February 2009

I’m hanging out with my boys in Team X this weekend, and it’s a joy to my soul. Talkin’ music, memories and manly things.

There’s an entire conversation here about what exactly justifies manliness; perhaps I will flesh it out tomorrow.

Today I’m just going to enjoy existing. There’s a message here too.

Due to me getting things into the paper late, my column ran today instead of on Monday. Nevertheless, it ran. It seems, also, that I have acquired a coterie of hecklers; dudes just comment on my every piece, trashing the junk out of it. It’s no longer annoying to me; it’s kind of amusing.

Friday Opinion: We Should Be Excited About Success In Iraq.

Sometimes I’m sad that I can’t post rebuttals to arguments people make about my columns. Only getting to present the beginning of a conversation is one of the disappointing parts about writing. In some forums I would be able to return the volley, but in this one, my comments stand, and their comments stand. No interaction.

I bought my first Klosterman book today: Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs. I haven’t owned any Klosterman work before, although I’ve read his work in magazines and appropriately admired his full length work (“Oh yeah, Cocoa Puffs is great, and Detroit Rock City is Awesome, if you like heavy metal,” etc. etc.).

I’m excited; I’ve sworn off reading several of my favorite authors this semester while I write my first book (Donald Miller, C.S. Lewis, Robert Fulghum, Jonathan Lethem) because I have a big fear of getting accused of following someone’s writing style. I know that comparisons to Miller are going to be unavoidable based on the genre my book is in, but I’m hoping that my writing style is different enough that people don’t just peg me as a Miller-wannabe. Because I’m not. I just happen to think he’s a bright, Jesus-loving chap who has some very similar ideas to mine. He also has many dissimilar ideas.

But God will do what God will do.

I’m the definition of too many coals in the fire.

- Submissions for Windmill, a student literary journal, due this week.
- Submissions for OU, I Love You, a screenplay competition, due Friday.
- Opinion column for the OU Daily due last Friday.
- This blog.
- Independent Clauses is daily, so I’m editing that.
- 3000 more words to write by tomorrow for my honors research book.
- Co-authoring a book on Rules of Engagement with Briana Johnson on our way to work (yay carpooling)
- Once Found Letters is still rolling.

It’s crazy. I love it. But I’m kinda crazy.

That is all.

This article from Rough Type concerns me. One of my motifs in life and art is the consideration of whether technology is actually going to improve the society or not. I still think the singularity is one of the creepiest things I’ve ever heard of. I’m not sure that prolonging our lives with biotechnology is a good idea, because people who don’t necessarily like their lives make their lives longer, are they really doing themselves, or anyone, a service?

But what Rough Type is referencing strikes much closer to home than any of these. The ability to make good decisions is only built off the backs of bad decisions; strength of will and depth of compassion are only developed through remembering hard things. To be able to eliminate bad memories would do all of mankind an enormous disservice. We wouldn’t make educated decisions any more. We would repeat mistakes far more often than we do now. We would not learn.

In addition to the problems of human pride that arise from this Babel-like exercise in playing God, there may never be emotional growth ever again. If we simply delete every bad thing that ever happened to us, we’ll never learn how to do right, because we will continually remove any evidence of poor decisions and consequences.

Think of the problems. Someone is accused of a crime, evidence is gathered, and a person is caught. Unfortunately, this person can not remember doing the crime, because it has been wiped from their mind. Do you still send them to jail? Our legal system says yes. You are, in essence, punishing a man who doesn’t know what crime he committed.

Now imagine that you are put on trial for a crime; you protest that you never did it, but people come against you with evidence that you did. They say that you did it, then had your mind wiped; you don’t remember it because you chose not to remember it. You cannot refute this. You can’t say “I know I didn’t go into a memory wipe station” because if you did, it’s out of your memory; if you didn’t, they can say it’s out of your memory, which is why you’re against it.

In addition to stunting emotional growth in human beings, unfair trials can be had and people will suffer. This is horrifying.

Happy belated Valentine’s Day! I’m a big fan of Valentine’s Day, even when single. It’s a celebration of the fact that we love each other! Yes, we should show it more often than on a single day. That is not the point. We display the flag on days that are not Flag Day; studying Lincoln is not reserved for President’s Day. Valentine’s Day is the celebration of love, and particularly, romantic love. In this world where romantic love is such a mess most of the time, I think it’s worthy to embrace the fact that you and your significant other have made it through another year.

I could go through many, many words about why our views of romantic love are wack, but that’s not the point of this post. Valentine’s Day is not inherently evil.

Nor is it made up by our economy (although it certainly gets a boost). I’d like to see how this economic downturn affected Valentine’s day buying; I bet there wasn’t any downward trend at all. Dudes still gotta impress the ladies, after all; just because it’s a down economy doesn’t mean the ladies are any less expectant than they ever were.

Because I love Valentine’s Day, here’s a link to a whole bunch of indie rockers talking about their first crushes. It’s hosted by eMusic, which is a fairly decent indie music downloading site. Damien Jurado, Wye Oak, Strand of Oaks, and Toby Lightman have the most entertaining stories, for my money.

So here’s the deal: I have spent too much time doing “things” and not enough time being “friends” with people.

This is a travesty. I’m pretty much a people person. This would be like depriving a road rager of their daily commute. They might cease to exist.

Lo and behold, I’ve become less and less social. I need to fix this; it’s probably more important than realizing that I say “I think” much more often than I should. And erase the phrase “a lot.” And start my phrases with conjunctions (d’oh!).

So, when you’re playing an RPG, you have what’s called an in-game economy. The easiest way to explain it is how much health potions cost vs. how much you can sell stuff that you get off dead off dead bodies (I mean, spoils) for. It gets more elaborate, obviously, but this is the system.

My friend Brian is really good at breaking in-game economies. He’ll end up with twenty times the amount of money that you’re supposed to have in a game. He’ll routinely be stocked to the teeth with 2000 of everything, just grinding out the quests until he beats the game. To Brian, the fun part isn’t “how fast can I beat this game?” The big question is: “How fast can I break the in-game economy?”

I say this only because it was a metaphor that I came up with in reference to something that happened in my life today. It’s kind of unfortunate that it took that long to explain the back story for a metaphor that’s only going to take one line. Narcissism kills, kids.

But seriously, I broke the in-game economy on my Mass Comm Law class yesterday. Having already taken (and gotten a good grade in) a senior-level Constitutional Interpretation class, I know more than the average amount about the constitution. I went in and took a Mass Comm Law test cold (as in, I forgot to study) and I got a ninety-five based on prior knowledge and the parts of lecture I made it to when traffic wasn’t stopping me from getting there on time.

So, I am no longer worried. I know more than he’s probably going to teach us on the subject of Constitutional Law already.

In thinking about this, the term “breaking” the economy isn’t a good phrase for right now. Note to whomever is playing the cosmic video game: very funny. Put the economy back now. Thanks.