My reasoning (to reduce guilt) is that locking our kids in the house by themselves when we go out to the movies or to work or... oh, wait.. "kids" means our two dogs and our cat. Ahem, let me begin again.
My reasoning (to reduce guilt) is that locking our PETS in the house alone during our outings only means that they sleep on the blanket down cellar (where it is probably warmest) while we are away, rather than sleeping under foot while we are home. So, really, there's not much difference. They're just going to sleep and bark at noises wherever we are (home or away).
REALLY, my guilt is that we leave the radio on for them while we are gone. Because I think that they would rather hear voices (and music) than static, I've tried to find a station that remains stable while we are away. There have been many times when I've left a nice clear station going only to come home to a now static-laced channel.
As it turns out, the best (most stable) station I've found is a very anti-science station (some people would call it a religious station).
I cringe hearing the non-scientific arguments against evolution and pseudo-scientific arguments for intelligent design. Part of me worries that SOMEHOW the animals understand and that it would be driving them insane like it would me if I had to listen to that drivel all day. But they cannot... right? To them it's just non-sensical human vocalizations (hmm, I mean that literally for THEM - I understand the words, but it's still nonsense to me).
Last night, or I should say, this morning when I wasn't able to sleep (I'm getting the pre-semester jitters), I was mulling over one of the "arguments" in support of intelligent design and it occurred to me that it was such a perfect example of non-scientific reasoning. BUT, if you've read this far and HATE my bias, then you may be thinking at this point something like, "Well science isn't the ONLY way to think about things!" I'd agree. (Although as "flawed" as scientific reasoning might be, what is BETTER? I haven't heard of it yet.)
Rather than argue, I'll make a comparison:
(1) The argument I overheard had to do with the "obvious" complexity of some things (like eyes) and how "random chance" (a straw-man attack against evolution in and of itself) couldn't possibly account for it. Therefore its appearance MUST have been guided by some intelligent force.
(2) When I was a kid, my father once made a wager with me (the details of which I've forgotten). He took out a coin and, in my eagerness to win a simple 50-50 toss, I agreed to his terms whilst the coin spun in the air, "Heads I win, tails you lose!" Guess who won/lost...
Now, I hope you see that (2) isn't really fair. Then how does (1) = (2)? Think about it. If I were to accept the ID argument that complexity supports the idea of an intelligent guiding force, then what about the simple stuff? Can I hold that up and say, "Here's an example of where no intelligence was guiding?" Doubtful. ID arguments MUST hold that BOTH simple AND complex are the result of intelligent design. Otherwise they begin down the slippery slope of finding the dividing line between what makes something "simple" (or truly random) and what makes something "complex" (non-random). Heads they are right, tails everyone else is wrong.
The reason this argument is non-scientific is because it cannot be articulated in a way that would allow it to be potentially falsified. That is, it is untestable because no matter what evidence you hold up, it must still support the ID bias.
Maybe I should spend that can't-sleep time either finding a new radio station (static MIGHT be preferable) or sitting down with the kids and trying to de-program them.
Saturday, December 30, 2006
Thursday, November 30, 2006
Those Bastards at Coke
My drinking life growing up was different from that of many kids I see running around today. In particular, my nieces’ and nephew’s beverages of choice have been essentially inflicted upon them by over dominating regime-loving parents (i.e., my sister and in-laws). That sounds bad, but it’s only because I wanted to be the one to push a beverage choice on them. Naturally, that beverage would be COKETM.
I cannot recall a time in my life when I wasn’t drinking a CokeTM. I remember the frantic buying frenzy I went through when the BAC (Bastards At CokeTM) forced Bill Cosby to push that vile PepsiTM-wannabe piss-drink called “New CokeTM” back in the whatever it was… 70’s? 80’s? I wasn’t old enough to have much of an income, so my supplies weren’t going to last very long.
Since I wasn’t going to drink brown carbonated piss-water, there were NO cola options left for me once my supplies ran out. Fortunately, though, after losing zillions of dollars, and a great deal of face, not to mention the support of Bill Cosby, CokeTM flushed the remainder of its CPW (carbonated piss-water) and brought back the original recipe: Classic CokeTM.
Then I went to grad school and thus began my lethargic trek into obesity. As a compromising strategy to slightly slow the weight-gain, my wife talked me into trying the switch to Diet CokeTM. Frankly, this was only barely better than CPW, but I persisted (perhaps because of the drugs they put into their sodas to create brand loyalty).
Eventually, I became a Diet CokeTM drinker. This ruined me on regular CokeTM because now THAT tastes only two steps up from CPW. (Note: So you can get an idea of the scale I’m using here, PepsiTM would fall six steps below CPW.)
After a while, I realized that I’d need to make an additional transition from the caffeinated beverage to the de-caf version. It took a couple of weeks (withdrawal headaches, crankiness, sneaking into the closet to drink my blues away, etc.), but I finally managed.
Now I’m running into the problem of FINDING restaurants that serve my CokeTM! I don’t really care if it has caffeine or not… I can handle THAT. Now, I’m starting to get hooked on (unsweetened when it arrives) iced tea. My strategy was that by first asking if they serve CokeTM and hearing that they do not, my obvious disdain and snobby reply, “Well then I’ll have Iced Tea instead – NO lemon” would highlight the error of their ways and NEXT time they’d have that beverage problem worked out.
That’s not working too swell. Maybe I should switch to, “Well then, please take my glass and scoop out some water from your cleanest toilet for me because PepsiTM only nauseates.” No, I’d be too worried that they’d just spit in my glass to get me back for having better taste than them.
Those BAC need to get their asses out here and push out the competition. I cannot do it by myself.
I cannot recall a time in my life when I wasn’t drinking a CokeTM. I remember the frantic buying frenzy I went through when the BAC (Bastards At CokeTM) forced Bill Cosby to push that vile PepsiTM-wannabe piss-drink called “New CokeTM” back in the whatever it was… 70’s? 80’s? I wasn’t old enough to have much of an income, so my supplies weren’t going to last very long.
Since I wasn’t going to drink brown carbonated piss-water, there were NO cola options left for me once my supplies ran out. Fortunately, though, after losing zillions of dollars, and a great deal of face, not to mention the support of Bill Cosby, CokeTM flushed the remainder of its CPW (carbonated piss-water) and brought back the original recipe: Classic CokeTM.
Then I went to grad school and thus began my lethargic trek into obesity. As a compromising strategy to slightly slow the weight-gain, my wife talked me into trying the switch to Diet CokeTM. Frankly, this was only barely better than CPW, but I persisted (perhaps because of the drugs they put into their sodas to create brand loyalty).
Eventually, I became a Diet CokeTM drinker. This ruined me on regular CokeTM because now THAT tastes only two steps up from CPW. (Note: So you can get an idea of the scale I’m using here, PepsiTM would fall six steps below CPW.)
After a while, I realized that I’d need to make an additional transition from the caffeinated beverage to the de-caf version. It took a couple of weeks (withdrawal headaches, crankiness, sneaking into the closet to drink my blues away, etc.), but I finally managed.
Now I’m running into the problem of FINDING restaurants that serve my CokeTM! I don’t really care if it has caffeine or not… I can handle THAT. Now, I’m starting to get hooked on (unsweetened when it arrives) iced tea. My strategy was that by first asking if they serve CokeTM and hearing that they do not, my obvious disdain and snobby reply, “Well then I’ll have Iced Tea instead – NO lemon” would highlight the error of their ways and NEXT time they’d have that beverage problem worked out.
That’s not working too swell. Maybe I should switch to, “Well then, please take my glass and scoop out some water from your cleanest toilet for me because PepsiTM only nauseates.” No, I’d be too worried that they’d just spit in my glass to get me back for having better taste than them.
Those BAC need to get their asses out here and push out the competition. I cannot do it by myself.
Tuesday, October 31, 2006
Path of Least Resistance
It’s Halloween and it’s raining. This is the first crappy Halloween we’ve seen since moving to Pittsburgh. It seems fitting, though, in a way. We also bought crappy candy to give out. Part of me hopes that not many kids come by, but another part wants them to ALL come by so that they’ll take all that crappy candy out of our house. We’ll see what happens…
Anyway. The idea of wearing masks got me to think about the ones I’ve worn. I really do not feel like the same person who was the “me” in high school. Not so much because of any traumatic life event or any conscious decision on my part to change. Rather, it just seems that the masks I’ve put on in order to get through life have gotten stuck.
Frankly, the idea of pretending (what I mean by wearing a mask) in order to cope with situations or events has never had any great appeal to me. I’d rather just avoid situations that tend to put me in that position. Yeah, I guess I’m just a pretty passive person. FINALLY, I’m getting to the title of this essay!
When I was in junior high (I think?), I took a career interest test and it revealed that my ideal job would be something in the sciences. NOT that I had any special aptitude for science (it doesn’t measure that), just that the idea of discovery and knowledge was appealing to me. Let me say right now that I WAS NOT A NERD. Not that I didn’t want to be one, but I really didn’t want to put the effort into becoming one. Maybe I’d describe myself as a quasi-nerd.
When I graduated high school, I signed yearbooks by saying I would someday be a psychiatrist. That would be a person with a medical degree who later specialized in mental health. There were not a lot of yearbooks for me to sign (fortunately) and as it turned out, my first semester in college (pre-med) was a disaster. I was not advised about what to take or avoid, so I ended up overloading myself and doing poorly. [If I remember correctly, my schedule was something like: General Psychology, Calculus, Zoology with a lab, Chemistry with a lab, and Physics with a lab.] I was a severely introverted mediocre student; one of three students sharing a dorm room designed for only two people. By the end of the semester I was invited to find an alternative educational/career path.
So much for pre-med. So much for college. (I was the first in my family to go to college, by the way.) I got a job and started working 40+ hours a week. The time FLEW by. My job was inane (and it’s probably obsolete now since even THEN I could see how a computer could be made to easily do my job). The people around me, I noticed, were fixated on the lottery. It appeared that all of them had dug themselves into their current lives so deeply that all they could hope for was a big win. That scared me a little, but not as much as how quickly and effortlessly eight months had flown by. I could all too easily see myself 10, 20, 30 years later in the same job but much older and checking my lottery stub against the latest drawing. I decided to re-apply to college (I was accepted) and take a more educated approach to education.
Despite my apparent explosion of motivation, it only lasted a short time. Much like how when you are driving at night and feel your eyes close slowly and then your head nods off. The sudden burst of fear and adrenaline fools me into thinking that there’s no way I could fall. . . asleep . . . againnnnn . . . YIKES!
In college, I took a proficiency exam to get out of the math requirement and stuck to courses that interested me, but that I was sure I could pass. This began the path of least resistance. I ended up majoring in psychology because I didn’t need to worry about those terrible science classes (even though the quasi-nerd in me wished I would take them). From the bachelor’s degree to the doctoral degree, it was psychology. Although I appeased my science urges a bit by shifting away from clinical psychology to experimental psychology, I think I will always wonder what would have happened if I’d taken my interests more seriously and traveled down the physics path.
Now I am second thinking myself. Maybe I’m still that same high school quasi-nerd.
Anyway. The idea of wearing masks got me to think about the ones I’ve worn. I really do not feel like the same person who was the “me” in high school. Not so much because of any traumatic life event or any conscious decision on my part to change. Rather, it just seems that the masks I’ve put on in order to get through life have gotten stuck.
Frankly, the idea of pretending (what I mean by wearing a mask) in order to cope with situations or events has never had any great appeal to me. I’d rather just avoid situations that tend to put me in that position. Yeah, I guess I’m just a pretty passive person. FINALLY, I’m getting to the title of this essay!
When I was in junior high (I think?), I took a career interest test and it revealed that my ideal job would be something in the sciences. NOT that I had any special aptitude for science (it doesn’t measure that), just that the idea of discovery and knowledge was appealing to me. Let me say right now that I WAS NOT A NERD. Not that I didn’t want to be one, but I really didn’t want to put the effort into becoming one. Maybe I’d describe myself as a quasi-nerd.
When I graduated high school, I signed yearbooks by saying I would someday be a psychiatrist. That would be a person with a medical degree who later specialized in mental health. There were not a lot of yearbooks for me to sign (fortunately) and as it turned out, my first semester in college (pre-med) was a disaster. I was not advised about what to take or avoid, so I ended up overloading myself and doing poorly. [If I remember correctly, my schedule was something like: General Psychology, Calculus, Zoology with a lab, Chemistry with a lab, and Physics with a lab.] I was a severely introverted mediocre student; one of three students sharing a dorm room designed for only two people. By the end of the semester I was invited to find an alternative educational/career path.
So much for pre-med. So much for college. (I was the first in my family to go to college, by the way.) I got a job and started working 40+ hours a week. The time FLEW by. My job was inane (and it’s probably obsolete now since even THEN I could see how a computer could be made to easily do my job). The people around me, I noticed, were fixated on the lottery. It appeared that all of them had dug themselves into their current lives so deeply that all they could hope for was a big win. That scared me a little, but not as much as how quickly and effortlessly eight months had flown by. I could all too easily see myself 10, 20, 30 years later in the same job but much older and checking my lottery stub against the latest drawing. I decided to re-apply to college (I was accepted) and take a more educated approach to education.
Despite my apparent explosion of motivation, it only lasted a short time. Much like how when you are driving at night and feel your eyes close slowly and then your head nods off. The sudden burst of fear and adrenaline fools me into thinking that there’s no way I could fall. . . asleep . . . againnnnn . . . YIKES!
In college, I took a proficiency exam to get out of the math requirement and stuck to courses that interested me, but that I was sure I could pass. This began the path of least resistance. I ended up majoring in psychology because I didn’t need to worry about those terrible science classes (even though the quasi-nerd in me wished I would take them). From the bachelor’s degree to the doctoral degree, it was psychology. Although I appeased my science urges a bit by shifting away from clinical psychology to experimental psychology, I think I will always wonder what would have happened if I’d taken my interests more seriously and traveled down the physics path.
Now I am second thinking myself. Maybe I’m still that same high school quasi-nerd.
Saturday, September 30, 2006
What's that question on my mind?
And so. The so-called pseudo-blogger tries again to meet the LAZY-ASS deadline of just ONE blog entry per month.
I was a lot more fired up with this when it all began. But, even then, there wasn’t a great deal of written glorp from me.
What happened to me? I ask myself that every time I look in the mirror. I ask that when I’m outside in my undies looking at the stars at 3:30 in the morning because Brisco needs to pee (Brisco is one of my dogs). I ask it when I don’t find certain movies funny. (Apparently, I am moving out of the target demographic.)
This is going to be a downer if I keep going. I’m guessing that part of my mood is tied into the changes in the season. I really don’t look forward to winter - except that I can start wearing my heavy corduroy shirts. (MY GOD what's happened to me?!)
I was a lot more fired up with this when it all began. But, even then, there wasn’t a great deal of written glorp from me.
What happened to me? I ask myself that every time I look in the mirror. I ask that when I’m outside in my undies looking at the stars at 3:30 in the morning because Brisco needs to pee (Brisco is one of my dogs). I ask it when I don’t find certain movies funny. (Apparently, I am moving out of the target demographic.)
This is going to be a downer if I keep going. I’m guessing that part of my mood is tied into the changes in the season. I really don’t look forward to winter - except that I can start wearing my heavy corduroy shirts. (MY GOD what's happened to me?!)
Thursday, August 31, 2006
I’m Immortal I Chortled
When I was a teen, I was pretty confident that I couldn’t easily be hurt too badly in an accident (like a car crash or a plane crash). I was reckless. (Illusion of invulnerability.)
When I graduated from high school, I had been running cross country track for about two years (maybe less). During that first summer I was jogging about two miles from home when my right knee “exploded” all of a sudden. I couldn’t put weight on it and it felt as though someone were trying to ply my kneecap off with a flat-head screwdriver. Apparently, I have flat feet.
I gave up the idea of running any more and thankfully, computer games were about to become much more sophisticated than Pong.
Over the (many) years I’ve had ample opportunity to experience the failings of my body. Tripping is my main facilitator toward these opportunities.
Most recently, I broke my left elbow and now I can’t completely straighten out my arm. It still POPS out of joint and grinds a bit every once and a while. Oh, also I slipped on my back stairs and jerked my right hand out like a karate jab to balance myself. I swear, had a person been in the path of that deadly blow, I’d have blood spatter on my forehead. As it turned out, the corner of the HOUSE was in the path of that deadly blow. Now I can’t form a good fist with that hand; plus when I use those fingers to indicate three of something, my ring finger splays weirdly too far from the other two fingers. My house pretty much “shook it off.”
I’ve never liked the idea of someday dying. But it seems more real to me today than it did when I was in high school. Two weeks ago my father’s girlfriend died. We weren’t close, but the closeness of that loss is disconcerting.
Now I’m into a brand new school year. In front of me in each class I see youthful life-filled faces. Then, when I step outside to go to my office or another class, I have to forge a path through their swirls of smoke.
My father-in-law died of lung cancer. I was there when he died. My mother lost her “battle” with cancer most likely because she was weakened by years of smoking. My father gave up smoking about a year ago (hopefully for good this time). His main motivations were that he was winded from doing mundane tasks: just getting dressed; walking from the driveway to the house; shopping. He has emphysema due to smoking.
I try not to be preachy to my students who I see smoking away their lives, wrinkling their faces (corners of their lips and eyes), burning away their lungs. (Hell, I freely admit to having an eating disorder!) But frankly it is offensive to me that they would squander themselves that way, so openly, and with apparent disregard.
If it were just a behavior, then they could probably just choose to stop. But there’s the addiction part of it that makes it so difficult for them to stop. Part of them knows it, I think. I’d like to see them prove to themselves that they have the willpower to stop… just quit for a month (lent?) and see if they can do it. Ultimately, what I hear, and expect to continue to hear, are their rationalizations. Things like, “Yeah, as soon as I graduate.”
“Riiiiight,” I think to myself. I’ll start holding my breath.
When I graduated from high school, I had been running cross country track for about two years (maybe less). During that first summer I was jogging about two miles from home when my right knee “exploded” all of a sudden. I couldn’t put weight on it and it felt as though someone were trying to ply my kneecap off with a flat-head screwdriver. Apparently, I have flat feet.
I gave up the idea of running any more and thankfully, computer games were about to become much more sophisticated than Pong.
Over the (many) years I’ve had ample opportunity to experience the failings of my body. Tripping is my main facilitator toward these opportunities.
Most recently, I broke my left elbow and now I can’t completely straighten out my arm. It still POPS out of joint and grinds a bit every once and a while. Oh, also I slipped on my back stairs and jerked my right hand out like a karate jab to balance myself. I swear, had a person been in the path of that deadly blow, I’d have blood spatter on my forehead. As it turned out, the corner of the HOUSE was in the path of that deadly blow. Now I can’t form a good fist with that hand; plus when I use those fingers to indicate three of something, my ring finger splays weirdly too far from the other two fingers. My house pretty much “shook it off.”
I’ve never liked the idea of someday dying. But it seems more real to me today than it did when I was in high school. Two weeks ago my father’s girlfriend died. We weren’t close, but the closeness of that loss is disconcerting.
Now I’m into a brand new school year. In front of me in each class I see youthful life-filled faces. Then, when I step outside to go to my office or another class, I have to forge a path through their swirls of smoke.
My father-in-law died of lung cancer. I was there when he died. My mother lost her “battle” with cancer most likely because she was weakened by years of smoking. My father gave up smoking about a year ago (hopefully for good this time). His main motivations were that he was winded from doing mundane tasks: just getting dressed; walking from the driveway to the house; shopping. He has emphysema due to smoking.
I try not to be preachy to my students who I see smoking away their lives, wrinkling their faces (corners of their lips and eyes), burning away their lungs. (Hell, I freely admit to having an eating disorder!) But frankly it is offensive to me that they would squander themselves that way, so openly, and with apparent disregard.
If it were just a behavior, then they could probably just choose to stop. But there’s the addiction part of it that makes it so difficult for them to stop. Part of them knows it, I think. I’d like to see them prove to themselves that they have the willpower to stop… just quit for a month (lent?) and see if they can do it. Ultimately, what I hear, and expect to continue to hear, are their rationalizations. Things like, “Yeah, as soon as I graduate.”
“Riiiiight,” I think to myself. I’ll start holding my breath.
Monday, July 31, 2006
FATTY FAT FAT FAT FAT
Blubber-boy, obese, chunky, chubby, overweight, gravitationally enhanced, fatty-boombalatty.
When I was (much) younger, I had a real stubborn streak. My aunt thought that it was remarkable that a kid would turn down dessert in order to not have to finish his liver and onions (or whatever). There was a time when I actually didn’t eat unless I was HUNGRY. Nowadays, I eat lunch and supper whether I’m hungry or not.
There is also the possibly generational thing where it was drilled into my head that I had to clean my plate. I feel guilty whenever I leave food on my plate. But I try to reason it out to myself. If I could scoop all the fat off my body and throw it away, I would do it. So, why not throw it away before it becomes fat? Better to let it go to waste than to let it go to my waist, right?
OK. So, how to get rid of the waist I have?
I’ve tried lots of stuff: Diets, exercise, Weight Watchers, public humiliation (with the more-than-willing help of my father), etc. I just don’t seem to have retained that stubborn streak I had as a kid. I give in to my desires and all too willingly allow myself to eat meals when I don’t need them.
I think I will try a new-ish approach. The Weight Watchers program did ok for me, until I fell off that wagon. But, I remember that when I did start to go back to my old habits, my system had become used to less food. I found it difficult to “clean my plate” when they were easy to clean before the program.
Bottom line: I need to commit to a lifestyle change.
But dammit! I love to eat! I love food! It’s wonderful! I could live off that stuff!
When I was (much) younger, I had a real stubborn streak. My aunt thought that it was remarkable that a kid would turn down dessert in order to not have to finish his liver and onions (or whatever). There was a time when I actually didn’t eat unless I was HUNGRY. Nowadays, I eat lunch and supper whether I’m hungry or not.
There is also the possibly generational thing where it was drilled into my head that I had to clean my plate. I feel guilty whenever I leave food on my plate. But I try to reason it out to myself. If I could scoop all the fat off my body and throw it away, I would do it. So, why not throw it away before it becomes fat? Better to let it go to waste than to let it go to my waist, right?
OK. So, how to get rid of the waist I have?
I’ve tried lots of stuff: Diets, exercise, Weight Watchers, public humiliation (with the more-than-willing help of my father), etc. I just don’t seem to have retained that stubborn streak I had as a kid. I give in to my desires and all too willingly allow myself to eat meals when I don’t need them.
I think I will try a new-ish approach. The Weight Watchers program did ok for me, until I fell off that wagon. But, I remember that when I did start to go back to my old habits, my system had become used to less food. I found it difficult to “clean my plate” when they were easy to clean before the program.
Bottom line: I need to commit to a lifestyle change.
But dammit! I love to eat! I love food! It’s wonderful! I could live off that stuff!
Monday, June 19, 2006
20th Anniversary
In a few short weeks I will be celebrating my 20th wedding anniversary (August 10). So, I’ve been reflecting a bit on things.
I can honestly say that the roughest time in our marriage was while I was going to graduate school. You see, our “honeymoon” was pretty much packing up a truck and driving to Kansas (away from our families in New Hampshire) so I could start my graduate education.
Once there (University of Kansas), I found that the relatively LAZY approach I’d since taken in school was NOT going to work. My mentor (Dr. George Kellas) was the best person to serve as my advisor as he was pretty no-nonsense when it came to educating his students. He expected us to be there no later than 10:00 am (earlier was better) and to pack it up for dinner only AFTER he left for the day (maybe around 6:00). Then of course we were to be back in the lab ASAP to work on research stuff, homework, etc. until maybe 11:00. Actually, we were usually there until closer to 1:00 or 2:00 (but not EVERY night).
Saturday was a work day. Sunday was probably a work day as well, but George rarely showed up to see who was/wasn’t working.
He has a distinctive “ka-clop ka-clop” footfall on the tiles in the halls leading to our (his graduate students’) offices. So we’d hear him coming about 4-7 seconds before he’d appear in the doorway… usually enough time to be certain that we were busy working on something by the time he could see us.
My parents would call each weekend and ask about when we were going to come home to visit. Meanwhile my wife busied herself at home (Jayhawk West Apartments). We didn’t know anyone in Kansas and her life was essentially work, home, bed. Neither of us really felt all that confident being so far from the support of our families. We were truly “on our own” which was very scary at times. We didn’t have the luxury of a parent to call when we got in a jam (broken down car, etc.).
The “rough times” came about because my old self was going through some death-throws. I felt trapped and claustrophobic by my life. It seemed that ALL my time was split between school (98%) and home (2%). I couldn’t sleep and all I ever thought about was school. I needed escape… but I didn’t know from what. I started taking to the campus at night… skulking around exploring places I probably shouldn’t have been exploring. Abandoned buildings, buildings that were supposed to be locked up…etc. I’d drive on the long flat roads with the tape-player blaring and see how fast I could get… how far away from campus I could go in the shortest time… I was snippy and irritable. Probably a real A-Hole.
I remember standing outside the apartments at night (watering the dogs) and looking at the stars and wondering, “What the hell am I doing out here in KANSAS?!”
I was naive in that I’d gotten into this Ph.D. thing figuring that once I was done, I’d go back home to New Hampshire and get a job there… Ahem… unfortunately, you are pretty much at the whim of wherever the jobs are.
My first decision, once I was a Ph.D. was whether to take a “real job” in Charleston or a relatively temporary position (a post-doc) at Washington University in fabulous St. Louis. I sometimes wonder what my life would be like now had I taken the job in South Carolina.
After the Post-Doc, I was offered a job in Mississippi, so off we went. Now, after almost 15 years, we are in Pittsburgh. Only eleven hours away (by speed-limit) from family. Or, what’s left of family. My mother passed away in 1999 and Cindy lost her father a few years before that. I really wish we’d gone home more than we did.
So, how does a marriage last 20 plus years?
Going into it, I knew SOME things would be different married versus single (e.g., I really didn’t like that if I bought some snack-thing and put it in the fridge… my “roommate” might help herself to it… BUT, even though I didn’t like it, I knew it was part of that marriage deal, so I coped). But, there really is more “settling” of options than most people expect. There’s going to be compromise… in other words, you are going to have to give up some things that were part of the single-you. BUT, you gain stuff you’d not have without the married-you. How much you emphasize the lost things over the gained things probably correlates with your marital happiness… and also how many anniversaries you get to celebrate.
I can honestly say that the roughest time in our marriage was while I was going to graduate school. You see, our “honeymoon” was pretty much packing up a truck and driving to Kansas (away from our families in New Hampshire) so I could start my graduate education.
Once there (University of Kansas), I found that the relatively LAZY approach I’d since taken in school was NOT going to work. My mentor (Dr. George Kellas) was the best person to serve as my advisor as he was pretty no-nonsense when it came to educating his students. He expected us to be there no later than 10:00 am (earlier was better) and to pack it up for dinner only AFTER he left for the day (maybe around 6:00). Then of course we were to be back in the lab ASAP to work on research stuff, homework, etc. until maybe 11:00. Actually, we were usually there until closer to 1:00 or 2:00 (but not EVERY night).
Saturday was a work day. Sunday was probably a work day as well, but George rarely showed up to see who was/wasn’t working.
He has a distinctive “ka-clop ka-clop” footfall on the tiles in the halls leading to our (his graduate students’) offices. So we’d hear him coming about 4-7 seconds before he’d appear in the doorway… usually enough time to be certain that we were busy working on something by the time he could see us.
My parents would call each weekend and ask about when we were going to come home to visit. Meanwhile my wife busied herself at home (Jayhawk West Apartments). We didn’t know anyone in Kansas and her life was essentially work, home, bed. Neither of us really felt all that confident being so far from the support of our families. We were truly “on our own” which was very scary at times. We didn’t have the luxury of a parent to call when we got in a jam (broken down car, etc.).
The “rough times” came about because my old self was going through some death-throws. I felt trapped and claustrophobic by my life. It seemed that ALL my time was split between school (98%) and home (2%). I couldn’t sleep and all I ever thought about was school. I needed escape… but I didn’t know from what. I started taking to the campus at night… skulking around exploring places I probably shouldn’t have been exploring. Abandoned buildings, buildings that were supposed to be locked up…etc. I’d drive on the long flat roads with the tape-player blaring and see how fast I could get… how far away from campus I could go in the shortest time… I was snippy and irritable. Probably a real A-Hole.
I remember standing outside the apartments at night (watering the dogs) and looking at the stars and wondering, “What the hell am I doing out here in KANSAS?!”
I was naive in that I’d gotten into this Ph.D. thing figuring that once I was done, I’d go back home to New Hampshire and get a job there… Ahem… unfortunately, you are pretty much at the whim of wherever the jobs are.
My first decision, once I was a Ph.D. was whether to take a “real job” in Charleston or a relatively temporary position (a post-doc) at Washington University in fabulous St. Louis. I sometimes wonder what my life would be like now had I taken the job in South Carolina.
After the Post-Doc, I was offered a job in Mississippi, so off we went. Now, after almost 15 years, we are in Pittsburgh. Only eleven hours away (by speed-limit) from family. Or, what’s left of family. My mother passed away in 1999 and Cindy lost her father a few years before that. I really wish we’d gone home more than we did.
So, how does a marriage last 20 plus years?
Going into it, I knew SOME things would be different married versus single (e.g., I really didn’t like that if I bought some snack-thing and put it in the fridge… my “roommate” might help herself to it… BUT, even though I didn’t like it, I knew it was part of that marriage deal, so I coped). But, there really is more “settling” of options than most people expect. There’s going to be compromise… in other words, you are going to have to give up some things that were part of the single-you. BUT, you gain stuff you’d not have without the married-you. How much you emphasize the lost things over the gained things probably correlates with your marital happiness… and also how many anniversaries you get to celebrate.
Thursday, May 11, 2006
What Planet IS That?!
I’m having trouble deciding how to work this blog-thing out… Do I want to be “political” do I want to be creative… what?
For example, I planned to come back and fill in the details of the last entry… tell you about the two neat-o things I learned. (1) The reason US Currency (actually this applies to ALL world currencies eventually… e.g., the Euro) is so colorful, and (2) My plans to make a killing in the paranormal field of “alternative energy” for cars.
However, I’ve become less interested in filling in all that stuff as each day passes. I think about it; then lose interest as soon as something else comes up. The most recent “up” deals with the mild embarrassment I feel at my school’s university banner. I’ll get to that below. For now, and just for closure’s sake, though, here goes the rest of my earlier blog-thoughts:
(1) Currency is colorful in order to make it LESS easy to use when you travel back in time. Yup. The color of money is all based on government time-travel fears. (I had a while lot more defense of this, but now don’t feel like elaborating on the joke.) My interest in this waned when a check-out clerk drew a brown streak across my brand new colorful ten-dollar bill. I told her that it’s just an iodine pen that is basically a scam to make money for two parties. One of course being the makers of these more-expensive-than-they-should-be pens, and the other group being the serious counterfeiters. She condescended to me that “Oh no, these have already caught a few fake bills.” Sure. Take a new ten or twenty dollar bill and spray it with spray-starch. Now go try to spend it at a store that uses those pens. The iodine reacts to starch which was in the crappy paper that counterfeiters USED to use all the time for fake cash printing. The problem now is that all these cashiers will NOT see a fake bill if the iodine pen streaks brown. Too much reliance on a scammed pen.
(2) I’m sickened by all the money being spent on alternative medicines. Partly because it makes me feel that humans are stupid. (I know, some are just desperate.) But also partly because I’m not getting any of that cash from stupid people. So, with gas prices soaring… what we need are alternative approaches to improving gas mileage! I have a bunch of crystals and will eventually be putting together a photo gallery of ways that the “healing properties of crystals” may be used on your car to improve gas consumption, reduce pollution, etc.! Wouldn’t it be worth it to spend a measly hundred bucks… no, wait, a measly five hundred bucks on a set of crystals to make your car work better and use less gas?! Of course it would! I will work on the photos and testimonials to PROVE they work and then get back to you.
Anyway, the real blog-content for this month starts below.
The University I work at had its 82nd Commencement ceremony. At the back of the stage hangs a banner to represent each of the university schools (i.e., School of Adult and Continuing Education; School of Business; School of Education and Social Sciences; School of Communications and Information Systems; School of Engineering, Mathematics and Science; School of Nursing and Allied Health). Each banner has a symbol like three keys, a quill, an open book, etc.
Well the School of Nursing and Allied Health has a pretty good emblem of the Earth (stylized a bit, but recognizable) with two pairs of hands reaching across them… I think they are two versions of Michael Jackson, though, because each has a single gold glove on one hand.
MY school is the School of Education and Social Sciences. It too has a planet depicted on it… but it is NOT the planet Earth. Maybe it is a secret planet that some of the administrators originally came from? Was this their sneaky way of getting some home-planet recognition? I don’t know. BUT, you’d think that the school containing EDUCATION would have a banner containing a more widely recognized planet on it. Otherwise, I think the symbolism gets lost. HOW does the planet Fermelagg fit into the themes of Social Science and Education?
For example, I planned to come back and fill in the details of the last entry… tell you about the two neat-o things I learned. (1) The reason US Currency (actually this applies to ALL world currencies eventually… e.g., the Euro) is so colorful, and (2) My plans to make a killing in the paranormal field of “alternative energy” for cars.
However, I’ve become less interested in filling in all that stuff as each day passes. I think about it; then lose interest as soon as something else comes up. The most recent “up” deals with the mild embarrassment I feel at my school’s university banner. I’ll get to that below. For now, and just for closure’s sake, though, here goes the rest of my earlier blog-thoughts:
(1) Currency is colorful in order to make it LESS easy to use when you travel back in time. Yup. The color of money is all based on government time-travel fears. (I had a while lot more defense of this, but now don’t feel like elaborating on the joke.) My interest in this waned when a check-out clerk drew a brown streak across my brand new colorful ten-dollar bill. I told her that it’s just an iodine pen that is basically a scam to make money for two parties. One of course being the makers of these more-expensive-than-they-should-be pens, and the other group being the serious counterfeiters. She condescended to me that “Oh no, these have already caught a few fake bills.” Sure. Take a new ten or twenty dollar bill and spray it with spray-starch. Now go try to spend it at a store that uses those pens. The iodine reacts to starch which was in the crappy paper that counterfeiters USED to use all the time for fake cash printing. The problem now is that all these cashiers will NOT see a fake bill if the iodine pen streaks brown. Too much reliance on a scammed pen.
(2) I’m sickened by all the money being spent on alternative medicines. Partly because it makes me feel that humans are stupid. (I know, some are just desperate.) But also partly because I’m not getting any of that cash from stupid people. So, with gas prices soaring… what we need are alternative approaches to improving gas mileage! I have a bunch of crystals and will eventually be putting together a photo gallery of ways that the “healing properties of crystals” may be used on your car to improve gas consumption, reduce pollution, etc.! Wouldn’t it be worth it to spend a measly hundred bucks… no, wait, a measly five hundred bucks on a set of crystals to make your car work better and use less gas?! Of course it would! I will work on the photos and testimonials to PROVE they work and then get back to you.
Anyway, the real blog-content for this month starts below.
The University I work at had its 82nd Commencement ceremony. At the back of the stage hangs a banner to represent each of the university schools (i.e., School of Adult and Continuing Education; School of Business; School of Education and Social Sciences; School of Communications and Information Systems; School of Engineering, Mathematics and Science; School of Nursing and Allied Health). Each banner has a symbol like three keys, a quill, an open book, etc.
Well the School of Nursing and Allied Health has a pretty good emblem of the Earth (stylized a bit, but recognizable) with two pairs of hands reaching across them… I think they are two versions of Michael Jackson, though, because each has a single gold glove on one hand.
MY school is the School of Education and Social Sciences. It too has a planet depicted on it… but it is NOT the planet Earth. Maybe it is a secret planet that some of the administrators originally came from? Was this their sneaky way of getting some home-planet recognition? I don’t know. BUT, you’d think that the school containing EDUCATION would have a banner containing a more widely recognized planet on it. Otherwise, I think the symbolism gets lost. HOW does the planet Fermelagg fit into the themes of Social Science and Education?
Saturday, April 08, 2006
I Almost Died Over One Thousand Years From Now
I can't believe I actually made it back...
Maybe I'm NOT back... Jesus, that would be a kick in the head. Maybe I'm still there... caught, "drugged" (or whatever they call that stuff they do to people... or maybe I should say "people" instead...?
My mistake was buying the time machine instructions off the web and going FOREWARD in time on my first trip, rather than BACKWARD. If I'd gone backwards, I would have had a chance to figure out how to navigate better.
Wow... look at how long I was gone... I missed weeks of classes... I'm going to have to go back and teach those classes... I don't want to lose my job.
Anyway... where do I start? It was AMAZING... I didn't mean to go so far ahead... HECK, I've always figured humanity would be long dead before 1000 years go by. I just wanted to slip ahead about 10 years to see what was going on. Ten years should have been a safe bet. Surely the world wouldn't end in 10!
Damn, like I said, I should have practised that time-travel thing a bit.
Anyway... I'll tell you about what's going on there... then, I mean...
But first, like I said, I need to go back and teach those classes. Plus, that will be good practice.
Maybe I'm NOT back... Jesus, that would be a kick in the head. Maybe I'm still there... caught, "drugged" (or whatever they call that stuff they do to people... or maybe I should say "people" instead...?
My mistake was buying the time machine instructions off the web and going FOREWARD in time on my first trip, rather than BACKWARD. If I'd gone backwards, I would have had a chance to figure out how to navigate better.
Wow... look at how long I was gone... I missed weeks of classes... I'm going to have to go back and teach those classes... I don't want to lose my job.
Anyway... where do I start? It was AMAZING... I didn't mean to go so far ahead... HECK, I've always figured humanity would be long dead before 1000 years go by. I just wanted to slip ahead about 10 years to see what was going on. Ten years should have been a safe bet. Surely the world wouldn't end in 10!
Damn, like I said, I should have practised that time-travel thing a bit.
Anyway... I'll tell you about what's going on there... then, I mean...
But first, like I said, I need to go back and teach those classes. Plus, that will be good practice.
Thursday, March 09, 2006
Not a super-hero...
OK... It's been over 40 years now and I'm STILL not a super hero.
What's the deal? How patient does a guy hafta be? Does ANYONE know of any 40+ old people who've been turned into super heroes?
No.
None of the comic books I've EVER come across have them.
I've been more than obliging in making myself available for scientific accidents to happen. I've been out quite a number of nights just wandering around waiting for the glowing meteor event, or the dying alien hero, or the alien abduction slash augmentation experiment... No black van has stopped to throw me into an illegal but desperate genetic manipulation experiment...
The sun doesn't do much to me except burn my skin. My parents weren't killed in front of my eyes as a child... (plus they were never rich enough to have a butler).
I'm really getting nervous that this might not happen. You know, I can only wait SO long before... well, you know... before I DIE OF OLD AGE!
So, this is just a general alert to the powers that be... a little little tug on their shirt sleeves that perhaps they've left a customer waiting a bit too long...
OK.
You know, as soon as you can... when you get the chance...
THanks.
What's the deal? How patient does a guy hafta be? Does ANYONE know of any 40+ old people who've been turned into super heroes?
No.
None of the comic books I've EVER come across have them.
I've been more than obliging in making myself available for scientific accidents to happen. I've been out quite a number of nights just wandering around waiting for the glowing meteor event, or the dying alien hero, or the alien abduction slash augmentation experiment... No black van has stopped to throw me into an illegal but desperate genetic manipulation experiment...
The sun doesn't do much to me except burn my skin. My parents weren't killed in front of my eyes as a child... (plus they were never rich enough to have a butler).
I'm really getting nervous that this might not happen. You know, I can only wait SO long before... well, you know... before I DIE OF OLD AGE!
So, this is just a general alert to the powers that be... a little little tug on their shirt sleeves that perhaps they've left a customer waiting a bit too long...
OK.
You know, as soon as you can... when you get the chance...
THanks.
Sunday, February 12, 2006
BLAHg
It seems this has become less a BLOG and more of a BLAH + g.
Here's my problem... I find myself really busy during the day (12-14+ hours of work, etc. the usual sort of crappy excuses...), but when I get a chance to daydream I think about the rants I'd want to post on my blog. Daydream-time usually comes during important department or university meetings of course, and NOT when I'd have an opportunity to actually write anything. So, by the time I actually FIND any time to write my blog, I sorta feel like I got the issue off my chest already during daydream-time and it seems redundant to write it in my blog.
March will bring with it some extra time for me to attend more vigilantly to this shirked responsibility of blogging.
An alternative is for me to wax a little fictional... Like the previous entry, I always seem full of stuff like that. OOH! Maybe a POEM?!?!? Yeah! What about that?! Maybe I can work up some poetry juices and spit them out here?!
Let's see... My taste is not for the mundane... so howsabout I START something, and see if anyone out there can help me fini sh it...? (Bernard, the space in "finish" was intended so that it would be a bit ambiguous as to where it SHOULD be attached... the preceding word fragment, or the following one "it" But of course you knew that.)
There was a sweet rain
upon my window pane
which trickled down
to where the body had lain.
The pools of blood
thinned in to the mud and
There... what comes next?
Here's my problem... I find myself really busy during the day (12-14+ hours of work, etc. the usual sort of crappy excuses...), but when I get a chance to daydream I think about the rants I'd want to post on my blog. Daydream-time usually comes during important department or university meetings of course, and NOT when I'd have an opportunity to actually write anything. So, by the time I actually FIND any time to write my blog, I sorta feel like I got the issue off my chest already during daydream-time and it seems redundant to write it in my blog.
March will bring with it some extra time for me to attend more vigilantly to this shirked responsibility of blogging.
An alternative is for me to wax a little fictional... Like the previous entry, I always seem full of stuff like that. OOH! Maybe a POEM?!?!? Yeah! What about that?! Maybe I can work up some poetry juices and spit them out here?!
Let's see... My taste is not for the mundane... so howsabout I START something, and see if anyone out there can help me fini sh it...? (Bernard, the space in "finish" was intended so that it would be a bit ambiguous as to where it SHOULD be attached... the preceding word fragment, or the following one "it" But of course you knew that.)
There was a sweet rain
upon my window pane
which trickled down
to where the body had lain.
The pools of blood
thinned in to the mud and
There... what comes next?
Saturday, January 14, 2006
Time Terror
Tell me, my wealthy friend... do you lose sleep at night wondering for your personal safety?
Have you become more concerned about he potential for terrorism? Hell, do you wonder if the next terrorist attack might come from your very own neighbor?!
How will they get you? WHEN will they get you?
Homeland security measures are up. Inspections at airports and train stations are up. Why, it's getting where a "respectable terrorist" can't make a decent killing in America ANYMORE...
Well don't get too snug in your rug, friend... it's only a matter of TIME before the terrorists figure out the one door America and Homeland Security has left wide open!
What door you ask? Why the door to the past. More specifically, the door to YOUR past!
For less than $100 dollars ANYONE can buy the plans for all sorts of time travel devices! Check it out! http://www.futurehorizons.net/time.htm
What is going to stop terrorists from acquiring these plans, building their own time machines, and going back to kill you when you were just a child... or worse, killing your parents, etc.?!
This route isn't just open to terrorists, but also to the guy you cut off on the highway, or the jerk who thinks it's not fair that you have a better job then he does. ANYONE could sneak into the past and harm you, your family, friends, lovers... or, they could do worse than just harm you...
The TIME for protection, the TIME for action, the TIME for somebody to do something about this is NOW! Don't wait a moment more! Someone could be firing up their freshly built time machine at this very moment!
WHAT can we do, you ask? Why protect our time-lines of course!
Drspeg Industries, Inc. has made a critical breakthrough in temporal distortion attenuation fields. They have discovered a method by which your personal time line can be isolated from the time stream flux. Simply by placing a sample of your DNA into the isolation and extraction chamber of the Temporal Distortion Attenuator (TDA), it is able to encapsulate the chronopath of your DNA back to the moment you were conceived.
Until researchers at the Drspeg Institute for Advanced Theoretical Metaphasic Physics developed the newest branch of chrono-quantum physics, this technology was considered mere science fiction at best!
How did they do it? Well, to make a complex story simple, they developed an extrapolated set of Fourier based retro-chronological calculus formulas that proved DNA timestream encapsulation was POSSIBLE! From these calculations, the TDA was born!
And not a moment too soon!
For a mere $8,500 you can purchase a TDA for your own personal use.
Only $8,500 as a one-TIME payment for a lifeTIME of security.
NOTE: Once calibrated for use by a single person's DNA sample, the TDA CANNOT be used for another individual. However, additional or replacement isolation and extraction chambers may be purchased for $750 each. This is especially recommended for protecting loved ones who may not (yet) be able to afford their own personal protection TDA.
Currently, there is only the personal model. Drspeg Industries, Inc. in conjunction with Drspeg Institute is hard at work attempting to develop TDA’s that can accommodate one's entire family tree (retroactively, of course).
Prepare yourself. The future of terrorism is the past!
Friday, January 06, 2006
Belief
This is probably going to be much less lengthy than it should be to convey my thoughts clearly. However, I find that I don't actually start to think about what I want to blog until I'm in bed TRYING to fall asleep at 2:00 am. Yep. School's about to start and so, naturally, I am losing sleep.
Right now (in my life) I am interested in the idea of BELIEF. Specifically, I am fascinated by the dynamic underlying belief formation, maintenance, and change. Truthfully, I am mostly interested in the "change" part, but the other two interest me as well. Actually I have a hunch that belief maintenance and belief change are the most closely related of the three possible pairings.
Let me quickly add that I'm not picky about what type of "belief" exactly, although I can appreciate the religious baggage (strong association) that seems to come with that word.
Almost everything that we are and that we deal with is essentially belief-based. So unfortunately, the term "belief" is too broad to be studied to everyone's satisfaction. For this entry, though, rather than elaborate on my definition/specific interests, I wanted to jot down my insomniac thoughts from last night (this morning).
First, the basic concept of "belief" cannot be what differentiates humans from other creatures. Clearly all creatures that interact with (respond to, etc.) their environments must maintain or form beliefs. That is, concrete beliefs: "That thing hurts/causes pleasure/etc." And, "That animal is a threat" and "That animal is somehow depriving me, or threatening to deprive me of something valuable like food, etc." (not that I think my dogs are articulating their beliefs... I'm just using words to convey the basic sense of what I mean by "concrete beliefs").
It occurred to me last night, though, that humans are likely to be the only critters that form abstract beliefs and act on them as fiercely as if they were concrete. That is, I can imagine a wild animal defending its turf/food/mate/etc. -all concrete things- when it believes that turf (etc.) may be taken by some competitor (another wild animal). We, on the other hand, are capable of just making up some shit in our heads that has NO CONCRETE SUBSTANTIVE MANIFESTATION (like belief in a particular god) and defending that belief aggressively if we perceive a threat to it.
By the way, I'm NOT trying to make a particular religious statement. The same kind of reaction happens when we make up our minds about a loved one, or an adored celebrity, etc. If another person mocks our belief (e.g., one my wife hates is when I refer to Barry Manilow with the same term I might use to describe something the dog did in the yard: BM), or disagrees with it, etc. we take offense, get angry, punch, kick, scream, make fun of one of their beliefs. For some reason the threat against an abstract belief is treated the same (nearly? sometimes more so?) as a threat against a concrete belief.
Take away my food and I die. Take away (change) my belief and what...? NOT die... technically, I've just been "educated." But look at how people react! We kill others who don't go along with our views (ok, another shot at religion... but it's true of other beliefs as well).
How do we justify this strange approach? We tie the abstract beliefs to concrete ones. If I believe that being gay is wrong, what's the big deal if someone tries to change my mind?
Well, if I want to get people to really defend (maintain) such a belief, I need to tie it to something that results in a concrete threat: So, obviously, if we let gays marry, then that pure fresh clean strong moral fabric of society will be torn and people will start raping each other and taking away their kids to force them to become sex-slaves and then I'll lose my job, be unable to pay bills, become homeless and have to buy a gun to rob people so I won't starve.
OK, clearly I'm too tired to make my points clear. Sorry. I'll stop. Good night.
Right now (in my life) I am interested in the idea of BELIEF. Specifically, I am fascinated by the dynamic underlying belief formation, maintenance, and change. Truthfully, I am mostly interested in the "change" part, but the other two interest me as well. Actually I have a hunch that belief maintenance and belief change are the most closely related of the three possible pairings.
Let me quickly add that I'm not picky about what type of "belief" exactly, although I can appreciate the religious baggage (strong association) that seems to come with that word.
Almost everything that we are and that we deal with is essentially belief-based. So unfortunately, the term "belief" is too broad to be studied to everyone's satisfaction. For this entry, though, rather than elaborate on my definition/specific interests, I wanted to jot down my insomniac thoughts from last night (this morning).
First, the basic concept of "belief" cannot be what differentiates humans from other creatures. Clearly all creatures that interact with (respond to, etc.) their environments must maintain or form beliefs. That is, concrete beliefs: "That thing hurts/causes pleasure/etc." And, "That animal is a threat" and "That animal is somehow depriving me, or threatening to deprive me of something valuable like food, etc." (not that I think my dogs are articulating their beliefs... I'm just using words to convey the basic sense of what I mean by "concrete beliefs").
It occurred to me last night, though, that humans are likely to be the only critters that form abstract beliefs and act on them as fiercely as if they were concrete. That is, I can imagine a wild animal defending its turf/food/mate/etc. -all concrete things- when it believes that turf (etc.) may be taken by some competitor (another wild animal). We, on the other hand, are capable of just making up some shit in our heads that has NO CONCRETE SUBSTANTIVE MANIFESTATION (like belief in a particular god) and defending that belief aggressively if we perceive a threat to it.
By the way, I'm NOT trying to make a particular religious statement. The same kind of reaction happens when we make up our minds about a loved one, or an adored celebrity, etc. If another person mocks our belief (e.g., one my wife hates is when I refer to Barry Manilow with the same term I might use to describe something the dog did in the yard: BM), or disagrees with it, etc. we take offense, get angry, punch, kick, scream, make fun of one of their beliefs. For some reason the threat against an abstract belief is treated the same (nearly? sometimes more so?) as a threat against a concrete belief.
Take away my food and I die. Take away (change) my belief and what...? NOT die... technically, I've just been "educated." But look at how people react! We kill others who don't go along with our views (ok, another shot at religion... but it's true of other beliefs as well).
How do we justify this strange approach? We tie the abstract beliefs to concrete ones. If I believe that being gay is wrong, what's the big deal if someone tries to change my mind?
Well, if I want to get people to really defend (maintain) such a belief, I need to tie it to something that results in a concrete threat: So, obviously, if we let gays marry, then that pure fresh clean strong moral fabric of society will be torn and people will start raping each other and taking away their kids to force them to become sex-slaves and then I'll lose my job, be unable to pay bills, become homeless and have to buy a gun to rob people so I won't starve.
OK, clearly I'm too tired to make my points clear. Sorry. I'll stop. Good night.
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