Saturday, March 02, 2002
Future Schlock?
We have a field that is increasingly fearful of the present, looking ever more wistfully toward the past. Meanwhile the thoughtful future dealing with fresh themes is becoming rare--even endangered. --- from Science Fiction Without the Future by Judith Berman
I’ve been a fan of futuristic fiction as long as I can remember. I began fantasizing back in the 1940s, when I was a young kid who spent a lot of time in bed with severe asthma and read fairy tales and listened to Let’s Pretend, Inner Sanctum, and the Green Hornet on the radio. As a young teenager, I discovered C.S. Lewis’ Perelandra, the only legitimate sci-fi book in my Catholic high school’s library. I say “legitimate” because there also was a novel Moscow: 1984, which gave an odd Catholic twist to a variation on the original 1984, which I had no idea existed until I started going to the public library. I haven’t been able to find any trace of that book on any search engine, believe me, that’s a good thing.
Since then, I have devoured hundreds – maybe thousands --of science fiction novels, mostly “social science fiction," which deal with how human and non-human societies might live in the future. As a kid, reading about these possible futures, both distopian and utopian, fueled my idealism and determination to work toward a positive future. It’s one of the reasons that I became a teacher. I wanted to encourage kids to keep wondering “what if” and to project themselves into situations where they have to grapple with what it means to be human. Social science fiction provides a great a jumping off point for those wonderings.
And that’s why Judith Berman’s article caught my attention, because she suggests that much of today’s sci-fi no longer projects out into the future; rather it spends its pages re-inventing the past and present. And her assessment made me realize why I have almost stopped reading sci-fi. She says:
How to be human is a universal problem in any time and space. It’s not the same issue as quarreling with the present. Quarreling with the present is the territory of the Luddites, and William Morris inveighing against industrialization, and the origins of today’s pastoral, pseudo-medieval genre fantasies. Quarreling with the present is a hair's-breadth from being reactionary. Are we going to use the great speculative toolbox of sf to de-imagine the present? Is sf becoming anti-sf?
After reading her essay, I started thinking about the sf novels I’ve read that stick in my memory – apart from the usual and prime suspects: Farenheit 451, Brave New World, Childhood’s End, 1984 etc. etc.
Oddly enough, one of the first sf books I think of is one I used with my eight graders back in the early 70s – The Chilekings by Jessamyn West. The kids loved it because the premise was that one morning the world woke up and all of the adults where the physical size of children and the children were the physical size of adults. Think about the implications of physical size as a major component of power. We spent weeks on that book!
I love the way women write sf: Octavia Butler and her Lilith’s Brood (of course the mythological Lilith is my hero anyway. If she were real, she’d be a Blogsister.); Doris Lessing’s Memoirs of a Survivor and Ursula LeGuin’s The Left hand of Darkness and Anne McCaffrey’s The Rowan and Connie Willis’ Bellewether ….and…..
I also have my list of oddball favorites that feature female kick-ass protagonists and/or really bizarre plots. Here are a few examples, because I wish I could find someone else who has read any of these: the Jade Darcy series; the Killashandra series; Friday; He, She It; Crygender; The City Not Long After. And then there’s my favorite non-fiction pseudo-science trip for the 70s: Rhythms of Vision.
Toward the end of her essay, Berman says:
Science fiction’s most important contribution to the culture, it seems to me, is not to predict the future but to imagine it. To help us get our minds around the headlong-into-the-future-without-brakes nature of current times, to ponder how to remain/be/become human amidst this profound technological and cultural change that’s under no one’s control.
Amen I say to that. And by the time I finish reading – as I promised Chris Locke that I would --
The Bombast Transcripts: Rants and Screeds of Rageboy and The Cluetrain Manifesto: The End of Business as Usual, mabye by then there will be some new sf out that appeals to me.
Comments
We have a field that is increasingly fearful of the present, looking ever more wistfully toward the past. Meanwhile the thoughtful future dealing with fresh themes is becoming rare--even endangered. --- from Science Fiction Without the Future by Judith Berman
I’ve been a fan of futuristic fiction as long as I can remember. I began fantasizing back in the 1940s, when I was a young kid who spent a lot of time in bed with severe asthma and read fairy tales and listened to Let’s Pretend, Inner Sanctum, and the Green Hornet on the radio. As a young teenager, I discovered C.S. Lewis’ Perelandra, the only legitimate sci-fi book in my Catholic high school’s library. I say “legitimate” because there also was a novel Moscow: 1984, which gave an odd Catholic twist to a variation on the original 1984, which I had no idea existed until I started going to the public library. I haven’t been able to find any trace of that book on any search engine, believe me, that’s a good thing.
Since then, I have devoured hundreds – maybe thousands --of science fiction novels, mostly “social science fiction," which deal with how human and non-human societies might live in the future. As a kid, reading about these possible futures, both distopian and utopian, fueled my idealism and determination to work toward a positive future. It’s one of the reasons that I became a teacher. I wanted to encourage kids to keep wondering “what if” and to project themselves into situations where they have to grapple with what it means to be human. Social science fiction provides a great a jumping off point for those wonderings.
And that’s why Judith Berman’s article caught my attention, because she suggests that much of today’s sci-fi no longer projects out into the future; rather it spends its pages re-inventing the past and present. And her assessment made me realize why I have almost stopped reading sci-fi. She says:
How to be human is a universal problem in any time and space. It’s not the same issue as quarreling with the present. Quarreling with the present is the territory of the Luddites, and William Morris inveighing against industrialization, and the origins of today’s pastoral, pseudo-medieval genre fantasies. Quarreling with the present is a hair's-breadth from being reactionary. Are we going to use the great speculative toolbox of sf to de-imagine the present? Is sf becoming anti-sf?
After reading her essay, I started thinking about the sf novels I’ve read that stick in my memory – apart from the usual and prime suspects: Farenheit 451, Brave New World, Childhood’s End, 1984 etc. etc.
Oddly enough, one of the first sf books I think of is one I used with my eight graders back in the early 70s – The Chilekings by Jessamyn West. The kids loved it because the premise was that one morning the world woke up and all of the adults where the physical size of children and the children were the physical size of adults. Think about the implications of physical size as a major component of power. We spent weeks on that book!
I love the way women write sf: Octavia Butler and her Lilith’s Brood (of course the mythological Lilith is my hero anyway. If she were real, she’d be a Blogsister.); Doris Lessing’s Memoirs of a Survivor and Ursula LeGuin’s The Left hand of Darkness and Anne McCaffrey’s The Rowan and Connie Willis’ Bellewether ….and…..
I also have my list of oddball favorites that feature female kick-ass protagonists and/or really bizarre plots. Here are a few examples, because I wish I could find someone else who has read any of these: the Jade Darcy series; the Killashandra series; Friday; He, She It; Crygender; The City Not Long After. And then there’s my favorite non-fiction pseudo-science trip for the 70s: Rhythms of Vision.
Toward the end of her essay, Berman says:
Science fiction’s most important contribution to the culture, it seems to me, is not to predict the future but to imagine it. To help us get our minds around the headlong-into-the-future-without-brakes nature of current times, to ponder how to remain/be/become human amidst this profound technological and cultural change that’s under no one’s control.
Amen I say to that. And by the time I finish reading – as I promised Chris Locke that I would --
The Bombast Transcripts: Rants and Screeds of Rageboy and The Cluetrain Manifesto: The End of Business as Usual, mabye by then there will be some new sf out that appeals to me.
Comments
The Lemma Dilemma
So, when is a fucknozzle not a fucknozzle. If a fucknozzle goes off in a forest and nobody wants to see it, does it cease to exist? I am hereby inventing a definition for fucknozzling: it's when someone speaks the truth and then fudges in fear.
Fear not the fucknozzle. We have nothing to fuck but the fucknozzle itself. Lemme at that fucknozzle! Fuck the fudgenozzle. Long live b!X.
Comments
So, when is a fucknozzle not a fucknozzle. If a fucknozzle goes off in a forest and nobody wants to see it, does it cease to exist? I am hereby inventing a definition for fucknozzling: it's when someone speaks the truth and then fudges in fear.
Fear not the fucknozzle. We have nothing to fuck but the fucknozzle itself. Lemme at that fucknozzle! Fuck the fudgenozzle. Long live b!X.
Comments
An Unclassified Ad
Marek! Come back. We miss you. You've been gone a week. Your soapbox is waiting. We're all waiting. We need you.
Love,
Cybermom
Comments
Marek! Come back. We miss you. You've been gone a week. Your soapbox is waiting. We're all waiting. We need you.
Love,
Cybermom
Comments
The End of Work?
The following post on b!X got me thinking and linking:
Bruce Sterling (he who referred to me as part of the "two punk kids" who stayed in his guest room after his post-CFP party) on the state of things Internet: "Okay, so the Net has proved toxic to business and nobody's making any money there. That stopped the profiteering, except for the spammers of course ... hucksters who are methodically bringing net.commerce into such putrid disrepute that it may well never recover...."
So I linked to Bruce Sterling's article , read the rest of it, and was struck with how what's happening is what Jeremy Rifkin predicted in his End of Work book, which I read several years ago. It made me nervous then, and Sterling's article surely reinforces that nervousness. As does my awareness of all of the bloggers I read who are looking for jobs. There are no jobs. Is anyone as scared as I am? (I know that I haven't read RageBoy's books yet, and they might offer a solution. But is there any solution comprehensive enough?) Good thing I've got practical skills to barter when the economic revolution comes.
Comments
The following post on b!X got me thinking and linking:
Bruce Sterling (he who referred to me as part of the "two punk kids" who stayed in his guest room after his post-CFP party) on the state of things Internet: "Okay, so the Net has proved toxic to business and nobody's making any money there. That stopped the profiteering, except for the spammers of course ... hucksters who are methodically bringing net.commerce into such putrid disrepute that it may well never recover...."
So I linked to Bruce Sterling's article , read the rest of it, and was struck with how what's happening is what Jeremy Rifkin predicted in his End of Work book, which I read several years ago. It made me nervous then, and Sterling's article surely reinforces that nervousness. As does my awareness of all of the bloggers I read who are looking for jobs. There are no jobs. Is anyone as scared as I am? (I know that I haven't read RageBoy's books yet, and they might offer a solution. But is there any solution comprehensive enough?) Good thing I've got practical skills to barter when the economic revolution comes.
Comments
Friday, March 01, 2002
The Linking Life, or, My Feast With Frida
Here's how it goes: I link from my blog to RageBoy's current post. I link from that to his EGR uh...thing on "My Snack With Andre." From there I link from his reference to Diego to Diego Rivera. Oh yeah, I think, linking him in my head to Mexican artist Frida Kahlo and finding a mention on Diego's site of the new movie about Kahlo, which stars Selma Hayak and is scheduled to open in October. Of course, there's no link to a Frida site, but I find one.
One of my woman friends is a great Kahlo fan. She even dresses as her for Halloween.
Frida Kahlo's story rivals any Shakespearean tragedy. She is said to have said I suffered two grave accidents in my life. One in which a streetcar knocked me down.....The other accident is Diego. As a result she was both physically and emotionally scarred and traumatized, but nevertheless she lived -- and died -- with incredible passion and creativity. Here is one report of her funeral:
Mourners gathered on July 13, 1954 to watch the cremation of the world's greatest and most shocking painter. Soon to be an international icon, Frida Kahlo knew how to give her fans one last frightening goodbye. As the cries of her admirers filled the room, the sudden blast of heat from the open incinerator doors blew her body bolt upright. Her hair, now on fire from the flames, blazed around her head like a halo. Frida's lips appeared to break into a seductive grin just as the doors closed shut. Her last diary entry read "I hope the leaving is joyful and I hope never to return". Frida was only 47 on the day she died. Her amazing, and many times bloody self-portrait paintings will live forever.
Ah, Frida. You would have made a great Blogsister.
Comments
Here's how it goes: I link from my blog to RageBoy's current post. I link from that to his EGR uh...thing on "My Snack With Andre." From there I link from his reference to Diego to Diego Rivera. Oh yeah, I think, linking him in my head to Mexican artist Frida Kahlo and finding a mention on Diego's site of the new movie about Kahlo, which stars Selma Hayak and is scheduled to open in October. Of course, there's no link to a Frida site, but I find one.
One of my woman friends is a great Kahlo fan. She even dresses as her for Halloween.
Frida Kahlo's story rivals any Shakespearean tragedy. She is said to have said I suffered two grave accidents in my life. One in which a streetcar knocked me down.....The other accident is Diego. As a result she was both physically and emotionally scarred and traumatized, but nevertheless she lived -- and died -- with incredible passion and creativity. Here is one report of her funeral:
Mourners gathered on July 13, 1954 to watch the cremation of the world's greatest and most shocking painter. Soon to be an international icon, Frida Kahlo knew how to give her fans one last frightening goodbye. As the cries of her admirers filled the room, the sudden blast of heat from the open incinerator doors blew her body bolt upright. Her hair, now on fire from the flames, blazed around her head like a halo. Frida's lips appeared to break into a seductive grin just as the doors closed shut. Her last diary entry read "I hope the leaving is joyful and I hope never to return". Frida was only 47 on the day she died. Her amazing, and many times bloody self-portrait paintings will live forever.
Ah, Frida. You would have made a great Blogsister.
Comments
OK. I Give Up
While b!X told me about Cluetrain Manifesto when it first came out, after my first few visits to RageBoy's site, I decided that he and his style were overwritten, overbearing, and overcomplicated. I wasn't going to read his book.
Tonight I had dinner with a married couple who have been close friends of mine for more than 20 years. In telling them about the fun and fancy of blogging, I also mentioned Cluetrain, and, much to my surprise, the female of the couple began to tell me how she had read it and loved it and underlined lines all over the place and thought it was brilliant etc. etc.
OK. I give up. Jeneane's words convinced me to buy Bombast. Now my good friend, who has shared wavelengths with me all of these years, pushes for Cluetrain. I give up, RageBoy. I'll read your damned books. And I sure better like 'em.
Comments
While b!X told me about Cluetrain Manifesto when it first came out, after my first few visits to RageBoy's site, I decided that he and his style were overwritten, overbearing, and overcomplicated. I wasn't going to read his book.
Tonight I had dinner with a married couple who have been close friends of mine for more than 20 years. In telling them about the fun and fancy of blogging, I also mentioned Cluetrain, and, much to my surprise, the female of the couple began to tell me how she had read it and loved it and underlined lines all over the place and thought it was brilliant etc. etc.
OK. I give up. Jeneane's words convinced me to buy Bombast. Now my good friend, who has shared wavelengths with me all of these years, pushes for Cluetrain. I give up, RageBoy. I'll read your damned books. And I sure better like 'em.
Comments
Wednesday, February 27, 2002
Asserting Identity
Yes, I Am a Jew Meryl Yourish blogs, asking Does it bother you to know that I'm Jewish? Does it make a difference in the way you perceive my words? Do you hate me now that you know? Will you stop reading a weblog written by a Jew? ….Would you kill me because I am Jewish?
Her essay is frightening and poignant, eloquent and painful. She is an honest and elegant writer, and I am glad I found her.
Yourish writes about her friendship in college with a Polish girl. I am Polish on both sides of my family as far back as anyone can document – except for one Swedish guy who managed to slip in somewhere back in the very early days. The historical relationship between Jews and Poles in Poland is problematic to say the least, and the same is true of how members of my family here in America feel, I am sad to say. My parent’s best friends were a Jewish couple, and my mother kept in touch with Gerry long after her husband and my Dad died. Gerry died last year at the age of 90, and my mother still misses talking to her. On the other hand, I have relatives who still say the most awful things about Jewish people. But then, again, they say awful things about anyone who isn’t Polish.
I grew up in a Polish ghetto in the city of Yonkers, New York, back in the 1940s, when Polish immigrants flooded that city’s streets because they connect very easily out to Ellis Island. I also grew up bilingual, having been taught to speak Polish along with English in the parochial school across the street from our house. As a child, I remember being derisively called a “greenhorn” by the more Americanized citizens. I didn’t like it, but I just switched to speaking English, and then I was like everyone else. The kinds of hatred Meryl Yourish knows I never knew.
Generally, I grew up proud to be Polish. My paternal grandmother (born Mary Sklodowska) was Madam Curie’s (born Marie Sklodowska) first cousin and remembered her from their early days in Sklody, the town in Poland where they both grew up. I danced in a Polish troupe when I was a young teenager. My early years progressed safely in the bosom of a large clan, tribe, extended family that faithfully kept us youngsters faithful to all of the old traditions.
For my freshman research paper in college, I chose to focus on the activities Polish Underground as they helped Jews to escape the Warsaw Ghetto through the sewers. I knew that there were plenty of my “countrymen” who had opted for more secure politics, but I always felt proud of those who threw their lots in with their Jewish neighbors. That research paper was lost long ago, but I often wish I could go back and read through it again. I would like my kids to read it.
I don’t really get in to my ethnic heritage much these days. Oddly enough, my daughter is using my mother’s old recipes and teaching herself to make all of the Polish foods that I never bothered to learn how to make.
What has that all to do with Meryl Yourish and her blog? Well, I don’t understand anti-Semitism either. I don’t understand any kind of bigotry. As I used to tell my Dad, I know what side I’m on when the revolution comes.
Comments
Yes, I Am a Jew Meryl Yourish blogs, asking Does it bother you to know that I'm Jewish? Does it make a difference in the way you perceive my words? Do you hate me now that you know? Will you stop reading a weblog written by a Jew? ….Would you kill me because I am Jewish?
Her essay is frightening and poignant, eloquent and painful. She is an honest and elegant writer, and I am glad I found her.
Yourish writes about her friendship in college with a Polish girl. I am Polish on both sides of my family as far back as anyone can document – except for one Swedish guy who managed to slip in somewhere back in the very early days. The historical relationship between Jews and Poles in Poland is problematic to say the least, and the same is true of how members of my family here in America feel, I am sad to say. My parent’s best friends were a Jewish couple, and my mother kept in touch with Gerry long after her husband and my Dad died. Gerry died last year at the age of 90, and my mother still misses talking to her. On the other hand, I have relatives who still say the most awful things about Jewish people. But then, again, they say awful things about anyone who isn’t Polish.
I grew up in a Polish ghetto in the city of Yonkers, New York, back in the 1940s, when Polish immigrants flooded that city’s streets because they connect very easily out to Ellis Island. I also grew up bilingual, having been taught to speak Polish along with English in the parochial school across the street from our house. As a child, I remember being derisively called a “greenhorn” by the more Americanized citizens. I didn’t like it, but I just switched to speaking English, and then I was like everyone else. The kinds of hatred Meryl Yourish knows I never knew.
Generally, I grew up proud to be Polish. My paternal grandmother (born Mary Sklodowska) was Madam Curie’s (born Marie Sklodowska) first cousin and remembered her from their early days in Sklody, the town in Poland where they both grew up. I danced in a Polish troupe when I was a young teenager. My early years progressed safely in the bosom of a large clan, tribe, extended family that faithfully kept us youngsters faithful to all of the old traditions.
For my freshman research paper in college, I chose to focus on the activities Polish Underground as they helped Jews to escape the Warsaw Ghetto through the sewers. I knew that there were plenty of my “countrymen” who had opted for more secure politics, but I always felt proud of those who threw their lots in with their Jewish neighbors. That research paper was lost long ago, but I often wish I could go back and read through it again. I would like my kids to read it.
I don’t really get in to my ethnic heritage much these days. Oddly enough, my daughter is using my mother’s old recipes and teaching herself to make all of the Polish foods that I never bothered to learn how to make.
What has that all to do with Meryl Yourish and her blog? Well, I don’t understand anti-Semitism either. I don’t understand any kind of bigotry. As I used to tell my Dad, I know what side I’m on when the revolution comes.
Comments
Now, Here's A Heroine For You
A 1200 pound cow has escaped from a local slaughterhouse by jumping a 6-foot fence at Ken Meyer Meats. I say, you go girl!
Comments
A 1200 pound cow has escaped from a local slaughterhouse by jumping a 6-foot fence at Ken Meyer Meats. I say, you go girl!
Comments
Sorry Eagle
You've just got to run over to b!X's and check out Ashcroft (literally) singing his new song. It's a good thing I blogroll before breakfast or else I really would have lost it.
Comments
You've just got to run over to b!X's and check out Ashcroft (literally) singing his new song. It's a good thing I blogroll before breakfast or else I really would have lost it.
Comments
Tuesday, February 26, 2002
More Thoughts on Violence
I'm lifting this off Steve Himmer's site because I don't want to forget it. There's more to be said, I just don't have the time to say it now. No, I'm not working on my taxes, I'm going to work on my future grandson's bunting and watch some mindless tv. Anyway, this is from Steve:
Why should we be surprised at the violence and cruelty of our children when it is increasingly what we value in the adult world? 'Journalists' are paid to insult rather than inform, thousands of people obsess over what one celebrity may have called another, and we are glued to our televisions to watch the strong pick on the weak, whether in politics, war, or wrestling. And yet we ask more of our children than we expect of ourselves.
Comments
I'm lifting this off Steve Himmer's site because I don't want to forget it. There's more to be said, I just don't have the time to say it now. No, I'm not working on my taxes, I'm going to work on my future grandson's bunting and watch some mindless tv. Anyway, this is from Steve:
Why should we be surprised at the violence and cruelty of our children when it is increasingly what we value in the adult world? 'Journalists' are paid to insult rather than inform, thousands of people obsess over what one celebrity may have called another, and we are glued to our televisions to watch the strong pick on the weak, whether in politics, war, or wrestling. And yet we ask more of our children than we expect of ourselves.
Comments
Take Time Out
Take some time out (I did, so my taxes still aren't done) to get on Anita's site and tell her what you would do to make the world better if you were give a budget of a trillion U.S. dollars. (I guess she stole the question from Kuro5hin,but I didn't see it there so I'm glad I saw it here.)
Of course, I like my answer, which is:
After I publish my daughter's novels and make sure my son has enough money to live on the rest of his life so that he doesn't have to work, I'd pay off my debts. Then I would hire the best minds to figure out how to take over the world's economy so that we could make sure everyone has the resources to meet at least the first two of Maslow's hierarchy of needs and then had meaningful paid work and access to other resources that enable them to accomplish the rest -- and that includes high end computers with high speed internet access and free blogs for everyone. And if there was anything left over, certainly little red sports cars for everyone who wants one.
If you haven't commented on Anita's site, comment here.
What occurred to me as I was looking through the list of Maslow's needs was that bloggers probably have had the whole list met, and that's why they have they luxury of and resosurces to blog. People who can afford computers and internet access generally, probably have had at least 6 of the 8 needs met. If you didn't link to Maslow's list (above), here they are, in brief:
1) Physiological: hunger, thirst, bodily comforts, etc.;
2) Safety/security: out of danger;
3) Belonginess and Love: affiliate with others, be accepted;
4) Esteem: to achieve, be competent, gain approval and recognition;
5) Cognitive: to know, to understand, and explore;
6) Aesthetic: symmetry, order, and beauty;
7) Self-actualization: to find self-fulfillment and realize one's potential; and
8) Transcendence: to help others find self-fulfillment and realize their potential.
So, I'm wondering just what percent of the world's population has reached that "self-actualization" level and how many have actually gotten to "transcendence." I know that there are many many many, many, and still many, more still struggling to get the very first one taken care of. So what am I doing still sitting here blogging? I guess I haven't yet reached transcendence.
Comments
Take some time out (I did, so my taxes still aren't done) to get on Anita's site and tell her what you would do to make the world better if you were give a budget of a trillion U.S. dollars. (I guess she stole the question from Kuro5hin,but I didn't see it there so I'm glad I saw it here.)
Of course, I like my answer, which is:
After I publish my daughter's novels and make sure my son has enough money to live on the rest of his life so that he doesn't have to work, I'd pay off my debts. Then I would hire the best minds to figure out how to take over the world's economy so that we could make sure everyone has the resources to meet at least the first two of Maslow's hierarchy of needs and then had meaningful paid work and access to other resources that enable them to accomplish the rest -- and that includes high end computers with high speed internet access and free blogs for everyone. And if there was anything left over, certainly little red sports cars for everyone who wants one.
If you haven't commented on Anita's site, comment here.
What occurred to me as I was looking through the list of Maslow's needs was that bloggers probably have had the whole list met, and that's why they have they luxury of and resosurces to blog. People who can afford computers and internet access generally, probably have had at least 6 of the 8 needs met. If you didn't link to Maslow's list (above), here they are, in brief:
1) Physiological: hunger, thirst, bodily comforts, etc.;
2) Safety/security: out of danger;
3) Belonginess and Love: affiliate with others, be accepted;
4) Esteem: to achieve, be competent, gain approval and recognition;
5) Cognitive: to know, to understand, and explore;
6) Aesthetic: symmetry, order, and beauty;
7) Self-actualization: to find self-fulfillment and realize one's potential; and
8) Transcendence: to help others find self-fulfillment and realize their potential.
So, I'm wondering just what percent of the world's population has reached that "self-actualization" level and how many have actually gotten to "transcendence." I know that there are many many many, many, and still many, more still struggling to get the very first one taken care of. So what am I doing still sitting here blogging? I guess I haven't yet reached transcendence.
Comments
Death, Taxes, and Slogging Blogger
I've already blogged about death. Today it's taxes. It's always Slogging Blogger.
I hate doing taxes, especially because of the small craft business I have. (So I hire someone to do them for me, but I still have to get all the figures figured out.) I hate accounting and I hate math. I got through Geometry in high school just fine, but I never really got Trig. As a matter of fact, my Trig teacher told me that if I were going to take any more courses from her, she wasn't going to teach them. I managed to get out of taking any more math in college by taking science, which I liked a lot better. In an email conversation I had with Jeneane, she suggested that there are so few females joining in the complex and often technical blogging conversations for the same reason many females have math phobia. What are those reasons? Well, I have my own perspective on that!
Well, I always find ways to make it through the math. But there's nothing I can do about Slogging Blogger. I guess it's just becoming much too popular. There's gotta be a way for Ev to make some money on this! (I did my part -- got the Pro.)
Back to the taxes.
Comments
I've already blogged about death. Today it's taxes. It's always Slogging Blogger.
I hate doing taxes, especially because of the small craft business I have. (So I hire someone to do them for me, but I still have to get all the figures figured out.) I hate accounting and I hate math. I got through Geometry in high school just fine, but I never really got Trig. As a matter of fact, my Trig teacher told me that if I were going to take any more courses from her, she wasn't going to teach them. I managed to get out of taking any more math in college by taking science, which I liked a lot better. In an email conversation I had with Jeneane, she suggested that there are so few females joining in the complex and often technical blogging conversations for the same reason many females have math phobia. What are those reasons? Well, I have my own perspective on that!
Well, I always find ways to make it through the math. But there's nothing I can do about Slogging Blogger. I guess it's just becoming much too popular. There's gotta be a way for Ev to make some money on this! (I did my part -- got the Pro.)
Back to the taxes.
Comments
Sunday, February 24, 2002
To Dance or Not to Dance
Every Sunday evening there's a ballroom dance being held somewhere near me, and I used to go to all of them -- in addition to dancing somewhere else at least once during the week. I just got back from one of these Sunday dances, and I'm wondering if it's time to let that part of me go. It just doesn't seem to be fun any more; I'm not sure why, and I need to think that through more. How do you know when it's time to let go of a part of your life that has always been a part of your life. Dancing has always been my exercise, my social life, my hobby, my time to have fun. But it's not really fun any more and I don't know why. One of my favorite lines (because it's true) is "The reason I like ballroom dancing so much is because it's the one place in my life where I enjoy turning over the lead to a man." Maybe my apathy about dancing these days has something to do with the male-female dynamics that are such a basic component of dancing with a partner. I write a monthly column for a regional dance magazine about -- well about whatever I feel like writing about. The last two months my columns have been about "following" and "connection." Maybe I just don't feel any "connection" with any of the guys I dance with. Maybe it's that there are now quite a few younger women who are good dancers and who are getting the good dance partners. ( And I'm the one who used to be one of the better young female dancers! ) Maybe I am just (psychologically) feeling my age. Maybe my blog is not the place to muse about this. Maybe I'd better just go to bed. Damn.
Comments
Every Sunday evening there's a ballroom dance being held somewhere near me, and I used to go to all of them -- in addition to dancing somewhere else at least once during the week. I just got back from one of these Sunday dances, and I'm wondering if it's time to let that part of me go. It just doesn't seem to be fun any more; I'm not sure why, and I need to think that through more. How do you know when it's time to let go of a part of your life that has always been a part of your life. Dancing has always been my exercise, my social life, my hobby, my time to have fun. But it's not really fun any more and I don't know why. One of my favorite lines (because it's true) is "The reason I like ballroom dancing so much is because it's the one place in my life where I enjoy turning over the lead to a man." Maybe my apathy about dancing these days has something to do with the male-female dynamics that are such a basic component of dancing with a partner. I write a monthly column for a regional dance magazine about -- well about whatever I feel like writing about. The last two months my columns have been about "following" and "connection." Maybe I just don't feel any "connection" with any of the guys I dance with. Maybe it's that there are now quite a few younger women who are good dancers and who are getting the good dance partners. ( And I'm the one who used to be one of the better young female dancers! ) Maybe I am just (psychologically) feeling my age. Maybe my blog is not the place to muse about this. Maybe I'd better just go to bed. Damn.
Comments
Another Reason Why I Love My Kid So Much And Think He's So Cool
He is totally honest in what he feels and what he writes. I want to give him a big physical hug, only I can't because he's across the country from me. So I have to resort to this virtual one.
Comments
He is totally honest in what he feels and what he writes. I want to give him a big physical hug, only I can't because he's across the country from me. So I have to resort to this virtual one.
Comments
