Part One here.
What does "have your cake and eat it too" even mean? Aren't the two synonymous? When I tell you “I want to have cake”, what do you think I desire more: to acquire a cake, or to eat one?
Let’s assume, in the above quote, that “have” means “possess”, to distinguish it from “eat”. Then what is the purpose of possessing a cake if not to eat it? Isn’t a cake’s very existence defined by its capacity to be eaten? Why would I ever want to merely possess a cake? Furthermore, wouldn’t it be preferable to eat a cake and NOT possess it? When I come into possession of a cake, it’s always through some kind of investment: temporal, financial, emotional, or otherwise. Why would I want to undergo this sort of investment if I don’t have to? Does the quote suggest this sort of investment is necessary to obtain satisfaction from a cake? I want to not have a cake and eat it, too. Is that so wrong?
Perhaps we lament the impossibility of simultaneous cake-possession and -consumption because cakes have appealing qualities outside of their taste. Is there something especially enticing about a cake’s frosted aesthetic, its nuptial connotations, its decadent symbolism? If so, perhaps when we bemoan the fact that we can’t “have our cake and eat it too”, we are bemoaning something endemic to eating itself. Consumption, by its nature, is zero-sum; when we eat a cake, we gain satisfaction, but we must destroy the cake we possess in exchange for that satisfaction. Consumption is about loss as much as it is about gain.
Monday, December 26, 2016
Vulnerability, Pretension, And Demystifying Your Successes
I've noticed a trend in the conversations I've had with my friends in the past weeks: We often talk about how being authentically vulnerable in front of other people is the only path to genuine intimacy, and how it's both difficult and rewarding, and how we wish it weren't so difficult.
I don't know how I feel about these conversations. On one hand, I can see how, being early-twenties college students maturing as adults, this topic would be especially salient to us. On the other hand, I wonder if these talks are nothing more than elitism and arrogance masquerading as interesting conversation -- because the conversation usually has this part where we bemoan how it seems like other people in our age group are just so damn reluctant or unable to be vulnerable with each other, but not us, because we're having this conversation, and this conversation is evidence that our understanding of vulnerability is much more sophisticated and nuanced than our peers'. So it turns out all this whining about everyone else being superficial and hollow was actually us being superficial and hollow this whole time, using a conversation about vulnerability as nothing but a tool to feel superior to other people. This sort of ego stroking is antithetical to intimacy, because genuine intimacy is necessarily mutual. Superiority quashes reciprocity.
Despite all these conversations I've had, I'm still far from understanding the issue. It seems like I spend some of my time narcissistically and silently envisioning others as being much more self-absorbed and shallow than myself, and some of my other time defending these same people from my own criticisms while simultaneously shaming myself for being so unkind, and some of my other time defending myself from this self-shaming. And all this pontificating seems like a total waste of brainspace, because at the end of the day, I really do think most of my peers are just as willing and capable of being vulnerable as I am, and understand why it's desirable as much as I do. I'm even convinced most of them have participated in precisely the same type of conversation I've just described, and some of them have probably reached far more sophisticated and nuanced understandings than I have.
I've only ever read one thing defending humans' pretentious nature, by the creator of the marvelous Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows, in a Youtube comment he made:
"Humans are hairless talking monkeys who walk around on our hind legs, even though our lower back can’t handle it yet. Pretension is our superpower. We might as well own it, and shoot for the stars."
This quote made me think about how the line between pretension and authenticity can be so blurred as to be nonexistent. One example is the blog you're currently reading. Of all the motivations I can detect for starting this blog, a major one is, after reading someone else's work, thinking, "I could do better". Another is the notion that the ideas in my head would be somehow new or thought-provoking or worthwhile to anyone. Another is to appear smart and thoughtful and self-aware. You may well tell me these are all fine motivations for starting a blog, and you may well be right, but there's still a faint ickyness that lingers my mind whenever I think about them. These motivations feel pretentious and egotistical by nature. But it also feels like I'm putting myself out there, and am hence vulnerable to criticism or mockery, and am often being genuinely vulnerable with my readers. Here, pretension and authenticity are somehow inseparable.
Another example is the academic sphere, which is a domain I mostly adore -- but university research sometimes seems needlessly esoteric, adhering to senseless conventions and buried under abstruse nomenclature* (such as "abstruse nomenclature") to the point of being deliberately exclusionary. I do think there is a lot of ego stroking in academic circles, because sophistry brings the sensation of intellectual superiority along with it. But the ideas in any advanced field can be enormously complicated, so complicated vocabulary may be necessary to express them. And the very purpose of publishing your ideas is to share them with other people. The university is a place designed for intellectual vulnerability.
I recently watched a video called "Demystifying Your Successes", in which the creator raised an interesting point: Whenever you become exceptionally skilled at something, a certain mystique also arises around you. Others begin to ascribe your skills to immaterial descriptors: natural talent, ineffable genius. This sort of mystique is alluring. It makes you intriguing and powerful. It becomes tempting to feed your mystique, to conceal the path to your success and further elevate yourself. The key point in the video is that, however attractive this seems at first, it's actually far more gratifying and worthwhile to do the opposite. When you demystify your successes, you pave the way for others develop in their own ways, different from yours. You will become exposed to new ideas, learn new techniques, be forewarned of new obstacles, and hence increase your own skill in the process. By helping others, you help yourself.
A macrocosm of this is societal. For example, during the civil rights movement in America, a segregationist would not have realized that whenever a previously marginalized group of people is uplifted and given equal chances to succeed, everyone profits, including the segregationists themselves. A black American who previously had no opportunities may well turn out to be the next Neil deGrasse Tyson, Jimi Hendrix, Michael Jordan. We had everything to gain from unlocking these talents.
My mom teaches elementary school, and she introduces her classes with the following thought experiment: Suppose we each have an apple, and I give you my apple. Then you have two apples, and I've lost my apple. But suppose there's a problem we need to solve, and we each have an idea on how to solve it. Then if you share your idea with me, and I share mine with you, we each have two ideas, and neither of us have lost anything. Ideas are non-zero sum, and leveraging this fact has led to the vast majority of human progress.
Vulnerability is another non-zero sum thing we can leverage. Sharing our fear, grief, and insecurity lightens the individual burden and makes it easier to bear. It's enormously comforting when you know others care about your hardships and want to help you overcome them. Even better, sharing our love, gratitude, and joy excites us and brings vibrancy to life. It's one of the most pleasurable things in life to witness raw human passion, and just as pleasurable to be the one expressing it. Some of my most memorable moments have been simply bearing witness to someone else's passion, exulting and reveling in it, letting its irresistible tide swallow me like a starfish returning to the ocean. So don't be afraid. Your vulnerability is nothing more than your humanity, and it's precisely what makes life worth living.
*I remember reading a gender studies paper which called on us to "problematize heteropatriarchal systems". I absolutely agree we need to problematize heteropatriarchal systems, but I wish there was a way to say this without using two words my spellchecker doesn't even recognize.
I don't know how I feel about these conversations. On one hand, I can see how, being early-twenties college students maturing as adults, this topic would be especially salient to us. On the other hand, I wonder if these talks are nothing more than elitism and arrogance masquerading as interesting conversation -- because the conversation usually has this part where we bemoan how it seems like other people in our age group are just so damn reluctant or unable to be vulnerable with each other, but not us, because we're having this conversation, and this conversation is evidence that our understanding of vulnerability is much more sophisticated and nuanced than our peers'. So it turns out all this whining about everyone else being superficial and hollow was actually us being superficial and hollow this whole time, using a conversation about vulnerability as nothing but a tool to feel superior to other people. This sort of ego stroking is antithetical to intimacy, because genuine intimacy is necessarily mutual. Superiority quashes reciprocity.
Despite all these conversations I've had, I'm still far from understanding the issue. It seems like I spend some of my time narcissistically and silently envisioning others as being much more self-absorbed and shallow than myself, and some of my other time defending these same people from my own criticisms while simultaneously shaming myself for being so unkind, and some of my other time defending myself from this self-shaming. And all this pontificating seems like a total waste of brainspace, because at the end of the day, I really do think most of my peers are just as willing and capable of being vulnerable as I am, and understand why it's desirable as much as I do. I'm even convinced most of them have participated in precisely the same type of conversation I've just described, and some of them have probably reached far more sophisticated and nuanced understandings than I have.
I've only ever read one thing defending humans' pretentious nature, by the creator of the marvelous Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows, in a Youtube comment he made:
"Humans are hairless talking monkeys who walk around on our hind legs, even though our lower back can’t handle it yet. Pretension is our superpower. We might as well own it, and shoot for the stars."
This quote made me think about how the line between pretension and authenticity can be so blurred as to be nonexistent. One example is the blog you're currently reading. Of all the motivations I can detect for starting this blog, a major one is, after reading someone else's work, thinking, "I could do better". Another is the notion that the ideas in my head would be somehow new or thought-provoking or worthwhile to anyone. Another is to appear smart and thoughtful and self-aware. You may well tell me these are all fine motivations for starting a blog, and you may well be right, but there's still a faint ickyness that lingers my mind whenever I think about them. These motivations feel pretentious and egotistical by nature. But it also feels like I'm putting myself out there, and am hence vulnerable to criticism or mockery, and am often being genuinely vulnerable with my readers. Here, pretension and authenticity are somehow inseparable.
Another example is the academic sphere, which is a domain I mostly adore -- but university research sometimes seems needlessly esoteric, adhering to senseless conventions and buried under abstruse nomenclature* (such as "abstruse nomenclature") to the point of being deliberately exclusionary. I do think there is a lot of ego stroking in academic circles, because sophistry brings the sensation of intellectual superiority along with it. But the ideas in any advanced field can be enormously complicated, so complicated vocabulary may be necessary to express them. And the very purpose of publishing your ideas is to share them with other people. The university is a place designed for intellectual vulnerability.
I recently watched a video called "Demystifying Your Successes", in which the creator raised an interesting point: Whenever you become exceptionally skilled at something, a certain mystique also arises around you. Others begin to ascribe your skills to immaterial descriptors: natural talent, ineffable genius. This sort of mystique is alluring. It makes you intriguing and powerful. It becomes tempting to feed your mystique, to conceal the path to your success and further elevate yourself. The key point in the video is that, however attractive this seems at first, it's actually far more gratifying and worthwhile to do the opposite. When you demystify your successes, you pave the way for others develop in their own ways, different from yours. You will become exposed to new ideas, learn new techniques, be forewarned of new obstacles, and hence increase your own skill in the process. By helping others, you help yourself.
A macrocosm of this is societal. For example, during the civil rights movement in America, a segregationist would not have realized that whenever a previously marginalized group of people is uplifted and given equal chances to succeed, everyone profits, including the segregationists themselves. A black American who previously had no opportunities may well turn out to be the next Neil deGrasse Tyson, Jimi Hendrix, Michael Jordan. We had everything to gain from unlocking these talents.
My mom teaches elementary school, and she introduces her classes with the following thought experiment: Suppose we each have an apple, and I give you my apple. Then you have two apples, and I've lost my apple. But suppose there's a problem we need to solve, and we each have an idea on how to solve it. Then if you share your idea with me, and I share mine with you, we each have two ideas, and neither of us have lost anything. Ideas are non-zero sum, and leveraging this fact has led to the vast majority of human progress.
Vulnerability is another non-zero sum thing we can leverage. Sharing our fear, grief, and insecurity lightens the individual burden and makes it easier to bear. It's enormously comforting when you know others care about your hardships and want to help you overcome them. Even better, sharing our love, gratitude, and joy excites us and brings vibrancy to life. It's one of the most pleasurable things in life to witness raw human passion, and just as pleasurable to be the one expressing it. Some of my most memorable moments have been simply bearing witness to someone else's passion, exulting and reveling in it, letting its irresistible tide swallow me like a starfish returning to the ocean. So don't be afraid. Your vulnerability is nothing more than your humanity, and it's precisely what makes life worth living.
*I remember reading a gender studies paper which called on us to "problematize heteropatriarchal systems". I absolutely agree we need to problematize heteropatriarchal systems, but I wish there was a way to say this without using two words my spellchecker doesn't even recognize.
Saturday, December 24, 2016
Poem
This poem took around half an hour to compose. It is minimally edited. (There was a line about condors, and later, a line about feathery crucibles and unquantifiable liquid aviaries. But nothing bird-related made it through the editing process.)
Sycophants gyrate
Emerge from shattered crucibles
Shake cores
Entangle pretense and candor
Reject the mailman and a lot more
Control over your ego cuz you're a half-wit
But you make up for it with your cheap tricks
No degree, but a cornucopia of fabrics
Textiles have always been your strong suit
Pottery as cryptic as a tight noose
But with linen you feel maximally cozy
Weave a ship and a rocket at the same time
Loom as familiar as your first rhyme
Build mass transit with some frayed thread
Nourish continents
Ascend
And lo, the aforementioned kneel to you now
Then sublime insight shows the tragedy of their existence
They are unable to transcend the vast gulf of distance
Because of correspondence infrastructure
They
Dismantled earlier
Sycophants gyrate
Emerge from shattered crucibles
Shake cores
Entangle pretense and candor
Reject the mailman and a lot more
Control over your ego cuz you're a half-wit
But you make up for it with your cheap tricks
No degree, but a cornucopia of fabrics
Textiles have always been your strong suit
Pottery as cryptic as a tight noose
But with linen you feel maximally cozy
Weave a ship and a rocket at the same time
Loom as familiar as your first rhyme
Build mass transit with some frayed thread
Nourish continents
Ascend
And lo, the aforementioned kneel to you now
Then sublime insight shows the tragedy of their existence
They are unable to transcend the vast gulf of distance
Because of correspondence infrastructure
They
Dismantled earlier
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