Apologies and What's Next...

Most importantly, I must apologize to Bill Bryson (yeah, as if he's reading). My previous assessment of his book "A short history of everything" was a bit premature. As expected, it was not entirely new material but did still have a bit of interesting fluff to add to the attic of my mind.

Any rate, on to complete my survey of Joseph Conrad in earnest now even if it kills me. (Which, as it turns out, might be the preferred outcome.)

I have determined at least that my approach to these novels, like much in my life is much too goal-oriented. You can see it even in my reading list. The only thing I really note for each of these books is a brief synopsis (maybe) and the date they were finished. As I'm reading, the only real information is the page count. That leads to needless hurrying that diminishes the REAL goal here of actually learning something. I can see this tendency of quantifiable goal seeking even at work as I check off things on my TODO list while ignoring the fact that I'm not going about things in the most efficient or elegant manner possible. Perhaps this is a side effect of the attitude of the world in general but it'd be a good thing to put a stop to. Maybe I'll spend a couple days writing down how many times I feel this way in a 24-hour period... then once I've established a baseline I can work to reduce the number of times that I do things in a quantitative rather than a qualitative... no... wait... I think that may be wrong too. Damn it there I go again.

Currently Reading: “Typhoon and other Tales”, Joseph Conrad [36/220]

Periodic Robism: Whatever the wildest and most far-flung imaginings of mankind may be, they all pale when compared with the wildest and most far-flung of realities.

“A Short History of Nearly Everything,” Bill Bryson - Part 1

After only seven pages, I’m almost completely convinced that I’ve chosen a really shitty book. He starts out by talking about what a miracle people are and I couldn’t agree less. Simply because trillions of atoms decided to combine in a certain way to create you doesn’t make you a miracle. Is it a miracle when the lottery drawing takes place and the numbers 23, 12, 3, 17, 19 and 29 are pulled? No, it’s not. But if the numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 were pulled people would call THAT a miracle completely ignoring the fact that every set of 6 numbers has exactly the same probability of being drawn. He points out that because you’re here today it means that all your ancestors managed to survive long enough to have children. That doesn’t represent some mind-bogglingly unlikely event; it’s a necessary condition for you to be here at all. Someone was going to win the ‘tree of life’ lottery and the fact that you’re here in place of someone else is a minor difference in the grand scheme.

Even if we put aside just plain ‘wrongness’ we’re left then with the terrifying statement from the author that before he started the book he didn’t know what a quark was. Now it’s all well and good to have no idea what a quark is; that’s what education and reading are for but I’m not sure I want such people writing science books. I have the rather troubling feeling that this is science pabulum and that the suffering will be long and rather annoying.

Current Novel: “A Short History of Nearly Everything”, Bill Bryson [45/490]

Periodic Robism: No work was ever done at 2 in the morning that wasn't subsequently done again at 2 in the afternoon.

Oh! For the more visually oriented, I've added my flickr account to the right-hand menu so you peruse some non-textual junk if you like.

More Latest Readings and the Purpose of Fiction

So here we are again. It’s March 15^th and as I sit down at this machine ready to try to babble into it for a while I look at my handy-dandy list of things to write about. Even the most cursory of glances reveals that I’m exactly four books behind in my intent to summarize each book as I read it. Since last we spoke on this topic I’ve finished most of the rest of the 2006 Booker nominees and realize that it’s time to head back to finish up Conrad.

It’s usually after about this many works of fiction (it’s been 15 books and 3 and a half months since the last bit of non-fiction ‘Lost Languages’) that I ask myself that eternal question, “Why in the HELL am I wasting time reading all this made up crap?” I generally sit around for a day or two lamenting the lost 3 months and theorizing that I would SURELY be able to converse in fluent Latin by now if I’d only applied myself over that amount of time. What a horrible, horrible waste!

Then I look back at the list; remember the list? I notice a few things crossed of. Yes, indeed, I wrote the post about the decline of the human species. Yes, I wrote the post about the vague sense of dread I have about the universe. Indeed, I blabbed on about my inextinguishable sense of optimism and joy. (*cough* Yes, it’s my blog, I’m allowed to utterly contradict myself). Then I look at the list again and realize WHY I’m keeping a list at all. I vividly remember that bit in ‘The Master’ in which it describes Henry James’ creative process. The notebooks full of ideas, bits of fluff pulled from the news, family stories, little chunks of life laid out on paper waiting for the right wind to blow to turn them from hastily scrawled notes into literature. That’s why I’m keeping this little tablet of notes. Not because of any bullshit I read about ‘sharpening my saw’ but because I read it in some bit of “useless” fiction.

Then I think back to that last bit of non-fiction. I can dredge of a few little factoids. “The as-yet undeciphered Rongo-Rongo language of Easter Island was written in reverse-boustrophedon.” Boy. Talk about your fu&king useful tidbits of information. I’m sure glad I kept THAT one around. But from fiction, the left-over tidbits are much more meaningful and interesting. If there’s anything that Bronte pounds into one’s head it’s the plight of the 19^th century woman, consigned to the sewing table by social convention but capable of so much more than that. Grenville’s “The Secret River” gave me a whole new sense for what it really meant to be transported for life to Australia. Desai’s “The Inheritance of Loss” painted a picture of life in America as an immigrant as so utterly pitiful. I may never eat at a drive-through window with the same viewpoint again. I actually changed the way I treated my own children after reading “Carry Me Down.”

Whaaa… alright, epiphanies aside, I should probably at least make appropriate recommendations on my previous reads. I won’t attempt summaries.

Grenville, Kate: “The Secret River” is an absolute MUST for any history buff especially if you’ve ever wondered what exactly happened to all those people who were ‘Transported for life’ to Australia back in the 19^th century.

Desai, Kiran: “The Inheritance of Loss” describes the life of an Indian from many viewpoints, both as the relative left behind to suffer through the turmoil of life in India as well as a the son sent off to strike it ‘rich’ in America. Thoroughly interesting but the language is a bit tough to wade through.

Hyland, M.J.: “Carry Me Down” follows a troubled child through a particularly troubled bit of his life. A good read if you were a troubled child I suppose.

St. Aubyn, Edward: “Mother’s Milk” follows closely on the heels of ‘Carry me Down’ in that it also follows a troubled family. The situation is viewed in round robin first from the viewpoint of the 5-year-old child and then by the adults so one sees all angles, a good psychological novel but not amazing. If you only read only one book this year, pick another.

Current Novel: “Lord Jim”, Joseph Conrad [117/300]

Periodic Robism: There is no ego larger than the ego that quotes itself.

Composite Optimist

The other day I was addressed in the ‘small talk’ realm by one of my co-workers. This person regularly delves into the unplumbed depths of this blog it seems because after the obligatory “How are things going with you” he or she appended the somewhat mysterious “not very well apparently based on your blog.” This was just after the Feb 21^st entry about “A Day in the Work Life” and every since that time I’ve been looking back trying to figure out what in the heck I said that would be construed as “things not going well.”

Since that comment, I’ve been alert for any overt signs I may be putting out that my life is in any way ‘meandering into a negative groove.’ I have to admit that I honestly don’t see how I can be ‘bumming anyone’s trip’ at this point. But just as an exercise, let’s go over the basic points of my life.

As far as the family goes, I’m not sure what more I could ask for. Our eldest child is entering that “Wow, look at all the great literature there is in the world” phase so I’m not sure how you improve on that. Our youngest is toddling about and into everything so she’s exceptionally tiresome at times but that comes with its own special rewards. Who else on the planet can be entertained for hours drinking from a simple glass of ice water? My wife is happier than I’ve seen her in ages though she could do with a bit more sleep I’m sure. To top it all off, it’s springtime again and all my labors outside over the past few years are about to come once again to their annual crescendo. I wouldn’t mind if my wife would stop running the air conditioner when it’s 65 degrees outside but that’s a small price to pay for domestic harmony.

As for my professional life, I’d say that for the first time ever I’ve come to an appropriate balance between work and not work. After years of trying to derive personal satisfaction from my job I’ve settled on the conclusion that work is simply a means of making a living and nothing more. If you expect a job to somehow fulfill you in some way not directly tied to material wealth then you’re doomed to be disappointed because that’s really what it’s for. Work is not about making friends or winning power or having a great time drinking at the office. The point of work is to turn exactly 23.8% of your life into money to help pay for the other 76.2% of your life. The work I actually do is on the whole pretty dull but I’m well compensated for it and it more than pays for the 76.2% of my life that I have free. To sew up the silk purse even more completely I finally have simple, achievable and easily measurable goals from my management. As each week passes, I can meet the prescribed expectations with punctiliousness and then go on to find the rest of my life waiting for me at the end. Add to that the fact that I do this from the room over my garage and I’d frankly be a fool to say anything but happy things about my omnipresent benefactors. *wave*

Now the third piece of this is a bit more nebulous as third pieces typically are. So you work 40.00 hours per week; you sleep for 49 hours a week; that leaves 79 hours for whatever. Say 20 hours total for eating, personal hygiene, doing the laundry, what the heck ever. So you’re left with 59 hours. When you have kids, a lot of this gets chewed up with various child-related activities but I figure I get at LEAST 20 hours free and clear a week. The thing that really annoys me is that this time seems to go straight into the toilet. I have yet to learn Spanish, Latin, French, Calculus, Greek or any of the other useless topics I’ve set out to learn lately. For the most part my blog is too quiet (and too stupid and self-centered) to be really interesting and my reading list is growing but in the wrong direction with the ‘Too be Read’ pile outpacing the ‘Just finished’ pile by about 2:1. But again, what a problem to have; I have TOO MUCH entertaining junk competing for my attention. Boy, sucks to be me.

So all in all, if people find me negative then I can only assume that it must be because of my frank approach to life. If you tell me something and I think it sucks then I’m likely to say “That sucks” in a most “Napoleon Dynamite” sort of way. That doesn’t really make me negative, merely blunt. To be honest, you might almost say that I have the world on a string. In a way, it’s like I’m sittin’ on a rainbow and I’ve got that string around my finger. Really, I’d be a silly so-and-so if I should ever let go.

Current Novel: “Mother’s Milk”, Edward St. Aubyn [178/235]

Periodic Robism: There is no greater temptation for a child than to jump onto a made bed. There is no greater temptation for an adult than to jump into a made bed.

Gettin' Old

Yeah, pretty sure I’m getting old. I remember those halcyon days when I was busy failing out of college I would stay up until… well, basically, tomorrow. When I was a wee lad at my grandparent’s on the weekend I’d regularly be bumping around until 5am watching those sweet Sammy Terry movies on Channel 4. Damn, those were some horrible movies but at 3 in the morning everything seems better.

Why, you might ask, am I bringing this up? Well you see I have to stay up tonight. Yeah, horribly late. For my job. Yeah, it’s for my job. It’s one of those things us snazzy computer types have to do from time to time. Okay, honestly, it’s not that late. It’s like 2 in the morning at the absolute maximum. The thing is though that my mind has been absolutely racing to come up with some way to keep myself up. Yes, I know, it’s idiotic that a grown man who used to spend days at college just not going to bed at all for no good reason now has to make an effort to keep himself up past midnight.

So what the hell happened? Is my life just that much more boring? Perhaps I need neighbors who will ‘pump up the jams’ until all hours. I’m betting I can get my father-in-law next door to crank up a little Cat Stevens until at least 9. If you can’t stay awake to ‘Moon Shadow’ then you’re deaf. Anyway, doing great, only 6 hours to go and I can still feel my fingers enough to type!

Current Novel: “Carry Me Down”, M.J. Hyland [45/334]

Periodic Robism: Since God did not exist, it was necessary for Man to create him and having once created him, it was necessary to deny his existence.

The Rise and Fall of the Human Empire

There’s a time bomb ticking in our species. With each passing generation, we draw closer and closer to our own demise. Ironically, the same processes that some people like to believe never take place at all are slowly unraveling humanity from the inside out.

Species respond to their environments. If the water supply diminishes gradually over generations, those individuals who for whatever physiological reason need less water will survive and thus give birth to offspring who require less water. Those who require more than the environment can provide will tend to die off. As the environment changes so do the creatures that live in that environment. In addition, the pressure the environment places on populations tends to weed out deviations that diminish rates of survival. If an infant is born with some horrible deformity in the wild, the harsh environment into which it was born takes care of the situation by making sure the deformity will not live to procreate.

But what happens when there IS no selection pressure within a species? What happens when every offspring is allowed to not only live out their lives but also to spawn another generation with the same problems? The answer to this is not yet certain, but it does suggest an interesting thought experiment.

The most obvious route for our experiment is to follow the recent advances in reproductive medicine. Conditions that would have kept our mother’s mothers from being able to conceive at all are now surmountable though medical procedures. Currently the leading cause of infertility in women is polycystic ovary syndrome. Recent research indicates that this disorder has a strong genetic component so what happens if we use medical technology to allow the 10% of women with this problem to pass along their genes to their offspring? With each mother we help conceive, we make the problem worse. Where before we had one person with the defective genes in two generations we have multiplied the issue manifold. After a few hundred years, we are left with a population in which no one can conceive without medical assistance.

The issue is not limited merely to infertility. In a way, each time we save anyone from any disease, we weaken ourselves as a whole. In 1950 the infant mortality rate was 29.2 per 1000 births. In 2003 it was 6.9. Doubtless the average infant is healthier due to improvements in pre-natal nutrition but the fact remains that we save babies who are weaker and in turn more likely to give birth to weaker children themselves and thus more likely to need medical assistance.

As each succeeding generation passes, we slide further and further into dependence on our technology just to survive the world in which we live. At some point, the choice will have to be made and we will slide into Huxley’s “Brave New World.”

The Winds of Change

My life is one filled with premonition. On a regular basis, I have a deep foreboding; a dark cloud eclipses the full-moon that shines down into my soul. If I run the statistics back to the very limits of my recollection my track record is 100%.

In the 70s I heard about the possibility of nuclear immolation at the hand of ‘evil’ communists. It never happened.

Years later when my parents divorced, my mother sat on the bed with me and said, “It’s just you and me now. Whatever’s happened in the past is in the past and we’ve got to stick together if we’re going to make it,” my heart soared. I believed that day was the beginning of a new and wonderful beginning for us and that we’d finally be happy. That never happened either.

Not long after when I went to live with my grandparents and went to a new high school I thought that was finally my opportunity to make friends with people my age. I’d finally be normal as I could shuffle off the coil of previous geekiness and be a normal kid like everyone else. That still hasn’t happened.

Three years later when I transferred back to the school district I’d come from before I was braced to once again be the pariah of the school. That didn’t happen either; everyone was actually happy to see me it seemed.

Even more years later, when I was unceremoniously ejected from Purdue for an overindulgence of academic freedom, I thought my life was at an end, that I would suffer in the quagmire of a factory like all my relatives before me. That certainly didn’t happen.

When I met a girl who made my mouth drop open in awe, I expected her to laugh in my face. After all, she was from the big city and I was dressed in skin-tight pink shorts and a dark-blue velour shirt with a shaved head. She didn’t laugh then but we do still together laugh now.

After our daughter was born I was pretty sure there was NO way I was going to figure out what I was supposed to do with a child. How could I ever learn to love something that pooped in the middle of the night and woke up the whole house? As it turns out though, I figured out both things easily enough.

Now I’m back to the same strange feeling. As if I’m standing at the edge of a great canyon peering over into the vastness. It could be that I’m about to fall headlong into the void or perhaps the view will change my sense of self forever. Perhaps tomorrow I’ll slip on the ice going out to get the mail and break my neck. Or perhaps my blog will become nationally syndicated in the American Journal of Writing for People with Poor Taste. All I can say with any certainty is that no matter what it is that I have no clue what tomorrow will bring. Good, bad, or indifferent we are all merely dandelion fluff on the fickle winds of fate.

Current Novel: “The Inheritance of Loss”, Kiran Desai [270/320]

Daily Robism: There is no greater disservice one man can do another than to fail to tell him the absolute truth.

Latest Readings: “The Master” & “The Night Watch”

I’ve taken the past couple of weeks trying to modernize my reading list a bit so I’ve continued mercilessly down the path of reading the previous Booker Prize nominees.

The Master – Colm Toibin

“The Master” is a biographical novel centering on a relatively brief period in the life of the author Henry James. I’ll admit that it wasn’t particularly enthralling as narratives go; I had difficulty sustaining interest in the plot line and found the mildly graphic presentations of homosexual love mildly annoying. From a broader perspective, I will say that I was interested to see James’ approach to writing and how he took bits and pieces of people and news around him and wove them into great works of literature. It did remind me that, like James, I should take better notes on the topics that randomly pop into my head for future writing. I’d give the book a rating of ‘satisfactory’ but it won’t make it onto my ‘recommended reading’ list.

The Night Watch – Sarah Waters

“The Night Watch,” a 2006 Booker Nominee, made be question briefly what exactly the criteria ARE for the Booker Prize. Its representations of homosexual love are patently salacious though happily brief. The book presents in generally reverse-chronological order the lives of four people during World War II. In the first part we’re introduced to the characters as they live in 1947 in London after the end of the War and for parts two and three we’re taken back to 1944 and 1941 respectively. Three of the four main characters are lesbians involved with each other romantically at various times while the fourth is a straight woman sleeping with a married G.I. The primary premise of the book seems to be to compare and contrast the nature of the various types of relationships at issue. In all cases, fidelity seems to be in scarce supply. From a standpoint of readability the text does start out somewhat slowly but builds to quite a crescendo. While it does present a vivid picture of life in London during the war, its graphic depictions of violence and sex will keep it off my ‘recommend to friends’ list.

Current Novel: “The Secret River”, Kate Grenville [175/334]

Daily Robism: There is no more misleading measure of an employee’s performance than the amount of time actually spent working.

February 23, 2007

One thing that I think this ongoing letter to no one is missing is more of a sense of everyday goings on. I’m sure that in some vague way I’ll be amused to look back on the entry I wrote when grandpa died (I still consider this some of my best writing) but that’s the sort of thing you remember regardless. That’s a life event after all; you don’t forget real life events. Instead, I think it’s time to focus on the more mundane. I can tell you all (okay, I can tell future me) about how I drove up to the area of the office and had lunch with my boss in the 2-week “Rob’s Lunch with Human” cycle and how it’s Randy’s turn in two weeks and how I just KNOW it’ll be such a grand time and how I really need to figure out exactly WHO is in this 2-week lunch rotation because otherwise I’ll miss someone in the cycle and then they’ll be all offended when they hear about the lunch that everyone ELSE got invited to. I can describe in excruciating detail how my boss and I talked about work for almost the entire time but how that’s OK because, as he says, work is his hobby and of course it’s good to talk about hobbies, especially hobbies that you happen have in common and then when I was driving home it really seemed to me that it took much less time to get back home than it took to get up to the north-east side…

Hmmm… You know, one thing I think this blog has going for it is that it doesn’t really deal at all with everyday goings on…

Odd? Who you callin’ Odd?

About two weeks ago I went to lunch with an old friend of mine and during that repast we wandered onto a blog topic from a while ago. Where was that… oh yeah, here it is: Best Friends Forever. In that teeny-tiny blog post I wondered aloud briefly about the definition of friendship, how friendships come about, blah, blah, blah. You all saw it. It’s printed out and pinned to your wall at work.

Anyway, Charlie (he’s the friend in question, if I may make so bold as to call him a friend without causing him to feel undo pressure to reciprocate that moniker) recalled for me the circumstances under which our friendship came about. I have a horrible memory for EVERYTHING so I’d long ago scrapped all the details about this period of my life but Charlie said that when we first met he was a bit … well, irritated by me. He came to work in my department briefly (one of these ‘job exchange’ deals) and since he was the new guy I had a tendency to watch his trouble ticket queue (this was in tech support you understand) and make sure he got what he needed to get his customer issues taken care of. Anyway, from my perspective I was trying to be helpful and proactive but from Charlie’s perspective I was an interfering prig who was disapproving of how he was doing his job.

This makes me sincerely wonder just how the rest of the world sees me, especially when they first meet me. I’m sure that in a LOT of ways I can be irritating on first contact. And come to think of it, we did have a Euchre party last Saturday for my wife’s co-workers and after it was over she scolded me for ‘glaring’ at our guests. This wasn’t the first time she’s had such a complaint but as usual I pled total ignorance. I distinctly recall not glaring at anyone; since she had complained about it before I was extremely careful to look at people with only the most inscrutable impassivity. I didn’t even use my Lurch impression on people as they came in the door. But somehow, just as with Charlie, I was irritating to people with nothing but the best of intentions (or at the very least neutral ones). I really must figure out what’s causing that and put an end to it.

Then, the very ground of my existence shook beneath my feet. Charlie said something that I can not yet believe and which has changed my life forever. He said *gasp* that I *choke* *sob* was *wail* ODD. Can you believe the audacity? Me?!!? Of all people?!? ODD??!?!?? You have to be kidding or else just trying to fill in conversational dead air if you would dare accuse me of such a thing. I defy ANY of you out there to name even ONE odd thing about me. I’m the most pedestrian, most typical Joe 5-Pack on the face of this planet!

Okay, maybe not MOST typical. Clearly Charlie meant this as a compliment and the fact that I took it immediately as such is clear evidence of my deep-rooted cynicism. I guess what was surprising was that my ‘Oddness’ was this obvious to people, that anyone had actually NOTICED that I was odd. I look at the people around me and it’s obvious from my perspective that I don’t really think like you people. So it’s no surprise to me but to be told by an outside source that there’s something not quite tight in your set of legos; that’s astounding. This means that not only am I probably really not a normal person (whatever NORMAL means) but that everybody around me knows it and only my good buddy Charlie is man enough to tell me. My question at this point is HOW obvious. As I’m walking through Target are people thinking, “My, what an odd person (but DAMN he’s handsome)?” I’d give some significant amount of … well, something my wife wouldn’t miss so not money… but something cool… to walk around in someone’s brain for a day and spy on myself.

Random joking aside though, I’m not really convinced that anyone has any sense whatsoever what ‘Odd’ means. In the most definable sense, Odd just means ‘Not like Me.’ By that standard, everyone I’ve ever met is odd. I completely don’t understand why people do most of the things they do. Oddly enough though, I think people tend to enjoy being around those they consider ‘Odd’ (well, unless they’re scary at the same time) because the odd people around us represent different facets of the human condition that we haven’t experienced yet. Humans are naturally curious so we always want to know what other people are doing and how they live and how they think. I’m deeply curious to know what goes on in the minds of the people I know. So there, come on people. Let’s get some quality blog work going on out there. I need your innermost thoughts and I need them in my RSS reader by this time tomorrow. Chop, Chop!