Blog blog blog
I think it may be time for a midnight bike ride. Or maybe not. Today, I went out to lunch with my dad for his birthday, and then went to a movie. We bought tickets for 'mystic river,' which I guess has won all sorts of awards, but we ended up in the theater for 'hidalgo,' which was not the shittiest movie in the world, but wasn't really worth watching. Better than 'passion,' though.
I guess Monday I'll start looking for jobs again, right? RIGHT?!? When I think of going to work every day, I just get tired. According to numerous web sources, 70-90% of americans hate their jobs. HATE their jobs. The bulk of their waking hours are spent doing something that they HATE. Essentially, they hate to be alive. They hate themselves. And this is the goal of every college graduate?
Anyway, it's time I stopped agonizing about jobs. For one thing, it makes boring blog reading.
I talked to bev whitlock a bit about job possibilities, and she mentioned a few things that she didn't think I should do, like be a bouncer or a waiter. She's probably right, but I'm not too thrilled about being shunted off into retail. Especially at the age of almost 30. God, it's so depressing. I'm at the same place I was when I was 16 and got my very first job at hardee's, working the register (i did drive-thru from time to time). Actually, let me see if I can compile a complete list of jobs. There -- I found a blogsource. See? I just need to keep rambling for long enough, and it will come.
Please stand by while the list is compiled.
Actually, it'll wait until tomorrow, since I want to make sure people see it and understand my horrible pain. Haha.
Happy birthday, dad.
I don't think I can blog anymore.
Now I need a line or two of text below the picture, so it looks better. I know I keep saying I'm going to take a short break from blogging and then I never do it, but I really might this time (haha). I've been going strong since 20 oct 03, and I think I've missed something like 2 days, not counting vacations or being away from home.
I have to do my laundry.
When the going gets tough, as it is this morning, the best thing to do is revitalize the format somehow. I think I will put in a flash animation; that's never been done before.
I'm really tired. I have half an hour until I go to bed. If I go to bed too early, then I'll wake up at 3 or 4am. I have a little window between 11 and 12 that gives me a good night's sleep -- 7 to 9 hours. I'm also rather thirsty.
I don't know what to do. It's all too hard. I hope it's over soon.
I went to HIRRS this morning, and told my life-story since graduating from college:
I graduated from umbc in 2001, and immediately went off to a computer graphics conference in san antonio, where I dropped about 50 resumes, examples of my artwork glistening with color printer ink. I got no responses. Then, I went to paris for 10 days, which just about killed me spiritually. After I came home, I submitted resumes to several companies looking for web development employees, and over the course of the two interviews I was actually granted, I came to realize that the umbc 'imaging and digital arts' program was not, as it had marketed itself to be, a program that prepared web-designers for the workplace. It's acceptable to be a fine arts program, but I think it's reasonable to expect such a program to market itself that way to begin with, instead of luring poor, state-college hicks as they tramp in from places like glen burnie and gaithersburg, fantasizing about a cheap college program in which to study industry-centered computer graphics. By the course titles and program name, everything sounds fine -- students don't realize until they're deep in the program (or even finished with it) that umbc 'imaging and digital arts' is a dada-rooted conceptual art-theory academy, and does not in any way prepare the student for fiscal productivity.
Getting back to my post-graduation history, I realized, after these two interviews, that I didn't even know html, and was woefully ill-prepared to be a 'web designer.' the two 'tracks' of the 'imaging and digital arts' major at umbc are animation and interactivity, focusing on 3-d animation/modeling and web-development, respectively (or so we all thought). When after returning from paris I applied for the web-development jobs for which I was so unqualified, I believe I was still under the hypnosis of doing well in school, and somehow thought that my old recipe for productivy and success would be as effective in the world of work as it had been in college. But college really wasn't too hard, now that I think about it. For my art theory classes, I would read one or two sentences of some idiot postmodern essay, germinate a vague glimmer of an idea, and because I'm a pretty good writer I was invariably able to turn that glimmer into a multi-page paper, on which I got an 'a'. I don't think I ever got a 'b' on an art theory paper, if you can imagine. So, my education was for shit. Utter shit. It did nothing for me.
I ended up at borders books in October of 2001, six months after graduating. I had been hired as a shelver, but found that I couldn't arrange books alphabetically on a shelf because of brain injury-related problems. It was literally impossible for me to do it fast enough. So, I was moved to register, and management of course hated me and treated me badly because they had been forced to accommodate me. After being chewed out in a particularly nasty way by the general manager, I quit on the spot (this manager was later fired). So, that was the end of borders.
I've sent out 10-20 additional job applications and/or resumes since then, and haven't heard from anyone. The ugly truth is that I'm not qualified to do anything.
I can't quite pinpoint the exact moment things started to sour for me, and what, exactly, differentiates me from my peers, who are without exception more successful. I think it was a combination of things: depression, attention deficit disorder, temporal lobe epilepsy (don't ask me -- that's what they told me I had), my parents' divorce, my arrest, brain injury, and finally my art degree delivering the coup-de-grace. A large part of my spectacular failure comes from the way I see society and other people: as the enemy. I want as little to do with them as possible, and this doesn't fit the ethos of the job world too well. Also, what I'm good at and what I'm bad at are tailor-made to what the world doesn't care about and what the world pays one well for, respectively. I'm just not meant for society.
Brain injuries have a way of transforming misanthropy into sociopathy. The director of HIRRS told me that 100% of inmates on death row had sustained a TBI.
I got a gaithersburg gazette, where I'll see the myriad of jobs I'm qualified to do: janitor, food service, retail, etc. I don't even have a car to get to these places -- I'm not sure how people can expect me to go on with a straight face.
Human extinction by 2050!
Oh, I got my bike fixed. I had to replace the crank, and it cost me (well, cost my mom) $17.00.
My bike is broken. I was riding home from pesh's house, and my left crank just fell off. I had to walk my bike home for about half a mile holding the crank and pedal; it was very sad.
Tomorrow, I go to the head injury rehabilitation and referral service for whipping and torture. Then in the evening, I go to james's father's-and-stepmom's house for a dinner that I will consume in exchange for moving furniture around that is too heavy for them. Oh, what have I become? Too many people read my blog. I'm starting to feel paranoid and weird about writing in it. My eyes dart nervously from side to side. Who was that person who used a proxy to download my entire blog? Why did the CIA look at my seven locks piece? Why did john suddenly disappear?
There are many unanswerables, and many ponderables. At times like these, it's best to stop and let the words of the great chief 'ten bears' seep into your jungian consciousness:
it's easy to become confused by these questions. It's hard to know what to do. We should talk about this some more. That is all I have to say.
When kevin costner was adopted by the lakota indians, he let his hair grow long. This is understandable. What's not understandable is why he carefully chopped it into a mullet. But mel gibson is a fucker -- he's a fundamentalist propagandist who should be eaten by bears. As I was biking in the park, I was thinking about my paper on christianity. It got some reactions, obviously, and my aunt pointed out that not all christians are like what I am railing against. I think my aunt would probably call a christian who believed in 1. The literal interpretation of the bible, 2. The virgin birth and godhood of jesus, 3. That jesus 'died for our sins' (substitutionary atonement -- we're off the hook as sinful humans), 4. The resurrection, and 5. The second coming, a fundamentalist. But what about a christian who believes in one or a couple of these, but not all five? These five points were actually laid down in what is seen as the birthing grounds for fundamentalism: the niagra bible conference of 1878.
I would call a christian who believes any of these a fundamentalist, and I would add in the belief in the afterlife as a qualification. The only 'christians' who are acceptable in my book are those 'christians' who use the life of jesus as an example and THAT'S IT. But you don't find too many of those. So, I define 'fundamentalist' rather loosely, and write pretty much every christian off as one.
I had an interesting email discussion today about evolution vs. Creation that I will post for interest's sake. The email came soon after I posted my paper:
Oh boy, I know you are bracing for reaction on this one!
As a thinking man like yourself, it is easy to attack a belief that has little scientific proof and doesn't make sense to what we have been told by the almighty scientific community. But remember, many people believe in Jesus because stories and beliefs were passed down from previous generations. Your "scientific" beliefs are also passed down as fact, but you don't use the same analytic zeal to disprove them as you use to disprove religion.
Carbon dating tells us that the earth is 5 Billion years old, which contradicts the bible's estimate of around 5K years. Carbon dating assumes that carbon molecules have been decaying at a constant rate for 5 billion years - that's a HUGE assumption. However, you are willing to accept that information as fact, just as a religious person just accepts as fact the existence of God (and possibly Jesus). Sure, evolution "makes sense", but isn't that man's way of understanding history in a very structured way and how we fit in this world? I would say it provides man with a certain comfort level...similar to religion , huh? There are a ton of disconnects in the evolutionary theory. Spontaneous mutations are supposed to be the impetus to evolution. Does that really make sense?? Spontaneous mutations from a one cell organism can create a thinking being with the complexity of a human body? I would argue THAT doesn't make sense. That's like putting five million letters in a bin, shaking it furiously and after you dump it out, the letters "mutate" into the world's best written novel.
Christianity is such an easy target because it forces you to accept certain things you can not understand. Sure some things taken literally don't make sense, but they were never intended to be interpreted literally.
I agree - there are millions of religious drones that follow religion because they don't want to handle the pressure of life alone and pray to a supreme being because they are weak and stupid - but that doesn't mean that the institution itself is flawed. Right-wing, uneducated, rifle-rack rednecks who support Bush are in the millions, but does that mean that our system of democracy is flawed?
Thanks for the adrenaline lift so early in the morning :)
Wow, thanks for the response :) my essays usually don't engender such passionate rants :X
I don't completely understand evolution myself, and it *does* sound pretty darn weird -- especially, as you say, the spontaneous mutations. If a creature has a practically infinite number of ways it could possibly mutate, and only those chance mutations that are beneficial to survival stick around, then I would think that each generation would have to give birth to millions of offspring, each one with one of the random mutations. Here's one fish with a piano growing out of its head, here's another one with six eyes, here's another one with wheels, and OOP! Here's one with legs! Keep that one.
If I were to learn more, I might be able to resolve this -- maybe certain mutations just aren't possible given the biological makeup of an organism (like a piano growing out of its head), and the possible mutations are few enough such that beneficial ones do arise as a manageably large percentage. And maybe the time scale (billions of years) includes enough generations to counter only a few offspring per generation. Again, I don't know enough about it.
So there's something going on that I don't understand, and I'm willing to put my, yes, faith in the theory of evolution, because I see it backed up by people and institutions whom I trust with unbiased knowledge, at least more so than I do a religious institution.
I think the key difference is that evolutionary biologists don't have an agenda, whereas christians clearly do: not 'believing in' evolution is essential to this book on which they've based everything: their culture, views of science and history, morality, etc. This is to say nothing of the enormous power structure that christianity maintains over society, etc.
I guess you could argue that evolutionary biologists have a similar agenda to the one I perceive in fundamentalists christians -- to maintain their power base and keep their jobs.
The way creationists attack evolution can be generalized to any form of objective knowledge. How do we 'know' that the moon is made of rock and not green cheese, and is 240,000 miles away as opposed to 20 miles away? We're accepting these things on faith, and on what we hear from a select group of people who claim to have 'measured' these things. It doesn't seem to make sense -- 240,000 miles away seems like a really long ways away, and the moon looks huge; you can see the surface (which looks like cheese and not rocks). Actually, maybe this is a better analogy than I thought, because a failure to grasp the enormity of the distance between the moon and the earth can be likened to a failure to grasp the enormity of time scale since the earth's inception. The thing is, 'believing' that the moon is 240,000 miles away doesn't contradict anything in the bible.
Thanks for the discussion...i hope I didn't frazzle you too much this morning ;)
Let me say that I am not a religious freak (not even close), and maybe I am jumping on the other side of this argument because of my "advocacy with the devil". I do see valid points on both sides of the subject..
Hey, don't worry about it -- just a friendly debate on Monday morning :)
It was my visit to minnesota, and being surrounded by heavily practicing christians 24/7 that sorta sparked all of this. Also, working for those fundamentalists in seneca park -- that was quite an experience. Al in all, lately I've become not only indifferent to christianity, but openly hostile to it. I'd like to formally renounce my confirmation with a notarized letter to my old church, or something like that.
But my aunt pointed out that what I'm really railing against is 'fundamentalists.' this, of course, is a loaded word, and no christian likes to identify his or herself as a fundamentalist. But the definition of 'christian' is 'one who follows the teachings of jesus,' which I see as a good thing. Of course, fundies would argue that folks who don't buy the 'five fundamentals' (from the niagra bible conference in 1878) aren't 'true christians.' these five fundamentals are: 1. The inerrancy of the bible. 2. The virgin birth and godhood of jesus. 3. That jesus 'wiped out' our sins when he died (substitutionary atonement) 4. The resurrection 5. The second coming.
Of course, claiming someone who does not believe these things is not a 'true christian' is a really clear example of the 'no true scotsman' fallacy.
More information:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logical_fallacy/No_true_Scotsman
So really, my paper is attacking 'fundamentalists' (in accordance with the five fundamentals), because certainly simply 'doing as jesus did' isn't grounds for despising anyone.
I saw 'passion of christ' today, and was checking my watch and yawning. It wasn't as bad as, say, 'bruce almighty,' but it was decidedly mediocre. I think having grown up with the passion of christ being shoved down my throat for 16 years, I've been quite effectively desensitized to it. Anyway, whatever. It sucked. Not worth $6. As far as the anti-semitism goes, it did portray the sanhedrin or whoever as being sleazy and rotten, and the romans as being these morally upright rulers. I don't know to what degree this corresponds to the gospels, and I don't really care too much. The movie was gross and bloody to the point where I started wondering about the make-up artist. I'm working on a paper that describes why christianity is stupid.
I'm incredibly tired and shitty-feeling. I didn't get enough sleep on my minnesota trip, and I'm still recovering. I bought at the store the standard battery of my standard fare: potatoes, black beans and rice, pasta/sauce, eggs and frozen burritos. Also, as a treat, I purchased an odwalla shake and odwalla bar, which were yummy. I have this social event scheduled for Thursday, which I think will involve going to kentucky fried chicken. I have $10 allocated for that.
I really need an f-ing job. I submitted a resume to the peapod people at giant (that sounds pretty funny -- giant is a grocery store and peapod is their delivery service), and they called me, but when I called back they told me that I needed box-truck and route-delivery experience. So, I'm back to square one, as they say. I'm thinking bouncer -- I really just need some money.
I got back from minnesota last night at around 3am. The good parts were interacting with my cousins, aunts and uncles. The bad parts were interacting with one particular person, a friend of the family, and the neuropsychological effects of uninterrupted human contact for 72 hours; I was simply never alone, and my brain never got any respite from the tide of social activity and perceptual stimulation.
I think it's true of many people that they need some time alone every once and a while, and that sustained social activity is sort of draining. I think I can take a lot less than most people can (and can take a lot more isolation than most people can). The residua of my head injury include a tendency to be sensitive to stimuli; it's almost like my brain gets 'full' easily, and I just kind of space out and shut down. This can happen during, for instance, a job interview, a long driving trip, too much reading, or 3 days in the company of other people without a break. 'mental fatigue' might be another words for this. For some reason, it doesn't really happen on the computer.
After having had 3 hours of sleep the night before and having spent the entire day in the herd, I found myself at a dinner table with someone who was being very conversationally aggressive. He told me how I should feel about my head injury, and recommended philosophical positions that I might take to better deal with it. He talked to me about his god, and I sensed that his discussion was headed towards missionary territory.
I don't like to argue. My brain has problems processing things quickly, and while I am able to write in a way that I think is pretty logical, I find myself almost completely unable to debate with people. So, I invariably 'lose' any argument, even if my opponent's position is ridiculous and confounds all logic (like the existence of a god, let alone that jesus died for me). It's the same with everything -- I just can't debate. So, at this dinner table, where this fucking asshole was making all kinds of offensive statements about me, my head injury, my personal philosophy, and religion, he asked me one of his confrontational missionary questions, and my poor little injured brain couldn't come up with an answer.
That my mind doesn't work quickly enough is a big part of the problem. The other part is that I get really flustered by aggression. When someone is being confrontational, I lose my grip on logic and the continuity of ideas, and can't go on thinking. And then, later, I'll think of all these things that I could have said. My brain just isn't up to speed to do any arguing on the spot -- I can't think on my feet. My emotions get in the way. I see some ugly face there, furrowing its brow, being loud and hand-gesturing, and my neurons just stop firing smoothly. The other night, it got to the point where I really might have done something like grabbed the asshole by the collar. Luckily, he sensed that I was losing my temper and stopped pestering me.
I get very upset when I sense that someone is being confrontational. They don't have to be overtly, aggressively confrontational about things, as in use belligerent language, stand on my toes, insult me, etc. I see the fact that they are disagreeing with me as confrontational in and of itself.
I think I should have taken a debate class in high school, and learned how to better deal with this. What would have been really good would have been being on the debate team, a class on logic (particularly logical fallacies), and a class on classical rhetoric.
So anyway, back to minnesota. I hated the fucking debates, of which I think there was just the one major one and a couple of other 'discussions,' but I enjoyed getting drunk with my cousins, even though we accidentally skipped out on the tab and got the police called after us. I think my cousin sam may've been arrested. There were lots of meals at various american restaurants and church basements, and mike and I went off for a couple of hours by ourselves to play guitar; I want a classical guitar now. Mike is without a doubt the best guitar teacher I've ever had.
My grandmother's funeral itself was kind of meaningless, since it was absolutely reminiscent of all of the church services that meant so very, very little to me. I wanted to remember my grandmother for all of the fun things we did together: bake cookies, read books, play scrabble, and go for walks. I found shitting out pompous dogma and talking about how the wages of sin is death to be not only meaningless, but actually offensive to her and her memory.
So in summary: I enjoyed the human interaction, for the most part, except when it just got to be too much and when that one person started insulting me at the dinner table. But I didn't enjoy the omnipresence of the christian faith, which is a huge pile of ruinous shit that needs to be stamped out for the good of humanity.