The Nebraska Phenomenon

Nov. 22, 2013, 1:12 pm. One of the Many Amazing Coffee Shops in Lincoln, Nebraska.

I was on a roll with the blog posts for a awhile there but alas, life got in the way again… Oh well, hopefully it gave you all (all of my faithful readers… all two of my faithful readers) time to catch up.

This week I should not be writing a blog post, I should be working on myriad papers, I’ll do that later I guess, and sleep when I die. In the mean time, I’m going to write a little something about living in Lincoln, Nebraska. I know I’ve mentioned this topic before in passing, but I thought I’d give it some real attention.

Whenever I told someone back in New York and Connecticut that I was moving to Nebraska I always got the same puzzled look, the chuckle and then the token question… “Why on earth would you want to move to Nebraska?” to which I would give the token answer, “I don’t really want to move to Nebraska, I want to go to graduate school…it’s a sort of means to an end.”

The funny thing is that no matter where you’re from, every non-native Nebraskan I meet seems to have a similar story, they came here as a sort of pit stop. It’s like when you’re on a road trip and you really have to pee, you have to pee so bad that you are willing to stop at that revolting gas station where a man behind the counter with no teeth will give you a gigantic key to a restroom that looks as if it was taken out of a scene from CSI and you wonder why they even bother to lock it. You go there because you really have to pee, and it’s not pretty but it gets the job done. I’m pretty sure that’s why people come to Nebraska. But it’s not why I’d like to stay.

This is the weird thing… I’m going to call it the Nebraska phenomenon, you gather all of these people who are willing to endure a little hardship to get where they think they want to go, people who are kind and generous because they know that life is strange and has a way of dragging you on what seems like a little bit of a wild goose chase and it’s not always easy – in fact life is really hard most of the time. We all seem to recognize this common goal of enduring life and as a result people start opening doors for each other, they invite you over for thanksgiving, they stop and let you into the correct lane on the road when you accidentally chose the wrong one, they ask you how your day is going when you buy milk at the grocery store, they drop what they’re doing and help you, sometimes without you even having to ask. To continue the earlier metaphor – it’s like pulling over when you really have to pee and instead of the disgusting gas station you find a tiny farm stand, with a nice lady behind the counter (ok, so maybe she doesn’t have teeth either) and she invites you into her home’s bathroom and offers you a seat and a cup of tea so you might rest a while, then she asks if you’d like to join her family for dinner and you do, because you’re tired and it’s been a long day of driving, and it’s the best chicken and potatoes you’ve ever had, and it’s a great story to boot. That’s why people stay; that’s why I’m loving it.

Will I stay in Nebraska forever? Probably not, but who knows? Life’s a long journey, were all fighting battles, we’ve all been driving all day and we all need a place to rest, to pee, Lincoln’s cozy for that. The funniest thing about the Nebraska phenomenon though is the fact that it really is a phenomenon; stay in Lincoln long enough and even a cynical east-coaster finds herself, opening a door or two, letting someone into her lane, even asking a stranger how their day is going.

The God Blogger

2:30am. Friday, October 25, 2013. My House in Lincoln, NE.

Philosophy and philosophers are often faced with the “God question.” It seems only natural that those who spend most of their time speculating in some way or another about the nature of the universe would get the lovely task of having to deal with one of the largest concerns of human history – Is there a God? If there is a God, then what is God like?

Honestly, I’ve avoided this issue in recent years mostly because in past years I made it my entire existence. I’ve had so many opinions about God I can no longer keep them straight in my head; I’ve known everything from “there is no God, we just made it up to feel better,” to “there’s only one God and everyone who believes something different will find themselves in an unfortunate eternal hell.” I’ve had deeper convictions in these views than most other things I take to be true and strangely enough I’ve been equally and profoundly convinced by both extremes at times in my life.

Religion is of little help. Often we find ourselves swept up by these traditions of God, taken in by kind communities, enamored with their seemingly unwavering dedication or charmed by smiling clergy and irrefutable arguments. These things captivated me at certain times and repulsed me at others. No matter what, I find myself constantly on the defense and also playing devil’s advocate against the religious views of myself and others. It’s quite annoying…to both others and myself.

And once we stop looking within or looking to priests, rabbis, imams and pastors we sometimes find ourselves asking the “God question” with our most trusted (non-clergy) friends and family. I find that this too is a bit of a crapshoot. I know many atheists whom I trust and admire, and I know Christians that are just as trustworthy and admirable, I met a Hindu once that I’m still convinced was some type of angel. As much as I love my friends and family I know that the “God question” aches for certainty in them just as much as it does in me. None of us can be more certain than another.

So here’s the answer to the “God question” … just kidding, as always I have no answers, only thoughts. What’s most interesting is that regardless of our level of certainty we can find ourselves filing the “God question” away in the envelope marked “stuff that doesn’t matter.” If you think I’m wrong or I’ve thoroughly pissed you off I’m sorry but it is often in a moment of overwhelming grief, agony or distress that we stop asking ourselves whether or not God exists or if God cares about us and we start hedging our bets in the form of prayer to whatever might be out there. Also, in similar moments of overwhelming grief, agony or distress we can stop believing with such unshakable determinacy in whatever God we believe in. Suddenly, it’s just whatever seems most immediately pragmatic that we start clinging to like a ring buoy in an endless ocean.

We look to the “God question” to address some of our most pragmatic moral and metaphysical concerns and to provide some comfort in this often uncomfortable world. Yet, the “God question” is frequently neither pragmatic nor comforting. I know a pastor that, when asked certain questions about the nature or existence of God will answer in four words, slowly, raising a finger for every word in order to imply the gravity of each of them – “I (and up goes his thumb) do (index finger) not (middle) know (ring).” While it is tempting to offer this same answer to the “God question,” as I said before I will not be offering answers.   

Rather, I will refer to this personal anecdote: I have a tattoo on my back that very few people know about, it’s a black and grey picture of stones I found while walking on the beach when I was fifteen. The stones are in the shape of a cross. I got it on my eighteenth birthday. It represents one of those rare moments of clarity one can sometimes have; when I found those stones I was so thoroughly assured, for just a moment, of the nature and existence of God. And yes, that assurance waivers significantly and I cannot deny that. However, I have another tattoo as well, this is one that most people who know me are aware of – it’s an outline of a dove and it’s on my right ankle. I got it when I was 21 and it represents all the other moments of life that are not so clear, it is the spirit of what is in-between human and divine.

When it comes to the “God question” I think the moment often dictates a particular answer – we are the stones or the dove.

Facing Philosophy

6:49pm Sunday October 6, 2013. The Mill Coffee House in Lincoln, Nebraska.

So this is a post that’s been in the works for a while now. I  would like to talk about the difference between philosophy in college and philosophy in grad school (as always though, it seems to go beyond just that). This difference became most apparent to me when I  brought my first paper to a professor’s office hours to discuss it. It was my third draft but it was the first time I  was showing it to a faculty member. He didn’t even have to look at it. I  told him my thesis: given one professional philosopher’s account of accidents and another professional philosopher’s account of knowledge I’m going to show that the two accounts are incompatible and thats why we can’t have knowledge by accident. Okay, it was a little more technical but thats the gist, for all the non-philosophers out there. This was his response:

“That’s fine, but I’m just not sure where you’re making an original contribution.”

The words just hung there, kind of like they do here. They sit in a puddle of white space in my head echoing like the voice of God. I knew instantly that this was the difference between college and grad school. I  wanted to cry. I  wanted to call my mom. I  wanted to run to the other grad students and have them explain to me how they’ve managed to make these brilliant contributions and tell me it was all going to be okay. More than anything though, I  wanted to hide.

I  was so embarrassed, here I  am trying to prove myself, thinking I’ve done something when I’ve really just written a glorified book report. Now I’m expected to say something no one else has said before and I  wonder if I’m prepared. I  wonder if I  can do this. Until now I  have only been expected to make sense of other professional’s research and now I  guess it’s up to me to make my own way. Now, there’s this professor standing in front of me saying “yes, but now you are the professional philosopher and you ought to have something to say.”

It’s humbling to say the least.

Yet as small as I feel right now, it’s not a bad thing; it’s an opportunity to rise to a challenge. This is where I  can become a better writer, better philosopher, better student than I have ever been before. And I  live in Nebraska so it’s not like I have anything better to do.

Where do I come off, you may ask, getting all sunshine and roses on a largely terrifying situation like this? Part of me wants to say, I have no idea and that I’m nuts to be so optimistic. There’s another part of me that knows though, it’s because I saw Tamar Gendler speak this past week.

For those of you who don’t know who Tamar Gendler is, she is this awesome philosopher and professor at Yale who works mostly in the areas of epistemology, philosophical psychology, metaphysics and philosophical methodology. Dr. Gendler visited our department this past week and I  was lucky enough to see her speak twice and to go out to lunch with her (while at the same time freaking out that I’m massively incapable of contributing anything to my chosen field of study). While her work is fascinating, it wasn’t anything that she said specifically that leaves me feeling so optimistic. It was something she did.

During her first presentation something went wrong with her powerpoint slides such that they were cut in half and the top of the slide was on the bottom of the screen and the bottom of the slide was on the top of the screen… for every single slide. She wasn’t put off in the slightest though, she laughed at her own misfortune and actually had the entire audience laughing at it too, and she simply forged ahead with confidence. All I  could think to myself was, “wow, I  hope I’m that good someday.”

And then it occurred to me - so much of my work, in philosophy and in life isn’t going to be determined by my ability to be constantly excellent. Inevitably things will go wrong, challenges will arise, I  will run into walls, my work won’t seem to be making any original contributions, my powerpoint slides will be hacked up and garishly rearranged, and what’s really going to matter in the end is how I  took it on.

It’s true, most of the time I  have no idea what the hell I’m doing and on the rare occasion that I  have salient ideas, something else outside of my control usually goes wrong. What matters more is being able to pick myself up, having confidence in my own character and forging ahead. In the end, I  know that I  am capable and so I  have every reason to be optimistic. I  think.

On Ashton and Opportunity

1:58pm Sunday, September 29th. The Mill Coffee House. Lincoln, Nebraska

So, I watched this thing a while back, it's Ashton Kutcher's speech at the Nickelodeon teen choice awards. When I first watched it, I hailed his brilliance and promptly posted the YouTube video on my Facebook page. It was met with a great positive response and, as a young student headed off into the "real world" after college, I took it as inspiration - work hard and in time, it will all work out. Well, the weeks have gone by and the media has had a chance now to run its fingers of greasy politics all over the speech and respond in a variety of ways. Conservatives have lifted up the speech as an endorsement of the "American Dream," saying that with a little hard work we can all be as successful as Ashton. Meanwhile, others have pointed out that Kutcher's argument seems to entail that if one doesn't become successful, it's because they haven't worked hard enough and furthermore, in his speech he condemned a culture that values physical beauty while conveniently forgetting to remind everyone that it's precisely this culture that helped to make Ashton - a straight, attractive, middle-class, white, male, a successful person in the first place.

It’s all a little complex, and ultimately the politics just twist Kutcher’s speech into something I  don't really think it was meant to be or communicate. I think there really is something to be said for hard work in the end and that doesn’t make me a capitalist monster. I don’t think Ashton meant the argument to be construed as: If you work hard then you will be successful, and this is the common misconception when it comes to the "American Dream." So, to be clear I will say this now – hard work will not necessarily make you successful and that is because life is not fair and the world isn’t always a kind place.

This aside, the argument was actually that opportunity (not success) looks a lot like hard work, and that’s the more fruitful discussion to have. My father always says to me that he and my mother work so hard because they want their kids to have the best opportunities available to them and that in anything we do we should try to give ourselves as many opportunities as possible. This, he says, is because it’s always better to have options. I’ve taken this seriously to heart (I swear that Nebraska is the “land of opportunity,” dad) and I am not nearly as disappointed in myself when I fail to be successful (whatever "successful" means, it’s a very tricky term) as when I fail to take advantage of a good opportunity. I think that’s the important part about working hard and being smart. It’s not about society deeming you successful, it’s about being whoever it is that you are and taking advantage of the opportunities that become available no matter your gender, race, sexual orientation, economic disposition or physical ability; a human being who doesn’t take advantage of an opportunity misses out on the opportunities that can follow.

And that’s the place I go in my head at the end of the day if I’m trying to figure out if I’m being lazy. Just to be clear… I can be as lazy as the next person. Nevertheless, this is my proverbial measuring stick. So, in a time in my life where I’m attempting to make something better of myself, trying to reach further, trying to be more (I have a sneaking suspicion that this “time in my life” either doesn’t end, won’t end or isn’t supposed to end) I think about hard work a lot and I ask myself often: What opportunity am I not taking advantage of?

I Had Good Intentions

4:05pm Thursday September 20, 2013. The Mill Coffeehouse in Lincoln, NE. 

They say the road to hell is paved with good intentions. I guess this means that intentions are worth very little in the grand scope of value - that a person can do horrific things and at the same time have the best of intentions. I've spent a lot of time thinking about intentions, especially in the past few years - young adulthood (whatever that means... See my blog "On Coming of Age") seems to be a time where one starts to become expressly aware of how the way that they live affects the people around them. At this time you learn about living amicably with people who aren't your family, about what can be acceptable in romance, and about what allows a person to maintain substantive friendships. I guess this too is part of "growing up" but it also seems to have significant bearing on the value of intentions as well. Don't we all go into life with the best intentions? 

It's probably safe to say that occasionally we are overtly selfish, angry, poorly intentioned individuals. However, most of the time I think we want to do what's right, what's good and what makes us into socially acceptable people (granted, the specifics of these things is a bit hazy, nonetheless it is what we aim for). Or at least I think it is what we aim for, I think it's what I aim for. Yet, we can still cause a good deal of harm despite those good intentions. Then, as if the issue wasn't complex enough, we can do kind, generous, loving and all around good things for terrible, selfish and twisted reasons. And, if theres no connection between the goodness of our thoughts and the goodness of our actions, where exactly do we get our moral structure from at all? Given the lack of connection between good intentions and good actions it becomes easy to dismiss the value of intentions altogether... or just remain confused.

Now, before your brain implodes (welcome to the inside of my head 24/7) let me just pull it back a little. I started thinking about this topic recently because I heard Willie Nelson's version of "You We're Always On My Mind" come on the radio. The basic gist, incase you have lived under a rock since the song became a hit in the 1980s, is that there's this guy who loves this girl and he's sorry because for a long time he neglected her even though he was always thinking of her and he loved her very much. The guy is looking back and realizing how much he wronged this woman and at the same time the whole point of the song seems to be this idea: the fact that she was always on his mind makes it sort of okay that he spent so many years being an ass... It's a little odd right?

What if he had spent his whole life caring for the woman and giving up things he wanted so that he could be with her but then wrote a song about it called "being a rockstar instead of your partner was always on my mind," it's weird right? In one case he seems like a better man for his good intentions despite his bad actions and in the other case he seems like a worse man for his bad intentions despite his good actions. 

When I first heard the song I felt sympathy for the man, we all make mistakes, and it's not like he didn't love her. He just screwed up, and now he's just admitting he screwed up. Haven't we all done this, don't we want it to matter? Is that why we ask questions like, what was his motive? And what the hell were you thinking? Because on some level we need our thoughts and actions to be reconciled. On some level it matters. It's easy to say intentions don't matter, or to deduct that, in the case of "You Were Always On My Mind, she was actually very rarely or never on his mind and he's just lying about his intentions. However, these answers are, in my opinion, the poor man's way out. The connection between thoughts and actions matters, and there are situations where it's confusing.

And now, I hope you weren't expecting an answer to the question of why intentions matter while, when I began writing this article I certainly intended to give you one, I realize now that I have not and also cannot. 

A Farewell to Remember

                                    

2:52pm. September 10, 2013. My Other Favorite Coffee Shop in Lincoln.

Goodbyes always conjure up this image in my head - it's that scene from "The Parent Trap" (the remake with Lindsay Lohan, which, just for the record, is way way better than the original with what's-her-face with the bad hair) Annie and her mother stand outside Hallie and her fathers' beautiful California estate and it's pouring rain, they promise to call and write and see each other at Christmas they hug and kiss and Annie and her mother run to the car through the rain; Annie waves goodbye out the back window of the limo as it drives away towards the airport and Hallie waves back as Chessie hugs her and Ray Charles sings "Ev'ry Time We Say Goodbye" in the background. 

This is what goes through my head when I think of goodbyes. Every time I leave someone I love for a long time, I hear the little melody, I see the rain even if it's a bright shiny day and then I start to sing the song to myself - "ev'ry time we say goodbye I die a little..."

I've seen people deal with goodbyes in so many ways, some people refuse to make any sort of significance of them at all, some hide from them completely, some make a huge deal out of them (aka me). We all do whatever we have to in order to cope with the pain of leaving. They're a sad unavoidable part of life and if it were up to me I'd just collect up every person that I love and bring them with me as I went along on life's adventures. I'd never say goodbye. 

Unfortunately, that's not how life goes (or fortunately for those of you out there who can be happy I haven't dragged you out to Ecuador, or Croatia ...or Nebraska) I've been lucky enough in my life to have many adventures, but its come at the price of saying many goodbyes and knowing intimately the effects of distance on various relationships. More often than not we soon forget to call and write and we can't always see each other on holidays. Falling out of touch happens frequently, despite the best of intentions. But it's not all so phenomenally depressing... "Ev'ry time we say goodbye I wonder why, a little..."

Understanding the gravity of parting ways allows one to appreciate the presence of another human being more than you ever would if you weren't aware of the alternative. My mom said something to me this past summer that was quite wise and very pertinent to this exact topic. I flipped out because I found out that my younger brother was set to leave for summer camp two weeks before I was to leave for grad school. Essentially I felt like I would lose my last two weeks with my him, but my mother looked at me and she said, "even if you had the extra two weeks, it's not like you can soak up enough of someone so that you don't miss them when they're gone."

And she was right.

I was so worried about not being able to see my brother that I had forgotten to enjoy and appreciate the fact that, at the time, I could enjoy and appreciate seeing my brother! 

"Why the gods above me, who must be in the know, think so little of me, they allow you to go..."

But then there's another kind of goodbye, a far more somber and frightening kind. The long term sort of goodbye. Sadly, I have experienced this too though thankfully less than many. Recently my great grandmother Sophie Rizzo passed away. I could write volumes on Sophie - her generous and gregarious spirit as well as her (to use a phrase borrowed from her eulogy) iconic beauty and poise will be the way I remember her for the rest of my days. But this is about saying goodbye, and this is the hardest kind of goodbye - there's no more writing or calling or seeing each other on holidays. It is the most powerful reminder of my mother's wise words -  "you can't soak up enough of someone so that you don't miss them when they're gone." I will miss Sophie always because I could never in a million years have soaked up enough of her to fill the void that she left. 

This is true, even of short term goodbyes. We will (at least I will) always long for the presence of the people we love regardless of the amount of time we've spent together. I think that's why goodbyes are so hard. I'm pretty sure that's it.

Nevertheless, "when you're near, there's such an air of spring about it, I can hear a lark somewhere begin to sing about it, and there's no love song finer..." the people I've said goodbye to, long term and short term are wonderful and nothing makes me happier than to be with them. Their prescience is never enough and is worth the pain of goodbye every time. 

This post is dedicated to Sophie, I imagine you're in heaven smoking a Benson & Hedges with God, making God laugh with your jokes and your smile.

On Coming of Age

                                     

September 7, 2013. 10:41 am. My Favorite Coffee Shop in Lincoln, Nebraska.

It's been quite a long time since my last post, so there's that. In the long interim I've moved to Nebraska to begin working on my PhD in Philosophy (a topic which will most certainly make excellent content for another blog post).

Nevertheless, what brings me back to the blogosphere is this - what really goes into coming of age? Recently it's been a prominent feature of my abiding thoughts but truly, if I look back on all of my memories it seems like a series of comings of ages. I'm not exactly sure at what specific age a person "comes of age" at but I think we can all look back on the long list of firsts in our past and reflect on how each and every one changed our being in some big or small way.

The particular coming of age I'm talking about here though is the transition from childhood into adulthood. When exactly does one become an "adult," and I don't mean in a legal or religious sense but at what point do we look at a person and consider them an adult, moreover at what point can we look at ourselves and think, "I am, in fact, an adult." What defines that? Is it a physical state of being? Is it our financial independence? The state of our romantic relationships? Our emotional maturity? 

Furthermore, I do believe I've looked at myself and others at given times and thought, "There's an adult," only to decide later on how completely wrong I was. I remember on my eighteenth birthday I surprised my aunt (and parents) with my very first tattoo and, to put it shortly, they were not thrilled. I was legally an adult and it was my body and in so many ways I look back and realize I was still just a child. 

So what defines "adult" specifically? I have no clue. What's odder still, the older I get and the more mile stones I put behind me the foggier this notion of adulthood becomes. I can tell you that, getting your first job, getting fired for stealing sushi from your first job, getting your drivers license, turning eighteen, getting your first tattoo, graduating from high school, starting college, starting your first "real" romantic relationship, ending your first "real" romantic relationship, graduating from college, moving out of your parents house, moving to Nebraska and starting grad school are just some highlights on my long list of firsts that I thought might make make me feel "adult." And now I stand ahead of them and realize I was wrong every time. 

I often think that adulthood will come somewhere down the line - when I'm responsible for a spouse or a child or an aging parent,  after some other first experience I just haven't come to yet. Lord knows that at twenty-two years old I have quite a bit of life left to live. Perhaps coming of age is just up the road.

And yet, maybe adulthood is just this name we give to everything we are not; maybe it's this mirage of a horizon that we always see ahead but never reach. Or maybe, like every guess I've made before about what grown up is, I'm wrong again.