eating the sky, one bite at a time

Cripples

2008-06-17T23:44:00.004-04:00

You may not realize this, but you are handicapped.

Let's look at just one aspect of this handicap first: language. Pretend that I speak the language Zynf. Zynf has two words: eat and bread. Thus with my clever language, I can indicate bread, and I can indicate the action of eating. I can even say eat bread, or bread eats (assuming that grammar is no barrier). But I can in no way articulate how much bread there is, or what kind. I cannot express when the eater has finished eating the bread, or when he is pausing a moment to savor its bready taste. I can't even say that the bread is not being eaten, except through an absence of speech, but there are so many meanings to not saying anything at all.

Clearly Zynf is not an adequate language to describe all facets of my life. There is not even a word in Zynf for Zynf itself, which rather prevents me from thinking of Zynf as a thing at all, with pros and cons and alternatives - Zynf rather seems like the only way of language there is.

As a chooser of languages, I have sensibly rejected Zynf. Two words is too few. So how many is enough?

The English dictionary, at low estimates, has some hundreds of thousands of words. Let's round that up to a million, just because this is a thought experiment so we can do what we like. There are one million English words: great words, all of them, describing all sorts of objects and actions and funny shapes. Is it enough?

There is no word for the clarity of leaves viewed from a distance on an exceptionally sunny day. This is because, at the time that English was invented (let's just say it was invented, bear with me here), we did not know that more light led to more photons reflecting off of leaves into the photoreceptors in our eyes leading to higher resolution. Fortunately, this is no great lack. The fact that I managed to convey the idea to you at all means that the phenomenon can be described by substituting other words.

But what about that feeling you get when your stomach muscles suddenly seize up and your head is filled with the jangle of nerves and an endless litany of all your fears and worries when a moment ago all was calm? When you sit there and groan because your muscles won't unclench, and your head starts swimming, what does that feel like? Is it yellow? Is it large? Can the words "anxiety attack" possibly do the feeling justice?

You see, we have a lot of words to describe how something looks. We don't have such a lot of words, defined with such precision, to describe how we feel. This is why we can remember images for years, yet five seconds later, we can't remember how it felt to look at that image for the first time. We don't have enough words to describe our feelings, so we don't have enough words to think about them. But what happens to feelings that we can't think about? Don't they just - disappear?

And that's just language. What about - society? Living in it means that we can't analyze it. Having only the the one (I speak of human society, not American society) means that we take it for granted that this is how things should be, the only way society can work. What about - life? Such an improbable gift - so fragile and tenuous, the combination of a million nigh-impossible factors - yet we expect that living should be the natural way of things, and feel that dying is something strange that must explain itself. Our thinking is decidedly strange at times.

It's so hard to break though a box when you've never been outside of it, and are barely aware that it exists.

Handicapped, indeed. Does it hurt any less that we all are?

Inevitability as a blessing

2008-05-06T16:33:00.003-04:00

The greatest thing about time is that it just keeps on going.

It's like a roller coaster. When you're at the top of the hill looking down, no matter how terrified you are of the plummet, there's nothing you need to do, nothing you can do, but hold on tight and wait for gravity to carry you through. Even the holding on tight part is optional.

You may dread tomorrow, but no matter how badly you fail, or how much you embarrass yourself, there's not a thing you can do that can make time stop, make the world end.

Well, unless you die, of course.

Seeking the void

2008-05-01T22:39:00.003-04:00

It's hard to focus on your work when there are so many distractions around you. You could be checking your facebook. You could be organizing your sock drawer. Hell, anything to get away from that stupid essay.

Now imagine you have no facebook (or computer, for that matter). You have no sock drawer. You have no room, in fact, no physical surroundings to distract you. All you have is pencil and paper, and the only task before you is writing the best essay you can possibly produce. I imagine that you'd get that essay done pretty quickly, and pretty well.

Think about it in terms of marginal benefit. When you're desperately bored, even homework will do. When you've got accounts at fifteen different social networking sites, a closet full of video games, and a cell phone that rings nonstop, homework gives you no benefit at all - it's just a chore.

If you could eliminate all your other options, you would be such an efficient worker.

As it is, you just have to get as close to the void as you can.

Your shirt is the best billboard

2008-04-28T18:20:00.004-04:00

Advertising space is a commodity. Buses, telephone poles, our own front lawns: everywhere we go, people are trying to catch our eye. Moving billboards drive back and forth across our highways, blimps drift hopefully overhead, and let's not forget the jet that flies by every afternoon, trailing a bright yellow banner in its wake.

Advertising space is valuable, and that includes you! Your very appearance is an advertisement - and you do get paid for it, in some sense, with free t-shirts, logo-bearing pens, mugs with phone numbers splashed across the side. Each person is born with (as) his own personal billboard, and it's a shame for you if you don't use yours.

Think about what you look like. It's worth something to someone (in 2007, marketers spent 7.3 billion in outdoors advertisement alone) but it should be worth most of all to you. Sure, you can sell out your shirt-space to advertise that brand or that cause, but even when you don't (especially when you don't), your appearance still advertises you.

Take care of it! You don't have to wear designer labels, or style your hair, or even groom yourself on a regular basis, if you don't want to. Just be aware of your appearance, what it says about you. It's the first thing others see, and the last thing others will remember. It's valuable, even precious. It's your only means of communicating an instantaneous message to the people around you - and it's your call what you want that message to say.

A little affirmation goes a long way

2008-04-23T22:59:00.004-04:00

People will laugh just to show that they get the intellectual joke.

People will eagerly comment to point out the grammatical errors in your post.

Will people buy just to show they understood the abstruse advertisement? Probably not, else "This product has a complex eigenspace!" would be a more popular slogan.

The point is that we're social creatures, eager for some affirmation. As long as it doesn't entail unduly costs (whether in terms of money, time, or effort), people are willing to do all sorts of little things just to make themselves look and feel a little smarter.

The next time you're trying to work up the courage to talk to that genius about his quite substantial accomplishments? Don't stop to wonder what you could possibly offer him in exchange for a few of his precious minutes and insights. You're already offering it, just by asking him to show off.

Be who you are...

2008-04-20T21:39:00.010-04:00

...if only because you can't be who you aren't.

Some things are only impressive if other people do them.

If you look oriental, nobody will be impressed by your fluent Chinese, even if you were born and raised in America, by your adoptive American parents, who never allowed you the slightest contact with your parents, your language, or your heritage - all of which are from Vietnam.

If you're a college student, nobody will be awed and moved to hear that you haven't slept in 36 hours. In fact, they'll rather expect it, and you can guarantee that there's someone in the audience who'll be able to one-up your tales of woe.

Don't do those things.

Do the things that are only impressive if you do them.