May 2021 tiny letter
A book, in brief
No one is talking about this is not exactly a fun read, and perhaps not a memorable one either. So why would you bother with it? In short, like the music of Radiohead, it takes the pulse of and reflects something ineffable about the current age. This book is a short collection of somewhat disjointed poetic musings centered around the protagonist, who carries a deep addiction to social media. There is something deeply familiar about much of what she writes, but it is a troubling sort of familiarity. The protagonist first becomes “Internet famous” with the throwaway question, Can dogs be twins? The book meanders around the distinct, always-on nature of social media. How it reduces intelligent people to discussing nonsense and ephemera endlessly, while crushing attention spans and slicing them out of context.
Should you read this book? Maybe. Will you enjoy it? Also, maybe. It is quite poetic, but I was also not motivated to capture any of the poems within, for future reference. It feels like both a reflection of and a warning about Internet culture.
Becoming an adult means interrogating what you've been taught
It occurred to me recently that, one of the key parts of life is figuring out which lies you've been told, by who, and for what purpose. My friend was relating the type of sex education she received in middle school and high school, saying that, while it was accurate, it focused mainly on all the risks and potential negative consequences of sex, while making little mention of the pleasure it can bring, and providing no guidance on how to develop a healthy relationship with one's sexuality, how to set boundaries, how to communicate with partners.
Of course, when sex educators try to do this, they face strong objections from parents who apparently don't want their kids learning about the subject in this way. I would bet a decent chunk of my savings that many of these same parents also fail to convey this information themselves.
At best, this leaves young people with a narrow and distorted view of sexuality, and at worst, if we're talking about the abstinence-only, religious and fear-driven approach, very little useful information, and often misinformation.
This is nothing new, of course, but we should realize that the same goes for drugs. For many years, anti-drug propaganda has misinformed people to a great extent. Back a number of decades ago, there was serious and ongoing research into the therapeutic uses of psychedelics. I'm not sure if they made it to clinical trials, but people were doing real science, and in fact, finding great benefits to some substances, administered in the right context. Think about a session directed by a therapist, instead of a loud party. Primarily for cultural and political reasons, this research was all shut down, as all the drugs being studied were reclassified, which essentially makes them illegal for any use.
Certainly, misuse of drugs, along with the cultural legacy of the 1960s, contributed to this development. When someone takes LSD and lies on their back in the forest for 8 hours, marveling at the details of leaves, you would never hear about it. But when someone does the same at a rooftop party and falls to their death, there develops a negative association between the substance and this unfortunate consequence. This is understandable, but any reasonable person knows that substance use or abuse does not automatically make people jump off rooftops.
But as we've learned from a resurgence in research and cultural interest in various substances, many drugs classified as illegal, or having no medical purpose, do not merit that classification. And they certainly do not merit throwing people in jail, or disrupting their livelihoods because they wanted to get high and lie on their back in the woods.
To be sure, there are real risks involved in taking any substance. But this goes for opioids one might be prescribed post-surgery, cholesterol medication, and various other drugs that are prescribed every day. Additionally, considering we have had decades to address our DUI problem, and it remains, in some states, a major contributor to accidents, I suggest we are still focusing law enforcement in the wrong place. It's not the party-loving stoners we want arrested, but rather the person weaving on the road after eight beers.
Now relate this back to sex education. In both cases, education and media narratives, reflects the lies of people in authority.
So, circling back to where I started, we consider this important part of life where we have to educate ourselves and figure out about what we were lied to, by whom, and why.
I suppose we should consider the trio, sex, drugs and rock and roll. I'm sure there are evangelicals still lying to their children about the impact and influence and message of hard rock.
One of my favorite bands is Opeth. I'm not sure if you would call it death metal, but it is very, very heavy, and deals with dark themes. Though it is certainly not pro-Satan. I think the songwriters have vivid imaginations. Some years back I met a woman who used to manage tours of bands like Opeth. I was curious about the band members. What were they like? Were they just regular people, were they strange, do they have personalities to match their music?
She said that one evening in Sweden, she and the band were going out for a meal. They had to turn the car around because one of the band members was still wearing his bunny slippers. So, maybe not so dark.
This meandered a bit, but the TL;DR is: as adults, we undergo a continuing process of re-educating ourselves, finding out what is real and true, and what is lies or exaggerations. Then we can pay it forward by imparting some of this wisdom to younger folks, to help him avoid missteps and headaches that inevitably result when we operate from a place of constrained and incorrect knowledge.
In praise of texting
Folks who know me have probably heard me rant about mobile phones, inundation with tech, and our ever-decreasing attention spans. I stand by these rants. However, still working from home, I have come to appreciate the gentle interruptions to my day that text messages from friends bring. Scrolling through names, I recognize how blessed I am to have a small but cherished group of people with whom to exchange short, and mostly unimportant messages. Well, they're not important for their content, but they do help us stay connected. Some folks live 2 miles away, and I should see them regularly. But for those further out, or limited by health or distance, I'm grateful that we can keep in touch. Some days, I view the phone as a storage device for bon mots. Other days, I ought to silence it if I want to get any work done. In fact, if one wants to get work done, mobile phone pings are probably the worst bits of Pavlovian dog treats. Still, I often look forward to these silly memes, B- grade jokes, and scheduling questions that start on Monday and continue through Friday evening.
POLICE REFORM
Can we just start over?
I recognize the following is not a particularly constructive critique, but that doesn't mean it's wrong.
A recent podcast with Sam Harris and Renner Gracie (of the Gracie jujitsu family) goes into excruciating detail about the sorry lack of training of many in our police force, and the all too predictable results. While we should not discount ill intent, racism, and a culture of silence among officers as contributors to the disappointing state of policing in the United States, we should also consider the simple fact that many, perhaps most, police simply lack the quantity and quality of training necessary to handle the fight-or-flight situations that come with the job.
A brief primer. Jujitsu is a form of grappling, closely related to the type of wrestling you might see in high school or the Olympics. Often likened to a physical chess match, jujitsu (the Brazilian variety, specifically) has opponents grappling until one has submitted the other, by locking limbs, joints, or applying choke holds. When practiced skillfully and respectfully, it can be done without opponents injuring each other. (To be fair, just as with any sport, there is injury risk, but in jujitsu it comes from the fact that you are rolling around on the mat with someone who may substantially outweigh you or who makes an honest mistake, not because grappling is inherently dangerous.)
When a police officer has substantial jujitsu training, they are better empowered to handle, subdue—and arrest if necessary—people they may confront. This is especially important when dealing with people larger and stronger than oneself. Ideally, officers learn to protect themselves, the people they must confront, and others who may be present in the situation. Needless to say, this cannot be done with 5 or 10 hours per year of training, which is apparently the extent of what many officers receive. And yet, police officers are regularly expected to handle difficult confrontations without the physical skill to do so successfully. According to Harris and Gracie, this often leads officers to fall back on whatever tools they have at hand—fists, batons, tasers, or firearms. It's far from ideal, but it is fight-or-flight.
I'm listening to this discussion and nodding my head. I have some martial arts training, though nearly zero skill in jujitsu. And I am not confident that I could safely manhandle and control someone who outweighs me by 100 pounds. Maybe I could hit ‘em, but that's exactly the wrong idea. So the idea of training to be a police officer without being required to develop that skill sounds insane.
Another important point—from time to time you'll see well-meaning but sometimes misinformed discussions about “banning chokeholds”. This is unfortunate, because skillfully applying the type of holds (or methods of restraint) practiced in jujitsu is one of the most effective ways to safely contain someone, especially if they are larger/ stronger/intoxicated (see above photo for example). Now, misapplying some holds can be disastrous. But it's not the fault of the hold, it's that the person applying it is undertrained, jacked up on adrenaline, or potentially has ill intent.
If you've ever had to restrain a belligerent toddler, you have some sense of what I'm talking about. If they’re really out of control, you need to wrap them up tight so they don't smack you. An angry three-year-old won't knock you out, but those tiny hands can still hurt. It's pretty easy to control someone of this size, because you are far bigger, stronger, faster, with better reflexes and judgment. You should be able to do it in a way that protects both you and them. But you can't do the same to someone with 6 inches and 100 pounds on you.
TL;DR Jujitsu training for police officers really works, and every single one ought to have a decent grounding in it. But they won't receive it. Certainly, some police departments will get the memo and get their police force trained. However, this problem, like so many others in this country (healthcare system, education system) reflects a fundamental dysfunction. Forget about “defund the police”, the slogan ought to be “reimagine policing”. Any fundamental reimagining of policing would include substantial financial and logistical support for jujitsu training. Doing this might end up requiring us to “refund the police” instead. But my concern is that, rather than address fundamental flaws and start over (note, this doesn't mean abolishing police departments, but does mean major, structural change), we will just Band-Aid the problem, like we do with healthcare. And this means we'll be bickering about police abuses for the next decade, instead of solving this key part of the problem.
Preserving the beauty of vintage analog tech
I really appreciate this video. The subject has lovingly restored and maintained an enormous piece of analog technology that used to be the go-to platform for making all kinds of motion graphics. Today, a five-year-old can make motion graphics on their iPad, just like many other things made relatively trivial by digital technology, some years ago, motion graphics required specialized skills and equipment.
Cal Newport on thinking and writing
I read this author's book, Deep Work, some years ago, and found it spot on. Essentially, he says that in order to produce something of quality and originality, we need to block off uninterrupted time. If, like me, you work at a screen, you may find yourself inundated by email, Slack messages, and all manner of inquiries and responsibilities that make it hard for you to actually do your job, that is, to produce something. On a related note, Newport talks about the need for thinking time.
Today, we’re not nearly as comfortable with this most fundamental of activities. We talk a lot more about information — how we can get more of it, how we can spread it faster — than we do its processing.
Like much good writing, much of what appears here seems immediately obvious on reflection.
Josh fight! (Joyful, irreverent good news)
What started as a mid-pandemic joke took on life Saturday, as a mixed bag of individuals sharing only their name, Josh, came to battle it out in Lincoln, Nebraska.
Someone was bored, and wanted to find The One True Josh. Their quest culminated in a free-for-all pool noodle fight that raised money for a Children's Hospital.
(Photo credit, NY Times)
Artist recommendation: El Mañana
I mentioned this artist once before, but I'm going to mention them again, simply because I like their music so much. In recent years, I have struggled to find new music by new artists that I really enjoy. This is my first wholly new discovery in quite a while.
I hear echoes of Soda Stereo, Paul said they use Police-style chords, and the production is rather ethereal. My only complaint is that I can't buy a proper full album on a CD. Now get off my lawn, kids!
Overheard at Como Park spoken by little kid running around with other little kids: “Stop that, or I’m gonna call the IRS on you!”
~~~
"The intellect is often thought to mitigate or redeem suffering, but it can also be a way of avoiding kinds of suffering that can be necessary to just experience."
- Tony Tulathimutte
Love everything I wrote? Think we need more pool noodle fights? Drop me a line.