I'm flummoxed by one thing: Must we reduce, or can we somehow...

So, okay, okay.  The world is a complicated place.  Really, really complicated.  Even small segments of the world are, if not complicated, so rich in information, that it seems impossible for us, mere humans, mere alcoholics, mere addicts, to possibly grasp a sliver of reality in full--that is, a full data set for drastically reduced parameters on reality that still measures two things in relation to themselves.  I know, there are models, okay.  Models.  But models are not truth.  The best they allow us to do is to take guesses at possible outcomes.  And they don't tell us about multiple overlapping reasons for one observed instance.

A very recent for instance seen on my walk to the subway.  One person is balanced on a tightrope/sheet that is itself fastened to two relatively distant poles, making his dramatic walk between the poles somewhat alluring.  Why does he do it?  He likely does it to practice.  Okay, but what about an end goal?  Well, he does it, you'd say, to practice for a certain performance.  Okay, so he wants to be able to perform adequately on the tightrope on a certain date, or a succession of dates.  What's his incentive?  What about money?  Yes, partly.  But money is not always the best incentive.  Not as good, as, say, social stature.  That is, money is good: yes, we can trade it for food and lots of other things. But, as the Beatles know, Money Can't Buy You Love.

Except.  Well, maybe it can, in an indirect way.  If combined with enough uniqueness and stature.

Okay, so the dude was balancing himself and walking the tightrope partially for money, right, and then, maybe, to gain a bit of stature.  Also, the path to do that was through a relatively unique activity.  Who does that, right?  At the same time.

At the same time, he was doing it in a community full of unique acts.  Lots of people, all around him, were engaged in a motley blend of unique acts.  What was the common theme?

Well.  Maybe it was that they all belong to a community identified by uniqueness, and they were simply signaling their adherence to community norms.

No, you're right, none of these possibilities exclude the others.  So which one is most right?  Can you tell me?  Because I think if we find the answer to this question, we'll also find an answer to why we drink.

The question is: can we come up with a full-fledged non-negotiable detailed account of this man's behavior that represents the most true possible description, taking it for granted that we have overlapping temporal constraints and that we can zoom in and out of specificity regarding his acts.  Please.  If you have an idea, please tell me.  I want to know.

High Status People: Internal Monologue

Why is it that high-status people are so often weak willed and convinced of their own failures internally?  Especially when, externally, they are obviously head and shoulders above many others?  Is it that their will to succeed is only substantially bolstered by fear of failure?  If so, why do they fear failure so much?  Is failure somehow equated with death/death risks (which animates most people if they sincerely believe the risk)?  Are they afraid to give themselves credit because they are worried they'd slack off and lose their status that way?  Or--and this is what I'm scared of--are high status people simply signaling to themselves (and a few select others, like me!) that they are unaware of their status completely, and thus need to take the cues of others around them?  (And because they are surrounded by similarly statused people, they only see themselves in relative fashion).... do they simply not have enough information?  Or are they willingly blind to the feedback they have available because they need outside affirmation of some sort?

Getting Somewhere. Fantasy. Desire.

Very simple message for the evening/morning/cup of tea time.  Desiring something is the best way to know something, i.e. the purest way, for once we know something, it is never as pure.  It can never be that thing we imaged.  It can never join the recesses of our minds and outlast our expectations.  And it can always, always, let us down once we get used to the idea that we had it all along.

Ten of My Faults in NPO (No Particular Order)

For the sake of [partial] catharsis, a partial list of my faults:

1) Double standards

2) Moody as hell

3) Insecure

4) Sloppy

5) Inconsistent

6) Petty

7) Boring

8) Introverted

9) Excessive

10) Needlessly Dramatic

11) Critical

Trying Not to Drink Isn't Easy - Don't underestimate it

In 2009 I made it six months without drinking.  In early september, to the day after six months, I decided to have one drink.  Then I decided, even BEFORE having the one drink, that I'd have to have two drinks.   Only two drinks would make breaking my non-drinking spell worth it.  If I wanted to have a drink, that is, a drink would mean having two drinks.  Besides, since I'm heavier than most people, two drinks is really like one drink anyway.  And so I did it.  And then I watched a  movie, and thought nothing of it.  After about two weeks, it became easy to indulge in a drink, or two, or four, on a weeknight, and on the weekends, if we went to a social event, I could easily have four drinks, or more, depending on who needed to drive (if we drove). By New Year's eve, I was totally smashed on a regular basis, and could drink enough, while talking to myself rationally about drinking, to black out.  If you've ever blacked out, you know how startling it is--and worrisome, but you learn, if you want to keep drinking, to pack that experience up and put it in your pocket to think about later.  Right.  So by mid-april, I felt like shit about myself again, wasn't happy in my job, and failed an important test I should have passed.  Yep, felt like spring.  That was april 2010, too, which, basically feels like yesterday right now.  And then in May friends came from out of town, and the year before I skipped out on drinking endeavors with them (though these friends certainly understood) and I made sure to catch up.  I went to work the next day hung over and dragging.  I swore that I should stop drinking for a little while again, after all, it was a year since I stopped the first time (March 2009)... and then June 25 came.  I went out, but was early.  So, I ordered the same beer I had the time with my out of town friends.  It was over-sized and foamy and german and delicious and I ordered a second even before my friends came to join me.  By the time they came I was already completely under water.  Didn't stop me from partaking for half the night.  The next day I called into work sick, and decided, half way through a stunned and aching hangover, that I should stop drinking for a good long time, like a year.  By the way, I get severe, massive, slow-moving, churn your guts out type hangovers that don't stop for about 20 hours.  Yeah, well, hopefully I won't ever get one again.  Let's keep on keepin on everyone, no matter how much it hurts right now.  All the pleasure had to balance out some time anyway.

On Being Happy [and Faking Orgasm] and Tempo and Boredom

I'm convinced that many of us have learned that happiness is not internal, but really how we show our internal state to others, such that, if we can manifest objective interactions that profess happy indicators, we can convince ourselves that we are indeed internally sated.  Unfortunately, it is highly depressing for me to witness such interactions and know, through intuition or just plain experience at witnessing these patterned behaviors (with the utmost hope that they do not exist), that they exist and are manifestly evident.

I know it is a struggle to find one's place, one's self, or one's center, and to operate from a consistent base so as to maintain integrity.  I also know that most of us are even indirectly desperate not to be alone.

Which brings me to another nodule: happiness need not be experienced at break neck speed.  Perhaps it is due to age and insecurity, or maybe it is simple a trajectory we follow as we age, but young adults seem to act out happiness in an almost aggressive manner while older adults seem to know that happiness is more associated with something more substantial, less manic.  I'm obviously not fully sure on this point, myself.

I've Been Sober a Year. Today.

Well, I feel like I'm just at the beginning folks. Lots of thoughts and emotions, many of which don't make it to these pages.  I'm not self-congratulatory.  I don't even feel like I've accomplished that much.  I do feel that being sober is the right move for me, and I'll stay sober indefinitely.  I don't want to waste any more money or time on alcohol.  The hardest part is simultaneously over and just beginning.  I'll continue to post here, though it will be fragmentary (as always).

Let's Stop Drinking Together: Hear this, impossible paradox.

When we decide to stop drinking, we have to do it together.  Let's not forget that drinking has, often, become a proxy for being with other people, for being social, for being, in short, healthy.  If we're out there, we're not reclusive.  If we're not reclusive, we're okay.  If we're okay, we can keep going forward, secure in our footing.  I've become aware that a lot of you are drying to stop drinking, and that, even though I'm often flagrantly off topic, at least some of what I've said by way of not drinking might have been a bit helpful at times.  I don't ordain myself helpful, of course.  But I do want to have the courage to face tomorrow fully cognizant and, knowing that I can never be even remotely aware of everything, still have the courage to face the amorphous "it" that is, at least at times, unbearable.

So to stop drinking, we have to have tremendous courage and be very very serious.

And yet.

To stop drinking, we must not take the unbearable world too seriously, all the time.

What is Racism Anyway?

So, I used to think I had a really clear idea of what racism was.  Now, I'm not as sure.  I mean, my previous idea was "big" and a lot of the mechanics of how racism worked happened in a way that was not quite explicit.  In other words, the individual-actor model, whereby a single person makes a choice to exclude something or someone from something else solely or predominantly because of a physical characteristic not highly correlated with meritorious variables. . . . whoa!  What I mean to say is: malicious decisions based on race or color or ethnicity, largely.  And that's not all.  There was also a systematic or institutionalized nature to this racism too. Now, how did that work?  Well, it was more of the impact of all of the small collective decisions of all of those smaller people, and what's more, it was also, and this was the most important part, how all of those decisions kept on going even without being explicitly racial in nature.  So, in other words, it should be testable if we have the right data.  And there are studies that link race with decreased loan approval, for instance, keeping all other factors consistent.  I'm not going to go back to sources now, but can if you insist.

Okay, so hold that in your head for a minute, and consider that there are also people who have a desire, albeit slight, to live not in homogenized neighborhoods, but around people that are mostly like them. That's not quite racism.  More like a preference, right?



So, where do we call racism, racism? If we can prove that race mattes statistically but can't pinpoint a bad actor, is there still racism?

Working Out/Exercise/Manic Intensity, Pushing Oneself

Not all "addictions" are necessarily bad.  Think about an exercise addiction--one is compulsive about exercising.  You've heard of marathon runners, but there are also "Ultra" marathon runners, who do, for instance, a hundred mile run, overnight!  They must be receiving lots of positive feedback that goes beyond a) transformation of body image and b) comes from within, because I believe there must be a threshold, maybe 10 mile runs, three times a week, wherein we'll hit peak body image.  Maybe I'm wrong, and I underestimate the continuum (and extremes) of body image, and the lengths people will go to achieve a certain perceived stature.  Still, consider that some people exercise far and away more than they must to achieve the body image that they desire.  The reason must be simple discipline: they like to push themselves; they like to see how far they can get; they like to know they can get up and do something that's relatively unique.  I think these are all commendable characteristics.  I do have a cynical viewpoint about this that I'm not expressing.  Mostly, that cynical side is sitting on the couch, eating chips, or telling me something about being productive in other "more" meaningful ways, but, that's interesting: who creates meaning for us?  Why must it follow a certain framework of utility?  Why can't it exist for a moment (or a run) and that's it?

Possessions

I think we've got far too much stuff.  This becomes immediately evident every time I want to move my stuff. We probably have it all because:

1) We're too lazy to get rid of it once we accumulate it

2) We overestimate how much long and medium range utility it will give us when we acquire it

3) We're stubborn about (2)

4) We're simply not aware of the accumulation of stuff because it happens incrementally

5) Even after natural disaster type situations, we go back to a sort of balance of stuff that is bloated (like when all of my stuff fit into one car load because of a fire)--

6) We compare ourselves to other people and act as accordingly

7) We think our stuff will save us from something. It will not.

Flip Out!

Slipped into the gutter today, and found a pleasant stay. The slime isn't so bad when it doesn't move around you, and the air down there was cool.  No, I didn't drink.  I did let go of the need to be nervous though.  I don't think it was doing anything for me, the anxiety.  I mean, one can only worry so much about so many things before a) the worry detracts from otherwise productive energy, b) the worry provides erroneous reasons for events or c) the worry does nothing.  In my case, well, it was mostly (b) and (c).  I can't worry anymore.  I mean, I'm sure that I can, if forced, or if I must.  Generally though, it is not productive and it gives me all sorts of false positives; so many so that I can't even walk around without freaking out.  I'm not a glass vase.  I'm not so perfect as to be that delicate, or to worry about it.  Something clicked.  Nobody is that aware of me so that I have to be that perfect.  I just stopped talking to please.  I want to get things done, not flatter people.  Hopefully I can minimize the latter and still do the former.