Expendable resources

Food is one of the only resources that's considered wasted if not used. Most other resources, from emotional ones like love to abstract concepts like time to physical things like money, are called wasted if used on the "wrong" outlets. Or, in the case of money and other tangible objects, if consumed in great quantity very fast. Food is a rare exception.

An autobiography in stanzas

An autobiography in stanzas:

Poetry at age three is
Repeating the same words
Repeating 
Repeating 
Until the big people think you're buffering, but
You're just making friends with the consonants
Petting the vowels
Tasting their texture
Finding rhythm nestled in noise.

Poetry at five is
Proudly wearing the verbal flow
because 
you now dress yourself
in stanzas
and find words that match (rhyme)

Poetry at eleven is
Digging up riddles
and burying your own for others to find,
Like realizing you should compliment people 
In all three tenses
Past, present, future
Because saying "you are"
Doesn't mean "you were" or "you will be"

Poetry at fifteen is
FEELINGS
An avalanche of
Humans as hyperbole
and
Why don't you love me
and
Longing for a home you haven't yet written
Stuck in caps lock all day

Poetry at twenty is
Calmer moments, fastidiously scheduled
Enfolded and hugged between parentheses

Poetry now is 
Following train tracks of thought backwards
While waiting for the next to arrive 
Sword fights with exclamation points
and 
Facebook philosophy; ellipses footprints 
at 3 a.m.

Poetry now
is sitting in your lungs
Filling every vessel,
Sometimes exhaled
in ink.

Trying to figure out whether Cerberus would poop three times as much as one dog, or one-third as much as three dogs.

Theories?

If the Matrix was real and people could choose to take part in it, and could plug in and out of at will, what would you want to do in there that would be harder to do in the physical world because of consequences?

Say this was a Matrix in which anything you did in there would have no affect at all on your physical body (unlike in the movie). There would be so many possibilities. You could make things materialize before your eyes. If you were allergic to a specific food that you happen to love, you could eat as much of it as you want in the Matrix without having to worry. You could play extreme sports or do things like skydiving and get the same visceral rush without having to worry about danger--and it would be so much realer than a video game. It would be a safe but realistic place to learn how to drive. You could sleep with people with no worries about pregnancy or STDs (although if you're in a non-Matrix relationship and were having virtual sex with real people who were plugged into that world, I still think that would count as cheating. Actions carried out within the Matrix involving real people would still have tangible effects on relationships outside of it. Same is true for fighting with people, etc). You could also physically present yourself however you want, altering your appearance to fit your mood without having to spend money or get surgery. It would sort of make you like Tonks from Harry Potter. And you could travel anywhere without money or airfare. You might even be able to simulate time travel.

It would raise some pretty interesting questions for the legal system. Like if you punched someone in the face in the Matrix and left their virtual self injured, but didn't harm their non-Matrix self, would that count as assault? Same for things like destruction of virtual property.

The first thing I would want to do would be visit friends in different parts of the world, and simulate time travel to the early '90s and relive grunge music and the riot grrrl movement. Also skydiving, and making minor tweaks to my appearance. And I'd see if I could create things in that world that would still exist when I came back to it.

What about you? What would you do?

*Edit: I also posted this in a group I'm a part of, and someone compared it to lucid dreaming. I'm making a distinction between the two because lucid dreaming only exists in your own brain, whereas the Matrix is interactive.

The falsehood of "emasculation"

I wonder if the concept of psychological "emasculation" is, in itself, kind of a sexist idea. When people refer to a man being emasculated, they're usually alluding to him being undercut or browbeaten or belittled by a woman. But isn't that type of behavior generally inadvisable for anyone? People shouldn't behave that way toward others as an overall rule of courtesy. Why is it somehow "worse," to the point of earning its own classification, when a woman does it to a man? And why is that regarded as stripping him of whatever it is that makes him masculine--unless the assumption is that men should behave that way toward women, and so doing the reversal is acting upon an irreverence for social norms?

I'm not advocating for women to deliberately mistreat men as an act of protest against gender roles. I just think it's notable that a woman being a jerk to a man is seen as revoking his masculinity, whereas a man doing the same to a woman isn't judged as revoking her femininity or her identity as a woman. Yes, it's often frowned upon, but "effeminization" is not a commonplace word--unless it's used to insult men for "acting like women", because society deems femininity a negative trait. "Effeminization" is used as a synonym for emasculation, not a counterpart to it.

On the Cannonization of Suffering

One of the most commonly believed ideas that I would most like to see eradicated is the concept that putting up with another person's shitty behavior makes someone a "saint." I've believed this before, I've said it myself, and have heard it said by countless other people--and never once has it yielded a positive result. The principle behind it is damaging because to canonize suffering is to discourage people from standing up for themselves. It tells them that tolerating unacceptable behavior makes them a good person. It also elevates those who mistreat their peers by implying that they're somehow contributing to a greater good, to the character-building of their victims.

Additionally, not everyone who accepts terrible behavior from others is exempt from doing harm themselves. The world isn't solely made up of aggressors and targets; there can be overlap between the two. You can be aggressive in one relationship and passive in another. To ignore that is to overlook the complexities of our social lives and the contradictions that exist in people.

The 1996 Room

I just woke up from a dream about a restaurant in which the main room was ordinary, while the one beside it included all the same patrons--but from 20 years in the past. Both rooms were lined with mirrors. The mirrors in the main room showed the reflections from the past, while the past room showed their reflections from the future (or, rather, the present). Most of the waitstaff had to avoid the 1996 room, but a few servers who were trained in time travel could work in there.

I told Mike about this and said, "That just worries me. In that dream world, not only does a waitstaff position require a college degree, but the job description also demands you be proficient in time travel?"

He responded, "The application reads 'Must provide own Tardis.'"

Dammit dream world, please do your job. I go to you to find alternate realities, not more exaggerated versions of this one!