The Tragedies of Solitude

By now we've all heard about the tragedy in Isla Vista over the weekend.  We've all heard about Elliot Rodger, the troubled 22-year-old who went on a shooting spree that killed at least six people before killing himself.  We've over-heard of it, and we're sick of thinking about it.  I know that I, personally, look forward to the next full day I can go without thinking about this tragedy and others like it.

But that day has not yet come, at least not for me.  There's something present in the media coverage of this particular mass shooting that wasn't there in some of the other recent ones.  (Caveat: I hate that we live in a world where I can compare mass shootings in a manner similar to natural disasters or national elections: they impact us all and come almost as frequently.)  Various articles written about Rodger--specifically those that chronicle his history of simultaneously hating and lusting after women--bring up his participation in various forums on the internet, most notably one called PUAhate.com (I believe it has been taken down this week?  I can't find it, anyway).  For more on what PUAhate is and how Rodger was involved, click here, here, or here.

I don't want to get into the particulars of PUAhate.com, especially since I haven't been able to look at the site myself. I don't believe that Pick-up artists or their haters are responsible for the lives that Rodger took.  I don't believe gun owners are responsible for the lives that Rodger took.  I don't believe that some poor model is responsible for the lives that Rodger took.  I know that Elliot Rodger is responsible for his actions and that, beyond the man himself, the system of influences that lead him to make the choices he did is too complex to be able to point at a single element of his life and call it the primary culprit.

Nonetheless, I think that this tragedy should cause us to look more carefully at our lives on the internet.  I've outlined my thoughts on internet social life before, and I've even written on this blog about the importance of public goods as a method of keeping people from losing touch with other people.  Elliot Rodger brings these previous thoughts of mine back to the forefront of my mind, and suddenly, I feel like there are few greater causes to champion than those of community membership and worldly citizenship.

The other day, while reading one of the aforementioned articles about Rodger's PUAhate.com involvement, I stumbled upon WizardChan.org.  (Caveat: I urge you not to go there yourself unless and until you're fully emotionally prepared for it; I can say that I wasn't ready for the hate and fear that I met there, and it has greatly and negatively affected me this week.)  WizardChan.org is a forum website populated primarily by men who seem to be aged from teens to upper-twenties, perhaps older.  From what I've read on the site, these men hang a large portion of their identity on the fact that they are virgins and that that separates them from society in a large, often crippling way.  They call themselves Wizards, which is where the name of the site comes from, and they refer to other people (I suppose under the assumption that all other people, even who just don't consider their sexual-inactivity to be fundamental to their being, are sexually active) as "normies."

All of that, taken by itself, sounds pretty harmless, if a bit unfortunate and strange.  I can't speak to why these men think that their virginity is such an enormous and terrible part of their lives, and I don't know what makes these men choose to form a community around such a trait, but those oddities are not things I want to talk about here.

If you've been to WizardChan or other sites like it--sites (most often forum sites) based around one strangely specific common interest, personality trait, etc.--you'll know that they've developed their own language, their own etiquette, their own systems of self-moderation and social hierarchies.  They are not unsophisticated communities.  Users on these sites are often more entrenched in the forum life than, say, I am on the forum sites I've used to find answers to questions about how to jump my Prius' battery, change out the HD on my laptop, or get emoji on my phone.  

If you've been to WizardChan or other sites like it--many of the above sites, but specifically the ones with a large population of very negative, frightening, even at times violent and threatening posts--you know that these communities are not overall friendly.  The user base is not necessarily made up entirely of people who, like Elliot Rodger, will act on violent thoughts and words, but the threatening nature of the forums cannot be denied.  WizardChan is full of posts spewing hatred and bitterness towards "normies," many of which condone violence and rape in an offhand, desensitized manner.

WizardChan makes me physically sick.  Sick because I cannot square the circle of these people's perspective on life and other people.  Sick because I want so badly for there to be a way to destroy the lens of hate and fear that they use to see the world.  Sick because, even those these people are in the minority, I fear meeting them in the real world and possibly becoming one of the "whores" they rail against, simply because I made pleasant conversation with no intention of turning it into a romantic or sexual interaction.

But even forums without an outright violent bend give me considerable pause.  This is a livejournal post from years ago that hearkens back to an old forum I used to frequent: AntiShurtugal.  The forum itself is no longer running, but it was a bastion of editorials and conversations discussing, negatively, Christopher Paolini's Inheritance series of books.  Some time in high school, I went from moderately liking Eragon and its sequels to absolutely detesting them.  (For the record, I believe it was a relatively slow descent, and it probably had at least a little to do with the fact that I was a teenaged writer who felt trapped in an inability to publish my books.)  I briefly found a community of like-minded people in AntiShurtugal: these people would write long articles analyzing the series piece by piece, tearing it apart for its lack of artistry, for its plot holes and inconsistencies, and doing so joyfully.  I don't know that I made many contributions, but I consumed others' like water in a desert.

I had friends in real life who shared my dislike of Eragon, but commiserations with them never got me very far: it wasn't a conversation they wanted to belabor because it just wasn't as important to them as it was to me.  Had there been no AntiShurtugal, I honestly might not have hated Eragon as much as I did, since hatred takes energy, and AntiShurtugal was the only renewable source I had.

And that's why specific community forum sites on the internet always scare me to a degree.  Even if a forum site were based around unicorns and butterflies and making vegan gluten free candies to give to homeless veterans, I would worry about its members.  These internet communities that base themselves around what might otherwise be a single, even unimportant facet of a human life give those facets greater importance than they would otherwise be able to sustain.  Thus, they warp the users' perspectives of the world; it was easy to forget that Eragon wasn't universally hated and that there were legitimate reasons to enjoy the series, because I spent so much of my time around people who took its lack of quality for granted.  

Forming communities on the internet is not in and of itself a bad thing.  When paired with healthy and full lives spent with real people in the real world, especially with people who think differently and have different interests and beliefs than we do, internet communities can be pleasant and even important places in society. 

But even the best internet communities can cultivate dark sides full of hate and bitterness that spreads negative thoughts and worldviews.  I'd like to reiterate that I don't think that PUAhate or WizardChan or their users are responsible for Elliot Rodger's actions.  But they are responsible for making sure they don't allow themselves to follow in his footsteps.  Hate and anger like Rodger's doesn't need mental illness in order to be unhealthy and lead to tragedy.  And lives of solitude spent finding solace in like-minded lonely people on the internet doesn't need much help to foster such hate and anger.

Games We Play

I did it again.  I wrote a post for The Post Calvin.  It's inspired by my recent "spring break" working at the Boys and Girls Club.  That spring "break" is another post for another time.

The Cycle of Grocery Stores

Yet again, I come here merely to point you elsewhere.  Specifically, I direct you to my post on The Post Calvin where I will attempt to woo you with elegantly crafted prose about the Dominick's down the street from my high school.

Good, Old-Fashioned, Volunteerism

I work at my local chapter of The Boys and Girls Clubs of America.  It's a non-profit, and it's located really close to a lot of colleges and universities, so we see a pretty steady stream of volunteers, especially throughout the school year.

Specifically, I work in the Homework Room.  We get kids of all ages and all levels and most neighboring schools, so there's a lot to deal with from an educational perspective, and it can be pretty chaotic.  When we don't get any volunteers, either because the college kids are on break or because it's just a slow day, we really feel it, so I am always over the moon to have any volunteers.  Even if they can't help the kids with homework because they don't know how to do it (trying to learn "new math" as a 22-year-old can be harder thing than you'd think), they're usually pretty good at distracting the rowdier kids enough until someone can help them.

Every once in a while, though, we'll get those kinds of volunteers.  If you work with a lot of volunteers, you probably know the volunteers I'm talking about.  Maybe they're lazy, or maybe they're not.  Maybe they're smart, or maybe they're not.  Maybe they have good intentions, or maybe they don't.  Maybe they're a know-it-all or a type-A personality, or maybe they're not.  Whatever the reason, they make my job harder or less pleasant.

[I want to reiterate: I am always glad to have volunteers.  Even "those" kinds.  Just because they make my day more difficult doesn't mean they aren't an asset.

However, if, after I describe my experiences with "those" kinds of volunteers, you realize that you frequently are one, I would highly encourage you to reevaluate your methods and change the way you interact at your chosen institutions of pro bono employment. ]

So, forthwith, I present to you, for your consideration, a list of things not to do as a volunteer.  It is probably not exhaustive.

-----

1. Think yourself the expert

At the club we often get college students who are studying education and need volunteer hours with elementary-school kids to graduate or to apply to grad school.  Some of them seem to be under the impression that the club does not have any education professionals, nor has it ever had any education professionals, and so they consider themselves mana from heaven, a light in the dark place, Irish Spring amongst the unwashed masses.

Without asking, they try to run things or turn our Homework Room into their ideal classroom (which won't work; believe me, I've naïvely tried).  They give unsolicited advice about this and that, and offer to help make the Homework Room into a more orderly and scholarly environment.  They are appalled by the students' behavior and take it upon themselves to right the wrong of the leadership that has come before.

If these people come back more than once, I would listen to them more readily.  If they invested in these kids for more than just two hours a semester, I would take their desired instructional role more seriously.  If their answer to the question, "How often do you think you'll volunteer here?" were something other than "Oh, I'm really not sure; my schedule is so hectic these days," I might not be annoyed that they think they can do in one day what I haven't been able to do in months.

2. Make a mess and leave

I mean this both physically and metaphorically.  Some volunteers use the books in the Homework Room to read to the kindergarten girls.  There are puzzles on the bookshelves, too, and some counting games.  The volunteers will take over the table by the door and spread out their educational goodies and play with the kids for all of five minutes before the kids get antsy, as they are wont to do, and ask them to go open the art room or the game room or the gym.  Sometimes, one person will stay behind and at least put the supplies back in some semblance of order, but many times, they will just leave that table a mess.

Sometimes a volunteer will be really popular with some of the kids.  If the volunteer is into sports, some kids will want them to play them in basketball.  If the volunteer has really nice hair, some kids will spend some time playing with it.  That's all fine and good.  But when a volunteer comes into the Homework Room to help kids with homework, it is advisable that the students finish their work before they run off to play. That's just common sense, but it's also courtesy to me and the other staff members who have to deal with the students who come in fifteen minutes before closing and ask us to help them with their mountains (because these kids really do get a lot) of homework because they haven't done it yet.

3. If there is a problem that you can't handle, don't just pretend it doesn't exist

This could be anything--students don't have pencils and the volunteer doesn't know where to find the extras, one student is clearly copying another student's homework, "new math" is too confusing--but frequently, with our students, it is a behavioral issue.  Kids will be bullying someone, two kids will get into a fight, one student is distracting the other students from working, that sort of thing.  Instead of either a) trying their best to deal with it in the common-sense ways they know how or b) bringing the issue to the attention of a staff member, the volunteers often just sit and pretend not to notice.

With problems like pencils and "new math," the fallout is not so terrible; I have to get the pencils myself or the kid has to ask someone else for help.  With bullying, fighting, and distractions, an unaddressed problem tends to build and build until it explodes and the whole rest of the day is shot having to deal with it.  

4. Forget what you're there to do

I saved this one for last because it's too common and uninteresting to give too much lip service, but it's so simple and crucial.

So many people (my high-school self included) are required to do some sort of community service or get a certain number of volunteer hours.  I don't know what percentage of those people actually hate serving their community, but it seems frustratingly high.  If you're going to volunteer somewhere, you really should do what they ask you to do, which, frequently, is not to do nothing or to sit on your phone and never make eye-contact with anyone.  You're already sacrificing your time.  What is the point of wasting it, too?

-----

I grew up volunteering through my church, my school, and various other community organizations; my mom made it a priority for all of us while we were growing up.  While I didn't always thoroughly enjoy the work I did or the fact that it wasn't paid, I can't remember a single position I held that wasn't a learning experience that was overall fun or exciting.  Like my mom, I think helping people in different contexts with different needs is a vital part of belonging to a society and becoming an educated citizen of the world.  But there are right ways and wrong ways to do it, and I hope everyone (including me) can learn to not suck at serving.

Tomorrow Will Be Kinder

It's not usually my style to post about my sadness on Facebook or Twitter.  It makes me feel weird to be comforted by the internet, and I wonder if there isn't something unhealthy about going to the masses for solace instead of to specific people for support and emotional stability.

But today started out so bad, I didn't stop myself.

Yes.  My Facebook is in German.  "Furchtbar" translates to "horrible," in case you were ignorant of that.

I did edit myself soon after, though.

"Feeling horrible" sounded overdramatic to me.

Why did it feel like a Monday?  Well, I didn't work yesterday, and I do work today, so that may have been part of it, but it wasn't all of it.

After about an hour of wakefulness, it already felt like the Universe had a case of the Mondays and was taking it out on me.  All week, my pipes have been playing Wack-a-mole with me: one would freeze, but the other two would still be willing to trickle into use, then the frozen one would unfreeze, but one of the working ones would go out, then only the hot water came out so that any shower I attempted to take threatened 3rd-degree burns and washing dishes would have sufficed as a medieval punishment for stealing.  Then this morning, all of the pipes decided they were done trying.  I left all the working ones dripping last night, but to no avail.  This morning, no water.  

After cursing a bit about that, I then logged into my Amazon account to check on some stuff I ordered that suspiciously hadn't come yet (I bought a 6-year-old PS3 and some games with Christmas money) and learned to my horror that, due to my nostalgic reticence to delete my old Grand Rapids address from my Amazon account, I had actually shipped said orders to said address.  I don't know anyone at that address anymore.

Then, after freaking out a bit about that, my computer told me that, Surprise!  There are about 300 updates you need to install, and if you don't do it now, you're hard drive will become corrupt and you will personally self-destruct.  (Okay, yes, that last bit was my brain's artistic additions, but they all looked like important updates and I was scared of not performing them immediately, due to some recent changes with my computer) Oh, and, these updates are so big, intimidating, and fundamental to your computer's survival that you're going to need to restart in order to complete them.  This task will take approximately two hours and you will not be able to use your computer at all during that time.

If you've been following my blog for the past six months or so, you might have noticed the progressively downward-spiraling trajectory that I've been on.  Starting with my graduation and gradually descending deeper and deeper into a crippling sadness, frustration, and feeling of crushing hopelessness, the latter half of 2013 did not go well for me overall.

If you've been following my blog for the past one month, you should have noticed that I have determined that 2014 should be much better than 2013, if for no other reason than I say it will be, dang it.  I made New Year's resolutions to that end, I stopped going on Tumblr, I began consciously eating more healthily and limiting the number of Netflix hours I spent in a week.  I even made a Super Spreadsheet about how I do want to spend my time and what I want to accomplish this month and every month to follow.  I worked hard to make sure that 2014 at least started off much better than 2013 ended.

And then this day hit.

It may sound stupid, because all of these problems that I've had are very "first world" and fixable, but my first instinct was to crawl back into bed with my puppy, call my mom, and sleep for a while.  For the past six months, the problems have been "first world," "fixable," "easily handled," problems, but there have been so many that I've stopped being able to see them in that perspective.  It got to the point where I wanted to shut the world out and just sleep for a while, hoping that someone else would take care of the problems while I ignored them.

That, of course, is not realistic.  But that, my friends, is depression.

Since I was still wearing my jammy jams, I felt no shame wrapping Fudge and me back up in my blanket.  But when I called my mom, it went to voicemail.  So I lay there for a bit, thinking about how terrible this day was turning out to be, mourning the loss of the morning of fun wedding planning that required a computer and candle making that required running water and Assassin's Creed playing that required that ill-shipped PS3.

What?  This is exactly what I look like when I'm sad and in bed.

But then, a miracle happened.

I remembered that, since I had started to hoard water in various vessels elsewhere in my apartment (my two electric kettles, my nalgene, some pots on my stove) Fudge and I aren't going to dehydrate today.  I remembered also, praise God, my toilet is a beast that could probably get water from the surface of Mars.  I had already used the toilet once, and I had already had some tea and filled Fudge's dish, but these little blessings had fallen from my mind after the other issues had piled on.

I remembered that I have angelic friends who still live in GR and have professed on several occasions that they are willing to do anything for me, including go to a complete stranger's house and retrieve packages that aren't theirs.  I had already texted those people and called my old leasing company to have them warn the new tenants, but in my increased sadness and frustration, I had forgotten about that.

So I got out of bed, I called my current landlord to tell them about the pipes.  I cleaned up the apartment a little in case the maintenance people came around.  I started my computer's updates.  I lit some pre-made candles.  I had breakfast.  I played with my dog.  I surfed the web on my phone.

I got some perspective.  My problems did not end my day.

2014 is already so much better than 2013.  Praise God from whom all blessings flow. 

The Old Q vs. Q Argument with a Lemony Fresh Twist

I haven't slept well the past few nights.  I think it's because of my unthinking untimely intake of tea (I can't help that I love tea and sometimes forget to go herbal after 3 pm) but it could also be due to my sudden enthusiasm for things that happen in my waking hours (a sort of new thing).  Whatever the cause, the effect is that my extended waking hours have, of late, potentially at my loopiest.

So, this afternoon, when I was in my car, driving home from lunch with some friends, and I heard a fascinating story on NPR, I maybe got a bit more excited than I would have on a regular, non-sleep-deprived-and-over-compensating-for-it Sunday.

Such a surplus of excitement, today, means a blogpost.

[End Intro]

The story was about a man who works very hard to make a living streaming music on Spotify.  If you know anything about how not-lucrative online music sales are for the artist, you're probably wondering how he does it.  Well, he does write about an average of 14,000 songs a year, so there's that.

Most of his songs are just catalogs of various nouns.  He's got an album about things he found in his house with a song about a door, and one hit about the hot water heater.  He's got an album of songs about transportation.  He's got a whole "band" dedicated to (ironically clean) songs about defecation.  The band's name is "The Toilet Bowl Cleaners" and "their" biggest hit is "The Poop Song" which...is exactly what you think it is.

Put the calculator down.  I'll do it for you.

An average of 14,000 songs a year, assuming he works 52 weeks a year, is about 269 songs a week.  On the radio program, someone mentioned that he records these songs in his basement 4 days a week, which makes an average of about 67 songs a day, which, assuming he works 8 hour days, is 8 or 9 songs in a work day.  That's written, recorded, mixed, and uploaded.

My brother is a musician who has been in the business for several years now, and he is just now putting together his second album.  I have a feeling he'd have a few choice words to say about Matt Farley and the quality of that music.

But I think both Dennis and Matt would say that two artists so different can hardly try to compare themselves to each other.  They don't have the same goals for their music, their outreach as musicians, or even their lifestyles and vocation, so why would their measurements of "success" be the same?

It's the old Quality versus Quantity argument...

...or is it?  Because, sure, Dennis works slower than Matt and his work is more fine tuned and probably has more longevity, and Matt has a volume that trumps Dennis' every time.  He writes songs four days a week.  He spends little if any time working on pre- or post-production stuff, he doesn't manage tour dates or book shows, and he never has to haul any of his equipment out of his basement.  All he does is just write, record, upload, repeat.

Artists--musicians, writers, painters, and all the rest--often talk about that process as a form of discipline.  Just write, just paint, just play: it's not about inspiration, it's about sitting down and working on your craft, not neglecting your skills, your voice, your practice.  It's about breaking through barriers like, "I don't know if I'm good enough," or "I have bad grammar," or "Am I tone deaf?  I mean seriously, have you heard me?" and just get anything down.

It feels to me sometimes like we feel we have to go through periods where all we're doing is Quantity in order to get to the moments of Quality that will sustain a career, legitimize our talent, and/or bring meaning into the world through our art.  It feels to me sometimes like we believe that the things we create in our periods of Quantity-Only are worthwhile only as part of a journey to the Quality we produce later.  They don't have inherent purpose.

But Matt Farley doesn't think that.  I mean, I guess I don't know what he does think.  But I know that PJ Vogt thinks that Matt Farley's 14,000 songs a year do have merit on their own.  They perform a service to the world beyond just getting Farley to a time where he can create fewer, but better overall work.

PJ tells the story about how he asked Matt to write a song for PJ's step-parents for a Christmas presents.  He gives Matt five bits of information about his stepmom, Nan, and PJ thinks about it for a minute, comes up with some chords, and, BAM, records a song right there.  PJ then takes that song around to his friends for the next few days and is clearly more excited than they are, and begins to worry whether his gift is going to flop.  But then he gives it to Nan on Christmas day and she is over the moon.  She listens to it multiple times, asks him twice to email it to her, and then sends PJ a note about how much she loved it, and how it touched her that he gave it to her.

PJ makes the connection that most of Farley's music does nothing more than acknowledge the existence of things--"This is a door," or "Poop is a thing," or "You're part of the family"--and step-parents often seek that simple acknowledgement without often receiving it.  "[The song Farley wrote for Nan] uncomplicated a complicated situation."  

It took seconds to write.  It was based off of extremely little knowledge of its own subject.  It made two people's Christmases.

If that's not Quality, What is it?

I wanted to write this post without sitting on it or editing it, in one swift action, in the spirit of Matt Farley.  When I was composing it in my head on the way from the curb where I parked my car, it sounded perfect and important.  The bit about Quantity-Only-creations having value all their own really spoke to me on a deep level as I danced out of my coat and skipped into my dining room to sit down and write this.

But as I try to round it out at the end here, I realize that the message is tried and true: quality is everywhere, and quality is what you make of it.  You don't have to be the next J.D. Salinger to write a novel that is great and American to someone.  You don't have to use your passions to pay your bills.  You can Just Write, or you can write sporadically.  There is no one, cookie-cutter right way.

Everyone has said that sometime in the past fifteen years, though, so now this post feels incredibly less perfect and important, even if it still speaks to me in my crazy, sleep-deprived-and-trying-too-hard mental state.

But damn me if I don't post it anyway.

EDIT:

@PKsDancingGirl Thanks for writing about me! Well done. (But, it's 14,000 songs since '08, not yearly (though now I have a new goal!).
— Motern Media (@MoternMedia) January 22, 2014

@PKsDancingGirl I google my name all the time! Check out my movie sometime: https://t.co/AymNwP0bNf
— Motern Media (@MoternMedia) January 22, 2014

A walk in the park

Things I learned during my trip downtown today:

1. Other people also have time off in the middle of the day on a Tuesday. A lot of people.
2. It is possible to go 40+ years without learning the lesson "Feeding Geese goes well for No One."
3. Walking a cute dog through a park filled with children on field trips is the quickest way to unparalleled popularity.
4. My dog is the cutest.

What's Mine is Ours

The other day, my boyfriend Ben, his roommate Steve, and I went to CMU's campus to play some badminton.  Steve and Ben picked up the racquets and net--because, strictly speaking, I'm not a student, per se, so I needed to fly under the radar if I could--and then we tromped around the athletic facilities looking for a suitable place to set up and play.

I don't know much about CMU's athletic facilities, and I was just following the guys around, going through doors they opened and up stairs they gestured to, but there are evidently only two areas outfitted for badminton play.  The first place we went to was also outfitted for volleyball, and was evidently outfitted so well that the official volleyball team was scheduled to practice there, therefor we had to leave.  So we went to another place (which, as I recall, was referred to by a set of letters that stood for some words, but I can't remember the letters or the words right now) that happened to be swarming with eager basketball players.  They were just playing pick-up games, and there were four hoops, but evidently, one of the courts was designated for badminton-specific use.  It wasn't being used as one; someone had taken down the net and a bunch of people were playing full-court basketball.

As I am, strictly speaking, not a student, I let Ben and Steve handle the court situation.  Since the badminton-ness of the gym was officially sanctioned, both Ben and Steve felt that it was within their rights to ask the basketball people to split into half court and let them set up the net for play.  They promised we'd only be there for an hour at maximum, and gave them ten minutes to wrap up their game.

Needless to say, it was an awkward arrangement; forgetting the fact that both halves of the basketball court remained in use throughout our little badminton match so that we kept nearly beaming people with our racquets, I couldn't stop thinking about the fact that we had just inconvenienced a bunch of people, not to mention that those people were all generally bigger and sweatier than Ben, Steve, or I.  As my Girl Scout training helped tie the knots to secure the net, my escapist tendencies imagined a wonderful world in which such socially awkward situations could be avoided.  "Maybe I could buy a badminton net..." I mused.  "If I owned a badminton net, we'd never inconvenience big basketball guys again, and we could play whenever we wanted.  That would be great."

Obviously, the thought was short-lived.  I am not going to buy a badminton net.  CMU has them, and I'm even allowed to use them as a guest of Ben and Steve (though I didn't, strictly speaking, follow protocol on this particular visit) and then I don't have to pay for any damages, I wouldn't have to find a place to store them, and I always have a place to play, even when it's raining or when I don't own a yard.

The longer we played, the less I cared about how we'd inconvenienced the basketball guys.  I mean, yeah, I still felt bad about getting in their way, and I couldn't help but think how ridiculous it must have looked to them: three people pushing out ten people just to play some vaguely old-fashioned game with pathetic-looking skinny racquets and a dinky little birdie.  But when they stumbled into our part of the court, they apologized and one of us would say, "No worries," and when we hit one of them with one of our gaming instruments, we apologized and they would say, "No worries."  And at the end of 40 minutes, Ben was too tired to keep going (playing single to Steve's and my doubles) and we packed up and left, giving them their court back.  The rules set down by the CMU athletic facility authorities did their work, the compromise was struck between us, and everyone survived and got to enjoy a bit of physical exertion.

Public goods tend to do this, I think.  Public parks, public schools, public hospitals, public sidewalks...they force us to interact with each other, to practice compromise, tact, and civility.  They may not explicitly teach us the inherent value of the people around us, but when fair rules are in place, they implicitly teach us to acknowledge other people's rights as designated by those rules.  Public goods give us access to thoughts and feelings that are not natively our own, but that might help shape, redefine, or strengthen those thoughts and feelings that are.

Private goods are nice: I like owning a car, in large part because it means I am not at the mercy of the bus routes and schedules, and I don't have to worry so much about the size or shape of the things I need to carry from point A to point B, as long as they fit somewhere in my trunk or backseat.  My car does probably cost me significantly more than bus fare would, between gas, insurance, maintenance, and depreciation, so I always have to make sure I'm getting what I pay for, that my car remains a better option than the public transportation system.

But sometimes I pass a bus stop where people stand waiting, or I watch people climbing on or off the sectional behemoths as they stop on the side of the road, and I wonder if I'd feel more connected to the people around me if I were forced to get that close to them every day.  I live alone, I don't have a job, and my neighborhood is pretty quiet, so I can avoid human contact for days if I want to.  Add my car into that, and the isolation only deepens.

For me, for now, this isolation is primarily just a sort of depressing reality.  I don't see many people, and most people don't see or talk to me.  But over time, such separation from society could conceivably become something more sinister.  If public places teach us compromise and tactfulness, over-privatization could cause those skills to atrophy, perhaps to the point where not only am I not explicitly seeing the value in the lives of other human beings, but I start denying those human beings' rights as human beings.  If I were to become completely self-sufficient, without need or desire for any public goods, that sufficiency might become my only goal, the only thing I fight for, in which case, the needs of others seem of little consequence to me.  Suddenly, I don't care about the other people on the road, their convenience, or their safety; I only care that I have someplace to be and I've got to get there, so I'm going to do what it takes to get me there, no matter the cost to others.

I'm fairly certain this hypothetical is an exaggeration, an extreme form of isolationism that probably only occurs in concurrence with some form of serious social or mental deficiency.  Nonetheless, as I played badminton that day, I wondered if, perhaps, there might be a connection between a person's consumption of public goods and their political leanings.  Could someone who frequents their public library ever consider school vouchers to be a socially responsible response to the decline in public education?  Would someone who only ever drank water out of a Brita filter think that Social Security needed to be completely revised, not just privatized?

Obviously, someone who uses public transportation has a vested interest in that transportation's funding and subsequent quality, but does habitual use of public goods and services influence a person's outlook on public goods more generally?

What about you?  What public goods and services to you rely on most heavily, and how do you think they've influenced your understanding of the value of the public?  I really want to know.

Why haven't we paid reparations, again?

Calvin College's History Department just posted a link to this article on their facebook wall.

History and guilt

Can America face up to the terrible reality of slavery in the way that Germany has faced up to the Holocaust?

History-guilt is one of those topics that, for me, I can't help but muse about.  As an upper-middle-class white American who happened to take an unconventional course track to achieve an undergraduate history minor, I've faced my nation's (and, though I'm less certain of it, my ancestors') past sins in convicting ways in convicting contexts.  Such convictions are not something I put aside easily.

The above article talks about collective guilt versus collective responsibility, and one conclusion drawn from that discussion is that, while we are not, as a nation, continuously guilty for the atrocities of our nation's history, we are responsible for them and it is morally imperative that we not sweep them under a rug, that we not gild them with narratives of triumph and teamwork, and that we address them in our present and accept them as our past.

The Americas were settled by conquerors, and by the time America declared itself a country, many of those conquerers considered their native enemies to be subhuman pests in need of eradication.  Pre-America Americans treated the native tribes around them in much the same way that modern Americans treat packs of wolves today: as dangerous, incomprehensible, curiosities that might deserve their own place in the world, but only if it does not interfere with our livestock.  It's true that some early settlers of North America worked within an understood peace with Native American peoples, trading with them instead of killing them outright, marrying into their tribes and developing mutually beneficial hybrid cultures.  But for the large part, mutually beneficial relationships were not the ones that formed the foundation for the United States.

While the British still controlled the North American colonies, they used them as penal colonies for their worst criminals as well as their Irish and Scottish rebels.  Indentured servitude was the name of the game, establishing a divide that is still alive today, wherein the working class is often seen as second-rate citizens, as ignorant, and even evil.  This was only intensified with the growth of the popularity of slavery, and as white slavers shipped in foreign workers from Africa (and possibly India), America continued to build itself up on the backs of people whose liberty had been stolen from them.

Our country is a great country.  It could be a better country, I think everyone agrees, though they may disagree on what changes should be made.  Our country is full of opportunity, where people who work hard can often change their stars, where the descendants of Irish immigrants who came here with naught but the clothes on their backs are able, today, to go to college and become doctors, lawyers, teachers, and professionals.

But our country's past is not great.  It is not forgivable, nor has it been sufficiently paid for by those who have benefited from the persecutions of others.  Though our president is African-American*, poor people and imprisoned people are also largely black.  A sobering look at American history shows us that, though there are modern factors at play in those realities, many of the stumbling blocks that caused them were established at the founding of this country and have only grown since.  The real-estate practice of red-lining--keeping black Americans from buying homes in certain neighborhoods--cut off economic opportunity to blacks for decades, opportunity that was open to whites who were able to buy houses and use that capital to lend money to children for college payments, car loans, and even mortgages.  Red-lining was born out of a racism that believed that blacks brought crime with them wherever they went and so would lower property values of any neighborhoods where they lived.  That racism stems from the same racism as slavery, and the same racism as the European conquest of the Americas.

Our country was founded and expanded on that racism.  I likely have many of the opportunities I have because of that racism.  It's not a pretty picture; American history.  But whitewashing it only makes it uglier.  From the above article,

"Rather than looking at the history of Jim Crow, we turn Martin Luther King’s birthday into a national holiday and put his statue on the Mall. Yet we would be disturbed by a German lesson plan that mentioned the Holocaust as a terrible thing, and then went on too quickly to described those heroes — Willy Brandt, Sophie Scholl, Claus von Stauffenberg — who opposed it. With far too few exceptions, America’s history of freedom-fighting — from Seneca Falls to Selma to Stonewall — is doing just that."

Paying monetary reparations, establishing affirmative action, and enforcing strict equal-opportunity laws are important steps for our nation to take in order to accept legal responsibility for its actions.  What does it look like when we, as individuals and as a country, begin to take moral responsibility for our past?  I haven't sold any human beings into slavery and I didn't build my house by bulldozing someone else's while they were still living in it, and maybe if I had done those things in the 1700's, someone today could  make an argument that I shouldn't be held to a modern moral standard for things done earlier than the standard's creation.  But we have the morals now, and that past isn't magically wiped away; we know it, we're still studying it, but we haven't paid for it.  Right now, all the wrong people are paying for it, because those of us who have benefited refuse to look at those who were stepped on to get us to where we are today.

We are not guilty of our ancestor's crimes.  We are responsible for the consequences that still exist today, and we are responsible for seeing that those who suffered are restored.  This is an American problem.  What is the best American solution?

Where am I from?

I was recently on an airplane, traveling from my parents’ house in the Chicago area to visit my boyfriend who has an internship with a large computer-y company in California.  I’ve never flown alone before, so right up until I boarded the plane I was on edge about something going wrong.  But as soon as that seatbelt sign came on, I felt that weird dry lump in my throat dissipate and I suddenly felt much more extroverted than I really am.  I had a similar experience during my first week of college.

The girl sitting next to me was young, maybe 11.  Too young to sit up with her father in the emergency-exit row in front of us, so she had switched seats with the Navy-boot-camp graduate.  I asked her if she had ever flown before, and though she hesitated before saying yes, I’m pretty sure it wasn’t a lie, since her enthusiasm during takeoff and landing was tragically lower than it should have been for someone of her age.  As we were taxiing to the runway, I noticed out my window the silhouette of the Chicago skyline, and, being a history teacher at heart, I wanted to make sure she saw it if she was interested.

“Are you from Chicago?” I asked.

“No, I’m from California.”

“Oh, so you’re going home?  That’s nice.”

Before I could point out the Sears and the John Hancock to her, she asked, “Where are you from?”

“Pittsburgh,” I said, without much thought.  That came later.

A few seconds passed and then the skyline was in clear view from her angle.  I pointed it out and she was clearly unimpressed, and I got a sudden pang of the kids-these-days syndrome I’d seen strike so many other, much older people.  I brushed it away, remembering that, when I was 11, I would have been more interested in playing Super Mario on my DS than in looking at the far off, foggy figure of some buildings in an unfamiliar city—that is, if I had had a Nintendo DS and had spent much time in unfamiliar cities.

If you're looking for Lake Michican, don't hurt yourself in the effort.
This is not Chicago.

That was when the thought struck me.  Was I really from Pittsburgh?  Had I just lied to this prepubescent gamer?  Granted, she wouldn’t notice if I had, but the question still bugged me.  I’d spent only about a total of 2.5 weeks in Pittsburgh in my whole life, and during one of those, I was practically hermited in my subleased apartment.  I wouldn’t recognize the Pittsburgh skyline if it wore a “Hello, my name is” sticker and politely introduced itself.  I didn’t back the Penguins for the Stanley cup.  I needed the Automated Annie on my phone to get me to the nearest Aldi.  No one would accept that I was from Pittsburgh if they pushed me to defend myself.

So, the next likeliest place for me to call home base would be Chicago.  I know my way around—the highway system, at least—I cheered on the Bulls back in the nineties and I have strongly considered buying a Blackhawks celebratory t-shirt (which, if you know how much sports paraphernalia I own, you’ll know is a big deal for me).  My cell phone has a Chicago area code.  The skyline and lakeshore still feel like home when I see them, and when someone says, “Let’s go to Navy Pier,” I flinch reflexively.

But I’ve been in the Chicago area for over a month now, and though I’ve eaten about seven Chicago-style hot dogs in that time, I’ve been living out of a suitcase and telling my family about how my move has been going.  I was born here, I took field trips to all the museums, did school projects on Fort Dearborn and the Great Chicago Fire, and went downtown countless times with my father to take-your-daughter-to-work day, but those were all decidedly past-tense events in my life.

How do we measure our connection to a place?  Is it the existence of memories enjoyed there or the way those memories work together to represent who we are?  And if it is the latter, how can we even know in this life where we are “from”?  Can we—limited as human understanding of the longue-durée of our own lives is—see in any detail the ways in which a place has shaped us?

If I were to guess, I’d have to say that Grand Rapids, Michigan has really been the most formative city in my past.  I came of age there, came into my faith, my political efficacy, my social and cultural understanding of myself and the world around me, and my concept of a vocation and the first questions I asked of what mine might be.  I’ve done token-Grand-Rapids things, been token-Grand-Rapids places, and dreamed idly of what a long-term life there might look for me, but when I went back a month after graduating to attend the visitation and funeral of a beloved professor of mine, it did not feel like my city anymore.

Truth is, neither do Chicago or Pittsburgh.  I feel like I don’t have a “my city,” which, to me, makes it feel a lot like I don’t have a home.

This realization could be sad, lonely, even frightening especially for someone whose strength-finder results said her number-one strength was connection.  And in fact, my life has been more than the usual amount of sad, lonely, and frightening lately, so it would be natural to let this realization—made while munching a Tapas airplane snack that I paid too much for—sink in with all the rest.

Most of what I own.  Stored in a Uhaul in Pennsylvania

But back in January, somewhere around the time everyone else was making resolutions to get in shape or to reconnect with lost friends, I was singing along with John Darnielle of the Mountain Goats, proclaiming “I’m gonna make it through this year if it kills me.”  And since the siege by lucky number 2013 is clearly underway, my best defense is to look at this homelessness, this disconnection, as an opportunity I’ve never had before.  For the first time in my life, I am no longer in school, and I am also not yet employed.  I am renting an apartment to which I possess no keys and I have the lion’s share of my childhood packed away in boxes in my Prius.  For once, I am as indefinable—by most Western social standards, anyway—as I ever have been and perhaps ever will be again.  I am not alone; I have the whole world as my home and all of its citizens as my company.  While I make my way though this rocky period, I am doing just that.  Making my way.  I am as connected as I choose to be to all the places, people, and experiences around me.  What more could my strength-finder ask for?

“Where are you from?” asked the little girl, maybe out of politeness or habit.

What I should have said was, “You know what, I don’t know.  Let’s find out, shall we?”