Life according to Gordon

My sister just came up to Madison yesterday for a quick visit, since she has to return to Principia in Illinois next week, and as we were sitting in my room at one point, talking a little bit, she says this:

You look different; have you put on some weight? [...] You should try to go running more often, like three times a week.

THANKS BRONWEN. Insults aside, she does have a pretty good idea nonetheless. I think I actually would like to get my running up to three times a week, which isn't at all unreasonable for me seeing as I did Cross Country for six years. My personal record for the 5K is 20:09, and for the 8K it was 31:something. The last time I ran a 5K (in June), however, I did it in just under 30 minutes, so I'm slooooow again. It doesn't help when you, y'know, don't ever go running. So I'd like to start again. I'm thinking I can do Tuesdays, Thursdays, and a day on the weekend as well (Saturday or Sunday, depending on circumstance). I still have one class left to take this semester, and it's a Tuesday/Thursday class from 9:30 - 10:45. I'll be going into work after then, and I'll be extending my shifts all five days of the week by an hour to compensate. But that leaves Tuesday and Thursday mornings open, and running would be a wonderful filler, I think.

But I could always use encouragement from others, so I have a favor to ask all of you (yes, you people reading this blog, whoever you are). I would love a running partner, so if Tuesday and Thursday mornings work for you, come running with me! But if not, then please just yell at me. I'm serious. Remind me of my plan and tell me to go running. Keep in mind, I'd appreciate it if you could remain respectful about it, because it's easy to have it come out as a blatant insult. *cough*frickin' sister*ahem*. But I love running, I'm just often way too lazy to actually get out and do it. I think this is a good idea. Besides, I could probably use the endorphins.

I am a lot of things, but I am not an idiot. I am weird, possibly crazy, stubborn, friendly, loyal to a fault, easily distracted, erratic, extremely honest, very unique, and a little bit arrogant, but I am not dumb by any measure. I pride myself on being able to self-analyze and self-criticize, and generally be self-aware. (Please note, however, this post is not at all about self-criticism.) I'm pretty good at analyzing a situation, even (and especially) situations that I'm directly involved in presently, and understanding what's going on. I know when I'm on fire, and conversely I know when I'm crashing and burning. Sometimes this awareness isn't always readily apparent to whomever else is involved in a situation, as I think some people have viewed some of my actions as naive at best. But make no mistake: I know what's happening. But that doesn't always mean I can fix it or change it at all. And that can be a problem.

I've run into a number of situations now since last August where things really haven't turned out at all how I wanted them to. And for awhile, I would contemplate what it was I was doing wrong that was causing these things to turn out so unfavorably. Maybe I was too clingy, or too forward, or too something. Or maybe I wasn't confident enough, or I wasn't normal enough, or not enough of something. Maybe I could just change behavior X to behavior Y and that would fix things. This went on for awhile in a lot of different forms through a number of distinct but related situations, and all of them didn't really seem to turn out very well. And being the critical person I am, I figured that I was the common denominator in all of these situations, so therefore it must be something I was doing or something about me that was the cause of all this perceived "failure." In fact, I'm smack dab in the middle of one of these situations right now, although I'm not going to post about it here yet since it's still ongoing. The police never comment on ongoing investigations at the risk of jeopardizing them, and similarly I don't feel totally at liberty to explain my present situation to the world either. Just know that it has a lot of promise, but it also has way more pitfalls and uncertainties than I'd prefer. I can feel the looming failure on the horizon, but I can also see a lot of good in it. A damn lot of good, actually.

The thing about trying real hard and failing repeatedly is that you start to come to expect failure, and even to recognize a whole variety of warning signs. Rest assured, I know what they are. I can see these warning signs and problems just fine in just about any situation. It's not that I'm naive and I don't realize what I'm getting myself into, it's just that I've usually thought things through to a ridiculous extent and know that if I can get through the messy bits, the good on the other side will have been well worth it. Unfortunately, it doesn't always work that way. In fact, it really seems that in the aspects of life I've been most focused on, things hardly ever go my way at all. There's always something screwing up or going wrong so that nothing seems to work out.

And again, my first instinct is to blame myself for such problems. To evaluate my approach, see what it is I'm doing that might be a cause of such problems. Except recently, more and more, I've started to think about things from a slightly different approach. Even though I've been through a number of successive situations that I've perceived as complete failures on my part, maybe it isn't me that's really the problem. This may seem trite, but it's actually been kind of radical for me, since I'm just so used to taking the blame for just about everything. (When you're closely involved for a long time with someone who habitually shields themselves from responsibility by consistently putting the blame on anyone and everyone else, this should come as no surprise, really.) For a good long while, I just got so used to the routine of always being the person who apologizes first in any conflict, or apologizing for things that could hardly be construed as "my fault" in any sort of legitimate way at all, for the sake of maintaining the peace. There's a problem with this, though. When you constantly assume the blame for everything, especially for things that aren't even your fault, while it does resolve the situation in the here and now, it damages things in the long run--like your self esteem. I got conditioned into the mindset that any time something bad happened, it was my fault.

So when I started realizing that it's not a crime to just be me, this was actually kind of relieving in a way. It also made me a little pissed off when I realized that others had actually blamed me, slandered me behind my back (and sometimes to my face), and treated me negatively--just for being me, essentially. If you're one of those people, then fuck you. You had no right to make me feel that way. As I've been thinking about the situations I've been through that I've categorized as "failures," and thinking about some of the advice I've heard from others, and the advice I contrived myself, I had to stop at some point and realize how utterly futile a lot of it was. The idea that I need to change quality X about myself, or do this and that differently, or be more like person B, is all just ludicrous. If anyone can't just accept me for who I am, then quite frankly, in that situation, I'm not the one with problems.

I don't need changing. I don't need fixing. Quite simply, I am me, and I'm actually pretty proud of who I am. And if that isn't "enough" for you, I think that reflects much more poorly on you than it does on me. That shows that you feel a sense of lack in your life that you're trying to fill with someone else, and sorry, but someone else is never going to be enough for you. They might be for awhile, but eventually and inevitably you'll come up with some reasons why they weren't enough for you. And I really do mean that it's inevitable. Well I'm sick and tired of working under the framework that I'm not good enough, that I need to change and adapt to better fit the model of how you want someone else to be, and that currently I'm flawed or incomplete. I am me, and there's a damn lot of good things about me. I'm not perfect, but I shouldn't have to suddenly be perfect over night to accomodate for your shortcomings. I'm amazing in my own ways, and if you view me as anything less than such, then you are really the one who's naive. I don't need you. (And by the way, the "you" in these sentences isn't speaking directly to any one individual in particular, but rather the representative amalgamation of this negative "judgment" that I've seen manifested in a handful of different individuals. Although I will admit the scales may be tilted more towards some.)

*phew* I needed to say that. To some extent, it felt empowering. And there's still so much more I could say on that line of thought, and I could actually be a lot more specific about the details and not write so ambiguously. But that's for another day, or perhaps another outlet entirely. I think I'd really like someone to talk to about it. If you care, don't be afraid to message me on AIM or Google Talk and try to broach the subject. (But be warned that if you do, I may choose instead to not to talk about it, depending on a number of things. Even if that's the case, however, rest assured that I won't be upset at all with you for asking. I always appreciate concern.) That's enough venting for now. I do hope my current situation can start to shape up a bit. For a lot of reasons, this one feels a bit different than some of the last, though it is still very early. Patience is a virtue that I often struggle with. So I'm going to end this post with an uplifting quote from Morgan Freeman/God:

If someone prays for patience, you think God gives them patience? Or does he give them the opportunity to be patient?

If anyone has to play the role of God on camera, I think, unequivocally, Morgan Freeman is the best choice. Good work, Tom Shadyac.

A little while ago, I made an announcement to my friends on Facebook that I wanted to read the full text of the Bible from cover to cover. Just recently, I've followed through and started doing that lately. I created a small little page to track my progress, and I've been writing notes with each chapter I read. (You can click on the green squares to see them.) This has been my own way of forcing myself to actually read each chapter to the point of understanding by forcing myself to write down a brief analysis. With the exception of the first day, I've been doing three chapters per day. A number of different people have actually recommended that I not try to read it directly cover-to-cover, and instead skip around, either by doing one book in the Old Testament, then one and the New, and repeat, or by following some kind of reading order based on how the events occur chronologically so that I might read all the different versions of one story successively, rather than encountering repeats later. I do want to extend thanks to all the people who offered such advice. As for now, however, I am doing it one by one. (I have always been a do-it-my-own-way kind of guy.) This doesn't mean I'm inflexible, and I may change depending on how things go down the road. But I do want to stick with three chapters per day; that will mean I'll finish in just over a year. And so far so good.

I only just finished chapter 11 in Genesis, but so far it's been pretty interesting. I've always been a person who takes everything with a grain of salt, so I can't say I've been reading a lot of this as something to be interpreted literally. I think this book has a lot of interesting metaphors if you interpret them as such. And Chapter 9 was of special significance to me tonight, as I found myself in a situation that seemed to somewhat parallel the experience of Noah's son, Ham--at least as far as the figurative meaning of it all is concerned. Rest assured, there was no nakedness involved. But I think the term "nakedness" can probably be equated to anything bad or negative, as long as you're interpreting the story as a parable, anyway. I'm not going to write up the full story here, but you can feel free to ask me about it if you like. It's nothing bad, really; it just made that chapter in particular stand out for me as significant and directly applicable.

But feel free to follow along with me as I read the Bible, if that sort of thing interests you. I should update three of those little green squares daily if I can stick to my plan. I can't promise what time they will get updated, so it may often happen at 2 in the morning, but we'll see. And if you're on the other end of the spectrum and really just don't care about the Bible, then don't follow along. Jerk. But speaking of the other end of the spectrum, a friend sent me a text message this evening telling me to read Philosophy in the Bedroom by Marquis de Sade. It's available online for free in both English and French. I had never heard of this story before, but it's apparently a rather lewd play that teaches that life should be about the continual pursuit of physical pleasure, and that anything standing in the way of pleasure, such as religion, morality, or compassion, is absurd and should be done away with. Not quite the Bible, anyway. But if I read this and the Bible, you can't say I'm not well-rounded! Again, I take everything with a grain of salt. I don't expect to find any great insights with the latter bit of reading (if I do take the time to read it), but I suppose that is yet to be seen.

Usually when I post I have a road map in my mind of where I want the post to go, what points I want to make, etc. Right now I don't have any of that, but I still feel like I need to write. Just a weird mood, I guess. So this might end up a little free form; we'll see. I've been thinking about what it means to be mature, and (surprise, surprise) its larger implications in society. It would seem to me that immature behavior is rewarded in our culture. I live in a big college town, one that has been voted the #1 party school once or twice. So I've seen first-hand on more than one occasion how binge drinking and being an asshole can reward one with societal benefits. (If you know me at all, it should be obvious I'm not speaking in the first-person.) Guys who get plastered and treat women like shit are consistently rewarded with sex all the time, over and over again. And if you feel like making some kind of apologist comment on the matter, don't. Don't pretend like it doesn't happen when you know it does. Our culture is set up (perhaps inadvertently) to reward douche bags.

I've also been thinking about religion. (Again, big surprise there.) For all practical purposes, I'm essentially a preacher's son. I mean, my church isn't organized in a way that has preachers, technically. We have "readers," who are elected and cannot serve for more than three consecutive years at a time. This was set up with the belief that people should come to church for the underlying ideas and the intrinsic value of it, and not just because of an enigmatic preacher. And by forcing rotation, the idea was that the focus always stays on the concepts. But my dad has been voted back as first reader so many times now that for all practical purposes, you could probably call him a preacher. But anyways, in school I was often the timid one, the kid who was too scared to cave into peer pressure, the kid who never even thought of touching drugs, etc. Basically I was a lame nerd scared of girls. And a lot of teachers were often very impressed with my maturity from what I recall, except of course the ones that got on my bad side, which became different stories entirely.

So I don't drink, I don't smoke, I don't do drugs, and I never have. And I read the Bible. And I consciously try not to hate anyone, and to forgive grudges the best I can. But I'm not entirely mature, and I most certainly haven't always been mature by any means. Back in high school, I channeled a lot of whatever teenage angst I felt into controlled vandalism. My friends and I loved going out after curfew to TP someone's house, or throw eggs at their windows, or bleach their lawn and spray maple syrup on their windows while someone else poured a box full of pancake batter into the gas tank of their jet ski, or all of the above. I think one of the signatures I have in my 10th grade yearbook from a girl said something like, "stop TPing my house." I'm not condoning any of that behavior, except perhaps just TPing, which is harmless. But considering all the rampant drug use and sex and everything else that went on in my high school, I still will make the case that whatever mischief I took part in was relatively low-key.

But lately I got to thinking about why I would act out in certain ways. My conclusion is that back when I was a kid, it was half and half. Half of it, I think, was just pure immaturity. Boys will be boys, and teenage boys have a knack for mischief. There was a certain thrill of being out late at night when you're under 18. You have to hide from cops, because just your presence alone is technically illegal (which I still think is ridiculous). And you're committing an act of vandalism, so there's a certain rush you experience when the egg hits the window and you just book it. But the other half I think stemmed from a feeling of lack, of dissatisfaction, of depression. When you're looking for something more in life, anything that gives you a rush is something you quickly learn to keep doing. With a lot of people, that means they turn to drugs or alcohol, or they physically abuse others, etc. I could never do anything of those things, mostly because I'm just too damn stubborn to let myself degenerate to that. But the vandalism thing is a little more familiar.

Back in March, I was feeling a lot of emotions channeled toward a couple different individuals. I was angry, depressed, upset, and ultimately very confused. So I found myself standing outside of someone else's apartment at 5am on a Saturday night/Sunday morning with an egg in my hand, ready to lob it at the window. But let's back up just a little bit. Earlier that night I just felt awful. Nobody was around to hang out with, so I just tried to cheer myself up by playing Smash Brothers online. I played for several hours, and it was mostly enjoyable, but I still just couldn't shake this overarching bad feeling. I was just in a slum, and I was harboring way too much anger to do anyone any amount of good. I thought about egging a certain individual's house. It would be nothing new for me, really, as back when I was 15, 16, 17, I had thrown plenty of eggs. So I drove over to Sentry at about 4am, the only grocery store nearby that's open 24-hours a day. As I drove there, I just really didn't feel good about it, like something was telling me to turn back. But anger overrode that and I kept driving.

I don't usually shop at Sentry so I wasn't totally familiar with the layout of the store. I wandered around a bit trying to find the cartons of eggs with little luck. A good section of the store had been roped off, as a maintenance guy was pushing around some big machine to wax the floors or some such. I eventually ended up flagging down one of the employees and asking where they kept the eggs. He pointed to the area that had been roped off and apologized, saying that we weren't allowed to walk there with the cleaning going on. He made a point of telling me that this situation was very rare, as they were applying a special kind of wax treatment to the floors that they only do once a year, so it was important that nobody walk there until they were finished. If that's not a "sign," I'm not sure what is. I was persistent, though. I'm not usually a person who gives up on anything easily in any aspect of life. It's just counter to my nature. So I really prodded him to see what I could do, explaining that the one and only thing I had come for was eggs. Eventually he ran to the back and found they had some cartons back there. I bought a carton of 12 and left.

I parked my car in a McDonald's parking lot, which was reasonably close to the target location I was going for, and just walked the extra few blocks. I only brought one egg with me. I stood outside a house with every intent to just throw an egg at the window, but I hesitated. Something didn't feel right. For one, I thought it was a bit unique that when I tried to buy the eggs, this was the one and only time of year that they had to rope off that section of the store, as if Someone was telling me, "don't do it; you'll regret it." I thought to myself, "if this was 5 or 6 years ago, I would have no hesitation at all. I would just throw the damn thing, run away, and get a good laugh out of it." But I was an angsty high school teenager then, and now I was almost 23 and would soon be entering into the "real" world. I called my friend Travis. (Yes, at 5 in the morning.) I quickly explained the situation, getting a second opinion on whether or not I should throw this egg. Travis was a close enough friend that he already knew all the underlying motivations for being out there in the first place. He told me that if it would really make me feel better, I should go for it, but he also mentioned that he thought tonight just "felt weird." When I mentioned the bit about the grocery store, it seemed to affirm his feelings, as he reiterated about how it just felt like that morning just felt very "weird" in general and that I probably shouldn't. It's good to have someone you can trust to talk to when you need it, believe me. I ended up walking away, not throwing that egg. Well, actually I did throw it at a tree by the sidewalk back over by McDonalds, because you have to admit, it's still pretty fun to throw an egg and see it shatter. But I didn't throw it at any houses or windows, just an innocuous tree.

In that particular case, I think I did the "mature" thing, albeit I barely did the mature thing. Like I said, years ago I wouldn't have had any second thoughts about it. But things are different now. The idea of self-image never even crossed my mind at the time, but now that I've had time to reflect, I don't want to be remembered as a guy who will egg your house if you piss him off; I want to be remembered for my good qualities. But had I thrown that egg, I know I would have felt some sort of emotional release from the anger I was feeling. Yet I managed to hold back nonetheless. And I'm mostly a man of action; I'm the kind of person who needs to actively do things rather than just sit in the sidelines and I usually don't fear confrontation. Being passive and doing nothing just isn't my thing. So for me, this idea of holding back, doing nothing, and just letting go was quite difficult. I knew it was the mature thing to do, but it also felt like suffering in silence.

I still don't think I've garnered any reward from holding back, though that may just be my limited perception on the matter. Maybe this does represent a certain level of personal growth that I'm just diminishing. But at the same time, I can't help but think about some of the unfair aspects of life. Had I thrown that egg, it might have made me feel better. Had I chosen a different, more Hedonistic lifestyle years ago--a life of indulgence--I might have experienced greater and more frequent pleasures in life. Trust me when I say that my commitment to God is too strong to ever allow any sort of Hedonism, but I still wonder about the what-if's. What if I wasn't born as a preacher's son, but instead as an alcoholic's son? Would I just end up like so many others then, priding myself on how much alcohol I can consume and how many women I can sleep with? Rather than focusing on putting together an album of original music, might I be trying to organize some "epic" bar crawl to top off my college career? That's not who I am at all, but if I had been raised in a different household, would that be me? I struggled a bit with maturity over the last year, and as you can see from this post I had my low points, but I still think I came out on top. I didn't throw that egg. And I even made scrambled eggs later. But what was the point of all of that? Why did any of that happen? What deeper purpose did that experience serve?

Warning: this post contains spoilers to The Dark Knight. If you haven't seen it yet and you don't want anything spoiled, stop reading. This is also a mostly pointless fanboy rant, so if that is going to bore you, then I guess you can stop reading. Now, I'm a HUGE fan of the new Batman movie. Batman is my favorite comic book super hero of all time, the plot twists, story, and special effects in the new movie were just so damn well done, and the raw, intense emotion that you experience throughout that movie brought back some of the feelings from watching I Am Legend. I would already count The Dark Knight among my list of top five favorite movies ever.

But what really makes the Dark Knight, unquestionably, is the Joker. Heath Ledger was beyond amazing in his portrayal of the classic super-villain, capturing what I think the true essence of the character really was. And that's what I felt like writing about: the true essence of the Joker. Interestingly enough, the more I've thought about it, the more I feel I can relate on a number of levels to the Joker. This might seem a bit odd, seeing as, well, he's a psychotic mass-murderer with zero empathy. Usually that's not the kind of person you'd probably want to spend your Friday nights with. But bear with me for a moment.

First of all, the Joker isn't crazy. He tries to make this explicitly clear a few times throughout the movie, like when he comes uninvited to the meeting of the mobsters and Gambol calls him crazy, he immediately retorts saying, "No, I'm not," in a rather unforgiving tone of voice. Secondly, when Batman is later in the interrogation room with him about to beat him to a pulp, the Joker tells him "I'm not a monster; I'm just ahead of the curve." This is one of the points that I think is so important to understanding his character and his motives. Nobody knows the back story of the Joker, but I don't think it'd be too much of a stretch to assume that at some point he went through a devastatingly emotionally painful experience that changed him forever. Whatever that was, he's very careful about hiding it from others, as he seems to enjoy reinventing his own past. For instance, he gives two disparate accounts of "how he got his scars" in the movie alone, and I believe this is similarly mirrored in the comic books. In fact, at this point, the Joker might not even know his own back story after having told so many different versions of what happened to him.

The Joker has no empathy for others at all, and has no hesitation killing any number of people, but I don't believe he was born that way. My hypothesis is that he was probably a mostly regular guy until whatever traumatic series of events changed him forever. After someone goes through a bad experience in which they are treated poorly, they become numb to it. Whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger, or in the words of the Joker, makes you "stranger." Assume everyone he knew and loved was killed mercilessly, for instance. That would probably numb him up real quick to the idea of killing. Misery loves company.

Now I would have to side with Batman on most matters, because I'm certainly not one who ever condones killing. But I do feel like I can understand why the Joker does what he does. I thought it was really admirable that he burnt the huge pile of money he was given, saying, "it's not about the money; it's about sending a message." I think the Joker is immensely intelligent, and recognizes a lot of the problems with society with the intent to change it for the better. You might immediately think that his methodology of killing people is probably not the best answer to solving society's problems, although it does have its merits. It gets people off their asses, for one.

I'm an optimist, but a remarkably cynical optimist. While I do have faith that people will eventually do the right thing, I think that they get into so much trouble waiting and doing nothing that it's really no wonder why society has so many problems. Most people lie. Most people cheat. Most people are just "sycophantic suck-ups" who only think for themselves and only see what's on the surface right in front of them. And most people desperately want power, control, and influence over others.

You see it all the time. People are constantly wishing they'd have more control over their partners in relationships. Women make complaints that they wish their damn husband would just do this or that for once, and men complain that they wish their wives would be more like such and such. Politicians fight for control over people and make laws that tell other people how to live their lives. Policemen, lawyers, and judges similarly tell people how to live and make judgments on others' characters. And wars are started over conflicting ideologies. Everything in society revolves around controlling other people and getting them to conform to a certain way of thinking.

And the Joker is a character, I think, that truly realizes how meaningless all of that is, and has completely dedicated himself to a cause, to showing the world how futile it is to try to control other people. And while you might not agree with his methods, you really have to give him credit for his dedication alone. He's really not in it for the money, the fame, or the glory. He genuinely wants to change things to make things "fair." Take this quote from the movie, when he's talking with Harvey after killing Rachel, for instance:

Do I really look like a guy with a plan? You know what I am? I'm a dog chasing cars. I wouldn't know what to do with one if I caught it! You know, I just do things. The mob has plans, the cops have plans, Gordon's got plans. You know, they're schemers. Schemers trying to control their worlds. I'm not a schemer. I try to show the schemers how pathetic their attempts to control things really are.

So, when I say that you and your girlfriend was nothing personal, you know that I'm telling the truth. It's the schemers that put you where you are. You were a schemer, you had plans, and look where that got you. I just did what I do best: I took your plan and I turned it on itself. Look what I did to this city with a few drums of gas and a couple of bullets.

You know what I noticed? Nobody panics when things go according to plan--even if the plan is horrifying. If tomorrow I tell the press that a gang banger will get shot, or a truckload of soldiers will be blown up, nobody panics, because it's all part of the plan. But when I say that one little old mayor will die, well then everyone loses their minds! Introduce a little anarchy, upset the established order, and everything becomes chaos. I am an agent of chaos. Oh, and you know the thing about chaos? It's fair.

That last part in particular about people panicking is spot on. That got me thinking. When terrorists attacked the WTC, there was a huge amount of panic. Every politician since then simply can't stop talking about it. So I decided to look it up and do the math. About 3,000 American civilians died from the 9/11 attacks, and we were in shock. But if you compare this with the number of deaths in Iraq, then it gets interesting, as the Joker's point starts to make sense. Over 90,000 Iraqi civilians have been killed since the start of the war. That means that they've experienced the same feeling of tragedy that we got from 9/11 more than thirty times. But nobody panics about that, because it's part of our plan. We labeled it a "war," so now we expect it to happen. It doesn't seem to make much of a difference that 90,000+ people who had nothing to do with the original attacks have died--90,000+ brothers, sisters, fathers, mothers, aunts, uncles, etc. That number is just so astronomical that I don't think anyone can really fathom just how horrible that is. And no one really does fathom it, because it's all part of the plan, so somehow this is OK. It's how our society works, and it's all just a bad joke, really.

While I do think we should end the war immediately, that's not the point of this post. The point I'm really trying to make is that the Joker really does have his act together in a lot of ways. I was looking over an archetype called the Byronic hero, and it's really surprising how the Joker fits the bill so well on the majority of the attributes listed. I also think the Joker would be a perfect match for any of those canned W4M ads you see that advertise that they're looking for "a spontaneous, fun-loving guy" or any similar nonsense. Because technically...

So looking this over, this post is a little bit of a rant. But to conclude things, all I can really say is that having thought about the Joker a lot, I'm quite convinced he's not crazy. Sure, he kills people without hesitation, but so do some of our own soldiers. I've always despised terms like "crazy" and "creepy" because they're just so damn subjective. Honestly, I think everyone's crazy, and I worry more about the people who think they're not (who are they fooling?). But with regard to the Joker specifically, I think he's actually quite intelligent with a vast amount of knowledge of human psychology as well as explosives. And despite anything he claims, I would argue that he does have a very intricate plan behind all of the things he does. He tries to make them seem random and chaotic, but that's just the surface level image he likes to purport. Underneath it all I think there's a very delicate order to all of it that happens to be very flexible.

And kudos to Heath Ledger for portraying that so well. He better get that academy award. I can't wait until I see it again next weekend on IMAX... *squee*

I'm a PHP developer, a PHP defender, and generally a PHP fanboy, but I'm actually writing this post to comment on how I'm a little disillusioned with the people calling the shots on language decisions, and why. Don't get me wrong, I still love the language (as can be noted by how I've written before in defense of it against some of the typical "PHP sucks" arguments). But I will freely admit that some of the complaints are perfectly valid points that I even agree with, and recently I noticed something amidst a discussion on PHP 6, and can only express my disappointment with the management.

One of the biggest complaints I've heard about PHP is that the order of arguments is inconsistent. There are some functions where you search for something small within something larger (for instance, searching for a substring inside a string, or an element inside an array), which is usually denoted by searching for a needle in a haystack. For instance, the strpos function does the former, while the in_array function does the latter. But the problem should become clear when you look at the prototypes for these functions:

in_array($needle, $haystack)
strpos($haystack, $needle)

So it's plain to see that the order is inconsistent. The complaint is that this makes development slower because no one ever remembers what the order is for any given function, so they have to look it up. With the number of editors that offer "code hints," such as Dreamweaver or Zend Studio, this point is somewhat moot, but for those still typing in Notepad I can sympathize. I can hardly remember whether it's "haystack, needle" or "needle, haystack" for any given function.

So I was pleased to see that the head PHP developers actually addressed this issue in a meeting where they discussed changes for PHP6. But I was not pleased to see that they essentially turned a bit of a blind eye to the truth. Either that or they're just downright lazy (in regard to this issue). From the meeting notes:

...there are only two functions that have "needle, haystack" instead of "haystack, needle"... [Thus] we decided not to change the order.

False false false false false. They state that the only two functions who deviate from the "haystack, needle" standard are in_array and array_search. Um...hello? I can think of a few more...

ereg
eregi
ereg_replace
eregi_replace
preg_match
preg_match_all
preg_replace
preg_split
split
spliti
str_replace
str_ireplace

And I don't even think that list is exhaustive, either. I only did a small amount of digging to find those; but I'm pretty sure I could keep going. Now, it is true that none of the official prototypes for those functions above actually use the terms "needle" or "haystack" in the documentation, but all of them effectively look for needles in haystacks. (I would have thought the head developers would have been aware of those, seeing as...oh, I don't know...they designed the freaking language.) The prototype for str_replace, for instance, is as follows:

str_replace($search, $replace, $subject)

The only difference here is that they chose to identify things as "search" and "subject" instead of "needle" and "haystack," respectively. But they're effectively doing the same thing. You're searching for the $search string in the $subject string, a.k.a. you're searching for a needle in a haystack (and in this case performing a replacement). And all the regular expression matching functions essentially follow the "needle, haystack" order of parameters. But for some reason none of those functions seem to count in the minds of the head PHP developers. I'm not sure if they glossed over them accidentally, or if they were being willfully ignorant on the matter.

I will admit, however, that the developers make one very valid point in the meeting notes when they say that "changing [these functions] would cause quite some problems for current applications." If they did decide to suddenly flip the order of parameters, it would indeed break a lot of existing applications, which is probably the real reason they won't do it (even though consistency is better). So in all likelihood, that's an issue that simply will not be resolved.

As I said, there are workarounds already in place--just use an editor that tells you the parameter order as you type and it's a non-issue. But I must grudingly admit that it is most definitely a flaw in the design of the language. But what bothers me more deeply is how the meeting notes seem to indicate that the head developers essentially ignored and discredited this issue without really giving it any weight, as demonstrated by their lack of research. They seem to have rather quickly come to the false conclusion that there were only two functions out of line, when in fact there were many more.

So in conclusion, even I will admit that PHP kind of sucks in regard to the "needle, haystack" issue. But to all you PHP-haters: don't confuse kindness with weakness; it's still definitely my favorite language.

On Saturday I woke up at about 5am. I had absolutely no plans to wake up anywhere near 5am, but I did nonetheless. I never really went to bed the night before; I just fell asleep in my clothes on my futon with my door open. But I was jarred awake by the repeated ringing of my doorbell. I'm a little surprised that I was actually awoken by the doorbell, since usually once I'm asleep nothing can really wake me. I've been known to sleep like a baby right through viscously loud thunderstorms, even with my windows wide open. And perhaps, had I gone to bed regularly, I probably would have slept through the doorbell (especially since my bed is in my loft, one floor up, and I would have closed my door if I had meant to go to bed).

So I wasn't initially very happy about being woken up by some random stranger furiously ringing my doorbell at 5am, as I think I muttered "damn kids" under my breath a few times as I made my way down the stairs. I didn't really know what to expect. I don't have any friends who would have been disrespectful enough to repeatedly ring my bell that early. But I guess the way I've phrased that isn't entirely precise, since I do have friends I can think of who might think it's funny to do so, except all of them are smart enough to know that there are other people living in my house, and thus they wouldn't do so out of respect toward them. So I ruled out the idea that the person at the door would be someone I actually knew, and assumed it was a stranger. And it's not unreasonable to think it would be a stranger. I currently live in an Asher House here in Madison, with the words "Christian Science Organization" on the side of the building in large lettering. And if anyone's looking for refuge, a place with the word "Christian" on it is usually a safe bet.

The thought did briefly cross my mind that whomever was at the door might be someone with malicious intent, although that wasn't a thought I took too seriously. It doesn't hurt anyone to be cautious, but I generally like to give people the benefit of the doubt. When I got down to the door, it was indeed some stranger I had never seen before. He looked early 20s, likely younger than me, and he was dressed well. He looked like a typical college student with nothing out of the ordinary, save the fact that he was randomly ringing my doorbell at 5 in the morning.

He identified himself as Sean, a 21-year old student from Oconomowoc who was visiting a friend for her 21st birthday. (Actually I have no idea whether he spells his name "Sean" or "Shawn," but I went with the former based on popularity.) He explained to me that his group had decided to go driving after indulging in a bit of the giggle juice, and he firmly objected to taking any part in the DUI activity, instead opting to just walk back to whatever apartment he was staying at. Except the only problem was that he got lost and couldn't find his way at all. He gave me a very detailed description of the area around the apartment, but to no avail, as I didn't really recognize what he described. He even alluded to having given the same description to a police officer at some point, but also to no avail.

Throughout the initial part of the conversation, I was naturally trying to size him up a bit, because although he turned out to be completely trustworthy, it never hurts to be prepared. As always, I had thoughts going through my mind about how I might respond if he were to pull a knife or anything similar. I like to think that I'm pretty good at thinking quickly in these situations, although I really can't say that objectively since these worst-case scenarios I speculate about have never become reality in my experience. But the long-and-short of it is that I had absolutely nothing to worry about, as Sean turned out to be a really great guy.

He revealed at one point that his cell phone was completely dead, and seeing that he had a Razr, which everybody and their grandmothers seem to have now (myself included (as in I also have a Razr, not implying that I'm a grandmother)), I grabbed my phone's charger from my room and invited him in. He tried to make a number of calls in succession to friends while it was charging, but no one was picking up. I suppose that shouldn't be too surprising since it was 5 in the morning (although every time I've ever called someone at 5am, they've picked up (yes, I have called people at 5 in the morning)). So I let him just hang out in the common area on the first floor while his phone continued to charge. I asked him if he perhaps had an address or directions stored somewhere in his e-mail that we could look up, but alas, he did not.

So we just sat there and talked for awhile. We actually spoke a little about religion, as he apparently knew a couple of talking points about mine. I was impressed by that, as at this point I'm used to people knowing nothing about my religion and making assumptions left and right. The worst misconception that I've regrettably almost grown used to is when people confuse Christian Science with Scientology. If you ever wanted to get on my bad side real quickly, just try and associate me with Scientology. *cringe* But anyways, he also told me his plans to go to medical school or somesuch, and I ended up sharing the retainer story. Overall, it was a pretty interesting conversation, a good meeting-someone-new experience, but if I could change things, I would have rather it not taken place between 5-6am on a Saturday morning. (And yes, I am going to continually complain about how early that was throughout this post.)

But at about 6, one of his friends returned his call and gave him directions to the apartment. It turns out that it's actually a place that I've been to before; I just couldn't associate his description of the area (which was accurate) with it for some reason. So I offered to drive him over there, and also gave him a religious book. Normally I'm not big on proselytizing, but I know my church likes to give out books as often as possible, and seeing as he showed up, literally lost, to a church-related building at 5 in the morning, it only seemed appropriate. He was very attentive and reassured me a few times how he would definitely read it. He was almost a bit self-effacing in just how grateful he was for me helping him out. I'm sure some of what he said may well have been just playing to the crowd, but I did appreciate his courtesy and humility. It's not as if I would have turned him away in any case, but it just makes things go all the more smoothly when people show gratitude, I think. I felt good about myself for having helped someone in need. And while I would probably have helped him out even if he was rude, just because that's the kind of person I strive to be, he wasn't, and that made it all the better. As I said, he was a great guy. Of all the people to deal with at 5am, I was grateful it was him.

I'm not sure what his particular views on religion are, but it if I had to wager an educated guess, I would say he probably believes in God. He commented a few times on how he thought it was "eerie" that he wound up there, with the subtle implication that perhaps he had been divinely led to my door at 5am. And I mean, I think I was fairly hospitable and I did help him out by charging his phone and whatnot. I guess just coming from my perspective, it seems less impressive than how it must have seemed to him. That's something I've been thinking about a little bit lately in particular: how little things like answering the door and helping someone find their way home can be construed to be incredible acts of kindness, or even salvation in some sense of the word. For me, things like that aren't particularly special; it's just a part of my character. If someone's in need, I help them. I just do that. Along those lines, a week or two ago I apologized to someone I hadn't spoken to in awhile for having said some insulting things. While I can make a pretty solid case that this person deserved it at the time, I realized that I don't want to be the kind of person who holds grudges ever. I always believe that being able to forgive and forget is the best cure to any conflict, so when I thought about some of things I had said, I realized that I wasn't always practicing what I preached.

And apologizing actually went quite well. This person thought it was "amazing" that I actually did that, citing that I probably could have gotten away without doing that. This got me thinking. It took very little physical effort for me to apologize. I did so over AIM, so all I had to do was type out two or three sentences. And with all the typing I do in one day with my computer job, that's nothing at all. But yet, being able to apologize is sometimes seen as "amazing." Don't get me wrong, I think it was the right thing to do, and I was happy to see the gratitude this person expressed. But what I have to wonder is why do we live in a world where being accountable for what you say and do, and just saying you're sorry is something that's extraordinary? Doesn't that imply that holding onto grudges, anger, and resentment is the norm? And doesn't that set the bar pretty low? Similarly, I think Sean regarded my answering the door and charging his phone early in the morning as pretty amazing. But for me it took very little effort. I just had to open the door, plug a cord into the wall, and have a nice conversation.

Either way, it did actually make me feel good about myself to see how grateful Sean was, and to see how receptive the person I apologized to was. And so I lost a little sleep on Saturday morning, so what? Not the end of the world. I more than made up for it anyway, since I ended up napping through most of the afternoon, on and off. So that's my story of the week. I am curious though (and I want more comments on my blog, dangit), would you have answered the door at 5am in downtown Madison?

I'm a math major and a computer science major. Many people might find these sort of fields difficult to understand, obscure, and generally "hard." But I like to think that I'm pretty good at both. I mean, I'm nothing special; there are plenty of mathematicians and programmers out there who have a much deeper understanding of either subject than I ever will. But I like both topics for the sheer elegance and simplicity of them. Math is a logical system, so when you pose a question, generally speaking there is usually one correct answer, while any other answer is false. Of course this depends on the question, but generally you can make a question specific enough in math to allow for this. This isn't always the case in a lot of other fields, like English, psychology, or sociology. I can't even begin to count the number of questions you could formulate in those fields that either don't have answers or have an infinite number of right answers. (In fact, I suspect the sheer quantity of such questions might exceed Aleph null.)

But when people think of math, they seem to put up their guards and immediately label it as something strange and almost esoteric. Like some sort of elusive knowledge for a select part of society, usually comprised of the less socially apt. And often people have a love-hate relationship with math without ever thinking about it (mostly because people never think about anything, on the whole). They hate to have to do math themselves, and think it's stupid and boring. But they simultaneously value it as something that's important for business people to know, something to continue fueling our economy, and something their children should have hammered into them at school. But at the end of the day, it's a black box. People know that it works, but they have no interest in opening it up to see how it works. They'd rather it just keep working without them ever having to even remotely understand why.

This is sad, because mathematics is really a very powerful tool. Not to mention the fact that with enough practice in math, especially in regard to doing proofs, you really can't help but learn to think about the world differently. Math is not some magical invention created by smart people. Math just is, and always has been. It wasn't invented; it was discovered--and it has always existed regardless of human understanding. Math is a system of analysis for being able to describe the world around us, and a system of logic for being able to deduce more complicated truths from various simple ones. But it all has to start somewhere. Any system of math or logic relies on at least a few fundamental axioms of truth. And an axiom is something, by definition, you cannot prove. It's just something you accept to be true, on faith. A lot of very basic systems of math start with some equivalent of the Peano axioms, a set of rules that you just have to accept as true in order to make the system work. And Euclid formulated his five axioms that establish the modern system of geometry.

Interestingly enough, hundreds of mathematicians, including Euclid himself, have tried to prove that his fifth axiom of geometry was redundant and could be proved by using the other four. Ultimately they all failed, as it's fairly well known now that you can definitively prove that such a proof is impossible. His fifth axiom states that for any given line, and any given point not on that line, there is exactly one line going through that point that is parallel to the original line. Try to think about this for a second. Draw a line on a piece of paper, and then draw a dot somewhere off of that line. Can you envision where the parallel line would be? I've drawn a diagram to help.

So I drew my line, like I just instructed myself to do, on the bottom, and a dot on the top. The dashed, grey line through the dot is the only line that is parallel to the original line that goes through the point. This probably seems trite and obvious. Except the fun part comes into play when you learn that the only reason it's the only parallel line at this point is because we said so. There is no property of geometry that can prove this is the only parallel line (or that this line is parallel at all!). We just have to agree that it is. This is something that was thought about by a lot of mathematicians for thousands of years, eventually coming to the conclusion that it's literally impossible to prove that this line is parallel; we just have to say that it is. In fact, we can change this axiom to say that no parallel lines exist, or that there are an infinite number of parallel lines that are all different at any given point, and either way, everything still works. We'd end up with elliptic geometry and hyperbolic geometry, respectively, but both are perfectly valid and consistent forms of geometry. If you're really thinking about this (and if this is new to you), your mind should be imploding right now. Mine did the first time I really thought about this deeply.

It's just so interesting that something that can seem so basic and simple just cannot be proved to be true. In fact, we can give a logical proof that it's actually not possible to prove that it's true. We just have to accept it on faith, to make the system work. Math is an incredibly powerful tool, but it doesn't come from nothing. It always starts with axioms, with accepting a few simple truths on faith. Without that, we have no system at all; we just have literally nothing. And you can't do much with nothing.

I'm a fairly religious person. Some people might not see me that way, but I am (I'm not about to let the limited perspective of a few others redefine my sense of character). But as a religious person, I of course think about how this relates to issues of religion. A lot of people don't know if God exists. And a lot of people don't care either way. I know He exists, but unfortunately there is absolutely no way I can prove this to you. And believe me, I've thought about this quite a bit. I have a lot of respect for the French philosopher René Descartes, the man known for his saying, "I think, therefore I am." To this date, this is perhaps the only statement I have ever encountered that serves as a proof without axiom. This is the only statement I can prove to myself without having to accept anything on faith at all. I know that I am thinking, therefore I know that I exist. Now let me clarify: there is absolutely no way I can prove to you that I exist, but I can prove it to myself, and that's good enough for me. Assuming that you also exist (which I can't really take for granted), you can probably prove to yourself that you similarly exist. But don't even think about trying to prove it to me, because you can't. You could very well be a figment of my imagination in a completely solipsist world. And there's no way you can prove otherwise to me.

Descartes also went on to give his own logical "proof" for the existence of God. Sadly, it's flawed. It's not an absolute proof, because it relies on accepting a few axioms here and there, on faith. If you reject these axioms, the proof falls apart. Quite simply, using pure logic, there is absolutely no way to prove the existence of God. It just cannot be done. But that's not the point at all of logic, to me. I do believe in God, even though I know that I cannot prove His existence using mathematics and logic. I believe He created this whole system of math and logic that I'm discussing, although "created" is kind of a misleading term, since I believe that He and all His creations have existed without beginning nor end. I don't believe in some kind of big bang starting point, I just believe everything always was, and God was/is the source. You don't have to agree, and I'm not about to get into an argument one way or the other with you about it, because nobody would ever win that argument. When I was younger and still fairly new to the whole concept of debate, I welcomed any sort of intelligent argument, especially religious ones. But I learned quickly that those sort of arguments never go anywhere, and too often degenerate into name-calling by at least one party, and then to some sort of authoritarian insistence on conformity, at the risk of damnation. That's not the point at all of having an open discussion on religion to me, so I've been conditioned to want to avoid broaching that subject with most people, mostly in the interest of avoiding unnecessary confrontation and malice.

But I believe in God, and I believe She believes in you, too, regardless of who you are or what you think of Her. All the same, someone can scream all day, everyday, at the top of their lungs that 2 + 2 = 5. But this doesn't make any difference at all. It has no effect whatsoever on the Truth that 2 + 2 still equals 4. No matter what anyone says in error about the Truth does not even begin to affect the constancy of the Truth, even in the slightest way. It's just simply human error. I feel the same way about God. I think I also take a view of God as perhaps more compassionate and tolerant than I think a lot of people view Her. Some people see god as a wrathful deity, but that just doesn't add up at all to me, especially with Jesus' recurring message of Love, Love, Love. The lady who founded my church (or more accurately, the church that I most often identify with) gave a definition for the word miracle that I really like: "That which is divinely natural, but must be learned humanly; a phenomenon of Science." I just like the thought that miracles are natural, part of God's law, if you will. Most people think of miracles as things that rarely ever happen, but I believe that they happen all the time, all over the place, but just go unnoticed or unappreciated.

But anyways, I do want to limit the scope of this post so I don't start going off on wild tangents, so back to math and logic. I can't prove that God exists. But I don't need to prove it, not to you or to myself. I mean, I already know that I literally can't prove it using just a system of logic, so I'm not about to waste time trying. But for me, it's just something I know. I have my reasons, even if they're not logical proofs. It's a fundamental axiom that I accept and try to base my life off of. I make mistakes, and sometimes I don't get all the right answers on my homework, but mistakes are corrected and I'm given new (and more difficult) problems and challenges to solve. And through practice, I learn to get better at them. Really what I'm saying is that my life is a never-ending math homework assignment that I can't afford not to do. I do believe it's possible to live a good, moral life without accepting God's existence as a fundamental axiom. And likewise, I know it's possible to live a terrible and miserable life all the while believing in some kind of god. But fundamentally, I believe there is an absolute Truth behind it all, even if I can't prove that using the tools I've been given. I believe in the kind of absolute Truth that exists even if everyone in the world decides to say it doesn't.

So those are my thoughts. As always, I hope they make sense, and even more I hope somebody out there can find them helpful. It's certainly not my intention to offend anybody, or to force-feed religion deep down anyone's metaphorical throat, but I don't think I have done that. (And even if you think I have, that's not my intent.) These are just my thoughts on the matter; take 'em or leave 'em. Besides, this is my blog, so I get to write what I want.

I dream pretty regularly. Well, I mean, technically everyone dreams every night, but what I mean to say is that I remember my dreams (or at least the last dream of the night) with pretty regular frequency. And they are sometimes strange. Like last night, I dreamt that I was at Six Flags, on a date with a certain girl, which led up to a kiss. Except the whole time I was aware that it was a dream, but simultaneously not completely aware that it was a dream. Basically, I knew that I pretty much had complete control over the universe I was perceiving at that moment, but I didn't think of it as a dream; it seemed real (because once you know that you really are dreaming, it all just seems trite). And maybe this is just the ridiculous perfectionist in me shining through, but shortly after kissing her, I decided that I wasn't wholly satisfied with how the date went, so I rewound a bit and started to redo things. But apparently that was a bad idea, because the second time I went in for a kiss, her face transformed into the face of a horrible demon with bad hair.

I'm pretty sure that there was a lot more to it as well, but unfortunately I often have the same problem with dreams that Randall Munroe described very succinctly in his web comic. And I'm not sure how to interpret that one, either. I'm thinking that either 1) it has no deeper meaning, 2) I am way too much of a perfectionist, and I should not try to do things over again at the risk of people I know literally turning into demons, or 3) this particular girl I was thinking of is actually a succubus. (Leaning toward #1.)

But that's certainly not the strangest dream I've ever had. There was the time that I was teaching a high school home economics class--except I was teaching them how to sing opera--alongside with Dr. Cox and Dr. Kelso from Scrubs. Since it was a home ec class, they had microwaves and stoves and whatnot situated in the classroom. Those students sitting by the stoves, which were located in the back, took the lower parts, naturally. And then there was the time when I was young that I had a dream that I was falling off a cliff, only to suddenly wake up to the fact that I was no longer in the top bunk of my bed, but instead on the floor. And my arm hurt. That sucked. Or another dream I still remember from when I was young, in which I was playing with flowers on what was essentially a comet (but actually just a broken off piece of the Earth) with an eco-dome containing a decent sized grassy field and holding in all the oxygen. Then all of a sudden some WWII fighter planes started dropping bombs, and I could no longer feel my legs and was unable to walk. I remember getting up out of bed and walking into my parent's room, crying, and yelling, "Mom! I can't walk! I can't walk!" I would say I was still about 65% asleep as I yelled that (while walking).

And then a few years ago I started having infidelity dreams that scared the shit out of me for awhile, because that's not something I would even dream about doing in a million years (or so I thought). I've also had some pretty creepy dreams, where I've done terrible, terrible things that would never happen in real life. All I really learned from those are that you can't really control the dreams you have, so even if dream-Gordon can be a real dick sometimes, real-Gordon doesn't have to be. On the other side of the spectrum, every once in awhile I get sex dreams. Those are usually fun.

And then there was the time I had a dream in which Catholicism became the dominant religion on the planet in the future, completely eliminating anyone not in the faith or assimilating them into it. And since it was the future, we had pretty much exhausted the planet of all its natural resources and moved on to space exploration, while the Vatican had left two robots in charge of resuscitating the Earth. (I swear on my honor as an Eagle Scout that I had this dream before ever hearing of WALL-E, by the way.) One of the robots was quite large, bulky, and strong, but somewhat limited in his mobility and reach because of his size. The other robot was small, quick, feisty and could fly. And for some reason, something had malfunctioned in the latter robot so that it was a little bit crazy and decided to live on the top of a tall, vertical filing cabinet. Interestingly enough, this filing cabinet contained a super concentrated explosive device in the top drawer capable of completely and forever eliminating the entire universe. And it was just out of reach of the bigger, sane robot. And since the smaller robot was crazy, he kept almost accidentally setting it off. This sent the larger robot into a panic several times. I remember him saying things like, "DO YOU HATE JESUS?!" I remember this one pretty vividly, because I wrote it down right after waking up, immediately thinking, "that would be a fantastic idea for a cartoon."

But yeah. I have strange dreams. Leave a comment if you want to see if you can one-up me with your own stories of strange dreams, or if you want to offer psychoanalysis on any of mine.

Abstract: You're not always right. People are killing themselves, so stop being so freaking stubborn about whatever it is you're so sure of and stop being an elitist prick. Yes, you.

1 in 119 deaths is a suicide. That means that of the 6½-billion people in the world, 55-million would rather die and forfeit the gift of life than continue trudging on. That is a very big number. It's not as big as cancer, which claims 1 in 7, but you might say that it's still kind of a problem. And suicide rates in Japan are skyrocketing, especially among men. Those kind of figures shock and abhor me, but at the same time (believe it or not), they don't really surprise too much. Fundamentally, I think that society, and indeed certain aspects of human nature, are to blame for such high numbers. And the cynic in me truly does not believe this is a problem that will ever get solved. I mean, let's face it: history has been repeating itself for a really long time. Are things really much different from how they were millenia ago? Are people much different? The problems seem just as fierce as they ever were. But I'm not for a second suggesting that these problems should be ignored. Quite to the contrary, with so many people killing themselves, this is not really a good topic to be apathetic about.

But I've been thinking lately that the whole approach to "handling" things like this is fundamentally flawed, and the approach itself reflects and reveals deeper problems of human nature. And interestingly enough, it also is somewhat analogous to quantum physics. Let me explain. Imagine that you have Person A, who is "suicidal". When people talk about Person A, what is usually discussed are the problems (s)he is having in terms of mental illness, implying that there's something defective about Person A, thereby destroying or inhibiting his/her will to live. But in having such a discussion, the impact and judgment of Person B on Person A is completely overlooked. "Person B" is the person who is doing the discussing and analyzing of Person A, and labeling him/her as mentally ill. And perhaps it's not semantically correct to use the term "Person B," since this is generally more representative of a group of people rather than a single individual solely responsible for diagnosis. But I'm going to stick with the simpler term for the sake of argument. Person B examines the suicidal tendencies in Person A as if they were an unbiased observer (especially if Person B is a psychologist), but I don't think this is quite the correct thing to do. I'll try to explain.

In quantum physics, you learn that the act of observing can fundamentally alter the behavior of whatever is being observed. I found a very interesting video that explains this as clearly as possible that I recommend you check out. The format is pretty weird, with a ridiculous, CGI, superhero professor, but the explanation is quite elaborate and easy to follow. But back on track: I believe that the mere act of observing, analyzing, and categorizing another human being can fundamentally alter that human being's behavior. This is because the idea that one human being (Person B) can analyze and subsequently "fix" another (Person A) fundamentally operates from the naive model that Person A is simply an object to be repaired, which ironically makes it easy to forget that Person A is actually a human being. Sucidial thoughts are viewed as strictly incorrect and something to be resolved, when in fact they may just be normal behavior for someone under a lot of duress. This doesn't mean that I think suicidal thoughts in anyone are a good thing, but it does mean that I believe a person isn't necessarily "ill" or "flawed" just because said thoughts exist, but rather they may be responding to an excess of negative stimuli (which is not necessarily easily perceived by an outside observer) in a mostly natural way.

But the model we have inadvertently set up implies that the mere existence of negative thoughts implies that Person A is a mistake to be corrected, whether through conformity to behavioral norms even when this may not be in his/her best interest, or through heavy medication. This affirms an implicit judgment that Person A is flawed. But I would be more inclined to question any such judgment passed on Person A, and furthermore I would suggest that this norm of categorizing Person A as sick or flawed can do more harm than good to A's psyche in the long run. Person A may start to accept whatever labels (s)he has been assigned, and either consciously or unconsciously come to accept them, somewhat akin to a self-fulfilling prophecy. And to expound a bit more on my previous reference to quantum physics, we mustn't forget that Person A is constantly analyzing and observing everything that Person B is doing as well. Even with a degree in psychology or what have you, you still end up with (at least) two human beings analyzing each other.

Person A's analysis may not be well-formed, or even intentional, but generally speaking, as humans we care about what others think of us. We have a sense of "self image," which as I have witnessed can be over exaggerated in a good number of people. When Person A learns of whatever discoveries B has made, (s)he will likely take these to heart. That doesn't mean the discoveries are invalid, but I am suggesting that they can have an unintended impact. This is because human beings aren't lab rats and never will be. I don't believe it's possible to examine someone else's psyche without having some sort of impact on it, because we are self aware, and conscious of whatever analysis is taking place. As mentioned in the video, electrons behave differently depending on how you look at them. When you view them in a way in which you would expect to see particles, you get particles. And when you look at them looking for waves, you get waves. (Particles and waves behave in completely different ways, in case you didn't watch the video above).

But getting back to another concept I mentioned: again, the mere existence of suicidal thoughts does not necessarily mean that a person is mentally ill, no matter how elaborate. The entire concept of mental illness is a hard one to approach, since it is entirely a human construct. From a materialist standpoint, human beings are composed of blood, bones, neurons, and so forth, and this is completely responsible for human life and behavior. The more popular, dualist view asserts that in addition to these components of the body, there is also a mind and a soul, independent of the body but housed in it. The theory I generally subscribe to is more idealist in nature, but expounding on that here would detract from the goal of this post. But both dualism and idealism suggest that the mind and consciousness is at least not necessarily governed solely by hormones and random synapses firing in the brain, but instead that the human mind may be at least somewhat transient of the physical. If this is the case, that human beings are more than just animals or complex wiring, then the entire concept of mental illness, which is a fundamentally materialist view, is flawed. How are we to judge that a person's mind is "broken"? And aren't we just ultimately asserting that others should conform to whatever beliefs and behaviors we hand select? From the materialist standpoint that the mind is nothing more than chemicals, the ultimate result is that there are strict ways of measuring and balancing one's mind. But if we believe even for a second that the mind is not a slave to the body, but instead the other way around, there is ultimately no way to accurately and consistently measure whether a mind is "right" or "wrong."

A common symptom of depression is feeling that no one really understands or can empathize with the negative feelings a person is going through. I think this is absolutely accurate, but perhaps not for the same reasons as might be expected. One might expect that these feelings of longing for the empathy and understanding that seem to be lacking do exist, but that the person is just blind to the fact that there are others around who can understand. But instead, I think these feelings are often genuine. I believe that all men are created equal, but at the same time everyone is on their own unique path. And every once and awhile someone has to walk up a path that is at a much steeper incline than any of the other paths in sight. So feeling a lack of empathy may be accurate, because quite simply, it may be the case that no one else around has ever really had to walk that same path.

The trouble with this is that people can be cocky bastards. (I know this well, because I know that I can be a cocky bastard myself.) People make assumptions all the time, often because they can't directly perceive whatever problems another person may be going through, or they may simply judge them to not be "real" problems. And when dealing with depression or suicide, some of the worst things you can do are to ignore the person, avoid the person, or just decide that whatever they're feeling is unimportant (the chorus to "Razorblade" comes to mind). Just because someone's not bleeding doesn't mean that they're not feeling pain. And it is quite possible that they're undergoing more pain than you could possibly imagine. But when you can't see that on the surface level, you sometimes view it as insignificant, and then the problem gets ignored.

Buddhists teach that life is suffering, and I'm you've all heard the phrase "ignorance is bliss." It is my hypothesis that a large majority of people are simply ignorantly happy. That is to say that a lot of people are essentially privileged and haven't had to confront any sort of real emotional pain. Some people endure and become stronger. Paul the apostle said that he took "pleasure in infirmities, reproaches, necessities, persecutions, and distresses" because "for when [he] was weak, then [he] was strong." Essentially what that's saying is that "whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger." The problem with this is that for some people, it (emotional pain or hardship) does kill them--hence the huge suicide rate. Some people just don't feel strong enough and give up. Psychology and psychiatry are a good attempt to alleviate this problem, but as stated repeatedly, this problem will continue to persist so long as we have a model that supports it (which very well may be forever). Psychology can help, but it's not the final answer in my opinion. There is, however, a solution, a cure. In fact, it's been stated again and again by many different people throughout history. But part of the reason it keeps getting parroted so is because, on the whole, no one ever really listens. The version of this "solution" that I will cite here is the command that Jesus gave to love one another unconditionally and to forgive all wrongdoings done to you. Everyone is a human being, and everyone is fundamentally the same. I do believe in God, and if you don't I hope that you can still draw some sort of meaningful parallel from what I'm saying nonetheless. One of the first lessons I was taught in Sunday School is that we are all children of the same, one God, and that we reflected and expressed His qualities in our own unique ways. God could be likened unto the sun, and each one of us a sunbeam--a ray of light. We all express the same source, and together we comprise all of the light in the world, but at the same time we all each have our own differences and unique assortment of qualities. This is a simple concept for a child to accept, and an easy concept for an adult to forget.

How many people made you angry today? Did someone cut you off in traffic, or did another person insult you, or did someone else do something you perceived as hostile, awful, bad? What have they been going through in their lives? Chances are you don't know. And even if you do know, you don't really know. What if the person who cut you off in traffic just walked in on a cheating spouse the previous night? Or what if the person who insulted you was inadvertently reminded of repressed and painful memories of an abusive parent? My point is that you don't know what other people are experiencing, even (and especially) when you think you do. You only get to view things from your own point of view, and it's not doing anyone else any good to make assumptions about their experiences even if they do offend you somehow. You don't know what they're thinking, and you don't get to know what they're thinking. And you don't get to control anyone else (even though we all try to), and it is completely unfair to expect them to act in whatever specific way you prescribe just because it's convenient for you. Someone might insult you and come off as a total dick, but that doesn't mean that they're not feeling pain or that their life is somehow less significant than your's. The best advice I can offer is to mind your own business, don't ever make assumptions about a person's character, and for Christ's sake don't sweat the small stuff--be eager to forgive.

And that is just a general piece of advice for how to treat anyone. Even if a person looks happy on the outside to you, you still should be able to acknowledge that you have absolutely no idea what they're thinking or feeling. You simply don't know, and you're not going to. Sometimes we can have a pretty good idea, especially if it's a person you know and you think you've gone through similar experiences. Communicating and sharing experiences (and how we got through them) is vital for "mental health," because it offers the understanding and empathy that people yearn for when they're hurting. But you're not always going to be able to relate, because quite simply, you haven't walked in anyone else's shoes but your own and sometimes the difference in shoe sizes is vast. And lastly, if someone ever comes to you for help, for Christ's sake do not ignore them. They came to YOU, and chances are they did so for a reason. They may not even fully understand that reason, or be able to articulate it clearly, but it still exists. If someone comes to you for help, the WORST thing by far you can do is deny them whatever help they're looking for. Just because YOU haven't experienced whatever pain they're claiming to feel doesn't mean it doesn't exist. In all likelihood, whatever they're claiming is likely far beyond what you have ever experienced, but it's hard to recognize what you haven't experienced first hand.

So rather than make assumptions, or vilify the person's character, just help them. Again, if someone's come to you looking for help, they don't want to be ignored or deferred. They don't care if you're not "qualified"; there is no such thing as "qualified." Is it that radical of a concept to help a person in need? (Unfortunately, yes it is; see previous post on Good Samaritans.) Even if someone has insulted or offended you (and perhaps especially when someone has done so), it is an important life lesson to learn to just let go of the drive for vengeance. Just let go and turn the other cheek, and actually consider the thought of helping one another rather than spiraling further into meaningless, perpetual arguments and fights. Learn to not be offended, and instead to just love. A pronounced example of two sides who can only think about their own well being and not for a second consider the other position is the conflict in the Middle East. How many millenia has that been going on for? It is a never-ending "he started it" sort of battle. Just let go. Forgive and forget. That is the answer. And that is of course, the answer that no one will listen to. But if we want reform, we need to learn to truly let go of any elitist, exclusionary mindset and just care about other people.