Tag: human condition

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Pathological Altrusim

When kindness hurts


Perhaps one of the most disturbing things I’ve ever come across in my life is the true story of the victim that almost escaped Jeffrey Dahmer.

It’s so disturbing, in fact, that I’m unable to summarize it here. If you want to know more about it, google him and “escaped victim.” I caution you to think twice before you do, though.

In any case, had another night of insomnia recently and thought about a report I read recently by Oakland University professor Barbara Oakley, who coined a new term for something I’ve seen myself repeatedly: Pathological Altruism.

Simply put, it’s when being kind is the worst thing one can be. The Dahmer story is an extreme example but it’s an almost daily occurrence – like soccer trophies for just showing up.

We think we’re doing something kind when in fact we’re doing the exact opposite.

The wife and I watched Jamie Oliver’s TED talk about nutrition over the weekend where a grossly overweight woman came to the realization that she was – literally – killing her own children with a diet of fast food and soda.

She and I also talked about a friend I cut because he ended up being that one drunk idiot at our wedding amongst other questionable actions. He’s also had a string of really bad relationships and I’ve tried to explain that the common denominator in it all is…him.

But he keeps doing what he does and keeps getting what he gets. And I can’t surround myself with people that have no interest in being better than they were yesterday.

More on that Wednesday.

Getting back to pathological altruism, a buddy in college once came back from spring break and told me this story:

He’d been speeding home when a cop pulled him over and wrote him a ticket. The cop said he was sorry he did it but my buddy was going 50 in a 35 zone and it was foggy, as it often is in upstate NY. Stepping back into the car, my buddy continued on his way, depressed and irritated. Suddenly, a deer jumped out in front of him and he slammed on the brakes.

He said that the ticket probably saved his life, and at the very least, saved the life of the deer and his car.

Best ticket I ever got, he said.

In any case, one thing I can summarize here is a joke that goes something like this:

A bird was flying south for the winter when he became tired and fell out of the sky, landing in snow. Almost freezing to death, a cow happened to defecate on him. As the warm dung revived him, the bird began to sing. A wolf, hearing this, immediately dug him out of the dung and devoured him.

There are three morals to this story:

  1. Not everyone who craps on you is your enemy.
  2. Not everyone who pulls you out of crap is your friend.
  3. If you’re buried in crap, it’s best to keep quiet.

 

Location: caught in rain immediately before a 90 min phone call
Mood: wet
Music: Don’t take to heart the words that he says
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Laraha, Valencia, Curaçao, and Superman

Nurture versus Nature or Superman the Shoe Salesman

Nighttime Shot of Malaga Spain
After the Boston bombings, there were a number of people I knew that immediately spouted their conspiracy theories. And several of them argued that Americans somehow brought this upon themselves.

Of course, they are Americans but hold themselves separate and superior from the rest of us. Which is odd because several of them stopped formal education at high school.

The most recent events in London made me think of the whole nature versus nurture argument.

And oranges.

And Superman.

Because there’s this orange from Spain called the Valencia orange that’s supposed to amazingly delicious and sweet. They were hybridized in America from orange trees in Valencia, which in turn came from India.
Valencia Orange, picture from Wikipedia

Those same trees were planted on the island of Curaçao, where the soil there caused these delicious, sweet, bright orange, oranges to transform – on their own – into small, bitter, green, “oranges.” They turned into the Laraha fruit.

These fruit are so bitter that it’s said that goats on the island would rather starve to death than eat them.

Let me stop for a second and paraphrase a joke that I heard once, which says that: If Krypton never exploded and Kal-El/Superman stayed on the planet, what if he became a shoe salesman?

After all, he’s only Superman because he came here; home he would have been Al Bundy.

As the son of recent immigrants, I wonder about my possible pasts: what if we never came here from Taiwan? Who would I be, what would I be? It’s pure dumb luck, my lot in this world.

Turning back to the recent events of England, it was odd hearing the attackers speak clear British English. Is there some inherent glitch in people like this or is a unique combination of nature and nurture. I’m guessing that’s the case.

Wonder what these people’s  lives would had been had they not gone to the UK. And what then?

I’ve no answer.

Suppose not everything that heads off to distant lands become better with time, like rum.

Location: heading to the gym
Mood: muggy
Music: Who killed tangerine? The prettiest girl I’ve ever seen
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Everybody knows, but no one really believes it

Look for the red things

Me: The thing is, there’s a difference between seeing and noticing. Noticing is when you consciously become aware of something. For example, if I said right now, Look for everything that’s red. You’d see a lot more red things.
Him: (looking around) Great, now all I see are the red things.
Me: (laughing) That’s what happens. You can’t un-notice something you’ve noticed. It’s called the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon.

Updating this blog a bit late because I’ve been trying to finish up a few assignments for clients.

Been watching the news about the three women they found; obviously it reminds me of the Jaycee Dugard story. Just like with her, compounding the basic horror of it all is also the fact that they were cheated out of those years.

Life is so short as it is.

I blinked and I’m 40.

Spalding Gray once said that Everybody knows they are going to die, but no one really believes it. Late at night, when I can’t sleep, I realize what it means and it keeps me up the rest of the night. Like last night.

Doubt you ever noticed, but for the past few years every time I write about dying, I put up a picture of a clock.

As I get older, I see notice more clocks and think about how short it all is.

And you can’t un-notice something you’ve noticed.

 

Location: in the basement of my brain again
Mood: nostalgic
Music: I don’t mind waiting in line
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The greatest trick the devil ever pulled

On evil: Nothing is ever anyone’s fault

Incandescent light bulb

The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist. And like that, poof. He’s gone.
Verbal Kint, The Usual Suspects (film)

The insomnia’s been pretty bad lately. I should just stop wasting your time and my time and just write, “insomnia” and move on.

Insomnia.

Being awake at night, thought about Boston, Newtown, and Aurora and the nature of evil. Something about the dark turns one’s thoughts dark, I suppose.

People wonder if there is evil even actually exists.

I believe it does.

People are always surprised by that. They think I’m naive, but I submit that I think you’re naive if you don’t.

I think some people are evil not because of how they were brought up, or what happened to them. Theyr’e just twisted with no other explanation for it. Not biology, not upbringing, not society.

Nothing happened to me, Officer Starling. I happened. You can’t reduce me to a set of influences. You have given up good and evil for behaviorism, Officer Starling. You’ve got everybody in moral dignity pants – nothing is ever anybody’s fault. Look at me, Officer Starling. Can you stand to say I’m evil?
Hannibal Lecter, The Silence of the Lambs (novel)

Put a little less eloquently, some people are just born ______-up.

Don’t believe it when people try and convince you that there’s no such thing as evil. It’s there. And the sad thing is that you don’t need to go far to see it.

As I wrote the above, I got a news alert on my computer that five people were dead in a shooting. This just happened.

Which just makes me wonder if evil is a self-destruct sequence for our kind. Then again, all this is just my opinion. What do you think?

Me: Do you know why I hate things like the Disney films?
Him: No, why?
Me: Because the monsters all look like monsters. But Hitler, Mao, Pol Pot, Mao – these guys were just normal, plain-looking dudes. No one would have looked at them and thought, “Monster.” But that’s what they were. (later) Thanks for not choking me until I passed out.
Him: (laughing) Anytime, man.

Location: about to run to Chelsea
Mood: pensive
Music: I saw Satan laughing with delight the day the music died
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Logan’s 40

Joy inevitably comes

The Grace Building in NYC

Like you, I was glued to the television watching the bombings in Boston.

The first thought that came to mind were words I can’t print here, but they rhymed with “mothers that drive trucks.”

My second was: The people that point and the people that run in. Around every tragedy, you will find the people that point and the people that run in.

The people that point are the ones that use a tragedy to push their own personal agendas: Religious, political, or simply, look at me because I will be different than all the others because I need to be noticed.

Regarding this pointing, on FB I had a two guys talk about all the people that die in Afghanistan and that it somehow means we shouldn’t mourn the people here. But that was pretty much the extent of it.

How many did you have? Make note of those people. Those are the ones that want, desperately, to be heard.

Regarding the people that run in, that was on full display that day as Patton Oswalt eloquently noted. It gives me some hope for our kind. I hope he’s right that that the people that run in outnumber the others. The ones that harm. The ones that point.

Today, I’m 40.

Had this whole long rant about being so old and creaky but instead, let me simply sum it up by saying this: I’m old and I’ve seen a lot more things than I’ve ever wanted to see.

The world is an ugly place. But it is made bearable by the good souls. The ones that bring us grace and mercy.

The fact that I’ve only had two really stomach turning posts on FB since this thing happened is a small indicator, I think, that I’ve managed to have more good souls than not in my corner of the world.

Years ago, wrote about Bernard Malamud who said that Life is a tragedy full of joy.

Having been on this planet for 40 short and long years, I’ve learned that tragedy inevitably comes, but the joy also comes.

And so I wait for the joy. Hope you do as well.

And like every year on (or close to) my birthday, I ask you to wish me a happy birthday, all of you bastards that read me and never say anything.

Here’s my stupid mug at almost 40. I would have taken one recently but I’ve been beat.

Logan Lo

Location: with family in my slice of the world
Mood: hopeful
Music: Don’t you keep me waiting for that day
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I’m all for marriage, gay or otherwise

Marriage is not just a piece of paper because we’re not teenagers

Black and white dinner setting

I wrote the below a long time ago to a friend who told me she loved her boyfriend but wouldn’t marry him because marriage was “just a piece of paper.”

———-

Let’s put aside all these teenage ideas of love and romance and talk about this like realistic adults, ok?

This fella named Pericles once said, Just because you do not take an interest in politics, doesn’t mean that politics won’t take an interest in you.

Hold that thought.

Yes, you can live without a piece of paper that says you’re married. But you’re gonna need a lot more papers without that marriage license.

  • Have a bank account together? You’ll need a piece of paper that says you have access to all monies in each of those accounts.
  • Have a car? You’ll need a piece of paper that says you’re allowed to drive it.
  • You live in his house? You’ll need a piece of paper that says you’re allowed to stay in it if something happens to him.
  • He’s in an accident? You’ll need a piece of paper that says you’re allowed to see him.

You see where I’m going with this, yeah?

We’re talking thousands of different documents – and you’ll also need to predict the future.

Can you predict that you two will be on vacation one day, you’ll both be riding motorcycles, a mudslide comes, kills him, and your passports are in your hotel room lockbox that only he knows the combo for and he put the room on his credit card, so you cannot say goodbye to him at all?

That’s an actual case!

So, without that license – that “piece of paper” you so casually dismiss – each time you two do anything together, you’ll need a different piece of paper.

You also need those papers notarized because the mom/dad/brother/former kid will fight you on it. You need to go to court to prove it’s real. This happens constantly.

Google “stieg larsson girlfriend.” Constantly.

I’m working on something where my client has spent $60,000 to disprove a SINGLE signature on a single doc.

Another true example (and why I’m for gay marriage) an insurance company disallowed a man from collecting the $1 million for insurance for his mate for cancer treatment. He went to court and eventually won – but his mate died in that time.

He didn’t have the right to get the legal grace of marriage. You do.

Look, if you don’t want to get married because of the cost, or because you don’t really love him, or whatever, say that. But don’t say it’s because you don’t need a piece of paper that says you two love each other. We’re not teenagers.

Just because you do not take an interest in politics, the government, doesn’t mean that politics the government won’t take an interest in you.

My legal $0.02,

LL

———-

They broke up not that long ago

I wrote once that attraction is not a choice. Integrity forces me to say that it’s not a qualified statement: Attraction is not a choice for straight people only.

As for me, I find marriage comforting. It’s nice to know that someone is on your side.

Life is hard enough without someone on your side. Everyone needs someone on their side.

Me: (to wife) Can you help me with something?
Her: Sure.

Location: getting dressed to see my pop (again)
Mood: hopeful
Music: You’ve got your home of the brave and I’ve got my land of the free
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The militant religious and non-religious

I don’t understand militant atheists

Cathedral in the UWS in NYC

Spent yesterday in church because it was Palm Sunday and also because I had a meeting. I still volunteer there after all these years.

I don’t think of myself as a particularly devout Christian in the big city. I merely am one

It’s a bit like when I wrote about being left-handed and proud – not exactly since one can choose to be religious or not – it’s similar in that it’s merely a state of being.

At least for me.

I do take issue with the number of people that – particularly on Facebook – feel it’s their duty in life to shame those that are religious. Moreover, I don’t think they would ever sign on and mock Muslims or Jews but Christians seem to be fair game.

A Salon article sent to me this morning by my Columbia University educated wrasslin coach sums up my thoughts on the matter whereby militant atheism has itself become it’s own religion.

And that’s precisely why I find it all so puzzling.

I am not 100% that there even is a god, let alone my god. But in my moments of doubt and belief, I find myself more often than not siding with my belief.

After all, if there is a god, he exists completely separate from my belief in him.

Yet a day doesn’t go by where I don’t have someone post something about their love of Atheism. Atheism, by definition, a rejection of all religions. It is the absence of religion. This is also different from Agnosticism where one is neither certain there is or isn’t a god.

Yet the people I run across are so smugly sure that there isn’t a god that it’s elevated to it’s own belief system.

“As one philosopher put it, being a militant atheist is like ‘sleeping furiously.'”

And with any belief system, there is that sense of superiority that I detest so very much.

The thing that jumped out at me from the article is the line that went: Dogmatists have one advantage: they are poor listeners.

In the very last tiff that I got into regarding someone bashing Christianity, this young fella that goes to my gym engaged me but only to tell me his beliefs and then write: “I will not be further commenting on this thread.”

At which point, I also stopped; partly because I found him childish, partly because of his sloppy grammar, and partly because trying to discuss anything with a militant – any militant – is a waste of time.

It’s like trying to teach a pig to sing: It’s a waste of your time and annoys the pig.

Speaking of my gym, there are dozens of really dangerous people that walk around. But you’d never know it because they know they’re dangerous. They don’t need to prove it to anyone else.

And if asked to prove it, they would and not simply say, I choose not to engage.

Again, that’s why I find militant atheism so peculiar.

If they were so sure of their beliefs, they wouldn’t feel the need to constantly prove it. I don’t.

Moreover, why would they care what I or anyone else believes?

I can assure you, my wrassln coach doesn’t care if I think I can beat him in a fight or not, he knows he can beat me in a fight. I know he can – that’s why he’s the coach.

As for my needing to say something, I read something by Elie Wiesel in junior high school where he “swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. We must take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented. Sometimes we must interfere.”

That is a good thing to swear to, I think.

Someone should always say something.

Location: getting dressed to see my pop
Mood: devout(ish)
Music: I have to climb Up on the side of this mountain of mine
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No one’s every really on schedule

At best we’re all just close to schedule

We all end up on our knees at some point in our lives. And there’s there’s something about ending up there that involves shock.

While I’m not shocked that an event happened to the world at large, for those people that went through it and are continuing to deal with it, there’s nothing but shock.

There’s no words of solace one can give. Certainly not a tired lawyer in the upper west side that’s currently wearing two mismatched socks.

But I can tell you that I’m sorry.

I’m sorry that you have to bear it.

I’m sorry that we as a society have failed to do the most basic of what a society’s supposed to do, which is to protect the weak and innocent.

I hope one day that if you don’t find happiness again, you will find peace.

As for me, I return to my usual nonsense about nuthin, Monday.

I know it can never be usual ever again for anyone that’s personally gone through something like this.

But I hope – we all do – that somehow life gets close to usual for you someday.

There’s a quote I love from Chuck Palahniuk, who said, It’s so hard to forget pain, but it’s even harder to remember sweetness. We have no scar to show for happiness.

The actual name of this blog is On (or Close to) Schedule.

But that’s just a joke between us, isn’t it?

No one’s ever really on schedule.

At best, we’re all just close to schedule.

I hope, more than you know, that you get close to schedule again too.

Location: Harlem
Mood: disappointed
Music: There’ll be music again next week. Just not yet.
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Hoplophobia

One of the rarest fears in the world is the fear of weapons

Don’t understand many things. Such as how the universe can constantly be expanding. Or the meaning of life.

Or how some people like Victoria Soto find the courage to give up their lives to protect others, while some others can do nothing but stand by the sides and point.

One of the rarest phobias is hoplophobia – the fear of weapons. It’s so rare that this is probably the first time you’ve ever heard of it.

Don’t understand that.

If you should fear one thing, it’s something that spits 800 bullets a minute.

In an ironic twist, the exact same thing that happened here with Sandy Hook happened on the same day in China. There, not one person – child or otherwise – was killed. The only difference between the two events was the lethality of the weapon used: in China, it was a knife, in America it was a gun.

There are 310,000,000 non-military guns right now in America – those are nine digits. Why do we need even one more?

Because it’s in the Constitution?
So is slavery.

Because it’s tradition?
So was the aforementioned slavery and lack of women’s suffrage.

Because we need to protect ourselves from the government?
The government has stealth bombers and nuclear weapons. That’s laughable. I’m writing this on the most powerful weapon against oppressive government and this has been proven repeatedly through history both very old and recent.

So why then do we continue to add to that 310 million figure? Let’s be honest here:

It’s so people that love guns can continue to have them and the gun manufacturers that make a buck it from it can continue to do so.

This, I understand even less.

And I’m not discounting the need to discuss mental illness – I’m all for discussing mental illness – but it’s not a binary thing. It’s not (a) deal with mental illness or (b) have less guns. It’s both.

Been very ranty lately. I’m usually not. But I’ve repeated a quote on FB that I feel bears repeating ad nauseam:

The world is a dangerous place, not because of those who do harm, but because of those who look at it without doing anything. – Albert Einstein

Victoria Soto gave her life to do something. The least we can do is ask of those that profess to represent us to do something about this beside talk.

Beside trade hot breath and lies.

People on my Facebook page were upset because I wrote that “I am shocked at how little anything shocks me any more.”

  • 310 million guns already, more being produced.
  • Mental illness as a stigma rather than a health issue that needs to be dealt with.
  • The Snookification of fame – where it doesn’t matter how or why you become famous, but merely that you get famous.

How is this – honestly – shocking to anyone? In 2012 alone we had sixteen (16!) mass shootings.

Don’t understand why more people don’t have hoplophobia and I don’t understand how any one can honestly be shocked by this.

Angry, upset, heartbroken, furious, livid, despondent – these words I can understand.

But shocked? Shocked?

I seriously doubt anyone is truly shocked that something like this happened.

———-

Here are 10 Arguments that Gun Advocates Make and Why They’re Wrong.

Location: my head
Mood: disappointed
Music: There is no music today.
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Truth is like gold

You don’t grow it, you wash away all that’s not gold

I’m in a pretty enviable position in life where, for the most part, get to cherry pick my clients. If I don’t like a client, I don’t take their work.

However, my issue’s that I have to work with support staff of other parties that I don’t necessarily like to deal with. As I get older, find that my tolerance for total horses__t gets lower and lower.

Recently got into a heated argument with someone that was plainly wrong on the law.

I find the more explaining one has to do, the less likely what’s being said is the truth. After a few hours of wasting time, just had to get on with my life and told her such.

The worst lies in the world, I think, are the lies we tell ourselves about ourselves.

Female: (irritated) Who you do think you are? I’m trying to help.
Me: I think I’m the guy that’s right here. And miss, are you trying to help our mutual client or yourself?

Leo Tolstoy once said that, Truth, like gold, is to be obtained not by its growth, but by washing away from it all that is not gold.

Man, I miss wrasslin. It’s gross, sweaty, stinky, and gross (did I say that?)

But it’s also pure. If something doesn’t work, it doesn’t work. You can’t explain it away, you can’t cover it up.

You can always land a lucky punch in boxing, you can’t land a lucky clinch or armbar.

And as gross as wrasslin is, it’s less gross than the often piles of horses__t I find I have to wade through sometimes.

Location: getting dressed for another meeting
Mood: still sick
Music: Caught ya red handed in the biscuit tin
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