What else are people selling (in India) online?
Earlier today I posted an entry which comprised a series of ads I’d seen on a popular commercial website that features ”wanted” and “for sale” ads, like Craigslist. It made my morning, I’ll tell you that. Ever the glutton for a good thing, I went back. Yes, I did. And found more gut-spilling treasures. Now I can’t keep these to myself. How can I?
1. 
For those time you need to work out your umm, bowels. I think.
2. 
I feel a little guilty for finding this funny. Well no, not really.
3. 
I know lots of people who love a strengthy dog.
4. 
I think this is expecting too much. This is not even a cute table. I don’t see myself hugging this. And really, I don’t think the chairs will get along with my papier mache floor lamp either.
5.
Crackers put the fun in funeral, don’t you know?
6.
I know this is a sly matrimonial ad for a motercycle. I just know it.
7.
Good to know, good to know.
8. 
Okay I’m interested. WHAT THE FUCK IS IT? Oh wait. Yes. It’s a pink goose with a rubber ball on its head. Sure, I’ll take one.
9. 
I am not musically inclined but I do not think this is a cello. However, I cannot resist power stairing.
10.
I don’t know what to say anymore.
Pigeons cross with lions, apparently. Do you wants, lover?
13. 
I must ask what will become of the unconcealed 1/4 bottoms of these gentlemen?
What people are selling online, in India
I usually blog with words. Once in a while I come across something that defies the need for words. Like today, when I found myself on a Craigslist site of sorts looking at some “For Sale” ads, and came across some really interesting things people were selling.
1. 
Just in case you were concerned about the moral temperament of your handheld device, this is good to know. Batteries included.
2.
Flora meets fauna in a crocus panel. As for the Labrador bride, I don’t even…
3.
Right. Gotcha.
4. 
Everybody wants one, I know. Get in line bitches. I saw it first.
5. 
I REALLY want to know what full parlour items comprise. At least the slimming machine is not a crotchety old sourpuss.
6.
Now I know what it means when you make art from pencil.
7.
You can haz Greek philosophical pigeons, but if you thought you could buy a Dealer, well, I guess not.
8.
I am really interested to know what circumstances could POSSIBLY push you into selling a cup you bought in LA for twenty bucks. Help me. Did you lose the saucer? Have your loyalties shifted to cola? Or are you no longer on speaking terms with your crockery?
9. 
You heard the man. If you’re not called Harry, fuck off. Do not waste his time.
10. 
Everything you ever needed to know about divans and were too afraid to ask. Let’s be honest: this is a coffee table. For the… garden, apparently.
11. 
Pure white eyes for all you zombie livestock aficionados and other dear viewers.
12. 
Teeth. Because if you know shit about cows you know oral care is the key to cowdom. Don’t miss who the seller is/ are.
Left to our own devices: a case for less technology, more life
“We expect more from technology and less from one another and seem increasingly drawn to technologies that provide the illusion of companionship without the demands of relationship. ”
- Sherry Turkle
As a people, we have lost the fundamental instinct that we will just be there for each other. We talk less and less with each other face-to-face and then question why trust is at an all-time low. We now begin to wonder what it means to be patient because we no longer know how to.
The velocity of virtual connections has found its way into our real life. We demand immediacy and look constantly for the ENTER button in all our interactions, if not within conversations, so we can have our say whenever we have to. We do not let others complete their sentences because we are afraid we will forget what we wanted to say. When people digress, we get irritable. We have become snappier, harder to please, and more demanding of instant gratification than ever before.
Ironically, the smarter we get with technology (that is supposed to help us connect better and in more ways), the dumber we get with people. Social media constantly wants to know “what’s on your mind?”. I doubt many of us have an answer truly worth beginning a conversation for. To be asked simple, yet thought-provoking questions demands a level of self-revelation, for which we need to know what we think and feel, and not many of us are truly aware of that anymore. What you ate for dinner, your opinion of the newest Box Office blockbuster, your whine about the weather – is not you. It is your opinion. And God knows the networks have more than enough of those.
Our abuse of technology is killing something fundamental within us: the very real human capacity for patience, connection, and compassion. What once fed us, entertained us, assisted us, now consumes and owns us.
Connecting with others must go beyond logging in and updating a status. Else, we are doomed to an emotionally vapid future with each other. The fact is, we are getting used to living and being happy with less. We don’t expect to be heard, or paid attention to. We’re OK being ignored. We are shortchanging ourselves on meaningful interactions, cheating each other with vacuous, trite chitchat. And we are the perpetrators unto ourselves. The day is not far when we do away with the entire practice of relationships with people altogether. I hear this all the time: too much drama. Too many expectations. Too little ‘me’ time. I believe these are new-age synonyms for “I’d rather be home playing a video game or hanging out on Twitter.”
Our never-turned-off-never-leave-home-without-it devices ensure that we are never left alone to deal with the strangers we have become to ourselves. Or with life. Or with anyone whose handle we don’t know. We have gone from “I think, therefore I am” to “I login, therefore I exist”. The truth is, we stay constantly connected to stay less lonely. But if you cannot be alone, you WILL be lonely, no matter how many networks you’re on.
We now use technology as a means of self-definition. What you read, watch, listen to-you share- as a window to knowing you as a person. In essence, we are what we subscribe to – be it music, videos, articles, PoVs, Facebook likes, Google+ adds, or Twitter follows. But who are YOU? Are you simply the sum of your likes and retweets? Are you only a second-hand collage; an amalgamation of other people’s thoughts, words, ideas and creativity? What happened to you? Where did you disappear in the melee?
In a virtual, social media context, the word ‘share’ loses all sense of meaning and proportion. This culture of “sharing” has, in fact, made us poorer than ever before. We give it all away and are left with nothing at the end of the day. This is NOT sharing. This is grappling. In our haste to ‘share’, we leave out an essential part of ourselves. The part that considers, rationalizes, gauges, experiences, and stays. If you’re defined by what and how much you share, then you want to share constantly in order to feel more connected to…? Yes. Yourself.
Pursuing the need to ‘connect’ will render you further from that sometimes necessary solitude and your ability to be at peace with yourself. We increasingly lack the ability to survive in solitude and turn constantly to others to fill the void. When we treat others as “void fillers”, we miss out on experiencing them for who they are and the cycle of knowing yet not knowing keeps turning.
I miss patience. I miss the comfort of solitude. I miss my own silence. And I miss who I was before Twitter made me exist in this realm.
The next time you reach for the phone to tweet about what you’re eating, for example – stop. Instead, eat. Do just that. Enjoy your meal. If it’s a bitch of a hot day for you, it’s a bitch of a hot day for everyone else in your city. Unless you have something incredibly fascinating to say about heat, restrain from stating the obvious. If you think of someone out of the blue, do what you did a few years ago- pick up the phone on impulse and call them. These days we are likely to text or email them, or poke the crap out of them on Facebook. That worked well back then, and it will still work now. If you’re distressed, unhappy or aggrieved – call a friend. Talk to someone. Like, a REAL someone. Go meet them for coffee. Take a book.
We need to start talking to each other again; looking at each other’s faces again. We need to remember what people we love feel like, and smell like. We need to remember the sound of their voice or the way their pupils dilate, their smile and their beautiful hands. In our urgency to innovate and discover newer, better, faster ways to connect, we are forgetting to communicate. And that doesn’t need an account and password. It just needs us to be present.
So, call me sometime.
Love is all around the blogosphere – The Liebster Blog Awards
PotliBaba nominated me for the Liebster Blog Award, an accolade showered by fellow bloggers to show how much they love (reading) you. My gratitude to her. So, to continue this tradition, I am now supposed to pay it forward and shower my blog love on five of my most frequented blogs/ bloggers.
For the Liebster Blog Awards, I choose the following:
The Late Bloomer: Is also known as everyone’s favorite project. Cheryl-Ann is one of the few bloggers who actually still write, as opposed to curating, and has the most wonderful take on things. Quirky, wry, and insanely smart, she is my first Twitter crush and as comfortable to have around as a banana peel on a rainy day. Kidding. You can follow her on Twitter @ThatIrateLady and read her blog here.
Mehreen Kasana: The current leading lady of the motion picture that is my life online is undoubtedly Mehreen Kasana. She will charm you with her snark, bowl you over with her wit, and with no effort whatsoever, make you fall head over feet in love. Bitch, please – follow her on Twitter already: @mehreenkasana and get smitten here.
So Much Joy It Hurts: Kathleen has a mouth that will bring a man to his knees. When she opens it and speaks, women fall too. Her Tumblr blog is a glorious mishmash of the evocative, the indolent, and the passionate. She is a priestess of prose bringing to life the raw, wracking desire of words. Each time she speaks, you want to throw her roses. Follow Kathleen on Twitter @kissability and genuflect here.
Paagal Subtitle: I am not friends or even acquaintances with this person, but whoever they are, I want to have their babies. Catch the absolute cream of insane Indian films and their even more deranged subtitles. It gives me laughs every day. Yes, every day. God damn it, you’re funny, whoever you are. Spill guts here.
Explore: Maria Popova is a human attic. That doesn’t sound too glamorous, but believe me- attics are sexy places. She collects, curates and refreshes facts, knowledge, information and what’s new. For those in lust with wanting to know more, her blogsite, Explore, is a ‘discovery engine for meaningful knowledge, fueled by cross-disciplinary curiosity’. It is a brothel for mind sexy. You can follow Maria on Twitter @brainpicker and dive into her wonder blog here.
So that’s that. Now that i’ve picked you guys, it’s your turn to pass on the love. Here’s how you go about nominating people:
- Thank the one who nominated you by linking back – Can’t be bothered. I am tagging you guys on Twitter.
- Nominate five blogs with 200 or fewer followers – I didn’t bother looking at numbers.
- Let your nominees know by leaving a comment on their sites – I will smooch the shit of you peeps in person. How’s that?
- Copy and paste the award image on your site – Whatever.
Go. Read.
Read maps like you read love letters – A new cartography
The image you see above is called “The Night Sky”. It is a composite of several drawings linked together, and the stars charted to make the map directly above Boylan Heights, a small North Carolina neighborhood that became something of an obsession for Denis Wood beginning in the ’70s. An obsession that has produced something of a “poetics of cartography”.
Artist, author and cartographer, Denis Wood describes the picture:
“This is what you see at night, in early July, if you’re in Boylan Heights and you look up at the sky . . . if you can get out from under the trees. At the top of the hill, in the middle of Boylan Avenue, we lay on our backs to make this map of the stars above the neighborhood. It was about ten o’clock and the asphalt was still warm with the day’s heat. We had a star finder, a flashlight to read it with, paper and pencil. We made a sketch of the horizon and roughed in the stars we could see and returned the next day to make dozens of detailed drawings. Afterwards we linked these together for a 360º view and used charts to make sure of our stars. With a shrunk-down copy, we went back to the street at night and fiddled with it until we got it right.
During summer in Boylan Heights, when you look up, you mostly see trees. At the right, where the horizon dips toward the north, you can see across the cement factory toward downtown and the cylindrical bulk of what was then the Holiday Inn. The white rectangles at top are the lit windows of a house on the east side of Boylan Avenue. The streetlight’s on the west side. The mass of foliage to the left lead south down Boylan. Above? Vega—one of the night sky’s brightest stars is nearly overhead in the Lyre of Orpheus that the Muses placed in the sky after he died. Zeus put the Ursas in the sky. With the glare and summer humidity, we couldn’t see Ursa Minor at all, and all we could see of Ursa Major was its tail, our Big Dipper.
Where is Boylan Heights? It’s in the United States and North Carolina and Wake County and Raleigh, but first and last it’s in the universe. As William Saroyan said, “Birth is into the world, not into a town.”
In Kirstin Butler’s review, she describes maps as the most intimate infographic of all. She describes them as, “those images that tell of our complicated relationships to place, bounded by time”.
I don’t think I have ever been turned on by maps. I know I have never been turned on by a description of them, until now. I chanced upon her review of Everything Sings: Maps for a Narrative Atlas, and then went on to read more about Denis Wood and his Boylan Heights maps through Ira Glass’s interview on This American Life.
What I discovered was simple: maps have nothing to do with direction and everything to do with where you want to go.
I also tried to see what Denis Wood sees, but I couldn’t. He sees invisible beauties.
All I saw was an innate curiosity and I imagine, the kind of gaze one might attribute to autistic geniuses. An un-shifting focus. Macro vision. The ability to see parts of a picture, and imagine their place in the jigsaw in seamless, tessellated perfection. He possesses a natural sense of wonder, and eyes that collect and collate patterns that have given birth to a gorgeous manifestation of this obsession.
From windchimes to Jack O’ lanterns, paper routes to police calls and absentee landlords, there is a portrait to be found; an almost cartographic lovemaking. There are new routes to be divined and fresh paths forged never seen on any GPRS system.
This is art, science, mathematics, design, poetry. These are not maps. These are pictures in an album. These are secret love notes passed in a classroom. These are neighborhood stories etched, sketched, and narrated through lines, dots, curves and circles.
The poetry of these pictures resounds with experience. What is conveyed is the essence of what life would have been like in Boylan Heights in the ’80s. Each visual suggests an aura of the era. It is, in its entirety, an atlas that investigates the nature of a place and our experience of it.
In the introduction, Ira Glass writes:
Everything Sings is not a book of maps. And it is a book of maps. But maps to where? To what? You’ll find your way. It might be a lark in the face of what is traditional cartography, and yet, as Kirstin Butler says, it meets the objective that all maps must: to see our world, and its many wonders, anew each day.
What to read next: 7 Must-Read books on maps.
If you don’t have an iPhone, why am I even talking to you?
Apple recently released its new iPhone campaign that presents a curious twist to a tried and tested formula. All ads open with the line, “If you don’t have an iPhone,” and subsequently launch into an overview of key iPhone features. The voiceover tells you-I imagine regretfully-what you’re unable to do, unless you own an iPhone.
This campaign signals Apple’s departure from the hardworking catchphrase of “There’s an app for that”. The new campaign piggybacks on Apple’s exclusivity. You could call it reverse psychology. I call it “sell by envy”.
Take a look at the campaign. Do you feel lesser for not owning an iPhone?
Good. Then it’s working.
Let’s face it. Apple isn’t talking to iPhone users. Apple is talking to the have-nots, the wannabes. The ones who linger outside clubs dying to get in, but lack the credentials. Yes, those guys.
“If you don’t have an iPhone, you don’t have the App Store. So you don’t have the world’s largest selection of apps that are this easy to find and this easy to download right to your phone,” says the voiceover on one ad as it showcases the ease with which one can download and use the Delta Airlines app. It also features the Starbucks app, in which coffee drinkers can order and pay for their latte from the iPhone. The other two commercials similarly explain the iPod and iBooks.
I am certain that this campaign has iPhone owners feeling secretly proud for shacking up in the hip part of Tech Town. The line is punchy and has bite. However, it puzzles me to think of why Apple would focus on the functions and features that have equally sound alternatives in other smartphones. Kindle and Stanza are equally strong iBooks alternatives. There are several music player options to iTunes, and even though the App Store is the largest application distribution system online, it’s important to note that the Android app market is the fastest growing in the world today.
Is Condescending a language?
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In the past, I believed that Apple’s commercials were communication pearls. The messages were clean, uncluttered, and uncomplicated. The product and the apps did most of the talking. One believed that Apple’s confidence lay in the inherent belief of how good their products were, but the “If you don’t have an iPhone,” campaign speaks a different language. Is “Condescending” is language? If yes, then I could swear Apple is speaking it. Or, if that is too harsh, I’d say patronizingly; pityingly.
The sign off line makes me cringe each time I hear it: “Yup. If you don’t have an iPhone … well … you don’t have an iPhone.” I can almost *hear* the voiceover artist feel sorry for me. If Apple is feeling so sorry for the have-nots, I wish they’d just give everyone iPhones so we can all just get on with it.
If numbers are any evidence of success, Mr. Jobs’
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Apple, you are now beginning to sound arrogant. Arrogant is not nice. But who cares about nice? If numbers are any evidence of success, Steve Jobs’ marketing team must be doing something right. In Q2 of 2011, iPhone shipments increased by 141.8 percent year-on-year, which meant a growth rate that is 12 times the global mobile phone market.Apple’s new campaign hasn’t gone without brickbats from-you guessed it-its bête noir, the Android phones. A series of hilarious parodies of the ads-some funny, some strange, some bizarre, and all underlined with indignation-have mushroomed across the Internet. From the left-brained, “If you don’t have an iPhone, you have choice…” to, “If you don’t have an iPhone you deserve to die“, ad spoofs are having a field day at Apple’s expense.
However, as far as I’m concerned, it’s simple: “If you don’t have an iPhone, you don’t have an iPhone. But what you will have is money to fly Delhi to London, and back.”
The writer occasionally writes about media regardless of not knowing ass from elbow, and is an iPhone user.
What John Waters really said
My dear,
We need to make books cool again. If you go home with somebody and they don’t have books, don’t fuck them. Don’t let them explore you until they’ve explored the secret universes of books. Don’t let them connect with you until they’ve walked between the lines on the pages.
Books are cool, if you have to withhold yourself from someone for a bit in order for them to realize this then do so.
Truly yours,
John Samuel Waters
What AV Flox had to say about it:
‘I don’t know whether he did write it, or who he wrote it to, but I like this version better. This version doesn’t suggest we should discard people who are not like us, but to try to show them the joys of things we love. I don’t know that holding back is the way, but to each his own.
In the end, the people who may be the most like us may not make their similarities manifest in the same way as we do and it’s these very differences that have the power to enrich our world, not the similarities.’
Read the whole article here.
*image courtesy http://neverletyouloveme.tumblr.com
You don’t need more jeans. What you need is more poetry.
Annoying Levi’s ad on TV these days. Seen it? Never mind if you haven’t; you’re not missing much. Why am I writing a post about it? Because I find it interesting how retailers are using poetry to sell clothes.
The commercial in question is from Levi’s new campaign – Go Forth. The poem in question is Charles Bukowski’s The Laughing Heart, one of his more optimistic pieces, written in a gentler hand than the standard misanthropic deliveries he is known (and I will say loved) for.
Let’s face it, Charles Bukowski was a dirty old man, but he was everyone’s favorite bastard. Swilling whiskey with one hand, and feeling up a topless starlet with the other, was his idea of a portrait. And Levi’s has chosen his words as the new anthem for today’s denim wearing generation. Frankly, I don’t blame them. It was a great fucking idea.
The poem, is astounding. It simply is a work of staggering beauty and tenderness.
But Levi’s is little more than an industrial workwear brand turned urban fashion weathervane. ”Here’s what jeans need to be doing now,” Levi’s seems to say, “This is what you need to own to be cool now; a pair of jeans that tells the world you buy into Bukowski’s beautiful philosophy of hope for the youth, and their future.”
And if you already own 150 pairs, here is a beautifully shot commercial featuring the gut-twisting words of an American poetic iconoclast, to convince you to walk into their stores and buy another.
Don’t fall for it. Listen to me: You don’t need more jeans. What you need is more poetry.
- The Laughing Heart -
by Charles Bukowski
your life is your life
don’t let it be clubbed into dank submission.
be on the watch.
there are ways out.
there is a light somewhere.
it may not be much light but
it beats the darkness.
be on the watch.
the gods will offer you chances.
know them.
take them.
you can’t beat death but
you can beat death in life, sometimes.
and the more often you learn to do it,
the more light there will be.
your life is your life.
know it while you have it.
you are marvelous
the gods wait to delight
in you.
Notes for a Young Gentleman, or Why I love… Granta magazine
Toby Litt’s step-by-step guide to how to be a proper, young gentleman.
A gentleman should arrive at his destination, after however arduous a journey, quite as if he had just taken a turn around the rose garden.
A gentleman should never acknowledge a mere fact.
A gentleman should behave no differently in a prison than in a palace – to be affected by place shows lack of character.
A gentleman should never confuse superiority with nobility.
A gentleman – English – should reassure foreigners of his bona fides by appearing to be nothing more than a parody of an English gentleman; this is particularly important with the French.
A gentleman should never be heard to say anything other gentlemen have not said before.
A gentleman should greet physical agony much as if he were greeting his old Latin master.
A gentleman should never pass comment on his latest meal, no more than he would upon his latest evacuation.
A gentleman should smoke, if not for pleasure then to set his companions at their ease.
A gentleman should never condescend to condescend.
A gentleman should, when he is in the country, kill something larger than a squirrel at least once a day.
A gentleman should never evince surprise, except whilst opening Christmas presents from his children.
A gentleman should seem to lack nothing.
A gentleman should never appear utterly entranced by anything other than a horse or his fiancee on the day their engagement is announced.
A gentleman should greet with genuine warmth only the following persons – his sister’s daughters, his maternal aunts and his mortal enemies.
A gentleman should never be seen to handle money, except in a brothel or a casino.
A gentleman should have as deep a familiarity with the great religious texts of the world as is commensurable with not having read them.
A gentleman should never keep a diary – to pay attention to one’s own affairs suggests one may wish to profit thereby.
A gentleman should take domestic politics slightly less seriously than backgammon.
A gentleman should never go beneath ground-level except when, once a year, inspecting the wine cellars.
A gentleman should be as fluent in the little language of love as in le passé composé.
A gentleman should never run, except towards certain death.
A gentleman should walk as if he were being carried and – if ever the circumstance arises – be carried as if he were walking.
A gentleman should quote no one but his nanny, and then only back at her, with fondness, just before she dies.
A gentleman himself should die with an air of mild curiosity.
A gentleman, having once departed, should never return.
*This post is a re-blog from Granta.com. For the original, go here.
How To “Follow Your Heart” or Why I love… www.thoughtcatalog.com
Stand perfectly still.
Wait.
Wait more.
If your heart starts pounding against your chest, this might be an indication that your heart wants to push forward. Take a step forward for every pound of your heart. At this rate, you’ll be across the room by daybreak. But after all, distance makes the heart grow fonder.
* This is an excerpt from an original blog post from Thought Catalog.
This, Too, Shall Pass by Chelsea Fagan
There will be that conversation you’ve been putting off for as long as you’ve known you’ve needed to have it. There will be those words that you’ve rehearsed over and over–in your car, in front of your mirror, in your bed in total darkness while staring at your ceiling–that tumble out of your mouth inelegantly, tripping over each other to make it out just so you can get this over with. There will be that ugly ball of thoughts that hangs in front of you, the thick, opaque cloud of words that formed in between you, through which you cannot breathe. There will be that moment where you try and scoot away, wanting to disown everything you’ve just said, ready to scream at the top of your lungs just to cut the silence.
And there will be that moment, that brutally delayed moment, where they respond with a shrug, a sigh, a casual dismissal of all that you just implied. They will demonstrate with unintentional precision just how uninvolved they are, how little they have emotionally invested, just how very little this has all mattered to them. There will be the moment you struggle to physically scoop up every humiliating statement you made and all their brutal implications and cram them, hurriedly, back in your mouth. You’ll fight back tears as your cheeks fill, blotchy and red, like a veteran alcoholic. You’ll linger on the cusp of wailing, of running in any direction until your lungs ache–but you won’t. You’ll shrug and vaguely shake your head, pitifully mumbling something along the lines of,
“Oh, of course…right. No, no, that’s cool.”
You will awkwardly walk away, feeling the burn on the back of your neck as you know they are watching you with a combination of pity and discomfort. You will play the situation over in your head again and again, physically cringing every time you think of what they must think of you now–what they must be saying, through cruel laughter, to their friends.
But it will pass.
There will be that cutting, cruel thing you heard through the grapevine that stretches and winds relentlessly through your social group–that unfunny, hurtful joke that even friends saw fit to participate in. There will be that moment of domino-like realization that you were being laughed at, not with. There will be an overwhelming feeling of utter injustice–you will forget all the nasty things you might have said about others and know only the searing pain of being on the wrong end of mean-spirited gossip.
And there will be the knowledge that, sometimes, you are entirely alone–that we can all be ugly, mean, jealous creatures that will put another down to step just one rung up the ladder. You will realize that even close friends are not immune to the snake-like charm, the temporary high, of the kind of sentences that start with, “Did you hear…?”.
There will be things about you that others see fit to mock, to laugh at, to talk about in breathless little circles to which you were not invited. There will be a sense of overwhelming insecurity–what am I not included in? What am I not worthy of? What is being said behind my back that cannot be said to my face? The entirety of some friendships, of an acquaintanceship that seemed so utterly benign, will come into question. Gossip will put itself into the brutal clarity it can only achieve when it’s happening to you, and for a moment, you’ll feel the whole world is against you.
But it will pass.
There will be that thing you do–that job you don’t get, that class you fail, that interview you completely blow–that is no one’s fault but yours. There will be a certain amount of effort that you just didn’t put in, that you know you could have, that you were more than capable of. Procrastination, laziness, and insecurity will form a lethal, purpose-sapping elixir that sloshes sloppily through your veins. There will be a distinct sense of missing a target, an almost out-of-body experience that washes over you as you refuse to fully accept that you cheated yourself out of something that you deserved–that you could have had.
There will be a moment when you have to look people in the eye–people who support you, who love you, who believe in you–and tell them that you failed. Perhaps you counted your eggs long before they hatched; perhaps you had begun bragging about things that were never sure, but that your ego was all too happy to let you believe were in your pocket. There will be the uncomfortable, brutal announcement that all you were so sure about had been abruptly pulled, along with the rug, from under your feet.
Worse, far worse, than the angry accusations or cries of frustration that a lesser person might have heaped upon you, there will only be a pitiful shaking of the head. There will be a sense not that you upset them, but that you let them down. You will long to scream, to grab their shoulders and shake them until they hate you the way you hate yourself. But they won’t, they will only stand solemnly in front of you, a silent reminder of how much more you were capable. They believed in you, and you proved them wrong.
There will be a longing to go back in time, to grab the hands of the clock and force them to just a few hours before when you still had the chance to make things go the way they were supposed to. You will feel the need to justify yourself, to prove that you are still worth all that people expect of you, but you will not be able to. You will have to linger in your cloying, static failure as you accept that if you want something, you will have to work harder. And next time, you will. Next time, you will prove yourself. But now, now you have failed, and you must swallow that ugly idea, along with your pride, as you accept the disappointed pats on your shoulder.
But it will pass. 
Dear 16-year old mentalexotica,
Look at what I chanced upon today: Dear Me: a Letter to My Sixteen-Year-Old Self
If you had a chance to write to your 16-year old self, what would you say? In this book, some of the world’s most well-known and most-beloved personalities do just that. I read a few of these missives-to-self, and I was charmed especially by Emma Thompson’s letter. I may be biased; I love Emma, always have. But she makes it so easy. Have a look:
The transcript:
May 29th 2009
Dear Em (16)
I realise that you are young and in love and that nothing much that anyone old says seems relevant, but seeing as it’s me — that is, you; that is, us, I think it’s worth a go.
Two Top Tips from 50 to 16:
1) Don’t EVER EVER EVER bother to go on a diet. I know you’re obsessed and have that awful thing of standing in the 6th form canteen trying to choose between a yoghourt & a breathe of fresh air (whilst wanting chips & a cheese salad). Don’t sweat it. Eat regularly, try & avoid rubbish and never diet. You’ll end up the same size anyway, so drop it girl, & drop it NOW. Believe me — nobody cares. Diets are the best way of confusing your metabolism for the rest of your life. Just be you & get on with it, I cannot tell you how much time & energy you’ll save & how much happier you’ll be.
2) When he says he doesn’t love you, believe him. He doesn’t.
That’s it. All the other mistakes you make are worth their weight in gold.
I love you — Em (50)
Then there was also Elton John’s letter to take note of. The last line is a sureshot smile-maker:
The transcript:
March 8th 2009.
Atlanta,
Dear Reg,
You are a very young 16. you know nothing about sex — you don’t even know what a “queer” is. Trust me when I tell you — you are “queer”; you are a gay boy. I made the mistake of not having sex until I was 23! I loved being with another man and felt relieved that I finally knew who I was. I made the mistake of falling in love too soon because I was naive and romantic. My advice to you is never to chase love — it will find you when you least expect it. Have FUN, have lots of safe sex and enjoy your sexuality. Be proud of who you are and, as you get older and wiser fight for gay rights — I’m 46 years older than you are, and we have a long way to go. In certain countries we are still not treated as equals, especially by the so-called “Christian” Church. I made a lot of mistakes. Stay away from drugs — they’re a waste of time. Stand up for every human being’s rights. Be loving, kind and strong. Set an example. You’re going to have a hell of a life!!
Love you
Elton x
PS. CHANGE YOUR NAME
So, of course I think this is just a terribly cute idea. And of course I now want to write mine. Before I do, I’d like to ask you to write your letters and share them here with me. If that’s okay, of course. For now, here’s mine:
Dear M,
It’s not the end of the world. It’s not the end of your life. It’s not even the end.
I know it seems as though everything keeps changing and that it hurts beyond belief. The thing is, it’s about the most predictable thing about life there is. I won’t promise it gets better, but you will get better at dealing with it and taking it all in your stride. You will. From where I am now, you’ve aced it already. Well, nearly.
You’re not ugly. Your parents should know better than to keep telling you that you are, but they just don’t. In time, that will be okay too. You will learn to forgive them. Seems impossible now, stupid even. But you don’t have the heart to be any other way. I’m proud of this.
Don’t forget to forgive yourself, and love yourself. Set an alarm, if it helps, or get a tattoo. But don’t forget. I can’t stress on this enough.
You will fall in love more times than you can count, and have your heart broken so often you will think life has no meaning but death. The fact is, there is someone meant only for you. I can tell you this for certain from where I am today, and although I can’t say who, I will say that when you see that someone, you will know it immediately.
Slowly learn to stop running after love. Don’t try to make love stay. You don’t need to cling to everything you cherish. Deep inside, you know this already. Imagine what would happen if you just let it all go. It’s a lot like holding onto balloons. One moment you’re clutching at strings, and the next you’re staring up at the sky and watching magic happen.
Know, that I will always be somewhere waiting for you with love, twenty years down the line.
Yours,
M. + 20
Le Mot Juste
Le Mot Juste. French for ‘the right word at exactly the right time’. There seems to be a LOT of that taking up some serious real estate in my head the past few days. I admit I’ve become a word hoarder overnight. A junkie. Yesterday’s posts gave me such a high. I felt awash with love for words I’d never heard of before. I did a little research and have found plenty more hiding in the infinite corners of the Internet.
Here you go. I hope you enjoy them as I have, and use them in good health.
Dozywocie (Polish)
Many cultures share this concept, but Polish sums it up in a single word. “Parental contract with children guaranteeing lifelong support”
Jung (Korean)
A special feeling that is stronger than mere ‘love’ and can only often be proved by having survived a huge argument with someone.
Toska (Russian)
Vladimir Nabokov describes it best: “No single word in English renders all the shades of toska. At its deepest and most painful, it is a sensation of great spiritual anguish, often without any specific cause. At less morbid levels it is a dull ache of the soul, a longing with nothing to long for, a sick pining, a vague restlessness, mental throes, yearning. In particular cases it may be the desire for somebody of something specific, nostalgia, love-sickness. At the lowest level it grades into ennui, boredom.”
Ubuntu (Bantu languages, South Africa)
“I am what I am because of who we all are.” (from a translation offered by Liberian peace activist Leymah Gbowee)
“A person with Ubuntu is open and available to others, affirming of others, does not feel threatened that others are able and good, for he or she has a proper self-assurance that comes from knowing that he or she belongs in a greater whole and is diminished when others are humiliated or diminished, when others are tortured or oppressed.” (Archbishop Desmond Tutu)
Mokusatsu (Japanese)
Mokusatsu is when you bargain and you feel the buyer’s offer is very low. Thus, you keep silent. This makes the buyer understand that his offer is not good enough, while enabling him not to lose face.
This word was used by the Japanese emperor in response to Roosevelt’s ultimatum.
Pena Ajena (Spanish)
Shame experienced on behalf of another person, even though that person may not experience shame.
Gummiservi (Turkish)
What you feel when you see moonlight shining on water.
Qarrtsiluni (Iñupiaq)
“Sitting together in the darkness, waiting for something to burst.”
Vovohe Tahtsenaotse (Cheyenne)
To prepare the mouth before speaking by moving or licking one’s lips.
Komorebi (Japanese)
The sort of scattered, dappled light effect that happens when sunlight shines in through tree leaves.
Hiraeth (Welsh)
A feeling of longing associated with displacement, but not necessarily displacement from one’s original home. An intense yearning to be somewhere you are not.
Firgun (Hebrew)
An act of saying nice things or doing nice things to another person without any other purpose, but to make the other feel good about what he is or what he does.
Mamihlapinatapei
Yagan (indigenous language of Tierra del Fuego) – “the wordless, yet meaningful look shared by two people who both desire to initiate something but are both reluctant to start”
Ya’aburnee
Arabic – Both morbid and beautiful at once, this incantatory word means “You bury me,” a declaration of one’s hope that they’ll die before another person because of how difficult it would be to live without them.
Litost
Czech – The closest definition is a state of agony and torment created by the sudden sight of one’s own misery. Milan Kundera remarked that “As for the meaning of this word, I have looked in vain in other languages for an equivalent, though I find it difficult to imagine how anyone can understand the human soul without it.”
Empalagarse (Spanish)
The sensation your tongue has after eating too many sweets.
Razliubit (Russian)
To fall out of love.
Hanyauku (Rukwangali, Namibia)
The act of walking on tiptoes across warm sand.
Sabsung (Thai)
The thing that brings you back to life or livens up your day. Whatever it is that makes you happy to be alive.
What is the word for… everything we could ever hope to experience?
… tenderly running one’s fingers through someone’s hair? There is a word for it, I swear. It’s Cafuné and it’s from the Brazilian Portuguese.
In the eagerness to become the most spoken language in the world, English may have forgotten to create and design words for subtler, more gentler facets of humanity. But some languages remembered. They have words for things that defy us completely and leave us speechless. Love the irony.
These languages have surpassed the so-called limiting boundaries of speech and verbal expression, and effectively managed to finally afford language a good rep after years of bad press. And recently, I have discovered that there are words that actually help us; bumbling and verbally handicapped as we are, define some of those insanely beautiful facets that define who we really are, and what our lives amount to.
The Japanese, for example, have a word, or rather, a concept called Wabi-Sabi, which refers to beauty in imperfection. It reflects on an intuitive way of living that emphasizes finding beauty in imperfection, and accepting the natural cycle of growth and decay.
Dear God, this is truth. We have ALL experienced this, no? We see the beauty in grubby, unwashed faces of beggar children. We see the beauty in the generosity of our lunatic Indian brethren, regardless of their terrible civic sense. We find beauty in loss, in pain, in effort, in failure. Beauty is everywhere, and as human beings we possess the instinct to discern it. And the Japanese have a word for it. Awkwardnesses, instances, fleeting nuances. There are words for them all. Indeed.
As a writer and reader and like so many others, I experience the limitations of the English language. Its clumsy inarticulacies, its archaic restrictedness, its annoying specificities. But today, I can appreciate that it too has it’s own beauty. Wabi-Sabi.
Big city nemeses
I get asked a lot of funny questions especially with regards to my name, my heritage, and people I know. Today, for instantce, someone wrote to me with this: ‘Always wanted to ask you this: Did you know Persis Khambatta personally? She is from a place called Khambat and Persian and all that. But died of a heart attack sadly. Mumbai does that to beautiful middle-aged woman. Look at what happened to Parveen Babi and Nafisa Joseph.’
The answer is no. I don’t. I responded, however, with this:
‘Do I know Persis Khambatta. Now my friend, that is like asking me if I know everyone from Khambhat – close to impossible. Or every Persian, even more mind-boggling. Or every Parsi. Highly undesirable. So no, my dear, I do not know her. I think I do understand why you said what you did about Bombay killing beautiful women… I would go a step further though. I think that every colossal city has the power to destroy individuals. If not literally, then certainly at the soul.
Bombay does that millions each day. It kills dreams. It shatters illusions. It engages you in a vicious cycle of EMIs, be it your next electronic buy, or your own sense of failure. You’re always borrowing from better to get better; to arrive, and you only end up poorer.
It forces you into a slavery of despair and isolation. And really, all big cities are themed on loneliness. That, is what finally gets us all. If it comes to you well before death does, you are as good as gone. Pack your suitcases and wait at the station. And don’t forget to take a big book. It might be something of a wait.’
Yesterday I tweeted, ‘Death is beautiful because it is the only real certainty there is. An absolute. An assurance of an end. A non-lie. Our one great truth.’ I must have sounded like I was on a suicide mission and just out of sharp knives at the moment. But it is this precisely that I was speaking of. An ultimate release from our inner and outer hell. I really don’t believe in hell at life. I believe in life and I suppose they are the same.
As an aside, I know that there are many Bombay folks as well as scores of other big city dwellers who will be up in arms with what I’ve said here; this, ‘blasphemy’ of sorts, as it were. But I am actually looking forward to what everyone has to say.
It’s a conversation. Let’s talk.
Why I love… @angadc
Twitter has changed my life, and for more reasons than I have both time and inclination to elaborate. I learn from it constantly. It is an endless source of knowledge, exposure to the obscure, humour and/or wit, poor grammar and punctuation, tenderness, entertainment, and amusement. I find myself oscillating constantly between being fascinated, touched and bewildered by how much cleverness there is in this world. And how old I really am.
For the marvel that is Twitter, there is also its dark, dank, unwashed underside. Last week I came face-to-armpit with this side, and let me tell you right now, it’s an unhappy space, much in need of therapy, love and good old-fashioned police intervention. For those aware of the incident I am referring to, it’s certainly something a lot of us are not going to forget in a hurry. For those yet unacquainted, sorry but I’m not getting into sordid details of the actual occurrence. Partly because it’s now too cumbersome to comb through all over again, and partly because the incident itself is not as important as the experience and understanding it offered. That’s what this post is about.
In a (rather unwieldy) nutshell, I found myself embroiled in a sinister dance of mind games and stalkerish activity on my favourite social network. As the night progressed, harmless guessing games of ‘Who am I’, turned into something far more macabre. Clearly, it was someone who knew me, if only from a distance, and I didn’t get the sense of great harm looming large. But when you are on your own, reading tweets by the lone light of the mobile screen, this is such an unpleasant circumstance. The next morning, my mysterious haranguer had disappeared, as had all evidence of his drunken marauding.
The following night he was back. By this time I had figured out who he was and was waiting to see what he’d come up with next. When he began flinging his provocative taunts and filth my way, I wasn’t quite the man I thought I could be.
While he seethed and stewed and spewed his trashy threats, I alternated from moments when my blood ran cold, to vitriolic fits where my fingers flew across the keypad, composing hateful hates in 140 characters. Somehow, ‘jst u wait m.fckng troll. i kno who ur. Imma send goons.’ doesn’t exactly make you quake in your boots.
I was in over my head. I needed rescuing. I needed a hero.
And I found one.
Do you remember me telling you about a man who told me a bedtime story with tweets? It seems that when he’s not busy weaving fantastic tales that make him an overnight internet sensation, he’s defending the honour of women. As he says (I imagine with a bit of a shrug), “I’m old school.”
What followed was surreal. It might have well been something right out of a Bollywood crime thriller. The troll, as he came to be known, turned nastier by the moment. Nasty isn’t even the word. He measured his words carefully. He tweeted only 21 tweets to the many hundreds that went out, challenging him to a duel. That’s right, a duel. Old school remember? And before we knew it, the date, place, and time were set. We live in exciting times.
It was only later, lying in bed unable to sleep that it sunk in. This was going to happen. A man living hundreds of miles away was going to fight for me. For ME. For my sake. I’ll tell you now, this is more than any man has ever done for me. It is one of the many reasons I do not feel close to men. I have never felt protected by a man. And no man has made me feel like I was worth defending for my own sake. Not because he had vested interests, not because he wanted to sleep with me, not because he was compelled to by obligation. But because it was the right thing to do. The only thing to do.
He didn’t think twice. He didn’t deliberate or weigh pros and cons. He didn’t consult with his friends or family. He simply followed his instincts. He did what he did because that’s who he is. Yes, it made him a hero. In my eyes; in the eyes of hundreds of others. Once again, he and his story (for it was no longer about me, really) became all the rage. He was the brother everyone wished they had. The friend, they all yearned for. The lover, that they thought existed only in drugstore paperbacks. The hero that no longer existed. The god we could talk to, touch and nearly taste. The god of our own making, in our midst.
I woke up the next morning feeling a little safer in the world. I woke with such a sense of love bursting inside my chest for humanity. God is not dead. I saw a reflection of Him in a human being yesterday. I saw compassion, courage, integrity. Words we use with empty flourish, now had meaning and were creamy with sincerity. Mankind had hope. We had hope.
Then I logged on and read the stream of posts. Speculations fired the timelines. Accusations of engineering the whole incident. Evidence, they all said. Where is it? Proof. We want to see pictures. You could tweet the entire encounter but couldn’t take ONE picture. Come on, dude. How do you expect us to believe it happened? They were calling him a fraud. They said he was a liar. An attention whore. This was a publicity stunt. That’s what it was – a hoax. A shenanigan to accrue followers.
But only 24 hours ago… They had made him a hero. An example to follow, they’d said. Learn from him. Take a leaf. They’d looked at him as though he were a god. “They’re crucifying me!”, he wrote, “they’re saying I made it all up. It’s madness!”
Crucifying. What an astounding choice of word. To say coincidence here would be something of a joke.
I was numb with anger and weeping with rage. How could you all do this? I was disgusted beyond words. I chose silence and decided to keep my peace (and sanity) by staying away from Twitter for a little while. As for him, he goes on. He sees how fickle we are and trusts a little less. Talks a lot but says little. Stays visible, but disappears inside himself where it must be only marginally safer and more familiar than the cruelty of the outside.
Humankind, you are consistent only in your ability to disappoint. I wrote that before realising in a moment of perfect stillness that there is no surprise here. For it is in our nature to desire, then destroy, and then covet again that which we love most. I know he knows this and hope he takes solace in it. And in the fact that, for one broken little girl, he redefined what a man can be. Gentlemanly. Fearless. Honourable.
Angad, you are a hero. My hero.
*Illustration by renowned artist/animator Nick Hilditch created especially for Angad’s Troll Stroll.
You Should Date An Illiterate Girl or Why I love… Charles Warnke
You Should Date An Illiterate Girl
Date a girl who doesn’t read. Find her in the weary squalor of a Midwestern bar. Find her in the smoke, drunken sweat, and varicolored light of an upscale nightclub. Wherever you find her, find her smiling. Make sure that it lingers when the people that are talking to her look away. Engage her with unsentimental trivialities. Use pick-up lines and laugh inwardly. Take her outside when the night overstays its welcome. Ignore the palpable weight of fatigue. Kiss her in the rain under the weak glow of a streetlamp because you’ve seen it in film. Remark at its lack of significance. Take her to your apartment. Dispatch with making love. Fuck her.
Let the anxious contract you’ve unwittingly written evolve slowly and uncomfortably into a relationship. Find shared interests and common ground like sushi, and folk music. Build an impenetrable bastion upon that ground. Make it sacred. Retreat into it every time the air gets stale, or the evenings get long. Talk about nothing of significance. Do little thinking. Let the months pass unnoticed. Ask her to move in. Let her decorate. Get into fights about inconsequential things like how the fucking shower curtain needs to be closed so that it doesn’t fucking collect mold. Let a year pass unnoticed. Begin to notice.
Figure that you should probably get married because you will have wasted a lot of time otherwise. Take her to dinner on the forty-fifth floor at a restaurant far beyond your means. Make sure there is a beautiful view of the city. Sheepishly ask a waiter to bring her a glass of champagne with a modest ring in it. When she notices, propose to her with all of the enthusiasm and sincerity you can muster. Do not be overly concerned if you feel your heart leap through a pane of sheet glass. For that matter, do not be overly concerned if you cannot feel it at all. If there is applause, let it stagnate. If she cries, smile as if you’ve never been happier. If she doesn’t, smile all the same.
Let the years pass unnoticed. Get a career, not a job. Buy a house. Have two striking children. Try to raise them well. Fail, frequently. Lapse into a bored indifference. Lapse into an indifferent sadness. Have a mid-life crisis. Grow old. Wonder at your lack of achievement. Feel sometimes contented, but mostly vacant and ethereal. Feel, during walks, as if you might never return, or as if you might blow away on the wind. Contract a terminal illness. Die, but only after you observe that the girl who didn’t read never made your heart oscillate with any significant passion, that no one will write the story of your lives, and that she will die, too, with only a mild and tempered regret that nothing ever came of her capacity to love.
Do those things, god damnit, because nothing sucks worse than a girl who reads. Do it, I say, because a life in purgatory is better than a life in hell. Do it, because a girl who reads possesses a vocabulary that can describe that amorphous discontent as a life unfulfilled—a vocabulary that parses the innate beauty of the world and makes it an accessible necessity instead of an alien wonder. A girl who reads lays claim to a vocabulary that distinguishes between the specious and soulless rhetoric of someone who cannot love her, and the inarticulate desperation of someone who loves her too much. A vocabulary, god damnit, that makes my vacuous sophistry a cheap trick.
Do it, because a girl who reads understands syntax. Literature has taught her that moments of tenderness come in sporadic but knowable intervals. A girl who reads knows that life is not planar; she knows, and rightly demands, that the ebb comes along with the flow of disappointment. A girl who has read up on her syntax senses the irregular pauses—the hesitation of breath—endemic to a lie. A girl who reads perceives the difference between a parenthetical moment of anger and the entrenched habits of someone whose bitter cynicism will run on, run on well past any point of reason, or purpose, run on far after she has packed a suitcase and said a reluctant goodbye and she has decided that I am an ellipsis and not a period and run on and run on. Syntax that knows the rhythm and cadence of a life well lived.
Date a girl who doesn’t read because the girl who reads knows the importance of plot. She can trace out the demarcations of a prologue and the sharp ridges of a climax. She feels them in her skin. The girl who reads will be patient with an intermission and expedite a denouement. But of all things, the girl who reads knows most the ineluctable significance of an end. She is comfortable with them. She has bid farewell to a thousand heroes with only a twinge of sadness.
Don’t date a girl who reads because girls who read are the storytellers. You with the Joyce, you with the Nabokov, you with the Woolf. You there in the library, on the platform of the metro, you in the corner of the café, you in the window of your room. You, who make my life so god damned difficult. The girl who reads has spun out the account of her life and it is bursting with meaning. She insists that her narratives are rich, her supporting cast colorful, and her typeface bold. You, the girl who reads, make me want to be everything that I am not. But I am weak and I will fail you, because you have dreamed, properly, of someone who is better than I am. You will not accept the life that I told of at the beginning of this piece. You will accept nothing less than passion, and perfection, and a life worthy of being storied. So out with you, girl who reads. Take the next southbound train and take your Hemingway with you. I hate you. I really, really, really hate you.
‘Date a girl who reads because you deserve it.’ – Rosemarie Urquico
A few months ago, Charles Warnke wrote an online article for the Thought Catalog, which, at first, I described as rich with soppy romantic regret. It’s rather beautifully written, if not unabashedly sexist and it’s called You Should Date an Illiterate Girl.
Now, if you are even remotely a feminist, you will notice the sensation of being ever so slightly rankled by the unimaginative, if not tawdry trajectory of this writing… until you get to the part where he says: ‘… the girl who didn’t read never made your heart oscillate with any significant passion,’
And then, it just proceeds to get better (I’ll come back to this in just a bit). Big sigh of relief. No mud needs to be slung today, ladies. No sharpening claws. Let’s just retire to the top right-hand corner here, click to exit page and get back to life.
But it’s not over – as they say- until it’s over, or until the fat lady sings and somewhere in Baguio City in the Philippines, a writer named Rosemarie Urquico decided to pen a fitting response to Charles’ post. It’s your general feel-good piece of personal writing which ultimately gets re-blogged to death. Snug, sincere, comforting, and convincing, this is her case for why you should Date a Girl Who Reads. Please go read it now and come back to read the rest of my post.*
Done? Great, let’s move on.
I actually read Rosemarie’s piece first. Immediately, you will understand how easy it is to be moved by this writing. It’s simple and straightforward and it’s a positive statement about the geeky bookworms we all secretly have the hots for. The girls with less than 20:20 vision, who may not have looks that kill, but maim for life – which is, in many ways, far more lethal. So yes, I see how this resonates. I get what Rosemarie’s going on about and why. I even like what she has to say in some parts, or maybe I like how she said it. Just like the tens of thousands of others who read what she wrote and went ‘Wow. Nice.’
Then there’s the part of me that’s never satisfied with what is. Who questions incessantly and whose very existence seems driven by the need to uncover the etymology of everything. I was pleased to see that Rosemarie Urquico hadn’t just pulled her sweet little piece out of a top hat one fine morning. It was in response to something, and clearly it was a something worthy of her time and effort.
This is how I arrived at Charles Warnke’s post on Thought Catalog. And I’ve never been more pleased to be pissed off by what at first seemed a slightly perverse, piece of sexist trash, and which later turned out to profess a rare articulacy. Warnke’s profundity goes beyond the pedantic and iconoclastic. As the piece progresses, we are witness to an unravelling of sorts. A man come apart because he cannot measure up to unreasonable icons and larger-than-life heroes. A writer rejecting the written word when it is beloved to his beloved. What we have finally is a raw, almost desperate rejection of the self; a sacrifice of romance at the altar of the erudite female.
You could almost believe him. You would almost choose to not date a well-read woman. You might even turn cold if the object of your affection and ardour were to spend a little too much time lingering at the bookstore. You might almost wish she spent all your money on shoes.
There is something very real, very terrifying about rejection. And about never being enough. This is something I know something about. And this is also why Charles Warnke’s derangement appeals to me. Writing that cuts too close to the bone behoves a respect that is sometimes beyond words. Then again, the best things usually are.
My next post, coming right up, is Charles Warnke’s ‘Why You Should Date An Illiterate Girl’, reproduced in full directly from Thought Catalog, which you should really follow on Twitter.
*Incidentally, Rosemarie no longer has an active blog, but she can be contacted on Facebook.
What is Theory? by @Rascality
What is Theory? by @Rascality
You know the ritual; you’ve been repeating it since middle school. Someone asks you what “theory” is, and you say, “a way to make sense of (the) data.” They smile, you smile. Beautiful day.
The next time you’re most likely to hear about theory is in an introductory science class in college. There you’ll learn that theory is the primary intellectual instrument of the dispassionate researcher. Beset by an array of data points or “facts,” she chooses among the best available cognitive scaffolds (or fashions one of her own) to organize and present them in their best and most meaningful form.
What’s “best?” You remember. Good theories are clear, parsimonious, empirically valid (i.e., are supported by the data), and above all, useful.
What’s useful? Predicting, controlling, and influencing nature, namely the earth, oceans, sky, stars, and each other.
Now this would be all well and good if the world were a laboratory and we were all researchers. Unfortunately, life sometimes divides by zero. People die, come into our lives, or otherwise just plain old surprise us. Nature too. Things happen all the time that seem to resist our ability to make sense of them.
Of course you could apply the scientific method to your troubles. Many people do.
Some stubborn folks throughout history, however, have insisted on engaging in things like philosophy, literature, the arts, and even (gasp!) religion when nature throws them a curveball.
Let’s get down and dirty with some of these folks right now. It’s time to get etymological (a fancy term for “intellectual perversion of those schooled in the humanities”).
Most of us know most of where the word theory comes from. Its main roots are in the Ancient Greek theorēn (θεωρέω), which means to look at, view, or behold, and theoria (θεωρία), which means a beholding or contemplation. In addition, theorēma (θεώρημα), which gives us theorem, is the Ancient Greek for sight or a spectacle.
You probably knew or could have guessed this already. But that’s not all. I’ll need you to hold on to your socks as you read this next bit.
Ever heard of Theors? If not, I’ll wager it’s because it flies in the face of what our culture needs us to think about theory.
They were sacred envoys sent from one Ancient Greek city-state to another. Their job was to bear sacred witness to the religious festivals of the host city (think the Olympics or festivals in honor of Dionysius). They were much like the dignitaries governments now send to the funerals of foreign leaders or to watch important international sporting events.
Sacred witness? Come on, we know theory has nothing to do with awe, reverence, or mystery – heck, theories are designed to banish mystery!
Aren’t they?
On this view, when we do theory we’re engaging in an act of contemplative worship of the highest order. We’re sending our thoughts, impressions, and passions (yes, our passions) out to meet, greet, and honor something interesting, and waiting for a response.
You’ll love this: know what “interesting” means? It comes from the Latin inter andesse, and means “to be among.”
You heard me: among. Caught in the game, in medias res, knee-deep in the hoopla, up to our ears in the data, up to our necks, rather than viewing them dispassionately from on high.
Based on the etymology, interesting things, people, and events draw us closer to them, compelling the kind of sacred witnessing a former age knew as theory, which our scientistic age has desiccated into a denominator-rationalizing, paradise-pavingpowerhouse.
This view of theory is as fully rigorous (don’t let scientism tell you otherwise) an intellectual approach as the laboratory model. It just doesn’t play Cartesian favorites and split the mental from the physical, observer from observed, dancer from the dance.
I know what you’re saying. “Rascal, can we please have some examples of what you mean?” Sure. Here are just a few for you.
If you insist on being pragmatic, you could just say “right tool for the right job.”
Of course we need science; when we need our distance, or just enough intellectual leverage to move nature. But it’s foolish to model our entire existence on the scientist’s activity. When we want to cultivate, honor, or just stand in the presence of mystery (or it’s reciprocal, the absurd) we simply need a better view of what it means to make sense of the data.
Don’t do to love what I do
‘Love – the great leveller. Love – the life-changer.’
- Jeanette Winterson
‘The most helpful thing I have learned in the last year or so is what I do when I am stressed or depressed or struggling or anxious – whatever, large or small. I will drive the thing round and round in my head and suddenly try and park it, well crash it, actually, into my relationship. I will pick a fight or invent a crisis – just so that I can be dealing with that, and park the other thing that is really bothering me.
I noticed myself doing it, and suddenly it became very clear that it is was something I had always done, because strife and struggle in the love place is where I can cope with problems – it may be horrible but it is familiar territory, instead of the scary unfamiliar territory of a new problem or the intractability of an old problem.
I am in a very good and loving relationship now – the best I have ever had, and we are able to deal with things as they arise, but on maybe 3 or 4 occasions I have gone back into default mode.
I was physically parking my real car when I saw myself parking the virtual stuff in the wrong bay. I called Susie and told her what I thought I had been doing – and said sorry for the fight we had just had, or I had just manufactured. She understood, of course, because she understands so much about how people tick, but insights mean nothing unless they are your own.
I can catch myself at it now, and take a deep breath, and force myself back to the real anxiety, whatever it is, and that is not fun. But at least it is true.
We are all going to suffer – that’s life – so we might as well suffer for the thing we need to be suffering over, and not displace it into something else. ‘
http://www.jeanettewinterson.com
‘Wanderlust: the act of going around looking for sex.’ – Pseud Freud
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Now they say Facebook can cause asthma attacks.
Just like how Twitter causes syphilis because everyone’s fucking everyone over.
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In bed with a travel value pack of Gummi Bears. My standards have hit an all time low.
It used to be nothing less than Mini Milka Bars once.
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Quite possibly, every answer in the world today owes its existence to the fundamental question, ‘What the fuck?!’
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I’m tweeting like a fiend tonight. My head is buzzing & my fingers fly furiously across the QWERTY… WHY AM I NOT MASTURBATING?
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Facebook’s privacy clause is a lot like… well, Santa.
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Caesar lay stabbed on the floor bleeding to death when he saw Brutus standing before him, dressed in a beige toga.
Said Caesar, “Ecru, Brute?”
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I refuse to be hard on myself. The people in my life don’t need the competition.
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Chocolate is the new sex.
At least that’s how I justify the fridge in the bedroom.
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It is my theory that the usability of a public toilet is inversely proportionate to the fullness of your bladder.
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You are accepted.
“Grace strikes us when we are in great pain and restlessness. It strikes us when we walk through the dark valley of a meaningless and empty life. It strikes us when we feel that our separation is deeper than usual, because we have violated another life, a life which we loved, or from which we were estranged. It strikes us when our disgust for our own being, our indifference, our weakness, our hostility, and our lack of direction and composure have become intolerable to us. It strikes us when, year after year, the longed-for perfection of life does not appear, when the old compulsions reign within us as they have for decades, when despair destroys all joy and courage. Sometimes at that moment a wave of light breaks into our darkness, and it is as though a voice were saying: “You are accepted. You are accepted, accepted by that which is greater than you, and the name of which you do not know. Do not ask for the name now; perhaps you will find it later. Do not try to do anything now; perhaps later you will do much. Do not seek for anything; do not perform anything; do not intend anything. Simply accept the fact that you are accepted!”
If that happens to us, we experience grace. After such an experience we may not be better than before, and we may not believe more than before. But everything is transformed. In that moment, grace conquers sin, and reconciliation bridges the gulf of estrangement. And nothing is demanded of this experience, no religious or moral or intellectual presupposition, nothing but acceptance.”
- Excerpt from ‘The Shaking of the Foundations’ by Paul Tillich
http://www.religion-online.org/showchapter.asp?title=378&C=84
2010 – my blog in review
The stats helper monkeys at WordPress.com mulled over how this blog did in 2010, and here’s a high level summary of its overall blog health:
The Blog-Health-o-Meter™ reads Wow.
Crunchy numbers
A Boeing 747-400 passenger jet can hold 416 passengers. This blog was viewed about 13,000 times in 2010. That’s about 31 full 747s.
In 2010, there were 200 new posts, growing the total archive of this blog to 864 posts. There were 490 pictures uploaded, taking up a total of 39mb. That’s about 1 pictures per day.
The busiest day of the year was December 6th with 195 views. The most popular post that day was ‘I am stronger than depression and I am braver than loneliness and nothing will ever exhaust me.’.
Where did they come from?
The top referring sites in 2010 were twitter.com, facebook.com, en.wordpress.com, WordPress Dashboard, and blogger.com.
Some visitors came searching, mostly for dandelions, northern lights wallpaper, meet me where the sky touches the sea, northern light, and charles bukowski.
Attractions in 2010
These are the posts and pages that got the most views in 2010.
‘I am stronger than depression and I am braver than loneliness and nothing will ever exhaust me.’ June 2010
‘… so, why don’t we go somewhere only we know.’ September 2010
Why I Love… Winnie The Pooh January 2010
Why I love… Design – Part I July 2010
1 comment
‘The tigers have found me and I do not care.’ (Why I love…) – Charles Bukowski June 2010
