such a pushover. Maybe I should entertain a vulgar verbal assault of ignorant women who take my spot, or bloody the face of delinquent children. Maybe then I’ll go from the guy that no one ever remembers to the asshole that no one can forget.

Theological Ramblings

So here’s a rather random post. It’s about a silly idea I’ve entertained for a long time, more or less out of boredom with the typical explanations of existence. It seems to me that if some people believe there is an all-powerful entity beyond the realm of physical dimensions we observe, as well as time itself, then presumably they likewise hold that there is some boundary (be it physical or otherwise) beyond which our notions of causality break down. If this is the case then my little notion is just as likely as other theological explanations I’ve heard.

Suppose there is only one conscience in the entirety of existence. Think of it as just one person. The universe this “being” finds itself in is in all actuality a manifestation of its own mind, which is itself just a consequence of existence. To put it another way, this non-physical creature exists, but is only aware of the reality held within its own mind. Within this mind lies what we perceive to be the physical universe (space and time). This creature is not the creator of this space, it is the consequence of a conscious mind needing a framework within which to work (this sounds a lot more complicated than it is). Within this “mind-space” the creature becomes a physical being with a history, a present existence and an unknown future, much like a dream over which one has no control. This internal existence manifests very simply at first, like a tiny particle with no volume, a point particle with no properties. After some countless time the dream cycle returns on itself, but some of the previous memories seem to return involuntarily and intrude into the new dream cycle. This has the effect of increasing complexity, as the new idea can build on and interact with the old. The next manifestation may come as a particle with some weight, or charge, or spin (obviously I’m using physical traits with which I am familiar, but this does not have to be the case).

This recurring trend of cycling dreamlike existence with bleed through from previous cycles builds and builds until you have a universe which resembles our own. The laws which govern this space are never “created” but rather are themselves consequences of very early occurrences over which the dreamer had no control (they just kind of “happened”). After some time, the dreams take a twist and the dreamer becomes a self-replicating molecule. It is able to make copies of itself, and finds this irresistible. Eventually the molecule is destroyed (perhaps after some considerable time) and the cycle renews. Once again, some of the complexity is pulled through and the “universe” in which this creature dwells takes finer form.

Although the dreamer never becomes aware of this, it is interacting with the manifestations of its own imagination. In a sense, it is interacting with previous versions of itself, only in the same space and time. As the cycles continue, the creature expounds upon multicellular forms, advanced forms of self-replication, a myriad of complex forms, and interactions with these other forms. The ultimate consequence is what you and I perceive as individuality. Though we are only “ideas” in the mind of some self-unaware entity which exists outside of anything we understand, we think ourselves special and unique. We begin to refer to the dreamer as God, guessing at the nature of its intentions. The others with which we interact are manifestations from previous cycles, though some distortions (however minor) occur between the spaces, some like a nightmare. The chain of events which created us is too long and complex to be repeated exactly, and could never have been planned as the dreamer was never in control to begin with. Though many parts of our perceived universe have already “lived” the future, they are bound to our timeline. Within that timeline they have not yet lived through their entirety, thus the future remains a mystery to all on the same timeline.

As the cycles progress, the dreamer explores philosophy and science to degrees which seem endless. Eventually, the manifestations discover small signs of the cycle’s complex workings and realize they may be able to “see the future” with sufficient studying. They interrogate and probe their world restlessly. The dreamer stirs, and the manifestations ultimately realize that the dreamer has created everything, has lived as every possible “thing” for countless eons, and has been interacting with itself the entire time. At this realization the dreamer awakes and the existence created in its mind vanishes entirely. The dreamer now exists without self-awareness, without space or time, without any means of conception. Perhaps, the dreamer will again find itself with a mind, but it is impossible to tell. There is no time, no consequence, no law, nothing but a concept with an unknown potential to create something rare, strange and beautiful which can never be shared but from within itself.

It should be said that I do not hold this belief, nor is it particularly original. It seemed original when I first had the notion sometime in my childhood, but has invariably been influenced by my surroundings. Nevertheless, I think it’s on par with other more mainstream ideas of origins and universal purpose.

At last, an update

So I’ve heard from many of you that I need to blog more. I am a little confused by this because in the recent past when I have blogged, the same people say things like “you shouldn’t be so negative”. IN the face of this conflicting feedback, I have just not written anything in the last 11 months. I would say that nothing has happened, but the fact is that a lot has happened I just don’t think that this is the most efficient means of dispersing the information to those who need/want to know. I estimate that any given post gets about 2.5 relevant comments, rarely exceeding one sentence. I get a considerable number of comments on older posts from spam advertising. This was a contributing factor in me basically forgetting about my blog for a while. There are other reasons in terms of things I wanted/needed to talk about not being… appropriate for this forum. Suffice it to say that I had my reasons for not updating for a while. Anyway, now on to some things.

In chronological order, I bought a new truck, I graduated college, we had a baby, I got a promotion, I did NOT get a bull elk tag, I went to Alaska… that’s about all the big stuff. I started an aggressive running program to get in shape, and after about 3 weeks developed shin splints and in the process of recovering lost all momentum and progress. Ryker, our new baby boy, is about 4 months old now and growing like a weed. Lately he doesn’t seem to like me much and screams when he realizes I am holding him. I feel generally happier than I did a year ago, though my overall thought patterns have not really changed.

Normally I have some sort of topic I try to adhere to, but due to the somewhat guiltily inductive nature of the circumstances prompting this post it is somewhat garbled. I will try to pick a relevant recent topic to more thoroughly explore.

Adria is growing up so fast that it is startling. Not seeing her for nearly 2 weeks, it was clear how quickly things are changing. It is somewhat frightening because I know the next few years are tremendously important in developing her personality traits. I need to be careful what I say, how I act, how we present ourselves in front of her, what we teach her, and most importantly how we place boundaries on her. I have always been of the opinion that children need to be free to explore the curiosities of their world to the greatest extent their safety will allow. It is so hard to allow her to place herself in the way of some minor harm (like falling off of a kitchen counter, or slightly pinching a finger) yet I know it’s the fastest and most efficient way to get her to recognize danger and set her own limits. I will caution her on obvious dangers and she has learned to listen to my advice (most of the time anyway). These small things will hopefully add up to an inquisitive and alert little girl who is not afraid to get out there and explore and learn. There are some larger upcoming concepts that have me concerned. For one, there is always the possibility that she’ll come up with a sex related question out of the blue. I pretty much counted 3 as the age where this becomes a real possibility, but with every passing day the probability increases slightly. Not knowing the nature of the exact question makes it difficult to prepare for. Additionally, there is always the question of how much to tell her. Do I just answer the question as directly and narrowly as possible, or do I hint at more ground to cover and feed her curiosity and risk overwhelming her with too much information? I have read and heard that it’s best to just answer the question as directly as possible, but I know that is not always my nature with something so complex and multi-faceted. I some ways I want to preclude any fairy tales about how babies are made, but the query needs to be generated by her. There is also the religious difference between her parents which complicated things. It is tender ground and we have not really explored it very much. Recent events have highlighted just how unprepared we are for navigating such tricky terrain. We have agreed that the primary concern is to agree on how to proceed so that she hears the same message from both of us, rather than a theological argument between parents with her acting as a proxy and trying to process the conflicting information. We still haven’t come to a complete consensus on her starting Sunbeams this winter. I have some serious reservations about it, and we only have 4 months to develop a common solution. I am inclined to just say no, but I know that doesn’t take Nikki’s thoughts and feeling into account. I just see it being so much more damaging than productive, even with mutual discussion about what she learned after church. I think it is nearly time to start exploring other faiths in an effort to expose her to more than just what is in the Mormon Bubble. It’s not too hard to find a Christian church to attend, and there is the Krishna temple in Spanish Fork, but other faiths could be much more challenging. There are a few mosque’s and synagogue’s in SLC, a couple Bhuddist churches farther north, but I think we’ll end up just teaching things like the principles of Jainism ourselves. Perhaps it’s a little early for all that, but I want her to be aware that there are many more out there than what she will be primarily exposed to due to the place we live. One thing’s for sure, there are a number of principals which transcend almost all religions that we can agree on to educate her with. Fortunately these are also some of the easiest to understand and present, so they’re perfect for her. I guess a day at a time is the way to go for now.

Happy Days

It’s been a while since I had a good old fashioned downtrodden rant (about the length of time since my last blog post). So let’s get started. I have developed a habit, over the course of the last 20 years or so, of not only failing to look on the bright side of things (intentionally) but also mentally preparing and planning for the worst possible outcomes. For me, it’s a survival tactic (and I’ve recently found that it’s surprisingly common and has a name, defensive pessimism). Nevertheless, it has gotten worse over the last few years, much worse (or is it “better”). It’s now to the point that I actually will sometimes stop myself from getting excited about something I have every right to get excited about. My most frequent response to most things now-a-days is a muddled “meh” (said with slightly upward tone if ever so slightly on the upper side of “don’t-give-a-damn”, and downward if it’s negative). There comes a problem every now and then which threatens to make this behavior more exacerbated. When I actually do allow myself to get excited, and something goes wrong. Such was the case last night. As you all know, I am building a rock crawler. I am VERY close to finishing the front suspension with my custom designed and built 4-link coilover shock setup. In fact, all I was waiting for was enough money to buy the coilover shocks, and then mount them (all of the axel trussing, frame mounts, links, link ends, and axle rebuild have been done in the last few months). Well, I just hit my 5 year mark at work, and they have a thing where for every 5 years of service they give you a $500 gift of your choosing. Well it didn’t quite cover the shocks, but it put a pretty good dent in the price, and I was going to need them one way or the other. So I used the money to get them. I’ve been researching them for quite some time now, so I knew exactly what I wanted. Well they arrived yesterday. I was very excited when UPS dropped them off, but managed to force myself downstairs to finish some homework before I opened the boxes. I won’t bore you with the details, but there is some assembly required. The dual springs need to be installed, the natural ride height adjusted, and the whole setup fine tuned. Some of this is going to need to be done on the vehicle, but I figured I could assemble the springs and see how they looked complete. Right as I went to install the first spring, I encountered a problem. The spring won’t slide over the stop ring (I don’t expect you to know what this is, but the spring SHOULD glide smoothly over this both during assembly and while in use). So I ran downstairs and got my digital calipers and started taking some measurements. The ID (inner diameter) of the spring is correct, the OD (outer diameter) of the shock body is correct, however the stop ring OD is too large. In fact it interferes with the spring by 0.012”. And when you include the bolts which are supposed to clamp this ring down, it adds another 0.061” for a total interference of 0.073” (this is about 4 times the thickness of my thumbnail). This will not work… period. These things are brand new, fresh off of the machine (which is in Las Vegas somewhere) and they have a serious problem like this. Furthermore, they appear to have been designed this way. This means that they didn’t include springs in their design constraints (which has me concerned for other things). I can’t help but wonder how ANYONE has been able to utilize these shocks? Maybe they recently changed their design and failed to consider all of the appropriate information, but this design cannot work. And you know something, I really shouldn’t have let myself get so excited about them. Because when something goes wrong, and I have over $700 worth of CRAP that I can’t use, I get a little angry. And all of that excitement crawls into a cocoon for about 20 minutes, and when it emerges it has morphed into a vile, witty insult spewing, deep cutting, unreasonable, high concentration maniac fuel. This is a bad time to write someone and tell them they screwed up, but I did it anyway. Time will tell what their response is, but my plan now is to post a blunt and angry review on some of the 4x4 forums I frequent and then design and built my OWN stop ring (which will probably take several days of my scarce free time). The problem here isn’t that something went wrong and I’m overreacting. The problem is that “people” fail, and they seem to do so frequently related to the few things I allow myself to get excited about. Solution 1, “people” need to stop failing (this solution is trivial, it’s like having an eigenvalue of zero, it doesn’t mean anything and it’s not really possible). Solution 2, eliminate the ability of “people” to let me down (i.e. do not get excited about ANYTHING EVER AGAIN!). Solution 2 is workable, however it aggravates a pronounced antisocial condition, and certainly doesn’t do anything for improving my outlook on life. So lets make a list of upcoming events which I have already gotten excited about, or may possibly get excited about.

Hunting season starts soon, and I generally look forward to it. I should expect that the weather will be too hot, I will see nothing worth shooting, waste a few tanks of fuel and 3 weekends, and come home frustrated and empty handed.

We should have another baby soon. I should expect that the child will have significant illness/deformities and rather than succumb to these challenges shortly, will persist for years. Before the child eventually passes away, it will have destroyed our financial situation, our peaceful household, our marriage, and what little shred of sanity I have left.

I should be graduating next spring. I should expect that there will be an issue with credits which has somehow been looked over by both me and the academic advisor several times. This will prolong my graduation indefinitely because of a lack of motivation on my part.

I should get a promotion next spring when I graduate. I should expect that should I actually graduate, the position will fall through and I will have no choice but to leave my current job because they cannot pay me enough, and I cannot justify working for that kind of money with a BS in physics. Also, whatever job I do get will suck. Alternatively, I am offered the position, but at a significantly lower salary that is acceptable.

I should be able to get a new truck next year. I should expect that I will not be able to sell my current truck for anything near what it is worth, so I won’t have sufficient money to justify the purchase. If I do happen to sell my truck and am able to make a purchase, I will not be able to afford what I want, so I will settle for something which I can afford and hate it for the rest of my life (which is probably how long I will own the truck).

I have always wanted to retire early and spend a great portion of my life doing what I want to do each day. I should expect that the reasonable savings I have built up will be required for some unforeseen disaster (and although it may stabilize some bizarre situation for the time being, will delete my ability to stop working before death). Or that, try as I might, inflation just outpaces my ability to save. Or maybe my assumptions about future income will prove to be too inflated (as described above). Perhaps my will to live will have just withered and I’ll spend the last few years of my life urinating on sidewalks and cursing everyone around me under my breath. Or maybe I’ll move to Alaska and live like a filthy hobo in an abandoned bus (if there is room, some of the reports I am hearing lately suggest I may be one of many who end up in this situation).

I should state that my reasons for writing this stuff down isn’t because I think anyone will care. It’s more for documentation purposes, sort of a way to tell myself “I told you so” when I do something stupid. Also, to provide a few data points along the way so I can figure out how I ended up… however I will end up.