Friday, December 21, 2012

"I stand for your right to be religious... but please know that you're wrong"

This post's title is a quote taken from the video below: 



And it begins.


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I can't pinpoint exactly how or when it happened, but very recently my atheism really started to take its true shape. Now it's grown and matured and--I use this word intending all the scientific implications it carries with it--EVOLVED. My atheism now stands upright, bi-pedaled, no longer lying dormant in my king-sized bed of thought, where all the magic of creation is supposed to take place. I'm really truly creating from this bed now, using the evolutionary gift of human rationality--something that religious people seem to want no part in--to think my own real thoughts. 

There are those who say it's your right to believe whatever you want to believe; that it's not my place or anyone else's to disabuse you of your notions, no matter how fallacious (euphemistic for the word "stupid") these notions may be. We're supposed to treat beliefs, especially of the religious and spiritual kind, with a certain unspoken respect; it's clear that they're the eggshells of topical conversation we're supposed to tiptoe around. Well, I'll be frank right off the bat: this is absolute nonsense, complete and utter bullshit. 

On a personal level I'm all for the truth. If I operated in life like two and two make three, I'd be grateful for the person with ovaries enough to show me otherwise. But that's not the argument I'll use here, since that's simply preference, and too many assholes walking this Earth can't wait to arm themselves with a different preference, namely "Ignorance is bliss," AKA "I'll take 'Being a dumbass on purpose' for $1,000, Alex." 

The more readily acceptable argument is as follows, and we've all heard it before, for good reason: how many wars must be waged, how many people must be killed, in the name of God? When religion moves away from the harmless realm--an inevitability with such stupid and sensitive fucking people everywhere you go--that's when we got a real problem. What makes it worse is the inanity of the beliefs from a rationalist's point of view: people are being killed over and over and over and over for a thing that is clearly 100 percent bullshit. And many of these religious assholes aren't wishy-washy or Keatsian in their conceded uncertainty of what's true and what's not; no, it's just the opposite: God exists, god damn it! Heaven exists! The devil exists! If you don't repent for your sins you go to hell! If you were never baptized you go to hell! The 10 Commandments! Jesus died to save you! Noah's ark! Two animals of every kind on a boat! Prayer! (Apologies in advance to Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Satanists, etc. for this post's predominantly subverting Christianity. It's the only religion I'm familiar with to any respectable degree. But feel free to substitute your own religion's ridiculous ideas and beliefs wherever you see fit--I assure you it all works out the same.) 

I think a great way to gauge just how advanced a society really is, is to evaluate how it treats the supernatural, meaning the fake, the made up, the superstitious, etc. So long as we're a species that bows its head, locks its hands together and whispers selfish desires to an invisible man in the sky, we're a primitive fucking people. There's no way around it. What amazes me about prayer is the religious person's inability to see the blatant, clear-shot idiocy of his/her rationale. If you pray for something and you get it, you say that God answers prayers. If you pray for something and don't get it, all the same, you've got a tailor-made retort ready at the fingertips: "God works in mysterious ways," or "It's part of His plan." Oh my fucking god. If I hear that type of shit spewed from some fanatic's mouth one more time I think my head's going to explode. 


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Pinpointing human stupidity when it comes to its religious beliefs is so easy to the point that it's just plain unfair, like black guys playing basketball against white guys. (To be clear, I'm the black guys in this scenario.) A long long time ago, human beings didn't have the foresight or the creativity to truly imagine a God who transcends the physical realm. Limited as we were (are and continue to be), we basically made God a man, except that he's in the sky, can't be seen, and he probably has no issues when it comes to getting an erection. He's like Man version 2.0. Proof is littered in every page of the Old Testament. God speaks. Somehow he's without a body, or a brain or a mouth or any organ necessary to emit speech, but he's God and he can do it anyway. He judges. He's a fucking narc. He's more insecure than I was with my first girlfriend when I was seventeen. He's patriarchal. He's all-loving but you say his name in the wrong tone and he'll set a lake of poisonous frogs on you and your entire family. He's vindictive. In a phrase, he's JUST LIKE US. What a coincidence. We couldn't imagine an actual spirit, something that is everything and nothing at the same time because that's too complex, too abstract for the human brain. So we made our Man version 2.0, and in doing so we separated ourselves from him. 

I think if I was in charge of birthing or spreading Christianity, that right there was the first Big Mistake: making humankind separate, and therefore inferior, to man-God, who is deemed as everything, but is treated like an entity the size of five or six beluga whales and dwells somewhere above the clouds, conveniently out of reach from human eyesight. Had we not started Christianity or any religion from this angle, life might look night-and-day from its present state. I won't go super in depth, but suffice it to say this: when you're coming from a place of inferiority, separateness, worthlessness with the constant need to prove yourself, you get the heap of bullshit and all that comes with it: hatred, jealousy, intolerance, vindictiveness, to name a few.

People will say, "Okay, I don't literally think God exists in the sky. He's everywhere." But how many times do you see an athlete on TV do something spectacular, only to look up and point with his/her forefinger to the sky? Why up but never down? If God is everything and everywhere, surely he takes up occupancy in just as much one direction as the other. It's obvious: religious people will say one thing, but borne of conditioning, brainwashing, societal pressure, habit, stupidity, etc. they will act completely independent and contradictory to their stated "beliefs." Sure they'll say that God is everywhere but when the appropriate moment comes, they won't be able to help but point upward when thanking "the man UPSTAIRS."  


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If there is a God who judges, who grants and denies wishes based on some celestial metric, my question is this: what the hell was he doing before human beings came into existence? Was he just kicking it on his cloud while the dinosaurs roamed, waiting patiently for them to die out? Or did he rule just as authoritatively, sending t-rexes to hell for eating brontosaurs, condemning pterodactyls for not resting on Sunday (before Sunday was even a real day)? How did the fan mail work? Did he read into the dinosaurs' mechanical brain patterns to excavate their prayers, then respond yes or no case by case? 

These are stupid questions but only because the premise is stupid--that God cared one way or the other what dinosaurs got into on a daily basis. But we staunchly believe God cares what we do. So is the Man Upstairs for humans only? By religious definition, that can't be true; God governs the universe and everything in it, including animals and plants on planet Earth. Do you see the inherent problem with God now? He's conveniently stitched and crafted for homo sapiens. He rewards and punishes based on how we behave morally, but we're the only species to even own such a concept like morality. When an animal kills another animal, according to the 10 Commandments, that animal has just outright disobeyed God's moral code. So then what? 

The answer, of course, is so then nothing. If an animal kills another animal, there are no supernatural consequences. But here's the twist: you may have forgotten, but human beings are homo sapiens. Homo sapien is a type of primate. Primate is a type of mammal. Mammal is a type of... you guessed it: animal. I'm talking about us! It is so fucking narcissistic to think you're above the animal classification. It's not "humans and then animals"; it's "humans are animals." If we kill, we are not doomed to suffer an eternity in everlasting fire. (Right there you're physicalizing what is supposed to be the spiritual realm, which is supposed to transcend the physical. Pearly gates, my ass.) If we kill, so then nothing. If you get caught by other humans then you'll suffer the consequences of your fellow human judicial systems, but that's it. No wrath. No hell. No nothing.


###

Plain and simple: religious people, stop being so fucking stupid, PLEASE. If God really does exist, it is in no way, shape or form anything like the God you've been reared from birth to conceptualize. Stop pointing to the sky, unless you're pointing out a plane or a cloud or the stars or something that is REAL. Stop bowing your head and asking for shit. Stop touching your forehead, your chest and shoulders in quick succession. And if you're a Jew or a Muslim or whatever, please stop being those things. Make a conscious choice that YOU really own, that YOU really are the source of, just for once. 

In God's name we pray. Amen. 

Thursday, November 29, 2012

"Hooping while Asian"

Last night, for the first time in a LONG WHILE, I got got. The atrocious offense: Hooping while Asian. (If the term hasn't been coined yet, I got dibs.) What that means in a nutshell: getting discriminant treatment on the basketball court, simply and only because I'm Asian. And don't say that shit is just in our heads. "Hooping while Asian" is real as Darwinian evolution. (Which reminds me: my next post is going to be the implacable slaughter on organized religion. But anyway...) Every single Asian who somewhat hoops knows EXACTLY what I'm talking about. 

Now, to be fair, until last night I hadn't blatantly got got in some time. Sure, every now and then when I play at LA Fitness someone who's never played against me won't think I'm about to hoop on him, then he gets real surprised when I can actually play. But that's about it. 

I get enough basketball reps in at the gyms I play at to be a recognizable figure in a sea of unrestrained ego and testosterone. Point blank, they know I can hoop. If it sounds like I'm being cocky, well, I probably am being cocky. But it wasn't until second or third year of college that I started to get this way about basketball. And you know what? My play elevated tenfold as a result. Believing you are the best guy on that court--not wanting to believe, but in-your-blood-in-your-soul truly BELIEVING--that changes the game up forever. It's the point of no return. I started to do things I could never EVER, not in a million lifetimes, do in high school. Things like splitting the defense off a pick-and-roll, making off balance flip-in layups consistently, hitting threes in people's faces. Euro stepping! Euro stepping like a fucking G! All because I know like the earth is round that I'm the best player on the court (even when it's clear I'm not).  

Of course, it's not always like that. When I'm playing against really good guys I often relinquish that swagger. Not because I'm not just as good as they are, but because I let the mote of self-doubt in even just a tiny bit. A tangible drop in emotion follows, and doubtless my play begins to suffer. All of a sudden the ceiling is feet lower from before; the opportunity to now explode for a breakout game is almost nigh. This was the plague that haunted me in my formative years. Not once in my seven years of playing organized ball did I ever say to myself, "I'm easily the best guy in this gym." Not once did I have that thought. Not once did I even think to think that thought. Instead it was always "When I get in there I just want to play great defense and not mess up on offense." What predictably followed: I became a fantastic defender, one of the best in the league, but offensively I was miserable. 

I've done the complete one-eighty. Nowadays I think I'm the best guy in the gym probably nine times out of ten. Last night was one of those nine times.

NYC Urban is supposedly the best intramural basketball league in the city. There are thirty-plus different divisions, based on and separated by sex and skill level. I found the league online; there was to be a tryout for people who weren't already on a team. When I showed up to the gym at 7:00 p.m. there were about fifty other guys there. 

The night was supposed to proceed like this:  

1) We get split up into random teams of five. That means about ten different groups.

2) The guys in charge announce that WE--not they--are responsible for forming our own teams. (The teams we're on now won't be our intramural teams; they're just for this particular scrimmage.) 

3) Two groups play half-court against each other for a couple minutes, while the sidelined groups watch. The idea is that you get to assess the other players, and start "recruiting" for your own team, based on skill level, hustle, demeanor, etc. 

4) When you've formed your team, you go to the signup table to finalize registration. 

From the moment the tryout started it was awkward. Super awkward. It felt like we were speed dating with shorts and sneakers; after alliances began forming, those still without a team would linger near, hoping to be recruited. It got especially awkward when guys who really sucked asked to join your team. ("Uh... ask that guy.") During the scrimmages, everyone was out to prove he was the fucking shit. This meant no passing whatsoever; just one bad shot after the other. When it was my turn to play I decided on a different route to "wow": don't even look to shoot. Just pass, screen, rebound, and be moving at all times. But when you do get the ball, showcase one or two fancy moves so everyone watching will immediately understand that you can handle the ball.  

Boom. Perfect execution. 

Afterward I was immediately approached by this guy I had been talking to earlier, who played in college. He asked if I had a team, and if not, did I want to join his team. It seems that busting out that one fancy dribble, for no utilitarian purpose at all, was the way to go. 

Within minutes we had a core five guys on our squad. We all agreed in wanting to play in the highest division. Now it was only a matter of finding three or so other players.

"How about that tall ass dude?" One of our core five pointed to a six-sevenish guy standing idle at half court, chatting with Rick, one of the Urban guys in charge of the tryout. 

"Yeah," I said. "He played just a second ago. He's good."

"Why don't you ask him if he's got a team?" 

"Sure," I said, expelling a small chuckle. "I'll do it but I think you're probably better suited to recruit, you know, appearance-wise." 

The unfortunate truth is that my new teammate's a six-three well-built black guy, and I'm five-ten Asian, skinny as shit. But I walked the sidelines to half-court anyway, and went right up to our six-seven prospect, interrupting the conversation he was having with Rick, the Urban guy in charge. 

"Excuse me," I said. "I'm wondering if you've got a team already."

"Yeah," said the prospect. 

Okay, fair enough. 

Rick then interjected, pointing to another big guy currently engaged in the scrimmage. "He [the prospect] is playing with the guy in maroon." 

"Okay," I said. "I was gonna see if he wanted to get on our team." 

"He's playing in the highest division though," said the assuming Rick, speaking for the prospect like an overprotective agent. 

I nodded my head in obvious understanding. "I figured." 

"That's where the guys who are most skilled usually play at."

VRRRPPPP. Wait a minute. Wait just one second. Hold the fucking phone. 

There was a split-second silence, in which time I let my appall grow and fester to the size of a hot air balloon. I knew exactly what Rick was saying subtextually. His every word in that last bit oozed of condescension. No way I'm letting that shit slide. Rick had seen me play for maybe three minutes--the overwhelming majority of that time in which I was without the ball. In other words, there was no way he could've really assessed my play. Nah. I was getting got, and getting got good. Asian while hooping. 

"You don't think I can play, do you?" 

The confrontational tone caught Rick off guard. "Oh," he said, an enormous pause ensuing after the word. "No, it's not that. It's just, you know, the best players play in the best division." 

I laughed aloud this time. "Yes, you said that already. I understand the concept. What makes you think I'm not gonna play in the best division?"

His face betrayed that unquestionable "give me a break" look.

I repeated myself: "You don't think I can hoop."  

He laughed in awkward admission. 

"My team's over there," I said, pointing to my four guys standing on the other side of the court. "We'll be playing in the highest division." 

"But you have to be really good--"

"I want you to watch for me this season, okay? I'm gonna fucking hoop. Look for me." 

And I left.

By the night's end my team hadn't found any other quality players, so we disbanded and agreed to finish recruiting next week, when the second round of tryouts are to transpire. We talked for a tiny bit, about this, about that, about the other. But I wasn't paying much attention. My mind was still with Rick; I was obsessed with our earlier exchange. That smug, superior, condescending way he said, "That's where the guys who are most skilled usually play at."

The gym started to clear out. I changed into my street clothes, then, on my way out I passed Rick, who was now in conversation with a couple other Urban guys. I took a few more strides--then suddenly, another VRRPPPP. I put the breaks on, and without thinking I marched right up to Rick at center court. 

"My name," I said to him, extending my hand forward, interrupting him in mid-speech, "is Steven. Steven Lo." 

We shook hands. He began to laugh. 

"Remember this face." 

Another laugh. 

"STEVEN-LO," I spelled out a final time, slow and intentional, so that the name would be seered like a TV jingle into his skull. Turning my back, I began to exit, the tune of my every step accompanied by a very real, very honest swagger. 

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In the grand scheme of things Hooping while Asian isn't by itself worth much. "Driving while black" is a hundred times more grave, as it speaks directly to the three-branched oppression African-Americans have to endure daily: political, economical, and social. For Asian-Americans, the plight is almost exclusively social, though you could make the argument that it's political too, being that we have very little representation in U.S. government. But, as we are statistically the most successful minority group in the U.S. (link: Rise of the Tiger Nation), the viewpoint goes that we should have very little to complain about.

Still, oppression is oppression no matter how you slice it. There's a reason behind Jackie Chan's "Rush Hour" character never getting the girl at the end. 


Behind a predominantly white cast in "Avatar: The Last Airbender," when clearly the main characters are supposed to be Asian. 

Behind the choice to cast the white Jim Sturgess as the star of "21," a movie based on real life, on an Asian MIT student who made hundreds of thousands counting cards in Vegas. 

Behind the caricaturized effiminate Asian gangster in "The Hangover." 

Behind the unspeakable success of PSY's "Gagnam Style." (Read this article and it will blow your mind: PSY and the Acceptable Asian Man.)

Behind Jeremy Lin's getting passed under the radar at every level of basketball, till the stars aligned and he shone like the fucking sun. 

Behind this slap-in-the-face ridiculous picture: 




Meet the asexual nerd whose style is so torturously misinformed that he's still rocking his grandpa's glasses from the '80s. What the fuck? We're in the age of the bold hipster frames, and the people in charge of this ad made him wear these? I thought they're promoting Windows 8, not the throwback Windows '95. 

My point to all of the above is this: the social oppression is readily apparent. You have to be blind, deaf and living in a cave not to see it. Media shapes society's perception, and in turn society shapes that same media. It is a vicious circle, perpetual and ceaseless up till now. A couple years ago I was talking with a white friend and the question came up, "If you could be any other race, which would you pick?" I asked him facetiously, full well knowing how he would respond, if he would choose Asian. His instantaneous, automatic response: "Fuck no!" And then, realizing I myself am Asian, he tried to cushion the blow: "Sorry, dude. No offense." This is society shaping his perception, shaping his society, shaping his perception again, and so on and so forth. 

The key, then, to beat the zone: first, understand that the defense is playing a zone. In another word: AWARENESS. In this case, understand that your beliefs about Asian-Americans didn't spring from a vacuum; they've been informed and sculpted over and over and over again by media affecting society affecting media affecting society affecting media affecting society, ad infinitum. 

Second key to beat the zone: deconstruct that motherfucker. Attack the gaps that the zone invariably produces. Which means change your strategy to fit what the defense gives you. Now that you know the other team is playing zone, stop exchanging spots with your teammates for the sake of movement. No doubt that can be effective in man-to-man, but you're best option now is to attack the gaps. Swing the ball quickly, and get it into the high post. Pull back from your stereotyping people. Think intelligently about what it means to live in a consumerist society. Deconstruct the motives that limited Jackie Chan's on-screen sexual involvement to a peck more innocent than you would give to your mother. Change your strategy, your behavior based on your newfound awareness. 

That's it. That's the whole game plan. 

Now go forth, ye human kinfolk, into the world. (I feel like I'm standing at the pulpit right now, preaching to the congregation.) And the next time you're guarding an Asian on the basketball court, I strongly recommend that you get in that proper defensive stance ASAP. 

After all, you don't want to be the guy who gets got by an Asian, do you? 

Didn't think so. 

P.S. Holla at me, Rick. 

Wednesday, November 21, 2012

Chris Rock: "I have very low self-esteem"

Watch this 36 second clip:



Amazing that one of the most successful standup comics ever is saying such things about himself. I'm perpetually confounded by Chris Rock's admitting this. I think for every artist trying to do her/his thing in the game, this small clip should be reassuring. Even the best, most successful of us suffer from self-doubt. You are not alone.

Wednesday, November 7, 2012

One on five: the fallacy of "Kill or be killed"

I think "pick-up basketball" is the technical term for a group of people (guys mostly) who get together to play free-for-all hoops, but I've found another term that I think works just as well, and may fit the bill even better: I call it "social experiment." That's essentially what the activity is, though none of the people under study ever participate knowingly. When we take to the court we're doing so for any number of reasons: to exercise; socialize; enact Jordan's "For the Love of the Game" clause; and among many others, my personal favorite: to compare, inch-to-inch, who's got the biggest dick. Such reasons are all scattered across the concrete and hardwood surfaces, visible to everyone running from this basket to that basket. But something else lies much deeper, woven invisibly into the fabric connecting all  participating players: a metaphor informing the learned nature of the human race. It's no doubt a social experiment, and an extraordinary one at that.

I've been playing basketball for sixteen years now, but it wasn't until this last year, while playing pick-up at a gym in New Jersey, that I became cognizant of the phenomenon. It had been present the whole time, to my mind's neglect, but I finally saw the pattern that emerged each time I laced up the sneaks. I'll explain through a brief situational narrative:

Game 1: It's my turn to partake in the five-on-five pick-up bout; I'm playing with four guys I don't really know that well. The game starts and I'm immediately glad to be on a team comprised of such willing passers, who know how to screen away and move effectively without the ball. If you didn't know any better you'd think we were out there playing in front of a coach who holds the key to each of our minutes. There is no place for Carmelo Anthony on this team: our united fluidity erases any chance for black-holing or ball-deading. The ball is moving constantly, always finding the open man. When one of us scores, we all score. Defensively we are tethered to one another, moving properly depending on where the ball shifts. Our defense feeds on our offense, and vice versa. To nobody's surprise we win that game easily.

Game 2: It's more of the same. The fluidity, the unison, the unselfishness. Oh, maybe once or twice someone will hoist up an ill-advised shot, or dribble for longer than is necessary, but it's nothing we can't handle as a fortified team. And so we win this game too, though by less than the game previously.

Game 3: You're waiting for the turn and here it is. During the third game something palpable shifts in our team chemistry. The seal of unity has been exposed, and unleashed from the envelope are all the things we silently swore against earlier: black-holing, ball-deading, putting up bad shot after bad shot. Suddenly someone's trying to dribble out of a double team rather than pass to the open teammate. When we don't have the ball in our hands we become listless spectators, refusing to move to the open spaces on the floor. Defensively we've really started slacking, taking plays off, not boxing out, not helping when help is required. The invisible tether is languishing. Miraculously we scrape by the other team and live to play another game.

Game 4: "Unity what? How do you spell it?" "U-N-I--" "Sorry, the only letters I'm familiar with are M-E," say each of the five Carmelos battling with one another for rights to whack off with the basketball in hand. It's a solo mission at this point, pathetically disguised as five-on-five basketball. Whoever gets the ball in the backcourt is going to throw it up on the offensive end, no matter if s/he's double or triple-teamed. A pass will occur if and only if it's in the form of a dazzling assist, and insofar as the credit falls upon the passer and not the scorer. We've all taken permanent leave from defense; the other team is scoring at will now. The outcome is predictable: our reign is through; we've been supplanted by a team that looks awfully similar to how we looked three games prior. It's kill or be killed and the basketball gods have seen enough to smite us from their court.

###

We're all familiar with "Kill or be killed." It's the maxim that's said to govern the animal kingdom with grim immutability: "If you ain't first you're last"--or worse, a bloody carcass, that which we humans might call "dinner." If the lion doesn't strike against the tiger, well then the tiger will happily do the honors. We've humanized the literal, turning it into a metaphorical guideline by which to live: strike at or be struck at; screw or be screwed. But in many cases we're actually fine with the literal, and we pop someone's head off or bomb an entire village to ode nature's most ruthless maxim.

Well I'll say it flat-out: it is the most outrageously stupid maxim we've come up with in however many thousands of years human beings have been coming up with rules for self-governance. (The 10 Commandments are in close contention for the top spot.) Let me clarify: for the animal kingdom I think "Kill or be killed" is okay. I've got no qualms with animals adhering to this principle. But as much as homo sapien falls under the primate umbrella, which falls under the mammal umbrella, which falls under the animal umbrella, you and I both know we're a different class of animal altogether. We are the pinnacle of evolution, its redoubtable acme, what with our superior bipedalism (the ability to move by means of our two rear legs), opposable thumbs, and most importantly, our ability to conceptualize our own existence. I think there are other animals who possess the latter, but not to the level human beings have attained. We know consciously that we are alive. And we know consciously that we know consciously that we are alive. And we know consciously that we know consciously that we know consciously that we are alive. And... I think you get the picture. (And if you don't, then I'm suspecting whether or not you really or one of us...) In a single word: reason. It is our exquisite ability to reason that separates us from every other organism on the planet. And it is specifically this distinctive, one-of-a-kind ability that should expunge any need to abide by "Kill or be killed." Why? Because we are now past the survival checkpoint in our evolutionary timetable. Reason and rational thinking have delivered us there. The rest of the animal kingdom, however, is still stuck in the mire. They max out at "Live another day." Not us. We have the remarkable capability--OPPORTUNITY--to choose the quality of our lives. Mind you, this is an extraordinary power that we take for granted, without a moment's thought about the uniqueness of it all. The phrase "quality of life" presupposes that we've got (for the most part) survival taken care of. Animals subscribe to "Kill or be killed" because they have no choice. We do! And we exercise this built-in machination of choice all the time: we can eat half our burger and request the other half in a to-go box (not saying that it's easy); we can skip out on parties and bars in favor of studying or saving money; we can hold in our pee and our poop! In short, we can actively go against our own instinct, especially to benefit us in the long run. For this reason we are not eternally subjected to "Kill or be killed." Or, as would be put in Conversations with God, we are until we're not. In other words, until we decide it's time to choose something else. Something that serves us better, like "No more killing," or "Unconditional peace and love," or how about "We are all one"?

Of course, most everyone has consciously or subconsciously already tried chucking "Kill or be killed" out the window. There's just one problem: it's a feisty little shit and boomerangs back into our cell structure no matter how often we try chucking it, no matter how far we try chucking it. The sad reality is that, up until now, the maxim has not left us fully. I think this is why we battle internally with issues like homelessness: helping or neglecting those begging for money on the streets, because they arouse both our natural love (the desire to help) and our learned fear (the safe bet to neglect). I once learned a fantastic acronym for the word "fear": False Evidence Appearing Real. When we shrink into survival mode, it's always fear-based, and nine times out of ten unjustified. It's that false evidence appearing real, so we revert back to instinct: "Me-first"; "Everyone for him/herself"; "Kill or be killed." It's like we're out there on the basketball court with eyes that elect only to see the opponent. We're out there playing one on five.

###

All this loops us back to the social experiment of pick-up basketball. What catalyzes the Hyde and Jekel transformation between Game 1 and Game 4? And how do evolution and "Kill or be killed" feature into the experiment? Well, let's have a closer look, shall we?

When five people who don't know each other, or know each other just barely, play on the same team, trust is usually no more trust than it is an exacto knife, or the symbol for Boron. Which makes it all the more remarkable that they'll usually come out of the gates playing like quintuplets in a womb, sharing unselfishly, laving in the glory of the united team. My theory is this: natural law dictates that human beings are unconditionally loving and trusting, when they are ranks above survival mode. When the pick-up game starts, these five individuals are creating from a blank canvas. There is nothing yet to survive; no false evidence appearing real, so they act in accordance with natural law. But this usually doesn't last for very long. At some point one of the five players begins to diminish "us" in favor of "me"--and almost always it's F.E.A.R. fomenting this change in paradigm: someone else taking a bad shot, keeping the ball in his/her possession for too long, erring too much, etc. The descension from "us" to "me" is the descension from boundless living to mere surviving. This person feels endangered, which is, of course, an absurd and fallacious notion. Nevertheless he has achieved metamorphosis from Lebron James (or my main man J-Lin, holla!) to Carmelo Anthony. He has already predetermined to shoot the ball the next time he gets it, no matter what. He does this a couple of times, and how do you think his teammates respond? Voila. Their F.E.A.R. bursts into being. "This guy is being a ball hog," say the other four players. "If he's gonna keep shooting every time he gets the ball, I will too." It's usually a subconscious declaration, and as simple as that the crumbling domino effect has spawned, to the inevitable and ultimate demise of the team. 

It always happens like this. If one teammate is ball-deading every time he touches the ball, the other players rarely will continue their marked distributing. Instead they follow suit; the cancer spreads and paralyzes the unselfish movement that had benefitted the team as a whole earlier. "We are all one" is now "Kill or be killed," "Get mine before he gets his." 

This is the metaphor I spoke of earlier, informing humanity of its learned nature. F.E.A.R. assails our best intentions, our natural proclivity to love and to share and to live together like muhfuckin' gangstaz. It activates survival mode, causing me-first hatred, jealousy, greed, etc. It makes insects out of natural giants, mortals out of gods and goddesses, and I guarantee you this: it is the single biggest fallacy we continue to believe in on planet Earth. There is no promise in "Kill or be killed" but what we've already got on the table today: war, starvation, poverty, genocide, rape--all stemmed from F.E.A.R. If you play one on five what do you think is going to happen? 

It's hard to see in the short term but giving to others from your own stash of possessions is the best thing you can do for yourself. The haves should be giving to the have-nots enough so that everybody has. Hatred is not borne from nothing; I think it's the bitter response from the Self feeling incomplete. If everybody in this world had a home and had enough to eat and could live day-to-day decently (which is entirely possible), don't you think a vast majority of the violence and hatred would cease? If we really got that we are all one, wouldn't the bombs stop dropping in the Middle East? On a smaller scale, wouldn't your own daily problems start to dissipate? I'll quote from Conversations with God directly this time: "Live simply, so that others may simply live."

I think it's possible. Inexorably improbable, no doubt; but humanity has moved mountains before. This one here is the Everest of them all. So what would it take? First is recognition. That is always the first step to ameliorating any problem. If you can't see it, how do you expect to change it? Understand deeply when you're on survival mode, rather than live-like-a-muhfuckin'-g mode; when your mind is being about "Kill or be killed" and not "We are all one"; when you're playing one on five with four teammates listlessly watching while you screw up. Once you can recognize these distinctions you get to do something profound: make a clear and conscious choice at the fork. Do I want to keep living in my narrow shell to just get by, or do I want that planetary experience with all my human kin? Then you act accordingly. Rinse, lather, and repeat. Recognize, choose, act, and repeat. For there to be world peace, the whole world's got to get on the "We are all one" frequency.

It's just like in basketball: it only takes one person playing for him/herself to ruin the team. A virus doesn't need to be significant to spread and infect. All five players have to agree that "We are all one" is the most conducive paradigm to team success to hold court. Only one question remains: can we get everybody to agree? That glass-half-empty voice in my head tells me no. But then another voice says, "Fuck that," and gives me the realness in compelling fashion: "What is there not to agree upon? Who the fuck doesn't want world peace? Who the fuck doesn't want that planetary party where the whole world is poppin' bottles, makin' sweet love and dancin' away the night like there was no tomorrow?"

Who the fuck is right.   

Saturday, October 27, 2012

Novelists got bars too, part one

Before I get deep into the post I want to say this first: for the last two weeks now I've been doing all my writing pen to paper (then just transcribing to the computer when necessary). This marks a drastic shift in my writing approach, which, since sixth grade, has featured almost exclusively punching the keyboard (the turquoise, original iMac, way before Apple blew up). Like breaking any habit in one's routine, it's been new and explorative, and doubtless uncomfortable at times. But certainly my writing--voice, style, diction, structure--has undergone one of those one-eighty makeovers. I'm left confused: is this a good thing? The friend who put me up this in the first place recently read two separate pieces of mine, one composed from the keys, the other from ink; she observed the palpable differences in each and said she much prefers my college-ruled literature. "It's much more honest," she wrote to me in a handwritten letter. A couple weeks in this laboratory and I'm starting to think she's right. (It doesn't get more honest than that--I'm usually pulling all the punches in my arsenal to deny that she's ever right--about anything. I guess the longhand method is working on a psychologically therapeutic level too.) But enough about handwriting...

I just finished reading my thirtieth book for the 2012 year. Not to toot my own horn but that really is fucking remarkable. And I mean that in the relative sense, comparing myself now to the Steven of years past, who would read nothing--and I mean nothing--if the name "J.K. Rowling" wasn't stamped across the book jacket. Which is not to say that presently I'm straying away from the Harry Potter books; I re-read all seven of them from August to September consecutively, never spending more than four days on each--the truest page-turning books in the history of the novel. But the fact that every single word in twenty-three OTHER books--all written by OTHER authors--has been heisted properly from my mental, shows an achievement in my personal growth worthy of some mention. So bravo there and then. 

Thirty (twenty-three non HP) books later and I know now, confidently as though I were tasked with one-digit addition, the following: authors be spittin' like fuckin' crazy. Punchlines that got you melting, litigating against their creators on account of arson and first-degree burns. It's that serious.

Now I've been enough of a proud hip-hop aficionado since eighth grade--knowing every Nas lyric in his twenty-one year catalogue verbatim, among countless others (in the words of Jay-Z: "ask about me")--that I know classic bars when I hear them: 

"Got your ears, all eyes on me;
old school eighties guy, that's me:
hip-hop head. Female rappers givin' me dome and that's just that hip-hop head."
-Celph-Titled in "S.C.O.M." 

"I drink Moet with Medusa, gave her shotguns in hell

from the, spliff that I lift and inhale. It ain't hard to tell..." 
-Nas in "It Ain't Hard to Tell" 

"My game is vicious and cruel; fuckin' chicks is a rule;

if my girl think I'm loyal then that bitch is a fool." 
-Big L in "'97 Freestyle" 

Bars that got you stepping out from your machinery's auto-piloted plane, to fly freely in the mind's hypethral sky, full only of bright blue and endless possibility. Well, before rappers there were the wordsmiths: poets and novelists, these fine specimen who pioneered the punchline/bar game. Take, for instance, The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver, my most recent papered conquest: 

"I can understand a wrathful God who'd just as soon dangle us all from a hook. And I can understand a tender, unprejudiced Jesus. But I could never quite feature the two of them living in the same house." 

"I trusted too long in false reassurances, believing as we [women] want to do when men speak of national interest, that it's also ours. In the end, my lot was cast with the Congo. Poor Congo, barefoot bride of men who took her jewels and promised the Kingdom." 

"On that day of the hunt I came to know in the slick center of my bones this one thing: all animals kill to survive, and we are animals. The lion kills the baboon; the baboon kills fat grasshoppers. The elephant tears up living trees, dragging their precious roots from the dirt they love. The hungry antelope's shadow passes over the startled grass. And we, even if we had no meat or even grass to gnaw, still boil our water to kill the invisible creatures that would like to kill us first. And swallow quinine pills. The death of something living is the price of our own survival, and we pay it again and again. We have no choice. It is the one solemn promise every life on earth is born and bound to keep." 


"Misunderstanding is my cornerstone. It's everyone's, come to think of it. Illusions mistaken for truth are the pavement under our feet. They are what we call civilization." 


This shit is, fucking ridiculous. Kingsolver coming at you like Eminem in '99, with that killed-straight-out-the-Pacific rawness. And that's just one book, one author. You take a look at Fitzgerald, Nabakov, Golding, etc. and from the cave you begin to see the full spectrum of the color wheel. Momma, poppa: I seen the light! I seen it with my very own! And believe it or not, it's not coming from the screen. Author Philip Roth has said the novel is dying, that in twenty-five years it will be nothing more than a cultic form of entertainment (YouTube: Philip Roth: The Novel Is A Dying Animal). The written word just can't compete with the moving picture, but I say that comparing the two is like comparing Beethoven to the number three--it doesn't make any sense, and you should be slapped across the face for even thinking about thinking about featuring the two in the same clause. Sad truth is, that's a lot of backhands to the cheek, a lot of swelling to the temple. Roth is right: books are hastily becoming an endangered species. 

I beg of you: do yourself a favor and vow to read twelve books in the next twelve months. And I'm talking about quality books. I promise that you'll be in a particularly unique position: inevitably the enchantments will bind you, and what's funny is that when finally given the keys to escape, you'll want nothing more than for the judge to give you two hundred years, no parole. You'll be a prisoner living fully and vicariously through the novelists' bars. In a phrase: a life sentence. Whereby, eternity will tick as the individual second does, incomparable to the next, and too quickly for you to realize any time has passed at all. 

Good day to all the universes. Part two to come sooner than later... 

Wednesday, October 17, 2012

The last first post, for real-for real this time

A preface is necessary to begin, I think. These very words you are reading have all been birthed from the pen, NOT the keyboard, the latter being what I use ten times out of ten when writing anything of self-proclaimed importance. I'm only now trying the ancient method because of a fantastic essay I read, in which the writer pretty much denounces the so-called "progress" we think is made exclusively possible by the overwhelming, inexhaustible technological advancements of planet Earth.

"The text on a computer screen," says Mr. Wendell Berry, "and the computer printout too, has a sterile, untouched, factorymade look, like that of a plastic whistle or new car."

In other words, it lacks any semblance of a personality.

He goes on: "The [human] body does not do work like that. The body characterizes everything it touches. What it makes it traces over with the marks of its pulses and breathings, its excitements, hesitations, flaws, and mistakes. On its good work, it leaves the marks of skill, care, and love persisting through hesitations, flaws, and mistakes. And to those of us who love and honor the life of the body in this world, these marks are precious things, necessities of life."

Well I loved this passage so much (and his essay as a whole, whose link I'll post at the Preface's end), I decided to finally give this scribbling business a real try. For the readers' note, my writing alters a hundredfold--structurally, stylistically, you name it--when I alter the physical instrument, as if ownership falls upon two completely separate people. Historically I've pretty much renounced anything I've composed from ink; it's been shoddy and shitty work, to be perfectly frank.

I've much preferred the strokes of my keyboard, and admit to fancying the delete button like it were a lover who is much, much too easy. For you see, on a computer it takes all the will of the galaxy to write a thousand decent words, and absolutely nothing to make them all go away in a single swipe. As a keyboard artist I've been hiding behind my dear Delete, black and opaque that leaves no trace of its prints on any document. That single button is the perfectionist's best friend. Oh, did I mention that with words I'm as perfectionistic as Hitler's army was meticulous?

Which suffices to explain my terror in composing with the pen anything I deem important. Deletion becomes deleterious. Rewriting, which in my case means rewording every single sentence a million times till it reads like God Herself wrote it, is now an impossibility. I simply can't rewrite slight variants of "Which suffices to explain my terror in composing with the pen anything I deem important" a hundred times on paper; on computer I can leave the document a seemingly inexorable mess and like that! Delete! What remains for sight is only the most perfect version of that sentence. You see? I'm constricted by the permanence of ink. Not enough freedom with the college-ruled, and conversely, a sky too much with the computer, to the point that writing anything good enough seems totally beyond my mental capacity.

But, all this being said, here goes. Apologies in advance if you, the readers, find these words ugly, incorrigible, a cause to cringe violently wherever you are. Just know I'm far from my comfort zone here, and that in my very trying to write longhand I'm taking steps to bean the perfectionistic beast from my being once and for all.

(As promised, the link to Wendell Berry's fantastic article entitled "Feminism, the Body, and the Machine": http://www.crosscurrents.org/berryspring2003.htm.)


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How many blogs I've tried to get going to no avail over the years, I really can't say. It's sad really; each is born in the online world breathing anew, full of life and hope and boundless possibility. Then poop. Death by negligence, malnourishment, suffocation, strangulation, what have you. I'm both the father and the murderer of five, maybe ten stillborn blogs. Shouldn't there be some sort of trial for my inoperability? Of course I'm guilty! Arrest me! Lock me up! Punish me in some way, for my own sake as a writer! But alas, no slap on the wrist. Not so much as a temporary holding on my (ad voice) Blogger, powered by Google.com, account. I'm free as anyone else to birth yet another blog. And reckless, promiscuous as I am, that's exactly what I've just done. Antipriety version two, bastard blog to the world's worst blogger in human history.

But before I vow to become a new man, to faithfully nurture and feed APV2, I think what's first necessary is to confront all that has stood in the way of my keeping a successful blog all these years. In other words: my own shit. My own grand, stinking shit. And trust me, there's a lot of it. I'll do my best to compartmentalize the shit into manageable chunks. The reason for all this: I believe that in wholly admitting, then coming to terms with, my own shortcomings as a blogger/writer I'll be able to escape the vicious circle of quick death for good this time, and begin afresh. For real. For real-for real, I say.


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MY CHUNKS OF SHIT:

1) A surplus of laziness, and a deficiency in discipline.
So much of my life has been motivated by impulse. Unfortunately impulse operates almost entirely in spurts, and rarely endures the test of time. The result is an offensive amount of unfinished projects, from blogs to stories to half-rearranged rooms, etc. I tend to feel like a million bucks at a project's inception, then give up immediately once the elation has run its very short course. Laziness invades like a merciless tyrant. It seeks discipline, if only to destroy it so thoroughly, so irreparably that when I eventually find the poor thing lying broken, shattered in the dormant dormitory of my mind's shell, recognition is nigh impossible.

2) Anyone can blog.
As someone who's chosen the hammering of ideas into clear, expressive and luminous words as his calling, I find it bothersome that anyone with internet can publish hir* thoughts online and be called a writer. Don't these people understand how painful the process of REAL WRITING is? That it takes everything you've got, and demands more still? I've been resentful, though at the same time I know I should be anything but; blogging allows for self-expression in ultimate convenience, so that anyone can do it and be successful. As a writer, shouldn't this inspire me? The answer, of course, is that it hasn't. I've been inwardly bitter, reasoning that if anyone can blog, I want nothing to do with it. Say I to myself in the most pompously superior manner, "I'm a REAL WRITER." I told you these chunks of shit were big.

3) Fear of vulnerability.
Writing is something like being naked on stage for all an arena to scrutinize. If you are a good writer, then perhaps you don't mind the exposure. Perhaps you love it. (Actually one can look wonderful naked and still be embarrassed.) But if you're a bad writer, well then those may just be some of the most horribly mortifying moments of your life. In any event, whether you're good or bad, the truth is always the same: a writer is to be exposed, s/he's to be vulnerable, and s/he's to be judged by people who really have no business judging hir work.

To complete my analogy: the first time I saw a naked woman, it was my childhood friend's mom. I was seven. And oh boy, was she beautiful, and was it awesome! Though the entire thing was accidental, and though she covered herself up nanoseconds after, I can still recall the scene quite vividly. Whether my friend's mom knows it or not, she gave a little bit of herself up to me on that day. As with any naked man or woman I've seen in my lifetime, it isn't difficult to recall their nakedness, so long as my working memory permits the occasion. And so they've all given a little bit of themselves to me. And it works vice versa. I say it is very similar with writing, except instead of body, you are letting them see bits of your soul. But to recall such vulnerability one does not need memory, for the words are right there on the paper. All you have to do is desecrate them with the eye.

Doubtless these are scary prospects for any writer, artist, or creator. Which is why so much of my writing has stayed veiled from the external world.

4) A scarcity of topics.
My stillborn blogs all suffered from the same weakness: specialization. They were either designed to focus entirely on my struggles as a writer trying to make it, or on defacing propriety and policy, or on thinking outside the box, etc. They all had a single focus in mind. But as time went on I found myself strapped for content, trying to dig through the shallow ditch that would sink no deeper.


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So there's the shit. I've admitted, acknowledged, and taken responsibility for all of it. And that's that. Now I'm free to create and fulfill on a new promise: 

No longer will I let laziness govern my life. I will write--to start out--a blog every two weeks. That is the measuring stick for my discipline. I will stop resenting the fact that anyone can blog, and that it takes little to no talent to be successful. For blogging encourages millions of people to self-express by writing, and that is truly a beautiful thing. I will continue to feel uncomfortable exposing myself--but I shall not let this stop me any longer. If the goal is to become a professional and top-five writer of all time, well then I better accept the fact that for this to happen my work needs to be physically accessible for consumption. And last I will blog about whatever comes to mind: whether it's a complaint of propriety or a book review or the best way to tell if you've got a good sock underfoot (it must slide up your foot and past your ankle smoothly, with no jarring stops). This, dear friends, is The Vow. 

I look forward to our time together.

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*Hir: a genderless possessive pronoun, fusing "his" and "her."