I've been meaning to read up on the Seven Deadly Sins for a while now, and only just recently got to start this series.

I decided to start out by reading about Lust, seeing as how I know almost nothing about it, and have virtually no - cough - experience with it at all. Actually, it just seemed to be the most intriguing book on the shelf at the moment. Not to mention, the enticing little toe there...

Anyway, I had hoped that this little book would provide me with a real grappling with the meat of the matter, but right from the get go, Blackburn tells me that he's not going to write about the sin of lust, but instead that because lust has been maligned, he will "speak up for lust." Ok, fair enough, I think. Speak up for Lust and give me the Devil's Advocate version of why this is a good thing. From that I can infer why it's bad.

Now, normally, from a book listed as a "philosophy" book, I expect the author to start spewing opinions right away. Instead, Blackburn gave a rundown on all the different ways that humans have portrayed or maligned lust in the past. Beginning with the Greeks, and moving on to the Romans, Middle Ages, and the Christian response to Lust, Blackburn just gives us what everyone else thought about the subject, rather than explaining what he himself thinks about the whole thing. At least not until he gets to Thomas Hobbes, and takes a thought originally presented by Hobbes, and coins a nifty phrase called "Hobbesian Unity."

What is this Hobbesian Unity? Well, it starts out with this quote:

The appetite which men call LUST... is a sensual pleasure, but not only that: there is in it also a delight of the mind: for it consisteth of two appetites together, to please, and to be pleased; and the delight men take in delighting, is not sensual, but a pleasure or joy of the mind, consisting in the imagination of the power they have so much to please. (quoting Hobbes, pp. 87-88)

Blackburn then goes on to discuss the contrary side of this Hobbesian Unity, which is the non-mutual seeking of self-pleasure over against the idea of "pure mutuality." In this realm, the object of sexual desire becomes just that, an object, and is used and thrown out, "as one throws away a lemon that is sucked dry" (quoting Kant, pp. 94). What follows from here is a discussion of the psychology of Objectification and one of the nature of Substitution. The Substitution stuff is interesting, really, and it ends up making lust sound not so bad.

Here's the gist of it: The argument is that lust focuses on Substitution: object X is as good as object Y when it comes to release. Of course, a lonely man most often will not simply jump in bed with any woman, purely for the release of his desires. Instead, he pines about until he finds one which excites his desire, and one with which he can find that release, which is usually based on some sense of what this individual might provide in terms of pleasure. So the absolute idea that one object is as good as the other is not quite right. A similar argument is made for pornography: it is a substitution of images for the real. Now, here is where the argument gets good; the objections for pornography are not images themselves, but the depictions of the individuals in that pornography which creates a false representation of the person's availability and desire to please. In other words, it blurs the lines between reality and fantasy, suggesting a mutual pleasure where there is none.

Sounding familiar? It should. The argument is that all of these objects or people are intended to excite the imagination. Hmmm... Hobbes' idea. Anyone with enough self-awareness, and enough desire for the reality of Hobbesian Unity ought to refrain from these things which fall short of that unity. By inference, then, anything that does not strive for that Unity ought to be labeled as Lust (Blackburn doesn't quite say it like that, but that's the flipside). What I can take away from all this is that Blackburn didn't really describe Lust, but instead defined the goal of Sexual Desire, and urged people to strive for that Unity. Lust is anything that sidesteps that goal at the expense of the Unity. How exactly that is speaking up for lust I'm not sure, but it certainly speaks up for shared pleasure.

All in all, a decent read.

Posted by Michael at 2:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

So, after having interspersed Star Trek: Voyager with Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, I finally got back to the crew of this starship lost in the Delta Quadrant.

Now, I don't really want to give away the ending, but...

they make it back to Earth.

Surprise, huh?

In any case, it was a good show, and fun while it lasted. Some day I may do the whole series again, but for now, I'm moving on to Alias.

Posted by Michael at 4:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

some people have too much time

Posted by Michael at 9:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

So my glasses broke. I tried to fix them with super-glue, but they fell apart again. And they're only about 5 months old. Thankfully, because they're so young, these glasses are getting a new lease on life, and the lenses are being swapped out with Frames Version 2.0. A free upgrade. But in the meantime, I'm wearing my prescription sunglasses with blue lenses, which is garnering me quite a few jokes at work.

Posted by Michael at 4:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Shameless, I say.

In order to understand, I'll have to give you a bit of background, and warn you Seneca haters that this is a resurrection of sorts. Ok. So the backstory is this: yesterday I decide that rather than laying on my couch, finishing the final episodes of Star Trek Voyager, I would go to the book store, and "mingle." Interestingly enough, my eyes found a fun little book entitled "On the Shortness of Life," by one Lucius Annaeus Seneca. Naturally, I gave in to temptation, and headed off to the cafe to read. Then, as I read, things got dubious and introspective, and I ended up journaling to what I'd read. That's the backdrop; now, on with the show.

The Seneca

"...it is generally agreed that no activity can be successfully pursued by an individual who is preoccupied - not rhetoric or liberal studies - since the mind when distracted absorbs nothing deeply, but rejects everything which is, so to speak, crammed into it. Living is the least important activity of the preoccupied man; yet there is nothing which is harder to learn. ... Can anything be more idiotic than certain people who boast of their foresight? They keep themselves officiously preoccupied in order to improve their lives; they spend their lives in organizing their lives. They direct their purpose with an eye to a distant future. But putting things off is the biggest waste of life: it snatches away each day as it comes, and denies us the present by promising the future. The greatest obstacle to living is expectancy, which hangs upon tomorrow and loses today. You are arranging what lies in Fortune's control and abandoning what lies in yours. What are you looking at? To what goal are you straining? The whole future lies in uncertainty: live immediately."

Now, a brief look inside my brain:
Live Immediately: There is at present an opportunity which presents itself to me. This opportunity can have two outcomes - perhaps more - but primarily only two. This is a limited time opportunity, and one which will surely reach its terminal point if I sit and do nothing. And yet, sitting and doing nothing is a decision in itself not to pursue the opportunity. And still I am failing to move and take advantage of this opportunity that stares me in the face. But why? Is it merely the fear of the potential negative outcome that freezes me?

And yet, the simultaneous feeling of shame settles in on me at imagining a life lived without the immediacy of the present fully engaged; a life meted out in fearful anticipation of "quite possiblies."

How is this living immediately? How is this taking the present and making it a pleasent past? Is it true, as Seneca says, that only the unashamed care to cast back and search and relive their past memories?¹ I think it is, for if an opportunity like this is squandered with preoccupation of fear and past encumbrances then why would I willingly choose to relives this portion of my "Now," then, and thusly spent?

The irony of course, is that as I write this inner monologue, more and more of my now dwindles into a memory I will not care to relive; certainly not one I will cherish. Alas, I am a preoccupied man.

I'd say now is the time to live immediately.

The epic conclusion
Well, I'm happy to report that I lived in the now, and fully engaged my opportunity. Not so happy to report that things did not go as I had hoped, or even envisioned. Nevertheless, I can say that this former "now" has passed my own censorship.¹

1) The quote goes like this: "No one willingly reverts to the past unless all his actions have passed his own censorship, which is never deceived. The man who must fear his own memory is the one who has been ambitious in his greed, arrogant in his contempt, uncontrolled in his victories, treacherous in his plundering, and wasteful in his squandering."

Posted by Michael at 10:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

So, after a recent entry, I told you all that this fantastic telemarketing program I'm working on was 24 pages total. It has since burgeoned to 34, with more in the works (at least another 15 for an administrative tool). Of the 34, 28 interact with the database.

Now, lately, based largely on feature creep, there have been changes to the database structure, which in turn have caused pages which previously worked quite well to throw an exception. The result is that I've been playing catch up with the bugs resulting from this cascading failure. Thankfully, most of these bugs have been simple modifications to query statements, although the more grueling ones only add to the cascade effect by makign us realize that this bug requires another change to database structure, which then requires more changes to code.... The perfect client would be one that knew exactly what they wanted, and handed you a 50+ page detailed functional spec for their concept, instead of changing things every time the wind blows from the North.

Oh well. It comes with the territory, I suppose, just like ants with my basement apartment.

Posted by Michael at 2:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

So, my sister left for Africa on Saturday, which leaves me as the sole family reprepresentative on the North American continent. My parents are currently in Nigeria, and my sister is now in Zambia. They'll all be home by the end of the month, but for now... it's all me.

Posted by Michael at 11:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Today, as I was driving to work, I looked in my rear-view mirror and had a sudden attack of the peeves. See, there was this woman sitting in her car chewing gum.

Now, some people chew gum and you can hardly tell - they keep their mouths shut. Others, you get the occasional bubble, and that's the only way you know they're chewing anything...

Not so with this one.

I wanted to get out of the car, walk up to hers and ask her, "Do you realize that your mouth is wide open, your teeth are showing, and your jaw is moving both up and down and left and right? Have you ever seen a cow chewing her cud? Or a camel, grazing? Any of the ruminants with a mouth full? NO? WELL LOOK IN THE MIRROR!"

What's worse, is that at every stop light, there she was. I tried hard not to look in the mirror, but to no avail. It was like slowing down on the freeway to see the horrible accident that has occured, even though you know you'll be traumatized if you do. I finally lost her just blocks from work. But my eyes are scarred for the rest of the day.

Posted by Michael at 10:48 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

had to share with everyone:
Conquer Antarctica

Posted by Michael at 4:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Feeling much better now - 5:55pm - than yesterday. Thanks.

Part of it had to do with this statement:
"You cannot have God for your Father unless you have the church for your Mother."
      ~ Cyprian, 3rd century A.D.

How does this compute?

I'm not entirely sure. I'll fill you in when I know more.

Posted by Michael at 5:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Yesterday I walked the 4.5 miles to work, and in those one and a half hours, I realized that I had more fun in that short time than I did in the rest of the hours I spent at work. This morning, in fact, I contemplated walking again, and actually looked forward to it, but then remembered that this walking would eventually bring me to my job, and that was kind of a downer. I'd say that this is an indication that something is not exactly hunky and dory.

Point of fact. I've been less than motivated to go to my regular 40 hour/week job for quite a few months now. Today, I was tempted to call in "not well" even though after my almost 9 mile walk (roundtrip) yesterday, I feel fantastic. The only thing that got me to actually go in was the fact that four of us guys at work have been playing a game called RuneBound, and my character has reached a place where he can do some serious damage without even trying; kind of a "yawn. Oh. You. SMACK!" So, the quick recap looks like this: I want to call in "not well," but decide that if I call in "not well" I'll miss playing RuneBound, so I decide to go to work. That's right, work itself never factored into the equation. Hmmm....

I'd like to suggest that this is an indication that something other than a working vacation is needed, so that I can find the right tools to give myself an attitude alignment. I'd like to suggest the screwdriver, a jack hammer and bent nail, or a bilge pump.

Posted by Michael at 10:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

There's an interesting little tome called On Bullshit by Professor Harry G. Frankfurt from Princeton. It's a quick read, and I found myself laughing out loud on several occasions, and the topic is - as the title tells you - all about bullshit. And no, it's not the kind produced by our bovine friends.

So, what is bullshit? I'll let you read a portion of the reviews:

He argues that bullshitters misrepresent themselves to their audience not as liars do, that is, by deliberately making false claims about what is true. In fact, bullshit need not be untrue at all.

Rather, bullshitters seek to convey a certain impression of themselves without being concerned about whether anything at all is true. They quietly change the rules governing their end of the conversation so that claims about truth and falsity are irrelevant. Frankfurt concludes that although bullshit can take many innocent forms, excessive indulgence in it can eventually undermine the practitioner's capacity to tell the truth in a way that lying does not. Liars at least acknowledge that it matters what is true. By virtue of this, Frankfurt writes, bullshit is a greater enemy of the truth than lies are.
(source)

I think, though, that one of the interesting little tidbits of this book is found in two facts: "One of the most salient features of our culture is that there is so much bullshit. Everyone knows this. Each of us contributes his share."(source), and one quoted above: "[the bulshitter] quietly change[s] the rules governing their end of the conversation so that claims about truth and falsity are irrelevant."

It boils down to this: we all contribute our own share to the world because we are all quite well capable of changing the rules to fit our own version of reality. Some are more capable than others at creating warm little piles, and it ends up leaving the receiving person knowing that there is quite a mess of it laying around, though without any real ability to point to the exact location where these piles got dropped, so you run the risk of stepping in it on occasion. But see, that's part of the beauty of these warm little piles: they don't need to be untrue at all. It is the function of these little piles to merely create a certain impression of ourselves, regardless of what the truth is. So we can tell the honest and complete truth, and yet still be a bulshitter. Or, as the Dr. concludes: "sincerity itself is bullshit."

Not bad for 80 pages if you ask me.

Posted by Michael at 5:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

I am White and Nerdy, because I am fluent in Javascript, and while I may not be fluent in Klingon, I know enough to make jokes in it. And, I find this movie funny too.

Posted by Michael at 1:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)