I Love Public Transportation

I do. I love public transportation. The depth of my passion is due not to its environmental sensibleness, or its contribution to a well-organized city, though those are great too. No, my passion for public transportation is based on the way it makes you feel about the people around you.

For a long time I didn't drive at all, and so I was missing the contrast between driving and not driving. And then I started doing a little driving, and I was astonished at the immediate sense of other cars being IN MY WAY and other drivers being ANNOYING IDIOTS who didn't know what they were doing or couldn't be bothered to put down the phone/cheeseburger/eyeliner/tall skinny latte long enough to pay attention and, well, you know, DRIVE.

You might think the feelings raised by driving stay put in your mind, directed only at drivers, not at fellow citizens. Or, rather, at fellow-citizens-as-drivers, rather as fellow-citizens-as neighbors. But in my experience this isn't how it works, with me or with anyone I know. You drive, and your sense that the people around you are rude nincompoops who can't be bothered with basic safety gives you a feeling of righteous indignation that lasts the whole day, and prompts thoughts like "What ever happened to civilized society?" "People today suck," and "That's it, I'm never going out to dinner in that neighborhood again." And that's just driving. If you factor in the hassles of parking, forget it.

Not only does taking public transportation not cause these feelings, it actually gives you other ones in its place. You see people on the bus who are completely and totally different from you. And what are they doing? Same thing you're doing. Waiting in the rain, riding on the train, reading their book, playing with their iPods, looking around at the scenery. It's like an experience cooked up to remind you how much you have in common with all the different people around you. It's the opposite of dehumanizing.

It's not perfect. Sometimes there's some horrible kid blasting music and taking up three places. But. Overall, it's this way. And I will go out on a limb here and say that even listening to people use their cell phones is not the end of the f***ing world. Sometimes it's annoying, sure. But many times those phone calls end with the warmest thoughts. "I love you, I'll see you soon." Parents to kids, kids to parents, friends to friends, lovers . . . I actually enjoy remembering that all these people can't wait to talk to the other people in their lives. How nice is that?

The main downside of taking public transportation is that it is slow. True. But at least you can read, and you arrive in a peaceful frame of mind. Also people don't often recognize is that there's a steep learning curve with taking public transportation. I mean, the first few times, you're trying to find the schedule, you're not sure whether the bus is always late, you don't know which route . . . it's a huge hassle. After about two months it's the most seamless thing imaginable.

I was reminded of these reflections today because I saw a wonderful set of drawings in The New York Times, in which two people unhappy about route cuts set out to draw and describe all the actual people on the bus routes that are going to be cut. You can see them all there: the older couples, the little kids, the "guy in an orange jacket." All present and accounted for in the art. I loved the pictures, and I thought to myself, yeah, that is what it is like.

Check out the Times thing here.

Against Mindful Detachment

I was in the kitchen the other night, looking at the dirty dinner dishes and contemplating my next act, and I thought: I don't want to do these dishes. I want another glass of wine. I want some of that dark chocolate in the fridge. And, hey, while we're at it, could I have those things while reclining on the sofa please?

I got no answer from the universe. Peevishness set in. "What about me, huh? What about my needs? Are you just ignoring me?" Hmph.

It's always a little astonishing to me how limitless my wants and desires are. I mean, this dishes episode came at the end of a pretty pleasant and easy day. I'm a professor, so I spent the morning at the library working on some research. I did some class preparation, and then some email. I went to the gym. I came home and made some simple food, and drank some wine.

A day full of pleasures, and very few privations. And yet, at its end, I was still not satisfied. Reflecting on this as I washed up, I was reminded that what I was experiencing is often thought of as a kind of troubling "attachment." On some philosophical views like Buddhism, the proper aim of life is getting rid of these attachments so you're not constantly beset by wants and desires. Like I tend to be.

I've always been resistant to this kind of thinking. I'm not claiming to have thought it all through, but I've always thought of my attachments to things as one of the better parts of my personality. I like it when people get all into stuff -- into caring about people, or causes, or clothes, or into some obsession with a TV show, or all into some sports team. It's nice when people are like that. I've always thought it was one of the nicer things about human beings that they get all into stuff in that sort of way. It's just not something I'd want to give up, and it's not really something I'd want the people I love to give up either.

It just so happened that just a few days after my dishes evening Judith Warner wrote in her Times blog about her experience with mindfulness. I guess mindfulness is like the hot new thing among a certain group of people -- "all the rage now in psychotherapy, women’s magazines, even business journals," as Warner puts it. Meditation for calm, cool, acceptance of whatever happens to be going on at the time. Mindful detachment.

Warner says in her essay that while mindfulness may be great for the person being mindful, basically it leaves their friends and family in the dust. While you're being all calm, cool, collected and detached, your friends are wondering what happened to the cranky hothead fun best pal they used to love and your kids are . . . well, actually I've never really understood how detachment could apply to your connection to kids anyway, so I don't know. But you get the idea.

Warner puts it in terms of ragged edges -- that part of not being all detached is being human. But in a way, I feel she's kind of still a mindfulness appreciator. She admires mindfulness OK, she just seems to think that being fallible -- in the sense of occasionally flying off the handle, being impatient, or shouting -- is part of what makes us human, even if it is also kind of, well, less than ideal.

In my opinion this gives mindfulness too much credit. At least, it gives this form of mindfulness too much credit. Attachment isn't just a natural human foible. It's part of our best selves. All that wanting, caring, desiring -- even the getting mad, and irritated, and impatient -- it's part of the good life. Without it . . . well, without it, what would be the point of anything? Attachment isn't just necessary. It's great. You know what it is? It's fun, fun, fun. Think about it. How could you have "sex drugs and rock and roll" without attachment? You couldn't.

I'm not saying it can't be good to be calm and collected. It can. But here's the thing: what most of us really want, and need, isn't detachment, it's something else. As I see it, what most people really want, and need, is more like a combination of slowing down and appreciating what they've got. It's true most of us are frazzled and wound up most of the time, and that a few minutes spend on the sofa doing absolutely nothing in total quiet would be benefit us greatly. It's true that most of us get really upset over trivia -- traffic, for example, reduces everyone I know to hurling expletives -- and that spending a little time reflecting on what really matters would help a lot.

But these aren't detachment or mindfulness at all. They're just better ways of being attached to the things you're attached to. Thinking more about the people you love, being good to them, and feeling nice about the things that make you happy. Better attachment.

These things never catch on. Because unlike mindfulness, which sounds all interesting and life-changing and dramatic, taking time to sit quietly, counting your blessings, and refocusing on what you really care about are all boring and incremental. Nobody ever gets excited about stuff like that. Even on my favorite holiday, Thanksgiving, the "thanks" part takes about five seconds.

Well, whatever. That's my take on things, take it or leave it. Now if you'll excuse me I have some drinking and reclining to do.

Rationalization: A New Model For Our "Collective Consumer Conscience"

I'm not usually one for chick lit. But when I read an interview with the author of Confessions of a Shopaholic, talking about how the novel is not so much about shopping per se, but about buying what you can't afford, I figured I had to make an exception.

I'm glad I did, because let me tell you, this woman is onto something. What she's onto is that you don't have to be an addict, you don't have to be a psychological weakling, you don't have to be a candidate for rehab, to continually make decisions that are clearly in your long term worst interest. The phenomenon of rationalization is far more common than that of addiction, and aptly describes pretty much all of us.

Many people are making many such decisions every day. Up to now, the only model we had for such decisions was the model of addiction: you must be a kind of addict if you continue to do something knowing it is bad for you. Hence: shopping addict, sex addict, "chocoholic," etc. etc.

But the great thing about COAS is that, despite having "shopaholic" in the title, the book presents a different and much more plausible model for self-destructive behavior. This is based on "rationalization": we tell ourselves a story for why doing the stupid thing is better, just this once, just right now, just on this occasion, than doing the sensible thing.

Of course, it's not new to notice that people rationalize. But I think Kinsella may be the first to give a realistic account of just how such rationalizing goes, for most of us, all the time, now, at the beginning of the twenty-first century.

This matters a lot. Because it's one thing to consider a person performing a rationalization that you, yourself, would never consider. But it's another thing altogether to consider a person making mental moves that you yourself make every day, or that your friends make, or that your teenage kids drive you crazy with.

As I see it, Kinsella presents roughly three paradigms of rationalization. First, there's simple wishful thinking. Nothing new there, really: the confidence that your lottery win/new job/tax refund/publisher's clearinghouse check is going to come through just when you need it - pretty standard.

The second paradigm is the rise and fall of the grand scheme. As far as I can tell, this hasn't been pursued much in literature -- though as I've written about before, Italo Svevo's Confessions of Zeno is what I would call a canonical text in this domain. The idea here is that people only feel they can change their bad habits through the implementation of a bold new way of living, preferably adopted to great fanfare at a dramatic moment in life.

In COAS, the heroine, Becky, seeing she is in financial trouble, consults a book called Controlling Your Cash. She says on buying it, "Quite honestly, it's going to change my life." And indeed, the next morning Becky awakes, full of zeal, and makes a cheese sandwich for lunch, and wraps it in tinfoil. She is thrilled: wow, this is thrifty, easy, fun! Why doesn't everyone do this every day, she wonders?

Noon comes. The sandwich is soggy, and gross. Her friends are heaing out to get take out. Really, what would you do?

Happiness 1, Frugality 0. The grand scheme: always a f***ing disappointment.

But the most interesting and original paradigm Kinsella gives us is the "I deserve it" one. This isn't the old "because I'm worth it" of the L'Oreal ads. This is rather the idea that since denying one's self even a small amount takes such extraordinary energy and effort, naturally one needs a reward for having exercised any self-control whatsoever.

Becky does this again and again: after an afternoon of worrying about her finances, she feels she has earned a reward -- some clothes, a nice dinner, whatever -- despite the fact that the reward is going to cost more than what she's saved through worrying all day.

It's easy to dismiss such behavior as "stupid" or whatever, but recent research supports the view that active self-denial is an effort for people, and that it weighs them down (see "ego depletion," and also this blog post I wrote about it once before). What is special about our current consumer culture is that since things, and credit, are so easily available, every act of not buying stuff is an act of self-control, rather than an act of acquiescence in simply having no money.

So until you've actually maxed out your cards, it really is a depleting, and exhausting, act not to spend, and it's not surprising that at the end of it you feel you need a reward. Even one that undermines all your efforts.

The interesting thing about this third paradigm is that it's not at all restricted to shopping and spending. Twenty-first century western culture is all about choice, right? So no matter what your weakness is, the availability of all those choices means you have to exercise your self-control more than ever before. Whatever your particular mania is, we've got the environment to encourage you to rationalize about it.

I don't know what the answer is. But I do think conceptualizing the question in terms of rationalization rather than addiction is the right way to go. So next time you're tempted to say that you're an addict, why not use the language of rationalization instead? "Hi, I'm Becky, and I'm a shopping rationalizer." Not as catchy. But more accurate!

What Do Women Want? What Will They Settle For?

As everyone I know seems to know, a few weeks ago the New York Times ran a long in-depth discussion of recent research on women's sexuality. Honestly, there were so many things there to make a person feel weird, it's hard to know where to start. It's exhausting. No wonder I haven't posted in so long.

One striking thing in the article is the proposal that women have a kind of "reactive," or, put less pleasantly, a "narcissistic" sexual nature -- that is, that what turns them on is knowing they are turning someone else on. A related point concerns the surprising list of things that turn women on. Bonobos having sex, yes. Woman exercising, yes. Cute guy walking along the beach, not so much.

One proposal suggested by the researchers profiled in the article is that women evolved to respond to a wide range of stimulation more in the way of "readiness" than "desire." In cases of "unwanted genital penetration," a woman is better off if she gets lubricated. Less risk of injury. So what we see as lubrication isn't reflective of sexual desire. The same researcher suggests that women have a kind of "receptive" sexual nature that is complementary to men's "aggressive" sexual nature. On the other hand, women can be sexually quite aggressive, so this can't be the whole story.

I got a few thoughts.

1. It's hard to tell from the article whether there's a way of distinguishing between clitoral arousal and lubrication, which on the face of it seem quite different. One recurring theme in these discussions is "it's so puzzling; women are like this, but they're also like that." If the clitoral systems and inside systems are distinct, it's hardly surprising that women are like this but they're also like that. To oversimplify: maybe the clitoral system is the aggressive one and the inside system is the receptive one? Or something like that?

Clearly the clitoris has got no need for "readiness" in the sense of receptivity. Am I right? The clit is all about direct desire.

For some reason this train of thought always leads me to remember those incredibly annoying ads that some diamond company came up with trying to sell women on buying diamonds for themselves. You remember? The idea was that while your right hand was, you know, applying lipstick and trying to be seductive and getting married, your left hand was climbing mountains and getting promoted to CEO and learning sign language, Your husband was supposed to buy the right hand ring, but you were supposed to buy the left hand ring yourself. The tag line was something like, "Women of America, raise your left hand." Which was supposed to empowering or something, but really, Oh My God, how stupid. I can get irritated just thinking about it now, all these years later.

But whatever, you get the idea. I'm not claiming superiority of one system over another. As I wrote before, it's good to be a hybrid. Two systems working together: we should all be so lucky.

2. The researchers make a point of reminding everyone that arousal does not equal consent, that just because something turns a woman on does not mean you are allowed to do it.

Well, jeez, yeah, of course. You'd think this would be 100 percent obvious, as in so obvious it doesn't need repeating, but somehow it's not quite sinking in for everyone, which is why I assume they brought it up.

The idea that a woman could be "asking for it" even when she has said "no" seems to persist. I don't know what is up with that, or even whether this is a simple problem or a complicated one, but really people, time for this to end.

3. There were some great letters in response to the Times piece, and one of them basically made the point that if you want to know what a woman wants, the best way to find out is to ask her. This simple point does seem to get lost in the shuffle surprisingly often. If I had to guess what was going to amaze our descendants 100 years from now about our sexual culture, it wouldn't be that we weren't sure whether women's sexual nature was "receptive" or "aggressive," or even that we were still stuck on whether arousal equals consent.

No, if I had to guess what would be most perplexing, it would be the fact that people continue to think that there's something wrong with women having orgasms mainly from direct clitoral stimulation rather than from intercourse, even though this is 100 percent standard normal woman operating procedure. Every advice columnist seems to regularly get some version of the question, "My girlfriend doesn't orgasm from intercourse alone. I'm trying to get her to go see a doctor, but she doesn't want to. What should I do?" Answer: She's fine. If you want to know what she wants, please ask her.

Maybe I'm wrong. But that's getting my vote for number one weird thing about sex in America in 2009.

4. In the excellent novel Straight Man, by Richard Russo, a wise and well-traveled guy character named Tony Coniglia says something like "What do women want? That's simple. They want everything, just like we do. The interesting question is, What will they settle for?"

Perhaps these researchers are asking the wrong question after all.

"We're Not About To Start Getting Dumber"

I was watching Dr. Phil the other day at the gym, and it was a show about dating and age. They were talking about the old "double-standard": if an older guy dates a young woman it's OK; if an older woman dates a young guy it's not.

There are a lot of interesting things you could say about this topic but as far as I could tell, Dr. Phil himself wasn't saying any of them. He had on clips of young girls saying, "I can't imagine why a young guy would ever want to date an older woman"; he had on a dating expert who set up picky people with other picky people; and finally, he had on a guy comic who admitted yes, he's dating a much younger woman.

Dr. Phil asked the comic why he was dating a younger woman. And a big part of his answer seemed to have to do with the self-sufficiency and non-neediness of women his age. He described going online to look at ads, and corresponding with women he met there, and having them all say right away, "I'm a lawyer," or "I own my own business," or whatever. He found that a major turn-off. As he put it, he's thinking, "Well, she's got all that going on, where do I fit in? What does she need from me?"

So instead he's with some aspiring-something-in-LA., I don't remember the story, but you can imagine the scene. He teaches her stuff. Tells her what music to listen to. Since he's, you know, famous, and she's basically starting out, there's no questions about what she needs from him. He feels needed. He likes it.

This isn't an uncommon reaction to female independence. Some guys just like it better when women are dependent on them.

There are a lot of interesting things to say about this, too. But I think one of the best things to say comes to us via the most under-appreciated novel in the world, and one of my all time favorites: Amazons: An Intimate Memoir by the First Woman Ever to Play in the National Hockey League.

Here's our hero, Cleo -- first woman in the NHL! -- talking with Sanders Meade, Ranger's general manager in, well, in an intimate moment.

Sanders: "It's so hard being a man."

Cleo: "I know, I know."

Sanders: "Is it hard being a woman?"

Cleo: "It's a bitch."

Sanders: "Women know so much."

Cleo: "Does that make it harder to be a man?"

Sanders: "God, yes, terribly."

Cleo: "Well, there's not much I can say except we're not about to start getting dumber."

For me this about sums it up. You can say what you want about wanting women who are less accomplished or less self-sufficient. You can say what you want about the appeal of being needed. But it doesn't really matter, because overall, we are not about to start getting dumber.

The Internet And Its Discontents

Look, nobody loves the internet more than I do. Sometimes the thrill of finding something weird and funny, or of seeing something old and forgotten, or of learning something new and obscure is so great that I can't keep my joy contained, and I have to say out loud: "I love the internet!" I wrote once before about my special love for Wikipedia. But when it comes to the internet, I don't have to play favorites. I gotta a lotta love to go around.

However. There's a problem with the internet. The problem is that keeping up with the Joneses is now keeping up with the Kardashians: the internet makes you think the comparison class for your life isn't the people in your town, or the people on your street, but rather the people you see online every day. That would be OK, except the people you see online every day are often either 1) celebrities or 2) really successful at what they do 3) rich or 4) famous for some other reason.

So seeing them, immediately, you're thinking, "Why does that person have a Louis Vuitton bag/position in the Obama administration/deal for a new screenplay/house in Malibu on the ocean and I don't?" Once you're thinking that, really, there's nowhere to go but down, because the reason always has to do with the unfairness of life and the stupidity of all the people who fail to recognize your particular genius. Then you're even more depressed than you were when you were just quietly feeling sorry for yourself. The internet turns ordinary discontentedness into envy with a touch of bitterness, and it lets you sulk on a really global scale. What do you mean that talentless nincompoop has a book deal and I don't? It's an outrage!

I think this partly explains the astonishingly negative tone of so much stuff on the internet. Ever check out the blog PhotoshopDisasters? They post examples of bad or silly photoshopping, except when they screw up and post stuff that turns out just to be odd or surprising, but unaltered. Man, do people get pissed when that happens. "This isn't a Disaster, you nincompoops! It's just a funny photo! What a terrible blog!!" Given that the "cost" of visiting the blog is just clicking the mouse, it's hard to imagine what is so upsetting. On my theory though, it's envy: some dude, Mr. or Ms. photoshopdisasters, is getting readers, maybe getting a bit of ad revenue, maybe getting some attention, and I'm not, and that is just so unfair!

I feel it myself, all the time. Just this morning I saw a lovely photo of the Obamas and the Bidens on their trip to DC. My first thought wasn't "Oh, the inauguration," or "Look, the new president" or even "Hey, they're on a train!" It was, "That looks so fun and cool, and I love those boots Michelle is wearing. So why do they get to be starting a whole new phase in life with power and glamour and money, and I don't? It's so unfair."

What could be more absurd?

I try to stay away from stuff I know is going to encourage me in these directions. I used to read TMZ, and I just stopped, cold turkey. I don't need to know that Paris Hilton is getting 100,000 dollars to go to a party, and I'm not. I don't need to know that Joe the Plumber has a new book deal, and I don't. Who needs this information? Not me.

But it's almost impossible to really lay down the law with yourself, and anyway, there's gossip everywhere these days. I could try staying away from the internet altogether, but that would make me sad. Because nobody loves the internet more than I do. Even if it does make me unhappy.

Philosophy Is Hard: True Or False?

OK, people, school is starting up again and it's time for our first quiz. Don't worry, it's True or False —no short answer, no multiple choice, no essay questions.

Ready? Take out your pencils.

True or False?

1. Life is short.
2. It's important to be true to yourself.
3. Everyone is special.
4. You should live each day as if it is your last.
5. We always want what we cannot have.

Don't peek! Answer for yourself before you check the answer key.

Answers:

1. Life is short.

True.

I used think this was not only true but obviously so. Death, aging, you know, it's all really right around the corner. I was one of those 15 year olds who thinks, well, I gotta couple good years left anyway.

Then as I got older my faith weakened a bit. I mean, a person can accomplish things that take years and years and still have a lot of time left. If you're too obsessed with the shortness of life, you don't even bother with long term projects. Because you're all, "God, who has the time for that?" Not me.

But now I figure the shortness of life is compatible with the wisdom of long term projects. It's just they have to be the kind of projects that are reasonably fun in the doing, and not just a big bang at the end. Especially when you're using the scale of how able people are to put off doing things, you have to think life is short. People can put off doing things for decades.

2. It's important to be true to yourself.

True.

This one took me a long time to figure out. I used to think it was stupid.

First, I thought the whole idea of there being a true inner self that you'd be true to was silly. We're all products of our social environments. If I stop wearing my eccentric plaid scarf because the other kids make fun of me for it, how is that any different from stopping wearing my black hat because it isn't warm enough? Both things are just choosing among options given the good and the bad.

Second, I thought (along with Lynda Barry's character Maybonne), what if your true self is crummy? Then what, huh?

But I've come around. It's weirdly sad and annoying not to be yourself. It's weirdly fun and satisfying to be yourself—even when your true self is kind of crummy.

3. Everyone is special.

False.

This was a big thing "in the air" when I was growing up. Like, you'd hear it on Sesame Street all the time.

I love Sesame Street, but while you might want to say that everyone is different, I don't think it's right to say that everyone is special. Internalize that idea then it's a big disappointment when you turn out pretty much like everyone else: odds are you're not going to be a rock star, or a beauty queen, or Einstein, dude. But that's OK. Being like everyone else is good.

4. You should live each day as if it is your last.

False.

C'mon. Of course this is false. How did this idea ever get any traction at all?

5. We always want what we cannot have. True.

Sad, but true.

I'm just getting to the last book in my rereading of Proust's Remembrance of Things Past (spoiler alert: stop here if you don't want to know the plot). I would say one of the things the story returns to again and again is the way something you have and control is never as interesting as something out of your reach.

Maybe you know that part of this book centers on the narrator's obsession with a girl named Albertine. Marcel is conflicted but wildly jealous; over and over again he finds himself taking Albertine more for granted the more he controls her life, and finds himself crazed with passion and jealousy when he suspects Albertine's love, attention, or sexual interest has been elsewhere, at any time of her life, with anyone else.

Finally Albertine dies and Marcel is distraught.

I've encountered on several occasions the idea that when Albertine dies, Marcel "realizes how much he loves her." Maybe. But it's complicated. Marcel's unhappiness focuses still on knowing the unknowable about Albertine: what did she do, with who, when? After some time passes, he thinks about her less and less often, naturally enough. Then he is in Venice, where he is reminded of her, and he suffers again from missing her. Then, the very next day, he receives a telegram that he mistakenly reads as saying she is alive and wants to see him, to perhaps talk of getting married.

His reaction? It leaves him totally cold. He has no interest in seeing her whatsoever.

I understand there are many possible interpretations, both of Marcel's emotions and of the text. But one of these is that even in death, Marcel's ambivalence persists: it is Albertine's inaccessibility that moves him. Sad. But true.

Be The Change You Want To Be

Weirdly, it turns out that one of the best strategies for changing your behavior is to pretend, or act as if, or believe, that you are already the person you want to be.

You might have missed this news since it was buried in two different stories in The New York Times over the past couple of months—in one depressing story about how no one ever manages to quit doing anything they want to quit doing, and in another weird story about how virtual reality makes people feel they are inhabiting a completely different body.

The first story explains that although it's almost impossible to change your behavior, one proven strategy for increasing your odds is to "act like the kind of person you are trying to become." The Times explains that "even if you hit the jogging trail with 30 pounds of flab," you should "think of yourself as the jock you want to be." You'll be more likely to stick with it.

Are you finding it hard to think of yourself as the jock you want to be? I know I am. Maybe you need a high-tech intervention with a psychotherapist.

The second story explains that with virtual reality technology, you can inhabit the body of someone else.

Helpfully, they point out that if you have serious mood disorders this treatment might not be for you. But if you're reasonably, you know, together emotionally, you and a friend can don a pair of helmets, shake hands crosswise, and suddenly get the feeling of being in another body.

The relevant item here is that doing this can change not only your outlook but also your behavior. The Times says that not only does inhabiting a more attractive body make you more socially forward and adept, but in addition,

"people agree to contribute more to retirement accounts when they are virtually “age-morphed” to look older; and . . . they will exercise more after inhabiting an avatar that works out and loses weight."

I can see a lot—I mean a lot—of potentially useful avenues for this research.

One I don't really see, though, is the use to which people are actually putting it. Turns out they're hoping that married couples in trouble and adolescents can use the technology to experience another person's point of view, and stop being so *^%#ing self-absorbed.

Seems to me they're taking "point of view" a little literally, here. I mean, understanding another person requires more than just momentarily having their skinny fingers or their aching knees.

"Oh, mom, now I see why you're always bugging me to come home on time! Now that I inhabit your middle-aged woman's body and seeing me for the teenager I am! Now I get it!"

I don't think so.

But for feeling like the jock I want to be, could well work.

I figure, it's not so much "be the change you want to see," as "be the change you want to be." It would be a great advertising slogan, if ever this gets going in a big way.

Y'all can thank me later.

The Paradox Of Resolution

I've never been one for New Year's Resolutions. I always figured that if you decided to stop smoking, or drinking, or tormenting your cat, or whatever, on, say, December 15th, you could just stop doing those things on December 15th. What's the point of waiting to quit on Jan 1?

This thought of mine may seem overly rationalistic. It invites the obvious reply that it's precisely because it's hard to quit doing these things that one needs a resolution. If you could stop smoking now, you wouldn't need a resolution; you wouldn't be discussing it; you wouldn't need any Jan 1 nonsense. Really, odds are that if you could stop smoking now, you probably wouldn't even be smoking. You'd have quit already.

OK. True enough. But resolution-making has the same problem. Once you've made, and broken, a resolution, the next time you resolve to do something has less force, because you already know you're likely not to stick to it anyway. Make and break resolutions enough times and the whole point just kind of goes out the window.

This problem with resolutions is typified perfectly by the character of Zeno in the Italian novel Confessions of Zeno. Zeno resolves to quit smoking on pretty much every significant occasion, and then every insignificant occasion, of his life.

In his dictionary, he writes,

"2 February 1886. Today I finish my law degree and take up chemistry. Last cigarette!"

The new century is predictably exciting for him:

"First day of the first month of the first year of 1901." "Final monument to my vice!" "Even today I feel that if only that date could repeat itself I should be able to begin a new life."

He always goes back, of course:

"I am sure a cigarette has a more poignant flavor when it is the last. The others have their own special taste too, peculiar to them, but it is less poignant. The last has an aroma all its own, bestowed by a sense of victory over oneself and the sure hope of health and strength in the immediate future."

After years and years, Zeno solicits advice from a friend who has recently lost a lot of weight. The friend tells Zeno that he must stop making resolutions, because by making so many he has split his own personality in two: there's a master who makes the resolutions and a slave who takes the first opportunity it can to exercise its liberty. And thus to smoke. He tells Zeno that what he ought to do is to give the slave "absolute freedom," and at the same time look his vice in the face "as if it was something new" and he were meeting it "for the first time."

Zeno takes his advice. It works. For several hours. But then Zeno, feeling so fresh and innocent and cleansed, longs for a cigarette. He smokes. He resolves anew. He suffers. "The way was long," he concludes, "but the end was the same."

The logical conclusion is that the only time a resolution can be really effective is the first time you make it. But if that's true, you have every reason not to make a resolution at all. Because really, if you can't quit Dec 15th, what makes you think you're going to quit Jan 1? You're not, and not only will you have the broken resolution on your hands, you'll have broken your whole resolution-making capacity.

If that's right, you always have a reason not to make a New Year's resolution. Actually, if that's right, you always have reason not to make any resolutions at all. But then it seems to follow that it never makes sense to decide to quit doing anything

Quitting anything would make sense only if your quitting was totally spontaneous.

But that conclusion seems crazy.

Doesn't it?

Facebook and I Are On The Rocks

Facebook and I have been out twice together, and frankly, our relationship isn't working out very well. It may not last.

I took the initiative, of course, going to Facebook.com and setting up a profile. But Facebook came on strong right away. Once I'd let it slip what university I'd happen to go to, Facebook inundated me with information. Look! Here are all the people you went to college with! Here are their thumbnails! Click here for more!

I was like, Whoa, easy there, fella! A quiet living girl like me isn't ready for this kind of tsunami of memory, nostalgia, and mixed feelings. Let's take things a little more slowly. K?

OK. So I went back and deleted my university information. Then I deleted, um, pretty much everything informative, and I set my privacy settings to "Nobody should even know I exist, ever."

Having set the proper tone, I was emboldened enough to start participating in Facebook. Baby steps. I added a friend. I checked out the little apps like "bookshelf" or whatever it is where you can list the books you're reading. I considered what photos would be good. I read my friend's "wall."

But even at this pace, Facebook was too much for me: too indiscriminating, too much, too light and heavy at the same time.

Honestly, thinking about all the people I am sort of friendly with, or have been friends with in the past, or sort of like or find interesting, or have liked and found interesting in the past, all put together in one place where I would put information about what I am doing -- well, it just wigs me out. Thinking about it would be like a full-time job for me.

Also, there's the problem of friend requests you don't want to fulfill. Everyone I know on Facebook says the same thing about this: you just don't answer, and the person never knows if you decided to reject them or if you just didn't get around to answering or even if you're still on Facebook.

Really? Because this is hard to picture. I'm thinking everyone knows when they've been "declined." I guess people just don't mind it too much. I don't know.

Anyway, after a couple of months I tried again with Facebook. I added a new friend. I looked at the new friend's cute cat pictures. I read the first friend's "wall."

But it just wasn't happening. I'm just not up to encountering all this information all at once.

If Facebook could be a little quieter, a little gentler, a little more circumspect, we might have had a good thing going. But you know what they say. People don't change. You gotta take them as they are.

I'd check out his brother myspace, but I have a feeling he's just more of the same.