Penny Lane

September 24th was the first day in over 14 years that I’ve listened to, hummed, or even thought about the Beatles’ song ‘Penny Lane’ without being overpowered by anxiety and sadness. 

Strange as it seems, I’ve actively avoided this particular song for this whole period of time. It fills (or did fill, until very recently) me with dread, and conversely, when I’m already feeling dread, I often start hearing it in my head. It’s–was–a real trigger for me. And somehow, when I thought of it just a few weeks ago, its dread power was absent!

The association of Penny Lane with nerve-freezing anxiety came at the end of August 2008. I had spent the summer living in a small apartment in Berkeley with friends and their roommates. I had just graduated with my BA from St. John’s. It was a spectacular summer for me (let’s keep the partying redacted), and I was looking forward to continuing it into the fall—I had a job lined up and I was going to continue to take linguistics classes at Berkeley in prep for (hopefully) grad school. 

This didn’t happen. I ended up having a nervous breakdown and left Berkeley for my parents’ home in Fresno. (In retrospect, it led to my finding the love of my life, but I was not privy to knowledge of the future). I spent the day before my first day at my new job paralyzed by anxiety. 

Throughout the summer, I had been listening to the Beatles’, among others. ‘Penny Lane’ played several times that day and struck a chord of dread in my anxious soul. After I turned off the tunes, ‘Penny Lane’ still haunted me that day as I sat in the clutches of anxiety. I was so filled with fright that the first day of the job, I quit it and went home, Penny Lane all the while grupping my brain, headlights to my frozen deer. 

Over the past 14 years, through educational and work successes, through dating, marriage and children, ‘Penny Lane’ was there for me when anxiety came calling, as often it did. The association was strong and led me down a deluge of regret and self-hatred and despair. 

Imagine my surprise that day just a few weeks ago, when ‘Penny Lane’ popped into my head all a-random—and no dread, no sadness, no anxiety accompanied it. Feeling bold, I hummed it, sang it, then listened to it. It’s a happy song! Amazing transformation–or perhaps untransformation–back to what it sounds like without emotional history attached.

I don’t want to read too much into this. As I listen to the song again now, though, it’s incredible. I remember that it had affected me previously. And I feel no affect. Just the usual enjoyment of listening to the Beatles. 

Celebrate the small victories over our neuroses.

Some internal experience of autism and neurodiversity

And by “some” I mean “precious few,” in order to expedite blogification.

Some of you may know that I have high-functioning autism/Asperger’s syndrome, Tourette’s syndrome and OCD (plus poooooossibly ADHD, but not officially diagnosed). Basically, I’m a little bit of everything that ain’t neurotypical, or alternatively I’m neurodiverse (and diversely so). Others of you may not have know this—aw hell, what am I saying, there’s no ‘you’ reading this, except for some wayward bots. Bots, back to the beaten (botten?) path!

So I’ve been internally experiencing neurodiversity for all my life, and I’ve also been thinking/analyzing this experience for at least half of it. Recently, I’ve been thinking QUITE A BIT about what it is to be neurodiverse, especially autistic.

Here’s what my half-assed/baked phenomenology has come up with: neurodiversity seems to be neural overactivity, but it may more probably be underfiltering. Focusing on autism, a “hallmark” (blech) is oversensitivity to stimuli or maybe a greater input of stimuli. But we can turn this on it’s head: perhaps the amount and effect of stimuli is the same in sense strictu as for neurotypicals, but the FILTERING is significantly less.

To oversimplify (as I must, not having a real depth in cognitive or neuroscience), most humans filter out a lot of the actual stimuli they receive as inputs. The upshot is that these humans focus on the portions of the stimulus that are meaningful or humanly important. If you tune down the filtering, then your human (in terms of the higher cortical functions, could we say the conscious brain?) is getting much more sensory data, or perhaps more crucially, a much higher proportion of sensory data that humans (neuro)typically count as not meaningful or irrelevant.

I’ll stop for now, but to my (autistic) mind, a lot of what we think of as autism—or experience as autism—follows straightforwardly from the idea of underfiltering sensory data. Similarly, other neurodiverse brain conditions, like Tourette’s, OCD, ADHD, appear amenable to underfiltering other neurological phenomena, that is, BRAIN STUFF.

If I can write in a journal, can I write in a blog?

I just finished my last journal entry in my previous journal yesterday. It’s hell of awesome, and I’m super proud—this past two years I’ve done an order of magnitude more journal writing than in my previous 33 years!

To me, the best part is the solidity of my journaling habit. Many weeks I journaled every day, or a good 6 outta 7. And, even when I missed a few days of journaling, or even a whole week, I always came back to it. Gaining a solid habit is a good, empowering feeling.

My next step in developing my writing habits? Well, doy, it’s writing on this ol’ platform, silly! I’m giving myself at least a month to try this out unevenly before putting it in my habit tracker. And, I’m striving for writing in my blog once a day—not publishing one post a day. I’m only human, after all. A human with severe writing anxiety who’s inexplicably managed to write a decent amount of page-age nevertheless, but still …

Welp, luckily my readership is miniscule if even extant, and expectations are lower than current interest rates. Sorry if you’re Fed up with my dumb references.

Journaling, the benefits of …

And it’s been almost two years, eh? Is blogging not for me, or something?

Well, I’ll tell ya what *is* for me, buddy: journaling. Since my last post here, back I’m August ‘19, I’ve started a journal—and almost filled in the whole damn thing! Which, to me, is hella impressive: for most of my life, I’ve been almost as bad at consistent journaling as I am at consistent blogging.

Well, I am now a certified journalist! By which I clearly do not mean certifications in journalism; rather, I’ve been able to keep up a journal for almost two whole years. There may have been weeks where I only had a scant journal entry or two. But, for each of those stretches, I’ve had weeks where I’ve filled in an entry (almost) every day. I’m proud—damn ass hell PROUD—that I’ve made this a habit.

My life is better on the whole than it was two years ago. At the least, it’s a good deal *deeper*. Maybe not happier all the time, but definitely deeper. And I’m fairly sure that I have journaling to thank! At the very least, now I have a record of what my life was like the last two years.

Hey, that’s nothing to sneeze at, is it? I kept a record of life through COVID. Some day, this journal will be mildly interesting to at least a handful of people belides myself. Or, even if not granting my delusions of future relevance, at least I can look back at the past someday and check my gauzy-eyed nostalgia. I can get real about how I was in my mid-30’s, rather than pretending like my old-ass future self still remembers this accurately. And hey, if that’s not a good reason to keep a journal, I don’t know HWAT is. Well, maybe expressing emotions in writing is good, too—I GUESS.

Year in pre-view!

Wow, it’s been a whole year!

*tumbleweed blows by*

It’s my birthday again, so time to toggle this blog’s switch to ‘on’. Last year, I reviewed the previous 12 months. A lot had happened when I was 31, and it was an interesting year, with lots of growth and new experiences.

And 32?

Hoo, boy, 32 was ROUGH. Part doldrums, part up-and-down “emotional roller coaster,” as people still say on reality show. There were good experiences, and there was growth. Mostly, thought I’m glad to be done with it. 32 was as much a nadir as 30 was a zenith. Hey, I guess that means 33 will cycle upward and 34 be a new zenith?

Basta ya, 32! No more time to spend on review. This year’s birthday-slash-only blog post shall be my year in PRE-view!

So what are my hopes, dreams, plans, mantras, yev ayln, yev ayln (etc.) for 33? This year is going to be a better year, a more confident, more joyful, less worrying year. There are things I want to accomplish in my career–publications, research, teaching, and expanding my skill set. There are personal areas I want to hone: fitness, trumpet practice, reading, linguistic side-projects. And there’s relationships, with my wife, my son, hopefully more children; new friends, old friends, family near and extended.

I want to focus, however, on improving how I live my life, not in terms of career or personal objectives or even relationships, but in terms of thought patterns, general activity, outlook on life, yev ayln, yev ayln. To that end, I’ve come up with a few guidelines for 33:

1. Tell people what I want to say, not what I think they want to hear.
2. Take care of myself first before I try to take care of others.
3. Keep focused on the task at hand and don’t split my attention.
4. Take criticism as an opportunity to grow, not as a negative reflection on myself.
5. Be confident in my abilities and my good heart, and don’t wallow in worry or regret.

Lastly, I will strive to keep to these guidelines but, more importantly, not to fret if I mess up–which I will. I aim to move forward at a steady pace, with “consistency” and “progress” as watchwords. I’ve got a lot of ground I hope and need to cover, but I can only make my journey if I keep advancing in a sustainable way. No gimmicks, no life-changing, road-to-Damascus moments, no dwelling on missed opportunities. Nothing good was ever easy, quick or cheap.

Enough motivational crap! I got this year! MELIORA (that’s the University of Rochester’s motto, which we translate as “ever better,” but is more accurately just the neuter plural nominative/accusative of the comparative form of “good.” So it could also be “better things”).

Let’s Get Cliché! (Year-in-Review)

Yep, reviewing one’s past year is super cliché. One of the great things about getting older (for me, at least) is that I’m comfortable doing something cliché, listening to popular music or watching popular TV, acting in a “typical” way. I don’t have the internal (or external) pressure to spend every moment being special or different or unique or weird. I’m a weird dude, so acting like a normal person sometimes isn’t going to bleach the color out of my personality. And caring so much about not conforming isn’t all that different from caring so much about conforming, really–it’s acting out a script, even if you have more creative control in the scriptwriting process.

Ok, now that I’ve gotten that out of the way, here’s a quick year-in-review. My age-year is synced to my academic year (August = birthday, new school year), which was really nice when I was growing up. The academic year had much more of an impact on my life than the calendar year, as far as beginnings and endings went. Well, I’ve stayed under the umbrella of the academic year practically all my life, since I’ve never taken more than a several-months break from school. This dovetailing of personal beginning and social/functional beginning renders August the January of my life; not sure what either Octavian or Janus would think of that, though my Latin is likely too rusty at this point to avail me in persuading them to move places.

To the meat (or pulse+grain combo) of this post: my year-in-review. 31 (2017/18) marks the first time in almost a decade that I’ve lived outside of California, far from my safety net, supply chain, support network. But living as a husband, father and full-time employee is a helluva difference from living as a college student–the lack of family or long-time friends has made much more of an impact on me the last year in Rochester than during college in Annapolis. Frankly, it’s exhausting, all this adulting. There have been quite a few times during 31 (i.e., this past year, if that wasn’t clear) that I’ve keenly felt my mental illness, or perhaps better put as non-neurotypicality (don’t worry, I’ve been on medication and working in therapy throughout). Not having a more usual brain chemistry just puts that much more of a strain on the already stressful life of an early-career, middle-class-yet-struggling millenial–the situation that the vast majority of my same-aged friends are in. I’ll be turning my focus toward building up my support network in Rochester and connecting more consistently with my already-established network in other places. Life (in general and as myself) is slowly energy-draining, so I need to work on recharging my batteries (recall what I said about clichés) to make 32 a more stable, more fulfilled, and more joyful year than 31.

31 was also somewhat turbulent intellectually. It took several months to decompress from my dissertation period and simultaneously get my sea legs at a new position and place in my career. From what I’ve been told, this is pretty much bog-standard for first semester/year after getting your PhD, but I was a little disappointed in myself for not hitting the ground running as I had imagined I would have. Eventually I realized (with not a little outside help) that 31 wasn’t a time to keep up the sprint of the past few years, but a time to re-focus my energy, get organized, establish good work habits, acquire new professional experience, and establish my profile as a researcher. These tasks are ongoing, without a specific goal or endpoint (they’re atelic activities, not accomplishments or achievements; see Aspect and the Bachelor(ette) if you’re not an aspect nerd). Getting used to focusing on activities has been an important accomplishment (!) of 31, which hopefully will set me up for a spate of accomplishments in 32, in publishing, presenting, job hunting and researching.

Well, in just a few minutes it’ll be my birthday here on the West Coast! So I’ll cut this post off here and wish myself an almost-happy-birthday! Thanks to all five of you for reading.

I’m Just a Rambling Man…

Human-consciousness is composed of several layered organizing principles, from the organic (organism) to the reproductive (animal) to the social (mammal) to the higher human principles: self-expression (subject -> object), outside-world-internal-reproduction (object -> subject), and mutual-recognition-relationship (subject-subject <-> object-subject). Art/creativity; science/curiosity; relationship/LOVE/loving-kindness.

The fact of human-consciousness’ individuation (= emergence of human-consciousness in separate creature-individuals) is experienced as the subject-object divide. Directly, this is responsible for the appearance of human-consciousness as divided/separated. Indirectly, this is responsible for the appearance of human-consciousness as on the one hand finite/mortal/limited and on the other hand meaningless/purposeless.

The distorting assumption is that the creature-individual’s ego is the seat of human-consciousness. Upon adopting a different postulate, that human-consciousness is prior to, beyond, the source of, the HEAD of the creature-individual’s ego, the distortion disappears. Human-consciousness is then appreciated/experienced as COMMUNION, and is not only together and not-divided/not-separated, but moreover both infinite/immortal/limitless and meaningful/purposeful-even-ultimately.

The postulate of human-consciousness as prior to the ego, does two things. First, the ego is seen as illusory, epiphenomenal, an APPEARANCE. Second, the subject/object divide is bridged, the wound healed, the two seen as one. Human-consciousness transcends the subject/object divide. These are complementary, taken together experienced as a FULL VIEW of what it means to be human-conscious.

What may be the principle of human-consciousness as prior to the ego, as the synthesis of object and subject? The principle is hard to word, certainly. Perhaps the organizing principle itself, rarefied. Perhaps, a simultaneous art/science/relationship, a superimposed creativity/curiosity/loving-kindness. We might well just call it, the ‘transcendent human-consciousness organizing principle.

Late Night Rambling

I’m forcing myself to write a blog post even if it’s terrible. And I’m forcing myself not to start paragraphs with “so,”. Let’s see where this goes …

Something that always bugs me is when non-academics talk about a field of study as if the academics therein were subject to groupthink or trapped in an echo chamber. This seems to happen most when the consensus in a field runs athwart someone’s deeply held beliefs. This bugs me because it’s utterly, mockably inaccurate. The only thing academics like more than coffee and tenure is to disagree, loudly, with other academics in their field. If you find one researcher or thinker convinced of his/her model, you’ll easily find a dozen who disagree–and undoubtably for different reasons. Case in point: I attended a conference today in my subfield, where many of the presentations were focally about showing how their model is superior to someone else’s, or at the very least that someone else’s model has XYZ intractable problem. However, all of these models were under the umbrella of a particular strand of theory–which many others in this field criticize from various sides. In this sub-field, and in my field in general, there is disagreement stacked on disagreement, in a turtles-all-the-way-down fashion (sidebar: I’m guessing this ubiquitously cited turtle tale is apocryphal?). And it seems from interacting with academics in unrelated fields that this is par for the course: academia is full of rancor, not groupthink.

One upshot of this is, that if all the academics in a field agree on some point, WE HAVE VERY GOOD REASON TO BELIEVE THEM. For instance, while linguists disagree on 99% of their object of study, we all pretty much universally agree that, for instance, there is no such thing as “inferiority” or “superiority” when comparing languages, nor “primitive” vs. “advanced”, an attitude that is infuriatingly common among even (especially) well-educated non-linguists. So if a person whose core beliefs rest on the supposed superiority of their language, and they shrug off this virtually universally shared opinion of linguists as an article of PC faith or liberal groupthink, that person needs to drink a big shot glass full of shutthehellup, chased with a tall pint of dropthatopinionandprobablyalsoyourbeliefs. Because if there were even a shred, an iota of a good reason to disagree with this judgment of us linguists, at least 20 people would have published articles in disagreement.

Take-home point? If the vast majority of academics who investigate an object of study hold an opinion about that object, we as laypeople need to share that opinion. The obvious application here in anthropogenic climate change, whose existence and relative scope is agreed upon by almost all researchers in several fields that are relevant. To not take these academics at their word is, well, stupid. Because for those of us who are actually familiar with academia, if there were a credible case to be made that anthropogenic climate change is not happening, hundreds of academics would have written that paper. If you, a climate change denier, wish to retreat into the misty woods of “we can’t REALLY be sure of empirical findings and after all the science will change in a 100 years”, do so at the risk of having no epistemological leg to stand on for virtually all of your other beliefs. In other words, excuse me when I say your opinion is utterly invalid.

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The Fundament

It’s been nearly a year since I last posted here, and today saw an event that in earlier times would have carried great religious significance, so why not drop some vaguely spiritual ideas into the yawning e-byss? I’ve been tweaking the following words for the last couple of years, and they’re not getting any better, so I’ll force them on your eyes. 

The Fundament
Ultimate question of the human condition:

– Is being human essentially finite or infinite?

– Is being human essentially divided or united?

– Is being human essentially meaningless or meaningful?

Consciousness in humanity is divided into finite individuals. Yet consciousness in essence is infinite and undivided. How can this contradiction be reconciled?

Religious stance: being human/consciousness is essentially infinite/limitless/eternal, united/in communion and full of meaning/purpose. The appearance of being human/consciousness as finite/temporary/mortal, divided/separate/individual and lacking meaning/purpose is illusory/superficial. 

As a result: the ego (which is finite and separate) is also illusory/superficial. Consciousness essentially transcends and lasts beyond the ego, insofar as it has meaning/purpose. 

The essential nature of being human that is infinite and united, transcending and lasting beyond the ego, is divinity. 

Infinite, undivided consciousness is divinity (thought thinking thought) (inherent/in-itself meaning/purpose)

Being human/human consciousness is divinity trapped in the finitude and separation of the ego.

Important distinction: divinity is transcendent consciousness/infinite human communion; deity is the attribution of divinity to an entity. 

Really, you’re still voting for Trump?!?!

At this point in the marathon election year-plus, as we rapidly approach Election Day, it’s starting to look like we’re about to join dozens and dozens of other countries and finally elect a female head of state (about damn time!). But for one reason or another, many Americans are still planning on voting for Donald Trump, even as his campaign implodes and he splits with the rest of the GOP. So what I’m trying to fathom is, why?!?! Why are people still voting for him? (perhaps, why was anyone voting for him in the first place? But that’s another story).

Earlier in the election cycle, I could see why rational people supported Trump, in spite of the raging bigotry. He is very anti-establishment, at a moment when the vast majority of Americans, myself included, are suspicious (to say the least) of the establishment. Since he is mostly self-funded, it might be reasonable to think he wouldn’t be beholden to special interests. And I admit, sometimes his lack of polish (or lack of filter) is refreshing, when it’s not vitriol or hate speech emerging from his face-hole.

But, by this time it should be abundantly clear that this man is woefully unqualified and unprepared for public office, to say nothing of the highest public office in this country. Here is just a small smattering of reasons why the White House should never be emblazoned with a giant, tacky TRUMP logo:

• His incoherent policy: his foreign and domestic policy “proposals” (which is a generous term) are a bizarre mishmash of craven isolationism (the infamous wall, barriers to trade, gleeful disdain for strategic alliances), frightening authoritarianism (anti-media liberty, stop-and-frisk, partnering with dictators, putting civil rights on the backburner), and tired conservative boilerplate (taxes are too high! the liberals are coming for our guns! Islam is scary!). There’s little semblance of a connection between these disparate areas, or really even serious thought about integrating them (much less whether they would be good long-term solutions to complex problems).
• His rhetoric, which veers from stream-of-consciousness and run-on sentences to bombastic hyperbole (can that man go one minute without a superlative?) and dull epithets (“little” Marco? “Crooked” Hillary? A third-grader could’ve come up with these!). And, while it’s exciting during a campaign to see what shocking statement he’ll say next, that’s a terrible trait for a world leader. Conversely, he’s a snoozefest with the teleprompter, which goes against his showman instincts. And all these words merely skim the surface of the complicated reality of leading a superpower of 300 million; specifics and warranted reasoning are always scarce in Trump’s speech.
• His inability to play politics: granted, one of the biggest appeals of Trump as a candidate is his outsider status. He’s an un politician and proud of it. Governing a diverse and divided country, however, is a cooperative task, one that requires compromise and tolerance of opponents; Trump is either unwilling or unable. We in America are blessed (for the most part) with a divided government, and a president has to play ball with Congress and the courts (not to mention the Pentagon, the Federal Reserve, yadda yadda yadda). For a person whose negotiating skills are vaunted, he does not seem to be great at mollifying enemies, of which he’s made many.
• Oh yeah, and the racism, misogyny, xenophobia, and various other bigotry that infest his campaign. Even if he himself is not a bigot, many of his followers are (just read the comments section! No, wait–don’t read it). And the naked praise of power, money, and “winning”–again, not a desideratum for an office that brings with it moral force as well as legal.

So then, why the hell is anyone still supporting this guy? I can only think of three reasons:

1. You’re a social conservative, and the political composition of the Supreme Court is your foremost concern. Which is weird, because SCOTUS doesn’t really have more of a say than congress or the executive in the domestic and especially economic agenda, and considerably less clout on foreign policy. But if abortion and gays are what rile you up, who am I to argue?
2. You REALLY REALLY hate Hillary Clinton (and most likely Bill as well). Granted, the majority of Americans are skeptical about her trustworthiness, or whether she’ll put political allies and lobbyists ahead of the common good. But is Trump really a better choice? He’s certainly a different choice than Clinton, but then so are Gary Johnson and Jill Stein.
3. Black lives just don’t matter to you. Or refugee lives. Or undocumented worker lives. Or Middle eastern civilian lives. Basically, if you like being a straight white cis male and you want your kind to stay on top, then of course vote for Trump. Just don’t be surprised if the rest of us don’t roll over for you.