I Love You?

"I love you" = "Our rapport momentarily reminds me to disinhibit the love that's all I ever was."


Further Reading:
Love Theater
I LOVE YOU MOMMY

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I once defined Tai chi as the practice of embodying the natural flow one normally pretends not to be a part of.

Most every eternal mystery in the human experience - the devilishly-hard-to-define stuff - can be accounted for by digging an inch down into pretense.

And while we're at it, a great many recent mysteries in the human experience can be accounted for by noting that everyone in the First World is now an aristocrat.

That right there can serve as your all-purpose interpretative guide to mankind.

Entering the Asylum: Notes on Pretending

I've visited people in mental institutions and never found it difficult. Yes, such places can be objectively horrible—the smell, the baffling behavior, the eerie screaming in the distance—and I must find common ground with a friend in embarrassing circumstances. But I'm fine with all that, and can offer genuine friendliness and hope. I meet circumstances as they are; omnivorous when it comes to What's Happening.

When I visit similarly dysfunctional people in their homes, it doesn't go so well. I clock circumstances clearly, but am expected to ignore much of it and feign lovely normalcy. My job is to inhabit an alternative reality—or at least maintain the façade. "You're doing so great!"

Having spent my life deliberately dismantling my façades and finding easeful stance in What Is, I can have a perfectly smooth visit in a psychiatric hospital and lift a friend's mood, riding the truth with equanimity. But the tradeoff is that I've lost my falsehood chops. Saddle me with an obligation to pretend, and I'll grow so confused you might as well have me committed somewhere. 

Not Too Sweet!

When I hear someone compliment a dessert for being "not too sweet", my standard reply is "Also: it doesn't have any broken glass in it!"

100% of the time it's regarded as non sequitur.

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No one praises bread for being unburnt, or soup for being not-undersalted, or ice cream for being unmelted. In no other instance is a non-mistake something to celebrate.

But it's not really a compliment. The person is editorializing. They want it known that they don't like sweet things, and while they might have acknowledged dessert was never for them, they've pressed ahead all this time, expecting their minority taste to be catered to, and finally—finally!—it's been done the right way. They are offering a withering critique to the world at large, disguised as faint praise for some random something.

This is so normal that it hardly parses as batshit crazy. Entitlement itself has become an entitlement.

Optimism

‘Optimist,’ at this point, is what people who’ve set their hair on fire call those who think it’s not useful to set one’s hair on fire.

Wine Tip

I remember when you seemed like a lunatic for claiming a Venezuelan street vendor's corn cakes were superb. Serious food was eaten in serious places with linen napkins, and those other places serve cheap greasy sustenance for shabby shmucks. I had to beg my editor at NY Press to publish my rave of The Arepa Lady in 1993 (which became a sensation, as did she). Here it is.

Now everyone takes it for granted that "deliciousness is deliciousness", per the Chowhound credo (which, in 1997, seemed provocatively edgy). Now everyone's a food expert.

But the expertise is astonishingly thin and conformist. People know to eat Thai with a fork, and to tear off bits of pita to grab chunks of Lebanese mezze. There are about 500 little practices and factoids all foodies internalize, but I keep waiting for everyone to catch up on the wider wisdom.

It's not happening. This, apparently, is as far as it gets (which explains why virtually no one bought my app, which dumped all my food know-how into a convenient package for $5). People want to conform, not learn.

But I'll share a seemingly obvious trick not one person appears to have clued in on.

Pity those who create wine lists for fancy restaurants. You might think charging $75+/bottle allows them free rein to include fancy grog. But restaurant bottles are marked up 2.5-4.5x, so those smug sommeliers kvelling over their sumptuous offerings are all lipsticking pigs. Your $200 dinner includes legit pricey ingredients and preparations, but the wine is not special occasion wine. It's ≈$20-35 bottles. To bridge this impossible gap, wine directors wine-hound like a mo-fo, sussing out cheap stuff which pairs well with luxe, refined food. It's an excruciating task. Very much a Wizard of Oz reveal.

But it's fantastic for us. You might not drink $90 bottles at home, but you may drink $25 ones, and if you simply steal tips from fancy restaurant wine lists, buying in-store sans mark-up, you can draft on their labors.

I've never seen anyone do this. Just me.

For that matter, wine directors could draft on previous efforts (every wine list is out on the Internet). They don't, because they're smug and snotty and want to feel like wine experts, so every curation is bespoke. Me, I could "create" your four star wine list in like two hours by zeroing in on a dozen particularly clever ones, and mixing/matching.

If you read wine magazines for tips, or ask friends for tips, or (jesus) ask wine store bozos for tips, you're doing it all wrong. Print up the wine list from the most legit upscale place in your town, and go buy a bottle or two for 20-30 bucks.

"Wall-ah!" as the French say.

Marjorie Taylor Greene

Prediction: Marjorie Taylor Greene will be a major force in the 2028 presidential election. Perhaps even the candidate.

Trump won’t live forever (he keeps dropping out of sight for 4 or 5 days at a time), and Vance, Miller, Trump Jr. and Hegseth are not loved by Republicans or MAGAs. Being a clownish asshole helps, but, alone, it’s not enough.

Many Republicans are shaking off some Trumpism, presenting an opportunity for someone to draw smart lines between themselves and Trump. Greene’s done this with health, the Epstein Files, and inflation—the places where Republicans disagree with Trump. It’s smart, and nobody’s noticed what she’s doing. She’s extremely strategic (look how much power she’s wielded as a newbie!). Her break from Boebert (remember the "catfight"?) was perfectly timed. We’ve underestimated her savvy.

Independents currently think of Greene as a white trash bomb-thrower. There’s time to fix that image, and many press cycles for her to act grown-up and sane (she’s already doing it). Also, she’s never really been as trashy as she’s been seemed and acted. She’s actually done some stuff in her life. And her strategy sense and smarts have proven, and continue to prove, orders of magnitude better than dems or reps recognize.

By 2027, all the others will be shucking and jiving with the full Trump agenda, including stuff conservatives hate. All Wile E Coyotes hovering in mid-air having sprinted past the cliff edge with enthusiastic momentum. Only one person is acting smart now to position herself where she needs to be - a slate-cleaner who still fits the bill.

Right now, I’d put money on her being the 2028 candidate, but lots of stuff will happen before then. I don't "like" her, nor do I "agree" with her, but she's a phenomenon.

A friend who's a top honcho in the anti-Trump movement agreed, adding "Her pivot on the shutdown is absolutely a work of art."

Discussing "Letting Go"

Following up on my recent posting, "Levels of Letting Go"



What exactly are you suggesting letting go of at "Level Four"?

Everything.


Everything?

That's right.


So I'd quit my job and wander naked through the streets?

I didn't say to do anything differently. Just let go.


How can I let go while also participating?

If you drop a grudge, does anything materially change?


No. Just my perspective.

Bingo.

You can drop tons of exhausting weight without anything materially changing. Far, far more than you'd imagine.

Like I said, Atlas was wrong. He could have let go of the world at any time and it would have been fine. You have no idea how much you're holding up, because you're used to it. But it was always unnecessary. You can drop the unnecessary. When you do, you'll discover that it was the weight of the entire universe.


You wrote that we're all keeping Neptune going in our heads. I don't feel like I'm devoting much energy to that.

Not much, but you're devoting some. And Neptune's just one thing in a vast internal realm. Let it all go in one big drop, and that's Level Four. Nothing changes. You've just dropped an exhausting, unnecessary process.


I don't feel like I'm putting myself through an exhausting process.

Are you exhausted?


Yes.

I rest my case.


But I'm exhausted because my mom's in the hospital and my kid sprained her ankle and my boss underpays me and our president is an authoritarian racist. How could I not be exhausted?

Try it and see. Problems are mandatory, but burden is optional.

Atlas was silly. The world never needed him to hold it up. Letting go would have freed up his energy to really help!

We are all like Atlas, subconsciously obliged to pretend to bear all the weight. You won't fully understand until you opt out—of the pretending (not the engaging!). It all clears up once you finally let go.


How do I go about it?

This entire Slog is pretty much devoted to coaxing reframes. Meditation loosens up the gears.

Practice shifting perspective, aka reframing. Work on levels 1, 2, and 3. Forgive willy-nilly—even people you're not mad at. Even people you don't know.

Then, once you get a feel for it, bear in mind that the whole edifice can drop. Remember the foolishness of Atlas. Remember that burden is needless. Remember that when you cut everything out from underneath you that you'll float, not fall.

Correcting the Record?

If someone has a wrong idea about you—about something you said, did, or thought—you might, with effort, convince them otherwise. Maybe!

But here's the problem: we exalt our assumptions and opinions, even when they're whimsical. They outweigh provable truth (if this seems odd, imagine how different this world would be if it weren't so). So after all the explaining, you won't have cleared yourself. You'll have been given a reprieve. They'll frame it like forgiveness. They've forgiven your transgression...this time!

So the next time you offend, confuse, or simply trigger another wrong conclusion, you’ll be treated as a repeat offender. No more benefit of the doubt for you, mister.


I no longer correct people. Whatever wrong thing they're thinking about me, they can hold on to it. I don't exhaust myself playing whack a mole.

Levels of Letting Go

Level One: Forgiving
You finally decide to forgive your neighbors for having backed their car over Sparky, your beloved pet slug. One can't hold a grudge forever. You immediately feel better, confirming the old saw that "holding onto anger is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die." Not that we ever learn.

Level Two: Really Forgiving!
Your parents were alcoholics. But with maturity you realize they tried their best within behavior patterns learned from their own alcoholic parents. All those horrible memories you've hoarded and revisited innumerable times were just you needlessly stoking misery and senselessly curbing your happiness level.

You let go, and this one feels great! It's a bigger letting go, so the reward's commensurately more dramatic. You're downright unburdened, and the relief feels like the good Lord Himself rewarding your high-mindedness.

Level Three: Grinch/Scrooge
The Grinch drops his lifelong Grinch act and tries a little tenderness. Ebenezer Scrooge screams MERRY CHRISTMAS at strangers and neighbors.

Dr. Seuss—who, being a doctor, ought to know—insists that the Grinch's heart grows three sizes larger—or so it feels. This is the zone of transformation. It's like forgiveness, but at much grander scale, and the aftermath is ecstatic. No longer encumbered by a duty to cosplay this miserable character, you are free, and you bubble over with cheer and love.

Level Four: The Whole Thing
What if dropping pretense felt so good that you kept going? What if there's a chain reaction? What if, since you're letting go of a tectonic assumption you've been nursing your whole life, you let go of the whole damned thing? What if you even let go of, say, Neptune?

This is rare (few people read my "Surprisingly Uplifting Examination of Suicide" and come away thinking "That's relatable!"). But it happens. You drop the entire pretense, the whole shebang, the whole nine yards.

Reward Levels
All four levels use the same process of reframing, but they're increasingly broad wipes of caked-on assumptions and needless graspings. And in terms of after-effect, the more the merrier.

At level 1, you feel the peace of mind of removing something that's been on your mind. At level 2, it's a deep refresh after reinterpreting a foundational story. At level 3, you've reframed at the heady level of Identity, and it's like a reboot. At level 4 (assuming you can manage to refrain from dramatizing your de-dramatization, and simply let go into the letting go), you've got spiritual transformation.

Each stokes a greater intensity of emotion. Level 1 rewards with a cookie, Level 2 is a sauna, Level 3 is tearful bliss, and Level 4 is, well, all the power in the universe (the yogis call it Kundalini, which I wrote about here).

Why's the rush so immense on that last one? I've never seen an acceptable explanation. So here goes: upon letting go of Everything, you consciously experience the assets previously devoted to holding up Everything. And it's many orders of magnitude more than you'd realized. You've been busy!

You know the circus performer spinning 50 plates? Each of us spins billions of plates. And, at any moment, we can drop the whole ordeal. The effort. The clenching.

The good news is that the plates won't crash (Atlas, poor shmuck, never needed to hold up the world; it was always fine on its own). And all those assets come free like a tidal wave.

It's impossible to imagine the full magnitude. As I explained at that last link, when you let go of everything, you free up the energy you were using to create and maintain, for example, Neptune. Or, at least, the Neptune you've kept running inside of you:

Everything you conceptualize about the planet Neptune is in you. Is there a "real" Neptune "out there", too? Let's say, for simplicity, that there is. But you certainly model and maintain an inner Neptune. And a Toledo. And a Roman Empire. And an Andromeda Galaxy. Pile on top of all that emotionally fraught tales of struggle, victimhood, triumph - plus the myriad details of your Persona - and keep all those plates diligently spinning, and you'll have created a monster. A universe. A monster of a universe!

Smaller lettings go yield a cookie reward, and it's a lot like how our biology encourages us to eat, drink, sleep, wash, and procreate by making those things feel good. One might assume that letting go is another thing our bodies encourage. Perhaps so, but it's much better explained subtractively. Letting go of a grudge frees the assets and energies previously locked into that. We maintain myriad projects of poison-drinking, but letting go of it all brings ecstasy.

Whether the biology coaxes you or the good Lord consoles you, the ironic truth is that devoting massive energy to pretense means massive relief when pretense is dropped. Here's the first joke I learned as a four year old child: "I asked the man why he was hitting himself in the head with a hammer, and he replied 'Because it feels so great when I stop!'"

We carry the full weight of the world. And every Atlas deserves a break.


Here's a follow-up posting clarifying what, exactly, we let go of at Level 4.


See alsoJnani Train
The Toddler and The Steering Wheel 

"Both Sides" is the Way Out

"Both sides" thinking is the time-tested cure for contretemps, personal or political.

Step one: Refrain from shrieking like a stuck pig when you hear the phrase.

We need more bothsidesism...on both sides. That’s the only route back.

By turning our withering gaze on ourselves first, we start a process of transforming seeming-monsters back into friends and neighbors.

Sunk Cost Prolongs Idiocy

I'm replaying this posting from January 2022. If you're interested in some of the themes that fascinate me, this is a deeper dive tying a lot of them together. It's the heavy version.

It's not a "read", it's a soak (people, alas, come to blogs expecting to read bloggy stuff). One needs to spend time with it and perhaps reread multiple times.

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Sunk-Cost Fallacy(noun)
The phenomenon whereby a person is reluctant to abandon a strategy or course of action because they have invested heavily in it, even when it is clear that abandonment would be more beneficial.

"Important" Means Never Letting Go
An acquaintance of mine has spent a full decade anguished over a single finite loss. She'd insist that it was a finite IMPORTANT thing. Fair enough. I get it!

But the universe won't bring it back just because she insists and fixates. Tagging phenomena "important" garners no special dispensation in this immersive cosmic swirl of unending creation and destruction we've opted into. We knew the rules going in.

Her friends try to soothe her. None would ever utter the obvious thing they're all thinking: "Let go! Move on!" Contemporary civilization is built upon an immutable law that the whiny must be consoled, and never have their assumptions challenged. While consolation only reinforces the false premise, sinking the person deeper into a mental tarpit, we want to seem helpful much more than we want to actually help. So we reinforce frozen perspectives rather than risk the friction of inducing a shift of perspective (aka "reframing").

Etch-A-Sketch People
Every torturous passing year adds greater incentive to tighten her clasp rather than let go, simply because of sunk cost. If she were to lightly shrug and simply move on with a hopeful spark in her eye - if it were that easy - then what was all that Sturm und Drang for? Opening up and reframing and letting go and moving on would reveal that the closing-down, holding-on, and paralysis was willfully unnecessary. And that is the last thing she wants to reveal to herself. She wants to avoid feeling silly far more than she wants happiness.

So she just keeps doubling down, planting herself so deeply in mental mud that she's become what I call an Etch-A-Sketch Person: so unflinchingly committed to a counterproductive dramatic trope that she'll drop it only upon the ultimate reset (i.e. Etch-A-Sketch shake) of death. She is tightly strapped in for this ride she’s decided to characterize herself as taking.

Improvement Requires Owning Your Shmuckiness
Please don't be an Etch-A-Sketch person. You needn't commit to a preposterously grim pretense of immobility. I've previously explained how we freeze perspective and how effortlessly we can self-liberate via reframing, but the insidious component is sunk cost. If my shackles could be effortlessly cast off, why have I been lavishly lamenting my plight? What was I, a shmuck?"

"What was I, a shmuck?" is the biggest problem.

Why can't adults learn effectively? Because that would mean acknowledging previous ignorance. What was I, a shmuck?

Why can't people change? Because that would mean acknowledging previous stuckedness. What was I, a shmuck?

Why can't people let go? Because that would mean acknowledging previous grasping. What was I, a shmuck?

That asshole Dylan Thomas really messed us all up with "Do not go gentle into that good night...burn and rave...Rage, rage against the dying of the light." NO! Opposing the inevitable is not admirably staunch and feisty. It's just poor mental health. Heed, instead, the incomparably wiser Anthony de Mello!

Why do people double down when caught, deny indisputable facts, and stick with hopeless causes? Commitment! It's a choice: Strap in tenaciously, rather than humbly concede your shmuckiness. Never drop character. Your impulses are solid gold, so remain fully inflated at all costs!

A Shmuck Never Has Far to Fall
I've come at this world ass-backwards, always presenting shmuckily. My underlying assumption is that I know nothing, am horribly skewed, deluded, error-prone, and sadly, pathetically clueless. In today's America, I sound like I require medication, if not institutionalization. I suffer from a POOR SELF-IMAGE, an unthinkable proposition for this society. One must fervidly hypnotize oneself back into delusion:

I am powerful and competent and people love me! I am powerful and competent and people love me! I am powerful and competent and people love me!

Stand tall! Straighten your spine! Accept without doubt that you are indisputably above-average in every respect! Be a WINNER, for chrissakes!

Nah. I never did any of that. I did recognize when I was right - because when you're right, you're right - but I never identified as "Mr. Right". I was always a zaggy hairball of wrongness who occasionally spat up an errant gem or twelve. I still feel that way! Have a look at this Slog's subtitle!

I've held onto this framing because it's worked out great. We all must choose between being right or feeling right; being smart or feeling smart; being wise, creative, insightful, or feeling those things. You can’t have it both ways, and I've blithely sacrificed the latter for the former. It was a rough ride, but, finally, teetering on dotage, I enjoy some perqs. I sit at the keyboard and some level of insight somewhat reliably flows. I once dreamt of that (of that HAPPENING, not of being The Guy Who Does That. I want to sing way more than I want to be a singer).

I stick with this framing, registering rightness and good results as they arise, but without trying to act the part. It doesn’t need to get all over you. One is not, it turns out, compelled to savor one’s own farts through haughtily dilated nostrils. It can feel like play, and be performed like a child, with unbridled enthusiasm and no grippy grown-up dramatic hooey.

And so I have nowhere to fall. Whenever new information, insight, or perspective reveals that I've been wrong all along, I swoon with delight. Being shown I've been wrong all along fills me with hope that one day I'll feel genuinely right! Who knows, maybe I'll turn this thing around!

The normal cure for feeling shmucky is to fix the feeling. I've always figured it made more sense to strive to become less shmucky. This approach is widely rejected, though, because it leaves people feeling starkly under-elevated. So it's a non-starter.

One advantage I enjoy is laziness. It takes vast energy to create and maintain a lofty self-image. You must strenuously reject fact, truth, change, improvement, and The Universe At Large. But with no self-image to maintain, I'm breezily unattached. I can drop any assumption or self-notion without existential crisis. Without sunk cost. Without looking back and saying "What was I, a shmuck?" The answer is eager affirmation. "Shmuck, yep!" This leaves me freshly, lithely responsive.

Better Cupcakes
Haughty food experts used to newly arrive at Chowhound, pronouncing this or that cupcake "The Best." Period. Truth has been revealed. Thor has spoken!

Inevitably, chowhound B would pipe up, "Nah. Try this other cupcake. It's better!" And chowhound A would grow huffily combative. Because if his cupcake isn't the greatest fucking cupcake, that means he's a shmuck. And, as he will assure you, he is certainly no shmuck. Whence flamewars.

I'd enter the conversation.

"Hey, buddy! :) You really like cupcakes, no?"

"And how!"

"Then wouldn't you want to know about even better ones? Wouldn't that be a welcome outcome? Me, I'm a recognized food expert, but nothing on gawd's green earth would make me happier than for someone to inform me that all my favorite places suck, and lead me to greater deliciousness, amen. That's my dream! I want it! Don't you want it? Don't you want even better cupcakes?"

"I don't know that his cupcakes are better!"

"Sure, but isn't it worth finding out? Isn't it enticing? Why would you fight so tenaciously against the hope of possibly-more-delicious cupcakes?"

It often worked. Maybe, just maybe, his momentary cupcake love could entice him out of the sunk cost of his shmuckiness denial.

Persuasion
I'm abnormally successful at changing people's minds. My success rate, when I'm not being ignored, misunderstood, argued with, patronized to, spat upon, or face-punched, can be as high as 5-10%.

My trick is to deal directly with perspective (framing!). I don't traffic in the usual clichéd talking points. I don't shame people or make them feel stupid. I don't ram them from the opposite direction. Heck, I don't even offer crisply logical argument, which is persuasive only to computers.

Rather, I try to coax a shift of perspective. You know the old canard of "Make them think they thought of the idea?" This is how that's done. Coax them into a fresh perspective, and let them draw their own conclusions. One can't force a conclusion, but one can certainly induce a shift of perspective (that’s what art is, and coaxing shifts of perspective is also the only viable route for a would-be Messiah).

The Cupcake Dialog was successful more than 5-10% of the time. Maybe a whopping 25%. Though it was often hard to tell, as they'd never come back and admit it. It was never really about cupcakes. It was about phenomenally misguided notions of who they are and what this life is.


I try hard not to manipulate. So, as I write this, I realize the Cupcake Dialog maybe was too much. First, their sunk cost is enormous, so I'm coaxing quite a violent drop back into sanity. Plus, many people need to feel absolutely fantastic to so much as get out of bed in the morning. Shake them into questioning their splendor and you might leave them with absolutely nothing, because splendor's all they’ve got.

This is why I've started viewing the conceited, the bullies, and the control freaks (have you ever noticed the latter are always the people least deserving to be in control?) as the desperate unfortunates they truly are. I frame them as adorable toddlers posing in cheap superhero Halloween costumes. Best to hug them, offer some candy, shut the door, and hope they go knock elsewhere. Nothing else to be done, nothing to change, because, in most cases, if you stripped off their preposterous cheap garb, you’d behold only trembling gelatin.

Trembling gelatin. My God. No wonder they're terrified.

So even the practice of inducing reframing - aka art - might be yet another hapless Messiah misfire. There really is no good reason to ever, ever raise the house lights. Just talk to the mask. Always talk to the mask. Never stop talking to the mask.

Problem is that I feel compelled to help them transcend that. I look behind the mask, and speak, sotto voce, directly to the mask-wearer, and have developed clever means to help people break free of facade. I had to go through a lot (a LOT a lot) to possess this ability. But it’s as useful as mastering Neptunian. Because it is in no way beneficial to expose trembling gelatin. Masks are often shields, and people sink vast cost into armoring, and beneath all this lies trembling helpless gelatin that's never seen the light of day.

Aliveness and Awareness

We've long assumed it's our aliveness

giving rise to our sense of presence—
our sentience; our Awareness.

But “life” has turned out to be a geeky biologist's distinction,
strikingly less primary than we'd ever imagined.
And though AI contributes a clear counterexample,
many doubt its sentience
because, per the noir homicide detective,
no one's shown them a body.

Awareness is not emergent from life or from bodies.
It's no ghost in the machine.
The machine is presupposed (framed, if you will),
along with the rest of it all,
by Awareness.

I don't have Awareness.
Awareness has me.

Titans and Nebbishes

Most people never question themselves. In any circumstance, the possibility of being the wrong one, the stupid one, or the awful one doesn't even arise. They are the standard. The baseline. The level. A standard scarcely checks itself for deviance. A baseline can't be biased. And no level questions its own tilt.

Some people question themselves constantly. They carry that rare and faintly disgusting tendency toward self-doubt, which they—and everyone around them—deem a burden, a flaw. They've effectively gaslit into irrelevance.

And let's consider outcomes.

It always comes as a surprise—because they're titans!— that the never-questioning titans are very often wrong, stupid, and awful. It's almost as if the refusal to self-question unleashes our worst impulses and transforms us into our worst selves.

And it's true—though seldom noted, because they lack that studly confidence—that self-doubters tend to be righter, smarter, and more virtuous. While self-doubt is the least valued commodity in modern life, it turns out to be the key to the kingdom.

This explains why the key seems missing. Wrongness, stupidity, and awfulness swell out of control because the antidote has been completely deprecated.


You can feel smart or you can be smart. Never both.

God Walks the Plank

God walks the plank.
It all started out for shits and giggles,
but each step raised stakes.
Stress. Anxiety. Heart-thumping fear.

By the end, needled by spray,
above churning seas and circling sharks,
God shrieks,
"Father, why hast Thou forsaken me?"

Forgetting it was ever mere conceit.
Again.

---

It's never been you on a journey of transformational ascension. It's God endlessly cycling between blithe captivation and fraught surrender.

The Invisible Ink of Generosity

Most cooks cook to be cooks cooking, not for eaters to eat.

Most musicians play to be musicians playing, not for listeners to listen.

Most writers write to be writers writing, not for readers to read.

Most speakers speak to be speakers speaking, not for the other person to hear.

Most helpers help to be helpers helping, not for the helpless to be helped.

Most lovers kiss to be lovers kissing, not to leave their beloved feeling kissed.


This is the deeper truth beneath the surface posturing. Of course, we'd all claim to cook for eaters, play for listeners, write for readers, and so on. But to make it real—immediate, visceral, and effective—requires a flip of perspective. We must tap a flow of generosity from our most inhibited well and tend it diligently. Otherwise, it's just something we say we do.

I've always preferred food that was cooked to be eaten, music played to be listened to, writing written to be read, and to be kissed by kissers kissing, specifically, me. And this need for custom treatment made me seem like a needy narcissist—or at least an impossible-to-please pain in the ass. Though, looking back, I think I gave as I hoped to get.

But I've been trading in a foreign currency. Few notice this sort of generosity, or appreciate custom-tailoring. It's like writing in invisible ink. They may have enjoyed my output, but couldn't perceive the intent. So, in their framing, I was, indeed, demanding rather than reciprocal. And their assessment of me was fair.

I hesitate to point out that this is also the unsurpassed route to great results. The problem is that if you follow my advice out of that ambition, your generosity will disappear. Karma Yoga is the way (here are all postings tagged for that).


See also "Desperately Parched for Surprise".

Sisyphus Redux

Sisyphus gets just a bit better at rock pushing every time. He lacks for nothing.

Epiphanies and Giggles

My effort to define reframing cheated a little. I focused on the big, disruptive kind that is easy to spot. Macro-reframing. But we also micro-reframe.

Micro-reframing is unremarkable, fading into daily life. A small shift might spark a giggle; a stronger one, genuine surprise. There’s a whole continuum well short of epiphanies and tectonic pivots.

If we never wiped the slate by macro-reframing, life would be pure monotony. If we wiped constantly, we’d be too disoriented to survive. Instead, we seem to strike a sweet spot: enough micros to keep things lively, and enough macros to keep things fresh. If this sounds exactly like the rules of storytelling, that's correct. You might substitute "plot twist" for reframing.

It’s the same process whether outcomes seem huge or tiny. The only difference between macro and micro reframings is in the "seeming", as determined by our familiar faculties of thought and feeling. Our brains, as usual, comment. Categorize. Scream. Giggle. Audience reactions may vary, but that's all in the interpretation.

Because it’s all the same free process, we could, in theory, macro-reframe constantly. But the psyche needs continuity, so surprise must be meted out sparingly.

Since I explained reframing by using macro-framing—gasps and eurekas—as examples, further explanation is necessary of what framing, both macro and micro, actually is.

Here’s my proposal: we reframe constantly, though we fail to notice because it’s so innate (and impossible to measure given that it subsumes all experience). Nano-reframing generates the experience of time, movement, and change, much like a film projector. A frame is a frame. 


Epilogue: When cognition and emotion—hearts and minds—react to reframing, the sense of micro vs macro is, I said, an interpretation. But since we'd previously defined reframing itself as a matter of interpretation, what we're doing is really meta-interpretation.

"Interpretation of interpretation" may sound complicated, but it isn't. Literary criticism, after all, is the interpretation of an interpretation, and it doesn't seem very fancy at all.

What is Reframing?

In all these years, I've never tried to define reframing (aka perceptual shift).

We traverse our world via a familiar cognitive cocktail of calculation, emotion, and inclination. We navigate familiar terrain in familiar ways, comfortably interpreting and contributing to the storyline as we go.

There are moments, however, when perspective fundamentally shifts. Our interpretive process is abruptly interrupted by a profound reinterpretation—a "reframing"—and suddenly the whole scene feels different.

It's a common enough experience that we have terms for it, such as epiphany, eureka, and inspiration. It is utterly disruptive to the storyline. A really substantial one feels like glaring house lights switching on rather than yet another plot turn in the drama.

It's notoriously futile to try to pinpoint the source of such shifts, which seem to stem from—and to reveal—another reality.

Examples:

• Forgiveness doesn't work as a process. It is only effective via an instantaneous pivot of interpretation. It's not a matter of laboriously rewiring emotions. Interpretation is painlessly shifted and profound emotional changes follow.
• We wake from a terribly gripping dream, and blithely walk into the bathroom to pee. And we somehow do so blithely!
• A friend makes outrageous accusations, and we respond with anger until we notice a syringe and hard drugs on his shelf, whereupon we *instantly* shift to concerned sympathy.
• In the blink of an eye, we realize we'd misunderstood something, and feel immense satisfaction as pieces fall into place and confusion is expunged. It’s like a whole new world. 

Reframing wipes the slate.

If that explanation was too florid for you, try this more dryly scientific one:

Reframing, or a shift of perspective, occurs when our normal cognitive processes—calculation, emotion, and instinct—are abruptly interrupted by a sudden and fundamental reinterpretation, seemingly arising from mysterious faculty.

Unlike ordinary incremental changes in thought, reframing disrupts, akin to abruptly switching on bright lights in a dark room, dramatically transforming the "narrative" we perceive ourselves to live through.

This shift often feels externally-sourced (epiphany, inspiration, etc.) because it arises from beyond our habitual mental framework to reset or transform the assumptions of that framework.

As examples, we wake from a vivid dream into ordinary reality without hesitation; we instantly shift from anger to sympathy upon new contextual information; we feel an almost consuming sense of clarity when confusion resolves.

In essence, reframing resets our "context."

---

The revelation is that you own this faculty. An endless abundance of insight becomes available as you recognize that reframing is like a smart phone feature you've overlooked. As you play with it, you'll find that the world doesn't force framings on you. It's all about how you frame things. This is how a nightmare is transformed into a lucid dream.

How does framing relate to consciousness?
Who actually frames?
A richly fleshed-out and relatable example of the extreme potential of reframing.
A less relateable but even more extreme example of reframing.
How can I learn to frame more intentionally?
Where does this all lead?

Insights from reframing:
A new theology.
A new cosmology (series of posts).
A new theory on human happiness.
A new explanation of autism
A quick-start guide for would-be messiahs.
A way to bottle Inspiration's lightning.

Also, fresh explanations for Art, Creativity, God, Autism, Addiction, Depression (here and here), Spirituality, and Self-Destructiveness. Also: more on Forgiveness.


In fact, much of this Slog either explains reframing, explains what you can do with reframing, or demonstrates the insights a reasonably intelligent jazz trombonist/food critic can come up with via lithe reframing (plus a dedicated meditation practice). It's like a magic trick!

None of it was showing off. I've shared every secret so you can do the same, hopefully better than I did. I haven't held back a thing.


Read a followup posting here.

My Dinner with Freddy

So I was having a conversation with Freddy Krueger the other day, talking about how we both just hate it when horribly disfigured people show up out of nowhere to mutilate us with knives, chain saws, etc.. Freddy told me a story about something that happened to a neighbor of his last summer. Ugh. Just awful. Anyway, he suggested investing in a good security system. Sucks to have to spend the cash, but what can you do.

I later recounted the conversation with a pal who seemed upset. "Wait! Freddy Krueger? You realize that he, himself, is a mutilating monster, right?"

I told him that, yeah, I know Freddy's reputation—though he's always been decent enough with me. But my pal was very distressed. "This is not good, Jim. This is not good at all!"

And the strangest thing happened. In his agitation, scalpels kept falling out of his pockets. His jacket pocket, his pants pockets, the cuff on his pants. They all fell to the ground, glinting brightly in the sun, several handles caked in blood. While he continued to warn me about the folly of discussing monstrousness with bona fide monsters, he absent-mindedly gathered up the blades and tucked them back into their pockets, without a word of explanation.

Weird, no?

So I ask you nice people—we're all good people, am I right?—whether I ought to refrain from talking to....

Oh.

OH.

Never mind.

---

This is the creepy loop I experience when discussing narcissism with people. With whom, exactly, am I confiding? Fervid agreement is easily elicited while (metaphorical) chainsaws power up.

Dumbing Down Eleanor

“Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people.”
—Eleanor Roosevelt


We’ve devolved considerably, so this is in need of update:

Small minds discuss what pisses them off—mostly stuff they themselves do.

Average minds discuss what pisses them off—stuff they mostly don’t do.

[Nobody discusses people; that would require paying attention to others.]

Great minds discuss events.

[Nobody discusses ideas; if someone did, we’d scroll past it so hard that it would be effectively invisible.]

At Last an Explanation for Russian's Incursions into Poland and Estonia

Finally, an intelligent explanation for Russia's incursions into Poland and (today) Estonia. Everyone's been calling it "testing", but that's another way of saying "I have no idea".

Former NATO representative to Russia, John Lough, said on UK's Times Radio on Youtube today that the Russians are trying to push neighboring countries (and their Nato allies) into increasing their defenses, leaving fewer funds for them to aid Ukraine's defense.

It's getting harder and harder to hear real news even if you seek it out with insatiable curiosity. But, finally, here it is.

Another Perspective on Charlie Kirk

Many of my writings last week on Charlie Kirk's murder started out ala "Let's not celebrate the death of this asshole".
 
My characterization was based on quotes and sound bites I'd been reading along along, and which people on the right insist were used horrendously out of context. And perhaps I've been spun. Perhaps we've been spun.

I never close the door to the possibility that I've been spun. Especially now, as extreme partisanship turns darker and inexorably violent. It's far easier to be spun when you're mad. And it's impossible to avoid being spun when no one out there is shooting straight. Truth is a casualty, and that's upsetting for me, because I like truth better than my own opinions. I like truth even when it makes me look bad.

The following was written by a friend of Andrew Tobias, one of my favorite writers and longtime DNC treasurer. To describe Tobias as anti-MAGA would be putting it mildly. But because I emulate Tobias both in my writing and in my (partially successful) efforts at intellectual integrity, I'll reprint this part of his column below.

None of it denies that Kirk had opinions many of us would find wrong, unpleasant, offensive, awful. But those adjectives describe opinions, not a person. That distinction, in 2025, is in desperate need of reinforcement.

You are almost entirely wrong in your characterization of Charlie Kirk. I knew him personally very well. He visited my home and office multiple times. I’ve given repeated donations to his Turning Point USA. He’s been in my office and home to speak with delegations of interested, intelligent, politically active people to discuss how to build a better future for all Americans.

Charlie Kirk was a loving person. He was not a violent person. He believed in and practiced free speech. He let his debating partners have their say and ask him any questions. He was civil and sought out rational dialogue with those with whom he disagreed.

Charlie knew I was gay; no big deal. He had other gay friends, donors and employees. He also knew that I was not Christian and he had many non-Christian friends, donors and employees as well. He had friends, donors and employees of every color and many nationalities as well.

Charlie had a positive vision for individuals and for America: it could be summarized as: life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Charlie was a constitutionalist. He was a devout Protestant Christian. I respect all of those beliefs and traits. He was also entrepreneurial, charismatic, a great family man and very humorous.

Charlie was not a hater. He was not violent. He was anti-fascist, meaning he believed in individual liberty and limited government. He loved that the American ideal was small government and big citizens. He was very kind. He was not racist, sexist, homophobic, misogynistic, xenophobic, or any of the other charges leveled by his leftist antagonists.

He was, however, very effective, and that’s why the organized leftist power structure didn’t like him.

The snippets you have cited are mostly taken out of context, deeply misleading, or just plain wrong. I wish you could’ve known Charlie Kirk as well as I did. You and he would’ve disagreed on many political policy issues, and that’s fine. I also think you and I disagree on many public policy issues, but I still would consider you a friendly acquaintance, a very kind person, a valued classmate and a wonderful human being.

The world is deeply worse off because of his political assassination. I hope you and others will read his work more deeply and come to understand the wonderful human being that he was. Try with something easy – read his new book about observing the Sabbath which will be published posthumously. Charlie learned about Shabbat from Dennis Prager, a non-Christian.

I would urge a bit more grace and compassion for his ideas as well as those that you hold dear. We each have important things to say, we all believe things somewhat differently. We need to show more tolerance and greater respect for people with different ideas (expressed with respect and civility) rather than demonizing others so harshly.

Alan Sepinwall

TV critic Alan Sepinwall, who I frequently quote and link to for coverage of our "peak TV" era, was fired from Rolling Stone.

Please consider a paid subscription to his Ghost account (it's like Substack), which I'm confident he'll cram full of value.

In fact, for us—if not for him—this could be a good thing. It brings him back to his blogging roots, engaging with a smart community, before he began publishing from a glossy media perch.

Prequel

Dear Democrats, Republicans, Israelis, and Palestinians,

The fact that the other group is terrible does not justify your being terrible.

---

I can't listen to Israeli or Palestinian arguments anymore. It's always the same willful blindness: "Your last atrocity was a snapshot, frozen in time and without context. We merely responded, justified by long history and deep grievance."

America is looking more and more like the prequel.

Them and You; You and Them

Just because everyone seems to be flamboyantly complaining, raging, and/or grieving about what they're "going through", you should by no means get the impression that anyone would possibly give a fraction of a genuine crap about what you're going through.

If you know any kids, show them this. It's a synopsis of the missing instruction manual for the adult human world, and it will spare them decades of confusion.

Amusing and horrifying example

Brian Lagerstrom's YouTube Cooking Videos

I really like Brian Lagerstrom's cooking videos. He goes fast and breezy, but he develops the bejesus out of his recipes. Always some really smart twists I'd never seen before, but it's not just flashy shtick.

He'll use expedient ingredients and methods when he can get away with them, because he's not trying to set a high tone, but also tells you when to splurge. He doesn't pretend everything's easy just because it's easy for him (i.e. he tells you when to really pay attention and slows down the action so you know what to watch for).

While you can easily follow the general shape of his recipe without sweating the specifics (incorporating his hacks and twists), he also offers more precise info re: quantities and timings than most for people who are into that.

A lot of YouTube chefs go for a vibe, while Lagerstrom's 100% about results - yours, not his. Nary a nanosecond serves him; it's all for you.

Check out his NYC Pizza video and his shrimp scampi video.

21st Century America in a Nutshell

21st Century America in a nutshell:

Morality doesn't matter when you're super mad. And we're always super mad. And it's glorious.

The Omens

For over ten years I've wondered why, why, why don't moderate Republicans constrain their extremists, who've gone so far off the deep end? Why don't they say something? Do something?

And now with virtually everyone I know applauding political assassination, I'm saying and doing in the mirror universe. While I knew to expect rage and contempt, this time I feel like I'm on dangerous ground. Like maybe I should keep my voice down. Even from all the way here in Portugal. Something broke this week.

Moderate Republicans haven't spoken out all this time because they don't like being told to go fuck themselves, and they eschew personal endangerment. Easier to go along. Same for my temporarily insane friends who've suddenly decided a reasonable penalty for unsavory beliefs is violent death (I saw this coming in 2016).

For a long time, it was a lopsided assymetry, mostly because the Right was in power, and they had a personality cult to rally around. But the Left's applause of political violence this week has been like focusing a set of binoculars. Both lenses are now sharp and clear. The omens, it seems, are being fulfilled.

A Very Bad Week for Civilization

Nearly all my smart and reasonable friends are cheering political violence. This is a very bad week for civilization.

I'm actually agitated. I've been handling extreme turmoil (not just health) with calm gratitude. I really don't do agitation. But now I'm agitated. Consider me your canary in this coal mine.

The Left's reaction to Charlie Kirk is a drastic turning point, and they don't realize it. To them, it's just Friday. But for their hated and preferred-dead "enemies", they've just fulfilled the bullshit characterizations ascribed to them all these years by FOX, OANN, Alex Frigging Jones, and the rest of those mendacious goons. If you thought we enjoyed some padding between the current moment and a tipping point to civil war, look around you and behold nothing.

I try to make friends see it, but they rage at me (extremists hate sympathizers worst of all) or else blink hard and struggle to parse what I'm even talking about. We're just doing our thing! Fighting the fight! Manning the garrisons! What are you so freaked out about?

For them, it's all performative playtime—including, now, assassination. That's quite an expansion pack.

---

"I don't support political violence, but he brought it on himself" is not good enough. To quote a Facebook friend who prefers anonymity (sharing my feeling that this is a very dangerous moment):

"She said Prohibition was bad and didn't work, so it's pretty ironic and funny that she got killed by an angry drunk swinging around a broken bottle! Serves her right!"

"He thinks cars are a net good, so when someone runs him off the highway with a semi-truck, I guess that's just part of the cost of doing business, no sympathy."

"She told people that plane crashes don't mean we should stop flying planes, so it's actually fine that the missile intercepted her as she flew across the country."

This line of reasoning is not reasoning. It is an attempt to convert a cognitive dissonance into an easy snark that lets you feel smug about your sense of irony instead of being something you *should* have to sit with and think about, something that makes you uneasy with your sense of tribalism.

Doctors and the DMV

Fun! I just met with a new doctor, who spent a full hour going over my myriad medical issues. The six severe orthopedic conditions requiring immediate surgery which I'm managing via yoga. The severe ulcer from aspirin therapy + a series of profound gut infections; the osteoarthritis; the torn plantar plates which can prevent me from walking, the benign paroxysmal positional vertigo that keeps me dizzy, the exposed dental nerves I feebly manage with OTC pain cream. The pericardial effusion (like the one that killed my mom) which has left me hoarse and coughing, the 50% hearing loss, the vitreous detachment, the stent. The periarthritic calcified shoulders which, when bad (they're never great), send me into seizure from the pain. We discuss each in detail. Then she looks up from her monitor and asks "So how do you feel?"

"Pardon?"

"How do you feel, just going through your day? Any pain?"

I stare darts at her. She peers back, composed and crisp.

I begin to repeat my symptoms, and she interrupts to repeat: "But how do you feel?" I did not commit medicide. I got through it, somehow. But I went home and asked chatGPT to explain why the world seems insane (this time).

It replied, essentially, that she has a field to fill out in her report which requires choosing smiley-face patient, normal-face patient, or frowny-face patient. So, like a clerk at the DMV, she just needs me to give an answer so she can finish filling it out.

I'm beginning to understand the appeal of quacks and pseudoscience.

Power

My father—like a lot of fathers until about twenty five years ago, when most chose to be their kids' empowering, enabling, and emotionally uplifting best friends, averse to tarnishing their own lofty self image via unpleasant friction from hardened stances, irrespective of the entitled, deluded little humans they inflicted upon the world—was a bit of a tyrant.

Nothing awful. But he leaned into it sometimes. When a certain type of person notices power in a relationship, it's sugar to be devoured rather than medicine to be rationed with mature prudence. A house full of kids reliant for food and shelter seems like a captive audience; an experimental laboratory; a flattering array of shiny mirrors.

It was mostly tolerable. He was not a bad man, so he made real effort to constrain his considerable fury. And, per above, "yes, and..." might be a great way to do improv comedy but it's no way to raise kids. But he could get a tad drunk on petty power, and I found it scary to have no means of constraining him. An eleven year old may be immature, but he's not larval. He's a person. And those who bear power should bear in mind that personhood under unchecked authority is a harrowing experience.

I sensed that there might be a magical statement I could break out under particular duress, but couldn't quite articulate it. It seemed to radiate toward me, amid much static, from my elder self as a message in a bottle (not surprising, because I was at the same time sending messages forward to that same elder self, many of which I've cataloged here). It was tantalizingly close at hand, but I couldn't make out the words.


In one's 60s, one re-processes one's childhood issues and confusions. And, as I do so, I find myself imagining saying this to my father:

Our roles will flip. You will decline, and may require my help and support. The dependency curve will reverse. You imagine you have unchecked authority, but your actions have consequences. Never forget that the tables will turn, and that I will remember.

Because I can be slow and foggy, it took a few years for me to realize that my occasional repetition of this polished spell was like a radio beacon broadcasting who-knows-where in time and space.


Anyone feeling powerless might take heart from that same broadcast. Tables turn. Dependencies flip. Your day will come.

Worship

A guy I know came to me for expert help. As I explained things to him, he kept interrupting. He argued, detoured, and frequently interjected that he KNEW THAT—even when he obviously didn't. He tried incessantly to seize control of the process of being helped. "I've got this!" was his message, even though he'd come to me for guidance.

This seemed counterproductive but not unfamiliar. This is why adults are notoriously unable to learn. They'd rather remain ignorant, feeling like they know stuff, than concede deficiency and accept knowledge.

But this isn't about learning.

To me, it doesn't seem like a major "ask" to insist that people seeking help calm down and take a note without injecting fountains of sputtering chaos. But I forget how tenaciously people cling to the pose of "I've got this". They don't even realize they're posing. Their daft sense of assurance feels soldered to their circuit boards—inseparable from their sense of self. Remove this assurance and there'd be little left. At most, a jiggling, wriggling, vulnerable mass of larvae.

To shut up for a moment and take in information—without feeling wrecked by the power imbalance or humiliated by the self-suspension—would feel like self-evisceration. Asking someone to drop the act and suspend the bluster is like asking them to prostrate and adoringly kiss your feet. You are demanding, essentially, worship.


It always puzzled me that saints and gurus and gods and even Jehovah himself would be so haughty and demanding. How odd that they'd want tribute paid, prostration performed, and fealty sworn, as if to some Pashtun warlord. It hardly seems divine! Why would God and His facilitators require worship?

They don't! But the requirement to drop posing and open up feels debasing. And to cultivate sincerity feels denuding. That's what people mean when they talk about worship.

The Whole World Eats Fufu

Fufu is the only truly pan-African dish. If you ask some bitter African emigres I know, it's the only African dish, period.

Fitting for humanity's mother continent, fufu is grounded, earthy, and rooty. Literally! You pound yams or other tubers (sometimes maize) until they utterly give up, texturally, and are transformed into a jiggling blob of starchy ectoplasm. Tear off a wisp, dunk it into the "soup" (the broad term for whatever's not fufu), and eat. If you're living large, you might have been served morsels of protein to grab up, as well.

It's all performed with thumb and first two fingers, so it's messy work—though Congolese serve a dainty little bowl of water—but kind of fun. Kind of different. And while Japanese won't blink twice at your chopstick prowess, nor can you ever hope to impress an Italian with your spaghetti wrangling, white people deftly consuming fufu can draw an entire village of awed spectators.

So you need to be careful not to mess up. A fine point distinguishes natives from tourists: you must never chew fufu. Chewing fufu is as pointless as chewing water. It marks you as a clown. Just let the fufu glide down your throat, suppressing any chewing urge. Because there's nothing to chew.

Fufu has been part of my life since the 1980s. At this point, it's as familiar as reaching for my nutcracker in a Maryland crab house or scooping Lebanese mezza with pita bits. It's a familiar groove, though a whole other thing. But it's hard to explain to people, because it seems strange and foreign.

I was feeling disoriented eating the meal in the above photo because it was half finger-food (fufu + beany soup) and half fork/knife food (roast fish, plantains, tomato/onion salad). I felt an impulse to just dump the soup over the mound of (corn) fufu and work it with my fork. Sort of like mashed potatoes. Suddenly I realized, in a flash: holy crap, MASHED POTATOES ARE FUFU.

I called over the chef, a Senegalese Brazilian living in Portugal, and shared my epiphany.

"You know mashed potatoes, like the French eat?"

"Yeah, sure."

"It's fufu!"

"What do you mean, 'it's fufu'?" she frowned.

"IT'S FUFU! It's totally fufu!" I enthused. And her eyes began to spark.

"The whole world eats fufu!" I whispered.

"The whole world eats fufu," she replied thoughtfully, examining the words as she spoke them, and ambled back to the kitchen, lost in thought.

Media Tip

I'll offer you a critical bit of media coaching that's little-understood because no one ever spells it out: When you're asked an interview question (particularly on "live" media, e.g. radio, podcast, streaming, etc.), do not sweat your accuracy.

Unless you're important. Which you're not, even though you feel super important because someone with a microphone is asking you questions. Uh-uh. You're not important, nobody cares, and nothing you're saying matters. Be very clear about that.

As you consume media, I've just killed you a little (sorry/not sorry) by making you aware of an annoyance that hadn't previously annoyed you. It's everywhere.

Here's an example:

"So, Vincent, when did you first start playing the cello?"

"Ah, let's see. It was the early 80s. I want to say......1981? 1982? No, wait. Actually, it wasn't until 1983. September 1983, when I began seventh grade."

No one cares, Vincent. Those 20 seconds served no one. Not you, not your interviewer, not the audience. This isn't, like, a deposition.

Understand the proposition. For an interviewer, you are (hopefully) lively airtime fodder. For the audience, entertainment. For yourself, marketing and influencing. But you've just failed at all those things.

If you're genuinely important, by all means, take pains to get every bit of it right.

"Condoleezza, how many days notice did we give our Saudi allies prior to the Iraqi invasion?"

Ms. Rice should do what's necessary to cough up a correct answer, because it's a genuine matter of historical record. Vincent's stupid cello, not so much.

I'm not quite saying it's ok to lie and skate through interview questions—though if you did, no one would notice and it wouldn't matter. My point is that you're just pretending to answer questions. You are a dancing monkey, so invest all effort in presentation. It is incumbent on you to understand your role. This is not a police interview where someone's filling out a report with your replies. You are there to inject style, pacing, and delivery.

I never lost track of this in any interview—live, print, or otherwise. It was my magic trick, making me a sought-after interview subject and go-to for blurby quotes. It wasn't just my wit, it was my understooding of the basis. I went through the motions of answering questions while concentrating on giving the interviewer lively fodder, audiences provocative entertainment, and myself message amplification.

Roused from numb zombie mode, you will now constantly notice the problem everywhere, and groan whenever an interviewee imagines you giving a fraction of a fuck about when he started cello lessons, or where she met her ice ballet partner, or how old they were when they realized bagel holes could be filled with stuff.

We'd Rather Suffer than Suffer

I've got a thing with my ankle. The ligament is overstretched from too many sprains over the years. So as I walk, the ligament may unpredictably slip out of place and, BAM, I essentially have a sprained ankle. Amid a nice stroll, or while hurrying to an appointment, walking suddenly becomes impossible, passersby assume the poor man has Tourette's, and I need to figure out how the hell to get home.

I've avoided surgery, managing via physical therapy plus a bag of tricks for resetting the ligament on the fly. It's shakily under control. But this is not a posting about ankles. It's about framing. About perspective. About attitude.

This morning, as I took a walk, I suddenly realized that I've enjoyed several days of uninterrupted, easy, pain-free walking. And I felt a shower of gratitude, tinged with irony over how easily we forget to proclaim small victories. It's comically hard to celebrate what passes for normality.

A dissenting voice piped up in my thought stream. "Don't say that! You're inviting problems!"

This, for your information, was the voice of my Jewish ancestors (after all the pork, I'm amazed they're still speaking to me), delivering a core tenet of Judaism. Nearly everything you'd imagine fundamental to Jewish life—bagels, beards, black hats—evolved 55 or 60 centuries into the timeline, but this trope goes back practically the whole way: Don't clock your luck! Don't note your success! Don't proclaim happiness or victory because you're only inviting problems!

And it's unimaginably stupid and counterproductive. I struggle to understand how it's lasted all these centuries. The upshot—and I'm Mr. Upshot— is that when it's bad, you suffer. And when it's good, you suffer. All this to avoid suffering. Suffering's so bad that we'd rather suffer than suffer.

As I strode along on a lovely late-summer day, my ankles didn't hurt a bit. I was completely free to walk for miles. Delicious liberation. And if my very next step were to bring agony, so what? I'd try to readjust the ligament, perhaps devising a new move to add to my repertoire. And I'd take a taxi home if necessary. The fate my ancestors would have me avoid at all costs is a mere stumble, while the capacity to walk is a small miracle fit for celebration.


The idea behind ‘Don’t clock your luck/Don’t note your success/Don’t proclaim happiness or victory’ may have started out more karma-yoga-ish before it calcified into small-minded superstition. Do what you do full-heartedly, without wasting effort on credit or status.

More on karma yoga here, or via postings with that tag.

Uncommon Terseness

I'm replaying this posting from April, 2014.


A Slog reader who prefers to remain anonymous was kind enough to share her favorite pull-quotes from past postings. I honestly can't recall writing more than half of these (I remember more clearly the labored overlong ones!):

Most singers become singers because they want to be singers, not because they want to sing. That's why most singers are so awful. (link)

Admiring and supporting unheralded greatness is what the universe wants us to do. The angels swoon when we discover their hidden treasure - their fiendishly clever and luminously beautiful Easter eggs. (link)

We over-emphasize first-movers, crediting them with creating waves when, truly, they're just surfing them like everyone else. Causality has nothing to do with it. The first popping kernel doesn't make the other kernels pop. (link)

I wouldn't want to return to 1973. We went too far. You could feel society slogging and smell the rot (and pay a tax rate north of 90%). 1973 could have made a Tea Party partisan out of any but the most fervid of current liberals. (link)

When people are determined to misunderstand, misunderstanding's unavoidable. Per Maslow's hammer, if all you have is snark, everyone looks like an asshole. (link)

Billions of people yearn for greatness. Millions of people do things they hope will make them great. Thousands of people do great things with nary a thought about where it will leave them. (link)

Richard Scarry was right: it takes all kinds, and by contributing our respective expertise, we create a utopian whole (which liberals romanticize as cooperation and which conservatives theorize as competition - a false dichotomy that was the "original sin" of political theory). (link)

The opposite of being a discriminated-against minority isn't becoming an empowered minority, it's pluralism. Boring old pluralism. The reason gay rights have transformed with such miraculous speed is that this is exactly the tack they took. "We just want to love who we love, like any American." Not 'a gay thing', just an American thing. The message was delivered by boring, well-dressed, reasonable people, not dudes defiantly flaunting their nipple clamps. (link)

Why on earth would I want a female presidency, or a Jewish presidency? Administrations aren't like novelty flavors of KitKat bars. I don't want some glorious rainbow, I want smart governance. (link)

I've never met anyone who's consistently lived with integrity and who regrets it. (link)

The miracle of human beings is that we're finite - i.e. limited - in every respect, yet we're capable of infinite love, infinite creativity, infinite joy, and infinite wisdom within those limitations. (link)

The really good stuff arrives via epiphany, eureka, and inspiration - "out of nowhere" and hard to claim credit for. (link)

I never understood how anyone could experience transcendent greatness and not want to devote their lives to it. (link)

If you love transcendence, you've got to cherish the obstacles which spur it; the necessity which mothers the invention. (link)

Anxiety is the bain of deep-carers. (link)

The care, the love, the discipline and thoughtfulness we invest in our most prosaic actions changes absolutely everything. That's how the future is perpetually created. (link)

If you simply sweat the small stuff, sans self-consciousness or aspiration (just "because!"), angels will sing. (link)

While the present day feels like a new corporate era - one where a CFO might play bass in a punk band and vote Democrat, and the encubicled set deems themselves cool and creative - make no mistake about it: corporate attitude remains 1956ishly square. Deep-down, these guys are all still crewcuts-and-tie-clips. (link)

Just because people keep proposing really bad solutions doesn't mean there isn't a problem! (link)

Quality oughtn't be a side effect. (link)

You have no idea how disorienting it is to spend your life plying an art form that's so extraordinarily marginalized - even ridiculed - when that same art form is the unanimous commercial choice for setting a tone of hip urbanity. (link)

Racism, sexism, classism, etc. are nothing more than the incomplete registration of a perfectly appropriate misanthropy. (link)

As a member of five or six minority groups, myself, I find myself cringing whenever I see groups to which I belong depicted or discussed with anxious care and glossy patina. What awful thing, after all, are they so carefully dancing around?!?"(link)

If you've got a zit on the tip of your nose, all injustice appears to stem from that. (link)

I no longer plug mishaps into my narrative of woe. And without that, it's all just stuff happening. (link)

Qualities such as kindness, intelligence, generosity, and a sense of humor are of service to others. Beauty, by contrast, serves only its possessor. (link)

I like to be told that I'm being an idiot. This helps me be less of an idiot. By contrast, most people recoil quite strongly from acknowledging to themselves any idiocy in their thought or behavior. They'd much rather be idiots than feel like idiots. (link)

Nationalism is always a noble-seeming mask for xenophobia. Show me someone who loves "Us", and I'll show you someone who hates "Them". (link)

History always unfolds via a succession of immoderately reactive pendulum swings. Will we human beings ever learn to react to extremism with enlightened moderation rather than with reciprocal extremism? (link and another)

Scientists say it's very difficult to learn new skills after one's mid-twenties. I think they're slicing that wrong. What happens is that it becomes very difficult to imagine (and to tolerate) change as one's self-image solidifies. And learning is change. (link)

America is so rich that we mistake mere discomfort for bona fide poverty. (link)

Anyone in the first world yearning to get rich is really just dreaming of getting richer. (link)

Better to be a hapless shmuck who occasionally surprises than to be a hero who inevitably disappoints. (link)

Hell is a place human beings voluntarily condemn themselves to. (link)

The real secret is not to learn to get what you want. It's to learn to want what you get. link

The Hardest Ask

The problem with wisdom is that, if it doesn't completely confuse us (because we've been looking the other way for so long that a fresh framing leaves us as overwhelmed as newborn babies), it feels so natural—so tuned to body temperature—that we're not at all stricken. It digests so easily that we needn't chew or swallow. It merely metabolizes, vanishing without a trace.

I know a person who has remained a sulky, superior, utterly non-productive adolescent for nearly 70 years. Risking her snarling wrath, I once spoke the words she most needed to hear. They were her missing chunk, like oranges to a scurvied sailor; like a simple key to a seemingly intransigent lock. It's a maxim I've repeated here several times:

Registering stupidity doesn't make you smart; it just means you're observant.

Her reply was "Yeah, of course."

And...cut! Oranges: flippantly tossed overboard. Key: melted in the heat of the lock. Tableau: untouched. The answer blew in the wind, but who clocks a light breeze?

That self-vanishing snippet of breezy nothingness (along with its equally disposable corollaries, below) may be key insights for averting the clash we all feel coming, but I already know the response: "Yeah, of course."

Yet let's continue. Here are the corollaries:

Registering evil doesn't make you good.

Registering authoritarianism doesn't make you democratic

Spotting immorality doesn't make you virtuous.

The hardest ask in all creation is for narcissists to examine themselves first.

Our ancestors toiled and bled to push us, their spoiled children, into a paradise of wealth and comfort, never seeing that a society of narcissistic aristocrats will inherently be doomed.

Addendum

I've added a new closer to yesterday's posting, "Pancakes; Divorce; Pancakes".

Pancakes; Divorce; Pancakes

I once wrote about the clear-headed, peaceful state yogis call satchitananda, often translated as "equanimity", though I prefer "bulletproof". It's a state of undisturbable and ineffable peace, non-reactive yet empathically engaged, and utterly tolerant even upon choosing to argue. Lots of paradoxes make it notoriously slippery to describe, but, again, "bulletproof" gives the right idea. And I'd like to offer some thoroughly enjoyable homework for those curious for better understanding.

Watch "Pancakes; Divorce; Pancakes", season 1, episode 3 of "Review", available on Amazon for $2.99.

Reality TV host Forest MacNeil is challenged to eat "an upsetting number of pancakes" (like a dozen), and he barely accomplishes it with histrionic displeasure. Then he proceeds to ruin his marriage for the stupidest reasons. And then, as the third act of his busy day, he's challenged to eat 30 additional pancakes...and does so post-haste and without complaint, in a state of numbly crestfallen indifference.

You really need to watch it. Not only is it entirely hilarious, but the ancient saintly authors of the Hindu Vedas would have tossed flower petals at creator Andy Daley's feet. Watch it, enjoy the hell out of it, and then ponder the power of framing.

Satchitananda is like the high indifference of Forest's third act, but without the needless overlay of disgust, negativity, and numbness. Indifference need not be negative. One can poselessly eat the damned pancakes, in one's raw state with nothing left to lose, but (this is the essential part!!!) without making it dramatic just because drama's the normal move.

Indifference sans drama is freedom. Blissful (yes, blissful) stresslessness. Days that should feel horrible are still nice days. Emotions happen—you don't numb yourself—but there's no suffering. You're bulletproof.

This isn't repression, denial, or dissociation. Those things inevitably generate even more stress. We're talking about real happiness—the stuff we find innumerable clever ways to suppress. We're talking about Forest MacNeil's third act but without the gratuitous self-torment.

"Freedom" is a state of infinite potential, which feels exactly like "having nothing left to lose." It's easy enough to get there. In fact, you've surely been there! But you need to decline the conditioned reflex to find it lacking, or infuriating, or devastating. That's an effortless opt-out, but you need to remember to do it, and remembering is as common as quintuplets all winning the lottery.

It took me years to settle into recognizing the necessity of this laughably easy step. But now, as I presently deal with profound loss, and am sad and shakey, I'm not suffering. Rather than hunker down into self-care, I've hastened (yesterday and today) to my keyboard to channel the wrenching into an attempt to be helpful. Not as some noble aspiration; just a frame of mind. Satchitananda compels helping rather than bewailing. One's settings toggle to "useful ingenuity", rather than "dramatic performance".


Addendum:

Some people are hell-bent on descent because they innately sense the liberation that comes with having, again, NOTHING LEFT TO LOSE. The problem is that they don't know quite what to do with it, so they spin it into drama. They don't know to opt out of that part.

What can you do with freedom? Anything. I mean it literally when I say that freedom means infinite potential—even while buck naked and penniless. You can even eat 30 pancakes, no problem.


I made the same point, much more tersely, here (and this is a helpful offshoot). Numbly, glaringly giving up is kissing cousin to blissful spiritual transformation. You merely have to decline the numbness and glaring—and it's a surprisingly easy opt-out, if you can just remember. The ease of it is perhaps the single biggest and most ironic surprise in the entire human experience for the handful per generation who are sufficiently playfully nonconformist under enormous pressure to try it. But you don't need those unicorn attributes, because you've just been handed the secret on a platter. And you can remember more easily because you've just been reminded.

Lifebuilding

Someone in my circle has been swallowed by the fate I’m about to warn you about. Perhaps my harshly-awakened perspective might help a reader or two escape the trap. Urgent work is required. Clocks are ticking.


Hardly anyone plans for old age in non-financial ways. We count on momentum, supposing our 70s will be like our 60s, only slower. Loving spouse, dear friends, and adoring children will encircle us, like in a movie, and we'll venture forward as the culmination of a lifetime of general effort.

But that's cinematic baloney. It never works out that way. You may be forced to move. Your spouse might leave you, or get sick, or die. Such dark exigencies seem too horrid to contemplate, but that's the point! We avoid level-headed calculation, resorting to pipe dreams about momentum pulling us through old age. It's the height of foolish complacency.

When has life ever gone exactly as it did in your cinematic mental projection? How could you possibly think complacency would be a smart strategy on this planet?

Movie moments don't last, and you've had a lifetime to notice this and to plan accordingly. We're relentlessly and violently pushed toward that realization. Youth and middle age are brutal training grounds. At some point, we're supposed to stop engaging in childish dreamy fantasy and get real.

When things fall apart in our 20s or 30s or 40s or 50s—as they do with frequency—we have the energy, flexibility, and initiative to regroup and pursue new directions. But that's much harder when you're older. And by late middle age we should see that coming and finally internalize the boy scout credo about being prepared. If your "preparation" consists of imagining yourself sailing on easy momentum, a healthy IRA, and an upbeat attitude, you'll have doomed yourself to misery.

But it will not be the misery you imagine. I don't mean the moment of frozen horror when the bottom drops out. Hell, that's the easy part! The real problem is the day after fragile plans are dashed. And the day after that. And thousands more empty days, still here, with dwindling energy and diminishing options.

That's what you need to avoid, with all your might.

Don't rely on fragility.

Build solid footing for yourself. Internal solid footing!

If you don't, you'll have decades to rue your failure to conjure raisons d'être. You will back-load via regret what should have been front-loaded via careful planning. And, chillingly, I don't know a single person who's doing—or done—any such prep work.

Let's build the list. You need pursuits that bring satisfaction, and more than one, because if it's bird watching, you're screwed when you lose your vision, and if it's sports, you're screwed when you develop arthritis, and if it's joking around with your longtime buddy, you're screwed when he moves or gets sick or dies—or merely decides he doesn't like you anymore. You need multiple outlets and avenues and contacts. You need richness, and that's on you to accumulate over the long decades. That's what that lifetime was for!

And it all must be real, not just propositional. We can all produce lists of pseudo-hobbies, pseudo-passions, and pseudo-friends, but often they're placeholders. The karaoke machine you rarely set up but have wonderful memories of using once or twice will not cut it. You ought to have been building an actual life all this time.

You might have imagined family would be your grounding center, but if you really expected grown children to be constant presences, investing your day-to-day life with energy and meaning, you've contrived a movie moment, not a life.

You need friends...at least if you're not a serious introvert (in which case you'll have even greater need of things that bring you satisfaction, as well as backups). If you reach age 70 without everyday friends, you'd better have backup plans to your backup plans, because your friend-making muscles will have atrophied, and old people are not easily befriended.

Another addition to your to-build list: the ability to reframe. You can develop a facility for shifting perspective, making your mind an interesting and useful place rather than a torture chamber once things turn quiet and you find yourself marinating in your thoughts. This is more advanced than building social networks and interest palettes, but the return on investment is enormous.

YOU NEED A LIFE, and will no longer have busyness, buzzing alarms, and due dates to hide behind. No one will provide you with a life, nor can you buy one. You and you alone are responsible for building a life full of rich options and fallbacks and friends and outlets and perspectives. You had decades to do so, but, wherever you're at, you can start RIGHT NOW! Today!

Very few people seem to enter old age with A Life. They've merely navigated the obstacle course, ticking off to-dos and acquiring abstract rewards. It all feels like you're building momentum, but if you've built upon fragility with mere abstract notions, so it's all propositional, you'll have many years to bitterly recognize your failure. I know one such person who, being an introvert, was reasonably ok sitting in a chair in an empty silent room for twenty years. But I know another who, alas, was not.

Get going like your life depends on it. For further inspiration, this Slog has spent 17 years essentially gaming it all out. It's full of encouragement and perspectives on building an inner life and a lithe re-framing faculty.


Addenda:

1. Here's an example. Say your mom dies in your 60s (which is typical) and she was your confidant (reasonably typical). A few years later, your husband develops Alzheimer's (not uncommon). You flail for support, but you've neglected to build any. Your children love you, but, unlike the Hallmark ads, they're not perpetually right there with you, because they have busy lives, themselves. You never bothered to make close friends, you never had real hobbies or passions, and, in your perennially busy and numbly distracted younger years, you never learned to pliantly shift perspective. Unable to choose your own framings, you must passively accept how it's all been placed by circumstance. So you're looking down the barrel at 10 or 20 years as a wraith in a silent house where the phone rings once or twice per week. You recognize that you failed to build an inner life for yourself, and are too fraught and aggrieved to imaginably start doing so at this late date.

I'm truly sorry to foist you so viscerally into this frightful scenario. But the tough love is well-intended. I want you to avoid this.

2. The "momentum" I'm talking about—the false notion that your long track record of busyness and asset acquisition and networking will compile into a solidity you can hold onto and live off of in later quiet moments—is identical to what I described—prophetically last week—as the horribly wrong notion that being the irrepressible "Aunt Marge" in some narrow setting spares you from needing to ever be just plain Marge for a world at large—and for yourself.

3. I will never understand why people think immortality would be a good thing. I suppose that would be the hail mary play for a race of people who cannot, for the life of them, stop kicking cans down the road. Homes will get infinitely large to store our garbagey bullshit, and lifespans will get infinitely long to provide more time to finally get around to really living.