I recently found myself frustrated during a conversation with a friend. He was dejected for a variety of reasons, one of which I suspected was a side-effict of his self-inflicted exile from others. I brought up the topic of human sociability. I spoke to a desire people had towards being accepted. "It's good to be accepted--assuming it is with the right sort of crowd, of course," I observed. My friend, skeptic that he is, asked me to explain what it was to be accepted. Off the cuff I replied, “People treat you well regardless of what you do. They want you to be around. The group you are being accepted into is considerate of your needs, sometimes moreso than you are.” My friend sat and looked at me, uninspired. He insisted sociability was beneficial for some and not for others. I had failed. I could not help but think he had the easier side of the debate. This was another data point along a disturbing trend I had noted before: it is difficult to discuss uplifting things.
Did I misspeak? No. The description was accurate, if a bit truncated. Can I claim I communicated the truth of the experience? No, I did not. How poorly words shine in comparison to acceptance lived! To enliven it, one could bring it into relief. One would need to portray the depraved state of rejection in order to bring the vitality of acceptance into full view. Why the need for all of this explanation? If I wanted to discuss rejection instead, all I would need to say was something like, "They didn't think I listened to the right sort of music. You know the type." Immediately, my friend would have made all necessary connections and filled in all the gaps. We would have been on the same page quickly.
The power of words suffers a diminution the greater their proximity to goodness. Is there something in the nature of goodness that eludes our language? The question is all the more puzzling when we consider the effectiveness of words in the description of evil. A person who lies about lying still says something about it, whereas a person who lies about the truth only goes to make his error more egregious. To what should we attribute this change?
I must clarify that I am not here equating goodness with happiness and evil with sadness, still less with pleasure and pain. Goodness and evil pertain to existence apart from humans. Happiness and sadness are human sentiments. The excitement of sentiments depends upon the constitution of a person. Constitutions of people are never perfectly attuned to truth, even if they are committed to virtue. It follows that the presence of a good may make a person sad and the presence of an evil may make a person happy and, conversely, the absence of a good may make a person happy and the absence of an evil may make a person sad. With that said, back to the discussion at hand.
Note how the awesome welcomes and the awful repels. What better way to invest ourselves than to act rather than merely contemplate? The invitation of goodness requests our companionship. We want to be with the good, we want to incorporate it--make it a part of ourselves. I imagine a couple embracing in silence, filled with contentment. Either party could say to the other, “Let’s not muck up this moment by talking. Let’s simply be still and quiet. Let’s think in half sentences that flit about one after another, always circling around what we know now and enjoying our company.” It suffices to be present in the midst of something good.
When we are mired in evil, however, we want to take our leave. Suffering is too repulsive. By discussing evil, we distance ourselves from it. It is taken out of immediacy and placed into the safer plane of contemplation. We benefit from this as a wound benefits from the completion of the injury. Only after the laceration is over can the body successfully mend. For the whole person, witness the healing power of counseling, discussion, and confession. We bring pain out of the recesses of our minds into the light of day and it begins to evaporate.
But there is a lure in the pleasure that follows convalescence. We can indulge in the pity of being victimized, the self-righteousness of judging an evil and implicitly not being evil ourselves, and the indignation in protesting against the evil fact For the sake of these benefits, we communally belly-ache and bemoan trifles. In this way, we court evil by contemplating it incessantly. It takes root in our minds and, though we disavow it as cruel, unjust and wanton, it succeeds in preoccupying us. Evil thus proliferates. The contemplation of evil brings us closer to the living of evil as we become calloused, prideful, and rebellious. So we find ourselves resting where peace is not.
Look where our discussion has brought us. These last considerations suggest the inadequacy of language lies more in the speaker than in what is spoken. How closely related the two are and how the one affects the other! Thought makes language; language makes thought. Thought makes the person; the person makes the thought.
Could it be that darkness is more readily accessible than light and that even the most amateurish attempt will find something keen to say in regards to a depressing fact?
If evil becomes a preoccupation, then we develop an expertise for expounding upon it. People speak to evil more because to do so requires less effort. Note how easily criticism flows and how genuine appreciation trickles. Observe the number of songs communicating sadness and frustration against those communicating elation. How many sob stories are there for every truly happy ending?
To illuminate with a flashlight in broad daylight—is that not the task of the person desiring to speak about goodness? Life is a great good in itself; it is a condition of goodness. It is basic, a presupposition. It surrounds us without being noticed. Most who attempt to capture the lofty only impotently light up the sidewalk. The skilled orators know to lure their audience into the shadows and to strike a match there. In order to be credible, the speaker needs to infuse his speech with enough pain, suffering, and depravity to bring the listener to take it a livable possibility. Caution is necessary, however, lest too much evil becomes a distraction.
Now I have disoriented myself still further as the possibilities continue to multiply. What if the linguistic discrepancy was neither what was spoken nor the skill of the speaker, but is found simply the disposition of the speaker? Upon further consideration, the quantity of words spoken about good seems to be more disproportionate to the number regarding evil than the respective qualitative inequality.
What is it about us, then? How are we pressed upon by those sights we witness and events we live through? The trail of evil is memorialized by scars. When one is touched by goodness, what mark is left? There is nothing to point to. The memory is more apt for learning lessons in order not to make the same mistake again than recalling moments of joy. Focus is required to keep joy in our minds, whereas misery always seems to find us.
Our tendencies toward self-preservation and self-righteousness blur our vision to the point of blinding us. There are more pessimists because pessimism keeps you alive while optimism only promises to keep you living well.
Then could it be that the efficacy of language speaking to goodness is accounted for by our depravity? Why do so many good things strike us as vapid? We would take as incredulous the man who found contentment in the picturesque vitality of an open field. What a dreamer! What an idiot! He must be fooling himself. Few of us could relate to such a juxtaposition of loftiness and simplicity. Men of that sort are vulnerable. The world will eat them up and we can not allow for that to happen to us. Better to live of this world than die to it, right?
Whatever the origin, for my part, I would rather keep quiet than attempt to describe goodness. The limitations of words offend a person with an intuition of goodness. They appear paltry relative to the experience. What is worse, more harm than good is done to the good cause by sappy, sentimental, or cliché accounts of a poignant event, a radiant truth, or a beautiful object. It is better not to besmirch good’s good name by a poorly phrased remark. A listener may rightly scoff and thereafter think more of the means of the communication than the end. The attempt at communication fails. Rather than being edifying and inspirational, it is distracting. What is remembered is that the people who love goodness are glassy-eyed dopes, Pollyannas, or Panglosses. I would rather not taint that which I love.
Still, I am impelled to push on. One can only rest for so long before becoming restless. So I raise questions and try to turn heads towards something better than I could ever make.
Thursday, July 29, 2010
Monday, July 26, 2010
Breakfast Debate
(For a newer draft of this story, click here.)
Defiant birds were chirping at one another as two friends sat at a table on a diner’s patio. A car, truck, or motorcycle drove by infrequently along the nearest strip of road.
“Odd isn’t it? Most people would think this place doesn’t exist in the morning,” Tom observed.
Earl examined his friend’s countenance, trying to decipher any clues as to the sentiment behind the remark. “Yeah,” he eventually responded.
“Sad isn’t it?” Tom pressed before taking a sip of his black coffee. “What this place has become, I mean.”
“Oh, sure. I guess.” Earl paused to think the question over. “Well, maybe. I guess these places lose some of the aura they have about them, like theaters in between shows or uh…ball parks in the winter.”
“Exactly. Sad, but good though. It’s for the best we know.”
“How do you mean?”
“I mean at least we aren’t deceived about it like the tourists are. I…” A diesel truck boomed past the eatery. “I mean what would change if we all saw theaters being cleaned up with the lights on?”
“There’d be more disaffected children probably. They’re the ones who are usually duped. The tourists though, they just don’t think about it. They come here for the night life. But kids—places for children are more special because they don’t make the same assumptions as adults.” Earl rubbed his temples and raked his greasy morning hair with his fingers. “Kids don’t figure everywhere has a cleaning crew. They just figure theaters are ready to play moves anytime.”
“But that’s not right. It’s a bad habit that starts young maybe, the acceptance of ignorance,” Tom lamented.
“It’s not so bad. What’s wrong with a little make-believe.?”
“It’s make-believe that’s turning this place into a knock-off Las Vegas. People come down here to make-believe they’re in someplace where they are automatically impressive.” Tom looked out at the end of the strip. It was illuminated by streaks from the freshly rising son. The dimples and cracks in the weathered pavement made the faded asphalt look like elephant skin. “A lot of places would probably shrivel up and die if people knew what they looked like when they weren’t being what you think of them as.”
“Maybe it depends on the sort of place. What places are you thinking of?”
“Take your pick of one of the places up and down here,” Tom said gesturing towards the street with his chin. “That place, for example.” Tom’s finger indicated a rectangular building up the way. It was covered with white siding that grew green in places. The two windows on the front were covered with alcohol advertisements from inside. Banners with speed boats, white sand beaches, and bottles of beer draped over much of the white siding. The tired red awning trapped some of the morning rays. “It doesn’t look so great now without the neon signs. Nothing automatic about it. You’re as much of a dope walking in as walking out. More so even.”
“No. It doesn’t look so hot.” Earl raised his mug to try to get the attention of the waitress who was sitting inside talking with an old man wearing a khaki cap. She nodded to him in acknowledgement and began the process of breaking off the conversation. “But you have to admit unflattering light could ruin a lot of good reputations—of places and people.”
“Yeah.”
“So a bar at sunrise may burst a few bubbles, but so would showing kids what’s behind the puppet show set.”
“Right.” Tom and Earl watched the brown stream fill their mugs as the waitress tipped the coffee pot. Earl looked up at her and smiled with gratitude. She grinned meekly and left without saying a word.
“Knowledge doesn’t solve everything, Tom. I can tell you’re frustrated by this atmosphere, but some people walk off cliffs with eyes wide open, you know? Just adding information to this recipe won’t make it sweeter.”
“Yeah. It just makes sad to think about what this town makes money off of.”
“Most towns do the same.”
“I suppose.”
“If you closed down all the bars and strip joints and all the other ‘dens of inequity,’ there’d be a lot more hungry people out there—kid’s too. Some people make good livings bartending.”
“That doesn’t make it right, Earl.”
“No, of course not. It just makes it complicated.”
Tom took a swig of his hot coffee as Earl swirled the creamer into his. “I appreciate your frustration, though. It’s not easy for me coming back here either.” Earl added.
“Yeah,” Tom replied with a hollow voice. He rubbed away a drop of coffee that had dripped onto the wooden table. Almost on cue, the flow of traffic increased with the eight o’clock hour.
“Do you think ignorance is bliss, Earl?”
“It can be.”
“No it can’t! It never can.”
“How do you figure?”
“A person can feel…undisturbed in a state of ignorance, but that’s not bliss. Bliss is more than that.”
“Sounds blissful to me.”
“Then blissful and bliss aren’t the same.”
“Adjectives and nouns aren’t the same, no, but they’re related.”
“Not identical.”
“Most of the time they’re indistinguishable. How are you going to tell the difference between a blissful person and a person in bliss? How would you know in your own case?”
Tom slightly wrinkled his nose. “Well, I guess there’s…Are you just being a contrarian here or do you really value stupidity this much?”
“Who said anything about stupidity? We’ve been talking about ignorance.”
“What’s the difference?”
“Ignorance is a lack of knowledge. Stupidity is an inability to acquire it.”
“Ah. So all stupid people are ignorant, but not all ignorant people are stupid.”
“That sounds right.”
“Hm. Well, that’s all fine and well—but it’s besides the point. Why are you defending ignorance so much?”
“Because you’re so offended by it.”
“And?”
“And I don’t like seeing my old friend so upset.”
“You’ve got an odd way of calming people down.”
“What? Setting them straight?”
“Straight? Hm. And I though you liked brokenness.”
“There you go confusing ignorance with stupidity again. You Tom, for instance, are not stupid. You’re so far away from it you’re in danger of being ignorant. Some things you know, some things you should know, some things you can’t know, and some things you shouldn’t know. Wisdom is in putting the information in the right boxes.”
“And some things you don’t know.” Tom reminded.
“Right. Of course. But you know so many things that you’ve developed a skewed view of knowledge. Knowledge, in general, is not going to make this world a better place all by itself.”
“That’s not true.”
“Yes it is.”
“No it’s not. All knowledge is good because everything is related, if only distantly. It’s like…it’s like gravity, you know? Every body has a gravitational pull on every other body in the universe, no matter how small it is. It’s the same with learning. Learning is always going to make you a better person. It’ll keep you out of bars.”
“Buddy, knowing how to bake a cake doesn’t make you a better driver and knowing what’s a waste of time doesn’t make you any more industrious. That’s got more to do with emotions and motivations…personal history and the like. Character. It’s not as simple as just proving to people the vice is a vice.”
“You’re wearing me out, Earl.”
“Good. Maybe then you’ll give this preoccupation of yours a rest and you’ll try to have a nice weekend despite all the debauchery around you.”
“Hm. So if I just don’t think about what’s wrong with everything down here, I’ll have a better time.”
“Yep.”
“Sounds blissful.”
The waitress returned with a pen in her hand. Her faded brown hair twitched in the breeze.
Earl spoke into his menu. “I’ll have the uh…biscuits and gravy with sausage.”
Tom looked into the waitress’s brown eyes. “Oatmeal, please. No raisins.”
Defiant birds were chirping at one another as two friends sat at a table on a diner’s patio. A car, truck, or motorcycle drove by infrequently along the nearest strip of road.
“Odd isn’t it? Most people would think this place doesn’t exist in the morning,” Tom observed.
Earl examined his friend’s countenance, trying to decipher any clues as to the sentiment behind the remark. “Yeah,” he eventually responded.
“Sad isn’t it?” Tom pressed before taking a sip of his black coffee. “What this place has become, I mean.”
“Oh, sure. I guess.” Earl paused to think the question over. “Well, maybe. I guess these places lose some of the aura they have about them, like theaters in between shows or uh…ball parks in the winter.”
“Exactly. Sad, but good though. It’s for the best we know.”
“How do you mean?”
“I mean at least we aren’t deceived about it like the tourists are. I…” A diesel truck boomed past the eatery. “I mean what would change if we all saw theaters being cleaned up with the lights on?”
“There’d be more disaffected children probably. They’re the ones who are usually duped. The tourists though, they just don’t think about it. They come here for the night life. But kids—places for children are more special because they don’t make the same assumptions as adults.” Earl rubbed his temples and raked his greasy morning hair with his fingers. “Kids don’t figure everywhere has a cleaning crew. They just figure theaters are ready to play moves anytime.”
“But that’s not right. It’s a bad habit that starts young maybe, the acceptance of ignorance,” Tom lamented.
“It’s not so bad. What’s wrong with a little make-believe.?”
“It’s make-believe that’s turning this place into a knock-off Las Vegas. People come down here to make-believe they’re in someplace where they are automatically impressive.” Tom looked out at the end of the strip. It was illuminated by streaks from the freshly rising son. The dimples and cracks in the weathered pavement made the faded asphalt look like elephant skin. “A lot of places would probably shrivel up and die if people knew what they looked like when they weren’t being what you think of them as.”
“Maybe it depends on the sort of place. What places are you thinking of?”
“Take your pick of one of the places up and down here,” Tom said gesturing towards the street with his chin. “That place, for example.” Tom’s finger indicated a rectangular building up the way. It was covered with white siding that grew green in places. The two windows on the front were covered with alcohol advertisements from inside. Banners with speed boats, white sand beaches, and bottles of beer draped over much of the white siding. The tired red awning trapped some of the morning rays. “It doesn’t look so great now without the neon signs. Nothing automatic about it. You’re as much of a dope walking in as walking out. More so even.”
“No. It doesn’t look so hot.” Earl raised his mug to try to get the attention of the waitress who was sitting inside talking with an old man wearing a khaki cap. She nodded to him in acknowledgement and began the process of breaking off the conversation. “But you have to admit unflattering light could ruin a lot of good reputations—of places and people.”
“Yeah.”
“So a bar at sunrise may burst a few bubbles, but so would showing kids what’s behind the puppet show set.”
“Right.” Tom and Earl watched the brown stream fill their mugs as the waitress tipped the coffee pot. Earl looked up at her and smiled with gratitude. She grinned meekly and left without saying a word.
“Knowledge doesn’t solve everything, Tom. I can tell you’re frustrated by this atmosphere, but some people walk off cliffs with eyes wide open, you know? Just adding information to this recipe won’t make it sweeter.”
“Yeah. It just makes sad to think about what this town makes money off of.”
“Most towns do the same.”
“I suppose.”
“If you closed down all the bars and strip joints and all the other ‘dens of inequity,’ there’d be a lot more hungry people out there—kid’s too. Some people make good livings bartending.”
“That doesn’t make it right, Earl.”
“No, of course not. It just makes it complicated.”
Tom took a swig of his hot coffee as Earl swirled the creamer into his. “I appreciate your frustration, though. It’s not easy for me coming back here either.” Earl added.
“Yeah,” Tom replied with a hollow voice. He rubbed away a drop of coffee that had dripped onto the wooden table. Almost on cue, the flow of traffic increased with the eight o’clock hour.
“Do you think ignorance is bliss, Earl?”
“It can be.”
“No it can’t! It never can.”
“How do you figure?”
“A person can feel…undisturbed in a state of ignorance, but that’s not bliss. Bliss is more than that.”
“Sounds blissful to me.”
“Then blissful and bliss aren’t the same.”
“Adjectives and nouns aren’t the same, no, but they’re related.”
“Not identical.”
“Most of the time they’re indistinguishable. How are you going to tell the difference between a blissful person and a person in bliss? How would you know in your own case?”
Tom slightly wrinkled his nose. “Well, I guess there’s…Are you just being a contrarian here or do you really value stupidity this much?”
“Who said anything about stupidity? We’ve been talking about ignorance.”
“What’s the difference?”
“Ignorance is a lack of knowledge. Stupidity is an inability to acquire it.”
“Ah. So all stupid people are ignorant, but not all ignorant people are stupid.”
“That sounds right.”
“Hm. Well, that’s all fine and well—but it’s besides the point. Why are you defending ignorance so much?”
“Because you’re so offended by it.”
“And?”
“And I don’t like seeing my old friend so upset.”
“You’ve got an odd way of calming people down.”
“What? Setting them straight?”
“Straight? Hm. And I though you liked brokenness.”
“There you go confusing ignorance with stupidity again. You Tom, for instance, are not stupid. You’re so far away from it you’re in danger of being ignorant. Some things you know, some things you should know, some things you can’t know, and some things you shouldn’t know. Wisdom is in putting the information in the right boxes.”
“And some things you don’t know.” Tom reminded.
“Right. Of course. But you know so many things that you’ve developed a skewed view of knowledge. Knowledge, in general, is not going to make this world a better place all by itself.”
“That’s not true.”
“Yes it is.”
“No it’s not. All knowledge is good because everything is related, if only distantly. It’s like…it’s like gravity, you know? Every body has a gravitational pull on every other body in the universe, no matter how small it is. It’s the same with learning. Learning is always going to make you a better person. It’ll keep you out of bars.”
“Buddy, knowing how to bake a cake doesn’t make you a better driver and knowing what’s a waste of time doesn’t make you any more industrious. That’s got more to do with emotions and motivations…personal history and the like. Character. It’s not as simple as just proving to people the vice is a vice.”
“You’re wearing me out, Earl.”
“Good. Maybe then you’ll give this preoccupation of yours a rest and you’ll try to have a nice weekend despite all the debauchery around you.”
“Hm. So if I just don’t think about what’s wrong with everything down here, I’ll have a better time.”
“Yep.”
“Sounds blissful.”
The waitress returned with a pen in her hand. Her faded brown hair twitched in the breeze.
Earl spoke into his menu. “I’ll have the uh…biscuits and gravy with sausage.”
Tom looked into the waitress’s brown eyes. “Oatmeal, please. No raisins.”
Reflections upon Being Tested
"God is faithful, and he will not let you be tested beyond your strength but with your testing he will also provide the way out so that you may be able to endure it." (1 Corinthians 10:13)
Consider: If God will not let you be tested beyond your strength, what implications does this have on your life as it now stands? You are enduring, correct? How well are you doing so? Could it be that you are currently at the apex of your strength? Could it be that all you have you need? What if something was taken from you? What then? What a contrary way to view blessings! Instead of being a credit to us--something earned--they may be a debit. Hidden in the text is a latent suggestion that some of the consolations you currently have may be necessary for your endurance.
What creatures, if they were removed from you, would break you? What balms, if they dried up, would leave you cracked and frail? Oh, the mixed nature of crutches and splints! They help you to walk--and how great it is to walk--and yet they confirm your disability.
Note: You are provided "the way," not "a way" or "ways." We see the err in holding too tight to God's various and wonderful gifts. We are not given this person, that career, these talents, in order to endure. They are to be enjoyed and to inspire appreciation. They are not to be used as salves because they are not salvific.
Consider: If God will not let you be tested beyond your strength, what implications does this have on your life as it now stands? You are enduring, correct? How well are you doing so? Could it be that you are currently at the apex of your strength? Could it be that all you have you need? What if something was taken from you? What then? What a contrary way to view blessings! Instead of being a credit to us--something earned--they may be a debit. Hidden in the text is a latent suggestion that some of the consolations you currently have may be necessary for your endurance.
What creatures, if they were removed from you, would break you? What balms, if they dried up, would leave you cracked and frail? Oh, the mixed nature of crutches and splints! They help you to walk--and how great it is to walk--and yet they confirm your disability.
Note: You are provided "the way," not "a way" or "ways." We see the err in holding too tight to God's various and wonderful gifts. We are not given this person, that career, these talents, in order to endure. They are to be enjoyed and to inspire appreciation. They are not to be used as salves because they are not salvific.
Friday, July 23, 2010
The Apology of a Parking Meter Attendant
(For a newer draft of this story, click here.)
Flashing red half-moons excite me. Whenever I spot them atop park meters, I know I’ll soon have another notch in my belt. I am, amongst other things, a meter attendant and have been for five years. In general, I do not care for my job. Still, I try to make the most of it since I have to work more than a third of my waking hours. I accomplish this in large part by making a game out of ticket writing. Every day I try to beat my all-time record of 42 tickets in eight hours. None of the others currently on staff have gotten above 30.
Two years ago, my fair city—due to widespread backlogs, decided to no longer observe Labor Day as a holiday. The campaign to inform the citizenry that all governmental offices, including my own, was lethargic. After a coin-flipping tournament, I, the loser, was the only attendant not permitted to call in sick or schedule a vacation day. This was a blessing in disguise as the citizens of my fair city overwhelmingly neglected to feed the meters under the presumption that even we had the day off. The day proved to be a boon for revenue as well as governmental productivity and I was rewarded with an improved parking spot for my valiant effort. For the two days that followed, however, my numbers were down due to sore feet and a painful callus on my left hand.
To say mine is a thankless job would be overstating the case. Once I was thanked by the irate companion of the owner of a baby blue sedan. She called over to me while I was inspecting meters across the street. She excitedly explained that the owner was with “her” and had been in a nearby building for over an hour. She thanked me profusely as she sat on the hood and invited me to come back later in the day, referencing the car’s immanent inability to be driven. Not wanting to encourage rash behavior, I made no promise about returning. She accepted my declination with grace. I left wondering what she would do to the owner when he returned with his tie askew and hair tussled.
Even if it was convenient for me to go through that part of town, I would not have. There is an unwritten code amongst attendants never to write a ticket for the same car twice in one day. It is the only exception I make regarding the writing of tickets. Some years ago, an attendant was walking away from a car he had ticketed in the morning in another part of town when he was shot in the back of the head without warning by the livid driver. I don’t know if the story is true or apocryphal, but I think it is frighteningly feasible.
People feel liberated to act differently when they are dealing with an employee rather than a stranger the meet who’s off the clock. When you have a name tag, you have a role. When you have a role, you receive all the scorn aroused by the playwright. The relationship is regulated by different rules than those binding other social interactions. There’s no more need for decorum, tact, or politeness with an employee than there is with a coffee maker. If you met a person who yelled at you earlier in the day while you were wearing a uniform at a crosswalk later in the day and you called him on it, I suspect he’d say something like, “No hard feelings. That was just business.” I suspect he truly believed as much, too. Let me tell you, though, putting a dress on a doll doesn’t make it a different doll and putting a person doesn’t make her a different kind of being.
What I loathe most about this circumstance is that, since you’re forced into being a player, you find yourself needed to play by different rules than those that are ethically legitimate. When I first started being threatened, cursed at, and (occasionally) spat upon—which is to say when I first started this job—I tried to talk with the angry people who came upon me writing a ticket or walking away from writing one. Regrettably, I was never able to talk them down. They’d just keep on threatening, cursing, an (occasionally) spat upon. The only hope I had in being treated kindly was during the moment I was just beginning to take my pen out of my pocket. Then people were quite warm to me. I remember one such incident where a man came upon me flipping my book to a fresh page. He said, “Hey, boss man, hey, I like your shoes. You don’t have to do that do ya?” When I kept writing, he said in an unsettingly frank matter, “I ought to break your mother-fucking neck.” I didn’t respond, though I did have to re-write the license number as I jerked the pen whilst writing. That seems to be the best strategy, though, not responding to people, but—as we are playing a game—I cannot. Meaning is lost whenever I try to talk with them. If they can manage to listen, they look at me with frustration as though saying, “I don’t speak meter-maid.”
I would not go so far as to say my job is dehumanizing. Everyone has bills to pay and most of us have to pay them for ourselves. Being in need and attempting to get yourself out of it is very human. I suggest people—those people who insist upon playing this game—are the ones dehumaniazing, not occupations. I assume those same people are less than amicable in their private relationships too, but that is conjecture on my part.
I know that I am setting myself up for a charge of hypocrisy. I make a living making people pay substantial amounts of money for making minor transgressions. I initiate a process that could lead to less bread on the table. I am not interested in validating the laws of this place. Let me defend myself in by asserting I have never written someone up without seeing a flashing red half-moon. I simply enforce the laws of my city. If you think them unfair, then please stop coming here. If you cannot stop coming here, then please drop in an extra quarter and save yourself the trouble. Though I may play a game with myself, I umpire the game you all play with the powers-that-be. You cannot justly blame the umpire for your poor pitching, if I may use the image. I would not go so far as to assert that breaking a municipal law is a sin, but it is analogous. The entities who have the authority to supervise you must abide by the state rules, otherwise confusion and error would reign and chaos would trample order.
Flashing red half-moons excite me. Whenever I spot them atop park meters, I know I’ll soon have another notch in my belt. I am, amongst other things, a meter attendant and have been for five years. In general, I do not care for my job. Still, I try to make the most of it since I have to work more than a third of my waking hours. I accomplish this in large part by making a game out of ticket writing. Every day I try to beat my all-time record of 42 tickets in eight hours. None of the others currently on staff have gotten above 30.
Two years ago, my fair city—due to widespread backlogs, decided to no longer observe Labor Day as a holiday. The campaign to inform the citizenry that all governmental offices, including my own, was lethargic. After a coin-flipping tournament, I, the loser, was the only attendant not permitted to call in sick or schedule a vacation day. This was a blessing in disguise as the citizens of my fair city overwhelmingly neglected to feed the meters under the presumption that even we had the day off. The day proved to be a boon for revenue as well as governmental productivity and I was rewarded with an improved parking spot for my valiant effort. For the two days that followed, however, my numbers were down due to sore feet and a painful callus on my left hand.
To say mine is a thankless job would be overstating the case. Once I was thanked by the irate companion of the owner of a baby blue sedan. She called over to me while I was inspecting meters across the street. She excitedly explained that the owner was with “her” and had been in a nearby building for over an hour. She thanked me profusely as she sat on the hood and invited me to come back later in the day, referencing the car’s immanent inability to be driven. Not wanting to encourage rash behavior, I made no promise about returning. She accepted my declination with grace. I left wondering what she would do to the owner when he returned with his tie askew and hair tussled.
Even if it was convenient for me to go through that part of town, I would not have. There is an unwritten code amongst attendants never to write a ticket for the same car twice in one day. It is the only exception I make regarding the writing of tickets. Some years ago, an attendant was walking away from a car he had ticketed in the morning in another part of town when he was shot in the back of the head without warning by the livid driver. I don’t know if the story is true or apocryphal, but I think it is frighteningly feasible.
People feel liberated to act differently when they are dealing with an employee rather than a stranger the meet who’s off the clock. When you have a name tag, you have a role. When you have a role, you receive all the scorn aroused by the playwright. The relationship is regulated by different rules than those binding other social interactions. There’s no more need for decorum, tact, or politeness with an employee than there is with a coffee maker. If you met a person who yelled at you earlier in the day while you were wearing a uniform at a crosswalk later in the day and you called him on it, I suspect he’d say something like, “No hard feelings. That was just business.” I suspect he truly believed as much, too. Let me tell you, though, putting a dress on a doll doesn’t make it a different doll and putting a person doesn’t make her a different kind of being.
What I loathe most about this circumstance is that, since you’re forced into being a player, you find yourself needed to play by different rules than those that are ethically legitimate. When I first started being threatened, cursed at, and (occasionally) spat upon—which is to say when I first started this job—I tried to talk with the angry people who came upon me writing a ticket or walking away from writing one. Regrettably, I was never able to talk them down. They’d just keep on threatening, cursing, an (occasionally) spat upon. The only hope I had in being treated kindly was during the moment I was just beginning to take my pen out of my pocket. Then people were quite warm to me. I remember one such incident where a man came upon me flipping my book to a fresh page. He said, “Hey, boss man, hey, I like your shoes. You don’t have to do that do ya?” When I kept writing, he said in an unsettingly frank matter, “I ought to break your mother-fucking neck.” I didn’t respond, though I did have to re-write the license number as I jerked the pen whilst writing. That seems to be the best strategy, though, not responding to people, but—as we are playing a game—I cannot. Meaning is lost whenever I try to talk with them. If they can manage to listen, they look at me with frustration as though saying, “I don’t speak meter-maid.”
I would not go so far as to say my job is dehumanizing. Everyone has bills to pay and most of us have to pay them for ourselves. Being in need and attempting to get yourself out of it is very human. I suggest people—those people who insist upon playing this game—are the ones dehumaniazing, not occupations. I assume those same people are less than amicable in their private relationships too, but that is conjecture on my part.
I know that I am setting myself up for a charge of hypocrisy. I make a living making people pay substantial amounts of money for making minor transgressions. I initiate a process that could lead to less bread on the table. I am not interested in validating the laws of this place. Let me defend myself in by asserting I have never written someone up without seeing a flashing red half-moon. I simply enforce the laws of my city. If you think them unfair, then please stop coming here. If you cannot stop coming here, then please drop in an extra quarter and save yourself the trouble. Though I may play a game with myself, I umpire the game you all play with the powers-that-be. You cannot justly blame the umpire for your poor pitching, if I may use the image. I would not go so far as to assert that breaking a municipal law is a sin, but it is analogous. The entities who have the authority to supervise you must abide by the state rules, otherwise confusion and error would reign and chaos would trample order.
Thursday, July 22, 2010
Release
Has it ever occurred to you that people hanging from buildings ultimately let go? As a child, I remember being struck by an image. In the course of an evening newscast, a local television station showed footage of a high-rise building fire. Smoke gushed up and out of the windows on the 34th floor. As the helicopter circled from a safe distance, one could make out human figures tenuously draped beneath the plumes. They were motionless as though waiting for something. Then, in an unsynchronized fashion, the shapes dropped out of the frame. So it was that people died.
Could it be that this was how people met their demise? Dissociated from three dimensions, the images contained an eerie sense of irreality. The movement of the falling bodies was smooth and peaceful. It was strange how silently death happened. The figures fell without noise, like so many raindrops. The thumping drone of the helicopter and the crackled voice of the pilot assessing the scene continued unabated. Nothing was heard from the victims. Their departures were shown in a matter of fact way, like the following video clip of traffic pertaining to the next news item.
I was vexed by being witness to this scene. I brimmed with unanswered questions. How long until they struck the ground? What was on their minds as they were falling? Were their eyes opened or closed? Was anyone near when they landed? Did they land on their feet like cats would? How long did it take to be compressed into a tiny lump? Did it hurt, if only for a split second, or did the nerve impulse travel more slowly than death? Why were people at large being shown this image? Being young, I had no answers. Being alone, I had no one to ask.
I carried that confusion forward, suspecting something significant lied in that confounding footage. I replayed the scene many times in my mind. They arrived on the ledge by a choice of lesser of the two evils. Either resign yourself to die here at your own hands or…
What a quandary! You cannot stay inside—the fire is spreading. The stinging clouds are choking you and the smell of burning is dizzying. The stairs and the elevator are blocked. Your vision is impaired by the murky and stifling air. The face on your wall clock has become warped and discolored by the intense heat. In a panic you go to the window. A fleeting thought darts across your consciousness. You are between a rock and a hard place: the concrete below you and the hard truth burning behind you. So strong is your desire to survive you thrust yourself into a no less precarious position if only to gain a few more minutes of life. You smash the window with you desk chair, scrape off the remaining glass with your shoe, and look out. You feel dizzy again and go rigid with fear, but the breeze is relieving. Do you fling yourself out? No. You are not ready; you cannot stomach the sight. You turn to check the progress of the fire. You cough and gasp. Your front is warmed by the inferno. The fire is pushing you out. You cannot stand your ground. You cannot go back and before you is oblivion. Facing the flames, you lower yourself onto the sill, shimmy your legs out, then your torso, and then slide the rest of yourself down the façade of the building. You grasp the ledge and there you hang. Then comes the question so quintessentially human: now what?
Can you imagine being on a precipice, hanging on by eight fingers? In the frenzy of flight, you climbed out of your office to escape. There is no consolation waiting for you on the other side other than a cool breeze. You cling tight and feel a different kind of fire building in your forearms. The joints in your fingers creak as they gradually lose gripping ability. This is how the end comes: defeat by a protesting body. At some point, the pain becomes too great and mind gives the body up. Inevitably, you must let go. So it is in human life generally.
As I aged, I saw the scene as a symbol of our limitations and longings. We are trapped in finitude, walled off by solitude, prevented from safely departing by the malfunctions of language, beleaguered by the flames of passion and the smoke of confusion and imperfection. This is all so far from what we passionately want. Our idealism and hope drives us to the ledge.
We cannot bear to stay where we are. The world is not enough. Once we reflect upon our surroundings and dare to introspect, we discover intolerable discord. See the most common yearnings of the human heart: we want to live in a meritocracy, but that is untenable; we want to live without pain, but that is impossible; we want to live without conflict, but that is inevitable. It is enough to make your mind burn with disappointment and disdain!
You cannot alter your surroundings to the point where your ideals are met. Iniquities are systematic. Suffering is unavoidable. Strife is inescapable. If one were to undertake improving the world, one would end either in being frustrated or improving oneself instead.
Behind injustice, injury, and contention, looms the limitation that incorporates them all. Accelerated by the unique circumstance, those victims considered what must be faced: the necessity of death. We are left with the tragic choice of being consumed by our own environment or dying by our own hands. What an astounding fate for those creatures who have been given the gift of consciousness: to know what you currently have you will no longer have, including the you that knows it. When a child wakes up to the banality of death—its trivializing ease of attainment and its humiliating universality—it is enough to make him an insomniac.
Could it be that this was how people met their demise? Dissociated from three dimensions, the images contained an eerie sense of irreality. The movement of the falling bodies was smooth and peaceful. It was strange how silently death happened. The figures fell without noise, like so many raindrops. The thumping drone of the helicopter and the crackled voice of the pilot assessing the scene continued unabated. Nothing was heard from the victims. Their departures were shown in a matter of fact way, like the following video clip of traffic pertaining to the next news item.
I was vexed by being witness to this scene. I brimmed with unanswered questions. How long until they struck the ground? What was on their minds as they were falling? Were their eyes opened or closed? Was anyone near when they landed? Did they land on their feet like cats would? How long did it take to be compressed into a tiny lump? Did it hurt, if only for a split second, or did the nerve impulse travel more slowly than death? Why were people at large being shown this image? Being young, I had no answers. Being alone, I had no one to ask.
I carried that confusion forward, suspecting something significant lied in that confounding footage. I replayed the scene many times in my mind. They arrived on the ledge by a choice of lesser of the two evils. Either resign yourself to die here at your own hands or…
What a quandary! You cannot stay inside—the fire is spreading. The stinging clouds are choking you and the smell of burning is dizzying. The stairs and the elevator are blocked. Your vision is impaired by the murky and stifling air. The face on your wall clock has become warped and discolored by the intense heat. In a panic you go to the window. A fleeting thought darts across your consciousness. You are between a rock and a hard place: the concrete below you and the hard truth burning behind you. So strong is your desire to survive you thrust yourself into a no less precarious position if only to gain a few more minutes of life. You smash the window with you desk chair, scrape off the remaining glass with your shoe, and look out. You feel dizzy again and go rigid with fear, but the breeze is relieving. Do you fling yourself out? No. You are not ready; you cannot stomach the sight. You turn to check the progress of the fire. You cough and gasp. Your front is warmed by the inferno. The fire is pushing you out. You cannot stand your ground. You cannot go back and before you is oblivion. Facing the flames, you lower yourself onto the sill, shimmy your legs out, then your torso, and then slide the rest of yourself down the façade of the building. You grasp the ledge and there you hang. Then comes the question so quintessentially human: now what?
Can you imagine being on a precipice, hanging on by eight fingers? In the frenzy of flight, you climbed out of your office to escape. There is no consolation waiting for you on the other side other than a cool breeze. You cling tight and feel a different kind of fire building in your forearms. The joints in your fingers creak as they gradually lose gripping ability. This is how the end comes: defeat by a protesting body. At some point, the pain becomes too great and mind gives the body up. Inevitably, you must let go. So it is in human life generally.
As I aged, I saw the scene as a symbol of our limitations and longings. We are trapped in finitude, walled off by solitude, prevented from safely departing by the malfunctions of language, beleaguered by the flames of passion and the smoke of confusion and imperfection. This is all so far from what we passionately want. Our idealism and hope drives us to the ledge.
We cannot bear to stay where we are. The world is not enough. Once we reflect upon our surroundings and dare to introspect, we discover intolerable discord. See the most common yearnings of the human heart: we want to live in a meritocracy, but that is untenable; we want to live without pain, but that is impossible; we want to live without conflict, but that is inevitable. It is enough to make your mind burn with disappointment and disdain!
You cannot alter your surroundings to the point where your ideals are met. Iniquities are systematic. Suffering is unavoidable. Strife is inescapable. If one were to undertake improving the world, one would end either in being frustrated or improving oneself instead.
Behind injustice, injury, and contention, looms the limitation that incorporates them all. Accelerated by the unique circumstance, those victims considered what must be faced: the necessity of death. We are left with the tragic choice of being consumed by our own environment or dying by our own hands. What an astounding fate for those creatures who have been given the gift of consciousness: to know what you currently have you will no longer have, including the you that knows it. When a child wakes up to the banality of death—its trivializing ease of attainment and its humiliating universality—it is enough to make him an insomniac.
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