Labels, Meanings, and the Secret Pretension of Self

A friend of mine has been involved in an interesting exploration of what it means to identify with a certain group. As is often the case with ideas like this, it leads to some frustrating wheel spinning, but can also yield some insight into your own thought processes. In an effort to maximize the latter, I'm putting some of my ideas down to better explore how these labels can have meaning for me. For me it is important to understand, how does the group identity of a label apply to an individual? Is it a meaningful exercise at all? I'd argue yes... but I'll get to that in a moment.

Some labels are merely descriptive. I say merely, because they don't convey membership in a group per se, but just state a fact of a person's identity. To say I have green eyes, for instance, doesn't imply a real connection to others with green eyes. It just says, Hey, my eyes are green. It's descriptive. The same can be said for a lot of different aspects of a person. But why does it seem to become more meaningful when I connect it other aspects of my self? Why is being, say, a poet, connect me to a history and an ideology that being a green-eyed person does not? Or does it?

I sometimes try and compile labels about myself. Just for fun, in a sense, but also to explore the value of those labels for me as an individual. I can say even a cursory discussion of who I am would include the following labels: Vegetarian, Sufi/Muslim, Poet, Teacher, Father, Husband, Punk rock, Straight edge, Anarchist... the list goes on. I'd argue that these are the main ones, both in terms of how people view me and how I see myself in the world. But what do these say about my membership to other groups? Are they completely personal?

Some are problematic. Sufi/Muslim covers a broad swath of the world. Many of whom would dislike or even hate me, and many of whom would disagree with me as much as I disagreed with them. Punk rock has become vague and ill-defined. But they are still true, and unifying practices mean those labels are real to me. I can't meditate and pray in a masjid and not be Sufi, even if certain people wish me to cease. I can't listen to music and discuss my philosophy without being punk rock, even if I often wish to cease using the label.

Some are descriptive. Father. Straight edge. I have kids. I don't drink. Yet these still invoke a certain community, a connection between myself and people. Is that valid?

I'm exploring this. The labels don't bother me like they did when I was 20. They don't excite me like they did when I was 15. They just are. I'm more comfortable with the sense of an individual being part of a larger whole while functioning as a unique individual. I'm still not so quick to be the lone hold-out, rejecting any sense of individuality a la the Life of Brian guy ("SHH!"). But I'm not so concerned with the pretentious notion that I am somehow above "those people" who need a label to be somebody.

And perhaps holding those labels can help me. Holding the discussion certainly has.

Wait Can I Do That?

Between a high, solid wall and an egg that breaks against it, I will always stand on the side of the egg.

-Haruki Murakami

There's often a debate that takes place between opposing viewpoints that goes something like this. One person supports an aspect of government policy. They argue for it. Another disagrees, and argues against it. Sometimes, the other person will be accused of hating America for opposing a government policy or two. Usually a conservative person accuses a liberal person of hating America. I'm not sure why this is; it seems like opposing health care reform could be hating America as easily as opposing a military action, but whatever. That's the way it goes. I don't especially care. Because I think I really do hate America.

Am I allowed to do that? I think I might be.

Of course I don't hate people. Or the land. I like the forests and the mountains. Right now there is a foot or so of snow on my lawn, and I am quite fond of the snow. American snow. But I hate the government. I really do. I want to like it. I want to like roads and water pipes and schools. I think they're great. But I have to hate them, because they are all jumbled up with laws and customs and habits that don't work for me. It's a shame. It seems like roads and water pipes and schools could really work together to make a natural space suited to human habitation. I guess it doesn't work out that way in practice.

There has been a lot of talk in the wake of the Tucson shooting about civil discourse. I don't think that's such a good idea. Discourse isn't going to make any of the pieces of this country work together. We probably should just disband. There's a way to divide up the infrastructure that still survives, right? Maybe our zoning committees could become unzoning committees, and we could have an orderly division into millions of separate households with no legal obligation to each other.

It means all those conservatives who said I hate America are right. Of course, they hate America too. We just focused on slightly different parts that we hate. Some of what we hate overlaps. That's nice, even if it's inconvenient for the dividing up part. Maybe the unzoning committees have a solution for that.

It makes the entire United States experiment a somewhat philosophical enterprise. We are a group of disparate individuals who tried to get together based on our uniqueness. Very meta. But not terribly sustainable. Oh well.

I wish we could get together and make a country. I'm not sure how that would look. I think a country might include education, health care, roads and hospitals. A nice transportation system. An energy grid that balances need and waste. That sounds fun. Too bad. We could have tried that. If we didn't hate America.

Poetry Makes You Crazy

Since 1997, I have been working on a poem. Some years I work on it for hours each day, week after week. Some years I do not touch it. It's a long, rambling, epic poem. It is my life, written down. In two important ways it is accurate.

One, it is rambling and incoherent yet contains flashes of insight and occasional nice phrasing. You have to wade through a lot of nonsense to find the gems, but they're there.

Two, it is tangential to reality while assuming it knows what is going on.

In both of these ways I resemble my two literary heroes. One is Ezra Pound, and the other is Kenneth Patchen. Now, the funny thing about this is that as people they couldn't be more opposite. Pound is a notorious figure, a right wing nut in many ways. He famously broadcast messages in support of fascist Italy during WWII, and even late in life showed flashes of anger and hatred. He repented the worst of his sins, but he remained an unpleasant man on a personal level. He was a horrible husband, an absent father. Patchen was the opposite. He was a conscientious objector during WWII, very leftist and anti-authoritarian. He was devoted to his wife, a dark and sad man but by all accounts a nice one.

What they had in common was intensity and talent. They both worked through difficult conditions, always writing and making amazing poetry. Most poetry, then and now, is worthless. Not just bad-- but a horrible affront to language. It's painful to even be near it. Good poetry is something transcendent. Good poetry is divine. I don't know if my poem is good. I think it has flashes of good. I hope they carry the poem into something wonderful. I'd hate to add to the volumes of mockery that exist as poetry now.

I'm nearing the end of this poem. (I say- though I've said it before. Maybe I'll never stop. But it feels more done than ever.)

It's long, though not impossibly so. I have 120 pages right now, and may even edit it down a little. I don't want it to be unwieldy, but at the same time I am skeptical of editing. Poetry just comes out. The me who wrote the first lines at 21 is certainly not the 34 year old me typing this today. But any editing freezes another moment. Why just make a poem for today? Certainly trimming needs to happen, and good phrases saved. But overall I think it just needs to stand. It is what it is.

Here is an excerpt. It captures the general feel of the poem, though the style tends to wander over the decades. Like me!



“I don’t like dictionaries,
they says
things like
don’t care.”

“Transition—
for instance.”





Start:

(Hi there)
in pen,
one red
doesn’t work
if it tries
black.
strangeleyl,


Go,
to end in
freedom, i
hate that
sound.
I really do,
sure so I


I that, you see eno—
to do
loss, might be
planning
there are
two doors,
and a
handle.


For ten hours,
hands pulled
inward
like
Skying.

no one gets the distinction
between everything and
nothing, no

matter how often you
teach it.

Maxence Cyrin Pixies Cover

You Gotta Loosen What You Bolted Down

"Yougottadance. Aslongasthemusicplays. Yougotta dance. Don'teventhinkwhy. Starttothink, yourfeetstop. Yourfeetstop, wegetstuck. Wegetstuck, you'restuck. Sodon'tpayanymind, nomatterhowdumb. Yougottakeepthestep. Yougottalimberup. Yougottaloosenwhatyoubolteddown. Yougottauseallyougot. Weknowyou're tired, tiredandscared. Happenstoeveryone, ok? Justdon'tletyourfeetstop."

-Haruki Murakami, Dance Dance Dance

2010 was an insane year. We moved across the country, I started a new program. I got horribly sick. Definitely an odd year.

I'm looking forward to 2011. I'll graduate. Hopefully find a teaching job. I have no idea where we'll be in the fall, which is exhilarating to me. I'm funny that way.

I don't put too much stock in New Year's resolutions. But they do serve a purpose. It's useful to think about where you are, where you were... You don't want to be trapped in an idea of the past or a wish for the future. But evaluation of what you are can be good for you.

With that in mind, here are some ideas for 2011.

I'm going to read more poetry. Somehow that escaped my attention too often in 2010.

I'm going to eat a little better. I had major ups and downs in 2010, for various reasons. I'm getting too old to just eat what and when I want. I don't want to go insane with a diet or anything. Just stay a little mindful.

I'm going to really be a great teacher. I know I won't be perfect. But I'm going to do well.

I'm not going to accept any excuses for skipping meditation. None. It's important. The most important thing I do.

I've going to have fun. All of this is fun. Don't forget that. Like Rumi says. We rarely hear the inward music. But we're dancing to it nonetheless.

Crack the Frozen Sea

I love reading. I love books. I think that reading, like Kafka said, can be a way to "crack the frozen sea within us." As an elementary educator, I read a lot of children's books. There isn't a medium quite like children's literature. It's visual, but not exclusively so. It isn't really a genre; what genre includes Cinderella and Pokemon? It's a way to show children what art can be. I absolutely love children's literature, from simple picture books to young adult novels. They are amazing and underrated. I've decided, in my random and confusing jumble of things I write about, to include some examples of the medium. Unsurprisingly, I am a snob in this area of my life as well.

Cinderella is a classic folk tale. It's been Disneyed and distorted, but the heart of the story is interesting. The version I like, Cinderella by Cynthia Rylant and Mary Blair, strips away a lot of the nonsense and gets at the simple story of a person who is looking for something special. Unlike the other versions, this Cinderella isn't a passive person, but acts to help herself. She knows that Love is out there, if she is willing to find it. It's sweet and simple and beautifully illustrated.

Idries Shah was known to me as a Sufi scholar. He has also written many children's books, and the favorite of my kids is one called The Silly Chicken. It's a morality tale, essentially pointing out that the ability to talk does not necessarily translate into meaningful conversation. It's goofy and fun, and the kids are remarkably astute at discovering the moral. Even before the story ended, my son asked "Why are they listening to a chicken?" Another one of Shah's books that I like is called Fatima the Spinner and the Tent. It's more serious, essentially another story to explain a moral. Natasha Delmar does the amazing illustrations for this one.

Neil Gaiman has always been an interesting writer. He combines pop culture and myth in a clever way, but he has a deeper well than I realized. One of his children's books, Instructions, is a recent discovery of mine. It is already one of my favorites. It's typical of Gaiman in many ways, simple and meaningful... but there is a depth to it that isn't in his other books for children or young adults. It frightened my kids. But in a good way.

I'm not an anti-TV person. I like TV. But I can't deny that when the television is off for a day, and the kids just read and play games, everything at my house is better. There is never a day when we don't read to our kids; I'll skip dinner before I skip our nightly story time. But just as important is choosing great books, books that move you and inspire you to read. Finding those books encourages you to explore the world, and you in turn encourage your kids or students.

The Meaning of Christmas

It's the season of Christmas cards, gift giving, and pointless arguments about wars on Christmas and replacing Christ with X. In other words, for someone like me who likes philosophy and family, it's the greatest time of the year!

I had a conversation about the holiday with Taviri this week. It was a hard thing to explain, since the holiday is such a strange mix of secular and religious. Even without getting into the historical connections to Yule and Roman pagan celebrations, it's a complex time of year. Taviri asked me what Christmas was, and I tried to answer. In the process of talking about it, I discovered some aspects of the holiday that I had always enjoyed without really knowing it.

C.S. Lewis, the writer and Christian apologist, was fond of the trilemma argument for Christ's divinity. It goes like this: either Christ was insane, lying, or God. That's it. Now, I don't believe that Christ was a literal son of God, for various reasons, but this argument is interesting to me in what it leaves out. In reality I think it is a five-horned argument (pentalemma?). The historical person either didn't exist, was a liar, was God, was insane, or was a teacher who used metaphor. I fall in the teacher camp, like many people. What interests me about that is not the how or why, though, but what it means.

For one, it lets me use this awesome sketch of a historical Jesus. But most importantly, it allows me to frame the story of Christ's birth with that context and make a meaningful idea of Jesus for Taviri.

Think of the Christmas story. An angel comes to a poor woman, tells her that she is pregnant with a special child who will be a savior of his people. He will be a great leader. The parents are instructed to set aside their worldly concerns about parentage and just love the child. Wise men come from far away to see and bless the child. This is the story of birth, period. It's a metaphor for welcoming a special person into the world every time a woman gives birth. It's really a wonderful little tale of love for your family.

There is a children's book called "Tonight You Are My Baby." It's a sweet story, about Mary speaking to Jesus as an infant. She tells him that he has all of this to do, and he belongs to the world, but at least tonight, he can just be her baby. Isn't that the story of family? We have a few precious moments, our baby can just be there in our arms. They are not for us. They are for the world, for themselves. They go away from us almost as soon as they can, seeking their destiny. But for a night, a day, a year, they are just ours, wrapped up in our love.

All knowledge is local, as one of my favorite writers reminds me. I am not concerned with the religious dogma. The truth is the truth, and I understand it as best I can. I have no idea what the historical Jesus was like, who he was. I don't think anyone does, despite the claims to the contrary. But I can see a baby, a mother, a father, unsure of the future, huddled together for one night. They tell the baby he is special, that they love him. That's a pretty amazing story. I can celebrate that.