I spent the weekend in a new city (for me), to help a friend celebrate her birthday. Some backstory is required. The birthday girl and I, to all appearances, suffer from something of an extreme difference in perspective. To the best of my knowledge, she has a great time getting drunk/high with friends and a few random strangers and finding out how well that worked from more coherent friends when the dust settles much later. I'm of a philosophy that thinks that I already have (as a base state of being) a dangerously minimal awareness of myself and my surroundings. For me, that's a core point of existence in the first place: to strive for a greater understanding of the universe through careful, appreciative experience. I know getting drunk and high are almost universally popular, but my occasional attempts at that sort of
indulgence were not impressive.
On the other hand, I also don't mind at all that mine is a minority opinion in such matters. I don't mind people indulging in whatever they want while I'm around, and am often amused at the results. I even have a surprising number of people who could vouch for the fact that I'm the guy who quietly cleans/covers up the occasional messes that that sort of thing will eventually create, all while keeping the secret of the problem having existed at all.
But, I have to admit that that fact hints at an inherent irony. I'm a cheerful admirer largely because I have no idea what the appeal is. I get a whimsical ironic rush from being with people whose behavior defies an empathetic response in my mind. I can't stress enough that that does not mean I'm being critical in such moments. I'm just laughing with everyone else as they have their fun in a sort of oblivious confusion.
However, there are times when I can laugh at more than that. This is where this past weekend comes in.
The birthday girl chose a bar at which to celebrate that was greeted with some skepticism from her friends. I kinda liked it. The music was quiet enough that I was able to shout out and comprehend conversations. (That is NOT usually a skill I can claim.) There was also seating available, and personal space in some areas. For me, those are perks. (Again, I admit to being an oddity here.) The music playing was somewhat amorphous. I'm told it was a hipster bar, but attempts to explain what a hipster is to me in the past failed, so don't take my word for it. The clientele looked self-conscious and homely, with few exceptions.
My group was hands down the most active group dancing. By a large margin (I didn't help). As a result of all this, it became more and more clear that the group was not really delighted with the place.
Here's where it becomes interesting. I was really enjoying it. It was a fun crowd of people to watch. The music was quiet enough that it didn't hurt. (I'm a loud volume wuss.) I was actually talking to people, since I could hear them. It was pretty fun. But it eventually started to become clear that I was in a minority for having fun. People in my group were being very critical of the place. That made me laugh even more. Everyone was getting trashed well enough. Everyone was talking well enough. Everyone was dancing well enough. And yet, apparently, the bar was failing.
Why? What goal wasn't being served?
I don't know.
And that's a big part of the reason why I make people nervous in bars.
Wednesday, January 31, 2007
Friday, January 26, 2007
Responsibility
There's a phrase going around lately that strikes me as unsavory. It seems likely to me that you've heard it. That phrase is "the war on the middle class."
I would like to take a moment to discuss why I find this term unsettling. But before I do, I should make a few points clear:
1) I am not an economist
2) While I am considered good with personal finance, I am not certified as special at it in any way.
3) I'm going to be mixing personal observation and opinions with other people's statistical data.
The war on the middle class is apparently a term being bandied about to accuse the wealthy of being generally unfriendly to those less wealthy. It stands in contrast to the widely-held belief that the United states is composed entirely of one enormous middle class, with no members poor or rich enough to be willing to admit that they fall either above or below what it describes. To say that there is a war on the middle class, to me, means that it is being argued that there is some form of governmental policy designed to change the 100% middle class ideal into a society in which there clearly exist both upper and lower class individuals, in addition to a still-large middle class. It strikes me as unlikely that anyone feels that the middle class is in any danger of becoming an outright minority, as it was in old fashioned monarchies, for example.
To give an example of a seemingly middle class-hostile policy, we could say that a flat tax would war with the middle class because it would result in a less wealthy person spending a greater portion of their income on their basic living expenses and taxes, while making that same portion of a budget go down for a wealthy individual. That shift would mean that the wealthy would have a larger portion of their remaining cash flows for investing and luxuries, while the poorer would have to try to force through with a much lower possible savings rate.
My basic model is pretty simplistic, and is being put out only for adding a simplistic clarity. To rephrase, I am proposing that everyone uses their money for four basic things:
1) Necessities (N)
2) Taxes (T)
3) Luxuries (L)
4) Savings (S)
A basic assumption in the war on the middle class seems to assume that in a stable version of our society, there is a perfect ratio of these four variables that more or less everyone should use, and that the exact dollar amounts for each individual get scaled according to his or her actual income. That is, it appears to me that people like to think that everyone should be spending about 30% of their money on necessities and saving about 10% (use whatever numbers you think "feel" right here). However, very few people (who we'd call communists) argue that everyone should make the same amount of money and thus spend roughly $10,000 on necessities while saving roughly $3,500 per year. Americans as a group do not dislike the fact that some people will make more money than others.
But despite most people thinking that there is a good, universal savings or necessity rate, people rarely worry about the fact that the wealthier currently pay a higher percentage of their money in taxes. In thinking that way, some things tend to get lumped to make the opinions feel correct. Making the combined ratio of (Necessities + Taxes) go down for the wealthier while it goes up for the poorer is an idea that most people are quick to agree is not a fair trend. It looks wrong, because the wealthier tend to have conspicuous dollar amounts of (Luxuries + Savings), which is where that extra money would go if their taxes dropped. By contrast, the poorer have fewer, if any, conspicuous (Luxuries + Savings) meaning that they appear to be seriously missing out, even if no one would think it wise to erase this impression by advocating that poorer people spend, say, 70% of their incomes on luxuries to make things look even.
Again, the above paragraph should be taken as simply my summary of what I – in my own mind – appear to be seeing. I'll add in that I agree with the idea that people in general should (regardless of their incomes) be living life with a roughly similar ratio of Necessity, Tax, Luxury, and Savings income usage rates. I'll also add that it does seem to be awfully hard for the poorer to match the savings RATE of the wealthier (keep their Savings ratio up), seemingly because of how when the dollar value seems so much smaller, it is so much more tempting not think before spending. That is, it's much easier to spend $100 on a whim than $1000, simply because of how many more temptations there are that cost $100 or less.
If that were the extent of it, I would say that people are fallible, and I would have a great deal of sympathy for poorer people. In so doing, I would still tend to dismiss the idea of a "war on the middle class" as propaganda, for the simple reason that no one seems to be advocating giving the rich a greater ratio of their incomes to spend on non-Taxes than everyone else (aside from the people who want to eliminate the income tax – a group that no one currently expects to accomplish anything). To do so, you would literally have to argue that when a person increases their income by a certain amount, their tax rate should go DOWN. No one in the government has proposed this, that I am aware of. It's the sort of idea that would cause riots.
That said, the war on the middle class must be referring to something else. A luxury-based society (I will take the stance that we live in one without bothering to prove it) tends to make luxuries so easy to obtain that only endless personal vigilance will prop up the poor to keep up with the savings ratio (not dollar rate) of the more cash-flexible rich. But I'd still have argue that they have a responsibility to do so, and point out that a personal habit of not carrying lots of ready cash would be an easy way to avoid temptation. Since the government cannot mandate irresponsibility in its citizens, and since the government is not actually trying to (en masse) tax the poorer at a higher rate than the wealthier – either in terms of percent of earned income or in terms of actual dollar amounts – I conclude that there is no governmental plan to wage war on the middle class.
But here's where my argument gets darker.
With my last full paragraph, I concluded that the government has not been waging a war against the middle class. I did NOT conclude that society itself isn't doing so itself. Personally, I feel that it is, and that it's doing so in the one way that I can almost claim to endorse.
The detail that makes me say this is the way that money is moving in time. The concept of charging interest for loaned money is not new. However, making the charging of interest a foundation of every financial transaction for certain groups of people and not others is very new. I am referring to credit cards.
Previously, it would have been extremely difficult to route every financial transaction through a creditor. Now, it's an extremely easy thing to do. In fact, it can have benefits. Not only can credit cards be used to gain leverage over possibly questionable vendors, they can also track purchases, and in some cases directly reward loyalty with cash or rewards returned. However, they also charge interest... sometimes.
The segregation of the two groups is shockingly simple, and astonishingly voluntary. If one chooses to pay for all the things bought during the term of a credit card statement, he or she breaks even. Developing a track record of doing so reliably can develop into opportunities to actually make a net financial gain on all purchases. If one chooses to pay for only some fraction of what was purchased – even if it's a very high fraction – one pays interest on everything.
It's very simple. A person's behavior decides if he or she receives a reward or is punished. One's actions are the only factor deciding which occurs. It's extremely equal opportunity. One can even opt out of the system entirely, since credit cards are SECOND to cash in universality. But the system is unarguably in place. People who handle their money in one way are rewarded over and over again. People who handle their money another are punished exactly as often. The strategy required to switch from one group to the other is just as simple and accessible as the original choice.
Despite this, only a small minority of the participants in the credit card system chooses the "reward" option. People sign up in droves for credit cards, and on some level, they are aware that they are losing money for the privilege of free money in the present. It's a perfectly visible tax on excessive consumption. I'll call it a "sociologically-even luxury tax." If one wants to consume more than he or she was willing or able to produce in the present, he or she will have to eventually sacrifice more money total in order to do so. Personal income is not a factor. The cost punishment can be stopped at any time by simply choosing to balance one's life to produce more than was consumed. Punishment is proportional to the level of excess, while rewards are usually capped. (That is, unused rewards do not compound to generate even more rewards.) That said, there is even more incentive to be on the reward side, since the punishment side is a two-tiered effect.
There is a reason I am focusing on credit cards. They are completely optional items, and they are a novelty in – not a keystone of – the economy. They are tools people can use to punish themselves in the future for pleasures in the present. This is not a secret.
The long-term results, despite this, are amazing. Let's assume that we have two "average" families, both earning $35,000 a year. The first family is also "average" in that it has about $8000 in credit card debt. The second family has no credit card debt, and gets 1% cash back on all their credit card purchases. To get to that point, there was some period in which the first family got an extra $8000 in stuff while the second family was stressing out paying their bills in full on time, every time. Yet since things have stabilized, and for each year after, the first family could owe as much as $2400 to maintain the same level of debt – all without acquiring any more bonus stuff. If the second family manages to make half their purchases through their rewards card, they get a bonus of $175 cash back per year.
You can't call this $2400 charge for the first family a tax, because the government was not involved. However, the first family – the one that is average in both income and consumer debt pays $2400 per year to get nothing new. That's awfully similar to a ($2400/$35000 = ) 6.9% income tax rate increase. The second family is getting something awfully similar to a ($175/$35000 = ) 0.5% income tax rebate.
There are certainly emergencies and crises that can push planned and measured people into credit card debt. But those same people can and do recover from it. Most don't, just as most did not acquire the debt for an emergency. What we see, overwhelmingly, is really nothing more than people's long-term, repeated, and sustained choices to be punished instead of rewarded. The choice was not forced, because the credit card system is optional.
This trend is widening. People being punished with these "sociologically-even luxury taxes" tend to be more and more punished as their situation continues. People being rewarded tend to use those rewards to make other wise choices and to save more money, but those are rare individuals. Americans as a group are spending more than they earn, and no one is forcing them to do so. I would argue that this is what is separating out more visible poorer and wealthier groups, not any unofficial government mindset.
That said, allow me to put forward a very cold idea. People should be aware of how their behavior affects their lives both in the short and long terms. You would never guess that anyone in their right minds would actively pursue choices that lead them to something equivalent to a 7% (or higher) income tax hike. And yet, according to data typical of average Americans, it appears that many, many people have done exactly that, or worse. The inability of most Americans to take good, even-handed looks at facts like these will inevitably separate out poorer and wealthier people. It's not an effect that requires blame. It's empowering that wise choices have strikingly better results than hedonistic ones, and it builds our society up to have it structured that way. The onus is on the individual to do his or her part in our society and to reap the rewards of having done so.
I would like to take a moment to discuss why I find this term unsettling. But before I do, I should make a few points clear:
1) I am not an economist
2) While I am considered good with personal finance, I am not certified as special at it in any way.
3) I'm going to be mixing personal observation and opinions with other people's statistical data.
The war on the middle class is apparently a term being bandied about to accuse the wealthy of being generally unfriendly to those less wealthy. It stands in contrast to the widely-held belief that the United states is composed entirely of one enormous middle class, with no members poor or rich enough to be willing to admit that they fall either above or below what it describes. To say that there is a war on the middle class, to me, means that it is being argued that there is some form of governmental policy designed to change the 100% middle class ideal into a society in which there clearly exist both upper and lower class individuals, in addition to a still-large middle class. It strikes me as unlikely that anyone feels that the middle class is in any danger of becoming an outright minority, as it was in old fashioned monarchies, for example.
To give an example of a seemingly middle class-hostile policy, we could say that a flat tax would war with the middle class because it would result in a less wealthy person spending a greater portion of their income on their basic living expenses and taxes, while making that same portion of a budget go down for a wealthy individual. That shift would mean that the wealthy would have a larger portion of their remaining cash flows for investing and luxuries, while the poorer would have to try to force through with a much lower possible savings rate.
My basic model is pretty simplistic, and is being put out only for adding a simplistic clarity. To rephrase, I am proposing that everyone uses their money for four basic things:
1) Necessities (N)
2) Taxes (T)
3) Luxuries (L)
4) Savings (S)
A basic assumption in the war on the middle class seems to assume that in a stable version of our society, there is a perfect ratio of these four variables that more or less everyone should use, and that the exact dollar amounts for each individual get scaled according to his or her actual income. That is, it appears to me that people like to think that everyone should be spending about 30% of their money on necessities and saving about 10% (use whatever numbers you think "feel" right here). However, very few people (who we'd call communists) argue that everyone should make the same amount of money and thus spend roughly $10,000 on necessities while saving roughly $3,500 per year. Americans as a group do not dislike the fact that some people will make more money than others.
But despite most people thinking that there is a good, universal savings or necessity rate, people rarely worry about the fact that the wealthier currently pay a higher percentage of their money in taxes. In thinking that way, some things tend to get lumped to make the opinions feel correct. Making the combined ratio of (Necessities + Taxes) go down for the wealthier while it goes up for the poorer is an idea that most people are quick to agree is not a fair trend. It looks wrong, because the wealthier tend to have conspicuous dollar amounts of (Luxuries + Savings), which is where that extra money would go if their taxes dropped. By contrast, the poorer have fewer, if any, conspicuous (Luxuries + Savings) meaning that they appear to be seriously missing out, even if no one would think it wise to erase this impression by advocating that poorer people spend, say, 70% of their incomes on luxuries to make things look even.
Again, the above paragraph should be taken as simply my summary of what I – in my own mind – appear to be seeing. I'll add in that I agree with the idea that people in general should (regardless of their incomes) be living life with a roughly similar ratio of Necessity, Tax, Luxury, and Savings income usage rates. I'll also add that it does seem to be awfully hard for the poorer to match the savings RATE of the wealthier (keep their Savings ratio up), seemingly because of how when the dollar value seems so much smaller, it is so much more tempting not think before spending. That is, it's much easier to spend $100 on a whim than $1000, simply because of how many more temptations there are that cost $100 or less.
If that were the extent of it, I would say that people are fallible, and I would have a great deal of sympathy for poorer people. In so doing, I would still tend to dismiss the idea of a "war on the middle class" as propaganda, for the simple reason that no one seems to be advocating giving the rich a greater ratio of their incomes to spend on non-Taxes than everyone else (aside from the people who want to eliminate the income tax – a group that no one currently expects to accomplish anything). To do so, you would literally have to argue that when a person increases their income by a certain amount, their tax rate should go DOWN. No one in the government has proposed this, that I am aware of. It's the sort of idea that would cause riots.
That said, the war on the middle class must be referring to something else. A luxury-based society (I will take the stance that we live in one without bothering to prove it) tends to make luxuries so easy to obtain that only endless personal vigilance will prop up the poor to keep up with the savings ratio (not dollar rate) of the more cash-flexible rich. But I'd still have argue that they have a responsibility to do so, and point out that a personal habit of not carrying lots of ready cash would be an easy way to avoid temptation. Since the government cannot mandate irresponsibility in its citizens, and since the government is not actually trying to (en masse) tax the poorer at a higher rate than the wealthier – either in terms of percent of earned income or in terms of actual dollar amounts – I conclude that there is no governmental plan to wage war on the middle class.
But here's where my argument gets darker.
With my last full paragraph, I concluded that the government has not been waging a war against the middle class. I did NOT conclude that society itself isn't doing so itself. Personally, I feel that it is, and that it's doing so in the one way that I can almost claim to endorse.
The detail that makes me say this is the way that money is moving in time. The concept of charging interest for loaned money is not new. However, making the charging of interest a foundation of every financial transaction for certain groups of people and not others is very new. I am referring to credit cards.
Previously, it would have been extremely difficult to route every financial transaction through a creditor. Now, it's an extremely easy thing to do. In fact, it can have benefits. Not only can credit cards be used to gain leverage over possibly questionable vendors, they can also track purchases, and in some cases directly reward loyalty with cash or rewards returned. However, they also charge interest... sometimes.
The segregation of the two groups is shockingly simple, and astonishingly voluntary. If one chooses to pay for all the things bought during the term of a credit card statement, he or she breaks even. Developing a track record of doing so reliably can develop into opportunities to actually make a net financial gain on all purchases. If one chooses to pay for only some fraction of what was purchased – even if it's a very high fraction – one pays interest on everything.
It's very simple. A person's behavior decides if he or she receives a reward or is punished. One's actions are the only factor deciding which occurs. It's extremely equal opportunity. One can even opt out of the system entirely, since credit cards are SECOND to cash in universality. But the system is unarguably in place. People who handle their money in one way are rewarded over and over again. People who handle their money another are punished exactly as often. The strategy required to switch from one group to the other is just as simple and accessible as the original choice.
Despite this, only a small minority of the participants in the credit card system chooses the "reward" option. People sign up in droves for credit cards, and on some level, they are aware that they are losing money for the privilege of free money in the present. It's a perfectly visible tax on excessive consumption. I'll call it a "sociologically-even luxury tax." If one wants to consume more than he or she was willing or able to produce in the present, he or she will have to eventually sacrifice more money total in order to do so. Personal income is not a factor. The cost punishment can be stopped at any time by simply choosing to balance one's life to produce more than was consumed. Punishment is proportional to the level of excess, while rewards are usually capped. (That is, unused rewards do not compound to generate even more rewards.) That said, there is even more incentive to be on the reward side, since the punishment side is a two-tiered effect.
There is a reason I am focusing on credit cards. They are completely optional items, and they are a novelty in – not a keystone of – the economy. They are tools people can use to punish themselves in the future for pleasures in the present. This is not a secret.
The long-term results, despite this, are amazing. Let's assume that we have two "average" families, both earning $35,000 a year. The first family is also "average" in that it has about $8000 in credit card debt. The second family has no credit card debt, and gets 1% cash back on all their credit card purchases. To get to that point, there was some period in which the first family got an extra $8000 in stuff while the second family was stressing out paying their bills in full on time, every time. Yet since things have stabilized, and for each year after, the first family could owe as much as $2400 to maintain the same level of debt – all without acquiring any more bonus stuff. If the second family manages to make half their purchases through their rewards card, they get a bonus of $175 cash back per year.
You can't call this $2400 charge for the first family a tax, because the government was not involved. However, the first family – the one that is average in both income and consumer debt pays $2400 per year to get nothing new. That's awfully similar to a ($2400/$35000 = ) 6.9% income tax rate increase. The second family is getting something awfully similar to a ($175/$35000 = ) 0.5% income tax rebate.
There are certainly emergencies and crises that can push planned and measured people into credit card debt. But those same people can and do recover from it. Most don't, just as most did not acquire the debt for an emergency. What we see, overwhelmingly, is really nothing more than people's long-term, repeated, and sustained choices to be punished instead of rewarded. The choice was not forced, because the credit card system is optional.
This trend is widening. People being punished with these "sociologically-even luxury taxes" tend to be more and more punished as their situation continues. People being rewarded tend to use those rewards to make other wise choices and to save more money, but those are rare individuals. Americans as a group are spending more than they earn, and no one is forcing them to do so. I would argue that this is what is separating out more visible poorer and wealthier groups, not any unofficial government mindset.
That said, allow me to put forward a very cold idea. People should be aware of how their behavior affects their lives both in the short and long terms. You would never guess that anyone in their right minds would actively pursue choices that lead them to something equivalent to a 7% (or higher) income tax hike. And yet, according to data typical of average Americans, it appears that many, many people have done exactly that, or worse. The inability of most Americans to take good, even-handed looks at facts like these will inevitably separate out poorer and wealthier people. It's not an effect that requires blame. It's empowering that wise choices have strikingly better results than hedonistic ones, and it builds our society up to have it structured that way. The onus is on the individual to do his or her part in our society and to reap the rewards of having done so.
Monday, January 22, 2007
Being Critical / Laughing
When talking to people, I often encounter a disturbing trend. Especially with people I don't know very well, people are fast to assume that me laughing at anything other than a knock-knock joke is secretly me being critical either of some aspect of them, their personality, or their personal situation.
I find this odd. I am aware that people can use ironic laughter as a weapon, but is it really so common a trend? Or, more darkly, do I simply strike people as a guy who looks like he'd be doing so all the time? Do I somehow give off vibes of being resistant to mirth? Actually, it's worse than that. It seems that people assume that when that I'm laughing I have not only judged them negatively, but have also chosen to share that verdict with them.
I don't do that. I will admit I can probably be placed in the ranks of "people critical of others." But I seem to be playing by a different set of rules there than most. I have a strong filter that tends to weed people out on just one criteria – being uninteresting. I have a very simple way of dealing with people I have no desire to speak to. I simply abandon situations where I would be forced to do so. To be honest, it's not even much of a conscious thing. The act of me doing so is completely identical to how I interact with most salespeople or other professionals. My sense of politeness inspires me to greet them respectfully, state or conduct any business that we may have, and end the encounter just as evenly. That's it. I don't burst into tears of laughing joy if I encounter someone doing something I consider silly or incorrect. In fact, I have been known to take great interest in situations where it becomes clear that I am operating under a different situational philosophy than someone else. I'll readily laugh at contrasts or ironies, but if I actually hit a point where I am forced to be critical, I usually fall quiet and try to change the subject subtly. But even that I do rarely.
I will admit, there have been exceptions to this rule, but they are severe. One that jumps quickly to mind happened in Chicago, during a recent holiday vacation. It was about 10:00 PM, and I was walking alone down a residential street. A group of young drunks were laughing and stumbling along on the other side, in the opposite direction. There were about three guys and four girls. We were the only people around in the dimly lit area. I didn't pay them much attention, until I noticed that one of them was pulling things off buildings, kicking things, and had eventually stopped and pulled a full size "Dumpster" out of an alley opening, and was pushed it in the general direction of the street. I judged.
So I handled it in my general, forcefully critical way. I stopped walking, crossed my arms, and stared at the guy pushing. He saw me quickly, because he was aiming the thing at the street across which I was standing. I continued to stare with a completely neutral look on my face. He stopped, looked at me, and paused. I wanted him to feel the weight of eyes on him. Not those of his friends, but those of the world and its values. He missed a beat, then straightened up, letting the "Dumpster" settle. He started yelling impolite phrases that he felt would explain why I was staring at him. I didn't say a word, and continued to do nothing but stare, unblinking. The shouting continued. The girls, who had previously been ignoring the destruction, started to look extremely uncomfortable. Even his male friends (who had been laughing a few seconds prior) started to took just a bit nervous. I continued to stare. He continued to shout.
Roughly 45 seconds after the shouting had started, one of his friends pulled him in the general direction they had been moving. I watched them leave, focusing at the guy who continued to shout at me as they kept going. The "Dumpster" had settled into a low point in the mouth of an alley only because the guy pushing it had noticed me before he got it into the main road, near several parked cars. It looked like the thing would be an inconvenience where it was, but it seemed likely that a car could carefully get past it. I looked again at the departing group as they moved on; the guy had stopped breaking things. After they had moved a reasonable distance down the road, I smiled faintly to myself and continued along my way.
That moment can serve to nearly perfectly define how I behave when I am being critical.
Why would I want or need to use an expression of joy as a weapon?
I find this odd. I am aware that people can use ironic laughter as a weapon, but is it really so common a trend? Or, more darkly, do I simply strike people as a guy who looks like he'd be doing so all the time? Do I somehow give off vibes of being resistant to mirth? Actually, it's worse than that. It seems that people assume that when that I'm laughing I have not only judged them negatively, but have also chosen to share that verdict with them.
I don't do that. I will admit I can probably be placed in the ranks of "people critical of others." But I seem to be playing by a different set of rules there than most. I have a strong filter that tends to weed people out on just one criteria – being uninteresting. I have a very simple way of dealing with people I have no desire to speak to. I simply abandon situations where I would be forced to do so. To be honest, it's not even much of a conscious thing. The act of me doing so is completely identical to how I interact with most salespeople or other professionals. My sense of politeness inspires me to greet them respectfully, state or conduct any business that we may have, and end the encounter just as evenly. That's it. I don't burst into tears of laughing joy if I encounter someone doing something I consider silly or incorrect. In fact, I have been known to take great interest in situations where it becomes clear that I am operating under a different situational philosophy than someone else. I'll readily laugh at contrasts or ironies, but if I actually hit a point where I am forced to be critical, I usually fall quiet and try to change the subject subtly. But even that I do rarely.
I will admit, there have been exceptions to this rule, but they are severe. One that jumps quickly to mind happened in Chicago, during a recent holiday vacation. It was about 10:00 PM, and I was walking alone down a residential street. A group of young drunks were laughing and stumbling along on the other side, in the opposite direction. There were about three guys and four girls. We were the only people around in the dimly lit area. I didn't pay them much attention, until I noticed that one of them was pulling things off buildings, kicking things, and had eventually stopped and pulled a full size "Dumpster" out of an alley opening, and was pushed it in the general direction of the street. I judged.
So I handled it in my general, forcefully critical way. I stopped walking, crossed my arms, and stared at the guy pushing. He saw me quickly, because he was aiming the thing at the street across which I was standing. I continued to stare with a completely neutral look on my face. He stopped, looked at me, and paused. I wanted him to feel the weight of eyes on him. Not those of his friends, but those of the world and its values. He missed a beat, then straightened up, letting the "Dumpster" settle. He started yelling impolite phrases that he felt would explain why I was staring at him. I didn't say a word, and continued to do nothing but stare, unblinking. The shouting continued. The girls, who had previously been ignoring the destruction, started to look extremely uncomfortable. Even his male friends (who had been laughing a few seconds prior) started to took just a bit nervous. I continued to stare. He continued to shout.
Roughly 45 seconds after the shouting had started, one of his friends pulled him in the general direction they had been moving. I watched them leave, focusing at the guy who continued to shout at me as they kept going. The "Dumpster" had settled into a low point in the mouth of an alley only because the guy pushing it had noticed me before he got it into the main road, near several parked cars. It looked like the thing would be an inconvenience where it was, but it seemed likely that a car could carefully get past it. I looked again at the departing group as they moved on; the guy had stopped breaking things. After they had moved a reasonable distance down the road, I smiled faintly to myself and continued along my way.
That moment can serve to nearly perfectly define how I behave when I am being critical.
Why would I want or need to use an expression of joy as a weapon?
Saturday, January 20, 2007
People & Happiness
[Originally Posted 1/20/07]
My personal opinion (never a good start) is that people as a species are born unaware of how to enjoy life. Only via rare miracles – sometimes involving religion (the birth of one, not the adoption of an existing one), sometimes involving philosophy, sometimes involving drugs – are people able to maintain this state as their personal norm.
Rather than attempt to logically back that argument, I'll tell a suspicious story.
The small city where I live is home to a growing number of Asian immigrants. Many of them are first generation, and they have tastes for things they are used to from back in their former homes. That means my town has formed up a specialty grocery store that caters to these special tastes. I love that grocery store.
One time when I was shopping there, I came upon a product labeled as "Corn Candy." This was a new concept for me. I have heard of candy corn, but that was clearly not the product being offered. In the clear bag, small translucent yellow candies sparkled at me through their thin sugar coatings. They looked like "Sour Patch Kid" versions of the baby corn stalks that make their way into some Chinese food dishes. Out of sheer curiosity, I knew I must have them. So I bought the smallest size bag they had (a trifling 1.0 kilograms) for the extreme, luxury goods price of $1.50.
Shuddering at the crippling expense, I carried the tiny bushel home with me. I opened it on my kitchen counter and tried one. It was ok. It tasted like a weak version of the "buttered popcorn" Jelly Belly jelly beans. I had another. It was also ok. I had about 10 that afternoon, then felt that I had enjoyed enough sugared pleasure from the bag of roughly 400 pieces. My aversion to senseless waste prevented me from attempting to stuff the bag of candy into my trash can. Instead, I wedged it into my backpack and took it to work the next day.
At work, I emptied the bag into a large bowl in the break room, pulled out a marker, and labeled a "C-Fold" paper towel to read, "Corn Candy! Enjoy!" and walked away.
One day later, I was again at work when one of the chemists approached me with a big grin on his face. He told me that the corn candy I had left in the break room had been a source of universal displeasure at lunch the previous day. People expressed loud, violent opinions that a highly sweetened corn flavor should not be turned into a gummy candy and provided as a treat. (Ok, that's not exactly what they were reported to have said.) The large bowl of such candies was the source of a public outcry. Many people had sampled a piece for the sole reason of wanting to become aware of the extreme degree to which their sense of taste was in jeopardy.
As the Chemist and I talked, I was on my way to the lunchroom with my empty mug. As I poured hot water into it for my morning fix (weak green tea), I glanced up at what I assumed would be a still-toweringly-full, precariously-heaped bowl of corn candy. But it was not in danger of falling all over the place. In fact, it was half empty. The chemist gave me a funny look and said, "That's odd." Within another 6 hours the bowl was empty.
No one ever spoke of the corn candy again.
I asked around about it over the next few days. Only two shifts (about 20 people) had been in over the course of this story. We'll estimate that there were 400 candies at the start. Everyone I spoke to told me that they had tried exactly one candy, thought it was an abomination just like everybody else, and then noticed that the bowl was mysteriously steadily emptying. No one would admit to being the person who put the bowl away afterwards and threw away the note, effectively removing all trace of the corn candies from history.
To this day, I regret having made half my department unhappy by strewing the lunchroom counter (the bowl on it) with free candy. I am truly thankful that only half of my coworkers were ever exposed to the offending gustatory nightmare due to its merciful disappearance.
What I can be pleased about, to refer back to the original topic, is the fact that I know I made several people happy, just for a little while.
I take great comfort in knowing that the half of the crew that was not forced to sample the horrible candies will be forever delighted that fate spared them that trial. It is not possible to spread that joy onto the injured crews. I am still searching for a way to make the first crews happy again, as a way of atonement. So far, I've got nothing.
That makes me confident that it is very rare indeed to find a person who knows how to be happy.
My personal opinion (never a good start) is that people as a species are born unaware of how to enjoy life. Only via rare miracles – sometimes involving religion (the birth of one, not the adoption of an existing one), sometimes involving philosophy, sometimes involving drugs – are people able to maintain this state as their personal norm.
Rather than attempt to logically back that argument, I'll tell a suspicious story.
The small city where I live is home to a growing number of Asian immigrants. Many of them are first generation, and they have tastes for things they are used to from back in their former homes. That means my town has formed up a specialty grocery store that caters to these special tastes. I love that grocery store.
One time when I was shopping there, I came upon a product labeled as "Corn Candy." This was a new concept for me. I have heard of candy corn, but that was clearly not the product being offered. In the clear bag, small translucent yellow candies sparkled at me through their thin sugar coatings. They looked like "Sour Patch Kid" versions of the baby corn stalks that make their way into some Chinese food dishes. Out of sheer curiosity, I knew I must have them. So I bought the smallest size bag they had (a trifling 1.0 kilograms) for the extreme, luxury goods price of $1.50.
Shuddering at the crippling expense, I carried the tiny bushel home with me. I opened it on my kitchen counter and tried one. It was ok. It tasted like a weak version of the "buttered popcorn" Jelly Belly jelly beans. I had another. It was also ok. I had about 10 that afternoon, then felt that I had enjoyed enough sugared pleasure from the bag of roughly 400 pieces. My aversion to senseless waste prevented me from attempting to stuff the bag of candy into my trash can. Instead, I wedged it into my backpack and took it to work the next day.
At work, I emptied the bag into a large bowl in the break room, pulled out a marker, and labeled a "C-Fold" paper towel to read, "Corn Candy! Enjoy!" and walked away.
One day later, I was again at work when one of the chemists approached me with a big grin on his face. He told me that the corn candy I had left in the break room had been a source of universal displeasure at lunch the previous day. People expressed loud, violent opinions that a highly sweetened corn flavor should not be turned into a gummy candy and provided as a treat. (Ok, that's not exactly what they were reported to have said.) The large bowl of such candies was the source of a public outcry. Many people had sampled a piece for the sole reason of wanting to become aware of the extreme degree to which their sense of taste was in jeopardy.
As the Chemist and I talked, I was on my way to the lunchroom with my empty mug. As I poured hot water into it for my morning fix (weak green tea), I glanced up at what I assumed would be a still-toweringly-full, precariously-heaped bowl of corn candy. But it was not in danger of falling all over the place. In fact, it was half empty. The chemist gave me a funny look and said, "That's odd." Within another 6 hours the bowl was empty.
No one ever spoke of the corn candy again.
I asked around about it over the next few days. Only two shifts (about 20 people) had been in over the course of this story. We'll estimate that there were 400 candies at the start. Everyone I spoke to told me that they had tried exactly one candy, thought it was an abomination just like everybody else, and then noticed that the bowl was mysteriously steadily emptying. No one would admit to being the person who put the bowl away afterwards and threw away the note, effectively removing all trace of the corn candies from history.
To this day, I regret having made half my department unhappy by strewing the lunchroom counter (the bowl on it) with free candy. I am truly thankful that only half of my coworkers were ever exposed to the offending gustatory nightmare due to its merciful disappearance.
What I can be pleased about, to refer back to the original topic, is the fact that I know I made several people happy, just for a little while.
I take great comfort in knowing that the half of the crew that was not forced to sample the horrible candies will be forever delighted that fate spared them that trial. It is not possible to spread that joy onto the injured crews. I am still searching for a way to make the first crews happy again, as a way of atonement. So far, I've got nothing.
That makes me confident that it is very rare indeed to find a person who knows how to be happy.
Wednesday, January 17, 2007
Hobbies
BRENTWOOD, CA – Beautician and self-described "best collector ever" Betty Blakeslee has the world's largest random collection. "I started out collecting things that had something in common. You know, Beanie Babies, porcelain unicorns, that sort of thing. But I realized it was limiting me. My eureka-moment came when I realized I didn't need to be bound by the old rules. I could collect any objects whatsoever and put them all together." Blakeslee's collection boasts a bottle cap, a steering wheel from a Ford Pinto, and 900 bags of household trash."
I lifted the above quote from something Scott Adams put out in a newsletter a few years ago. For the context of discussion, let's assume I have no idea if it's true or false.
I think what most amuses me is that even though I think this is funny, I kinda buy Betty's logic. I know many, many people who have other hobbies of which they are just as proud. Often, these hobbies are much more expensive, similarly restrict one's ability to have an uncluttered home that people might want to visit, and are higher maintenance.
I think what's really scary here is that if I were to be asked, "Which would you rather have: a complete tour of Miss Betty's household trash collection, or a similar tour of (fictional) Miss Chesterford's 'Hummel Figurines From Throughout the Ages' gallery?" I would honestly need much more information to answer the question.
I lifted the above quote from something Scott Adams put out in a newsletter a few years ago. For the context of discussion, let's assume I have no idea if it's true or false.
I think what most amuses me is that even though I think this is funny, I kinda buy Betty's logic. I know many, many people who have other hobbies of which they are just as proud. Often, these hobbies are much more expensive, similarly restrict one's ability to have an uncluttered home that people might want to visit, and are higher maintenance.
I think what's really scary here is that if I were to be asked, "Which would you rather have: a complete tour of Miss Betty's household trash collection, or a similar tour of (fictional) Miss Chesterford's 'Hummel Figurines From Throughout the Ages' gallery?" I would honestly need much more information to answer the question.
Christmas Tree Lighting
The scheduler for the maintenance department called me up today and asked if I had info on the amperage draw and current wire sizing on our scrubber pumps before and after I arranged for the pumps to be upgraded. That is to say, currently, where pumps used to be, there is nothing. When I finish the project, there will be new pumps.
My answer was that I did not personally have the quote with the new power draw listed, and that I was not the easiest person to ask what the wire rating was, though I could find out if he wanted.
He said that wasn't necessary, since I had told him everything he needed to know to get the info faster. I then asked him why he was looking for that info. He replied that it was pretty likely that the existing wire had been originally spec-ed out as a minimum, and that we may need to pull better wire through to properly run the new pumps.
I replied that there would be no need to do that, as I had another project I was trying to wrap up that we could roll together. "I have a string of 250 Christmas tree lights form a few years back that I can't get replacement bulbs for anymore. It'd be a shame to throw out the whole strand just because of that. Let's just plug an extension cord in the hallway, run the string of lights into the [process] bay, pull out the very last bulb, and connect it to the new pump from the two connecters exposed in the socket."
Much laughter ensued.*
*For those confused, here is a partial list of things wrong with that idea:
1) The process bay is rated as an explosion proof area. You can't walk in there with a cell phone, let alone a string of Christmas tree lights.
2) The resulting passage of electricity through the wire, at best, would blow out the fuse and several bulbs immediately. At worst, neither of those things would be enough to stop the current which would melt and eventually cause the wire to catch fire.
3) Small tripping hazard.
4) Connecting the lower voltage leads, in parallel, to a higher voltage circuit… Well, it would do bad things to both sources of power, hopefully involving only fuses.
5) Conspicuously pretty, for a quarter of a second.
My answer was that I did not personally have the quote with the new power draw listed, and that I was not the easiest person to ask what the wire rating was, though I could find out if he wanted.
He said that wasn't necessary, since I had told him everything he needed to know to get the info faster. I then asked him why he was looking for that info. He replied that it was pretty likely that the existing wire had been originally spec-ed out as a minimum, and that we may need to pull better wire through to properly run the new pumps.
I replied that there would be no need to do that, as I had another project I was trying to wrap up that we could roll together. "I have a string of 250 Christmas tree lights form a few years back that I can't get replacement bulbs for anymore. It'd be a shame to throw out the whole strand just because of that. Let's just plug an extension cord in the hallway, run the string of lights into the [process] bay, pull out the very last bulb, and connect it to the new pump from the two connecters exposed in the socket."
Much laughter ensued.*
*For those confused, here is a partial list of things wrong with that idea:
1) The process bay is rated as an explosion proof area. You can't walk in there with a cell phone, let alone a string of Christmas tree lights.
2) The resulting passage of electricity through the wire, at best, would blow out the fuse and several bulbs immediately. At worst, neither of those things would be enough to stop the current which would melt and eventually cause the wire to catch fire.
3) Small tripping hazard.
4) Connecting the lower voltage leads, in parallel, to a higher voltage circuit… Well, it would do bad things to both sources of power, hopefully involving only fuses.
5) Conspicuously pretty, for a quarter of a second.
Monday, January 1, 2007
Original Announcement
So the theory is this. For all we know, you may be reading the start of what normal people these days are calling a blog. And yes, I suppose technically I will be the one writing it. That might incline some people to argue that I have – in typing this – started writing a blog.
I can see merit in this argument, but it still seems silly and misguided. On some important level, I seem to value an unshakeable premise that in writing a blog, one has to assume an audience. I’m not sure I like that idea. Frankly, I have very little interest in sharing my stray thoughts with people. Even the ones I know pretty well. (That sentence is true if you assume I used the pronoun to refer to either “ideas” or to “people.”) That just sounds like poor planning.
Besides, I already know what a smash hit it would be. I am perfectly well aware that most people on Earth find my writing obtuse, unwieldy, and so full of sarcasm and unannounced metaphors that it’s more relaxing to actively flee from it, and thus avoid the stress of questions about my intent or meaning altogether. For years – despite frequent requests to do otherwise – that knowledge has kept me quite secure in the idea that I have no business writing a blog.
But recently, something happened that made me reevaluate that position. Not surprisingly, it will be regarded as selfish, confusing, and mildly alarming to others. I wrote a lengthy note to a friend of a friend on a public forum. I know the person, have met him a few times, but really have no relevant connection to him aside from some shared friends. But something I had seen registered as a really, really funny joke in my head, and he had unintentionally been the catalyst. Notice that I said it was a really funny joke in my head. That’s different than a really funny joke in general, to pretty much everyone. That’s where the problem started. See, I thought it was really funny. So I wrote it down, and had a riotous time doing it. I was grinning to myself for a good five minutes as I typed. I savored the verbal humor by rehashing the subtle nuances of the grammatical construction of what I was thinking, explaining it to the person who had inspired the thought in my head. And since – coincidentally – I had chosen as my tablet a message form to that very same person, I got a bonus 5% amusement by hitting the “Send” button, which, given my media choice, more or less equated a “Save” button, but with less privacy.
Naturally, the message received no reply. It was not offensive, aggressive, or even subliminally pointed. In fact, I had made an effort to give the person to whom I was writing credit for the joke in my mind as a safeguard to make sure my tone was obviously amused and cheerful. “Whimsical” would be high on the list of adjectives that could apply. But that does not mean that my joke thrived and spread great joy in the world. Next time I see the person involved, my note may be mentioned, but most likely has already been forgotten with a raised eyebrow and a, “What?” Since that’s pretty much in line with our established interactions with each other anyway, nothing has changed.
So if you think about it, we can reduce the long, vague story above by cutting out all the parts that didn’t have any effect on anything. If we do that, all we have left is “I spent a lot of time laughing to myself as I wrote and saved a private joke in a conspicuous manner.”
Since I’m being selfish, I can reduce that even further to the important part: “I spent a lot of time laughing.”
When I bothered to think about that story as I came across the saved (sent) message while looking for something else, I had the joy of reliving the amusement I had while first writing it. Then I got that same bonus 5% smile at the end by realizing that someone had read my joke and presumably found it inexplicable. But the joy did not end there. In a flash, I took it to the next level and thought about how often I do stuff like that. The answer, “all the damn time,” is also amusing.
It was then that I realized I devote a significant portion of my time to writing inexplicable messages to essentially anonymous personas who (frankly) have better things to do than figure out what I mean when writing. Not only that, but I take great pleasure in doing so. In a flash, I realized that by my own cynical definition of the term, I am already a “blogger” – just an outstandingly disorganized one.
That joke (I just finished it with my last sentence) inspired this block of text. I enjoyed writing it. I grinned and laughed nearly the whole time. But in this case, the joke seemed fated for anonymity. No one inspired it, save me. It’s true that the person who inspired the story I told to make my joke could be considered connected, but I already confused him enough with my last joke. It’s best not to overdo that sort of thing.
But there’s a catch to this idea. In writing a joke in which I mock myself for being an accidental blogger, I was forced to venture into the topic of mode of expression. (The private messages I email/post/mail/say/etc.) The logical conclusion to this premise is that the nicest place to “blog” would be in a forum where no one would ever find it.
That’s where all the current trouble started. For years, I have had a personal website. It – notice the pattern here – is completely inexplicable to almost everyone but me. But it pleases me on many levels, and it’s pretty if you ever set your computer resolution high enough to navigate it properly. The website is sort of an unusual way to tell a complicated story, but is mostly a labyrinth of sorts, in which many things are hidden. To the best of my knowledge, there is no reason for anyone to go in there to find any of those things. Or to go in there at all.
And that’s what so charming here. If I hide a link to a blog in a place where only inexplicable people will ever go (let alone spend time searching), I will have satisfied my thirst for irony to the point where I will actually start being practical. I will be able to write a blog confident that only people whimsical enough to enjoy it will ever find it. Anyone else will most likely lose interest long before encountering anything they find interesting.
It’s the most compelling reason to write a blog I’ve ever seen. Writing a document where the audience sorts itself? Priceless.
I can see merit in this argument, but it still seems silly and misguided. On some important level, I seem to value an unshakeable premise that in writing a blog, one has to assume an audience. I’m not sure I like that idea. Frankly, I have very little interest in sharing my stray thoughts with people. Even the ones I know pretty well. (That sentence is true if you assume I used the pronoun to refer to either “ideas” or to “people.”) That just sounds like poor planning.
Besides, I already know what a smash hit it would be. I am perfectly well aware that most people on Earth find my writing obtuse, unwieldy, and so full of sarcasm and unannounced metaphors that it’s more relaxing to actively flee from it, and thus avoid the stress of questions about my intent or meaning altogether. For years – despite frequent requests to do otherwise – that knowledge has kept me quite secure in the idea that I have no business writing a blog.
But recently, something happened that made me reevaluate that position. Not surprisingly, it will be regarded as selfish, confusing, and mildly alarming to others. I wrote a lengthy note to a friend of a friend on a public forum. I know the person, have met him a few times, but really have no relevant connection to him aside from some shared friends. But something I had seen registered as a really, really funny joke in my head, and he had unintentionally been the catalyst. Notice that I said it was a really funny joke in my head. That’s different than a really funny joke in general, to pretty much everyone. That’s where the problem started. See, I thought it was really funny. So I wrote it down, and had a riotous time doing it. I was grinning to myself for a good five minutes as I typed. I savored the verbal humor by rehashing the subtle nuances of the grammatical construction of what I was thinking, explaining it to the person who had inspired the thought in my head. And since – coincidentally – I had chosen as my tablet a message form to that very same person, I got a bonus 5% amusement by hitting the “Send” button, which, given my media choice, more or less equated a “Save” button, but with less privacy.
Naturally, the message received no reply. It was not offensive, aggressive, or even subliminally pointed. In fact, I had made an effort to give the person to whom I was writing credit for the joke in my mind as a safeguard to make sure my tone was obviously amused and cheerful. “Whimsical” would be high on the list of adjectives that could apply. But that does not mean that my joke thrived and spread great joy in the world. Next time I see the person involved, my note may be mentioned, but most likely has already been forgotten with a raised eyebrow and a, “What?” Since that’s pretty much in line with our established interactions with each other anyway, nothing has changed.
So if you think about it, we can reduce the long, vague story above by cutting out all the parts that didn’t have any effect on anything. If we do that, all we have left is “I spent a lot of time laughing to myself as I wrote and saved a private joke in a conspicuous manner.”
Since I’m being selfish, I can reduce that even further to the important part: “I spent a lot of time laughing.”
When I bothered to think about that story as I came across the saved (sent) message while looking for something else, I had the joy of reliving the amusement I had while first writing it. Then I got that same bonus 5% smile at the end by realizing that someone had read my joke and presumably found it inexplicable. But the joy did not end there. In a flash, I took it to the next level and thought about how often I do stuff like that. The answer, “all the damn time,” is also amusing.
It was then that I realized I devote a significant portion of my time to writing inexplicable messages to essentially anonymous personas who (frankly) have better things to do than figure out what I mean when writing. Not only that, but I take great pleasure in doing so. In a flash, I realized that by my own cynical definition of the term, I am already a “blogger” – just an outstandingly disorganized one.
That joke (I just finished it with my last sentence) inspired this block of text. I enjoyed writing it. I grinned and laughed nearly the whole time. But in this case, the joke seemed fated for anonymity. No one inspired it, save me. It’s true that the person who inspired the story I told to make my joke could be considered connected, but I already confused him enough with my last joke. It’s best not to overdo that sort of thing.
But there’s a catch to this idea. In writing a joke in which I mock myself for being an accidental blogger, I was forced to venture into the topic of mode of expression. (The private messages I email/post/mail/say/etc.) The logical conclusion to this premise is that the nicest place to “blog” would be in a forum where no one would ever find it.
That’s where all the current trouble started. For years, I have had a personal website. It – notice the pattern here – is completely inexplicable to almost everyone but me. But it pleases me on many levels, and it’s pretty if you ever set your computer resolution high enough to navigate it properly. The website is sort of an unusual way to tell a complicated story, but is mostly a labyrinth of sorts, in which many things are hidden. To the best of my knowledge, there is no reason for anyone to go in there to find any of those things. Or to go in there at all.
And that’s what so charming here. If I hide a link to a blog in a place where only inexplicable people will ever go (let alone spend time searching), I will have satisfied my thirst for irony to the point where I will actually start being practical. I will be able to write a blog confident that only people whimsical enough to enjoy it will ever find it. Anyone else will most likely lose interest long before encountering anything they find interesting.
It’s the most compelling reason to write a blog I’ve ever seen. Writing a document where the audience sorts itself? Priceless.
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