I've been going crazy applying for jobs the last few days, both peon jobs and real jobs. A peon job is any job that requires a job application, and at which one makes less than $10/h ($20k a year). A real job is one that requires a resume, where you work at a desk and generally make more than $20k a year ($10/h). Of course, there are some jobs that confound the division, like 'UPS driver'. They can make upwards of $60K a year. But, whatever. I'm sure you have a perfectly good intuitive idea of what I mean by 'real job' and 'peon job.'
Tomorrow, I have an interview at the bike shop. The manager tells me that he is desperate for mechanics, and that he's willing to train. So, tonight, I took my bike apart a bit and achieved some comfort level with the transmission, adjusting it back and forth. Also, I can change tires! It's sort of easy, actually, if one is willing to get one's hands dirty. Everything is sitting right there, out in the open, and bicycles aren't all that complicated, compared to internal combustion vehicles. Compared to blocks of wood, they are.
Various other places I applied to include: giant, kinkos, the outback steakhouse, a house cleaning service, some graphic design place, and some marketing writer place. I think I'd rather be a bike mechanic than any of these other things, but we'll see. It's possible that the manager will be unhappy with my lack of experience. But, as he said, he's desperate. And I'm hyperintelligent, and trainable.
The reason for this sudden burst of activity is not that I dramatically and all-of-the-sudden summoned the will to play the job game, and heroically dragged myself up to courageously face that which I fear. It's simply that I'm feeling a lot better now that my level of a new medication is increasing. It's really as simple as that; no free will, just fatalistic causal phenomena (in this case, medicine making me happier).
It's not 'me', it's the meds. It's not 'me', it's my neurochemicals functioning properly. In fact, there is no 'me'.
The dramatic effect medication has on mood and behavior makes me even more disinclined to buy the abrahamic nonsense which is 'free will' than I was already. It might feel very much like I suddenly summoned the will-power to call all of these potential employers and set up these interviews, but the fact is that I didn't have the resources to do so before, whereas I did yesterday and today (being medicated).
It's probably dreadfully tempting to someone without such a fatalistic bent to fight the idea that they are feeling better and able to function because their psychoactive medication is working. Rather, they might be inclined to think they 'pulled themselves out' of depression. This is just as ridiculous as someone saying 'cheer up!'.
Like anything else, the resources that improved my mood constitute external influences -- they are a causal phenomenon. Because my brain is feeling better, it's able to function a little bit in the form of active, social behavior, at least enough so that running around engaging in the idiotic mundanity of contemporary life in a service economy is bearable, or even fun. Sitting around on the computer everyday, hiding from the world didn't make me depressed; I engage in that behavior because I am depressed. Now, hopefully, I can enter the world a little bit, and not hate everyone I see quite so much.
It's quite possible that the nihilism inherent in contemporary life, what with it's cubicles, pointless paper-shuffling and paychecks, is causing mental illness. So, the drug industry and the care industry responds with drugs -- happy drugs that make the cubicle bearable, so that we will all make better drones.
I don't really care, as long as I feel better.
I'm still on my DVD binge. Tonight, I'm going to watch 'the unforgiven'.
Marriage is a bad deal, I think, for both parties. Monogamy is dumb even as sexual relegation to one partner, but what's even dumber is that many people I know are jealous not only of their partner's potential sexual partners, but of others in a purely social context. For instance, a man might not want his wife to spend any time with her friends or family, and get upset if she does.
As far as I can think of, a reason to pair off with one other person and hole away like a couple of hermits, abandoning groups of friends and family, might be to raise kids. But the only reason this makes even a bit of sense is because our society, neighborhoods and communities are so disconnected. You know that saying, 'it takes a whole village to raise a child'? If our society were more interdependent, we wouldn't have to group into defensive little pairs to battle the hostile world.
Anyway, I dont think monogamy is a good idea, because it tends to strip people of social contact, and then they hide away with their partner, renting movies. It's a truism that people get less social when they get married, and can now rely on a convenient live-in friend to supply these needs.
And also, of course, there's the whole issue of experiencing romance with other people, which is nice. After 50 years, I can imagine that the soul and body thirst for other fountains, so to speak. I've heard of open marriages, where each partner, although committed to the other, is 'allowed' to go out and have sex with whomever they want. But it's not just sex --it's being emotionally and intellectually close to someone of the opposite sex who is not your partner, or at the very least the freedom to do so. I think this is the way to go.
I've heard that people are 'hard wired' for monogamy, but I'm inclined not to buy this, just as I'm inclined not to buy any argument made on 'hard wiring.' people are whatever they want to be -- they have next to no natural instincts, and their behavior is almost totally determined by socialization and acculturation. Monogamy is such a behavior.
I might still get married, but I'm not going to abandon my life outside of the marriage if I do. And, I'm not going to force myself to get married like so many people do. Most simply marry whomever they happen to be dating when they hit 29, and say 'oh, I've found that one special person!'
Is this some kind of mass hysteria? Why does everyone feel they need to get married? Is it a fear of dying alone, or what? I think we should re-examine this a bit.
Just because I'm the laziest fucker ever to breath, I will post something I wrote today in response to a plea for a web tutorial of sorts. Well, actually, the request was to answer the question 'how did you design x site?' so, I tried to address specific idiosyncrasies of that site, as well as put forth some general guidelines. I didn't get into any html, though. I'm not sure if it will be at all useful, but at any rate, it's useful to me in that it allows me to avoid writing anything else substantial today. HAHAHA.
here are some links to get started: http://www.lissaexplains.com/basics.shtml http://www.davesite.com/webstation/html/ the second one has some links to css tutorials. Lisaexplains.com is a site for kids, but a lot of people like it because it's straightforward and (obviously) easy to follow. here's the site I'll discuss here: http://mywebpages.comcast.net/agor/ you probably have windows, or maybe a mac -- if you have some *nix, then programs like photoshop, dreamweaver, pcpaint, etc, wont be available (however, gimp will be). i built pesh's site with a combination of dreamweaver (graphical html editor) and photoshop (image editor). I made the images in photoshop, obviously, and dreamweaver was helpful in the way I designed the layout, using CSS and div tags (div tags just enclose some section of the html document so that it's recognizable for formatting or other purposes). dreamweaver also has a code editing mode that functions like a text editor. With CSS, divs and dreamweaver, I can drag objects around (as exemplified by the text overlapping the image of pesh) to anywhere on the screen I want them. the three-section look was done with a table, colored to match some colors in the image. Dreamweaver is also helpful with this, since it has a color-matching tool for web colors (click on a location, and dreamweaver will pick the color clicked out of the hexadecimal values for web colors, such as #ffffff for white, #000000 for black, etc). the site also makes use of some javascript that launches pop-up windows when the thumbnails are clicked -- I didn't write the javascript, but rather ripped it off from somewhere (possibly javascript.com). Actually, the script was modified so that clicking another thumbnail will not only launch a new window, but will close the previous one. Also, if a browser has javascript disabled, the image will just be linked to normally. So, if you want that script, copy it from mywebpages.comcast.net/agor (it's surrounded by script tags in the head of the document -- terms you'll learn if you follow those above and other tutorials). anyway, the page is a combination of CSS (layout and design information like the position of objects enclosed in html div tags, hovering links, and font information), html (the table, text, content, and basically everything else), and javascript (just the image-launcher). All together, people sometimes refer to this combination of html, css and other scripts as 'dhtml' (dynamic html), if they're in a buzzwordy mood. you'd need photoshop, gimp, fireworks, or even pcpaint to edit images (make sure the filesize is small). Dreamweaver is extremely helpful in graphically positioning the divs (if you want to do the layout that way) but it's certainly not necessary -- all you really need to write up your code is a text editor. Another way to do layout is with tables, like I did on this site: http://candocanal.org or, you can just sort of throw it together. Nobody really cares -- i discovered long ago that most people don't notice web pages, and only care about them if 1) they designed them, or 2) they're mentioned in them. as far as ftp goes (getting the files online): ws_ftp light is available for free for windows -- I'm not sure about mac. If a secure connection is required, winscp is nice for windows. If you have a mac or *nix then you're likely to be familiar with programs for your system. To ftp, just find out the server name, username and password, then connect with your ftp program and pass local files to the server. obviously there's also writing and information design/usability design involved -- is the site navigable, and is information easy to get from it? sometimes a pretty design is hard to integrate with those other priorities, but it gets easier with practice. i know this sounds kind of technical and involved, but I was asked to prepare directions on how I made the webpage -- a big subject. You can google on the terms you don't know or that are confusing. Good luck.
Add 'autumn in new york' by vernon duke and 'yesterday' by the beatles to my repertoire.
My medication is keeping me up nights. It's quite bad.
Being 30 and relegated to the same kinds of jobs I applied for in high school is debasing. I don't want to work in retail, or for a restaurant. Having friends who have been very successful, achieving all sorts of goals, moneys, and statuses, makes it worse.
I've always had a tendency to blame my lack of job success on my art degree, but I don't think this is valid. If I had the motivation, I could find a way to make my degree work, similarly to my friend with a creative writing degree, the fact that she seemingly has unlimited money notwithstanding. Maybe, if I were full of chutzpah, I would have taken the job that a professor had offered me in baltimore, working for the Maryland historical society. I might have painted some, and gotten my work into some galleries in baltimore. I might have gone to graduate school. I might have been able to get a teaching job after that -- maybe even working for a university. But, that was not to be. I remember the reason I didn't accept that job: I wanted to stay in my mommy's house.
Now, I don't have any opportunities whatsoever, because I ignored all of them; I wanted to stay here. I think there's something about this environment, and the total lack of responsibilities therein that makes me lose my potential. Every once and a while, I think of things that I'd like to do, but I always revert to the sentiment of 'what's the point?' I think the central problem is that I never really learned to discipline myself. Whenever I've done well, it's been when I've had some kind of whip-cracker there, nudging me along.
I guess I need to get out of here. But even if I do, it seems like such a shame that I've wasted these years that there's no point. But now that I think of it, I've only really wasted a few months. Before that, I really did learn a lot from wikipedia, the rest of the web, and from writing my own essays. Now, I guess I'm getting more into jazz guitar, but it's difficult to do that all day. I generally practice for 1-2 hours a day, in the morning and evening.
Anyway, I have to get a job (that I'll invariably hate, because my colleagues will be 16), and then get out of gaithersburg and my mother's house. It sort of sucks that I haven't accomplished what many of my peers have, but whatever; fuck them. This house has some kind of hold on me. I wonder if I'll ever escape.
I blocked (at least I think I blocked) IP address originating from the university of charleston in WV, because I don't feel comfortable with ana reading my blog anymore (as she did the other day -- she asked me to take her mom's name out of my published email to her).
The more I think about it, the more it seems to me that I caught her in an unformed phase of development, a transitional point at which she could have gone in any direction. She was pleasant in this amorphous embryo-state, before she embraced the path of sorority-girl-ubercapitalist-business-school-status-seeker.
She was fairly chubby when I was dating her -- I'm inclined to believe that this helped make her shy, sweet and unsure of herself in a very charming way. I still remember the day we were driving in charleston, and her teeth were chattering from the cold. She wouldn't ask me to turn the heat up, but made a happy little squeak when I noticed her discomfort and turned it up myself. Now-a-days, I don't know what she'd do -- yell at me to turn the fucking heat up, probably.
She's either been awful her whole life, with a brief respite into niceness while I dated her, or she's been nice her whole life and transitioned into awfulness over the course of the past year. If I met her now, as she is, I would be inclined to stay as far away from her as possible.
I miss her sometimes, the way she used to be: sweet, curious, open-minded, beautiful and affectionate. Now, she's aggressive, big-headed, simple-minded, mean and shallow. I really did love her the way she was, whether that was just a temporary state or if she'll some day return to it. I'm still stuck on the question: which one is the real ana?
I think the answer lies somewhere in the middle. She was sweet little girl with some bitchy tendencies that were brought out full-force as she turned from child into adult; 17, 18 and 19 can be big years for personality transformation. I remember her telling me that her mom had also complained that she had changed a great deal.
I also can't ignore the influence of her changing weight. Ana was sweet and chubby when I dated her. When she lost weight, the corelation with the increase in the unpleasantness of her personality was dramatic.
I think this happens quite a lot, actually: 1) girl is fat, has low self esteem, must be nice to people so that they will like her, is shy, sweet, etc. 2) girl loses weight -- people start to pay her compliments, behave more deferentially towards her. Slowly, her self-esteem climbs. 3) girl becomes unrepentant bitch as a healthy self-esteem overflows into pride and egoism. Girl discovers that she can act as badly as she wants, and society will forgive her because it loves slender girls so much.
I imagine this fat-to-thin transformation is especially damaging when it occurs simultaneously with the child-to-adult transformation. If precisely at a crucial phase of adult character-development a girl is taught via weight-loss that she can get away with a lot more in her social circles, then the effects of the child-to-adult and fat-to-thin transformations might combine in monstrous ways. This, I'm afraid, is what happened to poor ana.
Holy shit, it's 3:00am.
My reaction to PETA's literature spawned my 'nihilist's guide to vegetarianism' blog a few days ago. I took in a similar bit of media today. I have a friend who, when he visits, tends to leave behind left-wing revolutionary material. His expectation is that i, the uneducated, uninformed consumer and political victim, will peruse it and adopt a better world-view. This past visit, my friend planted his materials in the form of DVDs (last time, he downloaded movies onto my hard drive).
My mom's boyfriend recently gave her a DVD player, and, with some wires and devices bought at radio shack and salvaged from my basement, I managed to hook the player up to a 20 year-old television set. The test object for the new DVD player and miraculous connections that direct a DVD signal to two antenna screws, complete with sound, was one of the bits of lefty media left behind by my friend.
I fired up one of the DVDs, entitled 'the oil factor: behind the war on terror', and I truly couldn't believe what I saw: ominous music when achmed chalabi walked by. The obligatory shots of bloodied and limbless children in hospitals. A segue from the hospital scenes to bush strutting proudly across an aircraft carrier while 'hail to the chief' played in the background. It went on like this, putting 'fox news' to shame.
Regardless of whether or not I agree with the central premises of the program (that the war in iraq is bad and stupid), this sort of blatant liberal propaganda really does make me want to go out and vote for bush out of spite, which I was seriously considering back in November.
Many who self-identify as 'liberal' have an agenda, and are absolutely convinced that they're correct. They are unwilling to listen to opposing viewpoints, and eagerly shout down anyone who challenges their assumptions.
I'm certainly not implying that conservatives (or even libertarians) are any better. My particularly strong reaction to lefty propaganda might be explained by my more frequent exposure to the conservative american media and their own corporate-friendly propaganda. Seeing left-wing stuff of a similar form might be too much of a contrast to take in all at once, and that agenda might thus be more obvious to me. Or, maybe the lefty stuff is just more blatant. This DVD was about as blatant as it gets -- certainly there are degrees of propaganda.
The DVD I just now watched was highly propagandistic -- it simply wasn't concerned with fact, but rather consisted of images and sounds very carefully designed to sway the viewer with emotional appeals. Maybe this can be fine, and there's nothing wrong with emotional appeals, per se. For example, the bloodied children in the hospital, while they might tend to elicit an emotional response, might also be considered fact (there are indeed bloodied children in iraqi hospitals).
But should we be showing these images when the goal is (presumably) a reasoned argument? The ominous music when chalabi walked by and the hospital-bush segue were particularly objectionable to me. I just can't imagine that intelligent viewers don't notice this kind of thing and roll their eyes.
Propaganda like this is just as bad as 'fox news' displaying a banner that read 'the war on terror' during a segment on the war in iraq -- just obvious, stupid and laughable. It makes me less likely to seriously consider any statements made by the offending party that might in fact be valid, just because they're willing to stoop to childish tactics to push their agenda; they've lost their credibility with me.
This discussion, of course, raises the question 'it it possible to convey a pure fact?', which is related to another important question: is there such a thing as absolute truth? I would generally vote 'no,' but I'm in no way willing to sign any confessions on the matter.
With this in mind, even if one thinks it possible to convey a fact without unavoidably inserting bias or propaganda of some nature, then it's certainly still a good idea to be extremely cautious, and carefully consider the material with which one is presented. Think about assumed premises, like 'i come first', 'my brethren come first', 'there is unlimited money in the world', or 'there is limited money in the world.' think about who benefits from your acceptance of the presented material as fact.
Since it might not be possible to absorb media of any kind without being subject to some sort of bias, perhaps it's better that biases be admitted right off, and that tag-lines like 'fair and balanced' be abandoned as propagandistic in and of themselves.
People tend to pick a propaganda that consecrates whatever world-view they already have, and then stick with it. This material and world-view becomes 'the truth.' a really good example of this phenomenon is seen in fundamentalist christians' consideration of the bible.
I remember the words of the fundamentalist preacher and advertising agency president for whom I worked one summer in the local state park. He asked me, 'do you believe there is an absolute truth?' I answered 'no.' he retorted with 'that's what they taught you in college,' inflecting 'college' as he might 'hitler.' I never took any classes in epistemology, but I guess the implication was that my view on truth was subtly imparted via my other courses.
Truth, according to this minister, is found in the bible. Here is his absolute truth, right there in print. You can't argue with it, because it's sitting right there, glaring at you in the archaic english of king james. Embracing an absolute truth like this is tempting to those who feel caught in a sea of contemporary postmodern nihilism, and who want something that is 'right', that is 'true', to which they can cling. The same holds true for politics -- liberals need their 'indy media' documentaries, and conservatives need their fox news.
The comparison of political agenda-mongers with evangelists is striking. It's very difficult to argue with a proselytizing missionary when he comes to your door because he's prepared for all of the counterpoints you're likely to make, drawing on the vast reserve of religious literature and group discussions at his disposal. Identical in form are the politicians and their supporters who make agenda-based arguments. Politicos are able to draw on the vast reserve of materials available to their group body; they don't have to summon their creative intellect when defending a position, because it's already been done for them. All they need to do is quote the material appropriately, memorizing a handful of party-lines. This is the principal advantage of group identification: you don't have to do your own thinking anymore.
Americans choose their propaganda; I still remember the war of words between fox news and NPR, almost immediately after September 11th. And let's not forget libertarians, who reject redistribution of wealth but also reject imposed religious, moral, sexual and family values -- they play the game as well. They're absolutely convinced that they have it right, just like the liberals I talked about earlier, and describe their beliefs as something like 'freedom on both axes' (economic and social); in fact, libertarians will tell you that their beliefs are synonymous with 'freedom.' words like these are clearly propaganda.
I go rent movie now.
I had written a typical blog, but something happened this evening that put me in a really good mood, and I decided to replace the usual depressive whining with some more interesting matter.
My ex-girlfriend ana and I have had a sort of volatile relationship since we broke up at the end of last summer. This evening, we got in a fight over aim, she sent me a nasty email, and I sent one back.
It's funny to see how we both gathered up all the ammunition we'd accumulated over the course of our relationship, and shat it all out on each other in an attempt not to resolve anything, but just to make each other feel bad. The conflict was utterly useless from a problem-solving perspective, being no more than emotional masturbation. It was the kind that takes place between couples and ex-couples every day; much more of a fistfight than a repartee.
I was in a terrible mood beforehand, and strangely, the exchange between ana and me made me feel a lot better; I'm actually in a good mood now. Here are ana's letter to me and my letter to ana, for your voyeuristic enjoyment:
From: "They Call Her Action" Date: Sun, 02 Jan 2005 23:07:07 +0000 To: deadbarnacle Subject: please read. matt, first of all.. I contacted you after our first fight because I felt sorry for you. I was wondering if you were holding up okay. I was very glad that you managed to land a job, but I know it wouldnt last for long. You're a very unstable person.. And I couldnt manage maintaining any sort of relationship with you. To be painfully honest, you're fucking nuts. But please, hear me out.. i knew that the minute I pissed you off, id be erased from your address book/buddy list + any other form of electronic contact. You do this to *everyone* you get pissed off at. I think I upset you before by calling this method of problem solving "passive aggressive." doing such a thing does not solve a situation... But you just prefer to "delete" someone from your life rather than confront or solve a problem like a normal human being. i can just imagine you now -- furiously clicking away.. Deleting any emails ive sent, blocking my screen name, deleting pictures, ect. blocking someone before he or she has a chance to reply is childish. I must imagine you get a boost in self esteem by doing this.. Because you feel as though you have some sort of power or control in your life.. Which.. Obviously is not true. You have power over your internet life.. But not your "real" life. i couldnt care less if you reply to this mail... But please, don't be so immature in the future. You're much too old to be carrying on internet vendettas.
Heehee, furiously clicking away -- that's me. She makes some good observations about the empowering nature of socializing on the internet, but I'm not sure self-esteem is related, at least no more than it's related to anything else. The idea of self-esteem is funny that way: you can pretty much drag it into any discussion and not sound completely dumb. Anyway, on to my reply:
From: barnacle To: They Call Her Action Subject: Re: please read. Date: Mon, 3 Jan 2005 00:12:42 +0000 I've never met anyone who thinks so highly of themself. I'm glad I caught you at the tail end of your childhood, when you were really very sweet and wonderful. But you've turned into, for lack of a better word, a bitch: aggressive, pompous, shallow, conniving and just mean. You'll make a great capitalist -- I wish you luck in that. You're become, in the past year, one of the most fundamentally self-interested people I've ever known. the normal thing to do, when a friend complains of being sad, is to say someihtng like 'I'm sorry you're sad.' instead, you talked about your idiot exercise routine and ignored me. When I pointed this out, you said 'you're always sad. What's the point of talking about it?' this is just cruel. Maybe, someday, you'll realize that you aren't acting in a socially responsible way. i realize you're still an idiot teenager and haven't learned how to deal with people in a normal way. I dunno...maybe this is just a phase you're going through -- some kind of nasty adolescent 'me me me' period -- but I'm afraid that it isn't. Essentially, you've turned into your mom. I know it might seem like I'm just picking out things I know will upset you (as you did -- nice job on that, btw), but this happens to be true: you are very similar to your mom, and are getting to be more so every day: just a nasty little creature. Please, for the sake of the rest of us, stay in West Virginia. you're not terrifically bright, but are just smart enough -- a little above average -- to be dangerous when you apply your simple-minded world view to the world out there. You're always absolutely assured that you're right, no matter what. You're like a little puffed up peacock or something, strutting around. Really, grow up. This adolescent nonsense is embarrassing. > first of all.. I contacted you after our first fight because I felt > sorry for you. oh, good -- I was under the impression that you really wanted to be friends. But, I'm glad to hear that you just felt sorry for me. So, i won't feel guilty about telling you what I really think of you, and cutting you out of my life entirely. Yeah, I like to play that game -- deleting people from my address book, etc -- but sometimes, it's warranted, and there really are damaging, hurtful, and, for lack of a better word, evil people that do me no good. These people need to be excised. I'm glad we've arrived at an agreement :)
I really am a little bit concerned with how this all so dramatically elevated my mood. I'm reminded of the woman with BPD (borderline personality disorder) in 'fatal attraction' who thrived on conflict. Anyway, I feel satiated for now, and won't need another tooth-and-nail ad hominem-fest for at least a couple of hours. I often write letters like these, but never have the courage to send them. It felt good to finally do it. I wonder if the internet sort of teaches sociopathic habits, since it's so easy to dump on other people without consequences.
Addendum: there were a few emails exchanged after these two, but they were only more of the same. I just now sent one off that had a 'closing the discussion' sound to it, so hopefully that'll be the end of things. I feel a bit bad about not publishing the last two. More letters may've had some additional humor value, but I have limited energy here.
This new years, I wrote an elaborate blog about my unix account deletion, and worried about the rash my new medication is giving me on my fingers and genitals. I was going to say 'how nerdy is that?', but I'm afraid it's just incredibly bizarre, and in fact it's so weird that it's not even nerdy in a funny, endearing way. It's more of the ilk of psychotic nerdy. I feel as though I'm getting weirder and weirder. I went to pick up my check from UPS the other day, and I was wearing sweatpants liberally stained with food, sandals, a 'ROOTS CANADA' tshirt, my black stocking cap, my grey army bomber jacket, and the thick stubble of my new beard (UPS made me shave it -- I looked like a fat lard).
Anyway, happy new year. My resolution for the coming year is to either improve my life or kill myself. Or at least to stop thinking about it.