The collapsing
universe theory, which states that the universe collapses and recreates itself
again and again, basically would confirm my suspicion that we're all living in
a giant gif.
Friday, July 22, 2016
Dream ideas
Last night I
dreamed about a class that was given a writing assignment involving notebooks
which were partially, sparsely filled in. Every ten pages or so, they included
a page which featured a doodle or an entry from a fictional character or a note
written by one of that character's friends. The entries were cryptic enough
that they could be interpreted in multiple ways, and never revealed the identity. The job of the writer was to flesh out that character
by using those entries as writing prompts; deciding what they meant and who the
person was, and creating a fictional story (or multiple stories) around them.
They were supposed to write in first person, taking on their identity.
I think that would actually be a cool project and those notebooks should exist in real life.
I think that would actually be a cool project and those notebooks should exist in real life.
Going to heck
Just
as Hades is separate from hell, Heck is also its own afterlife sphere. Heck is
an eternal Sunday potluck full of under-seasoned potato salad, where everyone
wears pastel polo shirts and titters nervously if somebody says the word
"lesbian" or "underwear". It's overseen by a middle-aged
Midwestern couple who have unexplained Minnesotan accents.
From May: My grandma's diaspora
Blank
spaces often scare us more than pain. This is why death is so daunting: because
our void of knowledge about it is a blank space. The possibilities are
infinite, and infinity stretches out past the horizon of our understanding,
spinning with so many colors that they all blur into white. This is why many
prefer suffering to nothingness; because at least there's still a self to
suffer.
When I think of my grandma, who doesn't have much time left, I wonder how much of her memory is buried under snow and how much has been uprooted altogether. Maybe it's like a page where the writing has been erased and she's trying to piece it back together by the ghostly traces. Her page was the first edition, but she's read it to so many people that it's no longer the only copy. The words have scattered from her page onto those of everyone she has loved.
The words aren't lost. Her family still knows her Yiddish and her made-up expressions like "cuckoopots" (meaning anything outrageous). We still know her winking innuendos and her puns; how sitting on a menu is "ass-essing" it. We know her spirited rants against bigotry, anti-Semitism, and bad customer service. We know her stories about how much she loved her students. We know the time the stock market crashed, her elementary school burned down, she caught the measles, and her widowed father remarried all within the same year. How she lay in bed as a sick five-year-old that year, clutching a little toy fire truck, and said to the ceiling, "Mommy, please make me better." How on the day WWII ended, she went to a party in a yellow dress and re-met my grandpa (they'd gone to school together, reconnected at the party, and started dating). How her first boyfriend had been gay, and she grew to care about gay rights before a lot of people did. How she had six children because she wanted one for every millionth Jew killed in the Holocaust.
We remember these things because she told us. Because her life has been a love letter to the world. Or sometimes a complaint letter. Or a bawdy, hilarious manifesto.
One moment a few weeks ago, in a fragment amid a word salad, she said "I want to be everywhere." And she is everywhere, just not in herself.
She has begun her own one-woman diaspora. She has found homes in everyone else.
When I think of my grandma, who doesn't have much time left, I wonder how much of her memory is buried under snow and how much has been uprooted altogether. Maybe it's like a page where the writing has been erased and she's trying to piece it back together by the ghostly traces. Her page was the first edition, but she's read it to so many people that it's no longer the only copy. The words have scattered from her page onto those of everyone she has loved.
The words aren't lost. Her family still knows her Yiddish and her made-up expressions like "cuckoopots" (meaning anything outrageous). We still know her winking innuendos and her puns; how sitting on a menu is "ass-essing" it. We know her spirited rants against bigotry, anti-Semitism, and bad customer service. We know her stories about how much she loved her students. We know the time the stock market crashed, her elementary school burned down, she caught the measles, and her widowed father remarried all within the same year. How she lay in bed as a sick five-year-old that year, clutching a little toy fire truck, and said to the ceiling, "Mommy, please make me better." How on the day WWII ended, she went to a party in a yellow dress and re-met my grandpa (they'd gone to school together, reconnected at the party, and started dating). How her first boyfriend had been gay, and she grew to care about gay rights before a lot of people did. How she had six children because she wanted one for every millionth Jew killed in the Holocaust.
We remember these things because she told us. Because her life has been a love letter to the world. Or sometimes a complaint letter. Or a bawdy, hilarious manifesto.
One moment a few weeks ago, in a fragment amid a word salad, she said "I want to be everywhere." And she is everywhere, just not in herself.
She has begun her own one-woman diaspora. She has found homes in everyone else.
Why the friend zone is a myth
When
I say that "the friend zone" doesn't exist, I don't mean that leading
people on doesn't exist. I don't mean that nobody deliberately flirts with
someone they know has unrequited feelings for them, aware it will hurt but not
caring because it feeds their own ego. And while that behavior is often
exclusively criticized in women, people of all genders do it. Anybody who
behaves that way is being selfish and dishonest, not a
friend. So I'd rather call it "leading people on" than
"friendzoning."
When I say there's no such thing as "the friend zone," what I mean is that people do not become friends with others out of spite. Nobody decides, "I'm going to be friends with somebody who likes me romantically in order to punish them. I'm going to relegate them to a confined 'zone.'" And if a person sees friendship as inherently manipulative or punitive, then the chances are high that they're a pretty sub-par friend.
Also, I suspect a lot of people think they're being led on when they may be interpreting friendly behavior as flirtatious. As I said, it's not that this never happens. It's just that there can be misunderstandings, sometimes due to wishful thinking and sometimes due to entitlement.
When I say there's no such thing as "the friend zone," what I mean is that people do not become friends with others out of spite. Nobody decides, "I'm going to be friends with somebody who likes me romantically in order to punish them. I'm going to relegate them to a confined 'zone.'" And if a person sees friendship as inherently manipulative or punitive, then the chances are high that they're a pretty sub-par friend.
Also, I suspect a lot of people think they're being led on when they may be interpreting friendly behavior as flirtatious. As I said, it's not that this never happens. It's just that there can be misunderstandings, sometimes due to wishful thinking and sometimes due to entitlement.
The US's relationship status: It's complicated.
There’s
a meme that says, “I don’t think America should elect any president in 2016. We
should be single for a few years and find ourselves.” I really love that
because not only is it hilarious, it can be an extended metaphor.
If the President is the US’s significant other, then the US is also polyamorous with Congress. The Constitution is basically a “terms and conditions” of the relationship, and they really need to write a prenup. Every four years it finds itself in a love triangle which gets voted on like a reality dating show. The US is finally reconsidering its bias toward exclusively dating rich white men, but it has a long way to go. And Republicans and Democrats are its “type”, even though there are plenty of other suitors who could be more compatible.
If the President is the US’s significant other, then the US is also polyamorous with Congress. The Constitution is basically a “terms and conditions” of the relationship, and they really need to write a prenup. Every four years it finds itself in a love triangle which gets voted on like a reality dating show. The US is finally reconsidering its bias toward exclusively dating rich white men, but it has a long way to go. And Republicans and Democrats are its “type”, even though there are plenty of other suitors who could be more compatible.
Life as a list
I've
been thinking about why people are inclined to make lists, both physically and
philosophically. This is my theory: Our lives are lists. They're catalogs of
people we've encountered, events we experienced passively, and events we
caused. A lot of these components are random, but we spend years trying to come
up with a title for the compilation in order to pull it all together and give
it a common theme.
I was going to add that we're often shaped by whether we try to make our lives into "things to do" or "things to obtain" lists. But for a lot of us, experiences and accomplishments *are* things to obtain. Also, a person whose primary goal is to amass things may not be materialistic; they may have very few resources and be concerned with survival. So being able to focus on non-survival based goals is a privilege.
The "life is a list" theory makes our smaller lists very meta. Daily goals and itinerary are lots of little collections inside a much larger one.
I was going to add that we're often shaped by whether we try to make our lives into "things to do" or "things to obtain" lists. But for a lot of us, experiences and accomplishments *are* things to obtain. Also, a person whose primary goal is to amass things may not be materialistic; they may have very few resources and be concerned with survival. So being able to focus on non-survival based goals is a privilege.
The "life is a list" theory makes our smaller lists very meta. Daily goals and itinerary are lots of little collections inside a much larger one.
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