Unconsciousness

You did what now?

[As before: heavy spoilers below.]

Um, yeah. I guess we're done here. I completed season one of Westworld last night and every time I think about it, all I can do is arch an eyebrow at some of the choices made, not just in the last couple episodes, but in the series overall. Twice before I've posted about what a slog the whole viewing experience was, with a few flickers of interest. That's why it took me over a year to finish watching. But what it boils down to is that the whole first season came to many of the same story conclusions as Michael Crichton's just-this-side-of-B movie did in 1973. The hosts are in revolt and there will be much blood extracted from the callous humans who've been treating thinking entities like appliances. In essence, what they're saying here is that it took 10 hours of TV to reach the same point that Yul Brynner got to in a half hour. And that Westworld, the series, for all of its multitude of characters and drawn out storylines and philosophical trappings, is still basically just half of Battlestar Galactica confined to an amusement park. Or an attempt at Blade Runner, but with a lot more angst and melodrama. Maybe.

Is this the part where I agree to do something that I don't understand?

There's a lot more talking in the last couple episodes as we're finally given some clarification on all of the visions and time lapses that a few characters have been experiencing. Most of that stuff centers around the hosts' realization of what the screenplay calls "consciousness." Now, that's a very nebulous and oft-debated term and concept, but the essential definition of that state is an awareness of self and having thoughts and feelings about the world around you. There's more to it, of course, but its most basic level is reacting to external stimuli and understanding a state of existence. The hosts have part of that, in that they respond to external stimuli as any thinking creature would. They have emotional displays to events around them. In that respect, you could possibly identify them as of animal intelligence, because many animals have those same reactions. But it's clearly more than that on the part of the hosts, even if they lack the sense of self that usually accompanies the term "consciousness." For example, Maeve doesn't lean back at the bar and think to herself: "Another day of screwing guys I don't know and maybe even getting shot for my troubles. Hooray?" But even if they don't have the higher levels defined by introspection, streams of thought, and the ability to imagine, we still have a situation where the machines are having emotional reactions to external stimuli, like pain, and they create emotional attachments to the guests based on behavior in order to maintain relationships through extended storylines. That's a sufficient level of realization that would make inflicting pain on them a moral and ethical issue even if they couldn't tell you the difference between Cartesian duality and more modern perspectives. People are arrested for violating those ethical grounds in their treatment of animals every day. The hosts would be no different, whether they can dream about escaping their private hell or not.

Searching for Nirvana. Obvsly. I've heard it's kind of like a labyrinth.

A tiny part of all of the talking about the basis of the entire series is when it's mentioned that Arnold defined the doorway to consciousness as suffering. They walked away from that idea quickly, despite it being one of the Four Noble Truths of Buddhism. The other Noble Truths explain that suffering is caused by desire, which in this case is displayed by Dolores' desire to solve the mystery in her head, Maeve's desire for freedom, and so on. That's kind of a blanket statement that hearkens to a major religion, rather than solely to philosophical underpinnings about the nature of the human condition. But they didn't follow up on it at all, which I found kind of odd, given how willing they'd been to drag out most of the rest of the story. That's a snippet that could have filled out some of the endless, rueful exchanges between William and the people on the fringe of the park. Instead, the first nine episodes were often a poor attempt at visual storytelling that led to an avalanche of Anthony Hopkins exposition in episode 10, which immediately had me thinking of a Bond villain revealing the master plot while he has 007 trapped in a sure deathtrap. Unfortunately, the only people trapped in this case were the viewers, especially when Ford states that he's actually been helping the hosts for 35 years by torturing them. If you frowned at the oblique nature of that, it's just one more step in the opaque storytelling that dominated the series.

I wasn't that broken up, but it was kind of annoying.

Take, for example, the Man in Black/William storyline, as it completely crashed and burned in the finale. So, the two most tedious storylines of the series were linked in tedium because they were about the same guy. I guess that makes sense on a production level, but what was the point of the whole exercise in the first place? This guy is obsessed with finding out what "the maze" is, despite the fact that he's been in the park for thirty years and is on the board of directors. Surely in his interactions with Ford by this time he understands that "the maze" is a construction by which they were teaching the hosts to discover themselves? You reach the end of the maze, you find your self and blossom into full consciousness.  There is no physical "maze" for him to discover, unless the implication is that his behavior, as a human, was every bit as mechanical as any of the hosts because he couldn't seem to accept the fact that he was never going to find the Minotaur. I guess I can accept the idea of someone that monomaniacal, but it's also an example of someone who's dumb as a bag of hammers and not exactly the guy that you'd expect Logan's dad would pick to run his massive company. It's a rather startling lack of insight which in fewer words is known as "stupid", which perhaps explains why that dual storyline was mostly annoying. It was essentially Don Quixote so that the showrunners could hand the audience a "Gotcha!" moment when they revealed that "THIS windmill runs backwards, too!" [Evil laugh.]

No. Seriously. THIS time, it'll work.

And Ford spent 35 years doing... what? Preparing them to fight for their rights in an incredibly slow and subtle method of allowing a select few to emerge into a state of consciousness and then wiping that away because he knew that the memory imprints of that emergence would eventually lead them to freedom? Or insanity, which, y'know, is a kind of freedom. This seems like a logical plan? I guess I can see why it would take 35 years... for the same reason that it took 10 hours of TV to tell the same story that a 90-minute, middlebrow, sci-fi thriller from the 70s did. Wow, man. There were nods aplenty to that middlebrow film, too, with the apparent "Samurai World" or "Shogun World" operating in the same complex, just like the Roman World and Medieval World from the film. And, of course, this revelation is presented in said torrent of exposition, so that the audience is digesting the master plan, Dolores' and Maeve's anguish that was a direct consequence of this master plan, and the fact that- No! Wait! Dr. Ford is actually a good guy! -all at once. That doesn't read like something that was planned out for a set sequence of episodes. It sounds like a pitch for 20 episodes that ended up stretching too long when HBO called and said "You gotta wrap it up in 10." But the worst part is that the story isn't even worth 20 episodes, especially if all of them are filled with more mutterings by the Man in Black about "the maze".

Now we have to watch society adapt as the rules have all crumbled in the face of this little world being taken over by a bunch of automatons, many of whom have an unhealthy pallor to their skin. Wait. Don't we already have this show? (Speaking of things that take too long to tell a story...)

No, I don't really believe it, either.

Hm. Yeah. As I've mentioned a couple times, there are a lot of good offerings on the concept of artificial intelligence and when or how it graduates to the level of "human". These are becoming more plentiful as the concept comes closer to emerging in our own reality. From what I've seen, I don't think Westworld measures up when compared to things like AMC's Humans; at least not if you don't want to linger through 10 weeks of angst while waiting for something interesting to happen.

Fandom

Brian’s recent brief explanation (last question) about how to pick an EPL team to root for got me to thinking. As some of you know, I’m an LFC fan and became one largely because it was the only professional club that we could get footage of when I was a kid (mostly via public TV and occasionally CBC) and that was largely because Liverpool was the dominant team of England’s first division at the time (late 70s/early 80s.) I knew of the other big clubs like Arsenal, but I mostly saw Liverpool so I developed an attachment for the Reds. I’ve been accused of having a similarity in my rooting interests for aged teams with great histories but little recent success to show for it, because Michigan is the same way. But that sentiment is accurate in that I had the geographic advantage of living in the state where one of the most successful college football programs in the history of the game happened to exist. I became a Michigan fan because that’s what I saw and one of the first things I vividly remember is the cool helmets compared to almost every other team that they played against. Coming full circle again, I remember thinking how distinctive the all-red kits of LFC were compared to their opposing numbers (young communist even then…)

But the point that Brian made that triggered this post is his measure of disdain for the “petrosheik” clubs like Chelsea and Manchester City (even though the former is owned by a Russian, not a ‘sheik’, it’s still oil money.) While both of the latter clubs have history in the Premier League (Chelsea’s considerably superior to City’s), their recent success is (ahem) fueled largely by their respective owners’ status as billionaires. This allows both clubs to spend vastly more than most of their rivals and, therefore, sweep up the world’s soccer talent and use it to create championship teams. The Premier League’s spending rules are fairly few; nothing like many American sports’ leagues salary caps or luxury taxes and certainly nothing like the Bundesliga’s defined spending limits, as most of those clubs are municipally-owned. That kind of largesse is looked upon by Brian and many others as, ironically, ‘cheap’ in that the club didn’t work to build its own development system or “play by the rules” in direct competition with its rivals, but instead bought its way to success. Consequently, they’re considered less viable from a fan interest standpoint because they’re seen as artificial and it’s assumed that a new fan would only be interested because they’re two of the best teams in the top division right now, rather than something more genuine. Of course, part of my attachment to teams like Liverpool and Michigan is the fact that they were very successful. That meant it was gratifying to watch them play, because they usually won, but it was also one of the main reasons that I saw them in the first place: lots of people wanted to see them because they usually won. Therefore, TV networks were glad to show them because the networks made money and they also paid out money to the teams in question, enabling Liverpool, at least, to pay more for players and Michigan to at least create better facilities under the NCAA’s artificial “amateurism” system.

Considering that the NCAA is currently wrestling with critics of that artificial system that prevents giving athletes a share of the money they’re earning and requires schools like Michigan, with vastly more resources and far greater fanbases with even more resources, to play by the same rules as the Ball States, the disgust with teams like City is a bit questionable from a college sports perspective. It’s not as if I don’t understand the reaction. I share it. Liverpool is one of the most successful teams in the history of both the Premier League and international soccer (although they haven’t won the home league in quite some time, just like Michigan…) Man City has long been a member of the top flight, but has almost always been an also-ran. Their recent run of success has been created entirely by their essential status as “Qatar FC”, as Brian refers to them. They lack anything remotely like the fanbase of LFC, Arsenal, or their crosstown rivals, Manchester United, but they’re the hot item of the moment because they’re winning with a lot of the talent from the Continent and South America, bought and paid for by oil money. It seems cheap, in a sports sense, that they simply tapped a few holes in the ground and are suddenly winning the League and competing for the Champions League title on a regular basis.

But, what, exactly is wrong with that?

When the stake is finally driven through the NCAA’s heart and some share of the billions in revenue is distributed to the players of major college football and basketball, it stands to reason that the archaic rules of amateurism in terms of recruiting will also be swept away. If that means that Michigan and its huge alumni base can suddenly bring their full powers to bear in terms of attracting talent, why wouldn’t they? Michigan, the school, can outspend all but a few other institutions. Based on occasionally quantifiable evidence, it seems that the world’s largest alumni organization can outspend anyone. If we can bring the best athletes here, would that make Michigan a different form of Man City?

The counter-argument is that Michigan, while playing by the rules, built up one of the largest and most devoted followings of any program via sustained success. Consequently, the school has money to spend because it won within the rules and isn’t winning because it has money (barring the fact that facilities and other incidentals generated from that success are pretty attractive to the average athlete.) Michigan, ostensibly, earned its fans the “honest” way and now benefits from succeeding in that effort to a degree greater than any other school. But is being a dyed-in-the-wool, “traditional” winner a better choice for a new fan than another school simply because that team has the institutional and historical advantages that other teams do not? Liverpool is in the same situation. Sustained success earned sufficient money and fan support to enable that success to be continued until LFC, too, was purchased by very wealthy Americans (former money managers and now sports, specifically the Red Sox, not oil) who now spend considerable amounts of money trying to keep the club at the elite level.

Contrasting again is the question of: What makes fandom worthwhile? Is it more satisfying to root for a little guy like Northwestern, long the stepchild of the Big 10 until achieving decent success in the last couple decades? Or for a Purdue, which has almost never been able to rise above the traditional powers of its league? Tottenham and Sunderland are good comparisons in the Premier League. But would you suggest that to a new fan, to immerse themselves in the frustration of watching an average or poor team simply because they’re the little guy and it might be extra satisfying once a decade when they make 5^th place? Is it likewise a bad idea to suggest that they simply join the crowd and root for one of the other big powers, because that’s what so many other people do (the best example in this case from an EPL perspective being Man U over the past 20 years)?

I guess my answer to that would be: watch what you like. Watch a ton of EPL (or college football) and see which teams’ style you enjoy or which players you really like to see perform. That one is likely to be your favorite almost regardless of record. Winning will still affect things, of course, because people are naturally drawn to successful things. But it won’t be everything. As Brian notes, Chelsea, while enormously successful in recent years, plays godawful, suffocating, boring football. Man City, OTOH, plays an up-tempo, attacking style which is far more entertaining. From my own interest, I’m thankful that Liverpool’s current style is also the attacking game, as they’re striker-heavy. In contrast, watching Michigan’s team in the past couple years on both offense and defense has been an exercise in head-pounding against the nearest hard surface. I can imagine new fans of the game enjoying LFC on the field. I cannot say the same for Michigan, but I know there are plenty of other fans who would say otherwise, because that's essentially what fandom is about.

Kneejerk moment: Sex and not sex

So Charlie Jane Anders wrote a piece for i09 about the use of sex in fiction and it reminded me of the page above which is probably the most famous rendition of sex that (n)ever occurred in Marvel Comics for any number of reasons.

First off, it was while Jim Steranko was doing his famous run on Nick Fury, Agent of SHIELD. Steranko had been in advertising prior to coming to comics, which is blatantly obvious via any casual glance at his work, including the above. He was used to spotlighting the topic of interest and didn't spend a lot of time on backgrounds or other supporting aspects to the panels which most good comic artists (and writers. and editors. and readers.) regard as essential to the proper delivery of the medium. There's a vast difference between comic strips and comic books. The former usually deliver a message or a joke. The latter deliver a story. If you're going to tell a story, you need to flesh it out. That fleshing is often done by including background art in the panels as the story proceeds. Think of it as description in prose or part of the cinematography of a film. However, Steranko was so good at delivering his story, even without words (as on the page above), that he was one of the few that could dispense with the backgrounds and still produce masterful work. In a way, he was an expression of the other half of that cinematography aspect, in which what the camera shows you, front and center, what you need to understand the writer's vision.

Secondly, this page was produced and published in 1968, while the comics industry was still under the onerous weight of the Comics Code Authority, designed to protect all young minds from the horrible consequences of real life and humanity and stuff. So, even though Steranko wanted to show Nick Fury and Contessa Valentina Allegra de la Fontaine relaxing at home in the manner that many lovers do, the CCA would have forbidden young eyes from seeing anything even resembling sex or intimate contact (kissing on the lips was also verboten under the Code.) So he drew the scene in as oblique a manner as he could in order to get it past the censors which were (I shit you not) a collection of uptight women in their 50s and 60s exactly as you would expect in stereotypical fashion. Of course, by that point Marvel had figured out that their primary buying audience were actually college-aged men, which were not exactly the target waifs of the Code but were easily smart enough to figure out exactly what was going in this scene. Funnily enough, it still had to be altered by the editors from his original production as, for example, he originally drew the phone off the hook, but that was considered too suggestive and something that the censors would flag.

The best part about this is that, of course, the scene became famous precisely because it showed no nudity or intimate activity. It's perfectly seductive and enthralling just as it is and delivers the message better than anything overt or softcore ever could have. Just as Charlie notes in her column, subtlety is often far sexier than actual sex and that's something that many, many authors, directors, and artists often fail to realize.

As noted frequently here, Game of Thrones has often used sex to drive the story, not because it was essential for the characters at that moment, but because it was a way for Martin to demonstrate that Westeros was a real place with real people who had real desires and sex (and fire and blood) is one of them. However, it became so frequent that a term was soon coined for it by the fanbase: "sexposition". I don't object to it in the show and, admittedly, there is so much story to tell in A Song of Ice and Fire that the kind of subtle moments that can convey real energy in a 2-hour film would be lost in the fairly hectic pace that the show currently has. The exploration of character is taking place over long arcs, whereas the more subtle moments oddly have to be shown at a slower pace in what is actually a shorter format. So there is nothing subtle about the sex in GoT and it can occasionally feel ham-handed as a consequence or present merely for the titillation that one seems to expect out of HBO's "adult" series.

In contrast, this is the opening shot of Blue is the Warmest Color, a film I've raved about before and mildly criticized for the (ahem) extended length of its sex scenes. But this opening scene may be the hottest one in the film, as it's the first glance between the two women and the expression of desire fairly explodes off the screen, whether you choose to see it as love at first sight or lust at first sight or both. You can feel the air smoldering between the two of them in every scene they share before they ever get horizontal and it's a fair question to ask whether that would have been enough, along with some properly placed scenery as in Steranko's work, to convey the intensity of their relationship even without the rest of the flesh. I'm not trying to be a prudish critic here, either. I was fine with the sex scenes in the film and I think there's something to be gained from watching the act itself as art. But I think couching it properly so that it serves a purpose in the story other than trying to snare the simple lust of the reader/viewer and instead engages her imagination is the best path in any creative work.

I sold a story recently that does have a fairly intense sex scene in it. I included it because the main character has been going through a series of moments where he doesn't quite know where he is and he begins reacting to things in a fairly emotional fashion, so it felt appropriate to place it there, as it also engages the sensations of heat and sweat. He was reacting in a very primal fashion, so it seemed right to show one of the most primal activities of the human condition in a way that perhaps confronts the reader, rather than entices. Could I have done it in a less abrupt fashion? Probably. But the story itself is relatively visceral to begin with, so I guess we'll see if I was right when it's released. Perhaps the adage "if it feels right, do it" also applies to writing to some degree?

And, all of that said, there's nothing wrong with just good, old pr0n if that's what you're into. There's a reason it's one of the foundation stones of the Interwebs: people like it. Everyone except Hobby Lobby, anyway.

Finally, the deeper meaning

Significant spoilers below if you haven't seen the most recent episode of The Walking Dead.

I'm not a huge zombie fan. Most of the entertainment surrounding them is pretty one-note: dead people chase, live people flee and occasionally kill. None of the Living Dead films has ever been more complex than that and most have been relatively self-contained in scope, aside from occasional details about what might be happening elsewhere. The whole world is represented by one little town or even one shopping mall. The exceptions to that are the "28" films (Days and Weeks), which examined the initiation of the problem from a purely scientific perspective (a weaponized disease that escaped containment) and which instigated the utter collapse of the British nation, and World War Z, an excellent book presented as a series of first-hand accounts collected by a UN Commission ten years after the "zombie war".

The book is used to examine any number of social issues that confront us today and which would be accentuated by the utter breakdown of society that takes place during the war, just as it does in the 28 films. That is what makes both book and films interesting, because the problems are far more complex than simply confronting walking corpses. The Walking Dead, originally as a comic and now as the TV series, is presented in a similar vein: the story isn't about running from and occasionally killing zombies. It's about what happens when society completely breaks down. Where does food come from? Where does electricity come from? Who enforces the laws? Who heeds them? Do you absorb others into your group, creating security but also creating more mouths to feed? Or do you reject all but a chosen few once you've learned to trust them?

The TV series has come under criticism from fans of the Romero movies who profess to simply want more scenes of hardcore corpse-killing action. That's a series that would last about two seasons and then get cancelled and the producers and the original writer of the story, Robert Kirkman, have often tried to explain that reality. There has to be something more to the story being presented or else it will quickly become trite. Tonight's episode highlighted that in almost every way possible and finally made the last two-and-a-half seasons well worth watching.

Lennie James returns as Morgan, who appeared in the first episode of the first season with his son, Duane (Adrian Turner), as they rescue Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln) after his escape from the hospital. They're holed up in their house in Rick's home town and they explain how the world has changed before Rick sets off in search of his family, promising to try to keep in touch with them by radio. Tonight, we learned that Morgan has remained in town, but shifted locations to a more defensible area where he's amassed an arsenal and established an array of traps for the walkers while he continues to paint doomsday graffiti on every available surface. Duane has died and turned at the hands of his mother whom Morgan says he was too selfish and too weak to kill. Morgan has been driven at least mildly insane by this course of events and is now determined to embody the nihilistic approach toward the world that he thinks is the only reasonable course: everyone will turn and everyone will die, so there's no sense in associating with other other people or trying to rebuild society.

This is the crux of the story: Will society be rebuilt and, if so, by whom and how? The Governor of Woodbury has one approach that seems bent on authoritarian control and an intent that society will be what they want it to be, which is closer to the approach of most of the forces present in the 28 films. Rick's group, on the other hand, seems relatively deterministic: survival is the only real goal and the future will somehow take care of itself, once the problem of the zombies is resolved, which is closer to World War Z's depiction of the problem. The Walking Dead has managed to incorporate both approaches and this episode is what brings it into focus. Morgan had been a survivor, but now presents as an iconoclast. Nothing matters and it's his own weakness that has assured that situation (again, still somewhat deterministic, as his inaction seemingly assured his insanity and change in philosophy.) As he says: "I was too weak and it's people like me that have inherited the Earth."

Meanwhile, the former iconoclast of Rick's group, Michonne, discovers in the course of the same episode that perhaps it is better to be part of a group than a loner determined to distrust everyone. She does this by assisting Carl in the retrieval of the last picture of his mother that he knows to exist. His effort to reach this is motivated by personal feelings, but also by his desire to show his sister, Judith, what their mother looked like. In this way, he firmly positions himself in the camp of those trying to rebuild society, as he understands that the foundation of many human relations is the memory of what has gone before. If we don't possess knowledge of our forebears, we're cast adrift; essentially making it up as we go along, rather than confronting problems with a set of values rooted in the past and our knowledge of the people that lived then. As Orwell said: "Those who control the past, control the future. Those who control the present, control the past." That's a bit more heavy-handed than Carl's motivations, but the truth is essentially the same. Society will be based on a vision of what the controllers feel is essential to preserve, whether out of genuine altruism (Carl) or darker motivations (The Governor.)

I've been watching the series because I'm interested in most comic-oriented stories and Kirkman's is one that has been spoken of quite highly (I only read the first arc.) At times, it was difficult to continue because the story seemed to lack purpose. It was, in fact, just a bunch of people sitting around bemoaning their fate and occasionally entertaining us with new methods of killing walkers. But the third season has been a bit of a revelation in that it finally began to address the bigger picture and this episode brought it home, not because it delivered some poorly-executed expositional homily to the idea of recreating what was, but because it showed people confronting those problems and how it motivates and changes all of them. In that respect, I think I've become an actual fan.

"Are you happy?"

Said question was put to me a while back by a friend. He's not a close friend, so it's not a topic that I would generally venture into with him. I don't mind communicating personal things to people, but this is a topic that could take some time and I'd be concerned about being soporific. The other half of that assessment is, yes, there are things that I will only talk about with a select few.

The topic came up because I had mentioned to him that a couple people I knew seemed genuinely happy in recent times. They had gotten over some significant hurdles and had reached that point of almost-nirvana; the "life is good/beautiful/perfect" moment. He said he'd known moments like that and then turned the question back to me.

"Are you happy?"

It struck me then that I'm not sure what that means anymore.

It's been so long since I've had one of those "life is good" moments; wherein I'd been content with the route my life was taking, my immediate surroundings, whom I was with, what I was doing, and could genuinely appreciate the positive side of almost everything, that I honestly don't know what it feels like any longer. I can't remember what it felt like in the past. I'm slowly beginning to question whether I've ever been there. Certainly, there are always the self-pitying reflections when times are difficult (as they are now, somewhat), when one becomes convinced that there's no way out of the turmoil and wonders if there ever truly was. There are sincere moments of regret for all of the woulda, coulda, shoulda moments that might have shifted the course just enough to bring at least some joy into the otherwise presumably bleak and Road-like outlook. One's perception is always colored by what's happening right now, so now would probably not be the most advisable time to sit back and wonder if happiness had ever truly been present. It certainly doesn't feel that way now, so how can memories have ever been better? But perhaps I'm thinking too much in the realm of absolutes.

Are there good times? Absolutely. I had a pretty good time last night, in fact. It's easy to be distracted from the overarching sensation by friends and experiences. Copious amounts of alcohol don't hurt, either. Life is not solely a path of misery and never has been. If ever that situation comes about, one can usually be sure that life is either going to take a dramatic change quite soon or be finished equally quickly. I can remember many good moments from the past 20 years. What I can't remember is that feeling of contentment and surety that says "life is good."

My answer to him was: "Probably not." (Evasive much?) So, he turned it back again: "What would make you happy?"

That stumped me for a bit. Again, I feel like I'm operating at a loss here because the sensation is seemingly beyond me. But I could think of several things that would make me happier and I listed off a few and quickly remembered that all of them are circumstances that are either largely beyond my control or situations in which my vote is not the only one that counts. Despite earnest lifetime effort, I cannot simply control all of the people around me and get them to shut up and do what I tell them to do. In a couple scenarios, doing so would at least mildly defeat the purpose, anyway.

He pointed out one scenario and said: "Why don't you pursue that if it would make you happier?"

Two reasons: 1) That was one of those that isn't solely up to me. If there were something out there that didn't resemble fly fishing from a B-52 (for all you non-Cold War kids: here), I surely would have attempted it by now. 2) Since it's not just up to me, it necessarily involves the happiness of people other than me. Diminishing someone else's in favor of mine is something that I may never be able to do.

My parents essentially instilled in me the idea that my personal happiness was secondary to all else. If someone else wanted to do something (usually them) that impinged on my life, then I was simply required to suck it up and accept it. It's a perspective that I still employ on a regular basis in my relationships with others. It's more important to me that my friends are happy than that I am so, as I've vaguely averred to before. It's also contrary to MA's approach, in which the nature of Stoicism is defined by not subsuming oneself in "destructive" emotions, but instead working through everything with reason. Reason, of course, can't account for everything and there's certainly room to question whether the human condition can survive a "pure" Stoic approach in the same way that aspirational Buddhism almost demands a transcendence beyond the consciousness of the human state. There's not really a classical philosophical approach to the idea of dispensing with "constructive" emotions except, perhaps, nihilism, but one wonders if that's a proper summation of the inability to feel genuine happiness any longer.

As noted, this isn't a topic of which I would go into great detail with most people, largely because I'd have to explain a lot of it and/or not be certain that the imposed upon would understand what the hell I was saying in the first place without jumping to any number of conclusions that would invariably be wrong and/or annoying. In my life, I think I've come across all of three people who could always seem to understand what I was saying as I was saying it. That's an incredibly comforting thing. The first is someone whom I haven't seen in almost 20 years and haven't talked to in about half that time. The second is someone that I barely talk to anymore, as she's enormously involved in her own life (as she probably should be.) The third is someone that has become close relatively recently and I still hesitate to impinge (that word again...) upon her because, once again, why douse someone else's day (and presumed happiness) with my own dire proclamations? "Let every action aim solely at the common good..."

So, I suppose I occasionally ramble on about these topics here so that people can choose when to stop while I attempt to gain some perspective on them alone. Effective? I don't know yet.

WWMD?

I hated those bracelets/charms/whatevers: What Would Jesus Do? It's not as if there's nothing honorable in following the philosophy espoused by the man known as Jesus in the New Testament. In fact, it's a rather enlightened viewpoint that's been hideously distorted since it was first committed to memory for oral histories and continues to be so today (shhhh... little secret: Jesus was a socialist.) Of course, there's absolutely no requirement to believe in the divinity and/or supernatural existence of the prime mover of said philosophy in order to follow its tenets, just as with any other set of ideas.

What disturbed me was the idea of having to consult someone else's behavior in order to determine one's own. If you're a genuine believer in and follower of the principles of the New Testament, then you really shouldn't have to stop and question what a poor Jew in the middle of the Roman-occupied Levant would do when confronted with the prospect of massive financial fraud involving credit default swaps or deciding whether to crank Boston to 11 in a crowded apartment building at 3 AM. In the latter case, he'd keep it to a reasonable volume and go find a better taste in music and in the former case he'd strike you and anyone involved with said fraud dead as a doornail, as is only appropriate. Who says the son of God can't be as vengeful as Dad?

I can't recall a time when I've ever been confronted with a situation and stopped to ask myself: What Would Marcus Do? That's at least partially because there were many other Stoic philosophers down through the ages, so there's no real reason to elevate MAAA above the rest (except that I do) in the manner of a messiah. But it's mostly because I've absorbed the philosophy into how I deal with the world as a whole. This is who I am, not what I profess to believe in and then make confession for when I deviate from it.

Stoicism is often perceived as the approach or demeanor of someone without emotion. They're "stoic" if they can remain unaffected in an otherwise harried situation. This originates from the concept that "destructive" emotions impede reason and reason is paramount to most Stoics. Suffering will be avoided through apatheia, which means "peace of mind" or, literally, "without passion." And, without suffering, life is good, yes?

Of course, there's a bit more involved, since simply avoiding emotion will only go so far in helping to determine your choices and actions in life. But the supremacy of reason drives much of the rest of the whole. Actions are "good" because they're ethical. If one stops to question whether a particular choice is "good", ostensibly one removes emotion and then weighs its impact on oneself and others ("Let every action aim solely for the common good." - Marcus) via logic and reflection, as well as being in tune with "natural logic"; often depicted as an understanding of how the universe functions. That can easily be interpreted as a cynical estimation of how systems and people and natural events progress, since those are all contained within the "logos" of the universe. It also relies on Aristotle's assertion that humans are inherently ethical and, therefore, good (which would seem to belie the modern interpretation of the Cynical philosophy.)

I can't help but wonder sometimes if my basic nature is to emotionally detach myself from problematic situations and, thus, Stoicism appealed to me, or if that nature was developed by my reading of the philosophy and its proponents. Anyone who knows me will recognize or remember that I engage in a fair amount of "suffering", as I'm quite passionate about particular topics. Or, at least, I used to be. The fires have dwindled on a lot of things. Expansion of Stoicism or growth of Cynicism? Do I just not care anymore? Is that a lack of emotion or simply fatigue based on an understanding that getting fired up about things often ends up being a colossal waste of time? Or does it simply seem that way to me because all of my serious endeavors, those things that I was truly passionate about, have failed or are in the midst of their lowest periods in my lifetime?

I've discovered lately that I've bent my approach from interpreting (almost) everything through logic and reason to simply functioning: these things have to be done, so they get done, regardless of my emotional state or even interest in doing them. It's still logical and reasonable (have to go to work, have to feed the cats, etc.), but it's solely functional. In contrast, many things that I formerly enjoyed doing or was interested in are left behind because I convince myself that I don't have time to do them while I'm making sure that all the requirements of functioning are met. That's still logical and reasonable to a certain degree, but it's also devoid of any real motivation. Stoics weren't meant to go through life as automatons anymore than Epicures were or are. Of course, there's always Epictetus: "Freedom is secured not by the fulfilling of men's desires, but by the removal of desire." I have the whole "removal of desire" thing down pat, at the moment, but I'm not sure that it's helping.

But I always come back to Marcus Aurelius: "Outward things cannot touch the soul, not in the least degree; nor have they admission to the soul, nor can they turn or move the soul; but the soul turns and moves itself alone." The question now becomes: Is that how it remains from here on out? And is that a good thing?

A moment of introspection

Marcus Aurelius said: "A man's life is what his thoughts make it." One could analogize that into modern phrasing such as "You are what you want to be." or "You're only limited by your own imagination." But MAAA (Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Augustus) was a Stoic; latterly considered one of the premier thinkers of that philosophy. Part of that perspective is that people deal with what life brings to them (or upon them.) So, I'm not so sure that he felt that one's imagination was the limiting factor, rather than how one dealt with outside forces that may be beyond one's control.

I consider this quite often in estimating my own life or lack thereof. At a young age, I became aware of what a lot of people considered to be my 'limitless' potential. It led to me coasting through school much of the time and skipping two grades so that I was able to graduate from high school at the age of fifteen and later from the University of Michigan at the age of nineteen. At that point and with my theretofore accelerated pace, one might have thought that I was on my way to doing something 'big', as it were. Many people that I knew said that to me and about me. Over 20 years later, my lone response would have to be Jon Stewart's famous catchphrase: "Not so much."

I spent a fair amount of time pursuing goals that were of immediate interest to me at that particular moment. My parents had constantly stressed the future, urging me to discard friends and situations in the name of something and someones better at some point in "the future". When exactly that would be was never specified. They certainly encouraged the idea of skipping grades, but I was perfectly comfortable with that, as well. After all, I was bored to tears with most of what I was "learning". I typically learned much more about the world outside of school by reading on my own than I did in the classroom. That trend continued in college and, by my junior year at Michigan, it took a while for my mother to convince me not to drop out and do something else. "At least you'll have your degree.", she said. "And a degree from Michigan will get you a job anywhere." What was true in the 60s wasn't so true in the 90s, but that's another discussion.

So, by the age of 20, I desperately wanted to do what I wanted to do and right now, dammit. I was done with doing "what was done" by regular, middle class white kids, like me. But, of course, with somewhat less life experience than those around me, I fell into the conundrum that many people encounter at some point in their lives: I didn't really know what I wanted to do. I had been accepted to Georgetown's Walsh School of Foreign Service as I was leaving Michigan; presuming that I would continue on into the political/diplomatic realm with my BA in political science. But I desperately wanted to be out of school and had little enchantment with the idea of being part of the Washington machine which I so decried. So, I joined a couple other political groups like the SWP, worked where I could, created a comic studio with a friend that we ran for a few years until the distribution monopoly shut us down, led the Green Party of Michigan for a few years, and have spent a few more paying an underwater mortgage and watching my marriage wither to the end. Thus, I am here.

Have I wasted my life?

One of the recurring themes of Thoreau's Life Without Principle is the idea that doing something solely for money is no measure of personal success. He suggests that doing something that is less enjoyable to you for the sake of money or fame simply means that you need to find better hobbies. His emphasis there as in so many of his other writings is that of a life well lived, regardless of the direction or result. That's certainly an appealing thought to me. Of course, Marcus' frequent charge of being mindful of the end results of one's actions ("Let every action aim solely for the common good.") and striving to achieve something better than everyday endeavors is also highly appealing to me. In many ways, I've internalized both of those, despite the conflicts between them. What concerns me is that I feel quite often that I may not have even followed Thoreau's approach in that even the things that I did for little or no financial return have amounted to very little of anything else, as well.

I don't have a great deal of interest in material success and never have. As I've often noted to people around me, I'm probably the closest thing to a communist most people are likely to meet. I'm not an ascetic. It's certainly nice to have access to certain material things (like, say, computers...) but if my house-that-I-never-wanted were to burn down tomorrow, the only thing I would want to save at any cost would be my cats. I'd be disappointed at the loss of my books and my computer, but I've read those books and other computers can be found. Thus, achieving piles of money has never been a goal that I pursued with any zeal. What I really wanted to do was achieve something worthwhile.

What is 'worthwhile'? That's a very nebulous question. In the movie, The Last Samurai (a rather disappointing film overall but worth watching for Ken Watanabe's performance), the character Katsumoto delivers a couple lines while standing in a grove of cherry trees blossoming in the spring: "A perfect blossom is a rare thing. You could spend your life looking for one and it would not be a wasted life." This is emblematic of samurai culture under the Shogunate, when a class of warriors in a land of peace began to emphasize perfection in smaller (and less violent) actions and rituals and the perceived nobility achieved by doing so. That, too, dovetails nicely with Thoreau's thoughts and even, to a small degree, Marcus' perspective on striving for greater things. But I look back at what I've done and what I've pursued and wonder if I even tried to look for the perfect blossom.

Have I wasted my life?

Granted, my life is not over. Presumably, it will continue for quite some time. But I'd like to think that there was still something to accomplish, something to lend purpose to it that will be memorable for more than simply occupying a Social Security number. Once again, I'm not quite sure what that is. My only definite impression is that my string of failures, wasted opportunities and, indeed over the past few years, idleness has amounted to very little that would engender approval from even Thoreau. I would like to think that there is something to be done that would encourage people to remember that I existed to some positive end. Is that vanity? Probably. Is it an expression of "aim[ing] solely for the common good"? Maybe.

Another movie line I'm fond of is one of George C. Scott's from Patton, where he vents his frustration to an aide at being left out of the war: "I feel that I am destined to achieve some great thing! What, I don't know." I don't believe in destiny. But sometimes I do wonder if I've missed one too many opportunities or if they were ever there to begin with.

Back to the real world next time.

The team, the team, the team!

I'm a huge Michigan fan. I attended the university, but I was a Michigan fan from the time I was six years old and first saw the winged helmets winning game after game. Consequently, one of my icons as a kid was Bo Schembechler, the head coach of the football program for 20 years. When I was a kid, I was convinced that Bo was a god. Of course, I also thought that Mr. Spock and Darth Vader were gods, but Bo was the only one whose value system and humanity were, you know, real. And not only real, but on display all the time.

In a way, Bo's statements to the media about the team (the team, the team!) symbolized what became my ideal for humanity in general: you worked together with the people around you to achieve a goal valued by all (well, most...) of you and with a higher purpose in mind. Bo and Bo's teams played for themselves, for each other, but also for Michigan. It was obviously important to him that that ideal, the idea that Michigan represented something higher than money or social status (as would come from, say, an NFL contract), was in the forefront of the players' minds every moment that they were on the field. It meant something to him that they understood that they were the current standard bearers for something that would last long after they were gone, but that could also enshrine them as part of that lasting image that the team and the university had on the fans and the alumni. His focus was service to an ideal. Sounds almost socialist, doesn't it?

We have to be careful about how we focus on that ideal, though. For some, the idea of all-for-one and one-for-all is emblematic of nationalism: Us vs. Them, Oceania vs. Eurasia, the United States vs. Everyone That Doesn't Implicitly Agree, etc. It's possible to see that in Bo's philosophy. The adherence and loyalty was to the team; Michigan's team. But the way he expressed it spoke of something higher: "You will never play for a team again!" Not this team, but any team.

If we dispense with the model of the nation-state and focus on the all-for-one concept as an idea that binds people, then we come to something that not only feels more natural (Is a worker in Ivory Coast really that different from a worker in South Carolina, apart from language and relative pay scale?) but comes perilously close to the communist ideas of the past two centuries, in which the workers across the world would express themselves as one group, rather than splintered into British vs. French vs. Russian vs. German vs. American vs. Anyone Non-white. Is there anyone that could logically argue against a philosophy that presents an ideal of humanity working together for the betterment of all, regardless of racial or national identity or status?

Now, I'm not trying to suggest that Bo was a communist or even a socialist. I met the man and he was what you would probably call a Goldwater Republican; focused on the upstanding citizen approach on the social side and keeping the government out of his wallet on the pragmatic side. But he knew the value both of group effort and instilling the idea in the group that they struggled for something bigger and broader than simply themselves. There was no Randian instinct in Bo (be it Ayn or the newly-elected Senator Paul...) and I think that he would have objected to the perfidy of modern economics and finance in the same way that many sane people do. Riches for a few and crumbs for the rest is no way to build a team or to encourage a team to work for each other.

Now the question becomes: since Bo instilled this ideal into his players at an institution of higher learning, can we trust that the largely uneducated, misguided, and disinterested public would be able to do the same?