Hard-wired Gibberish

I recently read an article on the internet (where I get roughly 1/3 of my obviously accurate information from) about irrational optimism and how it may be hard wired into humans brains. Actually I never read the article. I looked at the cover link on the article and I immediately wrote it off [not because of the link itself so much as it's location on the sympatico/msn news page (which I have learned after repeated attempts at finding evidence to the contrary, that any "news" link that is associated with it has the nasty little side effect of causing me to feel less intelligent after reading said "news")].

This got me thinking about the idea of trying to test for the existence of hard-wiring (I despise the phrase but find myself at an impasse as how to describe something I despise without referring to it). I'll give them the benefit of the doubt that their study group had a proper representation of pessimists who agreed to have a study done on their brains.

Sure they can show a significant amount of evidence "a" in test groups 12 through 85 but how can they separate that from it being a nearly necessary survival mechanism? I can posit that breathing is hard-wired into the human brain and do all the tests I can imagine at proving (or disproving) it but there is nothing I can do to push that assertion past breathing being just overwhelmingly needed (I blame the scientific method).

I thought I might have more to say on the subject but I really don't. I'll just leave with a phrase that I may or may not be quoting (I'm too lazy to look it up).

"If you're not getting the right answer, you're asking the wrong question"

Anima

A question I've been asked more than once in my lifetime in a variety of ways is "Are you gay?". The people asking these questions have ranged from associates that I had only a passive knowledge of their acknowledgment of my existence before the question was asked to girlfriends (why yes, that is a plural for significant others who have asked me).

So I ask myself, "Self, what might lead someone to ask this question of me? Might it be because I write poetry? Or maybe because I am an avid listener of Sarah McLachlan songs? Could it be my four years on a gymnastics team? Or perhaps it is the fact that I can knit and identify a gingham pattern."

And self answers back, "Why in the bloody hell does it matter?" (self can be quite tactless when he is feeling English but also infuriatingly poignant). I thought about his answer yesterday as I was french braiding my scene partner's hair. Sure, it can be awkward when I don't know whether a person is asking me because she wants to find a nice, unassuming man to develop a strong friendship with without worries of said man becoming attracted to her (to insert a thinly veiled cheap-shot here, I'm quite certain that she was in no danger of that becoming true in my case) or if that person was attempting to stuff me into a ticky tack box (now that I think about it, I'm pretty sure it's safe to assume both in this case). But really, any judgments made upon me are made after the fact of me and whichever my interests happen to be at the moment (right now, for example, I write this blog for the gaiety that it instills in me).

And what of those judgments? Am I to assume that these things I do swing me towards some solidly defined line of femininity beyond which there is no return? To those who say so, self says, "Shut your damn piehole! The ideas of masculine and feminine are afflicted by the same circular reasoning that plagues the romantic poets; they are defined by the very thing that they define. Men are masculine when they do things that are done by men and women are feminine when they do things that females do." I'm a man, I do things. I'd much prefer to be defined by how those things affect people in specific rather than in general as they correspond to some inconstant and fundamentally flawed checklist. I'm afraid I'm not going to fit into any of your paradigms. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm either going to replace the brakes on my car or plant some poppies outside my window. I haven't decided yet.

An open letter to L

Dear L,
A very long time ago I made you a promise I couldn't keep. I told you I would wait for you. After those two years you came back and we picked up right where we left off but the person you came back to was not the same one you left. I was older, wiser, and afraid. I only gave you the half of myself that I knew you couldn't keep.

I'm so sorry I gave up on you. I'm so sorry that I was so wrapped up in protecting myself that I couldn't see how much you were hurting. I'm so sorry that I distanced myself when I saw you coming to me. I'm so sorry that I couldn't make myself available to you.

When I came to visit you in the hospital you told me that I was a good friend. I didn't believe you. I still don't. I saw so much more than I told you I did. I guess you did as well. When I see you in town I don't want to hear about your life. I'm still afraid that if I let you in, I wouldn't be able to protect myself anymore. You're too real to me.

This isn't any sort of atonement for these things. I don't expect a medal or any fanfare. I couldn't keep my promise. I'm sorry. That's all.

-P

Not in the eyes!

I've realized that I don't really look anybody in the eye at work. In fact I go through lengths (the jury's still out on whether they're considerable or not, they are however, considered) to avoid eye contact. I realize that this speaks much more clearly as to the manner of person that I am as opposed to the manner of person that the average long-term care resident of a health care facility is.

I find this to be a curiosity because I can count on one hand the number of people that will acceptably hold eye contact with me (I have staring contests with professors to amuse myself in class, they're such amateurs). I've spent much of this shift looking at faces and realizing that it's not something I do here. It turns out that they smile a lot more when I do and that bothers me. When I look them in the eyes and they smile, I have a connection with them.

Now, I'm not some sort of elitist who thinks that I'm more important than anybody. It's just that when you have a connection with somebody, you have to deal with that deeper part of her (or him, I'm not going to argue about gender and certainly not for my hypothetical constructions). So when she accuses you of poisoning her tea you need to peel that connection with something true to her away from this impostor that has stolen her away from you (I imagine it's the mental equivalent of pulling tape off of a hairy arm, which is to say that it stings a little but does minuscule damage).

I assume that it's what people do when they distance themselves from any human contact. I'm afraid of investing myself. I admit this ashamedly since it speaks of a failure on my part (it certainly isn't theirs). I am working on it, though, it's just that I don't really think I have many more arm hairs to offer.

An open letter to K

I've decided to give myself something else to concentrate on other than the random murmurings of the clinically insane, insanity which may actually be contagious only not in the usual ways. I'm going to begin writing open letters to people. I think it will be a good experience for me and if you feel like gathering some semblance of enlightenment from them then all the better. Don't fear one of them getting around to you, I'll be plucking names from my "random generator" and I'm quite confident that everybody's going to get hit eventually.

Dearest K,
Of course it hurts. It always did and I imagine it always will because I love you. I think it hurts the most because I'm pretty sure you don't realize how far down that love goes. It's turtles all the way down.

I don't think things are going to work out properly between us, which isn't to say that they aren't going to work out the way they should, which I really do believe. I just know that it's going to be awkward bending the paperclips back into shape after we're finished messing with them. And we're not finished, not by any stretch of the imagination.

I can hear you fading from miles away. It's sad but it's necessary. The world will be different because it needs to be. Just as we are meant to be, we are not meant to be. I will not wait for you but I will not be gone. I would say I will miss you but I'm not sure we've ever met. What I am sure of is that I love you, I wish you could trust that

-P

I'm not going to aplologize

This past Friday I was confronted (rather unexpectedly, I might add) by the idea of honour and how it doesn't necessarily fit into my current list of motivations. I will probably lie, cheat, and steal (well, maybe not probably cheat but i don't think I'm going to remove that from my vocabulary just yet) in order to hedge my bets. That I can actually come to terms with, I'm human and am allowed character flaws (if that's what you want to call them). Probably more unexpected, however, is the idea that I don't think I'm sorry about these "lapses in morality". I'm self-motivated and I'm not going to apologize for that. Whether I'm forgiven for that, I've decided, isn't really up to me. If I'm not, I probably don't deserve it (say what you will about the nature of forgiveness, being self-motivated for the time being, I'm not going to listen). This is a warning. Hide your babies and lock up your cutlery. It's going to get worse before it gets better.

Not a Poem

A little piece of freewriting I spewed out this evening which may or may not find it's way into a larger piece:

I looked up from my book to see a 230 pound blonde woman peering at me from across the desk. I call her a woman without being able to properly pinpoint an accurate age. Weight does that to a person, like each pound of obesity brings with it three months of age along with some intangible sense of height. I put her in the range of 25-42, which I take notice lies directly in the middle of the prime demographic for television watching. Presumably, this was a factor in her weight gain.

"Whatcha reading?" she leaned in towards me speaking 15 decibels louder than I would have liked. I opened my mouth to answer her but she was insistent on carrying on the conversation with or without my consent. "Ohhhhhh, Vonneygut eh? He's funny". I furrowed my eyebrows together in an attempt to take hold of the idea that this woman had not only read anything written by Kurt Vonnegut but understood the nuance of his humour. My confusion wasn't fuelled by any sort of misogyny or judgment on the brain capacities of overweight people, it was more the fact that I knew that the plastic bag she carried in her right hand held a collection of years-old teen fashion magazines which she looked through thoroughly and repeatedly, I also knew that the last book she had read was written by Francine Pascal.

At this point I should probably point out that this woman, Donna, was a schizophrenic. The sudden importance of this is brought on by the fact that the book that I was reading was Welcome to the Monkey House. The thing I should say about schizophrenics is that, generally, they are not scary people. They will spout off all sorts of nonsense ranging from constant giggling to insisting that they were cut into four pieces when they were a child and subsequently sewn back together. They say and do these things passively, and most of the time with the realization that they cannot be trusted with their own thoughts. Being around them means that you cannot trust their thoughts or, by association, their words and they cannot trust yours (or even the fact that you said them or thought them beforehand in the case that they believe they can read your thoughts). When they are scary, though, it will haunt you.

© 2007

Another Poem

Porcelain

So pretty
So small

There is but one crease
painted over
On your otherwise
flawless face
Your eyes are open
only when you are lying
down

And when you stand
Eyes shut tight
Your perfect white hands
grip my little finger
as you take each
cautious step forward

So perfect
So pretty
and so afraid to fall

-Philip Rey Miguel

© 2000

An Oldish Poem

For no better reason than to pad my blog posts and maybe show off one my more treasured poems.

When You're Alive

I'll bring you flowers
and baubles
and trinkets

You will smile at me
With glazed eyes
And watch me go

As all others do

In your heart
You know
I will return

In another month
or week
or year

So you send me another pale wave
And a grave smile
To my already turned back

-Philip Rey Miguel

© 1999

The Truth About Cats and Dogs

Chapter two on causality:

I found myself coming off of an 8.75 hour shift at work and driving home at 1am a couple days ago when I found myself stricken with the memory of the one and only occurence I in my life where I created roadkill (not something I think of regularly). This was about 10 years ago.

At the time I had assumed that I had run over a rock or something but my friends informed me that it was a cat. Upon recalling this event I realized that I had always assumed that the cat was an orange tabby type cat although I had never seen it. I began to think that perhaps it was a black cat and that in that case I couldn't be blamed for not having seen it since it was nighttime (realizing of course that the fact that I had not seen it at all makes the point of the color of the cat rather moot).

Upon this thought I became compelled to drive back to the place where I had hit this cat to look for some sign of something, (I've decided to open my mind to these types of thoughts more recently for reasons I intend on posting up here at some point), without actually having the faintest idea of what that might be. So I decided to follow this inspiration and drive the 20ish minutes out of my way to the road down by the Abbotsford Airport where this had occured.

I drove slowly (actually below the speed limit) to the place where all this had happened, all the while keeping my eyes and mind open for whatever I was being directed to this place to see. I passed a security guard and an old person walking with his/her bike but neither gave me any sort of sensation that they were what I was looking for.

Then as I approached the place where I was headed I saw a black dog, probably a rottweiler, walking on the road in precisely the same area where I had hit the cat. It wandered off the road and I drove up next to it and we just looked at each other for a few moments before I decided to drive back home.

I took two lessons from this experience: 1) Everything happens for a reason, and 2) which I have decided to learn from metaphorically, sometimes when you're looking for a cat, you find a dog.

Grand Theft Auto

Lately I've been thinking a lot about causality and what makes things happen. I've perused some ideas on the subject like chaos theory and non-reductionism but they don't really do any justice to how mind blowing an isolated event can be. For example, my mother stole a car two days ago. She took a stranger's car from the mall and drove it home without their consent. Now, in order for this to happen it took some very specific people in some very specific times and places doing very specific things.

I would have had to lend her my car, which is something I've done approximately five times since I purchased my car. I would have to own a very specific model and color of car, due also to the fact that I replaced my last one just this past fall since I rolled my last one into a ditch. My mother would have to be at the mall, in Abbotsford, in the early evening, parked in the immediate vicinity of an identical make, model, and color. It would probably have to be dark. And, of course, my key would have to work on the door and ignition of aforementioned identical car exactly once.