240. cavort

Looking at the title for this entry (which, by the way, I typically pull from Dictionary.com’s Word of the Day), what immediately came to mind is some advice from my birth chart (that I did on Astrolabe):

Give yourself the freedom to look awkward or silly once in a while. The relief you feel will be quite therapeutic and the embarrassment (whether it is real or imagined) will pass quickly.

For the record, I’m an Aquarius, with both rising sign and moon in Libra. And something about being a triple air sign?

Do I believe the stars and planets align themselves in the heavens to provide little old me here on planet Earth with sage wisdom? Of course not. But I do enjoy the moments when general observations such as those in astrological charts or tarot readings happen to intersect with my personal reality.

And there is a perverse part of me that enjoys activities like tarot or astrology precisely because they were at one time forbidden and demonic. So getting my chart done or doing a tarot spread is a bit like giving the finger to that part of my past.

However, the truth from that reading is that I do tend to take myself too seriously. I think too much, analyze too deeply, and ultimately lock up and consequently look awkward and weird… which is precisely what I was hoping to avoid in the first place.

And it has the tendency to create problems for everyone else, too, in that it can create the impression of my being standoffish or rude, when in reality I’m just feeling insecure and uncertain about how I’m supposed to behave.

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A few weeks, ago my friends Erin and Matt got married, and that got me thinking (yet again) about my own prospects for romance and partnership, and whether it’s something that’s even realistic for me. The day of the wedding I also left for a two-week hiking and camping trip to the Wichita Mountains in Oklahoma, and the Davis Mountains and Big Bend National Park in Texas. The trip gave me a lot of time to digest some of what I’ve learned over this past semester, and to deal with some of the issues that I just haven’t had the mental space to process because of grad school.

Something that I heard on Minnesota Public Radio the other day also caught my attention. They were talking about why millennials aren’t getting married, and one of the guests, Ann Meier, an associate professor of sociology at the University of Minnesota, said something that resonated with me. They were talking about marriage as a status marker, and she said this:

“I think it’s marking an achievement that you’re able to achieve a certain level of education and an income where you feel like [marriage is] the culmination, the icing on the cake, instead of, as Brigid [Schulte] said, a step in the transition to adulthood. It’s the thing you do when your life is set. And people are taking longer to get their lives set these days.”

I think this part of the sense that I’ve been trying to articulate the past couple of months, that it’s difficult watching my friends getting married (especially my gay friends) because it feels like I’m getting left behind. Everyone else has their lives together and, as Ann said, “set” and I’m still trying to achieve a basic level of emotional and psychological subsistence. And it makes me feel incredibly old at 32, watching people younger than me who have been together for almost a decade and seemingly much further ahead than me.

So articulating this view of marriage, that it’s a marker of a certain status achievement, is helpful, because it still doesn’t feel like I’m there. I’m working, I’m working toward a graduate degree in a field I’m actually excited about working in, but I’m also aware of how much further there is to go. Especially when I’m surrounded by couples and married people.

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But there’s something else that I recently became aware of.

I had a conversation with a co-worker yesterday who said that even though she’s been very successful at work, it’s not something that she’s excited about, and that what she really loves, the thing that gives her the most satisfaction in life, is being a mom to her three kids. She’d been asking about my library science degree and what I plan to do with it, and I shared that for the first time in my life it feels like I have a calling, something I was just born to do.

… not that I believe in destiny or anything, but rather that I’ve finally found a field that aligns almost perfectly with my personal values and what I’m naturally good at. I am absolutely in love with librarianship and science, and cannot wait to get into archiving and special collections.

She said (and another friend of mine recently said) that she doesn’t feel about her job the same way that I’m articulating it, that the work I am planning to do gives my life real purpose and (dare I say it) joy. Will there be days when I hate my job? Probably.

But it brought home for me the reality that I do have things going for me right now.

Another astrological birth chart I looked at for myself said that people with their moon in Libra (lunar Librans) “have a strong need for partnership. Without someone to share their lives with, they feel utterly incomplete.”

I do hope (against hope) that one of these days I’ll find someone about whom I feel the same way that I feel about librarianship… that it’ll be a fantastic match. The older I get, of course, the less confident I am that I’ll even find someone.

In the meantime, I’ll continue rebuilding my life post-Christianity and getting to know myself better so someone can also get to know that person.

209. avoirdupois

The first couple of days back in an office this week were rough. Not so much the being on a schedule again, although that was certainly an adjustment. Leaving the apartment by 7:40am every day was not fun for this not-morning person.

I’ve been contracted this week and part of next week by a real estate company to gather and put together evidence for an upcoming legal case brought by a former employee. Auditing terminated employee files is tedious, mind-numbing work, made bearable by audiobooks and the reality that it’s work.

(And I’m so grateful to be gay and know that my wages will never be garnished to pay for child support. Seriously, guys. Keep it in your pants.)

The downside of this is that it’s allowed for reflection on how much I hate doing this kind of work. However, my work background makes it damn near impossible to find work other than this. Without further specialized education, the likelihood of finding a non-entry-level job is remote, at best. And getting lucky is something that doesn’t happen to me often.

This is happening on the heels of last week’s game retreat. It might not have been so bad had it not seemed an extension of my real life, where I seemed to lose most of the time. In general, I just don’t get the rules of play. I don’t understand how to strategise, how to posture, how to read other people, or how to plan multiple steps ahead of my current position.

The best example I can extend for what usually goes on in my head during times like these — whether playing a game, reading comment from an editor on a piece of writing, or paging through file after file of someone who was fired for not showing up to work (again) — is a bit from Jason Robert Brown’s The Last 5 Years, where one of the characters, Cathy, a struggling actress, is auditioning for a role. The gimmick is that we hear what’s going on in her head while she’s singing:

«When you come home…» I should have told them I was sick last week, they’re gonna think this is the way I sing. Why is the pianist playing so loud? Should I sing louder? I’ll sing louder. Maybe I should stop and start over—I’m gonna stop and start over… why is the director staring at his crotch? Why is that man staring at my résumé? Don’t stare at my résumé. I made up half of my résumé. Look at me, top looking at that, look at me! No, not at my shoes, don’t look at my shoes, I hate these fucking shoes. Why did I pick these shoes? Why did I pick this song? Why did I pick this career? Why does this pianist hate me? If I don’t get a callback I can go to Crate and Barrel with mom and buy a couch. Not that I want to spend a day with mom, but Jamie needs his space to write since I’m obviously such a horrible, annoying distraction to him… what’s he gonna be like when we have kids? «And once again…» Why am I working so hard? These are the people who cast Linda Blair in a musical. Jesus Christ! I suck, I suck, I suck, I suck… «When fin’lly you come home to…» Okay, thank you, thank you so much.

This is basically what’s going on in my head all the time.

I’ve been feeling a growing sense of deep, inner dissatisfaction with my life, where I am currently, and what I’m doing. It’s leaving me feeling isolated, distracted, and unable to truly connect with the people in my community and life. Last night I went to play games with a couple of friends, and just couldn’t enjoy myself in their company. Ended up getting into an argument with a friend of a friend over whether Dallas Buyer’s Club is transphobic. I insisted that it’s exploitative (and not a good representation) of the LGBT community. She thought that Jared Leto’s character was beautiful and moving.

Hilarity ensued.

Were that this were the only instance. I’ve felt at odds with just about everyone lately.

Today, I decided to do a couple of Tarot spreads (one with my Rider-Waite-Coleman deck, and another with my gay Tarot deck) to try to mine at what’s going on with these dark feelings. I’ve recently been neglecting this aspect of self-care, and it rather feels as if I’ve been putting off housekeeping for a while and now my house is untidy.

Here’s what came up:

Rider-Waite

1. Page of Wands
2. Six of Swords, reversed
3. Strength
4. Nine of Pentacles, reversed
5. Page of Pentacles
6. Five of Swords
7. Empress, reversed
8. Knight of Cup, reversed
9. Death
10. The Fool

Bursten/Platano

1. The World
2. The Protector (→ Empress), reversed
3. Sage (→ King) of Swords
4. Ten of Coins
5. Three of Wands
6. Hermit, reversed
7. Strength, reversed
8. Man (→ Knight) of Cups
9. Ace of Swords, reversed
10. Five of Swords, reversed

I’ve written a little about my explorations into Tarot and my applications of Jungian psychology as a replacement for divinatory interpretation. Each card is only a token for exploration.

The most interesting cards to come up out of the twelve were The World, the King of Swords, and the reversed Hermit.

Usually, The World is a commentary on accomplishment, integration, and feeling complete. These days, I’m feeling anything but those things. It feels as if I’m constantly carrying the world on my shoulders, the weight pushing my mind and emotions down into despondency. The reversed Six of Swords is a continuation on this, the feeling that the past is always with me.

The reversed Hermit in the “future application” position says to me that isolating myself isn’t having the positive net effect it could have. The hyper-judgmental King of Swords residing in my “id” sounds more like Starbuck’s mom in Battlestar Galactica than a helpful mentor.

… why is it so hard to love one’s self?

200. Tempérance

This post marks my 200th on this site. A look back at the subjects I’ve most written about are atheism (no surprise there), Christianity, community, relationships, religion, depression, fundamentalism, acceptance, experience, and family. These are all things I’ve been pondering since my first post on this blog on April 19, 2009.

“I am many things,” I wrote in that first entry. “An artist. A composer. A writer. A some-time cook. A fan of public radio. Irish-American. A Christian. I’m also gay.”

Two years after writing that, two of those ended up not being true anymore.

Last night I decided to do what many have been advising me to do lately: meditate. That word has always brought up negative connotations, especially since coming out as an atheist it’s basically become a synonym for “prayer.”

Merriam-Webster defines meditate thus: (1) to engage in contemplation or reflection; (2) to focus one’s thoughts on: reflect on or ponder over.

As I’ve been writing about the last few weeks, there’s been a lot to reflect on and ponder over.

Last night I made sure everything was put away (so I wouldn’t think about it), lit candles in the living room on the coffee table, and laid out the cards. There’s an app on my iPod called Altered States that uses “advanced binaural brainwave entrainment to stimulate brainwave frequencies associated with different states of mind.” I used a setting called Mindful Meditation, designed to “create an aware, or awakened, meditative state.”

Here are some reflections that I had while meditating on the cards. This entry will be a little longer than the usual thousand words. But not too much longer.

1. Ego: Three of Cups

This is representative of friendships and collegiate, harmonious relationships.

Despite my hermetical tendencies, I’m surrounded by wonderful people who, even though I have difficult believing it, actually desire my company. This card also reminds me to take stock of the good things—and the good people—in my life right now.

Wikipedia says of this card: “It can also signal that this is the time to reach out if things have been particularly rough in the past.”

2. Crossing: Eight of Wands

This represents a very focused kind of motion and activity.

This reminds me that there are active opportunities to seize, especially relating to the first card. More on this later, but persistence is essential if I’m to make it to the Nine of Wands. One site interprets this card: “You might not realize that your efforts are out of the ordinary.” I’m adept at underestimating my own abilities and strengths, and believing the lie that I’m powerless and inept has, historically, held me back from confidence and going after what I want.

3. Unconscious (Id): Ace of Cups

This represents the beginning of love, happiness and compassion.

I contemplated this card for a while, trying to think back to some of my motivations and sources of joy and pleasure as a child. Thinking about my current career crossroads conundrum, my first love really was writing. I used to spend hours in the closet (oh, irony), writing stories and plays. I also tried to think about some of the blocks getting in the way of reconnecting to that joy.

4. Past: Five of Swords

This action is the foundation of where you stand now. If your life is in shambles, understand that compromising your integrity may have been the source of your undoing.

It hit me last night that a cause of so much trouble has been letting the expectations of others steer my life. The main reason why I chose music composition to major in was because my father thought that I showed promise and talent as a composer—and didn’t think much of my interest in writing. This summer, a good friend of mine suggested I try applying for a master’s in composition. I didn’t want to disappoint him, my friends who’ve expressed that I have talent in music—or my father. No one led me astray per se. They seemed to have a better idea of what I’m capable of and should do—but I failed to listen to my own voice.

5. Superego: Six of Pentacles, reversed

This can suggest that you are not aware of the potential sources of assistance available to you.

So much here. I need to follow up with a director friend of mine about a workshop of my one-act opera; contact friends who’ve expressed interest in singing and helping out with this project; contact a woman I met at an LGBT networking event about a job possibility. This goes back to the first and second card, of seizing opportunities I know are right there, but also recognizing the people who have generously offered their resources.

The image in the card is of two beggars (from the Five of Pentacles) kneeling before a wealthy man. I’ve often said that I don’t really know how to let people help me. To be brutally honest with myself (and you, dear reader), it comes from my pride getting in the way. I fear feeling indebted or powerless to others, even to those who have no ulterior motives. My bloody lizard brain, however, hisses that by accepting assistance, I’m proving myself a failure—that everyone sees me as a failure. So I shut down, secretly resenting the man offering help and hating myself.

This card is reminding me to confront these issues in my superego, the thoughts and attitudes buried at the seat of my subconscious. It’s the disapproving voice of my parents, and anyone who has judged me in my life.

6. Application: Death, reversed

You may be reluctant to let go of the past or you may not know how to make the change you need. Let go of any restrictive, oppressive, limiting attitudes and beliefs.

This card reminded me that life is short—so why am I letting these petty inner voices hold me back? What about my past am I holding on to? Is it really just the cold comfort of being a victim? Of my inner child still believing that God will solve all my problems?

7. Self-image: Four of Swords, reversed

This can suggest that you are feeling frustrated with the lack of progress and change. Part of this lack of change, however, is as a result of your passive approach.

This felt connected to my reflections on the Six of Pentacles. Rather than pick up my sword and go after what I want, I’ve relinquished my power for the time being and opted instead to lie down. I’ve let those negative, judgmental voices crowd out positive thinking. I want things to change, but need to truly accept that no one is going to change them for me. I have to get up from the slab, stop playing dead, and dedicate myself to going after what I desire.

8. Surrounding: Seven of Swords, reversed

This suggests that you may be finding it difficult to take the first step in a new direction.

Usually, this card is about betrayal, deception, or stealth. I had a different thought while meditating. Like the Ten of Wands, the man in the picture is trying to carry too much. He’s hauling five swords. Two are left in the ground, and his gaze is fixed on what’s behind rather than what’s ahead. The group in the background is often interpreted as the “thief” being found out. What I saw is a man going it alone, apart from the group, trying to do it all on his own.

9. Hopes/Fears: Ace of Pentacles, reversed

Your goals may need to be re-aligned to something more realistic. You need to plan and have more foresight and consideration into the aspects that align to your passions and career interests.

Aces are often about seeds of potential. As I contemplated this card, I focused on the garden in the background. The element associated with this card is Earth, and that theme is present throughout the pentacle suit. I pulled out the Nine of Pentacles, which portrays a young woman in a verdant garden with a bird lighted on her hand. I also pulled out the Page of Pentacles (in the court cards, pages are also associated with Earth), and the Ten.

I pondered what might be keeping me from going through the entrance into the garden. The answer seems obvious. In addition to silencing the negative inner voices, I need to apply myself like the man in the Eight of Pentacles, and not be discouraged by the lack of progress in Seven.

10. Summation: Temperance

You are seeking balance between your inner and outer selves, searching for a higher meaning and purpose in life. Throughout this transition, you may experience a clash between the old and the new you, or confusion about which direction you ought to take and what is really important to you.

If we’re talking about a destination for the journey I’m currently on, this would be it. I’m doing at thirty-one what most people do in high school and college—figure out who they are and what they want out of life. For most of my life, I’ve been the figure in the Eight of Swords: blindfolded, bound, and trapped by the thoughts and beliefs of others. Now, I’m finally realizing that the way out was clear all along; and, like Dorothy in Oz, the power to return home was always mine.

In listening to music this past week, trying to figure out what is “progressive” in Classical music right now, and even in trying to get my head into the mindset to compose something more “academic,” I started to remember what turned me off from music academia in the first place. Trying to be clever and “cutting edge” never felt like being creative. Far from it. Do I really want to return to that world, to posture myself amongst other composers who are trying to be ahead of everyone else and jockeying for tenure and pay raises?

I think of the composers I admire: Purcell, Bach, Mozart, Robert Schumann, Britten. They were innovative by fully dedicating themselves to pursuing their passion. The innovation took care of itself.

I also reflect on how I’ve enjoyed getting back to writing, and the positive feedback I’ve received so far.

Perhaps the way forward is to focus on becoming a writer who also composes, rather than the other way around. After all, that’s where I began.

Look at what you want,
Not at where you are,
Not at what you’ll be—
Look at all the things you’ve done for me.

Moving on.

199. Le Pape

It’s worth mentioning again in going through this Tarot series that I do not approach the cards from the standpoint of divination (i.e., fortune telling). As an atheist, I do not believe in divine or supernatural forces, especially those that may guide our fates. That some force or thing created the universe with us in mind, and that arbitrary positions of cards, stars or planets can somehow foretell a future or course of action to take is silly, at best—narcissism, at worst.

Over the past couple of months, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about life goals and directions, as what I’ve been doing job and living-wise has not been bringing me joy or satisfaction. Quite the opposite. This summer, during a moment of particular distress and depression, a friend of mine offered to do a Tarot reading for me. He is also an atheist, and approaches Tarot from a similar analytical perspective. It was he who first suggested that Tarot was really collaborative storytelling; that the cards themselves describe general but universal aspects of the human experience around which a codified “school” of reading and interpretation was defined.

I’ve always been deeply fascinated by Jungian psychology, and in particular the archetypal. As a storyteller, I find myself drawing on these images myself—the wise old man or woman, the cunning trickster, the child, the hero, the dark shadow lurking just out of sight.

The thoughts and questions that I’ve been contemplating lately are on the epic (albeit personal, so not huge in the grand scheme) scale. I’m in the process of doing in a couple of years what most people do over the course of their lifetime—or at least in the process of growing up. A few years ago, I realized that the foundations of my life were fictions. Though there are some mythic truths to be found, the stories my parents and teachers told about a holy and supreme god who made me and the entire universe; who has a divine purpose and plan for my life; who is keeping notes on every thought, word, and deed to determine which afterlife I’ll enjoy or suffer for all eternity—none of it’s true. And now I’m faced with probably the most important question asked by any human being: Who am I?

It’s an insignificant question compared to most of the problems we face. And most people never really give it a second thought. But when you realize that every premise you’ve based your life on (and experience you’ve denied yourself) isn’t true, you start to wonder: What do I believe?

All that to say, Tarot has been helpful the past couple of weeks in bringing up and beginning to confront some of these issues and questions of purpose. What do I care about? What do I want to do? The cards can’t tell me the answers, but they introduce a certain level of randomness to get me mentally unstuck.

One of the big questions right now is that of career. Because I don’t really have one. I’ve been doing office admin work since college, but that’s a job. I don’t care about data entry, filing, document formatting, or any of the pointless shit I’ve done for other people over the years.

What I care about is storytelling. And art—specifically, music and writing.

Late this past summer, I decided to finally explore pursuing a master’s degree in one of those areas: music composition. I somewhat hurriedly (and haphazardly) put together three applications and submitted them this past fall. And they were rejected. These rejections made me question whether this was even the right path I should be taking.

The cards told me what I’ve always known at the core of my being, but have been afraid to acknowledge. Follow your passion.

The Hierophant is an interesting card. It’s also referred to as The Pope. It typically represents tradition, conservatism, discipline, heeding the status quo or social convention, and education. Wikipedia suggests that “it is a warning to the Querant to reexamine his or her understanding of the meaning of things; of the structure of the world; of the powers that be.”

Another interpretation of the reversed card (which is how I laid it out):

The Hierophant reversed is about breaking the rules and challenging the status quo. You no longer accept the rigid structures, tradition and dogma surrounding you, and now seek out opportunities to rebel and retaliate. You want to challenge ideas and concepts that you once thought of as written in stone. (BiddyTarot)

A friend of mine posted a comment yesterday on my previous entry: You didn’t get into grad school because that’s not really your best choice; you’re comfortable in music, and so you pursue it. You have great eloquence as a writer, but you didn’t pursue a master’s degree in writing. Why?

Frankly, I still wonder if I did the right thing in doing my undergrad in composition. Deciding on it was almost a last-minute decision. My original plan was majoring in creative writing, but my father suggested that I had real talent in music. But was that reason enough? Music was always easy for me; and while one’s natural talents should be considered, no field will successfully hold one’s interest without passion.

The ideal would be finding a program where I could somehow combine my love for creating music with my love for writing. This is why opera always felt like such a good fit. In addition to providing the music, I also provided the text and the story, although I’ve always felt like more of a musical playwright than a composer when it came to it.

So that’s where things currently stand, stuck between a hard and a rock place and unsure which direction to go. What comes to mind is (yet another) lyric from Sunday in the Park with George:

“I chose and my world was shaken. So what? The choice may have been mistaken. The choosing was not. You have to move on.”

145. imponderable

Then to Silvia let us sing,
That Silvia is excelling;
She excels each mortal thing
Upon the dull earth dwelling;
To her let us garlands bring.
— William Shakespeare (1564-1616), from Two Gentlemen of Verona, Act IV, Scene 2

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Finally went to see Prometheus yesterday afternoon. My biggest complaint was that the siren/scream sound heard so prominently in the trailer was nowhere in the actual film itself. All that buildup, all that hype, and then nothing to show for it. It would be as if Frodo and Sam went to Mordor, then lost the ring half way through the first Lord of the Rings movie and the other two movies turned into an extended version of Braveheart. And really—who wouldn’t follow Viggo Mortensen into just about any situation?

A secondary complaint (no worries, no spoilers here) was that, aside from Noomi Rapace, the characters in Prometheus were so poorly developed and the plot a shambles, combined with vaguely and sometimes not-so-vaguely religious imagery, that it just left much to be desired. However, I’m going to wait to give my final verdict until seeing the director’s cut. Conflicts arose without much justification or context to the overall story arc, and potentially important elements were often dropped and forgotten about. There is, however, a particularly horrific scene involving a… well, I won’t give it away, but you either know what I’m talking about if you’ve seen it or will know what I’m talking about when you see it.

A good chunk of the film is devoted to oblique discussions of the purpose of our origin and creation. One character asks, “How far would you be willing to go to get your answers?” It’s a question with a lot of potential, but unfortunately the film does a fine job of asking the question and then not even attempting to answer it. It’s almost as though they heard Tommy Lee Jones next door in Men in Black III saying to Will Smith: “Don’t ask questions you don’t want to know the answer to.” According to Ridley Scott and the screenwriters, asking questions leads to being infected, burned, eaten alive, impaled, bludgeoned, crushed, blown up, and generally losing everything and everyone you ever held dear.

What bothered me most about the film (aside from the whole panspermia premise) was the characters’ naive assumption that the beings who created them had benevolent intentions at all. It bothers me in the same way that it does when Christians assume that God is on their side, that he loves them and has their best interest in mind, or that a blessed afterlife lies beyond death for those who said the magic prayer for Jesus to forgive their hideous sins (that exist only because he said that they do—rather like a doctor telling you that you’re sick and need this expensive medication that only he can give you).

It reminded me of that scene at the end of Star Trek V: The Final Frontier, where (SPOILERS) the being that they believe to be God turns out to be nothing more than a demon that Spock’s half-brother wanted to reach thinking it was God, when the whole scenario was merely a ruse to trick them into bringing the demon a ship. Even C.S. Lewis wrote in Mere Christianity that God could potentially be something malevolent:

What seems to us good may therefore not be good in His eyes, and what seems to us evil may not be evil. On the other hand, if God’s moral judgement differs from ours so that our ‘black’ may be His ‘white’, we can mean nothing by calling Him good; for to say ‘God is good’, while asserting that His is wholly other than ours, is really only to say ‘God is we know not what’. And an utterly unknown quality in God cannot give us moral grounds for loving or obeying Him. If He is not (in our sense) ‘good’ we shall obey, if at all, only through fear—and should be equally ready to obey an omnipotent Fiend.

And if the Bible is true, with all of the senseless rules, doctrines and prohibitions, how could God be anything  but maleficent? After all, not many (if any) of the Biblical laws do anything good for humanity. They merely serve to perpetuate unquestioning belief in the existence of God.

– “Why give 10% of my income to the church?”
– “Because the Bible says so.”
– “But… why?”
– “Because the Bible says so.”

Part of the reason I find it difficult to get really invested in anything (or anyone) is that both things and people have the tendency to disappoint, so I’m always waiting for the big let-down.

As a child I never grew up believing in magic. My parents didn’t raise my sisters and me to believe in Santa Claus either, the Easter Bunny, or even the Tooth Fairy. The only real “magic” was the miracles that God worked, but I never actually witnessed a miracle myself, and the miracles I heard about seemed to have natural explanations.

When I was about eight, our church pastor and his family were in a deadly winter driving accident. I don’t remember if they hit a patch of ice or something, but one of his sons was killed. Where was God then? If our pastor was such a good man, why did things like that happen to him? Before that, God seemed so all-powerful, like he was portrayed in the Bible—at least the version of the Bible that was age-appropriate for us. After that accident, God seemed smaller, in the way that your parents look once you figure out that they’re just adults and not the superheroes you thought they were.

Last night I was listening to Gerald Finzi’s song cycle Let Us Garlands Bring. The stanza at the top of the page is from that cycle, and it made me think how difficult it is for me to worship anything—especially potential romantic partners—when I’m waiting to find out how it (he) will disappoint.

115. doyenne

My plan for February is to write a post each day, the topic taken from/inspired by Dictionary.com’s Word of the Day. I’m trying to venture outside of the usual subjects I write about (i.e., religion), and this seems like a good exercise to get new ideas going.

Doyenne. noun, a woman who is the senior member, as in age or rank, of a group, class, profession, etc.

It’s always interesting to see which Facebook posts of mine go relatively unnoticed, and which ones cause an uproar. The other day I posted this YouTube video from Second City:

In case you hadn’t heard, last month Rick Santorum gave an interview with Piers Morgan where he attempted to “clarify” his position on abortion (especially in the case of rape and incest) in which he said the following:

As horrible as the way that that son or daughter was created, it still is her child. And whether she has that child or doesn’t, it will always be her child. . . And so to embrace her and to love her and to support her and get her through this very difficult time I think [is] the right approach [;] to accept this horribly created — in the sense of rape — but nevertheless a gift in a very broken way, the gift of human life, and accept what God has given to you. . . I can’t think of anything more horrible. But, nevertheless, we have to make the best out of a bad situation.

In short: Rape sucks. Give her a hug and tell her to buck up and push. Then ask what she’s planning to name the baby. Does it have its father’s eyes/nose/chin?

The gist of the flurry of comments that followed was that while the sentiment may sound harsh, it’s a complex issue, but abortion is never right, and children are a gift from god. If there’s one topic Evangelicals will never fail to speak up about, it’s abortion.

Even a year ago my own position on this was evolving. Up until last year, or maybe a bit before, I’ve always been solidly pro-life. Life was a gift from god and humans have no right to make those kinds of decisions concerning it. This is ironic, considering how many Christians are pro-death penalty and how many people their god has commanded other people to kill in horrific ways over the centuries.

It’s one of the many areas of ethics that has undergone significant revision since my coming out as an atheist. And right now, it’s this: while life is a rare thing in the universe, we seem to be the only species on earth that is able to manage its own sexual reproduction. Unlike animals, we can choose how, when and if to reproduce. We are under no divine mandate to bring each and every fertilized ovum to full-term.

Now let me stop a moment and point out that I currently have a four-year old roommate (the son of my two married, adult roommates). My younger sister has a one-and-a-half year-old son. Most of my friends have multiple kids. Hell, I have friends who have kids going into kindergarten and first grade. This isn’t a neutral, academic issue for me. My views have palpable, real-life ramifications.

Basically, I don’t believe human life has any purpose other than that which we as humans define it with. A shorthand way of saying this might be: Humans are made, not born.

What I think is happening here is that we’ve confused ‘potential’ for life with the ‘right’ to life. By the Christian definition, every miscarriage should be prosecuted as manslaughter, but functionally, a fetus is neither innocent or guilty. At the moment of conception it’s a conglomeration of mutating cells, and by the time that a pregnancy is detectable, it’s still largely animal—pre-human, void of consciousness. We anthropomorphise that grouping of cells and project intentions and feelings on to it that likely aren’t there. It’s all Instinct.

This may sound like rationalization for abortion, and perhaps it is. But from a logical standpoint, the simplest solution is to terminate a “rape/incest pregnancy” before the situation becomes more complicated than it already is. By any definition, the fetus is not yet “human.” There is no god to bestow automatic personhood, and no one’s rights are being violated. The zygote does not have opinions, and the fact is that we can’t ask it if it would like to live or not. We are under no divine obligation to protect it, especially in cases where the pregnancy was induced by force rather than by the woman’s choice.

The only person whose rights are being violated is the woman who is being forced to carry the fetus (a parasite by any definition)  that she never asked for to full term. And, to be sure, this is a huge decision for the woman. Santorum claims that a rape victim just needs the support and care of her community. But no one can take on the radical physiological changes that take place during pregnancy—not to speak of the wild hormonal changes—or the agonies of labor and childbirth for her. She must face these alone. To be realistic, women have faced this reality since the beginning of time, when there was no rape. Males “took” women without impunity, and getting pregnant was just a hazard of being female.

And we know better now.

However sympathetically they couch it, Santorum and those who share his views on this issue fundamentally view women in this barbaric way. Ironically, it’s godless atheists and humanists who have women’s best interests in mind—not theists. The only person who should have a say over what happens to a woman’s body is the woman herself.

It’s funny how different this issue looks outside of the Christian bubble. It’s much more nuanced and shaded out here.

And that’s the point. We can’t just decide these issues for each other. Each case is unequivocally unique. We have to decide together.

106. review

What’s a year, really? 12 months? 52 weeks? 525,600 minutes (or, when I asked Google, 525,948.766 minutes)? Does the earth wake up as it’s hurtling around the sun at a dizzying 67,000 miles per hour (that’s 107,000 kilometers per hour for my metric friends) and think, “I say! This looks awfully familiar. Haven’t I been here before?” After all, it doesn’t have much else to think about. It’s cleared its orbital zone, except for the occasional stray asteroid or comet that waltzes into its path that occasionally crashes into it.

This is nothing compared to how fast we’re hurtling around our home galaxy. The sun (and therefore the earth as well and all that’s on it) is moving at an incredible 483,000 miles per hour (792,000 km/hr). We orbit once every 225 million years.

225 million years ago (Mya), the earth was in the beginning stages of the Mesozoic Era, in the middle of the Triassic Period known as the Carnian stage; with the continents having just formed into one massive supercontinent known as Pangea. There were no ice caps as the continental mass was centered around the equator, and earth was hot and dry. Tiny dinosaurs called archosaurs were beginning to evolve, along with the ancestors of the first mammals—tiny shrew-like creatures called adelobasileus that appeared about 225 Mya.

That should give us some perspective on what has happened in the past galactic year.

The primates (our direct ancestors) appeared about 65 Mya. The genus Homo didn’t appear until around 2.5 Mya, and even then, Homo sapiens (modern humans) didn’t evolve until about 200,000 years ago. Putting that in terms of mean solar time, if we were to set a timer for 60 minutes…

• 5 minutes after we hit “start” (when the earth began its galactic “year”), the first mammals begin to appear;
• 15 and a half minutes later, North America separates from Africa;
• 42 minutes later a meteor crashes into Chicxulub, in the Yucatan peninsula in Mexico, resulting in the mass extinction of 80-90% of marine life and 85% of land species, including the dinosaurs;
• 43 minutes later, primates appear;
• With a minute to go, at 58 seconds, upright walking hominins appear;
• At 59.81 seconds, Human and Neanderthal lineages start to diverge genetically;
• At 59.85 seconds, Heidelberg Man develops speech;
• Modern man appears just milliseconds before the timer goes off.

We’ve barely been on this earth. We can trace our first modern male ancestor back to about 60,000 years ago, but in terms of the galactic “year,” all of recorded history is but a fraction of a millisecond.

If that though doesn’t fill you with awe, wonder and amazement — nothing will.

Then there’s an illustration on Wikipedia of the Earth’s location in the known universe, which is equally awe-inspiring. As Douglas Adams wrote, describing the horrific torture device known as the Total Perspective Vortex,

When you are put into the Vortex you are given just one momentary glimpse of the entire unimaginable infinity of creation, and somewhere in it a tiny little mark, a microscopic dot on a microscopic dot, which says, “You are here.”

All that is to say that 2011 was a pretty awful year for many of us, and we weren’t sorry to see it go.

I did have hopes going into 2011:

• By now I’d have at least gotten more established in musical theatre;
• That I’d have found a day job that was enjoyable and would be more financially stable;
• That I’d be in a serious relationship by now;
• That come early summer I’d have a home church in SafeHouse, and possibly even a relationship with Seth;
• That I’d have achieved more success with my compositions.

Looking back on it now, none of those hope and dreams came anywhere close to being met:

• I started a temp job in February that I ended up loving; that seemed like it might lead to a career until it abruptly ended at the end of November;
• I had a horrific experience music directing Sound of Music where I had little support from theater staff or production crew (including the director); was constantly undermined by a number of key auxiliary cast members (my principles and orchestra rocked though); and subsequently never wanted to direct another musical again;
• I had my heart broken by Seth in the worst possible way on my birthday, which led to becoming an atheist and losing that community I was looking forward to being a part of in SafeHouse, along with my faith (although in a way, my coming out as an atheist was as inevitable as my coming out a gay man—that is to say, both should’ve happened much sooner);
• I had a string of unsuccessful and very disappointing dates, flings and relationships, all of which left me feeling less desirable, more defective and unlovable, and less hopeful of ever finding a guy who wants to commit to me as much as I do to him;
• My trumpet sonata was premiered in Tacoma in June, but sadly that performance hasn’t led to more opportunities like I thought it might. I’d sort of hoped that trumpet players might hear it and want to pick it up to learn it, and maybe even commission new works for trumpet from me, which would lead to more visibility, more musicians knowing my name and my work, and commissioning more and more work. But no.

Add to that that at the end of this year (on Christmas Day, to be precise), I gave my dad the last $225 dollars that I owed him for my car, whereupon he gave me the title to said car; and I told him and my mom and that I wanted nothing more to do with them again— at least so long as they hold their fundamentalist beliefs about homosexuality.

• So, to close out 2011, I divorced the family that I’ve had for twenty-eight years.

That’s heavy stuff.

I feel even less sure of myself going into 2012 than I did going into 2011. That beginning was similar to this year’s: with not knowing what my job prospects are; waiting to hear from the temp agency about job possibilities while sending out resumes in the chance of striking gold; and generally feeling miserable, lonely and depressed.

Pathetic.

I’ve said this before, but I feel as though I seriously fucked up in college. Majoring in music composition seemed like the perfect idea, and the future seemed so certain. Everyone thought that I showed great potential and talent as a composer. I’d be a working composer by, well, twenty-eight.

What I didn’t factor was that I had no business sense or training. That I’d had my head in the clouds during high school and college, focusing so narrowly on the Arts, on music and writing. That I’d failed to develop any Real World skills. And the economy drying up.

Then I’d graduated with said degree in music composition and…

… now what was I going to do?

Most of the people I know who are successful figured out fairly early what they were good at and wanted to do, and started doing it. They got the education they needed or cultivated the skills and the experience. And I feel as though I realized too late that I started down the wrong career path, and it’s a dead end. I’m not even good enough at what I am trained at. I’ve worked a variety of office jobs. I do okay, but always seem to find myself in situations where opportunities to impress my supervisors arise, and I try, but quickly find myself in way over my head.

And I crash.

So I don’t know what to do. A few hundred years ago I could’ve found gainful employ with the Church directing a choir, or with the nobility as a court musician, or even as a writer. And I’m apparently barely passable as any of those. Today you have to be extremely good and extremely clever (or lucky) to make it like that. I’m detail oriented, yes; but I lack the organizational and strategic-thinking skills that are needed to be truly successful.

This is normally where a manager comes in: someone who recognizes that an individual possesses talent—but not necessarily savviness. Often that means just being in the right place at the right time. And I’ve no clue how to make that sort of thing happen. Ira Glass randomly discovered David Sedaris reading his diary in a Chicago club in the early ’90s—a discovery that led to the publication of the SantaLand Diaries, his account of working as a seasonal elf in Macy’s SantaLand during Christmastime in New York City.

He got lucky.

Artists have a somewhat symbiotic, commensalist relationship with society. We don’t really contribute anything tangible to society, aside from making it more aesthetically pleasing perhaps. Kind of like remora fish and sharks. We provide “valuable services,” but the shark could get by just fine without us.

So while hurtling through the universe at 483,000 miles per hour, circling a nuclear fireball at 67,000 miles per hour, at the bottom of a deep gravity well, I’m looking hard at myself and must conclude:

I feel like a failure.

49. occlumency

My apologies, friends, Romans. Countrymen.

It’s been a while, hasn’t it?

This time two years ago I was getting settled into a job at Target as an overnight team member (glorified expression for night stockperson). It wasn’t a bad job. The hours were crap, and it put a serious crimp on my social life—after all, it’s hard to spend time with people when they’re getting off work at 6 or 7, and you have to run off to work at 9pm, and then work until 6:30am.

Fast forward to November of 2008, I got the job at the recording art school and returned to the land of the living. It went okay for a while, but then after my “introductory period” my boss, Tina Nevala, started to ignore me. (In hindsight, what she did was make sure I’d stick around and then start treating me like just another piece of office furniture.) I’d try to say hello, be pleasant, but was met by cold indifference, or less. And it started getting worse. The workload got progressively larger, and my boss would point out every single flaw with what I’d do, criticising me for not being both a full-time receptionist and full-time administrative assistant. And never a kind or positive word in that entire time.

It got progressively worse from there. This past month the school was preparing for its largest Fall start ever, getting student records and forms in place before they get to orientation. I was exhausted, and our receptionist decided to take the week off, which meant I was spending half the day down at the front desk (which meant that I had to be a full-time receptionist as well as do my own job).

Then last Friday, the 16th, after a hellish week of working full-time and getting through dress and tech rehearsals for the show I was musical directing, Tina calls me over to the director’s office, who proceeded to inform me that my work at the school is no longer satisfactory and that they were letting me go. Basically, she decided that now that they’d gotten through the busiest period that I was expendable—after she’d worked me practically to death, and made me feel like a total failure, she went a step further by saying in not so few words that I just wasn’t good enough.

Part of me is relieved to no longer be working there. It was a crappy job, not the best pay, driving to and parking in downtown Minneapolis, for a boss who didn’t appreciate me at all and went out of her way to make me feel as small and as bad about myself as possible. Fortunately there were people there who were supportive and made being there somewhat bearable.

But part of me is terrified now because I don’t have a job, and there are still bills to pay. I’ve been distributing resumes for the past few weeks; dusted off my Monster and CareerBuilder accounts; and that Friday I actually went home and started sending out resumes like crazy. Monday I’m going into a temp agency to do some testing and start getting some assignments. At this point I just need a job.

I really want to start teaching piano more—full-time, or as close to, if possible. I love having students, and watching them grow from the minute they step into my studio to the day they leave at the end of the year for summer break. The only trouble is that a lot of families are cutting back due to the economy, and music lessons tend to be luxury items nowadays. So I’m working on getting my name out there, getting referrals from students, applying at various music studios around town.

Basically, I can’t waste my life in an office, pushing papers and trading hours for a paycheck. Hours that I can never get back, and those hours should be going towards something that counts.

Sigh.

That’s the news, friends. I shaved too. Had facial hair of some sort for the past five years, and this is the first time that I’ve been bare-faced in ages. It’s interesting to see how my face has changed!

Shalom.

025. seeing clearly

Do not oppose the essential soul when it reveals itself. That self-revelation is constant. Even when the thickest clouds mask the soul’s brilliant light, it shines with all its power. It carries the world and every human being to the goal of his fulfillment—a goal that transcends all definitions.

The soul speaks without speaking. It acts without acting. With it alone do we ascend those steps to which we are impelled by the impulse of that which is truly life, in its most profound mysteries. “Then shall you rejoice in G-d.”

This is the secret of thirst and the mystery of its quenching.

— R’ Avraham Yitzchok Kook, Oros Hakodesh I, 173

A good friend of mine shared this with me just a little while ago, and it’s given me a great deal to think about since he went it. Now that I’m done with most of my projects and am in this annoying time of recuperation, I’m trying to make more time for writing and personal reflection, something I haven’t had much opportunity for lately with my busy regimen.

The above quote reflects something that’s been in my conversations lately, especially with my boyfriend—why we feel the need to quench who we are at our very core in favour of who we want to be or who we are expected to be. I think it illustrates a fundamental misconception of what it really means to be human; a failure to see ourselves as magnificently designed beings who are capable of incredible as well as dreadful things, as well as the capacity to change. We are not slaves to our instincts.

My apologies—I had a marvellously written few paragraphs a little while ago, and the fucking internet crashed on me just as I updated the fucking post, so I’m a little irked at the moment.

That, and I can’t type today.

So why do we settle for less than what we are capable of; for not meeting our full creative potential?

Fear? Very well, fear of what? Of venturing into uncharted territory? Of failure? Of disappointment? Disappointing others?

I think a lot of the time we also listen to the voices of those who settled for the comfortable job; for the convenient marriage or relationship because it’s safer than being alone; for staying in the small town because it’s all they’ve known. They say things like, “It’s just a restless phase” or “You’ll feel better as soon as you find a good job [or woman] and settle down.”

It’s highly doubtful that there are any statistics on how many people throughout history have settled for mediocrity because it was expedient; sons abandoning their ambitions for their fathers businesses; daughters dying silent deaths in fixed marriages that sealed deals or kept peace, birthing and raising children fathered by men they didn’t love; men and women who buried unvoiced desires and needs, and all because it was expected of them by society, by their family, or by their religion.

We are so much more than stone, sticks and bones, to quote Switchfoot. We start off so optimistically as children, ready to take on the world and not giving a shit what anyone else thinks about who we are. It’s when we become older and self-actualised that all that changes and we start worrying about being cool, or attractive, or smart, or funny, or likable. We compare ourselves to others in our local enclave and disfigure ourselves to “be like folks,” regardless of whether there is any defecit; like in the classic Twilight Zone episode “Eye of the Beholder,” where Miss Janet Taylor is afflicted with what we would consider beauty in a world where everyone is ugly—yet all she wants is to be hideous like the rest of her society.

These are just musings. No answers here.

Just thinking out loud.