God/Science

Have you ever heard of a false binary? A binary is made up of two opposing ideas. Obvious examples include: black/white, male/female, even/odd. So the best example of a false binary, and the one that irks me the most, is God/Science. I haven’t encountered too much debate over the matter recently since we’ve had better things to talk about (e.g. racism, tragedies, marriage equality, police). However, recently my niece, in typical soon-to-be-eight-year-old fashion, blurted out something that her best friend told her, “People who believe in God don’t believe in science.” I calmly explained to her that it’s important not to listen to everything that other people tell us and that plenty of people believe in both.

This is something I hear somewhat often and unfortunately it does have a taste of truth to it. But here’s the problem I have with this way of thinking: It’s small-minded. The God/Science binary may seem logical based on the news, some loud-but-ignorant people, and American politics but if we took some time to think it out it really doesn’t make any sense. I’m not denying that it is ridiculously common to find people who ignore scientific concepts in the name of God, what I’m denying is that this is a correct way of thinking.

God: A concept that varies between different religions but the general idea remains the same. God is mysterious because it is beyond human intelligence and understanding. A god is larger than life, incomprehensible, incredible, unexplainable, unattainable, all-powerful, and whatever other hyperbolic superlative you want to use. God is an abstract concept and one that simply cannot be proven or explained or put into a little human brain box. People who believe in a god use their logic and intelligence in their spirituality but they would be fools to say that they completely understand their god. That would go against the very nature of the word.

Science is nothing like a god. Science can be explained. Actually, science is almost literally synonymous with explanation. Science isn’t just this overarching, over-general term of  “science” it’s biology, ecology, chemistry, physics, all those classes I almost failed in high school plus a thousand more that are studied by smarter people than me. It’s not as if the ideas of science aren’t as powerful as the idea of a god, it’s that they aren’t even in the same competition.  It’s dangerous for us to refer to “science” as “Science.” We can’t give science God status, because it doesn’t and shouldn’t work like that. If we let people worship the idea of “Science” instead of studying the actual concepts of science, we risk the same ignorance coming out in the name of “Science” as comes out in the name of “God.”

Science is not an abstract concept; it’s complex. There’s a difference. Let’s not over-simplify science. Let’s think more, experiment more, and question everything.

A Social Commentary

            When I was young, I knew I was pretty. I knew I was pretty because all of my relatives told me I was, because I was skinny but not too skinny, because Justin Cote left a heart-shaped box of candy on my desk in 3^rd grade on Valentines day, and because no one ever said I wasn’t. I had long brown hair that grew out as quickly as I wanted it to so I could cut it into short bobs when I thought that was cool or grow it down to my butt when I thought that was more fun. I never called it mousey brown because my mom told me I was a strawberry brunette and I believed her about that being a real color because she always complimented me on my beautiful natural highlights.

She told me a hundred times to never dye my hair because I would never get those highlights back and I would end up like my sister, Stefanie, attempting to get her natural color back but never succeeding. I was born with natural beauty and I was supposed to keep it that way. I was also reminded quite a few thousand times to never grow up. Please, please, please, stay my baby forever. Don’t grow up and be mean to me like your sisters. I did what I was told on both counts: I never wore make-up, except to formal dances, I didn’t have my first kiss with a boy until I was 16, my hair stayed naturally medium brown and was only changed by the sun or a pair of professional scissors, I only ever got piercings in my ears, and I didn’t start dating until I was a senior in high school.

Slowly I noticed what had happened to me: I was a future veal cutlet. My mother had put me in a small box when I was young so I wouldn’t grow too much, move too much, or become less tender. I was stuck in the mindset that if I followed the rules that hadn’t been presented to me as rules I would stay pretty forever. College made me antsy. I looked at myself and I didn’t see myself. I saw the allowance they gave me as a way of keeping me in line rather than a gift. If they controlled the money that fed me, they controlled the rest of me too. It took me too long to grow up but I finally did it.

After I finally got a job, things changed a little bit. When I was 21 I dyed my hair pink. For the first time in my life my grandfather said something to me that wasn’t a tremendous compliment: He told me my hair made me look cheap. I have two tattoos now, one of which is a very large sunflower on my leg. When my dad saw it for the first time he told me it was hideous and you really out-stupided your sisters this time. I should stop paying for your car insurance for this one. I’ve gained about 10 pounds in the last year, not exactly noticeable or too unhealthy, just enough to fill out my cheeks a little more. My sister told me my arms are getting fat, what happened?

When I was young, I knew I was pretty. Now that I’m not young, I don’t care.

On moving back in with my parents

I am sorry to have to admit that I have moved back into my parents' house. I'm disappointed in myself. I never wanted to take a step backward. I always try to just keep moving and figure it out on the way. This time I just couldn't. I couldn't bring myself to work twice as much and get to keep half as much so I could pay Orlando rent prices. I couldn't bring myself to spend another year enjoying myself and forgetting about all of my dreams and goals.

The problem is that there was another option. I should have worked harder last year instead of rolling my eyes at the few credits I needed to graduate. I should have figured out what I wanted to work towards after college so I could start heading in that direction. I should have applied for internships, grad schools, and relevant jobs. All I could think about was finishing the lap and I forgot to pace myself for the rest of the race.

I'm disappointed but I will not be discouraged. I won't be here forever. It feels like I'm moving backward but progress isn't always obvious. I'm working and saving and planning; that doesn't mean I'm stagnant.

Roger That

A couple friends and I sat down to study and write and decided to get our brains started by writing this. We rotated writing paragraphs: 

            Roger wasn’t a fan of Walkie-Talkies.  For reasons that would soon be known (though Roger would not be pleased to let his little traumatic incident involving Walkie-Talkies and the local haberdasher known to the public, he’s dead now—Roger, not the haberdasher), Roger tries to avoid Walkie-Talkies at all costs. But being a prison guard in a state penitentiary that wasn’t actually in the state of Hawaii, but was on a small island in the middle of the pacific--well, the Walkie-Talkie was his best friend.  It was his only friend. It’s little red light stared back at him as he lay on his cot, sweating and thinking  about how his dismal life had become a little less dismal with the introduction of that Walkie-Talkie.

            So when his son, Roger Junior, asked for the new “Ultra-Long-Distance-Rough-and-Tough-Walkie-Talkie” set (batteries and the urge to actually go outside for once not included) for his birthday, Roger said flat out, “no.” For weeks Roger was ostracized within his own house, his wife and son treated him like kids in the hallway treat a hall monitor, like he took all the fun out of life with one little word, “no.”

“Roger, he’s a kid. He asked for ONE thing for his birthday. He needs this!”

“No.”

“I can’t even believe you right now. You’re acting like… like a dictator.”

A warden. He was acting like a warden of a penitentiary, or at least that was how she was making him feel. He thought about this for a second. The warden, the Walkie-Talkie, it was all the same, and yet different. Now he was the Warden, his wife was the guard, and his son… the haberdasher himself: A wolf in sheep’s clothing (very well-made sheep’s clothing).

  With a sigh Roger said aloud “Enough of that kind of thinking, for now.”  Roger frequently spoke audibly to himself when no one was around, a product of his lonely, wardenly existence. This unfortunate habit was the root of the entire confounded haberdasher debacle. That and his inability to ever turn the Walkie-Talkie off (“Too many infernal buttons”)  Roger leaned deeply into his pillow and decided to contemplate the next day which would hopefully include chocolate cake.

The problem with thinking was that once you start doing it, it just isn’t going to stop doing it.  The human mind is one of those wonderful things; it will do whatever it wants to do, even when the person who happens to possess the mind has told it to stop. This was happening to Roger as he tried to not think about things. His mind told him to shut up and pay attention: Roger fell into the darkness of his mind, spiraling and coiling into the oblivion that is the human memory—where memories not only were stored, but fabricated. Roger landed with a thud onto a giant chocolate cake. 

“Cake? We’re having… cake?”

“Yes Roger! We’re celebrating!”

Celebrating, Roger thought. Since when does the Warden celebrate anything? Since when has there been anything to celebrate in a prison?

“I’m sorry sir, but what exactly are we celebrating?”

“Life, of course. I figured since we can’t have a birthday party for every prisoner on their birthdays we might as well just have one big birthday celebration a year for everyone!”

“Chocolate cake. Is that chocolate mousse frosting? With almonds on the trim?”

The Warden just laughed and turned back to talk to some of the prisoners.

Roger still couldn’t wrap his mind around what was going on. He scanned the room. All of the prisoners were laughing, smiling, enjoying their cake. No one seemed suspicious of the situation. Finally he spotted the haberdasher sitting in the corner at one of the tables, alone. He walked over to sit with him, both of them cake-less and word-less, until Roger noticed that the haberdasher had a black eye and he felt obligated to say, or at least think, something.

            “I’m sorry I blackened you eye, good sir…You understand how it couldn’t be helped after the, you know, thing.” The haberdasher did not raise his head or acknowledge Roger in the slightest. “Now, don’t hold a grudge, Haberdasher. You know I had to do it. I just had to…” He trailed off. The Haberdasher still did not alter his continuous gaze at the dark green table-top. Roger’s irritation swelled inside him like rising bread, “I’m just trying to help after all” he sort of yelled accidentally.  The haberdasher raised his grizzled head, staring directly into Roger’s face with his ghostly eyes and whispered “I’m not alive and neither are you. You know that, don’t you?”

Dead people were all the same. They were dead. Most people who die have the chance to come to terms with death before the scythe nips off their heads, but some, such as Roger his Walkie-Talkie, just couldn’t put up with the whole idea of it.

            “Dead?” he asked, his eyes were open wide, trying to absorb the information, but all they could do was wander off to a very slim piece of cake, which had just been set in front of him. He took up the cake and fork and was going to eat it when—

            “Don’t!” the haberdasher said.

            “Well, why not? It’s a perfectly good piece of cake.”

            But when Roger looked back down at his “perfectly good piece of cake” it had turned into a small man holding an umbrella. The man was in a very sporty suit. He smiled up from the plate, but when he spotted the fork that nearly maimed him, his expression became very serious.

            “Hey dad,” said the man in the suit. “Do you have my Walkie-Talkie?”

Roger woke with a start.  It took him a second to focus enough to realize where he was. His son was standing over him; he must have fallen asleep on the couch.

“Roger that.”

Make Time to Write

I need to make time to write. There is no question about it.
A writer should write, right?
Right.
Write.

As a reader I carry this burden of thousands of human trials, dilemmas, and troubles. The human condition is what I study. I read books; that's what I do. I read and then I analyze. I'm studying the human condition on a daily basis and it really is starting to conflict with my current status of being a human being. It's a harsh world out there, which I know because I've read so many accounts of it, but when's the last time something horrible happened to me? I'm not saying I wish something bad would happen to me, but is it odd that I have to spend so much of my time thinking about horrible things when I don't have to? Is that what it's like to just be an aware and intelligent person? Am I just ignoring the realities of my own life by jumping into other people's?

Here I am drawing a blank...

This is a poem I read this week for class by Leroi Jones (a beat poet of course):

"In Memory of Radio"  

Who has ever stopped to think of the divinity of Lamont Cranston?
(Only jack Kerouac, that I know of: & me.
The rest of you probably had on WCBS and Kate Smith,
Or something equally unattractive.)

What can I say?
It is better to have loved and lost
Than to put linoleum in your living rooms?

Am I a sage or something?
Mandrake's hypnotic gesture of the week?
(Remember, I do not have the healing powers of Oral Roberts...
I cannot, like F. J. Sheen, tell you how to get saved & rich!
I cannot even order you to the gaschamber satori like Hitler or Goddy Knight)

& love is an evil word.
Turn it backwards/see, see what I mean?
An evol word. & besides
who understands it?
I certainly wouldn't like to go out on that kind of limb.

Saturday mornings we listened to the Red Lantern & his undersea folk.
At 11, Let's Pretend/&we did/& I, the poet, still do. Thank God!

What was it he used to say (after the transformation when he was safe
& invisible & the unbelievers couldn't throw stones?) "Heh, heh, heh.
Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? The Shadow knows."

O, yes he does
O, yes he does
An evil word it is,
This Love.


Isn't that the best poem you've ever read? Doesn't that make you just want to jump out of your skin and run around telling everyone to read it? I know that doesn't make any sense but I just like it so much. I want to write like that and I want people to like it and read it and frame it and recite it when they're sad. Is that too much to ask? Probably since I haven't written anything. If I expect to be inspired into writing I need to read things like this much, much more and I plan on it. I'm taking a class on the Beats this semester and I think if I can focus enough it will be very helpful.

On the start of my last fall semester...

      There was a time when I was hungry for knowledge, but now I just eat. I wanted to know what every word meant, but not just in context; I wanted to know the specific usage, what the word's original meaning was, and the connotation it held. I carried a dictionary around everywhere I went despite my shoulder hurting and looking silly when I looked up "metaphysical" for the umpteenth time just to make sure I really understood what it meant. I wanted to know everything.
      Sometimes I still get that feeling, like today when I spent more of my time at Sea World on my phone figuring out how closely related killer whales are to dolphins than actually watching Shamu. I want to know things and I want to explore and I don't want to JUST know things, I want to understand them in a way that just keeps leading to more questions that need to be answered because there's always more to explore! Yes! That is an exclamation point!
      In a whirlwind of indecision during the first week of school I dropped and added classes on the drop and add deadlines until the very last second and ended up with more classes than I wanted to take and more books to read than I probably am capable of. So now I have 5 English classes and a job. I know I'm in for a hell of a semester but I'm glad. I hope it ignites the kind of fire in me that I had when I was lugging that dictionary, fat from being overused and abused and stuffed with notecards, around with me everywhere.

Things I learned in College

Things I learned in College... that most people figured out in high school.

1. I love making lists:

      Shouldn't I have known this about myself a long time ago? Who knows. I read this book a few semesters ago for my Women in Lit class and one of the main characters makes lists because there's a famous Japanese woman from olden times who used to do it. I would love to have written a way more descriptive sentence than that but I am too lazy to look up or remember the details. The book was My Year of Meats and I highly recommend it especially if you're interested in corruption in the meat industry and/or feminism. Anyway I really like lists as a way of organizing thoughts and I appreciate the cheesiness factor that comes with them.

2. It's okay to fry your hair:

      When my friends and family were dyeing their hair different shades of black and blonde and red and straightening their hair until it begged for mercy right before it died slowly from the ends up, I was okay with my "natural" look. I never believed in hair dryers and to be honest I still am not their biggest fan. I never straightened my hair because I thought it would kill it and I usually had long wavy hair anyway. I never dyed it because my mom is obsessed with this idea that once you dye your hair you are basically walking the plank and can never get back to your natural color or grow it out. I really believed her for a long time, that me changing my hair was going to ruin everything and I would never forgive myself. Seriously though, who the hell cares? It's hair. It grows back and if it doesn't, that's cool, most of my friends are bald anyway. I've been bleaching parts of my hair to keep pink highlights for at least a year now and of course those parts are not very healthy but it doesn't really bother me. My hair isn't falling out and I just want to try other things with my hair anyway so why worry?

3. Alcohol is good:

      I don't know. This one kind of speaks for itself. I only drank a little in high school. I could probably count the number of parties I went to on one hand. I liked it but I still had this idea in my head that it corrupted people and changed them and would eat me alive if I let it. Then I realized that I am a perfectly capable human being and that fun doesn't kill people. I learned to enjoy myself. But...

4. Being healthy is better:

      Alcohol is really bad for your body. I live based on the notion that "I'm in college once, I'm going to do what I want,"so I don't hold back too much but I do try to respect what my body wants and not push it too far. My Year of Meats was also really great to push me into my ongoing experiment with vegetarianism. Look at that full circle ending I just pulled off. Better quit while I'm ahead...