Many claimed that I must be crazy, and I even thought I must have lost it a bit, but I chose to go to college in Montana. Not only did I go to college in Montana, but I left another college in western Washington, a lovely liberal, highly rated college in beautiful Bellingham, smack between both Vancouver, B.C., and Seattle. I had a good group of friends there and I could walk around holding hands with another boy without fear of death by bludgeoning. But unfortunately there were also two sadistic piano teachers there, who had managed in one year to nearly kill my love of music all together, and after the second year there I had quit playing the piano and needed quite badly to leave, lest I give up 15 years of training and change my major to natural resource management and move to the wilderness, never to be seen by human kind again. So I went to Montana (perhaps ironicly given the last statement..), where the sky is big and the teachers are fabulous. And where I also learned that I could walk down the street holding hands with my boyfriend and not be killed, and that while yes two lesbians did have their house burnt down while I was there, the community was very upset about it. Ok, so damming by faint praise, yes, but faint praise is better than none at all. For example, Mississippi. You will not hear me praise Mississippi. ...................... See? silence....
There are a few other things I learned in Montana (tipping cows is not possible, they do wake up and then run. If you're lucky they run away from you). One of the best classes I took in all my years at either university was one called Great Traditions, to appease my Ethics requirement. It was less Ethics and more Philosophy though, and was taught by the great Fred McGlynn, who even while battling lung cancer refused to stop smoking, and with him you just had to respect that. In a nut shell this is what the class was about; each great philosopher in history comes up with some unifying reason for doing things, not quite a meaning of life type reason, but some direction giving idea that all their other thoughts fit into. We looked at four such greats, Aristotle, Emanuel Kant, John Stewart Mill, and Friedrich Nietzsche. I have no desire to re-live the entire class for you, nor could I do it or these four guys justice, but here is a brief rundown of what I took from it, and at the end there may even be a good point to it all! Keep reading.....
Aristotle was all about Virtue, with a capitol V. How do we live a virtuous life? What exactly are the virtues? How does good and bad fit in there? He spent quite a bit of time trying to figure all that out, and in the end had quite a few profound thoughts. But unfortunately it all ended up being very subjective and requires a hell of a lot of control on the part of humanity. I think we all know that is not one of humanity's stronger qualities. So we move on, with the ideal of virtue on our minds.
"I Kant understand..." The comic lament of the philosophy student. I like puns, so I giggle too, but more because it's so very very true. Kant was German, and he liked long complex sentences that go on and on and refer back to antecedents that are unrecognizable by the philosophy student or perhaps even to Kant himself and when it is all said and done he has not quite made a point and you wonder why you are reading this crap anymore because the German language seems to have neglected to include periods and this, oh great fellow Germans, is the meaning of life. You get my point. But if you can get through it all you find out this; Duty is why it's all done, Duty is what keeps us on the straight and narrow, Duty is what will get us through it all. "Do your Duty" because it's the reason we're all here. Shirk that Duty and thumb your nose at the reason for your existance. While the guilt of that notion does work for awhile, I think we all see the problem. When someone requires that we do our duty, we usually resent it, guilt aside, whether we agreed with them in the first place or not. That proves to be problematic. To his credit Kant also said this little thing about "Treat all humans as ends in and of themselves, and never as a means to and end". So, Duty, not so much. The other thing? I like it.
If you have ever wondered where the idea of "The greatest good for the greatest number of people" comes from, it's John Stewart Mill, the father of Utilitarianism (not Spock, sorry). And in that ism is Mill's defining ideal; Utility. What purpose does it serve? What purpose do YOU serve? If it, or you, serves no purpose, then it's not worth your time. Is it more ultilitarianistic to help that one person over there being eaten by a hungry lion, or to protect these 30 people from maybe possibly being eaten by that hungry lion? John would say the latter, the guy getting eaten may disagree, and quite quickly we have come up with the problem with John. While the greater number may need to be happy and not be eaten by lions, the individual counts too, and while utility is great, masturbation of all sorts is great too, whether it serves a purpose in the end or not (the inherent utility of masturbation aside of course :) ).
Finally in our tour of great minds and their interesting little ideas we get to Nietzsche, the philosopher with the most unused consonants in his name, and in my opinion the best little ideas I've read thus far. Nietzsche was a critic, and a critic with a sense of humor. He had no problem attacking other philosophers throughout history with quite witty and brilliantly scathing remarks, often so wonderfully worded that you either had no idea what he had just said or thought you had just been complimented. In other words, he was a drag queen, and for that we love him. But more important than his critique of silly thoughts was his own philosophy, which revolved around this idea; creation. That which brings the most meaning, the most happiness to our lives is creation and creativity. Creation exists in so many forms, from the creation of works of art, to a document at work, to a delectable souffle, to the creation of a loving and beautiful home. We are creatures that desire above all to create, and when we do we are the most happy.
He was also pretty keen on life being about living, not about death or some silly "afterlife". He was not a church going man.
I went to Dr. McGlynn's class every day, and loved every second of it. He was a great teacher and the material was amazing to me. Above all Neitzsche spoke to me. Finally someone who without hesitation placed creation at the top of human existence and could back it up with a witty remark. I was still in serious doubt of my commitment to music and the arts, not because I myself had any doubt of their profound merit and the need of humanity for them, but because I thought I was alone in thinking them that important. Music does not sound near so sweet without someone to share the sound with. It was a turning point for me, along with hearing the song "How can I keep from singing" as sung by, of all people, my lovely piano professor in recital. I knew at that point I would spend the rest of my life in the arts and in trying to help as many people as possible experience their beauty and importance. There is nothing more truly human than art. Monkeys use tools, dolphins can do math, only we create art, out of only a need to express that which is inexpressible in each of us, and I love that.
So when I find other people creating wonderful, beautiful things in the world, I love it, and I want them to know I love it. And if one needs any more proof of how important creation is to us all, sincerely compliment someone on their creation and watch them beam, and rightly so. For both people, nothing in life feels better.
Wednesday, October 12, 2005
Friday, October 07, 2005
It comes, it goes...
I live within strong spitting distance of the richest man on earth. I could throw a rock and hit any number of other people that man has also made very rich. This city's (and many many other's at this point) obsession with coffee has made another bunch of people quite flush with cash. I've even served hors d'oeuvres and cocktails in some of their houses as a member of the Gay National Guard. As a member of that esteemed brotherhood of mens, I have catered in decadent houses that would amaze and astound, and feed a third world nation for a year.
While serving food to these people is fun and mildly demeaning, and who doesn't love that, it's not what I do for a living. I teach the music to the kids, more specifically the piano and the clarinet to the lovely children of the 21st century. While I will avoid a diatribe on the qualities of the 21st century child I will say this; attention spans of fruit flies. I think I may soon try strapping a TV to my head and playing hi octane instructional classical music videos (don't laugh) whilst spinning plates from my finger tips and shooting smoke out my ass. Perhaps that will get them to practice. But I digress. I teach the kids the music, and they hand me checks, which I have to say has been one of the nicest parts of the deal this past week, and let me tell you why.
Summers are slow, the some kids take the summer off, some quit all together, and generally there just isn't much money coming in. So, by September of this year I was poor. Not in the way that the smelly guy down on the corner is poor, or the way that that large black woman pulled out through the roof of her home in New Orleans 3 days late was poor, but unable to buy groceries without borrowing money from my friends poor. I have no desire to turn this into some pity party, so no pitying comments, it wasn't that bad.
But it did suck. I was stressed out of my mind as bills kept arriving, as the bank account started to overdraw, and my belly started to rumble (on the brighter side I think I lost a few pounds....). I've known that type of stress a number of times in the last few years, music lessons are not a wealth building proposition, but it's been awhile and I had forgotten how much it sucks. When broke I have no motivation to do anything at all, not even to clean my room, because all I'm thinking about is when the next check will appear and I can get back to my life. Everything goes on hold and even the more fun things in life become stale and loose their draw.
But now I'm through that, my students, who for just this week I love more than my mother, have all given me their parents' money and things will be fine again until next summer. But I couldn't help but sit back and look over the whole situation and be a little embittered by it all, socialist that I am. Waiting on the rich and not so fabulous right in the middle of it all didn't help, certainly, as their income in one day is more than I make in a year (not an exaggeration, if anything it's an understatement, which is crazy to me). But I have an even greater appreciation for the poor, especially the working poor, who's numbers are growing horrifyingly in this country. The stress on ones life is immense, and if my experience is anything like that of other peoples', the energy and desire to make your situation better is perhaps the hardest thing to come by. It's wildly demoralizing and downright angering when some prick drives by in his BMW and throws a McDonald's wrapper out the window while you're walking home with top ramen and plain lettuce.
While unfortunately one can't get it without (perhaps ironically) paying some cash, I recommend checking out Stephen Bezruchka's presentation on Health and Wealth, broadcast on Alternative Radio on NPR (http://www.alternativeradio.org/). Perhaps you can catch it on a broadcast. In a nutshell he says that the lack of "caring and sharing" (while kind of silly sounding he explains it well) and the gap in wealth is making us continuously more unhealthy (we're 29th in the world for developed nations). And, surprisingly, the rich are more adversely effected than the poor. They statistically die earlier because they're wealthy, which is a wee bit poetic. Dark, but poetic.
At the next event I cater I plan on passing out small cards that tell the patrons that their wealth is killing them. That there are documented scientific studies that show having more money than everyone else is eating them alive and that there is only one remedy. My address will then follow, "cash only please". If I get enough I'll share with those for whom I care. Make up your wish lists now.
While serving food to these people is fun and mildly demeaning, and who doesn't love that, it's not what I do for a living. I teach the music to the kids, more specifically the piano and the clarinet to the lovely children of the 21st century. While I will avoid a diatribe on the qualities of the 21st century child I will say this; attention spans of fruit flies. I think I may soon try strapping a TV to my head and playing hi octane instructional classical music videos (don't laugh) whilst spinning plates from my finger tips and shooting smoke out my ass. Perhaps that will get them to practice. But I digress. I teach the kids the music, and they hand me checks, which I have to say has been one of the nicest parts of the deal this past week, and let me tell you why.
Summers are slow, the some kids take the summer off, some quit all together, and generally there just isn't much money coming in. So, by September of this year I was poor. Not in the way that the smelly guy down on the corner is poor, or the way that that large black woman pulled out through the roof of her home in New Orleans 3 days late was poor, but unable to buy groceries without borrowing money from my friends poor. I have no desire to turn this into some pity party, so no pitying comments, it wasn't that bad.
But it did suck. I was stressed out of my mind as bills kept arriving, as the bank account started to overdraw, and my belly started to rumble (on the brighter side I think I lost a few pounds....). I've known that type of stress a number of times in the last few years, music lessons are not a wealth building proposition, but it's been awhile and I had forgotten how much it sucks. When broke I have no motivation to do anything at all, not even to clean my room, because all I'm thinking about is when the next check will appear and I can get back to my life. Everything goes on hold and even the more fun things in life become stale and loose their draw.
But now I'm through that, my students, who for just this week I love more than my mother, have all given me their parents' money and things will be fine again until next summer. But I couldn't help but sit back and look over the whole situation and be a little embittered by it all, socialist that I am. Waiting on the rich and not so fabulous right in the middle of it all didn't help, certainly, as their income in one day is more than I make in a year (not an exaggeration, if anything it's an understatement, which is crazy to me). But I have an even greater appreciation for the poor, especially the working poor, who's numbers are growing horrifyingly in this country. The stress on ones life is immense, and if my experience is anything like that of other peoples', the energy and desire to make your situation better is perhaps the hardest thing to come by. It's wildly demoralizing and downright angering when some prick drives by in his BMW and throws a McDonald's wrapper out the window while you're walking home with top ramen and plain lettuce.
While unfortunately one can't get it without (perhaps ironically) paying some cash, I recommend checking out Stephen Bezruchka's presentation on Health and Wealth, broadcast on Alternative Radio on NPR (http://www.alternativeradio.org/). Perhaps you can catch it on a broadcast. In a nutshell he says that the lack of "caring and sharing" (while kind of silly sounding he explains it well) and the gap in wealth is making us continuously more unhealthy (we're 29th in the world for developed nations). And, surprisingly, the rich are more adversely effected than the poor. They statistically die earlier because they're wealthy, which is a wee bit poetic. Dark, but poetic.
At the next event I cater I plan on passing out small cards that tell the patrons that their wealth is killing them. That there are documented scientific studies that show having more money than everyone else is eating them alive and that there is only one remedy. My address will then follow, "cash only please". If I get enough I'll share with those for whom I care. Make up your wish lists now.
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