Quixotica

When the Rocky Mountain News closed earlier this year, journalists were angry. They blamed (among other things) the cost of production, the ubiquity of free information and the rise of the citizen journalist.

The truth is, those who found themselves with a little free time and a broadband internet connection uncovered the hidden truth that professional journalists have kept secret for decades; namely, that collecting and reporting the news is fun. Journalism is a selfish profession, and reporters take and take and take without ever giving back to the audience they boast of serving.

I love to ask people questions. I crave the thrill of discovery, and sometimes I'll draw someone out just to bait them into talking about something they love. I don't really listen, I just watch them get excited and nod approvingly every other minute or so. I like people, and when I ferret out something interesting it's not for you but for me. I want you to pay attention to me, to love me even if it's only for the few fleeting hours when the camera goes snicker-snap beneath my fingertips.

A hidden truth? Perhaps not, but just consider that maybe reporters chase stories at odd hours in the rain, snow and sleet not as a public service, but rather out of a masochistic need to prove they're important. To prove that they're valuable, that they and only they possess something worth paying attention to.

Cinnamon Toast Crunch and this track got me through finals.

I know I won't live here forever. San Francisco has taught me that there's beauty in civic pride, and you can find something to love about wherever you call home.

It helps to have a place like Hot Cookie though.

Humor me.

I recall a brutal lecture on Confucian theory but I rarely pay much attention to the world around me, and consequently lack confidence in the veracity of my memory. Thankfully web publishing is pretty lenient when it comes to fact-checking, which is sort of discouraging; I routinely stumble on grammatical errors in the opening paragraphs of articles posted on websites I respect, and bristle when the heavy hand of an editor is revealed in spasmodic chunks of narrative.

I remember a fiery professor of theology reduced to passionate fits and starts of impotent rage in his attempts to convey the Confucian concept of true beauty. I take great liberties in paraphrasing his angry admonition that beauty is not debatable, it is not skin-deep and it most certainly is not in the eyes of any fucking beholders. True beauty is a verifiable constant, and your dissent is proof you have not cultivated the necessary harmony with rén to recognize it.

I hated Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance; what began as a curiously engaging roadtrip narrative ended as an obtuse deconstruction of Quality, and I pushed myself to finish the weathered paperback out of sheer spite. At the time I felt certain a life in pursuit of Quality needed no justification, that chasing excellence and a paycheck were not mutually exclusive.

That certainty has waned in the past few months, and I marvel at the sacrifices I have made for the sake of expediency. I accepted too many responsibilities for my meager abilities this semester, and my coursework suffered. I work hard to prove myself a brilliant and celeritous writer in the office, and the quality of my writing has dropped precipitously. Near the climax of every feel-good family comedy there comes a moment of anagnorisis when the protagonist realizes what a fool he or she has been to focus on material sucess to the exclusion of truth, love and (you guessed it) beauty. As a child the choice seemed obvious, but confronted with the opportunity to compromise quality for quantity I find the same old ethical handholds so stable and strong in the dark superiority of adolescence proving a trifle less sturdy by the light of maturity.

Indulge me.

Human communication is an exercise in frustration, because we cannot understand each other.

Leon Trotsky meets Sarah Palin waiting impatiently in the express checkout lane of the Berkeley Bowl, and they exchange pleasantries about the relative firmness of the fall persimmon crop. Trotsky surreptitiously reaches out to assess the relative ripeness of Palin's produce, and letting his hand linger he casually turns the conversation towards animals husbandry.

"Did I mention I adopted a Shetland pony?" enquires Trotsky.

Immediately an image of Palin's ideal pony begins to coalesce in her mind, and we can already conjecture a reasonable divergence between the two parties' conception that (for the purposes of this example) heralds the beginning of a dissonance cascade. Palin has called to mind the Shetland ponies depicted in the illustrated reader of her childhood, an image of the common animal perfect in structure and form (the Platonic Ideal pony, if you will.)

"Elton and I adopted her from some kindly circusfolk, but the poor thing is a genetic dwarf! The AMHA claims she's too small to compete with standard miniature horses, but we're suing them to create a new 'Pygmy Pony' category."

Now we're well and truly down the rabbithole of cognition, and what Trotsky sees in his mind's eye (the true animal, a misshapen dwarf horse with flesh the color of stale coffee) is vastly different from the hodgepodge of images Palin has cobbled together (the ideal Rockwell-esque pony of her childhood squashed and stretched into an approximation of what a dwarf pony might look like, based purely on a pictorial she flipped past once in a magazine exposé detailing the exploitation of dwarf actors in films like Star Wars and The Wizard of Oz)in an imaginative attempt to communicate effectively.

"Oh, that's wonderful!" gushes Palin, and her characteristically severe tone softens as she warms to the adorably misshapen genetic misfit she's imagined. "The poor thing, it's so sweet of you to take care of handicapped livestock like that!"

Trotsky flinches, and his hand returns to the safety of his shopping cart as the conversation quickly returns to more mundane topics. Palin is confused and a little hurt by his sudden coldness, unaware that her conception of the dwarf as a cute castoff worthy of pity is directly at odds with Trotsky's image of the shrunken animal as a disenfranchised lower class, a sort of genetic proletariat trampled beneath the full-sized hooves of the miniature pony bourgeoisie. The pygmy pony is an allegory for Trotsky's fledgling manhood, and Palin has inadvertently offended her fair-weather friend because of an error endemic to the process of human communication.

Obviously, there's no clear solution to this problem short of divine intercession. Cognition of even very simple objects rapidly diverges between two or more people; one says "yellow lamppost" to a group of five strangers, and there immediately springs to said minds five different interpretations of "yellow lamppost" based on a lifetime of unique experiences.

The problem seems trivial on the surface (two millennia of recorded civilization seemingly belie any serious concern that mankind is doomed to a miserable existence of misunderstanding) but consider this; how much needless pain might be avoided if we could only clearly express and understand what each of us meant by the word "God?"

(via Unreasonable Faith)

Dear Mr. President,


I know you did something like this to remind your audience that you're an Average Joe, just a regular guy who leaves work every once in a while for a burger run with his buddies. I know it was a beautifully staged slice of daily life, I know it had everything to do with the cameras and I know that you probably couldn't give two shits about Ray's famous Hell Burgers. I know how your clever mind works, and I've only one thing to say:

Keep it up man, and don't ever change. You're the best President ever.

“Too great praise challenges attention, and often brings to light a thousand faults that otherwise the general eye would never see.

Were we allowed to read the Bible as we do all other books, we would admire its beauties, treasure its worthy thoughts, and account for all its absurd, grotesque and cruel things, by saying that its authors lived in rude, barbaric times. But we are told that it was written by inspired men; that it contains the will of God; that it is perfect, pure, and true in all its parts; the source and standard of all moral and religious truth; that it is the star and anchor of all human hope; the only guide for man, the only torch in Nature’s night.

These claims are so at variance with every known recorded fact, so palpably absurd, that every free, unbiased soul is forced to raise the standard of revolt.”

—Robert Ingersoll, Some Mistakes of Moses

(Courtesy of Unreasonable Faith)

The Chinese Disabled People's Performing Arts Group performs the Thousand Hand Guan Yin.



Who's this Guan Yin dude, you ask?

Guan Yin is the bodhisattva of compassion, revered by Buddhists as the Goddess of Mercy. Her name is short for Guan Shi Yin. Guan means to observe, watch, or monitor; Shi means the world; Yin means sounds, specifically sounds of those who suffer. Thus, Guan Yin is a compassionate being who watches for, and responds to, the people in the world who cry out for help.

What makes this worth noting is that all the performers are deaf, and in the absence of audio cues they've trained rigorously to keep their performance perfectly on beat with the music.

(via Laughing Squid)

I just read something really fascinating while preparing for a midterm: according to one interpretation, the concept of karma as it is laid out in the Bhagavad Gita is not some sort of universal balance sheet (tallying an individual's righteous and shameful actions) but rather a means of expressing the natural tendency for a human being to repeat actions they have already performed. For example, in weightlifting it's important to learn a particular movement with proper form, because if you learn to move in a way which is antagonistic to bodily health you are certain to cause harm once you start moving in that manner with significant weight. It's easier to learn something right the first time than to unlearn and relearn a particular skill or set of movements, thus the emphasis on getting it correct upfront.

In a similar vein, karma is simply a means of describing one's tendency to fall into comfortable patterns; if one chooses to do good works, it will be easier to perform similar works in the future. If you go through the trouble to volunteer at a local soup kitchen once or twice, you will become acquainted with the people and the neighborhood and feel more comfortable doing so in the future. Likewise if you choose to filch five dollars out of a family member's wallet, you will have overcome the greatest hurdle in making that initial decision so that in the future stooping to such a level will feel almost commonplace. Karma simply takes that tendency to repeat an action or disposition to a spiritual level, implying that a soul is doomed to carry its predilections from one existence to the next. For example, a habitual smoker who perished from lung cancer might find themselves inexplicably attracted to the scent and taste of tobacco in their next incarnation. Thus does the burden of previous poor choices weigh on one's future decisions.

Anyway, I thought that was cool and wanted an excuse to stop studying. As you were.

Hey Internet, how's it hangin'?

So we've hit the final week of midterms, and I'm starting to go a little crazy. I've got a bunch of essays to write throughout the next week and for some reason I'm going absolutely insane stressing over writing them; it's gotten so bad that I slept terribly last night and haven't written more than a few sentences despite being in front of this computer for over five hours.

So why not put my chronic web-surfing to use? I know this stuff is easy so I'm just gonna start brainstorming here and now, jotting down everything I can remember about Confucian thought in an effort to de-stress and find the important elements that will guarantee me an A. You see that's the real problem; I know I can pass these courses, I just want to secure the top grade and faced with my first shot to do so I can't help but feel a little nervous at the prospect of submitting 50% of my final grade while essentially writing blind.

So why does Confucius claim the village worthy is a thief of virtue (as related by the teachings of Mencius)? It's pretty simple, actually; Confucian social theory revolves around five relationships which together serve as the building blocks of human society. Avoiding for the moment details on the afore-mentioned five, the truly superior man (the junzi as I was taught in a previous course) dedicates himself to fulfilling his assigned role in all relationships with effortless perfection, with the end goal of realizing sublime enlightenment and becoming one with his given role in a perfect society. This junzi is the ideal to be chased by every citizen, and when every member of society seeks dutiful fulfillment of his duties out of an honest and open desire to better himself and serve others, then there is a perfect nation.

The village worthy (as exemplified in a short analogy within the Book of Mencius) is a man who appears to be the superior man; as Confucius says

"Those who try to censure him can find no basis; those who try to criticize him can find no faults. He follows along with all the vulgar trends and harmonizes with the sordid age. Dwelling in this way he seems dutiful and trustworthy; acting in this way, he seems honest and pure. The multitude are all pleased with him - he is pleased with himself as well - and yet you cannot enter with him into the Way of Yao and Shun."

Thus, the village worthy is someone who appears to everyone (including himself) to be the ideal citizen; he is dutiful in his relationships with others and fulfills his obligations to society. But he does it out of self-interest, rather than a commitment to the way of the junzi. Thus he is on the wrong path, and by enticing others into following that same path through his actions he is actively stealing them away from the road to enlightenment; therefore he is not only devoid of true virtue but in truth a thief, for he is robbing others of the opportunity to pursue true harmony.

Wow, that didn't really help at all.

I am expanding. Not always, not even often and sometimes I shrink back a bit; it's during quiet moments like this, a chilly afternoon beneath bright sun that I discover where I've been. It's been four days of calm, four days of no homework and little activity or personal interaction that leave me desperate for the city folk.

This is a city sleeping fitfully, every hidden smile and unsought convo a fit or start from otherwise oblivious slumber. We foolish vagrants are isolated out here on the edge of campus, second-class citizens in a village the kingdom has forgotten. Students don't go to college, they attend classes; we few left behind are hermits in a quiet meadow of domestic tranquility, glimpsing city folk hustling past the kitchen window.

You don't just walk down Market Avenue; you lean into it like Ahab cutting a channel through the mad foaming breakers of humanity. Every corner brings fresh voices, modern-day Sirens luring travelers to their doom amidst the rocky shoals of charity.

Much like my beard, this post is an experiment. I'm sad I cut it off.

A conversation I might have had today:

Me: Hey dude I'm headed out to get a haircut do you want...one....?
Sean: ...What?
Me: Uhhh....I mean...
Sean: ...Do I want a haircut?
Me: Never mind.

How it SHOULD have gone:

Me: Hey dude I'm headed out to get a haircut do you want...one...?
Sean: ...(meaningful pause) Yes. Yes I do.
Me: Uhh I mean....wait, what?!
Sean: Bring me back a jerry curl. Extra curl.
Me: Wait...
Sean: And a side order of muttonchops.
Me: But...
Sean: King-sized.

Life would be better with a team of sitcom writers and a laugh track.

Next Saturday I'm headed out to Berkeley to protest Burmese oppression.

Next Wednesday I'm hitting up a Baptist church on the promise of free cookies.

This Sunday I'll be taking part in SFSU's first hurling team practice.

Tomorrow morning I'll be catching the 12:01 a.m. showing of Watchmen, on a 80' x 100' IMAX screen. I expect the good doctor's genitalia (the lower Manhattan, if you will) to be taller than I am.

In twenty minutes I'm going to join the Freemasons.

I love this city.

Wait, is that actual facial hair? OH SHI-



C-C-COMBO BREAKER!

WonderCon was alright, check Facebook for pictures. Midterms start this week, and it's a relief to finally have work I can feel good about doing.

Hey Internet, what's up?

Over the last few months I've jotted a few quick notes here with the intention of posting, only to be diverted at a critical moment by something shiny. In the interests of murdering e-trees, here's a senseless text dump from San Francisco.




Just writing this to blow off steam, try that whole writing-as-therapy thing. Life is great, which is sort of the problem. I love this city, love the people I meet and the things they talk about doing. None of my courses are particularly interesting this semester, but neither are any terribly difficult; where I spent last semester cranking out a number of papers and working on weekly stories, this time around most of my professors require little beyond a satisfactory showing on the midterm and final exam. I can't really find a real job because I'm only available Saturday, Sunday and afternoons on Friday, but to be honest I don't mind not having to work another entry-level position.

Unfortunately this schedule leaves me a lot of free time in the evenings, but no disposable income to blow and not many friends close enough (personally or geographically) to annex on a regular basis. To fill it I volunteered to work both with a tiny (crappy) gaming fansite and at Spot Us, a recent startup experiment in crowdfunding public journalism. One was just to give me a regular deadline and consider writing regularly about one of my hobbies, the other was (quite honestly) to get involved with some local journalists and try to pad out my resume and network a bit (times are tough.) Given the nature of these two commitments, it's essentially impossible for me to have truly free time; even if I've no homework to complete, reading to do or assignments to shoot there's an ever-present need for content at these outlets that constantly tugs plaintively at my train of thought, looking up at my superego with those big blue eyes that promise everything if I can just churn out one. More. Post.

You know what I'm finding? I really don't want to write about video games for a living. In fact, I doubt I'd like to commit to writing about any of my hobbies for money. I mean, on the surface the concept sounds great; get a game (or movie, book, cookie etc.) in the mail, crack open the package and enjoy it, then write my impressions up 1-2 weeks later and get paid to do it. The perfect crime, you say? Perhaps, but it seems my nagging doubts about turning a fun, diversionary pastime into work were entirely well-founded; having to sit and critically analyze something pretty much dest- oh forget about it. You know what I mean, because you don't get paid to do fun things: you get paid to do interesting things, important things, necessary things. I don't mean to imply your work isn't fun, only that you choose to do something else in your off hours to celebrate the fact that you aren't working. I imagine there's two enlighted ways to go about this whole happy life thing: either integrate your work and play into a lifestyle and enjoy living the dream (I'm thinking journalist, celebrity, police officer etc.) or practice very strict delineation between work and play and leave work at the office. I don't want to spend any significant portion of my existence living the "enthusiast press" lifestyle, so I guess it's strict work/play boundaries for me. That or marry Oprah.

Which is ultimately why I'm really stressed; life isn't going fast enough. I know about stopping to enjoy the moment, savoring what you're doing at any one time because you'll never get it back. I dunno if all my gushing praise for the City by the Bay has left you doubting my commitment to savoring the fruits of providence, but I think you can safely consider these succulent morsels satisfactorily savored. But no matter how great it is to be here, I'm just not getting enough accomplished; school will be great (once this semester finishes) because I'll be up another nineteen units, but at this point my schoolwork really doesn't require much effort so I'm left scrabbling desperately for accolades in the dust of my own mediocrity. I've wasted the last five years of my life, I can't afford to blow anything else.



Born in Oakland, CA, Alex quickly found a city voted “Best Weather in the U.S.” by Rand McNally too milquetoast for his toddler tastes and set out to see the world. After living in hellholes from Leeds to New Jersey, young Alexander wisely reconsidered his youthful arrogance and enrolled at college in San Francisco while he still could.

A Journalism major, he quickly discovered that training for a dying profession left plenty of free time for extra-curricular activities like pub crawling and recreational drug use. Too poor for drugs and too weepy when drunk, Alex fell back on gaming as a reliable vice. Born in a city that spawned the likes of MC Hammer and Bruce Lee, Alex stands on the shoulders of giants. In his copious free time he hopes to master acoustic guitar, buy a motorcycle and take up the mantle of wandering minstrel as a thinly-veiled excuse to fight crime.



EDIT: Oh, and I took the link to this page off my Twitter feed. Because quite frankly, it's embarassing. Like home movies.

SON OF EDIT: Also, I'm running a 12k in May. Weep for my hamstrings.

ET TU, EDIT?: As long as I'm here, hit me up on Facebook or on Twitter. I'm in the Internet, we should hang out.

Work and boredom. - Looking for work in order to be paid; in civilized countries today almost all men are at one in doing that. For all of them work is a means and not an end in itself. Hence they are not very refined in their choice of work, if only it pays well. But there are, if only rarely, men who would rather perish than work without any pleasure in their work. They are choosy, hard to satisfy, and do not care for ample rewards, if the work itself is not the reward of rewards. Artists and contemplative men of all kinds belong to this rare breed, but so do even men of leisure who spend their lives hunting, traveling, or in love affairs and adventures. All of these desire work and misery only if it is associated with pleasure, and the hardest, most difficult work if necessary. Otherwise, their idleness is resolute, even if it spells impoverishment, dishonor, and danger to life and limb. They do not fear boredom as much as work without pleasure; they actually require a lot of boredom if their work is to succeed. For thinkers and all sensitive spirits, boredom is that disagreeable "windless calm" of the soul that proceeds a happy voyage and cheerful winds. They have to bear it and must wait for its effect on them. Precisely this is what lesser natures cannot achieve by any means. To ward off boredom at any cost is vulgar, no less than work without pleasure.

- Nietszche, The Gay Science