The work of consultants

"Of course arrogance, or at least self-assurance, is a consultant’s stock in trade. That’s what we buy when we buy advice: not just the content of it but the authority, even the grandiloquence, with which it’s delivered. We exchange the anxiety of autonomy for the comfort of following orders. "

From here 

Must remember for my work. 

Speaking of which, a former work colleague - currently engaged -  told me today that he used to have a "tiny" crush on me. Well I never...

Afghani woman on self immolation

"Don't burn yourself," she said, lying on her hospital bed. "If you want a way out, use a gun: it's less painful."

from here

One of my roomies was signing up to see a shrink. So they asked her a few questions to match her up with someone suitable. They asked, of course, "Do you have thoughts of suicide?" And my roomie told me that she was shocked. Suicide is not even an option, she said.

It's one thing to think suicide is not an option. It's another thing to understand how it would seem like an option to some hypothetical body. It's a third stance to consider it for yourself day in and day out, or maybe late at night when considering what you should do tomorrow. C is not healthy I gather. Is option B toeing the line? And what about that afghani woman? Is there a difference between suicide from depression and suicide as the last and only act of independence?

Either way, sounds like it hurts. BTW I am reading Sylvia Plath.

P.S. Do Jamaicans commit suicide?

...for the white man.

"The abilities, the intelligence, the promise of these young men will be squandered in their attempt to eke out a living doing the simplest, most mindless chores for the white man."

-Nelson Madela , Long Walk to Freedom, my copy page 33

This is exactly how I felt working for my last supervisor. Oh snap! Good riddance my friend. ha.

But will I prosper now that he is gone? We make jokes at work all about how the partners are afraid of Office 2007. We make jokes about "partner math" which is simple, slap dash math that latches on to the biggest roundest numbers on a page and yields nothing but broad estimations. Haha! so funny... Does this mean we get more stupid, dated and timid as we move up in this firm?

The more time I spend away from school the more I feel my intelligence is squandered. How do I stem this flow?

BTW I started reading Mandela's book. It was gifted to me two summers ago. It is quintissentially inspirational. Expect more quotes.

Hipsters, be free!!

"The dance floor at a hipster party looks like it should be surrounded by
quotation marks. While punk, disco and hip hop all had immersive, intimate and
energetic dance styles that liberated the dancer from his/her mental states – be
it the head-spinning b-boy or violent thrashings of a live punk show – the
hipster has more of a joke dance. A faux shrug shuffle that mocks the very idea
of dancing or, at its best, illustrates a non-committal fear of expression
typified in a weird twitch/ironic twist. The dancers are too self-aware to let
themselves feel any form of liberation; they shuffle along, shrugging themselves
into oblivion. "

-from here

I often feel the need to move freely. To dance, to fight to frolic. Where can I be free?

Acutane

My roomie is going on acutane for her acne and brought back this huge reader that she has to go through before she starts the 5 month course. Supposedly we have to watch her for depresison and crying spells while she's on the pills. More than that though... Apparently you SHOULD NOT GET PREGNANT while on the meds. So the reader has a whole set of sections trying to dispel the myths around sex and getting pregnant so that the patients don't accidently knock themselves up.

My favourite myth of all:

" 'Sexually active' means that you move during sex. If you don't move, you can't get pregnant."

I have no words

Lessons from The Fountainhead, part 2

It seems that this book is still haunting my existence. I am playing with ads by google and one of them popped up about ayn rand. So it seems I should return to my little reflection on The Fountainhead.


My other posts on it are under the 'literature' tab. So here's another installment.

"It was not malice. It was not judgement passed upon his merit. They did not think he was worthless. They simply did not care to find out whether he was good. Sometimes, he was asked to show his sketches; he extended them across a desk, feeling a contraction of shame in the muscles of his hand; it was like having the clothes torn off his body, and the shame was not that his body was exposed, but that it was exposed to indifferent eyes." page 99.

So many things come to mind. The most immediate is the art of blogging. You always have the choice of making these thing public. What is worse than people hating you... people not caring. Almost makes me want to shut down on those privacy setting and make it for my eyes only. But then, how would I ever discover if I was good. How would you?

But on a larger note... It's true that people usually don't give you the chance to show that you are good. Many people usually dont care. Few people are willing to take a chance on a stranger. Thats why, in my PSCI class on Social Capital, I thought that sometimes, social capital is a bad thing. It encourages nepotism and closed-mindedness.

Why dont we all take a chance on someone and something new today.

Olympic understatement and the Economist

"At the Beijing Olympic, Michael Phelps won his eighth gold medal at the games, beating the record of seven set in 1972 by another American swimmer, Mark Spitz; Jamaican runners won the men's and women's 100-metre races; and Britain chalked up its best medal tally since 1908 by dominating the cycling events. Liu Xiang, China's hurdling hero, apologised to the nation for an injury that caused him to withdraw from his race." Economist August 23rd - 29th 2008, page 6

Ok, so we can tolarate all the silly arguments about who is the better athlete, Phelps or Bolt. (Talk about apples and oranges!) But how can you possibly have an olympic 'report' without even mentioning Bolt's name? No mention of the stunning new world records! No mention of Jamaica dominating the Birdnest! Not even a peep about Bolt's Rogge-baiting dancing antics! But there is more than enough detail about the American and British victories and they even (helpfully) included a little historical data to let the readers know how monumental their achievements were. 'Bias' is a bitter-tasting word, but sometimes it has to be said.

Let's end this rant with a little bit of sillyness

Lessons from "The Fountainhead", part one

I read the Fountainhead (Ayn Rand) recently. I must say, that I loved most of it. The end got a bit preachy, but either way the book has a lot to offer, philosophically and otherwise. So now that there is some distance between it and me - having read some other books - I will return to some of my favourite quotes/lessons. I hope you enjoy...

"He wondered whether he really liked his mother. But she was his mother and this fact was recognized by everybody as meaning automatically that he loved her, and so he took for granted that whatever he felt for her was love. He did not know whether there was any reason why he should respect her judgement. She was his mother; this was supposed to take the place of reasons." page 35

Replace "mother" with any relative you like and it still applies. Even better, if you can, replace "mother" with some relative you don't really know or particulaly like but you are expected to respect. What is this odd combination of dependence, admiration, guilt, debt, trust, obligation ...whatever, that we feel for them? Is this love? Is it that special brand of love that we can only feel for family - blood being thicker than water and all that? Or do we just assume it is because we don't want to be that crass bastard who doesn't love his mother? Is it taboo to even think that your father, your brother, your ageing homely grandmother has to -God forbid! - earn your love? When these same relatives mistreat you, is it petty and premature to just say, "Wow, that person just doesn't love me."

Can we accept this? Is this too hard to bear?

Union Square

I was walking through Union square looking absent-mindedly at the people playing chess. I caught the eye of an older kind-looking fellow who was at a table alone.

"Come here baby! Let me teach you how to play chess." He said.

I just smiled, shook my head and kept walking. Everybody in earshot started cracking up as he shouted at me across the park:

"Listen to me!!

You won't be cute forever!

You WILL turn 50!

You've got to get INTELLIGENT!!!"

Ha!

BTW... today is my birthday! yay!

Kafka

If you look back at my old entry Church Bells on the 28th of June I mention retiring one of my 'todays confessions' - found in the sidebar

It read: "I am restless. I am looking for something I cannot name. Is this unhappiness?"

Imagine my surprise when I read the forward (John Updike) of my Complete Stories of Franz Kafka:

'Karfa epitomizes one apsect of this modern mind-set : a sensation of anxiety and shame whose center cannot be located and therefore cannot be placated..."

Jesus. Literature is a beautiful thing. I guess "modernism" is something I should look into. Perhaps it can help me understand my current moods.

But I have only read The Metamorphosis" so far... and I hated it.... all except the ending. I hated every character. I hated the unshocked lightness of the tale. I am sorry that Gregor had to become physical manifestation of his family's pointless, lazy, self-absorbed existence, but I guess we are meant to feel a relief at his awful death. At least,by and through his death his sister, father and mother became real and vitalized people. Being a scapegoat sucks. He should never have returned or visited home, but more than that he should have never facilitated their previously useless existence. I'm no good at analyzing literature, but this is what the story meant to me and I suppose that is all that matters.

Maybe I can make myself read some more.

puddles of lust

From sage francis:

"Falling in love, this time, was like stepping into a puddle you didn’t think was gonna be as goddamn deep as it motherfucking turned out to be."

How about falling in lust?

I should be starting college now... maybe I would actually make a move.

Guy advice from a guy

Guys don't like girls who can talk

endquote

A few Maxims

It's funny how these things work....

It's like that British friend of mine. He said that when he is high he loves listening to music because he feels like every song has been written and played just for him.

It's like walking into church late and being greeted with a Homily that speaks to the very problem you were having that week.

It's like today, getting one of those obnoxious cell-phone horoscopes that I don't know how to stop getting and having it say:

"Whatever you do today don't let your temper get the better of you. The biggest problesm will relate to travel complications!"

...just when I'm having a devil of a time planning my trip to NYC tomorrow.

So I stumble onto these lame quotes from Oscar Wilde. And suddenly the trite rings true... so bear with me

"Friendship is far more tragic than love. It lasts longer."

Maybe that's why my friends girlfriend hates me so. Even as I back away and spend less time with him, she seems ever more desperate , because she knows that distance (shockingly) has not affected the depth of our relationship. Maybe if they get married she would finally be secure enough to not be threatened by my harmless existence.

"One should never listen. To listen is a sign of indifference to one's hearers."

When I'm in class I often don't participate... thinking I am granting airtime to others. I am learning from them. I am not boring them with my useless ramblings. But I should be a bit more honest. In part, I just don't want to be there. Maybe I could be teaching someone something....

"It is a very sad thing that nowadays there is so little useless information."

I really want time to learn the things i want to learn. Not for my job, or my classes, but the things that interest me. My profs say that that's why they become professors - for the research time in the things that they love. But wow, what a journey for something so simple. Maybe I should quit whining and make time.

"Education is an admirable thing. But it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught."

AMEN! God, I am so ready to graduate. I suddenly feel the urge to do something big, like these kids I went to school with who are LITERALLY off saving the world... They started a children's home in India. Holy Shit! Look them up, they are called the Ashraya Initiative for Children

that's my little bit of cheese and self indulgence. Hope you enjoyed it.

Angst and Friendship in the Brave New World

 "One of the principal functions of a friend is to suffer (in a milder and symbolic form) the punishments that we should like, but are unable, to inflict upon our enemies." Brave New World,  Aldous Huxley

Had a massive mood-swing last night. It started out as such a mediocre night, then went to excellent in a heart beat. Then some time around midnight one of my friends was inexplicably angry with me about something - who knew what because the level of anger did not match up with the supposed trespass. I really need to get better at deflecting other people's moods. They end up being my unhappiness way too often. 

On the other hand, I have a good opportunity to avoid that particular set today - until they cool off I suppose - because to day is another friend's happy day:

It's her birthday! But it get's better! She recently found out that she got into Stanford,  Harvard and MIT for grad school. We, her friends, expected nothing less, but it is a great thing to have it all on paper... And so many choices!

Tonight we celebrate! I only hope I can work up the appropriate mood.