Of Crazy Mofo's and Fragile Felines

At precisely 1:06 AM, Too_Many_Big published the following entry in his Xanga internet journal:
*sleeps in like a crazed mofo*

At precisely 2:14 PM, the aforementioned weblog revealed a new entry:
*wakes up like a fragile kitten*

The following entry contains the transcripts of my comment in the first (or second?) of the two entries. My musings may contain depths of contemplation that draw upon some of the deepest subjects of life. Or they may be somewhat more ridiculous than that, an excercise in words chasing words down the strange Oxford alleys of my mind; twisting, turning, ever-surprising but not necessarily going anywhere. Even if they do, occassionally, catch those faint glimpses of the heavenbound spires of the Bodlean. Or, perhaps, it could be both. Or then again, it could be that neither description fits the facts entirely. What is most certain, I suppose, is that in the below entry you can see the self-styled Chestertonian Rambler at his most French.

But then again, could anyone ever be French who has not been born in French, who has not ever lived in France? Who, furthermore, has never visited, has never breathed the air of Paris and walked the echoing halls of Notre Dame? Who has never sipped wine in a French coffee-shop, chatting idly with the other patrons?

The answer, perhaps, lies with you, dear Reader. For it is you to whom this text is given, and you who will then (if you choose) take it into yourself, transforming it in the process to something that is no longer the rambling thoughts of the Chestertonian Rambler, but the rambling thoughts of the Reader. What was the confusing ramblings of the Chestertonian may indeed become, not his, but Your confusion.

If any Reader is still following this Monologue (for monologue it is, but then how much of life is monologue, and what is dialogue but the mystical and inexplicable connection formed between two infinitely separate beings alternatingly presenting their own monologues, with thier own perspectives?), let the game begin! The Reader has been warned.


[Comment Begins Here:]

Reading these posts in my "subscriptions" screen is somewhat akin to the feeling of watching life in reverse. It tells a story that starts with someone 'waking up like a fragile kitten," and after I wonder why such would happen I see that it is merely because he "sleeps in like a crazy mofo."

But at that point, I've put so much thought into the first (second) entry and its mysteries of fragility and kittenhood that the whole series is imbued with a sort of mystical ponderation. So now I must draw out the metaphysical implications of someone sleeping in like a crazy mofo. Is there something inherent in mofoness that results in feline qualities, as the rebellion and devil-may-care attitude transfers into a cat's aloofness and absolute individuality? Is there something inherently fragile about those who have chosen to be "crazy"?

Or is it that the concepts can't be so neatly disected? Is it that only a crazy mofo will demonstrate kittenish qualities, and only a lunatic who is also a mofo will end up being fragile?

Or is it a comment about the totality of human life? Is it that humans are, indeed, all of us rather "crazy mofos," seeking to sleep in as long as possible in reckless retreat (like The Phantom) from "the garish light of day" and our soul-grinding routine? And is it that, simultaneously and paradoxically, we are all also ever-awakening fragile felines, stretching and slowly greeting the day with an independence far more cuddly, and far more in touch with our nature (which is, in this postlapsarian world, far, far too fragile.) Is it that within each of us exists simultaneously the Cowardly Rebel and the Courageous Sufferer; the Slacker who sees the world as simple and thumbs his nose at it and the Thinker who sees and feels the fragility and suffering present, and yet persists in a life of sorrows with a determination all the more true for lacking bravado.

It may be that we will never know, under the sun. But still, it makes you think.

Or not. It at least makes me think. But then my brain's kind of fried with stress and studies.


[The irony of this post is that I edited it pretty carefully, but to do it right I would have to edit it for far more hours than I have avaliable. And yet the whole point of it is to be a random, French-style ramble.]

The Man Who Could Not Get Himself Killed, Part I

Once upon our times, a man stood on the doorstep of his trailer home, deep in conversation with a woman. They were not lovers, exactly, at least not in the carnal sense. She had her own trailer. But they worked together, and in their joint labor, they formed a sort of family. It's just that their labor involved teaching kids to finger-paint rather than earning money.

They were surrounded by a million discarded peices of American culture: ancient cars, empty beer bottles, cigarette packs. The man smoked a cigarette, but somehow his long hair, his intensity, and the eager intensity he put into every one of his words and guestures set him clearly apart from anyone's expectations of either a lazy or a dilligent American.

They were also surrounded by a number of icons of the earlier American culture: dreamweaver patterns, paintings of chiefs in full headdress silhouetted against unpolluted Western landscapes, simpler paintings of the modern New Mexico landscape, too barren to be poluted by urban sprawl. But both the man and the woman had very pale white skin.

"You have to serve as my spokesman," the man said. "You know me best. America is full of beautiful people and idiotic ideas. Everyone thinks their own ideas are most beautiful, are best. Remember only God's ideas--and that he hasn't told us all of them. And all these people--they are God's best ideas. Even if they don't know it, God made them to look like God. Remember that, and remind everyone of only that."

The conversation continued for a while--the woman wouldn't let the man leave with only those vaguaries, she feared that she couldn't make things work without him. He told her that only God made things work, and she agreed--but still made sure to know how much he'd paid teachers, what his disciplinary policy was with kids sent to his office, and a million other things.

Eventually, the man (who we might as well call Frank) rode off on his motorcycle, without a helmet. The woman (who we might as well call Clarice) shook her head, mumbled a prayer, and walked back towards the school.

Frank drove to an airport. This wasn't the first time to make the trip--the first time he parked in a towing zone and didn't have a passport. His preacher hadn't liked that. Now, however, Frank had a passport, and he even parked his bike in a legal spot to make his preacher happy. He got on a plane and flew to Afghanistan. When customs asked him his purpose, he casually replied, "I wanted to talk to Osama Bin Laden. I'd heard so much about him, but I wanted to meet the freedom fighter himself."

The customs inspector let him go through, but no less than seven men followed him from the airport. They were not Frank's disciples, but he didn't really care about that distinction. They had guns, and he didn't like that. But many people had guns, and guns probably weren't as bad as credit cards. After all, guns could only kill you.

In Which The Author Begins To Explain Why He Likes Classical Symbolic Logic, And Concludes With A Discussion Of The Fundamental Natures Of Philosophy

I really, really like logic. I think, in a way, it encapsulates a lot of what makes the liberal arts (as opposed to the sciences) particularly fun. There are twenty basic rules of logic, all generally common-sensical if you think of them correctly. Possibly the most counterintuitive goes something like this:

If Hannah is at work, a ring with an emerald on it is at Hannah's workplace.
Therefore...
...Either Hannah is not at work, or a ring with an emerald on it is at Hannah's workplace.

(I could just say "'If A then B' is logically equivalent to 'either not A or B,'" but this way is more fun.)

Now those twenty rules you have to figure out and memorize by name. But after that comes the fun part: Proofs.

Or, as I like to think of them, pen-and-paper video games.

The reason I say that is this: most video games I play are on consoles. You have a limited number of buttons you can press, and (generally) even less things you can do in a given area. But the best video games allow you to use those few "rules" in a million different ways in order to accomplish an objective. Only bad games make you go "oh, another boss, time to jump and see how many times I can hit the 'shoot' button." Good games make you go "hmm...I wonder if I can climb up in this tree quietly while wearing camo, and then come down on this boss from above." Or "I wonder if I can just hijack an enemy's vehicle, and skip this Halo II firefight just by running through it." It's not necessarily that you have a million different things to do--its that you have just enough things to do so that you can do the unexpected, be creative, and take creative ownership of your gaming experience. Those games become not just mindless exercises in frustration and pattern-recognition, but invigorating opportunities for creativity.

In that sense, logical proofs are perhaps one of the best "video games." Because every problem has <i>an infinite number of solutions. And each solution is absolutely, 100% right. Admittedly some solutions are more elegant than others, but you aren't forced into anything. If you don't happen to think of the easiest route to the answer, there are others, and if you use your creativity long and intelligently enough, you will find them. In the meantime, every time you work or see a proof, you learn more strategy, and gain more ways of being creative and finding a path from the stated propositions to the proposed conclusion.

I think that's the reason why I like the liberal arts more than the sciences. Science is (and properly so) obsessed with facts and observations. I'm just not that observant, at least not in that way. A scientist takes a million facts, all of which have no meaning on their own, and puts them together with the thousands of rules developed by previous scientists, in order to learn something useful. Occam's Razor is perhaps the god of science--that which is the simplest explanation for the facts is the best. (Truth be told, there's a good deal of that in literary criticism, and I can enjoy it as much as the next guy.) But the distinctive element of the liberal arts is that they are, in a sense that the sciences can never be, intellectual. They deal with thoughts, and concepts, and the nature of the universe. Sherlock Holmes can deny that it makes one whit of a difference that the Earth is round, and refuse to study theology, and still be an excellent criminal scientist. But that is a luxury never allowed an honest priest, poet, or literary critic. They figure out meaning, truth, and beauty; and so the only thing that they can safely ignore is the incidental facts, the "accidents," of reality.

An intellectual, unlike a scientist, deals with a small number of rules and principles assumed (with reason) to be absolutely true, and therefore he can talk forever and reason his way even (perhaps) towards arguments of the existence of God. A scientist works with facts, and gives us within a reasonable level of truth the one thing that he is certain is the most likely thing to be true about his particular subject. The intellectual, who has far fewer (but truer) fundamental principles, has no subject. And anyone who gets a Doctorate of Philosophy, or so the tradition goes, is an intellectual--even if he is a philosopher of petrolium engineering.

For an article about logic, this sure seems to be a circular and disordered epistle. But then, so are any carefully constructed philosophical proofs. After all, it is what one says, not how one says it, that makes one correct.

The Entry (:-D)

“I will not bow before the Iron Crown, nor lay my golden scepter down.”

-J.R.R. Tolkien

How dare I lay down that which is godlike in myself, in order to appease the false gods of reasonableness and practicality?

How dare I separate plans from dreams, as if the world were made up of idealistic dreamers and practical doers?

How dare I say that visions and passion and fulfillment are for someone else, that my job is to be only a poet of compassion and commiseration? How dare I lead myself to a misery?

How dare I flee from the good gifts of my Lord and Savior, when he presents them to me? How dare I flee into cowardice and timidity, and give it the shade of respect for my relationship with my parents?

How dare I let worries for my future, worries that my career and friends and girlfriend may be ill-chosen and lead to unforseen mysterious disaster?

How dare I ever to let myself cease to live?

Sin is something that people pretend is good in the short-run. My sin is doubt, and it isn't. And I may always struggle with doubt, come to think of it.

But I do know this. I love Hannah. I think I loved her from the first time I met her. I know there was something that made me a bit nervous and shaky and cautious about how to get such a little thing as her AIM address without things going weird. I know there has been something that has grown throughout the last 18 or so months at a pretty constant rate. And I know that this feeling is the knowledge that I want to and ought to spend the rest of my life with Hannah.

I know that, and I thank God that I know that. I thank God that I know anything, really, but especially that I know love. And there isn't another woman on this planet who I could have truly loved.

And I'm going to know and love Hannah more, for seemingly innumerable years to come. For I have asked her to marry me, and she has said that she will.