Memoir and Time

I have begun to read Mary Pipher's Seeking Peace: Chronicles of the Worst Buddhist in the World, which was a graduation gift from my mother. She begins with both a prelude and an introduction that explore her life and struggle with writing the book, as well as other struggles, lightly but clearly, suggesting the depths of the manuscript ahead. She mentions some of her earliest memories and I was struck with my inability to divide my life, or at least my earliest memories, into simple or chronological episodes. Rather, my life takes on the strange characteristics of waves, spirals, and mutating ellipsoids.

My time, the experience I have of living and memory, does not follow straightforward linear parameters. I feel closer to many specific, vibrant, and distant events now than I do to graduation, which already feels incredibly distant while my time in India and in Brazil have been brought to the fore. Other episodes—I am staying with Miss Lydia Davitt and Miss Linnéa McCully—from freshman year when I met my current compatriots, or the time with my sister last summer when I visited Linnéa and others, spring to mind.

One may suppose that this is more the functioning of memory than it is of time, but such a claim puts time ahead of the game. I definitely allow time to have dimensional characteristics the way space does, but time is more and also less than that. Time is more often a tool we use to catalogue and articulate reality in the same sort of way I can describe the spatial dimensions of a tree to make it meaningful to you. If I worked at Duke University for the summer of 2007, that articulates a certain consensual reality that makes the dimensions of my life more obvious to those who have not lived it; which is similar to saying I worked with thirteen other counselors there or that the campus has so many square feet. These characterizations are used to describe and articulate meaning where it is not at first obvious.

Now, back to time. I considered the possibility of recalling, episode by episode, my young life to the best of my ability. (Don't worry, I wasn't planning on recording it here, just as a practice of my own recollective and cognitive physique.) When I postulated such a project, it occurred to me that my life does not run in that sort of manner, it does not follow a straight line; rather, it loops and spirals back upon itself in curlicues and switchbacks. This is in part because of the structure of my personality development, mutation, recreation, and rediscovery. That may require a bit more detail.

As a child, I was extraordinarily outgoing. My mother once recalled when some sort of incident in our neighborhood in Norman, Oklahoma resulted in police officers coming to our door. I woke (I was probably three or four) and answered the door and began to speak, probably quite sleepily, to the police officers until my mother came to the door. I was interested and communicative with strangers and friends. Later on, due to the social life of the school system and the reality of moving at a young age, I became reserved and quiet. I walked the halls of my middle school in Lincoln with my nose in books and I failed to understand that friends could be generously shared. I was remarked on befriending Andrew Brinkman, that he was already friends with Brendan McCauley, and therefore silently concluded that he would not be my friend. It was only later, in part because of my first girlfriend Whitney Majors and also because of the generally warm and safe environment of Arts & Humanities, that I explored a much richer social circle and redeveloped the atrophied skills of a wide circle of friends.

Just yesterday, Linnéa poked fun at me for my “Fortress of Solitude”—also known as the basement floor of the Folke Bernadette Library at Gustavus—where I spent a good deal of my time my freshman winter at school, and for spurts in future winters and early springs. All the same, I had clearly become something of a social butterfly as I learned to host movie nights in high school and to have ten or more people over to watch The L Word in my freshman dorm room. It became much easier to approach and appreciate new situations and new people when I uncovered that I was practicing old skills, exploring old interests and not starting from scratch. I have been exploring both consolidation and equilibrium between the multiplicity of roles and characters I have come to acknowledge in myself.

Perhaps it all feels more like a river, the more tributaries flowing in with their own waters and wildlife, their own soils and nutrients intermixed. Each one has a different sort of reality and at times the river is dominantly one or another, but most of the time the river is establishing something new with the resources upstream. That novelty is strict, but rather rich in the biota and qualities of the streams that precede it, but those tributaries are constantly changing and developing in their own ways. Rivers do not only move water, but they cut into the soil upstream and deposit it downstream, they explore and meander, they flood and change course. A river is change, changing by season and year after year, mutating to fit and adapt its landscape, its ecological responsibilities and needs, and is also the subject of others' use and modification. In the process of flowing into and of myself, perhaps I will discover the reality of a greater stream, flowing with many other tributaries from which I will glean their qualities and into which I may lose some of my own.

I flow backward and forward, moving in time in many directions at once. Space is a boundary, a description worth exploring, but it is a limitation as well. One must be careful to move, at times, beyond the thinking of space and dimension, to understand quality and quantity can only say so much. A river is synthesis, is overlap, is a quilt of the realities of itself and around and within.

The (Late) Morning of July Fourteenth

I have been thinking of death and passing and what remains following. Just this morning, I finished reading Daniel Pinchbeck's Breaking Open the Head, and I left thinking about the Dead. When thinking about death, I inevitably, and usually quite swiftly, come to think of Gretchen and her father. I met Gretchen's father only once, which came between conversations that Gretchen and I had been having concerning him. He performed music, amongst other skills, and had taught Gretchen much about music and had led her, a good deal, down her spiritual route. Such leading was not always intentional nor always obvious, but it was the reality of his coming death that brought to bear issues of note, particularly about the meaning and the result of death.

Gretchen is a Christian. I know that she experiences divinity frequently, not just in prayer or meditation, but in her life. For many people, for many friends, this is true; but I have never met someone for whom it is more outstanding than for Gretchen. I do not subscribe to similar beliefs, but neither are our beliefs inconsistent, at least in the moral or dogmatic ways; that is, we get along very well and can easily agree about the sort of course of action to take, as well as benefit on discovering that course of action together. These conversations on death generally and her father's passing more specifically, especially when handling the reality of my grandmother's death, was enlightening.

Gretchen then shared with me that she felt that her father's most outstanding quality, the spiritual reality of his core, was his music-making. This, we supposed, would be the attribute most likely to be carried with him into whatever was ahead of him. For Gretchen, death and the heavenly afterlife involves unification with God, God as active savior and creator; therefore, her father would then be part of this salvation and creation that is essentially divine. The most primary attribute, the music-making, of her father would persevere into the ecstatic music of the universe and in fact be part of the creation and re-creation of the universe's layers of rich harmonies. His passing, then, would not result in the conclusion of her interaction with her father, but be suffused with the joy of musical accompaniment, of the sounds of wind in leaves, or grass rustling together; the crash of thunder and the tapping of rain; the intonations of a choir, the echoes of voices in a chapel, or the rhythmic chatter of happy attendees. Music already suffuses the world, but now it is enriched by the spiritual reality of another participant.

Now, I have finished reading Breaking Open the Head and I return to the reality of death. I wonder about the occurrence of the Dead in dreams, the impressions of someone in a crowd, the whispers of a familiar but absent voice. I wonder about the presence of the Dead here, not in a spooky old house or in a séance, but the way those who have passed guide, mislead, accompany, and haunt us. I am less certain of an afterlife “out there,” but Gretchen's notion of the universe and the afterlife is not “out there,” it is dramatically present. Frequently, deaths do not come happily packed up with conclusions and, as a result, we encounter the attempts of ourselves and our intimates in reaching or synthesizing closure. A psychiatrist or even a priest, as well as the usual layman, likely would posit that our psyches are attempting to consolidate the character who was, with the present realities of that person's death and our own lives. This is inadequate, though I am unsure if I can say exactly why.

I lie to myself and, less often, I lie to those around me. Such transgressions or innocent omissions usually initiate feelings of uncertainty and perhaps even distrust. I have come to appreciate and discern honesty or self-honesty with trust or self-trust. Dishonesty in one form or another, results in tension that I want to resolve; whereas trust underlies and founds the realities of honest and dishonesty, without it, honesty does even come into the equation. I am trying to trust myself more, trust my thoughts and my behaviors and my intentions; but the reality of trust, or the potential to trust myself has allowed me to be harshly honest with myself for some time now.

When it comes to the stories of the Dead—dreams, sounds, “haunts,” et cetera—they are more often about establishing balance and resolving tension than they are about creating and breeding problems. The scenes of the King's Ghost visiting Hamlet come to mind: What is at stake in the conclusion of the tension Hamlet, the Queen, and Hamlet's Uncle feel toward one another, as well as the confusion and social coherence of kingdom as a whole, which is marked by the emotional, psychic, and political uncertainties of the supporting characters. The conflict within Hamlet begins before the play starts and it is the motion of the tragedy to resolve that conflict, which is successful but in a markedly unfortunate manner. It is not in the wishes of the phantom of the King to have things fall out in such a way, but he even attempts to guide and limit Hamlet's actions to minimize the damage that has already been done. Here, we see that the Dead are involved in resolution, not in conflict.

If the Ghost of the King is only a delusion—which the attention of the guards suggests otherwise—then the confusion of the play, the personal dreaming and doubt of Hamlet would begin here rather than before. Instead, the presence of the Dead is functionally in support of harmony and resolution amongst the living. Hamlet is not dishonest with himself when he speaks with the Ghost, rather he is expressing his love to a manifested entity. This entity evades materialist thinking, it even avoids contact with contemporary incarnations of Abrahamic faith traditions, but we undergo conversation and even cohabitation with the Dead predominantly to resolve, even to re-establish self-trust and honesty with family and friends. It is through the conclusion of earthly and mortal troubles that the Dead may participate in unification rather than division.

Bread I Baked Yesterday

Baking yesterday was successful and somewhat absurd. Here is what I made:

A giant loaf of whole wheat basil cheddar bread

prep a yeast starter:
a tablespoon of yeast
1/3 cup flour
3/4 cup warm water
half teaspoon salt

Mix ingredients and let sit, overnight if possible.

3 cups whole wheat
2 cups white flour
dash of salt
4 tablespoons (half a stick) of butter, warm

Mix the dry ingredients, then stir in the butter thoroughly.

1/2 to 3/4 cup fresh basil
3/4 to 1 cup cheddar cheese (I used a local New York style cheddar)

Add in the basil and cheese. In the future, I might throw in some walnuts as well.

Then, stir in the starter, mixing well, before gradually adding in more warm water, probably around 2 cups.

Turn out and knead (on clean surface dusted with flour, of course) for five minutes, let rest in a warm place for at least 30 minutes, turn out again and knead further. When smooth, shape into loaves (I suggest two or more because this wasn't at first baked in the middle it was so big) and place on a greased baking stone or cookie sheet. Let rest at least forty minutes before baking at 400 F for about thirty minutes. You may need to cover the bread with foil to prevent the crust from burning. As I baked it in one loaf, the time needed for smaller loaves is likely less, but all ovens are unfortunately variant in their own way.

...

Baguettes with cornmeal

Begin with the same starter

4 cups white flour
1 cup cornmeal
1 teaspoon sugar
pinch of salt
4 tablespoons butter, warm

Blend dry ingredients, then mix in the butter. Add starter, then gradually mix in more warm water as needed (about one cup). Knead well about six minutes. The cornmeal makes the dough less sticky to your hands and counter, which means kneading and clean up are much easier. Let rest for thirty or more minutes, then turn out and shape into long baguettes before placing on a greased baking stone or cookie sheet. With the cornmeal, shaping is similar to playing with clay and is pretty fun. Let rest in a warm spot for at least forty minutes, bake at 400 F for about twenty minutes (that is, in the warm spot of the oven, in the middle top). I slashed the top in diagonals before baking.

This bread is beautifully colored and slightly sweet, but generally neutral and flexible for sandwiches or just munching. The wheat is definitely hearty, though mine rose magnificently giving it a happy levity, and can be served on its own. Both of these turned out really well, but baking had a few issues due to the size and variations of the oven.

Bicycling: The Day to Day

I avoid driving as much as possible. I do not drive to work (save once, when my mother insisted because of the rain) nor do I drive for the everyday tasks of getting here or there. My mother has expressed a hope for moderation in this endeavour, as in today, with a modest risk of rain she suggested I drive. Albeit, I have worked nearly every day for the last week and a holiday from the trek would be somewhat appreciated, but I think she misunderstands the sensation of necessity I have for the behavior.

Some people drive to the gym to spend some time working out. Every fitness club I have visited has some variety of stationary bike, many have two or more varieties. I do not bike around for fitness, but bursting with juice up the hill just north of Old Cheney on 27th Street or having to stand and scoop ice cream for three or four hours are endeavours made easier, possible, or enjoyable by a moderate level of fitness. I don't have to spend time anywhere special when I get around on a bicycle.

A more meaningful reason for bicycling is because it is something I know I can do tomorrow. That is, I can get somewhere on my own feet--or through the medium of wheels--to the places I want to get to. Driving requires many layers of dependency that I am not particularly fond of: vehicles are created from metals and plastics made from ores and oil from all over the world, mined and shipped from the ends of the world to other ends in order to be changed and shipped again; the gasoline and oil needed for running the vehicles is often part of funding regimes that do not respect the rights of women, indigenous peoples, the environment (if you accept such claims), neighboring countries, and so on; when one uses a vehicle, the optimal impacts are non-localized and negatively impact the functioning of ecological and social systems broadly; under negative conditions (cracks, spills, breakage, improper disposal of wastes), localized problems arise like poisoned waters and soils, impaired life systems of plants and animals, cancer and other diseases.

Now, bicycling does not mediate all of these problems. As with most modern commodities, the construction and sale of a bicycle requires international, transboundary cooperation and has similar impacts in the case of positive, proper or negative, inappropriate business practices. With a bicycle, the results of either of these are more obviously demarcated than with a commodity like a vehicle that requires more inputs for the same function; this function is usually called efficiency, which the motor vehicle lacks while the bicycle seems to accomplish.

When I use my bicycle, I hope--in an active, participatory manner--to support community, economy, work, and transportation that my future nieces and nephews, my cousins, and--potentially, at some point--my children might emulate. The passions my friends and I most enjoy are simple. What I most like to do when time allows is read, write, bake, and converse. Even my mother might admit to reading, listening to music, and sitting down over dinner with friends over traveling and buying; though I can't say that they outrank purchasing her impressive television. I guess my conclusion is that I have come to witness a resounding affirmation, almost coincidentally, in simple tasks over complex ones, in doing something we put our own hands into.

Often times, I worry endlessly whenever I think too much about politics or the landscape or, to a lesser extent, my friends and family. I don't know how to end this exactly--I wasn't sure where I was going when I distractedly sat down to write--except that I can return to the excitement of Lauren to farm, Kate to bake, Linnea to teach, and so on. We are finding out how to get out of these conundrums by doing the things that make us happy, and as I discovered junior year, these usually make one another happy as well.

Belated Commentary on the Fourth of July

My neighbors tend toward the overboard during the celebration of our nation's anniversary. The tendency for the pyromaniacally minded in southeast Nebraska is to drive to Missouri and purchase an abundance of discounted explosives that are expensively if at all available in Nebraska. These include weighty artillery shells and rockets on top of the usual sorts of roman candles and bottle rockets, Black Cats and M-80s, whizzing spinners and smoky or sparkly orbs. For those who make their pilgrimage to Missouri, the scale of their purchases and celebrations tend to overwhelm those who make local purchases, despite the discounts involved. Fireworks are only legal in Nebraska, or at least the Lincoln city limits, for the two days before the Fourth of July and as a result, booms and their echoes reverberate throughout the town from late morning or afternoon into the night; but on the Fourth, many continue to fire past midnight.

On the night of the Fourth, when I first planned on writing this, my mother and I hosted a get-together of friends and co-workers, favoring the pyrotechnic displays of our neighbors to those provided by the city. It must have peaked between 9:30 to 11:00, but it was hard to tell as different families traded the responsibility resulting from their cache of rockets and shells. My mother once told me that her priest condemned the use of fireworks because they simulate war and inspire ignorance to the trauma of combat. Biking past driveways scarred and littered, hearing the buzzes and whizzing and booms, I felt more in the presence of a tribal ritual, of a pagan fête than of patriotism. I felt the subtle yearning for an effigy or sacrifice, the wavelength of thought related to collective, focused aggression against some simulacrum of enemy or villain or demon.

Neither my mother nor I partake in the explosive festivities ourselves. Perhaps I think this excludes me somehow from the excitement from which others partake. Personally, the sharp blasts of light and chorus of bursts perturbs and aggravates me more than entertain. All the same, I pick out my favorite sort of firework—this year was the sort that would burst in white, then have a sudden bundle of secondary bursts in a dual conical shape, joined at the apex, that somewhat inspired a black hole—and partake in the playful criticism of my guests and mother; but it is difficult to attach myself to the events at hand.

The new-found tone of sacrifice remained for me, distancing me further from the exhibitions of the evening. Though we ate plentifully, conversed amicably, and played a little bit of my mother's board game “Smart Ass,” I mostly wanted to laugh at the lack of ceremonial climax. All of these families, neighbors and fellow Lincolnites across town (we can see them clearly and quite beautifully from our roof), participated in this disorganized orgy of systematized aggression but were denied the moment of collective satisfaction, communal identification in the destruction of an identifiable “other.” With the dissolution of a community action or moment, then the attempt to capitalize on the event vanishes, fading grumpily away with the sweeping of shrapnel and debris.

The Fourth of July seems to be the most explicitly pagan—or, perhaps savage—of recognized American holidays. It smacks of the violence and visual displays that can unify people in excitement and awe, while incorporating the popularized brand of religious patriotism, and originates in an organized event for the public led by a select group. Without any obvious moment of unification, particularly when one-upmanship is part of the neighborly partying, then it very well may divide as readily as it could bring together. I felt somewhat scared amidst my neighbors, most of whom are perfect strangers, with all their celebratory virtuosity and with it all over, I am happily relieved.

Iran, Honduras, and the '70s

Something I have been pondering as a result of Democracy Now! podcasts and Bruce Sterling's blog, Beyond the Beyond: Does real political change in a country require a certain age demographic to maintain itself? Protests following election results in Iran have led to now month long protests. The president of Honduras was ousted by a military coup, but citizens in support of the president, in support of the military coup, and against both the president and the military coup are actively in the streets. I witnessed the power and determination of youth and veteran activism as a result of Bush's policies--and hopefully will continue to see activism, though ideally it would be different with Obama--but it seems that prolonged aggravation of the powers that be, such as in Iran and will possibly emerge in Honduras, relies upon the hope, energy, and stubbornness that is characteristic of segments of the younger segment of a population. When the youth are larger by comparison to the more aged demographics, that allows a greater pool of individuals to be incorporated into a poltiical movement requiring hope, energy, and pig-headedness.

These, I admit, are musings. All the same, I am interested in examining demographic characteristics of those periods and places when activism was crucial in sculpting the political and cultural (not just one or the other, but both) landscape of that historical moment. I am not shying from the fact that history is developing in the streets of Tehran and how Obama responds to Honduras will prove the first testing ground of his policies for Latin America.

With an aging population in most industrialized, high-tech nations, does this mean that they will--by simple demographic factors--politically stabilize? I certainly hope not; but after a conversation with my new sister-in-law's father, it seems that the perception of the malleability of society, the mending of its faults, and the transformation of its politics changes. Now, anyone can also point out the significant activists and intellectuals, that I am not contesting; what concerns me is the ideology of political dynamics for a demographic generally speaking, which very well may follow trends that impact the sociocultural milieu in important ways. (You may notice some dodging of the question, which is not intended to deter critique, but demarcate my query.)

Anyway, something to research more...

And Data for All from Wired Online Rights .rss feed.

This has quite a bit to do with my thesis about intellectual property and craftwork. Imagine: A new surplus of government data that can be put to use building, programming, planning, writing, critiquing, exploring, and developing a new generation of useful tools, reliable plans, social and political experiments, and so on. Kundra has the right idea and, if it continues in this direction, has my backing.

Hopefully Kundra's model of transparency infiltrates the rest of the Obama Administration now that they have assumed some of the most frustrating and destructive informational policies inherited from Bush II.