Born.Live.Die.Signify.

“I have had an intense and highly aesthetic perception of what I call the icy bleakness of things. At the same time I have felt a great loneliness in this perception. This conjunction of feelings seems paradoxical, since such a perception, such a view of things, would seem to preclude the emotion of loneliness, or any sense of a killing sadness, as I think of it.” - Thomas Ligotti, The Bungalow House

“But I didn’t despise the Christian girls. No, for some strange reason it was precisely them I fell for. How could I explain that to Hilde? And although I, like her, always tried to see beneath the surface, on the basis of a fundamental yet unstated tenet that what lay beneath was the truth or the reality, and, like her, always sought meaning, even if it were only to be found in an acknowledgment of meaninglessness, it was actually on the glittering and alluring surface that I wanted to live, and the chalice of meaninglessness I wanted to drain – in short I was attracted by all the town’s discos and nightspots, where I wanted nothing more than to drink myself senseless and stagger around chasing girls I could fuck, or at least make out with. How could I explain that to Hilde? I couldn’t, and I didn’t. Instead I opened a new subdivision in my life. ‘Booze and hopes of fornication’ it was called, and it was right next to ‘insight and sincerity,’ separated only by a minor garden-fence-like change of personality.”

― Karl Ove Knausgård, My Struggle: Book 4

In the short horror story, The Bungalow House by nihilist writer Thomas Ligotti, a narrator becomes obsessed with tape recordings of dream monologues he encounters in a dusty, disordered art gallery near his place of work. During one of his daily lunch breaks in the gallery, he comes across a new performance art exhibit – an audio cassette recording by an unnamed artist recounting his experience in an old, vermin-infested bungalow. The monologue is impactful as much for its silence as its words, and the narrator-listener becomes entranced by the recording, so much so that he implores the shop owner for the right to purchase it. After listening to the mysterious artist's second recording about an abandoned factory, the narrator desires a meeting with the artist. From there, the horror, almost wholly psychological, unfolds for the reader in a Borgesian style, leaving you with little to hold on to as “truth” by the end.

Psychological horror as a genre has intrigued me since I first read Kafka in high school. What untold damage we do to ourselves through tortuous, endless thoughts! And while I would love to get into the state of mental states at some later date, what struck me while reading this story was the beautifully nihilistic view of the material world – that icy bleakness of things. We imbue such life into our possessions by projecting a meaning onto them that is not inherently there. To that point, I think about the tub of stuffed animals sitting in my shed and get unnerved when I consider throwing them out. I am sure I could find a place to donate them, but some are likely too ratty and outdated to be relevant to any child today. And as to the bleakness of things, I think about how I foisted such emotional meaning into something so lifeless as a stuffed piece of fabric that even now, 30 plus years later, I can’t bear to think about them mouldering in a landfill somewhere, despite their once great significance being cut off to my adult self.

The bleakness of things comes from the ultimate realization that the hopes you have for said things will never be fulfilled - they are, in the end, just things. Beautiful things, expensive things, cuddly things - all just things. Once you realize their limitations, you have to accept that acquiring more, or different, things will never fulfill you. Ever.  Imagine the ennui of a spoiled child opening a 40th present at their over-the-top birthday party -  everyone blames the kid for being ungrateful, but the entire scene should be readily viewed as absurd. Yet somehow, it’s not. It’s like blaming the victim in a sense. “Oh, you don’t get happiness from things? Well, what does that say about the rest of us; are we all LYING to ourselves?” Yes, Brenda, you are all lying to yourselves. Now go have sex with the pool boy and calm down. Things don’t bring happiness -  a tautological thought for sure, but hell, Americans needed a show to teach them this!

Despite their inherent meaninglessness, the “things” that surround us do have an innate beauty. Even, or maybe especially, the discarded and forgotten things. There’s a morbid curiosity I have about the amount of stuff that’s created for human material consumption that goes unused - I am talking about the literal millions of tons of unsold products that end up...in landfills? In stores in developing nations? At the bottom of the ocean? The decay of things. Sensitivity to the death of things. It’s beautiful, in a twisted way.

For the past year or so, I have been reading the six volume novel, Min Kamp by Norwegian writer Karl Ove Knausgaard. When I tell “people who read” what I am reading, they laugh or roll their eyes, ask me how I can be reading such a series, because essentially it is about nothing. And in that nothing, it is about the everything of life. He spends passages, even pages describing his surroundings, from the natural to the material to the corporeal. And for what? In the end, he’s living his life as a normal person suffering through the mundanities of housework and childcare, the tedium of monogamy and the frustrations of being a (generally) domesticated animal that doesn’t rape and pillage its neighborhood. Same as most of us do on a daily basis. But there’s an elegance to the nothingness. An allure of the void. You’re reading about the life of a man who’s dissecting art history for three pages and then follows up that intellectual goodness with him checking out the cashier in a grocery store and anguishing over the guilt he feels because he’s married and his wife would kill him if she knew any of his innermost thoughts. For someone who spends a lot of time in their own head with their innermost thoughts (very much so by nature and at this point, by choice), this sort of juxtaposition makes complete sense. In moments of metacognition, I will catch myself listening to what someone is telling me about history curricula or whatever seemingly important stuff, but I will be more actively thinking about how old they look today or some other awful bullshit. My thoughts in those moments are unfiltered and wholly without judgment; if I can tune into that frequency though it’s amazing to realize just how aware we really are of the world around us. But, I guess due to “living our lives” we tune out a lot of the excess observational shit we do almost nonstop.

Sometimes I revel in that aspect of being human - how, as animals, we do have to be aware of our surroundings at all times. We’re lulled into this sense of complacency about it, or consider it “beneath us,” because we’ve built our societies one upon the other for so long, we seemingly are removed from that animalistic part of ourselves. If you’re an American and you’ve ever been to Rome or some other ancient city, it’s jarring to see the ruins of past civilizations just sticking out of the ground. It’s a constant reminder of the death of all civilizations, even great ones (ones whose legacy will extend beyond the cultural landscape of a hut that sells pizza). Partially decayed, totally void of usefulness to current humans...oh wait, what? Were our societies just things like my stuffed animals of yore? What a humbling realization. An understanding that you’re part of a never-ending cycle of consciousness. Lather, rinse, repeat.

So why read such stories? Their appeal lies in that bleakness - someone has made art out of just a life- a life like any other; a life like my own. Life as art. Life is art. Mortality as holding a beauty all its own - something that all those trope blasé vampires yearn for. We should enjoy to live life, or at least endure living it to see what sort of product is wrought by its end. Although we can argue about the actuality of “free will,” the perception most of us have about the lives we live is that we do have a degree of control over our choices. Perhaps there’s a guiding hand of a god or some genetic programming that pushes us in certain directions, but evolutionarily, our experience of consciousness is one of freedom.

As Camus supposedly opined, “Should I kill myself, or have another cup of coffee,” coffee always wins out because the death part can come without you ever guiding it toward truth.

To thine own self be true.

Occasionally there will be a scene in a tv show, movie or book that’ll really blow my emotions right out of their safety zone. Two of the more recent ones have been able to induce tears just trying to explain them to others.

I. The first is from the HBO series, “High Maintenance.” A seemingly innocuous premise, a guy, “The Guy,” delivers weed to New Yorkers and along his travels the viewer gets a glimpse into their inner lives, if only momentarily. It has the quality of a good, “humans of New York” posting, with more depth. Each vignette brings the viewer into the middle or sometimes even the end of a story that is someone’s life. At its funniest, the plot is absurd and/or madcap, while at its best there’s an existential poignancy that undergirds what’s visually unfolding. As an example, the first episode of the second season opens on the day after Trump was elected –day one of America’s new reality as Trumptopia. Neither the date nor his name are ever mentioned; the event stands alone as an awful day for most that “The Guy” encounters. Amongst the glimpses into the neoliberal yuppie reactions to how “totally freaking out” they are while deciding whether or not to:  update their social media with personal achievements on such a dark day, cycling, brunching and partying, the voiceless underclass that surrounds them is already suffering. Within their current Obama-progressive America,life isn’t as grand and carefree as so many people wanted to believe. The periphery was already marginalized and will continue to endure worse treatment under the new, impending administration.

The final scenes of this episode zero in on a Latino immigrant who is working two jobs. After his second shift of the day at a bar, he goes into the night to ride a subway to pick up his child at his sister’s home, presumably far away from his current location at work. The episode closes out on him and his young son riding the subway in the early morning hours, playing happily with a balloon, shifting in and out of Spanish and English. The other riders, though seemingly disinterested at first, perhaps even annoyed by the giggling and talking, join in, laughing and lightening the mood of the entire episode. Even watching it as second time, knowing fully well what I’d see, I cried. I cried at the injustice of a country that promotes the ideology of scarcity. Scarcity of what? Surely not material wealth.  No, the only scarcity is that of empathy. How can we, as a country, deny anyone who’s willing to take great sacrifices upon themselves and their families the right to be here? For the people who are here, working daily to make their lives or their children’s futures safer and more open to the opportunities that are supposedly available in this country over the ones they left. My Romantic (capital R Romantic) side still wells up with emotion over the possibilities that dwell within the founding documents of this country. As someone who has taught American history in some form or another for the past 13 years, my cynical side has deepened to think we will never escape the pettiness that prevents those universal freedoms from ever being a reality.

The disappointment I feel in regards to the current situation in this country is exemplified by the type of party politics that exist today. This weekend I read an editorial that questioned whether or not MacKenzie Bezos should use her potential divorce settlement money to continue to influence progressive policymakers, as she and Jeff did when they were still together. The article also touched up on the conflict Democrats seem to come up against so often –wealthy donors and influencers funding a party that supposedly better represents the voiceless. Well, duh. The conflict is, and will continue to be, the mass accumulation of wealth by anyone, Democrat or otherwise. In all cases, it’s problematic and flies in the face of most real attempts at progressive reform in this country. For the ultrarich who have publicly called for more taxation or who have promised to bequeath their millions/billions to the people, there is still a disconnect. The system is the problem. The fact that they were able to accumulate such vast wealth will never be rectified by philanthropy or a new tax code. The entire system is corrupt and must be torn down. If Warren Buffet and his ilk were truly concerned about the future of this nation and in truth, the world, they would use their money to support policy that would render them an extinct breed of person. As long as there is the possibility of becoming a Buffet or a Bezos, there will be inequality and injustice.

II. The second and more spiritual of the two pieces that has left me in pieces as of late is a scene in a graphic novel. it served as a reminder of the indifference of the universe to any of our existences. Toward the end of Volume Seven of the series Saga, a minor character (and his entire family) perishes in a flood. The totally preventable death occurs because he is a member of a very religious family that believed their destiny was to be fulfilled on their home planet. No amount of coaxing from other characters could change their minds. In the final pages of the book, we see the youngest member of the family pleading for his life through prayer, appealing to the higher power to save him, as he is a true believer. What follows are a series of entirely black pages. As an atheist, I am not sure why this encouraged me to burst into tears - perhaps the finality of the entire scene coupled with the realization that we lie to ourselves and to others so often about our own mortality. Furthermore, the narrator, a friend to the dying boy, thinks about the potential energies of the people around us that are lost all of the time, whether through a missed connection or bad timing, etc. It’s an emotional miscarriage.

As someone who has been troubled by the loss of deeply loved friends and relatives both to death and time, this really hit me hard. Although I read this  over a year ago, the memory of it was reawakened by dreams I had about a former friend. Through the inevitable drifting that occurs over time and space, I haven’t spoken to someone that I considered my best friend for years now. And then within the space of only a few days, I had two dreams about him. One pleasant, one accusatory. As I tried to unpack my emotions, I was unsure of whether I should let sleeping dogs lie or reach out. Throughout this process, I also began to consider reaching out to others who I have lost contact with either intentionally or otherwise. With the ease of online communication, it would not be difficult to try to forge a reconnection, but would it be worth it emotionally? If they haven’t contacted me, do they want to hear from me? Would fear of rejection or ignorance keep me from even trying?

III. How do these seemingly disparate topics align? Am I grieving for loss national and personal, past and anticipated? Formerly, I steeled myself against feeling much of anything; spent years being as stoic as possible. And though that tendency still remains, to play my emotions close to the vest, I have come to value my outpourings in whatever form they come. There is an understanding that can be had from letting yourself experience externally whatever it is that you are feeling internally. Although I often joke about how repressed Americans seem to be, I truly think it is a national trait. The messiness of life is diverted into our cultural obsession with reality shows. In the dramatic ones, everyone seems absolutely over the top because we’re all so afraid of expressing our truths to each other and ourselves. But even in programs like Tidying Up and Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, viewers watch someone else clean up and straighten out their own lives without having to actually go through the difficult experience themselves. Of course we can take cues from others’ transformations, but each of our lives is unique and the catharsis would take time, energy and commitment. As someone who has mulled over and written about the importance of the "actual over the virtual" in many different posts, my full-circle moment for this post returns to that theme. As a species, we must remember that our day-to-day interactions are of value. Everything we are cannot be sublimated into our cultivated image. What are you left with, stripped down? What will your legacy be? What will you leave behind in the physical world?c Will anyone really have known you?

A Reflection on Clocks and Time

“Being looked at with great attention changes you. Being looked at with attention takes time, and time changes all things.” - Elif Batuman

Lately I’ve been missing the digital clock on my cable box. We got an upgraded box about a month ago and “clockless” was the only option moving forward. In the living room, there is not other timepiece, so now I have to acquire one for the wall. Ofcourse, I’m going analog. The reasons being twofold: stylistically, the analog clock is more pleasing to me - it’s a face, round, reassuringly familiar; functionally, being able to tell time on an analog clock is a skill I want my child to learn. Reflecting on the second rationale, the clock-face, routinely ticking away second after second in an infinite revolution, represents a relatively new experience (relative to humankind’s existence on this planet). Clocks have existed in one form or another for millennia, but the proliferation of a standard, reliable timepiece arises from the mass production of such items in Europe in the early modern era. Although initially a way to distinguish those who could afford to keep time from those who had time kept for them, clocks became a staple of providing consistency and routine to everyday life.

The ideological shift in a conception of time thanks to the ever-ticking hands of a timepiece is so ingrained in us now, that we seem to be lost without knowing what time it is. And it is often in this obsession with start and end times, length of activities and scheduling that I truly wonder what it was like to live in a time period in which there were no “counters” on my experience. Was there a degree of freedom that we cannot conceive of now when living according to the rhythm of the day? I am a hopeless planner of time - I have intentions, but deadlines are never set in stone. I will often do things (like paying bills or writing papers) early to ensure they get done “on time” because more often than not, days and time itself slips by without me being as aware. Most people would likely not describe me as someone whose head is in the clouds, but often I feel like I might actually (secretly) be one of those people who could spend way too much time thinking about nonsense like clocks rather than being super-productive according to modern American standards. The super-scheduled astound me - they have planned out times for everything from working out to their children’s activities to sex. Where’s the spontaneity? The mystery? Is it even missed? Is this all about a form of control?

Clocks have undoubtedly made us more productive as a species - we can measurably ensure we’re not wasting time for one, but bringing awareness to time has provided us freedom to conduct reliable experiments, travel more easily and to avoid mass confusion more readily. And yet, I feel as though our experience loses something with this technological advancement because it becomes the focus of so much of our thoughts.

How would it be to go back and experience time as a child might, completely unaware that time was something we could scrutinize and control? To live a life that was less marred by the constant nagging thoughts of, “it’s 11:55 AM, I have to be at x in fifteen minutes,” or the thousandfold thoughts we have daily that are akin to such? We look to the face of the clock to guide our movements throughout our days; as a teacher, I am ruled by the bell and it makes me want to rebel against it - leave my class brazenly alone so I can get a cup of coffee or use the bathroom before my “time” is up. And more importantly, I want to free myself and my students of that ever-present desire to know what time it is and what’s next. There’s no “in the moment” when you’re wondering what time it is - there’s only looking forward or worrying about what’s passed.

Recently, I read the opening scene of Discipline and Punish by Michel Foucault to students, as it details the execution of a French criminal during the height of absolutist power in France. In the second half of the opening scene, Foucault contrasts the brutal state-mandated execution that controls its subjects through fear of punishment with a different form of control - scheduling. His example details a strictly-enforced clock in a penitentiary for young boys. There is no time for self-reflection or spontaneity - idleness leads to trouble. As he reflects, the second manifestation of control, although not representative of physical torture, also infringes on the personal liberties of those subjected to it. So we have traded being fearful of our leaders to being fearful of time and all of the issues that arise from not being a timely person in our society - being seen as lazy, unproductive, unreliable, a failure, etc.

 But, as the opening quote of this essay revealed to me, it is only through time (not necessarily measured time), that we are able to understand and appreciate the world around us. Worrying about time as a measurable unit portends an anxiety-ridden end for all of us because the end of worrying about time is an end to ourselves in a sense; we have a particularity that makes each of us run along a certain schedule. When we experience time in a more fluid sense of “accomplishing something,” for example,  we free ourselves of a burden of constantly running out of an allotted resource.  And thusly, such a basic element of our day, something most of us regard without even a thought, the clock itself, reveals so much about our relationship with grappling with our existence as corporeal beings. Are we free to be who and what we are? Or are we bound to be enslaved to the endless revolution of the hands of the clock?

Down In It.

I've read some writers that breathe a degree of humanness like no other. No sweeping descriptions of crinoline skirts or horses or tempestuous storms - there's just subconscious nitty-gritty laid bare on the page. Even if you don't empathize with their characters, you somehow do because you're also a human. Psychological horror may be one way to describe it, and if we're being honest, we've all done that to ourselves at some point - gripped by a very real sense of fear for the irrational reason of we decided to freak ourselves out. But every author doesn't have to be Kafka to expose their audience to what it feels like to be human and, additionally, being such doesn't have to be so frightening (though it can be).

Karl Ove Knausgaard's series of books, My Struggle, as all six are titled, have reawakened my need to acknowledge that those feelings of humanness exist. We all feel uncontrollable desires and nasty thoughts - some of us choose not only to admit that to ourselves, but to others. In the second volume, Knausgaard has an entire passage analyzing Dostoevsky in which he states he feels "uncomfortable" in Dostoevsky's world. Perhaps, as an author, he views this analysis somewhat ironically, since his prose likely makes many readers uncomfortable. But he's right - in both writers' worlds, there's an "uncanny valley" aspect. A very human text describes someone's inner thoughts in a non-polished, non-John Greene sort of way. This is not a milieu where two teens, dying of cancer,  engage in repartee that conveys they have all the time in the world. This is not the type of stylized speak of Joss Whedon's worlds (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Firefly) or of most television dramas.

In contrast, Knausgaard fleshes out the inner monologue you have running through your mind all day - the impassive thought you have on the check-out line at the supermarket, "Oh man, is that person ugly/fat/lazy/old." Thoughts your very well-mannered superego filter would never let you say aloud, but that still exist inside. And these thoughts aren't necessarily judgments, most are simple observations, categorizational attempts at making sense of the world around you. Though somehow, they can seem so taboo when revealed. Writers who touch on something uncomfortably human through their words are difficult to get through - think Nabokov's Lolita. Many have speculated that Nabokov himself had a predilection for underage girls to be able to get into the mind of his narrator, Humbert Humbert though, perhaps, his fictional explication reveals more about the interpreter than the author.

There's a rawness, a plainness, to a text that's not heavily stylized (or at least one comes off as such). It's not that other writers don't hit on very human emotions or empathetic experiences- the key is that the style of the text is pertinent. Yet, some people find this sort of writing overwhelming and more neurosis-inducing than anything else. Or as being as much of a distraction as any other form of art - clouding the mind from focusing on letting go or transcending to a higher plane of consciousness.

While I can see these opinions holding some weight, personally, I find such works cathartic. I am reminded that my own "flaws" tie me back into the one-ness of everything. There is no perfection to be attained because there is no standard. We all experience ups and downs, loves and losses, and ultimately, the same end -death. Yet in the interim, we're consumed by our thoughts, most of which signify nothing. They're exercises of our consciousness and even if we are master meditators who can make our thoughts sail away like clouds, new ones always form, and must be pushed aside again and again. The only clarity that we'll ever achieve is trying to understand ourselves, acknowledge what we find excitable, deplorable, indispensable, etc.

And thusly, a truly human text may just drag you down into the muck of being alive, and that, to me, is something we should never avoid facing.

Stop "Leaning In" and Fight for Real Change

Did you ever stop and think about the amount of time, energy and personal freedoms women give up to rear children? While I know there are men who do the same or play more egalitarian roles in their households, the trend still overwhelmingly leans toward women to bear the overall burden of this task (this is also not to say that some women don't choose to pursue this life path, and very happily at that). This essay is dedicated to unpacking the myth that there could be any true sort of egalitarian division of labor based on gender, in particular when it comes to the invisible work of what goes on in the home (shopping, cooking, cleaning, scheduling, childcare, et al) in a patriarchal society. As a feminist, my end goal would not be to replace patriarchy with matriarchy and any false dichotomies raised by opponents of feminist theory can go educate themselves further before they object. No, this is an entreaty to effect change that is much more inter-sectional in nature.

As a millennial (*vom*), I find the argument of "leaning in" (thanks, Sheryl Sandberg!), to be weak. Maybe it represents a type of feminism I am not in touch with, or maybe I am too socialistic to see it as doing anything but encouraging women to act like men, rather than respecting them for representing something unique. If, in fact, women will ever be truly equal to men in our society, and I mean, not simply legally having the right to pursue the same path as men, unfettered, we need a radically different socioeconomic structure in place. To support and encourage and, most importantly, empower, an entire class of people who have chosen to dedicate themselves to the domestic sphere, a basic universal income would be necessary. Caregivers, in their own right, would be paid and would not be dependent on a partner for subsistence. In addition to a basic universal income, which would ensure that everyone, inclusive of those who perform the "invisible work" of domesticity, is compensated, a truly egalitarian society would also include: paid maternity and paternity leave, universal health care, childcare and well-funded, "free" public schools (through college). Statistically, children of single mothers, first-generation college students and students of color are at a great disadvantage when it comes to student debt. To equalize playing fields based on family structure, race, and class, making public colleges more affordable or even - *gasp* - free.

It is no wonder that the United States lags begin other developed nations in measurements as diverse as infant mortality rates and student test scores in math and reading. In our mixed economic system, we've falsely equated cost with value. If a government or even a coalition of governments shared services to provide health care, educational opportunities and childcare services, there would be an increase in the average quality of life in addition to cost-savings for the providers of said services. For women who chose not to bear children, and/or take time out of their educations or careers to rear them, the benefits of a more egalitarian society would translate to less harassment and discrimination in the workplace and wider society. How? In a culture in which a successful life style is heavily tied to earning a sizable income, length of service as well as dedication to said service is the name of the game. Men are set up to be better at the length of service at least by not having to make the decision to take time off to care for young dependents. This dedication is "perceived" to be inherent to men, which means women, by the mere fact of being one, will be perceived differently regardless of their desire to be mothers. This represents an implicit bias against women in the workplace. It also robs men of the ability to be "ok" with taking time off of work for paternity leave and sharing parenting duties more equally with the mothers of their children.

If we, as a society, truly value the next generation, anti-abortion laws are the least effective method of achieving great results. The fact that women can choose to have an abortion is not providing much in the way of ensuring the success of failure of children already in existence. To allow for a thriving youth culture that can effectively participate in the next generation of democratic engagement, in a meaningful and educated way, we need bssic social safety nets that teach people how to be resilient and self-sufficient. If the objection to welfare programs is that it breeds reliance on others, then I ask two questions: 1. what is the point of a society if it isn't to band together to help others )might as well promote an anarchist state if you disagree)? 2. Instead of scrapping the idea of helping others through various programs entirely, why not encourage measures that foster real growth and understanding in their participants?

The tired phrase, "Women can't have it all," needs to go. We as a society can have more, at least, for everyone.

Maybe It's OK to be Neurotic...?

“The agnostic, the skeptic, is neurotic, but this does not imply a false philosophy; it implies the discovery of facts to which he does not know how to adapt himself. The intellectual who tries to escape from neurosis by escaping from the facts is merely acting on the principle that “where ignorance is bliss, ‘tis folly to be wise.” - Alan Watts, The Wisdom of Insecurity

Recently, I revisited Alan Watts through a series of Youtube videos and his book, The Wisdom of Insecurity. A point he makes and often circles back to is that we came from nothing- non-consciousness - before we were born, as we will return to such a state when we die. We had no anxiety about the nonconsciousness of pre-birth, so we should, logically, consider a similar state of calmness when broaching the subject of our death as well. There's nothing to "fear" as you didn't fear "being" into existence. How perfect an idea; though I am still filled with trepidation when I contemplate my own death, as I worry what others will experience. Therein lies the real rub for me - I get death. I don't want to die right now, but I also don't fear dying. The fear and anxiety I feel is more related to thinking about what those close to me would experience. Lack. 

Although I've never considered myself a neurotic person, I definitely have gravitated and empathized, and, in cases, even been enamored with neurotics (it began with Woody Allen in my teens, yes, I know...THAT Woody Allen...and continued through to pretty much every character Michael Cera has embodied on the screen). Someone so filled with self-loathing from being a flawed human that even though they comprehend the "big picture," they're often so focused on the micro-perspective that they become wrapped up in the inanity of the mundane. Pretty much every episode of "Curb Your Enthusiasm" portrays this perspective. Larry is everyone's superego, but he's such a fundamentally flawed specimen, that the audience nearly always roots against him, whether or not they agree with him on principle. I'm sure the real Larry David isn't as abrasively awful, but his insights into our psychology as humans yields such levity and catharsis that, to me, it must be a sign of acceptance with himself and his own humanity. 

Constantly, I strive for that degree of acceptance with the world around me, those who inhabit it, and most importantly, my own self. But since expectations, desires and reality seldom coincide, I am thrown into the camp of the neurotic more often than I'd like. My thoughts are numerous and hectic - new worries bubble up constantly. However, I can't live in that place of constant fear, so I consider myself a visitor to neurosis and definitely feel a connection to those who do live there. I've experienced anxiety about grades, weight, relationships, job performance - anything evaluative or comparative, so you know, everything (ha!). Then I had a child and dropped out of the normal rat race for a while. No performative measures because, gladly, I could largely avoid them and also chose not to engage or pursue them. Competitiveness dropped away, Liberation from the bullshit, even if only for a short window of time, totally wiped away years of furrows. 

Sure, I'd had breakthrough moments previously, but carrying life and doing something so commonplace, and yet unique, was transformative to my worldview. After years of judging myself for performative acts, there was room to breathe and "be." Abject sadness that life was a simple as it possibly was when breastfeeding a child I had just birthed flooded me. How complicated our modern lives are! And complicated doesn't mean better. That was the real rub. That's what provoked the tears. We did this to ourselves - built layers atop layers. Nothing that we have added to the biological drives really amounted to anything more than just that -complexity. It's like bureaucracy - there's a sense to the system, sure, but the complicatedness of such a system serves nothing more than its own interests. If that system didn't exist, life might be more inconvenient in some sense, but life is life. Inconvenience is a part of life. Knowing such feelings as waiting, boredom, and even ennui, can in themselves be transformative for the human mind. Creativity flows 

The entirety of the human condition is one that provokes neurosis in all of us if we dwell on it for too long. So we sort of have to shed a tear for what we will ultimately lose and what we've already left behind, and own our feelings, good and bad. 

An Atheist Laments the Loss of Spirituality

I write a lot about influences on my personal philosophy and worldview. 2 undergraduate history courses had a great impact on who I am today.The first was "19th Century Europe," and the second, "The History of Modern Japan." Time-wise, there was overlap, obviously, with both classes focusing on the "long century" that was the 19th. Chronologically, the 19th century was clearly as long as any other. However, certain historians designate the ideological underpinnings and mindset that came to signify the 19th century as beginning in 1789 (first French Revolution) and ending with the outbreak of WW1 in 1914. There is a dialectical forking that persists through this long century - one marked by the ideological optimism of Enlightenment thought that brought sweeping reforms as well as medical, social and technological advancements which ultimately made life more easily lived by most; the other prong characterized by a cynical secularism that arose from the waning power of religious ideology - a disregard for most of human history by training the eye always forward.

These two paths, I'd argue, didn't really coalesce into a new formation until after the devastation of the first truly "world" war. There is something absolutely beautifully breathtaking in the scope of the existential crises that WW1 inflicted upon humanity. Nietzsche was right about the men of his time - the scientists, the secularists, the non-believers in anything spiritual- so sure of themselves that the only thing that mattered was the material. If or when their "spirit" of life sought solace, the only choice became destruction - death. Such a man is capable of committing suicide to alleviate his angst, but only through mass homicide. And thus, the very long 19th century, one marked by practices in  restraint and propriety and logic, led to a bungle so heinous that the world was forever transformed, but scarred, in the process. Thus, for all of the measured control exerted by the Victorians, they succumbed to the same crushing defeat (through mass carnage) as any other historical era.

The burgeoning world power that was Japan at the end of the 19th century (fin de siecle) shared Western Europe's ideological, future-oriented optimism. However, the reasons I gravitated toward Japanese literature were grounded in their philosophical outlook - the first being that "Japanese existential essence." The canonical works (and even entire forms of expression like haiku) reflect Buddhism steeped in fatalistic waters. Japan lies on fault lines, hosts volcanoes, experiences real catastrophes based on sea level changes and is at the forefront of tsunami activity in the Pacific.  Secondly, in many works from the fin de siecle through WW2, the meteoric rise of a culture so divorced from real spirituality is evident. Rituals and relationships begin to ring hollow, and yet leaders push them to mean more and more. After the fall of the Japanese Empire in 1945 through such a brutal explosion of force (re: the atomic bomb) a new interface between existentialism and nihilism opened up. The collective consciousness of an entire nation became one of post traumatic stress disorder.

Personally, that type of existential crises intrigues me. How does someone (or in this case, an entire people) overcome such trauma? Not that my culture has ever experienced anywhere near that level of devastation (maybe some of the more recent hurricanes would fit the bill, but even those were not colored by the same gravity of being a choice made by humans to inflict directly on other humans), but for many empathetic people, one can imagine how quickly everything you know could change. We all know people whose lives were going one way....until they weren't anymore. On the other hand, American culture likes to promote only the successful stories - the rags-to-riches (and even the riches-to-riches) tales. As a species, we tend to learn more from the oppositely-oriented ones.

Subsequently, the development of Japan in the post-WW2 era is also fascinating. Fast-forwarding to today, the country's embrace of technological advancements and capitalism created a society of commodification. No time for a relationship? Go to a host club. No time for a pet of your own? Visit a cat cafe for the afternoon. Is the spiritual edge that once stirred me still there? According to various news reports in the past few years, old ways are indeed dying out. Less and less people are identifying as a member of any particular religion, and without patrons, historic temples are shuttering. Beyond the rise of secularism, Japan also faces a crisis of being at zero population growth. Is this a natural ebbing which will be followed by a flowing of fertility? Or has intense commodification wrought these changes? Much like in the Western world, many people of childbearing age delay having children due to extended educational careers, economic instability and generalized anxiety over bringing a child into a seemingly tumultuous world.

Would things be different if there was some degree of spiritual grounding? Populations that identify as religious have a been studied to have higher birth rates. Is there less anxiety about the future (and your children's futures) if a god/gods is/are involved? Personally, the idea of having children never scared me, nor did I think of "the right time" as being any other time than the present. Perhaps that's a stupid, short-sighted way of approaching the big responsibility of bringing another life into this world, but it's also a biological impulse for many that doesn't really warrant that much thought. People successfully had children when they were mucking around as serfs on some lord's lands. Children were brought into this world in the middle of wars, under enslavement, in concentration camps, during diasporas - in other words, the absolute worst conditions humans could endure. So the middle class professional who's "just waiting for the right time to bear children" might be overthinking things a bit. An industry of child-rearing books, products and experts has stripped away what humans have been able to do naturally, even under duress, for millennia.

Thus, the restrictions we face are often put upon us by ourselves. This fact is evident from about day 3 of being a parent or ever being in charge of anyone (even for a short period of time). Why the fuck do we care to continue to restrict human potential? Are we carrying on in ways we know are unsustainable, illusory, etc? What could possibly end some, even if not all, of the destructive behaviors we engage in? Literally wading through consistently flooded streets? And what can replace the desires that are not acted upon? Distractions...material accumulation? Virtual realities? I would constantly ask myself these questions while studying the 19th century, as I do regarding our society now. Surely we do not live in such a buttoned-up era as the Victorians, but there is some overlap ideologically. The confusing social milieu of now leads to personal censorship akin to the propriety of our predecessors. Say the wrong thing, share the wrong meme, and *poof* "cancelled." The fear of being shunned has dampened personal expression and experimentation. There is little room for mistakes. So people don't even try, as not to fail.

Perhaps with God being dead (and we, and our forebears in Western society, having killed him), the only way out of endless material accumulation IS (self) destruction.And not mass suicide or suicide through homicide, but the tearing down of a system that has failed. For the sake of all of us, and especially for the sake of the generations recently or even yet to be born, fuck this society. Let's band together to build a new, communal one.