The ethics of multiple universes

My friend and host, Tucker, her son and I watched Source Code the other night.  Starring Jake Gyllenhaal and Vera Farmiga, it's one of those thrillers with a sci-fi twist that manages not to be sci-fi.  It's a fun watch, which is probably why nobody liked my constant philosophizing.

Spoilers follow (don't worry, you don't care).

So the premise of the movie is that a terrorist attack has destroyed a commuter train in Chicago, killing dozens of people.  Authorities suspect that it is a precursor to a much larger attack, so they need to find out who's behind it.

Luckily, there's Source Code, a top-secret military project that is able to take the consciousness out of an almost-dead blown-up helicopter pilot (Gyllenhaal) and put it into the body of someone on the train, hours earlier.  They can do it for eight minutes at a time, and the goal of each eight-minute mission is to find the identity of the bomber so they can catch him in the present.

But he's not a mere observer.  He can get up, go places and find information that his host didn't know.  He can even deactivate the bomb or get the pretty girl across from him off the train--though he's told that this doesn't actually change anything.  If it does have an effect, it's on a different reality than his own.  This would fall under the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics: every time he changes something in the past, a new universe is created in which those events occurred.  If we assume this is the case, it's not a great leap to assume a new universe is created every time he goes back, since all he has to do is breathe in a slightly different pattern or say one word differently to create a new reality--even if it's practically identical to one that was already created.

We do eventually get confirmation that this is what is happening, because after he completes his mission and allows the people running him to capture the bomber, he insists on going back one last time to try what he has so far failed to do: save every person on the train.  He knows it doesn't mean anything; he just wants to do it.  At the end of this mission, Vera Farmiga agrees, his mutilated body will be taken off life support.

Naturally, Gyllenhaal rocks it.  He disarms the bomb (both detonators this time), apprehends the bomber, and calls in the authorities.  He also sends a quick e-mail and calls his father, who already thinks him dead, to speak with him one last time.  He asks the pretty girl out, and at the end of the eight minutes, just as Farmiga is taking him off life support, kisses her passionately.

And then... he keeps kissing her.  Apparently when his body finally dies in his reality, his consciousness doesn't snap back.  He gets to remain in his new body with his new identity.  He teaches everybody on the train a valuable lesson about enjoying life by paying a grumpy guy $100 to do a stand-up routine, then skips work and goes to Millennium Park.

Meanwhile, the Vera Farmiga of that reality is just starting her day when she gets an e-mail.  It's from Gyllenhaal.  "You should be seeing a story about a thwarted terrorist attack.  You and I stopped it together, and Source Code works better than you ever imagined."  See, while in his reality he only managed to stop the second attack, in this new reality, he stopped the first one, too.  This is how we know it's the multiple universes thing and not just a meaningless eight-minute simulation.

Still with me?

There are some ethical concerns here.  Firstly, what happened to the guy whose body he took over?  Has his consciousness been permanently replaced by Gyllenhaal's?

But the real question I was left with was, is his use of time-travel ethical?

With the exception of the last instance, every time Gyllenhaal goes back, the train is destroyed.  So every time he is creating another universe in which the terrorist attack--and the much larger second attack, which supposedly destroys downtown Chicago--occurs, all in the name of stopping one of the attacks in the reality he's from.  He is ensuring the bigger attack happens a half-dozen more times, across all realities, in the name of stopping it from happening once in his reality.

The question is, do people in other realities have standing?

My friend Sam, a philosophy major I met here in California, suggested that another consequence of considering the moral standing of people in other realities is that it can serve to de-value the suffering in our own reality.  If there are infinite realities with infinite people suffering infinitely, does one person suffering here even matter?  If such de-valuation is a danger, should that be used as a point of argument for caring only about our own reality?  Or should we have a "prime directive" that forbids interfering with other realities (and would essentially outlaw Source Code, since it does just that)?

Steve?

Creature of the night

I have long been a bit of a night owl.  In part because I am a genius, no doubt, but likely also because I got my own computer when I was in the seventh grade, and hours-long AOL chats with my unrequited love and marathon sessions of designing new levels for "X-Wing vs. TIE Fighter" both forced me to stay awake late.  (I also failed three classes in the eighth grade and had my calculus teacher tell me I would not graduate high school.)

It gets worse, of course, during bouts of depression, when I simply never bother to go to bed because there's nothing to look forward to when I wake up.

Though I now have my own apartment, I've lived most of my life with other people, so I am accustomed to sneaking about in the dark, trying to minimize the sounds I make.  I knew just how to distribute my weight in our creaky house to make the stairs and hallway a little less creaky (that was the best I could do).  Everywhere I lived, I have a distinct memory of what it's like in the dark, as I feel my way around.  Home. College.  Mexico.  I usually manage to pull off this lurking with minimal disturbance to others.

Of course, there are times when it all fails spectacularly.  Once, I was trying to sneak up from the basement (the location of my computer at the time) late at night when our dog, who had never displayed any signs of being useful, decided that was the night he would try out the "guard dog" thing.  Nothing ruins a subtle entry like a barking dog.  There was the time I had so much trouble with my key that my host dad had to come downstairs and let me in the house.

And there was tonight, when the whole damn house woke up thanks to the stupid cat.

As the last one to bed, it is often my duty to close the cat in the kitchen/dining room area of the house at night.  This usually just entails closing two doors, since the cat tends to stay in that territory anyway.  Tonight, though, I couldn't find her anywhere.  Fifteen minutes I circled around and around the first floor of the house, searching.

Wondering if she slipped outside while the dogs were out, I opened the front door as quietly as possible and stepped out.  Honestly, it was almost silent.  Except when the door kept opening all on its own, and bumped against the painting on the wall.  Repeatedly.  It sounded like someone was banging to be let in.

I dashed back inside and carefully closed the door.  Now I heard some shifting of weight upstairs, but I decided it was unrelated to me.  I continued my search.

Meow, the cat said, upstairs.  The cat usually doesn't go upstairs, but tonight she decided to mess with me.  I made for the stairs, and could now hear Doug (another tenant) moving about on the second floor.  Doug had come to investigate the door banging, lest I be one of Berkeley's axe murderers.

"Is the cat up there?" I stage whispered.

After he challenged me for my identity (what, like I'm a burglar who inquires about the cat?), he went to fetch the cat.

There are also two dogs in this house, and one of them hates Doug.  When he called out for the cat, the dog lost it, and all hell broke loose.  Soon the homeowner was awake, lights were on, and retrieving the cat was no longer a covert operation.

Fail.

If I had my way, that animal would be denied breakfast.

The PayPal Chronicles

Once upon a time, a fraudulent charge for $900 appeared on my PayPal account.  As in, I got an e-mail confirming a payment of $900 that I had never authorized, to a recipient I had never heard of.  Since my PayPal account was linked to my checking account, they tried to withdraw the money directly.  Three times.

Luckily, $900 was so far beyond the laughable amount of money in my checking account that the transaction was simply denied, all three times.

I immediately filed a claim of unauthorized access to my account with PayPal.  A few days later, I got an e-mail informing me my claim had been denied.  And that was that.  There's no further appeal process when it comes to PayPal.  They're not a bank, and aren't regulated like a bank, and they pull out of any country that tries to regulate them like a bank.  So once they decide the activity isn't fraudulent, there is absolutely, positively nothing you can do about it.  If they'd gotten that $900, I would never have gotten it back.

I closed my bank account and abandoned my PayPal account.  They want to make me pay?  They can sue me.

Some years later, I decided I actually did need a PayPal account in order to do some freelance work.  So I opened up a new account with as much different information as I could.

Some more years later, I wanted to buy my roommate Steve some shot glasses on eBay.  For reasons I can't remember, I wasn't able to use my credit card to pay (maybe I didn't add it in time and the payment was due?), so I did the stupidest thing of my life (based on the action itself, not the consequences) and signed up for something called "PayPal Buyer Credit."  As in, they cover those $16 shot glasses for me for a mere, I don't know, say $52.

For other reasons I can't remember, at some point a phone call was necessary in relation to my Buyer Credit account.  The man at the other end of the line was very adamant that I just link up my bank account with them.

"My concern," I said, "is that if someone were to break in to my account and send themselves like $900, and PayPal decided to deny my claim about it, you could just take it from my bank account and I would have no recourse."

"Oh, that could never happen," he said.

I actually went to the expense of sending them a money order to pay off my Buyer Credit account, just to make sure they didn't snag the routing number off my check and tap into my account without my permission.  When I used Buyer Credit again last year (accidentally), I paid it off by sending a check to a special, alternate address that the very fine print of the contract said I should use if I didn't want to authorize them to take funds out electronically.

I have been uncharacteristically sharp when it comes to these guys.  Fool me once...

Anyway, I just got an e-mail to my old college e-mail account regarding my original PayPal account.  "Our records show that you are the owner of a derelict PayPal account with a balance of $30," it said.  "To claim the funds..." blah blah blah.

NO MENTION of the $900 I owe them.  Just $30 that's all mine; all I have to do is confirm that I exist!

I'll let Admiral Ackbar take this one:

Yes, thank you, Admiral.  E-mail deleted.

Diet, not exercise

I'm getting both in Berkeley.  Probably both because I don't drive.  Without a vehicular commute, there's never any temptation to just go ahead and swing through Arby's.  ("This roast turkey & swiss sandwich is healthy, so by getting it, I earned the mozzarella sticks").  I'm too afraid of looking incompetent to try the unfamiliar bus system, so walking it is.  Seven miles at a time, when Brandi has something to say about it.

But I haven't been going for runs like I wanted to, and have only scaled the nearby hill (mountain) a handful of times.  I've spent weeks practically without leaving the house, thanks in part to laziness but largely due to a foot injury.  Yet my weight is as low as it's been in two years, and if I shed another pound or two I'll weigh less than I did since I started my last year of college.  I weigh the same now as I did last summer, when I was obsessively running up to three miles a day.  And I'm chalking it up to the good ol' California diet (not counting a night of In 'n Out.  Bloated, but worth it).

I've read that exercise can keep weight off, but diet is really the only good way to lose it in the first place.  I'll buy that.

(Mark thinks he lost a hundred pounds or so from walking around all day, but I think it has more to do with his daily intake of about 45 calories.)

Lest you think me a good person

I saw Crazy Carl again today.  I was just rounding the corner at the bottom of my street, headed for the store to buy some tortilla chips because mine were missing and the two bags I found were stale.  Not "oh these are stale" stale, but "I can't swallow this so instead I will spit it into the trash" stale.  And there was ol' Carl, wearing the same clothes as before.  I didn't check to see if he bought new socks with my money.  Instead I tugged my baseball cap lower across my eyes and sped past him.  There was a bit of a crowd there, thanks to the bus stop, and his gaze was cast downward, so I think I got away without him recognizing me.  Or at least without him knowing I recognized him.

As I returned from the store, I looked cautiously about.  No Carl down the street.  No carl visible around the corner (the two glass walls of the café allow for such foresight).  I turned onto my street and there he was, up the road, walking towards me.  I immediately (and obviously) changed direction and bolted across the street.  I didn't feel quite secure on the other side, though, so I actually walked three blocks out of my way so as not to pass him.

Not that I'm afraid of Crazy Carl, even with his pipe (the metal hitting people in the head kind, not the crack kind).  I just wasn't feeling another hour-plus conversation.

Oh my god I hate OSX Lion

I read that people aren't very impressed with Lion, so I decided not to upgrade.

Then, I read that Lion includes support for tools that extend the life of solid state drives and for encrypting the entire hard drive.  Since both of these things seem very useful for my Air, I decided to go for it.  I can take some ugly applications.

Not that I have a big "tech blog" type following, but I have to grouch about all this, so here goes.

Ridiculous scrolling

When I first booted up my computer after installing Lion, I was greeted by an "upgrade assistant" screen telling me how to scroll.  "Duh," I thought.  I tried to scroll, but with no success.  I tried closing the program, but it warned me that I shouldn't, making me wonder if there was more to the tutorial.  It took me a good five minutes to figure out it was telling me to scroll the other way.

On every laptop trackpad that has been made since the invention of two-finger scrolling, you scroll down by dragging two fingers downwards (towards your body) and scroll up by dragging two fingers upwards (away from your body).  Down is down, up and up.  It makes sense.

As of OSX Lion, though, you drag up to scroll down and down to scroll up.  This is to mimic the "flick" type gestures you use on your iPhone (if you were duped into getting an iPhone).  The thing is, that's actually intuitive when you're actually touching the image.  The trackpad is separate from the screen, so there's no desire to act like you're "flicking" the image or document.  Nobody who has ever been born has difficulty grasping that you flick one way on a touchscreen phone and the other on a computer trackpad, but Apple decided to solve a problem that didn't exist and drive everybody absolutely crazy.

(You can turn this off in settings, but still.  Really?)

Ugly sidebar, and what is this Finder??

Remember when iTunes used to have nice, color-coded icons on the navigation bar?  That was before iTunes 10 came along.  Now the rest of the Apple navigation experience has gone the way of gray icons, either to make sure it takes me longer to do anything or to ensure those using black-and-white monitors aren't getting a lesser experience than everyone else.

Also, launching the Finder now defaults to a new "All My Files" view, laughing in the face of all my organization efforts.

And while I'm on frustrations with launching Finder, once I finally locate the gray "Applications" icon and click it (reaching the point I'd already be at in Leopard), I find I'm unable to "modify" (move) any of the core applications.  See, I spent an obscene amount of time building folders into which to sort all my applications and installing custom icons so those folders could look pretty on the dock.  Here, look:

In a new-agey move I bet Apple would appreciate, I made all the folder names verbs.  "Browse," "Communicate," "Organize," "Enjoy," "Edit," "Write," "Play."  It's been one of the rare times such effort proved well-spent, because I love it.  Only now, I can't put Address Book, iCal, etc. into those folders, because they can't be "modified."  So now I have to go with aliases, complete with ugly arrow icons and a cluttered Applications folder.

Vomit-inducing ugliness


Take a look at iCal:

And Address Book:

This is for people who remember with longing a day when we actually used physical calendars and address books.  And bought the most hideous ones possible.  This might be cute on the iPhone, which favors cuteness over functionality, but it has no place on my computer.  And there's no option to turn it off, either, which means as soon as I post this blog I'll be hacking my computer.

OH, and I forgot Launchpad.  You click it, it shows you all your applications.  In case you're one of those people who only uses your computer six times a year and doesn't have more applications than can fit on one screen.  Also, when did they become "applications" and not "programs?"  Damn you, Apple.

Anyway, I want my old operating system back.

He's on to me

I recently failed to get a job because I haven't finished my Master's degree (don't tell my freelance writing clients; I lie to them).  Apparently when it comes to directing a college residence hall, the difference between qualified and not qualified is a seventy-page thesis on the interplay between the Bible and American exceptionalism.  (And I imagine this is one of those blog posts that will be set to "private" next time I apply.)

Anyway, I was all set on this job, which would have represented a decent lifestyle change for me.  First, I would have had lots and lots of money (by my standards).  Second, I would have moved into the provided apartment.  I put a lot of energy into thinking about these changes, and now I find the thought of returning to same old apartment, same old (actually less) pay, same old everything to be somewhat unpleasant.

I've been seriously considering moving, just because I think I could use a change of pace/scenery/environment.  I have no real issues with my current apartment; I just feel a pull to move on.  There's a pricy apartment in the depot district that has been sitting empty for quite a while, which I've been considering trying to score at a deep discount.  I've seen a few good apartments show up on college mailing lists (though they are mostly bigger places for which I'd need a roommate).  And my current landlord has some other places at similar price points, but I'm kind of wanting to shoot for a higher quality unit than he generally provides.  Anyway, I've gotten some encouraging remarks on this potential venture.  Bekah is supportive, probably because when it comes to my eccentricity, she has to choose her battles.  Brandi is supportive because she is even more eccentric than I am.  Mother (nope, no website there) is supportive because she wants me to find some roommates and lower my housing costs (probably not gonna happen).

The thing is, my landlord is pretty awesome.  He's a full-time landlord so by nature he is a sneaky bastard, having me sign a paper certifying the apartment was clean before I saw it (it wasn't) and a lease agreement stipulating that post-move-out cleaning costs are my responsibility (non-standard), and trying to charge me $20 for the privilege of renewing my lease (I decided to go off-lease rather than pay).  But he is also as friendly and helpful as I can imagine a landlord being.  Any issue I have (like thinking my stove is too hot or thinking there's a wiring problem because a light switch I didn't know about is turned off) prompts an immediate visit from his handyman, Micah, or whoever else is needed.  No charges, ever.  No charge to replace my screen, to charge for locking myself out of my apartment, no charge even when my idiocy surely earned them a bill from the electrician.  The final balance is I'm a fan, and I always recommend his property service to new people.

In the latest infraction against common indecency, Terry actually had the nerve to pick up my water and trash bill for me, knowing I'm out of town.  That's right--even though he's still paying the city for trash pickup and sewer fees, I get a pass on it this month.  It's like he knows I'm thinking about moving, and wants me to feel really guilty about it.

I guess that is a sound business strategy.

Scribble Theology: Not talking about the Bible

The Bible and sexy women

"True or false," Crazy Carl quizzed me, "the Bible says do not kill."  (Crazy Carl did not know my profession.)

True, I told him, and Crazy Carl gleefully told me I was wrong.  He tried to go on but I pressed him, telling him the Bible most certainly said that in both Exodus and Deuteronomy.  No, he told me, that's a common misconception.  The Bible really only says "do not commit murder."  I told him it all comes down to how you choose to translate ratsach (רָצַח).  That shut him up.

Actually, it really, really didn't.  He challenged me to a quick game of "Is it in the Bible" (which he failed at--see below).  He asked about a couple of sayings I can't remember, which were easy nos, along with "money is the root of all evil" ("the love of money is the root of all evil," 1 Timothy 6:10).

He then launched into a lesson on lust.  "The Bible says something about your neighbor's wife," he said, and I supplied him with the word "covet."  "Covet, that's it," he said.  "It doesn't say don't lust after her."

Actually, I told him, Jesus says in the Sermon on the Mount that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully commits adultery in his heart.  I think he did a complete one-eighty on what he was going to say, because he started talking about how useful that is, because obsession is self-defeating.  Then he said he would definitely sleep with Catherine Zeta Jones, but she's married to Michael Douglas and that man is crazy.  So the Bible really gives good advice.

In the (very long) "women Crazy Carl finds sexy" portion of our conversation, Nadia Comăneci came up.  I'd never heard of her, but Carl informed me she was the first gymnast to score a perfect 10 in the Olympics and that she had scored a 9.5 the day after drinking a cup of bleach--just to prove her superiority.  The first is true (1976), but I could find no reference whatsoever to the second story.  She did cut her hand on a bar, get a blood infection, leave the hospital against doctors' orders and score a 9.95, so maybe that story just morphed.  A lot.

naked man jesus rock cloak

If you search for the above string of words on Google, Scribble Theology is the first hit.

Hep C, tetanus, and cat scratch fever

I should say a word or two about Crazy Carl's appearance and mannerisms.  He was dressed in a tattered long-sleeved shirt and the dirtiest blue jeans I have ever seen.  He had blue eyes, a beard, and reddish brown hair swept up and back sort of like they do on TV (it never works for me), though he was clearly in need of a haircut.  And he danced.  Danced like a person with ADHD who was hopped up on caffeine and really had to pee.  He'd lunge forward into my space, or sort of stumble to the side, but he was always moving.  I spent most of our conversation trying to figure out what he was high on or missing, but I think in the end he was just a little bit drunk and a little bit crazy.

When I told him I was drinking a chai tea, he immediately launched into a story about a time he'd been in Santa Cruz and had hepatitis C.  He hadn't gotten it from a dirty needle or anything--he'd gotten it when (perhaps high on some other drug, he joked) he'd bathed in the river while the tide was going out.  Apparently while the tide is going out in Santa Cruz, they dump all sorts of septic overflow into the river, and it has the nickname "Hepatitis C River."  (I should reinforce that I am not vouching for any of Crazy Carl's information.)  I told Crazy Carl I would really strongly advise against bathing in any body of water that was actually called "Hepatitis C," but he said he'd had antibacterial soap and he figured he could just get himself wet and then quickly scrub himself down.  But in any case, he wound up with hep C.

So he was sick, and miserable.  And begging for change so he could get a clean pair of "knickers" (when I encountered him, he was looking for socks).  A woman offered to buy him some food, but he told her he was sick and didn't want anything to eat.  She then insisted he try drinking some chai, which she provided.  And it made him feel better.

That was one of the three times Crazy Carl has been ill.

A second was when he got tetanus.  He was in the middle of telling me how I could get tetanus when I cut him off and told him I'd been immunized.  He told me that just meant it wouldn't kill me, and then said if he scratched me with a tack that was even slightly bent to expose the iron, that should be considered assault with a deadly weapon.

Speaking of deadly weapons, he totally had a length of pipe strapped to his backpack, next to the water bottle I'm pretty sure had alcohol in it.

His third illness was cat scratch fever.  He didn't go into its symptoms ("usually benign," says Wikipedia), but he described at length exactly how the bacterium Bartonella (he did not name it) gets under a cat's nails as it scratches through feces-infested sand.  He showed me how even though his nails were short, there was space underneath them where disease might flourish.  Seeing that his fingernails--and fingers--were absolutely black with filth, it wasn't exactly an academic line of thought.  He described how the cat becomes sick and more easily feels threatened.  And how all it takes is one little scratch.

And then... he scratched me.  While talking about how a scratch can pass on bacteria from under fingernails and make you sick, he reached out and scratched my arm.  Twice.

I think I can point to that moment as when I really started to lose patience with Crazy Carl.

Jesus surrenders his cloak

(A Crazy Carl story)

There is a story in the Bible that goes like this:  Jesus and his disciples were walking along when they encountered a naked man, holding a rock threateningly, as if about to throw it at Jesus.  Jesus walked up to the man, removed his cloak, and draped it over the man's shoulders, so he himself was naked but the man was clothed.  His nakedness taken away from him, the man stood stunned, and dropped the rock.  Then one of Jesus' disciples removed his own cloak and gave it to Jesus.

Crazy Carl

Does being homeless make people crazy, or does being crazy make people homeless?
I'm sure the answer is "both."

As I watch people brush by the homeless on the streets, fiercely avoiding eye contact, pretending they can't hear them clearly talking to them, it occurs to me that it must be an incredibly dehumanizing experience.  Having almost everyone you encounter pretend they can't see you.  I start to feel a little crazy if someone ignores (or doesn't hear) me once; how bad must it get after days?  Weeks?

Years?

Today I met Crazy Carl.  His name is probably not Carl.  I did not ask his name, because I thought that could lead to a handshake, and frankly I didn't want to touch his hand.  And graded on the homeless curve, he was actually pretty sane.  Possibly just a little drunk.

He asked if I would give him a few pennies if he could tell a joke that made me laugh.  I told him he was on, he told me a joke, I chuckled and gave him some change.  I probably should have walked away at that point, but instead I started chatting about how if I hadn't bought the chai I was carrying, I wouldn't have any change.  That started an hour-plus conversation that was very, very hard to get out of.

I suspect that as a result of being ignored all the time, a lot of homeless people seem really chatty once you start talking to them.  At first this was cool, but I wasn't looking for a conversation that lasted as long as an episode of Star Trek.  The thing is, I couldn't get out, because I always want to find a decent break in the conversation--and he didn't leave any.  He'd be talking about immune systems, say "but like I was saying," and then launch into something he hadn't been saying.  About religion.

Still, there was much of intrigue, which I will turn into a series of blog posts.  Not one long blog post, because studies show that on the internet people tend not to read long things.

Because I can

Based on an entry from my journal, dated June 20.  Censored, of course, and greatly expanded (because I can type more before losing interest than I can write).

I think there exists in the human condition--or at least in my condition--a longing for something like a heroin addiction.  A severe mental illness.  An abusive parent.  Something to unify the events of life, to give them a theme.  Something to blame for all the unhappiness.

I have a guardedness to me that perceptive people notice very quickly.  Maybe not perceptive people.  Unfiltered extroverts--the sort of people who fling very personal things at me.  They notice that these things hit a wall.  A more substantial wall, it seems, than the one everyone has.

An online aura test (ha!) said I have a "red overlay," a sort of psychic shield that is developed in response to childhood trauma.  To my knowledge, I have no such trauma, but I want to believe that I do.  So I wonder if I have repressed memories.

I do have one potentially traumatic memory.  I was on a floatation device on the lake where some family friends have a house, out deeper than I could touch with my dad and some other adults.  This when I was very young, and unable to swim.  At some point I rolled over and fell off my raft, and I have a sharp memory of the black of being underwater.  The next thing I remember is being back on the couch in the lake house, and I have a vague sense that my dad rescued me from the water.

Holy crap, right?  Except for one thing: neither of my parents has any memory of this event.  This rules out any dramatic rescue or loss of consciousness, because that wouldn't be easily forgotten; Mom does remember, quite clearly, the time I fell out of a shopping cart directly onto my head.  (As smart as I am anyway, I can only assume that if she had not allowed me to stand up in the cart, I would have a nobel prize by now.)  I can think of three possibilities, then, for what really happened.

1. It never happened, and this memory is the product of mis-remembered fragments and possibly invention.

2. I dreamed it and forgot it was a dream.

3. The event in question did happen, but I was only in the water for a split second before Dad snatched me out.  I don't remember the next few minutes because it was forever ago, and my parents don't remember the event at all because there was never enough danger for it to make a lasting impression.  To little land-lubber me, though, it was genuinely traumatic.

I'll likely never know.  Interesting how memory works... or how it doesn't.

Mom says I used to suffer from night terrors; that I would be sitting in bed screaming and she couldn't wake me up.  I have no memory of this, but I do remember some terrifying dreams.  In one, a highly dramatic twist on a real event, a bull had gotten loose and made its way into a small room, where I was stuck with it.

I also had a recurring dream with variations of the following:  My parents would be having a party with twenty or more adult friends, all milling around in the dimly lit first floor of our Third Street house.  I would be sent upstairs to bed, but in the upstairs hallway I would encounter a large crocodile.  This crocodile had an extremely long tongue (I always remember it as a "twenty foot tongue," though I don't recall ever measuring), which could snake about with great dexterity and would instantly kill anyone it touched.  This was just knowledge I had; I always woke before the dreaded tongue came out.  Until one night--and I think this only happened once--when the crocodile broke the rules of the dream and appeared downstairs, where it shot its tongue out and killed several people before hitting me.  I fell, feeling myself die, and then woke up.

Every night of my childhood I went to bed terrified that I would have this dream.  During my bedtime prayers I begged God to give me no dreams, so afraid was I of nightmares.  I worried that if I prayed for "good dreams," God might send me dreams that had scary moments but resolved happily, and I knew that the scary moments would nonetheless leave me lying in bed, afraid to close my eyes, unable to go to sleep until I had woken my mom (knowing she was awake made me feel safe enough to fall asleep).  And that I would remember those scary moments just when bedtime came around the following night.

I sometimes wonder if such fervent determination not to dream is to blame for the rarity of remembered dreams today.

Perhaps I have my trauma, after all.

Living like literature

I'm starting to read for class--last semester's class--just because I think literary theory is something I should be better versed in than I am.  Especially since Steve says in literary criticism lies the easiest road to a Ph.D.

I was reading some thoughts by Terry Eagleton on how we might define literature.  He discusses how what is considered literature can change over time--we might imagine a world in which Shakespeare is no longer considered to have any literary value--and can be quite independent of the author's intent--that is, whether the author considers his or her work to be literature.  Except Eagleton phrases it as whether the authors consider themselves literature.  Just a little quirk in his language; I'm sure he didn't mean to shift the conversation away from the topic at hand.  But the ADHD kicked in, and I started thinking about how people might be thought of as literature.


A few pages earlier, Eagleton is offering various definitions for literature.  The first option he offered (and ultimately rejected) was in step with the Formalists, claiming that literature is "organized violence against language," or, as I have been putting it, "queering language."  Because literature isn't how we talk or write business e-mails; it's something different.  In literature, blades can be described as pale.  Godric comes to mind.  Literature is language that calls attention to itself; it is not the content that matters so much, but the words.  The medium, not the message.

Hold on to that for a second.

There exists a bias (I could be all snooty and say "in Western society," but I think we hippie types draw that particular contrast a little too freely) towards the content of one's life.  Occupation, family, income, volunteer work, musical talent, penchant for mathematics--that's all content.  That's all what people do in life, and that's what we tend to see.  But I think there's also a how, a way of walking and speaking and reacting that won't show up on even the most overdone résumé.  I can certainly think of people who seem to have a literary grace about them quite independent of everything that goes on in their lives.  It's not the content of life; it's the language in which it's lived.

Therein, I think, lies my ambition.  I have always been rather ambivalent about my future plans, be they career, locale, or family, and I think it's because what I truly want is for my life to have the ring of literature.  I'm quite sure I'm not there--I doubt people look at me and see that grace.  I'm too impulsive and quick-tempered, and I speak too loudly.  But at least I've figured out what I want.

This week.