Sentimental Cynics

I had an interesting experience this past weekend, one that caught me unawares. I had gotten up early on Friday, and as I was reading a journal for school, Journal of Adolescent Literacy -- great reading, Nate appeared around the corner. After having his idea of playstation shot down, he conceded to lying on me for a little while. So, he snuggled up on my chest, we pulled a blanket over us, and he fell right to sleep. I could feel the glow of paternal instincts as I wrapped my arms around him and smiled. "If I died right now, I would have lived the perfect life," I thought to myself, enveloping my heart in the moment. Suddenly, a grating voice from the back of my head shouted, "No you wouldn't have, you moron! Of course you wouldn't be thrilled to be dead. The kid would be scared, and you would have died a young man. I'm not sure you've ever thought of anything more stupid!"

Hello, inner-cynic. Although I'm not much of a cynic, it soon dawned on me why so many cynical people are miserable. They refuse to allow themselves to believe in the moment, to get lost, to surrender. Sometimes, it is truly blissful to just lose yourself; to believe your own lies, as the cynics might say, and just fall for your own traps. What would it have hurt to just revel in the belief that at the exact moment that life was perfect? It WAS! How would I be harmed if I did believe that I was a happy, content man and that if my life ended, what an appropriate place to end? Because, believe me, that was how I felt. Maybe I was being disingenious with myself, but who cares!

I'm reminded of a poem by Hafiz called "Tripping Over Joy". Here the poet really captures the joy in surrendering to that which the cynic can not. Hafiz was talking religion, but the idea is the same.

What is the difference
Between your experience of Existence
And that of a saint?

The saint knows
That the spiritual path Is a sublime chess game with God
And that the Beloved Has just made such a Fantastic Move
That the saint is now continually Tripping over Joy
And bursting out in Laughter And saying, "I Surrender!"

Whereas, my dear,
I am afraid you still think
You have a thousand serious moves.

NaNoWrMo

What do the following numbers have in common: 1, 30, 720, and 50,000? Give up? Well, these all have to do with my latest obsession. My next big event is coming in November, and, no, it isn't another marathon (IT Band took care of that one). No, my next "marathon" is the NaNoWrMo (aka the National Novel Writing Month event). That's right. One Novel -- one month -- 30 days -- 720 hours -- 50,000 words. It's a pretty cool idea, really. In one month you write an entire novel (no need to obssess over quality here), and the motivation is to get it done before midnight on the 30th. Sounds cool, doesn't it?

Actually, there is more to this than just a crazy idea. I've always wanted to write. I write short stories and have all of these stories and characters in my head. My problem has always been actually doing it. I guess that's why I never made a real go of it as an author, not enough balls. In my dream world, I get paid to write. People actually want to read what I write, and anxiously await to hear my thoughts on topics. In college I almost tried. I guess in this case, my blue-collar work ethic and my gotta-pay-the-bills logical brain said that getting a job teaching made a whole lot more sense than taking a shot in the dark as being a writer. I suppose that puts me in the same lot as most everyone else. Most of us are too chicken to really take a shot at our dreams, to take a risk to see what might happen. Maybe it's fear of failure. Maybe it's the fear of coming back with our tail between our legs that makes us stay at home and be safe. Whatever it is, I'm fighting back now. The marathon proved to me that I'm not too old to change, too old to try something new.

So, I'm going to give it a shot. I expect that what comes out of the event will be slightly less than shit, but that is not the point. The point here is to just do it. It doesn't matter anymore if I write the great American novel. It doesn't matter that critics aren't going to hail my arrival on the literary stage. It doesn't matter that people will ever actually read my stuff. No, what matters now is that a try to accomplish something that I've never done before. That's enough, I think.

Illiteracy in the USA

Two little factoids came across my lap this week. The first came from Scientific American in which they summarized a recent National Department of Education study. Up until 1993, we gauged our nation's illiteracy rate by simply asking census-takers whether they could read or write. Traditionally, this set our rate at 1%. In the early 1990's, the NDE decided to check a little deeper and actually ask some respondents to demonstrate their reading abilities. The result? 34% of the 27,000 could read at the basic level or lower. What's worse, when they did the study ten years later, the scores were dropping across the board (except for African-Americans). If we were still living in the mechanized society, this would not pose a problem; however, in an information society, where so much is demanded of citizens and employees, this is a huge problem.

The second bit of information came from this week's Time magazine. There, they reviewed another recent study on television watching. The average American household now spends 4.5 hours a day watching TV. 4.5 hours!!! That's longer than some people's work week (31.5 hours a week if you've watched so much TV that you've lost the function for multiplication). That's 19% of their week, nearly one-fifth of their week is being inactive receptors of mostly mindless entertainment.

I wonder, could there be a connection here? This is a personal bandwagon issue for me, but I have to say that TV could undermine this nation unlike anything in history. Could we possibly self-destruct as an empire simply because we don't know how to think or interact anymore? Could TV be our downfall, not communism or terrorism or any of your -ism's? I wonder. I will lead the revolution. Down with the television! Down the new axis of cable, satellite, and aerial! Down with the multi-national entertainment moguls who are trying to rule the world! Vive la revolucion! Vive the book!