“What’s the deal with my brain? Why am I so obviously insane?”

I suppose it’s silly to choose to use a quote which reflects the lack of precision which is common in the use of our language as I try to articulate the jumble of neural connections that make up the flurry of thoughts which result in the appropriateness of the quote in the first place. (the about quote is from Perfect Situation, by Weezer. Insane is a legal term, not a psychological or psychiatric term and as a psychology grad student, I should know the different and use them properly.)

Okay, so what makes me think that I’m insane? My mind is always swirling. A woman had a part to play in it. Also, all the things I want to write about – school stress, relationships, reading and contemplation had produced a lot of thoughts over the last little while. I really ought to write more, or be more systematic in my writing. And a problem…most of these reflections were generated in the past two weeks. Now, more than half way into my spring break, and having typed out a number of them, they feel a lot lighter – they no longer carry the emotional valence that they did. So it’s hard to feel the motivation to continue to expand and fully articulate them. And even if I do, I’m not sure if I can do them justice. Oh well. Trying to let go of my hangups and perfectionism, because I know each of these thoughts is incomplete and replete with errors and contradictions. What you get is what you get. What I give is what I give. It’s okay.

On Mood
I have been moody lately. I’m trying to determine if I’m generally a moody person, or if I’m generally not moody but just experiencing more ups and downs. The argument for the former is that people close to me often see me as doing well; that I seem to present a fairly even demeanor, and that how I feel now feels distinctly different from the way I’ve felt when I can remember. However, the argument against that is my memory of the beginning of the quarter, when I struggled with questions of meaning and purpose, and before that with the adjustment from the move, including feelings of lonliness. But I guess I’ve got to distinguish between capriciousness and dysthimia. Probably what I’m doing right now is more of the first, and what I was experiencing earlier was the second.

My feelings about mood naturally lead me into the second question…

On Time
Time is a funny thing. You know it doesn’t exist, of course. Time is simply the arbitrary convention we have created for the idea that events follow each other in order. Things like seconds and minutes and hours and days don’t really exist. Days are probably the closest things to real, because they have “clear” (actually only “clearer”; less arbitrary) regular patterns with which we can work. But I digress – I’m not interested in the existence of time as much as I am in the role it places in our experience. It is an interesting phenomenon that we in the western world are so a slave to this things called time that we have created. Indeed, we are in total service of it.

And yet even this is not my concern. My concern is this: Why am I so impatient about the course of my life? Or, why is it that my mind races and my feelings ebb and flow over a short period of time, when things will be different. And why is it so hard to “put my hope fully in heaven,” which doesn’t even fall within the realms of time (as I understand it)?

I guess at times I feel anxious for things to happen, and yet it only takes three days for me to have the pressure subside. It’s not logical (I don’t think we humans really work off of a logical evaluation of much, actually). At times I feel like things happened so long ago, and yet when I think about it in the context of my life (assuming I live to even close to average age), it is such a small, small portion of it. My conception of time is perhaps more extreme (though not particularly impactful) – we’re talking the feeling that yesterday was forever ago.

On Food and Convenience
For lent I decided to give up chicken and beef. I already don’t eat pork. So that means I’m left with fish as my only meat source. I also still eat eggs and the like (didn’t go vegan here). What prompted this, you ask? The intersection of a number of things: conversation with Niveen, a Coptic Egyptian who participates in the Lenten fast prescribed by the Coptic Church; conversations with Lindsey, who had recently decided to go that direction; sermon at PMC at the beginning of Lent about Jesus’ fast in the desert as identification with those who don’t have enough. So I decided to go with it.

I have found it to be a good experience. For the first while, it wasn’t that hard. I was surprised. But it’s been a bit more of a struggle in the last few days. What has been the most difficult has been the lack of convenience. I have to work harder to make sure I eat a balanced diet and a wide enough variety of foods and flavors. I think it’s important to consider the role convenience plays in the way we make decisions. I think it’s often one of the highest priorities, though we’re often oblivious to role it plays in our decision process and end up rationalizing it or justifying it in some other direction with which we are more comfortable. I may keep up this direction after lent. I’m not sure yet.

On Philosophy and Quick Judgments
If you’ve talked to me since about November, you’ve probably heard me get excited about philosophy. In October, our discussion group has been talking about philosophy tangentially in connection with other things. It is easy to make quick judgments based on the selected readings and discussion. But since I started reading on my own, I’ve come realize (again) that you can’t dismiss anything too quickly. I think Plato is what started it. I don’t consider myself a Platonist.

After actually reading Plato, I was really impressed. I didn’t read all that much yet – I just a have collection of philosophical writings, so there are three or four dialogues scattered throughout the book and I’ve just read one. I’m certainly not about to convert back to Platonism, but I really liked his style and way of thinking. Just a good reminder to judge a book by its cover. But I tell you, these readings are awesome. There are so many conceptualizations which we have ignored, taken for granted or assumed to be true. When these are addressed, described and challenged, it gives you a lot to chew on. It forces you to look at yourself and the way you view the world.

On Thinking and Music
I love thinking, but it’s not always a blessing. Often I just get sick of it. If you see me walking around with my headphones a lot, or if you hear very frequently hear loud music coming out of our apartment door or my bedroom, you will know that I am sick of thinking. You will know that I have had enough of the constant barrage of thoughts on any number of (though usually only a few extremely salient) topics. This has been the case in the past 2 or 3 weeks. The context is usually such that something is on my mind (i.e. a woman or a philosophical concern) AND there is some other set of constraints (i.e. exams) which require my focus. The latter means I can’t truly devote my attention to the former because I have accorded some value to the latter and would not like to lose whatever advantages I might gain from performance on it because of a nagging preoccupation with my other concern (do you think I could have written that sentence in a more complex manner? I don’t think so.
Now that I have finished exams, I will permit my mind to become engrossed again in the manner I have discussed. The problem is that I end up not doing all the things that I need to get done, because they don’t have the immediate pressure consequences that exams do.

On Myspace, Blogging and Facebook
I was in the shower a number of weeks ago when a thought occurred to me. That thought was a connection between something I'd been doing (if only semi-dispassionately) and something I'd been learning about (if only tangentally) since sometime last fall.

The thought was this: What would Levinas have to say about myspace?

Emmanuel Levinas is Jewish philosopher who argued for the importance of the Other. He believed that we experience God in the face of the person with whom we interact. I don’t actually know too much about him or his writing. I’ve never read any of it directly. But I get a taste of it in my discussion group with Al Dueck. I don’t really want to get into the finer points right now (because I don’t know them), but you can ask me some time if you’re interested.

The answer to my question, I think, is that he’d probably see myspace as a form of murder. Levinas argues that

the Other remains infinitely transcendant, infinitely foreign; his face in which his epiphany is produced and which appeals to me breaks with the world that can be common to us, whose virtualities are inscribed in our nature and developed by our existence.

Basically what I take from that is that each person is so unique that trying to reduce them to a website made up a few pictures and a collection of words is tantamount to blasphemy. I have felt this at times when dealing with my own profile. I have felt like there is so much about me that is impossible to convey that it’s pointless. And I’m torn between wanting to convey myself truly and being silly about it because it’s impossible.

Indeed I was actually originally opposed to myspace, on the grounds that proliferating cyber-relationships would decrease the amount and quality of direct human-interactions. I received the advice of a friend who thought it was an inroad to connect with a person who I was not likely to run into easily on campus but wanted to get to know, and capitulated. Well, that crush quickly subsided (as they sometimes do), and I was left with a myspace account. Now most (but not all) of my “friends” are actually my friends here in Pasadena. Also, I end up just wasting time. It’s a quick escape from whatever thing that is bothering me, from stuff I don’t want to deal with.

I have a lot more in the way of reflections on myspace, but I’m tired of it already. Suffice it to say that I’m dropping my myspace account in the near future. I still want to be your friend. Just call me or email me if you want to talk, or get together, or invite me to an event, or tell me all about the answers to a survey which tell me about yourself. I don't want to put my email and phone number on here, but if you need either/both just post a comment and let me know and I'll get back to you.

I will keep facebook, at least until I win the Fuller Theological Seminary NCAA bracket! But I will re-evaluate it after that. I do plan to keep my blog, because of the readership. I understand that there is an inherent contradiction in that, following my diatribe against msypace. I don’t propose to put forward, let alone live out, a fully coherent framework for understanding these ideas. And, I’m always in the process of re-evaluation (So I could drop the blog too, but the feedback I get from that makes it less likely). I think we deceiver ourselves when we think that we can generate that type of framework. Challenge me if you want.

Okay, so I welcome your thoughts.