Life as an Extreme Sport

Category: …and everything else

Mostly everything else in a brain-academic way.

Attempting Goals – Weekly Schedule

...and everything else, Politics, Pop Culture

The problem (okay, a problem – there are more than one) with parasthesia is it doesn’t give you much warning. One minute, your hands are working fie, and the next minute you’re marveling at your ability to both save the mug and spill iced coffee in your freezer, down front and back of the fridge door, all over the floor, and of course, all over yourself.

It’s hot, so at least the shower – although sooner than anticipated – was not unexpected.

Anyhow, there was a point there, and I think it went something like this: sometimes, you’re in the middle of living life and something happens to change everything. You either sigh, clean up the mess as best you can, and then go back to living best you can, or you sit in the middle of the kitchen floor and cry over spilled coffee and milk. Both are valid choices, but either way, you have to clean up the spilled coffee and milk.

Which is related, in ways that make sense to me, and might to you if you’ve seen things for a while, to the fact that a writer (and producer – would not want to shirk credits) I quite like and admire, Paula Yoo, happens to be on Twitter; she also blogs. Now, first of all, read her blog – she’s funny, she has adorable cats, and you will learn a lot. But, secondly and more relevant for this post, she just set up a new blog schedule, and I am shamelessly stealing it, with a few modifications. So this will be my schedule, with inspiration from Ms. Yoo:

Music Monday
As I’m making an effort to get back into writing, I’m finding myself listening to music again. Music is really interesting on several fronts, but I’m particularly interested in how we physiologically react to music, from having an influence on energy levels and heart rate to chemical changes within our brain.

Most of the time it’ll probably just be something like “so when I’m polishing an essay, did you know I listen to the Buffy Once More With Feeling soundtrack on repeat?”

Tuna Tuesday!
I have two adorable cats, and if they had their way, I would spend every waking moment worshiping them. While they slept, I would spend all my time explaining to you, via pictures and Venn diagrams, how they are The Best Kitties Ever. As a favour to everyone, I shall try to keep cute cat stories limited to Tuesdays. (Yes, Paula’s doing hers on Thursdays. To my ear, “Tuna Tuesday” is a more pleasant alliterative.)

Writing Wednesday
I’ve gotten extremely off-track with my writing in the past two years – once upon a time I blogged at four different blogs several times a day (you know, in the good old days of being paid to do that kind of thing). A lot of things happened that encouraged me to silence my voice, and I’m trying to find it again. Thoughts on the process on Wednesday. (Or you know, less serious crap and more fun stuff that I’m learning from obsessively studying writers under the Twitter microscope, reading, discussing in the writer’s group I’m a part of, or just general accountability towards my own goals.)

Pop Culture Thursday
Unlike Ms. Yoo, I am not a TV professional. I am, however, a pretty big pop culture geek – and it’s about time I got back into writing like it. My pop culture writing is what got me first noticed in the blogging world lo those many years ago, when I was actually recapping Grey’s Anatomy for the now-defunct Metroblogging Seattle. My irritation at House, MD became a bit legendary.

Foodie Friday
As long-time readers know (if any of you are left), I am a foodie from a family of foodies. I love to eat, I love to cook, I love to read about cooking and recipes and the whole nine yards; I even studied food ethics for a while. I think I follow more writers than chefs on Twitter – but not by much. Friday’s will be for recipes, restaurants, and …I cannot think of another alliterative. I’ll blame the time on that one.

Anyhow, it’s a bit of an ambitious goal to go from essentially not writing for two-plus years to writing daily and blogging at least five days a week – but hey, it’s a goal, and it even feels relatively sane and achievable, so far as goals go. And of course, the best thing is, I can write more if I so desire – it’s just that this makes sure that “less” doesn’t go below a certain number. So, starting Monday the 30th of May, we shall see.

Godspeed, Endeavour

...and everything else

Once again, an early morning, a knot in my stomach, NASA TV on my computer, teary eyes and quavering nerves as the Space Shuttle Endeavour prepares for the penultimate shuttle launch, and her final voyage.

She was built to replace the hole left from the Challenger disaster, so in some ways is the strongest reminder for those of us of a certain age, of that tragedy.

She is a beautiful machine that takes the elite of the elite into a place – a space – most of us only dream of, read about, watch on our TVs and embed in our science fiction.

She is a representation of all that we can accomplish, if we put our minds to it.

She has lifted off, the impossibly painful first two minutes of flight have passed and it’s safe to breathe again, and she is away. In a mesh of the thrill of launch and adventure and sorrows of an era coming to an end, it’s impossible to detangle all the complex thoughts and emotions into anything more simple, more primal than this: Godspeed, Endeavour. Godspeed.

Have Your Sleep & Eat It, Too

...and everything else, Food (In Defense of), Philosophy

I have insomnia. (Thus explaining the time this is being posted.) It comes and goes, as insomnia is wont to do, and I’ve apparently been in an upswing period of late. A friend of mine on the other coast, who blogs over at Geek Girls Rule, is also plagued by insomnia, and sometimes I think we trade off on who has to be awake in some sort of cosmic balance. We’re defenders of the night, each taking shifts to maintain vigil over the sleeping world, in case… well, I’m not sure in case of what, being that about the only weapons Mickey and I have are awesome racks and rapier wits, neither of which are likely to save the world from imminent destruction. But, I digress, which is common when I’m tired.

If certain dessert-makers have their way, Mickey and I, along with the rest of the Sleep is for the Weak Not Cranky club really will be able to have our sleep and eat it, too. It seems that the latest fad is melatonin baked into pastries, sort of a pot brownies for the convenience store crowd.

In an article of concepts that jumped out and did a samba for attention, the Len Goodman-pleasing number was the idea that the makers of these baked goods label them as “not for food use.” This appears to be the way that Lazy Cakes, Kush Cakes, and Lulla Pies (all rotten tomato worthy puns) get around FDA labeling laws. You see, while using melatonin as an additive in food would be regulated under federal law (and likely not allowed), dietary supplements don’t need what’s known as FDA premarket approval, and (more importantly) are not required to be proven safe or effective.

So regardless of the fact that we’re talking a sugary Ho-Ho hopped up on a neurohormone, it’s perfectly fine so long as it’s a diet modifier, and not so fine if it’s just part of the diet.

It’s this kind of splitting of hairs that drives people batty – and leads to the odd regulatory issue where it’s better (at least cheaper) for a company to attempt the “dietary supplement” route and change if forced to, than to start out following the rules in the first place. It is, in other words, a bandwagon-seeking food manufacturer’s version of the choice to ask permission or to say sorry.

Much like the toddler who has figured out that if you say you’re sorry rather than ask permission, you at least get to do what you want, these companies know that it is both cheaper and more profitable to sell your food as a dietary supplement and hope to fly under the radar than it is to play by the rules in the first place.

It’s a broken system, and one that can cause harm to the people who don’t realize how unsafe what they’re taking could be – the lack of regulation in the dietary and herbal supplements market is extremely concerning. The solution here is simple: make it much, much more costly to ask forgiveness after action, and reward those who ask for permission first.

Jon Stewart, Osama bin Laden, and the Joker appearing as the id

...and everything else, Politics, Pop Culture, The Colbert Report, The Daily Show

Id. Not I.D. or intelligent design or any of the numerous other acronyms that exist for those two letters. Just id. It was a word casually slipped into the dialog of last night’s episode of The Daily Show as Stewart (and, one presumes, staff) unabashedly celebrated the death of Osama bin Laden.

I realized, from the opening closeup of the May 2nd episode, that there were going to be a lot of people disappointed in Stewart and company’s reaction. Why? Well, both Stewart and Colbert have reached that point in the cultural zeitgeist where a big event happens and people – or at least liberal people of a certain age – say “I can’t wait to see what Stewart and Colbert have to say.” (And an accompanying joke has arisen – the biggest news items happen when the two are on break. Thus, Danny DeVito’s celebratory tweet that The Daily Show was not on break.)

What I saw going around Monday night amongst the liberal crowd I associate with was a general eagerness to the gravitas and perspective Stewart was going to lend to the discussion. People were, I think, envisioning something like the September 20, 2001 return to broadcast: sober gravitas reflecting on tragedy and inspiring hope.

What people got, instead, was id. Pure, unadulterated id. So, it might help to know what id is.

Now, apparently my Freud ran off with Aristotle and Buddha only knows what those two are getting up to, so I’m doing this from memory. (In other words, pure psychologists, please don’t crucify me.) Id, given to us by Freud rather late in his academic career, is part of the trio he envisioned that runs our daily lives: id, ego, super-ego. It might help to think of them as tiers – the highest functioning level is the super-ego, and it’s what acts in direct opposition to the id. It’s focus is morality, rules, order – it’s kind of the Superman of your soul.

Then we have the ego. Ego is the mediator between the id, the super-ego, and external reality. This is reason and common sense that attempts to control the id and play nice with the world, while still ignoring the super-ego enough to have fun. The ego is totally Batman.

The id is the bottom layer of these tiers. It’s not the unconscious, but it is the uncontrolled. The id is pure passion and response, constantly seeking pleasure and relief of impulse; there is no thought of consequences, just desire and action. It’s sort of like a toddler hopped up on sugar and caffeine, rapidly shifting from one thing to the next without thought or sense; there’s no negation or “this might be a bad idea”, simply the satisfaction of whatever chaotic desire or impulse pops to mind. In other words, the id is the Joker.

Batman works to keep Superman in check enough to have fun, while simultaneously making sure that the Joker doesn’t get so out of control that you wake up with half the city covered in toilet paper and the other half on fire.

Monday night on The Daily Show, Batman and Superman went out for a drink and let the Joker run free.

Why? Well, I’m not them, so I can only speculate. Alliteratively, it’s cathexis seeking catharsis. Value judgements and morality come into play with Batman and Superman; the Joker just wants to have that release of pent up energy and stress and fear and anguish at seeing all the death and destruction inspired by one person. Stewart, in particular, has always been very honest about how he was affected by seeing the Twin Towers destroyed, and his reaction seemed rooted in that experience of a New Yorker who was there that day, who bore witness to the destruction.

In a day or two, Batman and Superman will shake off their hangovers, grab the Joker, and shove him back into Arkham Asylum. (There was already a significant pulling back on the id for both Stewart and Colbert in their May 3rd broadcasts.) But if you find yourself disgusted at the Mardi Gras coloured vomit over everything, you might be interested in knowing that Freud thought that the Joker (the id) controlled something that is essential to anyone who writes, acts, performs, or otherwise engages in the arts: the drive to create.

Katharsis

...and everything else, Buddhism, Politics

While my copy of Poetics has apparently gone walkabout, it seems like a general reminder of the meaning of katharsis might be timely. Why were people celebrating in the streets that bin Laden is dead? Because they feel this overwhelming catharsis, and that’s the only way they know how to express it.

It often surprises people to learn that a cathartic is any substance that purges feces from the body, or that the original Greek phrase specified the purging of menstrual fluid and semen. In fact, that’s why Aristotle snagged the term for Poetics – he wanted that medical association of purging, because he saw catharsis as being an emotional cleansing, purging, or evacuation.

In Poetics, catharsis is the extreme change in emotion that happens for character and audience after strong emotion, something that is achieved often through opposition – laughter set against tears, death that comes immediately after success (Whedon, I’m looking at you), and so on. It’s the release of pent up energy and emotion, or as Karen Armstrong summarizes in her book A History of God, tragedy effects a “catharsis of the emotions of terror and pity that [amount] to an experience of rebirth” (37).