House of Eratosthenes

Okay I’ll go ahead and reveal something about myself. It’s probably okay because what’s true about me is true of a lot of other people as well. A lot of people spend a lot of time and energy pretending it isn’t so, but it is.

It starts with the last time I was single. These days it’s a pretty common refrain: There was a relationship, which reached an ignition point, and I ended up rattling around in a little apartment by myself with very little furniture, lots of bills and a new child support payment. Also with some words from her ringing in my ears, to the effect that our problems were all mine, and she was entirely blameless. I knew this wasn’t completely true and it wasn’t completely false either. She had wanted a certain family life, and her fairy-tale princess wishes from childhood had crystallized into inflexible demands. We spent a lot of years figuring out these demands had no give to them, and neither did I, so we weren’t a match. Like I said, it’s a common refrain.

Who rejected who, is unimportant. What was important then, and is now, is that certain people don’t belong around certain other people, and when we forget about that it causes harm to others. Some of these others who are being harmed, are much more innocent than you or me. And I’m distressed to see it happening with seemingly greater frequency, as if the entire human race had spent thousands of years evolving in one cultural setting, and then was indelicately transplanted into a different one. In fact, I think that’s exactly it. In all the generations our species has seen, save for the most recent 2 or 3, there has been an unspoken understanding that you and I need each other — maybe not now, or today, or this month. But sooner or later we’re going to need sugar for a pie we’re making, or our horse and buggy will get stuck in a ditch, or our barn will be on fire and we’ll need lots of strong bodies with buckets in a big hurry. Technology has given us a world in which the need is not so pressing and not so inevitable. This has eroded our sense of purpose, and also our appreciation for each other.

This has all resulted in a narrative being written, and nursed & nurtured like a growing baby, by many — that goes something like this: Life is a movie, I’m the star, everyone I know is a supporting character. This has created two big problems for our interpersonal relationships. We’ve got people reciting this narrative to themselves, alienating those around them; and we’ve got people who have had their fill of this, refuse to be demoted to supporting characters — also, alienating those around them. It can be hard to tell them apart. But in all the months of introspection that followed, I realized I was in the second of those groups. There was a lot of this introspection since I refused to have any teevee in my new bachelor pad, and when my son wasn’t visiting me the hours were long and dull.

But I came to realize the people in the first group, to me, were “normal” because of my upbringing in a household of Scandinavians who pretended to be extroverts when we were really introverts. I’d been conditioned to accept conversations that outwardly appeared to be of interest to all in attendance, but in reality were of interest only to one, with all others feigning interest out of a sense of duty. Again, this is not unusual at all. I think it applies to a lot of us. It has become a requirement for working in an office environment, and I probably enjoyed greater success there than I deserved to have because of this upbringing. But I also got into programming in the first place because of my revulsion against this. If I’m honest about it, I have to admit it turned into a vocation with a paycheck attached because of good luck, and not any intention of mine. I think that’s pretty common too.

So I taught myself, in childhood, how to program computers because I figured out I really don’t like people enough to talk to them. Voting consistently against democrats came later, when I realized I don’t hate people enough to want them to suffer. That is also not unusual. I think if you were to question a lot of political conservatives as to why they are conservatives, a fair answer you’d get back a lot of the time would be “I just don’t hate people that much.” But that’s a bunny trail. The truly frightening question that confronted me now was: Given that I can get along with some people, but not all, can it be that the difference lies completely in their social strengths? Am I only making friends with just the friendliest of people? Just taking from what few relationships I have, and putting nothing back?

And we fellas have to ask that question a lot, because when couples have “friends,” most of them are her friends. That’s just how it works. This gets revealed when it’s time for the couple to split, and it leads to a sense of isolation most women will never know.

Here is what I did about it. Having spent a lifetime accepting it as an obligation to pretend things that bored me didn’t bore me; and that this led to a destructive insincerity about what truly captured my interests, and therefore who I was. And seeing how this exercise in self-denial ultimately hurt other people. The first step was to figure out if it was my destiny to always live alone. Maybe my initial feelings were right, the entire rest of the world was fascinated in stuff that held no interest for me at all. The problem with that idea was that I knew I wasn’t that special. There was nothing about my story that was truly unique. Some of the things that really irked me, and a lot, I could see were also annoying to others. It logically followed that some of the things that held my interests, might hold interest for others too. This didn’t have to have anything at all to do with romance or dating. The fact of the matter was I had never taken the time to make friends — at least, not in adulthood. I remembered having friends in childhood, in school, and making them and keeping them as friends had never been that big of a deal. Somehow, when I wasn’t monitoring the situation or paying attention to it, adulthood had thrown me a curve. I had been having adventures, but I hadn’t been sharing them with anyone.

Again, not a rarity. This is something I think happens to a lot of young people whose careers drag them around from city to city. It’s hard to make friendships last. Is that because your locale is changing, or because maybe you’re an asshole? At some point, we have to grow some balls and ask that question. And in those years of 20’s and 30’s, it’s a narcissistic time, so if we’re really honest about it we’ll find something we could improve.

Movie Database In my case I had to look at the interests. Maybe the time would come where I could feign interest in boring nonsense others find fascinating, but I could see I was at a tumultuous time in the months ahead. And I didn’t want to just make friends with people who had the patience to deal with me, because that wouldn’t be fair to them. So a question emerged: Where is the hard evidence that I have some interests, that aren’t interesting to just me? Not that merely capture the tolerance of myself and others; but the passion of myself and others as well, so we can find some common ground.

And that’s where I formed the movie-database. Not the collection of DVDs I found to be worth owning. Last I counted there were over 500 of those. Just the very few that I found to be so well done, that they were worth watching again and again. Movies, of all things, saved me from this dark place because I came to realize the movies I wanted to see again and again, other people wanted to see again and again as well. You might have noticed this yourself. It isn’t a quality-of-production thing. There are some movies out there that cost a damn fortune to make, and you can see everyone involved really sunk in their blood, sweat and tears making them…they stink. There are others that meet-the-mail, and yet you can tell the people who made them barely even knew what they were doing, had no idea what they had.

And so I made a list. It came to 41, or 43, somewhere around in there. They were not necessarily the funniest ones or the highest-grossing ones or the longest ones or the shortest ones. They had the best stories, the ones I found most captivating, that had the strongest structure to them. First time I saw these movies, with each scene I wanted to know more. There was no money in the kitty go to buying them, but that was okay because I already had all but a handful of these. Yes, she got the kid and the dining room table and some other furniture I was supposed to get before there was some kind of “misunderstanding” — but she had no interest in the movies.

This is where I did something just a little off. I put the movies together and I analyzed them. Chapter by chapter, scene by scene, line by line. Minute by minute. Where does the villain get introduced? Where do we find out what it is he’s trying to do? Where does the hero meet up with his colorful contact, or quirky sidekick? How long is the boat chase? What grisly death awaits the henchmen? And why is it that I find this captivating? Why does everyone else? How are the writer and the director burning off this minute, and this second, of the audience’s time? How did they come to the conclusion this is worthwhile? Why does the audience agree?

And what makes this other movie, that seems to check all the right boxes…fall short? Why do we all seem to think it stinks, even though none of us can say why? That last one still perplexes me to this day. Some of these use the audience’s time judiciously and take pains not to bore anybody. They’re still failures. It’s my sixth sense that tells me so, and everyone else agrees. Can’t explain it.

Now this is all a very silly story that isn’t worth your time, except for one thing. It worked as well as it possibly could have worked. I’m almost embarrassed to admit how short this bachelorhood stint was. I went on dates, I walked away from the women who weren’t a good fit for me, and very soon I met the one who was. She’s in the bedroom now, doing the loud snoring she claims I’m doing, and in about half an hour she’ll wake up and I’ll bring her coffee. So that’s the takeaway: If you’re young, and you’ve had to move around from city to city, and your relationships haven’t lasted, it could be you’re just not as good at them as you think. And maybe you’d be well served to get acquainted with yourself before meeting others. You might know less about yourself than you think you know.

As far as my last-bachelorhood exercise, it’s had an unfortunate side effect.

I have very little patience for un-creative script-writing. Very, very little. I see it as a rip-off, even if I didn’t actually pay to watch the movie. A man and a woman getting into an argument about whether she’s coming with him or not, evinces a profane outburst from me. “I’m getting way too old for this shit” makes my eye twitch. Don’t even get me started on a character saying to another character, “You’ve got to stop blaming yourself.”

Ah…you people are being paid large amounts of money to be creative. Stop stealing from us!

Fast forward to today, and we’re getting ready to start a new decade. The Pipi Longstockings of Climate Doom has been named Time’s Person of the Year. Aquaman shamed Star Lord for using a water bottle, got an apology out of him, then apologized himself. The soccer malcontent who’s full of expletives to direct at President Trump, has been given a sports person of the year award by Sports Illustrated…which she accepted, right before pointing her bile-nozzle at SI and scolding them. “Taking them to task” I think is what it’s called; I prefer to think of it as behaving like a perfect asshole. Joe Biden is offended he got asked a question. Nancy Pelosi is offended she got asked a question.

Is it my imagination? Maybe it’s my hyper-sensitivity against cookie-cutter scripting. Or maybe my patterns of revulsion that are unique to just myself…or not?

It seems lately that if I were to go over all the messages deemed worthy by one person to fling at another person, in view of lots of others, and obliterate from that compendium the following three:

• You’re a superlative! Here’s an award, or thing!
• I’m so sorry (although I fully intend to do it again)
• How DARE YOU!

…we would be left with virtual radio-silence. Is that accurate? Just static…snow…an occasional democrat babbling away with insincere balderdash about “no one is above the law,” a few dying gasps of that “OK Boomer” fad, followed by more static.

I’ve quite had my fill of it. The corporations apologizing to these malcontents for non-offenses, the HOW-DARE-YOU, the public servants swiveling the spotlight away from themselves, onto the voters and interviewers asking them perfectly reasonable questions. As an American, I don’t find it at all acceptable. When you’re elected to something, or wanting to be elected to something, you work for us.

It’s a new decade coming up real, real soon now.

I’m glad the HOW DARE YOU girl was made Person of the Year. That would imply “How Dare You” is the phrase of the year…which, in turn, would imply maybe we can leave this one in the ash bin of history?

Let’s make the 2020’s the decade of SUCK IT UP, BUTTERCUP. No really. Let’s do it. This time, I’m getting the impression I’m not marching around in the tall grass by myself. I think a lot of other people would find that a welcome change. And even if they didn’t…the time is right for it. This would be healthy. That I can promise. Suck it up buttercup!

Do this thing. Make it happen. Do it for me, and I’ll consider it a personal favor.

It’s my “Fetch.”

I’m up in the middle of the night, reading this, and I have goosebumps.
You’ve captured the egocentric sense of self that effectively captures about 90% of the Leftist crowd. Like you, I’m an outlier – an introvert, not addicted to drama (I gave that up when I matured), and profoundly UNinterested in popular culture.
It’s not them, it’s US. Their narcissistic posturing is the norm for American culture. It’s everywhere on the television and Internet.
If you took away shows showcasing that culture, you’d have:
– PBS – This Old House, nature shows, etc.
– Old movies
– Classic era TV

That’s about it. All other TV is Look-at-ME, Drama 24/7, and “celebrities” aggressively pushing their career.

Kudos on this analysis.
- rau | 12/13/2019 @ 00:56
At the end, with that Phrase for the 20’s, I laughed out loud. Guffawed, in fact.

YES, YES, YES!!!!

I will add that phrase to my blogs; it is the BEST!

I can absolutely relate to the idea of not being accomplished at making, and retaining, friends. I also came from a relatively antisocial family (with the exception of my vivacious mother). We were not only introverts, we were HAPPY introverts.

Naturally, I married a Flaming Extrovert.

We’ve adapted – BOTH of us. He’s accepted that I am good at chitchat (Thanks, Mom!), but genuinely prefer my own company to that of others.

I’ve accepted that he truly NEEDS the loud noises, the other bodies around him, and the emotional excitement that lives in big gatherings.

We – mostly – coexist fairly well.
- rau | 12/30/2019 @ 15:52

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The Three WordsThursday, December 12th, 2019

The Three Words
Thursday, December 12th, 2019