Thursday, November 29th
musings about my jobs
Last Friday night I played at Panda- Eric was out of town. The Friday after Thanksgiving is rarely pianistically inspiring in the restaurant- it is a bit too early to start Christmas music and it's usually not very busy in the restaurant. But I was feeling even more than usually uninspired. Part of this I'm sure is due to my medication. It is designed to keep me from going manic and, predictably, it keeps me from getting excited about much of anything.
This results in an interesting phenomenon. In years past when I played the restaurant, the challenge was to maintain a good attitude through to the end. I would start with enthusiasm, and then, towards the end of the second hour, it would be a struggle to remain inspired. Now, the hardest part is the first half hour- if I can make it through that, I'm OK. This is an improvement over, say a month ago, when I was struggling for the whole two hours to stay inspired.
This gives me hope about my day job at the post office, where I have also been struggling to stay inspired. Here I'm sure part of the struggle is my declining physical endurance. I feel like a whiner for saying this; generally my health is good for a man of my age. The problems I was having with my foot seem to have gone away for good. However with my new position I seem to be having a few more problems with my knee: years ago I was diagnosed with a mild case of femoral/patella syndrome which is now manifesting itself again- but not so severely that I should worry; yet.
In a decision which gives me great joy Nancy has decided to go vegetarian again. I am needing to be more healthy and this is a step in the right direction. We have been vegetarian before and it isn't the easiest thing in the world to do. Eating out is particularly a problem, and shopping needs to be done with more forethought.
Sunday, November 25th
Finding myself
Now that I have gone through so much in the past half year, including my deconversion from Christianity, I have the need to redefine myself, I think. Of course I did what any internet junkie would do and turned to the belief-o-matic, an online test designed to tell you what belief system fits you the best. I did a blog on the belief-o-matic over three years ago, and so I could easily compare the results of what I believe now and compare them to what I believed three years or so ago. The results are given in terms of percent compatibility and then ranked with the highest percentage being #1 and so forth. I have listed my current results and in the parenthesis have compared to my former results and calculated the differences, in terms of percentages/ranking:
1. Secular Humanism (100%; was 16%/24; +84%/+23)
2. Unitarian Universalism (98%; was 44%/12; +54%/+10)
3. Liberal Quakers (95%; was 63%/7; +32%/+4)
4. Theravada Buddhism (94%; was 41%/17; +53%/+13)
5. Neo-Pagan (81%; was 25%/21; +56%/+16)
6. Mahayana Buddhism (73%; was 38%/18; +35%/+12)
7. Mainline to Liberal Christian Protestants (72%; was 73%/6; -1%/-1)
8. Nontheist (71%; was 18%/23; +53%/+15)
9. Taoism (70%; was 27%/20; +43%/+11)
10. Orthodox Quaker (68%; was 100%/1; -32%/-9)
11. Jainism (63%; was 44%/13; +19%/+2)
12. New Age (61%; was 23%/22; +38%/+10)
13. Reform Judaism (53%; was 41%/16; +12%/+3)
14. Hinduism (49%; was 51%/10; -2%/-4)
15. Baha'i Faith (47%; was 52%/9; -5%/-6)
16. Sikhism (44%; was 32%/19; +12%/+3)
17. Seventh Day Adventist (41%; was 98%/2; -57%/-15)
18. Scientology (40%; was 11%/27; +29%/+9)
19. New Thought (35%; was 14%/26; +21%/+7)
20. Latter-Day Saints (Mormons) (34%; was 42%/14; -8%/-6)
21. Christian Science (31%; was 15%/25; +16%/+4)
22. Mainline to Conservative Christian/Protestant (28%; was 86%/3; -58%/-19)
23. Islam (25%; was 50%/11; -25%/-12)
24. Orthodox Judaism (25%; was 55%/8; -30%/-18)
25. Jehovah's Witness (21%; was 42%/15; -21%/-10)
26. Eastern Orthodox (16%; was 79%/4; -63%/-22)
27. Roman Catholic (16%; was 79%/5; -63%/-22)
One would expect that perhaps changing one's belief about the existence of God would turn everything topsy turvy. While there is a general trend in this direction, it often does not hold true. The most interesting example of this is #7, Mainline to Liberal Christian Protestants, in which the change was only -1%/-1. One possible reason for this is that the test does not only ask about beliefs about God, but also beliefs about gender roles, etc.
Another interesting thing is that now that I no longer believe in God, I am apparently generally more compatible with the listed belief systems: 53.74% on average as opposed to 46.63% before. This surprised me- I expected the opposite as most of the belief systems are theistic. It may be true that belief in God's existence generally makes one more close minded towards others' beliefs- or maybe it's just the way the various questions in the test are weighted.
Speaking of close minded, I was happy that Nontheist was ranked #7 compatible with my beliefs. There doesn't appear to me to be much difference between atheists and fundamentalist Christians in terms of close mindedness. On the other hand, I don't much feel like a Secular Humanist.
Sunday, November 18th
The five C contest
Last night I participated in the Clintonville Community Choir Chili Cookoff. I've never made a pot of chili in my life before, but at last week's practice Diane told us that although a lot of people signed up to bring dessert items, there weren't very many people signed up to do chili.
As that time I wasn't sure whether I'd be able to make it to the event at all. But after I found out that Eric could play both nights at the restaurant I decided to spend Friday night cooking chili and Saturday night enjoying the thrill of the competition- as well as some good eatin' and drinkin'. I found a good recipe for vegetarian chili on the 'net and as it turned out my first ever pot of chili wasn't half bad. It didn't get any votes, though.
I'm pretty excited about the choir concert Sunday December 2nd, 2007 at 4:00 PM at Whetstone High School. This is the choir's third season and we have made amazing progress in that brief period. The program Tom planned for us (9 pieces including the Halleluia Chorus) seemed awfully ambitious to me, but things seem to be working out great.
In other musical news I made an impulse buy of In the Court of the Crimson King the other day. I put a low bid in on it on ebay and really didn't expect to win based on what the other copies were going for. But win it I did. I got it mostly for the cool album cover, but the music is pretty good too:
Nothing he's got he really needs
Twenty first century schizoid man
Of course I didn't really need yet another old record album, but I bought it anyhow. Could King Crimson have been singing about me?
Another song on the record is Moonchild, and it occurred to me that there might be an interesting tale behind that word. A quick internet search revealed a reference to a 1917 book called Moonchild, written by Aleister Crowley. I'd never heard of this book before, but it is popular enough that people on ebay were listing it and bidding on it- including an early hard bound edition that was up over a hundred bucks. I of course wouldn't pay money for it, but I suspected that surely it was in the Columbus library. Surprisingly it wasn't, although lots of Crowley's occult writings were there. Maybe Crowley's novel really isn't that good after all. Nevertheless I put in a request for the library to buy it, and maybe they will. If they do, I suppose I will check it out.
Wednesday, November 14th
Father and Son
The other day I had the opportunity for some father/son bonding. Jacob needed a new battery for his car, so we bought and installed it. During this time, I gave him an opportunity that my father didn't give me, at least explicitly. I told him it would be ok for him to tell me where I had failed as a father and things he wished I had done better.
He seemed rather surprised by this and of course told me that I was being too hard on myself- that I did ok as a dad. But after thinking about it a very short period of time he came up with two things that he wished I had done that I didn't.
For my part I was surprised by these things, but they made a lot of sense. All in all, it was a good experience. Jacob seemed very grateful for the opportunity and told me that this opened up a whole new vista in our relationship. He wants to talk more about it.
I do too.
Sunday, November 11th
Fish Oil Withdrawal, perhaps
Steve brought my guitar over today. Steve is the guy that lives across the street, and he is an apprentice guitar builder. Some time ago I asked the folks at J Thomas Davis about getting wooden bridge pins to replace the plastic ones that my guitar has. They told me how it was done and said it would probably be a good idea. Then I had the brilliant idea of having Steve do the work instead. The total investment was twenty bucks, including parts and labor. I'm surprised at how much difference this small investment made in the sound of the instrument.
I'm hoping that this better sounding instrument will help with my depression. I've found myself less interested in life these past few weeks, even less interested in music. One possibility is that I've been on too much medication. My psychiatrist has cut me back to one pill a day, back from alternating one pill and two pills every other day. He also recommended getting more exercise, which is a bit of a struggle for a mailman. One possibility is simply walking faster. This is a possibility I considered when I changed positions in the post office, and I think that I am actually walking faster. I feel better than this.
Another possible contributing factor to my depression is the fact that I was taking omega 3 fish oil tablets and I haven't taken them regularly for the past couple of months or so. I'm going to have to get back into a routine with them.
Friday, November 9th
Epicurus
The wealth required by nature is limited and is easy to procure; but the wealth required by vain ideals extends to infinity.- Epicurus
I have been wading my way through the history of philosophy book that used to be Michael's. I was sidetracked from this task a bit by my investigation of Maimonides (who was mentioned but not discussed at any length in the book). Considering Epicurus' philosophy is turning out to be a whole lot easier and more pleasant than Maimonides' philosophy, even though I find the Greeks in general hard to read.
Epicurus was a materialist and an atomist who believed that everything, even the gods, are made of hard bits of matter (atoms) separated by empty space. He had the unique and intriguing idea that even the human soul was made up of atoms. The soul, according to Epicurus, was made up of a finer kind of atom than the human body, and these atoms were contained within the body. Upon death, the finer atoms of the soul were dispersed out of the body and the soul ceased to exist.
I think Epicurus would have felt vindicated by the discovery that the main force which causes living humans to move and think is electricity, which is made up of a finer kind of particle than the atoms which make up the material part of our body. This small constant biological electric charge, which eventually is dispersed from the body upon death, can serve the role of Epicurus' human soul.
Two other quotes of Epicurus which I especially liked:
We should not view the young man as happy, but rather the old man whose life has been fortunate. The young man at the height of his powers is often befuddled by chance and driven from his course; but the old man has dropped anchor in old age as in a harbor, since he secures in sure and thankful memory goods for which he was once scarcely confident of.- Epicurus
Don't spoil what you have by desiring what you don't have; but remember that what you now have was once among the things only hoped for.- Epicurus
Sunday, November 4th
The power of myth
Currently I am reading The Power of Myth, which is a series of interviews of Joseph Campbell by Bill Moyer. One of Campbell's constant themes in this book is that modern day Christianity has all but destroyed the power of myth in the lives of the faithful by its insistence on only a literal reading of the Judeo Christian myths. But people still need myth in their lives and this, according to Campbell is provided currently by artists. Christianity today only supplies priests, who exercise rituals. As important as this may be, what is more necessary are shamans, who have experienced the transcendent and help people do the same. Artists are the modern day shamans in western society and help to fill the gap left by Christianity's abandonment of the mythological side of its purpose. When Campbell says "artists," he seems to have in mind primarily contemporary film. He sees movies such as Star Wars as representing the mythological story lines which have been abandoned by fundamentalist religion.
It seems to me that the shamans of Christianity were the monks. Though rare today, Christian monks were prevalent as recently as a few hundred years ago. Their disappearance seems to coincide with the rise of enlightenment thinking, and this disappearance seems to me to be a big argument in support of Campbell's idea that modern day Christianity has all but thrown out the mythological. Perhaps this is because of Christianity's wedding with enlightenment rationalism, which does not see the usefulness of myth.
I don't know about the other arts, but in music it seems as though the disappearance of the monks also coincided with a big jump in the larger musical forms, such as operas and symphonies. It can be argued that these larger forms helped fill in the myth gap. What is interesting is that these particular art forms themselves lost their popularity around the same time as the rise of modern day cinema. By far the most popular musical form now is the song. What role, I wonder, does the modern song play in terms of supplying the myth that people need in their lives?
I had a prof in music school who made the statement that contemporary songs are a continuation of the tradition of folk songs, a musical form that has always been around. I doubt that this is the best way of looking at songs. Folk songs fill an essentially different role than contemporary songs. Campbell says that the folk tale is on a different level than the myth. I believe that folk songs are more analogous to the folk tale, whereas contemporary songs often rise to the role of providing myth in people's lives.
The rise of the contemporary song seems to me to have happened around the time of the disappearance of poetry as a more popular art form. So the case could be made that just as contemporary film has taken over the role which used to be played by opera and symphonies, so contemporary songs have taken over the role which used to be played by poetry.
This is, of course, only speaking of their roles as the suppliers of myth in the lives of the common person.
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