Re:Creation

before i will like you or listen to what you have to say, or take you seriously, you have to gain my respect (especially if you are an authority figure, but we won’t worry about that). if i don’t respect you, i won’t desire to get to know you on a deep level. there’s even the chance that i’ll do my best to challenge you at every turn. if i don’t respect you, it would not be fun for us to work together. just because i don’t respect you, of course, doesn’t mean that everything is over. i can still tolerate you. i can put you at arm’s distance and, at every time you make a mistake (these times are often), even make excuses for you (did i expect you to meet my standards?). i can smile and be civil, but if you corner me at a large group meeting and start talking to me, it will be obvious that i want nothing more than to leave.

by default, of course, i respect no one. these are the ways in which i can come to actually respect you:
1. you can be as good as or better than me at philosophy (this is major respect)
2. you can evidence substantial merit in some academic field (except Urban Studies or shit like that)
3. you can be suitably athletic
4. you can be humble to the point that in our interactions my own arrogance is made obvious even to me
5. you can have some really amazing skill or talent (music, art) such that i know i couldn’t do what you do
6. you can be outgoing and always the center of attention (i.e., popular)
7. you can prove me wrong
8. you can be from another country
9. you can speak fluently languages other than english
10. you can do something that just amazes me, like, buy 6 acres of land in costa rica as an investment
and, for girls:
11. you can be really good-looking (although, this one can’t stand alone. so it only works by itself until you open your mouth)

and, when i do come to respect you, i will do anything to make you my friend. if on any given day i think you have some reservations about me, don’t like me, are disappointed with me, or some such situation holds, that day will feel like the worst in my life. i will feel like a failure. i will basically try to make you as integral a part of my life as humanly possible, because your value is automatically internalized, and i want it.

now, i’ll spare you the list of things which make me go from having a neutral attitude towards you to one of disrespect. because that’s not the point. what is the point? the point is that respect, as defined by the list i gave, is what denotes my relational attitude to you. and, defined that way, it is clearly wrong. it is wrong to not desire to interact with people just because they don’t fulfill some criteria. but this is, i think, exactly how i operate.

so, the solution is either to give up respect as the thing which motivates me to seek relationships with people, or to re-define respect so as to make it acceptable (say, by adding “you can be a human”). here are the problems with those approaches: for the former, it seems impossible to change what naturally motivates me to like people and want them to like me. or, maybe i should just not have any criteria–i should like people indiscriminately. either way, i’m not foreseeing anything that is within my power to change. and, as to the latter option, it obviously won’t work, because the list is unfortunately ad hoc: i don’t come upon person X and decide if i respect X by checking X’s properties against the list. no–i respect whom i will (i have no idea why)–i just built up the list from examples of people whom i respect. bottom line is it doesn’t seem possible to create an a priori set of things i respect. so modifying such an a priori set is even less possible.

i’ve been speaking of relationships generally, but all of this holds just as well for romantic relationships. of course, romantic relationships have their own special difficulties. here’s an example:

if we assume that eventually i figure out how to like people and seek deep relationships with them equally, and not based on some “jonathan’s ad hoc system of merit”, this raises a problem for romantic relationships. because, if i apply my new understanding about relationships in general to them, i might as well date anybody. girl X will work same as girl Y. but you are saying “well, that’s one of the reasons we know romantic love isn’t like community/relational love in the first place. so you have nothing”. ok, granted. but we can think of the problem in a different light: when i choose to date someone, i either have criteria or i don’t. and, if i do have criteria (i.e., before i date you i make sure you fit the bill, whatever that is), it seems that i am being unspiritually chauvinistic (in the technical sense of the term). but if i don’t, it is hard to see why i haven’t been married for the past 4 years.

the answer? i dunno. maybe it is to have some criteria, and make sure that those are the right criteria. still, i think the ones that we can say with certainty are right (like, “is human”) leave too many options open: it’s too liberal to explain what all the fuss is about finding “the One” (or even “the One I Happened To Meet of Several Possibilities”).

it is at this point that the christian idea that god will make my mate obvious (even if there are multiple possibilities to him) becomes very attractive. because then it is no longer about who fulfills my sorry criteria, or about which desiderata she doesn’t meet. it is about who i am meant to love. of course, we have to assume also that god picks someone, as the person i am meant to love, whom i actually will love. but since god is probably a better judge of character and personality than i am, i trust we can let him make that decision. there–problem solved? sure.

see, attractive! but also not, because it means all my philosophizing is more or less useless. it means that writing long blog entries like this because of thoughts about life, love, and why are ultimately exercises with no purpose. spinning wheels. treading water. dry heaves. shooting blanks. or, maybe that’s not a bad thing–maybe these have their uses. treading water may not get me anywhere, but the more i do it, the more prepared my muscles will be for the time when i’m actually ready to go somewhere! (now that i think about it, none of the other actions in the list have any particularly beneficial purpose, ahem).

and with that, we end: more useless logic-chopping to come, just you wait!

i am happy to be getting back into the rhythm of climbing regularly again. last quarter and even in recent weeks, i’ve been to the gym maybe once every week or two weeks. i’m even more ashamed to say that i don’t think i’ve been outside since fall quarter. but, in line with my stated goals for the quarter, i’ve gone 3 times in the past week. since each day of climbing was separated by a day of rest, and since i got on average 10 hours of sleep per night this week, my strength has come rushing back. today i sent problem after problem almost effortlessly. it was a wonderful feeling!

so in celebration of the promise of moving to the next level in my climbing ability (assuming i continue to climb 3 times a week), i purchased a pair of boreal pyros climbing shoes. (click here for info). this pair of shoes is much more technical than my current pair. right now i have boreal ninjas, which are a very comfortable slipper, and a great gym shoe (easy to take on and off, and not too hard on the feet). unfortunately the ninjas aren’t too great on really overhanging routes or ones that require super-tight footwork. the pyros, on the other hand, will be less comfortable, but will afford me an advantage on the intense, but short, sport routes i find myself on most often. they even feature the special fusion 3 rubber on the top of the shoe over the toes and on the heel, which makes toe-hooking, heel-hooking, and certain kinds of smearing much easier.

needless to say, i am hoping that this purchase will fuel my desire to become a really good climber, and help me reach that goal by making it technically within my reach and providing a new sense of excitement. i can’t wait to try them out on monday, when i think they might arrive!

i apologize to give a detailed description of things of much less substance than what i have been writing about recently, but i’m mostly writing because i’m bored, and i just got back from the wall.

alas, no philosophy of girls this time around, either. more of that, undoubtedly, later.

small are the words: the remix

and so, blood pounded in my ears and my feet pounded the path back into the city, but i was deaf to the cries of my body to stop, my face tear-streaked and wild-eyed, mouth agape in vain effort to stop the burning in my lungs: but it was the burning in my heart that blinded and bemuted me. i wanted it to burst so that i could die. i felt like i was going to die every time i thought of what happened. “and i will die”, i thought, “just as soon as i tell the disciples. i will not live in this world anymore, that betrays and deceives and tears to pieces every holy thing. i will not live in this world that takes the best of all men and exults in his slaughter! i will not live in this world that destroys the one thing in it that ever gave me real love. i cannot live without that love!”

“and is there no end to the darkness?”, i screamed inwardly as i continued to run and the crazed and adrenaline-pumped energies started to coalesce into a huge pit of dread in my center. “judas was not enough. his eyes were not enough, that never stopped roving where they should not. his stealing hands were not enough, that harmed the poor we were trying to help. and of course his betrayal was not enough! neither was the sin of the priests so high that it could not be topped, even in executing my lord—for now the most base deed has been done. they have taken my lord, and i do not know where they have put him!”

these were my thoughts as i ran, still, as always, not comprehending the truth. and these were the words that fell in shattered pieces out of my mouth, between gasps, to peter and john when i arrived at the place where they were hiding. when they realized what i was saying and believed that because of my obvious exertions it must be the truth, their already-drawn faces fell all the more, but in peter’s eyes i saw a spark of defiance and anger. immediately he thrust me, not unkindly, out of the doorway, and began running. john saw that i got some water and then was off like a shot after peter, quickly catching up and overtaking him even while i could still see them.

i fell to the ground then after satisfying my thirst and contemplated how i would die. later it surprised me when i became aware that this was the lowest point of my life–where my heart passed closest to what it must feel like to be in sheol. my lord was now not just dead, but gone, forever unreachable except in blurry memory. then in utter desolation it occurred to me to go back to the tomb and commit suicide there, in the last place i had seen my lord. i recalled how i had dropped the burial spices at the tomb to run the more quickly, and figured that if i ingested these i would die.

with this hint of purpose all the pain in my side from running subsided, and my mind grew deathly calm. i trotted back to the tomb fancying that samson must have felt much the same with his hands on the pillars at his sides, although i hated that, unlike samson, my death would not cause the thieves of my lord’s body to be crushed and destroyed. do you see, child, how far gone i was? and how short-sighted?

when i reached the tomb john was outside with tears still on his face, but looking more thoughtful than anything else. at that time peter strode out of the cave with fury and murder written in his eyes. i saw his hands shaking, and i knew that, had the thieves been there, those powerful hands of peter’s would have struck down any number of the villains. he glanced at me and then left, intent on doing i know not what. john left shortly thereafter by another route, leaving me alone with the jars of spices, the gaping tomb, and my dark plan.

it was then that i became aware of another person in the area. i turned around and saw an unfamiliar man, who i assumed had been hiding nearby while peter and john were examining the tomb. my first reaction was an anger that surprised me–i felt that this person, whom i thought to be the gardener because of his clothes, was symbolic of all those in jerusalem who had, in one moment, crowned my lord the ‘king of kings’, and in the next laughed and jeered as he was lashed. but before i had even a chance to give vent to this anger, a huge wave of shame came unbidden and pierced my heart, as i thought of my plan to die there. the smooth stone of the jar that i had picked up seconds before now felt heavy and scalding like heated metal. i dropped it to the ground and my own scalding tears joined it, mixing with the embalming fluids that pooled on the dirt.

with the intrusion of the unknown man and the inescapable weight of shame, all the stoic, self-destructive purpose that was driving me disappeared, and pain and grief once again flooded into my body. the presence of the man made my shame all the greater, and my eyes were downcast.

“woman,” he said, “why are you crying? who is it you are looking for?”

anger rose again as i saw that his words proved he must have been eavesdropping on peter and john, but i had no strength to display it. instead, my voice came weak and small, and i hated it. “sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him, and i will get him,” i said, not daring to look up and feeling nauseous.

“mary”

the voice came like a knife to my heart and a splinter of light to my benighted mind. not daring to look up, i froze as a rush of images and memories joined the reverberations of the voice in piercing my heart. i felt that a thousand needles were running to and fro inside my body, and above all, a massive fear shadowed my mind…the fear that i would raise my eyes and see just the gardener, or worse: nothing at all. i had thought it could not get any worse, and now i was being taunted by the very voice of my lord!

and yet…and yet the addicting gentleness of the voice still called to me long after the echoes had died down, insistently but not urgently, as if the speaker had all the time in the world. in that instant i knew that my mind, in all its delusion, could never manufacture or reproduce such a sound–a sound of command, yet patience, grace, and love. with that realization hope exploded throughout my body and i trembled with the warmth of it. it grew until it would no longer be refused, and i turned my eyes from the broken jar at my feet (the very instrument of my death) upwards in glorious surrender to hope, not quite daring to believe what would meet my eyes.

“rabboni!” i cried, recognizing jesus at last, and with that cry the world exulted. i felt in that moment as i have never felt before, and i knew that the greatest secret, the greatest surprise, the very telos of the universe had just called my name. my name! i was suddenly aware that every blade of grass, every grain of sand, every tree, and every mountain had been dying with me, and was now full to the overflowing with joy because death had been defeated! i knew that i, the most humble of people, a woman and a prostitute, had witnessed the unveiling of the purpose of humanity and of existence. and i knew that god delighted in making his mystery known first to a broken and suicidal prostitute.

truly, i had never felt more embarrassment and shame than in that moment. i had never before been so unaware and disgusted at my failings–at my body and the tears and the evil things that occuppied my mind. and yet i had never experienced more acceptance. i saw that in and because of my lord, all the things that were broken in me, that were broken about me, could be redeemed! i saw that, one day, i would be able to be naked without shame, as even adam and eve were unable to be for long. i saw this and i knew it, because of the living proof in front of me.

and now, though that proof is gone and taken into heaven, i know it will not be long. i can feel the transformation will take place soon, and my body trembles at the very imagining of it. i can no longer hear the voice that opened my understanding for the first time, and that called my name–that spoke inside the walls of my own house! nay, too many years have gone by and that memory has faded with all the others. joyfully, it no longer worries me, because the image of his love is burned onto my scarred heart, just as the image of the sun is burned into our eyes if we look at it, but everlasting.

and know this, child (for though you are grown, you are still a child to me): if jesus of nazareth chooses to save me, whom they call mary magdalene, the lowest of all the women in judea, he will without a doubt open his love even unto you, and to any who asks it of him…

therefore, child, ask!

at first, i could handle the parlor tricks and the mysterious (obviously inane) babble. i could even deal with his useless confrontations with the other teachers. after all, you know there’s no love lost between you pharisees and anyone but yourselves. and i guess you could say i allowed myself some smiles at the expense of those who looked like fools after trying to trap him in his own words (i admit it–and i’m not afraid of you. you need me). you have to give him that much: he had a knack for confusing and disorienting his opponents in public, much to the people’s delight. ah, but the people! you know how they are–they’ll clap and cheer at any oddity. and doesn’t he know that’s what he is to them? just a curiosity! a curiosity, nonetheless, that manages to pull food out of thin air. i still haven’t figured out how he did that one. i don’t wonder if there weren’t people planted in the crowd with food stashed in hidden places–that might do the trick.

but what have years of wandering around the sewer districts of insignificant villages in samaria, producing food from god-knows-where and “healing” people (it’s very easy to be “blind”. i could do it myself. i wonder if jesus would pay me as much as he paid his plants), got him? the applause of rabble! and then, their sticks and stones, because of his repugnant habit of quoting irrelevant passages from the law and the prophets at the wrong times. not only did he pick the wrong kind of followers, he turned them on himself! if anything is a miracle, it’s that he’s still alive…

…or maybe it’s that i’m still around. at first, things were going smoothly. he wasn’t as prone to do so many damn rashful things. i smelled promise. and my companions weren’t so thick-headed. but he kept saying incomprehensible shit, and that gradually addled their brains. you’d never have thought so many fishermen could become so many useless mystics in such a short time! particularly that simon: going around, calling jesus the anointed. anointed, of all things! i’d make a better anointed than that carpenter. of course, jesus encouraged it, arrogant as he is, and “rewarded” simon by calling him peter. ha! i’m sure “peter” will get his fill of rocks when the people drag him to the gates and stone him for calling a carpenter the anointed. what will he think of his reward then? i hope i’m there to see it.

of course, as the only “disciple” with his head on straight, i was given charge of the money bags. and this, you see, is primarily why i stuck around and disgraced myself with jesus and his lot. for whatever reason, people opened their purses to us whenever he came by. in hopes of “healing” or some unimportant favor, no doubt (and he never tired of granting the most insignificant things to the most insignificant people! it was insufferable, not to mention a waste of time). this was especially the case after news about lazarus got out–lazarus, by the way, perplexes me. he never struck me as the kind who would pretend to die so jesus could “resurrect” him. in any case, it usually happened that even after feeding ourselves and that wretched gaggle of hangers-on (whores, to a one), there was a good deal of silver left over.

i kept faithful watch over the money, taking some for myself only as my services warranted, but i knew the other disciples were jealous of my position and probably tattled lies to jesus about my use of the funds. no matter. i could deal with those fools. but i couldn’t deal with jesus when popularity turned against him and the money stopped coming in. i knew then that i had to leave the crazy charlatan behind before he dragged me into the mess he’d prepared for us (“if it were not so, i would have told you”!). the night that i made the decision was the night one of his prostitutes poured an entire jar of myros nardos on his feet! that jar could have fed us for months, but he just sat there with a sad smile on his face (why, i’ll never know–i can’t fathom what goes on in his diseased mind) and let her do it. mary–that was her name, and not a bad-looking girl. i wouldn’t have minded meeting her in her whoring days (i know your types disapprove, but the bonds of business are stronger than those of morality, eh?). i complained, of course, but he responded with more of that nonsense that i can’t even remember.

so, here i am. you want jesus and i want money. i think we can come to some sort of agreement. but remember, we’re not talking bronze here: i’ll have to go into hiding or those big brutes of fishermen will come after me after they’ve got over the fact that their “anointed” is gone forever. i want silver. thirty pieces, and no less. well? do we have a deal?

choose which of the following is more significant:

(1) i have never been in school in the month of july

(2) i have never had a girlfriend in the month of april (at least, until the 26th)

there is a fine line between insecurity and arrogance. this line is called “humble confidence”. we might also call it “realistic confidence”, since true humility is of course simply adherence to and coherence with truth–what is actually the case. how could any other rendering be anything but “false” humility, by definition (to see the obviousness of this, examine all the stanford students who say “i did alright in high school”)? we might build in, of course, a certain amount of allowable subjectivism or ignorance on my part, and state only that humble confidence is believing about myself what is, according to my best judgment, true.

so here’s the paradox: this sort of confidence is clearly the easiest and most natural thing to have, since the way things are (here, the way i am) is immediate. any falsehood is constructed (assuming of course, that my self-truth-perceiving faculties are in order). so then, why do i oscillate between insecurity and arrogance, passing through confidence without stopping so much as a second? inevitably i fall prety to scylla or charybdis, never navigating that strait successfully. but, i submit, this is really hard! i say it’s hard because in the case of insecurity, i have to construct one of two false beliefs: (1) that i am worse than i really am, or (2) that being worse in a given area than person X is of any real importance. likewise, when i am arrogant i must either be believing that (1) i am better than i really am, or (2) being better than person X is of any importance.

the question becomes: what is it about these four erroneous belief possibilities that is so magnetic? why does my mind, which has to work harder to believe falsehoods, run so naturally after any of these beliefs, unless i intentionally and pointedly make sure it does not?

it’s a problem. but you are perhaps wondering/suggesting, “why be confident in the first place? just give in to your oscillation, as you call it”. well, apart from the fact that you sound rather like the proverbial devil-on-the-shoulder and that for methodological reasons i should chop off your tongue, i’ve heard that girls are attracted to confidence (in the same way, i’m told, that they are attracted to guys with girlfriends). therefore, all spiritual/philosophical considerations aside, confidence must have value.

(i had to talk about girls somewhere in this post, as i’ve managed to in the last few and i didn’t want to break the trend. heh.)

today’s random thoughts (at my own request):

1) quantum mechanics is wack. and i mean that seriously. but at least i’m finally learning matrix arithmetic and eigenvectors.

2) only 4 of 90 people in my buddy list are online right now. an all-time low. i feel as if the world ended but they forgot to tell me.

3) my world ended today when the stanford post office again proved its infallible inefficiency. cds sent out priority mail on monday still haven’t arrived. my weekend of new music i’ve been looking forward to all week is now shot.

4) peterson’s sunset breeze is an amazing tobacco, especially when smoked in a peterson standard system pipe.

5) in the absence of port, scotch, brandy, or some other legitimately refined liquid, mountain dew serves as a wonderful aperitif.

6) is it just because i’m extremely narcissistic that i want my “perfect” girl to be like me in so many ways? (for instance, if i found someone who was a cigar connoisseur, a lover of good indie music, into rock climbing and/or running, a decent guitar player, deep-thinking enough to take well to philosophy [among other things], and appropriately stunning [we might as well add christian to the list, it being rather important], i would probably die of shock while running to ask her hand in marriage). and if that is so (meaning, if it is just because i am narcissistic), should i not actively try to disenforce my natural dissatisfaction with the women i found around me (dissatisfaction due to the fact that they’re not carbon copies of myself, basically)? but then what’s the difference between that and ’settling’ for something i’m not really really excited about? if we agree that my current standard for deciding whom to like is just plain dumb (and it is), then we run into the problem of coming up with another (since having no standards gets really dangerous). and as far as i can tell, any standard other than my current will fail to motivate me emotionally, and i’d feel i was liking someone out of duty. then again maybe that’s just what kant would approve of.

7) minidiscs are beautiful. small, but with the promise of so much information. little sci-fi packets of aural goodness.
why is it 3 am?

9) i am in trouble now that i’ve discovered the joy of collecting dvds. cds is bad enough. i can’t spend the other half of my income on movies.

10) what will i do when i graduate? i have no idea. what will my degrees get me? not sure. not true love, probably.

we’re now over a week into spring quarter, and i’ve surprisingly little to show for it. academically, i’m pretty much nowhere to be seen–i skipped all but the first day of classes. socially, i’m the new kid in the eating club and so i sit alone. welcome to high school. physically, the only thing keeping me in shape is washing dishes for hours a day (oh, that’s what kitchen managers do…), and eating a lot of those whiskey-filled mini chocolate bottles. somehow running 20 miles a week didn’t even come close to making the radar screen. mentally, i’m not sure i’m all there. i spend way too much time sitting in front of the computer trying to think of things to put in my task list and not enough time working on the things already there. spiritually, i’m inspired but weak and too lazy to get anything helpful started for more than a second. so i get into nice little cycles where it takes all my effort to break out of the tunnel vision, leaving no strength to actually change paths once i realize i’m on the wrong one.

i question why, when i stand in the shower for over half an hour, it is absolutely impossible to get out a full sentence to god without some irrelevant, trivial, inane, or what’s more likely, naughty, thought intruding. or why i can sit and play so intently with my left ear lobe indefinitely yet not make it through a single chapter of the bible without finding myself rushing because of “time”.

still, i went snowboarding last thursday and was awed to the point of insane joy at the power and beauty of a snowstorm at the top of heavenly. it whited out my vision with an infinity of miniscule hexagons as i carved blindly downhill, exulting in the speed and recklessness and biting wind, praying that there were no sharp turns or looming cliffs. i felt closer to god when i realized more acutely how much my life was in his hands.

i was also able to perform a rather kick-ass set at stanford’s 2003 art affair (which i helped to a small degree to put on, and for which i stayed up all night in white plaza guarding artwork from drunken marauders [after having not slept following snowboarding, no less]), using every sinful vocal chord to sing of things like its creator.

also of great importance, i ordered 13 cds, which i am looking forward to receiving with great delight.

of little importance, on the other hand, are things like my job and school, which have been taking up all of my time. (that is, until the cds arrive)

oh, and a parting catch-22: i tend to think that i’m not ready for a romantic relationship until i’ve changed traits/habits x, y, and z about myself, but the best way i can think of to change x, y, and z is to become romantically involved. how’s that?