Butterflies, bees and wasps, oh my.  It might be that Spring really does follow Winter.  The grass is getting greener, the air warmer, all in all it's a beautiful day today.  There are no buds that I could see on the trees, so perhaps the old ones remember how the weather tricked them last year and how painful the late season cold was.  I suspect we may still have some snow and icy rain to wade through, but even as broken as my perceptions are (as they always are when my spine, and especially the top of my spine, is this out of true) I can feel Spring starting to bubble up through my bones.

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I went out walking, camera in hand, for a while this afternoon.  It always overwhelms me how busy the parks get on the weekend.  It makes me wish for a less normal schedule, one with the occasional weekday free and clear.  Maybe I'll do that this summer when I've got faire and Renleather going at the same time.

I was talking to Cass last night at the gallery showing and she asked me if I ever feel like I'm an alien.  The question made me smile because that's been a growing sense over the last decade.  I've been exploring just how far away from normal I feel and I keep building more and more bridges back to something like the everyday.  It leaves me feeling like an anthropologist trying to interact with a tribe in the Andes.  Not so much with the smug sense of cultural superiority, more of the deep fascination combined with the frustration of the myriad failed attempts at communication on even the most basic level.  There is also a feeling of how dangerous it is not to understand which overwhelms my desire for interaction at moments.

And then sometimes it just leaves me with a feeling to observe, almost afraid to move because I feel like I'll interrupt something.  Knowing full well that just by observing I'm still interacting, still there is the desire to keep my impact as small as possible, to observe the natives in their most natural state.

I find that I'm even more that way when I have a camera.  I don't want to be noticed.  I want to build a blind and just shoot with a really long lens, capturing everything as purely as possible.  I know intimately how disruptive it is to have the giant, black eye of a camera pointed at me.  Maybe I'll buy a birding lens for my anthropological research.

It was nice sharing that moment of a mutual sense of alienness.  I'm pretty sure Cass and I don't come from the same far away as she comes from somewhere where people are graceful and lighthearted and where heads are shaped to be beautiful when bald and wherever I hale from I suspect it is not so green or so graceful, but one alien to another, it's good to have that moment.

                                                                    - - -

I checked out the book Drawing From the Right Side of the Brain on Lyn's recommendation and so far I find it to be well worth reading.  I need to find and/or make a few tools that I don't have if I'm to follow along with the text.  I did the initial three drawings, one of my face, one from memory and one of my hand.  They were terrible.  The one from memory especially.  I can tell where they tried to teach me 'how to draw faces' when I was a kid.  Terrible.

What's funny is that the one of my face... and maybe even the one of my hand... weren't as terrible as I would have guessed.

Which does not mean you get to see them.  You're not that special.

Well, okay, some of you are.  But really. 

Compromise

So there was an involved discussion on Talk of the Nation this afternoon and it spawned an interesting notion in my head.  I gave up on the notion of making guns illegal a while ago.  It really is a matter of civil liberties as well as a few other odd and ends that I'll gleefully ignore for the moment.  I often say that the best gun control would be a strict enforcement of a one strike policy on the use of a firearm in the commission of Any crime.  I still believe this, though it would require removing from prison a whole lot of other folks we have locked up.

But, here's the new question:  What about liability insurance?  Here's the thing, to drive a car, to open most types of open to the public businesses, to be any of a dozen different kinds of performers, you have to have liability coverage.  But not for guns.

Don't get me wrong, I hate the insurance industry with a passion but it's the very excesses I despise about their way of doing business that make this work in my head.  They don't want to have to pay.  So, if the guvmn't says that you have to carry a million dollars of liability insurance to own an operable firearm, they will require proof that you're not likely to blow your own foot off cleaning your gun and equally they'll want Some kind of evidence that you're not going to go on a mad rampage. 

Now, for those that like your guns, the comment about mad rampages might scare ya.  But here's the thing, if they can't sell policies, they make no money.  So the insurance industry won't limit access to firearms on anyone who is anything other than a major risk.  Just look at the number of wingnut drivers on the road, you'll know I'm right. 

So will this top gun crime?  Nope.  Gun control does fuck all to stop actual gun Crime.  It might give people some pause though and might weed out the small number of people who through accidents of birth or injury are too stupid to own a gun.  Might weed out a few unstable crackpots too.  Maybe.

A million dollars of liability sounds like a lot but it's not really.  And it won't fix shattered lives and money can't pay for everything, but sometimes it might help with a medical bill or two.  I figure this one to run around fifty bucks a year but that's a raw guess with only a little data to back it up. 

My apologies to my co-worker who has been scowling at me since this occurred to me but really, while I am almost certain this will never pass, I believe it to be perhaps the best compromise I can imagine.  I can support gun ownership as a right, but all rights come with responsibilities and I don't see this as an unfair.

I do believe in spooks, I do believe in spooks

There's an ongoing discussion about whether one believes in evolution or creationism.  Every time I run into the argument I twitch a little, less because of the ardent creationists than because of the ardent evolutionists.  Personally I find the arguments put forth by a scientific discussion of evolution as the means by which species change over time and possibly give rise to new species over even longer periods of time to be compelling.  When someone asks me if I believe in evolution however, I'm being asked a religious question, not a question about science and understanding.

In the context of the discussion a creationist will use the term belief to mean roughly the same thing as belief in God or Republicanism.  It's a statement of faith of trust in the unseen and unknowable.  For those that think I'm being too snarky about Republicans, I'll point out that I can show you a Republican and even offer reasonable, scientific evidence of their existence.  I can't show you God and I can't show you Republicanism in a laboratory setting.

Belief is a loaded term.  If I shout, "I Believe!" spontaneously in the street, the assumption is that I'm talking about something religious, not about the accuracy of signposts or the efficacy of crosswalks.  Evolution the theory is a testable, scientific approach to certain kinds of information and even allows for some amount of testable prediction.  Evolution the belief is simply a rejection of the beliefs of a subsect of certain Children of Abraham and is no more based on a scientific evaluation of evidence than the argument it rejects is.

Here's why I think it matters:  We live in a country where the right to practice, and by extension, believe what you will and to pass those beliefs on to your children is protected by law and by common practice.  So when the vast majority of the people making the case for teaching children about the theory of evolution treat evolution as a belief, as a set of facts that are written down and immutable they play right into the hands of the folks in the opposite camp. 

We as a society have always protected the right to teach whatever the prevailing belief in a localized society is.  For anyone who doesn't believe me ask someone from north of the country about the civil war and then ask someone from the south.  Their history books aren't quite the same.  Belief is protected territory in the US.  You can make the argument that it shouldn't be and you will almost certainly lose.

Spiritual atheism?

So, yeah, I get all thinkin' about religion and spirituality sometimes.  This one apparently interested me...


Kayti: There's a discussion on *atheism on my favorite MOO, LambdaMOO, about whether it's possible to be simultaneously spiritual and an atheist. They're looking for a good working definition of spirituality from someone who's actually spiritual. I'm an atheist, but I don't consider myself to be particularly spiritual, so I can't really help them directly. However, I'm pretty sure that among my friends I have at least a couple who are spiritual atheists who can help with this definition. Failing that, I'd like to here from theists who nonetheless think atheists can be spiritual and have a definition for spirituality that supports that view.

Anyone?

****: Not a definition, but what immediately comes to mind is that atheism seems to accept the rigid idea of what religion or being religious means that comes from the rigid religious zealotry itself, i.e., that either you believe in God as a man in the sky, or you believe in absolutely nothing. IMO, "religion" and "spirituality" are not necessarily ... See Moretotally separate-- actually, it seems like if you are religious, a lack of spirituality would make that religion pretty empty. I guess what I'm kind of saying is maybe it's not that we need a separate definition for "spiritual", but that we need to expand what "religious" means to encompass more than big-man-in-the-sky-type beliefs.

****: My opinion? In the traditional sense, no. But if you focus in on the qualia of the "religious experience", the experience transcends the choice to believe in any invisible friends.

There is a shared sensation that we monkeys can feel, some sort of feeling of combined awe, connection, humbleness, alone-yet-comforted. It's the glimpse of infinity. Frequently associated with religion, but it doesn't have to be.

I happen to get it occasionally on mountaintops or while stargazing in the desert or occasionally through really deep introspection.... See More

I don't call that experience "spirituality", but I don't really name it, either.

Ian Hawkins: Wow. There is no short answer to this. Mostly it's a semantic trap as stated. One would need to define atheist and then define spiritual before even tackling it. So I won't even try to answer it, but I'll throw some ketchup on the bun...

Atheism seems to mean at least two very different things in the modern day with a lot of shades of grey. ... See MoreOne side is the outright and utter rejection of Godlike or mythical entities as well as in some cases everything outside the immediately experienced, phenomenal world. The "if science can't detect it, it ain't there" model. For my purposes I call that religious atheism, as it entails the belief that one can prove a negative.

The second form of atheism is a rejection of organized religion and pretty much all forms of deity. It verges on agnosticism but differs in the somewhat strong view that personalized deities do not exist. Faeries, mystical energy, chakras, honest politicians maybe even ghosts, but God, and most specifically the Sky God of the Children of Abraham sects is a boogieman that doesn't exist.

Ian Hawkins: Spiritual is even harder. Some people mean very specifically a belief in mystical energy or at the minimum a kind of collective consciousness model that means that all life is at some root level connected. This doesn't require a Sky God at all, but the first form of atheist is unlikely to believe in anything that isn't laboratory tested. Tim ... See MoreMinchin comes to mind here.

But the word spiritual really has no requirement that spirit have a mystical underpinning. If one thinks of spirit as a psychological sense of connectedness with the world or other people or perhaps even just a very zenlike sense of oneself as a point of conscious awareness, one can still lay claim to the idea of being 'spiritual'.

Ian Hawkins: Personally I think there's truth in all of it with the exception of the most extreme forms of religious atheism. To claim that you know absolutely that God doesn't exist is to claim knowledge beyond the scope of science and is a religious claim from someone specifically stating that they are a-theist and generally one could say a-religious.

But then I'm averse to extremists.


I blocked out the names of the two folks I didn't know.  The rest is reposted with permission.

And then in a follow up where I was chatting with Ashley:

Ian: I think admitting ignorance is the beginning and middle of knowledge.  There really isn't an end.

Ashley: I'd hate to think that learning comes to an end.  What would be the point of living?

Ian: Pretty much where I'm at.  Which is really where the difference between what I consider 'religious' and what I consider to be 'spiritual' lies.

Strange weekend, strange week, strange year.

I spent this past weekend somewhere between wonder and terror. Or at least wonder and acute discomfort. On the one hand I experienced something completely new in the form of Valley View Hot Springs, a place of warm water, beautiful views of the Sangre de Cristos, snow on the ground and lots of people occasionally wearing no clothes. I've been naked before so joining them was easy.



What was hard was talking to them. Especially hard was talking to the people I'd actually traveled with. I'm not generally the person someone goes to for pleasant conversation. I have been known to fascinate people, but that requires I'm not so lost in my head as to think I'm actually fascinating. And it requires that I do a lot of shutting up. That got driven home when a rather harsh but deadly acurate comment to that effect was made. It shut me up. For a little while. It also reminded me to stay conscious and not just babble.

The funny thing about that is that the folks I was with were some of the noisiest people I've been around in months. They chatter. It's delightful in its way to be surrounded by three intelligent, highly conversational people. It's not so delightful to be asked to shut up under the circumstances.

Thing is, I really was probably talking too much, but more than that I wasn't managing to integrate my conversation into the already existing structure that the three friends had. I think some people are naturally good at this, maybe they listen better or there's a cultural rhythm that I lack the skills to see, I have no idea, but I've seen some people slip into a group conversational dynamic like the most graceful, naked fat man into the delightful, warm water of a mountain hot spring where I cannonball like a deranged twelve year old on too many pixie sticks.

And then I get truly nervous which makes me talk even more.

And I think, I hope I didn't do any lasting damage to my ability to interact with these three wonderful people.

And I think and I hope that they also haven't left marks that will make me even more skittish around them.


And for all that it was an amazing weekend and I am very grateful that I was offered the chance to join them and will almost certainly go again, especially if invited to join them and others and maybe again still on my own sometime to be even quieter than anyone who has ever seen me nervous could possibly imagine my being.

I'm made of fear sometimes, from toenails to slightly chewed fingernails.

But this weekend, in some of the quieter moments, drifting in the water I felt like some things started to unclench, to let go a little. Late at night when all the pools were empty, and really it was too cold to want to step out of the warm water and into the sharp night air and I was by myself, that was nice too. A balance really, of trying to interact with the people around me, the ones who'd put the effort out to meet me and get to know me... and the quiet where maybe I can actually relax in a way that sitting in my apartment never does.


I saw a bald eagle on the way there, and the way the mountains were swallowed by clouds and released again. When I was falling asleep on Sunday night, in my own bed I dreamed I could still feel the slow movement of the soaking pond as I hung there, just drifting. On Monday I noticed that I had been naked long enough during the weekend that I felt my clothing as a physical, palpable sensation.

Perhaps if I can find that quiet and connect even more with my own self I might find the words and the silences to connect better with the people around me.

If not, there's still the sensation of warm water, the blue and bluer sky and the frost riming the perpetual fall leaves.

It's just nicer to share.

So I'm sitting here listening to Billie Holiday and letting the ideas from Outliers sift through my brain. It has been a most interesting beginning to the season. I started shorthanded on Saturday by choice and with the permission of my crew, who both rock if anyone wants to know. Thinking about Outliers and about success and the origins of success and how no one succeeds in a vacuum which is something I've always known but still there's something in my cultural and personal upbringing that says a person Can fight their way to the top... but really, even that is likely just a choice of turning a horrible situation, point for point into advantages and then of course, like in the case of immigrant's children raised by parents doing useful work in the garment district and sure they couldn't do anything else, but then that's why when they did what they chose to do, they did it so Well...

Yeah. Gladwell has a way of saying things I thought I knew, but in a way that makes me pretty sure I never really did. Meaningful work, work that has a direct consequence, a verifiable effect, the more effort, the more success, the more rewards... it's why I've always liked selling. Not only do my sales change how much money I make, but I can see the transformation in a customer when suddenly they go from jeans and t-shirt drab to seeing themselves, being seen by those around them, as briefly, momentarily someone inherently interesting. I love that moment when they look in the mirror and they slouch a little less or maybe their chin goes up a fraction when I remind them to take off the baseball cap and nothing will ever beat that instant when a woman who was already beautiful and in love and married to an apparently fantastic guy and still she walked out of the dressing room and when she looked, she gasped... Yeah. There are reasons for what I do, no matter what else gets in the way or how some days are nothing but trouble and mud.

To borrow from Mister Tim Minchin for a moment, "It's not perfect, but it's mine."

When I finish a story, close the cover and can't keep the details out of my head, when the world in the story seems so full and yet I know only a tiny slice of it and I wonder what happened after, who Were those people, what all do I Not know about what happened, that to me is the mark of a truly good story. I just finished The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman. That is the feeling I have now.


I suppose it's a mark of where I am in my life that I would rather enjoy that slight ache of a good story ended than have someone try and come back and tell me all the rest. I don't Want it explained. It ended where it should with uncountable new adventures possible, with so much that neither I nor Bod really Know about how it all works and that's as it should be.

Thanks, Neil, for another rich, dark fairy tale that any kid I might actually like can read and enjoy and one that leaves me with that delicious sadness at the story being over. I'll reread it, I'm sure, and read it to other people if they'll sit still long enough.