Like anyone my age I've had my fair share of amateur gropings, and halfhearted love affairs, but I've not yet found something more meaningful. I haven't found anything to write home about. I've looked in bars, in coffee shops, at rock shows, weddings birthday parties and once even at a bar mitzvah.
But now I know what I want, and I have an idea of where to find it. It's not in bars, or dance clubs, or at a speed dating event.
It's not romance I'm after, or a quick score. I want action, adventure, and true mystery. I want to go where no man has gone before, and where no man will likely ever go again.
Ian: You're going to post a classified ad for a girl who just wants to get knocked up?
Steven: No, it's more than that. This is a social experiment. Why do you think your parents got divorced Josh?
Josh: I don't know, maybe because I was a total fuck up?
Ian: No, you didn't fuck up until after they got divorced.
Steven: Your parents got divorced because they weren't in love. You were the reason they tried to make it work for so long. I want to see if absent any prior dynamic relationship of the presence of a child could make love manifest itself. If not, the worst case is that the kid gets a pair of Christmases.
Ian: Yeah, and at least this kid wouldn't have the trauma of seeing it's dad chase another man out of the house with a bat.
Josh: I don't see why you always have to bring that up. It was a very confusing time for me. You know that guy was the shortstop on my dad's company softball team?
Steven: We know, and you thought they were running the strangest drills you'd ever seen. You've told us.
Josh: It was strange! Have you ever seen a shortstop get hit by a pitch while he was in the field?
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
Friday, December 12, 2008
5 -- Philistines and Philanderers
We are shaped by those around us, whether we appreciate it or not. It doesn't matter that you like a person, or that you respect them, but rather that you inhabit this earth with them that makes them a part of you. We are all out brother's keepers.
This is a story about my friends and me, and a search for meaning in this world. Before I was a graduate student, before I went away to college, my two best friends imparted themselves onto me, and I unto them. And even though I've gone further into my studies than either of them, whether for their disinterest or their disability, I don't have any more answers than they do. I have no greater ability to spin a world's meaning from whole cloth than the highest of philistines or the lowest of philanderers.
What has become most apparent to all of us is that must people attribute the meaning in their life to a love they've found. A love for art, a love for women, a zest for life. Meaning comes from within, and our insides are shaped by what surrounds us.
This is a story about my friends and me, and a search for meaning in this world. Before I was a graduate student, before I went away to college, my two best friends imparted themselves onto me, and I unto them. And even though I've gone further into my studies than either of them, whether for their disinterest or their disability, I don't have any more answers than they do. I have no greater ability to spin a world's meaning from whole cloth than the highest of philistines or the lowest of philanderers.
What has become most apparent to all of us is that must people attribute the meaning in their life to a love they've found. A love for art, a love for women, a zest for life. Meaning comes from within, and our insides are shaped by what surrounds us.
Thursday, December 11, 2008
4
Religion is the crux of the problem. I had a girl tell me once that she believed math in all its elegance and glory was proof that there was a higher being watching over all of creation. She didn't need to observe the incredible unlikelihood of a species evolving to a point where the creation of new languages was almost a forgone conclusion. She didn't need to see the splendor of an asteroid's tail, or study the water cycle, or understand the underpinnings of electromagnetism, or really be aware of any number of truly beautiful coincidences. All she needed to keep the faith was a Fibonacci sequence.
"Do you know what a Mersenne prime is?" she asked me, before explaining why she believed it to be the ultimate proof that people are here for a reason. "A Mersenne prime is a prime number in the form of 2 to the nth minus 1. It so happens that in every Mersenne prime the term that 2 is raised to is also prime. How beautiful is that?"
I didn't have the heart to tell her that I thought it was about as beautiful as a car crash. That it sounds to me like a Mersenne prime serves even less of a purpose than an ordinary prime number, and the only reason we know anything about them at all is because some rubber-necker decided to stop the flow of society just to observe the wreckage.
"It sounds magical. It really puts things in perspective," interrupted my terrible habit of being polite. "Maybe you could parlay that into a theology dissertation."
"Do you know what a Mersenne prime is?" she asked me, before explaining why she believed it to be the ultimate proof that people are here for a reason. "A Mersenne prime is a prime number in the form of 2 to the nth minus 1. It so happens that in every Mersenne prime the term that 2 is raised to is also prime. How beautiful is that?"
I didn't have the heart to tell her that I thought it was about as beautiful as a car crash. That it sounds to me like a Mersenne prime serves even less of a purpose than an ordinary prime number, and the only reason we know anything about them at all is because some rubber-necker decided to stop the flow of society just to observe the wreckage.
"It sounds magical. It really puts things in perspective," interrupted my terrible habit of being polite. "Maybe you could parlay that into a theology dissertation."
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