So I just finished "Ender's Game" by Orson Scott Card. I had resisted reading this book for quite some time, mostly because of all those people who displayed shock and dismay that I hadn't read, and also a little prejuidice. Almost all the people who told me to read it were LDS, and knowing that Card himself was also LDS it forced me to be a little reluctant. Why? Because I understand the bias. Any group will want to take pride in thier own members accomplishments and praise those accomplishments, but the group always has a slanted view of the individual. I know, I know; Card is an acclaimed novelist, nationally and internationally. So my reluctant prejuidice had no real standing other than the two things I've mentioned. I also knew that I would break down and eventually read the book because there was something compelling to what I knew about it. I just had to do it on my own time, which I did. I read the book in a day, and yes I enjoyed it greatly. Card deserves the praise he has gotten, I figured he probably did, but now I know. Now I don't know whether to go ahead with the second book or go back to the other three books I was reading before.
The three other books are all quite different reads from both "Ender's Game" and each other. One is Suetonious' "The Twelve Cesaers." It is a book detailing the rise and fall of each of the first twelve cesaers (go figure), the other is Wittgensteins "Philisophical Grammar." This is a fun one. Ol Witt, is talking about logical grammar through language games and the understanding of it on a basic level. (Which is extremely hard to get too surprisingly). And finally "Bonfire of the Vanities." A book about corrupt rich players of the stock and finance markets in New York City at the end of the eighties. I'm only about 60 pages into it, so I'm not sure of the whole gist of it, and no I haven't seen the movie. I'll let you know what I decided. Until then I'll put "Ender's Game" on the shelf with my Frank Herbert and Stephen R. Donaldson novels and let them ooze science fiction polyps at each other until I'm ready to pick them up again.
I like to swear. Yep, I like to cuss like a cross eyed sailor drunk on turpintine. But not always. There are good times to cuss, and bad. I've done my share of both, but I've cut it down to more appropriate times. Now some of you are thinking two things: Why do I like to swear? and How could there possibly be appropriate times for swearing? Well, I like to swear because it is cathartic. I need that sometimes, I get it alot, but it's a different time of cathartic experience for me. For me there are two kinds of cathartic experiences, one is the artistic kind, typing on this blog for instance qualifies, writing or playing music, theatre. The swearing is a more, non-thinking catharsis. I release all this pent up creative energy, but I don't have to think about it. It flows. It's easy. Perhaps that's not a good exscuse but f+++ it. As for appropriate times... well mostly when I'm with friends who don't mind, never at work, never during the day in a public place with children. Though, hear little kids swear makes me laugh, I don't want the responsibility explaining to them what those words mean, or the responsibility of explaining to thier parents why they are saying those words in the first place.
So here I am. Sitting at the computer thinking I knew what I was going to type in the ol' blog today. Then I go to type and... nothing. I've only been awake for a little while now, I woke up because of a nightmare. I've never had a nightmare like this before: I was in a play, not full length but a one act, and for some reason I was only given the script the night before the opening of the show. Not the tech or dress rehearsal, but opening night. Despite my best efforts to memorize my lines, of which there were MANY, I couldn't. Not because I was incapable of doing it, because fate itself wouldn't let me. So there I am, in costume with no clue to what my lines are with out a script, and I'm only minutes away to my first entrance. It was strange. I'm not doing any shows right now, I'm not even auditioning for anything any time soon. I certainly hope that this isn't a prophetic dream. I hope it was just the heat from standing out in the sun and from seeing so many people I know involved with theatre today while doing so.
We're doing a sidewalk sale at the book store this weekend. Yesterday was the first day, tomorrow is the last day. Today is the middle day. It was a long day today. I want to say that it was alot of fun... it wasn't. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't fun. I was the only one in the store for the first two hours, maybe that's why it seemed like a long day today.
Doubt. It's a great tool that can be used for both good or bad. It can lead to questions, that can lead for the search for truth. Or, it can lead to deep seated cynicism. Philosophy has doubt rooted firmly in it's structure. Perhaps this is why philosophers have such difficulty getting anything done. Science has doubt worked in. You never test a theory as if you believe it, only if you doubt it. Thank you Karl Popper, he's the philosopher who came up with the scientific method. Religion and doubt conflict. It did with the Catholic church and all those wonderful sects that broke off from it. That is perhaps the largest religious schism due to doubt.
Here's food for thought. What is it to doubt? What is it you are doubting exactly?; The facts, the words or the facts behind the words? Actions? How is it that one doubts? What are the mental processes that one goes through when doubting something? When is it that the doubting occurs: before, after or during the pronouncement of the doubting? Doubting is such a powerful tool, but it is also a dangerous weapon.
There are only a certain level of things that can be earnestly doubtable, though there are individuals who tried to go beyond these levels. On the surface are things anyone can question. These are not deeply rooted beliefs, but surface bits of hearsay and possible fiction. Then there are things that can be doubted with evidence to support such doubt. After this comes things that we have a little more grasping to. It's about here that things get more difficult to doubt, and when doubting occurs, it begins to change our perception of things on those levels above. Then there are what could be called secondary beliefs. These are beliefs that are rooted in basic explainations of the first layers of beliefs below and dependent on them, but still changeable and doubtable without changing those beliefs on the layer below. The layer below... is foundational. Beliefs so inate to an individual that almost without exception every individual in the world has most of the same beliefs. There is a fine line between these foundational beliefs and secondary beliefs, but it is there, and the one changes with difficulty, the other.... Well the foundational beliefs, in order to doubt them you'd have to convince a two year old that you don't exsist... Good luck.
For those of you who are reading who know me yet have been out of touch I feel there needs to be a little background. I live in a little town nestled in the north of Utah named Logan. It's a very conservative town with a very liberal counter culture hidden just beneath the surface. I belong to niether element really. I get along with the establishment, I can function well with in it, but I don't really like it. I really like the antithesis of it either. I feel that they have both missed some important points.
I moved up here about eight years ago to attend the university that sits on the hill over looking the town. Utah State University. I studied music the first three and a half years I was here, then waffling on what sort of music degree I should get, I changed my emphasis from education to composition and picked up a second major in philosophy my fourth year, just to be well rounded. It was about this time that I was introduced to some folks who have become very dear friends to me, they know who they are. They thrust me into deeper artistic endeavors called theatre, which I love now also.
Well as happens with so many people I didn't focus enough on school when I had the opportunity and ran out of money. I could still get non-deferment loans, but that would just make my situation worse than it already is. I quit school, took two jobs, got some equipment that I needed to help pursue my music. Then situations changed and I found myself poorer than I was before struggling. I'm still struggling, but I'm surviving.
I work at a bookstore now; Books of Yesterday. We are a bookstore that deals with: out of print books, dealers closeout books, antiquarian books, and well used books. Our prices range from a couple bucks for a really thrashed copy of your run of the mill paper back to $2000 for a first edition copy of Earnest Hemingways "For Whom the Bells Toll". The owner is an admitted excentric. He also owns a new bookstore up here called the Book Table, several apartment complexes and an art store. He was also the owner and operater of the best jewelery store in Logan, now his sons run it. We get along fine. He's very religious, I'm very non-religious. You would think there would be friction there, but there isn't really.
My day consist of pricing books, sorting books, helping customers, and putting books away. We take books in at the store, and right now with the first two activities that I do on the job, I'd say my job security is pretty good. There is a pile of books leaping up the back stair case at us now that is two feet deep and taller than I am (I am 6'1") by about a foot and a half to two feet. This monstrousity as I like to call it just keeps growing. Like the blob, it's gotten out of control. When we first started the pile there five months ago, I would have never imagined that it would have taken off like it has. It's out grown the first pile we made behind the counter downstairs. The owner of course has seen to it that we will at least have something of an inventory for a while.
So along aside the bookstore I do temp work at a dairy plant called Gossner's. They make cheese there too. In fact I wouldn't be surprised if all of you who know me have seen the cheese. Well, there is a milk plant there, and thats where I work when I go out there. I've never worked on the cheese side of the facility, not even in the same building. Along with milk, Gossner's makes chicken and beef broth for Swanson (a subsidiary of Cambell's Soup), Sunkist juice containers (I'm sure you all remember those from elementry school) Hershey's Chocolate Drink, Hershey's Shake and other delectable Hershey's products, and a handful of other things they only run about once a month. The work isn't terrible, but it is boring and monotonous. I have books, at least, to keep me company at the bookstore. I temp there to make a little extra cash, and hopefully in the spring I'll be able to go back to school and finish the two semester's I have left.
Well that's a little biographic up date... I hope you all have a merry happy day.
Well I didn't work last night at the old Gossner's. I'm glad. I need the cash flow but it always feels nice not to have to go into work. Things always seem surreal to me when I'm at work at night. If I'm just awake not doing anything my reality is fairly grounded. There are certain instances though while working graveyards, especially more than one day in a row where I'm not sure what's real and what isn't. I'm never particularly exhausted or tired at these moments. Yet I don't seem to have a grasp on reality. It's been this way with graver yard shifts as long as I can remember, I don't know why. Right now I know it's Tuesday, the eighth of July. I know that I now have 23 days before I have to be out of my apartment and I know that I spent the evening beating up with two good friends of mine on the Game Cube that one of them owns. Had I worked: I wouldn't know the day of the week, and I wouldn't be sure of the reality of my situation. Ask me why that is. I think it has to do with the monotony of the job itself. Hour after hour, doing the same thing until your mind shuts down. When it comes back on you're not sure if you dreamed the last eight hours or not. Ah such is life.
I'm doing auto books at the book store now ( I think I may have mentioned this). Not particularly interested in cars, but there is something fasinating about all the mechanics of it. I don't know why. I hate fixing the damn things, but I love looking at diagrams on how they work. It's cool. Well more later, or less... I'm never quite certain.
Labels: bookstore, Life
I've been thinking, actually I've thought about this before, but it was recently reviltalized into my memory by something a friend wrote. What makes us us? How is it we define ourselves? Often times, often enough that I haven't been able to think of one other than this case, it is outside forces that we use to define ourselves by. One can ask: "Who are you?" and you would say "well I'm me". Then they would say: "No I mean what do you do? What do you like to do?" This is a typically line of question. We can never seem to take a person at face value, which is a good thing. A persons behaviour is not always an indication of who they are, but usually is. When I say I'm Frank, those of you who know me know imediatly who I am. Off handed comments I've made seem to come to mind, movies I like , the kind of music I listen too or have written. These are all viable things to associate with me. The question comes up: How much does enviroment affect a person? This is the case of the old nature verses nuture. This is something that is incredibly difficult to look at. Why? Because we cannot look at it completely objectively on a human level. We can look at animals, and see how they respond, but animals don't seem to have the same cognitive capacity that humans do. So while it is a valid test and can give us a good idea, it will never be completely accurate.
Now, who am I?
I'm a guy with too much time on his hands, otherwise I wouldn't be thinking of stuff like this.
Labels: musings
