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Tuesday, Jan 16, 2001
January 16, 2001
Cognitive Dissonance
It's interesting the way unrelated soundtracks can illuminate a video differently than the intented soundtrack does.
Visual: CNN airing the senate confirmation hearing for the attorney general designee. A life-like Senator Strom "Orange Head" Thurmond asking Senator John "Crypto-bigot" Ashcroft about enforcement of drug laws.
Aural: KFJC (the fine 89) playing the Cramps' "New Kind of Kick" from the landmark album, Bad Music for Bad People.
Im lookin Im lookin Im lookin Im lookin to fiiiiiiiiiiind ... somethin I aint had before
January 8, 2001
Late Summer in Boston
Even as a wee lad, I thought Robert Frost’s “The Road Not Taken” was a bit smug. The idea that life’s choices are as distinct as a fork in the road seems overly simplistic. Too often, we are like oblivious drivers whizzing past life’s options. Further, the certitude implied in the final line seems a bit cocksure. We may have certainty about some decisions, but the random events of life all too frequently overturn good intentions.
Having said that, Richard and Jennifer represent the road-not-taken in my early adulthood. In my twenties, I was totally unready for the responsibilities of marriage, and even more unready for the responsibilities of procreation. Richard and Jennifer were happily married, and had moved to California from the mid-west for Richard’s first engineering job after graduation. I had left Austin after graduation and also came to the high-tech promised land. We met while Richard and I were under the employ of a gentle pacifist who ran an R&D department in a major military-industrial company.
Kirby liked to hire college kids. I think he favored their energy, creativity, and ability to use new technology. The “new kids” working for Kirby and a few of his peers didn’t fit the old line management style of the retired military men in middle management. Kirby was amazingly effective at shielding the irreverent, cartoon-drawing, and sometimes sarcastic college kids in his department from the ire of the ex-military types who favored submission over effectiveness. But fundamentally, it was a losing proposition. For several of us, including Richard and I, the pursuit of more sophisticated war toys could never be a way of life.
Richard and Jennifer left Gimongous Corp. (Military Division) for a telecom job in Boston, and I left Gimongous for the commercial sector in Silicon Valley. With my typical cheeky cynicism, I crafted a flyer for my going away lunch. It was boldly headlined, “Mark is going commercial!!!”. This MacDraw masterpiece included a decorative border of cartoon military vehicles to represent the old and another border of cartoon poplar trees to represent my new job outside of the military-industrial complex.
We’ve maintained sporadic contact. Richard and Jennifer have most of their family east of the Mississippi, and don’t get out to the west much. I’ve been too much of a workaholic to get to Boston much. However, my cross-country trip seemed like an excellent opportunity to renew.
Their little boy has some learning difficulties. The struggle to find a suitable situation for this marvelous child has been a central issue in their lives. Richard and Jennifer have been very diligent, and very vocal to improve the lot of their child and others like him.
Richard maintains an extensive informational web site, has written editorials, has done editorials on television, has testified to the state government, and more. In a quick search, I easily found a dozen references on the web, including his own site.
http://members.tripod.com/RSaffran/
This battle for the quality of their child’s life has pitted them against some deep and intractable ignorance in the educational system. It’s not only churches that idolize their own dogma.
During the morning rush to get prepared, their boy seemed like a typical shy boy early in his elementary school career. The school year had just started by the time I arrived, so everone was getting used to the new routine. After a full day at school, and an intensive session of tutoring after school, he seemed a bit tired. I hung around town most evenings so he wouldn't have to make the extra effort of socializing with a stranger at the dinner table at the end of a tiring day.
They are also blessed with a little girl. She was a new kindergartener during my visit, and had half days at school during the afternoon. Since I’m normally rather slow to get rolling in the morning, I sometimes watched TV in the morning with Jennifer and the little girl while I ate my breakfast. It turns out we are all Tellytubby fans. “Eh-oh!”
As I saw the joys and struggles they had with each child, I was amazed by the depth of their love, dedication and patience. I was sooooo right when I thought I was unready for children during my twenties. I was barely fit to raise myself during those years.
January 4, 2001
The Return
My posts mysteriously faded away for the second half of the cross-country trip. I've needed to spend some time digesting the events before writing, but now I believe I'm ready. This post is more of an intro than an actual journal entry, but there's more to come.
Walkabout
The subtitle of my page uses an Aussie word, "walkabout". This has a couple of related but distinct meanings. To elucidate, below is a quotation from a web encyclopedia of Aboriginal information.
Going Walkabout (or gone Walkabout) is a derogatory expression that 'Whitemen' coined to describe what they considered to be laziness on the part of Aborigines. The expression originated during the late 1800s / early 1900s at a time when Aborigines were 'working' on farms, cattle or sheep stations and left their 'employment' by simply walking-into-the-bush. Aborigines were not working for money, but received food and clothing. When they 'disappeared' into the bush this was seen as being a lack of gratitude and commitment to work.
In reality the Australian Aborigines have been a nomadic race for thousands of years and regularly moved 'camp' to follow food and cultural cycles. For example the first settlers in many areas observed the people striving to live a traditional lifestyle that included Aboriginal males undertaking 'cultural journeys' at various times - particularly to visit others for the purpose of corroborees or as some Whitemen said: 'to learn new songs'.
However this was never described as 'going walkabout'.
"Gone walkabout" is quite applicable to my circumstances, since on June 19, 2000 I wandered away from the working world.
Perhaps this is a good time to insert a quotation from one of the many excellent books in the house of my friend Beth of Greenwich Village.
It's okay to do nothing. We are compelled in the Western culture to have a plan, to execute, to move on some orderly schedule. That's baloney! It's okay to do nothing. Sometimes you'll infuriate your western counterpart. They'll think you don't care or that you have a secret. The reality is that you do have a secret.
Gene Leluche, Wintu, 1992
From Words of Power, Voices from Indian America
"Walkabout" has picked up a second meaning, the cultural journey mentioned by the encyclopedia quotation above. Perhaps this connotation was popularized by a 1971 movie of that name. When I picked the subtitle, I had in mind an external journey that would trigger an internal journey.
It worked.
States
Just before leaving the NYC area in September, I had a series of intense dreams.
Here's the most important episode of those dreams: I visualized an area that looked like the large concourse/shopping mall beneath the World Trade center. I recognized the place, but only through a rapidly moving and visually intense set of screens or filters. These images were reminiscent of the many abstract impressionist paintings I had seen in the preceding two weeks. The screens delighted the eye, while obscuring the place I was in.
I had a sense of purpose, but was unaware of the purpose. I saw and heard someone, who was trying urgently to communicate. Eventually the meaning became clear, "Come this way, quickly." She wanted me to go down into a subway tunnel. The implication was a journey through an area below the conscious.
The abstract impressionist screens were unrelenting, and made perceptions and movement difficult. Soon, she said, "It's too late", and disappeared down the stairwell. The implication was that I was too late for that train, but there's always another.
About a week later, outside of Niagra Falls, I was ready to visit the subterranean vault which had been intimated in the dream. This was the internal journey of the Walkabout. This was a journey which called into question all that I am.
Consciousness
Today I just started reading a book on cognitive neuroscience called "The Feeling of What Happens -- Body and Emotion in the Making of Consciousness". I'm only a third of the way through it, but already think it's one of the best brain/mind books I've read.
Here's a quotation:
I suspect consciousness prevailed in evolution because knowing the feelings caused by emotions was so indispensable for the art of life, and because the art of life has been such a success in the history of nature. But I will not mind if you prefer to give my words a twist and say that consciousness was invented so that we could know life. The wording is not scientifically correct, of course, but I like it.
I quoted the paragraph to leave the nerdy context intact, but here's the kernel:
Consciousness was invented so that we could know life.
The internal journey brought the light of consciousness to some old events and emotions which had been hidden from consideration. This journey, and the ensuing conscious consideration were invented so that I could know my own life more completely.
Words
I've been thinking about this subject with great intensity for a few months, and have told my tale to a few. But each time I re-tell, I revisit the words I use. The various connotations each word can assume bring different shades of meaning.
The words also have an internal effect. The words I use to I describe an experience affect how I think about that experience, and shape the way I record my history. Considering how to describe something, therefore changes my own understanding of it, sometimes profoundly.
Jim of New Orleans once said to me, "One of the best parts of a journey is the experience of explaining yourself to others."
I concur.