in praise of pico iyer

it's one of those days where it looks like i'm a reclusive blog fiend because i've posted two entries, but really i've been out and about and productive and exciting all day (and will continue once this is done). but i wanted to share this.

in high school we read "In Praise of the Humble Comma," and it remains one of my all-time top five favorite pieces. i don't know why i thought of it today, other than i've been writing a lot lately, and the last sentence keeps popping into mind. sigh. my hero.

the princes of the paupers and all the old showstoppers

last night i got to see ted leo and the pharmacists open for the new pornographers in a free outdoor show at CMU. between REAL! SOCIAL! INTERACTION! and hearing live a bunch of songs i love by two bands i love, it was several layers of sweetness.

until mid-afternoon, i didn't even know that the show was happening, so i didn't have much time to get myself in the concertgoing mindset -- or the CMU campus mindset, for that matter. so it was uncomfortable for a while, in the sense that we were older than a lot of people there, and that your typical drunk college floozies were dancing a little too emphatically for the amount of space available (not to mention Tallest Guy In The World, Tallest Girl In The World, and Very-Much-In-Love Tallest Couple In The World, all standing, obviously, directly in front of wherever you are). expected, but still distracting from the loveliness.

i understand it's carnival, and a concert, and i should have been prepared for all the accompanying characters, but i was still verging on exasperation when who should materialize behind my right ear but Loudest-Singing Guy In The World. right at the beginning of mass romantic. i glanced over, like you do. here stood this scrawny-looking, extraordinarily nerdy guy, no taller than myself (though probably 26), with a look on his face that said, "this is the song that saved my life," belting out the lyrics with all the tone-deaf power his little lungs could muster.

immediate, complete 180 from irritated to delighted. good for you, guy. the rest of the show i was on a cloud.

five by five here, b, living entirely large

pop quiz: how are your new year's resolutions going?

a few months ago, i set forth some of my resolutions for public observation. given that we're over three months in now, and given that the number one issue with new year's resolutions is that we tend to immediately forget about them, i thought i'd take this opportunity to be self-critical in a public forum and see how mine are working out.

i'll be going about this via my absolute least favorite of feedback tactics: the oreo cookie method. (as someone said at a tri-state session, "even if you don't know what it is, someone's probably used it on you." gross.)

one: i will (continue to) pay more attention to my physical wellbeing. waking up and going to bed at vaguely reasonable hours, exercising (read: walking around squirrel hill instead of driving), flossing. not difficult. four years of acting like i'm indestructible is probably enough.

i'm pretty pleased with this one, actually. the bedtime/wake-up hours, the flossing, the walking more -- plus yoga, and running around after/restraining/lifting small children. muscles. and, since i have an actual schedule during the day, i've been eating at regular times. gold star. downside: daycare = disease. i've been sick, on some level, since i started. the first week of february.

two: i will read more, and more often. for pleasure, i mean. this doesn't count textbooks and news and things i read to edit. if you're wondering, i'm going to reread house of leaves, followed by the subtle knife, and then... we'll see.

oh my. yes, i've been busy, and yes, i did read those first two. but, again with the vague directions leading to me just sort of abdicating responsibility. just because i enjoy reading doesn't mean it should be put off completely. this is the same logic that created struggles with english homework in high school. i always did chem or precalc first because they were awful and felt more like suffering (and, therefore, productivity), and then i'd run out of homework time (or fall asleep) and have to improvise in class when discussing the plot of... i don't know... what did we read in high school? MY POINT. i shall redouble my efforts. list to appear soon.

three: i will write more. or create more, or something. translation, painting, whatever. i think part of the reason college has been such a torturous experience is that i've been desperately trying to play academic for the past four years, and i truthfully just don't enjoy it that much. i'm a writer. i've been a writer. i will be a writer. granted, writers tend to be really exquisite liars (and by that i mean we're all in denial), but by not doing what i know i'm supposed to be doing, i've allowed my capacity for writing to atrophy. it's much more difficult now than it was two years ago, let alone four, let alone six. the backsliding stops here.

i still get lazy. i haven't written here in a while because Real Life is happening in full force, and sometimes it's hard to find time, or an internet connection. but, at very least, i've been diligent about keeping a writing utensil in hand. even if i'm not writing an epic novel or a collection of sordid pseudo-autobiographical short stories featuring warped versions of everyone i know (and don't think it won't happen someday), i make sure to embrace any bursts of inspiration. spending upwards of eight hours a week sitting in coffee shops helps. if nothing else, i'm confident in my progress.

not terribly shabby, if not fantastically excellent. i'll take it.

right. here's the question: if i am fulfilling my responsibilities to myself, my family, and the community, and also doing what is well-suited to my abilities, and living a productive and just life, and drawing on the linguistic stylings of plato, does not the universe, then, have some obligation to respond in turn? obviously not, but i like to imagine a reality in which it does.

so, 2009, here's the deal. i'm working and taking care of myself and embracing the positive. i'd like a little something in return. maybe we're just getting all the bad and crazy out of the way early so the rest of the year can be smooth sailing. but it's a little much. and don't think i don't appreciate the good things that have gone on this year so far -- i truly do, and there have been plenty. it's just hard to maintain a sense of perspective when all the tests present themselves at once. i'd like it if we could meet halfway on this. i'll keep up my end of the arrangement, and you just consider easing up on the havoc-wreaking. please. love, susan.

magical, out from blown speakers

1. to the person who knocked the driver's side mirror off my car: RUDE. i've tried, but i can't imagine a scenario that would allow me to give you the benefit of the doubt: you were either drunk or reckless or attempting to reprimand bickering children in the backseat by not paying attention to where you were driving. and at very least, okay, accidents happen, but good people leave notes.

2. to new jersey: full-service gas stations still make me really nervous, i'd like to be able to turn left more freely, and i think it's weird and kinda fascist that it's so easy to get into the state but you have to pay to get out. still, congrats on being home to the best diner/restaurant in my (rather extensive) experience. that spana-quesadilla was tremendous. also, thanks for hosting my first encounter with hail in years (seriously... it was cool, and it wasn't the huge, damaging kind).

3. to the 40-some people i encountered at the temporary flight 93 memorial off route 30: is that an average day out there? it wasn't the anniversary of anything, and it was kind of a random time of day, so i wasn't anticipating so much company. it was a little surreal -- not bad, just surreal. on a completely separate note, the ginormous cross? out of place. (not as out of place as this gem we encountered in memphis, but it conjures up similar emotions and debates.) this is what separates people. this is what makes some people even more passionately emotional about 9/11 and what really turns some people off and makes them cynical about the entire thing. it's possible (a wild thought, i know) that not everyone on flight 93 being honored by the memorial would have considered that respectful tribute. even for me, it cheapened an otherwise powerful experience -- probably not the intended effect.

in a few hours (hopefully after a nap), mark and i are departing for a magical week at disney's hilton head island resort for his birthday. it may thunderstorm the entire time, but mark my words, we will be on the beach. period.

i've become lazy in my blogging. it'll pick up again when i get back to some semblance of normalcy in my schedule. until then, a gift:

sean fournier : oh my
a free album. (really, it's not viruses or anything.) fyi, when you do "click here for the free album," the page to which it takes you plays music, so... you know... don't open it at work. i recommend "put the world on stop" as your first listen. he can get a little smarmy, but i figure, somebody's gotta balance out the lyrical genius of flo rida. (in semi-related news, t-pain is a month older than me. who else feels just a tiny bit like their life potential might have already peaked? at least i've got my dignity. sort of.)

and another gift, because you are so very pretty:

i'd like to do a song of great social and political import

one of those aspects of religion that's created difficulties for me in recent years is the meaning and purpose of prayer.

it's a complicated thing, to say the least. as humans, we want a fuller understanding of who we are, where we came from and why. we want things -- help, wisdom, material things, love -- and if we believe in the existence of a presence or being or reality or force greater than the whole of the universe's individual parts, generally speaking, we'd like to know more about whatever It is, and we'd like to be closer to It. moreover, if we believe along the lines of genesis 1:27, we'd like to better understand what it means to have been created in God's image, and become closer to that which we resemble.

so, what better way to get closer, to better understand, than to speak directly to God?

my difficulties with prayer fall into two categories:

1) the whole petitioning God thing just seems wholly infantile and irrelevant a lot of the time. in an age when people in general have a lot of trouble articulating pretty much anything in a thoughtful way and when individualism and personal worth are disproportionately thought to outweigh "the greater good" at all costs, it's too easy for "prayer" to mean "list of demands." this seems to me to be a step backward from getting closer to God (or from understanding anything). this is not to say that petition is altogether a negative -- but the proportion of requests to other forms of communication should be much lower than i think it tends to be.

2) to piggy-back on that idea of individualism and personal worth: while these are by no means bad things, when applied excessively to prayer they provide an easy escape hatch -- and by that i mean excuse -- for people who are uncomfortable with congregational worship.

now, i will be the first to say that there's nothing wrong with being uncomfortable with going to church or shul or what have you. some people just don't like other people witnessing them doing anything religious. some people are creeped out by group recitation or responses. some people feel alone in a crowd and would rather just be alone alone. some people dislike some of their fellow congregation members. some people simply don't understand what the purpose of attending services is. these are all valid experiences, and truthfully, i relate to most, if not all, of them.

but to decide that, based on one of those things, you're just going to be a christian or a jew or a muslim or a hindu or a buddhist or whatever else all on your own, purposefully separate yourself from a religious community and label it "introspection" is to deny the most basic elements of your nature. human beings are meant to be around other human beings. asceticism and purposeful temporary self-isolation aside (i'm not about to call out jesus for his 40-day wilderness stint while we're in the middle of lent), we are social creatures. if we are religious, we are then compelled to believe that our religion must also be social.

i think a certain view of prayer -- that its purpose is to be a direct communication between an individual and God, like a hotline -- fosters this attitude. i also think that, unfortunately, this tends to be the most widely-held view of prayer. i don't believe God needs you to direct a specific message, grammar and content edited, to "His" office on a cloud somewhere. i believe prayer is for our benefit, for our comfort and contemplation. and in light of that, i believe the community is important in prayer. i think we understand God and ourselves by being in the presence of one another. it's easier to look at your neighbor and identify God in him or her (see: fellowship; seeking and serving Christ in all persons) than to look at yourself.

let me interject here that i think meditation and personal reflection apart from a community setting is good, and healthy. i'm talking about completely severing oneself from the community. if you've concluded that you don't believe in God, okay, that's a decent reason to stop attending services. if you're physically unable to get to services, that's also a decent reason, though any decent community would help you get there (or bring the service to you).

i think it's supposed to be a little bit uncomfortable to worship around other people. whatever logic can be applied to spirituality tells me that some part of one's spiritual experience must be community-oriented. and the more we practice being an actual part of a community instead of just tolerating it, the more we get out of it and the more comfortable we become. more importantly, that's what my instinct and experience tell me.

as i was in sort-of-academic mode this past thursday for the last Taste of Judaism class, this whole struggle in my head over prayer and attending church and whatever else was not exactly the first thing on my mind, but it was brought there immediately when we read the following passage.

Prayer is not a matter of coming to God with our wish list and pleading Him to give us what we ask for. Prayer is first and foremost the experience of being in the presence of God. Whether or not we have our requests granted, whether or not we get anything to take home as a result of our encounter, we are changed by having come into the presence of God.

In congregational worship, regularly scheduled services on a Saturday or Sunday morning, I have come to believe that the congregating is more important than the words we speak. Something miraculous happens when people come together seeking the presence of God. The miracle is that we so often find it. Somehow the whole becomes more than the sum of its parts. A spirit is created in our midst which none of us brought there. In fact, each of us came there looking or it because we did not have it when we were alone. But in our coming together, we create the mood and the moment in which God is present.

We don't go to church or synagogue at a stipulated time because that's when God has office hours. We go because that is when we know there will be other people there, seeking the same kind of encounter we are seeking.

-- Rabbi Harold Kushner, Who Needs God

for the moment, my mind is settled. i could go into an entire segment right now about exactly how much that passage screams scc, but for now i'll leave you with one more, my new favorite (of course), that summarizes the balance we have to remind ourselves to maintain:

If I am not for myself, who will be for me? When I am only for myself, what am I? If not now, when?

-- Mishna Avot 1:14