...and days before I leave the dreaded Bend.
I'm at the ice cream place, and as I bring the plate that held a piece of cherry cheesecake to the front counter, the guy at the register introduces himself and asks me to join in the bet with him and his coworker that he can do 200-300 push-ups in 5 minutes. He then engages me in conversation for a few minutes. If I wanted, we could probably be friends. Of course this happens at the very end of my stay here...
Oh well, I am generally very cheerful about leaving. I have 3.5 articles left to write, an interview tomorrow concerning zombies, two lunches with editors, and an exit interview left. Time to bid this town goodbye, and hopefully my lack of a social life and sprawling laziness as well.
If history is any indication, my locations over the next two weeks will only produce better feelings--hometown as a stress-free medicant where I may be able to hunker down with some books as I watch my brother, and Boulder as an energizing base before the unparalleled experience that will be my 4th year.
Hyde Park at this point is my nurturing, loving home. Every time I've been there this summer, I've walked the streets smiling compulsively. Summer does Chicago good. Hyde Park hums with dog-walkers and baby-strollers and bands of European students, bakeries teem with dignified, greyed professors picking up apple croissants, it all feels so right. Sushi choices, good beer, bookstores that burrow deeper and deeper. I fear I am becoming a yuppie. (At the tender age of 21!)
Giveaway #1: My deodorant, face wash, toner, shampoo, and conditioner are "all-natural" and have things like juniper, tea tree water, and mint in them.
(#2: I refer to myself as a "vegetarian" but I eat fish.)
Oh well. Let the labels fall where they may.
I am both in fear of, and braving looking forward to the impending year. A BA is only 30-50 pages, which means it is only really 15-25 pages, which means it is only 2-3 times as long as your typical paper, and so it shouldn't cause me interminable stress and bouts of crying, as they are wont to do. Still, my fantastically compatible advisor ditched me for Yale, and now I have to convince someone else to care about Pakistani ethnic groups and nationalism, which is sure to be tangentially related to all of their subjects (why such a dearth of Pakistan scholars at the U of C?)
But I'm confident I can do it.
Oddly, my lazy summer has regrounded me in certain ways concerning education. Certain things stand out--a certain independence from the cult of academia (i.e. take what is good and useful, leave what doesn't work), a rethinking of the term, a more liberal and free approach to my future (i.e. so many paths to take, so many ways to take them!), a resurgence of thought about life and information (i.e. more thought about depth vs. breadth of subjects, about the nature of focus).
I credit some of this thought to "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance," which I have yet to review on here but which had a residual and unexpectedly freeing effect. I will try to review it soon.
Most importantly, my mental state is such right now that I feel I can approach academia, get knocked down several pegs (as this year is sure to do), and withdraw the tools to fix myself. I feel a bit more tenacious.
With such a meandering post, I guess what I'm trying to say is, I'm ready to get back in the ring.
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Monday, August 17, 2009
Reunited
...and it feels so good.
Today I wasted several hours after work. And then I felt bad about myself. And then I took a bath. And I was trying to read Blood Meridian, which is good but I wasn't very good at paying attention. I wanted to be reading, but something else. So I picked up one of my academic books from my stack--one I intend to use for BA research--and after a couple of pages my brain began to wake up. Thoughts! Deconstruction and theorizing! Words like "discursive" and "dichotomy"!
Maybe it doesn't seem like the most riveting of writing, but it was exactly what I needed--a reminder of how it feels to think in the unemotional, hard world of academic writing.
My university is stressful, scary, and usually destructive to the self-esteem. But it's also reassuring to know that there's a place in my life where things are extremely meritocratic, the truth is pursued relentlessly, and you don't win unless you have a damn good point.
Last year, via C., I found this: Andrew Abbot's "Aims of Education" speech. Every year the new students get one. It's meant to ruminate on why their education has a value equivalent to the massive loan they're likely to incur four years hence. Afterward, a professor is dispatched to each house for a post-speech discussion. My year, the speech wasn't so great. But this one, if you take the time to read it, is excellent.
I love this cornerstone.
Today I wasted several hours after work. And then I felt bad about myself. And then I took a bath. And I was trying to read Blood Meridian, which is good but I wasn't very good at paying attention. I wanted to be reading, but something else. So I picked up one of my academic books from my stack--one I intend to use for BA research--and after a couple of pages my brain began to wake up. Thoughts! Deconstruction and theorizing! Words like "discursive" and "dichotomy"!
Maybe it doesn't seem like the most riveting of writing, but it was exactly what I needed--a reminder of how it feels to think in the unemotional, hard world of academic writing.
My university is stressful, scary, and usually destructive to the self-esteem. But it's also reassuring to know that there's a place in my life where things are extremely meritocratic, the truth is pursued relentlessly, and you don't win unless you have a damn good point.
Last year, via C., I found this: Andrew Abbot's "Aims of Education" speech. Every year the new students get one. It's meant to ruminate on why their education has a value equivalent to the massive loan they're likely to incur four years hence. Afterward, a professor is dispatched to each house for a post-speech discussion. My year, the speech wasn't so great. But this one, if you take the time to read it, is excellent.
I love this cornerstone.
Friday, August 14, 2009
jewish cowboys
The vast expanse of a night, bed, morning:
Now there's no tomorrow,
only yesterday.
But to live in the past
is to ride your life away.
I can feel in my bones:
I will die all alone.
Back down to the ground,
let the sage brush wait for me.
Now there's no tomorrow,
only yesterday.
But to live in the past
is to ride your life away.
I can feel in my bones:
I will die all alone.
Back down to the ground,
let the sage brush wait for me.
Monday, August 10, 2009
sorority rant.
Oh, how this has been building up.
I hate sororities. I am just going to say it.
I was going to write about something else but then I received a bitchy email and I'm feeling a little enraged, given that there was no need for its dripping condescension and wagging finger approach. It was, briefly, about car technicalities, from its previous owner. Why hadn't I removed the license plate and sent it to her parents, as we had discussed? she wanted to know. Does this mean I am still driving around with it on? Because that's illegal. And I had better take it off right now and give it to Friend X. Or (seriously) she'd have someone come at my car with a screwdriver and take it off herself (inevitably a herself, inevitably a sorority [gang?] member).
We had discussed removing the license plate, but she had also offered my destroying it as an option. Which I did. About two days after getting the car. It's had a Michigan license ever since. (She made no attempt to emphasize that if I chose this option, I should let her know. Because it was pretty obvious that I would do one or the other. Furthermore, I did not indicate at the time which of these I would do.)
After I pointed this out, she sent a response that tried to diffuse the first, unnecessarily vicious and stupidly condescending email, with an exclaimed, "Thanks for letting me know!"
Thanks for threatening me!
What does this have to do with sororities? Nothing really, except that this is where I keep experiencing attitudes like this. Attitudes that are condescending, cold, and frankly, falling all over themselves to make you feel like they're going wildly out of their way if you ask a favor. It is a sort of exaggerated maturity, I feel like, this certain (cue nasally, wealthy NY accent) Well I coooould do that but it's yooour responsibiiiilityyyy.
You know what's mature? Being a person that understands that other people occasionally rely on people not because they want to take advantage, but because most people play this larger game called Cooperation. If somebody asks me to do something that's easily doable, or even a little bit out of my way, I usually do it unless it's really difficult. And even then, when I break the news that I can't or won't do this thing, I don't make them feel bad for asking. Rather, I make sure to feel bad for not helping. Because people shouldn't have to feel too uncomfortable to ask if you'll do something like let someone into your apartment or mail a letter, granted you let them know you're grateful.
In terms of the sorority, I don't know if this ties to my particular relationship to it via a complex and tense friendship that they probably all know about, or if I'm just not a member of the Ordained Sisterhood and therefore unworthy of basic decency. Or maybe they even treat each other like this. I don't know. I just know that given my tangential relationship to sororities, joining a sorority is the last thing I want to do.
I will choose my friends myself. And I will choose ones that don't send me unwarranted, threatening car emails.
I hate sororities. I am just going to say it.
I was going to write about something else but then I received a bitchy email and I'm feeling a little enraged, given that there was no need for its dripping condescension and wagging finger approach. It was, briefly, about car technicalities, from its previous owner. Why hadn't I removed the license plate and sent it to her parents, as we had discussed? she wanted to know. Does this mean I am still driving around with it on? Because that's illegal. And I had better take it off right now and give it to Friend X. Or (seriously) she'd have someone come at my car with a screwdriver and take it off herself (inevitably a herself, inevitably a sorority [gang?] member).
We had discussed removing the license plate, but she had also offered my destroying it as an option. Which I did. About two days after getting the car. It's had a Michigan license ever since. (She made no attempt to emphasize that if I chose this option, I should let her know. Because it was pretty obvious that I would do one or the other. Furthermore, I did not indicate at the time which of these I would do.)
After I pointed this out, she sent a response that tried to diffuse the first, unnecessarily vicious and stupidly condescending email, with an exclaimed, "Thanks for letting me know!"
Thanks for threatening me!
What does this have to do with sororities? Nothing really, except that this is where I keep experiencing attitudes like this. Attitudes that are condescending, cold, and frankly, falling all over themselves to make you feel like they're going wildly out of their way if you ask a favor. It is a sort of exaggerated maturity, I feel like, this certain (cue nasally, wealthy NY accent) Well I coooould do that but it's yooour responsibiiiilityyyy.
You know what's mature? Being a person that understands that other people occasionally rely on people not because they want to take advantage, but because most people play this larger game called Cooperation. If somebody asks me to do something that's easily doable, or even a little bit out of my way, I usually do it unless it's really difficult. And even then, when I break the news that I can't or won't do this thing, I don't make them feel bad for asking. Rather, I make sure to feel bad for not helping. Because people shouldn't have to feel too uncomfortable to ask if you'll do something like let someone into your apartment or mail a letter, granted you let them know you're grateful.
In terms of the sorority, I don't know if this ties to my particular relationship to it via a complex and tense friendship that they probably all know about, or if I'm just not a member of the Ordained Sisterhood and therefore unworthy of basic decency. Or maybe they even treat each other like this. I don't know. I just know that given my tangential relationship to sororities, joining a sorority is the last thing I want to do.
I will choose my friends myself. And I will choose ones that don't send me unwarranted, threatening car emails.
Sunday, August 09, 2009
fodder.
I never used to think about my future. Not really. It was always, "Oh, I'll be a writer" and I would see myself with a pen and some paper (like anyone writes novels with pens and paper anymore) and think of a bunch of ideas I wanted to get across, and sew up the image with mild fantasies of success and peoples' identification. I wrote a lot more then, especially fiction, but rarely anything long, and even more rarely anything good.
Writing is the only thing that has ever seemed highly fulfilling to me. Apparently even feeding the starving is not is noble as arranged words and having them read. (I now feel differently, at least in that respect. That's all ego.)
I still would like to write, and still have dreams of writing fiction although the need or maybe the drive has been crushed like wine grapes from a seriously intense education. A high-caliber university education may leave you a more knowledgeable, and deeper, thinker, but if you get out with your self-esteem in tact and not in shreds, any hint of serious creativity is necessarily a result of your own fostering and protection. I have written, at this point, probably a hundred or so papers in college. And despite this, or perhaps due to it, my creativity has not been exercised too deeply. In fact, it has taken a hell of a beating. There is a reason my year ended on a decline in grades. I can't approach Microsoft Word anymore, and stick to the rhetorical structure, without some serious suffering. (Robert Pirsig may have been irritating in Zen and the Art, but he would be a relief to have as a professor.)
It is revelatory, and strange, that it is when I go home that I feel creatively refueled. This has happened on many occasions when I have gone home recently. I profess to hate the town, and yet some of the social experiences I've had (or come into contact with) there have been some of the most interesting and didactic. I closely know someone who is trying to deal with unutterable tragedy. I have a friend who has drastically changed religion and quickly married someone from a completely different culture. People from my high school are getting married and having babies (not often in that order), and some are already getting divorced. The coffee shop has its own mix of unique regulars; there's the transplanted, short African guy, raised English, who now teaches philosophy at a university nearby and will talk forever (he liked that I was reading The Brothers Karamazov, last time.) There's the family of Democrats and the intriguing diaspora of their attractive brood.
The strange sects of Christianity. The small town niches people fill. The blood-thirsty local politics and unbelievably intricate scandals. And surprising conversations that last hours with people you don't expect.
There is a reason I grew up romantic.
Writing is the only thing that has ever seemed highly fulfilling to me. Apparently even feeding the starving is not is noble as arranged words and having them read. (I now feel differently, at least in that respect. That's all ego.)
I still would like to write, and still have dreams of writing fiction although the need or maybe the drive has been crushed like wine grapes from a seriously intense education. A high-caliber university education may leave you a more knowledgeable, and deeper, thinker, but if you get out with your self-esteem in tact and not in shreds, any hint of serious creativity is necessarily a result of your own fostering and protection. I have written, at this point, probably a hundred or so papers in college. And despite this, or perhaps due to it, my creativity has not been exercised too deeply. In fact, it has taken a hell of a beating. There is a reason my year ended on a decline in grades. I can't approach Microsoft Word anymore, and stick to the rhetorical structure, without some serious suffering. (Robert Pirsig may have been irritating in Zen and the Art, but he would be a relief to have as a professor.)
It is revelatory, and strange, that it is when I go home that I feel creatively refueled. This has happened on many occasions when I have gone home recently. I profess to hate the town, and yet some of the social experiences I've had (or come into contact with) there have been some of the most interesting and didactic. I closely know someone who is trying to deal with unutterable tragedy. I have a friend who has drastically changed religion and quickly married someone from a completely different culture. People from my high school are getting married and having babies (not often in that order), and some are already getting divorced. The coffee shop has its own mix of unique regulars; there's the transplanted, short African guy, raised English, who now teaches philosophy at a university nearby and will talk forever (he liked that I was reading The Brothers Karamazov, last time.) There's the family of Democrats and the intriguing diaspora of their attractive brood.
The strange sects of Christianity. The small town niches people fill. The blood-thirsty local politics and unbelievably intricate scandals. And surprising conversations that last hours with people you don't expect.
There is a reason I grew up romantic.
Saturday, August 08, 2009
schedule and coffee.
My parent's prehistoric computer is, I'm pretty sure, eligible for submission to the Smithsonian at this point, but I will try to provide a little update anyway.
I will be...
In South Bend until the 28th of August.
In Hastings until the 13/14th of September.
In Boulder until the 27/28th of September.
In Chicago from then on.. with probably some random stops in Chicago during this time, too.
I hadn't intended to spend so much time in Hastings, but it turns out I can pick up weekend hours at the coffee shop and my parents will buy my plane ticket to Boulder in exchange for me staying here with my brother for a few days while they drive down to Phoenix (they're moving to Phoenix, has this been mentioned?)
Due to rent/car/gas/etc. payments, my money is rapidly dwindling and I can't afford to just spend all of September loafing (exercising?) in Boulder and not making Adult decisions. I'll still get two weeks in. And, well, the coffee shop is still one of my favorite places. This weekend back home has been unexpectedly Nice. I've become such a snob, looking down on this town. Or maybe I've always been such a snob. I still would never live here again, but to ignore the beautiful bits and pieces and worthwhile people that are here is unfair.
I think I disassociate with things for fear I will become them. I don't want to become a part of chain stores and narrow-mindedness and cultural ignorance. These things exist here, in abundance. But they also exist everywhere.
So, enough. If you'll be in any of these places during these times, or want to visit me, or want me to visit you, let me know. We can get coffee.
I will be...
In South Bend until the 28th of August.
In Hastings until the 13/14th of September.
In Boulder until the 27/28th of September.
In Chicago from then on.. with probably some random stops in Chicago during this time, too.
I hadn't intended to spend so much time in Hastings, but it turns out I can pick up weekend hours at the coffee shop and my parents will buy my plane ticket to Boulder in exchange for me staying here with my brother for a few days while they drive down to Phoenix (they're moving to Phoenix, has this been mentioned?)
Due to rent/car/gas/etc. payments, my money is rapidly dwindling and I can't afford to just spend all of September loafing (exercising?) in Boulder and not making Adult decisions. I'll still get two weeks in. And, well, the coffee shop is still one of my favorite places. This weekend back home has been unexpectedly Nice. I've become such a snob, looking down on this town. Or maybe I've always been such a snob. I still would never live here again, but to ignore the beautiful bits and pieces and worthwhile people that are here is unfair.
I think I disassociate with things for fear I will become them. I don't want to become a part of chain stores and narrow-mindedness and cultural ignorance. These things exist here, in abundance. But they also exist everywhere.
So, enough. If you'll be in any of these places during these times, or want to visit me, or want me to visit you, let me know. We can get coffee.
Thursday, August 06, 2009
Zen and the Art of Paying Attention
I am almost finished with "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance," which I started a few weeks ago. It has been slow going, and by almost finished, I mean still 100 pages shy. Which brings me to tonight's topic, which relates to one of my bigger concerns recently: my attention span is deflating rapidly, to the point that full-scale books, and even longish articles fail to hold it.
I have been talking to a lot of people about this, because I know it's not just a problem I have. It is clearly a result of the internet, and the type of interaction people are allowed and encouraged to have with it. We don't read newspapers anymore, we read news aggregator sites (I usually read Google news.. and I write for a paper!) We check blogs daily for bite-sized information of some sort, be it political or social or scientific or personal. People look at Twitter--which enforces this tiny attention span with character limits--and get their information in snarky, packaged comments. In between we bounce between.. play little mindteaser games, update our Facebooks and read other peoples' status updates. But nothing lengthy. Spending an entire afternoon on one thing, whether it's a book or a painting or a piece of writing, feels like an excessive investment. We're used to quick leaps, with very shallow dabbling in each bit of information we acquire. It's about maximum consumption, minimal absorption. And it feels like static.
I'm certainly not the first to point this out. Over the past couple years, numerous articles and books have been published on the deterioration of the modern attention span. This excellent Atlantic article comes to mind. The author himself brings in a legion of friends who've felt the same problem. No one I've talked to has identified with me with quite the level of disturbed obsession I've been harboring, but I'm sure a lot of people out there do.
(Authors have been calling it for years. There is a mammoth novel by David Foster Wallace called "Infinite Jest" that serves as something of a sad warning against a reliance on being diverted. I haven't read it, but from what I know, the title refers to a film, or video game, or something, that's reputedly so entertaining that people who come into contact with it never stop watching it. It was published in 1996, but right now that thought seems eerily prescient.)
Wallace hit on something that frightens me more than just the idea of a shorter attention span--in conjunction with it, I am finding my self-discipline to be in such decline as to be almost nonexistent. I made up a reading list at the beginning of the summer. From it, I've gotten barely 300 pages into "The Brothers Karamozov" until, citing Thoreau's convenient quote (something about not reading any book you don't want to be reading) I dropped it straight away (without saying goodbye, because I cling to the idea that I will pick it back up sometime before summer ends) and relaxed into the comfort and ease of a Nick Hornby book. Then I joined a book club whose meetings I can't even attend and I'm now where I started this--near the end of "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance." And the only way I got here was through a minimal self-discipline. Because now, when I read a book, I spend the first 10 pages ripping my eyes away, or they dance erratically about the page, like I'm about to bounce to the next object on the screen. Eventually (maybe around page 15) I start to relax into it. My speed increases and I have regained an ability to focus. Despite how pleasant and calming it is, I still find the idea of bite-sized information tempting, and have to convince myself again and again throughout the reading that I want to be doing it, that it is more substantial and valuable. And that's ridiculous, considering I'm reading a book about Zen. Granted, the narrator is somewhat obnoxious, but still.
Like I said, I cannot stop thinking about this, both the shrinking of my attention span and the lack of self-discipline to address it. These issues have a set of corollaries that deserve their own attention (ha), but this post is not for them.
I have been considering how to deal with my self-discipline problem (which I believe arises out of my attention span problem, although maybe it's more of a chicken-and-egg dilemma) and radical thoughts keep entering my mind, but they all involve using self-discipline to improve my self-discipline. Read a single book every three days. Watch no internet-TV (an addiction that is growing the more entertaining television shows I find). Wake up early and go for a run in the morning. Study X amount of Hindi. Etc.
Distressingly, I become a mirror of my environment. All of the interns are gone. I have made no friends and cannot figure out how to. My meals have been less fresh, not more, as I cook for one and try to save money, and the grocery store is five miles away. And I watch TV and use the internet maximally.
Last week I had some success--I bought paints and supplies, and spent several hours one night painting. It's sad, but I was astonished at how much thinking I had to do. And how active the process was. And how little I feel I've been experiencing that on a day-to-day basis. The infinite jest, it feels, is on me.
If I work up the self-discipline (perhaps the correct term is "motivation") I'll write about this more in the coming weeks. If not, well...
I have been talking to a lot of people about this, because I know it's not just a problem I have. It is clearly a result of the internet, and the type of interaction people are allowed and encouraged to have with it. We don't read newspapers anymore, we read news aggregator sites (I usually read Google news.. and I write for a paper!) We check blogs daily for bite-sized information of some sort, be it political or social or scientific or personal. People look at Twitter--which enforces this tiny attention span with character limits--and get their information in snarky, packaged comments. In between we bounce between.. play little mindteaser games, update our Facebooks and read other peoples' status updates. But nothing lengthy. Spending an entire afternoon on one thing, whether it's a book or a painting or a piece of writing, feels like an excessive investment. We're used to quick leaps, with very shallow dabbling in each bit of information we acquire. It's about maximum consumption, minimal absorption. And it feels like static.
I'm certainly not the first to point this out. Over the past couple years, numerous articles and books have been published on the deterioration of the modern attention span. This excellent Atlantic article comes to mind. The author himself brings in a legion of friends who've felt the same problem. No one I've talked to has identified with me with quite the level of disturbed obsession I've been harboring, but I'm sure a lot of people out there do.
(Authors have been calling it for years. There is a mammoth novel by David Foster Wallace called "Infinite Jest" that serves as something of a sad warning against a reliance on being diverted. I haven't read it, but from what I know, the title refers to a film, or video game, or something, that's reputedly so entertaining that people who come into contact with it never stop watching it. It was published in 1996, but right now that thought seems eerily prescient.)
Wallace hit on something that frightens me more than just the idea of a shorter attention span--in conjunction with it, I am finding my self-discipline to be in such decline as to be almost nonexistent. I made up a reading list at the beginning of the summer. From it, I've gotten barely 300 pages into "The Brothers Karamozov" until, citing Thoreau's convenient quote (something about not reading any book you don't want to be reading) I dropped it straight away (without saying goodbye, because I cling to the idea that I will pick it back up sometime before summer ends) and relaxed into the comfort and ease of a Nick Hornby book. Then I joined a book club whose meetings I can't even attend and I'm now where I started this--near the end of "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance." And the only way I got here was through a minimal self-discipline. Because now, when I read a book, I spend the first 10 pages ripping my eyes away, or they dance erratically about the page, like I'm about to bounce to the next object on the screen. Eventually (maybe around page 15) I start to relax into it. My speed increases and I have regained an ability to focus. Despite how pleasant and calming it is, I still find the idea of bite-sized information tempting, and have to convince myself again and again throughout the reading that I want to be doing it, that it is more substantial and valuable. And that's ridiculous, considering I'm reading a book about Zen. Granted, the narrator is somewhat obnoxious, but still.
Like I said, I cannot stop thinking about this, both the shrinking of my attention span and the lack of self-discipline to address it. These issues have a set of corollaries that deserve their own attention (ha), but this post is not for them.
I have been considering how to deal with my self-discipline problem (which I believe arises out of my attention span problem, although maybe it's more of a chicken-and-egg dilemma) and radical thoughts keep entering my mind, but they all involve using self-discipline to improve my self-discipline. Read a single book every three days. Watch no internet-TV (an addiction that is growing the more entertaining television shows I find). Wake up early and go for a run in the morning. Study X amount of Hindi. Etc.
Distressingly, I become a mirror of my environment. All of the interns are gone. I have made no friends and cannot figure out how to. My meals have been less fresh, not more, as I cook for one and try to save money, and the grocery store is five miles away. And I watch TV and use the internet maximally.
Last week I had some success--I bought paints and supplies, and spent several hours one night painting. It's sad, but I was astonished at how much thinking I had to do. And how active the process was. And how little I feel I've been experiencing that on a day-to-day basis. The infinite jest, it feels, is on me.
If I work up the self-discipline (perhaps the correct term is "motivation") I'll write about this more in the coming weeks. If not, well...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
