Hijab

A week ago I was at a Panera near Cal State Fullerton. I passed by a woman wearing a hijab. I might've paused half a second. She noticed me, and perhaps noticed the pause. I wondered how she had interpreted it. Did she give it any thought? Is she used to it? It passed, though it lingered. I had a vague sense of guilt or sorrow about the whole thing.

How does one go up to someone and say:

I looked at you, but did not intend to gawk. I looked at you not because I am a fearful reactionary, nor because I'm an objectifying male. I perhaps looked without any present emotions, because I wasn't really looking at you. But you weren't an abstraction of a race or a faith. You were an echo of a specific person I had met in college, a woman who I didn't really know, and still don't, but who, ten years after we had graduated, had engaged me in a conversation that convinced me that we understood each other and our younger selves better.

I look at you, or through you, to the past, and realize that I had never talked with her about the hijab, though she had explained at the beginning of school (coincidentally, a few days before September 11) that it represented modesty, though then, and now, I did not know if it represented an act of modesty or itself served as a reminder, a totem, to be modest in our endeavors.

I had not talked with her about faith, or family, or hardly anything. A small school can seem so impossibly vast sometimes.

And now I did not see you, or her. I saw an idea -- that the people I had met, I had treated as representatives of types, used them to understand the identity or identities they claimed, or disclaimed, or reclaimed. And too, too often, I didn't see the person.

And yet how grateful I am, that I have pokemoned my way to some rude decency and understanding, that I would find it at least somewhat difficult to ascribe broad traits to swaths of society. Grateful at good moments -- smugly self-satisfied at worse moments -- and dangerously vulnerable and reactionary on matters of identity in the worst moments of all. But my judgment seems somewhat sane, even if my advocacy is timid.

To know how a person values and weighs their identities, which ones are superordinate or subordinate, how contextual is that ranking, how unstable and self-contradictory are the weights in the expression of thought or deed, I might have to know them better than I have known any person. Perhaps I wouldn't be equal to the task. Perhaps it would destroy the relationship; there is, of course, a difference between empathy and dissection.

When I go into the world, am I the example floating in someone's mind of the Japanese ethnicity? Or of a scientist, laughable as that possibility seems to me? Maybe. And maybe that knowledge will, or should, change me.

This is a bizarre and self-indulgent entry, even by the standards of this blog. And yet, the gulf between the dominant identities I carry around within my own head and those projected onto me is probably the source of most of my major failings.

So to the person of the past -- I'm sorry we never had a chat about you, or what you wanted me, or others, to know. I neither want to assume that these fifteen years, or thirty years, have been difficult for you, nor communicate that a complicated and variegated sense of self can or should be summed up in any one aspect of external appearance, even, and perhaps especially, clothing. And yet I fear that I have abstracted away the actual you.

And to the stranger of the present, thank you for setting my thoughts along a different course, one that will hopefully get me out of my headspace and into the world.

The lines and internet are always slow there, at the Panera.

The lines and internal thoughts are always slow here.

Happy Holidays Students

To my students,

I hope you are well this holiday season.

If you're receiving this message, it's because you are a current or former student this semester, or the parent of a current or former student.

My initial plan was to mail each of you students a small gift via Amazon. But after some agonizing and vacillation, I have decided to make a donation for each of my students this semester, split between international aid for Syrian refugees and domestic hunger programs.

If any of you feel that this is against your wishes or beliefs, please let me know. While tutoring, we tend to focus on the material at hand, and frequently have less time to understand each other as individuals. I welcome contrasting views, and will accommodate them through an alternative.

When we started tutoring, two choices were made: you chose to work with me, and I chose to work with you.

On the first point, thank you. I thank your families for their trust, and thank you for your hard work. In many cases, you have trusted me not only with subject knowledge and test preparation, but also broader educational questions, college planning, and, most consequential of all, personal stories of crisis, pain, hope, and ambition. It is rare that I have time to really express the gratitude I have for that trust, and I hope that I am working to be worthy of it. I could do better, I know. If you have specific requests for improvement, do let me know.

And, yes, I chose you. In this job, I have been fortunate to work to a place in which I have the luxury of choice. With some families and students, the philosophical, emotional, or ethical fit is just not right, and we go our separate ways.

I chose you because you are willing to work. I chose you because learning isn't just about the drudgery of work -- it's about the difference between living and existing. I chose you because you display intelligence and energy. I chose you because you and your families exhibit qualities of character that I admire. But remember, most of all -- I chose you because of the person you are right now. Who you become is important, but secondary, and will be an ongoing process that will continue long after my time with you has ended. 

Doubts you may have, and goodness knows this has been a tough semester for all of us. But I wouldn't be around if I doubted your potential, your character, or your commitment. 

It might not mean much, but in case it means something: I have the luxury of choice, and I chose you.I am incredibly proud of each of you. 

John Watson (no, not the fictional one) once said, "Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle." You might not be scrambling for your life off a Greek island. You might not be going hungry. But I know, somewhat, the pressure, the pain, and, in some cases, the mourning you have experienced. It is unproductive and wrongheaded to compare trials -- whatever crucible you find yourself in, please know you have my support and an open offer for a chat.

A special note to the seniors: you will be fine. You are all going to go to college, to a good one. Once there, you will find your people, however you choose to define, and redefine that concept. If you got into your dream school -- great! If you didn't -- great! For each of you will ultimately be judged by things more fundamental, more challenging, and more important -- character, judgment, work ethic, emotional intelligence and health. Without going into too much detail, please learn from my mistakes -- you are as much or as little as you choose to make yourself, and if you reduce yourself to a grade, a score, or a degree, you do grave disservice to your humanity and those who have worked to build you up. Be kind to yourself too -- sometimes this is hard, but it's always necessary.

I hope you get some time to be alone this break -- alone with your thoughts, with your memories, with your feelings. It's easy to crowd these out during school, and easy to do that during break with everything the Internet has to offer. Take a bit of time to check in with who you are, and what you value. 

I'm trying to do that, and that's why you're getting this letter.

Be well this break.

Happy Holidays,

Ryan

Dear Najet

As a grad student, I was pretty miserable. I  felt trapped on a path that seemed increasingly divergent from my interests and for which I felt increasingly unprepared and ill-equipped.

But if I am honest, there were bright moments. Najet was one of them.

She knocked on my apartment door. Evidently she had just moved in and was unfamiliar how the shower worked. I helped her with that, and took her grocery shopping. She cooked me a delicious meal, a curry I think, though to be honest I wasn't paying so much attention to the food. It was then that she told me that she had a boyfriend in France.

Still, we spent many months going out to eat, talking occasionally on the phone. By all external appearances, we probably seemed a couple to most people. We laughed, though internally I wept.

Then she broke up with Kader. After ten years, it was over.

In the months preceding the breakup, I remember talking with her several times. The relationship was never ideal. Sometimes she cried. I held her hand, and sometimes held her in my arms. I was a good friend.

I had learned a bad habit over the years. To deal with heartache and fear, I tended to rationalize why a relationship couldn't work out before it even started. It had taken many forms over the years.

"It's bad if we're both only children."

"I shouldn't fall for people in the same field."

"I'm a replacement for another Asian ex, and not valued in myself."

"I'm too young."

"I'm too old."

And always, in the background, my mind hissed:

"I will end up like my father. I must protect her from the horrible fate of having a mentally ill partner."

It was easy in Najet's case. Cultural difference (she was French Moroccan), religious difference (she was Muslim), and professional uncertainty (she was on a postdoc, and would leave within a year). I was also a mess at the time.

But I was a good friend. And because I was a good friend, I didn't seize upon her breakup.

And a week later, she had met someone else. Khalid. Online. In France.

We talked a bit of politics. But mostly it was about life. About relationships and family and academia and how many chickens she had killed as a virologist and whether life was out there in the universe.

Like all cases of heartache, I thought I would never get over her. But I did. We drifted apart. She moved to Germany. I moved to Maryland, and then back home. We haven't spoken in five years.

Did she ever know that I loved her? Or that I felt what I thought was love? It's hard to say. She might've known. Or maybe it's easier to believe in a less complicated friendship. Maybe I lacked the words -- or the right connection between words and feelings, in any language.

It's not just the Paris attacks that brought her to mind. I met up with Marc, a fellow grad student, on Monday. Marc speaks French. I remember when they met at a party, he and Najet were able to converse effortlessly . It speaks to my humanity, and I smile at it now. But how jealous I was at that moment! Even though I knew Marc was happily in a relationship with someone else, and in fact Najet, though less happily, was attached to one of the K boys at that time. Even though I had given up hope or ambition, still, I was in that moment, so profoundly human.

For that moment, and for all the others, I am grateful.

And so I think about her now. She is French, and spent many years in Paris, and so is in mourning. She is Muslim, and so is afraid perhaps of what is to come. I fear for her, too. I mourn with her, too.

And so this is what I think of when I think of Paris. I spent a week there, alone and somewhat depressed, in 2005. The city itself has no sentimental hold on me. But the people, I miss.

I worked with a postdoc, Frantz from France. He was seven feet tall. His wife might've been under five feet. He was so kind; even as my world and my mind was falling apart, he always treated me kindly and as a valued colleague. We talked about family, about the future. Though perhaps more than either me or Najet, he had a greater sense of calm and certainty. Maybe that came from aikido. Maybe it came from his own wisdom.

I remember one of the last times I went into the department, I heard his deep bass voice shout, "Ryan!" I didn't turn around; I was so depressed and lost at that time I felt numb. But I wish I had, and wish I had told you how much you had done for me. You hadn't saved my graduate career, but you did save a piece of my humanity and self-respect. And for that I am eternally grateful.

Frantz... he is safe. He is not in Paris. And he is not Arab. He is Safe. But Najet...

I have met other French citizens over the years. But those two loom largest. And so I can't grieve for Paris. I grieve for them. For their way of life, and what they love, and hate, and love to hate about their nation was attacked. And both the best and the worst of humanity will emerge from this. I grieve for them because I love them.

That will have to be enough.

Frantz -- I hope you are still mentoring and teaching, and doing amazing things with light that the French seem to own so well. Fresnel, Fourier, Fizeau, and Frantz. :)

And Najet -- bisou.

Grandma's House

I wish I had said this to you, my cousins. But I couldn't get all four of you together at once. I couldn't, or I wouldn't. For while I felt welcome, I didn't always feel comfortable. It's a powder keg here, and as in all wars, the children will suffer most, and most blamelessly.

What would I say?

I would say that she was your grandma most of all. I was given, unexpectedly, a place of honor at the service, as the surviving descendant of her eldest child, her eldest son. Because of this I was charged with starting the procession for incense and prayer. I also sat in the front row. My mother -- bless her heart! -- sent flowers via the Kahului florist, flowers that read "From Ryan". I know that some read this as arrogance and presumption and not kindness, sounding a dissonant note. (The other two wreaths simply said "Beloved Grandmother" and "Beloved Mother", with no names.) Perhaps worst of all, my aunt proposed, last-minute, to add a brief statement and prayer dedicated to my late father, extending the service another ten minutes.

All of these serve, in some way, to separate me from you. It is the last thing I want, for your kindness has been the one thing that has kept this trip tolerable.

I can't claim her. She gave birth to my father, and my father gave birth to me. But our relationship was a tenuous one, one of a half dozen visits and cards during the holidays. You, on the other hand, were there every week -- even now. You grill, you eat, you laugh, you talk story.

I want to tell you that I don't know that with Grandma Yamada. I'll never know that. But I know what it is to have that, and to lose it.

Every Sunday, with few exceptions, my mother's family would gather at Grandma Yasuda's house. Not everyone had gone to church. But everyone ate. Everyone talked. As the youngest cousin, I enjoyed the attention and patience of my grandparents, aunts, uncles, and older cousins.

As an only child of a single mother, this experience was absolutely vital. Without it, I have no doubt I would be dead, in spirit if not in body.

I even lived there for a time. In retrospect, I am grateful my mother had both the privilege and willingness to go to half-time employment and live a couple days a week with her parents when they contracted cancer. I spent even more time with some of my cousins. I learned how to change a colostomy bag. I learned to grieve as I saw both my grandmother and my grandfather alive one day and dead the next.

And I grieved, especially for my grandmother. I lost her in 8th grade, on the cusp of graduation, before I could give the valediction. I talked about teaching then, because I didn't have the heart to talk about how much I missed her, what she had meant to me.

If I am honest, then, I do not share your pain. But I know it. I know that pain better than I know my own face.

You aunts and uncles -- I also know what it is to lose a parent, a parent with whom, maybe, you feel you had unfinished business. But damn you and your foolish machinations and grudges. Choke on your bitterness. I will speak to your children.

You may wonder if you'll lose that center, now that she's gone. You may. Maybe not. You are four, and your spouses, and your own children, bound by a father who yet lives there. Will he be your center? Perhaps, though fathers and sons, and fathers and daughters, do not always have the same luxury, the same patience, the same opportunity for love to feel unconditional, though in these cases, at least, it certainly is.

We lost our emotional center, and eventually, we lost our place of congregation. The diaspora is spread less through space and more through neglected ties. It can be rekindled, and I have the good fortune of picking up where I left off with many of these cousins and aunts. But it is different, and in many ways, inferior.

If your bonds live -- and they have a better chance, for you are brothers and sisters -- it will be because you work to reforge the broken links through frequent and strenuous effort. You will be fine, I hope, I think. But the rest of us? If we let three months, six months, a year pass, what will become of us?

No matter. I will instead focus on my gratitude. You have, without knowing, let me feel the slight touch of a rope tied to a ship long disappeared over the horizon, a ship bearing my happiest memories, my most important influences. I weep for your loss, but I celebrate the realization that I had this best of gifts. I hope you know what you had, and what you must fight to keep.

Sigh - wine has substituted feeling. Food has substituted grief. Let me walk on these sands and clear my thoughts, for they ramble irregularly like the waves in this breakered lagoon.

Small Thoughts on a Small Island

Today is September 13, 2015. I flew to Maui for the funeral of my last surviving grandparent, my paternal grandma. By cruel coincidence, today is also apparently National Grandparents' Day.

I haven't been for 15 years. It may seem strange to avoid paradise for so long.

Fifteen years ago, I was a senior in high school. I had come here with my father to visit family. My grandparents, uncle, and schizophrenic aunt all lived on a small farm in Makawao -- upcountry, about 30 minutes from Kahului.

I remember less than I think I should have from this trip. I remember red soil, a red that stained and dirtied sneakers beyond salvation. I remember that it would rain intermittently at our elevation of three or four thousand feet.

I remember my grandpa showing me his angry, strict constructionist letters to to the editor of the local paper. I remember he gave me Will Durant's book, The Story of Civilization, and showed me his heavily annotated copy. I remember him threatening to shoot the people that stole his cherrymoyas, and my grandmother and father, not taking this threat lightly, said rather lamely in local dialect, "Let them take."

I remember my grandma, who complained about being a farmer, and who fed me lau lau, which, being polite, I ate, even though I hated the stuff.

(I still hate the stuff, though with less passion. All passions, it seem, including those of taste, grow less acute with time.)

But mostly, I remember my father and the AP Biology test.

***

I had brought an AP Biology prep book with me to Maui. My school didn't offer AP Bio, and I had taken Honors Bio as a freshman. Three years later, after determining that I was half a class shy of being a National AP Scholar, I decided to study independently for the AP Bio test. I had done this before -- I had taken the AP Chemistry test as a sophomore, as had four of my classmates. But this was different. For chemistry, I had had the benefit of taking Honors Chemistry that same year. I was on my own this time. And I was three years removed from formal coursework.

So I studied.

During that week, my father had at least one manic episode. Manic episodes with my father resembled volcanic eruptions -- some were sudden explosions, while others started more slowly. This was one of the latter.

He seemed crabby that day. He made some snide comments about how my mother had raised me. I didn't know what he had a problem with specifically, but I did sense the coming storm.

I was studying DNA transcription when he stormed into the house when he marched in. I think he had stormed in and out of the house periodically over the previous thirty minutes. I'm not completley sure -- I was blessed with the power to concentrate and tune out my surroundings.

Finally, he marched in the room. He was shouting at me, telling me I was a bad son, and that Mom had raised me badly. I tried to ignore it. I don't think he used the word "worthless", but that was pretty much the gist of it. He was offended because he was my father, and that I should obey him.

Now, for as long as I had remembered, I was told two things about my father. He was sick, and it wasn't his fault. I was often sad, or angry, but knew I wasn't supposed to be angry with him. (I also was told that I shouldn't work too hard, or feel too happy, or feel too sad, with the unstated implication that I would end up bipolar.)

But something inside me snapped. I told him off. I don't remember everything I said, but I do remember telling him, "You're a small man."

I don't know that I could've chosen worse words to insult his pride. Small man! Small man? I AM NOT A SMALL MAN! Your mother did a bad job! And so on.

He stormed out again. Tears running down my face, I turned back to the book. It took a while for the tears to clear, and for my mind to focus. But I went back to studying.

I honestly have no recollections from the rest of that trip. That May, I took the AP Biology test and got a 5. I also did well enough on my other AP tests (including Microeconomics, which I had studied for on my own) to get the National AP Scholar award.

At Harvey Mudd, I needed to study biology (again independently) and take a placement exam (again independently) to try to pass out of Introduction to Biology (Bio 52), which at that time was notoriously worthless. I ended up doing well enough to pass out of the class, but not well enough to be awarded credit. I was permitted to take Evolutionary Biology (Bio 101), which was a perfectly fine, fairly easy class.

So it didn't really matter that I had studied biology intensively three separate times. It didn't matter that I had gotten the National AP Scholar award. I didn't get an iota of credit from my 11 AP tests.

And yet it did matter. It mattered because it meant I had shit to do. I had a goal, born out of vanity, or ambition, or genuine curiosity, that compelled me to focus on work. It meant that I didn't have time to be patient with the ravings of my father. It meant that the normal precautions and rules dictated by my family, and my own personal anxieties, weren't front and center.

It meant that I could tell him off, recover, and do the job.

***

Fifteen years later, the grandparents are dead. My aunt is dead. My father is dead.  And the dream that I was chasing then is dead. I'm older. Just older.

All passions grow less acute with time. The passion to be right, or to be certain, is diminished. The conviction that something is owed -- resolution, restitution, violence, martyrdom -- by me, or him, or the universe, has been replaced by an accordioning of time and depletion of memory, a diminution of importance.

The house on the farm is half-empty now. I placed some incense at the Buddhist altar, remembering that my grandfather had once said, "Religion is between you and God." Alone, except for the watchful eyes of the god I doubt, I surrendered these memories and committed them to the cerulean sea.

Pausing, but not stopping, to remember the grandmother that passed, and the father who once loomed so unbearably large, but now grows smaller and smaller.

Oh Lord, we commit these bodies to flame, and commit their souls to your mercy. Be merciful to us, Lord, for we do not believe, and yet are saved by the forgetting. Amen.

Dastardly Remander: A review of three borrowed audio books and a confession of colossal stupidity

On my recent trip up north, I took some audio books. I borrowed them from the local library.

I had to make some difficult choices...

One of these is fanciful fiction of the most incredible sort.
The other takes place mostly on a boat.

I ended up settling on four books:

The Great Courses: Great Battles of the Ancient World (Part 1 of 2), Garett G. Fagan
At The Mountains of Madness, H.P. Lovecraft
Slaughterhouse 5, Kurt Vonnegut
Master and Commander, Patrick O'Brian

I ended up getting to the first three. Great Battles of the Ancient World and At The Mountains of Madness covered the trip up there, and Master and Commander covered the trip down.

Don't judge audio books by their covers.

I do judge people by their covers. Looks "academic" enough.

The Great Courses: Great Battles of the Ancient World (Part 1 of 2)lectures by Garrett G. Fagan
copyright 2005, The Teaching Company

I was most excited by this one, and so I cracked it open first. Fagan has a high, Irish accent, one that probably would grate on me in a social setting but perfectly suited to a set of lectures on ancient conflict. He spent a great deal of time on methodology and built a case for his views on ancient conflict. In short, Herodotus exaggerates and lies. Also, artwork and official accounts tend to skew toward the rich, overstating the importance and number of chariots and other elite units. I have no benchmark by which to compare his conclusions to those he discusses and demolishes, but they seem plausible, if somewhat less exciting.

Don't ask me for specifics on Sumer, Akkad, Megiddo, Kadesh, Troy, Lachish, Marathon, or Thermopylae. I was listening while dodging minivans who thought it fit to go 95 on I-5. Still, I did get a sense that the hoplite actually fought in a more open formation, rather than the traditional view of a bunch of dudes 8 deep pushing with unwieldy spears. I now want to find part two and get to Alexander and Rome.

"Disclaimer: The County of Los Angeles Public Library assumes no
responsibility for damage of any nature whatsoever to a customer's
equipment as a result of use of Library's materials."

Does this cover madness? 

At the Mountains of Madness
Written by H. P. Lovecraft
Performed by Jim Killavey
copyright 2014 by JimCin Recordings

I had read At The Mountains of Madness before, many years ago, and enjoyed it. I even liked the trailer for the upcoming movie!

(Spoiler: it's a fake, but it looked good. Wasn't so excited over a fan trailer since Titanic II. And yes, I have seen Encino Man.)

My first warning should have been the production company: Sounds Terrifying: Mystery and Thriller Audiobooks. What a groaner.

My second warning was that I probably read At The Mountains of Madness during a period of acute depression and unemployment, which probably meant that I was not of particularly discriminating or sensitive taste.

In any case, what can I say? I wish I could say that I could imagine, driving up highway 101 among hills, that I could visualize the forbidding titular mountains. But my god!--the voice droned and inflected in a way that sounded like it was trying to thread a balance between drama and narration, and failing at both.

Perhaps it wasn't the speaker's fault. H. P. Lovecraft is, unfortunately, perhaps a gawdawful writer. He was so redundant I thought I was listening to my mom tell me for the tenth time about a person I didn't care about doing something completely inane and boring. He stated the title directly in what seemed like no fewer than five instances. He stretched out the exploration of the abandoned city in a way that killed tension, rather than enhanced it. And, finally, he made the horrible decision to have his narrator break from the story to express hesitation about continuing so frequently that it lost all power.

The most terrifying sound I heard on the CD wasn't "Tekili-li!". It was "Please insert the next CD."

I hesitate to go back and read The Shadows of Innsmouth. I liked that book, too, but I wonder if it holds up as badly. I'll probably definitely not listen to it.

ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED?

Master and Commander
By Patrick O'Brian
Read by John Lee
copyright 2003 Books on Tape, Inc.

I have a close friend from college who told me he had read all of the Master and Commander books. I knew he was an anglophile and loved Napoleonic naval stuff. But I couldn't imagine why, or how, he did so. I can't remember if it was in grad school or high school; one seems a more likely time for a 20-novel bingefest than the other, especially because said friend grew up without a TV.

Also, I saw the movie, and enjoyed it.

I decided to get it because he and I tended to have similar tastes when it came to historical interests, though my knowledge of Napoleonic naval warfare was limited to some Wikipedia entries on the Battle of the Nile, itself prompted by Haydn's Missa in angustiis ("Lord Nelson Mass"). (The backstory on that work is great -- in my mind only eclipsed by the background of Shostakovich's 7th symphony, ("Leningrad").

This was a superb audiobook.

First, O'Brian is a delightful author, treating the neophyte with a slough of naval taxonomy that I couldn't follow, but still appreciated. He describes a constellation of characters that are interesting and diverse. A recent Atlantic article compared the series with Game of Thrones (which I have completely read but not watched). In some ways I can see that, though Master and Commander, by its nature, is more proscribed in its settings. But the dynamic of the two main characters -- Dr. Jack Aubrey and Dr. Steven Maturin -- surrounded by a maelstrom of characters, plots, conflict, and actual maelstroms -- makes for wonderful listening, and no doubt, engrossing reading.

I have been told that the series does get a bit repetitive -- it would be a remarkable feat to keep it completely fresh with a nautical setting across 20 novels -- but that it's still worth reading the first few novels. I am somewhat more convinced.

A word on the narrator: I think this performer did a fantastic job of subtly, but clearly, delineating the differences between the characters. He did so without too much affectation, though he did modulate his accent slightly. Sometimes, I think the effect was one more of modifying tone rather than timbre, which is fine by me. I consider this the best audiobook I've listened to, with Unbroken (not reviewed) second, on the quality of the narration.


Epilogue:
After returning home, I searched frantically for the 12th and final Master and Commander CD. I was tired when I finished the book, and driving at the time, so I had sandwiched it among the student notebooks and garbage that covered the passenger seat. After an 11 hour drive, I was spent and went to sleep.

After a couple days, I thought about it and started searching for the CD. No luck. Had I thrown it out with the garbage? Was it squeezed between the folds of the seat? Embedded in one of the multitudinous, seemingly self-replicating notebooks that I had?

Here I channel Lovecraft:

Dark dreams began to take hold of me, dreams in which I walked up the steps of the library of the cursed city of Leng, cradling a secret sin, 11 genuine CDs and one blank. Could I be capable of such evil? Azathoth was blind and an idiot, but wouldn't he know?

Here I hesitate to continue reader. Although guided by the same mission that I had obscurely mentioned multiple times before, I have to fill some space by expressing horror and disgust that I will continue (but yes, I will continue). It is only to prevent others from the same folly unending, and from unleashing unimaginable catastrophe, that I state what I am about to state, etc.

After spending nearly two weeks of searching with sporadic freneticism, I eventually noticed something:

As in, 11 CDs for Master and Commander. I checked: the 11th CD does end with "Here ends the reading of Master and Commander, by Patrick O'Brian..."

So I wasn't missing a CD. I had spent hours scouring through the detritus of lost civilizations that constitute my trunk and front passenger seat of my car, all because I failed to make the logical jump that, maybe, just maybe, I had miscounted the number of CDs consumed in an 11-hour, caffeine-directed, bladder-destroying drive from Garberville to Hacienda Heights. And maybe, just maybe, I should, I don't know, read the notes on the thing from the library.

I used to joke about being functionally illiterate. Must I add innumeracy to my manifesto of armchair diagnoses?

Also, apologies to Ethan Hawke. I'll get to Slaughterhouse Five if I can before the renewal date. I should -- it's too cute that there are exactly 5 CDs.

Because 5 is in the title, right? I'm expecting a laugh riot.

Doing something

I do not intend for the previous post to be nothing but self-indulgent emoting. I've been thinking a lot about what I can do.

In the discussions about what to do with any of the migration and humanitarian issues of the day, I've seen lots of criticism that we must look to our own citizens first. I've also seen critiques of aid agencies as being corrupt, or concerns about moral hazard exacerbating the power of smugglers and criminal elements, or -- in my view -- less rational arguments about racial or religious purity, terrorism, and claims that "we shouldn't have to do more if country/group X isn't doing anything".

I find all of them inadequate. Some may be grounded in a speck of truth. But I believe that ultimately, we as individuals shape our values and destinies by our actions and inactions.

I know that not everyone feels equally able, or equally responsible. The discussions tend to focus on one extreme or another, all-or-nothing views of service and duty.

I know, in my heart of hearts, that even images of drowned children will not cause me to part with everything I have, with the life I am building here. Nor, perhaps, should it. Philosophically, intellectually, and perhaps even at a bare emotional level, I do feel that our first duty is to our own citizens.

But it is not our only duty. And all-or-nothing thinking tends to rationalize inaction on all fronts.

So I've decided to be a bit more systematic, to explore and define where that line lies with me. It's potentially shameful how little I might find myself willing to do, but by looking for that line, and choosing to go up to that line, I'll do more. And that might have to be enough.

Direct Involvement:
Volunteering in Syria for at least a year
Volunteering in Syria for any amount of time
Volunteering in Turkey/Egypt/Jordan for at least a year
Volunteering in Turkey/Egypt/Jordan for any amount of time
Volunteering in the EU for at least a year
Volunteering in the EU for any amount of time
Volunteering at a local NGO for at least a year
Volunteering at a local NGO for at least 4 hours a week.
Volunteering at a local NGO for less than 4 hours a week.
Searching for a local NGO involved in relief efforts

That's all I feel capable of doing for now. It's depressingly low on the list, but it's more than I would do otherwise.

Financial:Donate life savings to an appropriate nonprofit
Donate $5,000
Donate $2,000
Donate $1,000
Donate $500
Donate $250
Donate $100
Donate $50
Donate $20
Donate $10
Donate $5
Donate nothing

I had Donate $500 highlighted for a good minute. But I struggled, and caved in to a lower amount. I'm not proud of that. It's been a good year for me. But it's more than I would do otherwise. I think I'll donate it to Doctors Without Borders -- they appear to be working at train stations directly, which seems like a good place for the money to work.

Now what about Americans? Don't I have an obligation to people here? Absolutely.

Direct Involvement:
Volunteer for more than 10 hours a week
Volunteer for 5-10 hours a week
Volunteer for less than 5 hours a week.
Look into volunteer opportunities.
Don't volunteer.

It's not a lot. I don't know how I found more time to volunteer at Mudd and carry a full courseload. Maybe I'm underestimating how much unpaid work I do. Maybe I am rationalizing my laziness. But I'm willing to cut out some Youtube and Wikipedia time to do so.

Now, what specific volunteering action should I take? I've long wanted to tutor children in shelters. I'm not sure if it's the best approach, given the limitations on shelter stay -- perhaps a long-term tutoring commitment at a local library or school is more important. But maybe I'm focused too much on my current skills/job. Brush clearance and trail cleanup might be a better option, though I think food pantry work would be more important.

Financial Involvement, Domestic:Donate life savings to an appropriate nonprofit
Donate $5,000
Donate $2,000
Donate $1,000
Donate $500
Donate $250
Donate $100
Donate $50
Donate $20
Donate $10
Donate $5
Donate nothing

$100 to the Inland Valley Hope Partners. Done. Sorry Bernie, but I'll give you something later.

Now, psychological research says that saying you're going to do something makes it less likely that you'll actually do it. To avoid that, I've submitted the donations before I posted this.

***

Look, I didn't do this to be a goddamn Pharisee about the thing. I don't think I did much. But again, I did more than I would've done otherwise. I had to grapple with just how little I was willing to do, but I made sure to do that.

It's important to really not give in to helplessness and figure out what exactly you will do. Not what you can do, but what you will do. And then do it. It's humbling, but it's necessary. It's perhaps not optimal, but what is in this life?

Make a spreadsheet. Conduct a more rigorous audit of your nonprofits. By all means conduct a more nuanced budget, building in persistent support instead of one-time gifts. But whatever you do, do something. Our values are reflected in both our actions and our lack of action.

Remember: you have something to give this world. Those who are most bitter, who are most angry -- they are the ones who feel the world owes them something, who feel, in their heart of hearts, too vulnerable to say, "I am of value, I have value to offer, and I give it with the confidence that, after I have given, I will be elevated, not diminished, as a human being." I know this because I struggle with it as well.

You do have value. Within my calculations of distant offerings, I am mindful of my need to also look nearer, and embrace you. I am rediscovering my better nature, and so I hope it will be manifest in my friendships, too.

Sorry for my long, lonely absence. I'm back. After a long, long journey, I'm back.

Night Shift

After much tearing of clothes and gnashing of teeth, I'm actually, finally, going to Northern California for a short vacation. Headed to Fremont and Garberville. Fremont should be familiar to most of you -- it's Bay-area ish. Garberville is in Humboldt County. My cousin there is a "pharmacist",y which I mean she is actually a pharmacist, perhaps the only legitimate one in the area.

This has been an... interesting 24 hours.

First, my departure time. For whatever reason, I thought it would be a good idea to leave Monday evening. My septagenarian aunt can make the trip to Fremont in one day, but I thought I might need two. The initial "plan" (scare quotes appropriate in this case) was to spend the night around Fresno, spend the day in Yosemite, and the head to Fremont for dinner. But just as plague changed the course of human history, it changed the course of this human's story.

I guess you could say
(•_•) / ( •_•)>⌐■-■ / (⌐■_■)
The trip got off to a bumpy start.

So the " "plan" " became "head up I-5 until you get tired. I had to pull over after an hour because I had to field some questions about O. Henry's use of vocabulary in "The Gift of the Magi". The student is in 9th grade honors English -- but it's pretty tough. Solid vocab chops and a healthy appreciation of puns are needed. I'm actually pretty proud of how I was able to explain, and the student was able to understand, how the author uses beggar as a verb, and why it's funny. Explaining jokes is never a surefooted endeavor, but I managed to not shoot myself in the foot, or put said foot in my mouth, and the mother's offer for compensation for remote tutoring effectively that someone else would foot the bill for the hotel tonight. (O Henry? I don't owe him anything!)

So here's where it gets interesting. I got a text around midnight from the brother of that student indicating he needed help on his first calculus assignment. On that auspicious note I pulled off at Gorman and into a closed McDonalds lot to send off some texts.

A guy approached my car and asked, "Hey, can you roll down the window?"

I stared at him for a good second or two, and obliged.

He then tells me a story about how he and his buddy got stranded on their dirtbikes. I'm glad I checked my cynicism for half a second, because he seemed to be asking for more than a couple bucks for gas. He wanted a ride.

His name was Dante. I suppose a more bemused deity might've sent a Cain.

Now, prior to the trip, I did stop by at the library and picked up some audiobooks. Among the offerings was Malcolm Gladwell's Blink. I didn't take it, because I had read it a few years ago. But I suppose the principles he was outlining were operating, because I said yes before I really had processed anything.

He got in, and we started driving toward a dark, dead-end street, to "meet his friend guarding the bikes". I mentally thought, "Okay, this is going to be interesting."

As it turns out, Dante took over watch duty of the bikes. Ricardo and I ended up driving to their car, which, as it turns out, was about ten miles away over rough roads. It was then that I was able to realize why I had trusted Dante enough to give him a ride. If I'm honest, these were factors:

1. seemed clean-cut, middle-class
2. white
3. offered me money for help
4. I was by myself, and so the direct consequences of robbery/murder would be limited to me.

But perhaps the most important one: he actually had on all the protective gear. Either he was who he said he was, or he was a serial killer particularly committed to playing the part. I respect method actors.

I got to know the two guys a bit. They each have a strong internal locus of control. Ricardo had been in a terrible accident in 2009. A drunk driver had nearly killed him. Doctors warned him against pushing his body too hard, but he found that surfing, dirt biking, and rock climbing were better than Percocet. Ricardo was now a civil engineer for a private water company in Ventura. I knew less about Dante's background, but he had been in the army and had used his navigation skills to help them get out. (Ricardo's bike had started breaking down and a trip that had been planned for five hours turned into a fourteen hour ordeal.)

Through it all they had no fears of dying in the desert, either from biking itself or exposure. They had conserved their water, and had topped off their gas tanks. Before Ricardo's bike had started breaking down, they had been taking trails that involved tight turns exposed to 60-foot drops. Ricardo had tried to jury-rig a solution, but found that the bolt in his shifter had practically fused.

He calmly said, "I knew I wasn't going to die. If we had been trapped overnight, I would've dug a hole to help keep warm." They did have their phones, but had held off from calling 911. (The ranger station had closed at 5pm.)

Ricardo had said that another guy who usually joined them had declined to go today, as a mutual friend had died dirt biking the day before.

I happened to have two peaches in a cooler, and gave it to them. They were grateful. They offered me money again, but I just gave them my card. Somehow, I felt it would be good for me to stay in touch with them.

Hours later, I finally checked into a motel, where I had paid twice as much as I had expected, and where I found WiFi problems that compelled me to squat in the lobby at 5 in the morning. I started whining, furious that I was working on student questions, furious that the blase night receptionist was spraying for roaches in the lobby while I worked, and generally tired and pissed.

Then I thought, goddamn it, Ryan. You don't really pay attention to what goes on around you, do you?

The Eulogy That Will Never Be

There won't be a service for my father, so this is perhaps the closest thing to a eulogy that he will receive. It's rough, but so are the emotions. I think I can't bring myself to edit it, even though it probably needs it. Here then, it will rest, as thoughts formed, but unrefined, over the last decades.

I started, but never completed, a eulogy for him in 2009. He was bedridden and near death. But then, as he did so many times, he bounced back. Cats only have nine lives. I can recall perhaps a dozen instances where he sat at the edge of death, or was at least hospitalized for a serious condition, and he returned. Perhaps part of me felt that this time was no different. But I had been bracing for his death, and I find myself more or less ready for it.

In some ways, I lost my father a long, long time ago. He suffered from bipolar I disorder and schizophrenia for most of his adult life, though it became completely unmanageable shortly after my birth.

I am lucky, in many ways. A few years ago I realized how hard it must be for his sister and my mother. When they saw him, they were constantly reminded of the man he used to be. Free from such memories, perhaps he was free from my expectations.

Or at least somewhat free. Here's the thing with an almost-absent father. It allows children to project an ideal into the void of absence. I saw him so rarely that I was persistently, if subconsciously, managing that absence. In the absence of real presence, real perspective, I formulated an ideology that was too rigid -- whether as a fundamentalist Christian or a left-wing liberal or an ambitious student. And upon that edifice that substituted for substance, I broke, time and again.

When Roy, my stepfather, came into our lives, I think I readily gave him the title of father, though I didn't say so until their wedding, 15 years later. But how could anyone live up to decades of longing and wishing, at once vague and insistent? Disappointment was inevitable, and our present relationship, while cordial, perhaps suffered from the gulf between what I wanted and what he was capable of providing. He is a good man, a victim of the expectations of a child not fully grown up.

My father was possessed with real charm and humor. In some ways, it seemed that he "got" me more than my mother ever did. She is a wonderful woman who has given me everything, and yet I feel that the gap between her world and mine is nearly unbridgeable. For his flaws, he was more pragmatic, and yet more emotionally self-aware. He had the self-confidence to make jokes, bawdy ones.

So it was natural that I would relate to him a lot more than my mother. As part of that, I harbored a long, deep-seated fear of being bipolar. It didn't help that I was actively discouraged from expressing strong emotions, either positive or negative, in the presence of my mother and grandmother. God bless them, but they knew crap about psychology, and they thought that things like stress, or ambition, or improvised poetry, or seriousness, were all signs of impending and irreversible mental collapse. I exaggerate a bit, but my young mind did magnify the fears. By 7th grade I was aware of genetic predispositions, and was a little scared whenever I had trouble sleeping before a big Academic Decathlon competition, or stayed up to write an overlong English essay.

For the record, I've been cleared on that front. Bipolar disorder generally manifests itself in the teens, and whatever exuberance I may have exhibited was pretty natural. But the strains put on myself did show, and I became depressed. I dropped out of grad school. I developed addictions and antisocial habits. I ran away from home for two months. In the end, the diagnosis isn't bipolar disorder. It's depression coupled with bad coping habits. There is something laughable in how a fear of being mentally ill played a primary role in making me so.

But I am talking more about myself, and not about him. Eulogies are often more accurate reflections of the speaker than the one spoken of.

There were tremendously good things about him, too. Having lost everything, he relished simple things. We would go and get terrible strawberry shakes (before I learned that I was lactose intolerant), or Mountain Dew at Taco Bell. We'd walk around the not-too-great part of Norwalk, and he would say hi to his friends. Wherever he was, he needed to be, and generally was, a big man, known, "well-liked", as Willy Loman would put it. I did pick up insecurity in how he would freely dispense gifts (often going into a bit of debt to do so), but I'd say he was far more confident in social interactions than I ever was.

And his humor! He loved cracking jokes. They were often crude, (I'm packing a gun, and it's got a single chamber.) and occasionally racist (A Frenchman, an Englishman, a Texan, and a Mexican are on a plane. The plane is going to crash if the load isn't ligtened, and so the pilot calls for volunteers to sacrifice to save the others. The Frenchman shouts "Vive la France!" and jumps off the plane. The Englishman shouts "For Queen and Country!" and jumps. The Texan shouts "Remember the Alamo!" and throws the Mexican out of the plane.) But he was quick both to make others laugh and laugh at my own jokes. My students probably wonder where I get my weird sense of humor -- it comes, in part, due to positive reinforcement from my father laughing at my terrible jokes for many, many years.

Most of all, I know that he tried so hard to live up to what he imagined where the standards I set for him. He quit smoking so many times, and would tell me, with pride, how long he had stopped smoking for, and how much money he had saved. Inevitably, he'd start again -- there just wasn't much to do in the facilities in which he lived. And when it would come up, he'd look a little abashed, as if I were the father, and he were the misbehaving child. It was sad, but endearing, and I forgave him for his lapses.

His drug lapses were harder to forgive. He had been, for most of his life, a creature of chemicals, in one form or another. When I was about 10, he gave me a two-page, double-sided, double-column list of all the illegal drugs he had taken in his life. Granted, a lot of these were nicknames for the same sorts of drugs (barbituates, for instance), but it was still pretty impressive. Apparently, one of the problems with mania is that it feels good. He would enjoy feeling manic, and sometimes resort to illegal drugs. Apparently he bought meth a couple times, and was hospitalized for extreme blood pressure (220/180, I think). His strong heart saved him, then and many other times. He did always encourage me to stay away from drugs, a message which seems to have stuck.

His manic episodes were really hard to deal with. My mother would drop me off for visitation -- he didn't have formal visitation rights, but he had the expectation of seeing me once every two weeks. It was usually for a couple hours on a Saturday. Most of the time, he was fine. But sometimes, he was unbalanced, or full-blown manic. He'd rage about losing the house, or imagine getting back together with Mom and having us all live together. He'd make elaborate claims about his work as a senior scientist at Hughes, and his crypto-clearance security. Sometimes he'd make physically intimidating gestures, claiming to know martial arts. (For the record, as far as I know, he never, ever hit me or my mother -- a low standard of decency, to be sure, but I want to be absolutely clear on that point.) Twice -- it was only twice, but I remember each time -- he said he was disappointed in me and thought I was being raised badly.

He'd always ask forgiveness later. And it always came.

I don't know how I was supposed to react. I think I was told that it wasn't his fault, which is hard for a child. Children see things in terms of blame, and without some really subtle explanations, it's easy for a child to think it was his own fault. I don't think I blamed myself for his outbursts, but it felt odd not being able to criticize or judge him on his bad behavior. I don't know where that anger, or confusion, went -- but I know it didn't go away completely.

He was never without a girlfriend. He was charming, and even when obese, reasonably handsome. Some of his girlfriends were sweet and kind. Some seemed almost childlike or developmentally disabled. All suffered from mental illnesses. But they all loved him, and in time, I got used to Dad's girlfriends. Towards the end, we'd even have some decent man-to-man conversations about his relationships.

"Dad, she seems a bit obsessed with money."

"Yeah, she grew up poor."

"She also seems to have a thin skin. I think she gets easily offended by your jokes."

*smiles*

"Uh, are you sure she's the right match for you?"

*thinks* "We like to cuddle, and I can always eventually make her laugh."

Toward the end, his medication balance was decent enough for him to actually feel what normal humans feel, in normal amounts. Sometimes, he wasn't angry or depressed because of bipolar disorder, or becaue of schizophrenia. Sometimes, someone just pissed him off, or he was having an off day. I was actually happy toward the end when I could see that, and a bit disappointed that others in his life would try to medicalize every change in mood. For instance, he was a bit depressed a couple months ago when the managers at his retirement home were fired, because he liked them and cared about them.

In thinking about my father's life, I often focus on the hurt. It hurt having him in my life. It hurt not having him in my life. Sometimes I think it would've been easier if he had been completely out of the picture, or if he was a complete asshole, or if my mother hated him. But he was there, and wasn't an asshole, and my mom, sadly, never stopped loving him, even though they were divorced, and both had moved on. Two years ago I asked if they would've gotten divorced if I hadn't been around. I thought, maybe, she would've toughed it out on her own, but divorced to protect me. I don't remember her answer, but that I asked speaks to some lingering guilt that a child has when parents divorce, perhaps especially when they remain on reasonably good terms.

I've realized that, by focusing on the pain, and what was missing, I've become a worse person. Looking back especially on the last few years, I've lived as though I thought the world owed me something, that he owed me something. And, passively, or in fits of active self-destruction, I was waiting for payment.

Even with less experience, I think I was more wise as a child. I didn't have this attitude. I found gratitude, through my cousins, through the many wonderful role models I have, male and female. I found enjoyment in school. I made my world simpler, and more easy to handle -- yes, in response to chaos and complication and fear, but it was a correct instinct.

So I now know, that memory is a choice. I can dwell on the pain or the missed possibilities, and continue to live like I'm owed something. Or I can choose to remember the good parts, choose to highlight the good things that came from that relationship.

It's not historically accurate. It's not honest. But it's a better way to live. I don't advocate it for everyone -- I can't expect or ask someone, who, say, had an abusive parent to replace those memories with happy ones. But perhaps for those of us carrying around resentments for less serious sins, forgetting and selective memory might be part of the answer. The truth, such as it exists, magnified and distorted by our memories and motivations, is often too expensive to keep.

So I'm going to try, hard, to remember how I learned empathy and forginveness, how I learned the joy in the small and inexpensive. I'm going to remember how Dad showed me how to speak with women, how to make friends, and how to enjoy life. For he did enjoy life, in a way that I never did. Perhaps, seeing his past and future more clearly than I gave him credit, he chose to embrace the people, and places, and activities, available to him in the here and now.

Miles Yamada was a man who loved those around him, imperfectly, but intensely. He exhibited courage in facing his inner demons, and compassion in embracing his friends and family. He played an important role professionally as a successful engineer at Hughes Aircraft during the height of the Cold War, working on a number of civilian and military contracts that earned him the praise of his superiors. Disabled by bipolar disorder and schizophrenia, he still strove to exhibit a level of kindness, compassion, and humor that is worthy of emulation. He taught me that it's important to be kind to those who are different, and that a little charm and grace goes a long way in this world. I am grateful for the time spent with him, playing cards, drinking soda, and, most of all, talking. He will be missed.

Dinner with Neil

I once had dinner with Neil deGrasse Tyson.

Not alone, of course. I'm not that well-connected or important. But I was one of a few astronomy and physics grad students who were lucky enough to be treated to a delicious dinner (Cornish game hen, if I recall) at the Cornell Hotel School. It was a relatively small setting, and, as I was still reasonably brash, I couldn't resist busting his balls a bit about Pluto. (Tyson, as director of the Hayden Planetarium, had recently and conspicuously demoted Pluto in the Hayden's planetary exhibit.) He responded with good humor, and, I believe, some semi-serious discussion about the reasons for it. (I might discuss this in a separate post, if there's interest, including some speculation as to the timing of the IAU decision -- after New Horizons had been launched.)

During his public talk, after the reception, he did make a great joke about Pluto -- "The real reason it got demoted? It was too small for New York! Ha ha!" He has an infectious laugh.

If memory serves, that same talk, he ventured into what then, and probably now, is controversial territory -- that scientific advances stop when an investigator self-limits, often by invoking God.

But what I remember most of all is running into Tyson and Jim Bell (our grad department chair and one of the lead researchers on the Mars Exploration Rovers mission) at the hotel bar afterwards. They were watching a baseball game.

It was interesting seeing Neil deGrasse Tyson "off". He is a presence, and a performer, and an educator. But like many, he has a stage personality and a normal personality. It wasn't a dramatic difference, but he was less jovial, and probably tired after a long day. I don't know if I was with another student, but we joined them and talked for a bit. He discussed some serious things -- about academia, about his wife and her experiences in it, careers in astronomy, etc. I think I must've confessed my unhappiness at some point.

Anyway, at some point, I think we, the grad students, realized we were intruding on their private time. They weren't, at the moment, lofty role models. They were just a couple guys drinking beer and watching a ball game.

Neil deGrasse Tyson is hated by some astronomers. Leading up to his arrival, a couple emails went around by some lower-ranking staff scientists and researchers (not professors), complaining that he wasn't a real astronomer and that he had done a crappy PhD thesis. At that point, I knew enough about the people on the email list to suspect something less than clear-eyed objective analysis in their judgment.

I encountered similar sentiments in a dinner at UCLA with a couple astronomy professors. I had become a lay person by then, but through a sequences of events, I ended up joining them. There was discussion that he hadn't, in fact, done a stellar job on his thesis, which I think had to do with galaxies -- possibly radio or UV observations. I forgot whether or not I weighed in, but given that I was a guest, and no longer an astronomer, I probably was less brash and more passive this time around.

I haven't seen Cosmos yet. I hope to get around to it. But, unlike many people I know, I never saw it growing up. I hadn't read a single Carl Sagan book before I attended Cornell, and didn't even know he had been a professor at Cornell until I showed up as a grad student. So I don't have a lot of emotional attachment to it.

Interestingly, one did get the impression that Carl Sagan himself was not particularly popular in Cornell's Astronomy department. There was a plaque and a photo. But he wasn't referred to often. No doubt some of the professors had worked in the shadow of his popular image, and that it probably was good for the department to not be anchored to the past. Still, it seemed odd, given the amount of effort made to do outreach, how little it was discussed. At this point, his absence was not deafening, but it was a discernable murmur.

(I once talked with an impressive Cornell grad alum who was active in both science policy and astro research, and one of Sagan's students. He said he had come back only once to the department, for Carl's funeral. I think his words were, "there's nothing left for me here." Perhaps an over-harsh indictment, especially given some of the amazing humans there. But that gives you a sense of the degree of alienation some of Sagan's students felt toward the rest of the department.)

There are people who decide and rank scientific research. It's generally done by peers, and is seen to be a decent system for sorting great ideas from good, and good ideas from terrible ones. It doesn't always work, and the pressures inherent may lead to a host of sins, cardinal and venal. But it's good enough, I suppose, for it to keep going. The process by which Pluto was downgraded was generally accepted within the astronomical community, even if it did arouse controversy within and outside of astronomy.

Yet it always irked me that some scientists -- generally not the best, mind you -- felt that this meant there was a clear measure of defining science in general, value in general, and value of people to science. I couldn't shake the notion that some of these critics of Tyson couldn't handle the idea that the value system they possessed, one ingrained into them since the beginning of their careers, one in which they were completely invested, one which, to varying degrees had rewarded them, might not be universally true. Maybe it takes a level of buy-in in order to make it far enough. But it seemed... myopic, and self-defeating.

How did Tyson's success take away from theirs? How was the popularization of astronomy damaging their work? It didn't make sense, but people do tend to react badly when you question their value system, even obliquely.

I left the faith a while ago, and so I don't have anything to say specifically on astronomy. What I do know is that, looking back, I remember the tired, quiet men at that hotel bar table.

And I realize now that I'm jealous of them -- not because they are successful, respected and reknown, each in his own way. I'm jealous because they can sit down and enjoy a ball game with a friend, and put aside all the other things associated with their jobs and lives. They valued their time, and their friends.

They valued baseball.

Once, one summer, Jim Bell gave me a ride to our Astro baseball team practice. (The team name: The Big Bangers.) I was incredibly depressed at that time, and all I could think of was how grateful I would've been for a dad like Jim to take me to baseball practice. But how could someone say that? So this someone never did, until this moment, though I think he noticed a few tears.

I failed to become a scientist, not because I didn't study enough, or try hard enough. I failed because at some point I separated science from being a person, and failed to build those relationships with other human beings that make a person whole. And part of that is putting aside everything else for time with people.

I'm going to see Cosmos. But I'm going to see it because it gives me a chance to spend time with my mom, and maybe, make up a bit of that lost time.

A Valentine's Day Story

Warning: this is actually very sad. I use **** instead of the man's name because I don't want to compromise his privacy any more than I'm already doing by writing this post.


I didn't have a valentine this year. I don't think there's been a single year where I really was in love or in a relationship. There are perhaps reasons for this, but needless to say I don't commit well.

Some people, some people really do commit.

I've lived in Hacienda Heights since about 2010. I have a large, south-facing window that looks out to the street. Often, I'm home during the mornings and early afternoons; most of my tutoring happens later.

I've gotten used to seeing an ambulance in our small cul-de-sac. For as long as we've been here, three times a week, an ambulance stopped by at the house across from us. Always, two young EMTs or paramedics would casually do their paperwork, open the rear doors, and take out a stretcher. They would go into the house, and retrieve a prone, quiet woman in her sixties. The husband, a quiet, completely healthy man in his sixties, would follow in one of the two cars that always sat in the driveway. He would leave in the Lexus on the right, the white one. The one on the left, the black one; that was never used.

I learned, after a while, that he was a real estate agent. He and his wife were Japanese, as in actually from Japan, which immediately made them important in my mother's eyes. His wife had suffered a stroke many years ago. I didn't know if she could speak or not. I never went into the house. But I do know that because of the medical bills, they lost their house. They rented the one across from us.

I also learned that the other car was his wife's. He never sold it. He never used it. I don't know why. I can imagine reasons for it, but I never really spoke to him. There are some Japanese stereotypes that are true, and one of them is that you tend not to discuss personal matters with, well, anyone.

Sometimes, on weekends, I'd see a Jaguar in front -- the kind of car driven by an older, wealthy person. From my own mindset, I thought that maybe my neighbor did have someone else, that after so many years, he did have an outside relationship. Again, however, I don't know, and based on my best guess, that person was a relative of either him or his wife.

I never even knew her name. She was just always ****'s wife, at least to me.

**** always seemed cheerful and reserved. The only time my mother caught him displaying anything other than polite Japanese civility was when she caught him shouting at our cat, who was, no doubt, sneaking into his backyard to take a dump.

The ambulance stopped coming two weeks ago. ****'s wife had been moved to a skilled nursing facility, which was not a good sign. But I forgot, and didn't notice the absence of an ambulance on our street.

A few minutes ago, the doorbell rang. It's an unusual event, and I was a little concerned by who would be ringing the door on a Saturday evening. (We're not as close to our neighbors as we probably should be.) I didn't recognize **** at the door; it was dark.

He said, "Is your mother or father here?"

Still not recognizing him, I said "No", with probably some unguarded apprehension. "What can I do for you?"

He said, "Hi, I'm ****." I relaxed and went to open the security door. "No, no, it's okay." I paused.

"I just wanted to let them know that I lost my wife. Nine years."

I expressed my condolences, and opened the door. But what could I do? I couldn't give him a hug; that would be inappropriate. I awkwardly shook his hand, and he bowed. I thought about offering to attend the funeral, but was that too forward? Was it too harsh, to say the word that had the cut of finality and formality?

"I'm so sorry, ****. You have my condolences."

"Thank you. Nine years... she was like that. Would you tell them? They know."

I told him I would.

"Oh! She's going to get out!" he said, pointing to my dog, smiling.

"She'll come back," I said.

He smiled. And then he left. Still polite. Still collected.

He had been with his wife his entire adult life. They had no children. For all I know, they have no close family in the area. But "nine years", and "tell them... they know" -- they rang in my ear.

I don't even know what it would be to love someone like that. Maybe it isn't even love... maybe it's duty. But it's something so foreign to the selfish world I inhabit.

"In sickness and in health" appears in the standard wedding vows. They are perhaps the cruelest portion of the vows, for embedded within it is real terror. My neighbor and his wife lived that, for nine years. But they had good years before that. And maybe those nine years were good, in their own way, in a way that warrants our respect, not our pity.

If I think of a Dylan Thomas poem, I usually think of "Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night." I've been thinking about it more lately, because my father is dying. But the Thomas poem appropriate here is "And Death Shall Have No Dominion", especially the first verse:

And death shall have no dominion.
Dead man naked they shall be one
With the man in the wind and the west moon; 
When their bones are picked clean and the clean bones gone,
They shall have stars at elbow and foot; 
Though they go mad they shall be sane,
Though they sink through the sea they shall rise again; 
Though lovers be lost love shall not; 
And death shall have no dominion.

Happy Valentine's Day, **** and his late wife. Though lovers be lost, love shall not.

Failures in Secular Humanist Duty

There are times I can't help but wonder if I have failed in my Christian secular humanist duty.

I'm at Panera. There was a hunched, old white man sitting in a booth. He was bent; even walking, he bends over at almost a 90 degree angle. He reminded me of Edourad Manet's The Ragpicker. Like the subject of that painting, he was hunched over enough to obscure the face. Anonymous, old, solitary. He had a combover, oily but not filthy.

Initially, I couldn't tell if he was muttering, or praying, or having a medical episode. His mouth was moving, but I know that the occasional motion of the lips and mouth is a property of older people, especially those with dentures. He looked disheveled, but not quite homeless.

Perhaps I would've thought nothing of it, except for the possible medical angle. But I noticed he has a small suitcase with him. He also had a small backpack. If he wasn't homeless, he was some distance from home, in a restaurant, alone.

I would like to say that I approached him immediately. But I didn't. I hesitated. And then I distracted myself by working on a lesson summary.

Next to us were two middle-aged, middle-class women discussing a Christian book. They were discussing, if I recall, a story about hiring 100,000 Israelites to fight a battle. A subsequent search reveals that it's 2 Chronicles 25. And I couldn't help thinking "Pharisees!" in my head. "Here is a child of the God you believe, and you are too trapped in your false faith of personal salvation for you to live the life of service that is true faith!"

But was I any better? Why should I hold Christians to a higher standard than myself?

Eventually, I did approach him. I apologized for disturbing him.

"I'm sorry to disturb you sir. I don't know if you were praying or napping... but... is everythign alright?"

"We..."

"We... we can exchange..."

I thought he was going to say stories.

"We can switch seats in a second. I know you want to plug in your computer."

My first reaction, sadly, was to explain that there were no power outlets there. Fortunately, I caught myself and said,

"No no. I'm fine. I just... I just wanted to see if you were okay."

He replied, "I'm fine."

"Sorry for disturbing you."

I went back to my computer, a bit ashamed and embarassed. Maybe he thought I judged him just because he was old and bent. I confess that I was shocked that his words were clear and articulate. No slur, no quavering of the voice, other than initially. Maybe I had injured his pride.

He sat there for another ten minutes, hands clasped in a sort of prayer or murmur, occasionally moving his mouth. Then he bussed his plates, then left. I bid him farewell, and he responded with a short goodbye.

I watched him go. I thought about getting up and opening the door for him. But what if that was more patronization? He managed fine.

After I saw him disappear, slowly, around a corner, I looked back at his seat. There was a dark stain on the part of the cloth backing where he had been sitting. It wasn't just  Maybe he had been there a while. Maybe he had been sweating a great deal. Maybe his clothes were filthy. I thought about touching it to determine which it would be. But then I realized how ridiculous, and possibly weird, that might be.

But I did take a picture. It wasn't just an impression on the seat.

Sometimes, we try to do the right thing. But it almost never turns out the way we think it should. Maybe if I had phrased it as a request for company, instead of an inquiry into his status. I think Mr. Rogers would've done that; he had a way of making people feel that he needed something from them. Pope Francis appears to do that as well.

And now, I realize something.

Acts of kindness are often characterized as acts from a superior to an inferior. 

Maybe we couch it in different, kinder words, but it often presumes a difference in power, ability, or resources. Even as we celebrate them, we implicitly define things like generosity and grace in a way that diminishes the recipient. That's not the intention, of course, but it's deeply entwined in our appreciation of kind acts.

Here was someone who maybe resisted that, who didn't want pity or help, and didn't need it. Even if he did, maybe the way I communicated my offer was a bit too paternalistic, and while kind and open, with a touch of sanctimony.

It's like when I was feeding the homeless. I thought I would go out and help them. But as it turns out, I didn't save them. I couldn't. I had a lot of conversations. I saw some drunken ugliness. I heard these young kids talk politics, and silently judged the guys who had boom boxes but no food. I overheard them talking about their social security checks, and spending it on either necessities or booze. I heard about how things got rougher after the shooting of a police officer at the nearby courthouse, how the police, who had been more relaxed, were now drawing their guns on the homeless.

Through it all, I don't know if I made a damn of difference in their lives. The narrative is supposed to go that they made a difference in mine. But to be honest, the only thing I learned is that it's damn hard to make a difference in anyone's life. I'm more selfish than I was before I volunteered, but that could be to age, or other things in the last ten years.

Whatever good it did me, the experience has competed with, and lost to, a host of other influences that shaped my present character.

So today, I find that I am more inarticulate than I had realized.

And judgmental. I judged those poor women sitting a couple feet away. Maybe they had already asked. Maybe they just have different personal that I, a single, young male, don't appreciate. They were simply working together on their own spiritual betterment; perhaps they didn't notice him. They weren't Pharisees. I was the Pharisee.

Who have I helped lately? At least one woman was helping the other develop as a Christian. Who had I helped lately, except for pay, or because I was asked to?

I'm still judging. The couple sitting there after he left didn't bus their plates. And I have to stop myself into weaving it into some romantic narrative about the dignity of age and/or poverty and the lack of respect of the decently off Boomers. It's not data, and it's not the point. Leave it, Ryan.

And he did that which was right in the sight of the Lord, but not with a perfect heart. -2 Chron 25:2

I'm glad I spoke with him, however briefly. I gained no great insight into him. I didn't help him. And I learned that I'm a pretty flawed person.

And I did end up thinking a bit more about acts of kindness than I had expected. And maybe, next time, I'll both communicate it better, and be more mindful about what I offer, and what I ask. Even when I offer help, tangible or not, I am implicitly asking for a person's trust, a person's time, a person's courtesy.

That's a lot.

A letter from dad

Son,

I'm dying for real this time. Slowly, but definitively.There are things I need to tell you, things you need to hear.

I'm sorry I was a lousy father. I loved you, and still do. I loved you as much as I could. But I was also a raging maniac other times. I'm sorry for the times I said you were a terrible son. I'm sorry for melting down in front of you, with no one to help you. I'm sorry I made physically threatening movements to you and your mother; I didn't intend to follow through on them, but you, as a child, didn't know that. I'm sorry I asked you for money, and never paid it back. I'm sorry I put myself in the hospital for using meth.

I'm sorry for the smaller, but still hurtful, things too. I'm sorry I broke so many promises to quit smoking, and exposed you to tons of secondhand smoke. I'm sorry I needed you to pay for everything. I'm sorry I paraded you around the halfway houses and institutions, not only because I was proud of you, but because I was using you and your success to legitimize my existence.

I'm sorry I didn't teach you how to be a man.

I'm sorry I use "couldn't" when I should say "wouldn't". Maybe if I had tried harder, some of these things would have happened.

I will go to my end to accept what judgment may come. But I hope, now, I can teach you a few things.

Please learn from my mistakes. I was 63 when my father died. Part of me never felt free from him. I let him, or what I thought of him, hold me back for most of my life. You will be younger when your father dies, but it's still been too damn long to wait. When I'm gone, life won't get better. I'm not saying it will get worse. But you will retain your ambivalence toward me, and by extension, your own identity, even after I'm gone, if you don't work to challenge those beliefs today.

Please find something to do with your life that both gives you pride and makes you a better person every day. My job as an engineer gave me the former, but it didn't always do the latter. I could've made it about patriotism, about the pursuit of excellence, but I ended up making it about myself, and how I was "the best engineer that ever walked through those doors". I clung to those words from my boss, and never questioned whether I really earned them, or if they actually should be meaningful for me.

Please, please, don't wait for someone to fix your life for you. I waited for decades, entertaining dreams of going back to school, going back to work. But to be honest, I was scared. I didn't want to face the reality that maybe I was unhireable, maybe I didn't have my mental illnesses under control. I chose to not try rather than fail, or accept a job with less prestige and pay.

And finally, please, try to love life. I've stayed alive despite everything because I enjoy myself. Too much sometimes, I know. But you're a goddamn party pooper. Go get laid. Try not to take yourself so seriously; you've read enough biographies to know that a good sense of humor and a willingness sometimes to leap before you look are qualities of some of the great men in history. Pull the stick out of your ass and go fight the world with said stinky stick.

Sorry, I tried to inject some humor into a pretty serious letter. Don't think it worked. Know that I love you, but didn't show it well. Decide what you needed from me, and didn't get, and go find it elsewhere. I say this not dismissively, but humbly, knowing that I failed in many ways.

Remember the good times, too. Our lives can and should be judged not by specific moments of pain, but by the sum total of experiences. It's how we learn to forgive ourselves and others. In time, I hope you can forgive me.

Love,

Dad

A little faith

I think, somewhere over the last few years, many people have concluded that this country isn't worth saving. We haven't always done it publicly, or noisily. But, secretly, a lot of us sort of gave up.

It shows, too. In any relationship, it shows.

Somewhere along the line, we got more scared about our jobs, and felt like we had less time to worry about that of our neighbor.

At some point, we became more calculating and less trusting -- rationalized by the belief that that's what made individuals successful. Maybe it's even true. But it's not how a nation becomes great.

There are those of you who are itching to say that America never was that great -- that the hagiography of decades past is part of the national delusion that got us into this mess. I'm inclined to agree. However, that's not at all inconsistent with the truth that a belief that we are, or can be, the shining city on the hill actually helps us to be better.

Perhaps most telling, we have someone else to blame. What about our contribution to the failure of the relationship? Blame is more important, easier, more comforting, and a hallmark that the relationship is dying.

And yet I'm strangely hopeful.

Maybe it's historical perspective -- as crappy as we are to each other now, we have only to go back a few years, or decades, or centuries, to reveal how truly shitty humans can be to each other.

It's actually better now, on average. It just doesn't feel that way.

I think in some ways, I understand how conservativism increases with age. As we get older, we remember how things were worse at the beginning of our lives. And yet, there is no sense of pride, or satisfaction, or even the barest sense of hope that comes from that knowledge. There's only the gnawing sense that this should've felt better, and that people keep demanding more, that the battles are often the same ones we fought (or were spectators to) when we were young and stupid and had faith.

I'm not sure where this blog post came from. I'm supposed to be thinking about a humorous speech for Toastmasters. But I think it comes from a slow, steady, and hopefully growing sense that I do have faith in this country, in its peoples and The People. Not much. But enough to keep going, and maybe do a bit more. I am too old to put my faith or reasons in broad ideas. It resides in specific people, in moments, in which the unreachable heights of idealism find their best, beautiful, and beautifully flawed expression.

I don't know whether it's better to thank people for loving me, or to thank them for helping me learn to love this country. Fortunately, there is tremendous overlap. It's for you -- and not a piece of paper, or dead Founding Fathers who, through death, are absent fathers -- that I'll try to remember whenever I start to lose faith, or become too complacent.

The picture of Bobby Kennedy is coming down. Or, at the very least, the pictures of people I know personally have to join him. I work for the living, not for the dead. And that's as pure a faith as I care to have.