The Writer's Poke

Neon Tetras are tiny little fish, but they add a colorful element to a freshwater tank. We had a 75 gallon bow-front tank with around forty fish. Neon Tetras are cheap, and so we decided to add a dozen. This group of new inductees liked to keep together; all twelve collectively were about the size of one of our Angelfish, of which we had six. At the fish store, fish are color-coded to let buyers know which fish get along well with each other. A green sticker means that “fish play well with others,” and all of the fish in our tank were of the green-sticker variety. So it was a great surprise to wake up the following morning to discover that six of the newly-added Neons had vanished. Where had they gone? Did they somehow escape the tank, making their way for the Savannah River – ala the gang of highly intelligent escape artists in Finding Nemo? We scratched our heads about it, but assumed that they must just be very good at hiding. The next day, however, we turned on the ta...

Yesterday my wife and I picked up our daughter before the preschool’s scheduled naptime. She was so happy to see us because she absolutely hates naps. We didn’t have any plans which required us to get her earlier than normal, but as my wife explains it, going to preschool is Tavi’s job, and everyone deserves an afternoon off now and then. When we arrived home, Tavi was ready to take on her day; her mom and I were ready to take a nap. And we did. I used to be very anti-nap myself. I considered it a complete waste of an afternoon. How can I sleep when there’s so much that needs to be done? Recently, however, I’ve reconsidered my position on napping. Joseph Campbell writes, “illumination cannot be communicated.” For years, my wife tried to convince me that sleeping away the afternoon actually increased her productivity. After all, she said, a successful nap allows a person to reboot. Waking up from a nap is like a second opportunity to seize the day. No matter. She couldn’...

The philosopher John Michael Montgomery once wrote, “Life’s a dance you learn as you go; sometimes you lead, sometimes you follow. Don’t worry about what you don’t know.” I took my daughter to our first daddy-daughter dance this weekend; I think both of us were a little bit uncomfortable, because neither of us knows how to dance. Heading out to the dance floor is kind of like volunteering to be thrown into the deep end when you don’t know how to swim. Perhaps the threat isn’t the same. That is, if you flop around on the dance floor, at least you aren’t going to drown. The best approach to dancing is probably just to go with the flow of the music. Yes, there are specific types of dances, such as the waltz, which have systematic, ordered steps. Even so, I assume the key even to those dances is to “feel” the music and let it run through your movements. For a daddy-daughter type of dance, just ignoring everyone else made it a lot easier. We weren’t there for anyone else, ...

Joseph Campbell’s insights are endlessly fascinating. He suggests that humans are different from animals; spiders, for example, innately knows how to spin a web from birth. Humans, on the other hand, have a pretty long learning curve. Just consider: how long did it take you to learn how to tie your shoes? Ride a bike? Tying shoes and riding bikes aren’t normally considered to be cultural rituals, although at least in Western culture, it might be argued that both are milestones of sorts. More to Campbell’s point, however, is the idea that values are “socially transmitted,” and “myths are the mental supports of rites.” What this means in the most basic sense is that we all learn what it means to be human. What it also indicates is that there is not one right way to be human. Just as different species of spiders might utilize different spider web patterns, humans utilize different myths. These myths may have different parts in common, but essentially we are defined by the myths...

I can accept that you’re going to die. You should just deal with it yourself and not bother me about it. On the other hand, I have a much more difficult time accepting that I’m going to die. Can you help me out with some understanding? Some empathy? Me, die? How can that be? I feel so alive! Humans have an uncanny ability to adapt, but adapting to our own mortality may be the tougher pill for us to swallow. And yet, under the right circumstances, people face death willingly. Ancient Greeks on the battlefield, for example, would often elect to stand and fight, knowing beyond any doubt that doing so basically ensured an end to their lives. Very seldom did they attempt to escape death on the battlefield, partly because death in battle was seen as honorable. Ironically, the idea of an honorable death taps into the idea that each of us has a purpose in life. Why is purpose such an important concept to the average human being? Perhaps it’s our attempt to give meaning to mystery. T...

Students like classes that don’t have finals; everyday people, however, like to believe in something final. I suppose that makes sense. No one wants to wake up in the morning, not knowing what’s right and what’s wrong for that day. We like consistency, and some of us will fight for our version of what is right, if for no other reason than for the sake of consistency. New ideas aren’t always welcome. Pressure to conform is strong. Even when alternatives exist, most of us don’t pay much attention to them. We live in our own bubble reality. That bubble can be family, culture, philosophy, religion, etc. What does it take to pop the bubble of perception? Generally, something dramatic, or traumatic. In shows like Jericho and Lost, people are thrust into new worlds, and not surprisingly, perhaps, they try to maintain continuity between the world they “knew” and the world they now occupy. At least in Lost, the only way for the characters to triumph is to submit. The desire to return ...

It all started out so innocently. I was 22 and on one last vacation with my parents. Not surprisingly, then, we were in Salt Lake City, and we were at the LDS Tabernacle Visitor’s Center. My goal: avoid eye contact. If I didn’t look interested, and if I kept to myself, perhaps no missionaries would bother me. My singular goal was to survive the morning unmolested. Little did I realize that the LDS had a secret weapon to foil my carefully scripted disinterest: Female missionaries. Did I mention that I was 22 years old? When I saw her, I had this strong desire to convert on the spot. It didn’t much matter if I believed in Jesus Christ or not. I made God a simple offer; give me this one, I prayed, and I will accept that as a sign of your existence. I remember that her top button was unbuttoned. She saw that I was interested. What did it matter if I was interested in her rather than her religion? She told me that she was from California, and that, like me, she was an English majo...

In Krzysztof Kieslowski’s The Decalogue , one of the recurring characters, “the Observer” (my unofficial name for him), never says a word. He’s just there, watching. Tomek, it might be argued, momentarily takes the Observer’s place in Decalogue VI . He’s an observer, too, but perhaps he crosses the line by becoming involved with the person he observes. One interesting question to consider is: What role does (or should) the Observer play? In Decalogue I , he spends the movie sitting by his lakeside bonfire, but when Pawel drowns, he is markedly absent. In Decalogue II , he is the medical attendant who watches as Dorota tells her unconscious husband that she loves him; he is also there when the Consultant reviews the husband’s medical slides. In Decalogue V , he is there right before Jacek carries out the murder of the taxi cab driver. This scene may be the one where he almost becomes involved; he shakes his head slightly, as if to communicate to Jacek that he shouldn’t carry out h...

When one of Tomek’s plans backfires, he sacrifices himself. He makes sure that the humiliation falls on him and not on the woman he loves. Tomek works at the post office, and he develops a plan. He sends a note to the woman he watches, Magda, informing her that she has a money order waiting for pick-up at the post office. The idea works the first time, but the second time she goes to the post office only to find no money order, she asks to speak with Tomek’s manager. The manager assumes that Magda is trying to commit fraud, and Tomek chases after her to explain that he had been responsible for the whole money-order scheme. Although Magda is not happy to learn that Tomek has been stalking her for the past year, stealing her mail, and generally harassing her, she nevertheless feels drawn to him. She agrees to go out with him for a drink, and when he tells her that he loves her, she not surprisingly questions his use of the word. At the same time, she takes pity on poor Tomek; s...

Tomek likes to watch. Sort of. For the past year, Tomek has watched an older woman who lives across the courtyard in his apartment complex. He has her schedule down to the minute, and he sets his alarm to correspond to when she arrives home. She entertains different “gentleman callers,” but Tomek isn’t interested in watching her sexual exploits. His brand of voyeurism is much more pure than that. In fact, when he can figure out a way to kill the mood, so to speak, he’ll do so. His masterpiece: calling the gas company to report a leak in her apartment. That kills the mood, for sure, and Tomek smiles at his cleverness. His landlady is his absent-friend’s mother. She worries about his love life, but she recognizes that he’s shy, or as she describes him, “gentle.” Does she know that Tomek has a telescope in his room and has been watching a woman with it? Yes, she probably knows, but she doesn’t confront Tomek about it. Rather, she simply encourages him not to be ashamed to bring...

The death of Jacek’s sister sets in motion a change of events that leads to Jacek committing murder and receiving the death penalty. At least this seems to be the suggestion. After all, if Jacek and his friend hadn’t been drinking vodka and wine, if Jacek’s friend hadn’t accidently run over his friend’s sister, if grief did not force Jacek to leave home, he never would have ended up in a taxi cab, and he never would have had reason or opportunity to kill the driver. From the moment of the present, it is easy to view the past as a series of unchangeable events. Each event “causes” what happens next. It would be too simplistic, perhaps, to suggest that the death of Jacek’s sister directly causes Jacek to murder the taxi cab driver, but her death does led him down a certain path he otherwise would never have traveled, and that is the real point. Jacek’s lawyer apparently doesn’t know Jacek’s story until he meets with him one final time before his execution; however, the lawyer al...

A young man named Jacek carries a heavily-worn picture of a child. Who is the child? Is it his sister? Did she die far too young in some tragic way? Perhaps the young man has never forgiven himself for her death, even though he was in no way responsible. Perhaps her death has made life meaningless. The truth of the matter is this: the young man feels helpless. Life has no purpose. He feels as though he has no control over his life, just as he had no ability to protect the child from death. It’s by no means a rational thought, but he convinces himself that all deaths are random and beyond the control of the living. With this thought in mind, he finds a metal pipe and some rope. He plans a random act. He will hire a taxi and kill the driver. Who is the driver? It doesn’t matter. Whoever drives the cab that picks him up will do.  When he puts the rope around the driver’s neck, the young man discovers that death doesn’t come easily. The driver struggles, and event...

Somehow a young man ends up at the movie theater. The ticket girl is quite disinterested in his presence. She is preoccupied with pulling the grey hairs from her head, and when he asks her if the movie is worth seeing, she tells him not to waste his time. After all, it’s just a boring romance film. He takes her advice and asks her where he can find the nearest taxi stand. Eventually, he will hire a cab, but first he will cause a little chaos by pushing a rock off an overpass. This rock will hit a car and cause a major traffic accident. Meanwhile, a taxi driver is cleaning his taxi. He takes great care to give it a thorough cleaning; a young couple walks over to ask if the taxi is available for hire, but he rudely tells them that he is not done cleaning his cab, sending them away to wait at the taxi stand. A devil’s head hangs from his rearview mirror, and this driver certainly won’t win any customer service awards as far as the young couple is concerned. In his defense, the man ...

The Doctor knows something about the temporary nature of the human condition. During World War II, he was a young man with a wife and two children. One day, he had to work a long shift at the hospital. When he called home, everything was fine. But when his shift was over and he returned home, he discovered that his home no longer existed. Bombs had left a crater in its place. His family was dead. This is what the Doctor knows and has personally experienced; so, when Dorota explains to him that she will have an abortion if her husband, his patient, lives, he must make a choice. Dorota forces the Doctor to take responsibility for her actions; put in that position, he elects to lie, telling her that her husband will die. In the end, Dorota’s husband does not die; however, thanks to the Doctor, she has not had the abortion. She has returned to living her life, and she has told her husband that they are having a baby. She does not tell him that the father of the child is another ma...

The Doctor cares about his patients. His cleaning lady, Barbara, who is also probably his closest friend, probably knows more about him than anyone. Whereas he keeps a professional distance with his patients, he tells Barbara the story of staying up with a teething baby. He does so not because he can ease the baby’s pain, but because staying up with her offers the baby comfort – the only comfort the Doctor has to give. In other words, the Doctor is nurturer. He doesn’t like to see his patients in pain, and although he doesn’t have the power to magically make everyone better, it’s pretty clear that he is honest when he claims that he wants to do the best for the people he treats. Dorota’s husband is one of his gravely-ill patients; she is also his neighbor. He recognizes her as the woman that ran over his dog a couple of years ago. Nevertheless, he doesn’t seem to hold a grudge about that. He has compassion for what she’s going through, and he offers her compassion – although he...

Pawel and his dad performed careful calculations, and they knew that the ice would safely support someone three times Pawel’s weight. Nevertheless, the ice broke, and Pawel drowned.  People from the apartment complex gathered around the lake to watch the emergency crews at work, but the onlookers, including Pawel’s dad and aunt, were helpless to do anything. All they could do was watch as the frozen, lifeless bodies of Pawel and two of his friends were pulled out of the icy grave.  At the sight of the bodies, all of the onlookers, except for Pawel’s dad, began to kneel. They did so as a sign of their continued faith. Pawel’s dad remained standing because he lacked the faith to submit to the mystery of his son’s death. Although he rationally knew why all living things must die, he couldn’t fathom why someone like his son should have to die before his time. His rational understanding of death offered no comfort at this moment of tragedy. Faith offers comfort,...

Two young Yankee men on a camping trip were walking down a rural county road in northern Georgia. Hopping towards them from the opposite direction was a one-legged girl. She was easily the most beautiful girl either had ever seen. "Howdy boys," she said. "Spend the night with me, and I'll promise you a night you'll never forget." The boys looked at each other and quickly agreed to take the girl up on her offer. The next morning, the more forward of the two, a boy named Justin, spoke up: "Say, you're the most amazing girl I've ever known, but could you tell us what happened to your leg?" "Sure," said the girl. "It's no secret that folks in these parts are simple. I made the mistake of telling my daddy that I wanted to go to college. He was alright with that actually, until I told him I wanted to be a horticulturalist. For that, he cut off my leg." The boys exchanged glances. "That's unbeli...

In some ways, Pawel is your average 10 year old. He likes to race and play. He likes to skate. He’s just starting to become interested in girls. In other ways, Pawel is anything but average. He has his own computer, but he uses it to program, not to play games. He likes story problems. And, he’s interested in finding out the purpose for living. When Pawel discovers one of the neighborhood dogs dead, its fur frozen in the cold, it not surprisingly depresses him. More than that, however, it also causes him to consider whether or not life has a purpose. What satisfaction can he take in solving a word problem? How powerful are computers if he can’t program them to explain why the living must die? Pawel’s dad can explain what death is from a rational point of view, but Pawel craves a deeper explanation. His father tells him that the soul is just a term people have developed to make life easier for the living, but even his aunt, who has a strong Catholic faith, probably wouldn’t d...

I felt a deep sense of withdrawal yesterday -- yesterday being my first day of freedom. Fall semester, I completed 42 credits of teaching and studenting. Man, that's a lot. Most of my students take 12 hours of classes and seem overwhelmed. Most of my colleagues teach 15 hours of classes and seem frazzled. And, of course there are the university-prof types that teach a total of three class a year and think they've overworked. Well, whatever. By the way, what the hell is burnout? Funny thing is, my blood pressure meds apparently numb me to stress. That's not exactly true; I feel stress, but not in the way that the average nutcase feels it. To me, it just feels like a hug. Envelope me in your busy goodness, my friend. Winter Break is akin to Summer Break's bastard step-cousin that nobody really likes. I hate to bitch about having 3 weeks off, but it's just long enough to not fully enjoy. Not to mention, of course, that 2012 looms. One year closer to death....

Google’s Chinese weblink is http://www.g.cn , and it looks about as boring as the http://www.google.com we’re all used to in the U.S.  Just for the fun of it, I googled Pete Rose using the Chinese Google, and at least in Minnesota, I wasn’t blocked from receiving information about the best American baseball player of all time. In fact, the Chinese version of Wikipedia even has an entry on the Tienanmen Square Massacre. I thought that was interesting, but since it’s in Chinese, I have no idea what spin it might have; nor do I know if the average Chinese citizen has access to reading the entry. I use Google, but it’s not my favorite search engine; I’m a Yahoo! man, and I probably always will be until they go out of business. But what if a Chinese search engine company tried to break into the American search engine market? Would I bite? Doubtful. The Internet should be borderless, but it does seem rather odd that Google, an American company, would expect to be successfu...