Overthinking Things

Now that the provocation phase of my last post has run its course, it's time to unpack what I meant by it in more detail.

Without adding too many more words, it's expectation of monogamy that destroys some marriages.

It is as easy and natural for humans to demand sexual exclusivity as it is difficult to practice it, on average, and over the long term.

Some have no affairs. Some do. Of those who have affairs, some keep them secret (even if only temporarily), and some do not. Of those whose affairs are known (to their partners), some end the marriage, and some don't.

You can end a marriage without "destroying" it. All I'm lamenting is the enormous amount of pain, grief, and betrayal we, as a species, and a society, seem to persistently set ourselves up for by demanding a discipline that we know is statistically uncommon over the long term.

This is not love to me; it's greed.

Lots of things cause suffering and destruction in a marriage. The expectation and demand of monogamy just seems to be a common one that seems easy to avoid with proper detachment and discipline of one's own expectations. Perhaps I'm merely fortunate to be unusual in that way. But I remember always thinking like that in some form.

Monogamy destroys marriages.

Scene: bedroom. MAN is sleeping, snoring. dawn light peeks around edges of thick curtains. Alarm goes off, startling man awake. he hits the snooze button. he rubs his eyes, rolls over. feet go into slippers. groogy, bleary, baggy eyes.

Man, Voiceover: Some days, it just doesn't pay to get out of bed.

cut to: a dark bathroom. MAN enters, turns on the light to reveal a man in a business SUIT sitting on the toilet, writing in a checkbook.

SUIT: (looks up, smiles pleasantly) Good morning!

MAN: (stunned) What the hell are you doing here?

SUIT finishes writing, tears out a check, and hands it to MAN, who takes it.

SUIT: Here you are. Hey, thanks for coming in. (exits)

MAN stares at his check, bewildered.

MAN, Voiceover: Thank goodness today wasn't one of those days.

CREDITS Roll over scene:
Cut to: home exterior. SUIT, pleased, exits house, checks his watch, and strolls away from us down a residential street, checkbook in hand.

Cut to: bathroom. MAN is still looking at his check.

MAN: Hey - I got a raise!

Damn, I felt a lot of love this weekend, from so many people. The credits are going to be long.

I went all over the city, saw some old friends I hadn't seen in years, partied and danced, drank a little, took a LOT of Skytrain and bus transit, pounded the pavement until my knees hurt, hugged and massaged people until my fingers hurt, laughed until my cheeks hurt. And I *STILL* meet more new people in that town than the one I live in *eyeroll* *grin*.

One thing I didn't do much was sleep. By sunday, I must have been operating on six hours since Friday. One beer into a planned irresponsible, guy-centered binge, and the soreness and sleep dep claimed me for another eight or ten. Everybody's got their limits, but I'm glad my body is good enough to let me do this at times like these, when it's beyond worth it.

There's been things in my thoughts that I haven't been willing to share, but I surprised myself by how easy it was to talk about some of them to a few people. There's certainly not time to dump everything to everybody, but I've thought about starting a new filtered blog to accommodate this, since people seem so much more interested than I thought they might.

I some ways, I'm forming a new set of priorities and perspectives on both the enigma of self and the enigma of the other, of how I fit into the lives of people I care about. In other ways, the way I've responded to my friends this weekend is just the evidence and the fruit of attitudes I've been amplifying and solidifying for many months. i'm striking a balance, now, between solitude, and the gregarity and affection that have proven themselves to be the best damn anti-depressant I've ever felt. Maybe I can still captain my own ship - but the reason to sail the world is to trade with the natives.

I'm also finding that my latest answer to the question "what are people for?" is a right one, and one that's really gratifying to apply. People are indeed for them, and thinking in terms of quid pro quo will get you nowhere. Love all, serve all, and abandon your alterior motives, and you get the intrinsic empathic rewards of rapid-firing mirror neurons to take with you.

Love isn't just enough - it's plenty.

I've spent so much time realizing and internalizing that realization that all the things I used to instinctively desire from others are available in far greater abundance from within myself. The more habitually I think about this, the less I see myself reflected in others, and the more they and their desires come into sharp focus. I become easier to talk to, more curious, and more eager to listen. I am rich with attention to give.

I think I used to be reticent to ask for, accept, and give out physical affections because I always knew I wanted them to lead to greater physical and emotional commitments. It was just easier not to start up that road than to deal with frustration when things would inevitably fail to escalate. But now, I realize that my needs aren't going to go unmet just because someone else isn't prepared to fulfill them. These days, my attitude tends to leave me laughing at the absurdity of someone else making me as happy and satisfied as I leave myself.

As a result, I feel liberated. I'm able to give out low levels of simple affections without anxiety over impending frustrations and disappointments. I truly am giving it away in my own mind and heart. And the result, astoundingly, is that, yes, I, also, am receiving MORE love than I did when I was more attached, vulnerable, and needy of it.

This is not to say that I don't need any affection. It's true that having my arms wrapped around a woman, or my nose on her cheek, for a good half hour, doesn't have vastly more anti-depressant power as fleeting greeting hugs (even the lift & spin kind that I'm becoming famous for). But when that's all I know need, it's so much easier to reach out for, to trust, and to accept when it's offered, than when my hopes are always and automatically looking for the upsell.

To the superb cast of this splendid production, I give thanks. In order of appearance, they are (*=new person):
Uncle Fatih, for cheap pizza that never changes.
Julie C, for being a superb hostess, a transit encyclopedia, for massaging my hands with her back, for the gift of something new to try, and for finally ending my quest to discover what day-glow brown really looks like.
Laura*, for the tiny cyoot wittle puppies, and drawing out the best in Julie's hair.
Nick and Saf, for the exemplary fashion statements.
Aurora, for being so happy to process my nightclub entrance application.
Jessica, for being as energetic and happy as she is on my wavelength.
Jay/Sunkid, for spinning psytrance until *I* was dizzy, making me feel like intellectual blogging is nothing to be so dismissive about, and for crash space on such short notice. You kids find some upside down under, eh?
Steph Hendy, for being far more startlingly easy to divulge weird things to in person than I expected.
Crazy Dave*, for realizing there's more than reason to quit fouling our nest by burning oil.
Andrew Haan, for navigating the minefield necessary to throw a pretty cool Pi Day party (now with real pie!).
Eva*, for being tall, lovely, and funny.
Mike*, for being a blast to disagree with.
Angel, for being silly-happy to see me, catching up on gossip, for being firmly command of her rapidly improving life (even if by the clever judo of submissiveness), for fascinating toy gifts, the offer of a place to live, and being not just trustworthy and patient, but fascinated with kinks I hadn't really ever planned to talk about.
Squishy, for making think about Thailand, lightshows, demonstrating how costuming is DONE, and the best damn sushi I've ever had.
Dave, for burritos, biscuits, and pancakes, couches in pretty cool parts of town, and laughing even when he's not nervous.
Joshua, for pro tips on blowing the minds of people on acid.
Nathan, for holding still long enough for me to finish that MRI scan finished.

Sushiyama: 371 East Broadway

Squishy and I went down to this place for dindin Saturday, and it was FANTASTIC!

The food was so good, it was distracting to eat. I kept putting stuff in my mouth, and losing my train of thought. It's like they turned the consistency of the sashimi, which is so tender, you can cut it with a dull chopstick. This experience was right up there with the sushi taste/music synaesthesia experience I had several years ago.

And the prices were downright cheap for food that good. The two of us ate our fill on a $30 bill.

This place is going up by Uncle Fatih's pizza on my favorite Vancouver restaurants list.

Brown eyes glow bright.
Serve one. Love much.
Of needs, we speak, then meet.

Steam, rise. Cloud, burst.
Rain, fall. Skin, touch.
Lather, rinse, repeat.

Sheer awe jumps hearts.
In care we trust.
Even if it wanes.

Because today
love is enough.
It lifts, and sustains.

I am home, safe in my bed. I love this place.

I decided to go back to the old, old title of this blog, "Overthinking Things". My brief fancy of myself as a maker didn't seem to last long. Projects have been piling up and not getting worked on as much as I used to when I thought up that title. This doesn't mean I won't pick them up; I just think that "Overthinking Things" still fits me more broadly, so I 'm going with that.

Yeah, I'm a sucker for thought. I'm moving toward deprecating the use of "smart" or "intelligent" in describing myself, but the term "thoughtful" works well, I think (haha - get it?), and I don't think anyone would argue about that. It also has less ambiguity than the head-scratching surrounding the conceptions of intelligence being conceived of as a quantity having greater or lesser values in various minds.

It was my Dad who put me up to the idea of "Overthinking". Way back in 1998, I went to visit him, and ended up on a braindump of the type of complex proportions one expects from me on occasions I get an interested ear. I don't even remember what the subject matter was, but I have always remembered his response: "Now let's not overthink this." It's something I'm drawn to both because it's often very descriptive of my tendencies (by some lights), and the kind of thing I'd take to take a little more seriously just by virtue of the fact that it came from my dad.

Throughout my life, People have often bemoaned that they sometimes think too much, and get themselves into anxieties or other emotional trouble. In contrast, I tend to reject the idea that I do that. I reject the idea that I think too much, as it's difficult to actually remember instances where thinking carefully or thoroughly has actually done me harm. In specific cases of, say, imagination of awful possibilities causing anguish, the problem doesn't actually appear to be thinking so much as //feeling// 'too much'. Rational detachment from instincts and emotions has seldom proved difficult for me, I think. The closest I've gotten to doing this is a lesson I learned, and is well summarized by the phrase "Silence is the canvas upon which we paint our anxieties."

Communication is how you break that fear that can feed on your imagination, when given the chance, and I've certainly learned to do that if I ever need reassurance. I had learned the essential value of communication to my marriage long before my dad advised me of it at my wedding - another simple thing I pointedly remember him saying.

"Overthinking Things" becomes, then, simultaneously a fitting description for my thoughtfulness, and a kind of ironic embrace of the idea, which I generally reject, that I can think too much for my own good.

I'll be on the ferry to Van Town tomorrow, and plan to stay until Monday; call or text me if you care for some face time. I'll be at Organix Friday night. I know, I've complained about paying for admission to places, but I already know I'll have enough friends there to make it worthwhile.

Look a hippie up!

So I'm participating in a discussion thread on Facebook about what "Web 2.0" means. I typed in a comment about how web services are free-as-in-beer:

Well, not quite. You don't actually charge them cash. Note the absurdity of the elevator pitch: "It's like Twitter, only we charge people to use it."

Instead, you commodify users into their attentions, and sell that to advertisers. Yes, that involves obstructing users from one another.

The moment I hit the submit button, I could not have asked for a better example of exactly the phenomenon I was discussing. A window pops up:

Warning: This Message Contains Blocked Content
Some content in this message has been reported as abusive by Facebook users.

Wow, Facehook. You know exactly when and how hard to suck.

Why the iPhone sucks:

7.3 No Other Distribution Authorized Under this Agreement
Except for the distribution of freely available Licensed Applications and the distribution of Applications for use on Registered Devices as set forth in Sections 7.1 and 7.2 above, no other distribution of programs or applications developed using the Apple Software is authorized or permitted hereunder. In the absence of a separate agreement with Apple, You agree not to distribute Your Application to third parties via other distribution methods or to enable or permit others to do so.

Open source licensing is hereby prohibited.

I reviewed my February posts for the last three years. I was not particularly unhappy in any of them. Last year, I was prepping for a move to Portland that was dashed at month's end. In another year, I had so many things happening at once, I couldn't afford winter blues. Others were pretty thinky, and blissful.

I wish I could say for certain what was behind the sporadic two-month blues that started this year. I wish there was something I could cling to that could reliably bring me back to peace from there. It could be Vitamin D, sunshine, serotonin, sleep. The thing I remember bringing me the most joy, that set my endocrine system in motion the best, was the touch of a friend.

Whether this lever was something that would always lift my spirits, or whether my slump was decisively from being deprived of sustained, physical human contact, I would have to be insane to think that I should do anything to divide myself further from opportunities like that.

People are not irrational; reason is simply inadequate.

I am toying with the idea of visiting Vancouver this weekend. What's hot? Who's good for hanging? Gotta couch?

The grocery budget has snapped shut. I am adjusting.

I just discovered that, gram-for-gram, croutons from the bulk section are half the price of potato chips.

Tonight, I bought a kilo of cheese (for someone else's dish), a bottle of mango-tangerine juice from the center aisle (tango-margarine? EW!), and the rest of my diet consists of produce and bulk stuff. I'm pretty happy about this. I still pick up a fresh roast chicken, or raid the dairy section for milk or cottage cheese on occasion (that is to say, occasions I can justify the expense), but I am steadily learning how to shop and cook eat my way away from industrially produced and processed food, and into something healthier, older, and better known.

This is not hard when I don't do it all at once, and just check out one or two interesting ingredients at a time. I'm still experimenting, and still making errors (a little too much seasoning on this, cooking the rice a little to long on that), but I am evolving some pretty yummy dishes that are easy to make. And weird as hell.

Pablo Picasso once said "Computers are useless. They can only give you answers."

I'm a smart guy. I'm "cerebral", or "thinky". People compliment me that way. I have tons of fun thinking and reading and talking about philosophy, politics, tech, biology, the works. But in recent years, intelligence alone has seemed like less and less an asset, and more like an entertainment; like an occupation that I merely prefer to drooling in front of the TV with cable or an Xbox. It's certainly scared off more than a few dates over the years.

I'm finding that real satisfaction comes from executing the simpler mental processes, rather than the more complicated ones. I wonder if there's a trend here, intimating that the dumber I get, the happier I'll be. Were it true, I would have to admit it would make for a tempting proposal.

I hesitate to say that I feel like society has wasted its own chance to harness my intelligence by making it so damn hard to pay for University in the US (to say nothing of homes, children, etc.), only because that sounds too much like the victimhood pity party blame game that it really isn't. As I see it, I'm actually grateful the system didn't catch me and swallow me up, despite the fact that it has lead me to a mode of realization that will keep me relatively impoverished and disenfranchised for life. I did choose this path, you know.

Intelligence can only make life interesting, not worthwhile. You have to decide what you want with something else. I've been doing that anyway. It's just that being smart hasn't helped.

I went to the harbor today. I felt a lot of peace. I'm thankful for how well I've done so far in life, both for my decisions and for the results.

This town is really beautiful. Both the sun and the flowers feel even better than they look. I hope I don't end up too far from the water when I move.

I can't remember why I've been so unhappy these last two months. Is there really anything for a broken spirit but the changing of the seasons?

I dare anyone to make my life even better.

Your high IQ will kill your startup.

This piece, about how work trumps intelligence, described me very well. I was exactly one of those kids that was bright enough to breeze through school. I realized early that the only difference between an A and a B average was ten hours a week, so my GPA hovered around 3.0 all the way through University. The only reason I don't have a degree is that I was American, where they expect you to pay for these things, and neither my family nor I could afford it.

I'm lazy when it comes to that stuff. I know it. I admit it. But more than that, I'm not ashamed of it. I want it. I covet slack. In my experience of life, indolence, peace, and spontaneous liberty are not character flaws or the seeds of tragedy; they're values. This is how I have decided to live my life. I changed my mind only once. True to form, I failed, and went back to the things I could depend on. There is something to be said for knowing when to quit.

Let's lay aside, for the moment, criticisms of rags-to-riches 'success' rhetoric as naively buying into the Horatio Alger Myth, where the roles of luck, uncontrollable circumstance, and inheritance are banished from the scene and everyone in poverty or misery has only themselves to blame. One could easily attack the veneration of work on these terms, but I find it unnecessary. It might also be a straw man attack, depending on what claim is being rebutted. I wouldn't go so far as to say hard work isn't required to succeed as a general principle - just that it is somehow magically sufficient on it's own.

When someone says, yet again, that "success", as they conceive of it, requires hard work, I don't doubt it. But when the normativity begins creeping into their language, I grow suspicious of their arguments. When someone's conception of things one can be 'successful' at is so narrow that it always requires effort, I tend to think they are using brute force to compensate for a lack of imagination.

For every Edmund Burke who says "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.", there's a Blaise Pascal who says "The sole cause of man's unhappiness is that he does not know how to stay quietly in his room." Take into account that Burke never actually said the former in print, and things can get a bit sticky.

I know I'll never be confused for a Buddhist, but I have learned something about the value of being mindful of your choice of goals. I can believe that all suffering has an underlying desire, just not that every desire leads to suffering. Somehow, so far, I have managed to let go of a few things here and there that I used to want, and the things that are left are that much more reliable and satisfying. You could say I've learned to be happy with less, but the fact is that it's not less at all, by virtue of the fact that there is now more room in my life for the other things that are rock-solid pleasers.

When 'working' less is how you define success, effort itself is failure.

I want people to know that my choice of valuing slack is both deliberate and legitimate. I don't want people to frown upon that as some kind of immoral vice. If you want to change my mind, scolding or coercion aren't going to work. In fact, negative reinforcement is part of why I made the decision I did. If you want me to work, it's not hard; just make me an offer that's reliable and worthwhile.

Women are just human beings cleverly disguised as exactly what men want.

"Have you heard their new album?"

"No, is it any good?"

"Good? Let's just say people cure cancer listening to it."

"Wow! I've heard of miraculous healings before, but that's pretty intense."

"But when I say 'cure cancer', I'm not talking about their cancer. I'm talking Nobel Prize-winning medical research, baby."