John and Paul, and our trip to Lexington

I worked hard yesterday making final preparations for the Masons’ first meeting in the Odd Fellow Lodge. Tension with the building manager made everything more difficult. I’ve been hated before, but rarely by people I see all the time. I ask myself why it should be a problem. Well, maybe there’s no good reason. Maybe it will just take some getting used to. I did as I thought right, and I expected to be treated as I am being treated. I see this as a learning experience, the lesson being that it’s okay to be hated.

I’ve known people who fell overboard in this regard, militant atheists being a case in point. I had two friends in Mississippi who se bumper stickers made fun of Jesus. On one of our trips together, we drove to Lexington, Kentucky, for an American Atheist convention. I was sick with a cold and only wanted to lie in the back and sleep, but I kept being awakened by horns honking and people screaming profanities. John and Paul were laughing their heads off, while I was wondering if I would live to get home. You might think that they were bad-asses, but they were anything but. John was 68 and weighed 450 pounds; Paul was 85 and hardly weighed 120; and neither was armed with anything.

In Lexington, I asked Robin (Madelyn Murray O’Hair’s granddaughter how she could survive having such hatred directed at her. She said she had learned to not take it personally.

It was meant personally, but Robin had the right idea. Regarding vicious people as if they were vicious dogs, and dealing with them matter of factly instead of hatefully is surely the best policy. This might be what’s hard for me. What I want to do is to let the building manager have it with both barrels, but I’m determined to conduct myself with dignity, because I know I would only make a bad situation worse. Why stomp on what’s already broken?

The meeting goes against me. We are not a rational species but a species that uses rationality.

The trustees’ meeting went against me, its purpose not to address the issues but to attack me personally. Being a pessimist, I was prepared for the worst, and the worst was what I got—yelling, wild accusations, red faces, popped eyes, quivering lips, trembling hands, faces contorted with rage, and people leaning forward as if to leap at my throat. Through it all, I remained calm. At one point, I even laughed aloud at the absurdity of it all.

If a person feels superior to his fellows, he risks being blinded to their virtues. Yet, how hard it is to not wall others up within the confines of a small and remote cell in my mind, a cell with a sign over the door that reads “worthless.” For example, when I was locking my bike up in front of the library yesterday I overheard the following: “Man, I was so fucking wasted that I fucking didn’t know what the fuck I was doing.” This level of exchange is commonplace. In the library’s new book section, I came across how-to books on graffiti and moonshine.

I know that my fellow trustees, the hangers-on in front of the library, and those librarians who consider it their First Amendment duty to instruct adolescents in criminality; are members of my species. I know that somewhere within them a light shines that is akin to my own. Yet, I am challenged to remain open to that light—it being so dim—and the fact that I am able to do so at all comes through considerable struggle. I want to see what is instead of seeing merely the labels I have placed upon what is. To feel that I know, really know, a thing is to close myself off from new information about it. The extent to which I am able to maintain objectivity is the extent to which reason reigns over feeling as my guiding principal.

But look at which of the two rules the world. Most of my fellow trustees were only too glad to give themselves over to anger. They even felt entitled to their anger because, as they saw it, I MADE them angry. Witness the slavery implicit within this conclusion. Look at the teenage drunks and druggies in front of the library. Where is the clear thinking that rules their lives? They too are slaves to feeling. School, society, and family being flawed, they feel justified in devoting their lives to drugs and crime. Look at how most people relate to food or sex. Is a “super-sized burger, Coke, and fries” a rational choice for lunch? Is losing your family—or your presidency—for a toss in the sack reasonable?

We are not a rational species but rather a species that sometimes uses rationality to achieve goals that were emotionally determined. There is no ridding ourselves of emotion as a central force in our lives, but we need to understand that emotions can become to our lives what cataracts are to our vision, and that rationality is the only antidote. We get into trouble when, instead of striving for congruence between feeling and reason, we embrace feeling and abandon reason. Our dilemma is that we often don’t know we are doing this. Indeed, in the absence of intelligence and maturity (maturity of character not years) we are doomed to fail much of the time. Just as a toddler trips when walking, we trip when we try to enthrone reason as our guiding principal.

And, if we live a long, long time, there is every chance that senility will rob us of whatever measure of reason we have managed to achieve. But our certain dissolution is of no consequence to us in the present. It’s as if life is saying, “You will lose everything anyway, but for today you can give yourself to the tutelage of reason, or you can surrender yourself a slave to feeling—you decide.” Look at the world and witness the response.

The cost of harmony

I am in wonder that there is so much violence in the world, as it has been my experience that people will tolerate a great deal before they strenuously object to it—much less kill over it.

Two members of one of my lodges have clearly shown the desire to take control of the lodge. I began to suspect this months ago, but said nothing because tolerance of bad behavior is the norm, which is to say that we get along by overlooking one another’s sins, both venial and cardinal. However, their particular behavior became so egregious that I tried to address it in lodge. They misused their power to silence me, so I wrote a letter to everyone who regularly attends lodge. I mailed that letter Saturday, and spent the weekend contemplating the effect of the bomb that I had sent on its way.

I go to lodge tomorrow and also to the trustee’s meeting that precedes lodge. I dread both so much that I can hardly get them off my mind. I have already received an angry phone call from the one lodge member who does more than anyone else to set the tone for avoiding disharmony at all costs. Our exchange put me in mind of children who were molested by relatives and later bring verifiable accusations against their molesters. Oftentimes, it is not the molester who is ostracized, but the victim who “made trouble” by bringing the molestation into the open.

This is an example of why I have trouble explaining the level of violence in the world. One key to the dilemma might be that proportionately more governments commit violence against other governments than do individuals against other individuals; and I should think that everyone has witnessed instances of smaller groups treating a person worse than the individuals within those groups would have done. Such could be my lodge’s response toward me. If so, I won’t be surprised.

Even my caller agreed with the facts I related, my letter being largely a listing of egregious actions followed by an appeal for the lodge to retake control. Yet retaking control will require aggressive action, and it might be easier to simply blame me for creating disharmony.

Such considerations are among those that prevent me from trusting any group. People like to think that groups are definable, but the larger the group, the less it can be contained within a definition. The Freemasons, the Catholic Church, and the U.S. government, for example, have all done so much good and so much evil that it is difficult to tell which is weightier. Whether a given person sees these institutions as a curse or a salvation depends upon who he is and where and when he is alive. The important points are that groups are not human beings; they have more power than human beings; and they exceed our individual capability to rationalize.

But how am I to behave tomorrow? First, I will not defend my letter. I started it a month ago, gave it serious deliberation, made it as fair and accurate as possible, and won’t, therefore, back down from any of it. Second, I will enter the lodge more as an observer than a participant, i.e. from a standpoint of emotional neutrality rather than reactivity. Furthermore, I will re-read parts of Marcus Aurelius.

“When you feel that you simply cannot live if a person or a group of people disapproves of you, remind yourself of what kind of people they are. Ponder their limited intelligence, their fickle sentiments, their often base motives, and reflect upon how little their opinion is worth” (my paraphrase).

Organizations; feelings of superiority

I got up this morning, opened the blinds, and turned on the radio. The first word spoken was Iraq, so I changed over to a classical music station and listened to Handel. Iraq has nothing to do with me except for the fact that the government will take my property at gunpoint unless I help pay the interest on our war loans.

I weary of the oppressive nature of organizations—all organizations, even democratic ones. In our society, we figure that one vote per person is about right, but I think we could do better. Instead of voting for only one candidate for an office, each voter could have ten votes and award them as he pleased. This could work out as follows: five votes for candidate A, three for B, one for C, and none for D. Or in the case of ballot measures, each voter could have 300 votes to distribute. That way, people who were deeply invested would have more say than people who were not.

One of the groups I belong to has been trying to decide whether to move a pool table from the basement to the dining room. Those who play pool oppose the idea, but others have the vague hope that it might encourage more people would come to meetings. Now, which group do you think is more invested? Yet, everyone has the same voting power. This reminds me of a cynical definition of democracy: “Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner.”

Another of my groups is moving its meeting place due to a rent increase. I brokered the move, which might reasonably have been expected to take nine hours but instead took nine months. I was the reluctant center of attention at meeting after meeting as I answered the same questions and addressed the same issues. I was emotionally finished well before the process was physically finished, and I often found myself almost too perturbed to stay in the room.

I could bear my fellows better if I respected their intelligence. As it is, I see more in me than I see in them, but I am unable to use my gifts to the benefit of either.

“…intercourse with others requires a process of leveling down. The qualities which are present in one man, and absent in another, cannot come into play when they meet; and the self-sacrifice which this entails upon one of the parties, calls forth no recognition from the other…. To show your intelligence and discernment is only an indirect way of reproaching other people for being dull and incapable.”
Schopenhauer

It would be appropriate here for me to say how it is that I am superior, but I cannot well do so, and this leaves open the possibility that I am deluded. After all, I have accomplished little. I do many things well but none outstandingly. The highest award I’ve earned was a bachelor’s degree. The most money I’ve made was a trifle. I excel in neither looks nor personality. I seldom took a class but what I was outclassed by some of my fellows. Likewise, I am strong and coordinated, but not remarkably so.

The only thing I can offer to support my claim to superiority is that I appear to think more deeply than most people, but I cannot say why this is the case. It could be a matter of intelligence, but I doubt it. I think that it is more a case of curiosity combined with intellectual courage, but I cannot prove this, and I have no way to account for it.

In any event and for whatever reason, I have felt this way for as long as I can remember. I first became aware of it in the context of religion, because I was one of those rare people in rural Mississippi who expressed doubts about what I was told in church. To my astonishment, even my fellow theology students at Whitworth College went to class like horses led to a trough. I initially surmised that other people didn’t ask questions, because other people already had answers, but if this was true, why didn’t they share them with me?

I concluded that I could think deeply or I could be a Christian, but I couldn’t do both because Christian belief necessitates an accommodation between a person’s intellect and his desire to believe. I came to see that faith in Jesus was like floating in water in that it could only happen if a person was able to let go and relax, but I could not relax, and I found a strange comfort in this. Other people appeared to sell their souls too cheaply. They made a pact with God that denied their intellect, and they called this pact faith, deemed it a virtue, and said that only “a fool” would disagree. I considered it a pact with the devil, because I could not see how such a God surpassed the devil.

So, what do I do with my life? As the years pass, I join organizations like the Freemasons and the Odd Fellows, organizations that require at least a token theism. Does this connote the personal superiority of which I boast? No, I think that it connotes a seriously ambivalent personality. One might even conjecture that I feel superior to other people to hide the fact that I don’t have it together nearly as well as they do. But I don’t believe it. In this, at least, I can let go and relax. The fact that I have not made the most of my abilities does not disprove their existence.

It is oftentimes the case that special gifts come with special liabilities. Whether this is necessarily true or co-incidentally true seems to vary, but, in my own case, I know two things: I could become a great deal more than I have ever been; and I am not yet dead. The fact that the same could be said of anyone does not concern me.

Why we eat badly; the holiness of good food

Peggy’s parents sent us a $60 fruitcake for Christmas. It’s a heaven-in-a-bite affair for someone like myself who loves fruitcake, but it’s also a gain weight looking at it affair. A really good fruitcake is one of the few gustatory evils that still tempt me. If the one at hand was less tasty, I would give it away, but—except for the revolving head and projectile vomit—fruitcakes are to me what demons were to Linda Blair.

Peggy and I were talking about the days of childhood when we believed that anything they sold in stores was good for us, or otherwise they wouldn’t be allowed to sell it. This belief enabled us to eat all manner of horrible things with unmitigated delight. As we talked, I wondered whether the many obese adults we know are able to eat with such pleasure, or whether, even as they indulge, the voice of conscience is playing a discordant note. I thought that this must be the case, but Peggy speculated that they are able to stifle that voice so completely that it is powerless. Though she is not obese, I have watched Peggy eat compulsively, and I can but offer that I witnessed no such abandon in her. I just saw someone whose hand kept returning to the plate in a way that looked desperate instead of joyful. If such torture has been largely alien to me, it is only because I gain weight less easily.

It seems to be the human condition that we all, at times, will trade a portion of our health and our dignity for that which delights our palate—or our lower regions. Some say that a life without indulgence is not worth living. That might be true, but can’t we at least elevate our indulgences?

When I end a fast, that which is good for me tastes a thousand times better than that which is bad. A piece of salmon, a serving of collard greens, some lentils and barley, a slice of cornbread, a glass of wine; such things are a veritable symphony of taste. They are far too glorious to be consumed in front of the television. Anything more than dim lights, soft music, and quiet conversation would be irreverent. No doughnut or fruitcake could stand against them.

I have concluded from this that we eat things that are bad for us because we are sated. In food as in all things, intemperance deadens our ability to appreciate the good. I would even say the holy, because eating can be a religious observance. Maybe that’s why we—blasphemous species that we are—process our food until its nutritive content is gone, filling it with fake colors and other chemicals, and distorting it so that no can guess its origin.

My joy in baking

Since Peggy was diagnosed as pre-diabetic, I’ve become quite excited about the possibilities of barely processed grains, and am going through every book I can find on the subject. I’m also buying things like sorghum, buckwheat, pot barley, and teff, grains I have never used.

I began baking yeast breads in the mid-seventies. My mother made yeast biscuits, but she never made yeast loaves, so I was the first person I knew to do it. A few loaves didn’t rise as much as I would have liked, but I didn't see fit to throw them out. Of course, the only whole grain I could buy in rural Mississippi was wheat flour.

Over the years, my baking interests turned away from yeast breads and toward whole grain crackers, biscuits and cornbreads. Biscuits and cornbreads were Southern staples that I had always made anyway, but crackers were entirely new and exciting, and appealed to me aesthetically and by virtue of their toughness (you could throw them against the wall without hurting them) and longevity. Peggy and I were traveling a lot at the time, and I would bake enough crackers for a two-month camping trip, and they would keep without refrigeration. My first recipe was for whole-wheat communion wafers and was given to me by an Episcopal priest. I baked them for the church until someone with throat cancer objected.

After fifteen years or so, the thought occurred to me that maybe I didn’t have to stick to the recipe so religiously, and I began experimenting with various oils, flours, sweeteners, etc. I discovered that it is really hard to muck-up a batch of crackers unless you burn them, Unfortunately, that is easy.

I’ve seldom baked a cake, rarely a cookie, and I only bake pies at Peggy’s insistence, but crackers, biscuits, and cornbreads have retained my passion. I eat the last two with molasses or sometimes maple syrup.

People who don't acknowledge others

A man with two white dogs just walked by. I’ve seen him almost daily for years. His dogs are longhaired yet always clean. He is in his forties, and has the build of a runner. He never makes eye contact, almost never speaks, and he and his wife are known for an unwavering coldness that easily turns to rudeness. The one time he spoke to me, Baxter—who was off-leash—ran up to his dogs to say hello. Bonnie was close behind. “If you don’t control your dogs, I will,” the man said. “Fuck you,” I retorted in the sure and certain knowledge that hurting my dogs would not bring anything good into his life. “That was constructive,” he replied, and walked on. Three years have passed. I had seen him almost everyday for at least the preceding seven, and I’ve seen him almost everyday since.

I feel more curiosity than hatred. Why are he and his wife so unfriendly that their neighbors refer to them as “those hateful people with the white dogs”? And how does he keep his dogs show room clean? Most of all, why does he never make eye contact?

There is another man in the neighborhood who I have seen almost everyday for fifteen or more years. He is bald, but hasn’t shaved in decades. He rides a cheap bike at walking speed, and collects cans and bottles for the nickel deposit. He is fit, clean, in his fifties, goes hatless in any weather, dresses simply, and appears intelligent; but he too never, ever makes eye contact. Are these men self-contained or just self-absorbed?

I think back to Harry, who I knew in college and considered the coolest, most self-contained person on earth. He too never made eye contact, and I rather wished that I was like Harry because, except for having a wife and child, Harry was like the lone drifters in Western movies. One morning, Harry shot his wife and baby girl as they bathed, and then shot himself. This made me doubt my ability to judge cool. It also made me wary of—and intrigued by—men who are reluctant to acknowledge the existence of others.

I lose nine pounds in three weeks

I dropped to 149 yesterday, a nine-pound loss in three weeks. My leather belts hang so loose that I’ve gone to webbing. Hunger is no fun, although I’ve gotten accustomed to it, and can even enjoy certain things about it. For example, I find it awfully hard to feel depressed when I’m hungry, depression being a vice that requires affluence. I also shy away from television news and talk radio—two of my other vices. I don’t much care about the latest Iraqi suicide bomber or what Hillary said about Barack anyway, but such news amounts to a toxic overload when I’m hungry. Hunger focus my mind on what’s really important in life—like food. This inspires me to look for new recipes.

I was trying to remember yesterday how many years I was on a liquid diet. Just throw uncooked foods in the blender, hit juice, and, voila, dinner is served. Little planning, no cooking, minimum clean up, lots of variety, and never a boring meal. I had thought I might stay on juice for life, but there were a few obstacles. First, it wasn’t filling, and this worked against keeping my weight down (a 42 ounce blender can hold a lot of food once it has been ripped to smithereens). Second, Peggy had less than zero interest in a juice diet, so I had to cook for her anyway. Third, I began hearing that some nutrients are only released from foods that have been cooked.

There followed a few years when the quality of my diet dropped. It was still good by American standards, but I began eating so much mayonnaise and peanut butter that I practically had to buy them by the case, and the fact that it was canola mayonnaise and un-hydrogenated peanut butter didn’t keep my cholesterol from hitting 230. After that, I kept going with the mayo and peanut butter, but began eating just as many oats. At my next physical, my cholesterol was under 200, but I knew that neither my diet nor my weight was what they should be, and this inspired the recent changes.

On the one hand, I feel great. On the other, it isn’t easy. I utterly and completely believe it is to my benefit, but it still isn’t easy. And the fact that Peggy is less than excited about having a skinny husband doesn’t help. She says she is supportive—and I know she tries—but when I gave her the stupendous and breath-taking news that I had finally dropped below 150, she just grunted.

If I can stick to only two meals a day (or at least cut out snacks between three meals), keep no questionable foods at home, and eat sparingly away from home; I should do fine. And none of these things are truly odious—they just require getting used to. As a society, we have carried the idea that we should “treat ourselves” a bit far, and it shows. We’ve gone from walking to waddling, which brings to mind one reason that I don’t tell many people I am trying to lose weight. I am already the thinnest person I know. It is true that my bad knee feels much better now that it is carrying nine less pounds. It is also true that my sleep apnea troubles me much less, and that my energy level is much greater; but people whose body-mass index is off the chart don’t even want to hear it, and I don’t even want to tell them.

I lose nine pounds in three weeks

I dropped to 149 yesterday, a nine-pound loss in three weeks. My leather belts hang so loose that I’ve gone to webbing. Hunger is no fun, although I’ve gotten accustomed to it, and can even enjoy certain things about it. For example, I find it awfully hard to feel depressed when I’m hungry, depression being a vice that requires affluence. I also shy away from television news and talk radio—two of my other vices. I don’t much care about the latest Iraqi suicide bomber or what Hillary said about Barack anyway, but such news amounts to a toxic overload when I’m hungry. Hunger focus my mind on what’s really important in life—like food. This inspires me to look for new recipes.

I was trying to remember yesterday how many years I was on a liquid diet. Just throw uncooked foods in the blender, hit juice, and, voila, dinner is served. Little planning, no cooking, minimum clean up, lots of variety, and never a boring meal. I had thought I might stay on juice for life, but there were a few obstacles. First, it wasn’t filling, and this worked against keeping my weight down (a 42 ounce blender can hold a lot of food once it has been ripped to smithereens). Second, Peggy had less than zero interest in a juice diet, so I had to cook for her anyway. Third, I began hearing that some nutrients are only released from foods that have been cooked.

There followed a few years when the quality of my diet dropped. It was still good by American standards, but I began eating so much mayonnaise and peanut butter that I practically had to buy them by the case, and the fact that it was canola mayonnaise and un-hydrogenated peanut butter didn’t keep my cholesterol from hitting 230. After that, I kept going with the mayo and peanut butter, but began eating just as many oats. At my next physical, my cholesterol was under 200, but I knew that neither my diet nor my weight was what they should be, and this inspired the recent changes.

On the one hand, I feel great. On the other, it isn’t easy. I utterly and completely believe it is to my benefit, but it still isn’t easy. And the fact that Peggy is less than excited about having a skinny husband doesn’t help. She says she is supportive—and I know she tries—but when I gave her the stupendous and breath-taking news that I had finally dropped below 150, she just grunted.

If I can stick to only two meals a day (or at least cut out snacks between three meals), keep no questionable foods at home, and eat sparingly away from home; I should do fine. And none of these things are truly odious—they just require getting used to. As a society, we have carried the idea that we should “treat ourselves” a bit far, and it shows. We’ve gone from walking to waddling, which brings to mind one reason that I don’t tell many people I am trying to lose weight. I am already the thinnest person I know. It is true that my bad knee feels much better now that it is carrying nine less pounds. It is also true that my sleep apnea troubles me much less, and that my energy level is much greater; but people whose body-mass index is off the chart don’t even want to hear it, and I don’t even want to tell them.