Dear Past Self,

I hope this letter finds you well. I know you have work to do, but I expect you'll be able to take the time out to read this - after all, I always have been easily distracted.

Now, I know that sometimes the world looks pretty grim: the everpresent threat of war, of famine, of disease, the knowledge always aching in the back of your mind that there are so many people who are so desperate, so helpless, and that you are helpless to change it. And that feeling never goes away, let me tell you. Life will always be a struggle: some of your fondest hopes will give way to crushing disappointment, and your dreams will succumb, as so many do, to cold, hard reality chipping away at them - slowly, but surely. Science will never cure death, and God will never speak to you and tell you your purpose, and no matter how many times you open your closet door, Narnia will never be on the other side.

But, it's always worth remembering: sometimes you get it right, even if just by accident. The right words in the right place, and opportunity strikes. The skill you spent so long acquiring suddenly becomes needed, or the publisher you spent so long courting decides to bite, or the girl you also spent so long courting... also decides to bite. If you get me.

And hey, things don't have to be easy to be fun. The hardest things you've ever done will inevitably be the best, and once every sixteen days, the ringrise on Titan is still the most beautiful thing you've ever seen. So go nuts. The world is always worth the effort.

Now get back to work, you slacker.

- Etarran

PS. July 14, 2027: Don't get out of bed. I mean it.

Back Into the Machine

One of the common tenets of monotheism is the love of God for his people. Setting aside questions of existence for the moment, I nevertheless have to wonder about this. After all, the assumption is never really explained. What makes us so sure God loves us? In fact, what makes us so sure God can love at all?

It is, of course, futile to try to understand the mind of God. His perceptions would be so far beyond and different from the merely human that even the words "beyond" and "different" imply too much of a connection and similarity to really have any meaning. Nevertheless, There are two things that we know for certain about God, two things which are contained in the definition of such a deity: omniscience and omnipotence.

Now, those are easy words to say, but hard to understand. What does that mean, exactly, if we try to break it down into pieces a human can understand? What is it like to know everything?

God can never know doubt. He must always and forever be convinced, with absolute certainty, of his rightness. In fact, rightness isn't even a concept that applies to God - existence supercedes morality.
God can never feel sorrow. He has no regrets, and not in the same way that people say they have no regrets, which is a sign of either arrogance or duplicity. God actually has no regrets, has never, in the entire history of his existence, done something wrong.
God can never question existence. If God believes he exists, he does. If God believes you exist, you do.
God can never suffer loss. Nothing can ever be out of his reach, nothing can ever be withheld from his grasp.
God can never be betrayed. Stories of Lucifer aside, omniscience precludes betrayal. Omnipotence makes enmity irrelevant. To be the enemy of God is more absurd and worthless than being the enemy of the colour blue. (More impossible than hating pie?)
God can never have respect for another.

Can you love someone who you cannot lose? Can you love someone who you know with certainty to exist? I don't think so. I don't think you can have love without the fear of loss, without the tiniest of doubts that it can be real. Love is one of many attempts by we, the lost, to hold back the darkness - and for God, there is no darkness. For God, there is no fear. God can never lose anyone, and so no one is worthy of his love.

I would say it seems lonely, such an existence, but of course that, too, is ridiculous. God can never be lonely, because perfection is self-contained. God has no needs or desires - in fact, is incapable of desiring anything.

But, if God has no desires, no need for anything outside of himself, must he not be deterministic? Operating according to a set of rules, layed down by himself, for all eternity? There is no room for randomness or chance or free will in a system of perfection. There is no room for humanity to intrude into Godhood. God has no need of love, because love is built on a foundation of poverty. Love is the wish for something you do not have, the desire to keep and hold that which you do, the need to raise up something else above yourself and make it greater than you could ever hope to be. None of this is possible for God.

Is God, then, nothing more than a great world-machine, a series of concentric crystal spheres, spinning in place from the beginning to the end of time - and after? Deus Machina, with nothing to disrupt the perfect, inevitable operation of its flawless mechanism?

Not nothing more, I think. Nothing less.

Sexy Times

Though I hate to tread on the toes of the good doctor Hood, it is a movie that led me to this post.

You see, I saw Milk the other day - the story of Harvey Milk, the first openly gay politician in America - and it was excellent. Though it was undoubtedly an overly rose-coloured portrayal of the gay rights movement, it accomplishes what it sets out to do admirably. The story is compelling, and compellingly told, the acting is of extremely high quality (and believe me, I never say that about movies), and all in all, I would highly recommend it.

For one thing, it made me think.

I don't often talk or, for that matter, think, about sexual orientation or sexual freedom. Sure, I'll spend a lot of time on the nature of love, and the importance of sex personally and in society, but honestly, who it is you're having sex with and how many of them there are simply isn't terribly important to me, at least on a philosophical or political level. I have many militant-for-gay-and-polyamorous-rights friends, not to mention several friends who are themselves not of a purely vanilla sexual orientation, and, though it seems a little strange to say this, I've pretty much left the thinking and talking about such things to them.

This is also an awkward discussion to have for me, as one's perspective in the matter is so attendant on one's own sexual desires. Being male, straight, monogamous by strong preference, and without, insofar as I am aware, any interesting fetishes or sexual quirks - though my understanding is that you don't discover that you have these until you've tried them, so I suppose the possibility must always exist - I've always felt, in a way, that my perspective wasn't terribly useful to such a debate.

Then I realized that that was ridiculous. What was I thinking? There is no such thing as a useless perspective.

So I suppose that my opinion on the whole issue of sexual freedom and limitations on sexual desire is simply one of profound puzzlement. If someone enjoys different books than I do I might try to understand why their tastes differ from my own, I might even make fun of them, but I wouldn't try to prevent them from reading it. What possible reason would I have for doing that? Where, to put it bluntly, is the advantage to me?

Now, sex is a little trickier than novels, to be sure. It can be exploitative, violent, dangerous, and cruel. And those kinds of sex should obviously be prevented through law or social norms - but what you're preventing is not the sex, but the exploitation, the violence, the danger, and the cruelty. We have a vested interest in seeing people not hurt one another - it's against any kind of morality, and, on a more self-interested level, it's bad for society. Where is the interest in seeing people not fuck each other? As long as it doesn't infringe on others' ability to function in society, why the hell do we care?

If it does, that's another matter, naturally. I can understand why a church would not want to be forced by legislation to recognize gay marriage. After all, that's an internal matter of religion. I wouldn't ask them to recognize Buddha as their overlord, either. But in the vast, vast majority of cases, people's sexual orientation has nothing to do with anyone else.

Most people would say that gay rights are an issue because the gays have made it one - brought it into the public sphere. Some people would say this with anger, some with admiration, some with pride. But they're wrong. The people who made it an issue are the people who are trying to prevent others from doing what they want.

There are so many things worth caring about, worth fighting for, worth bleeding and hating and dying over. This really isn't one of them. I don't want to have to care about what someone likes in sex, or whether they like sex at all. Really, it's just not worth it. People just want to live their lives. Why should they have to fight for that?

Going to Class

So, here's the story.

I sat down about an hour ago to write a post, because I felt like I should write something. So as I usually do, I began brainstorming ideas for topics. My thought processes when I do this generally run something like this:

"Hmmm.... blog post. Blog post, blog post, blog post.... 'blog' is such a stupid word. It doesn't even mean anything. You know what else doesn't mean anything? Election promises. Those wacky politicians, am I right? Maybe I should write about them, and their election promises, and how McCain's campaign has been going completely batshit insane.

Oh, right. Then I would be pretty much the mainstream media. Only without money or credibility.

Friggin' media. Seriously, what'd they ever do for us, anyways? It's just commercials and exploitation and capitalism and sadism and decadence. There's no real content or intelligent debate or examination of actual issues anywhere in the whole dreary nihilistic morass of it.

Hehehe. Boobies.

Okay, so maybe I could write about feminism and stuff, because the media is basically why modern feminism sucks, but I keep doing that. Then again, isn't that basically the point? You gotta keep saying stuff, gotta let the message free, because if you don't say it loudly and often, how will anyone ever take notice? Do you really expect to change the world by being silent?

Do I really expect to change the world at all?"

It was at this point that I made a realization. I do expect to change the world. I do, against all reason, against all better judgment and all prior experience, expect to be important. Expect to mean something.

So I asked myself the obvious question: why? What possible reason could I have for this ridiculous assumption?

And the answer quickly came to me: it's a class thing.

You see, as long as there have been civilizations, there has been a certain kind of person who knows, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that they will be important, that the world balances on the tips of their fingers. Kings, aristocrats, oil barons, priests: all of these people have known, many for as long as they have been alive, just how important they are.

But I am none of these things. Though I live a life of shocking and frequently appalling privelege compared to the vast majority of human beings on this terrifying planet, I'm not, by any stretch of the imagination, upper class. I have no power, nor any particular prospect of power. And yet, I believe in it anyways.

Witness, my friends, the triumph of the modern world. Call it the American Dream, if you like, call it the historical dialectic and the principle of Communism, call it the triumph of rationalism and man transcendant... call it what you will, we are achieving it. For the first time in history, ordinary people can legitimately believe themselves to be special. Important. Valuable. Everyone can believe themselves to be the kind of person who is destined for greatness. And belief is the first step on the road to truth.

It won't happen tomorrow, and it may not happen for hundreds or thousands of years - it may not happen at all; after all, far too often we seem to slide backwards, to lose the progress we have made. But on the whole, the road we are travelling is a good one. Someday, I think, we will be free.

Etarran Gets Back on the Lovewagon

(A note on the following post: This is a Philosophic Work in Progress - an idea that is half-formed in my mind, and which I would greatly appreciate help in developing. Particularly, in this case, from female readers - after all, this is essentially my take on modern feminism, and the perspective of actual females would no doubt help immensely.)

Yes, yes, I know it has been some two months since I last even attempted to post on this blog. Well, that isn't strictly true - I have a lovely topical piece on the Beijing Olympics half-finished somewhere, but I think I will spare you all from having to suffer through that one.

And so, what I really need is a suitable topic for my return to the mighty blogosphere. And somehow while writing this preamble, I think I have come up with it. Let's talk about love, shall we?

See, love - romantic love, in particular - is my favorite emotion, because no one knows what it is. Ask anyone to give a proper definition of love, and they will almost invariably say something along the lines of "Oh, you know it when you see it." The irony that something into which we invest enormous amounts of effort is something that we don't even properly understand or even attempt to really understand in any meaningful way is both staggering and hilarious.

So, what do we know about it? Well, probably the first thing that someone would say if asked about love is that it can be life-changing: romantic, erotic relationships are considered one of the most, if not the most, important things that can happen in someone's life.

But the interesting thing about this is that that has not always been the case. The idea that romantic love is a core, defining principle of someone's existence and personality is relatively new - originating as recently as 800 years ago. Before then, the important relationships, the ones considered worthy of song and story, were the ones with your fellow-soldiers; the relationship between a man and his shield-mate (Which modern readers often characterize as "Totally ghey LOL") was by far deeper and more meaningful than relationships between people, who, when you really get right down to it, have no reason to be together other than to make babies.

So even that supposedly core fact about love - that it is deeply meaningful and important - is subject to a certain amount of speculation. And we're still no closer to anything like a working definition. Which is unfortunate, really; how can one know if they are in love if they don't even know what it is?

The problem, as I see it, is that modern western culture is trapped between different ideals of the romantic - we cannot really reconcile chivalry with equality, objectification with respect, subjection with overmastery. We have managed, in our commercialization and modernization, to become stuck between Galahad's ideal of love and Labatt Blue's.

How, after all, is one supposed to go about romance in the modern world? A silly question, you might think ("Hurr Hurr, Etarran's post title from three posts ago was totally a lie!"), but it is nevertheless valid: every Western culture for the last thousand years, except ours, has had strictly codified rules on the subject. Certainly, romance was as frustrating to them as it is to us - one need merely read Shakespeare or Malory or Coleridge to have that amply demonstrated - but there were nevertheless codified rules and standards of behaviour which we lack.

A perfect example, I believe, is the word "fair." To a feudal lord, "fair" as applied to a lady would have had a very specific meaning, which is difficult to translate into modern terms. It certainly included physical attractiveness, but it also had other qualities associated with it. Education, nobility, grace and poise and a sense of loveliness - things which don't really enter into modern conceptions of romance, being either too quaint or too misogynistic. I think the closest we come to being able to express what they were talking about is the word "pretty," but of course that falls desperately short. There are no rules for love, no codification, and so the terms in which to express it are dying or have died.

This is not necessarily a bad thing, of course. Chivalric love, although it makes wonderful stories, cannot really exist in a society of equals. Inherent to the idea of chivalry is the idea of love as a kind of religious ecstasy: women were to be worshiped, obeyed, bowed down before. Obviously, this is anathema to modern sensibilities, and no doubt rightly so. But nevertheless, the bizarre shadow-land, the strange in-between place to which we have restrained ourselves, cannot continue much longer.

Between chivalry and equality we find exploitation, objectification, and degradation. Between chivalry and equality we find self-hate, harassment, and abuse. Between chivalry and equality we find pornography and beer commercials. Congratulations, my friends - we broke love. That, right there, is why we are a culture of excess and corruption. This, I would contend, is why the world hates us - and why they may well be right to do so.

So, if chivalry is dead, and the strange bastardization we have created cannot last, that leaves us with only one real direction to go: towards equality. And perhaps I am merely too much of a romantic of the old school, perhaps I err too heavily towards viewing love as something somehow holy, but I think we can manage it. I think we can fix love, if we give it a try. I think we can perfect it. A ridiculous utopian vision, perhaps. But how far-fetched is it, really, to love as equals?

We preach incessantly about how we are a society of freedom and equality, and those goals are wonderful and admirable. But if we can't uphold them in the most important thing we will ever do... well, when can we? And ask yourselves: would it even be worth trying?

Interpopsicle!

So, two days ago, I attended a wedding. It was a highly informal affair, with a five-minute ceremony and a lot of small children running around - which, it seems to me, is rather the best part of weddings.

One thing that struck me, though, and that brought up today's topic, was a specific piece of the vow used, in which it was said "Remember, you never get more out of a relationship than you put into it."

Now, this statement strikes me as foolish. Isn't it precisely the point to get more out of a relationship than you put into it?

At face value, of course, this is absurd, even reprehensible: relationships are not a contest, in which you try to outdo the other person and gain as much as you can for as little effort as possible. But that's not what I said, either.

See, the distinction is between two things: what you put into a relationship, and what the other person gets out of it. You should always get more out of it than you put into it, but that is because you should always get more out of it than they put into it. If the amount of sacrifice and the amount of gain were always perfectly equal, no one would ever enter into a relationship: why do so if you have nothing to gain? But they aren't. The point of being in a relationship - the entire point - is that both of you stand to gain enormously through making smaller sacrifices.

This is not, of course, to say that relationships do not require effort, nor to say that putting more effort into a relationship will not yield more gain (although there is an optimum level of effort, beyond which it begins to damage, rather than help), but simply to say that what you get out of it is, simply by definition in a healthy relationship, worth more than what you put into it.

And this conclusion leads to another, more interesting one; it reads, simply: If the benefit you are deriving from a relationship is significantly more valuable than the sacrifices you are making for it, then that is a healthy relationship. ("Benefit" here is not a selfish word: making someone else happy can count as a benefit.) Otherwise, it is not.

I'm not sure if I like that conclusion or not.