Trivial Pursuits

Before the Storm

Pictures, courtesy of Dr. Ms. TP, preparing for that dirty little slut, Rita.  Wind speed is about 30 MPH right now.

"What's going on, mommy?"

Sky at 5 pm, Houston time.

"Don't care about storm.  Busy sleeping.  Call back later."

It's coming.

This morning, Houston time.  Compare and contrast.  This picture faces to the west-NW.

"Who's Rita?"

"Will Miss Rita play with me?"

It's Tuesday

And TP is unemployed.  Woo-hoo!

Last day of work went swimmingly.  Visited the O.C. for the weekend; saw TP's month-old nephew.  TP just doesn't get babies.  They look perpetually angry (not that I blame them), and more closely resemble plucked chickens then actual people.

Give me a puppy anyday.

Anyhoesen, all is well with the world as TP waits at the new place for various deliveries and installations to occur this week.  Next week, we leave the fourth circle of Hell known as Cy-P, and then, we are off to Japan.

Posting may be sporadic, but, naturally, I love you all.

On Wisdom & Maturity

Botman is ancient, and upon his most recent birthday -- or perhaps it was my most recent birthday -- I told him that every year on my birthday, I look back on all the foolish, immature things I did in the past year and wince.  I asked him if that feeling stops as you get older, and ideally, a little bit wiser and more mature, and he indicated that that feeling generally continues, in his experience.

I noted this in a comment in response to something Citations said.  In one sense, reflecting back on how unwisely and immaturely I have acted in the past -- sometimes the painfully recent past -- is depressing, but, OTOH, it really helps banish any sense of complacency I might have with respect to my life, my choices, and the people I care about.  Humility and fallibility are kind of an obsession with me; worrying that I might lack the appropriate humility and fallibility is also a concern of mine.  Hey, I have an ego, and I'm just as, if not more, pompous than the next person.  Which is precisely why I deem it necessary to be so conscious of the reasons for humility -- my own fallibility, my own ignorance, my own mistakes.

Now, don't get me wrong -- I think I'm generally a fabulous person and I also abhor false modesty.  There many, many things I am very, very good at.  But that has nothing to do with being able to recognize one's own fallibility, and particularly, one's own past missteps and whatnot.

Sherry, over at Stay of Execution, has a tremendous post on the notion of facing one's past.

Ah well.  Push the boulder up the mountain, and whatnot.

Avast Ye Scurvy Dogs

So I've got pirates on the brain.  As TP users know, I adore history, and there are several time periods that I am particularly fascinated by.  Though "my" period, as I like to term it, is Twelfth Century European History, I've also been fascinated by the Golden Age of Piracy ever since I was a child.  I recently purchased Sid Meier's Pirates for Xbox, and have been unable to put it down, which is somewhat unusual for me as I am not a huge video game guy.

Obviously, I'm not the only one into pirates.  Look at all the pirate movies, the greatest theme park ride ever made, the video games, etc., etc.

But, the more one reads about pirates of the 17th and 18th centuries, the more one realizes that such pirates were almost universally armed robbers and murderers, and little more.  David Cordingly, the scholarly author of Under the Black Flag: The Romance and Reality of Life Among the Pirates, notes just this:

Men and women who were attacked by pirates found it a terrifying and deeply shocking experience.  There was the violence and the noise of the approach as the pirate ship fired warning shots and swung alongside with her heavy sails flapping thunderously.  There was the confrontation with tough and brutal young men armed with knives, cutlasses, and boarding axes who deliberately knocked down or slashed at anyone who showed resistance.  There was a confused and frightening phase during which the pirates ransacked the ship, interrogated the captain and crew, and frequently employed torture to extract information.  And all too often the attack ended with some of the victims lying dead on the deck or with their bleeding bodies being thrown over the side to the sharks.

Not the most pleasant stuff.  So, this raises the question of why piracy is so heavily romanticized, why people like myself grow up fascinated with the Golden Age of Piracy, playing all the video games, seeing the movies, going to the theme parks, etc.  Cordingly has a theory:

Most people are condemned to lives of monotony.  Year in and year out, workers in offices, factories, and large and small companies follow the same daily routine.  They catch the same bus or train; they drive along the same route and suffer the same delays and traffic jams.  They endure hours of bordeom, often doing a job which gives them little or no satisfaction.  They come home to face the predictable problems of family life or the loneliness of a flat in some dreary location [Note the author is English -- ed.].  What greater contrast could there be with a life of piracy? The pirates escaped from the laws and regulations which govern most of us.  They were rebels against authority, free spirits who made up their own rules.  They left behind the grey world of rainswept streets and headed for the sun.  We imagine them sprawled on sandy beaches with a bottle of rum in one hand and a lovely woman by their side, and a sleek black schooner moored offshore waiting to carry them away to distant and exotic islands.

(emphasis added).  Interesting.  I think he's right on.  That's what I've always loved about history; the notion that I can open up a book and completely immerse myself in another time and place.  It's an escape, and a lovely one at that.  But, I think the author's point is that the imperative to escape -- and the detail and contours of that escape are related to the ennui and mundanity the escapee deals with in their daily life.

So we romanticize the life of armed robbers and murderers on the high seas.

Fascinating.  Guess I'll go home and play Pirates.

Office & Family Spaces

Transmogriflaw, who rocks (dude, she named her blog after the Transmogrifier, thus she must rock), had a very intriguing and thought-provoking response to the Morford article I liked so much.

T-flaw says,

What mostly bothered me about the article, though, was that in some ways, what he's encouraging is as self-centered, to use a term that doesn't exactly fit right, as the despised executive with the big pay. He is dismissive of people who don't leave their mundane jobs because of "too many babies" or other family obligations, for example.

But how is somebody who is dislikes his job but does it for his kids selfish? What if you stay in a job, for example, that gives your kids health insurance even if you don't like it? Wouldn't leaving a job that supports your family to follow your bliss be as self-centered as staying in that job just for the new BMW?

I think there are several points to make here.  First, the author of the article is probably trying to make a point in a limited amount of space.  Necessarily, the point is going to be somewhat crude, and cannot possibly cover all permutations of such an important and complicated issue.  Thus, I think that T-flaw's point, which is a very good one, is not altogether inconsistent with Morford's deeper analysis: too many Americans stay trapped in a lifestyle with a career that they find deeply unfulfilling.  And I think his point that, while externalities like children and financial obligations are real -- and, IMO, terrifying, and chillen are not even a twinkle in my eye right now -- the actual size of the obstacle may be augmented by our fear of risk and unknown is also somewhat accurate.

But, as to T-flaw's criticism, she obviously has a point.  There is indeed something self-centered about the points he is offering (quit your corporate job, run off to find meaning, though, again, I'd stress that quitting a job you find unfulfilling does not imply one has to become a starving artist; there is a medium to be found, IMO).  OTOH, I wonder.  I noted in one of my posts that I am doing what I am doing not just for myself, but for all those who love me and care about me, including Dr. Ms. TP, and any Little TPs that may come along one day.

If I stay in a soul-crushing, life-draining wraith of a job, in what sense is that good for my family? Sure, the financial security is very, very important, and I am not contesting T-flaw's critique, which is well taken.  But I do maintain there is a sense in which, quitting a job you find unfulfilling to pursue a career you find fulfilling, is, while obviously self-centered on some level, can also converge with an altruistic motive, can also coincide with doing what is best for one's family by giving yourself a chance at a more fulfilling career.

To be clear, I am not entirely, or even mostly, disagreeing with T-flaw.  She's absolutely right.  There is something self-centered about the course Morford endorses.  My point is that it is not a zero sum game.  Pursuing a motive that has a self-interesed element does not preclude there being an unselfish intent as well.  Sometimes, paradoxically, self-interest can coincide with altruism, IMO.

T-flaw continues,

I guess what I am saying is that in his search for personal fulfillment he never positively mentions one of the most rewarding aspects of life: family. And families sacrifice for each other and support each other and give back to each other. Sometimes that means staying in a crap job so your kids aren't disrupted. Sometimes it means turning down a promotion so your kids will see more of you. But sometimes, it means working really hard so your kids can benefit.

Again, T-flaw is right, of course.  And I'm not 100% sure Morford would disagree.  I'm not sure what is more selfless: quitting a job that deadens you in favor of a career that brings you a sense of fulfillment and meaning, or staying in a job so that your kids won't be disrupted, will have good health insurance, college funds, etc.

I honestly don't have the answer, and T-flaw is again correct when she concludes that "It can go all different ways."

Let me tell you dear users of TP a true story.  TP's parents got divorced when he was a junior in college.  They remain fast friends, and still have tremendous respect and love for one another.  But their lives had grown apart a long, long time before they divorced, and they wanted to dissolve their union to pursue those separate lives.

They had apparently discussed divorce when TP was quite young, but decided to remain a marital unit for the chillens.

For a long, long time after they announced their divorce plans, I just wasn't sure how I felt about their decision to stay together for all those years.  On the one hand, there was something incredibly noble and selfless about their decision.  OTOH, if getting a divorce and moving on with their own personal lives would have made them lighter, happier people, maybe everyone would have been better off.  I was unsure about this for years.  Still am, in some sense.

Don't get the wrong idea; I had a terrific childhood, and I do not dare discount the emotional toll that a divorce can have on a young child.  But I know in one sense that my parents' decision to forego their own personal lives took an emotional toll on them.  How could it not? And, naturally, that affected the family unit, and the chillens.  It had to.

I am not writing about all of this to pretend I have any answers to these difficult questions.  In fact, that is entirely the point.  I don't have any of the answers.  I respect my parents deeply for the choice they made.  I hope I would have had the same respect if they had chosen otherwise.  I'm not certain I could or would make the same choice were I, god forbid, in their shoes.

Where is the line between selfishness and altrusim? Damned if I know.  No problem; ambiguity and lack of knowledge is an obsession with me.  One of the reasons I like medical ethics so much, heh heh.  Ultimately, T-flaw's conclusion is the right one: it can go all different ways.

More on Paradigm Shifts

A stunningly good article in the San Francisco Gate by a Mr. Mark Morford.  Very well-written, and coalesces nicely with some of the concepts I've been talking about re career and fulfillment.

Some excerpts:

Work hard and the world respects you. Work hard and you can have anything you want. Work really extra super hard and do nothing else but work and ignore your family and spend 14 hours a day at the office and make 300 grand a year that you never have time to spend, sublimate your soul to the corporate machine and enjoy a profound drinking problem and sporadic impotence and a nice 8BR mini-mansion you never spend any time in, and you and your shiny BMW 740i will get into heaven.

This is the American Puritan work ethos, still alive and screaming and sucking the world dry. Work is the answer. Work is also the question.

[ . . . ]

Call it "the cafe question." Any given weekday you can stroll by any given coffee shop in the city and see dozens of people milling about, casually sipping and eating and reading and it's freakin' noon on a Tuesday and you're like, wait, don't these people work? Don't they have jobs? They can't all be students and trust-fund babies and cocktail waitresses and drummers in struggling rock bands who live at home with their moms.

Of course, they're not. Not all of them, anyway. Some are creative types. Some are corporate rejects. Some are recovering cube slaves now dedicated full time to working on their paintings. Some are world travelers who left their well-paying gigs months ago to cruise around Vietnam on a motorcycle before returning to start an import-export business in rare hookahs. And we look at them and go, What is wrong with these people?

It's a bitter duality: We scowl at those who decide to chuck it all and who choose to explore something radical and new and independent, something more attuned with their passions, even as we secretly envy them and even as our inner voices scream and applaud and throw confetti.

Our culture allows almost no room for creative breaks. There is little tolerance for seeking out a different kind of "work" that doesn't somehow involve cubicles and widening butts and sour middle managers monitoring your e-mail and checking your Web site logs to see if you've wasted a precious 37 seconds of company time browsing blowfish.com or reading up on the gay marriage apocalypse.

Fan-effing-tastic.  Go read the entire article.

Hat tip to Basquette, who is presently grappling with some career issues of her own.  This roll (of TP) is for you, B.

Weekend Update

To update y'all, notice was given on Friday morning.  It was relatively uneventful, as I thought it would be. 

There was an odd incident later that afternoon, but I think it wiser to keep that little nugget to myself.  If any TP user is, for some reason, dying to know about this, email me and all will be revealed.

Nonetheless, it was a swimmingly good Friday.  Dr. Ms. TP and I had dinner here.  It sounds a lot better than it is, I assure you.  The decor itself is nice, but the food was simply mediocre.  The wine list is nice, but the wine I selected was a bit strange.  Perhaps my fault for selecting a glass of wine (when your dining companion doesn't drink wine, makes it hard to justify paying the markup for a full bottle, let alone drinking a bottle by yourself!), but was decidedly underwhelmed.

I did manage to coax Dr. Ms. TP to try this dessert wine yesterday.  It's fantastic.  Sweet and sugary, as a dessert wine ought to be, but with bright fruit flavors (notable pear and green apple), and maintains subtlety and texture.  It's designed to mimic the taste of a true eiswein, but at about 30% of the price.

I am fast becoming a big fan of Bonny Doon vineyard.  They make terrific New World value wines.  Interesting, different from a lot of the others.  Funky, but complex, and not reckless -- their wines manage to hang together, and while jammy like a characteristic New World wine, cohere enough to comprise an identifiable and fascinating palette.  Recommended.

In other news, TP has many skills, but home improvement, unfortunately, is not one of them.  Dr. Ms. TP is no expert either, so no huge hits to my sense of manhood.  This morning, Dr. Ms. TP and I tried to put up our bedroom window treatments.  Drill into drywall, insert spacer, put bracket on, screw in bracket to wall.

Easy, right?

Um, no.  Needless to say, we are now feeling silly because of our total and utter uselessness, and making sure we have a nice long list of handymen numbers to call this week.

I decided a Maker's and coke was required to assuage my sense of futility.  Ah well.  Time to do a few things I am good at: making Sunday brunch (waffles, fresh fruit, chicken salad, coffee, limeade), and furnishing our new study.  As long as I don't have to assemble the furniture.

On Paradigm Shifts & Incommensurability, Part I

Ja, wer auch nur eine Seele
sein nennt auf dem Erdenrund!
Und wer's nie gekonnt, der stehle
weinend sich aus diesem Bund!

--Friedrich Schiller, Ode to Joy

Scene: A beautiful spring day in Houston, in early March, about 6:00 PM. The sun is shining brightly through the azure sky, and the foliage seems particularly green and lush today. I'm driving to pick up some food and thence to Cy-P, and I am thoroughly enjoying a beautiful rendition of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, played by the Vienna Philharmonic, on satellite radio.

On Paradigm Shifts & Incommensurability, Part II

See, it isn't about happiness.  First off, I don't think happiness is a state of being.  It isn't a point anyone can reach.  Happiness is the process, the moment.  It's a certain look on Dr. Ms. TP's face, the first sip of an incredible, rare wine, the way the sun looks over the mountains on a certain day at a certain time.

On Paradigm Shifts & Incommensurability, Part III

I first began seriously reading philosophy when I was 15.  As it was helpful in much of the high-school debate that I did -- come now, you are not really surprised to learn that I was a debater -- I began by reading primarily the classics of political philosophy: Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, Bentham, Mill.  I also read modern political philosophy: Rawls, Nozick, Sandel, etc.