Rainforests have so much biodiversity and life they are truly the most beautiful and magical places to be. Unfortunately all this life is also quite dangerous to humans. So they’re best enjoyed in small doses.
The music is too loud. People don’t have a reason to communicate; in fact, just the opposite: any attempt to communicate with anyone is usually frowned upon. 90% of communication is nonverbal anyway, but I have a hard time communicating this way on instinct. Maybe other people do, too, which is why drugs are such a big part of the club scene. But if you ask me, if you need drugs to enjoy something, maybe it isn’t really for you, either.
I have, exactly once, experienced something akin to the euphoria I’ve witnessed in others at a club, but it was at a concert for that DJ, not strictly in a club environment. I could understand that maybe people get something out of the experience, though — DJs can create rhythms to hypnotize a crowd.
But it’s hard not to look around a club and be completely put off by the way people are playing parts, not themselves. The animalistic display of human nature in the convulsing crowds is interesting to watch, but not necessarily fun. I can’t imagine every person there is really enjoying it, rather than just there for the peer pressure. I’m guessing that more people are like me than would be willing to admit it.
I won’t knock those people who do enjoy clubs. They’re just not for me.
There’s literally nothing wrong with being “too hard on yourself.” It’s a common critique of people, like me, who have particularly high expectations and seek to achieve them. It usually comes from people who don’t want you to succeed, for whatever reason. Maybe they’re jealous. Maybe they just want their friend back.
Being hard on yourself is to acknowledge the gap between what you can do and what you do do. It’s to be as critical of yourself as you would be of a friend or a partner who set out to achieve something and failed — but because they didn’t do the work. Being hard on yourself is the only way we get anything done as individuals, or as a species.
One of the hardest things you ever have to learn is how to be wrong–not just to be wrong, but to be seen as wrong. Those are two different things because many times when you’re wrong you can keep it to yourself and no one is the wiser, but having other people notice you’re wrong can be ego-bruising.
The best way to be wrong is to make sure that you can only be honestly wrong about something. To be honestly wrong about something means that, when you were right, your confidence in your rightness was based in facts that were true at the time as far as you knew. To check the weather report, decide not to bring an umbrella, and then to encounter unexpected rain in the afternoon is not an embarrassing mistake of judgment: you were honestly wrong. However, to claim knowledge about, say, whether or not Virginia voted for Trump in the last election (it didn’t, by the way), when your knowledge is on shaky ground, and then to be proven wrong–that will embarrass you. But you weren’t embarrassed because you were wrong, you were embarrassed because you weren’t honest about your confidence in your original assertion.
Being dishonestly right is the cause of many bad decisions that turn out to be wrong, for no reason other than the decider convinced themselves, and many other people, that they were more correct than they actually were. And that dishonesty is the real source of shame. It’s why people dig in their heels so much to defend ideological beliefs: because to admit that a contrary position could have a grain of truth would be to admit hubris. Your beliefs would have to be wrong, which means you would have to admit your own dishonesty, the fact that you are a fraud. And then everyone else will know it, too.
And these are just things you can believe that have a factual basis. There are many things you can believe that may have no factual basis — for instance, if you believe in a deity with great confidence, you expose yourself to the possibility that you may be wrong. With this exposure comes increased sensitivity to contrary world views.
Avoid being wrong by ensuring you are honest about your rightness. Ensure that your beliefs are based in solid evidence. Then, when you are wrong, you will only be wrong on facts which were unknown or known wrongly at the time. That isn’t ego-bruising. That’s life.
Nothing, literally nothing, gave me more joy than watching Brienne of Tarth get knighted by Jaime Lannister. If anything perfectly encapsulates the series: the redemption found by its worst characters combined with the triumph found by its best, the hope of the future and the betrayal of the past, the importance of friends and honor in the face of death. The central role of women in the male-dominated world of Westeros (although with the current storyline, it occurred to me at this point there’s only one male character left with any real power: Jon Snow).
Sir Brienne of Tarth earned her knighthood, in the words of Tormund Giantsbane, “hundreds of times over,” and it is fitting that in this lowest moment of the show, where the hope of the characters is bleakest, she gets to see her duty, honor and dedication pay off. It is unfortunate, that like many women, she has to work ten times harder than any man to earn the same honor–and perhaps this was an intentional choice by the writers to highlight this common inequity–but now that she has earned it, I hope that she survives the coming storm in time to get it on with Tormund (because who isn’t rooting for that).
In all, I really appreciated the “calm before the storm” nature of this episode, that we got to see characters interact who hadn’t before, old enemies becoming friends, and of course (no spoilers) the big reveal that Dany had to face in the crypt.
I won’t speculate on who lives and who dies in the next episode, but I hope that no matter what, humanity survives. And given that there are at least 5 more episodes left in the season, that seems like a good bet to make.
I wrote yesterday about my family’s seder and how it’s different than everyone else’s; tonight, I was invited to another family’s seder and got to see just how different.
At risk of exposing the closely held private traditions of a family not my own, I won’t reveal too much, but suffice it to say it is fun to see the wide variety of interpretations of this holiday dinner cooked up by (no pun intended) different families.
Had a great time, and the hosts were wonderful. 10/10 would do again.
Like most Jewish families mine has an annual Passover tradition that bears only some resemblance to that practiced by every other Jewish family. Why? Because tradition isn’t tradition unless everyone does it slightly differently.
I haven’t historically been preoccupied with Passover–some years I haven’t celebrated at all–but this year we got the whole family together, plus an assortment of family friends.
I guess this year, I decided it was better to have a silly tradition than none at all. Which is to say that it isn’t the shank bone and the matzah and the haroset that makes the holiday, but the fact that there is a tradition that everyone more or less knows and we practice together.
We, of course, supplement the dry facts of the holiday with our own family traditions, many revolving around the personality of my dad who runs the whole show and has his own eccentricities. My younger brother has steadfastly refused to solo the Four Questions his entire life, despite, I believe, it being punishable by death not to do so.
But in the end, our seder is just like every other family’s seder in that it’s unique and the same, modern and ancient, family and friends, good food and bad food, all mixed together in the endless Jewish story of contradictions, perseverance, and, well, wine. Chag Sameach.
I found that walking to work, which takes about 30 minutes, leaves me infinitely happier when I walk into my first meeting than taking the subway to work, which takes about 20 minutes.
Just getting to see my neighborhood from above ground and its colorful hubbub, the cyclists on their morning routes, the finance types in suits with their cappuccinos, the punk walking the fluffy white dog…all the New York characters are out in full force. And you miss it all taking the subway (not that you don’t see characters, mind you, they’re just a lot less active).
It’s a good thing that spring has finally sprung, and such walks are now pleasant and a critical part of my new morning routine, when I can afford the time.
I was invited by a friend tonight to see “JP” (as he calls him) live at the Beacon Theater in New York. I had just finished his book so I was curious what hearing the author in the flesh would be like. I’ve heard so many things about how reviled this man is, but also (secretly, in hushed voices) from several people how powerful and engaging a speaker he is.
Truth be told, I was underwhelmed on both counts.
The theater was full. Given how much the Upper West Side liberal type hates this Canadian psychologist-turned-public-intellectual, I was shocked to see how big the turnout was, in the heart of the Upper West Side. The crowd was also extremely diverse. I would be surprised if more than 40% of the audience was white. This was surprising to me, given how much I had heard about how Jordan Peterson was perpetrating white supremacy. I did notice, however, that the audience was heavily male.
His entire lecture was, frankly, kind of boring. He comes across as passionate but mild-mannered, talks a lot about personal responsibility (which is maybe one reason liberals hate him so much) and relationships. Far from being a Nazi firebrand he is often portrayed as, he spends a good deal of time renouncing totalitarianism in all its forms.
If I had to describe him, it would be a self-help guru, marriage counselor and therapist rolled into one. In this lecture, at least, he wasn’t very political, at least explicitly. He did spend a great deal of time, as he does in his book, talking about Christian mythology and implications for how one might live a modern life. One thing he certainly didn’t come across as was right-wing. As a Canadian professor with fairly conventional liberal bona fides, he maybe would qualify as a moderate Democrat in the American political spectrum.
As with my journey into his book, I found it curious but I wouldn’t say I’m on the Jordan Peterson train–or, at least, I don’t really see what the big deal is. What did occur to me, though, is how important it is to read / see something for yourself before you form an opinion about it. The media is so determined to shape the narrative on everything, and the only way to truly educate yourself is to dive in and learn from the primary sources directly. I haven’t turned into a mosque shooter by reading his book, nor have I burst into flames watching him speak live (nor I have I particularly changed my own views on anything either). But I now have an actual, grounded basis of experience I can speak to if he ever comes up in conversation.
