Compassion and usefulness

A question I ask myself a lot is why? Why do people have such different points of view on the same subject? Why are they willing to side against each other, sometimes even violently, over an intangible thing such as an idea?
One of the things that sparks me a lot is religion. I'm not a religious person, but I try to be respectful of those that are while still being open about being agnostic. I know a great many intelligent, compassionate people who believe in a God who is personal and who directs the flow of the world. I am an intelligent, compassionate person who does not believe in a personal god. Why the difference?
I have a few theories. I could be very mistaken, so take them as a brainstorming session more than a statement of what I feel is right.
Belonging - People like to feel as if they matter. Church is something relatively positive to gather around. Let's face it; many things people gather around (nightclubs, parties, sporting events, concerts) are either impersonal or don't have much in the way of spiritual fulfillment. Nightclubs make me want to gag after about an hour; I love dancing, I hate the meat market aspect. As a society, we don't often get together to be around other people; they just happen to be there.
Purpose - Something I've had to confront as an agnostic is that everything that I love can be taken away for no good reason at all. Just accident, chance, stupid mistake. There's no force to keep that from happening. If you believe in a purpose for everything, then it's easier to believe that there's a meaning in it, that God wanted you to have a different job and that's why you were fired, that God took your mother home to Heaven and that's why you can't have her company here on Earth anymore. It's also damn reassuring to think you have a purpose when you're confronting the vastness of the world and wondering where you're supposed to fit. I think I've written about this before, so I'll leave it at that.
Usefulness - Tied into purpose, usefulness is the feeling of being fulfilled by what it is that you are doing. Not everyone can be famous; I suspect that most people wouldn't like it once they had it. However, there are a great many people with respect and love for those they know because they work hard for their families. God gives you a feeling of usefulness to the world. You can spread his message (or just his love) with your actions. Suddenly everything becomes a way for you to shine, from being patient at red lights to drudging through your job to come home at night and make sure your children are provided for.

These are all the positive things I've seen about religion, and I realize that the good comes with bad; people choose religion to justify their bad behavior, to feel better than other people, sometimes even to actively have enemies and feel morally just in persecuting them. (Don't think that last one is true? Try being an athiest in the South. Or gay. Or even just different.)

I'm searching for why people need God. I suspect it's for these reasons, but also because it's easier than searching out something new. Again, it doesn't make it good or bad; it just is.

Urge

Sometimes the mood strikes me and I just want to get out and do - do what it is that I feel, stop sitting at a desk and working on things that aren't terribly important, just do what my heart desires. Go draw, go write, go dance in the rain, something...
But I realize, even if I go do those things, I still have to be the person who sits at this desk and gets those unimportant things done, and all I've done is delay coming back to it. There's such a thing as bills and credit scores that will always be there past when the feeling is gone.
Even if I pounced on that feeling like a wrestler putting on a half-nelson, I realize that I probably wouldn't know what to do once I'm out there, and the fear will confine me into other things I've already done. Suddenly that feeling would be lost just as surely as if I had sat at the desk, plus I'd have to explain myself, soaked and bewildered, to my coworkers.
But in my heart of hearts, for that one moment, it's the purest burst of passion that I have and I want to keep it, even though it makes the rest of the day drab and slightly uncomfortable like a hard chair or something in your shoe.
Because it reminds me that I'm alive, and I just might have more to give the world than I can accomplish sitting at a desk.

Do you ever wonder?

"I must not fear.
Fear is the mind-killer.
Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.
I will face my fear.
I will permit it to pass over me and through me.
And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.
Where the fear has gone there will be nothing.
Only I will remain."
~Frank Herbert - Dune

We live in a prison of fear. Every day we are told what to fear for us, our families, our children. What would happen if there wasn't an undercurrent of fear in our society? Would we be lawless and amoral? Would we be kinder and more open? What would you do if you had no fear?

Click

What looks the strongest has outlived its term

The future lies with what's affirmed from under.

Seamus Heaney

The quote above I stole from a report (Jaime Kalven's Garden Conversations) because it finally caused something that I've wondered about to click in.

The reason why we give back is because fate is a wheel - it's undeniable that we will not be permanent, and that someone else will come to power. That is the way of things. So when you give back to others and guide them, you make your world better and enhance the chances that the person at the top will not only be sympathetic to your causes but will treat you the same way you treated them and build in the way that you taught them. It's almost the same aspects as religious-type tenets, but more forward thinking than I've ever heard put forth. You literally build the world you live in.

Idealistic, of course. But it makes sense!

Walmart isn't the end-all of evil

I was just reading a post about a couple that was detained at Wal-mart and very crudely treated. Mind you, this isn't the only report of Big Business© causing issues with customers. United was spotted for their kerfluffle with a musician who decided to write a song about the affair - United Breaks Guitars , which has apparently actually caught their attention finally and prodded them to do something about it. There are probably only about several thousand stories such as these that I haven't read.
My point - now is not the time to mistreat customers, or to allow employees who do so to continue working for you. Unemployment is the highest it's been since the early 90's - find someone else to do the job you pay them to do, which is treat your customers with respect and dignity regardless of everything else. Any one who has worked retail/sales/etc. knows that there are complete jerks who come into the store just to abuse you and make themselves feel better about their shitty lives, but guess what? You're still paid to do the job of helping customers. Good clerks still find a way to do that and then mutter under their breaths or in the breakroom. It's the way of it. It's why you get an education and move to a job that doesn't require you to be looked down upon.
Also, Big Business©, you might think about treating your workers better and paying them more. Otherwise, it's your name that gets trashed, not the worker's name.

Detachable head

I've been watching the free TED talks today, which are fabulous by the way, and one of the talks struck me. The talk is by Sir Ken Robinson and it's about how schools kill creativity. (link) I think the title is a little broad for what he's actually talking about (and a little misleading as to the main point of the talk) but he says something about university professors to the gist of their bodies becoming transports for their heads. It's quite funny when he says it (the whole talk is very entertaining) but it got me - that's exactly how I feel now in law school.
I am not independently wealthy, no parental support, so law school is a reach for me. I am extremely lucky to have a scholarship that I hope I get to keep (it's based on scholarship, and law school is beyond competitive.) I work full-time as well, which is the only way I would be able to support myself. Some days are harder than others. I must honestly say this is the most homework I've ever done, and the most hours ever spent on class work. It's fun, sometimes, too; I suppose I'd be in the wrong school if it wasn't.
Consequently, I really have become a machine to move my head around. In the morning I wake up and go to work where I sit at a desk and let my head read lists for databases, talk on the phone, and snack on stuff that is terrible for me. Then I get in my car and drive my head to school, where it listens intently, instructs my hands to take notes, and generally tries to give a coherent answer to the questions in class. After that, I drive my head home where it hits the pillow and sleeps (hopefully.) If not, it reads a bit. On the weekend my head reads cases and does homework. Honestly, if I were to be changed over to a roofing job or some kind of physical labor, I think my body would die of shock - "What? You're using me? Gasp!" Which is not to say that I don't miss physical activity. I pine when it's sunny outside and I'd like to be out walking or hiking or something that requires a decent amount of effort. It would almost be wonderful to have a detachable head so that it could do all this reading and whatnot and my body could go do body-things like dance or lift things. Of course, body would need supervision, so that probably wouldn't work out as well as I'd like, but overall seems like it would be healthier.
Another thing that Sir Robinson spoke about was that education was built to serve industry - what the industry's needs were rather than our own as humans. Isn't that profound when you really think about it? You get one go on this planet and you're conditioned to serve in a system that doesn't serve you.
All in all, I can't complain. I have a lot of anxiety and a lot of sitting around, but my life is good and fulfilling for the most part. But ah the days when I wish that I didn't need structure and could just run away from it all...those days happen quite frequently now. Do me a favor and go to the park and just soak in the atmosphere - the green (or red) of the leaves, the grass, the kids going crazy. My head will thank you.

About Law School

Hello internet - it's been a while. After yet another personal infringement, I'm back. Details are not to be forthcoming because I feel my time is better spent looking forward, rather than backwards.
So, I'm in law school now. It's really got a lot in common with being in the military in that the best way they've found to teach you is to throw cases and law and questions at you until you learn to dodge or weave accordingly. It's a very good atmosphere at my law school, very positive and supportive. Perhaps this is because I'm in the evening program with a bunch of other people who have jobs and kids and everything else happening in their life as well. It's very challenging...this week moreso than others. I'm not as diligent in my 10 hours of homework this week. I will pay the price for it by being absent in class so that I can get another assignment done that's worth 60% of my grade, and by absent I mean sitting in the seat and marked absent because I can't brief 70 pages worth of cases before Tuesday.
Just thought I'd give an update. I hate coming here and having nothing to say, which I've done several times since the last post. I try not to be negative here; I look at this more of a place of intellectualism than feelings. However, it's been very hard so bear with me if it's a little at a time. The trust-building process is slow, and it will be a while before you get the real me again.

Information Security

Some random thoughts I wanted to set down about information security in the light of the Black Hat conference in Las Vegas:

Maybe information security is obsolete. People spout off information constantly. Listen in for five minutes at Starbucks while they yammer on their cell phone and you have their kids' names (and probably part of most of their passwords.) Make a J. Smith account at Facebook and add them, and you'll know their schedules, including when they leave for vacations. Information should not be what guards the gates to what we're really trying to protect - bank accounts, jobs, lives, etc. The more you make it the key to something, the more it gets targeted. The more you safeguard it, the more targets there are left out. There are too many thieves and too many easy ways to steal information. So far the key component has always been that - information, but in this overloaded age, it's not profitable to have to sift through information. If it was out there, then there wouldn't be this unfounded sense of complacency.
But how to protect what's important without resorting to passwords, PINs, etc? RSA uses a combination of private and public to make their keys impenetrable to most yet useful. How could we do this? DNA recognition? Fingerprinting?
The simplest way is to bring it back down to people. People are the ultimate in facial and voice recognition. It used to be common to arrange introductions. Problem is, people can be corrupted. People are sometimes less than competent on bad days.
Hiding in plain sight. The army of regular transactions that banks watch for anomalies. Perhaps giving people more vigilance over their transactions - no, that's been tried. People get bored of monotony. They forget or get busy.
It's troubling. There's got to be a way to make the information unguarded, and the important things still guarded.

Where's the instruction manual?

It's a beautiful Southern California night. It's almost worth the searing summer day just to be able to sit outside, a breeze blowing the cool night air, and listen to the airplanes fly overhead. The helicopters are annoying as hell, but tonight they seem to be on hiatus for the most part.
I'm two weeks away from changing my life. I've had to make decisions on my own and hope they were the best. People are moving out of my life. More will move in but for me everytime I love someone, the world gets a little smaller. I'm never able to open up quite as much again. I guess that's how it goes.
Here's to a quiet night marking the start of drastic change.

TV Tropes will Ruin Your Life!

I got my title from an actual page on TV Tropes. Before I link to it though, here is an excellent warning cartoon from Randall Munroe at XKCD: http://www.xkcd.com/609/

And now the title: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TVTropesWillRuinYourLife

Don't say I didn't warn you! (damn, I just got sucked back in...*click*)

Living (or dead) symbols

I'm sure everyone has heard about the memorial for Michael Jackson drawing so much international attention that they've had to resort to a lottery in order to distribute a limited number of tickets. This isn't the level of fame that most singers or performers achieve. This is epic levels of adoration - and for a man that a year ago was considered a bit of a joke and probably a pedophile.
The truth of it is that Michael Jackson, even while alive, was no longer a human to most people. He had reached the point where people didn't think of him as a person with needs, but as a flag, a banner that united them with music. Something a coworker told me today triggered this - she said that he begged for anesthesia from doctors just to feel at peace, and that they're looking into that as a trigger for his death. What price do we extract from those who are our symbols?
True fame is the transcendence of even being human and becoming a symbol. Look at Elvis - he wasn't the greatest singer ever or the best performer - but he was the symbol of those things, of sexual revolution, of something different in the merging of the white South and black music.
Once we lose those symbols, we mourn heavily. Perhaps now is the time to look past that though - to look at the toll it takes upon the people we turn into symbols and wonder if the cost is too high for those who must pay it.

I wrote this a few days ago and happened across an article on the Huffington Post that I think describes this as well. Here's the link: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/cynthia-boaz/why-michael-jacksons-deat_b_227434.html

Poem: Substance

Pleasant memories come to me
adrift on the wind like jasmine
to have loved and lost
and loved again
I turn my thoughts to the past
And nostalgia breaks over me like a wave
the hard lessons of never again

what does it mean to wish for the days to pass?
to be buoyed along by weekends and holidays
time is the substance of life
to waste it godlessness
to only have the memories of what has been
instead of the plans for what might be
and the reality of what is now

To be fully living is embracing the present
suffering, hurting, laughing
allowing the self to be violated
the brave path of truth
that I do not walk.

Frustrating (RANT)

I have an idea for an internet business. I am in an MBA program. You would think these two things would be compatible, but you would, at least in my case, be wrong.
For years I spent my life going through school doing things because it was what the school gave as an assignment, not because I expected it to apply to reality (hint: it didn't, most of the time.) So I got used to the idea that school work was, well, for school - with no other application. Then comes a Master's Degree, and one of the things I was told throughout my coursework was, "You should be doing things in mind for your Master's Degree project so that it's less work for you once you get to the project stage." What, more than one application, not just busy work? Hmm, I need to wrap my mind around this.
Now that I'm at the Master's Degree project stage, the bar keeps changing. I've been through 3 project ideas and 3 advisors. I dropped out for a year due to personal reasons. Now that I'm back and ready to kick this into gear before I start law school, the bar continues to change. I'm not exaggerating - I received a "conditional pass" on a document with the only note being that I needed to present it in Word...and today I was told I need to do a feasibility study to see if my project will work before my plan will pass. I wish I could convey to you in words how frustrating that last sentence is... here I am, after telling my idea over and over to people at the school even before I came back from my leave of absence, meeting with more than one advisor about it - being shunted off to do a "project plan" before anyone will even consider looking at my idea - and now being told to do a feasibility study. On top of the fact that I'm in the course that you're already supposed to be working on the project. On top of the fact that I've already had an approved project plan that didn't have any of this shit. On top of the fact that I greatly suspect this is motivated by a personal dislike on the part of the dean.
This is month 3 for me...could no one in 3 months take the damn time to tell me to do a feasibility study, or did they just dream this up? I've asked for examples - I get research plans, not project plans (until today of course! nothing ahead of time!). Plus it's been implied that I plagarized and/or had an inappropriate relationship with my teacher. I am at the end of my rope with this place.
Is it fucking fitting that I'm contemplating dropping out of an MBA so I can actually get something done? I hate this fucking school. My only link to sanity in the whole place is someone I can't talk to anymore without getting hatemail from their girlfriend.
Fuck the fucking fuckers.

Nathan Phelps and the right of self

I just read the speech that Nathan Phelps gave the American Athiest convention in 2009 (http://atheistnexus.org/page/nate-phelps-2009-aa-speech) and I am stunned. It addresses a few things that I hadn't realized were present in my own life, such as the discomfort that Christians feel around a person once they know that they are not speaking with a fellow Christian, the terrible crushing feeling that he describes his own children having when they realize they don't want to go to hell, the questioning of why goodness can't just be a part of who we choose to be. The biggest one was letting go of the security of faith. That touches a lot of what I have faced in my life.
Often I have told my friends that I wish I could have faith because then I wouldn't worry. Why worry when you have a free ticket to the afterlife? What could be more reassuring that no matter how craptactular your life becomes, you will be in Heaven forever once you shuffle off this mortal coil? What is 80 or so years compared to forever?
I know this isn't as coherent as it should be, but the other thing that it touched on is my own unwillingness to associate with my own conflicts. I think the reason I can be an advocate for equality and free speech is because those concepts don't hit as close to home. The defense of athiesm promotes a strong reaction in me, probably because of the old guilt and shame associated with "turning away from God." Rationally, I'm at peace with it - if God exists, then he made me and understands. Viscerally, I'm not. Athiesm means owning your sins. There is no forgiveness, no blessings. Bad things happen to good people, and the best way to avoid most of them is not to single yourself out of the herd, not to become a target, yet that's what an advocate does is stand up for something that is not widely accepted. Even now, as I write this, I wonder how it will come to haunt me...if I run for a judicial position, will my agnostic beliefs ruin my chances? Will the fact of who I am keep me from who I want to be?
I don't think that other people should have to hide who they are. Perhaps its time I trust in that belief for myself.

A quick thought...

Everything seems to be working out for me today...I keep wondering if I'm going to die or something....if so, IT WAS ALL WORTH IT! ha ha :)

(Seriously though, I'm having a great day. I hope everyone else gets one of these.)

Bach and the floor piano from Big join forces

This is awesome!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VhAiDiHYP9k&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.boingboing.net%2F&feature=player_embedded

It makes my childhood go, "Yay!"

Being a judge ties your hands

Forget all those "activist judges" - as if a judge has a real ability to make laws (nope, that's the legislation) or to even request that certain cases come to them (that's the will of the people/law enforcement), Californians are ready to hang the judges on the California Supreme Court for upholding Proposition 8. It's convenient to make the justices into the bad guys; after all, they didn't find for what was right (in my and many others points of view), they found for the procedure of the law. And as much as I dislike it, I have to agree.
52% of Californians voted for Proposition 8, and made it into law. Granted, it was an extremely well-placed blow, coming with the Presidential election that was guaranteed to motivate the traditionally-undervoting segments of society who also just so happen to represent the majority of the church-going, Bible-as-law conservatives. Three steps forward, two steps back. Had a marriage equality amendment been in any other election, it would have passed. Seriously - the people who vote in non-presidential elections are usually those with a dog in the fight, and I believe California is liberal enough to make that happen. Problem is that it can't be made into a religious choice, it must be a moral one - if Joe Voter walks into a booth and reads "Marriage Equality," he's going to vote yes. It makes him seem like a good guy - equality and all that jazz. Now, with that same scenario, after his church and the media and everyone else has said "This is against God" he's not going to vote against God, after all. Hence, Proposition 8 was passed.
Now if I understand it correctly, the challenge made on Proposition 8 was that the legislature should have had to approve it first. The court could not find that this was so without destroying the way the California Constitution functions.
That being said, why the hell didn't they pick a better argument? Get this - this is the next challenge:

Prominent lawyers Theodore B. Olson and David Boies filed a lawsuit Friday in U.S. District Court on behalf of two gay men and two gay women, arguing that Proposition 8 violates the U.S. constitutional guarantee of equal protection and due process.

Olson said he hopes the case, which seeks a preliminary injunction against the measure until the case is resolved, will wind up before the U.S. Supreme Court. He is a former U.S. solicitor general who served in high-level Justice Department jobs in the Reagan and George W. Bush administrations.

Jesus, couldn't they have done this from the beginning? Or were they too afraid of Republicans to want to throw the Equal Rights into the mix? God, I'm really beginning to disrespect liberals. They claim to want equality, but in reality they're too afraid of losing what they have to fight for the issues they claim to stand for. Instead they play watchdog over nomenclature and inane policy (I would put a citation in here, but I was overwhelmed when I looked for the thread...)

Don't get me wrong - I'm a filthy non-activist liberal preaching on my blog about the things that I think are right. But I'm going to law school in the fall for civil policy. I think I'm in a unique position to be able to do something once I understand the rules of the game. How many other lawyers were on free lunch, were a minority in their high school, put themselves through college (with the help of Uncle Sam)? I'd go on but it just seems like tooting my own horn...the point is that I still want to make a difference, and I'm gullible enough to believe I can be a hero in my own way.

Cycles

Do things really move in cycles? The seasons come and go because we're in orbit around a sun, but is anything else really cyclical? Or do we just organize our lives in that way because it seems to make sense given our environment?

John Donne

I've been on a John Donne kick, you know, in between fighting with my school and trying not to drive myself crazy, and the guy is really pretty interesting. He was derided by Ben Johnson for not keeping to meter, but I tend to really like his writing. He thinks about a lot of the same stuff that I do.

There's a good site to read his work: http://www.luminarium.org/sevenlit/donne/donnebib.htm

This is a particularly good one that I hadn't heard of:

But he who loveliness within
Hath found, all outward loathes,
For he who color loves, and skin,
Loves but their oldest clothes.

Hip to be Angry (lots of swearing)

As a sociologist, I read a lot of blogs about...well, society. Not glamour pages or Hollywood - I read about race relations, cultures, and a lot of news. More and more I see the label "white" pasted across anything racist. Now hear me out - there is a lot of institutionalized racism. A ton. If you ever want visible proof, look at a map overlay of Southern California comparing race vs. income. There is no if, and, or but about it; blacks were put into ghettos and kept there by unfair housing, discriminatory wages, and hostile environments. The same seems to be true for Hispanics (I haven't studied it - sorry). That being said, I would also like to point out, you know - to the internet in general, that NOT ALL WHITE PEOPLE ARE RICH. If you haven't noticed, yes, the Power Elite (as my beloved sociology professor likes to refer to them as) is mostly made up of white men. Again, not a coincidence. However, that does not make every single white person alive responsible for the system of racism put into place. As always, money talks. If you don't have money, guess what? You're everybody's dog. Irish, Italians, Polish, Persians, Jews... all screwed by the system. All considered white by Census standards.

I read on another blog that all white people... you know what, here...here's the quote that set me off:

Most white people are quick to agree that "we're all human." But they rarely see how, deep inside themselves, they actually consider people who are supposedly different from themselves, in large part because of their skin color, as less than human. As less than fully deserving of fundamental "human rights."

(source: http://stuffwhitepeopledo.blogspot.com/2009/05/value-white-lives-more-than-non-white.html)

I wish there was a Chris Rock sketch for white people that does the same thing that his Black people vs. N*** did. Yeah, I don't use the word, and I don't get much titillation out of him using it. But he makes a good point - there should be a way to separate yourself from the stupid shit that people in your color do. Someone on your baseball team does something morally repugnant - you can quit the team. You can switch political parties if they violate your beliefs. You can't quit your skin color. So why the hell should it even be used as a judge?

At the core of it, when I read things like this and am as outraged as the next person (non-white person, according to the magazine article because whites totally don't think that human values are for everyone and hence wouldn't feel outraged) I feel betrayed. I feel like telling them - "You fuckheads! You screw up everything! Just when I feel like my race isn't a mark against me you assholes go and do something to make everyone who's watching roll their eyes and go, "Uh huh, whitey. This equality thing is all a lie and you know it." FUUUUUUUCK!!!

I just want to point out again that race is a bill of goods sold to the underpriviledged to keep them contesting amongst themselves instead of with the people who make the rules - the Power Elite. It's the magician's sleight of hand, watch while I conceal billions of dollars in bailout money and corporate kickbacks - look, illegal immigrants are taking your shitty less-than-minimum-wage jobs!! Outrage! Scorn! Guess what? He didn't take your job - the man in charge of the corporations decided to pay less so that you couldn't live on that wage because he knows he can screw over the immigrant with no legal recourse. Face it, the Power Elite are the ones who decide the policy, not you, not anyone else. After all, did you get to vote on that bank bailout? Fuck no - the ones in charge said it's for the best and we shrugged and said okay. Meanwhile, you'll swallow the bullshit they pass down to you that black men are more likely to be violent, illegal immigrants take up all the welfare, and whites are involved in a system to keep everyone down.

It's ignorance, not skin color that decides this. Look around you - we're all screwed the same way. We're all just trying to get by. That white person you see on the street where you live isn't puppeting the system because those kind of white people live in gated communities, put their children in private school, and wouldn't walk in your neighborhood because it makes them nervous. That white person is stuck the same as you, bitter the same as you, and you both probably hang out together and watch the game. If not, you should - the Dodgers are having a hell of a season.