T.M.O.S.B.T.

The following phrase has been quoted to death over the centuries, though perhaps that stands as a testament to its veracity. "To thine own self be true," comes from the mouth of Polonius in Act I, Scene III of Shakespeare's Hamlet. They are words of wisdom to be sure, but lately, I've found myself questioning how to apply this advice to personal growth. The question is: Does total truth to mine own self equate spiritual stagnation?

To answer this question, I had to ask, "What stage of my life set the standard for 'mine own self,' or 'MOS?'" I looked back as far as I could remember, to my days of writing stories about cuddly animals and playing Super Bambi versus the Poachers with my brother. This was longer than a year ago, thank you very much. We all emerge into the world tabula rasa (unless you're keen on the idea of Original Sin, which we'll leave to someone else), so logically, it would make sense to pick the earliest memory as the foundation of the self.

Because of this, in the past few years, I really started to embrace what I considered my roots: animals, nature, and childish wonder. I had to adhere to it, because that combination made me unique in a culture that daily bombarded me with new images to embody. To MOS, I had to be true. So said my professors, mentors, parents, and friends, and I had no intention of letting them, or myself, down. The logic was sound, and for a while, I was comfortable with it, until I realized that adhering to this idea made it more and more difficult to interact with people. It made me less interested in getting to know them, learn from them, grow with them. I began to stagnate intellectually and spiritually. But I was doing as I'd been told! I had built my foundation upon my innocent years. Why, nonetheless, was I not feeling like myself?

Unfortunately, there was a problem with my logic. My earliest memories of playing Super Bambi are jarred by one critical factor: I was playing Super Bambi, not Super Kyle. Even at that early point, I was embodying an exaggerated version of a cartoon animal, animated fifty-five years before I was born, in a part of the country I had never visited. So how could I consider this the foundation of MOS? If I'd been embodying other characters since the very beginning, what, in this whole process, counted as MOS?

The question has already been answered: the process. Sure, I'd played the role of a fictional woodland creature for an amount of time that shall be left unspecified. Sure, I went by the moniker "Super Bambi" in school for several years, and "Feathers H. Archaeopteryx" for several more thereafter. However, hidden behind this succession of masks, the same process fueled these changes. I gave both characters superpowers. I made them into forces of good against evil. I created their relationships to their friends, relatives, and, in Super Bambi's case, children. It was the process that bound these two characters together, the process that contained MOS.

Stepping out of Story Realm, how does this apply to personal growth? On Saturday, I received an invitation to a party with whom I considered "hot, young Hollywood." It was a standard affair of standing in circles, clutching alcohol, and shouting over loud music. While there, I maintained my infuriating practice of waiting quietly for a conversation to begin and reacting thereafter. Exhaustion hit me around midnight, because, in the past year, I adopted Ben Franklin's rule of slumber, which has made late-night parties very difficult. A friend at the party told me that if I want to succeed, I should learn to love the lateness, because that is how Hollywood operates. Later, he sent me a text featuring Polonius' quote, and I wondered for a few days whether ol' Ben had been leading me into stagnation.

I concluded that MOS is not contained in an ideal that can never be attained or regained, but rather every choice made thereafter. To stay true to one's identity while still growing, each lifestyle choice must be made with consideration to the big picture. It has come to a point where staying up too late leaves me exhausted for two straight days afterward. Will leaving early cost me connections? It may. Will showing up somewhere else, fatigued and incoherent, cost me connections? I'll leave that to the reader's speculation.

Looking into MOS, my big-picture processes are the pursuits of serenity and excellence. While my lifestyle will change in the next few years as I find employment and shed the academic schedule, it will be imperative to keep these processes in mind, no longer focusing on regaining the past but on a constant, monitored evolution.

Thank You For Applying

Dear Dater Dan,

Thank you for submitting your application for the role of "Sugar Daddy." After long hours of deliberation, the committee here at Cranium Jarrettum, Inc. has decided that your application has not met our heart and magic standards. This letter is to serve as a written confirmation of this decision.

The committee was impressed by your résumé, your financial qualifications, your Mercedes, and your first-name acquaintance with no less than four dozen household-name celebrities. For this reason, you may wish to apply for the open position of "Friend" or "Professional Contact."

If you decide to apply for one of said positions, please call or E-mail the Head of Staffing to set up an interview at your soonest convenience. We are currently in the early stages of the interview process for these positions.

Thank you so much for deciding to interview with Cranium Jarrettum, Inc. It was a delight to meet you and discuss life with you.

Whatever you decide about the current openings, please feel free to apply for any future openings for which you may qualify.

We wish you every personal and social success with your mate hunt and into the future. Thank you for your interest in Cranium Jarrettum, Inc.

Regards,

Kyle Jarrett
H.O.S. Cranium Jarrettum, Inc.

Prophet Paparazzi

My mother has a penchant for bringing her camera everywhere we go as a family and making sure to snap pictures of me when I least expect - or want - her to do so. While I bemoan and bellyache each time she whips out her Nikon, conditions could be worse. I could be a Hollywood star, hounded day and night, in public and sometimes private, by the paparazzi. My face, in its sundry contortions, pleasing and otherwise, could pop up daily on tabloid covers and blogs, and there would be nothing I legally could do to stop it. Still, even modern celebrities have it easy compared to their deceased counterparts, who must rely on the living to speak for them.

The Islamic Republic of Pakistan has issued a national ban on Facebook and Youtube for what it deems blasphemous content, chiefly the visual depiction of the Prophet Muhammad. While never explicitly forbidden in the Qur'an, the visual depiction of people, and especially prophets, brings threats of idolatry and the loss of respect for the holy essence. But who would dream of showing any less than the utmost deference for a holy figure?  Granted, I laughed out loud at the Jesus Christ Superstore, but as anyone who has seen or read The Name of the Rose can attest, not everyone finds such humor appropriate.  At all.

The laughless have a point, of course. These figures made tremendous sacrifices to bring their profound, and sometimes terrifying, messages to the trembling public. It is fair to demand that they be shown respect, but there comes a point when the backlash against disrespect becomes excessive. I have mixed feelings about Facebook. I would argue that it trivializes friendships by detaching users from face-to-face interaction, wastes time with its countless trivial surveys and applications, and promotes artifice with its "Maybe" and "Like" options. Nonetheless, while it can never replace a phone call or a trip to lunch, Facebook provides a quick and accessible way of staying updated on what's happening in my friends' lives and an excellent forum for sharing discoveries. It is a useful tool, and like most tools, its use is optional.  The ban of this tool, while preventing the viewing of blasphemous content, also eliminates the benefits that would-be users could glean from using it.

As a tool, Youtube is even more valuable. "Valuable?" one may ask. "But I've wasted countless hours reliving my glory days with salvaged episodes of 1980s cartoons!" Because it is open to everyone, its pages contain almost any kind of educational material one could want, from history lessons to portraits of national beauty to language lessons. All it takes is a search and a click, and a whole world of information appears in front of the user. Denying an entire country access to this resource for the sake of a few stupid groups is ridiculous, bordering on cruel. Good Muslims can stay good Muslims, even if some people in the world disrespect their tenants. Discipline is one of the chief virtues of Islam, and by hiding potentially corrupting elements, the Pakistani government is denying its people access to that virtue.

Tick Tock

I've often heard said, mostly by relatives, that time moves more quickly with age.  I had my doubts.  I can count one to three hundred sixty Mississippis at the same rate as my seven-year old self, and they would still correspond to the clock.  So how is it that said relatives were completely spot-on?

Tomorrow, I walk the lines of graduation (or sashay, depending on my mood). Eighteen years of classrooms, eighteen years of grades and homework, eighteen years of an academic authority attempting to convey the workings of the universe into my uninformed brain, have all come to a conclusion. Up to this point, I have measured the passing of time in grades, Kindergarten through two senior years. Each year had a meaning, each its own set of friends and memories. I could say "Yeah, back in fifth grade, bladi bladi blah," but now, what happens?

Up until this point, schooling has given my life structure. I could rely on an autumn start and a spring finish with slight mental relaxation in between, but come Autumn 2010, there will be no new start. Ideally, I will already be employed by that time in a position that most likely is not determined by the seasons. Then the challenge emerges of how to restructure my sense of time. The standard approach seems to divide life into decades "In my 20s, 30s, 70s" et cetera, but it seems that doing so robs the day, month, and year of their meaning. Perhaps this is why they say time speeds up with age; the days lose their interest and blend together.

I believe this pattern is a choice. Yes, the schedule of life has to change, unless a person is inherently wealthy and can pay for a lifetime of college education, but it is a choice to slip into the web of the mundane. A frenzied world inherently resists giving due credit each smaller block of time, and the human brain can hold finite amounts of memory before it starts to clear the space; nonetheless, it should be the goal of each and every person to do something in a year that makes it worth remembering. "In my 20s" is a dismissive phrase. "The year I climbed my first mountain..." "The year I quit smoking..." "The year I took that road trip to Canada..." All give respect to the years they describe and add layers of richness to the experience of life without having to remember the details of dates.

Perhaps by adopting this approach, what has been described as an insipid vortex beyond formal education may yet be revealed to be nothing more than a doorway to a lifetime of educated informality.

Maw of the Omega

I had a stimulating fireside chat with a psychic over the weekend on the subject of the end of the world, and for the first time, I took an unflinching glimpse into the maw of the Omega.  Much has been prophesied about the manner in which the world will inevitably end, be it through fire or ice or gamma rays from a kamikaze star.  This particular conversation centered around the potential events to take place on December 21, 2012. Currently, the running hypothesis is that the Earth's magnetic poles will switch. At the least, all communications and animal migration patterns may be thrown off. At the most, the planet will stop for a moment, exposing the world to deadly radiation and sending a 1,000 mph blast of wind across the world, melting the mountains. 

Naturally, I went to bed that night uneasy. Do only two years of life stand between today and the end of the world?  If so, what should I be doing to prepare? Strangely enough, the comfort lies in the uncertainty.  Right now, all around us, the forces of the universe conspire to kill us.  If the magnetic forces don't kill us in 2012, the asteroid in 2029, the flooding by 2050, or the supervolcanoes at any given time, stand a pretty good chance.  Basically, we're all screwed eventually.  Now I pose a single question: who is truly surprised?

I give you the stories of three characters: Willy, Milly, and Billy.  At 74, Willy has just decided to retire from his accounting job and rest on his laurels.  His company plans to hold a celebratory dinner to honor him at the end of the month (two weeks away).  At 35, Milly, a successful real estate agent, has finally met the man of her dreams and will marry him in Maui next month.  At 18, Billy will be the first member of his family to go to college in the fall.  All are in a good place right now.  All have worked hard to get where they are.  All are about to discover that the world is going to end in one week.

The newspaper article does not specify when exactly the world will end.  All anyone knows is that a star they're unable to pronounce has gone supernova and will fry the surface of the earth with a gamma burst by the end of the next week.  Naturally, the billions of people respond differently:  

Billy decides to screw college and go wild.  Girls, drugs, smashing whatever he wants...  It's everything he grew up around and everything he's worked to avoid, but now it doesn't matter.  What good is doomed life?

Milly decides to elope with her husband-to-be and invest in a Cold War Era bunker and enough food to last them a couple of months.  It's good to be prepared.

Willy stops answering the phone calls from his associates wanting to change the date of his ceremony.  Every day for the next week, he and his wife share a pitcher of lemonade on the porch, greeting their neighbors and frantic family members.  Why not enjoy it?

At a wild, apocalyptic party, Billy picks a fight with a drunken bruiser, who stabs him three times in the chest.

A car strikes Milly as she runs back to her bunker with a bag full of canned food, killing her instantly.

Willy goes inside to use the bathroom.  His cancerous prostate makes it difficult to pee.

By the end of the week, the streets are deserted.  All news signals are dead.  People have either killed themselves or gone into hiding, but Willy and his wife are still out on the porch with their lemonade.

Another week passes.  People start to emerge from their homes.  Business resumes.  Billy's family mourns the loss of their son.  Milly's fiance grieves for her.  Willy and his wife call their family and friends to check in on them.  Life returns to normal.  Then, out of the blue, the sky turns red as radiation eats away at the atmosphere.  People across the world scramble to get back to their homes.  Willy and his wife are caught in the street.  They embrace each other as the blast of solar radiation fries everything around them.

The moral of this story is that the end of the world, if truly the end of the world, is, in fact, the end of the world.  No amount of preparation will change that, and the approach to that event must be marked by a difficult decision: die epically during or die quietly after.  Strangely, I take comfort in imagining my last seconds watching the awesome spectacle of a 1,000 mph wind blasting the whole world right toward me.  It beats all the crying around a hospital bed anyway.

Perceptions

My grandma has a lot of free time on her hands. It's one of the perks of retirement. She uses some of it to forward E-mails to the family. Some are humorous, some sentimental, some paranoid, but this one in particular struck me. Verified by The Washington Post.

THE SITUATION

In Washington , DC , at a Metro Station, on a cold January morning in 2007, this man with a violin played six Bach pieces for about 45 minutes. During that time, approximately 2,000 people went through the station, most of them on their way to work. After about 3 minutes, a middle-aged man noticed that there was a musician playing. He slowed his pace and stopped for a few seconds, and then he hurried on to meet his schedule.

About 4 minutes later:

The violinist received his first dollar. A woman threw money in the hat and, without stopping, continued to walk.

At 6 minutes:

A young man leaned against the wall to listen to him, then looked at his watch and started to walk again.

At 10 minutes:

A 3-year old boy stopped, but his mother tugged him along hurriedly. The kid stopped to look at the violinist again, but the mother pushed hard and the child continued to walk, turning his head the whole time. This action was repeated by several other children, but every parent - without exception - forced their children to move on quickly.

At 45 minutes:

The musician played continuously. Only 6 people stopped and listened for a short while. About 20 gave money but continued to walk at their normal pace. The man collected a total of $32.

After 1 hour:

He finished playing and silence took over. No one noticed and no one applauded. There was no recognition at all.

No one knew this, but the violinist was Joshua Bell, one of the greatest musicians in the world. He played one of the most intricate pieces ever written, with a violin worth $3.5 million dollars. Two days before, Joshua Bell sold-out a theater in Boston where the seats averaged $200 each to sit and listen to him play the same music.

This experiment raised several questions:

• In a common-place environment, at an inappropriate hour, do we perceive beauty?
• If so, do we stop to appreciate it?
• Do we recognize talent in an unexpected context?

One possible conclusion reached from this experiment could be this:

If we do not have a moment to stop and listen to one of the best musicians in the world, playing some of the finest music ever written, with one of the most beautiful instruments ever made . . .

How many other things are we missing as we rush through life?