Preshrunk
Sometimes I wear t-shirts. Preshrunk, a t-shirt weblog, asked me to tell you about some of them.
Some DFW love made its way in there, days before all this sadness.
“Here is just one example of the total wrongness of something I tend to be automatically sure of: everything in my own immediate experience supports my deep belief that I am the absolute center of the universe; the realest, most vivid and important person in existence. We rarely think about this sort of natural, basic self-centeredness because it’s so socially repulsive. But it’s pretty much the same for all of us. It is our default setting, hard-wired into our boards at birth. Think about it: there is no experience you have had that you are not the absolute center of. The world as you experience it is there in front of YOU or behind YOU, to the left or right of YOU, on YOUR TV or YOUR monitor. And so on. Other people’s thoughts and feelings have to be communicated to you somehow, but your own are so immediate, urgent, real.
Please don’t worry that I’m getting ready to lecture you about compassion or other-directedness or all the so-called virtues. This is not a matter of virtue. It’s a matter of my choosing to do the work of somehow altering or getting free of my natural, hard-wired default setting which is to be deeply and literally self-centered and to see and interpret everything through this lens of self. People who can adjust their natural default setting this way are often described as being “well-adjusted”, which I suggest to you is not an accidental term…
…If you’re automatically sure that you know what reality is, and you are operating on your default setting, then you, like me, probably won’t consider possibilities that aren’t annoying and miserable. But if you really learn how to pay attention, then you will know there are other options. It will actually be within your power to experience a crowded, hot, slow, consumer-hell type situation as not only meaningful, but sacred, on fire with the same force that made the stars: love, fellowship, the mystical oneness of all things deep down.
“The world is very old.”
This man changed my life. To better days, DFW.
(Obscured: peace sign, or bunny ears.)
* A note about the photo: it was taken while DFW signed my copy of Infinite Jest on the page of my favorite passage (the one above, p.387), which he thought was odd, but whatever. The occasion was a live recording of the KCRW show Bookworm in Los Angeles, where he was to read from his essay “Ticket to the Fair”. The date was March 20, 2003, the first day of the U.S. invasion of Iraq. As you can hear in the recording (beginning at 15:30) DFW was noticeably preoccupied by the day’s events. It was clear that he felt it inappropriate to be reading from his humorous essay while the invasion weighed so heavily on his mind. It was clear that he felt it very deeply and took it very personally.
Emergency advice
A man just walked up to me on this street corner. He and his wife were waiting for the bus. She stood 15 feet away. ”My neighbor caught me flirting with a girl and told my wife. What should I tell her?” he asked as if we knew each other. I asked him to repeat. Wouldn’t you? He did, same words.
I looked over his shoulder and saw a woman about his age glaring at me. I looked at the man and registered the faintest bit of desperation, carefully disguised. I am not quick at putting these things together.
Then he asked me again, this time a little bit annoyed I hadn’t yet processed his question. And then it started to make sense - he was reaching out to me because I’m a man and he’s a man, and men fuck up and when they do, they seek the counsel of friends and when there are no friends and when our women are standing nearby waiting for an answer and it’d better be good, men approach other men, total strangers even, reeking of beer even, and seek counsel because men fuck up.
First thought: just be honest. You got caught flirting. What were you flirting for, stupid? What did you get caught for, stupid? Own it.
That thought passed. It wasn’t in my interest in this scenario to help this man be a better man. It wasn’t in my interest to counsel him towards a more successful marriage where flirting with a girl wouldn’t even enter his mind.
It was in my interest to cross the street to where this man wasn’t getting busted by his wife.
“Tell her it was a friend.” I hated myself while I was saying it, for setting him up to get walloped with a rolling pin.
“Yeah. Yeah… Tell her it was what?”
“A friend.”
“Yeah, tell her it was a friend. Thanks, buddy.”
“Sure.” And I crossed the street. Man, that guy is in deep shit.
Calm now
There’s a sense that people sympathetic to the cause are starting to get nervous post-RNC, and are calling out for a change of tactic - one in which our side plays dirty, to win at all costs with so much at stake.
This fear that we’re letting it slip away, once again, when it matters most and when our chances are best has even gotten the better of me. And I like to think I’m pretty good at keeping a level head and calling bullshit on the bad behavior.
Here’s a strong passage from a post at The American Prospect that has settled my nerves and helped me get back to where I should be, which is a place of positivity because positivity is one thing this campaign has to offer that will change the world regardless of the outcome of the race.
Obama has shown as well as anyone that he is a rough-and-tumble politician who doesn’t shy from a fight. But his campaign has made central his commitment to changing the way we do politics. That doesn’t mean he’s a wimp, but it does mean he can’t buy into the Bush-Rove politics that McCain now espouses. Obama remembers, to recall the old adage, it’s not worth wrestling a pig: You get dirty, and the pig likes it.
It’s vital to remember we have chosen this man to represent us because he is a man of integrity. And to ask him to waver in any way from his dedication to the elevation of politics would be for us to elect a different man into office.
The tendency of a lone diner a. to look up in a café or restaurant, and b. to move the eyes horizontally across the view-field while taking a bite of food or drinking from a cup, bottle, or glass.I don’t know, I just like the idea of something like this having a name.
I’m in a good mood.
