Today's activities involved reading along with the audiobook of Mark, from The Message, a conversation about being peace with Thich Nhat Hanh and hours reading Gilead.
And that's about all there is to say! How boring it must be to read my entries. Some days I rant about things that matter to no one except me and some days I treat the smallest novelty as the greatest excitement. What was your day like? Did you rush all over town trying to accomplish more things than you have time for? Was there a daily drama at home or at work? Did you spend some amount of time hating your job or your messy home? Do you read my entries and envy my simplicity, but then think: "If I had that much time, I might go crazy, say something stupid, lacking perspective"?
The truth is, as I have mentioned before, that my stay here in PPD is definitely outside of the "real world". Prisons work this same way. The purpose of penitentiaries was originally to create a spirit of penitence in the inmates. They were based on the idea that humans are inherently good and a guilty person need only be put in a place structured to create inward reflection to create a desire for betterment in the inmate. The first penitentiary was run by Quakers, and it was beautifully crafted with high (18') vaulted ceilings in each cell designed to force the eye heavenward. At the top of each cell, there was an eye-shaped window designed to bring natural light into the cell, called the eye of God. The inmates were denied any outside contact with the world: no letters and no visits. It was even said that if someone were imprisoned before an election, they should not know who the president of the country was. All focus was to be on the heart of the inmate. While penitentiaries failed as a social experiment, I have no doubt that the prison design certainly aided in personal reflection.
PPD is hardly a prison, but there is a sense of that same outside-of-reality mood that fosters inner reflection for me. I realize that in some senses I have little perspective on the everyday busy life of everyone I know after even two weeks of such a slower pace. I wonder though if I am gaining a different perspective that can't easily be seen from inside daily life. This is not surprising, since that perspective of distance is a big reason why I came in here, but I still wonder where this is headed. I wonder if anything I gain in here will mean anything on the outside or if I will simply slip back into normality, head to the ground, stars forgotten.
I wish there was a more detailed account of Jesus' time in the wilderness. I kind of get the impression that he came out and began preaching simply because John was imprisoned. Was 40 days incidental then? Was he simply waiting until there was a prophet position opening in Israel? I'm being a bit facetious.
At Tres Dias, they talk about the Fourth Day, after the retreat is over. I wonder if Day 19 is too early to start wondering about the Forty-Third Day. Mostly, I wonder if I should set the Forty-Third Day aside and think only about what to do now or whether the Forty-Third Day is ALL I should think about, the purpose of my stay being to figure out where to go from here.
I'll tell you what I think: I think the sprinklers on the hillside outside this window, spraying away, are a pretty stupid idea after so much rain. I'm going to go read Gilead now. Enjoy your evening!
Saturday, July 7, 2007
Friday, July 6, 2007
Day 18
They are taking us on a walk tonight! I missed the first group, because it was during my dinner, but in a few minutes, we get to go outside! And, needless to say, that will be nice. We also got our first paycheck today for the first 2 weeks we were in here. My dad picked it up and will deposit it today, then I can spend all that money online! Hehehe! But seriously, it's nice to see some of the fruits of my efforts and remember why I am here.
Yesterday was sort of a long day, especially boring, especially lonely, especially, especially long. Everyone was angrier than normal without any extra reason. I was not glad to be in PPD. Today was better. I think that was largely because of the particular distance from being done: 17 days in and still 25 days left.
I think that days may sometimes be harder and harder until we reach the halfway point, until the number of days left is less than the number of days we have been here. It almost seems like that middle portion is bound to be hard. Whether we were here for 40 days or 40 years, that period when it seems like we've been here forever and yet we're still not even halfway done is probably always the hardest.
Anyway, whether the stormy period is over, which I doubt, or not, today flew by. Dad dropped off some more books for me, and just the sight of that something new was definitely exciting. Aunt Lou also let me download anything from her Audible account, which was wonderfully generous. She didn't mention that she has only purchased Blink (an excellent book I've already read) and Eugene Peterson's "The Message" translation of the New Testament, which I downloaded, and listened today to the Book of Matthew.
All in all, all the new books, the paycheck (which, once deposited, will buy me audiobooks as needed), and the generally better mood around the building definitely will make the next 24 days pass more smoothly. I think right now I'm going to go watch "Man Versus Wild" on Discovery Channel.
Yesterday was sort of a long day, especially boring, especially lonely, especially, especially long. Everyone was angrier than normal without any extra reason. I was not glad to be in PPD. Today was better. I think that was largely because of the particular distance from being done: 17 days in and still 25 days left.
I think that days may sometimes be harder and harder until we reach the halfway point, until the number of days left is less than the number of days we have been here. It almost seems like that middle portion is bound to be hard. Whether we were here for 40 days or 40 years, that period when it seems like we've been here forever and yet we're still not even halfway done is probably always the hardest.
Anyway, whether the stormy period is over, which I doubt, or not, today flew by. Dad dropped off some more books for me, and just the sight of that something new was definitely exciting. Aunt Lou also let me download anything from her Audible account, which was wonderfully generous. She didn't mention that she has only purchased Blink (an excellent book I've already read) and Eugene Peterson's "The Message" translation of the New Testament, which I downloaded, and listened today to the Book of Matthew.
All in all, all the new books, the paycheck (which, once deposited, will buy me audiobooks as needed), and the generally better mood around the building definitely will make the next 24 days pass more smoothly. I think right now I'm going to go watch "Man Versus Wild" on Discovery Channel.
Thursday, July 5, 2007
Day 17
Well, I just finished watching Psycho for the first time. Very well-crafted movie. I was very impressed.
It's raining again for the second time today. It has rained every day for a month, I think. The wettest summer ever in these parts, I have heard. In some ways, it seems like a good summer to be locked up inside. AT the same time, I hear that when it is not raining, it's much cooler than normal. And I would love to taste and smell the rain on the wind. I always sit by this window, and when the rain falls, I long to stick my hand through the window, palm up, and feel the cool pricks of the raindrops on my hand. But I can't do that.
The truth is, though, that this separation from nature was bound to create a longing and make me miss it, whatever the weather actually is. At the same time, I would be tired of either the rain or the heat by now.
That's not entirely true. I'm pretty good about accepting the weather as it is. I remember last summer laughing at everyone who complained, and kept complaining, about the ever-increasing, unceasing heat of August. And September. And into October. I remember it seemed funny to let such a thing as heat get one uptight, since (a) it is so out of our control and (b) it's always hot until long after we think it should start to be cool! I'm not sure if I was like that before my 30-day PPD study two summers ago. Maybe that was one thing that I learned from 30 days in PPD. After 30 days locked up, I got a laptop, a bike, and an appreciation of being out of control.
This evening, people were especially whiny about the food that we eat. I don't think they realize that it doesn't actually taste worse, they're just tired of this same set of meals. (It was our third time to eat a pork chop with peaches and a peach glaze) I couldn't help but be amused at everyone's unhappiness. My opinion is that we knew before the study began that we would have to eat everything, and if anyone thought they would be eating gourmet, they were foolish, so what point is there in dwelling on the food? It curbs hunger. It is a change from the monotony of the rest of the day. Who cares if it's getting boring? We're in PPD!
Anyway, enough about that. The downside is that I am getting increasingly exhausted by many of the people in here, and am retreating further and further into my own private world. But what can you do? Just sweat it out for 25 more days! Man, this is gonna be like December as a kid, counting down every single one of those days until the big day. Maybe I'll make myself a little summer advent calendar. =P
Somebody email me or call me or something. Give my voice box a much needed exercise.
It's raining again for the second time today. It has rained every day for a month, I think. The wettest summer ever in these parts, I have heard. In some ways, it seems like a good summer to be locked up inside. AT the same time, I hear that when it is not raining, it's much cooler than normal. And I would love to taste and smell the rain on the wind. I always sit by this window, and when the rain falls, I long to stick my hand through the window, palm up, and feel the cool pricks of the raindrops on my hand. But I can't do that.
The truth is, though, that this separation from nature was bound to create a longing and make me miss it, whatever the weather actually is. At the same time, I would be tired of either the rain or the heat by now.
That's not entirely true. I'm pretty good about accepting the weather as it is. I remember last summer laughing at everyone who complained, and kept complaining, about the ever-increasing, unceasing heat of August. And September. And into October. I remember it seemed funny to let such a thing as heat get one uptight, since (a) it is so out of our control and (b) it's always hot until long after we think it should start to be cool! I'm not sure if I was like that before my 30-day PPD study two summers ago. Maybe that was one thing that I learned from 30 days in PPD. After 30 days locked up, I got a laptop, a bike, and an appreciation of being out of control.
This evening, people were especially whiny about the food that we eat. I don't think they realize that it doesn't actually taste worse, they're just tired of this same set of meals. (It was our third time to eat a pork chop with peaches and a peach glaze) I couldn't help but be amused at everyone's unhappiness. My opinion is that we knew before the study began that we would have to eat everything, and if anyone thought they would be eating gourmet, they were foolish, so what point is there in dwelling on the food? It curbs hunger. It is a change from the monotony of the rest of the day. Who cares if it's getting boring? We're in PPD!
Anyway, enough about that. The downside is that I am getting increasingly exhausted by many of the people in here, and am retreating further and further into my own private world. But what can you do? Just sweat it out for 25 more days! Man, this is gonna be like December as a kid, counting down every single one of those days until the big day. Maybe I'll make myself a little summer advent calendar. =P
Somebody email me or call me or something. Give my voice box a much needed exercise.
Wednesday, July 4, 2007
Day 16
Well, I'm imprisoned on Independence Day, and everything is exactly as it always is. But then that is to be expected. You don't get $8500 for nothing.
I just listened to a podcast of the NPR show "RadioLab" about memory and forgetting, which impressed on me the value of writing down things as they happen. Memory, it seems, is very unreliable. Every memory is just a re-imagining of how things probably were, not a straight recollection of how things were.
I've heard a lot about memory in recent months. Stumbling on Happiness talks about the unreliability of memory as related to how it is a part of our efforts to predict the future and make good decisions. The Assault on Reason talks about the brain's inability to distinguish between things we haven't actually seen, but have seen on TV (like Mt Everest) and what we have actually seen.
The evidence supports the conclusion that memory and imagination are basically the same thing. I think it was a Terry Pratchett character who said that humans walk through time backwards, able to see what is behind us and not toward what we walk. It seems better to say that we walk through time with our eyes closed, able to see neither our goal nor the race we have already run, just imagining what it must have been like and what it might soon be like. At best, if we walk through time backwards, our eyes are only half open.
It is tempting to say then that all we have is the moment in which we live, but perhaps even these senses are inaccurate! It is a fact that the soldier who is shot on the battlefield hurts less and asks for less morphine than someone who is shot in their own city. Why? The soldier who is shot instantly and subconsciously predicts (imagines) the glory, the getting to go home, the warm reception by friends and family, the duty he has done for his country. A shopkeeper who is shot in a hold-up instantly imagines the hospital bills, being out of work, the worry he will cause his family, the pointlessness of his injury. All this imagining happens even before the brain has processed the pain signals, and the better story that the soldier tells himself acts like a drug that literally causes him to feel less pain.
It works like this: We use a bit of present sensory data and a lot of past experiences to create our predictions of the future. We use our predictions of the future, our present moment, and al ot of other past experiences to create our memories of the past. WE use some sensory data, some memories, and some future imagination to perceive our present.
So we imagine our past, we imagine our futures, and our imagination is as important to our present as our sensory impulses! How do we know what is actually happening, actually happened, or actually will happen? Basically, we don't. And I don't think it matters.
Even though imperfect, the present is still the best (or most realistically perceived) time, partially because we use everything we sense and everything we can know and imagine toward the purpose of figuring out "what is going on right now" and "what should I do about it?"
I happen to be a huge fan of the imagination and love the fact that it plays such a huge role in every single moment of my life.
Daniel Gilbert, author of Stumbling on Happiness, and Al Gore, author of The Assault on Reason, both believe that the world would be a better place if people acknowledge the huge role of imagination, and quit thinking they have the lock on reality. Gilbert talks about individual happiness, and suggests that the best way to make accurate predictions is to find someone or many someones who are currently in the situation you are contemplating being in instead of relying on your own ideas or memory. Gore is more interested in politics and thinks that TV deceives us into thinking our imagination isn't involved. In fact, we set our imaginations on the backburner, and with our conscious imaginations go our faculty for critical reasoning.
Everyone would agree that a pretty good way to work out reality from our imaginations is to talk about it with as many people as possible with as many perspectives as possible. Gore, ever the rationalist, thinks democracy can only happen when political ideas are continuously under debate. Contact with people is like the sun acting on our internal clocks.
Another protection against the ever-fallable imagination that I have not heard anyone suggest is to write. It's like in Memento. In Memento, the hero only has a 5 or 10 minute memory, but he is determined to revenge his murdered wife (her dead body being his last memory), so he writes himself numerous notes, and tattoos important information on his skin.
I think the best way to keep your memory as close to accurate as it can be would be to write regularly. Then, years later, after your imagination has comletely rewritten a day, read what you wrote that day, and instantly, your story corrects itself.
Of course, not even the best writer can truly capture even a moment, much less a day, so imagination still reigns supreme. Reading your own journal is little different than reading a good novel: the imagination rules both. I kind of like that. I'd cool to imagine it.
Now, on this Independence Day, I will close my eyes and imagine fireworks and barbeque and the freedom that I know I actually have.
Tuesday, July 3, 2007
Day 15
Dance all night, dance a little longer
Pull off your coat, throw it in the corner
Don't see why ya don't stay a little longer!"
One-third done! 66% remaining.
I made it into the next round today, so I'm finally guaranteed to be here until the very end. Which means, of course, that I'm finally guaranteed the money. I cannot stress how nice that certainty is. Granted, I had previously worked my odds of getting kicked out to be about 9%, so I wasn't too worried, but there was definitely the knowledge that SOMEONE was going to be going home. So, 3 of us were given the ol' heave-ho, and the rest of us dosed the new test drug, and breathed a big sigh of relief.
I think it will be easier to settle in from this point on. Besides the fact that we made it over the two week threshold, it's easier to count down the days without that ever-present thought "but I might be leaving tomorrow." Now I just have to hang in there. Stay a little longer.
Right now, there aren't any other studies in this quand besides ours, which is either nice or annoying, I can't decide. It's certainly much quieter, and there's more space to spread out. Everytime another study checks out of my dorm room, I take the pillow and blanket off the bunk above me, and when a new study checks in, housekeeping replaces the blanket and pillow without a word, but every Monday, when they change my sheets, they take the extra pillow and blanket, again, without a word. Since it's only Tuesday now, I guess I have myself an extra blanket and pillow for a week! Hopefully, it will be a while until someone else checks in, because I like to keep my stuff on the top bunk and use the extra power outlet.
What to do now? Start a new book? Take a nap? Maybe there's a good movie playing in the tv rooms...
Monday, July 2, 2007
Day 14
Life is beautiful, you know?
I just realized that the fundamental value to music like that of Joanna Newsom and poetry like that of Wordsworth and pictures of sunsets is that it shows the immense beauty that exists everywhere, and the capacity of human minds to hold and embrace such powerful wonders.
I'm listening to an online "radio" program now where you give it one artist you like and it creates a playlist based on sounds similar to that artist. It's called the "Music Genome Project", which is a fairly ambitious allusion. I don't think it works completely: I put in a The Red Hot Chili Peppers and every song they played was definitely similar to the Peppers, but I still didn't really like any of them the same, but even I could not explain why.
This, of course, opens up an entire question about what is quality, and whether it is actually possible to find specific identifiable traits that make one song good and another song bad. Since I have spent the day reading about Hume and Descartes and Kant, it is both tempting to follow that question and easy to let it go for now.
I am now listening to a Joanna Newsom "radio". Joanna Newsom, incidentally, features "folk roots, mild rhythmic syncopation, acoustic sonority, varying tempo, and time signatures, and demanding instrumental part writing." And I even know what some of that means! I will say they do a better job of creating a cool playlist for Newsom, probably because the list of things that makes her unique is much longer than the list for the Red Hot Chili Peppers.
Besides all the technical distinctives, each song in this list creates in me the "oceanic feeling" (that Freud did not understand) and suddenly this sterile cafeteria, each of us on laptops or reading or writing in journals, becomes a hall in a monastery, and we are the monks.
Can art serve any higher purpose than to ignite the imagination of the audience and reveal holiness in the ordinary? Then again, should the artist even stop to think about the purpose of her creation, or just let it be as it will?
"Anyhow - I sat by your side, by the water
You taught me the names of the stars overhead that I wrote down in my ledger
Thoough all I knew of the rote universe were those pleiades loosed in december
I promised you I‘d set them to verse so I'd always remember
That the meteorite is a source of the light
And the meteor's just what we see
And the meteoroid is a stone that's devoid of the fire that propelled it to thee
And the meteorite's just what causes the light
And the meteor's how it's perceived
And the meteoroid's a bone thrown from the void that lies quiet in offering to thee"
~exceprt from "Emily", Joanna Newsom
I just realized that the fundamental value to music like that of Joanna Newsom and poetry like that of Wordsworth and pictures of sunsets is that it shows the immense beauty that exists everywhere, and the capacity of human minds to hold and embrace such powerful wonders.
I'm listening to an online "radio" program now where you give it one artist you like and it creates a playlist based on sounds similar to that artist. It's called the "Music Genome Project", which is a fairly ambitious allusion. I don't think it works completely: I put in a The Red Hot Chili Peppers and every song they played was definitely similar to the Peppers, but I still didn't really like any of them the same, but even I could not explain why.
This, of course, opens up an entire question about what is quality, and whether it is actually possible to find specific identifiable traits that make one song good and another song bad. Since I have spent the day reading about Hume and Descartes and Kant, it is both tempting to follow that question and easy to let it go for now.
I am now listening to a Joanna Newsom "radio". Joanna Newsom, incidentally, features "folk roots, mild rhythmic syncopation, acoustic sonority, varying tempo, and time signatures, and demanding instrumental part writing." And I even know what some of that means! I will say they do a better job of creating a cool playlist for Newsom, probably because the list of things that makes her unique is much longer than the list for the Red Hot Chili Peppers.
Besides all the technical distinctives, each song in this list creates in me the "oceanic feeling" (that Freud did not understand) and suddenly this sterile cafeteria, each of us on laptops or reading or writing in journals, becomes a hall in a monastery, and we are the monks.
Can art serve any higher purpose than to ignite the imagination of the audience and reveal holiness in the ordinary? Then again, should the artist even stop to think about the purpose of her creation, or just let it be as it will?
You taught me the names of the stars overhead that I wrote down in my ledger
Thoough all I knew of the rote universe were those pleiades loosed in december
I promised you I‘d set them to verse so I'd always remember
That the meteorite is a source of the light
And the meteor's just what we see
And the meteoroid is a stone that's devoid of the fire that propelled it to thee
And the meteorite's just what causes the light
And the meteor's how it's perceived
And the meteoroid's a bone thrown from the void that lies quiet in offering to thee"
~exceprt from "Emily", Joanna Newsom
Sunday, July 1, 2007
Day 13
I know this is going to sound kind of funny, but I'm too busy to post tonight. I know, I know... lab rat with time to kill. All that. But I'm busy planning a trip to the Grand Canyon! I'm psyched about this trip, and I'm laying it all out! Schedule, little interactive spreadsheet, the whole bit. We're gonna spend a few days walking to the bottom of a big hole in the ground. Doesn't that sound terribly amazing?
My post yesterday was pretty long, so I have to make up for it by making today's very short.
This morning, I had an interesting debate with a friend about whether he should leave his children's mother (who he has lived with for 7 years) because they were never in love, but only fooled around and then got pregnant, and go be with his girlfriend of 2 years, whom he is in love with. I've rarely been so outspoken, and I'm not sure it did any good, but I told him that he screwed up his life pretty bad, and now he has to own up to his mistakes and stay with his kids. Especially since he admits his "wife" is a good woman and his home environment is wonderful. It just baffles me how someone could honestly say, "I love my kids, but I am not in love with their mother, so I'm going to move out."
Mindblowing. Where are all the men?
In the process of talking about that, another guy admitted that it's not always so easy doing the tough thing as you say it will be. (Too which I wanted to say, "No kidding? Things are harder to do than talk about?") Turns out our 21-year old friend bought his girlfriend birth control pills, which she didn't tell him that she was not planning on taking because, unknownst to him, she intended to have a baby with our friend. Which she did! So this is all very recent, and he tells me he's trying to figure out what to do, because it was not his irresponsibility that led to this situation, but the girl's scheming. He is thinking about giving up and rights to the child. I guess whatever the scientific evidence about birth control, abstinence is definitely the only sure protection from a wily woman. My gut reaction that this poor guy needs to suck it up and plan on being this child's father, even though he never wanted to be a father. My feeling is that if you can't keep it in your pants, you have to be ready to pay the fee. However, I admit his situation is a little more tricky than the first gentleman's, for whom I have little sympathy.
Anyway, that's all I wanted to say today! Sleep tight, angels.
My post yesterday was pretty long, so I have to make up for it by making today's very short.
This morning, I had an interesting debate with a friend about whether he should leave his children's mother (who he has lived with for 7 years) because they were never in love, but only fooled around and then got pregnant, and go be with his girlfriend of 2 years, whom he is in love with. I've rarely been so outspoken, and I'm not sure it did any good, but I told him that he screwed up his life pretty bad, and now he has to own up to his mistakes and stay with his kids. Especially since he admits his "wife" is a good woman and his home environment is wonderful. It just baffles me how someone could honestly say, "I love my kids, but I am not in love with their mother, so I'm going to move out."
Mindblowing. Where are all the men?
In the process of talking about that, another guy admitted that it's not always so easy doing the tough thing as you say it will be. (Too which I wanted to say, "No kidding? Things are harder to do than talk about?") Turns out our 21-year old friend bought his girlfriend birth control pills, which she didn't tell him that she was not planning on taking because, unknownst to him, she intended to have a baby with our friend. Which she did! So this is all very recent, and he tells me he's trying to figure out what to do, because it was not his irresponsibility that led to this situation, but the girl's scheming. He is thinking about giving up and rights to the child. I guess whatever the scientific evidence about birth control, abstinence is definitely the only sure protection from a wily woman. My gut reaction that this poor guy needs to suck it up and plan on being this child's father, even though he never wanted to be a father. My feeling is that if you can't keep it in your pants, you have to be ready to pay the fee. However, I admit his situation is a little more tricky than the first gentleman's, for whom I have little sympathy.
Anyway, that's all I wanted to say today! Sleep tight, angels.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
