Why?

If you ever want to really get someone pissed at you, ask them the question of why.

Who, what, when, where and even how are pretty nominally safe questions to ask.

But why is a different situation. It is, in a sense the ultimate question to ask, especially of someone else. It questions their assumptions about what they are doing, and often, their worldview as a result. Many people have a definite plan of what they think is going to happen. An interjection of 'why' can be a jarring inclusion of reality into their story they have crafted in their heads.

And they usually don't appreciate that.

Most people strongly identify with their crafted stories, confusing it with themselves. Questioning the story can be very painful for them- indeed many have built it up over a lifetime. Questioning it essentially forces a miniature existential crisis- question the story and your are questioning the facade, which is fragile and must be protected.

ok, it is really late right now. Goodnight.

I can't believe I saw this happen

Today, Ben and I went to a state park outside of New Orleans. It's in the bayou, which is like a big wetland that serves to buffer the area between land, sea and river. Being a sort of triple frontier, it hosts tons of wildlife. We walked around on a boardwalk through the life there, eating blackberries that have just come into season and spying the occasional frog or anole lizard. Eventually we came to a bridge above a 1890s era canal that had been dredged through the area in hopes of draining lands upstream to grow sugar. We had seen a number of small alligators in the area, most no more than 1-2 feet long.

As we stood on the timbered bridge overlooking the waters 15 feet below us, we noticed a snake, probably a cottonmouth or water moccasin struggling with a catfish that it had snagged. The snake dragged the catfish up onto a little floating patch of water plants and the two writhed around until the fish was mostly still. The snake then began positioning its mouth over the head of the fish and unhooking its jaw to begin swallowing the prey. To our left, 20 feet away, we saw a large alligator trolling around. The occasional movement caught the alligator's ancient eye and it began paying attention. In rapt silence, we looked on as the snake struggled with the fish, wondering if the alligator saw the scene unfolding. Another splash, and the alligator moved totally silently to the edge of the vegetation flotilla. Now the alligator was within 6 feet of the struggling pair. In a motion that was almost too quick agile and perfect to describe, the alligator snatched up the fish and snake in one gulp before returning to a stony, perfectly calm state. We realized that our jaws had dropped and our mouths hung open during the drama that had just unfolded below. If I had seen the very same event happen on TV I would have thought for sure the event was staged, but it was superbly real.

I must be Indian

Readers of the blog may have noticed that I have a small om symbol on the title block. It is a physical manifestation of my union with the infinite.

That, and I think it looks cool.

Anyway, Blogger, having now determined that I am not a spammer (finally!) has determined that I am Kashmiri, which is not a great improvement.

California

I am a tourist visiting the homeland
watts, thousand oaks, sepulveda
stories of my grandmother playing in orange grove irrigation ditches
laid out before me
in grinding, choking boulevards
Bombay with BMWs

these are the streets built with stolen water
infrastructure made possible by Mulholland
roads my mother rode horses on
a fantasy out of step
with six lanes of tinted glass

regrets and promises blend seamlessly
on the ramp, glancing over my left shoulder into the future

into the enormity of the 405 laid out beyond
and when I think it is all concrete and tarmac
unrealistically pink azalea blossoms

explode to cream stucco backdrop and Spanish clay
shattering the stories of nineteen forties monochrome

The Prophet

I was at the bus stop in Broomfield a couple days ago with four large grocery bags filled with supplies for Thai Tuesday night at chaos. At the shelter, there was a shortish black man with graying hair and a little cart. The cart was expertly packed, but it was impossible for me to discern its contents or function. It reminded me of the kind of thing one would make over time for a specific function, like a custom-built noodle bike cart in Vietnam that has been expertly re-crafted over years of experience, made from discarded remains of society.

At first, I thought he might have been homeless, but I detected a sense of awareness in him that most people who don’t live anywhere are usually lacking.

Being in a curious mood, I asked him what is rig was for and he replied that it was a window washing set. He further explained that he is a professional window washer- however, the washing was only to support his ministry. “yes sir, I am the Prophet Elijah,” he said in a manner so lacking of overstatement that I could do nothing but accepted his assertion, “and I am pleased to meet you- I don’t believe there are accidents or coincidences when you meet someone. Do you consider yourself a Christian?”

I told him no.

We had a brief discussion in which I revealed that I was spiritual but not dogmatic or religious and I did follow some of the eastern traditions of Hinduism and Buddhism.

He extended his hand to me and I took it. With excitement in his eyes and voice, he exclaimed,

on behalf of our good lord Jesus Christ, I claim you for him and welcome you into his eternal kingdom!

Thanks, I said.

“Let me tell you how much Jesus cares about you. Now, I don’t know how many hairs I have on my head,” gesturing to the graying curls beneath his baseball cap. “But Jesus, he knows how many hairs are on my head- and yours too.”

He looked at me with a smile, as if he was about to really drive a point home. Sure enough, “well, imagine for a minute that if he knows that about you, what else he knows about you.” I did imagine Jesus thinking about counting my hair, but for me, the effect seemed more like he was a cosmic voyeur looking through my sock drawer. “He knows a lot of things about us that we don’t even know about ourselves,” clearly pleased with himself for making this straw man argument.

At this point, the reader may be thinking that the prophet Elijah is a typical whack job. Indeed, I will not discount this possibility. Nonetheless, I must say that I admire the Prophet Elijah, and not just for his ability to declare himself a prophet while holding a hodgepodge window cleaning cart with a straight face. No, in this age of yogis with entourages, ministers with private jets and politicians with private ministers with private jets, here is a guy who is just going around by bus washing windows and presumably living a simple life in the face of all the pointlessness around him.

In India, he could be a Sadhu with long dreadlocks, prayer beads and only an orange kurta longhi to his name. Here, he is a guy with a bucket full of cleaning supplies and squeegees stacked and strapped to a discarded baggage cart. So while I don’t feel any closer to Jesus as my personal savior (I still don’t think I require that) I do feel closer to the world in general.

Here’s to you, Prophet Elijah.

Daily Challenge

I was talking with my friend Jon the other day, and he told me he had been undertaking an effort to smile at as many people as possible, just to see what happens. I thought this was a good idea, and so, I have decided to have periodic challenges of my own.

Today's daily challenge is to tell people what I think or feel and not what I think they want to hear. I am hoping that this will lead to more honesty and perhaps even some surprising revelations that I didn't know before. We'll see how it goes.

A day of No

Today, I found myself getting told ‘no’ by way more people than normally. Usually, I find that if someone tells you no, you might be on the track to something good. Today, however, it was mostly a track to getting security on my case.

I was working at the Denver Convention Center, representing green power at an orthodontist’s convention. Don’t ask me why that is a logical choice; I am still trying to figure it out myself. But what I did figure out is that security doesn’t like bikes being there, even if you are an exhibitor promoting green and sustainability. They also don’t want you using internet terminals there, even though literally no one has used them all day. It is worth their time, apparently, to employ someone to stand around waiting for a non-conference goer to try to use one and kick them off.

Finally, Denver made the rather unfortunate plan of not having bike lanes pretty much anywhere. Simultaneously, the city doesn't actually let you use bikes on the non-car portion of the 16th Street Mall. The exception to this rule is on Sundays of course, when bikes are allowed and there isn’t any traffic anyway. I know all of this because a semi-employed man with the title of 'greeter' stopped me and told me so. He was nice enough about it, though he did emphasize that "there are signs on every block about this."

Like I read signs.

Maybe I should try telling people no more to see what it is like. Then, I might know better what to do when I get another day of 'no'.

I'm soooo famous now

Today I found out that I got appointed to the board of directors for TREIA, the Texas Renewable Energy Industry Association.

I was the last to hear that I was getting nominated for the position, I had no campaigning to do, and I was elected in absentia.

All in all, it was a pretty effective campaign that I didn't know I was running.

It's pretty random, but a good resume stuffer, not that I need one....

This Blog is Spam! Humans vs. Robots

Funny story about me selling viagra... oh wait, I never did that... but apparently google didn't agree!

Blogger thought that this page is spam, and as a result, I have not been able to add anything for several days.

Cute.

Ironically, they sent me a spam-like message informing me to jump through a bunch of hoops, the culmination of which was nothing. At least at the time. They purportedly had a human look my page over to determine I wasn't a robot.

It does beg the question, I suppose, what pray tell was it they thought I was spamming? Like trying to get people into a cult that emphasizes less resource consumption?

According to Blogger's help site, possible reasons for spam flagging include:

Blogs engaged in this behavior are called spam blogs, and can be recognized by their irrelevant, repetitive, or nonsensical text, along with a large number of links, usually all pointing to a single site.

I know my writing is bad, but I didn't know it was that bad.

Maybe I can take it as a compliment. My ideas are so fresh and new, that at first glance, they may seem unconnected! Or, Google just thinks I'm a huckster...

grabbing the brass ring

If you are like me, you may have wondered where this term comes from. (I spend a perhaps unhealthy amount of time wondering about things like this!)

Turns out, there is an interesting parable hiding here. Like so many sayings, the original meaning seemed to have been lost in its essence, at least as I interpret it.

from Michael Quinion's Wold Wide Words:
(note that the bold emphasis at the bottom is mine)

[Q] From Liam: "When people go for the brass ring, what exactly are they going for? Why is a brass ring a symbol of success? Wouldn't a platinum ring be even better?"

[A] This one stumped me, as my cultural background doesn't include grabbing a brass ring as a measure of success. But even a cursory glance at American newspaper archives shows that the expression is common; a recent example is in Ebony for 1 April 2004: "If you're like the millions of women who are on the go — grabbing for the brass ring, focusing on the family or trying to shatter that glass ceiling — it's past time for you to take a step back and concentrate on finding the real you." In response to a plea for help, John Baker of the American Dialect Society made the key connection and from then on it was plain sailing.

We are in the fairground, specifically on a carousel or merry-go-round. At one time, the riders on the outside row of horses were often given a little challenge. Once the ride started moving, a metal arm was swung out — on some rides this held a single brass ring, which riders could try to grab as they passed. Anyone who managed to retrieve it could redeem it for a free ride. Another system had a dispenser of rings, most of which were steel and had no value, but one per ride was the brass one that won the prize.

Brass ring came to have the figurative sense of a prize, in particular one that was hard to gain. Grabbing the brass ring, going for the brass ring or reaching for the brass ring were all used to refer to the opportunity to compete for a grand prize.

Quite when it started to be used in this way isn't clear. The earliest example of the expression I can find, and that already an elliptical one that shows the writer expected everybody to know what was meant, appeared in the Daily Northwestern of Oshkosh, Wisconsin, on 3 August 1931: "The current anonymous volume 'The Merry-Go-Round' ... pokes fun — not nice gentle fun — at our supposed mad round of reaching-for-the-brass-ring-existence."

But references to a literal brass ring go back into the 1890s, as in this from the Brooklyn Daily Eagle of 24 September 1899 about the famous Coney Island amusement park: "This big place has been the rendezvous for thousands of children who have spent their nickels and have enjoyed a ride on the ponies, besides trying their best to capture the brass ring, which the boy drops in the big iron arm that is swung out at the side of the merry-go-round."

Several fairground history sites online suggest that the game fell out of favour in this more careful and litigious age because of the number of young people who hurt themselves reaching for the rings. Though the expression is still common, as time passes the knowledge of where it comes from is falling out of public memory.

The edge of the petri dish

Today, I was having a little snack with my friend Jon after scamming a $25 gift card for a new organic market. He is a biologist doctorate candidate who spends a lot of time in the lab, watching and experimenting with exponential growth. He mentioned that most of what he does is trying to beat his particular biological culture to the edge of the petri dish. When that occurs, growth stops of course, but more importantly, decline begins. He needs to get the recklessly growing culture to a new home to repeat the process.

I hope we can be smarter than the algae or bacteria. We have no watchful scientist to give us a new petri dish.

The simple act of eating a simple food and watching all the world go by put me into a state of nostalgia for a time where there is less to do. When you get right down to it, there isn't all that much that is important anyway.

At least not the things most people will tell you are important.

I trained as a civil engineer, so I think a lot about the niceties of our society. Things like paved roads, clean drinking water, access to education and information, and so forth. I appreciate these a lot and don't take them for granted. But, let's face it: There is a whole lot of shit that is a huge distraction and does nothing but take away from the things you will cherish most.

There are things that have been commented upon at length by others about our consumer culture- I will not repeat them here and you probably know them anyway. But every once in a while, look around you, and ask yourself: 'What here would I just be unhappy without, and what would I not miss at all?' Do with the results of that as you wish.