They may be insane

Have you heard about the new FAA dress code for air traffic controllers? They may be insane.
I mean, honestly, who cares what these people wear, as long as they wear something? These are highly stressed out people, and I want them to be comfortable while they direct planes and keep lots and lots of people from dying horrible, firey deaths. If a man wants to wear bright turquoise pants, I say, let him. If he wants to pair his bright turquoise pants with a bright tropical shirt, possibly with a pink flamingo pattern, then I say, go for it! As long as it does not distract co-workers from doing their job. And another thing, what's with the prohibition on listening to the radio for severe weather forecasts?! I really want these people to know about oncoming tornadoes and things. I really, really do.

Happiness

Saint Augustine says that we all seek happiness, and so must all have an idea of what happiness is somewhere in our mind or in our soul. How do we know to yearn for happiness, if we have never been happy? We must be remembering happiness from somewhere or some time in the past. Is happiness one of the Ideas of Plato, that we are born knowing and spend our lives remembering? According to Augustine, happiness is the love of truth, which he equates with the love of God. It is not clear what he includes in this “truth,” or what he excludes. Does he include the horrible facts of life – disease, death, hunger, pain? Or does he refer to a higher Truth only?

Orhan Pamuk doubts that the point of life is to seek happiness. He wonders if only those who are unhappy have led worthwhile, full, or important lives. Being unhappy presumably makes you search for happiness, and so makes you act, either externally or internally. Or perhaps being unhappy is the result of a worthwhile life – it means that you did something, either externally or internally.

I believe that people are genetically predisposed to levels of happiness. Some people seem happy, regardless of what happens. They have disappointments, they go through periods of stress and upheaval and sadness, but they are generally happy. My grandmother was such a person. In her case, I thought it was because of her firm faith in God – this agrees with Saint Augustine. But I know of another woman, my own age, who seems incredibly happy most of the time, and she has never referred to God or faith. It is possible that these people are simply putting forth a happy front, or are repressing negative feelings and being falsely happy. But I think that they really are happy in their lives. Other people seem congenitally unhappy. No matter their experiences and their situations, they are unhappy, despite striving for happiness. They think a lot, while the happy people don’t seem to think that much. At any rate, the happy people don’t dwell on unhappy things. Is that because they are happy, or is that the cause of their happiness?

Scientists say that our genes dictate a lot about our lives – our health, our weight, our ability to gain or lose weight. We can change our behavior and our health, but only to a certain extent. It seems possible to me that we have a similar relationship with our level of happiness. We can create circumstances and situations that should lead to happiness, if we all have the same capability for happiness. But that does not mean that we will all be happy in those circumstances.

We all search for happiness. That much is obvious from the tabloids, magazines, and advertisements. “Buy this product and you will be happy.” “Lose weight and you will be happy.” “Sustain this way of living and you will be happy.” Society has one standard of living that will produce happiness, according to it – married, 2.5 children, dog, SUV, big house in the suburbs, thin, busy, etc. Most people try to achieve that standard of living. But do people find happiness? Some do, and some do not. If we were truly happy with what we have, we would not spend more and more money and more and more time trying to become happier. The question that most people ask is “what is happiness?” Perhaps the question should be “is happiness the goal of life?”

If we just live and then die with no further existence, then we might as well be happy while we are alive. But if we cannot attain happiness, then the struggle to find it and the knowledge that we have failed will make us even more unhappy. We would be happier if we stopped trying to be so unhappy. If we were to truly accept ourselves as we are, then we could be happy, or at least not unhappy.

So the secret to happiness is to stop searching for it, to stop focusing on it, and to accept ourselves and our lives as they are. How very Zen. Is the concept of an Ideal then counter to happiness? Doesn’t this mean that belief in God results in unhappiness because it produces discontent arising from the failure of attaining some level of the Ideal in our own lives? Many people who believe in God are happy, presumably because they also believe in his love and acceptance of us as we are, and so they do not feel the pressure to attain the Ideal. That is based on a certain conception of God. Where does religion’s focus on sin come into all this? Saint Augustine thought a lot about sin, very particular sins, but he also thought that he could attain happiness via a love of God and a love of truth. Part of that truth must be that he was a sinner – did he also love that? He wanted to not be a sinner. He wanted God to take away his sins, not just from the great balance sheet, but from him entirely. He wanted to be free from sin. So although he knew what happiness was and had attained it through love of truth and God, he still yearned to improve himself, and so must have had moments of discontent, frustration, and general unhappiness. If happiness is love of God and truth, then is unhappiness discontent with God and truth?

I believe that to be happy, I must accept myself as I am. But I would like to be different in certain ways. I would like to eat and live more healthfully. I would like to work more efficiently. I would like to be more connected to society. I would like a dog. I would like a partner. But these all entail change. Some entail very hard change. In order to exact that change, don’t I have to accept my unhappiness? So to attain my ideal me, which I believe would make me happier, I have to be unhappy. To be happy, I have to put up with who I am. Is happiness accepting of one’s inherent soul, rather than of one’s current physical circumstances? That would allow people to be happy but also to work for betterment. But if one cannot change one’s physical circumstances, one would never be happy. Physical circumstances are important. So I don’t think that is it.

It seems like the secret to being happy is to be happy. But don’t push it.

Who Am I

My sister sent me her list of likes and dislikes, and asked me to send her my own list. So I started composing a list, and then couldn't think of what I liked and didn't like, so I looked at a document I made titled "Things to put on my blog." I wrote it when I was trying to come up with a name for my blog, and could think of things to say but no name. It's kind of fun, so here are the fun and still pertinent parts. A don't know what they are pertinent to, but here they are, in the "who am I, and what do I do, and what do I like" category. Don't ask for structure.

1. I like a lot of things, but I like them in my mind. Just because I like something doesn’t mean that I learn everything there is to know about it. I like jazz, but I don’t even try to get all the great jazz albums (though it would be nice), partly because I have a great jazz station so don’t need to get all the albums myself. I am not a nerd, it turns out. What a revelation. Maybe that should be my title. “Yes, I like all sorts of non-cool things, but I am not a nerd about them. Too bad, really.” I dream a lot, and what I like is in my dreams, so I don’t necessarily need to have it all in real life. Well, that’s really depressing.

2. Choir music. Mostly to sing. I prefer to sing it than to listen to it. If everyone felt this way, we would have no audience. Wait, we do have trouble getting audience members... hmm.

3. Music in general. But I don’t often have it just playing in the background, unless it is on my iPod on the ferry. Is that because I haven’t found the right music yet, or because I am so into it that I can’t think about anything else when it is on? I prefer to think that it is the latter. Probably it is more that I get distracted, and that I haven’t found the right music yet. There is nothing wrong with silence. And if I need ambient music, I am more likely to make it myself than to put on music. So I don't listen to most of my CD's.

4. Singing. I love to sing, but I don’t have good breath support and I can’t memorize to save my life. Those two difficulties ended my stage career early on.

5. Hummer – that’s me. I hum. If I make that the title of my blog, then people will think I like big huge gas-guzzling vehicles and am an idiot, when only part of that is true.

What if someone I work with or want to work with finds this blog and figures out that it is me, and realizes that I am just a humming, dreaming fool who hasn’t even listed statistics and fish yet? Yeah, I like statistics, and fish are okay, too.

6. Math – I like math. I love pure math – it’s pure, it’s beautiful, it’s godly. Really. But I do statistics. Applied statistics. And I like it. Especially the theory parts. If you want to use mathematics in a practical way, you have to do statistics. I say that, but I am practical only when I want to be.

7. Perfectionist. I never finish anything. Not quite true, but almost. Sigh – can’t even be perfect in my record of never finishing anything.

8. I kind of like philosophy. I kind of like cooking. I kind of like gardening. I really like baking. I am learning to like poetry, of sorts. W.H. Auden and my cousin and I share a birthday – cool!

9. A blog is supposed to be spontaneous, right? Won’t writing things out like this to put on my blog later lack the necessary spontaneity that a blog should have? The first post will just be me catching up with all my thoughts, and who will want to read that?

10. I hate Microsoft.

11. I like newts. And birds. And dogs.

12. I like my sister. I sent her an email asking for help. :-)

just checking in

I'm supposed to be going to bed now, and I really need sleep, but then I noticed the link to my blog in my bookmarks, and I remembered that I haven't written anything here in a while. I've been getting through the cold, and it was indeed nasty. It's not over, but the unpleasant fever bit is, and now it's just collateral types of stuff, like congestion and weird inner- or middle-ear fluid/balance/hearing issues. Yeah. Too much information. Sorry about that!

I just figured out my estimated taxes. I was going to write about it, and in fact did write about it, but then I realized that I don't want that much information about me out there on the web where anyone can read it. So I'll leave it at that.

But that doesn't mean I'm done. I watched "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" the movie the other night. I figured that if I was going to be all into the tv series, then I had better watch the movie that it is based on. Boy, was it dumb. Not unpleasant, but dumb. I'm glad it's over. Last night, I watched "Notes on a Scandal." Boy, was it good! Really good. Judi Dench and Cate Blanchett and others. They're great! Judi Dench is amazing. Good story. Disturbing. But good. As for Buffy, stick with the TV series - it's good and the movie is not. I think most other people in the world already realized that, but I'm slow.

fever dreams?

I have a cold, and had many dreams last night, all brightly colored and edged and none of them very pleasant. The last one was along the lines of your typical unprepared-for-examination dream. The first question was, "How large is the leak in the [map or chart or exam paper something]?" Rich (coworker) got down on his hands and knees with his test paper on the ground, and started measuring its dimensions with a tape measure. I, in my one instance of smarts in this dream, noticed that the question was multiple choice, with choices "heavy" and "not heavy." So I filled in the circle next to "not heavy." After that, the exam all went downhill. Rich soon left, having given up after measuring the dimensions of the test paper. He went outside and talked with the professor, who eventually turned into Mrs. Jones, my 9th grade English teacher. I continued with the test, but I might as well have given up, too. I thought the next question asked what was the 7th dam on the river (Little Goose Dam or Rock Island Dam, depending on the river), but instead it asked what was the operating procedure for spill [water over the dam] on the 7th day of the study. I had no idea that when I was reviewing the report/paper/study, I was supposed to be memorizing it. Then I had to compute derivatives of things, but not normal derivatives. No, these were wacky derivatives that somehow used the chain rule but not in any obvious way. I had not studied. I was going to fail. Everyone had already finished except for one guy in the corner with his iPod going and his feet on the desk; he may have been asleep. I explained to Mrs. Jones that I had just simply failed. She reminded me of the Chain Rule, but it didn't help.

Before that dream, I dreamt that Little Cousin Helena was holding Littler Cousin Chloe. Very cute, but strange, since they are from different branches of the family and live on different coasts. Eric K. was graduating from some university in Alaska and wanted us to attend his graduation. There was something about a river and rafting or kayaking or riding it on a log. I was supposed to be continuing my post-doc along the Pacific Rim, which meant that I next had to get a job in Hawaii. There was something about dolls and people outside the windows in my old room in Illinois. Oh yeah, and a taxi ride to Vaishali's. I caught a taxi in Charleston somewhere near Paggliai's (huh? the pizza place), and wanted to go to V's house, which was in Heritage Woods, but was really across 130 from the high school, kind of behind Mom's old office and in Eastgate. Two other people got in the taxi, too, and they wanted to go much farther than I did, so the taxi driver took me first. I gave him the address (62nd and N Street), and he took off in some strange direction, looking for the address amidst lots of condos and townhouses that had no backs. I gave him directions and he finally got me to Vaishali's, whose neighborhood resembled the lower part of Ashby and also what Aunt MaryAnn and Uncle Vernon's neighborhood usually looks like in my dreams. The road was twisty and windy, and the taxi driver announced that the house in front was owned by some people whose name was obviously Jewish, so I knew that Vaishali and Elliot's house was next door. Huh? They had a long straight driveway up a hill, and because they never shoveled it, it was full of snow. So the taxi driver left me off at the bottom of the driveway, and wouldn't tell me how much I owed him and also wouldn't give me change for the $10 I gave him. I woke up as a wrestled the ten away from him, and Vaishali came down to greet me. I still don't know how much I owed him, but I was certain that he didn't deserve a tip.

These are thrilling, I know. Very strong colors. Weird. It's raining out and my headache turned out to a caffeine headache. I guess that's good. My coffee table came yesterday, just in time for me to spend all day on the couch while I reviewed the long report. Useful.

very long ramblings

It is a nice sunny Sunday morning out there right now, and the Weather Channel is predicting isolated thunderstorms for this afternoon, which seems fantastical, somehow, in this part of the world. We have perhaps two thunderstorms a year. But they do occur. A few years ago, a young woman was struck by lightening while she was sitting inside, near a window, sewing during a storm. The needle acted like a lightening rod. She came through it fine, I think, but a bit shaken. Electrified.

Today is the final concert of the season for my choir. We are performing this show just once, instead of the usual twice, because we are performing at Benaroya Hall (where the Seattle Symphony resides) and it is incredibly expensive. We have not sold enough tickets. It used to be that the leaders of the choir talked about ticket sales in helpful ways at many of the rehearsals, giving creative selling ideas and making it seem romantic to sell tickets. Nowadays, the membership president just says, "sell tickets." She does talk about its importance, but she is not inspiring. And the people who used to stand up and inspire sales no longer do so. And Fred is slow at producing the email annoucement of the concert that many of us depend on for sending to our friends and coworkers. And so we sell fewer tickets. Perhaps choir leadership thinks that we should have it all under control by now, but the evidence points to the contrary. For one thing, there are new members that have not experienced the ticket-selling focus of the past. For another, and perhaps more important, people tend to think that everything is dandy unless someone tells them that it is not. If the leadership does not talk with us constructively about ticket sales, then we will assume that ticket sales are no longer important and so will relax our efforts. Thanks to Jen for pointing that out.

This is the last year for this particular membership president (as membership president - she will still be singing with us), and I am glad (sounds nastier than I mean, I think). She has worked hard at a thankless and unpaid job, and has made some good changes. But she is not an inspiring or warm person. The previous president (call her AP) is a very intelligent, warm, kind-hearted, poetical, inspiring person. She helpfully talked about working on music at home and selling tickets and proper concert behavior, and she always had a poem to read to us before concerts, which helped us focus on the beauty that we were about to create for our audiences. AP was president for a long time, and got tired of it. Now she is happily just a regular singer, retired from her paying job, and doing quilting for people for money. Not a bad life. The current president (call her K) is also an intelligent woman, and she shows moments of warm-heartedness. Her mind is lively and she has done some good and necessary things for the choir, and she is also tired of serving as president. But she is not, by nature, a friendly person, I think. She is a clique-ish person. And she is not poetical, though she does try to give us inspiration at focus circle before concerts. But she reminds us of proper concert behavior by saying, in an annoyed manner, the same words over and over again. "All page turns are too loud," she says as one quoting an aphorism. Yes, they are, but when you say it like that, people automatically stop caring. AP would talk about ways of turning pages quietly and the importance of doing so. K just blurts out in a stentorious voice, "All page turns are too loud." Not helpful. I guess I shouldn't complain too much about K's unfortunate comparison with AP unless I am willing to step up as the next membership president, which I am not. K has done some things much better than AP, things that make the choir run more smoothly behind the scenes. But I miss AP's warmness, and her understanding that she was working with people, not computers. AP was a teacher and mother (still is a mother). K is a computer programmer. Maybe the differences are not so surprising.

I woke up this morning from a very uncomfortable dream about today's concert. I was still at home on the island when I was supposed to be at the concert hall. I couldn't find my makeup, music, car keys, or other important items, and my body was rebelling in annoying ways as usual in dreams. I had about 5 minutes to get to the ferry if I wanted to get to the concert hall before the concert began. Mom, Dad, and Jenny were all here, being kind of helpful in ineffectual ways. I was crying and all upset because I was completely blowing it. And I had cramps, which didn't help. I finally woke up, and still had cramps, and I got up and found my makeup, and I am going to get every ready to go after I finish this. Talk about a stress dream. It was hot in my room. Too darn hot.